You all desire peace. But there is only one way to secure it. So conduct the present war, that, when once ended, there shall be no remaining element of discord, no surviving principle of battle, out of which future. war can spring. Above all, belligerent Slavery must not rear its crest as an independent power.

5. There is another consequence not to be omitted. War would not be confined to the two governments representing respectively the two hostile principles, Slavery and Liberty. It would rage with internecine fury among ourselves. Admit that States may fly out of the Union, and where will you stop? Other States must follow, in groups or singly, until our mighty galaxy is broken into separate stars or dissolved into the nebular compost of a people without form or name. Where then is country? Where then those powerful States, the pride of civilization and the hope of mankind? Handed over to ungovernable frenzy, without check or control, until anarchy and chaos are supreme, as with the horses of the murdered Duncan, which, at the assassination of their master,

"Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,

Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,
Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind. 'Tis said they eat each other."

The picture is terrible; but it hardly exaggerates the fearful disorder. Already European enemies, looking to their desires for conclusions, predict a general discord. Sometimes it is said that there are to be four or five new nations, that the Northwest is to be a nation by itself, the Middle States another, the Pacific States another, and our New England States still another, so that

Rebel Slavery will be the predominant power on this continent. But it is useless to speculate on the number of these fractional governments. If disunion is allowed to begin, it cannot be stopped. Misrule and confusion will be everywhere. Our fathers saw this at the adoption of the National Constitution, when, in a rude sketch of the time, they pictured the Thirteen States as so many staves bound by the hoops into a barrel. Let a single stave be taken out, and the whole barrel falls to pieces. It is easy to see how this must occur with States. The triumph of the Rebellion will be not only the triumph of belligerent Slavery, but also the triumph of State Rights, to this extent,first, that any State, in the exercise of its own lawless will, may abandon its place in the Union, and, secondly, that the constitutional verdict of the majority, as in the election of Abraham Lincoln, is not binding. With these two rules of conduct, in conformity with which the Rebellion was organized, there can be no limit to disunion. Therefore, when you consent to the independence of the Rebel States, you disband the whole company of States, and blot our country from the map of the world.

II.

I HAVE said enough of surrender by recognition of the Slave States, or, in other words, of the Slave Power, out of the Union. It remains now that I ask attention to that other form of surrender which proposes recognition of the Slave Power in the Union. Each is surrender. The first, as we have already seen, abandons

part of the Union to the Slave Power; the other subjects the whole Union to the Slave Power.

It is proposed that the Rebel States shall be tempted to lay down their arms by recognition of Slavery in the Union, with new guaranties and assurances of protection. Slavery cannot exist, where it does not govern. Therefore must we beg Rebel slave-masters back to govern us. Such, in plain terms, is the surrender proposed. For one, I will never consent to any such intolerable rule.

The whole proposition is not less pernicious than that other form of surrender; nor is it less shameful. It is insulting to reason, and offensive to good morals.

1. I say nothing of the ignominy it would bring upon the Republic, but call attention at once to its character as a Compromise. In the dreary annals of Slavery it is by compromise that slave-masters have succeeded in warding off the blows of Liberty. It was a compromise by which that early condemnation of the slavetrade was excluded from the Declaration of Independence; it was a compromise which surrounded the slavetrade with protection in the National Constitution ; it was a compromise which secured the admission of Missouri as a Slave State; and, without stopping to complete the list, it is enough to say that it was a compromise by which the atrocious Fugitive Slave Bill was fastened upon the country, and the Slave Power was installed in the National Government. And now, after the overthrow of the Slave Power at the ballot-box, followed by years of cruel war, another compromise, greatest of all, is proposed, by which belligerent Slavery, dripping with the blood of murdered fellow-citizens,

shall be welcomed to more than its ancient supremacy. Where is national virtue, that such a surrender can be entertained? Where is national honor, that the criminal pettifoggers are not indignantly rebuked?

The proposition is specious in form as baleful in substance. It is said that Rebel slave-masters should have their "rights under the Constitution." To this plausible language is added that other phrase, "the Constitution as it is." All this means Slavery, and nothing For Slavery men resort to this odious duplicity. Thank God, the game is understood.

2. But any compromise recognizing Slavery in the Rebel States is impossible, even if you are disposed to accept it. Slavery, by the very act of rebellion, ceased to exist, legally or constitutionally. It ceased to exist according to principles of public law, and also according to just interpretation of the Constitution; and having once ceased to exist, it cannot be revived.1

When I say that it ceased to exist legally, I found myself on an unquestionable principle of public law, that Slavery is a peculiar local institution, without origin in natural right, and deriving support exclusively from the local government; but if this be true, — and it cannot be denied, then Slavery must have fallen with that local government.

When I say that it ceased to exist constitutionally, I found myself on the principle that Slavery is of such a character that it cannot exist within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Constitution, as, for instance, in the National territories, and that therefore it died constitutionally, when, through disappearance of the local

1 See, ante, Vol. VI. pp. 303, 307, 813.

government, it fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Constitution.

The consequences of these two principles are most important. Taken in conjunction with the rule, “Once free, always free," they establish the impossibility of any surrender to belligerent Slavery in the Union.

3. If, in the zeal of surrender, you reject solemn principles of public law and Constitution, then let me remind you of the Proclamation of Emancipation, where the President, by virtue of the power vested in him as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, ordered that the slaves in the Rebel States" are and henceforward shall be free," and the Executive Government, including the military and naval authorities, are pledged to "recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons." By the terms of this instrument, it is applicable to all slaves in the Rebel States, not merely to those within the military lines of the United States, but to all. Even if the President were not in simple honesty bound to maintain this Proclamation according to the letter, he has not the power to undo it. The President may make a freeman, but he cannot make a slave. Therefore must he reject all surrender inconsistent with this Act of Emancipation.

It is sometimes said that the Court will set aside the Proclamation. Do not believe it. The Court will do no such thing. It will recognize this act precisely as it recognizes other political and military acts, without presuming to interpose any unconstitutional veto, — and it will recognize this act to the full extent, as was intended, according to its letter, so that every slave in the