! military genius, who could, in all likelihood, have destroyed our republic and made himself its despot. Nations may well say of such: "Curse on his genius- it's undone his country." But meantime, without any splendid victories, we have been steadily advancing. We have done what no other nation on earth could have done. We have girdled the rebellion with an almost effective blockade of three thousand miles extent. We have held every loyal State exempt from being the seat of war. We have taken, with an iron grasp, four slave States, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and Kentucky. We have taken half of Virginia and made a free State of it. We have emancipated the District of Columbia, and so killed disloyalty therein. We have occupied a large part of Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, with our troops. We have nearly opened the Mississippi river. Finally, we have struck the rebellion the most damaging blow of all, and shaken the ground under its feet, by freeing so many of the slaves, and by threatening the whole slave system. Soon we shall have large bodies of negro troops organized on the lower Mississippi, to keep that which our armies and gunboats conquer. Soon we shall be holding Texas as a State to be colonized with free labor, and restored to the Union a free State, capable of raising cotton enough for the whole world. Soon we shall have Missouri as a free State, slavery not being cut down by the sword of war, but taken up by the roots, by the free act of its own citizens. I am radical enough to prefer to see it thus taken up by the roots. When this is done, Maryland must follow, and Kentucky must follow Maryland, and we shall hope to see a great central tier of free States, voted free by the people themselves. In all these States the negroes will be hired by their old masters, and occupy their old homes, and demonstrate, after a little time, the inherent superiority of freedom over slavery. In twenty years after slavery is gone, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia will blossom like the rose, and be the garden of the American continent, as well as the keystone of the American Union. Meantime, while we have been thus crushing the rebellion with our right hand, we have been holding England and France still with our left hand. The difficulties of our position were very great, and it required consummate prudence, joined to a great display of force, to prevent interference. We need not be surprised at the hostility of England toward us which culminated in the Trent affair, but which has since been growing less and less, till now England may be said to be really on our side. Three great influences impelled England to desire the dissolution of the Union. First was the influence of the aristocracy, : including not only the nobility, but the army, navy, church, gentry, the educated, the rich, and the literary classes. The success of the American republic has been, for thirty years, the great argument used by English reformers against the English aristocracy. The dissolution of the American republic would destroy that argument, and give the aristocracy a lease of a hundred more years of life. "See," they could say, "a republic has no stability, because wanting in this aristocratic element. Keep us, and England is safe, not otherwise." Then came the manufacturers, who had committed England to the principle of free trade, and who needed markets for her goods. The dissolution of the Union would secure an open market at the South, and compel the North to reduce its tariff to the lowest terms. This motive was of immense weight. Finally, there was added the feeling in the heart of nearly every Englishman, that the Union was becoming a great and dangerous neighbor. They had been obliged to bear from us what they would not have borne from any other people, to concede to us what they would not have conceded to any other. This concession and endurance rankled in the English bosom. They felt as you would feel if you had a family for neighbors who were noisy, who came through your yard, overlooked your windows, and threatened the peace of your melon-patch. If you should hear, some day, that this family had quarrelled among themselves, and would probably be divided and scattered, you would be glad of it. You would say, "Now, I shall have peace, and it will be better for them to be broken up; they will cease to be a nuisance, and will become more respectable." These three influences ruled the action of England. But the other nation (as Count Gasparin calls it), in England, which is not an aristocracy, which is sincerely anti-slavery, which is humble, and voiceless, the plebeian multitude, honest, strong, determined, has always been on our side. Starving, without bread, in deepest want, it has clung to the northern cause, as the cause of justice and true democracy; and now it begins, more and more to be felt in all the counsels of England, and I think England will not act against us in this war. But the principal thought which forces itself upon the mind, is, that God is in this war. We cannot keep out of sight the Divine Providence, which is sure to punish evil· sure to put down the proud and raise the lowly-which judges nations, as men, by fixed and inevitable laws. For the sake of our prosperity, our union, and our peace, we consented, during long years, to what we ourselves knew perfectly was unjust and wrong. What was the natural consequence? The South came to believe that we cared for nothing but money. As long as we were willing to concede, again and again, principle, honor, conviction, for the sake of union, peace, and prosperity, they believed, and with good reason, that for the sake of peace, prosperity, and union, we would concede every thing. If we had resisted at the first, we should never have come to this. But the great Power which presides over the world meant that we should do justice. He cares for all His children. There is with Him neither Jew nor Gentile, neither bond nor free, neither black nor white. So, refusing to do anything for the slave; refusing to let the people go out of bondage; plague upon plague has come upon us, until, at last, we have reached the darkness of Egypt and the death of the first-born. And now, finally, we are driven to the point of emancipation, not because we wish to emancipate, but because we must. What we would not do for the sake of justice and humanity, we are compelled to do to save ourselves. We call on the negro, in our extremity, to save us. It will be a very strange illustration of the ways of God if the poor ignorant negro, trampled under foot of all, rises to the work of saving the American Union. "As a military necessity," says the president; "As a military necessity," says General Butler. "Don't think we do it, because it is right,' we say to mankind—"do not so misunderstand us; we do it because we cannot help it." But it must be done. All men of any sagacity, no matter what were their previous opinions, are fast coming to agree on this point. It must be done. The re |