monstrous conspiracy against the American Union. These precedents do not prove that it was just and proper for the "disappointed great men" of the cotton-growing States to rebel against "the most beneficent government of which history gives us any account," as the Vice-President of the Confederacy, in November, 1860, charged, them with doing. They do not create a presumption even in favor of the disloyal slaveholders of the South, who, living under a government of which Mr. Jefferson Davis, in the session of 1860-61, said that it was "the best government ever instituted by man, unexceptionably administered, and under which the people have been prosperous beyond comparison with any other people whose career has been recorded in history," rebelled against it because their aspiring politicians, himself among the rest, were in danger of losing their monopoly of its offices. What would have been thought by an impartial posterity of the American rebellion against George III., if the colonists had at all times been more than equally represented in parliament, and James Otis and Patrick Henry and Washington and Franklin and the Adamses and Hancock and Jefferson, and men of their stamp, had for two generations enjoyed the confidence of the sovereign and administered the government of the empire? What would have been thought of the rebellion against Charles I., if Cromwell and the men of his school had been the responsible advisers of that prince from his accession to the throne, and then, on account of a

partial change in the ministry, had brought his head to the block, and involved the country in a desolating war, for the sake of dismembering it and establishing a new government south of the Trent? What would have been thought of the Whigs of 1688, if they had themselves composed the cabinet of James II., and been the advisers of the measures and the promoters of the policy which drove him into exile? The Puritans of 1640 and the Whigs of 1688 rebelled against arbitrary power in order to establish constitutional liberty. If they had risen against Charles and James because those monarchs favored equal rights, and in order themselves "for the first time in the history of the world" to establish an oligarchy "founded on the corner-stone of slavery," they would truly have furnished a precedent for the Rebels of the South, but their cause would not have been sustained by the eloquence of Pym or of Somers, nor sealed with the blood of Hampden or Russell.

I call the war which the Confederates are waging against the Union a "rebellion," because it is one, and in grave matters it is best to call things by their right names. I speak of it as a crime, because the Constitution of the United States so regards it, and puts "rebellion" on a par with "invasion." The constitution and law not only of England, but of every civilized country, regard them in the same light; or rather they consider the rebel in arms as far worse than than the alien enemy. To levy war against the United States is the constitutional defi

nition of treason, and that crime is by every civilized government regarded as the highest which citizen or subject can commit. Not content with the sanctions of human justice, of all the crimes against the law of the land it is singled out for the denunciations of religion. The litanies of every

church in Christendom whose ritual embraces that office, as far as I am aware, from the metropolitan cathedrals of Europe to the humblest missionary chapel in the islands of the sea, concur with the Church of England in imploring the Sovereign of the universe, by the most awful adjurations which the heart of man can conceive or his tongue utter, to deliver us from "sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion." And reason good; for while a rebellion against tyranny, -a rebellion designed, after prostrating arbitrary power, to establish free government on the basis of justice and truth, is an enterprise on which good men and angels may look with complacency, an unprovoked rebellion of ambitious men against a beneficent government, for the purpose- the avowed purpose of establishing, extending, and perpetuating any form of injustice and wrong, is an imitation on earth of that first foul revolt of "the Infernal Serpent," against which the Supreme Majesty of heaven sent forth the armed myriads of his angels, and clothed the right arm of his Son with the threebolted thunders of omnipotence.

Lord Bacon, in "the true marshalling of the sovereign degrees of honor," assigns the first place to

"the Conditores Imperiorum, founders of States and Commonwealths;" and, truly, to build up from the discordant elements of our nature, the passions, the interests, and the opinions of the individual man, the rivalries of family, clan, and tribe, the influences of climate and geographical position, the accidents of peace and war accumulated for ages, — to build up from these oftentimes warring elements a well-compacted, prosperous, and powerful State, if it were to be accomplished by one effort or in one generation, would require a more than mortal skill. To contribute in some notable degree to this, the greatest work of man, by wise and patriotic counsel in peace and loyal heroism in war, is as high as human merit can well rise, and far more than to any of those to whom Bacon assigns this highest place of honor, whose names can hardly be repeated without a wondering smile,- Romulus, Cyrus, Cæsar, Ottoman, Ismael, is it due to our Washington as the founder of the American Union. But if to achieve or help to achieve this greatest work of man's wisdom and virtue gives title to a place among the chief benefactors, rightful heirs of the benedictions, of mankind, by equal reason shall the bold, bad men who seek to undo the noble work, Eversores Imperiorum, destroyers of States, who for base and selfish ends rebel against beneficent governments, seek to overturn wise constitutions, to lay powerful republican Unions at the foot of foreign thrones, to bring on civil and foreign war, anarchy at home, dictation abroad, desolation, ruin, - by

equal reason, I say, yes, a thousandfold stronger, shall they inherit the execrations of the ages.

But to hide the deformity of the crime under the cloak of that sophistry which strives to make the worse appear the better reason, we are told by the leaders of the Rebellion that in our complex system of government the separate States are "sovereigns," and that the central power is only an 66 agency established by these sovereigns to manage certain little affairs, such, forsooth, as Peace, War, Army, Navy, Finance, Territory, and Relations with the native tribes, which they could not so conveniently administer themselves. It happens, unfortunately for this theory, that the Federal Constitution (which has been adopted by the people of every State of the Union as much as their own State constitutions have been adopted, and is declared to be paramount to them) nowhere recognizes the States as sovereigns," in fact, that, by their names, it does not recognize them at all; while the authority established by that instrument is recognized, in its text, not as an agency," but as "the Government of the United States." By that Constitution, moreover, which purports in its preamble to be ordained and established by "the People of the United States," it is expressly provided, that "the members of the State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support the Constitution." Now it is a common thing, under all governments, for an agent to be bound by oath to be faithful to his sovereign; but I never

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