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by birth and immigration, and its diffusion over the now obliterated line of Mason and Dixon, to the Gulf of Mexico, and over and across the Rocky Mountains along the border of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. I say now only this: Go on, fellow-citizens, increase and multiply as you have heretofore done. Extend channels of internal commerce as the development of agricultural, forest, and mineral resources requires. Improve your harbors, consolidate the Union now while you can, without unconstitutionally centralizing the government, and henceforth you will enjoy, as a tribute of respect and confidence, that security at home and that consideration abroad which maritime powers of the world have of late, when their candor was specially needed, only reluctantly and partially conceded. May our Heavenly Father bless you and your families and friends, and have you all in His holy keeping until the rolling months shall bring around that happy meeting in 1866; and so, for the present, farewell.

RESTORATION OF UNION.

New York, Cooper Institute, February 22, 1866.

I WAS at Auburn in this our old and honored State of New York in October, and I spoke then what I thought would be pertinent to public affairs for a whole year. The summons of friends in the city of New York brings me back after the expiration of only three months. Their demand is, I confess, rather hard upon me, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, I obey. I am no secessionist. I profess to understand how to obey the commands of the people of my own state, without violating my allegiance to the United States.

Now, what shall I speak of or about? The call of your meeting specifies the subject.1 But first, let me say that I am not here as an alarmist; I am not here to say that the nation is in peril or danger-in peril if you adopt the opinions of the President; in peril if you reject them; in peril if you adopt the views of the apparent or real majority of Congress, or if you reject them. It is not in peril any way; nor do I think the cause of liberty and human free

1 Washington's Birthday. The principles of the President's Messages.

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dom, the cause of progress, melioration, or civilization, the cause of national aggrandizement, present or future, material or moral, is in danger of being long arrested, whether you adopt one set of political opinions or another. The Union that is to say, the nation - has been rescued from all its perils. The noble ship has passed from tempests and billows within the verge of a safe harbor, and is now securely riding into her ancient moorings, without a broken spar or a leak, starboard or larboard, fore or aft. There are some small reefs yet to pass as she approaches those moorings. One pilot says that she may safely enter directly through them. The other says that she must back, and, lowering sail, take time to go around them. That is all the difference; it is merely the difference of opinion between the pilots. I should not practise my habitual charity if I did not admit that I think them both sincere and honest. But the vessel will go in safely, one way or the other. The worst that need happen will be that, by taking the wrong instead of the right passage, or even taking the right passage, and avoiding the wrong one, the vessel may roll a little, and some honest, capable, and even deserving politicians, statesmen, President, or Congressmen may get washed overboard. I should be sorry for this, but if it cannot be helped, it can be borne. If I am one of the unfortunates, let no friend be concerned on that account. As honest, as good, as capable politicians, statesmen, Congressmen, and Presidents will make their appearance hereafter, faster than needed, to command the ship, as well and as wisely as any that have heretofore stalked their hour upon the deck, in the alternations of calm and tempest that always attend political navigation.

Nevertheless, although I do not think we are in a crisis, the question to-day is worthy of deliberate examination and consideration. It is always important, in going into a port or preparing for a new departure, to take accurate observations, in order to ascertain whether the ship and crew are sound and in good fastening and in good sailing condition. The subject before us is a difference of opinion that reveals itself but too clearly between the executive administration of the President and the legislative counsellors of the nation. The President, as we all see, is a man of decided convictions; the legislative leaders, if we may judge from their resolutions, are trying to decide not to coincide with him in opinion. They have appealed to us, outsiders as we are, to pronounce be

tween them. I will try to show you what the nature and character of the difference is.

Some of you, few or many, have been occasionally in a theatre. You may remember a play that had some popularity a few years ago, entitled "The Nervous Man and the Man of Nerve." Both of these characters were well-to-do country gentlemen. They had been friends in early life. Their friendship grew with their years. They lived in distant parts of the country. The nervous man had a hopeful son; the man of nerve had a lovable daughter. By some freak of fortune, or some more capricious god, these young people had accidentally come together at a watering-place, and there formed an attachment unknown to their parents. In the mean time the nervous man and the man of nerve had come to an agreement to marry the two young people together, under a belief that they were entirely unknown to each other. Each parent made the announcement to his child in a mysterious manner. The nervous man's son was told that he was to be married to an unknown lady with whom he was sure to fall in love at first sight, but whose name must be withheld until the day of the ceremony. The daughter of the man of nerve received a similar pleasant intimation. Each lover protested, each parent was peremptory, each lover impracticable. As a natural consequence both ran away, and, as was quite natural, both came together, and they were clandestinely married. When the nervous man heard of his son's contumacious disobedience he denounced him, disinherited him, disowned him, and declared he would never see him again. When the man of nerve heard of the flight of his daughter he immediately summoned his dependants, who sought to restore her to her father. One parent was all passion, the other was all decision. While they were comparing their mutual and common grief and disappointment, the married lovers came trembling into the angry presence, and kneeling down, asked forgiveness and parental blessings upon what was now irrevocable. What was the parents' surprise to find that the runaway match was just precisely the one they had planned, and the supposed failure of which had so deeply excited them. The man of nerve acquitted himself with becoming resignation, and, since it had all ended right, he extended to the lovers the boon they begged. The nervous man refused altogether to be comforted, propitiated, or even soothed. He refused and declared that he would persist for

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frei von and ref goes aber lined to safe ing nå perseri nu with the fre Tre engel in prod etive, wifesust din ng indus with ref gee n be the protect Levee tait e me out ng situation. He does not forget that in t ́s the bearme wir i or the mist to bese rel by anybody is to hire rings on re right. Nobody a ever expect to have the a brought out altogether in his own sy. Le novous men, in the der har i, ben. delay, debite, an agonize-ot beans it his terme out ra 1 but bear they have not i viladly hol their own way in biging it to that happy t ruination.

I have sid that I apprehend no serions difficulty or cala ity. This confidence ar fr in the conviction which I entertain tha there never was and never can be any srce-ssful pross restoration of Union and ba mony among the states, X-T with which the President has avowed himself satisfiel. Gratit that the rebellion is dispers-d, en led, and exhausted, deal even at the root, then it follows necessarily that the states soner or later must be organized loyal men in accordance with the change in our fundamental law, and that, being so organized, they should come by loyal representatives and resume their places in the family eir 1:

which, in a fit of caprice and passion, they rebelliously vacated. All the rebel states but Texas have done just that thing, and Texas is doing the same thing just now as fast as possible. The President is in harmony with all the states that were in rebellion. Every Executive Department and the Judicial Department are in operation, or are rapidly resuming the exercise of their functions. Loyal representatives, more or less, from all these states men whose loyalty may be tried by any Constitutional or legislative test which will apply even to the representatives of the states which have been loyal throughout-are now standing at the doors of Congress, and have been standing there for three months past, asking to be admitted to seats which disloyal representatives, in violation of the rights and duties of the states, as well as of the sovereignty of the Union, had recklessly abandoned. These representatives, after a lapse of three months, yet remain waiting outside the chambers, while Congress passes law after law, imposes burden after burden, and duty after duty upon the states which, against their earnestly expressed desires, are left without representation. So far as I can judge of human probabilities, I feel sure that the loyal men from the now loyal states will, sooner or later, at this session or at some other, by this Congress or by some other, be received into the Legislature of the nation. When this shall have been done, the process of restoration will be complete; for that is all that now remains to be done. If, in this view of the subject, my judgment is at fault, then some of those who now uphold the opposite one can show some other process of restoration which is practicable, and which can be and will be adopted, and when it is likely to be adopted. Does any person pretend to know such a plan? Other plans, indeed, have been mentioned. They were projected during Mr. Lincoln's administration; they have been projected since. Briefly described, these plans have been such as this: that Congress, with the Presi dent concurring, should create what are called territorial governments in the eleven states which were once in rebellion, and that the President should administer the government there for an indefinite period by military force, and that after long purgation they should be admitted into the Union by congressional enactment. This proceeding was rejected by Mr. Lincoln, as it is rejected by the President. If ever it may have been practicable, it is now altogether too late. If the President could be induced to concur in so mad a

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