SPEECH ON THE REBELLION AND THE DRAFT

IN

OSWEGO, JULY 29TH, 1863.

I AM embarrassed at the very outset. For I recollect that I am an abolitionist; and I rècollect that in the public esteem he who is an abolitionist can not be a patriot. How then can I get a hearing from you? For surely you are not willing to hear any other than a patriot on National affairs. I must propitiate you if I can. I will try the power of a confession to that end. My confession is that if a man can not be a patriot whilst yet an abolitionist, he should cease to be an abolitionist that he should renounce his abolition if it at all hinders him from going for his country. I add that I go no longer for the Anti-Slavery Society, nor for the Temperance Society, no nor for my Church, if they go not for my country.

But what is it to go for one's country? Is it to go for her right or wrong? It is not. The true man goes for nothing in himself that is wrong. The true patriot goes for nothing in his country that is wrong. It is to go for all her boundaries, and to yield up no part of them to her enemy. It is to be unsectional— and to know no North and no South, no East and no West. It is to go for the unbroken and eternal union of all her sections. It is to love her with that Jewish love of country, which takes pleasure in her very stones and 'favors even the dust thereof. How very far then is he from going for his country who would surrender a part of her to appease the men who have rebelled against her! And let me here say that he does not go for her who, for the sake of securing the abolition of slavery, would consent to dismember

Another way for going for one's country is to cling to her chosen form of government-in a word, to her Constitution. I do not mean that it is to prate for her Constitution and to affect a deep regard for it, whilst sympathizing with its open enemies— ay, and to affect this regard for the very purpose of thereby more effectively serving those enemies. It is, as in our case who have so excellent a Constitution, sincerely to value and deeply to love its great principles of justice, liberty and equality-those very

principles which caused the Southern despots to make war upon it and fling it away- those very principles which caused the Northern sympathizers with these despots to hate it in their hearts whilst yet their false lips profess to love it. To go for one's country is also to make great account of her cherished names and of all that is precious in her institutions, traditions, and memories. But of all the ways of going for one's country that of going against her enemies is at once the most effective and the most evidential of sincerity and earnestness.

Let us glance at some of our duties in this crisis.

In the first place, we are to stand by the Government. Not to stand by it is not to stand by the country. Were the Government unfaithful I would not say so. But it is faithful. It is intent on saving the country. And it is not the weak Government which it is accused of being. In both Houses of Congress the cause of the country has many able advocates. There are strong men in the Cabinet. The President is himself a strong man. His ProSlavery education is almost the only thing in him to be lamented. That education is still in his way. It was emphatically so in the early stages of the war. It entangled him with the Border Slave States, when he should have been free with the Free States. Nevertheless, I take pleasure in acknowledging both his ability and honesty; and this I do notwithstanding I did not vote for him and that I never voted for his party. Some of the richest and sublimest comments on the Declaration of Independence which I have ever read are from his pen. His letter to the officers of the Albany Democratic Convention, is a monument of his vigorous common-sense, of his clear and convincing logic, of his reasonableness and moderation, of his candor and frankness. On the whole, Washington always excepted, we have had no President who is to be more esteemed and beloved than Abraham Lincoln.

I said that not to stand by the Government is not to stand by the country. Every man who in time of war busies himself in slandering the Government and weakening the public confidence in it, is among the meanest and worst enemies of the country. How base and pernicious the slander that, the Government is no longer prosecuting the war to save the country! A State Convention in Pennsylvania - and that too at the very time when the State was invaded and her capital threatened - improved upon this slander by deliberately resolving that the Government avows and proclaims that the saving of the country is no longer its object in the war. What wonder that there should be mobs against drafting soldiers when there are such incitements to such mobs!--when there is so much industry and so much art to persuade the people that the drafted soldiers are to be used, not for the one legitimate purpose, but for some sinister or party purpose.! These mobs, though they fill us with sorrow, do nevertheless not surprise us. For we see them to be the natural and almost necessary fruit of those incessant declarations by unprin

cipled politicians that the Government has turned away from the object of saving the country, and is now calling for men and money wherewith to promote other and odious objects. Upon these knavish and lying politicians rest the blame and the blood of all these mobs.

In the second place, we are to insist on the immediate and unconditional submission of the rebels. Nothing short of this would suffice for their humiliation and their good. Moreover, nothing short of this would save our Government and our country from being deeply and indelibly disgraced-ay, totally wrecked and ruined. Therefore there must be no armistice, no terms. To bargain with them; to give them time; to make concessions to them; to purchase peace from them; to make any peace with them, whilst as yet they have arms in their hands, would be to leave them with even a more incorrigible spirit than they now have, and it would also be to leave ourselves without a nation. That which would be left to us would be but a nominal nationand it would be liable to be broken up in a twelvemonth. What is more, neither the world, nor we ourselves, could ever have any respect for it. A nation that is compelled to yield to traitors may be respected by both other nations and itself. But a nation which has power to overwhelm the traitors, and yet is too corrupt or cowardly to wield it, must be, ever after, a stench both in its own and in others' nostrils. In the light of what I have just said it is not too much to add that whilst Americans who counsel peace on any lower terms than the absolute submission of the rebels are traitors, those speakers and writers in foreign lands who do likewise are hypocrites, because they well know that what they counsel for our nation they would, were it counseled for their own, promptly and indignantly reject.

In the third place, we must not be speculating on what is to be done with the rebels after they shall be conquered. Such speculation is wholly unseasonable and it but tends to divide us. Whilst as yet the rebels are unconquered, we can not afford to be divided. The needless, foolish, guilty, and exceedingly hurtful differences among us are what alone make our conquest of the rebels uncertain. When we shall have conquered them, then we can talk to our heart's content of what should be done with them and their possessions. Besides, we know not now in what mood they will be then; and therefore we know not now what it will be proper for them to receive at our hands. If they shall be impenitent and defiant, we shall need to impose very careful restrictions upon them; but if penitent and humble, then we can risk being trustful and generous toward them. And then, too, notwithstanding their enormous crimes against their country-against earth and heaven we shall gladly look upon our sorrowful Southern brethren as our brethren still.

In the fourth place, we must insist that other nations shall let us alone. Ours is a family quarrel, and none but the family can be allowed to meddle with it. We can tolerate neither intervention

nor mediation. We shall repel both. Mediation, proffered in however friendly a spirit, we shall regard as impertinence; and intervention, although bloodless and unarmed at the beginning, we shall from the beginning construe into war. And here let me add, that whilst we very gratefully acknowledge the able advocacy of our cause by many distinguished men of Europe, and no less gratefully the true, intelligent, and generous sympathy with it of the masses of Europe; and that whilst we would not discourage our citizens from going abroad to plead that cause; we, nevertheless, are entirely convinced that the work to be done for our country is to be done in it-to be done by earnest appeals from Americans to Americans, and by hard blows from a Toyal upon a disloyal

army.

Let us now pass on to consider what should be the character of our opposition to the rebellion. I said that the rebels must be unconditional in their submission. I add that our opposition to the rebels must also be unconditional. The surrender of ourselves to our high and holy cause must be absolute. We must stipulate for nothing. We must reserve nothing in behalf of our Democratic, or Republican, or Abolition, or Temperance, or any other party-nothing in behalf of any individual interests. Nay, we must make no conditions in behalf of either the Constitution or the country. We have now but one work. The putting down of the rebellion is the supreme duty which America owes to herself, to mankind, and to God Is it said that recent events have given us another work to to? the work of putting down and keeping down mobs? I answer that these mobs are nothing more nor nothing less than Northern branches and Northern outbreaks of the Southern rebellion, and that the rebellion ended, the mobs will also be ended. This, by the way, being the true character of these mobs, the Federal war power is as clearly bound to lay its restraining hand on those who get them up as on any other parties to the rebellion. It should spare no traitorous press, because of its great influence, and no traitorous politician, because of his high office, when it is clear that they have been at work to generate the passions and prejudices, the treason and anarchy which have resulted in disturbances, so frightfully marked, in some instances, by fire and blood.

These mobs, by the way, aside from their destruction of innocent and precious life, are not to be regretted. Nay, they are to be rejoiced in, because they reveal so certainly and so fully the animus of the leaders of this "Northern Peace Party," and therefore serve to put us more upon our guard against these desperate leaders. I am not at all surprised at hearing that many an honest man, who had sympathized with this party, is so far enlightened by these mobs as to turn away from it forever.

The motto of every man among us should be: "Down with the Rebellion at whatever cost!” It must go down, even though Constitution and country go down with it. If the rebellion is to live and triumph, then let all else, however dear, die.

Not Constitution nor country, not our farms nor our merchandise, not our families nor our own lives, could be any longer of value to us. Are there Republicans who, in this trial hour of integrity, are intent on keeping their party in power? then are they false to their country. In time of peace let there be parties to represent the different views in regard to the proper character and conduct of the Government. But in time of war to cling to party is treason to the country. For then the great question is, no longer as in time of peace, how the Government shall be shaped and administered, but the infinitely greater one-whether we shall have a country to govern. Are there Democrats who, at such a time, are intent on getting their party into power? False to their country are they also. Is it their plea that they are talking for the Constitution? I answer, that their talk should be against the rebels. This talking for the Constitution, whilst not talking against the rebels, is but hypocrisy. Are there Abolitionists who say that they can not help put down the rebellion unless the Government will pledge itself to put down slavery? Let me say, that with such one-idea men I have no sympathy. Like the sham Republicans and sham Democrats I have referred to, they are but workers for the rebels. To all who feel this unseasonable and treasonable solicitude for party, let me say that the true doctrine is: "Come what will of it to the Republican, or Democratic, or Abolition, or any other party-though they all go to flinders and be reduced to a heap of ruins-the Rebellion, nevertheless, shall be put down!" Moreover, notwithstanding our dif ferences in other relations and other respects, we are all to be brothers and close fellow-laborers in the work of putting down the Rebellion.. The laborers in this work we are not to know as Democrats, or Republicans, or Abolitionists, or Temperance men, but only as anti-rebellion men. During the greater part of my life I have tried to do something against slavery and drunkenness. But in this great battle against the Southern rebels and their Northern allies, whose success would, in its results, be the entire overthrow of free Government, not only here and in Mexico, but wherever it exists, I am ready to fight alongside of all who will fight alongside of me: with, if you please, the biggest drunkard on the one side and the biggest pro-slavery man on the other. Whilst I am against all who are for the rebels, I am for all who are against them. Until the Rebellion is crushed we should know but two parties: the one made up of those who, in standing by and strengthening the Government, prove themselves to be the friends of the country; and the other made up of those who, in assailing and weakening the Government, prove themselves to be the enemies of the country. Are there, I repeat, Abolitionists who, in such a time as this, stand back and refuse to join in putting down the Rebellion save on the condition that slavery also shall be put down? If there are, then are they also among those who embarrass the Government, and then are they also to be numbered with the enemies of the country. If there are such