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"THE THRONE OF INIQUITY."

THE MORAL CONTRASTS

DEVELOPED BY THE EXISTING WAR,

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DELIVERED ON THE DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING, NOV. 26, 1863.

AT THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

BY JOHI C. LORD, D. D

BUFFALO : FRANKLIN STEAM PRINTING HOUSE,

THOMAS — TYPOGRAPHER.

1864

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2012 with funding from

The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

http://www.archive.org/details/thethroneofiniquOOIord

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Buffalo, Nov. 26th, 1863. Rev. John C. Lord, D. D.

Dear Sir: — The undersigned, having listened with great satisfaction to your sermon, delivered on this day of National Thanksgiving, and believing that its publication would promote the cause of Truth and Righteousness, of Liberty and Patriotism, which it so ably and eloquently sets forth, respectfully request that you would furnish a copy of the same for the press. Yours respectfully,

WM. W. MANN, L. K. PLIMPTON,

HENRY MARTIN, A. J. HOLT,

NATHAN LYMAN, A. T. CHESTER,

J. MAYHEW, CLARK KENDALL.

J. S. LYTLE, ARTHUR BTJRTIS,

J. B. SWEET, J. T. NOYE,

E. TAUNT, SAMUEL SMITH,

WILLIAM TWEEDY, H. HOWARD,

NELSON RANDALL, ROBERT D. BOYD.

Messrs. L. K. Plimpton and Others:—

The discourse delivered by me on the day of National Thanksgiving, is at your service. It would be gratifying to myself and to others, if its publication and sale could be made available in aid of either or both of the noble societies who are engaged in supplying the wants of our wounded, sick and suffering soldiers.

Respectfully,

JOHN C. LORD.

DISCOURSE.

SHALL THE THRONE OF INIQUITY HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH THEE, WHICH FRAMETH MISCHIEF BY LAW ? — Psalms. 94: 20.

To be sure that we are right, in the prosecution of any individual or national work, is to be confident of the favor of God and of ultimate success. No plan of iniquity, though sustained by power, has fellowship with God; no scheme of mischief, however plausible, or claiming the sanction of laws, human or divine, can be approved by Him "who juclgeth among the Gods." To be right does not always secure imme- diate success, but it is better to be right and suffer, than to be wrong and triumph. The excellent proclamation of the Chief Magistrate of the nation, calls us, indeed, to-day, to ren- der thanks for the triumphant progress of our national army ; but it will not be inconsistent with its spirit, or with the gen- eral design of our National or State thanksgivings, — happily, to- day, joined in one, — to. consider the justice and necessity of our national resistance to rebellion in the light of the moral con- trasts developed by the existing war, in its origin, its ob- jects, and its prosecution. The successes of the past six months

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ought, indeed, to awaken in us the emotion of gratitude; but as it is a higher and nobler ground of thanksgiving, to have justice, truth and righteousness on our side, we shall follow, to-day, the line of thought already marked out, and if the contrast proposed vindicates our course, we may easily appre- hend where the favor of God must rest, and what the verdict of mankind must in the end be, when all the heats and pre- judices of the present time shall have passed away. The ab- sorbing interests, and the tremendous issues of the existing war, will excuse anything more than a passing allusion to the abun- dant harvests with which the divine providence has crowned the year, for which, and for all other temporal mercies, we are called upon to render thanksgiving and praise.

What are the moral contrasts exhibited in the origin of the present civil war? In all wars there is somewhere a great crime. There is a responsibility resting with fearful weight upon its instigators and originators; if not before human tri- bunals, they must at last answer before the tribunal of the Eternal Judge, for all the suffering, and all the shame of the contest they have provoked, for all the treasure wasted, for all the lives sacrificed, for all the moral ruin that follows war. Every wife widowed, every child made fatherless, every mother bereaved, shall cry out against them in that last grand assize, where every man " must give an account of himself unto God." In civil wars, the worst and bloodiest of all, this responsibility assumes a gigantic magnitude. If without cause, the sin of rebellion has no peer in the catalogue of crime ; perjury, robbery, arson, and murder, are simply items in the black roll of guilt. If oppression on the part of rulers, such as makes wise men mad, arouses a people to cast off an in- tolerable yoke; then all the guilt and all the responsibility

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rests upon the government whose tyranny has transformed in- surrection into a virtue, and made "resistance to tyrants obe- dience to God." "Who slew all these," is the question which at once arises upon sight of every battle field, strewn with corpses, where the groans of the dying are mingling with the shouts of attacking squadrons, and the roar of artillery. Who made these widows and orphans, who cry for bread out of their desolate houses ? Who has taken from yonder gray haired mother her sons, the glory and support of her age, and sent them in their early manhood to the dark and narrow house? Whose hand has fired the dwellings of yonder ruined village, whose smoking ashes cry to heaven for vengeance? Who armed and sent forth these ruffian guerillas, who, supported by plunder, make a business of murder? Who has wasted these fertile plains and vallies, where the cities are without inhabi- tant, and the houses without man? Who has shut up the highway of commerce and lighted the sea with burning ships, and wasted wealth enough to have made a garden of every wilderness of earth, and filled portions of the land with fam- ine, and made a man to risk his life for a morsel of meat? In reply to these queries, let us for a moment consider the moral contrasts which marked the inception of this war.

The Northern and loyal States had no desire for war, and least of all a civil war; so far from this were they, that they could not for a time be persuaded that there was a conspiracy in the South to destroy the republic. They slowly and re- luctantly yielded to the proofs of a plan to disrupt and de- stroy our nationality, yet still expected that better counsels might prevail, or that some compromise might be effected, that would satisfy the demands of the insurgents, and calm the fiery tem- per of the leaders of the revolt. Who has forgotten the un-

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willingness of our people to engage in a contest with the South, their dread and horror of the threatened civil war, their attempts at compromise, so long urged and continued, as to provoke from our enemies the charge of pusillanimity and cowardice? "What prayers were offered, what counsels held, what efforts made to avert the threatened storm ! At the out- set there was really no belligerent feeling at the North; reli- gious men stood aghast at the prospect of war ; the commer- cial and industrial classes saw in it financial ruin; all hu- mane men and women were terrified when they considered in the light of history the unspeakable horrors and atrocities of an intestine conflict. Even that small minority at the North, who were justly charged with exasperating the South with in- flammatory speeches, and intemperate assaults against the sys- tem of American Slavery, were cowed for the time, and seemed ready to give any guarantees to keep the peace for the future, which might be demanded. There was, in fact, no war party at the North at the beginning of these troubles, no conspiracy among us against the republic, no desire to disturb the sacred compact of the constitution, or to dishonor the memory of the founders of the nation, by the destruction of the Union. No violent tempers, no insulting epithets, no exasperating lan- guage, no incendiary threats on the part of the loyal States, were adding fuel to the flame of war already kindled in Southern hearts, and fanned by Southern tongues. For a long time the North bore with silence and patience, language and conduct on the part of the South, which from a foreign nation would not have been endured for an hour. Impartial history will affirm the substantial truth of this statement.

On the other hand it is equally evident that a wide spread conspiracy for the destruction of the republic, had for many

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years existed at the South, the objects of which will be stated under the second division of this discourse. It had its first attempted outbreak under the administration of Gen. Jackson, but was driven back to its hiding place by the firmness of that upright, heroic and patriotic man, whose memory is em- balmed in the hearts of the American people, and whose grave, thanks be to Gocl, wrested from traitors, is no more insulted by the flag of treason. Henceforth and forever the patriot hero rests under the banner of the Union, so often borne by him to victory ; never more shall the inscription on his monu- ment, "the Union, it must and shall be preserved," be effaced; never again shall foul conspiracy and murderous insurrection defile the tomb where the old soldier sleeps.

When from the womb of this dark conspiracy, there came the second birth, in the revolt of 1861, it found no Jackson to strangle it in its cradle. It was rampant and defiant from the beginning; it had its aiders and abettors in the adminis- tration of the general government, which was plundered of its arms and forts, and its navy made useless, by the men sworn to defend the Union and the laws ! When did the indignant heavens look down before upon such fraud and perjury, such household treason and dishonor ! And then, what readiness " to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war." State after State seceded with an alacrity indicating a foregone conclusion ; men were mustered and armed with weapons stolen from the gov- ernment, forts were seized, munitions of war were gathered, and the war spirit urged to fever heat, while the North were imploring them to forbear by all the ties of blood, by all the interests of humanity, by all the memories of the past, by all the blood shed in the revolutionary war, when North and South stood side by side, by all the results of nearly a century of

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union, peace and prosperity, by the sacred compact of the constitution, now a compact of the sainted dead, whose viola- tion would dishonor the memories and defile the graves of the fathers and founders of the Kepublic. How were these ap- peals met by the South? By torrents of invective, by taunts of cowardice, by insulting assumptions of superiority, which might well have fired the Northern heart, had it not been fully set on peace, — peace at any cost, peace on any terms. Save in a few of the border Slave States, there was no response to these appeals, no sign of relenting, no voices for peace, but all for war ; if there were other voices, they were silenced by the dungeon and the cord, and to crown all in this startling moral contrast, the fear lest peace counsels might possibly prevail, lest the border Slave States might undertake to act as media- tors, led to a determination to pass the Eubicon, to draw the sword and cast away the scabbard, to commit the insurgents beyond the possibility of return, and so Sumter was fired upon, and the old flag lowered before the bastard banner of treason, and trailed in the dust behind the car of insurrection. Thus the war was inaugurated, because forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and any farther appeals would prove us worthy the epithets of fools and cowards, so long and so freely be- ' stowed upon us by the South. Before God and the tribunal of mankind, before angels and men, we solemnly declare that this war has been forced upon us, and is a war of self de^ fence. We call heaven and earth to take record in the case and mark the contrast, that God the judge of all, and posterity may forever discharge the people and government of the United States from the guilt of this bloody contest, and that the re- sponsibility of its inception, and the consequent waste of treasure and of life, may be seen, and forever acknowledged, to

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rest upon the insurgent States, and people of the South. While we thank God that the blood of this fearful contest is not to be found in our skirts, we ought not to forget that in another aspect of the case He is working with us in the way of judg- ment for our national sins; but this line of thought is so familiar, so often presented on the set days of fasting, humilia- tion and prayer, that it only needs to be suggested here, to show that it is not forgotten in this exhibition of the "moral contrasts developed by the war," in which, if it shall appear that the North has truth and justice on her side, it is in no vainglorious or boasting spirit that this is urged, but because, if it be true, it should be demonstrated and declared, not only for our justification, but as the highest ground of gratitude to God, on this day of thanksgiving, praise and prayer.

But the moral contrasts developed by the existing war are still more marked in respect to its objects ; than we have seen them to be in its origin.

Every war is waged for some purpose, and in view of some object or objects to be gained. A war may be prosecuted for conquest, or it may be one for self defence, or it may be a war of mere rivalry, where the only question is who shall be the greatest, in which there is equal guilt on either side. War is often declared to preserve, what is called in Europe, the balance of power, or to prevent a particular nation from becoming too formidable for the safety of the others. If a revolt against authority is attempted, it always has an object, and if successful, becomes a revolution. A war waged against a government by its citizens, has for its object its overthrow, and, to be justified, to rise above the character of a mere insurrection against lawful authority, must show those arbitrary acts and intol- erable grievances which alone can excuse the removal of ancient

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foundations, and the unspeakable calamities of civil war. The civil wars of Cromwell's time in England, and that of the first French revolution, are examples of this latter kind. The war of colonies against the mother country, on the ground of an arbitrary and despotic exercise of authority, and in view of establishing their independence, is another form of revolt of which the revolution in the English colonies on this continent, and the establishment of American Independence, furnishes an example. But this was no civil war, except so far as it was waged at home, between vtlie adherents and opponents of the government, between Whigs and Tories ; in all other respects it was in the nature of a foreign war, and was waged in a na- tional form, by all the colonies, who never, either before or after our revolution, acted, or were recognized as sovereign States. No colony or State, on this continent, ever waged war or made treaties, or effected a peace, as independent and sepa- rate sovereignties; and hence the pretended right of secession, which is mere anarchy, has no countenance or support from the colonial or revolutionary history of the country, and the present constitution was especially framed to cut off any such pretence which might possibly exist under the old confederacy, in which the general government reached its citizens through the State authorities, while under the constitution, its jurisdic- tion is over the individual citizen, and has to do with the people of the United States. The analogy which has been attempted between the American Revolution and the Southern insurrection, utterly fails, for the former was a revolt from a distant and to all intents a foreign country, in view of the oppressive legislation of Great Britain, and the arbitrary acts of foreign officials sent here to govern the colonies, while the lat- ter is a revolt against a home government, established by

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Southern men, and ratified by Southern votes and oaths of fealty ; and there is yet another diversity which places them at antipodes, — the one was for freedom, and the other is for slavery.

But what are the moral contrasts exhibited in the objects of the present war as waged on either side?

Confessedly on the side of the rebellion, it is a war waged to destroy the constitution and government of the United States; this is patent and admits no denial. This was their own constitution and government, as well as ours, and its administration was in their own hands when the revolt was inaugurated. A new President had indeed been elected, but the South had a large majority in the Senate, if not in the House of Eepresentatives, and no unfriendly legislation was possible. There was no complaint of the existing administration, and the incoming Chief Magistrate had neither the power nor the oppor- tunity, even if he had the disposition, to do them any wrong. That a majority must rule, is the fundamental law of a republican form of government, and the revolt was against this law, in other words, because they did not succeed in the elec- tion. But there is still a darker shade and a deeper infamy than appears on the surface of this transaction. It is now gen- erally understood, that the leaders of the revolt did not wish or intend to succeed in the election, that they desired a pretext for insurrection, that to this end they purposely divided the great party with which they professed to act, and secured their own defeat in the presidential canvass, for the purpose of firing the Southern mind, and instigating an immediate revolt. The wickedness of such a conspiracy against an unoffending gov- ernment, and a constitution which had given the country a prosperity unexampled in the history of mankind, can scarcely

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be exaggerated, and has, in my opinion, no parallel in the his- tory of crime. It is a throne of iniquity, a transcendent height of guilt, which has, and can have, no fellowship with God or truth. Into what a sea of blood has it plunged the nation, what an abyss of horrors has it opened up before a once peaceful and prosperous people, how many weeping Eachels has it made, who mourn for their dead and refuse to be com- forted ; and there is small consolation in the fact, that the weight of this dire calamity has fallen mainly and retributively on the South itself, for it is our country no less than theirs ; our kin" dred are there; the lives lost, the wealth dissipated, the suf- ferings endured, though we cannot say these are not deserved, are yet a national loss, and a national disaster. Have not the authors of this rebellion to meet a fearful reckoning? Are they not treasuring up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God? On the other hand, for what are the government and people of the United States sending forth their armies and fleets, pouring out their treasure and their blood as water, in this desperate war ? To preserve the constitution and the Union, which rebels in arms seek to destroy, to save the life of the nation with half a million of poniards at its throat, to rescue the govern- ment and the laws, which are theirs no less than ours, from destruction by parricidal hands, to preserve for posterity the priceless legacy bequeathed to us and to them, by our noble sires, which they seek to destroy, to maintain for the benefit of mankind, the last and most illustrious example of civil and religious liberty, to keep alight the last and brightest beacon fire of a republican government, which they seek to quench in the smoke and stench of African Slavery.

We are for union and perpetual peace, when once the war

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is over ; they are for disunion and perpetual war ; for as the President has well stated, if we cannot live peaceably together as one people, under the same constitution and laws, how can we expect to secure peace by treaties as separate nations, who are and must be neighbors in all coming time?

Another avowed and recognized object of the Southern re- bellion, is the perpetuation and extension of domestic Slavery. Without entering into any discussion of the political bearings of this question, complicated and difficult as they are, it falls within the line of our argument to-day, simply and briefly to notice the moral and religious aspect of slavery propagandism, in contrast with the anti-slavery sentiment of the North. That .the slave system of the South was the original and prin- cipal, if not the sole cause of the existing war, admits of no doubt, and will be denied by no candid man ; that it has con- stituted and now constitutes the only wall of separation in a nation of one blood, one religion, and one language, will also be conceded. Nor will it be denied that it is a great social and moral evil, inconsistent with the fundamental idea of a republic, and a perpetual reproach, throughout the civilized world, against our institutions. It is constantly urged by a class of persons, that this is a war | for the negro. So far as the North is concerned this statement is false, for the North did not originate the war at all, either for the negro or for any other cause. The reproach which is deemed so stinging, the sarcasm which is thought so scorching, lies solely upon the South, who did commence the war for the negro, and for the domi- nance of slavery on this continent. This is their own account of the matter, as appears from the published declarations of their highest officials. The North were forced to take arms in defence of the constitution and the laws, and the blows which

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have fallen on slavery were the result of the fact that the South forced their domestic system into the war, and made it a belligerent, and the whining, either North or South, about the fatal thrusts it has received, is both pitiable and ludicrous. It is urged, also, that a just ground of offence on the part of the South, existed in the extreme views held hj a portion of the North in regard to slavery. I have never been an apologist for fanatical opinions on this subject, or any other, but freedom of speech is a necessary condition of the existence of a free government, and where Christianity is constantly as- sailed by infidels, and the marriage and parental relations upon which rest society and law, by Socialists, without legal restraint, it would hardly do to prohibit all discussions on the subject of slavery, or to prevent the expression of the wildest theories, and the stormiest denunciation. To demand this would be to demand the abrogation of our free institutions. Was there any ground of complaint against the government in respect to the negro? Let the speech of the ablest man in rebelclom, deliv- ered in Georgia, January 1st, 1861, answer. I give a single extract :

': What right has the North assailed ? What interest of the South has been invaded ? What justice has been denied ? and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld ? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain ? I challenge the answer."

While negro slavery, bad as it is, was under the protection of the constitution, moral suasion was the only weapon which any good citizen could employ against it. When' the slave- holders, not satisfied with the mere toleration of their domestic system by the constitution and by the loyal men of the North, demanded its recognition as the "highest form of christian civilization," and that the constitution should be so interpreted

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as to make its extension imperative, there was an unavoidable shrinking from such a perversion of the charter of our liber- ties, even by the most conservative of our Northern statesmen and moralists. But it was not until the system of African servitude was, by the treason of the South, taken out of the incidental protection afforded it by the constitution; not until its advocates, under a divine sentence of judicial blindness, abandoned the guarantees they had, for the avowed purpose of "lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes;" not until the South made their system of domestic slavery an active enemy of the government and the laws, did the people of the loyal States array themselves against it, as an internal enemy, whose existence was incompatible with the safety of the State, and determine if one must perish, it should be slavery rather than the Eepublic. Was not this conclusion just and reasonable, in view of the actual results of domestic servitude in the frightful war which is upon us. To come to any other determination would be to exalt slavery above the constitution, and sacrifice at the shrine of this modern Moloch the unity of the nation and the expectations of the world.

In this view of the subject, the contrasting moral aspects developed by the war, in regard to one of the main objects for which it is waged by the rebels, is sufficiently obvious. The revolt is for the exaltation and extension of human servitude; the resistance of the loyal States and people, is necessarily to abase and destroy it as the special enemy of the nation, and the common enemy of mankind. The object of the insurgents is to perpetuate the bondage of four millions of blacks, and the ignorance and mental slavery of six millions of white men, who are necessarily tending to barbarism under a system which deprives them of schools and churches; in our armed

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resistance of the traitors, we are providentially forced to declare the " acceptable year of the Lord, the opening of the prison doors," to onr poor white brethren, and the right of the black man to his wife and children, and a fair compensation for the labor of his hands. In this controversy, where is truth and justice? Is it with the three hundred thousand slaveholders, who are in insurrection against the government, or is it with the freemen of the North, who return the poisoned chalice prof- fered to their nationality, to the lips of slavery? Is that the cause of righteousness which would, at the price of a nation's life, extend the dark area of human bondage, and once more cover the sea with slave ships, the cries of whose cargoes of human souls rise above the roar of the waters, to pain the in- dignant Heavens ? Let the sea answer from her depths, where unnumbered thousands of dead slaves lie, cast alive out of the accursed slave ships ; let the earth reply, whose bosom has been bedewed with the sweat and tears of unrequited toil; let the sky respond, whose starry eyes have watched the gory steps of the midnight fugitive, with the bay of the bloodhound on his track. As surely as God lives and reigns, as certainly as the divine Eedeemer came to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free, so certainly and so surely is the cause of the North the cause of mercy and justice, of truth and righteousness !

Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, O Grod, which frameth mischief by a law?

Why any man at the North should desire the perpetuation of African Slavery, after it has been laid open to destruction by the treason of slaveholders, is to me a mystery. What is there in the moral influences of domestic despotism to favor its continuance? What is there in it lovely and of good

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report, that it should be desired? Is it valuable as a system of labor? No! it is the worst of all, the most exhausting, the most wasteful of all. Has it benefited the slaveholders? ISTo ! it has made traitors of the majority of them, and ruined alike their tempers and their fortunes. Has it improved the six millions of poor whites ? Alas ! it has degraded them even below the level of the slaves. Has it benefited the black race? It has indeed partially civilized them, but that the providential time of their deliverance has come is manifest in the divine permission of this war ; the report of the first cannon fired against Sumter was the voice of God. reverberating over sea and land, saying "let this people go."

But it is in the prosecution of the war that these moral contrasts are most marked and significant. We have seen with what intemperate heat, with what passion and violence, the Southern rebels originated this contest; the want of a just cause, the fact that there was no real grievance of which to complain, no plausable excuse for revolt, prevented any address to the reason and sober reflection of the South, and necessi- tated that appeal to the passions with which the political dem- agogues of the slave States frenzied the Southern mind, and drove the people into rebellion, in a kind of delirium or mental drunkenness.

Observe, then, the insane fury with which the South, regard- less of consequences, began the war on the constitution and the government, in contrast with the moderation, the hesitation and the forbearance of the North, whose efforts for peace did not cease until the capital of the nation was threatened with fire and sword.

In the prosecution of the war by the Southern insurgents, there was evidence of a long preparation for the revolt: arms

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and armed men were at hand, the plan had been treacherously matured, and the means made ready to destroy the government long before the outbreak; on the other hand there was no suspicion, no preparation, no craft or concealment. It was like the attempt to assassinate a defenceless man, who only perceives his danger when the dagger is in his side.

Observe again, the remarkable moral contrast between the South and the North, in the effort to secure unanimity of opinion and action on either side in the impending conflict. At the North there remained substantial freedom of opinion and speech ; though Southern sympathizers were numerous, few arrests were made. Washington and the border cities, and even the commercial capital of the country, swarmed with traitors, and were redolent of treason, but no violence was offered them, no earnest efforts were for a long time made to suppress them, and when it became necessary to make the effort to do so, to save the capital and the country from the spies and traitors, plotting our national ruin under the protec- tion of our national flag, the highest penalty was a brief imprisonment, or a removal of the offenders beyond our lines to their friends and associates South. I do not know an instance in which any man has been put to death at the North for the expression of opinions, treasonable or otherwise. Even in the case of convicted spies and rebels, the sentence of death has rarely been pronounced, and still more rarely exe- cuted, as the President has commonly interposed by a commu- tation of the sentence. No revengeful, cruel or malignant dis- position has been manifested during the war by the govern- ment, the judiciary or the people of the United States.

On the other hand, we find the war inaugurated at the South by the assassination and murder of peaceable citizens, whose

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only crime was the expression of opinions favorable to the Union and against the rebellion. The cord, the bullet, and the knife, have been the arguments used to drive loyal citizens into the support of the revolt. Men of influence, ministers of the gospel, teachers and others, Southern born and Southern bred, have been murdered by hundreds and thousands for the expression of loyal opinions. History, in all its pages of bloodshed and crime, hardly presents such instances of bru- tality and barbarism ; certainly not among any civilized and christian people. It is not possible to exaggerate the atrocity of these assassinations, whether they take the form of private, or judicial, or military murders. Nor was this barbarism merely the macl outbreak of a furious revolt ; it has been a constant practice and a settled policy at the South. The fol- lowing telegram, which was published but a few days since, will serve to show, in detail, a state of facts to make the flesh of men to creep with terror, and which a terrible retribution must overtake, as certainly as there is justice in heaven and thunderbolts in God's hands :

New York, Nov. 20.

Brownlow's Knoxville Whig, of the 11th insi, gives the following exhibit of the outrages perpetrated on Union men in East Tennessee:

Since the Union army has taken possession of East Tennessee, many very worthy Union men have been cruelly murdered by the villainous rebels in arms, assisted by perjured citizens who had come forward and taken the oath. Murder, treason, rob- bery, infamy and ruin are the order of the day in the counties above and below Knoxville.

In the upper counties they have shot down, and otherwise murdered unoffending men, neither respecting age nor infirmities, and the soldiers turning out in bands have robbed families of all in their houses and on their farms, and where they were unable to carry off all they found, the thieving villains have destroyed it, burning private property and destroying all before them. They have, within a few weeks past, murdered old men in the presence of their families, committing cruelties and infamous atrocities that would disgrace wandering Arabs. In Washington County, but the other day, they murdered Rev. Mr. Bowman, of the Dutch Church, in cold blood, and upon no other pretext than that he was a Union man.

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In the counties of Blount, Monroe, Hamilton and Bradley, below Knoxville, they have recently committed some of the most atrocious murders ever known.

They marched the old man Smith out from his house, in Blount, and shot him down in the road, in his 60th year, leaving a poor and helpless family of nine per- sons dependent upon his labor for their daily bread. The only charge was that he was a Lincolnite.

They cruelly murdered Rev. Levi Carter and one of his sons in Bradley, and the charge was that he was a Lincolnite, Methodist and preacher.

They cut the throat of Rev. M. Blair, of- Hamilton County, a Baptist preacher, in the presence of his family^ and the offence was that he was a Union man.

They murdered F. Carter, of Bradley County, in like manner, as refugees reported to us.

They murdered the Rev. Hiram Douglass, of the Presbyterian church, under cir- cumstances that would disgrace an Algerian mob.

They shot a man by the name of Cozart for no other offence than that he was a Union man.

And these are only items in the long list of wrongs and cruelties daily perpetrated by a set of scoundrels, acting under leaders who have been false to their allegiance to friends, neighbors, State and to the nation. They have had, and still have, in the hills and mountains of Sevier County, 400 Cherokee Indians, under the command of Col. Thomas, of Western Carolina. These savages, less cruel than their white rebel associates and companions in arms, are robbing houses and scalping innocent citizens

Are such, things possible in a christian land ? Can such crimes escape the just judgment of the Supreme Judge ? Shall this throne of iniquity have fellowship with God, which frameth murder by a law?

Within a week I have received a printed circular, attested by clergymen and officers of rank in the army, asking for aid for the great multitude of refugees from the South, — men, women and children, — almost naked, and in a condition of starvation, who have fled from the remorseless persecution of the government and army of the rebels, who, in some cases, have pursued the men with blood hounds. These unhappy refugees in utter destitution, have at last found a land of free- dom, and stretch out to us their imploring hands. Who can say how many hunted and persecuted fugitives have found refuge in the grave, "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest?" Who can tell what revelations are yet to be made, when the war is over, of the atrocious

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tyranny and cruelty of the rebel government, in portions of the South, where there has been no outlet through which the voices of their victims could come to us, in tones of lamenta- tion, mourning and woe ?

That isolated acts of rapine and cruelty, as against an enemy, will occur under the most humane government, and the strictest military discipline, is one of the consequences of war ; but such acts have been the rule, rather than the exception, at the South, and the contrast between the forbearance, leniency and humanity of our government and people, and the passion, ferocity and tyranny of the South, is one of the most striking moral contrasts presented in the history of human wars, and may serve to illustrate the effect of domestic slavery upon the habits and tempers of the dominant race, no less than the influence of a bad cause.

The same moral contrast in the prosecution of the war may be seen in the financial management on either side, to carry on a conflict which costs millions a day. The North, with rare fidelity to its engagements, has paid and is paying a large and extraordinary war tax, which sustains its credit by exhibiting its good faith. The South, while issuing a thousand millions in notes and evidences of debt, has made no similar provision for its payment, and their currency has consequently so depre- ciated as to be almost worthless at home, while it never had any credit abroad.

Observe another contrast in the management of the war, which is significant of the moral status of each of the oppos- ing armies. Without any impeachment of the courage of the insurgent hosts, — for they are, with ourselves, of that old Anglo- Saxon stock that never know when they are beaten, — we cannot fail to discover a looseness of practice and a disregard of the

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character of the means they use, in all the history of this con- flict. Not to refer to the carving of the bones of our dead soldiers, and sending them as mementoes of their prowess to their wives and sisters at home; not to speak of the repeated instances in which they have murdered their prisoners after their surrender, which we may well hope, for the honor of humanity, are exceptional cases ; we notice the disguises of the federal uniform, under which they so often approach our out- posts without suspicion, \h.e constant practice of which has recently enforced a stringent military order from our generals, who have not thought of imitating such a deception, or gain- ing an advantage by such questionable arts. The adoption of the guerrilla system by the civil and military authorities of the South, is another instance of the desperate and reckless character of their prosecution of the war. These lawless bands are always thieves and often assassins ; their true character was exhibited in the recent dreadful massacre at Lawrence, in Kan- sas; they are the outlaws of war, and are not recognised by any military code. Though their ravages are for the most part confined to the South, and among their own people, a ter- ror alike to friends and foes, yet they nevertheless mark a moral contrast in the prosecution of the war, honorable alike to our government and our armies.

There is another contrast in the treatment of prisoners, which has peculiar significance at the present time, when the despair- ing wail of thirteen thousand of our fellow citizens, prisoners of war in Eichmond, is still ringing in our ears, drawing tears from the eyes of strong men, "unused to the melting mood," and swelling thousands of breasts with irrepressible indigna- tion. The account of that ghastly procession of moving corpses recently received from the hells of Richmond, the scenes of

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misery and acts of cruelty disclosed by them, the hunger that devoured a favorite dog, and sought for garbage and unclean creatures, to stave off a death from starvation, will not bear repetition here.

The historic horrors of the black hole in India, where a Hindu barbarian, in a fit of drunken rage, shut up his English prisoners, are quite paralleled in the rebel prisons in the capital city of the so called confederacy, and mark, with suffi- cient clearness, the deep moral debasement of their authorities. What if the city was ill supplied with food, we have recent proof of the abundance in the rebel army that defends their capital, and sooner than suffer helpless prisoners to starve, an honorable enemy would have deprived themselves of food. Better for the city of Eichmond, and the leaders and rulers of this rebellion, that they should have endured the pangs of hunger for the sake of the poor captives, than have in all coming time the infamy of starving them in their foul dun- geons. Better that Lee's army should have divided their rations with these miserable and famished captives; better to have suffered a disastrous defeat, than that the wail of thirteen thousand famished men should echo down the ages and along the shores of time. Is there an army, or a corps, in the ser- vice of the United States, who would not divide their last crust with sick and suffering prisoners of war? If Washing- ton was in a state of famine, does any man believe that our government would suffer their prisoners to starve? Would they not exhaust the public treasury before being guilty of such inhumanity or enduring such infamy? Would not the public sentiment at the North demand that the prisoners should be fed, whoever else might want for food? Alas, for the boasted chivalry of the South ! alas, for their reputation and

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honor! sunk together in the foul sea of rebellion, whose tur- bid "waters cast up mire and dirt." "What a throne of ini- quity is this, to be reared in the nineteenth century, in the face of Christendom, demanding a place among the empires of the earth !

Deserving in many things the judgments of God, guilty as we are in many respects, as a government and a people, sub- mitting as we do to the divine rebuke and the divine chastise- ment, which it pleases the Almighty to inflict upon us in this dreadful war, we yet confidently appeal to the Eternal Justice to vindicate the righteousness of our national cause, to send forth for us "judgment to victory." We confidently expect success, not because of our personal merit, but on account of the moral issues of the present contest, for in this respect it is God's cause, no less than ours, and we say with one of old, a simple servant of the cross, engaged in a contest for jus- tice with an angry king, "Videat Altissimus," let the Highest see to it. Was not the appeal of our people, defending their national life against this malignant treason, this "throne of iniquity," heard and answered, in the glorious victory of Chat- tanooga, a blow at the heart of the great insurrection, greeting the North on the very morning of the day of national thanks- giving ? Is not the hand and the voice of God in this response to the lamentations and prayers, and expostulations of a chris- tian people, at the recent repulse of our army at the same place? A suffering nation cry to God "how long, O Lord, how long, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood?" and the response comes on the lightning's wing from the mountains of Tennessee to-day, "the triumph of the wicked is short."

We indulge in no vindictive spirit towards the South, and this exhibition of the wickedness and folly of the rebellion,

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and of the spirit and conduct of its authors, is made more in sorrow than in anger, and because the exigencies of the time demand a faithful statement of the moral contrasts which mark the origin and prosecution of the present war, that all men may know on which side truth and justice are to be found. How else can we appeal to our young men to take up arms in their country's cause? What argument so forcible to arouse the nation to put forth new and greater efforts to put down this gigantic rebellion?

One more of the remarkable moral contrasts, between the North and the South, developed in the prosecution of this unhappy war, is all that time will permit us to notice on this occasion.

Notwithstanding the reverses of the South, though a large portion of their territory has been recovered to the Union, and is in our possession; though the prospects of the final success of the rebellion are daily and hourly diminishing ; though a party, or rather the extreme wing of a great party, considerable in numbers and not destitute of influence, has for a long time invited the return of the insurgents to their alle- giance, extending to them the hope of an entire indemnity, and of new guarantees for the protection and perpetuation of slavery, yet not a solitary response has been heard from them favorable to peace, even on terms which would degrade the North, by conceding to rebels in arms a perpetual political supremacy upon the sole condition of their return, without penalties for the past or securities for the future. • The judicial madness with which the insurgents commenced the war, still blinds and infuriates them ; they scoff at any compromise, and refuse any terms of peace, save the division of the republic, the annulling of the constitution, and the recognition of the

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right of secession, involving, as we know, and as they onght to know, a perpetual war between the broken fragments of a once mighty empire. Give them the negro, the slave trade, and new securities for the spread of domestic despotism, and they refuse it ; give them the assurance of their old political predominance in the Union, they scoff at it ; nothing will sat- isfy them but the humiliation of the North and the ruin of the country ; nothing will appease their savage malignity, but that the glorious old flag of the Eepublic should be trampled in the dust, or trailed in dishonor behind the advance of their victorious armies. "Who at the North is so lost to every manly and honorable feeling, so in love with "treason's stratagems and spoils," that he can fellowship such a throne of iniquity, which frameth mischief by a law ?

No such bitter, relentless and revengeful feeling is cherished by the people of the loyal States. The few extreme and fanati- cal men who might be supposed to indulge in a similar bit- terness, would have no influence in any settlement of the terms of peace. Submission to the constitution and the laws, the exaction of the legal penalties of treason upon a sufficient number of the leaders of the revolt to satisfy the demands of public justice, and reasonable guarantees for the future from the slave States, is substantially what the people and government of the United States demand. So placable is the temper of the North, there is such an earnest desire for peace, that were the South to propose any terms, even such as would constitute but a temporary truce, merely giving time to the enemy to recruit his wasted energies, and prepare for a fresh assault upon the national life, there would be great danger that our people would fall into the snare; and it is perhaps one of the provi- dential signs of the purpose of God to bring about a thorough

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settlement of all questions in dispute, and a lasting peace, that He has left the authors and leaders of the revolt to the indul- gence of such ferocious and implacable tempers, and to such hardness and blindness of mind.

The Great Searcher of hearts knows with what earnestness the conservative men of the North sought to avert the im- pending war. "With thousands and tens of thousands of my countrymen, I can say with that true patriot and able states- man, Edward Everett, in his late address at Gettysburg :

"A sad foreboding of what would ensue, if war should break out between North and South, has haunted me through life, and led me, perhaps, too long to tread the path of hopeless compromise, in the fond endeavor to conciliate those who were p re-determined not to be conciliated."

There is nothing left to us but to put down the power of the rebellion by the strong hand ; no other avenue of peace is open but a determined prosecution of the war, until every traitor in the South shall be compelled to lay down his arms and yield at discretion. God, in his wise and holy providence, has closed up every door of deliverance but this, and if it is among the divine purposes that the slave system, which the South has thrust into this contest, should in its progress receive its death blow, it will be no occasion of lamentation, either in heaven or earth.

In view of this necessity, and of the moral contrasts so marked, so significant, between the parties to the war, seen in its origin, objects and prosecution, can any patriot, can any christian man, fail to see his duty to aid the government by all possible means, in its efforts to put down this causeless and wicked rebellion ?

"Will you be deterred from the discharge of your duty because you differ from extreme men, whom you charge with fanaticism ? Dare you sacrifice your country to such hostilities

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and prejudices? Shall the Union perish, and the sun of the Kepublic go down in darkness, because of personal and politi- cal differences at the North. ? Will any man who loves his country or his race, draw back at such a time as this, because all men are not of his opinion ? Will any true patriot refuse to come to the rescue of his bleeding country, because other men who are in her counsels and fighting her battles, are not of the same party, or pursuing the precise plan or policy which he would counsel ? Will any christian citizen withhold his sons or his wealth from a war which God, in his provi- dence and by the moral contrasts He has permitted to mani- fest themselves, has so marked as a war for truth, justice and righteousness, that "he that runneth may read."

These views of the duty of christians, and of the character of the existing contest, are fully maintained by the venerable General Assembly, with which most of the churches and con- gregations assembled here to-day are ecclesiastically connected. No body of christians in the United States have held a more conservative position than the Old School Presbyterians. They have uniformly and steadily opposed all antagonisms and divi- sions on the subject of slavery ; they have maintained their ecclesiastical connection with Southern Presbyterians, when almost every other denomination in the country was rent asunder by the vexed questions of African servitude. But when the rebellion was inaugurated, and slavery placed in antagonism to the constitution and the unity of the nation, the Presbyterian Church rallied as of old time for law and liberty. The late General Assembly, by a vote almost unanimous, adopted a report from which the following extracts are selected :

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" Nothing that this Assembly can say can more fully express the wickedness of the rebellion that has cost so much blood and treasure, can declare in plainer terms the guilt, before God and man, of those who have inaugurated or maintained, or countenanced, for so little cause, this fratricidal strife; or can more impressively urge the solemn duty of the government to the lawful exercise of its authority, and of the people, each in his several place, to uphold the civil authorities, to the end that law and order may again reign throughout the entire nation; than these things have already been done by previous assemblies."

Speaking of the duty of the church and her ministers, the Assembly say :

" The law of which the church of God is the interpreter, searches the heart, makes every man subject to the civil authority for conscience sake, and declares that man truly guilty who allows himself to be alienated in sympathy and feeling from any lawful duty, or who does not conscientiously prefer the welfare, and especially the preservation of the government to any party or partizan ends."

Afterwards the Assembly affirm that "no causes exist to vindicate the disloyalty of American citizens toward the United States Government."

A united and vigorous effort at the North would add three hundred thousand men to the national army, save a further conscription, and summarily end the war. Shall it be done, fellow citizens, fellow christians ? Your country demands it of you, threatened with dissolution and bleeding at every pore.

The loyal men of the South, hunted with blood hounds through the mountains, shot down without mercy by their fire- sides, or compelled, at the hazard of their lives, their fortunes and their families, to profess their adherence to a rebellion which they abhor, cry to you for a deliverance, and await the presence of your armies, as those that look for the morning.

From their graves, in the distant places where they have fallen in defence of their country, the slain soldiers of the nation appeal to you, not to suffer this holocaust of victims, martyrs for Union, liberty and law, by your supineness and irresolution, to have died in vain.

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Your noble ancestry, the martyrs of liberty, in every war for freedom in the old world or the new, from the churchyards of the Puritans and Presbyterians, in England and Scotland, and from every battle field of the war of the Revolution, supplicate you not to suffer the foundations laid in their prayers, their lives and their blood, to be overthrown.

Posterity requires of you, under the penalty of eternal infamy, to transmit to them unimpaired, the sacred legacy of freedom and Union, left for them as a sacred deposit in your hands, by the fathers of the Republic.

Mankind at large, the people of every nation and language, the dwellers in every habitation of cruelty, under every form of despotism, from every house of bondage, and every wall of captivity, implore you to preserve for their benefit the insti- tutions and the nationality which have been the hand writing on the wall to every ancient tyranny on earth, the fall of which would rivet their chains and render their deliverance hopeless.

God, the Judge of all, who sifted Europe for three centuries to send to the New World a holy generation and a royal priesthood, to plant here a free State and a free church, demands of you, by your allegiance to himself, by your faith in the Son, by your desire of the blessing of the Holy Spirit, to defend at any cost of life or fortune, these foundations laid in His providence, and in the prayers and sacrifices of the church, purchased by the blood of the blessed Redeemer ; and may the benediction of the Eternal Trinity rest upon every man who, in such a time as this, discharges his whole duty to the country and to God. Amen.

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