Stand by the President! : an address delivered before the National Union Association, of Cincinnati, March 6, 1863

STAND BY THE PRESIDENT!

AN ADDRESS

DELrVBBED BEFORE THE

NATIONAL UNION ASSOCIATION,

OF CINCINNATI,

MARCH 6, 1863.

BY REV. CHARLES G. AMES.

PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE ASSOCIATION.

"Let It always be remembered to 3'OTir praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, tliat under
circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liahle to mislead, amidst appearances
sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not un frequently want of
success has countertanced the spirit of criticism, the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the
efforts, and a guaranty of the plans by which they were effected."— WAsm>;GTON's Fakeavell Address.

PHILADELPHIA :
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 60t SANSOM STREET.

1863.

"As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, in time of war,
I suppose I have a right to take any measures which may best subdue
the enemyy — Abraham Lincoln, God bless him !

" And the hands of the President, the chosen and holj head of
the nation, must be strengthened by the people. He is striving
in this hour of peril, with all his strength to save the country.
Let the people pledge to him their most generous confidence and
support — and not turn from him in coldness or palsy his efforts
with a feeble and half confidence. Pledge, then, to the President,
the lives and fortunes of an united people. Let him be sustained
and carried in triumph through the struggle. His patriotism and
self-sacrifice deserve it — our duty demands it."i— " Call " for a
Convention of Massachusetts Conservatives, Sept. 1862.

ADDRESS.

My CouNTRyMEN AND BROTHERS: — I desire to speak to you a
word of encouragement. I believe there is no good reason to
despair of the Eepublic. To be sure, the war has hiin bare our
weak points, and has disclosed an uncalculated amount of corrup-
tion among our people; but it has also developed a sterling bra-
very and patriotism, and given us a marvellous consciousness of
power. We are learning wisdom from our own folly ; learning
success from our own failures, even as children learn to walk by
stumbling. And the furnace-fires of our great trial are slowly
purifying us of our silly selfishness and partisan bitterness.

We have at last touched bottom. We know the depth of our
difficulties ; we have measured the extent of our dangers. We
have found out the magnitude of the Rebellion : It is great, but it
can never be greater, and it is already perceptibly shrivelling.
We have taken the gauge of its power ; we know what work is
before us ; we can fully count the cost ; and we may as well settle
down to the war as a man goes to a day's work.

We were never so strong as to-day. We have found no limit to
our resources, nor to our recuperative power under disaster. We
have money ; we have munitions ; we have men ; and, above all,
thank God we have a righteous cause. We are the appointed
guardians of Liberty and Law ; we are the trustees of the natural
rights of mankind ; we are the body-guard of Christian civilization;
and, for these high and holy services, we hold a commission from
Heaven.

And I trust we are getting our ej^es open, so that we see the
folly of wasting, in quarrels with each other and with our rulers,
that strength which is needed for the common cause — for the over-
throw of murderous treason, and the establishment of rightful au-
thority. The true base for the operation of our armies is in the
hearts of the people ; and we can serve the country, or we can
betray it, through the newspaper, in legislative halls, in our public
meetings, and on the streets, as really as in field or Cabinet. A
man can help to save his country at home ; and he can be a traitor,
too, without going South. The available force of the Rebellion
comprises all who sj^mpathize with it, wherever found ; just as the
army of the Union comprises all the loyal souls in the Union.
For our safety and success, we must, like our brave brothers in
arms, stand shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, seconding and.
supporting our leaders by every righteous means in our power.

Let us not delude ourselves with the distracting and pernicious
foolery which teaches that the country is to be saved, or can be
saved, in some other way than by co-operating with the existing
administration in the work of subduing the Eebellion. There
must be unity of action : and we can have no rallying centre for
that unity except the constitutional authorities of the country.
There must be a head ; and we can have no other head but the
nation's Chief Magistrate and Commander. An army must iight
under its general, whoever he may be, or not fight at all. There
can be disgraceful surrender; there can be bloody mutiny; there
can be cowardly desertion ; but there can be no victory, except
through cordial co-operation with those in authority, and loyal
obedience to orders.

And I hold that the President of the United States, as Com-
mander-in-Chief of the armies and navies of the nation has a
rightful authority over us all, and a just claim upon our generous
and hearty support in the fearful task which Providence and the
people have assigned him, of restoring the national sovereignty
over the last square inch of the national domain, When he lifted
his manly right hand, and solemnly swore, before earth and heaven
that he would preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of
these States, he became the represenative of us all; he consented
to embody, in his sole person, the highest magistracy and execu-
tive power of the nation — the collected sovereignty of the whole
people. He swore for us, and oa our behalf; and between us and
him there is a covenant of God, to which we form a party. If
there is any meaning in American citizenship, we all stand pledged,
by all that is sacred in loyalty and in honor, to sustain him in the
discharge of his public duties, and in the administration of his
mighty trust.

The President is no despot ; he is simply a public servant. But
he is clothed with vast authority, not the less ; and this authority,
though delegated by the people for their own use and benefit, is
as real as that of any anointed and crowned monarch ; and is as
much more worthy of our respect as our popular government is
superior to kingly rule. Disrespect to the authority of the Presi-
dent, therefore, is disrespect to the Constitution which creates his
office ; it is also disrespect to the people who created that Consti-
tution, and who reaffirmed it in the very act of voting for a Presi-
dent. We are not living together as a mere debating club ; we
constitute a government^ and every attempt to abridge or bring
into contempt the rightful powers of those who are charged with
executing the functions of that government, or to embarrass them
in the preservation and defense of that government, is an offijnse
against the peace and dignity of the nation, which should be
branded as infamous and punished as criminal.

The right of impeaching a traitorous and perjured President is
unquestioned and unquestionable, as it ought to be ; but we have

5

no right to exact or expect an impossible perfection in any of our
public servants. An officer keeps good faith with the people —
keeps the spirit and meaning of his oath — when he does the best
he can ; when he performs his duties as he understands them.
Most officers are sworn to discharge their duties " to the best of
their ability " — a clause which recognizes this just limit of their
obligation and excuses their inevitable and unintentional mistakes.
Men do not become all-wise and all-mighty as soon as we elect
them to public station. Chosen from among ourselves, they are
men of like passions and infirmities with ourselves. They are
what we should be, if we had been so unfortunate as to be in their
places: subject to inadvertency, error, the bias of outside influ-
ences and the limitations of all human wisdom and practical know-
ledge. From Washington down, we have never had a perfect
administration and never shall have one.* We have never had a
President who was not charged by his political enemies with
violating the Constitution ; and we never can have, until we all
understand that instrument alike. And yet, probably no nation
was ever blessed with sixteen successive administrations which
were, on the whole, so free from deserved reproach, as those of
our sixteen American Presidents. I think nearly all of them have
kept the inaugural oath in good faith and with a good conscience.
(Of course, we must always except the man who was incapable of
good faith, and who never had a conscience!)

But I do not think any one of them all was more thoroughly true
and trusty — more loyal and faithful to the Constitution and to the
rights of the people — than Abraham Lincoln. [Deafening and
long continued applause.] I think, also, the impartial Future — if
he can afibrd to wait for its'verdict — will award him the praise of
a practical ability and a wise statesmanship, which the ungenerous
Present denies. Probably we have had but one or two Presidents
who could have navigated the Republic through this stormy sea
of difficulties with a steadier hand than the man who now sits at
the helm.

Mr. Lincoln has serious faults for a Chief Magistrate in troublous
times. He is over-amiable towards offenders ; else he would have
unhorsed that man McClellan at the beginning of his shameful
career of disobedience to superior orders. He does not read men
well ; else he would never have entrusted important positions to
men of doubtful loyalty. He is sometimes too slow for an emerg-
ency, and so lets the enemy steal ». march upon him. And he has
doubtless made serious mistakes, both of omission and commission,
in general policy. But, conceding all this and much more, he is

* John Adams called Washington a " dolt." Jefferson charged him with de-
signs against public liberty. Washington himself, in his Farewell Address, thanks
the American people forjudging so kindly of the imperfections of his public ser-
vices, and admits that " not unfrequently, want of success countenanced the spirit
of criticism."

8

nevertheless a great man, a strong, wise, sagacious statesman, an
incarnation of patriotism; of unimpeachable integrity ; of unbend-
ing firmness, when once convinced : of industrious devotion to
duty; of broad views, taking in the vast future as well as the
present, and the interests of the whole country as well of the loyal
North. A man less careful in action might have fallen into more
hurtful errors.

No partisan prompting bids me speak in vindication of the ad-
ministration. Nor can it be vindicated from any partisan stand-
point, as it has refused to be guided by partisan considerations.
To advocate its claims upon our confidence and support in the
present struggle has ceased, long ago, to be a partisan matter, and
has become a part of patriotism. More deeply than I can tell you,
do I feel that the triumph of the nation's cause, and the security
of its very life, depend largely on the degree of confidence which
the people repose in their rulers and leaders. An enemy has been
sowing tares among us; and we have unwittingly hurt our own
cause and given aid and comfort to the rebel conspirators, by a
groundless, wrongful distrust of the Federal Administration — by
a heedless habit of scolding about the President, the Cabinet, and
Congress, as though they were the real conspirators! — by an un-
generous and unjust way of criticising our public servants, who,
amid untold embarrassments and ever-multiplying difficulties,
have been doing their honest best to work out the country's
salvation.

We should be candid enough, at least, to make allowance for
these difficulties ; difficulties which the administration did not
create, and for the magnitude and multitude of which it is in no
sense responsible. The purest and best government possible to
mankind could be broken down and destroyed, if its own friends
would credit the slanders of its enemies, and join in their accusa-
tions, denunciations and assaults, as we have been foolish enough
to do — magnifying every error and blinding ourselves, by passion
and pre-judgment, to every excellence. Even if the administra-
tion were absolutely faultless in all respects, it would have been
simply impossible for it to please such a whimsical and distracted
people as we are. In the rush and excitement of a stormy time,
we have become unreasonable. What could be more unreasona-
ble than to charge the disorders of the country upon those who
are doing their utmost to heal them? So we have let our own
hysterics disqualify us for judging justly of either men or mea-
sures.

The more I study our public affairs, and the more I ponder
over our recent history, the deeper is my conviction that the
present administration has suffered the greatest injustice at the
hands of the people, both for what it has done and for what it
has not done. Let me recall to your minds the circumstances

under which this administration took possession and charge of
the machinery of government.

When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated — two years and two
days ago — secession had already commenced ; and the policy of
letting the Union go to pieces without attempting to maintain the
Federal authority — the policy of letting the rebels have every thing
their own way, and even of helping them to seize the guns of the
Union and turn them against the Union — was already the estab-
lished order, or disorder, of things; the fatal precedent having
been fixed upon us through the weakness and wickedness of a
man who was not ashamed to call himself "the last President of
the United States." Northern Democratic leaders and presses —
deeply embittered by their recent political defeat, and half ready
to disavow allegiance to a President whom their party did not
elect — were openly and violently opposed to all attempts at co-
ercing seceded States. The Southern planting interest might
combine to coerce the Southern loyalists — might rob, and imprison,
and shoot, and stab, and hang and burn all who bore true and
faithful allegiance to the Constitution of their country — might
seize the National property, drive out the Federal judges, and pro-
claim beforehand its intention to capture and hold the Federal cap-
ital and dictate terms to the remaining States — but there must be
no coercion used in maintaining the Federal authority ! And some
of these men declared that if troops were raised in the North for
such a purpose, such troops should never reach Mason and Dixon's
line without marching over dead bodies ! The rebels were thus
encouraged to believe that nearly half the people of the North
would justify, if not assist them, in throwing oft' the authority of
the new President, and asserting themselves the masters of Ameri-
can destiny. And the weakness, cowardice and treachery of the
Buchanan dynasty had disheartened us all. There was little spirit,
courage, hope, or energy in the North. Men's hearts failed for
fear, in looking after the things that were coming upon the land.
The conspirators alone were bold and defiant; their reign of terror
not only suffocated the Union men of the South, but also over-
shadowed the continent.

Barely escaping assassination, the new President sat down
gloomily in the empty mansion, with an empty treasury, a swarm
of traitors in all ofiices, spies about his very person, the atmos-
phere of Washington hissing with venomous secession serpents.
His first work was to organize his administration — a work always
difficult and delicate, now doubly so on account of the general
distraction and dangers. Before he had time to complete the
appointments, the thunder of rebel cannon startled the whole
nation. Seventy devoted men, shut up in Fort Sumter, besieged
by seven thousand rebels, and b}'' starvation, were forced to sur-
render.

Thus war began by the act of the South. That sovereignty

8

wbicTi the President had sworn to protect and defend was assailed
by force of arms. But his hands were tied. The nation owned
forty-two ships of war ; all but six of them had been purposely
sent beyond his reach, cruising in the Mediterranean and other
distant waters. The nation had a small standing army of some
twenty regiments. They were away to the Eocky Mountains and
beyond. Washington itself was menaced on every side, and the
Plug Uglies of Baltimore needed but a word to stir them to deeds
of horror.

What if Abraham Lincoln had been a coward then ?

He calmly appealed to the loyal masses of the country, saying,
" This is your government as much as mine. I have sworn to
defend it, and I shall try. Give me men and means !" Then
came that sublimest scene in our annals, which a friendly French-
man has called " The uprising of a Great People." O it was a
spectacle for the ages ! There were heroic periods of Roman and
Grecian history, and there have been stirring events in the life of
many another nation; but you and I have lived, and are still
living, in a peerless time !

The President committed the safety and honor of the Eepublic
to the people ; and the cold, dying embers of hope in their hearts,
swept by the breath of patriotism, glowed like living coals of fire.
The men of the North rushed to arms, and to the rescue, with a
unanimity which seemed to indicate that political animosities and
old party feuds were buried and forgotten. The cowardly sympa-
thizers with treason in these free States were awed into silence,
and not a dog wagged his tongue except to give- in a professed
adhesion to the loyal cause with well dissembled insincerity. I
never trusted these men; I always felt that they were as snakes in
the grass; I continually expected just what has since taken place:
— a cunning, sneaking, hypocritical, diabolical attempt to assasi-
nate the government by stabbing it in the back, while the bolder,
manlier foe should strike in front. But alas! I did not dream that
such multitudes of loyal men would be hoodwinked into alliance
and dalliance with them ; nor that so many of us would ever be
found foolishly playing into their hands, by slandering our own
rulers out of the confidence of the people.

But from that day to this, the administration has steadily,
honestly, and earnestly, pursued its original purpose of putting
down the rebellion and restoring the Federal authority. And,
with all our complaining, it has moved far on in the path toward
ultimate success. See what has been accomplished ! Beginning
without an army — without guns, accoutrements, means of trans-
portation, tents, or commissariat, and, what was worse, beginning
without experience in any of these matters, and with much of the
best educated military talent arrayed on the rebel side ; it has
raised, equipped, mobilized, and found means of sustaining an
aggregate of nearly a million soldiers, who, with all their just and

grievous grounds of complaint in many cases, have been better
paid, better fed, better clothed, and better cared for when sick and
wounded, than was ever an army of similar dimensions before
since the world was made.

Beginning with so small a fleet, it has created a navy of more
than four hundred vessels, including an iron-clad flotilla outnum-
bering all the wooden war-ships we had two years ago, so that
America " rules the waves " — the wonder and dread of all un-
friendly nations.

Beginning with a people of no military habits or tastes — with
a people who never felt the burden of government, and who
hardly knew that they had a country — a people chiefly devoted to
the dollar and far more intent on private advantages than on the
public welfare — it has made us a nation of soldiers, capable of.
giving and taking the hardest blows of war ; and it has put us
well on the way to become also a nation of Spartan patriots,

"True," says an objector, "the administration has got together
a multitude of soldiers ; but it has made miserable work of organ-
izing and managing them." I answer, this was an unavoidable
consequence, considering the material with which the government
had to deal. In officering so large an army, and in organizing it
by joint action with the governors of twenty States, was it to be
expected that no unworthy men would receive commissions?
There might have been wiser selections; but only through the
terrible trial by battle could real merit be discovered: only thus
"could cowardice and incompetence be made manifest. Slowly
and at terrible cost, we are finding out and weeding out the
unworthy officers. The process is exceedingly delicate and diffi-
cult; and it is not unattended with danger that worse ones may
be put in their places ; but the path of improvement is now fairly
entered upon, and every day adds something to the efficiency of
our legions.

There is an apology for the appointment of unworthy men to
both civil and military positions, which it shames me to present.
Commissions are given to men because they show good recom-
mendations. How should a President or Governor know that the
applicant is unworthy, when prominent and respectable citizens
are his vouchers ? And if a knave or a fool get a commission on
the strength of your testimonials or mine, who is most to blame ?
Two conditions are necessary to secure an honest administration
of our government, viz. : An honest President, and an honest peo-
ple. Gentlemen, we have the honest. President ; but do not tell
me the people are honest, so long as they knowingly help unwor-
thy men into places of power and trust.

There is laxity and disorder in the army ; there is recklessness,
waste and fraud in the civil departments ; and I am ready to say
it is a shame that the President doesn't " strike somebody " for
these things, and insist on a purification and a straightening.

But tlien T am compelled to consider the enormous weight of
cares which press upon him; the prodigious multiplicity of details
involved in carrying forward such complicated operations over so
wide an extent of territory; the chances that in employing so
many agents to perform such various business there will be some
unfit and some unfaithful. The remedy is partly with the Presi-
dent, partly with the heads of department, partly with the field
commanders, still more with the people. When we become intel-
ligent and virtuous, matters will move more smoothly. Till then
no power out of heaven can save us, and no power in heaven
save us, from jars and jargons, disorders and disasters. As for
the President, poor man ! he has never learned to split rails with-
out beetle and wedges; and with knotty, gnarly, cross-grained
timber and bad tools, the work must go slowly, and the rails,
when split, must be as crooked and unhandsome as himself.

Consider in another aspect the kind of material with which the
administration has been obliged to deal, and you will see good
cause to think gently of its errors, and to speak well of its work.
Perhaps no man was ever endowed with a higher or more active
sense of general justice than Mr. Lincoln. He could never be the
President of a party nor of a section ; and those who so consider
him have surely mistaken their own prejudices for proofs. He is
perpetually conscious of his obligation to the whole country and
to all classes of its people ; and he respects and wishes to serve
every community and every man — every local and separate
interest, as well as the general mass. This is one of the strongest
points in his character. There are a few dozen " born democrats "
in the country ; and he is one of the intensest kind. He rever-
ences the rights of all, and wishes to promote the welfare of all, so
far as circumstances will permit. I wish he had more of that kind
of individuality and Jacksonian independence which would enable
him to impress himself upon the nation's character and life, so
that we could all look to him as a fountain of both policy and
power: but no! his own sense of justice forbids, because this
would then be his government and not ours. It is in his very
nature and his conscience to look to the people, and to ask what is
their will, that he may be their servant. So he consents to con-
sult those who hold every phase of opinion, with a view to
conciliate and gratify them so far as possible. Not from timidity ;
not from weakness, or want of will ; not because he has no mind
of his own ; not because he is easily influenced, as some wrongly
imagine; not for a wish to make himself agreeable or popular;
but rather from a desire to be just to every body, to give all inte-
rests a fair representation, and to allow all classes a share in the
practical management of affairs, so that this may be in truth a
government hy the ^jeopLe. That is my reading of Abraham Lincoln's
character; and it explains to me the riddles which have so puzzled
the critics of all parties. It explains the apparent indecision, the

11

long halting at the forks of the roads — the no-policy — which for
so long a time characterized his administration in the conduct of
the war, and which came so frightfully near to making shipwreck
of the army and the country, simply because it drove the impa-
tient people frantic, and left the ship to drift for a time without
a helmsman. The whole crew were in council : he was consulting
their will as to the best method of safety.

The President was ready to take at par every body's profession
of loyalty; and he regarded it as both justice and sound policy
to share the management of affairs with all American citizens —
all who would help to save the Union, Thus he filled the first
vacancy in the cabinet, after the war broke out, with a Democrat;
thus he filled the chief places in the army with Democratic gene-
rals; thus also he lent a patient ear to all that might be said about
public policy, about the conduct of the war, and about the dispo-
sition to be made of the slavery question, by men of all opinions ;
by men from Louisiana and men from Massachusetts, and espe-
cially by men from the border States, whose precarious attachment
to the Union he was, with good reason, solicitous to strengthen
and confirm, as there seemed ample need.

And so the war must wait, the nation must wait, the commerce
of Christendom must wait, till he had given all sides a fair hear-
ing, submitting with miraculous fortitude to an irruption of
advisers more trying to the patience than the eruptions of Job.
But when at last he is ready for a decision — when the repousibil-
ity comes home to him alone of choosing between several lines of
policy of which only one can be followed — then the positive qual-
ities of his character came out ; and he shows us the strength with
which he can grasp a conviction; the boldness with which he can
announce, and the firmness with which he can maintain a princi-
ple of duty. His eye sweeps over the vast territory of the
Union and down the nation's future. He sees that slavery is the
arch-enemy of our peace ; that slavery is the arch-traitor to the
Constitution ; that slavery is the only cause of this terrible rebel-
lion, and its chief support ; that slavery is the viper which the
Eepublic has warmed into life, and which has stung its unwise
benefactor; and then, obedient alike to his inaugural oath, to his
view of the public emergency and to the command of eternal jus-
tice, he "puts the foot down firmly " on that viper's neck ! God
bless him! and God blast the viper! [Thundering applause.]

As was to be expected, the President has been very widely and
severely censured : by one class of citizens for not reaching this
conclusion sooner, and by another class for reaching it at all.
These very censures prove how utterly impossible it would have
been for him to adopt any principle or policy, or measure, which
we could all approve ; and that if the nation is to be saved at all,
some of us must consent to waive our preferences and stand by

12

the government, notwithstanding it has not seen fit to adopt our
policy.

I think the long delay, the willingness to give a fair hearing
and trial to other plans, and the manifest reluctance of the Presi-
dent to meddle needlessly with the old order of things, have been
amply justified by the course of events. His policy has arrested
the progress of secession in the border States, and has given the
people of those States time to consider how much more desirable
to them is the Union without slavery than slavery can be without
the Union. His policy has probably given to the national armies
a quarter of a million of Northern Democrats who would never
have enlisted in what their leaders would have denounced as an
"abolition war;" but who, having once had a taste of what seces-
sion means, have lost all scruples about striking rebellion in the
most vital parts.

Gen. Mitchell stated a short time before his death, that while
in Northern Alabama, his troops had been engaged in guarding
the plantations of men who were absent in the rebel army, thus
employing Federal forces to keep slavery alive while the slave
masters should finish the work of destroying the Union ! And
if pro-slavery counsels had prevailed, the President might have
retained an uncertain hold upon the sympathy of a semi-disloyal
people; but he would surely have logt, and would have deserved
to lose, a measure of the confidence of that very large, somewhat
respectable, and wholly loyal bod}'' of citizens who do not believe
that armed traitors have any claim to protection, under ^ Consti-
tution which they disown and seek to destroy. Yet even in that
trying case, very few indeed of these loyal citizens would have
withdrawn their support from the government; they would never
have deserted the banner of the Union, though forced to fight in
discouragement and despair.

I marvel at what the administration has been able to accomplish
in this combination of embarrassing and distracting circumstances.
I marvel that it has been able to disarm Northern opposition and
hold it at bay so long and so well. I marvel at its success in
retaining Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri in the Union ; and
still more that their stay in the Union has at last been made the
decided choice of the people of those States. Equally do I marvel
at the wisdom, moderation and display of power, which have
hitherto made it impossible or impolitic for either England or
France to shake hands with the Confederacy except behind the
door — a state of things which the Emancipation Proclamation has
done much to confirm.

Two years ago, I trusted Abraham Lincoln with trembling.
To-day I trust him without trembling, but with a growing belief
that God has gathered the power of twenty millions of freemen
into the right arm of a single man for no unworthy purpose. If
he will only fulfil his pledges and follow up the work he has so

13

well begun of " saving the Union in the shortest way, under the
Constitution," we shall all be ready to join in the acclaim, " Well
done, good and faithful servant !" and posterity will weep tears of
gratitude over the tomb of one who accomplished a greater work
than AVashington.

Citizens ! as true Union men, it is now an important part of our
work to frown upon the slanderers of the administration, and to
enlighten and correct a public opinion which those slanderers
have bewildered and perverted. We must go before oar coun-
trymen and say, Let us stand by the President of the United
States, as he stands by us! Let us give him men and money,
and generous sympathy in his trying duties, and words of cheer
through whatever days of darkness and disaster may yet await
the Republic. Let us be free to speak words of counsel and of
criticism; but always with a view to help and strengthen, and
never with a view to hinder and embarrass. Let us count that
man a public enemy ivho would break the force of any blow ivhich is
meant to crush the rebellion, or ivho ivould tveaken the arm of any
officer who strikes at treason.

But our natural impatience has made us unjust. The govern-
ment needs not only men and money, but time also, for the per-
formance of a great work. No war goes fast, especially where the
operations are extensive. Great armies watch each other for
months, hoping to secure favorable combinations or desirable
positions, by various strategic manoeuvres. Our fathers fought
eight years to secure a beginning for our national existence; and
we never reproach them for paying too high a price for our liber-
ties. We have fought less than two years. Are our patriotism
and pluck and courage so soon played out? Surely, the fortunes
of war thus far have not been against us, that we should now lay
down our arms. We have fought over a hundred battles, and
have driven the enemy within much narrower limits. We have
lost nothing : we have gained much ; and we hold all toe gain. We
have acquired, and still maintain strong positions on the Atlantic
coast, and on the Gulf, giving us a base of operations in North
Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Louisiana and Texas. We hold
Fort Pulaski, watching the entrance of Savannah. We control
the Mississippi, except at Vicksburg and Port Hudson, although
sixteen months ago, it was in the hands of the rebels from its
mouth nearly to St. Louis. We have taken New Orleans, the
metropolis of the South ; we occupy the capitals of two of the
seceded States ; on the sacred soil of Virginia, Norfolk is again
ours, and Fortress Monroe is our great military and naval depot.
Every considerable force of rebels has been driven out of Missouri,
Kentucky, Arkansas, Western Virginia, and a large part of Ten-
nessee ; the heroic Rosecrans has a well-appointed and hopeful
army of a hundred thousand men far down in the heart of the

14

enemy's country ; Washington is safe, and all is quiet on the
Potomac !

Besides all this, we have maintained, along the extended coast-
line, a blockade so effective that every nation under heaven has
been compelled to respect it ; a blockade winch, co-operating with
our land forces, hugs the Confederacy like an iron band.

While the credit of the South must be rapidly wasting, we have
a masterly system of finance, under which we can triple our
enormous public debt without dangerous depreciation. Every one
of our State governments is in good running order; the constable
with his writ, is respected in every Northern village; the courts of
justice are unimpeded; no school house is shut up; nearly all
branches of industry are alive and thrifty. Men lash themselves
into a fury, and talk like fools and maniacs about the "despotism
of the Lincoln government," and then they put in bids for Federal
contracts, and ask for commissions in the army ! The new and
important questions of Constitutional law which have been sud-
denly sprung upon the government, under circumstances requiring
speedy action, may or may not have been wisely decided; but in
very rare instances have these decisions operated to the inconven-
ience of any except those who have forfeited the right to complain
— men who ought to be hanged, but who certainly could not be
expected to feel —

" the hcalter draw,

WitiL good opinion of the law."

But why am I at such pains to vindicate the administration?
Because confidence in our rulers and leaders is one link in the
chain of our National safety; and because it is the weakest link,
and our cunning enemies are trying to sever it, so that we may all
fall down together in one general ruin, while bloody treason tri-
umphs over us. We must be saved through co-operation with the
administration, or not saved at all. Even you who do not regard
the administration as entitled to so much confidence as I have here
bespoken for it, must idlow that, the weaker the government is,
the more the people must do to strengthen and sustain it. No
possible good can come from divisions and distractions ; we can
only succeed through unity of action ; and there can be no unity
except on the basis of supporting the constituted authorities. No
change of President is possible for two years to come; and ^tyo
years is time enough to lose our cause, either through that foreign
intervention which is encouraged and invited by our foolish quar-
rels with the administration, or through the disgraceful surrender
of our armies, which may be discouraged, broken up, and perhaps
starved, for lack of a suitable moral support, a continuous rein-
forcement of new troops, and that supply of their wants which
must come from the people at home. Before another Preside7it can
be elected, the Confederacy may he recognized and established, as the
first j)ower on this continent^ unless we prevent it by a united and un-

15

faltering support of the present President of the United States, in what-
ever ivar policy his convictions may require him to adopt. If this
policy fails to unite us, what reason is there for supposing that
we shall be able to unite on the policy of a successor, chosen amid
the din of armies and the storm of maddening passions? It is ap-
palling to think that any considerable portion of the people of the
North may be either so blind or so unpatriotic as to risk the ruin
of the Eepublic for the sake of carrying an election, and restoring
their p'olitical party to power. And yet, the attempt, for partisan
purposes, is now being made to alienate the nation's confidence
from its own patriotic standard-bearer, by an unscrupulous and
malignant system of slander ; and this too in the face of an armed
and powerful foe! .Do the men who made James Buchanan Pres-
ident so soon forget that the country was involved in its present
disorders through the criminal folly and pro-slavery servility of
their own statesmen ? — or why is it that they have so far lost all
modesty as to claim for their party and their public men a mono-
poly of administrative wisdom. To me, it is a minor question by
what man or men, by what generals or statesmen, by what party
or policy, my country be saved, if it be only truly and wholly
saved. Perish parties ! perish personal ambitions ! perish poor
private interests and preferences ! — but God save the Eepublic!

And the Republic will be saved ! The blood of our brave sol-
diers is not to be shed in vain ; but it shall wash out the nation's
sin and shame. There is to be no great Slave Empire to darken
and damn the continent for ages; there is to be no divided and
warring people ; but there is to be "Liberty and Union, now and
forever, one and inseparable." The tides of patriotic enthusiasm
are rising again, with ever resounding swell, like the voice of
many waters and mighty thunderings. The kingdom of heaven is
at hand ; Babylon is falling ; the old serpent must die. A sad
waste of grave-clothes, the old fogies will think it ; but Lazarus
must come forth. Much tearing, and wallowing and foaming of
the patient : but the devil must come out. The Great Rebellion
writhes, and rages, and threatens, and spits fire; but One stronger
than the strong man armed has taken it in hand. There are ter-
rible scenes yet to come ; ponderous burdens yet to be borne ;
agony on agony to be endured ; angry tempests to sweep the
sky ; — but, as the Lord God Omnipotent reignetb, this land shall
be redeemed and our children shall eat their bread in peace.
Wiih tears and songs will they honor the memory of the wise in
counsel and brave in fight who carried the Republic through its
great peril, and strangled forever the mighty demon.

i

l\.3^C>0^.Q%^,0^'\^ic