break up our union and you mar all our history. you write all backward the lessons of our country’s glory that we have learned from earliest childhood. you take from us the only object we had learned to regard with patriotic fervour. it is like taking from one’s home the only being that gives it life and loveliness. it is like blotting the sun from the heavens. it is taking from us, at a single stroke, what men, in all ages of the world, have fought for with the most undaunted courage, what no nation on the globe to-day, civilized or not, would ever think of yielding without first risking annihilation. no; we are satisfied with the union that our fathers founded. we are satisfied with the[14] eighty years experience by which it has been tested. we are satisfied with the place it has taken among the nations. we want no new experiments in government. especially do we want none initiated upon the fragments of our own. we know that to the union we owe all our progress and our power, all that we have, all that we are, all that we can hope to be. we know that it is the flag of our union that is recognized on every sea and honoured throughout the world. we know that our little, petty, pompous states sink into insignificance when we leave their soil, and that it is the name of an american citizen that we prize at home, and that gives us character abroad. it is not “the rocky hills and stone-clad valleys” of new england, nor the rich soil and undulating surface of the middle states with their great wealth-bearing mountain ranges, nor the fertile prairies of the west, nor the broad savannas of the south, it is no one of these, but all in one that we have learned to call our country. it is not adams and hamilton and harrison and webster alone, but washington and henry and jackson and clay that we have learned to venerate among our heroes and statesmen. it is not the battle-fields of new england and the middle states alone, but of virginia and the carolinas that make up the glory of our nationality. it is impossible to blot these names from our history. it is impossible to erase these memories from our hearts. and it is impossible to educate a people, with such an ancestry, in such annals, and have them enjoy the blessings of such a government for the larger part of a hundred years, and then undertake to break up their government, either by domestic or by foreign foes, without creating a convulsion that will shake the world.

there is another reason why we will not accept the destructive alternative demanded by the south. it is because we believe that by dismembering the union and establishing two or more separate governments upon its ruins, there can be no such thing as permanent peace. we believe that if you cut the mississippi in two by the border[15] line of an alien nation, and deny the boundless wealth of the mississippi valley all access to the ocean, except under the frowning fortresses of a foreign power you cannot expect to have peace. we believe that to keep our rival systems of tariff and revenue from clashing, along a line extending from the atlantic to the pacific, without natural defences, through vast regions of wild and thinly populated territory, is an impossibility.

and then there must be settled all the preliminaries of a dissolution—questions of boundary, questions of ownership of forts and public property—questions of division of the national debt, and of individual obligation—questions of river and harbor navigation; and then would arise, under forms vastly more difficult of adjustment all the old political questions that have alienated the sections; and then would come treaties and intrigues with foreign powers, and alliances entangling us with all the petty quarrels of europe, and keeping us ever implacable enemies, thus rendering us impotent and without influence among nations. and this is the future to which we are invited. now we have one cause of war; attempt to negotiate a dissolution of the union, and we shall have fifty. and the number would be all the more, by reason of the parties with whom we should have to negotiate. for, i maintain that a set of men, who, like the leaders of this rebellion, would destroy a government like ours, upon pretexts such as theirs, could not be negotiated with, without war. and until their pride is humbled, their power broken, until they have been made to endure somewhat of the bitterness of that suffering they pour out so overwhelmingly upon others, until their arrogance and haughtiness are utterly abased in exile or on the scaffold, there can be no peace upon this continent.

there is still another reason why we will not consent to the disruption of the union. because the probability is too great that it would end here, and in all the world, and for a thousand years the experiment of popular government. already the south disdains the rule of the people. in a[16] population of ten millions, they have but three hundred thousand slaveholders. yet, almost every man in power is a slaveholder. hence, government with them is already in the hands of a class. and then, the tone of their press, and the speeches of their statesmen have aimed for years to degrade labour, have betrayed a growing dislike for the equality of rights demanded by our institutions, and have been coloured with all the assumption and the arrogance of an aristocracy.

and then, the doctrine of secession, which, thirty years ago, we had supposed was crushed forever under the gigantic tread of webster’s logic and the strokes of jackson’s iron will—this principle of disintegration upon which they would base their government, would sooner or later drive them into despotism. and this principle would not be without effect upon the north, for it has many advocates here already. men are as apt in learning lessons of evil as of good. one successful rebellion would become the parent of others. the theory of our government presupposes the existence of various and diverse local interests, to be controlled by local governments. it is impossible for these interests not to be sometimes subordinated to the general welfare. establish two confederacies, and the constant temptation would be held out to states with similar local interests, fretting under imaginary grievances, or maddened by party spirit, to strike off from the parent state on the one hand, and form alliances with similarly disaffected portions on the other. the interests of the western and southwestern states are quite as closely connected by the waters of the ohio, the mississippi, and the missouri, as the interests of either are with the states upon the atlantic seaboard, and would be quite as likely to be formed, ultimately, into a third and independent government as to remain united with the old. oregon and california, washed by the waves of another ocean, and thousands of miles from the central government, would be especially difficult to hold by the north. and the worst future of any such subdivisions would be the necessity that[17] must arise for large and ever-increasing military establishments, both of the army and navy. a frequently recurring or a prolonged state of war not only eats up the substance and palsies the industry of a people, but it is incompatible with the enlarged liberties we claim for the citizen. the qualities of mind and heart which make the greatest generals are not commonly those which inculcate the highest regard for individual rights. the glare and glitter of military reputation cannot outshine, in all the avenues to power, the less ostentatious merits of the statesman and scholar without imperilling free institutions. we risk little from these causes now. no american general now, were he to manifest within a year more than the genius of the first napoleon, could undertake to establish a dictatorship over the american people, without immediately falling from the pedestal of power. for we have not forgotten our earliest teachings. we have not forgotten that the name of washington belongs to our history. we have been educated in the meaning of his great and glorious life, and no man now can command any large influence in american affairs, who is not as ready to lay down power as to take it up. but, let this people learn to lean, for half a century, upon the military arm; place them in a position in which questions must frequently arise to be settled only by the sword; agitate the peaceful current of their lives with ever-recurring waves of war; allow their individuality, their liberty of thought and speech, to become absorbed, year after year, in that oneness of purpose, that subordination to another’s will, which military law requires, and they will become as ready, as others have before them, to seek rest, stability and peace at the expense of liberty and equality, under the rigour of despotic rule.

there is one other thought i would refer to, in considering these causes, which keep the north so true to the union. it is this: these same causes must operate powerfully in hastening the return of the south to her allegiance, when once her military power is broken. i speak, now, upon the supposition that her military power can be broken. this i[18] have never doubted, and never expect to. if we crush her political and military leaders, stop for a season the systematic lying by which she has been deluded, give her time to cool and consider, she will cheerfully return to her allegiance. if her territory were separated from ours by great natural barriers, if she were a distinct and oppressed nationality, like poland, or hungary, or italy, or ireland; if her people were of a different race, spoke a different language, professed a different religion, and were fighting in a righteous, or at least a reasonable cause,—then we might doubt the possibility of the restoration of good feeling. there is no doubt but that the south is carrying on the war with great unanimity, for war creates its own arguments; but there is no reason to believe that the masses of the south have ever been convinced that their leaders were right in beginning the war, or that the breaking up of the union could ever ultimate in anything but disaster to themselves and their posterity. there is great reason to believe that the arch leaders themselves did not contemplate, at the outset, the destruction of this government, with a view of establishing two or more independent ones as a final result. they wanted a new constitution. they could not change the old one in a constitutional way; they chose to make a new one in an unconstitutional way. they expected the border states would immediately come under it; they expected soon to absorb the middle states, and the lower tier of the northwestern states, and finally all the rest, when these had become sufficiently humbled. they expected to avoid civil war; they thought the north quite too craven and mercenary for that, and, as a chief means of success in accomplishing these ends, they counted upon the aid of a powerful party in the north. this aid they received, backed by such journals as the new york herald and scores of others, all advocating the adoption of the montgomery constitution, until the bombardment of fort sumter awoke the loyalty of the northern masses, and the majesty of the united states government.

[19]

there is every reason to believe that, if the question of disunion had been fairly submitted to the people of the south, before the breaking out of the war, they would have decided overwhelmingly against it. the whole region had been so long saturated and cursed with the political heresies of calhoun, that their regard for state rights, their feeling of state pride, had diminished greatly that sentiment of nationality so characteristic of the north. but every other reason i have given to-day in favour of the value of this union, every other reason that can be given, applies with equal force to the south as to the north. they can no more afford to do without the union, than we can. neither can do without it, and ever prosper. and once clear away the bitterness of passion, the pride, the rancour and the unreasonableness that belongs to a state of actual conflict, and the masses of the south will admit the fact. and when men say the union is already dissolved, because the sections are at war, they exhibit little knowledge of human nature or of human history. have they forgotten that almost every country on the globe has had its great rebellion—has been scourged with civil war? do they believe that the animosities now existing between the north and south are any more bitter, or likely to prove any more lasting, than those engendered by the civil wars of england, or of france, or of spain? i know these animosities will live long enough—too long; this generation will not survive them. too much anguish, and passion, and venom for that. but history will reproduce itself here as elsewhere; and when we remember the past, and how soothing are the influences of trade and commerce—how mutually dependent are the products and the industries of the sections—how we are bound together by railroads, and telegraphs, and water-courses, and ties of consanguinity,—there is every reason to believe that, the rebellion conquered, the return of good feeling would be more speedy and more complete than has usually followed the scourge of civil war.

thus, fellow citizens, have i attempted to show to you[20] to-day what they fight for who fight for the union—what those forces are that nerve the arms and inspire the souls of the people: 1st, the sentiment of nationality—a love of country, not bounded by state lines, but including the whole country, with its historic names and memories; 2nd, a belief that no permanent peace could follow a dissolution of the union, and that the wars it would produce would prove vastly more desolating and unending than the one now waging; and, 3d, the probability, the almost certainty, that such dissolution would finally result in the entire abandonment of the democratic principle in government.

i am aware that, in enlarging upon these points, i have told you nothing new. i have, perhaps, told you little from which you would dissent. times like these make all men thinkers, and on all cardinal points all patriots think alike. we are crowding years into days. instinctively we recognize our duties. we learn not now our lessons of highest wisdom from one another. events, god’s teachers and inspirers, are bringing to the surface all our nobler qualities. the objects we had set before us as being worthy the struggle of a life, have all sunk to a lower level, and higher objects have arisen, demanding self-abandonment, self-sacrifice, and absorbing the whole soul in love of country, in care for its honour, in sorrow for its misfortunes, in joy for its triumphs, in devotion to its service even unto death. the prosecution of this war is not with us a matter of choice; we do not regard it as a matter about which we have any right to hesitate or consult our own wishes or interests; it comes to us in the sphere of our highest duties; it prompts us to ask, not so much what we owe ourselves, as what we owe posterity; and we know we shall deserve the just condemnation of history, and the eternal execration of our children, if we do not sacrifice every selfish aim, every social comfort, every domestic tie, every interest of property or life, rather than have this union divided. beside this question of union, the question of slavery, deemed so important by many, sinks out of sight. not but that the latter has important[21] bearings on the war, both in the relation of cause and cure, but the great issue before us is not one of the good or ill of four millions of blacks, but of thirty millions of whites. the majestic duty of the hour is to save this union, for ourselves, for our children and the children of those who would destroy it, for the unborn millions of the north and south, the east and the west. let us, then, honour the dead who die in this cause, and the living mothers who bore them; let us honour the heroes who survive the conflict; let their children be taught to prize the names they inherit, and let it be the joy of the living and the solace of those who mourn the dead, that the men whose names are enrolled on the side of the government, in the battles of ’61 and ’62, will live forever in the hearts of their countrymen, side by side with the soldiers of our great washington. and, moreover, if this war be as righteous as we believe it, it becomes us to counteract, by word and deed, those influences, so widespread, so noxious, and withal so active in diffusing a contrary belief. for there are some men in all sections of the north, some even in the halls of congress, some men and some women in every community, who stigmatise this war on our behalf as wicked and inhuman; and it would be a shame upon our civilization, a reproach upon our courage, our intelligence and our patriotism, and the moral tone of our communities, if we did not meet these calumnies with fitting rebuke, and if we did not our utmost to prevent a shade of doubt or suspicion as to the righteous nature of this war from polluting our northern air, and from invading those northern homes made desolate by the news of battle and of loved ones dying amid its terrors. this is no time for half-way measures or half-way men. this is no time for the deepest convictions of the heart to falter upon the lips, from motives of mere worldly prudence. things must be called by their right names. deeds must be approved or emphatically condemned. men must be what they seem. for or against the government they must take their stand. justice, and judgment, and mercy, demand that there be no trifling,[22] no concealment, no equivocation now. wars have been, may be again, about which we can differ, but this is not one of them.

the president of the united states is exerting all his powers, as it is his duty to do, to save the government from destruction. greater responsibility never rested upon a ruler, and he has done his duty eminently well. he has a right to the sympathy and active aid of every citizen. in some respects he may have overstepped his constitutional powers. men, if true and loyal, may differ from him as to his policy and prerogatives, and their opinions be entitled to respect, but they should praise vastly more than blame. but men, who condemn him yet condemn not the rebellion he is trying to crush are not entitled to respect. the president, his advisers and agents may err; they are but human, but their object is to save the constitution and union; the object of the south is the destruction of both, and wherever and whenever you find men who denounce the former fiercely and the latter faintly, whose eyes are so microscopic that they can discover, in the records of congress and the departments, flaws in legislation and frauds in contracts, and yet cannot see the tremendous fraud and crime of this rebellion; whenever you find men who cry peace, peace, and who mean by peace, and can’t mean otherwise, the independence of the south, the submission of the north, the dissolution of the union and the death of republican liberty, then you have found the deadliest foes your country has in these dark and trying hours.

we shall succeed in crushing this rebellion. true, tidings of disaster float upon the air. god pity the dying soldier, and the desolate homes throughout the land. if we have lost a great battle the war is just begun. we may lose one battle, we may lose fifty, but we will gain more than we lose, and will conquer in the end. we have two men to their one; we have ten times their wealth; we hold the sea, we have infinite resources in reserve upon land; we have a cause that will keep us ever hopeful and defiant, and[23] in the end we must conquer. but we have lessons of wisdom yet to learn, and we must learn some from our enemies. every dollar of property among them, owned by us, they confiscate and use against us in war. every dollar of debt owed by their citizens to ours they claim as the property of their government. they tolerate no enemies among them. men who do not heartily support them they drive out of their country, or into the ranks of their armies. we have not dared to attack them with their own weapons. they never can be conquered till we do; and it may be true that we can only learn wisdom in the severe school of defeat and disaster. but learn it we must and will, and we will teach them, and teach the world, at whatever sacrifice of means and life, that republican liberty in america was not born to die. we know, and we must teach them, that our life-long enthusiasm for popular government, our life-long hope for its spread throughout the world, that all the memories that cluster around this sacred day, hallowing our past and brightening our future, are all involved in, are impossible without, the perpetuity of this union. we know that our lives are worth nothing, that all our aims and achievements are valueless, that we can claim no high standard for conduct or character, that we can find no link to bind us to the immortal men who signed that declaration,{1} if we are to leave behind us, as a heritage for our children, a union “divided, discordant, belligerent,” instead of “liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.”

{1} the declaration of independence which had just been read by john rodgers, esq.