Miracles! Is it then so much more wonderful that water should be turned

into wine, than that a little water and a little earth, under the rays

of the sun, should be turned into the beautiful flowers and luscious

fruits of our gardens and orchards? These same elements are even now

maturing gapes, which, with a little management, under merely natural

forces, directed by a human will, may produce wine fit for the wedding

feast of a king.

Or, in another line of thought, we may ask, Is it much more difficult to

call back a living soul and unite it again to its former body than in

any way to produce that soul at first?

These and the like considerations apply to the subject of prayer, and

the special favors which it is believed to bring. We men are perpetually

turning the forces of nature where we please, and for the most special

purposes: can we for a moment imagine that the Almighty has less of this

power of control than we?

LETTER OF HON. R. J. WALKER, IN FAVOR OF THE REËLECTION OF ABRAHAM

LINCOLN.

_London, September_ 30, 1864.

[The 'Letter of Hon. R. J. Walker' herewith offered to our readers,

is no ephemeral production, to perish with the passing hour. The

views therein offered, the vital principles discussed, the details

given, the facts handled, have a wide bearing on the future policy

and destiny of our country. Marked by the practical wisdom of the

experienced statesman, while glowing with the fervor of the

patriotic citizen, we have induced him to permit us to include this

Letter in the loyal pages of the CONTINENTAL, where so many of his

important financial essays have already appeared. Our readers will

find it a worthy and logical sequence from the premises heretofore

sustained therein by his able pen.--ED. CON.]

The succession of days and years and centuries is noted in calendars;

but it is great events, constituting historical epochs, that mark the

progress and destiny of our race. Decisive battles, vast reforms, civil

or religious, great scientific discoveries or mechanical inventions,

dynastic changes, political revolutions, the union or dismemberment of

states, the birth or death of republics, the rise or fall of

empires--these are the deep notches in the groove of time, the mighty

landmarks in the pathway of humanity. It is the fate of the American

Union, involving the liberty of our country and mankind, that is to be

decided in our approaching Presidential election. How paltry are all

party questions in the presence of an issue so transcendent as this! How

dare we mingle old party names or conflicts with such a question, when

the life of the Union is trembling in the balance! The maintenance of

the Union is the one majestic question, and the _Union party_, in name,

and in fact, is the only one that should exist, until this great issue

is decided. Then, when the Union is rescued from present and future

peril, we may exhume the past, use old party names, or discuss old party

issues, but until then to unfold a party banner, and revive old party

prejudices, is treason to our country and mankind. It is not Democrats

alone, or Republicans alone, as separate parties marshalled against each

other, that can save the Union. During this straggle for the Union, we

do not hear of Democratic or Republican admirals or generals, divisions

or regiments; no, we have only one great Union army, discarding all

party names or symbols, and fighting only for and under the banner of

the Union. It is then a grave objection to the Chicago McClellan

Convention, that, in such a crisis as this, it summoned only a

_Democratic_ Convention, and appealed only to the _Democratic_ party to

save the Government. As well might we summon only a Democratic army to

fight the battles of our country, as conduct such an election as this

under any old party name and banner. Thousands of Republicans as well as

Democrats, together, under the banner of the Union, fight now the

battles of their country. Thousands of Republican as well as Democratic

soldiers sleep in their bloody shrouds, or lie wounded on beds of agony;

but who dare ask to what party they belonged? It was an unholy ambition,

stimulated by party leaders, a thirst for office and emoluments, that

rallied under an old party name at Chicago, when the whole people should

have been summoned to the rescue.

And who met in council at Chicago? Was it the friends of the Union? No,

it was Democrats, as they called themselves, whether unionists or

disunionists. Avowed disunionists constituted a large and influential

portion of the Convention (profaning the name of Democrats) that met

together at Chicago. Who were Vallandigham and Harris and Long and many

other of their compeers, who not only met together at Chicago, but some

of whom were received with shouts of applause, and resolutions moved by

some of them unanimously adopted. It was a meeting of loyal men and

disloyal, peace and war men, unionists and disunionists. Every

disunionist is a traitor. He is for the overthrow of the Republic, upon

the demand of rebels in arms against the Government. Every peace man now

on the Chicago McClellan platform is a disunionist and a traitor,

because he knows, in his inmost soul, that no peace can be obtained but

upon the ultimatum of Jefferson Davis, now officially proclaimed by him

through the secretary of state to foreign Governments, namely, the

severance of the Union, and the establishment throughout the South of a

separate slave-holding empire. Most of these peace men openly avow their

disunion doctrines, while others attempt to conceal their treason, under

the transparent mask of an "armistice," a "cessation of hostilities,"

and an _ultimate_ "convention of the States," ignominiously declaring,

at the same time, by their platform resolutions at Chicago, that to

suppress the rebellion by war _has proved a failure_. What truly loyal

man, by voting for their candidates, will indorse at the polls such a

platform as this? It is a surrender of our country's honor--it is a

capitulation, upon the demand of Southern traitors, whose hands are

dripping with the warm life blood of our sons and brothers, and who now

boldly and defiantly _pledge themselves_ to foreign Governments, as they

always had declared to us, that they will have no peace unless based

upon disunion. Did a Democratic Convention ever before receive avowed

Disunionists and traitors among its number? Did it ever before trail in

the dust the glorious flag of our country? Did it ever agree before,

that our banner should be torn down from half the States and territory

of the Union, and replaced by a foreign standard, having upon it but one

emblazonry--the divinity and perpetuity of Slavery? And shall we treat

with the Confederate authorities on this basis? No; while we will gladly

treat with States and people _desiring to return to the Union_, with

Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet brandishing over our heads the two-edged

sword of Slavery and disunion, we will, in the emphatic words of General

Jackson, "_negotiate only from the mouths of our cannon_."

General Jackson was, in truth, the father and founder of the Democratic

party. Prior to his first nomination in 1823, in the election of

Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, the parties were known as Federal and

Republican. In the fall of 1823, I united with a few friends in calling,

at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the FIRST _Democratic_ meeting, by which

General Jackson was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the

Presidency of the United States. I offered the resolutions in his favor

adopted by that meeting, calling the Democratic State Convention of

Pennsylvania which confirmed that nomination in March, 1824. I attended

that Convention, as a delegate from Pittsburg, and wrote the address of

the Convention to the Democracy of the State and of the Union on that

momentous occasion. I supported General Jackson for the Presidency in

1823 (my first vote), 1824, 1828, and 1832, and uniformly adhered to

the Democratic party until after the rebellion of 1861.

During the great nullification and secession question of South Carolina,

on the first Monday of January, 1833, at Natchez, Mississippi, I made

the opening speech, then published, against nullification and secession,

in favor of "_war_," if necessary to maintain the Union--in favor of

"_coercion_" to put down rebellion in any State. The Legislature of

Mississippi indorsed that speech, and passed resolutions declaring

nullification and _secession_ to be _treason_, and, upon THAT ISSUE, I

was elected by the Legislature to the Senate of the United States. If

Mississippi, under the influence of Jefferson Davis, and other traitor

leaders, has since that period abandoned those principles, she cannot

expect me to follow her, and thereby surrender opinions which I have

uniformly maintained and advocated throughout my life, but more

especially from 1833 until the present period. Mississippi (whose

prosperity I would restore by bringing her back to the Union) indorsed

those opinions when she elected me to the Senate of the United States

over an avowed and distinguished secessionist (George Poindexter), after

a contest of unexampled violence, personal and political, extending from

January, 1833, to January, 1836.

It was on that occasion that General Jackson wrote his celebrated letter

in favor of my election and sustaining my political course. It was after

the adoption of the secession ordinance by Carolina, that General

Jackson sent our war vessels to Charleston to hold and blockade the

harbor, and our troops, under the illustrious Scott, to maintain, by

force, if necessary, the authority of the Federal Government over the

forts commanding the city of Charleston. Let us suppose that the rebels

had then shot down our flag, captured our forts, made war upon the

Union, and proceeded to dissolve it by force--let us suppose that a

committee from any convention had then dared to nominate General Jackson

for the Presidency upon such a platform as that adopted at Chicago,

proposing an armistice and cessation of hostilities until a National

Convention could be assembled, accompanied by the declaration that the

rebellion could not be crushed by war, who doubts what would have been

the course of that devoted patriot? He would have stamped the

disgraceful and treasonable resolutions under his feet, and indignantly

scouted the traitors who offered them. And now this McClellan Convention

at Chicago professes to represent the Democratic party. As Jefferson was

the founder of the old _Republican_ party, Jackson was the father of the

_Democratic_ party. Now, with perhaps one exception, is there a _single

member_ of that Convention (assuming the name of 'Democratic') that

(like myself) supported General Jackson in 1823, 1824, 1828, and 1832,

and uniformly adhered to the Democratic party until after the rebellion

of 1861?

What right had that Convention to assume the name of Democracy, while

trampling upon the advice of the founder of the party, and all its great

and vital principles? How dare they offer an 'armistice' and 'the

cessation of hostilities' to rebels in arms against their country,

especially when the so-called rebel government had again and again

declared that they would negotiate upon no terms, except the

acknowledgment of their independence, and the definitive dissolution of

the Union? But, above all, how dare they record the disgraceful and

treasonable falsehood, that the war to suppress the rebellion had

failed, and ask the freemen of America to indorse at the polls such a

declaration?

And has, indeed, all the blood of patriots shed in defence of the Union

in this war, been poured out in vain? Ye patriot soldiers! now in the

field, say, are you unable or unwilling to suppress the rebellion? Say

it not only in words, but answer the foul accusation by your votes in

the approaching Presidential election.

The Chicago McClellan Convention says that the war is a failure, and

that therefore there must be an armistice and a cessation of

hostilities. Will not your answer at the polls be this: 'It is a foul

and treasonable falsehood?'

And is this war for the Union indeed a failure? Let our many and

well-fought battles upon the ocean and the land answer the question. Let

a country nearly as large as half of Europe, taken from the rebels since

the war commenced, respond. Let Shiloh, and Donelson, and Gettysburg and

Vicksburg, and Port Hudson, and New Orleans, and the Mississippi from

its source to its mouth, answer. Why, this wretched calumny had scarcely

been uttered by the McClellan Convention, when Sherman, the great

commander, and his army had washed out the accusation in the blood of

the vanquished, and unfolded our banner at Atlanta, the grand military

strategic centre of Georgia, never to be recalled. And while the shouts

of the great victory in Georgia were still sounding in our ears,

Oppequan responded to the thunders of Atlanta, and the heroic Sheridan,

after a decided victory, was driving the rebel army from the valley of

Virginia. Was Sherman's campaign from Memphis and Nashville to

Chattanooga, and from Chattanooga to Atlanta, a failure? Why, that

campaign is unsurpassed in history. Was Grant's Potomac advance a

failure? What, the hero of the great campaign of the West, terminating

with the capture of Vicksburg and its garrison, not know, or do his

duty! Was the victory of the Wilderness a failure, or the destruction in

successive battles of one third of Lee's army, together with the seizure

of the great Weldon Railroad, or the repulse there of the Confederate

attack--were these failures? Recollect, Grant was Lieutenant-General,

subordinate only to the President and Secretary of War, in planning the

whole campaign, and, while too much credit cannot be given to the heroic

Sherman and noble Sheridan, and their gallant armies, yet, it must be

remembered, that their great victories and strategic military movements

are but a part of Grant's plan--_concentrating_ the three armies of the

Potomac, the Shenandoah, and the West, so as to seize and hold all the

roads connecting with Richmond, and capture the Confederate army and

government.

And now as to our navy. Were the gallant deeds of Admiral Porter at

Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, the Arkansas, and the Red River,

failures? Were the destruction of the forts protecting New Orleans and

the capture of that city by the illustrious Farragut failures? Were the

capture or destruction by that gallant man, aided by General Granger, of

the forts commanding the Bay of Mobile, together with the occupation of

its harbor by our fleet--and the destruction there of the Confederate

navy--were these failures? Were the capture of the forts and city of

Pensacola, of all the Florida forts, and the fortifications commanding

Savannah--the defeat of the Merrimac and Tennessee--the destruction of

the Alabama--the capture of Port Royal, and of the forts which commanded

it--were these failures? No; the war is not a failure. It is a glorious

and trancendent success. Already the whole Southern and Southwestern

coast is ours. The whole of the Mississippi is ours, with far more than

a thousand miles of its course from Columbus to its mouth, and even to a

considerable extent up the Mississippi and Missouri, which had been once

in the hands of the enemy. Chesapeake Bay is ours, and all its

tributaries, from the Potomac to the James River. The whole coast of

North and South Carolina, of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,

and Texas, with vast portions of the interior, including many

impregnable positions, is ours. Tennessee, one of the seceded States, is

now wholly ours. Kentucky is loyal. Missouri is ours, and has abolished

Slavery. Maryland is ours, and has, I believe, uprooted Slavery also.

Our whole _Territorial_ domain, greater in extent than one half of

Europe (and about Slavery in which this contest began), is now wholly

ours. Not a rebel flag floats within its limits. When before were such

mighty conquests achieved within so short a period? Why, the conquests

of Alexander, of Cæsar and Napoleon covered no such extent of territory.

And, 'we take no steps backward.' Where our flag now is once unfolded in

any part of rebeldom, there it continues to float, and will float

forever. What are we to negotiate about? Is it as to giving up the

Mississippi and its tributaries, together with New Orleans, Vicksburg,

and Tennessee? Is West Virginia, which has been admitted as a new Free

State, to be surrendered? Are Fortress Monroe and the Chesapeake to be

abandoned? Is the rebel flag to float at Alexandria, and on the heights

of Arlington; and are rebel cannon to be planted there, in sight of and

to command the _very capital of the Union_? Are we to insult loyal

Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware, by negotiating about them?

Are we to give back Western to Eastern Virginia? Where is the line of

division to be run, and what armies would be strong enough to maintain

peace upon the border? What portion of the mighty Territories uniting us

with the Pacific are to be surrendered? Are we to turn over to the cruel

despotism of their bloody and relentless masters, the millions of loyal

people of the South, to whom we have given the most sacred pledge of the

protection of the Union? And, last of all, are the two millions of

slaves, as Jefferson Davis complains, who have been emancipated by the

constitutional war proclamation of President Lincoln, are they to be

remanded to Slavery, including the thousands who have so gallantly

fought in our defence? And as to Slavery, or what, if any, may be left

of it, when the war is over, are we to abandon the unquestionable right

to abolish it, as Mr. Lincoln and his friends propose, by a

constitutional amendment? Is Jefferson Davis to come back again as

Senator from Mississippi? Are the traitors Cobb and Thompson to take

their places in the McClellan Cabinet? Is Toombs, of Georgia, (as he

boasted) to call the roll of his slaves on the Boston Common? Slavery,

we know, was the sole cause of the war. It was Slavery that fired the

first gun at Sumter, and demanded to rule or ruin the country. It was in

the name of Slavery that the South seceded; and it was to extend and

perpetuate Slavery, as a blessed and divine institution, that they

avowedly framed the Confederate constitution. In the debates of Congress

of 1860-'61, in the proceedings of the Committee of 1833, in the acts of

the Peace Congress, in the various secession ordinances, by the very

terms of the Confederate constitution, Slavery was the sole cause of

this war upon the Government. Slavery was and is our great enemy, and

shall we not destroy it? Slavery was the sole cause of the war, and

shall it not be eradicated? When the patient calls for a physician, he

seeks for the source of the disease, so as not merely to alleviate

present pain, but to remove the cause, and prevent relapses or

successive attacks. If he deals only with palliatives, to assuage for a

brief period the present suffering, when he can remove the cause, and

restore the patient to permanent and perfect health, he is but a quack

and an impostor.

The party supporting Mr. Lincoln is composed of men of all the old

parties. Its candidate for the Presidency is from the North, and

belonged to the late Republican party. Its candidate for the Vice

Presidency, a brave, loyal, Union-loving man, is from the South, and

belonged (like myself) to the old Democratic party. But the Baltimore

Convention, in the spirit of true nationality and patriotism, discarded

all old party names or issues. It acted only in the name of the Union,

and as one great Union party, and asked all patriots, dismissing for the

present all old party names or issues, to unite with it for the

salvation of the Union.

My first objection, then, to the organization against Mr. Lincoln is,

that it is a mere party organization, arrayed under an old party name,

and marching under an old party banner. In the midst of a great contest

like this, when all old party names and prejudices should be forgotten,

and when Democrats and Republicans should be united as brethren in the

one grand effort to suppress the rebellion, the Chicago McClellan

Convention reopens old party strifes, renews old party issues, and,

denouncing Republicans, assumes the name and professes to represent the

Democratic party. It was the banner of the Union that was raised by the

Convention at Baltimore, and the salvation of the Union, with its rescue

from present and future perils, the suppression of the rebellion, with

the removal of the cause, constituted the only issues presented by that

Convention to the people of the loyal States of all parties.

It was far otherwise at Chicago. It was a mere assemblage of partisans,

some for, and some against the Union, in the search of power and

emoluments. It was the flag of the Union that was given to the breeze at

Baltimore. It was the flag of a party that was unfolded at Chicago.

'_For the Union_' was written on the flag of the one--'For the

Democratic party' was inscribed on the standard of the other. It was

said that the Baltimore Convention has made the abolition of Slavery one

of its issues; but, as well might it be objected that it had made the

prosecution of the war, or the maintenance of the army or navy, part of

its creed. The Emancipation Proclamation of the President had its whole

constitutional force as a _war measure_ TO SAVE THE UNION, and, as such,

it was adopted by Mr. Lincoln as ex-officio 'commander-in-chief of the

army and navy of the United States.' That it was, as a war measure,

perfectly constitutional, I have never doubted, and so declared in an

article published at the time in THE CONTINENTAL MAGAZINE. It is the

duty of all persons, not aliens, to unite with the President in

suppressing a rebellion. Slaves, in the relation which they occupy to

the National Government under the Federal Constitution, are '_persons_.'

As _persons_, they are thrice named in the Constitution, and by no other

name whatever. Especially, under the clause providing for direct

taxation, they are _enumerated_ as _persons_, not _valued_ as

_property_. The term 'person' is used more frequently in the

Constitution than any other, and it is applied expressly to slaves, and

to the whole people of the United States, including the President and

Vice President, who are designated therein as persons. This very

question, whether slaves are persons or property under the Constitution,

arose in the great case of _Groves_ vs. _Slaughter_, when, in 1841 (with

a single dissenting opinion, that of Judge Baldwin), after the fullest

argument on both sides, it was unanimously decided by the Supreme Court

of the United States that slaves, in the relation which they hold to the

National Government under the Federal Constitution, are _persons only_,

and not _property_. Were it otherwise, Massachusetts could not forbid

the introduction of slaves from the South for sale there as merchandise;

for Massachusetts could not prohibit the introduction of the cotton or

any property of the South for sale as merchandise within her limits, for

that would have been a prohibition of the _exports from State to State_,

which is forbidden by the Federal Constitution. My own elaborate

argument before the Court, as one of the counsel in that case, will be

found in the appendix to the first edition of the 15th volume of

Peters's Reports. As _persons_, the President has a right to call for

the aid of all residing in the United States, except aliens, to

suppress the rebellion. He has a right to call for the services of the

loyal or rebel masters for such a purpose, as well as for the service of

their slaves.

It cannot be denied, that the masters, whether rebel or loyal, may be

called and even forced by conscription into the army to suppress the

rebellion. Would it not then be strange if the master could exempt his

slaves from similar services? The only right of the master recognized by

the Constitution, is to the 'service or labor' of his slaves. But he has

a right equally strong to his own service or labor; yet both must yield

to the paramount right of the Government to the services of both or

either to suppress the rebellion. There is not a single word in the

Federal Constitution which, either by inference or express declaration,

exempts slaves, more than any other persons, from the call of the

Federal Government to aid in suppressing a rebellion. Such is the

construction given, by the South to the so-called Confederate

constitution, which is much more stringent than ours in that respect,

for it recognizes slaves as property; yet, the rebel authorities, the

rebel congress and government, force slaves, even by conscription, to

perform military duty--to dig the trenches--to make the earthworks--to

erect the barracks and arsenals--to help to make the cannon, small arms,

and powder, and vessels of war--to construct the fortifications--to

transport the provisions, munitions, and cannon for their armies,

together with the tents and military equipage--to raise the food

indispensable for the support of their military forces--and, of course,

they would, _if they dare_, put arms in their hands to meet us on the

battle field. It is clear, then, not as a confiscation of property

(which is also constitutional under certain circumstances), but as

_persons_, that we have a right to the service of the slaves as well as

of their masters to suppress the rebellion. But it is only by

emancipation (with compensation for loss of their services by loyal men)

that the slaves can be called into our army, and used to suppress the

rebellion. A call by the President for the slaves to serve in our

armies, to risk their lives and shed their blood for the Union,

accompanied by the declaration that they were still slaves, and, upon

the termination of the war, such as survived would be restored to their

masters, with whom their wives and children must still remain in

bondage, would be an atrocious crime, as well as the climax of all

absurdities. No; it is only by emancipation that the services of the

slaves can or ought to be obtained for the suppression of the rebellion.

The Emancipation Proclamation then of the President, with compensation

to loyal masters, is most clearly constitutional during the continuance

of the war, and as a war measure to suppress the rebellion and save the

Union, and such must be the decision of the Supreme Court of the United

States, to which tribunal the President has properly submitted the final

arbitrament of the constitutional question. It is true, when the

rebellion is crushed, the President can issue no new emancipation

proclamation. But neither can he then recall or modify the one already

issued; and if he had the power to recall the proclamation, it would be

an act of perfidy unparalleled in the history of the world. The nation

would be so utterly disgraced by such bad faith as would be involved in

the revocation of the Emancipation Proclamation, as to earn the contempt

of all honest and honorable men, and the loss of sympathy of the

industrial classes and working men of Europe, whose rulers would then no

longer fear to recognize or aid the South. It was the magnificent

uprising of the working classes of England in favor of the Union, that

alone saved both countries from a bloody and disastrous war.

The Emancipation Proclamation being, as we have seen, clearly

constitutional, as a war measure, with a view to save the Union, was

it, as such, wise and expedient? We have seen that the rebel South, even

by conscription, when necessary, used slaves for military purposes, and

those not used directly in that way are required to raise breadstuff's

and provisions (instead of cotton), to supply the Confederate army.

Indeed the debates of Congress for many years past, will show that the

South boasted, not vainly, of their great military strength, because

they declared that, while the slaves would be used in raising provisions

to supply their forces, the whole white population capable of bearing

arms could then be called into the field. This constituted, as they

declared, their _great military strength_. And is it not then a most

important war measure, to deprive them of that all-powerful and

efficient weapon: which, we have seen, can only be done by emancipation?

Now, let us suppose that while we refuse the use of the colored race,

whether bond or free, in aid of the war, they are used for that purpose

by the South, what would be the result? By the census of 1860, the whole

population of the United States was 31,445,080, of which there were

white, 26,975,575; free colored, 487,996; slaves, 3,953,760; total, of

colored, 4,441,756, of which there were in the seceded States 3,653,110,

and in the loyal States, 788,446. Add the whites in the seceded States,

5,449,463, would thus make the whole population of those States, by the

census of 1860, 9,102,573. In the loyal States, the whole population was

22,342,507; of which 21,553,861 were white, and 788,646 colored. Now

then, if the colored race, as we have seen, in the seceding States, are

used for war purposes by them and not by us, the relative number of

opposing forces would be as follows: Loyal States, 21,553,861; seceded

States, 9,102,573; difference in favor of the Loyal States, 12,451,288.

Now, to begin the process, add to the whites in the Loyal States the

free colored, and the total number is 22,342,507; seceded States,

9,102,573; difference in favor of the Loyal States, 13,239,934.

Continuing the process, if we deduct by the emancipation policy the

whole colored population of the seceded States, the result would be,

Loyal States, 22,342,507; seceded States, 5,449,463. But if, concluding

the process, by the emancipation policy we not only deduct the colored

race from the aid of the South, but add it in aid of the Loyal States,

the result would be, Loyal States, 25,995,617; seceded States,

5,449,463; difference in favor of Loyal States, 20,456,154. Thus the

policy opposed to emancipation and to the use of the colored race by us

in the war, mates the difference in our favor as against the South only

12,451,288, whereas the difference in our favor by the emancipation

policy of the President is 20,546,154. Deduct from this the above

12,451,288; final difference, 8,094,866. Thus we see that, by the

President's policy, there is, in effect, a gain to the Loyal States

equivalent to more than eight millions of people, more than 200,000 of

whom are already soldiers in the Union army, all of whom must be

disbanded if Mr. Lincoln's policy was erroneous. Will any say that a

policy which makes a difference in the relative forces of the two

contending parties of more than eight millions of people in favor of the

North, and which has already increased our army 200,000, is not a most

important war measure, aiding us to suppress the rebellion and save the

Government? and, therefore, it is a policy eminently calculated to

preserve and perpetuate the Union. Indeed, it is this measure which

renders the maintenance of the Union certain, and, without it, the Union

is subjected to great peril.

As, then, the emancipation policy of the President is not only wise,

beneficent, and constitutional, but renders certain the preservation of

the Union, while that of his opponents subjects it to imminent peril, I

go for the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln. I go for him as a _Union man_,

and because his emancipation policy will certainly save the Union; and I

go against his opponent, because, however loyal he may be, and however

sincere his desire to save the Union, practically he is a disunionist,

because, independent of the Chicago McClellan platform, his

anti-emancipation and anti-negro policy subjects the Union to imminent

peril. Now, with me, in this, as in all preceding elections, the

preservation and perpetuation of the Union constituted the great

transcendent question, involving the liberty of our country and mankind,

and I can give no vote which subjects it to the slightest peril. Save

the Union, and all else will be added in time (including the _ultimate_

downfall of Slavery, which I predicted and advocated in January, 1844),

has been the doctrine of my life. To that doctrine I still adhere, but

support the President's emancipation policy _now_, because it is the

most efficient, if not the only means of saving and perpetuating the

Union. I opposed emancipation when it was unconstitutional as a _peace

measure_, and because I knew it would cause civil war, invite foreign

intervention, and endanger the Union. I support emancipation now,

because it is constitutional as a war measure, greatly diminishes the

danger of foreign intervention, and insures the maintenance and

perpetuity of the Union. I supported Judge Douglas and opposed the

election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, because I believed it would imperil the

Union. While always denying that his election would justify disunion, I

feared that the rebellion would be the result. In voting against Mr.

Lincoln in 1860, I did so to save the Union from peril. In voting for

him now, it is to suppress the rebellion and maintain the Union. It is

not for Mr. Lincoln as a man (however worthy he may be), that I now

vote--I vote for principles--I vote for the Union--and in supporting

him, I vote for the best, if not the only means to maintain and

perpetuate the Union.

But there is another principle of vital importance involved in this

election. The South, under the banner of Slavery, proceeded to secede

from the Union, immediately after the result of the Presidential

election of 1860 was made known. South Carolina seceded in December,

1860. Mississippi followed early in January, 1861, and the Cotton States

all followed during that and the succeeding month of February. Now, Mr.

Lincoln was not and could not be inaugurated as President until March,

1861. The South did not and would not wait for his inaugural address of

that date to know, under the new condition of affairs, what would be the

policy of his Administration. They did not and would not wait for any

measures of his Administration, much less any act of the Government or

of Congress, but proceeded to secede merely because Mr. Lincoln had been

constitutionally elected to the Presidency by the people of the United

States. Such an act was an overthrow of the great fundamental principle

of all free government, namely, that the majority shall govern under the

forms of the Constitution. It was an attack upon the right of suffrage,

an assault upon the ballot box and the great principle of an elective

President, as provided in our Constitution, and which lies at the very

basis of free institutions. That principle is the vital element of our

existence. It is 'the casing air' of liberty. Take it away, and freedom

instantly expires. The right of suffrage is the great American right of

every citizen, rich or poor, humble or exalted. It is the great

palladium of our liberty. It is a Government, like a mighty pyramid,

reposing on its broad and immovable base, the will and affections of the

people. It is the people's Government, and therefore the people maintain

it, and with us two millions of volunteers have rushed to its support.

Therefore, while it is the best Government in peace, it is the strongest

in war. But secession because of the election of a President, is not

only war upon the Union, but war upon the elective franchise, the great

fundamental principle of free government, and without which it is but a

fleeting shadow. Democrats--people of all parties--my countrymen, while

you are asked now by the Chicago Convention to vote against Mr. Lincoln,

you would nullify by that very vote the right of suffrage, because, what

is that suffrage worth, what is your vote but an empty form, if it may

not elect your President? But if, because the minority who have voted

against you, dissatisfied with your choice, can rebel, make war upon

you, because you thus voted, and set up another President for that

minority by force of arms, what is that but to say that the majority

shall not rule; that the right of suffrage shall be nullified; that the

Constitution, under which that vote was given, shall be overthrown? This

is what the rebellion has done in attempting to destroy the Republic,

merely because of the election of Mr. Lincoln. This arrogant and

insolent slave-holding oligarchy would not even wait to hear what the

President of your choice would say. They treated the President of your

choice, and therefore they treated you and the Constitution under which

you acted, with scorn and defiance. So long as you would act with them,

so long as the Northern parasites would adhere to the Southern upas tree

of Slavery, so long as the 'mudsills' of the North, as they arrogantly

called you, would obey the orders of their Southern masters, so long as

you would be their slaves, they would permit the President to be

inaugurated. But so soon as you elected a President against their

dictation, then your suffrages should be nullified by the rebellion of a

minority against the majority. What is this but to say, that the

majority shall not elect a President, and thus render the right of

suffrage an empty form, striking at the fundamental principle of free

government, and substituting the _bayonets_ of the minority for the

_ballots_ of the majority of the people? Freemen of America, is it

possible that by voting against Mr. Lincoln now because of the Southern

rebellion, you will thus declare that the election of a President by the

people is not to be maintained, but that his reëlection is to be

defeated, and that his authority, as your President and as your

representative, is therefore never to extend over the _whole United

States_, because a rebellious minority oppose it by force of arms? This

is one of the transcendent issues involved in this contest. It is in

fact the great question whether the majority shall rule or the

minority--whether self-government is an unreal mockery, or whether it is

indeed a God-given right of _man_, born in the image of his Maker. You

voted that Mr. Lincoln should be President of the _whole United States_.

That was your decision at the ballot box. Has it been obeyed? No: an

arrogant slave-holding minority has rebelled against it, and, within the

boundaries of the area occupied by that minority, has suppressed your

election by the bayonet, and substituted Jefferson Davis, one of the

rebel leaders, in place of Abraham Lincoln. Within the limits of that

rebellion, the power, under the Constitution, which you devolved upon

Abraham Lincoln, has been nullified by force of arms, and now, if you

abandon the war, or defeat his reëlection, your choice will have been

nullified, and he never will have exercised throughout the United States

the power given to him by your suffrages under the Constitution. Now the

party in the North thus acquiescing in this destruction of the right of

suffrage, dares to assume the sacred name of Democracy, which you know

is but Anglicized Greek, meaning the _power of the people_. Shade of the

immortal Jackson! the father and founder of the Democratic party, burst

the cerements of the Hermitage, and blast with the thunders of New

Orleans the wretched traitors who thus dare to profane the sacred name

under which you were chosen President of the United States.

But there is another grave objection to the McClellan platform adopted

at Chicago. It is its _intentional ambiguity_. The Convention was

composed of unionists and disunionists, of peace and war Democrats, as

they style themselves, and the platform was adapted to suit the views of

both these parties in and out of the Convention. It was a platform upon

which the temple of Janus was to be closed, but with side doors at

either extremity, into one of which the peace men with their olive

branches should enter, and the war men in full military array in the

other, and the lion and the lamb meet together in the centre in cordial

agreement. But, it appears that the war men in this case were only asses

in lions' skins, for in the compromise between antagonistic principles

and candidates, the peace men got far the better of the bargain. While

there were some vague and glittering generalities in favor of the Union,

they were connected with conditions which rendered the destruction of

the Union certain, namely, an armistice and cessation of hostilities,

accompanied by the false and flagitious declaration, calculated to

encourage the enemies of our country at home and abroad, namely, that

the war to suppress the rebellion was a failure. Remember, soldiers,

that the McClellan platform declares that your battles are failures;

that your blood has been shed in vain; that your arms can never crush

the rebellion; that you are inferior in courage to the slave-holding

rebels; that you must admit your defeat, throw down your muskets, return

in disgrace to your homes, disband the army, lay up the navy, recall

Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and Gilmore, and Admirals

Farragut, Porter, Dupont, Davis, and Winslow, and leave it to the

civilians of Chicago, Vallandigham, Harris, Long, PENDLETON, and others,

to negotiate a peace.

Now what is an armistice? It is defined to be a suspension of the war

for a limited period. There may be conditions added, but none are named

in the McClellan Chicago platform. Of course, then, it means a cessation

of hostilities by land and sea. Indeed, the platform is weaker than

this, for it proposes directly a 'cessation of hostilities,' not by land

only, or by sea only, but, of course, by _both, as the words are

general_. Now then, the blockade of the rebel ports, and the capture or

destruction of blockade runners and their cargoes, is war upon the

ocean. This blockade, then, is to be abandoned during the armistice, for

there is to be a cessation of hostilities upon the ocean and the land.

During this interval of peace, when there is to be no blockade of the

Southern ports, what is to follow? By their own accounts and estimates,

the Confederates have within their limits, in cotton (at present

prices), tobacco, and naval stores, a value exceeding one billion of

dollars in gold. Now then, so soon as the armistice was agreed upon, the

war upon the ocean, including the blockade, having ceased, the whole of

this cotton, tobacco, and naval stores, would be shipped to Europe, or

partly to Nassau, on the way to Europe, and this enormous amount

realized by the Confederate government in gold. We know what tremendous

disasters have been produced by the cotton famine in England, France,

and other countries. Now, the first effect of such shipments would be

the total ruin of all our manufactures of cotton and other textile

fabrics. But another still more serious result would follow. We know

that Louis Napoleon is the bitter enemy of the Union; we know that he

has again and again declared that we could not suppress the rebellion;

that he has earnestly thrice endeavored to persuade the British

Government to unite with him in acknowledging the independence of the

South--twice through efforts made directly upon the British Cabinet, and

once through Roebuck and Lindsay, members of the House of Commons, to

induce it by a parliamentary vote to compel the British Ministry to

unite with the Emperor in acknowledging the independence of the South.

That Louis Napoleon is our bitter enemy, is proved also by the

French-Mexican war, in which England, and even Spain, separated from

him. It is proved also by the diplomatic correspondence of Jefferson

Davis, and by his friendly and approving recognition of the

establishment of the French Imperial Government in Mexico. It is further

proved by Louis Napoleon's own letter, in which he declared, that one of

the objects of the Mexican war was the establishment of the equilibrium

of the Latin race upon the American continent. It is farther

demonstrated by the proceedings of the French in Mexico, and especially

recently at Matamoras, in the mutual aid given and received by the

French and Confederate forces. Now, what is the meaning of establishing

the equilibrium of the Latin race on the '_American continent_'? In the

first place, it means European military intervention; in the second

place, it means to embrace not only Mexico, _but the whole Latin race on

the American continent_. By the Latin race is included all Spanish

America. It means, then, in the future, if our Government is overthrown,

that all Spanish America, from the northern boundary of Mexico to Cape

Horn, is to be consolidated into one great Power under imperial sway. It

means to include in this vast empire the command of the Isthmus of

Tehauntepec, the route by Central America (about which Louis Napoleon

has written so much), by Honduras and Chiriqui, but more especially the

Panama, as also the Atrato routes.

In the great future, whoever commands these routes, especially together

with that of the Isthmus of Suez, which I visited a few months since,

and which Louis Napoleon has nearly completed, will command the commerce

of the world, and, as a consequence, ultimately control the institutions

of the world. Such are the tremendous problems teeming in the brain of

Napoleon the Third, and all, as he believes, depending upon the

destruction of the American Union. I speak of what I know from a

residence now of nearly two years in Europe. Thus it is that Louis

Napoleon intends to bring us within the centrifugal gravitation of the

European balance of power. This wonderful man proposes to extend this

system from the old continents to the new, embracing both, and thus hold

in his grasp the equilibrium--the balance of power of the world. We may

well imagine what that equilibrium will be when Napoleon the Third shall

hold the balance in his hands. Already he has considerable possessions

(insular and continental) in North and South America, and Mexico, under

Maximilian, is substantially a French dependency. He holds Algiers. He

is colonizing Egypt (as I myself saw this year) by his railroads and

canals. He has seized and colonized Cochin China and Annam. He has made

Italy a dependency on the bayonets of Franco. Now then, under these

circumstances, when the blockade shall have terminated, and Jefferson

Davis, who is quite as ambitious and even more talented than Louis

Napoleon, shall hold in his hand more than a billion of dollars' worth

of Southern products ready for immediate shipment, may he not, and will

he not say, through his most able and adroit diplomatic representative

at Paris, 'Recognize the independence of the South, and all these

products shall be shipped for sale in France, and to French

manufacturers,' and thus enable France to crush for the present the

cotton manufacturers of all the rest of the world. It is well known in

Paris that Mr. Slidell is upon terms of the most intimate association

with Louis Napoleon, and has thoroughly convinced him that we cannot

suppress the rebellion. Is it not, then, clear, anxious as Napoleon is

for the success of the South, that he would, in the event of McClellan's

election, at once recognize Southern independence. Indeed, it is the

boast of the Confederate leaders in Europe, since the adoption of the

platform at Chicago, that, upon the election of their candidates,

without waiting four months for the inauguration in March next, Napoleon

will AT ONCE recognize the Confederate government. Indeed, I do not

doubt, from the circumstantial evidence (although I do not know the

fact), that there is already a secret understanding between Jefferson

Davis and Napoleon the Third to recognize the independence of the South

upon the election of the Chicago candidates. Why wait four months, until

the 4th of March next, when the American people, by indorsing the

Chicago platform, shall have declared for peace, with the additional

announcement in that platform, that the war for the suppression of the

rebellion has failed?

If, indeed, that war has failed, and we cannot thus suppress the

rebellion, it would not only be the right, but, upon the principles of

international law, the duty of every foreign power to acknowledge

Southern independence. Thus is it that the Chicago McClellan platform

invites recognition. What is the meaning of the recognition of the

independence of the South by France, under such circumstances? IT MEANS

WAR. It means, in the first place, commercial treaties stipulating great

advantages in favor of France, and perhaps other Powers. It means, of

course, the overthrow of the blockade, so as to carry out those

treaties. It means conditions destructive of our interests, and

favorable to the recognizing POWERS. It means advantages and

discriminations in tariffs and tonnage duties, and navigation

privileges, which would exclude us from Southern ports, including New

Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi, and deprive us of the markets

of the South. Such a recognition, then, with its attendant consequences,

means war--war not only with France, but probably with England and

Spain, and other Powers. Doubtless, upon the election of the Chicago

candidates, Napoleon would again ask the Ministry of England to unite

with him in recognizing the independence of the South, and to

participate in the benefits of the proposed commercial treaties. Who can

say that England, under the dangers and sacrifices incurred by a

refusal, would again decline the offer?

It is clear, then, that the election of the Chicago candidates involves

the most imminent peril of war with France, if not with England, both

acting then in alliance with the Confederate government. That my country

even then would accept the contest rather than the dishonor and ruin of

disunion, I do believe; but who can predict the result of such a

conflict? My countrymen, we are speedily approaching the very edge of a

dark and perilous abyss, into which we may be soon plunged by the

election of the Chicago candidates; I implore you not to make the dread

experiment. You must know that there will be no recognition of the

independence of the South by France or England, or any other Power, if

Abraham Lincoln should be reëlected in November next. The American

people will then have loudly proclaimed, through the ballot box, that

they can and will subdue the rebellion by force of arms; and that they

will continue to negotiate from the mouths of our cannon, until the

Southern armies shall have been dispersed and vanquished. Upon the news

of the reëlection of Mr. Lincoln reaching Europe, the Confederate stock,

now waiting the success of the Chicago candidates, will fall, like

Lucifer, to rise no more. American securities, including those of the

Federal and loyal State Governments, of railroads, and other companies

with real capital, will all be immensely appreciated. The difference in

favor of our country, including the rise in greenbacks, would be

equivalent in a few months to hundreds of millions of dollars. Nor is it

only our stocks that will rise at home and abroad, but the national

character will be immensely exalted. The friends of our country and

liberty in Europe, including the grand mass of the people, will echo

back the exultant shouts of freedom as they roll on from the Pacific to

the Mississippi, from the Mississippi to the lakes, and, bounding from

the glad Atlantic, are carried by steam and lightning to the shores of

Europe. The fetters of American Slavery will be broken by such a result,

and man--immortal man, of whatever race or color, born in the image of

his Maker, will emerge from chatteldom, and rise to the dignity of our

common humanity.

There is one point still remaining of vast importance. It is the

question of Slavery, so far as it yet lingers within our borders.

Without entering upon other aspects of that case, we call attention to

the proposed amendment for the purpose of abolishing Slavery on the

recommendation of Congress and the ratification of three fourths of the

States, as provided in the Federal Constitution. This is recommended by

Mr. Lincoln, and it is a plank in the Baltimore platform. It passed the

Senate by a more than two-thirds vote, but was defeated, _by the

Democrats_, by a vote of 69 to 94, in the House, thus failing to receive

the two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress as required by the

Constitution. If, as has been heretofore shown, Slavery is the great

enemy of the Union, and was the sole cause of the rebellion, why not

extirpate the _cause_ of the war? Why not remove what may remain of

Slavery after the war is ended, by the proposed amendment, as

recommended by Mr. Lincoln? This is a war and a Union measure,

calculated to crush the rebellion, to maintain the Union, and to prevent

any future effort to effect its overthrow. This measure, which would

settle finally and forever the Slavery question, will succeed at an

early period, if Mr. Lincoln should be reflected. But this measure the

Democrats oppose, and desire to _keep open_ the Slavery question, for no

object that can be perceived, except to renew the old party alliance

between Slavery South and its Northern supporters, with a view to party

triumphs. If General McClellan succeeds, Slavery, so far as it still

exists, will be cherished, maintained, and perpetuated. The viper will

be warmed into life again, and although it might perhaps recoil for the

present, it would only be to strike at some future period with greater

force and venom at the life of the Republic. These men tell us they are

for the _Union as it was_. Are they for the revival of such scenes as

were perpetrated by Brooks in the American Senate? Are they for the

Kansas frauds and murders and forgeries, including the forgery of a

constitution? Are they for the right of secession, or, while they

dispute the right of a State to secede, do they deny with Buchanan and

Pendleton the right of the Government to prevent its secession? Are they

against secession, but against coercion also? Are they against

rebellion, but opposed to its overthrow by force! Throughout the South,

under the Union as it was, there was no freedom of speech or of the

press, on any question connected with Slavery. Are they for the sale,

under the Union as it was, even of free negroes into perpetual bondage?

Are they for the denial of the rights of Northern citizens throughout

the South? Above all, are they for the renewal of the African slave

trade, as notoriously occurred in 1859 (during the Administration of

Buchanan), at Savannah, in Georgia, when the wretched victims, just

stolen from their native homes in Africa, were carried to Savannah, and

there, in defiance of the Federal Constitution, openly distributed by

sale among the boasted chivalry of the South? If the Chicago candidates

and their party are for these things--if they are for the Union as it

was in these respects, I am against them. I am for the Union (as clearly

intended by the fathers and founders of the Government) as it will be

when Slavery (its great, and, in fact, its only domestic foe) shall

have been entirely extinguished. While I am for the extinction of

Slavery as a Union and as a war measure, I am consoled by the reflection

that, while it will secure the perpetuity of the Union, it will vastly

increase our wealth and power, and advance all our industrial and

material interests. For several years past I have examined this

question, and, in various essays, published at home, but more especially

abroad, have proved by official statistics, from the censuses of 1850

and 1860, that, under the system of free labor and free schools which

exist in the North, as compared with the South, the product of the Free

States is $217 _per capita_, and that of the slave-holding States $96

_per capita_. Also, that the lands of the South are worth $10 per acre,

and of the North $25 per acre. It was further proved by me, in those

essays, by the same official data, that, exactly in proportion to the

number of slaves is the decreased production _per capita_ in the Slave

States; that of South Carolina, with 402,406 slaves and 291,388 whites,

being $66 _per capita_, and of Delaware, with 90,589 whites and 1,798

slaves, being $143 _per capita_; while that of Massachusetts, with her

sterile soil and severe climate, and far inferior natural advantages,

was $235 _per capita_; and the same rule was also shown to hold in

counties of the same Slave States, those counties with few slaves always

producing more _per capita_ than those having many. The result was, as

shown by the census, that if the production of the South in 1859 had

been equal _per capita_ during the same year to that of the Free States,

the additional value of the Southern products would have been

$1,531,631,000 in 1859, and in the aggregate of the decade from 1859 to

1869, $17,873,539,511, exclusive of the addition from the annual

reinvestment of capital. The addition, then, to the value of the

products of the South in a single year, caused by the substitution of

free for slave labor, would be nearly equal to our whole present

national debt, while in the aggregate of the ten years succeeding it

would be nearly ten times greater than the whole national debt, thus

leaving us far richer after the next census, as a consequence of

increased production, notwithstanding the national debt, than if the

rebellion had never occurred. Thus is it that the ways of Providence are

justified to man, and that Slavery chastises its own advocates, while

its overthrow brings increased wealth and safety and honor and happiness

and prosperity to the country. While I do not advocate, then, the

abolition of Slavery in defiance of the Constitution, because it would

make us more wealthy and powerful, more honored, happy, and prosperous,

yet I rejoice that in supporting emancipation, as Mr. Lincoln does, as a

Union and as a war measure, the overthrow of this accursed institution

will be attended with countless benefits to my country and mankind.

Suppress the rebellion by the overthrow of the Southern armies, and

re-establish the Government throughout all our wide domain upon the

broad and eternal foundations of freedom, truth, and justice, then

neither domestic traitors nor foreign despots will ever dash against its

adamantine base. There it will stand, and stand forever, the mighty

continental breakwater between the continents of Asia and of Europe,

against which the breakers of internal faction, and the waves of

despotic power would dash in vain. To that home of the oppressed, to

that asylum of genuine and universal freedom, millions from the Old

World would then come, and unite with us in strengthening and

maintaining a Government based upon the rights of humanity, and

sustained by the affections of the people. While our physical force and

accumulating wealth would thus be rapidly and vastly augmented, our

moral power would be increased in a still grander ratio. Then the cry of

tyrants, that self-government is a phantom, and republics a failure,

would cease to oppress the listening ear of humanity. Then the chains

would soon fall everywhere from the limbs of the slave. Then the

reactionary and feudal party of Europe, now so loudly proclaiming

republics a failure, while exulting over the anticipated fall of the

American Union, would retire discomfited from the contest, while the

rights of man would be immensely promoted, and civilization advance, at

a single bound, more than in the lapse of many centuries. The great

liberal party of England, headed by those immortal champions Bright and

Cobden, would rouse like giants refreshed from their slumber, and carry

the flag of the vote by ballot and extended suffrage triumphantly

throughout the British realm, while Ireland, oppressed Ireland, would

then receive the fullest justice. Then, indeed, all past differences

between England and America would be sunk forever in fraternal concord,

and the peace of the world be maintained. Then Napoleon the Third, who

keeps an army of 600,000 men as a standing menace to Europe and the

world, and who has just, for the present, and for the present only,

extinguished in blood the freedom of Mexico, must abandon his ambitious

projects, or shiver his diadem upon the adamantine rock of popular

freedom.

But there are complaints from the so-called Democratic party that the

President, and especially the Secretary of State, have surrendered the

Monroe doctrine, and abandoned Mexico to her fate. There is no truth in

this accusation. The President and the Secretary of State, _as regards

the future_, are wholly uncommitted on this question, unless, indeed, it

be for Mexico, by announcing that the people of the loyal States are

unanimously in her favor. I say they are uncommitted for the future, and

the real objection to their course is this: that they have not gratified

the South and its Northern allies, by engaging, ere this, in a war with

France, so as to bring her vast forces in aid of the Confederate

government. Indeed, Mr. Seward is cursed everywhere by the Confederates

and their allies throughout Europe for preventing a war, _at this time_,

on the Mexican question, between France and the United States, 'There is

a time for all things,' and, as I have said before, our only question

_now_, is the salvation of the Union; and when that is secured, will be

the proper period to consider other subordinate questions, foreign or

domestic. No man can speak with more feeling on this question than

myself, for it is a well-known fact that I earnestly opposed, as a

member of the Cabinet of Mr. Polk, the Mexican treaty of 1848, among

other reasons, upon the suggestion then made by me, that if we abandoned

Mexico, it would subject us to the danger of European interference there

(just as it has occurred) by force of arms. That treaty was carried by a

constitutional majority of only three votes, mainly through the

instrumentality of Mr. Calhoun, who was against the invasion of Mexico,

and for 'masterly inactivity,' resting on the banks of the Rio Grande,

because he knew (as declared in my Texas letter of January, 1844)

'Slavery never could cross the Rio Grande,' and that, as a consequence,

all of Mexico which we would permanently hold, as we ought to have done,

from Texas to Tehuantepec, would, Mexico having abolished Slavery, have

become Free States. I believed also that the permanent occupation and

annexation of Mexico would have forever settled all the dangers of the

Slavery question, because it would have flanked the Slave States of the

Southwest, by many powerful Free States adjacent on the Southwest,

containing already seven millions of people, most of whom were of the

colored race, and who would have fought to the last against the

reëstablishment of Slavery.

Yet, strong and decided as is my opposition to the course of Napoleon on

the Mexican as well as the Confederate question, I believe that the

policy of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward on this question has been marked by

great courage, devoted patriotism, and the highest statesmanship. I am

not for mingling this or any other question of foreign or domestic

policy with the maintenance of the Union, but have only answered the

assaults of adversaries on the Mexican and other subordinate issues.

This, however, I must say: that the treaty with Mexico, by which we

abandoned that country, having been ratified, I am opposed to any

violation of its provisions. While I adhere to the opinions expressed at

the time by me against that treaty; while I am opposed to forcing Mexico

into our Union, I believe that Napoleon the Third, unwittingly, by his

invasion, has caused Mexico soon to gravitate, by the overwhelming wish

of her people, into the arms of the great Republic. Thus is it that the

French invasion will have settled forever in our favor the question of

the American equilibrium.

I have published the views expressed in these letters on consultation

with no one. They are my own individual opinions, and I only am

responsible for them. It is quite possible that the Administration may

differ from some of them, but I am just as independent of the

Administration as they are of me. I am not, and never was, a Republican

of 1856 or 1860, and while I have been falsely charged in Europe with

abandoning my free-trade principles, in consequence of the constant and

earnest support given by me to Mr. Lincoln, it must be remembered that a

majority of his Cabinet of 1863 had been Democrats, and supported the

Tariff of 1846. But the Tariff is a very subordinate question, compared

with the salvation of the Union. Besides, if the Tariff of 1846 was

changed, it was not until the 2d of March, 1861, and the change was

caused intentionally, by the previous withdrawal of the Senators and

Representatives of the seceded States from both Houses of Congress.

I have another answer to this charge. I was for the _free list_ of the

Tariff of 1842, as distinctly stated in my first annual Treasury report,

so as to increase our exports, especially of dyed cotton goods, thereby

producing a corresponding augmentation of our imports and revenue. That

portion of the act of 1846 was defeated by Mr. Calhoun, much to my

regret, injury, and annoyance.

Besides, the South, by its rebellion, and by thus forcing on us an

enormous Federal debt, has rendered impossible for many years any other

Tariff but that which will bring the largest revenue. Until this debt is

paid, we must have the highest Tariff for revenue, and it can be so

arranged as, while yielding, when the Union is restored, at least

$150,000,000 annually in gold, at the same time to furnish all

incidental aid to American industry that could be desired.

I have thus far discussed the question as confined to the contest

between the respective candidates for the Presidency of the United

States. But let those who think of supporting General McClellan for the

Presidency remember that, in sustaining him, they must necessarily vote

for Mr. Pendleton for the Vice Presidency. McClellan and Pendleton are

the Siamese twins of Chicago, inseparable, and all who vote for the one,

vote at the same time for the other. No voter can cast his suffrage in

this contest, except by voting for an electoral ticket, and the same

electors for General McClellan who may be chosen in any State, are to

vote for Mr. Pendleton for the Vice Presidency. In other words, if

General McClellan is chosen President, Mr. Pendleton is elected at the

same time to the Vice Presidency of the United States. Now, recollect,

that the Vice President not only presides over the Senate of the United

States, and gives the casting vote in that body, but that, in case of

the death of the President, the Vice President becomes President of the

United States. Now, two Presidents of the United States, within the last

twenty-three years, have died during their term of office (Harrison and

Taylor), and one of them within a month after his inauguration. In both

these cases, the Vice Presidents chosen on the same electoral ticket

with the President, reversed the policy of the President elect. Tyler

reversed the policy of Harrison, and Fillmore reversed the policy of

Taylor. Why may not the same thing again occur, if Mr. Pendleton, by the

death of General McClellan, should succeed him as President? This

renders an inquiry into the course and views of Mr. Pendleton a question

of vital importance.

Now, Mr. Pendleton, as his votes and speeches show, is against the war

for the Union, and has declared the coercion of a seceding rebel State

not only '_impracticable_,' but 'unconstitutional.' His words are, in

big speech in Congress of the 18th January, 1861, after most of the

Cotton States had seceded: 'Sir (he then said) the whole scheme of

coercion is impracticable. It is contrary to the genius and spirit of

the Constitution.' In accordance with these anti-coercion and anti-war

views, he continued to vote against the prosecution of the war, and

against all the great measures passed for that purpose. He further then

said, 'If your differences are so great that you cannot or will not

reconcile them, then, gentlemen, let the seceding States depart in

peace; let them establish their government and empire, and work out

their destiny according to the wisdom which God has given them.' This is

exactly the doctrine of Jefferson Davis, and of all the rebel leaders:

'LET US ALONE.' _Let us alone_, while we overthrow the Government and

dissolve the Union; _let us alone_, while we seize the mouth of the

Mississippi, and tear down or shoot down the flag of the Union from

every fort of the South. This is their language, and the Chicago

Convention might just as well have nominated Jefferson Davis as George

H. Pendleton as their candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United

States. Such a nomination of an avowed disunionist shows the true spirit

of the Chicago Convention, and that all their general expressions of

devotion to the Union were mere empty sounds, calculated to secure

votes, but utterly false and hypocritical; for, while indulging in these

pharasaical expressions of love for the Union, they nominate, at the

same time, as their candidate for the Vice President, an avowed

secessionist and disunionist. We have nothing to do with the abstract

opinions or wishes of Mr. Pendleton as regards the Union. Jefferson

Davis repeatedly, and up to the very period of secession, expressed

quite as much devotion to the old flag and to the Union as Mr.

Pendleton. But Mr. Davis soon became the head of the rebellion which Mr.

Pendleton declares we ought not, and have no constitutional power, to

suppress by force. Far all practical purposes, then, Mr. Pendleton is

just as much a secessionist and disunionist as Jefferson Davis. Nor can

it be alleged that Mr. Pendleton has changed these views. On the

contrary, as late as this year he voted in Congress against the test

resolution of Green Clay Smith, of Kentucky, declaring 'that it is the

political, civil, moral, and sacred duty of the people to meet the

rebellion, fight it, crush it, and forever destroy it.' Now then, the

Chicago Convention, with a full knowledge of these votes and speeches,

nominated Mr. Pendleton for the Vice Presidency, and contingently for

the Presidency of the United States. They knew full well that Mr.

Pendleton had declared the effort to crush the rebellion impracticable

and unconstitutional, and that, therefore, if the power they proposed to

give him were ratified by his election, he could, and under his oath of

office to support the Constitution, he must, disband our armies,

terminate the war, and permit the dissolution of the Union to be

consummated; or he might repeat his own words of 1861: Let the seceding

States depart in peace; let them establish their government and empire,

and work out their destiny according to the wisdom which God has given

them.' It is, then, a sufficient objection to the Chicago candidates

that Mr. Pendleton, one of the candidates, inseparably connected with

General McClellan on the same electoral ticket, is, as we have seen,

opposed to the war, and for all practical purposes as much a

secessionist and disunionist as Jefferson Davis. This being clear, if

General McClellan is really for the war to save the Union, by crushing

the rebellion, he must refuse to run on the same electoral ticket with

Mr. Pendleton; and if he does not, the people and history will assign to

him the same position. He cannot lend his name to aid the election of

Mr. Pendleton on the same ticket with himself, and profess devotion to

the Union.

There is yet another point on which I would say a word. It is this: From

the proceedings of the Canada Confederates, and their Northern allies,

and the outgivings of the Richmond press, I conclude that their last

suggestion is this: two or more confederacies, Northern, Southern,

Middle, New England, Northwest, Mississippi, and Pacific. They are to be

united by free trade between them all, and by an alliance offensive and

defensive. That is, whenever any one of these confederacies go to war,

we are to join them in the conflict. Namely, if the Southern Confederacy

wishes to conquer and annex Cuba or Porto Rico, or to conquer and extend

slavery to Central America, and war follows, we are to join them in the

war, and sustain them with our blood and treasure. If so, the temple of

Janus will never be closed on our continent, and war will be our normal

condition--a war not declared by us, or in our own interest, but by the

South, as a foreign government. Such an alliance is visionary, ruinous,

and impracticable. It is simply a scheme to secure Southern

independence.

Then, as to the free trade to be secured by treaty between the several

confederacies. Recollect that each of these nations is to be foreign and

independent, and to have its separate treaties with foreign Powers. How

long would such treaties and such an alliance last? Why, the flag of the

South would scarcely float over the mouth of the Chesapeake and

Mississippi, before the conflict with us of views and measures would

begin, nursed and promoted by foreign Powers, where each of the new

confederacies would have its separate ministers, representing distinct

and discordant interests. When have such alliances or treaties lasted

even for half a century? Where are all the leagues of antiquity or of

modern Europe? Where are all such leagues and treaties even of the last

century? Where is our own alliance with France of 1778? Where all such

alliances and treaties even of the first half of the present century?

They are all extinguished. Experience proves--the voice of history

proclaims--that treaties or alliances between independent Powers are

always of short duration, being soon swept before the gust of contending

passions, or melted in the crucible of conflicting interests. Where is

the celebrated alliance and treaty of 1814 and 1815 of Vienna, between

the great European Powers, establishing FOREVER, by a congress, the

balance of European power? Is there a single clause now in force? Where

is the clause securing France to the Bourbons, and guaranteeing her

forever against the reign of any of the Bonaparte family? Where are the

states whose independence was forever guaranteed by those treaties?

Where are Parma and Modena and Tuscany? Where is Lombardy, where the

Romagna, Naples, and the Two Sicilies? Where are the duchies of

Lauenburg, Schleswig, and Holstein, and where the treaty of 1852 in

regard to them? All, all have passed away, just as would our proposed

treaties or alliances. The first war would sweep them out of existence.

No, my countrymen; as Washington, the father of his country, most truly

told us in his Farewell Address: 'To the efficacy and permanency of your

Union, a Government _for the whole_ is indispensable. _No alliance_,

however strict between the parts, can be an adequate substitute; they

must inevitably experience the _infractions_ and _interruptions_ which

_all alliances_, in _all time_, have experienced.'

Washington thus foresaw and warned us against this most insidious

proposition to divide our country into separate confederacies, no matter

how strict the alliances between them might be; and let us adopt his

counsels.

Is it not strange, while Italy and Germany seek, in Italian and German

unity, relief from the ruin and oppression of so many independent states

and governments, and are each making advances to that great

consummation, that we are asked to adopt the reactionary policy, and

separate glorious Union into distinct confederacies, soon to be followed

by grinding taxation, by immense standing armies, and perpetual wars?

And now then, my countrymen, I bring this letter to a close, imploring

you to give no vote which will subject the Union to the slightest peril.

Come, then, my friends, of all parties, come, Republicans, and Whigs,

and Democrats, and Irish and German and native citizens, trampling under

our feet all past issues, and all old party names and prejudices, and,

standing on the broad basis of principle, let us vote, not for men or

parties, but for the salvation and perpetuity of the Union.

R. J. WALKER.

GENIUS.

Far out at sea the wave was high,

While veered the wind and flapped the sail;

We saw a snow-white butterfly

Dancing before the fitful gale,

Far out at sea!

The little creature, which had lost

Its mate, of danger little knew;

Settled awhile upon the mast,

Then fluttered o'er the waters blue,

Far out at sea!

Away it danced with shimmering glee,

Now dim, distinct, now seen, now gone:

Night comes, with wind and rain, but he

No more shall dance before the morn,

Far out at sea!

He dies unlike his mates, I ween,

Perhaps not sooner or more crossed;

But he has known, and felt, and seen,

A wider, larger hope, though lost

Far out at sea!

LITERARY NOTICES

THE AMERICAN CONFLICT: A History of the Great Rebellion in the

United States of America, 1860-'64: Its Causes, Incidents, and

Results: Intended to Exhibit especially its Moral and Political

Phases, with the Drift and Progress of American Opinion respecting

Human Slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. By

HORACE GREELEY. Illustrated by Portraits on Steel of Generals,

Statesmen, and other Eminent Men; Views of Places of Historical

Interest; Maps, Diagrams of Battle Fields, Naval Actions, etc.,

from official sources. Vol. I. Hartford: Published by O. D. Case &

Co. Chicago; Geo. & E. W. Sherwood. 1864.

It is not our intention here to enter into any critical analysis of the

volume before us, but rather to give the reader an idea of what he may

find within it, in the words of Mr. Greeley himself. It is inscribed to

Mr. Bright, under the following dedication: 'To John Bright, British

Commoner and Christian Statesman, the Friend of my Country, because the

Friend of Mankind, this Record of a Nation's Struggle up from Darkness

and Bondage to Light and Liberty, is regardfully, gratefully inscribed

by the Author.'

Mr. Greeley says in his preface: 'No one can realize more fully than I

do that the History through whose pages our great-grandchildren will

contemplate the momentous struggle whereof this country has recently

been and still is the arena, will not and cannot _now_ be written; and

that its author must give to the patient, careful, critical study of

innumerable documents and letters, an amount of time and thought which I

could not have commanded, unless I had been able to devote years,

instead of months only, to the preparation of this volume. I know, at

least, what History is, and how it must be made; I know how very far

this work must fall short of the lofty ideal.' ... 'What I have aimed to

do, is so to arrange the material facts, and so to embody the more

essential documents, or parts of documents, illustrating those facts,

that the attentive, intelligent reader may learn from this work, not

only what were the leading incidents of our civil war, but its causes,

incidents, and the inevitable sequence whereby ideas proved the germ of

events.' ... 'My subject naturally divides itself into two parts: I.

_How we got into the war for the Union_; and II. _How we got out of it_.

I have respected this division in my cast of the present work, and

submit this volume as a clear elucidation of the former of these

problems, hoping to be at least equally satisfactory in my treatment of

the latter.' ... 'I shall labor constantly to guard against Mr.

Pollard's chief error--that of supposing that all the heroism,

devotedness, humanity, chivalry, evinced in the contest, were displayed

on one side; all the cowardice, ferocity, cruelty, rapacity, and general

depravity, on the other. I believe it to be the truth, and as such I

shall endeavor to show, that, while this war has been signalized by some

deeds disgraceful to human nature, the general behavior of the

combatants on either side has been calculated to do honor even to the

men who, though fearfully misguided, are still our countrymen, and to

exalt the prestige of the American name.'

The sale of the work before us has been immense. Such has been the

demand for Vol. I. of 'The American Conflict,' that the publishers have

found it impossible to supply the demand, even with regard to agents and

subscribers. The subscription list already numbers 60,000, although but

one fourth of the Free States have been canvassed.

Leading heads of chapters are: I. Our Country in 1782 and in 1860. II.

Slavery in America prior to 1776. III. Slavery in the American

Revolution. IV. Slavery Under the Confederation. V. The Convention of

1787 and the Federal Constitution, VI. Slavery after 1787. VII.

Missouri--The Struggle for Restriction. VIII. State Rights--Resolutions

of '98. IX. Abolition--Its Rise and Progress. X. The Churches on Slavery

and Abolition. XI. The Pro-Slavery Reaction--Riots. XII. Texas and her

Annexation to the United States. XIII. The Mission of Samuel Hoar to

South Carolina. XIV. War with Mexico--Wilmot Proviso. XV. The Struggle

for Compromise in 1850. XVI. The Era of Slave Hunting--1850-'60. XVII.

The Nebraska-Kansas Struggle. XVIII. Case of Dred Scott in the Supreme

Court. XIX. Our Foreign Policy--Monroe--Cuba. XX. John Brown and his

Raid. XXI. The Presidential Canvass of 1860. XXII. Secession Inaugurated

in South Carolina. XXIII. The Press and the People of the North

Deprecate Civil War. XXIV. Attempts at Conciliation in Congress. XXV.

Peace Democracy at the North and Peace Conference at Washington. XXVI.

The Union versus the Confederacy. XXVII. The Pause before the Shock.

XXVIII. Siege and Reduction of Fort Sumter. XXIX. The Nation Called to

Arms--and Responds. XXX. Secession Resumes its March. XXXI. The Opposing

Forces in Conflict. XXXII. West Virginia Clings to the Union. XXXIII.

The War in Old Virginia. XXXIV. First Session of the Thirty-Seventh

Congress. XXXV. The Rebellion and War in Missouri. XXXVI. War on the

Seaboard and the Ocean. XXXVII. Kentucky Adheres to the Union. XXXVIII.

The Potomac--Ball's Bluff. Notes and Analytical Index.

This work demands an extended review, and the readers of THE CONTINENTAL

may again hear of it. Meantime the most varied estimates will be formed

of its merits; as various as the political tenets held by its readers.

It is illustrated, containing Heads of President and Cabinet, Eminent

Opponents of the Slave Power, Confederate Chieftains, Union Generals,

Confederate Generals, Union Naval Officers, Plans of Battles, etc., etc.

DOWN IN TENNESSEE, AND BACK BY WAY OF RICHMOND. By EDMUND KIRKE,

Author of 'Among the Pines,' 'My Southern Friends,' etc. New York:

Carleton, publisher, 413 Broadway. 1864.

The author of this work, having been familiar with the South in days

more tranquil, had 'a desire to study the undercurrents of popular

sentiment, and to renew his acquaintance with former friends and Union

prisoners,' and so visited the Southwest in May last: the present volume

thus originated. We cannot very readily discern how much of this work is

fact, how much fiction. We have the Union scout, the poor white, the

negro, and other elements belonging both to the romance and reality of

Southern life in these days of struggle. Are the exquisitely simple and

heart-touching thoughts and expressions which fall from the lips of the

poor white or scout, actually true, or are they the coinage of Mr.

Kirke's own vivid fancy? Notwithstanding the hideous jargon in which

they occur, if real they evince a high soul, even in the midst of

ignorance, and are the gems of the work. The book ends with a detailed

account of the author's introduction to Colonel Jaques, and their

subsequent visit to Richmond, an episode in our history quite as

curious as the Sanders and Greeley conference at Clifton House, and

one which has excited quite as wide an interest. Mr. Kirke says of

the poor whites: 'I have endeavored to sketch their characters

faithfully--extenuating nothing and setting nothing down in malice--that

the reader may believe what I _know_, that there is not in the whole

North a more worthy, industrious, loving class of people than the great

body of poor Southern Whites. Take the heel of the man-buying and

woman-whipping aristocrat from off their necks, give them free schools,

and a chance to rise, and they will make the South, with its prolific

soil, its immense water power, and its vast mineral wealth, such a

country as the sun never yet looked upon, and this Union such a Union as

will be the light of nations and the glory of the earth!'

POEMS OF THE WAR. By GEORGE H. BOKER. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

1864. New York: for sale by D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Boker has attained, what his more elaborate efforts sometimes lack,

fire, concentration, and energy, in these 'Poems of the War.' We thank

him heartily that he has taken the glories of our country and the

sufferings and deeds of our dauntless soldiers as his theme. Patriotism

has inspired him, and the ever well-tuned chords of his lyre ring out

with bolder and more soul-stirring melody than of old. 'On Board the

Cumberland,' 'The Sword Bearer,' 'The Ballad of New Orleans,' 'Crossing

at Fredericksburg,' 'The Black Regiment,' 'In the Wilderness,' are truly

national poems, and should be read at every hearthstone in our land. We

quote the closing lines from 'Upon the Hill before Centreville':

'Oh, let me not outlive the blow

That seals my country's overthrow!

And, lest this woful end come true,

Men of the North, I turn to you.

Display your vaunted flag once more,

Southward your eager columns pour!

Sound trump and fife and rallying drum;

From every hill and valley come!

Old men, yield up your treasured gold;

Can liberty be priced and sold?

Fair matrons, maids, and tender brides,

Gird weapons to your lovers' sides;

And, though your hearts break at the deed,

Give them your blessing and God-speed;

Then point them to the field of fame,

With words like those of Sparta's dame!

And when the ranks are full and strong,

And the whole army moves along,

A vast result of care and skill,

Obedient to the master will,

And our young hero draws the sword,

And gives the last commanding word

That hurls your strength upon the foe--

_Oh, let them need no second blow!_

Strike, as your fathers struck of old,

Through summer's heat and winter's cold;

Through pain, disaster, and defeat;

Through marches tracked with bloody feet;

Through every ill that could befall

The holy cause that bound them all!

Strike as they struck for liberty!

Strike as they struck to make you free!

Strike for the crown of victory!'

While we honor our brave soldiers and their glorious deeds, let us also

honor their bards,

'Nor suffer them to steal,

Unthanked, away, to weep beside the harp,

Dejected, prayerful, while the fields are won.'

BROKEN LIGHTS: An Inquiry into the Present Condition and Future

Prospects of Religious Faith. By FRANCES POWER COBBE. Boston: J. E.

Tilton & Co. 1864.

A book of decided ability, however much we may regret the conclusions

arrived at by its author. Contents of Part I. are: The Present Condition

of Religious Faith. Chapter I. The Great Problem. II. The Solutions of

the Problem, Historical and Rational, Palæologian and Neologian. Under

the head of Palæologian we have The High Church Solution, the Low Church

Solution; under Neologian we have the First Broad Church Solution, the

Second Broad Church Solution. We have then the Solutions of the Parties

Outside the Church, Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch, and Renan's 'Vie

de Jesus.' Part II. gives us 'The Future Prospects of Religious Faith.'

Under the head of Rational, we have the Rationalist Solution of the

Problems, The Faith of the Future, Theoretic Theism, and Practical

Theism.

Our author is of the school of Theodore Parker, a Theist. 'Three great

principles--the absolute goodness of God; the final salvation of every

created soul; and the divine authority of conscience--are the obvious

fundamental canons of the Faith of the Future.' We continue our

quotations: 'God will not leave us when all our puny theologies have

failed us, and all our little systems shall have had their day and

ceased to be. We shall yet praise Him who is the light of life, even

though the darkness may seem to gather round us now. Christianity may

fail us, and we may watch it with straining eyes going slowly down from

the zenith where once it shone; but we need neither regret that it

should pass away, nor dread lest we be left in gloom. _Let it pass

away_--that grand and wonderful faith! Let it go down, calmly and

slowly, like an orb which has brightened half our heaven through the

night of the ages, and sets at last in glory, leaving its train of light

long gleaming in the sky, and mingling with the dawn. Already up the

East there climbs another Sun.' Again: 'The faith, then, for which we

must contend--the faith which we believe shall be the religion of future

ages--must be one founded on the Original Revelation of Consciousness,

not on the Traditional Revelation of Church or Book--a faith, not

resting for its sole support on the peculiar History of one nation, but

rated by the whole history of humanity.' ... 'The view which seems to be

the sole fitting one for our estimate of the character of Christ, is

that which regards him as the great REGENERATOR of Humanity. _His coming

was to the life of humanity what Regeneration is to the life of the

individual._ He has transformed the Law into the Gospel. He has changed

the bondage of the alien for the liberty of the sons of God. He has

glorified Virtue into Holiness, Religion into Piety, and Duty into

Love.'

What a perpetual stumbling block in the way of all unbelief is the

marvellous character of Christ! We may strive to throw away the record,

but He remains a living force within the soul forever. The Theist would

miss Him even in his certain heaven!

We think we have given, in the few short extracts above, enough to

enable our readers to perceive the standpoint from which this work is

written. It is a clear statement of the dogmas held, the reasons for

their adoption, and the hopes of what is styled the Church of the

Future. Of the ability of many of its adherents there can be no doubt.

The contest is upon the children of Faith. Let them meet it with candor,

fairness, prayer, love, profound biblical and scientific erudition, and

may God comfort us with His eternal truth!

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. By ROBERT BROWNING. Boston: Ticknor & Field. New

York: for sale by D. Appleton & Co.

This book has been already reviewed by the English critics, who are

always appreciative of Browning's merits, and tender to his faults. It

is as wilful as its predecessors, as unintelligible, as fragmentary, its

rhythm as distorted and broken, its diction as peculiar, its sequences

as disconnected. Yet we think it shows gleams of higher poetic talent

than anything he has yet published. It contains eighteen poems. 'A Death

in the Desert' is an imaginary portrayal of the death of St. John in his

old age in a cave, to which he had been taken by some faithful adherents

to save him from persecution. It is a sketch of power and originality.

St. John is supposed to speak:

'If I live yet, it is for good, more love

Through me to men: be nought but ashes here

That keeps awhile my semblance, who was John--

Still when they scatter, there is left on earth

No one alive who _knew_ (consider this!)

--Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands

That which was from the first the Word of Life.

How will it be when none more saith 'I saw?''

Very original and very disagreeable in its highly wrought and subtile

Realism is 'Caliban upon Setebos, or Natural Theology in the Island,' a

study from Shakspeare's 'Tempest.' It is a curious exposition of the

philosophy of such a being. At the close, when Caliban, who speaks in

the third person, is beginning to think of Setebos, 'his dam's god,' as

not so formidable after all, a great storm awakes, which upsets all his

reasoning, and makes him fall flat on his face with fright:

'What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!

Crickets stop hissing; not a bird--or, yes,

There scuds His raven that hath told Him all!

It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind

Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,

And fast invading fires begin! White blaze--

A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,

His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!

Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!

'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,

Will let those quails fly, will not eat this mouth

One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!'

'Mr. Sludge, the Medium,' one of the longer poems, is intended,

according to rumor, to demolish Mr. Home, and includes some sharp

thrusts at various persons who still patronize him after having found

him guilty of fraud.

The story runs that a lady and gentleman of eminence, devout

spiritualists, residing at Rome, confessed to Mr. Browning that during

Mr. Home's stay at their house they once forbade his putting his hand

under the table, and the spirits wouldn't rap, and Home burst into

tears, and confessed that _on that occasion only_ he had deceived them;

that on one other occasion he had put phosphorus on the tips of wires

and stretched them from the roof of their house to represent certain

spiritual apparitions. 'And what did you say, how did you act, upon the

discovery?' asked Mr. Browning. 'Oh,' replied the lady, 'I rebuked him

severely; told him plainly how shameful it was that one who had been so

supernaturally gifted should act so, and told him that he ought to

repent.' 'And he still remained with you, and--' 'Oh, yes, we are

perfectly sure that everything was genuine afterward.' Upon which the

poet was so disgusted that he vented his indignation in 'Mr. Sludge.'

FIRESIDE TRAVELS. By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 'Travelling makes a man

sit still in his old age with satisfaction, and travel over the

world again in his chair and bed by discourse and thoughts.'--_The

Voyage of Italy, by Richard Lassels, Gent_. Boston; Ticknor &

Fields. 1864. New York: for sale by D. Appleton & Co.

Mr. Lowell says, in big short preface: 'The greater part of this volume

was printed ten years ago in _Putnam's Monthly_ and _Graham's Magazine_.

The additions (most of them about Italy) have been made up, as the

original matter was, from old letters and journals written on the spot.

My wish was to describe not so much what I went to see, as what I saw

that was most unlike what one sees at home. If the reader find

entertainment, he will find all I hoped to give him.'

And a churl he surely were if he find it not; for a right pleasant book

it is to read--genial and full of the real Lowell humor, almost as

characteristic as Jean Paul's, _der einzige_. 'Cambridge Thirty Years

Ago' will carry many of our most distinguished men back to the sunny

days of youth, while the boys of to-day will be delighted to know how it

fared with them then and there. Contents: Cambridge Thirty Years Ago; A

Moosehead Journal; Leaves from My Journal in Italy and Elsewhere; At

Sea; In the Mediterranean; Italy; A Few Bits of Roman Mosaic.

There is no use in praising a book of Lowell's; everybody knows, reads,

and loves him.

SIMONSON'S CIRCULAR ZOOLOGICAL CHART. A Directory to the Study of

the Animal Kingdom. Published by Schermerhorn, Bancroft & Co., 130

Grand street, New York, and 25 North Fourth street, Philadelphia.

This chart must prove a valuable guide to the teacher, and a great aid

to the student of Natural History. It appears to have been carefully

compiled from modern standard works, and is divided and subdivided as

accurately as the limited space allows. It is a vast aid to the memory,

showing at a glance the classification of the animal kingdom; and,

bringing together the various groups of animals on one page, it stamps

its complicated lesson on the mind through the rapid power of the eye.

When the enormous number of species is considered, the advantage of such

a chart may be readily imagined. It may be used as an introduction by

the teacher, or side by side with any text book. We heartily recommend

it to notice.

PERCE'S MAGNETIC GLOBES. A very ingenious invention is here offered

to the public through Mr. J. F. Trow, of 50 Greene street, New York.

It consists of a hollow Globe made of soft iron, and Magnetic

Objects, representing the races of mankind, animals, trees,

light-houses, are supplied with it, which, _adhering to the

surface_, illustrate clearly the attraction of gravitation, the

rotundity of the earth, its diurnal motion, the changes of day and

night, and many other things very difficult to make intelligible to

children. Teachers will find this globe and its magnetic objects of

incalculable value in affording facilities for striking

illustrations of principles, problems, and various terrestrial

phenomena.

SIZES AND PRICES.

No. 1. Library, 12 inches in diameter, revolving

brass meridian $22.00

No. 2. Library, 12 inches, plain stand 16.00

No. 3. Student's, 5 inches, revolving brass

meridian 5.00

No. 4 Student's, 5 inches, plain stand 3.50

No. 5. Primary, 3 inches, " " 2.50

Suitable Magnetic Objects accompany each Globe.

CHRISTUS JUDEX. A Traveller's Tale. By EDWARD ROTH. Philadelphia:

Frederick Leypoldt. 1864.

A singular romance, interwoven of the art life of the Old, and the

forest life of the New World. The main character is the _Great Stone

Face_, already immortalized by the lamented Hawthorne. It is here

presented to us under a new aspect, and while we think that even those

grand old rocks fail to embody the glorious ideal of a Christus Judex,

we must acknowledge the pleasure we have derived from the fanciful

descriptions and pleasant associations offered us in this dainty little

volume.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

Christmas is again upon us, dear readers; we may almost hear the

gathering chime of its happy bells upon the frosty air. It is a time

when even strangers may hold commune; let us take advantage of it, and

learn to know something of each other. But are we indeed strangers? It

is true that we stand as abstract impersonalities, as disembodied

spirits, unknown even by name to one another. Yet have we held relations

which we cannot shake off even if we would. 'The most obscure of

literary men' we may be, yet has your kind smile often cheered us as we

labored to place before you the wants, wishes, tastes, views, hopes, and

aims of our common country. Caterer as we are for you, through us and

the handywork of our skilful printer have our able writers spun their

golden threads through heart, mind, and soul. Contributors, readers, and

editor are alike linked in these glittering spiritual meshes, and can

never be quite the same as if the web had never held them for its

passing moment in its light zone of thought. For ideas generate duties,

knowledge stimulates action, and to act in a world of doubt may well be

onerous. We frankly confess to you that a dread responsibility has cast

a deep shadow upon all our moments since the commencement of our

intercourse with you. Our butterfly hours were then past: we grew into

work-a-day bees--if only we have stored some honey in your hives to pay

us for the lost idlesse of our dreamy summers! If it 'is greatly wise to

talk with our past hours, and ask them what report they bear to Heaven'

when spent only for ourselves, it is a solemn thing to call them back,

and ask them what report they bear to Heaven for the thousands to whom

they have ministered. We spread the table lovingly before you: what if

there should be something in yourselves to turn our healthful food to

poison? On marches THE CONTINENTAL with its light and heavy freight of

winged words and thoughts, striding from _monthly_ stepping-stone to

stepping-stone on the long route of Time. Stepping-stones in Time are

they now truly, but as we gaze they seem to grow into Eternity, and the

buds which twine their glow around them ripen slowly into ever-living

fruit in the strange clime of the Everlasting Now to which we are all

hastening.

How clear that Christmas chime upon the frosty air!

Reader, is it too much to hope that in spite of all our short-comings,

we have yet been loyal to your better hours, and faithful in the field

given us to sow for the heavenly Reapers? We have labored to interest,

amuse, and instruct you for the last eighteen months: have you learned

in that time to _trust_ us as we have learned to care for you? Do you

know us loyal patriots and true Christians, even if of a broad and

all-unsectarian faith? If we are too frank, it is because we are certain

that truth can never contradict itself, that nature must be one with

revelation, that he errs who fears the crucible of the savant or would

hold science in leading strings. THE CONTINENTAL seeks the light,

condemns to silence no new Galileo, tortures no creative Kepler, has no

fires for heretics, and nothing worse than an incredulous smile for the

shivering witches and mediums, the muscular demons of modern

spiritualism. It rejects no scientific investigation honorably pursued,

for all paths lead back to the Maker of the Universe, and the honest

seeker must find Him at the end of his route. That God is our Father,

that we are made in His triune image, that Christ is our elder Brother,

the great Regenerator of our race, is surely the ever open, ever mystic

secret of the universe!

We have travelled on together through a gloomy year. The air has been

sad with sighs, dim with tears, restless with great sobs of human

anguish. But we are drifting into calmer swells on the great Time-Ocean,

and the _crimson_ year of '64 is almost past. The dwellers of the Valley

already look for the morning star, while those upon the Hilltop hail the

auroral light of '65. Enshrined in and sparkling through its golden

glow two mystic figures gleam; the star of the morning pales before

their splendor. The one is godlike in her majesty, sublime through

conquered suffering, the awful smile of the Crucified seems shining

through the features transfigured since He wore them, and the cross

glitters in all the glory of Self-sacrifice on her broad breast. She

wears a girdle blue as if woven from the depths of heaven, and as we

gaze we see great opals with veiled hearts of fire form into quaint old

runic letters upon it, and the God-word LOVE flashes down the secret of

her inner life upon us. She is still young as when she woke in Paradise,

and, seeing the End, is not yet weary with her long journey of Exile.

Brighter gates than those of Eden stand unbarred before her! In her

right hand she holds unrolled, that all may read, the great Magna Charta

of universal Human Rights, and even at this distance we may see

EMANCIPATION upon its broad margin. We know the once sad spirit now, no

longer _sad_, the _radiant_ Genius of Humanity.

Her vigorous arm is round a younger and less solemn form, a form of

wildering beauty, whose gold hair glitters like a nimbus in the level

rays of morning; with an irresistible impulse we take her into the

innermost folds of our hearts, we feel her to be _our own_; our banner

in her right hand sways and tosses on the fresh breeze, its stars, round

which new suns are ever clustering, throw their dazzling light upon her,

and the young eagles turning from the sun throng around her to drink the

splendor from her brighter brow. The long streamers from her girdle

float athwart the sky, their wavy lines, red, white, and blue, quiver

with delight as the wild zephyrs caress them, thrilling the air with

shifting play of passionate color. Ha! what miracle is this?--whatsoever

light may fall upon them, under what angle soever we may see them, as

were it magically woven into their warp and woof, we read the word now

graven on our hearts--UNION! Her left hand holds closely clasped to her

heart a great urn, glowing as it were an immense ruby--ah! we need no

words to tell us what the young spirit clasps so fondly to her

breast--we _feel_ it is the dust of the holy dead, who gave their lives

on the red battle field that she might live: their very ashes glow with

living fire! Her white feet rest on the sacred graves of Shiloh,

Antietam, Murfreesboro', Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Lookout Mountain, the

Wilderness, Atlanta, Winchester, and Cedar Creek, from which she has

newly risen in her young strength and ever-growing glory.

She is the brilliant Spirit of our Nation! the new hope of all People!

Her career is ever onward with the Genius of Humanity into the enchanted

realm of the happy Future. No chains are in her white hands now. The

tired laborer rests as she smiles upon him; the bay of the bloodhound

and sharp crack of the lash cease in the white cotton field; the Indian

buries his tomahawk, no longer wounding the still ear of the forest with

his shrill war whoop; the maiden walks fearlessly free, for all men are

now her brothers; shielding her sanctity; the wife is happy, for the

husband has won her esteem, and it is no shame to crown him with her

love; and cherub-children sport around, lovely and happy as the

heaven-seraphs.

Peace to our glorious dead! Eternal honor to the martyrs of freedom!

From the sharp agonies of their true hearts springs now first to

_conscious_ birth the vigorous Spirit of our Nation. We never knew

aright how very dear to us she was until the traitors tried to tear her

limb from limb because her heart was open to all made in the image of

their God--because she knew the sacred worth of man.

How near those Christmas chimes peal on the frosty air!

And if we will but think of it, a Nationality is always of slow growth,

of gradual development. It, like man himself, is born in pain and

anguish. It is indeed a living member of the Grand Man of which Humanity

is composed. Since the forty years wandering of the children of Israel

in the desert, how much suffering has been endured to hold it sacred!

The history of the present time is but a record of fierce struggles to

achieve or hold a Nationality. Poland has hung on the cross of her great

enemy for centuries rather than yield its sanctity. He has torn and

scattered its quivering members, blotted it out in blood from the names

known on earth, it has been murdered, and fed upon by three great

Christian Powers ('Oh, the pity of it!')--Catholic Austria, Protestant

Prussia and Greek-Churched Russia--but it is not dead: it lives in all

the energy of self-abnegating suffering on the mountains of Causasus,

the steppes of Asia, the frozen plains of Siberia, in the depths of

Russian mines, the darkness of Russian prisons, and it still will live

until the last Pole is laid in the last grave of his heroic but

unfortunate race. Such is its vitality when once truly born. Denmark

turns pale and shivers as she feels it may be torn from her; 'Italia,

with the fatal gift of beauty for her dower,' the fair land where fairer

Juliets breathe the enamored air, art--crowned and genius-gifted,

writhes in agony until it may be her own; Greece long bled for it; and

the brave and haughty Magyar, to whom a courser fleet and the free air

are necessities of daily life, braves and bears prisons, chains, and

poverty, in the hope of its attainment. What is this precious

Nationality? Like all basic elements, it is difficult to define. It is

not a State, a Constitution, nor is it made by man at all. An able

writer in _The North American Review_ for October says: 'It may be

said, in general, to be the sum of the differences, geographical,

historical, political, and moral, which separate a people as a community

from every other--of those differences which modify the character of

each individual, and the results of which are combined in the traits of

national character. The consciousness of its existence is developed

slowly, and it is long before the sentiment of Nationality--the true

foundation of patriotism--gains force over the hearts and convictions of

a people. But this sentiment, when it has once taken root, is one of the

_most powerful_ of those by which human conduct is affected. It is a

sentiment of the highest order, lifting men out of narrow and selfish

individualism into a region where they behold their duties as members

one of another, as partakers of the general life of humanity--the

inheritors of the past, the trustees of the future.'

'What is planetary humanity?' says Krasinski. 'It is the entirety and

unity of all the powers and capacities of the human spirit expressed

visibly on the earth through harmony and concord, the love of its

members, that is of the various nationalities. As all the members of the

human body are the visible and various parts of the invisible human I,

which connects and rules them all, so the visible nationalities must in

their variety and harmonious unity become in some future time the living

members of a universal humanity. The world knows to-day to what point

its history is tending: it knows it is governed by the wisdom of God,

and that its end is the Humanity, the entire universality brought into

perfect accord with the will of God, knowing and executing the laws

given it by God. But the means to this end, the instruments, the living

members, are the _Nationalities_, in which all the varieties of the

human race have their fairest bloom, their most precious flower. What

the tones are in the musical chord they are in humanity, eternal variety

in eternal harmony and concord. It is impossible to conceive Humanity

without them; it would then be unity without variety, consequently no

_proper unity_ at all, a mere lifeness _oneness_. States are of human

creation, an aggregative collection of small parts; but nationalities

are made by God alone, and therefore not states without nationalities,

but states forming nationalities, belong to the coming union of

universal humanity, and pass into the Christian order. States have risen

before this to destroy a nationality, dividing and quartering it for the

profit of some selfish ideal, tearing asunder a living, palpitating

organism, murdering a visible member of the Universal Humanity. He is

but a child who calls this merely a political crime: it is a crime of

the very deepest dye, a crime against the Humanity itself, against

religion, where the daring criminals, striding over all lower spheres,

break into the circles of the living God. To tear asunder a state of

merely human creation, generated only by human interests and passions,

would be a political crime, but to wish to dismember and murder a

God-given nationality, when the realization of the idea of humanity on

the planet cannot be filled without it, is a rebellion against the

eternal truth of God--it is a sacrilege! The recognition of such

violation were participation; opposition to such impiety is religion!'

Our very origin teaches us union. We have sprung from so many races that

it is throbbing in our very life-pulse, and is written on the red

tablets of our hearts. It runs and dances in our blood, tingles along

our nerves, colors our thoughts, tones our emotions, and determines our

affections. All the old and bitter European animosities die in us, for

its Peoples are fused in our _one_ life pulse. A little child of our own

household now unites in the sacred oneness of American life, English,

Scotch, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, German, French, Saxon, Bohemian, and Polish

nationalities. What lessons we have in our multiform descent, if we will

but heed them; what inner teachings of sympathy and love, if we will but

learn them! Distinctive nationalities, giving such beautiful variety to

the _earth_, here join in the individual, imparting the greatest

complexity and variety to internal _character_. Such nationalities,

still existing unimpaired abroad, are here formed into _one_ of

unequalled breadth and grandeur; their scattered rays of light are here

concentrated into _one_ great focus; the blood of the various Peoples

pours through _one_ great heart, and the common gifts, hopes, creeds of

the separated and warring nations meet in the holy mystery of _one_

grand national life. Here, indeed, is the widest variety in the closest

unity, the life of the warring Past melting into that of the

myriad-pulsed Present, the certain hope of a harmonious Future.

The maturity and highest powers of other nations being necessary as its

germs, what wonder that our nationality should be the latest born on

earth, or that in view of the broad love stirring in its soul, because

of its manifold descent, its first articulate accents should be ALL MEN

ARE BORN FREE AND EQUAL! This is a union in the laboratory of

assimilative nature, such as has never before been dreamed of, vital and

all embracing, weaving into one palpitating mesh the very fibres of

being itself. The union of long-jarring nations is consummated,

perfected in us, and shall not we, the children of all climes, be _one_

in our own marvellous nationality? 'Divide and conquer' is old strategy,

but despots and tyrants strike in vain at this wondrous mingling of all

Peoples in one great PEOPLE, where the People are the Sovereigns; for

this UNION is spun in the loom of Eternal Destiny, throbs in each

linking life-pulse, is knit into our very nature, and kindles in the

close unity and sanctity of our national life under the creative breath

of God himself. Palsied be the hand armed to strike the multitudinously

mingled life of Humanity as it circles through our glorious Union!

'Peace on earth, good will to men,' chime out the Christmas bells from

old Trinity!

It is this struggle to preserve our nationality intact which has

sanctified our war, from the red heart of which has grown a patriotism

which, glowing like a central sun, burns away all the dross of our

earlier materialism, gives as self-reliance, and frees us at last from

our long tutelage to the Old World. And never had patriotism a more

solid ground than ours, since the power, growth, and safety of our

nationality are the progress, happiness, and prosperity of humanity

itself. Everything that breathes the breath of human life, however

opposed to it now, is _really_ benefited by our growth. As a Government

we stand first upon the earth; the first utterance of our brave lips

being--all men are born free and equal. Sublime, bold, and living words;

blessed be the lips which uttered them! And we are beginning to fulfil

the inspired ideal. Alas! we have suffered too much from permitting an

evil germ to grow up side by side with this great annunciation, to fall

speedily again into a like error. It has taken down into the dust our

best and dearest, saddened almost every hearthstone in the land, and,

saddest of all, wrought ruin on the Southern soul, maddening our

brethren there into modern Cains, armed against the sacred life of their

and our nationality. For what cause did Cain kill his brother?

'Because,' says St. John, 'his own works were evil, and his brother's

just.' We will surely save it, but that done, we have an arduous task

before us. Christianity and love must take the place of expediency,

machiavelism, and cunning diplomacy in the sphere of politics. We see

the smile of scorn upon the lips of the doubter; he deems the thing

impossible. So he would have pronounced our noble record of the last

three years, three years ago. Nay, it is already half accomplished,

since we now know it must be done. The black man free, the red man must

at last receive attention. The protection of our laws must be thrown

around him; justice must guide our future dealings with him, and sorrow

for all the fearful ills we have wrought upon him must awaken larger

sympathy, and elicit tender mercy. The race are dying out among us: let

us at least soothe their parting hours. And let the Government look well

to its avaricious agents. Our people are generous, and mean to be just;

that is not enough: they must take the proper means, and see that their

beneficent intentions are carried out with regard to this wretched

remnant. It is not possible that a race so full of wild natural

eloquence, of graceful imagery, of tender metaphor, of stern endurance,

can be _utterly_ lost and depraved. Be it our noble task to try to save

these wild children of the forest, while throwing the most complete

protection around our brave frontier population. Our nationality is now

fully born--on our banner is inscribed the equal rights of humanity. Our

mission is revealed to us--it is that labor shall be elevated, and that

equal justice be the law of _actual life_. 'That the human race is in a

real sense one--that its efforts are common, and tend to a joint result,

that its several members may stand in the eye of their Maker, not only

as _individual_ agents, but as contributors to this joint result--is a

doctrine which our reason, perhaps, finds something to support, and

which our heart readily accepts.' This Christmas peal rings to us as it

has never rung before: let it awaken our consciousness of what God means

us to be upon this planet, and touch our heart. It has at last reached

the ear of the emancipated African, after pealing nearly nineteen

hundred years for the more favored part of humanity; and, thanks to the

mercy of God and our own manhood, the most oppressed of the brethren of

Christ may now feel themselves men. The dark wife, in her new right to

be faithful, is at last a woman; her dusky children are now her own, and

cannot be torn from her arms at the dictates of one who has bought at

the human auction block the right to torture the body and soul. Is not

humanity newborn among us? Is the negro of the accursed race of Ham? It

is we who curse, not God, whose very name is Love! Well may our

Christmas bells ring on so merrily, for our age is great and glorious.

It is a pupil of the entire Past, the heir of all its knowledge, the

inheritor of all its wisdom. The Future is its own. _The sphere of

politics must be redeemed from the demons of expediency and interest

which have so long ruled there; it is to be vitalized and purified from

all iniquity._ It is an Augean stable we have to clean, but Hercules was

one, and we are many. The People are at last sovereign. Every man who

works for humanity has God upon his side; he cannot fail, for the might

of Omnipotence is with his puny arm. This is the task now set before us:

it lies directly in our onward path--we cannot take a step really in

advance until it is achieved. If we fail now, all is lost. Our dead

heroes will not rest in their graves until the task is done, and their

young lives will have been a vain sacrifice. This crimson year is dying

fast; bury with it all past wickedness! May our long civil war die out

with its knell, the corpse of Slavery be laid in its bloody grave, and

the vain attempts of assembled despots to destroy our glorious

nationality perish forever! Bury with this blood-red year all malice and

uncharitableness, all sectarian suspicion and distrust, all partisan

political violence and hatred, and let the new year ring in one faith,

one hope, one country undivided and _indivisible_. Our Union means all

this, and a great many things more which it has not yet entered into the

heart of man to conceive. We can effect wonders if we will, for the

_individual_ effort makes the _universal_ all. Who would prove recreant

in such a cause? Come! it is pleasant to work for humanity; fatigue

itself seems sweet, the strength of the race nerves the individual arm,

labor grows into prayer, human sympathy and communion become godlike and

open heaven. We are none of us so little that we can do nothing; we are

all necessary to the good of the whole. The highest individuality and

freedom should generate the widest social love and charity. No labor is

really irksome that helps the masses of our fellow men. If we have the

Promethean fire, let it burn to light and warm them. The race is one,

nor can we be happy while its members suffer. The moment we have done

one duty faithfully, another and a higher awaits us. To be condemned to

work only for ourselves were the true hell, the self-kindled fire of

everlasting torture! We are the children of the nineteenth century, have

been nourished upon the humane laws of this noble country, we are sons

of God, brothers of Christ, heirs of glory, immortals. Let us assume the

majesty of our being, drape ourselves in our heaven-woven robes of love,

open our hearts to the poor and wretched, instruct the ignorant, reclaim

the vicious, bear each other's burdens, frown on vice, give up our petty

vanities, cease our frivolous excuses that, we have no influence, when

every one of us has an immortal in charge, use our strength to forbid

oppression, whether of individuals or nationalities. Then might the day

seen by the prophets, sung by poets, and believed in by devout hearts,

dawn upon this planet before the blessed '65 were tolled to rest.

"A man shall be more precious than gold, ay, than the finest of gold."

"The fool shall no more be called prince, nor the deceitful great."

"And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar

off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their

spears into spades; nation shall not take sword against nation; neither

shall they learn war any more.

"And every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there

shall be none to make them afraid."

"I will give my laws into their mind, and I will write them in their

heart; and I will be their God; and they shall be my people."

Peace on earth, good will toward men, still peal the Christmas bells,

until the frosty air seems quivering with the new joy of humanity.

Fair voyage through the realms of Space, the universe of stars, the

passionate throbs of Time, with thy precious human freight, O lovely

Planet, cradling our dead in thy green bosom, and uniting the living in

one great nation; and may the brightest sunshine fall upon thy flowers

until thy young Immortals are all landed in the Port of Heaven!

'COR UNUM, VIA UNA.'

GOD BLESS OUR NATIVE LAND!

From every clime, and name, and race,

The thronging myriads came,

A mighty Empire's bounds to trace,

A wilderness to tame!

_Chorus_--From mountain peak to sear-girt shore,

Let Freedom's noble band

Uplift the song thrills each heart's core:

God bless our native land!

Columbia's plains are broad and fair,

Each coast an ocean laves,

Vast lakes and streams fleet navies bear

Upon their sun-lit waves.

_Chorus._

Her mountains towering meet the skies,

Her vales are clad in green,

Her leafy forests proudly rise,

Pure gold her grain's bright sheen.

_Chorus._

United flows our mingled blood,

And Freedom guards the land,

While linked in closest brotherhood,

Invincible we stand!

_Chorus._

Unfurl our banner! Let it wave

From every plain and crag!

Its beacon light our fathers gave,--

All hail! our glorious flag!

_Chorus_--From mountain peak to sea-girt shore,

Let Freedom's noble band

Uplift the song thrills each heart's core:

God bless our native land!