He goes on further to say:
"What a singular mode it was of supporting her in a war to bring against the war nearly all the charges that were brought by the peace party Federalists against the last war, to denounce it as an unrighteous, unholy, and damnable war; to hold up our government to the eyes of the world as the aggressors in the conflict; to charge it with motives of conquest and aggrandizement; to parade and portray in the darkest colors all the horrors of war; to dwell upon its cost and depict its calamities."
Now, that was the doctrine of Judge Thurman as to the duties of citizens in time of war—in time of such a war as the Mexican war even, in which no vital interest of the country could by possibility suffer. Judge Thurman says that General Hayes, in his speech, has a great many slips cut from the newspapers, and that he must have had some sewing society of old ladies to cut out the slips for him. I don't know how he found that out. I never told it, and you know the ladies never tell secrets that are confided to them. I hold in my hand a speech of Judge Thurman, from which I have read extracts, and I find that he has in it slips cut from more than twenty different prints, sermons, newspapers, old speeches, and pamphlets, to show how, in the war of 1812, certain Federalists uttered unpatriotic sentiments. I presume he must have acquired his slips on that day in the way he says I acquired mine now.
Now, my friends, I propose to hold Judge Thurman to no severe rule of accountability for his conduct during the war. I merely ask that it shall be judged by his own rule: "Your country is engaged in war, and it is the duty of every citizen to say nothing and do nothing which shall depress the spirits of his own countrymen, nothing that shall encourage the enemies of his country, or give them moral aid or comfort." That is the rule. Now, Judge Thurman, how does your conduct square with it? I do not propose to begin at the beginning of the war, or even just before the war, to cite the record of Judge Thurman. I am willing to say that perhaps men might have been mistaken at that time. They might have supposed in the beginning a conciliatory policy, a non-coercive policy, would in some way avoid the threatened struggle. But I ask you to approach the period when the war was going on, when armies to the number of hundreds of thousands of men were ready on one side and the other, and when the whole world knew what was the nature of the great struggle going on in America. Taking the beginning of 1863, how stands the conflict? We have pressed the rebellion out of Kentucky and through Tennessee. Grant stands before Vicksburg, held at bay by the army of Pemberton; Rosecranz, after the capture of Nashville, has pressed forward to Murfreesboro, but is still held out of East Tennessee by the army of Bragg. The army of the Potomac and the army of Lee, in Virginia, are balanced, the one against the other. The whole world knows that that exhausting struggle can not last long without deciding in favor of one side or the other. That the year 1863 is big with the fate of Union and of liberty, every intelligent man in the world knows—that on one side it is a struggle for nationality and human rights. There is not in all Europe a petty despot who lives by grinding the masses of the people, who does not know that Lincoln and the Union are his enemies. There is not a friend of freedom in all Europe who does not know that Lincoln and the loyal army are fighting in the cause of free government for all the world. Now, in that contest, where are you, Judge Thurman? It is a time when we need men and money, when we need to have our people inspired with hope and confidence. Your sons and brothers are in the field. Their success depends upon your conduct at home.
The men who are to advise you what to do have upon them a dreadful responsibility to give you wise and patriotic advice. Judge Thurman, in the speech I am quoting from, says:
"But now, my friends, I shall not deal with obscure newspapers or obscure men. What a private citizen like Allen G. Thurman may have said in 1861 is a matter of indifference."
Ah, no, Judge Thurman, the Union party does not propose to allow your record to go without investigation because you are a private citizen. I know you held no official position under the government at the time I speak of; but, sir, you had for years been a leading, able, and influential man in the great party which had often carried your State. You were acting under grave responsibilities. More than that, during that year 1863, you were more than a private citizen. You were one of the delegates to the State convention of that year; you were one of the committee that forms your party platform in that convention; you were one of the central committee that carries on the canvass in the absence of your standard-bearers; and you were one of the orators of the party. No, sir, you were not a private citizen in 1863. You were one of the leading and one of the ablest men in your party in that year, speaking through the months of July, August, September, and October, in behalf of the candidate of the peace party. You can not escape as a private citizen.
Well, sir, in the beginning of that eventful year, there rises in Congress the ablest member of the peace party, to advise Congress and to advise the people, and what does he say?
"You have not conquered the South. You never will. It is not in the nature of things possible, especially under your auspices. Money you have expended without limit; blood you have poured out like water."
Now, mark the taunt—the words of discouragement that were sent to the people and to the army of the Union: