The present despotic ruler of France declared, among his earliest utterances for the purpose of allaying the apprehensions of his subjects and foreign powers, “The Empire—it is Peace,” an aphorism which, under a grandiloquent phrase, secreted a lie, and which, in the light of subsequent events, we can see simply meant that his policy would be peace until war should become more convenient or better adapted to his ends. With greater sincerity, and in a higher and truer sense, we may say, “The Republic—it is Peace.” Its preservation means its power. Its power means its ability to enforce respect abroad and obedience and order at home. Its power to preserve and protect the liberties and rights which it guaranties to all depends upon the preservation of itself, of its own authority and its own integrity. It was for this we took up the gage of battle insolently thrown down at Fort Sumter. It was because we knew that disunion, notwithstanding the cunning arguments made by the instigators and apologists of the rebellion, meant not only loss of public honor and private security, but perpetual war, that we were content to bear with patience the hardships and privations, the burthens and sorrows of the war, let it last one year or fifty, rather than surrender ourselves and our posterity to anarchy and endless, hopeless war. Therefore it was that Abraham Lincoln declared in his first inaugural address, “Plainly the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy;” and announced it as his deliberate purpose, that he “would, to the extent of his ability, take care that the laws of the United States be faithfully executed in all the States,” and that he would “hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and collect the duties and imposts;” ending with this solemn appeal, “You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.” Oh, great, good man! Oh, brave and faithful servant of the people! how well he kept that oath, sealing it in the hour of the great victory with his blood!

In order to appreciate properly the peace which has come at last, let us remember that the magnitude of the struggle in which we have been engaged is only equalled by the magnitude of the results which have been attained. The war, although it extended over a period of only about four years, was waged with an unexampled expenditure of resources and with numbers seldom witnessed in the history of human warfare. The State of Pennsylvania alone, as appears by the official report of the Adjutant-general of the State, placed in the field—

In 1861,130,594men.
In 1862,71,100“
In 1863,43,046“
In 1864,73,828“
Re-enlistments,17,876“
Total,336,444“

not including the 2,500 militia of 1862. I have not at hand the statistics which show the number of men furnished by the other States, but it is probably not an exaggerated statement, to say that on both sides there have been engaged in this great contest not less than two millions of men. The scene of active operations has extended over an area of many thousands of square miles. The material expenditure has been upon a scale of commensurate magnitude. During the single fiscal year ending June 30, 1863, there were purchased by the Government 174,382 horses, 86,254 mules, 12,730 army wagons, 3,511 ambulances, 340,906,893 pounds of oats, 283,940,284 pounds of corn, 578,113,890 pounds of hay and fodder, 95,437,787 pounds of mixed grain. The transportation by the Quartermaster’s Department alone, during the same year, was, of subsistence stores by land 784,833 barrels and kegs, 17,654 cattle; of subsistence stores by water, 4,478,143 barrels and kegs, 102,914 cattle; of ordnance stores by land, 354,659 barrels and kegs, 883 guns, &c.; of ordnance stores by water, 386,756 barrels and kegs, 1,093 guns, &c.; of quartermaster’s stores by land, 430,666 barrels and packages, 126,584 animals, 39,354 tons of forage, fuel, &c.; of quartermaster’s stores by water, 753,569 barrels and packages, 109,009 animals, 88,438 tons of forage, fuel, &c. There were 1,264,602 troops transported during the year by land, and 567,397 by water. The amounts paid for the above transportation were, by land, $8,030,003.03; by lakes and rivers, $9,476,681.73; and by the ocean, $4,798,385.02. There were paid during the same year for horse and mule shoes and nails, $286,191.38; for medicine for horses and other animals, $39,292.39; for forges, blacksmith’s and shoeing tools, $90,919.10; for barracks and quarters, $2,359,765.66; for transportation and supply of prisoners, $95,836.47; for clothing and camp and garrison equipage, $55,887,505.58. There were purchased by the War Department during the same year, 214,718 cords of wood, 130,820 tons of coal, (this of course does not embrace the enormous quantity purchased by the Navy Department during the same period,) 64 locomotives, 899 freight cars, 196 medicine wagons, 39,412,889 feet of lumber, 56,000 bricks, 1,436,566 pounds of nails, 2,078,530 horse shoes, 236,288 pounds horse shoe nails, 414,700 pounds of leather, 548,044 pounds of rope, 17,969 saddle blankets, 4,273 pack saddles, 235,497 wagon covers. There were employed in the Quartermaster’s Department during the same year 32 ships, 42 brigs, 554 schooners, 4 sloops, 72 propellers, 88 steam tugs, 12 ferry boats, 13 tow boats, 649 barges, 1,222 steamers; for the earnings of which were paid $17,788,043.53.

These figures, taken at random from only a partial report of a single bureau of a single department of the Government for a single year, convey but an imperfect idea of the scale of material expenditure upon which this great struggle was carried on. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1863, the expenditures by the War Department were $599,298,600.83. By the Navy Department, $63,211,105.27. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, the expenditures of the War Department were $690,791,842.97. By the Navy Department, $85,733,292.77. But we need not dwell upon particulars. We know the fact, that the debt incurred during the prosecution of the war amounts to about $3000,000,000.

But this is the smallest part of the sacrifices which the Nation has made to defend its life and perpetuate in the world the principle of self-government. What shall we say of the thousands and tens of thousands of brave men who have laid down their lives in our defence, and who sleep in their beds of glory from the heights of Gettysburg to the plains of Texas. Heroic, self-sacrificing men! They died for the Declaration of Independence, for the Constitution, for their country, for mankind. They have consecrated to everlasting freedom the soil in which they repose. They stand in no need of our poor eulogies. Their memory and their deeds will be revered while the world shall stand. As he—the last, the greatest, noblest martyr of them all—said at Gettysburg:—“The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated this ground far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note or long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that the Nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that the Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Nor, in counting up the cost of this dread struggle, must we overlook that great army of stricken and wounded men who, although they have survived the conflict of arms, have returned to us maimed and crippled for life. If we shall neglect our duty to them and disregard the mute appeal of their honorable scars; if we shall ever cease to treat them with that respect and tender consideration to which their services and their sufferings alike entitle them; or, if we shall forbear to extend to them that generous succour which they need, we shall be alike insensible to the claims of gratitude and the demands of honor.

If we turn our eyes to the region in which this great convulsion originated, we behold stretched out before us the prostrate, desolated South; its resources exhausted, its commerce blighted, its agriculture deserted, its industrial interests paralyzed, its internal improvements destroyed, its people bankrupt, its homes darkened, and the genius of her once fair and beautiful domain sitting in silence and tears, and awaiting the generous hand which shall soon raise her from her humiliation and her grief, and set her again in the place of a companion and an equal. If the crime was great, who shall say that the retribution is not sufficient! God forbid that in the presence of calamities so wide-spread and so profound we should indulge in any spirit of pride or exultation.

“Roll not a drum, sound not a clarion note

Of haughty triumph to the silent sky;