Father of Mercies, Heavenly Friend,
We seek Thy gracious throne;
To Thee our faltering prayers ascend,
Our fainting hearts are known!
From blasts that chill, from suns that smite,
From every plague that harms;
In camp and march, in siege and fight,
Protect our men-at-arms!
Though from our darkened lives they take
What makes our life most dear,
We yield them for their country's sake
With no relenting tear.
Our blood their flowing veins will shed,
Their wounds our breasts will share;
Oh, save us from the woes we dread,
Or grant us strength to bear!
Let each unhallowed cause that brings
The stern destroyer cease,
Thy flaming angel fold his wings,
And seraphs whisper Peace!
Thine are the sceptre and the sword,
Stretch forth Thy mighty hand,—
Reign Thou our kingless nation's Lord,
Rule Thou our throneless land!
WHERE WILL THE REBELLION LEAVE US?
"The United States are bounded, North, by the British Possessions; South, by the Gulf of Mexico; East, by the Atlantic Ocean; and West, by the Pacific." So the school-books told us which we studied in our childhood; and so, in every school throughout the land, the children are taught to-day. The armed hosts whose tread resounds through thy Continent are marching Southward to teach this simple lesson in geography. They all know it by heart. "This they are ready to verify," as the lawyers say. Wherever, in any benighted region, this elementary proposition shall be henceforth denied or doubted, schools for adults are to be established, and the needful instruction given. By regiments, battalions, and brigades, with all necessary apparatus, the teachers go forth to their work. The proposition is a very simple one, easily expressed and easily understood; but it tells the whole story. It is the substance of all men's thoughts, and of all men's speech. Mr. Lincoln states it in his inaugural. Mr. Douglas impresses it upon the Illinois legislature. Mr. Seward announces it, briefly and with emphasis, to the governments of Europe. Sentimental talk about "our country, however bounded," is obsolete; and how the country is bounded is now the point to be settled, once and forever. "This territory, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf, belongs to the people of the United States, and they mean to hold and keep it. We shall neither alter our school-books nor revise our maps." So say the American people, rising in their wrath.
The practical question with which Mr. Lincoln's administration had to deal in the first place was, Whether a popular government is strong enough to suppress a military rebellion? And that may be regarded as already settled. But the grounds upon which that rebellion is justified involve the vital facts of national unity, and even of national existence. As a people, we have always been extremely tolerant of theories, however absurd. There is hardly a doctrine of constitutional law so clear and well settled, that it is not, from time to time, discussed and disputed among us. But when it comes to reducing mischievous speculations to practice, the case is altered, and the practical genius of the people begins to manifest itself. Thus, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of '98 and '99 declared the Federal Constitution to be merely a compact between sovereign States, created for a special and limited purpose; and that each party to the compact was the exclusive and final judge for itself of the construction of the contract, with a right to determine for itself when it was violated, and the measure and mode of redress. As a theory, this doctrine has been very extensively accepted. Great parties have adopted it as their platform, and elections have been carried upon it. Its value as a support to the dignity and self-importance of local politicians was readily apprehended by them; and it was in perfect harmony with the tone of bluster which pervaded our politics. The thorough refutation which it always encountered, whenever it was seriously considered, never seemed to do its popularity any harm. In truth, mere vaporing hurt nobody, and caused no great alarm. But when the Hartford Convention was suspected of covering a little actual heat under the smoke of the customary resolutions and protests, a bucket of cold water was thrown over it. When, in 1832, South Carolina developed a spark of real fire, the nation put its foot on it. And now, when the torch of rebellion has been circulating among very inflammable materials, until a serious conflagration is threatened, the instinct of self-preservation has roused the energies of the whole people for its immediate, complete, and final extinction.
The present insurrection has been so long meditated, the approaches to its final consummation have been so steadily made, and the schemes of the principal traitors have been so well planned and carefully matured, that they have almost succeeded in making the vocabulary of treason a part of the vernacular of the country. We all talk of the States which have seceded or are going to secede,—of a fratricidal war,—of the measures which this or the other State is determined or likely to adopt; and a great deal has been said about State sovereignty, and coercion of a State, and the invasion of the soil of one State and another. There has been large discussion in times past of the danger of a dissolution of the Union. Indeed, this danger has been so often held up as a threat by one section, and so persistently used as a scarecrow by timid or profligate men in the other, that it has become one of the commonplaces of political contests. Our ears have hardly ceased to be tormented with projects of reconstruction, and with suggestions of guaranties, and pacifications, and mediation, and neutrality, armed or otherwise. Border-State Conventions are projected, and well-meaning governors have been arranging interviews or conducting correspondence with governors who talked of Southern rights, and undertook to say what their States would or would not permit the United States Government to do. Even a Cabinet officer, of whom better things might have been expected, and by whom better things are now nobly said and done, allowed himself to fall into the error of explaining to the vacillating Governor of Maryland that the intentions of the National Administration were purely defensive. While such language is current at home, it is not strange that foreigners should find themselves in a state of hopeless confusion about us. Few European writers, except De Tocqueville, have ever shown a clear comprehension of our political system; and the speeches of British statesmen on American affairs are perhaps rather to be accounted for and excused from want of information, than resented as hostile or insulting. But it is time that this whole pernicious dialect should be exploded, and the ideas which it represents be eradicated from the minds of intelligent men everywhere.