I.
We are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for our national existence—for the preservation of the Union, for these are synonymous. To succeed, we need an animating spirit that shall carry us through all obstacles; that shall smile at repeated defeat; that shall ever buoy us up with strong hope and confidence in the ultimate success of our efforts. Such a spirit cannot flow from a simple love of opposition, excited by the wicked bravado of our opponents; nor from a desire to prove ourselves the stronger: neither can it flow from the mere wish to destroy slavery. None of these motives singly, nor all of them combined, are sufficient to sustain us in this hour of trial, or to carry us clear through to the desired goal. The only motive which can do this, and which, in the heart of every loyal man, should be of such large proportions as immensely to dwarf all lower ones, is one that can flow only from a clear comprehension of the value of the Union, coupled with a conviction, arising out of this intelligent valuation, that the Union, being what it is—containing within itself untold, and yet undeveloped blessings to ourselves and to the human race at large—is nothing less than a most precious gift of God; given into our charge, to be ours as long as we deserve its enjoyment by our individual and national adherence to truth and right; a conviction also, that our Union, from the very marked Providential circumstances attending its establishment, is in no small sense a divine work; and hence, that we may rest in the sure hope that God will not permit His own work to be destroyed, except by our refusing to coöperate with Him in its preservation.
All our blessings, natural and spiritual, are enjoyed by us only in the degree of our free and voluntary coöperation with the intentions of the Divine Giver. No good thing is forced upon us, and nothing that we ought to have is withheld if we put forth the power granted us to obtain it. The atmosphere surrounds us, but the lungs must open and expand to receive it. The food is before us, but the mouth must open, and the hands convey it thither, or it is of no service. Light flows from the sun, but the eye must open to enjoy it. And so with the blessings which we enjoy in the Union; we must use our active powers to profit by them; and at this crisis we must not only act to enjoy them, but must strain every nerve to preserve them. The nation is now on its trial, to be tested, as to whether it adequately values the divine gift of the Union. If it does thus value it, it will use diligently and carefully all the abundant resources which lie around it and within it, like an atmosphere—wealth, population, energy, intelligence, mechanical ingenuity, scientific skill, and all the needed materièl of warfare. It is rich in all this, far more so than the South. All this, Providence lays at the feet of the nation. It can do no more. The nation, as one man, must now do its part, or continue to do as it has done; it must coöperate, must put forth a determined will—a will tenfold more resolute, more fixed and immovable to preserve the Union, than is that of its enemies to destroy it. This will cannot exist without a clear, intellectual appreciation of the worth of the Union; of its value as an agent, which, if rightly employed, will continue to develop increasing power to humanize and Christianize men, and to elevate, to broaden, and intensify human life and happiness more than any form of political institution that the world has ever witnessed.
Full of this conviction, we shall then, individually and collectively, be resolved that this noble continent, stretching three thousand miles from ocean to ocean, and opened like a new world to man, just at an epoch when religious and political liberty, starting into life in Europe, might be transplanted into this virgin soil, where thus far they have developed into this fair republic—we shall then be resolved that this broad, rich territory shall be forever devoted
To man's development—not to his
debasement.
To liberty and free order—not despotism
and forced order.
To an ever-advancing civilization—not
to a retrograding barbarism.
To popular self-government—not to
the rule of a slave-holding oligarchy.
To religion, education, and morality—not
to irreligion, ignorance, and
licentiousness.
To educated and dignified labor—not
to brutalized labor under the lash.
To individual independence and
equal rights—not to individual
subjugation to caste.
To peace—and not to border wars between
conflicting States.
To unity, harmony, and national
strength—not to disunity, civil discord,
and subjection to foreign
powers.
All these blessings on the one hand are guaranteed in the Union, and only there—all their opposite horrors are involved as inevitably and certainly in the Southern lunacy, resting on slavery and secession as its corner stones! Madness most unparalleled!
We will look now at a singular and beautiful fact—for fact it is, account for it as we may. It is this: The course of civilization upon this globe has apparently followed the course of the sun. Sunlight and warmth travel from east to west. The moral and intellectual illumination of the nations has travelled the same route. From central or farther Asia, it goes to Assyria, and successively to Egypt, to Greece—thence to Italy and Rome—then to western Europe, England, France, Spain. From thence it leaps the Atlantic. The Bible, church, and school house, with the Pilgrims and other colonies, scatter the primeval darkness and savagism from the Atlantic coast. Still 'westward the march of empire takes its way' to the Alleghanies, to the Mississippi; thence, by another leap, across two thousand miles of continent, where it sparkles with a golden lustre on the queenly California, enthroned upon the far-off Pacific shore (yet by the miraculous telegraph within whispering distance). There the newest and highest civilization comes face to face with the oldest on the earth—hoary with ages; greets it in China across the wide Pacific, and the circle of the globe is joined.
Now the civilization inaugurated upon our continent, in these United States, may be said to be, indeed is, the result of all that have preceded it. It combines somewhat of the elements of all the civilizations that have been strung along the earth's eastern semi-circumference, besides others, peculiar to itself. And why should it not be considered as the bud and opening flower growing out of the summit of all the past, and for which the long ages have made toilsome preparation. Long time does it take for stem and leaves to unfold, but in the end comes the flower, and then the fruit. But here, in this bud of splendid promise, the American Union, lurks the foul worm of slavery, threatening to blast the fondest hopes of mankind by destroying this glorious augury of a mature civilization, where man shall develop into the full earthly stature of a being created in the divine image. Shall it be? Not if the North is faithful to God, to mankind, and to itself.
Let us take courage. The westward-travelling sunbeams have ever to oppose the western darkness, but they conquer always. So American civilization, also, has its darkness and barbaric elements to battle with, but they too, God willing, shall vanish before it.
Why have we been forced into this desperate, unexpected conflict? One reason may possibly be, that by it, we may be aroused to a living sense of the great value of our inheritance, the Union, when threatened with its loss. 'Blessings brighten as they take their flight.' Benefit's daily enjoyed, with hardly a care or effort on our part, are not prized as they should be. When, however, we are threatened with their loss, we awaken from indifference. A new sense of their value springs up, and a severe contest for their preservation stamps their true worth indelibly on the heart. Threaten to cut off the air a man breathes, the food and drink that sustains him, and you rouse all his energies into new life; and he now prizes these common but unthought-of blessings as he never did before. And so it will be one effect of this contest, to arouse us as a nation to see clearly our vantage ground in the world's progress, and to stir us up as individuals, to lead higher and truer lives, each for his own and for his country's sake. And when this Southern insane wickedness is quelled, and the great American nation can rest and breathe freely once more, it will then calmly ponder the past, and survey the future. In the degree of its religion and virtue, and next of its intelligence and energy, it will, in the course of time, clearly perceive and wisely inaugurate a new social and industrial life, which will be as far in advance of the present system of free labor as the latter is itself in advance of slavery. What that is, cannot here be stated. It will, however, be but the inevitable result of agencies and influences now at work, and only interrupted and endangered by this pro-slavery rebellion.