movement that so greatly agitates the fountains of popular sentiment.

I feel deeply on this subject of the Constitution and the Union, because I feel and know that we owe all that we are to this great and good government. I see and know, and you know with me, that if this government is destroyed, free government, free institutions will be destroyed with it. It were better that this whole generation should be swept from the face of the earth, for in a few years we shall all be laid in the dust, if our free institutions be preserved. To you, patriotic old men, I say, give the wisdom of your counsel; to women, lend your kind and gentle influence and your prayers, and gird your fathers, husbands and brothers for the campaign and the conflict; to you, young men, the strength and hope of the country, I say, in something like the words of Hamlet, "'list! list! O 'list! if ever thou didst thy dear country love." Come forward, join the ranks, swell the numbers of this great army of freemen, march forward to the rescue; until the constitution triumphs; until the stars and stripes are firmly planted, waving over every State and acre of our territory; and then let one great hurrah go up that shall cause monarchy and oppression every where to tremble, and gladden and assure the heart of humanity throughout the world.

SPEECH

DELIVERED AT A UNION MEETING HELD AT UTICA, N. Y., October 10, 1861.

FELLOW-CITIZENS-The fact is before us that an armed rebellion is in the field against the government, with a greater army than was ever before embodied on this continent. Under these circumstances it is futile for us to look to the past; our duty is with the present and the future. Political parties in free governments take their rise on questions of the times; and they are useful when arrayed upon those upon which there can be properly and safely two sides maintained. Heretofore in this country, parties have properly and, probably, as a whole, usefully divided upon questions of administration and governmental policy. Thus, during the administration of Andrew Jackson, the subject of banks, tariffs, and an independent treasury were contested by the parties of that day, and out of their discussions a series of important questions arose and important principles were settled in the great popular tribunal of the people. It is proper that parties should continue as long as the questions upon which they arose remain vital, and those parties did continue and maintain the issues they had raised until they were definitely settled and no longer considered open. Parties then took other forms upon newer issues. I refer to parties in the past merely as matter of general history, and to illustrate the ideas I wish to suggest. When parties. are used for any other purpose than the maintenance of great principles, they become curses instead of blessings. They tend to degrade and demoralize, and degenerate to mere huckstering shops, in which the rights and liberties of the people are sold like cattle in the shambles, and the electoral franchise defrauded of its legitimate results.

In the present crisis of the affairs of the country, numbers

fail to discover the field within the pale of loyalty to the government, where party lines can be profitably or even safely drawn. There has been much cavil because a larger interest in this State-the majority of the people, in fact-have determined to discard party for the time; to lay it on the shelf; to put it in abeyance until the perils of the country are removed. The Republican party organization proposed that a Union ticket should be made up. The Democratic organization declined. The people have taken the question into their own hands. A convention has been held upon a popular call, and placed nominations before the electors for the purpose of bringing out a declaration of the union sentiment of the State through the ballot-box, and for no other reason. For myself I have held from the beginning of these disturbances and now contend, that it would be in the worst taste possible for any political party to strive with its nominations to gain partisan advan age in the face of the enemy in the field, with hostile guns aimed at the capital, and while our institutions rock to and fro in our sight. In such an emergency it would be a shame to retard the work of defending the existence of the republic for partisan purposes. We must all now act together, and press forward together to the great conclusion.

The Republican party, although it claims to be in the majority, and at the last election elected its candidates, should not expect to bring within party lines all whose support is necessary to the maintenance of the government. The Democratic party surely cannot attempt to take control and treat the national integrity as a mere party question. It could not assume to do so during the administration of General Jackson, though then it sat upon the seven hills of its power, and its panoply overshadowed the whole land. The narrow lines of mere party were stricken down in those days, when the banner of nullification was raised in South Carolina. The strong man then at the head of the government, and of the strongest, most vigorous and perfect party organization that has ever existed in the country, and whose administration possessed more strength than any that has succeeded it, did not deem himself and his administration, with all the prestige of the Democratic party, strong enough to cope with the occasion; or, more properly, his unerring patriotic impulses told him it was a question above

the province of party. His appeal, in words that electrified the country, was to the people; and Clay and Webster, the giant leaders of the opposition, whose eloquence shook the political spheres, joined with Jackson in putting down the rebellion. The voice of party was hushed in the presence of that rebellion, even though it existed only in intention and had form only in an attempt. The loyal people, without party distinction, sustained the administration, and the traitorous attempt was nipped in the bud.

The history of the late operations of the democratic leaders in this State, the men who control the organization and work the machinery of the party, shows how utterly inadequate and mischievous is party management under circumstances like the present. In their capacity of State Central Committee, upon rejecting the proposition for a union of all party interests for the sake of the Union, they assumed to put forth a party war platform, which was chiefly characterized by insisting upon liberal propositions of peace to the rebels in arms. But the popular pulse did not seem to beat responsive to such unselfish liberality, and a few days later, through their State Convention, they attempted to cover up their peace proclivities and propositions in a flourish of words. Their committee manifesto vanished; not exactly like the "baseless fabric of a vision," for it left so much of a wreck of peace propositions behind as a legacy to its successor of the Convention, that two of the candidates, with a promptness and decision worthy of their patriotism and their characters as American citizens, refused to stand as the exponents of such principles, or to be used to further the schemes of party managers to the detriment of the cause of the country. They then filled up the ranks of their candidates by the action of the State Committee, and the candidates, fearing to risk themselves before the public upon either the peace propositions of the Committee or the half-and-half declarations of the Convention, convened and issued a manifesto of their own; throwing in a shade more loyalty and coming a step nearer to the stand all Union loving men will require those to take and maintain who seek their suffrages for position of responsibility and trust. But the rule of "three times and out" is not to be controlling with the democratic management at this time, for now Tammany Hall, the ancient, leading, and central demo

cratic organization, has come forward and repudiated all that has gone before, declaring that the party must come up to the issue. The effort seems to have been to see how little could be said to commit the party to the cause of the country, and yet claim a hold upon popular support for its candidates. Hence these repeated trials-experiments they might be called-upon public credulity.

I mention these facts to show how poor and miserable and insufficient is party capacity and party management in a crisis like this. The question of the day is stronger than political parties or administrations. It is a question that will control all others; that will sweep away all the cobwebs of lies, and require us to come fully up to the standard of truth, and maintain this good government at all hazards, and at whatever expense of blood or treasure. The popular mind begins to feel that "it is not all of life to live." Let those who know so little of themselves that they fear for their identity if parties should be confounded, turn back and cling to the beggarly elements of party. For myself I am not afraid of getting lost so that I shall not know my own principles, and am prepared now to embody as my creed of action the sentiments of the whole people, who are marching shoulder to shoulder to rescue this government from the menace of traitors. To act from any other motive is to be dishonest and faithless to the country. Who are they that adopt the rallying cry of "party"? Who is it trying to cast impediments in the way of the vindication of the government? The burglar who enters the house is not the only one guilty. He is just as guilty who forms the plan, or holds the dark lantern while the work is done. He is not only guilty and deserving to be hanged high as Haman, who contrives and directly aids treason; but he is also guilty who apologizes for the traitor, and cries "peace" while armed treason stands in open rebellion.

This rebellion has not even the apology of sectionality; for there are thousands at the South who would lift up thanks to Heaven, if it were stopped and brought to nought. It had its origin in as base and reckless a spirit as ever moved in the infernal regions. It is not a movement of the Southern people, but of a few ambitious leaders who have been fed and pampered by the very government they are attempting to overthrow.