circumstances aright, to foresee events that in the laws of reason and of human logic are inevitable, will do the rest. If, moreover, we capture Mobile and Wilmington, who will ask whether Richmond can be taken? Richmond can only capitulate, and the rebel leaders can only choose between capture and flight. It might, indeed, happen that the attempt to advance this policy would lead the rebels, under the influence of despair and hope, to abandon Richmond; or, withdrawing the body of the army southward, to trust the defence of their capital to fortresses, intrenchments, and the soldiers within the fortifications. This policy would still leave us the advantage, as, by falling upon the railways in the rear of their army, we could separate Richmond from the Confederacy. Upon the basis laid down, it would seem incredible to history that the spring and early summer should have passed away, and the rebel authority continue as it is at this

moment.

The policy, then, to which these suggestions lead, embodied in propositions, may be stated thus:

I. Open the Mississippi River.

II. Menace Richmond with a formidable naval force upon the James River, and a formidable land force upon the angle between the James and the Appomattox; and be prepared to support this force from the Potomac and other points, should it be deemed necessary for defence, or to advance upon Richmond if the rebel army in that city should be materially diminished.

III. The capture of the ports named by sudden attacks of large forces on land and water; regarding

the capture of Richmond as a thing to be desired and attempted should circumstances so invite, but not to be pursued as an object of the war, nor as in any considerable degree essential to the ultimate success of the national arms.

IV. The abandonment of the attempt to protect loyal men in the rebel States. Nor should any effort be made to induce such to identify themselves with the government until our successes and the experience of the rebel population shall have made. it safe for loyal people to announce and defend their opinions without the active protection of the national government. When the rebel power shall have been broken, the opportunity for the free expression of opinion will gradually return to the people. Then such free expression will not be attended with personal danger; but, until that time arrives, it is wise for our government to direct its military operations without regard to the existence of loyal men, discountenancing expressions of loyalty in the rebel districts rather than giving encouragement to them. The rebel territory is so vast that it is simply impossible to give personal or even local protection to the people. We should attempt (1) To occupy so much rebel territory as is essential to the protection of the loyal States, and nothing more; (2) To seize such strategic points as may be necessary for present or future operations; (3) To penetrate the rebel territory for the purpose of breaking and destroying lines of communication... When these things shall have been successfully accomplished, the rebel army will be separated into parts; its sources of supply cut off; its ultimate annihilation certain.

216

THE POWER OF THE GOVERNMENT TO SUPPRESS THE REBELLION.

SPEECH DELIVERED BEFORE THE NATIONAL UNION LEAGUE ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C., JUNE 16, 1863.

IT

T would be unkind in me, ladies and gentlemen, if I were to-night, under the circumstances both of the climate and of public affairs, to make a long speech, even to indulgent hearers.

Since the rebellion opened, I have followed but one line of conduct in regard to whatever I have thought, done, or said in reference to public affairs. I do not propose any departure from that course to-night. It is simply this: to give that advice and counsel which the exigencies of the country demand, without regard to its effect upon myself or upon the opinions, purposes, principles, or feelings of other

men.

The crisis is too important to allow any man to deviate from that course of conduct; and what I have said and done, and what I shall say or do, all turns upon one idea, and has in the end but one purpose; and that is, the extinction of the institution of slavery, as the means by which the rebellion is to be quelled, the Union restored, and civil war for ever after prevented. Believing this to be the necessary and inevitable consequence of the overthrow of that institution, and educated as I have been in

the traditions and histories of our country,- having observed to some extent, with such faculties as I could command, the greatness of the republic, and conceived to some extent its nature, grandeur, and power, if I believed in the system of slavery, I should yet feel called upon to surrender it, and to aid in its destruction, in order that the republic might live. If two years ago it were not admitted that this was a contest of life or death in which we are engaged, no sane man can to-day have any doubt upon that point.

But there can be no concession, there can be no compromise, there can be no arrangement, there can be no treaty, nor can there be any return of Jefferson Davis and his allies, or of the slaveholders, as slaveholders, into this Union.

It is not the result Congress, or of what and, if you will search

The government has not been framed which can sustain a struggle such as inevitably must result from the existence within its limits of any considerable number of men who entertain the ideas which these men entertain. The war that is now desolating our land, is not the result of the preaching of anybody, North or South. of what has been done in Congress has failed to do; the records of time, you will find that this rebellion in which we are engaged, this war which we are prosecuting hand to hand with the enemies of the republic, is the most logical and most inevitable of which history gives us any account. It is not spasmodic nor exceptional. It is necessary, because we founded a government upon antagonistic and hostile ideas. You might as well hope to establish

an harmonious and enduring church upon the Koran and the Bible, as to expect to maintain, through successive ages, institutions and forms of government based in part upon the equality of man, and in part upon the subjugation of man to tyranny. In saying this, I make no reflections upon the men who framed this government. If, on the one hand, the men of the North had believed that slavery would be extended and perpetuated, they never would have put their hands to the compact; and, if the men of the South at that day had believed in the institution of slavery, they had too much respect for the truth to have asked their friends in the North to form an alliance with them. The men of the North and South, with few exceptions, believed that slavery was temporary, transitory, and even then passing away; and that liberty was permanent and universal in its application to all men.

Some of those whom I address remember the memorable event of the presence of the Hungarian exile, Kossuth, in our country. It was my fortune to introduce him in Fanueil Hall, in Massachusetts; and I recall to-night the opening passage of his speech, not in language, but in meaning. Said he: "You err in speaking of American liberty.' You should say, 'Liberty in America.' There can be no such thing as American liberty. God is God: liberty is liberty."

Now, then, reviewing the past, I can but come to the conclusion, that one great source of our failure is, that we have undertaken to establish here, upon this continent, American liberty, and have confined its application to men of a particular color,