administration of the next four years will be decisive of the fate of this republic. Within that period the Union is to be saved or lost. Within that period the Constitution is to be vindicated or overthrown. Within that period the old flag of our fathers is to be re-advanced in triumph over all the States of which it has ever been, or ever borne, the emblem; or, rent in twain and shorn of half its lustre, it is to droop over a divided land. If the stake of the impending contest, my friends, were any thing less than this, if any thing less, or any thing other, than the rescue of the Union and the salvation of the republic were to be the result of this election, we might well hesitate about entering into a political struggle and arraying ourselves against an existing administration in a time of civil war. But with such an issue of national life, or national death, before us, there ought to be, there can be, no hesitation on the part of any patriotic citizen. Every one of us, young and old, is called upon by considerations from which there can be no appeal, by obligations from which there can be no escape, to form a careful, dispassionate, conscientious opinion as to his own individual duty, and then to perform that duty without flinching or faltering. We may be pardoned for an honest mistake. We may be excused for an error of judgment. But we can never be excused, before men or before God, for standing neutral and doing nothing. There is no exemption from this warfare. Not only should it be written on every man's forehead what he thinks of the republic; but no man should give sleep to his eyes, or slumber to his eyelids, without asking himself: What can I do for my country? How can I exercise that most precious of all privileges, that greatest of all rights, the elective franchise, in a way to rescue her from the dangers by which she is encompassed?

And now, my friends, the first emotion which belongs to these occasions of assembling ourselves together, and the one to which we are all and always most eager to give expression, is that of joy and gladness and gratitude for the signal successes which have been recently vouchsafed to our arms. Most signal they certainly have been. It cannot be denied that, since the nomination of General McClellan was promulgated at Chicago, the military aspect of our affairs has been greatly improved. The

gallant Sherman at Atlanta, and the daring and dashing Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, have achieved victories of vital importance to the cause of the Union; and most heartily would we unite with our fellow-citizens of all parties in paying a wellearned tribute of respect and admiration to the commanders, and to the soldiers, who have been instrumental in accomplishing these glorious results. We are told, indeed, that all these victories are impairing the prospects of our own political success, and diminishing the chances of General McClellan's election to the Presidency. But we rejoice in them all, notwithstanding, and thank God for them with undivided hearts. The more of them the better, whatever may be their influence on the election before us. We are content to be so defeated, if that be their legitimate, or even their illegitimate, result; we are more than content. I venture to say, that our noble candidate would rejoice as heartily as President Lincoln himself at every success of our arms, even should the consequences be to leave him without a single electoral vote. He had rather see his country saved, and the Union restored, and the Constitution rescued, than to secure the highest honor for himself which it is in the power of man to bestow. Let us congratulate him, and let us congratulate each other, for we have a right so to do,-that his nomination has roused the administration to new efforts. Let us rejoice that the army has been spurred on to redeem the failures of the civil policy of the administration. The supporters of General McClellan may well be satisfied-even should they accomplish nothing more- with having given an impulse to the prosecution of the war, which not only affords the best promise of military success in the future, but which has already given so glorious an earnest of the fulfilment of that promise.

But why, why, my friends, should success on the battle-field diminish the chances of General McClellan's election? What possible reason is there for such a result? Nobody imagines, I presume, that the hero of Antietam would be a less prudent or a less skilful superintendent of our military affairs than Abraham Lincoln or Secretary Stanton. Nobody dreams that he would be likely to interfere disadvantageously with the conduct of the war. The President, certainly, could not have thought so,

when he so obviously connived a few weeks ago at offering him a high command, if he would only decline to be a candidate for the Presidency. The Republican party will hardly be ready to accuse the President of being willing to buy off a dangerous competitor at the expense of putting a doubtful general into the field.

No, it is the civil policy of the Government which General McClellan is relied upon to change. It is the civil policy of the Administration which imperatively demands to be changed. We believe that this civil policy of the administration has prevented all our military successes in the past, and will, if continued, prevent all our military successes in the future, from effecting the great end for which we are contending, the only end for which we could constitutionally take up arms. We believe that this civil policy if any thing the administration has recently done. can fairly be called civil- has been calculated to extinguish every spark of Union sentiment in the Southern States; that it has been calculated to drive those States finally out of the Union, instead of being adapted to draw them back to their old allegiance. We believe that this civil policy has tended to breathe a spirit of defiance and desperation into the breast of every Southern man and woman and child, that it has rendered the work of our own brave soldiers a thousand-fold harder to be achieved, and has thus far given them only a barren and fruitless victory, whenever they have succeeded. Who is there wild enough to imagine that mere military triumphs can accomplish that great consummation of Union and peace, which is the devout wish and prayer of every patriotic heart? Why, my friends, we may go on conquering and to conquer month after month, and year after year; we may overcome armies, we may take possession of cities, we may strip and devastate whole territories and regions of country, we may make a solitude and call it peace; but the restoration of the old Union of our fathers, with all the States in their constitutional relations to the General Government, and all the stars upon the folds of our country's flag, will require something more than any mere force of arms can effect. Nobody saw this more clearly, or admitted it more frankly, than President Lincoln himself, when he declared so emphatically in his Inaugural Address: "Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight

- it

always; and when, after much loss on both sides and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical questions as to terms of intercourse are again upon you." The great advantage of victories, my friends, is in opening the way for a wise, conciliatory, healing policy to come in and settle the questions at issue; and it is thus at the very moment when those victories are achieved, that we most need men at the head of the Government who can turn the triumphs of our armies to the only account for which they are worth a straw. It is this-this application of a wise, conciliatory, healing policy—which must follow close upon the track of military triumph in order to render it fruitful, is this for which the present administration, as we think, is wholly incapacitated, and for which we believe a new administration is the great and paramount necessity of the hour. It is in this view that victories, instead of impairing the prospects of General McClellan's election, ought to plead trumpet-tongued in his behalf. The question prompted by every victory should be, "Where, where are the men who can turn all this conflict and carnage to account, and render a repetition of it needless? Where are the men who can save us from the reproach of having shed all this precious blood in vain, and can originate and pursue a policy which shall make that blood effective for the healing of the nation? Where are the men, where is the man, who can extricate his country from impending ruin, by first extricating himself from all mere sectional and partisan pledges and entanglements, and by planting himself on the simple platform of the Constitution?" These are the questions which each succeeding victory should call upon us to put to ourselves, and these are the questions which, in my judgment, can only be satisfactorily answered by the resolution to change the Administration. If any man would vote for General McClellan in case our military successes had not occurred, a hundred-fold more should he vote for him now. Without those successes it would have mattered little who was President. We could have accomplished nothing. But with them a way is opened for a new President to restore Union and peace to our land. Shall we not have a new President to take advantage of that opening?

But let us look at the issue before us a little more closely, and

more deliberately. You will not expect me, my friends, to go back to the origin of the great struggle in which we are involved. I can tell you nothing about the history of the past which is not abundantly familiar to you. You all know that a wanton and unjustifiable rebellion against our National Government was inaugurated in South Carolina nearly four years ago; that it soon expanded to the proportions of the most gigantic civil war the world has ever witnessed, and that it is raging madly and wildly still. You all know the story of its rise and progress. You all know how much treasure and how much blood it has already cost. And you all know what has been accomplished. You have followed our brave soldiers and sailors in all their toils and perils, in all their reverses and in all their triumphs, on the land and on the sea, from that first most impressive scene at Fort Sumter, when the stars and stripes were lifted by the gallant Anderson on the breath of solemn prayer, down to the latest achievements of Sherman and Farragut and Sheridan, at Atlanta and in Mobile Bay and in the Valley of the Shenandoah. You have watched, too, the course of our civil rulers at Washington. Their shifting and drifting policy as it has been strangely developed in resolutions and proclamations, and manifestoes, "To whom it may concern is familiar to you all. You know what they have promised, and you know what they have performed in the past; and you know what they propose for the future. And now it is for you, and for each one of you, to say, whether you are satisfied to recommit the final destinies of this republic to the same hands; whether you are satisfied that the men now in power are in the way of bringing this fearful struggle to a safe and successful termination; whether, in a word, you are ready to take your share of the responsibility of continuing their domination through that presidential term, of all others, which is to decide whether there shall ever again be a President over the whole United States of America. For myself, as I have said elsewhere, I have reflected deliberately and deeply on this question, and I have in vain attempted to resist the conclusion, that the best interests of our country, and the best hopes of restoring the Union of our country, demand a change of our national rulers. I have not been able to resist the conclusion, that almost any other party