CONTENTS. Page. Page 93, line 12, read "they for "those." Page 98, line 1, read "a" for "the," before "placid." Page 132, line 20, read "holy "" for "whole." Page 134, line 8 from bottom, read "its" for "his." Page 159, line 18, read "renounces " for "announces." Page 236, line 11, read "was" for "with," after "avowal." Page 335, line 11, read "resort" for "sort." UNION AND ANTI-SLAVERY SPEECHES. THE UNION: ITS NATURE AND ITS ASSAILANTS.* FELLOW CITIZENS :-Honored by your invitation to address you on this venerated and cherished anniversary, I was led to comply, not less by a sense of dutiful obligation to our mother land, than by the impulse of true and reverent affection for those free institutions, which have been to the American people only a fountain of inestimable blessings, but which are now threatened with disaster, if not subversion and destruction. Clouds and darkness are above us; the fires of unholy and reckless passions are around us; the convulsed earth trembles beneath us; and there is no WASHINGTON! At such a time, I rejoice—and who that pretends to patriotism will not rejoice?-that I can still salute you as fellow-citizens, not only of the noble State we inhabit, A speech delivered at a Union meeting held at Louisiana, Missouri, July 4, 1861. but of those United States, to the Union of which Missouri owes her existence as an American State, and from the Union of which her people have received untold benefits. The bond of brotherhood between us is not yet severed; and here as brothers, beneath the glorious flag which symbolizes that Union, let us devoutly thank the God of our fathers for His goodness in the past, and humbly implore Him to keep us brothers yet, and to restore our beloved country to its former high estate. 66 In the outset I would announce the character in which I appear before you to-day. I am not here as a Northern or a Southern man, an Eastern or a Western man; nor as a "Democrat," which I am; nor as a Republican," which I am not, nor ever was; but simply as an AMERICAN CITIZEN; more than content with the glory of that title, and ambitious only that it may not, now or ever, be sullied by any act or word of mine. With profound reverence I have, from my youth, followed the teachings of the great lights of our country, from WASHINGTON to the present day, and from them learned to love the Union of the American people above all other human institutions. It is, with me, the pre-eminent embodiment of all national wisdom, beneficence, and greatness. At the age of sixteen I was solemnly sworn to support the Constitution which sprung from that Union, and on other occasions since, that oath has been repeated, until, by its influence, combined with that of every year's added experience, fidelity to that Constitution has become an intimate portion of my very existence; never to be destroyed, I hope, until that existence shall itself cease. Here and elsewhere, to you and to all, I declare that so far as any past or existing causes of dismemberment are concerned, I am, in life or in death, for the UNION. A third generation has almost passed away, since on this day eighty-five years ago, the American people proclaimed themselves to be, as they had already in fact long been, ONE PEOPLE, and solemnly before the world united their destinies for all future time as A NATIONa new, an independent, a republican, and, as time has shown, a great nation. Three millions of people were born as a Nationality on that day, baptizing themselves in streams of their own best blood, shed for liberty and national existence: to-day, the same Nation, grown to more than ten times its original numbers, a thousandfold increased in physical power, and standing so lately without a superior in moral greatness among the nations of the earth, stains itself-O! shameful and horrid sight!-with the blood of its own people, shed in a strife provoked by passion and madness-a strife such as men have not seen before, and as the civilized world beholds with perplexity, amazement, and dread. Under such circumstances, you will not expect that any other topics than those which so sadly engross every mind, should be now presented to you. Our Country and its perils is the absorbing theme; involving an examination of the nature of our institutions, and a discussion of the startling rebellion which has burst upon us within the past six months, threatening |