oligarchy of Slavery. The aristocracy of the kingdom of Cotton has struck its first blow at American Republicanism, and it will be its last. The Nation sleeps no more over its liberties. Taught, as never before, the incalculable value of its free institutions, and the source of their danger, it has already mounted guard over them; and evermore hereafter, by day and by night, in sunshine and in gloom, the cheery "All'8 well" of freedom will ring out on the same air that wafts to Mount Vernon the Nation's benedictions on the name of WASHINGTON.

9

THE REBELLION:

ITS ORIGIN AND LIFE IN SLAVERY.*

IN placid bay, on the south-eastern coast of the United States, stands a noble fortress, erected by the American Government, for the protection of a Southern commercial capital and the interior region connected with it. Through many years and at vast expense, New England granite was quarried, and by tens of thousands of tons transported ocean-wise, to drop into that bay the foundations of that fortress, and upon them to build its massive walls. It was completed; and behind its frowning battlements that commercial capital reposed in security, odorous of southern flowers and warm with the rays of a southern sun.

That fortress was SUMTER-that capital, CHARLESTON; one named for a patriot of '76, the other for a British King; each appropriately named. The plain and solid granite fabric looked the republican hero-the ornate and aristocratic city typified the king. Both were destined to historic immortality.

* A Speech delivered in Mercantile Library Hall, St. Louis, April 14, 1862; having been previously spoken, in substance at Union, Mo., April 7, 1862.

In the fortress was a little band of seventy men, with less than three days' food in store, and above them waved the American flag; on the neighboring shores, behind ominous batteries, under a banner till then unknown, were a hundred times their number, in warlike array. It was night. The silent stars looked down upon the bay, the city, the batteries, the fortress, the seven thousand men, and the seventy; and nothing told them that ere they shone upon the brow of another night, a shock would thrill from that spot along the world's nerves, which might not cease to vibrate while the world stands.

The surrender of that fortress was demanded,-ruthlessly and unrighteously demanded,—and righteously, as well as bravely, refused; and in the dark hour preceding dawn the seven thousand warn the seventy, that in one hour from that time they will open fire from their batteries upon the fortress, behind which slumbered the city of kingly name. It was an hour of treason's demoniac preparation for attack, of patriotism's calm and steady readiness for defense; an hour of years to the angel host that viewed from their starlit heights the nearing triumph of traitors over their country; an hour of wild exultation among the infernal host, over the coming revelry of war and death.

The hour ended; and as the awakening day gave light to the seven thousand, those batteries, north and south, east and west, thundered forth, and Peace fled affrighted and weeping from that placid bay and from America! For four and forty hours there beat upon

that fortress a horrible tempest, above and below, outside and inside, of deadly missiles, and shell,

cold and hot; but the seventy stood firm. But human endurance, though endowed with superhuman courage, can not long resist a hundred times its strength. In the five and fortieth hour, wasted and worn by brave labor and exhausting vigils, the seventy-greater in defeat than all the seven thousand in triumph-capitulated with honor, and bearing Sumter's untarnished flag in their loving arms, marched forth from that granite fortress, and sailed from that southern bay, to receive a nation's admiring thanks, and to live with Leonidas and his Spartan three hundred, in historic renown for ever.

Such was the scene which, this day a twelvemonth since, closed the first assault of Americans upon their Country-the first humiliation of America's flag by her own children. As the tale was told over the world, nations started in astonishment and awe. Tyrants laughed, for it bespoke the downfall of republics; the votaries of freedom wept, for it seemed the knell of liberty. The people who loved that dishonored flag sprang to their feet with one mighty impulse, and every heart swelled with the stern resolve to wipe out the disgrace, and punish the traitors who had inflicted it. Twenty millions of them answered those thundering batteries with a shout that shook the earth. Hundreds of thousands arrayed themselves in the unaccustomed panoply of war, and, leaving kindred, friends, and home, took up the line of march to victory or death, under that flag, for that flag! It was such

an uprising of a great people as no nation, barbarian or civilized, pagan or Christian,had ever before beheld. It was far beyond and above anything that the traitors had dreamed of. It was a noble tribute to a flag which symbolized only justice, honor, and national glory, wherever it waved. It is right that we remember the anniversary of that day, and while we recall its humiliating scenes, think also of the glorious response of the twenty millions. It tells us where the defenders of American liberty may be found, in the hour of need.

The unprovoked attack on Sumter was not the beginning; it was only a necessary sequence of preceding events. Sixteen months ago from this time began the treasonable work, of which that was but the outbreak a period of time which I can not look back upon, without the feelings of one who, from having gazed all his life upon bright and beautiful scenes of peace and happiness, has been suddenly compelled to turn to one of wrath and misery and death, and witness its pageantry of woe pass before him for long and weary months, sickening his days and haunting his nights, until his heart almost bursts with grief over the ruin, before his eyes, of what he held most dear. The 20th day of December, 1860, dawned upon a happy and united nation; its sun went down upon a people with treason-fires lighted in the midst From that day when South Carolina struck her ferocious blow at the Constitution, and mocked and spit upon the flag of the Union, to this,-the great American nation has struggled for its life. We proudly thought the nation immortal; but we find that its existence, like