pass out of its hands into the hands of a representative of the people, and so it undertook to break up the American Union in the insane hope of a new empire founded on the slavery of men. The chief's of this aristocracy expected that New York would join them in the destruction of the Republic. They openly boasted that Indianayes, your Indiana-and Illinois also would form parts of the new Confederacy. They said that all the Northwestern States would join them rather than that the Mississippi should be closed to their commerce. Thus they hoped to found a mighty slave empire on the ruins of the great Democratic Republic.

They began their play by firing on Fort Sumter. The nation. flew to arms. They listened for the acclaim of sympathy and support which they had been promised from New York and Indiana and Illinois. Instead of it they heard the tramp of hundreds of thousands of armed men marching southward to suppress the rebellion.

Was not God's hand in that? I think it was.

Even after the rebellion had become flagrant, you remember how forbearing the President was, and how forbearing everybody was. I used to be very impatient sometimes, and wanted this military thing done and that military thing done, and the rebellion crushed out at once. Why was it not crushed out at once? Why was it that everything moved so slowly? Why were results so disproportionate to means? Was not the providence of God teaching the nation, that slavery was at the bottom of the rebellion, and that there was no such thing as crushing the one without destroying the other? That lesson was learned slowly, but it was learned thoroughly. All over the country to-day slavery is recognized as the cause and the strength of the rebellion. The rebel leaders proclaim that the war was made for slavery. All loyal men understand that the war was made for slavery. All see and know that the rebels fight for slave empire; that the Unionists fight for the right of the people to govern themselves.

Now, observe the wonderful change wrought in public opinion on this subject. Look at what is doing in Missouri. Three or four weeks ago some seventy delegates from Missouri representing no less than fifty-seven counties, with some thirty delegates from Kansas, called on me at my house in Washington, and explained to me their ideas. Some were slaveholders, some were not; but all agreed that slavery was the cause of the rebellion, and the great enemy and the only formidable enemy of the loyal South. So long as slavery should exist, they said, peace and security were impossible. They were determined therefore to put an end to it as speedily as the votes of the people could do the work. Should we have dreamed of the like of that three years ago? Look now to Maryland, and you will find precisely the same state of things that exists in Missouri. In the beginning of the war almost all the loyal men in Maryland, like almost all loyal men elsewhere, believed that the war could be successfully prosecuted, and that the country and slavery could be saved

together. That delusion has vanished in Maryland. The unconditional Union men in Maryland, like the unconditional Union men of Missouri, take ground boldly as an Emancipation party; for emancipation with compensation, if it can be had; if not, for emancipation without compensation. Turn your eyes now to the little State of Delaware. The unconditional Union men have nominated an Emancipationist for Congress, and they mean to elect him. So throughout the country. Hardly anywhere can you find an unconditional Union man who is not an enemy of slavery. Take the case of Charles Anderson, just elected Lieutenant Governor of Ohio. He removed some years ago to Texas; he was a pro-slavery man. When the war broke out he adhered to the Union. That the rebellion would not allow. He must either go for the destruction of the Union as the means of protecting slavery, or he must be treated as an enemy. He was arrested, but succeeded, amid great perils, in effecting his escape. Take the case of Andrew Jackson Hamil ton. He was a member of the last Congress before the Presidency of Mr. Lincoln-a slaveholder and a thoroughly pro-slavery man; but he was not for breaking up the Republic for the sake of slavery, and was driven from his home. Both these distinguished citizens see now clearly that the existence of the slave power and the continuance of slavery are incompatible with the restoration of the Republic-incompatible even with the personal safety of earnest and faithful friends of the Rpublic. So it is with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, and with all that multitude of loyal men of the slave States whom the slaveholders have driven from their homes and compelled to take refuge in the mountains. All of them feel that this war was born of slavery, grew by slavery, lives by slavery, and that until slavery dies there can be no peace. All these men rejoice that in the rebel States when it became clearly evident that slavery stood in the way of a successful prosecution of the war, the President struck it down by his Proclamation.

Is there a man here to-day who wants it to live again? ["No! no!"] Is there a man here who would have the President shrink from maintaining that Proclamation? ["No! no!"] Is there anybody here who would consent to the re-enslavement of a single man, or woman, or child made free by that Proclamation? ["No! no!"] While in the rebel States slavery has been abolished by the Proclamation in every one of the States not affected by it, an Emancipation party has sprung up, as I have just said, under the name of the Unconditional Union party. Is there anybody here who does not wish success to those noble and patriotic men who are upholding the cause of Union in those States? ["Not one."] Does anybody wish them success less earnestly because they believe that the cause of Union is indissolubly linked with the cause of freedom? ["No! no!"] Why, my friends, throughout all the land the prayers of good men continually ascend for God's blessing on these truehearted men. Morn, noon, and night these prayers reach the throne of the Majesty on High. Is not God's hand in all this?

Why, gentlemen, this nation had to be born again. Nothing seems clearer to me than that those of us who never desired to touch the institution of slavery in the slave States, but only to prevent its extension beyond State limits, were not moving in the path of God's providence, and that this war came upon us in order that the nation might be born again into a new life, ennobled and made glorious by justice and freedom. [Cheers.]

For what end? It is presumptous to attempt to penetrate the counsels of Providence, and yet the future may sometimes be seen in the past and in the present; and I cannot help thinking that this country has a great work before it, which it cannot fulfill while it remains a slaveholding country. When the increase of population and the growth of commerce required better means of intercourse than common roads, Macadam was born and invented turnpikes. When the advance of civilization required steam engines, and steamboats, and locomotives, and railways, Fulton and Stevenson were called to the work of invention and construction. When the further progress of human society demanded means by which intelligence could be transmitted from continent to continent, and from ocean to ocean, scores of intellects were set to work to devise modes of instantly communicating thought by light and lightning, until at length Morse invented the magnetic telegraph. And now it seems no less necessary that there should be a great nation in the world, governing itself, loving justice, respecting all rights, prepared for all duties, and hating nothing but oppression and wrong. Is it a wild belief that now amid the fierce pangs of this war this nation is being regenerated for these great ends, and that the war will end and only end when the regeneration is complete? It was the reverent belief of Washington, that God was in the American Revolution bringing a mighty nation to birth. Am I wrong in the reverent belief that God is in this second revolution, bringing this same mighty nation to a second birth?

When I came to Cincinnati day before yesterday to vote the Union ticket, some one handed me a copy of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Some of you may have seen it. Its tone has been somewhat changed in forty-eight hours. But it then said: "Secretary Chase has come to Ohio to vote for Brough, but the man that carries a hod can kill Chase's vote." This, my countrymen, is the crowning glory of our institutions. [Cheers.] I am glad and proud to know that there is a country in which no man, however high in office or rich in possessions, or distinguished by talents, can give a vote which cannot be balanced by the vote of the poorest man in all the land. [Cheers.] It is to preserve the institutions which secure to the poor man this equal vote that we now wage war. The war will end when that sacred object is fully accomplished.

BENEFICENT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WAR.

And now, fellow-citizens, let me ask your attention to some of the distinguishing characteristics of this war. Observe, in the first

place, the determination it produces in the hearts of the people throughout the land to be prepared for any future exigency. All the States are arming and assume a military footing. Your own Governor, with that wisdom and patriotism which have so greatly distinguished him, has organized the Indiana Legion, one of the regiments of which I have seen to-day. I am told there are twenty thousand of these men organized, armed, and equipped for the defence of your State, and who are they? Are they serfs driven to military service? Not one of them. They are freemen, all-noble young men your own sons who have voluntarily come forward to be drilled in the military service in order that they may be the better able, when need shall be, to defend their homes and their country. Multiply this force now by the number of States, and what a formidable army with which to repel invasion and uphold the supremacy of the laws. Such a force as this will make the country invincible in any war with a foreign power.

Observe another thing. At the outbreak of this war we were almost wholly unprovided with means of relieving soldiers suffering from disease and wounds; and in any other country no means would have been provided except through the direct agency of the Government. But here enlightened men of various professions come forward at once and tender their services as a SANITARY COMMISSION, and are found in every camp, on every march, on every battlefield, and in every hospital, aiding the regular medical organization, and scattering everywhere blessings and benefits among our soldiers. All this is voluntary work. You find no parallel to it in any other country. In England, to be sure, there is a Florence Nightingale— God bless her!-who left her home and went under the patronage of the Government to care for the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals and on the battle-fields of the Crimea. But nowhere except in our country will you find a body of men like the Sanitary Commission, following armies wherever they inarch, and equally useful in the mitigation and relief of the miseries ever attendant upon war.

Notice another distinguishing characteristic of this war. Many of the young men who volunteered in the service of their country are the sons of religious parents. They go away from the restraints of home, from the blessings of the family and the influences of the sanctuary, and are exposed to the temptations of camp and field. The Government, to be sure, hires chaplains to preach to them, but while many of these adorn their profession by faithful labors, others yield to the temptations which beset them, and become worse than the worst of their military flock. To supply the almost inevitable defects of this governmental provision, there springs up by voluntary impulse a CHRISTIAN COMMISSION. Its members go abroad through the camps and on the battle-fields and in the hospitals, to visit the sick and the wounded, to minister to their wants, to relieve their distresses, to receive their last messages, and to console their last hours. It is difficult to estimate how much is done by the ex

cellent men who have organized this noble charity to restrain the passions, to reform the morals, and raise the character of our soldiery. Where else but in our own country would or could this thing be done?

Then this war sets many bondmen free. These are almost always ignorant, and often persecuted. Well, what happens? The Government can only work clumsily in such matters, but to meet this special want the Society of Friends, always abounding in good works, comes forward to the relief of the poor freedmen. Other citizens, also, of all professions and parties and creeds, unite in voluntary associations for the promotion of education, industry and civilization among them. However they may differ in respect to other matters, they all say this people, freed by this war, must be cared for and taught. So everywhere somebody is doing something for the welfare of these poorest of God's poor. In what other country would these things have been thus done? Should we not be grateful for the institutions which make such a country and such a people as ours? May we not well believe that when we have succeeded in crushing the rebellion, and these great agencies shall have done their work, we shall all be re-united as one people, loving one another, and helping one another, and mightier than ever; bound together by common interests and common affections, and ready for whatever work Divine Providence may assign to us among the nations of the earth. This is my faith, and I have directed your attention to these things in order that you may appreciate the true. significance of what was done yesterday. Yesterday's vote was a great event in the history of the world. It pledges us and it pledges the country to great undertakings and to great achievements. Let us be faithful to this pledge, and our children's children will rise up and call us blessed.

I did not expect to say all this; but I have been drawn on from point to point until I have made more of a speech than I intended. Let me close by saying how grateful I am for the greeting you have given me. I have no fit language in which to express my gratitude to the people for the kindness with which they have sustained me, and with which they now everywhere meet me. I can only promise in return that as in the past I have endeavored to serve them faithfully, so in the future I will dedicate to their service whatever energy, faculty or capacity of labor God has given me.

Earnest invitations had been sent the Secretary, to extend his visit to Illinois and Missouri, but he replied that he had only come West to do his share in the election, and could not think of remaining longer away from his work in Washington. In the evening he attended a levee given in his honor by Gov. Morton, and made a brief address from his hotel to the crowd, clamoring for a speech; and at daylight he was off for Columbus and the East.

At Richmond and other points along the route, he was greeted by large assemblages, eager to pay their respects and hear him speak; and as on his trip out, he responded in very brief remarks. At Columbus, where he stopped to spend the night, there had been