minority consummate the overthrow and ruin of the only representative constitutional Government on earth. When she fixed this determination, and announced her will, eleven rebellious States had attempted to sever their connection with the Federal Government; had torn from the forts, arsenals, magazines and harbors within their limits the banner of the constitutional Union. This reckless, rampant treason, though long threatened, took the civilized world by surprise; and, as the conspirators by thousands poured their murderous hail of shot and shell upon that thirsty, half-famished garrison at Fort Sumter, with its seventy exhausted but loyal men, they little realized that throughout the whole Christian world they were calling silently into exercise forces wholly beyond human control; for that man must be an atheist, or have no soul, who does not. realize, that since that first event God himself has been manifest in the moral and political phenomena which this great, loyal nation now presents, and statesmen, and philosophers, and generals, will begin to reason right and act right, when they realize this great truth. The establishment of free institutions on this continent toward ameliorating the condition of the human race, was second to the inauguration of the Christian religion, and their dismemberment and overthrow is reserved only to Jehovah himself.

Fellow-citizens, when last we met here, on the occasion to which I have referred, bold, rank, audacious treason pervaded almost every department of the Federal service. Army, navy, embassadors to foreign courts, collectors of customs, postmasters, the very defences at Washington, limited as they were, could not then be relied upon. The nation trembled for the safety of the national capital; the personal safety of the President was endangered even in the Executive mansion. Consterna tion and despair briefly ruled the hour. How stands the matter now? The capital is secured; the rebels are trembling for Charleston, Savannah, and their entire coast, while we have New Orleans and Nashville. Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri, then on the verge of rebellion, are secured; Virginia, then completely in the grasp of the rebels, has become loyal in the greater portion of her territorial extent. Over eight hundred thousand troops have been called into the field, armed, equipped, and provided, equal to any army ever before called into service; a navy, like Pallas, from the brain of Jove, seems to have sprung at once into complete existence; three thousand miles of coast have been blockaded, and a landing has been effected upon the soil of that pestiferous State, which first instigated and finally produced this wicked rebellion. I would that we could here have first made our terrible visitation of the power and resources of the Federal Government in quelling the treason, firmly believing, had that been done, the border States would never have hesitated in their allegiance. Twenty millions of people are on the one side, backed by the consciousness they are contending for the integrity and maintenance of the Government from which they have achieved greatness and commanded respect throughout the world. Eight millions of rebels oppose them. The grounds of the contest are clearly defined-treason, revolt and anarchy are on the one side; liberty, security and prosperity on the other. Great as is the disparity in wealth and numbers, the traitors thus far have maintained the unequal contest. But the end is not yet. An additional

300,000 troops have been called into requisition by our exigencies. This patriotic action of the Government must be sustained, traitors at home must be punished, spies and informers must be annihilated, the Union must be preserved, and condign punishment afterward inflicted upon all who have taken this period in our history to fatten upon the misfortunes of the Republic. A broad and beneficent statesmanship must be adopted, and the policy of the Government must be borne upon our victorious standards as they advance into the rebel territory. That policy should be broad, national and statesmanlike; but it should be so rapid, so powerful, so wise, and so energetic, that the national life will survive, and the authority of the Constitution in the rebellious States be recognized, if to accomplish it every existing institution, order, monopoly, or privilege, should be swept before our advancing hosts. Rights should be recognized, privileges discarded, and the authority of the United States floating again over its former territorial limits, its flag everywhere emblazoned in characters of living light-" The Union, it must and shall be preserved." It is to be seriously deplored that at this juncture our fears are appealed to lest the proportions of this contest shall be largely augmented by some efforts at intervention from foreign powers, which may result in collision in our present domestic dissensions. From the first dawning of our domestic dissensions the governing class in England have desired, not their repression, but their increase, and have actively sympathized with these internal traitors to dismember our Government. They thus hope to render the people of North America as impotent to oppose their political and commercial domination as similar domestic contentions have already reduced the people of the South American Republics. Hence at the very commencement of the rebellion the English ministry made haste to recognize the rebels as belligerents, and to place them on the same level as the Government against which they had rebelled. Intervene to make peace! Intervention will deluge the earth with blood. This country cannot be dismembered but by subjugation, amid seas of blood and oceans of flame. Never. England and France combined, with what is left of the rebels, cannot subjugate and dismember the United States. In such an atrocious attempt every lover of liberty and fair dealing in Europe will be our friend; every hater of British tyranny will be our friend; every hater of Napoleon will be our friend; the Pope would rejoice to see the end of a dynasty which seeks his degradation; Venice would find herself a part of Italy, and Austria would find a compensation in exemption from future dangers on the Rhine, and in a division with Russia of the "sick man's estate." Intervene for humanity! Transparent falsehood! The United States will neither be subjugated or dismembered while the loyal American people remain true to their Revolutionary origin. But as becomes wise and practical men, we should closely examine the means of assault and the means of defence if this burden should be forced upon us; and here again we shall witness abundant opportunity for confidence and hope. It is fair to assume, should intervention ever come, the two Western powers of France and England will act in unison, as they did in the Crimean war, and as they have recently co-operated with Spain by intervening with the internal affairs of Mexico. These two powers combined possess a large army. If undisturbed, in from eight to nine months, by gigantic

efforts and at vast cost, they might ferry across the Atlantic from 240,000 to 275,000 soldiers, with all their armaments and supplies. This would, however, be doing far more than they were able to do in the Crimean war, though largely aided by American steam transport ships. At no time in the year can they in one voyage readily transport 100,000 soldiers, and the immense amount of necessary arms and supplies. Even if able to shelter their soldiers till the last detachment arrives, and all move together, some nine or ten months after hostilities should arise they would stand in the presence of disciplined troops twice as numerous as themselves—in the presence of troops who have fought far more battles against resolute troops than themselves-a few thousand French troops alone excepted.

The American troops-regiment for regiment--six months from today, will be as well drilled, in better condition and practice, will have seen more active service and as many battles, and will be better armed, than the regiments to which they will stand opposed, and will be more than twice as numerous. Their next means of assault consists in vessels of war-numerous and powerful-and, in addition, the English have constructed canals from the St. Lawrence into the great chain of American lakes, to enable them to convey gun-boats into these waters. We have no such connection with the ocean. They can transport their gunboats among our commercial vessels, and in front of our interior cities, along a lake coast of more than two thousand miles, unopposed. We have nothing at this time-absolutely nothing-with which to oppose them on these great inland seas. But, per contra, we have to-day more armored vessels-genuine iron-clad-than both France and England. That much good has come out of this evil rebellion. In a few weeks— not months--we shall be able to teach the English, if they demand it of us, a new version of the naval lessons of 1812. Six or eight of our armored vessels can readily destroy the entire unarmored fleet of England. We shall soon have afloat iron-clad vessels, armed with carefully tested ordnance, carrying elongated projectiles with "punch points," of four hundred and eighty pounds, fully competent-first, to resist the concentrated fire of the Warrior, aided by the La Gloire, Napoleon's largest iron-clad ship; and second, by the use of shot alone to sink both of them, should they come within its range. We now have on hand the tested ordnance competent to speedily destroy any vessel yet armored by any nation. Our iron-clads are the most numerous at this time, and cannot be exceeded prior to January or February next. The English troops are dispersed all over the world to guard isolated colonies. Her available troops cannot be massed to an amount of eighty thousand; and one hundred and fifty thousand, if she had them, would not be troublesome to a powerful nation, possessing from 800,000 to 1,000,000 of troops already called to the field; and the French army, once shut on shipboard, even if convoyed by the whole English and French fleet, could not in an ordinarily fair fight escape destruction. A single conflict between an English or a French iron-clad and one of our far more heavily armed iron-clads will settle that question. The result will be so decisive as to admit of no mistake, if there is any virtue in ordnance throwing projectiles four times heavier than any approved gun with which any English or French vessel is now armed. Let us examine our means of defence. Of course, before going into battle, a soldier puts on his armor; when a

man leaves home he locks the doors of his house. So a nation going to war with a naval enemy, will, at an early day, carefully lock the mouths of all those valuable harbors, inlets, sounds, and rivers, which have narrow entrances, and thus lessen the home duties of the fleet, as well as furnish a place of refuge when disabled by storms, or pressed by superior force. The mode of obstructing entrances to harbors, so as to effectually secure them, and yet allow of a passage of a friendly ship with but little hindrance, is pointed out with great clearness by the Board of Engineers in a' report made to the Secretary of War in 1840. The obstruction can be created in the entrance to a harbor like that of New-York in probably two or three days. The whole British navy could not force a passage through the entrance, without first removing the obstruction; and the obstruction could be removed by an enemy only after the silencing of the forts under the command of whose guns it is placed. Having taken steps to carefully secure the most important entrance by temporary obstructions and by heavily armed forts, let us promptly provide an interior water communication between our chief cities, parallel with our Atlantic coast, and having numerous communications with it at protected points. This has been frequently recommended by the Board of Engineers as a work of vast military importance. In April last, the Military Committee of Congress, in an able report, demonstrated how this object could be speedily and cheaply accomplished, viz.: By enlarging the locks of three short canals, of an aggregate length of only 784 miles. A vessel entering the sound of North Carolina, from the Atlantic Ocean, can proceed by way of the Dismal Swamp Canal (22 miles long) to Norfolk; then passing up the Chesapeake Bay, communicating with both Washington and Baltimore, if desirable, it can sail into the Delaware River through a canal only 13 miles long; after communicating with the great city of Philadelphia, it could sail directly into New-York harbor, by passing through the Delaware and Raritan Canal, a distance of 43 miles, and thence proceed up the East River, 140 miles, to New London, before going Here is an inland communication between almost all of our leading ports and cities along the maritime front of the populous and powerful States of Connecticut, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina-a distance of nearly 1,000 miles, and having many facile and easily protected outlets to the sea. Suitable timber locks, capable of passing large war vessels, can be made ready for use, in a case of pressing emergency, in from twenty to twentyfive days. The Government has ample legal authority to make this great improvement, if a military necessity. As it is, let it be done, and in such a manner that we can easily concentrate large ships at any desirable harbor to resist any invasion, when the telegraph shall announce the disasters or separations wrought on the enemy's fleet by storms or by our returning squadrons. The engineers strongly recommend this double coast line as a remarkable military advantage possessed by neither England nor France. Our own sense tells us that if a ship or ships of war or commerce should be blockaded in a harbor, and thus prevented from going to sea, the evil would be lessened if the harbor was connected, by a safe and unexposed interior channel, with all the harbors on the coast for a thousand miles-so also a blockade of one harbor could be broken up, by quietly concentrating in it a superior force, drawn from the other harbors connected with it by the interior channel.

to sea.

Let us also earnestly request the Government to aid in opening the communication for our iron gun-boats from the Mississippi to the Hudson, the Delaware and St. Lawrence. Then in the event of war, our iron-clad ships from the West, through the loyal States, could sail directly into the lakes, proceed to the head of the St. Lawrence, and protect the crossing of an army sufficiently powerful to command that river as low down as Montreal, and thus prevent a single British soldier from penetrating the interior. This accomplished, what amount of opposition could the unaided and defenseless Canadians make to our Western troops? The navigable waters of Canada secured, this inland fleet could forthwith repair to the aid of our defences at the mouth of the Hudson. A period of from ten to twenty days would place them at either point. In thirty days, in despite of the utmost efforts of England, the United States could control the upper St. Lawrence and the whole chain of lakes, for they have no iron-clads competent to navigate those waters, and to meet our superb Western iron-clad fleet, with its 11, 13 and 15 inch guns. Since the inauguration upon the waters of the Chesapeake, of a new era in the art of naval warfare, we have placed our country at the head of naval powers in effective strength, and the mechanical force of the country, for the time being, should be called into requisition in enlarging and strengthening the navy; and the comprehensive policy should be adopted of allowing the merchant marine to aid in its own defence by its incorporation into a militia navy, under proper laws and restrictions. We ought now to commence, and complete within six months, a heavy fleet of iron-clads of superior speed, and at least twice the capacity of the Monitor: and of the three millions of enrolled militia in the loyal States, with one million in the field, we may confidently anticipate bringing this infamous Rebellion to a triumphant close. With such an army and navy, with the forts armed with the modern improved ordnance of large calibre; with the valuable inlets to harbors, roadsteads and sounds, skillfully obstructed; with an interior water communication between the several ports and harbors on the Atlantic, so as to make it safe and convenient to speedily pass a fleet from one to another entirely beyond the observation of any enemy lying off a fort; with a navigable communication between New-York bay and the lakes, and between the lakes and St. Louis and New Orleans, that would allow of a movement of the whole fleet from New Orleans to New-York, or from New-York to New Orleans, by an inland route free from danger and observation, surely we can maintain our national unity and our national honor. But I must draw these remarks to a close. New-York again today, as at the beginning of the struggle, demonstrates that she is still loyal to the Government and the Constitution. She feels the deepest sympathy for the martyred dead, who have fallen in defence of constitutional, well-regulated liberty. As the tidings of this great gathering are borne throughout the loyal camps, it will animate the heart and nerve the arm of our brave and intrepid soldiers. In behalf of that immense army of privates, who have left home and kindred and friends, to meet the traitors striking at the heart of the nation, and who never mean to abandon this contest until the old flag again floats over every inch of our original territorial limit, I ask you to send them the cheering words of your hearty commendation.