Chapter V

Too much have I spoken for your patience, if not enough for the cause. But there is yet another topic, which I have reserved to the last, because logically it belongs there, or at least can be best considered in the gathered light of the previous discussion. Its immediate practical interest is great. I refer to the _Concession of Belligerent Rights_, being the first stage to independence. Great Britain led the way in acknowledging the embryo government as belligerent on sea as well as land, and by proclamation of the Queen declared neutrality between the two parties,--thus lifting an embryo, which was nothing else than animate Slavery, to equality _on sea_ as well as land with its ancient ally, the National Government. Here was a blunder, if not a crime, not merely in the alacrity with which it was done, but in doing it at all. It was followed immediately by France, and then by Spain, Holland, and Brazil. The concession of belligerent rights on land was a name and nothing more, therefore I say nothing about it. But the concession of _belligerent rights on the ocean_ is of widely different character, and the two reasons against the recognition of independence are equally applicable to this concession: _first_, the embryo government has no _maritime_ or _naval_ belligerent rights _de facto_, and, _secondly_, an embryo of Rebel Slavery cannot have the character _de facto_ which would justify the concession of _maritime_ or _naval_ belligerence; so that, were the concession vindicated on the first ground, it must fail on the second.

* * * * *

The concession of _ocean_ belligerence is a letter of license from consenting powers to every Slavemonger cruiser, or rather it is the countersign of these powers to the commission of every such cruiser. Without such countersign the cruiser would be an outlaw, with no right to enter a foreign port. The declaration of belligerence imparts legal competence, and the right to testify by flag and arms. Without such competence there would be no flag and no right to bear arms on the ocean. Burke sententiously describes it as an “intermediate treaty _which puts rebels in possession of the Law of Nations with regard to war_.”[142] And this is plainly true.

The magnitude of this concession may be seen in three aspects: _first_, in the immunities it confers, putting an embryo of Rebel Slavery on _equality_ with established governments, making its cruisers lawful instead of piratical, and opening to them boundless facilities at sea and in port, so that they may obtain supplies and hospitality; _secondly_, in the degradation it fastens upon the National Government, which is condemned to see its ships treated on _equality_ with the ships of Rebel Slavery, and also the just rule of “neutrality” between belligerent powers invoked to fetter its activity against a giant felony; and, _thirdly_, in the disturbance to commerce it sanctions, by letting loose lawless sea-rovers armed with belligerent rights, including the right of search, whose natural recklessness is left unbridled and without remedy even from diplomatic intercourse. The ocean is a common highway; but it is for the interest of all who traverse it that the highway should not be disturbed by predatory hostilities. Such a concession should be made with the greatest caution, and then only under the necessity of the case, on the overwhelming authority of _the fact_: for, from beginning to end, it is simply a question of fact, absolutely dependent on those conditions and prerequisites without which ocean belligerence cannot exist.

As a general rule, belligerent rights are conceded only where a rebel government or contending party in a civil war has acquired such form and body, that, for the time being, within certain limits, it is sovereign _de facto_, so far at least as to command troops and _to administer justice_. On this last point I dwell especially. It is the capacity to administer justice which is the criterion, whether on land or ocean. The concession of belligerence is the recognition of such limited sovereignty, which bears the same relation to acknowledged independence as gristle bears to bone. It is obvious that such sovereignty may exist _de facto_ on land without existing _de facto_ on ocean. It may prevail in armies, and yet fail in navies. In short, _the fact_ may be one way on land and the other way _on ocean_. Nor can it be inferred on ocean simply from existence on land. Our Supreme Court has declared that there may be “a limited, partial war,” “a restrained or limited hostility,” “an imperfect war, or a war as to certain objects and to a certain extent.” Thus, on one occasion, hostilities were authorized “on the high seas by certain persons in certain cases,” but without authority “to commit hostilities on land.”[143] But by the same rule there may be war on land and not on sea, and this may follow from the necessity of the case. If Rebel Slavery does not come within the conditions of ocean war, then, whatever its belligerence on land, it cannot expect it on the ocean. Since every such concession is adverse to the original government, and is made only under the necessity of the case, it must be limited carefully to _the actual fact_. Indeed, Mr. Canning, who has shed so much light on these topics, openly took the ground that “belligerency is not so much a principle as _a fact_.”[144] And the question then arises, whether Rebel Slavery has acquired such _de facto_ sovereignty on the ocean as entitles it to _ocean_ belligerent rights.

There are at least two “facts” patent to all: _first_, that Rebel Slavery is without a single port into which even legal cruisers can take prizes for adjudication; and, _secondly_, that the ships which now presume to exercise _ocean_ belligerent rights in its name--constituting that navy which a member of the British Cabinet announced as “to be created”--were all “created” in England, which is the _naval base_ from which they sally forth on predatory cruise, without once entering a port of their own pretended government.

These two “facts” are different in nature. The first attaches absolutely to the pretended power, rendering it incompetent to exercise _belligerent jurisdiction_ on the ocean. The second attaches to the individual ships, rendering them piratical. These simple and unquestionable “facts” are the key to unlock the present question.

From the reason of the case, there can be no _ocean_ belligerent without a port into which it can take prizes. Any other rule is absurd. It is not enough to sail the sea, like the Flying Dutchman; the _ocean_ belligerent must be able to touch the land, and that land its own. This proceeds on the idea of civilized warfare, that something more than _naked force_ is essential to the completeness of capture. According to the earlier rule, transmutation of property was accomplished by the “pernoctation” of the captured ship within the port of the belligerent,--or, as it was called, _deductio infra præsidia_. As early as 1414, under Henry the Fifth of England, there was an Act of Parliament requiring privateers _to bring their prizes into a port of the kingdom_, and to make a declaration thereof to a proper officer, _before undertaking to dispose of them_.[145] The modern rule interposes an additional check upon lawless violence, by requiring the condemnation of a competent court. This rule, which is among the most authoritative of the British Admiralty, is found in the famous letter of Sir William Scott and Sir John Nicholl, addressed to John Jay, as follows: “_Before the ship or goods can be disposed of by the captor_, there must be a regular judicial proceeding, wherein both parties may be heard, and condemnation thereupon as prize, in a Court of Admiralty, judging by the Law of Nations and treaties.”[146] This is explicit, and is plainly necessary for the protection of neutral commerce. But this rule is French as well as English. It is part of International Law. A _seizure_ is regarded merely as a _preliminary_ act, which does not divest the property, though it paralyzes the right of the proprietor. A subsequent act of condemnation by a competent tribunal is necessary to determine if the seizure is valid. The question is compendiously called _Prize or No Prize_. Where the property of neutrals is involved, this requirement becomes of absolute necessity. In conceding belligerence, all customary belligerent rights with regard to neutrals are conceded also, so that neutral rights and interests are put in jeopardy. Here we see at once the wrong done. If nothing is due to Civilization, something is due to neutrals. Without dwelling on this point, I content myself with the authority of two recent French writers. M. Hautefeuille, in his elaborate work, says: “The cruiser is not recognized as the proprietor of the objects seized, he cannot dispose of them, but _it is his duty to present himself before the tribunal and obtain a sentence declaring them to be prize_.”[147] A later writer, M. Eugène Cauchy, whose work has appeared since our war began, says: “A usage which evidently has its source in _natural equity_ requires, that, before proceeding to divide the booty, there should be an inquiry as to the regularity of the prize. _Every prize taken from an enemy should be carried before the judge established by the sovereign of the captor._”[148] But if the power calling itself belligerent cannot comply with this condition,--if it has no port into which it can bring the captured ship, and no court, according to the requirement of the British Admiralty, with “a regular judicial proceeding wherein both parties may be heard,”--it is clearly _not in a situation to dispose of a ship or goods as prize_. Whatever its force in other respects, it lacks a vital element of _ocean_ belligerence. In that _semi_-sovereignty which constitutes belligerence on land there must be provision for the _administration of justice_, without which there is nothing but a mob. In that same _semi_-sovereignty on the ocean there must be similar provision. It is not enough that there are ships duly commissioned to take prizes, there must also be courts to try them; and the latter are not less important than the former. Such is the conclusion of reason, in harmony with acknowledged principles. How, then, acknowledge belligerent rights where this condition is wanting?

Earl Russell himself, so swift to make this concession, is led to confess the necessity of Prize Courts on the part of _ocean_ belligerents, and thus exposes the irrational character of his own work. In a letter to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, occasioned by the destruction of British cargoes, the Minister says: “The owners of any British property, not being contraband of war, on board a Federal vessel captured and destroyed by a Confederate vessel of war, _may claim in a Confederate Prize Court compensation for destruction of such property_.”[149] Even in the very speech announcing the belligerent rights of our Rebels, including the right to visit and detain British merchant vessels having enemy’s property on board and to confiscate such property, Earl Russell was compelled to declare, that “it was _necessarily implied_, as a condition of such acknowledgment, that the detention was for the purpose of bringing the vessels detained before an established Court of Prize, and that confiscation did not take place until after condemnation by such competent tribunal.”[150] Such was the express condition, obviously to secure justice. If there be no Prize Court, then justice must fail; and with this failure tumbles _in fact_ the whole wretched pretension of _ocean_ belligerence, except in the galvanism of a Queen’s proclamation or a Cabinet concession.

If a cruiser may at any time burn prizes, it is because of some exceptional exigency in a particular case, and not according to general rule, which practically declares that there can be no right to take a prize, if there be no port into which it may be carried. The right of capture and the right of trial are the complements of each other, through which a harsh prerogative is supposed to be rounded into the proper form of civilized warfare. Therefore every ship and cargo burned by the captors for the reason that they had no port testifies that they are without that vital sovereignty on the ocean which is needed in the exercise of belligerent jurisdiction, and that they are not _ocean_ belligerents _in fact_. Nay, more, all these bonfires of the sea cry out against the power which by precipitate concession furnished the torch. As well invest the rebel rajahs of India, who never tasted salt water, with this ocean prerogative, so that they too may rob and burn; as well constitute land-locked Poland, now in arms for independence, an ocean belligerent,--or enroll mountain Switzerland in the same class,--or join with Shakespeare in giving to inland Bohemia an outlook upon the ocean.[151]

To aggravate this concession, the ships are all built, rigged, armed, and manned in Great Britain. It is out of British oak and British iron that they are constructed, rigged with British ropes, made formidable with British arms, provided with British gunners, and navigated by British crews, so as to constitute in all respects a _British naval expedition_. British ports supply the place of Rebel Slavemonger ports. British ports are open to them, when their own are closed. British ports constitute their _naval base of operations and supplies_, furnishing everything needful, except an officer, the ship’s papers, and a court for the trial of the prizes, each of which is essential to the legality of the expedition. And yet these same ships, thus equipped in British ports, and _never touching a port of the pretended government_ in whose name they rob and burn,--being simply a rib taken out of the side of England and prostituted to Rebel Slavery,--receive the further passport of belligerence from the British Government, when _in fact_ the belligerence does not exist. The whole proceeding, from the laying of the keel in a British dockyard to the bursting flames on the ocean, is a mockery of International Law and an insult to a friendly power.

The case is sometimes said to be new; but it is new only as no such “parricide” is provided against in express terms. It was not anticipated. But the principles which govern it are as old as justice and humanity, in the interests of which belligerent rights are said to be conceded. Here it is all reversed, and it is now apparent, that, whatever the motives of the British Government, the concession was in behalf of _in_justice and _in_humanity. Burning ships and scattered wrecks are the witnesses. If such a case is not condemned by International Law, then has this law lost its virtue. Call such cruisers by whatever polite term most pleases the ear, and you do not change their character with their name. Without a home and without a legal character, they are mere gypsies of the sea, disturbers of the common highway, outlaws, and enemies of the human race.

There is a precedent which shows how impossible it is for a pretended power, without a single port, to possess belligerent rights on the ocean, and how impossible it is for the ship of such pretended power to be anything but a felon ship. James the Second of England, after he had ceased to be _de facto_ king, and while an exile without a single port, undertook to issue letters of marque. It was argued unanswerably before the Privy Council of William the Third, that a deposed prince could not receive from any other sovereign “international privileges”; “that, if he could grant a commission to take the ships of a single nation, it would in effect be a general license to plunder, _because those who were so commissioned would be their own judges of whatever they took_”; and “that the reason of the thing, which pronounced that robbers and pirates, when they formed themselves into a civil society, became just enemies, pronounced also that a king without territory, without power of protecting the innocent or punishing the guilty, _or in any way of administering justice_, dwindled into a pirate, if he issued commissions to seize the goods and ships of nations, _and that they who took commissions from him must be held by legal inference to have associated ‘sceleris causâ’ and could not be considered as members of a civil society_.”[152] These weighty words are strictly applicable to the present case. Whatever the force of Rebel Slavery on land, it is no more on the ocean than the “deposed prince,” “without power of protecting the innocent or punishing the guilty, _or in any way of administering justice_”; and, like the prince, it has “dwindled into a pirate,” except so far as sustained by British concession. In adducing this precedent, I follow the learned ex-Chancellor, Lord Chelmsford, who used it to show, that, without the concession of belligerent rights to our Rebels, “any Englishman aiding them by fitting out a privateer against the Federal Government would be guilty of piracy.”[153] But the reasoning at the Privy Council shows, also, that the concession ought not to have been made.

There is yet another British precedent, which shows how essential are judicial proceedings before appropriation of a captured ship or cargo. The case is memorable. It is none other than that of the famous Captain Kidd, who, on indictment for piracy, as long ago as 1701, produced a commission in justification. But it was at once declared not enough to show a commission; _he must also show condemnation of the captured ship_. The Lord Chief Baron of that day said, that, “if he had acted pursuant to his commission, _he ought to have condemned the ship and goods_”; that “by his not condemning them he seems to show his aim, mind, and intention; that he did not act in that case by virtue of his commission, but quite contrary to it, for he takes the ship and shares the money and goods, and is taken in that very ship, … _so that there is no color or pretence appears that he intended to bring this ship to England to be condemned or to have condemned it in any of the English plantations_”; and that, “whilst men pursue their commissions, they must be justified, but when they do things not authorized, or never acted by them, _it is as if there had been no commission at all_.”[154] Captain Kidd was condemned to death and executed as a pirate. If he was a pirate, worthy of death, then, by the same rule, those rovers who rob cargoes, burn ships, and adorn their cabins with rows of stolen chronometers, careless of a Prize Court, are entitled to small favor from a civilized power.

Without considering more critically what should be the fate of these ocean incendiaries, or what the responsibilities of England, out of whom they came, I content myself with the conclusion that they are not entitled to _ocean_ belligerence. And here let it be understood that no question is possible with regard to an established power with access to the ocean; for belligerent rights are fixed by International Law, without foreign recognition; nor can the rights of such a power be a precedent for any concession to a rebel community without ports and Prize Courts.

_Pirate_ is a hard word; but Jefferson did not shrink from applying it to “private armed vessels,” infesting our coasts, preying upon our commerce, and making captures at the very entrance of our harbors, as well as on the high seas. “They have carried them off,” he says, “under pretence of legal adjudication; but, not daring to approach a court of justice, they have plundered and sunk them by the way, or in obscure places, where no evidence could arise against them, maltreated the crews, and abandoned them in boats in the open sea or on desert shores without food or covering.” These things, kindred to what is done by our Rebel cruisers, he calls “enormities,” and he announces that he has equipped a force “to bring the offenders in for trial as _pirates_.”[155]

* * * * *

Even if Rebel Slavery, coagulated in embryo government, has arrived at that _semi_-sovereignty _de facto_ on the ocean which justifies belligerent rights, yet the Christian powers should indignantly decline to make the concession, because by doing so they make themselves accomplices in shameful crime. Here I avoid details. It is sufficient to say that every argument of fact and reason, every whisper of conscience and humanity, every indignant outburst of an honest man against recognition of Slavery as an independent power, is equally strong against any concession of ocean belligerence. Such concession is half-way house to recognition, and can be made only where a nation is ready, if the fact of independence be sufficiently established, to acknowledge it, on the principle of Vattel, that “whosoever has a right to the end has a right to the means.”[156] It is equally clear, that, where a nation, on grounds of conscience, must refuse recognition of independence, it cannot concede belligerence; for, _where the end is forbidden, the means must be forbidden also_. The illogical absurdity of such concession by Great Britain, so persistent always against Slavery, and now for more than a generation the declared protectress of the African race, becomes doubly apparent, when it is considered that every Rebel ship built in England and invested with ocean belligerence carries with it the Law of Slavery, so that, by British concession, the ship becomes an _extension_ of _Slave_ territory and a floating _Slave_ castle.

And yet it is said that this impostor is entitled to ocean rights, and the British Queen is made to proclaim them. Sad day for England, when another wicked compromise was struck with Slavery, kindred to that old treaty which mantles the cheeks of honest Englishmen, when the slave-trade was protected and its profits secured to British subjects! I know not the profits secured by the destruction of American commerce, but I do know that the Treaty of Utrecht, crimson with the blood of slaves, is not so crimson as that reckless proclamation which gave to Slavery a frantic life, and helped for a time, nay, still helps, this demon in the rage with which it battles against Human Rights. Such a ship, with the law of Slavery on its deck and the flag of Slavery at its mast-head, sailing for Slavery, fighting for Slavery, burning for Slavery, and knowing no other sovereignty than the pretended government of Rebel Slavery, can be nothing less in spirit and character than a slave pirate and the enemy of the human race. Like produces like, and the parent power, which is Slavery, must stamp itself upon the ship, making it a floating offence to Heaven, with no limit to its audacity,--wild, outrageous, impious, a monster of the deep, to be hunted down by all who have not forgotten their duty alike to God and man.

Meanwhile there is one simple act which the justice of England cannot continue to refuse. That fatal concession, made in a moment of eclipse, when reason and humanity were obscured, must be annulled. The _blunder-crime_ must be renounced, so that Slave pirates may no longer sail the sea, robbing, destroying, burning, with British license. Then will they promptly disappear forever, and with them the occasion of strife between two great powers, who ought to be, if not as mother and child, at least as brothers among the nations. And may God in His mercy help this consummation!

* * * * *

Here I leave this part of the subject, founding my objections on two grounds.

(1.) The embryo of Rebel Slavery has not that degree of sovereignty _on the ocean_ which is essential to belligerence there.

(2.) Even if it possessed the requisite sovereignty, no Christian power can make such concession to it without shameful complicity with Slavery.

Both are objections of _fact_. Either is sufficient. Even if the belligerence seems to be established as _fact_, still its concession in this age of Christian light must be impossible, except under some temporary aberration, which, for the honor of England and the welfare of Humanity, should speedily pass away.

* * * * *

Again, fellow-citizens, I crave forgiveness for this long trespass. If the field traversed is ample, it has been brightened always by the light of international justice, exposing clearly, from beginning to end, the sacred landmarks of duty. I have been frank, disguising nothing and keeping nothing back, so that you have been able to see the perils to which the Republic is exposed from the natural tendency of war to breed war, as exhibited in examples of history, and also from the fatal proclivity of foreign powers to intermeddle, as exhibited in recent instances of querulous criticism or intrusive proposition, all adverse to the good cause, while pirate ships are permitted to depredate on our commerce; then how the best historic instances testify in favor of Freedom, and how all intervention of every kind, whether by proffer of mediation or otherwise, becomes intolerable, when its influence tends to the establishment of that soulless anomaly, a professed Republic built on the hopeless and everlasting bondage of a race; and especially how Great Britain is sacredly engaged by all the logic of her history and all her traditions in unbroken lineage against any such unutterable baseness; then how all the Christian powers constituting the Family of Nations are firmly bound to set their faces against any recognition of the embryo government.--first, because its independence is not _in fact_ established, and, secondly, because, even if _in fact_ established, its recognition is impossible without criminal complicity in Slavery; and, lastly, how these same Christian powers are firmly bound by the same twofold reasons against any concession of ocean rights to this hideous pretender.

* * * * *

It only remains that the Republic should gird itself to the majesty of its duties. War is terrible and hard to bear, with its waste, its pains, its wounds, its funerals. But in this war we are not choosers. We are challenged to the defence of country, and in this sacred cause to crush Slavery. There is no alternative. Slavery began the combat, staking life, _and determined to rule or die_. Let it die; and to this end the country must be aroused. We need a song like “Scots who have with Wallace bled.” The cause is greater now than then. We need words like those of Luther, “half battles.” Ours is another Reformation and another Revolution. The attempted revolution for Slavery we meet by a counter revolution for Liberty. That we may continue freemen, there must be no slaves; and thus our own security is linked with the redemption of a race. Blessed lot, amidst the harshness of war, to wield the arms and deal the blows under which the monster will surely fall! The battle is mighty; for into Slavery has entered the Spirit of Evil. It is persistent; for such a gathered wickedness, concentrated, aroused, and maddened, must have a tenacity of life which will not yield at once. But no might nor time can save it now.

That the whole war is contained in Slavery may be seen not only in the acts of the National Government, but also in the confessions of Rebel Slavemongers. Already the President has proclaimed that the slaves throughout the whole Rebel region “are and henceforward shall be free”; and in order to fix the irreversible character of this sublime edict, he has further announced “that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.”[157] An enlightened commission is constituted to consider how these thronging freedmen can be best employed for their own good and the national defence. Already the sons of Africa, as mustered soldiers of the Union, have shown a discipline and a bravery not unworthy of their ancient fathers, when the prophet Jeremiah said, “Let the mighty men come forth, the Ethiopians and the Libyans that handle the shield”;[158] and still further, by their stature, by their appearance in the ranks, and even by the unexpected testimony of sanitary statistics, according to which for every black soldier disabled by sickness there are more than ten white, thus making the army health of the black ten times as sure as that of the white,--by all these things they have shown that the Father of History, who is our earliest classical authority, was not entirely mistaken, when he spoke of Ethiopia as “the most distant region of the earth, whose inhabitants are the tallest, most beautiful, and most long-lived of the human race.”[159] Even if these acts of the National Government were less significant, all doubt is removed by the Rebel Slavemongers themselves, who, in Satanic audacity, openly avow that Slavery is the end and aim of the government they seek to establish, so that the whole bloody war they wage is all in the name of Slavery. Therefore, in battling against the Rebellion, we battle against Slavery. Freedom is the growing inspiration of our armies and the just inscription of our banners. Such a war is not a war of subjugation, but a war of liberation, to save the Republic from a petty oligarchy of taskmasters, and to rescue four millions of human beings from cruel oppression. Not to subjugate, but to liberate, is the object of our Holy War.

And yet British statesmen, forgetting for the moment all moral distinctions, forgetting God, who will not be forgotten, gravely announce that our cause must fail. Alas! individual wickedness is too often successful; but a pretended nation, suckled in wickedness and boasting its wickedness, a new Sodom, with all the guilt of the old, waiting to be blasted, and yet, in barefaced effrontery, openly seeking the fellowship of Christian powers, is doomed to defeat. Toleration of such a pretension is practical atheism. Chronology and geography are both offended. Piety stands aghast. In this age of light, and in countries boasting civilization, there can be no place for its barbarous plenipotentiaries. As well expect crocodiles crawling on the pavements of London and Paris, or the carnivorous idols of Africa installed for worship in Westminster Abbey and Notre Dame.

Even if the Republic were less strong, yet I am glad to believe that the Rebellion must fail from the essential impossibility of any such wicked success. The responsibilities of the Christian powers would be increased by our weakness. Behind our blockade there would be _a moral blockade_; behind our armies there would be the aroused judgment of the civilized world. But not on that account can we hesitate. This is no time to pause. Thus do I, who formerly pleaded so often for Peace, now insist upon Liberty as its indispensable condition,[160]--clearly because, in this terrible moment, there is no other way to that sincere and solid peace without which is endless war. Even on economic grounds, it were better that this war should proceed rather than recognize any partition, which, beginning with humiliation, must involve the perpetuation of armaments and break out again in blood. But there is something worse than waste of money; it is waste of character. Give me any peace but a liberticide peace. In other days the immense eloquence of Burke was stirred against a regicide peace. But a peace founded on the killing of a king is not so bad as a peace founded on the killing of Liberty; nor can the saddest scenes of such a peace be so sad as the daily life legalized by Slavery. A queen on the scaffold is not so pitiful a sight as a woman on the auction-block.

While thus steady in purpose at home, we must not neglect that proper moderation abroad which becomes the consciousness of strength and the nobleness of our cause. The mistaken sympathy which foreign powers bestow upon Slavery,--or, it may be, the mistaken insensibility,--under the plausible name of “neutrality,” which they profess, will be worse for them than for us. For them it will be a record of shame, which their children would gladly blot out with tears. For us it will be only another obstacle vanquished in the battle for Civilization, where, unhappily, false friends are mingled with open enemies. Even if the cause seem for a while imperilled by foreign powers, yet our duties are none the less urgent. If the pressure be great, the resistance must be greater. Nor can there be any retreat. Come weal or woe, this is the place for us to stand.

I know not if a republic like ours can count even now upon the certain friendship of any European power, unless it be the Republic of William Tell. The very name is unwelcome to the full-blown representatives of monarchical Europe, who forget how proudly, even in modern history, Venice bore the title of _Serenissima Respublica_. It is for us to change all this. Our consistent example will be enough. Thus far we have been known chiefly through that vital force which Slavery could only degrade, but not subdue. Now, at last, by the death of Slavery, will the Republic begin to live. For what is life without Liberty? Stretching from ocean to ocean, teeming with population, bountiful in resources of all kinds, rejoicing in that righteousness which exalteth a nation, and thrice happy in universal enfranchisement, it will be more than conqueror. Nothing too vast for its power, nothing too minute for its care. Triumphant over the foulest wrong ever inflicted, after the bloodiest war ever waged, it will know the majesty of Right and the beauty of Peace, prepared always to uphold the one and to cultivate the other. Strong in its own mighty stature, filled with all the fulness of a new life, and covered with a panoply of renown, it will confess that no dominion is of value that does not contribute to human happiness. Born in this latter day and child of its own struggles, without ancestral claim, but heir of all the ages, it will stand forth to assert the dignity of man, and wherever any member of the Human Family can be succored, there its voice will reach,--as the voice of Cromwell reached across France, even to the persecuted mountaineers of the Alps. Such will be this Republic, upstart among the nations. Ay! as steam-engine, telegraph, and chloroform are upstart. Comforter and helper like these, it can know no bounds to its empire over a willing world. But the first stage is the death of Slavery.