Speech

Angebote / Angebote:

Excerpt from Speech: Delivered by Col. W. R Ladies and Gentlemen: Some of your citizens have expressed a desire to hear my views, which I was prevented by illness from expressing on the occasion of your late mass meeting, and which are only of any importance because of the trust you have so generously confided to me. Our Government is involved in two seemingly "irrepressible conflicts" - one with armed treason and secession, the other with an illimitable, indescribable military necessity. In both these conflicts we the Democratic party are for the Government and against its assailants. While the Administration, its adherents and allies, may be with us against armed treason and secession, they are against us and for this military necessity, alike dangerous to the Government, so that, between us and our political opponents there is another conflict, and altogether we have some strife and more confusion in the land. Believing, as we do, that our institutions are founded in principles of truth and justice unchangeable, that the people, the source of power, who make and unmake Administrations and Governments, are capable of comprehending and appreciating the worth of these institutions, we are not without hope of their ultimate triumph. That they may triumph, they must be understood, that they may be understood, they must be canvassed and discussed. If, in these discussions, we shall say aught which does not support the efforts of the Administration, and which is not warranted in fact, while we yet have the press and speech unabridged the means of our detection and exposure are ever at hand, if, however, we speak but the truth, the truth and our institutions founded therein must be maintained, they must live, though the Administration and its puny efforts shall perish and be forgotten. Nor will we, if we are men and value our liberties, be deterred from this discussion by the venal cry of Copperhead, rebel sympathizer, traitor, coming, as it does, from those who traffic in the misfortunes of the country and the blood of its children, nor again by an only noisy patriotism which so often compares the country in its imperilled condition to a house on fire, which must be put out before an inquiry is made as to who are the responsible villains. The gracious postponement of the inquiry, while the torch of treason consumes the house, or the wicked double purpose of a faithless Administration removes its foundation rocks and secures its destruction, is at least an admission that others than those we are fighting have unclean hands, and, in the light of events of the last three years, who will not be convinced that, in this as in other great conflagrations, some of those who would have us believe them most in earnest putting out, are in concert with those who are extending the fire for purposes of riot and plunder. Our ancestors, who, at great cost, secured their independence from the parent country, and who gave us this good Government, said, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, they made the Constitution, and in which they conferred upon the agents of the people, the officers for the time charged with the administration of the Government in its several departments, power to do certain things to attain these high purposes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com