the most energetic revolutionary characters disclaimed most emphatically all intention to make the colonies independent not long before independence was actually declared. And how did they come to divert the Revolutionary War from its original object? The process wad simple. They permitted themselves to be controlled by events. In the course of the struggle they came to the conclusion that the rights and liberties of the colonies would not be secure us long as the British Government had the power to enforce arbitrary measures in this country; they saw that British dominion was incompatible with American liberty. Then independence was declared. It was decreed by tho logic of events; it was recorded by Jefferson; it was enforced by Washington. [Applause.]
This was the way in which a struggle for a mere redress of grievances was “perverted” into a struggle for the abolition of British dominion. Is there anybody, to-day, bold enough to assert that this perversion was illegitimate? Let us return to the crisis in which we are engaged.
We went into the war for the purpose of maintaining the Union, and preserving our nationality. Although it was the slave power which had attempted to break up the Union, we did, at first, not touch slavery in defending the Union. No, with a scrupulousness of very doubtful merit, slavery was protected by many of our leaders—especially one of them, who at that time held the highest military command, made it a particular object not to hurt slavery while fighting against the rebellious slaveholder, and he exhausted all the resources of his statesmanship for that purpose. [Loud laughter and cheers.] It is true he exhausted, at the same time, the patience of the people. [Continued laughter.] That statesmanship threatened to exhaust all our military and financial resources; but if, indeed, it did threaten to exhaust the resources of the rebellion, the threat was very gentle. [Repeated laughter
