he is very apt to assume the attitudes of a hero. The history of the world shows few examples of more outspoken bravery than Sir John Falstaff's when he found Percy Hotspur dead as a mouse on the field of battle. [Laughter and applause.] But let Percy move one of his fists and you will see Sir John nimbly taking to his legs. [Continued laughter and cheers.] As long as the North was as tame as a chicken, the South was as overbearing as a bull-dog. But things have changed since. The North begins to understand the policy: Si vis pacem para bellum! in good English: to impudent fellows show your teeth! and you will see the result. [Great cheers.]
The history of the last four years, and especially that of the Kansas struggle, has shown the mighty colonels and generals of the South two great things: first, that the North can and will unite against the progress of slavery, and that some of the Slave States are becoming unreliable; and, second, that the Yankee will fight! [Cheers.] Aye, that the descendants of those men who fought in 1776, will fight now and again! [Applause.] And, further, that there is a solid column of German and Scandinavian anti-slavery men here, who know how to handle
nance and co-operation of the Democratic party in the Northern States, that nothing said or done by the Republicans could weaken their belief. They were assured by their friends in the North that the coercion of seceded States would not be attempted. They had reasons to rely upon the sympathy of Mr. Buchanan, then President of the United States, who, in many respects, seemed indeed to justify their expectations. And thus they calculated, that the people of the loyal States, abandoned by their own government, would be neither willing nor able to fight. All these suppositions proved erroneous, and it was certainly not the fault of the Republicans that they were entertained. One thing is eminently probable, nay, certain: if the thread of disunion had from the beginning been treated by every Northern man with becoming indignation and contempt, and if the South had been made to understand the North on that matter, no secession movement would ever have taken place. Slavery would have been gradually reduced and extinguished, as designed by the statesmen of the Revolutionary period.— C. S.
