gress of the nation as in popular meetings, to deny that the sovereign people of this State had ever seceded from the Union, or had, at any time, or even in any apparently authoritative form, given their sanction to the act by which unfaithful agents precipitated her into the rebellion. I knew that in making this declaration on behalf of the people of this State, I did no more than give expression to the sincere sentiments of her patriotic citizens, native and adopted, and the immense concourse of every description of persons around and about me at this moment is strong testimony to its correctness. We, the people, have never seceded; we never intended to abdicate our proper place in the Union, and with the assistance of the national government, whose duty it is to protect us from invasion and guarantee to us a republican form of government, we are determined we never shall. We have had our trials, physical and moral—they have been many and grievous;—we have had our share of suffering and sorrow—God knows how sad and afflicting;—but at length, drawing a veil over the devastation of the past, the wants and sufferings of our people, the social interruptions, the severance of the dear, tender ties of life, the broken hearts, the hostile separation of members of the same household, the blood and death following in the footsteps of grim-visaged war—raising ourselves up from lethargy and inaction, we have again shown our ability to participate in the blessings of equal and just laws, and in the maintenance of the most perfect system of free government that has ever been vouchsafed to mankind. Where on earth was there a people, when the deamon of discord, cupidity and oppression possessed the hearts of the wicked men who plunged this country into fratricidal strife, so happy, contented or powerful as the American Union; and where a nation whose inhabitants were in the possession of the hundredth part of the liberty and prosperity which the United States enjoy, and could with certainty promise to their posterity? Many of our blessings we have endangered, and some privileges, looked upon by many as benefits, have been destroyed; still the foundation of our social edifice is not ruined or so damaged as to be beyond the reach of early reparation. How, it will be asked, shall this reparation be made? The answer is obvious: follow up the sensible and reasonable work you are this day with much civic pomp and circumstance inaugurating, by the determination to act, each in his own sphere, as becomes a living man, in the most progressive of existing nations. For the moment civil government must necessarily harmonize with military administration. There is no good reason, however, for permitting this—which will interfere but little with individual action—to deter any one from setting to work as energetically as formerly to make up for lost time, and recompense himself fully in the future for past losses.
In all things compatible with a steady and unflinching support of the national unity, and the efforts of the government to establish and sustain it on, if possible, improved foundations, my constant study will be how best to promote the substantial interests of the people of Louisiana; and to that end I invite the friendly counsel and support of all citizens.
The Union of these States, handed down by our revolutionary ancestors, is of more value than any falsely styled “State rights,” especially when these “rights” mean sectional institution, founded on a great moral, social and political evil, and inconsistent with the principles of free government. The institution of slavery is opposed alike to the rights of one race and the interests of the other; it is the cause of the present unholy attempt to break up our government; and, unpleasant as the declaration may sound to many of you, I tell you that I regard its universal and immediate extinction as a public and private blessing. It is not to be supposed that in the adjustment of the altered relations of labor to capital an immediate satisfactory result can be reached, although the happiest results have already been witnessed on many plantations now
