Let the War System be abolished, and, in the glory of this consummation, how vulgar all that comes from battle!

By the side of this serene, beneficent civilization, how petty in its pretensions is military power! how vain its triumphs!

How easy to see that the repose of nations, like the repose of Nature, is the great parent of the most precious bounties vouchsafed by Providence!

As peace is assured, the traditional sensibilities of nations will disappear.

Their frontiers will no longer frown with hostile cannon, nor will their people be nursed to hate each other.

By ties of constant fellowship will they be interwoven together, no sudden trumpet waking to arms, no sharp summons disturbing the uniform repose.

By steam, by telegraph, by the press, have they already conquered time, subdued space,--thus breaking down old walls of partition by which they have been separated.

The prejudices of another generation are removed, and the old geography gives place to a new.

But in the sight of God there is one Human Family without division, where all are equal in rights; and the attempt to set up distinctions, keeping men asunder, or in barbarous groups, is a practical denial of that great truth, religious…

The Christian’s Fatherland is not merely the nation in which he was born, but the whole earth appointed by the Heavenly Father for his home.

In this Fatherland there can be no place for unfriendly boundaries set up by any,--least of all, place for the War System, making nations as hostile camps.

While recognizing a frontier, there is equal recognition of peace as the rule of international life.

In the abolition of the War System the will of the people must become all-powerful, exalting the Republic to its just place as the natural expression of citizenship.

Enfranchised Europe, foretold by Lafayette, means not only the Republic for all, but Peace for all; it means the United States of Europe, with the War System abolished.

All privilege is usurpation, and, like Slavery, a state of war, relieved only by truce, to be broken by the people in their might.

All hail to the Republic, equal guardian of all, and angel of peace!

It is, first, to keep out of war,--and, next, to stand firm in those ideas which are the life of the Republic.

But not on this account can we be indifferent, when Human Rights are assailed or republican institutions are in question.

Nor would I have my country forget at any time, in the discharge of its transcendent duties, that, since the rule of conduct and of honor is the same for nations as for individuals, the greatest nation is that which does most for Humanity.

Do we not see here the policy that would be established,--a policy which would take the old Rebellion by the hand and install it in the high places of power,--in the Executive Mansion,--in these Halls of Congress?

Now, Sir, could I make my voice heard from one end of this country to the other, from Massachusetts to Louisiana, it would be to warn against that political combination which shows itself now in the proposition of the Senator from Kentucky.

Take warning, I would say to my fellow-countrymen everywhere, not only at the South, but at the North, but especially at the South, that the political party with which the Senator is associated, should it obtain power in this nation, will…

And now we are asked to dig up these dead and give over their resting-place to the traitor family.

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear To dig the dust inclosèd here: Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones!

I was thoroughly convinced then that the best interests of this country, commercially and materially, demanded its ratification.