You confuse yourself, if you say that it was to restore the Constitution; and you misrepresent the fact, if you say that it was to abolish Slavery.

It was for the suppression of the Rebellion,--nor more, nor less.

Here, then, fellow-citizens, it becomes important to know and comprehend the Rebellion, and especially its animating impulse, or soul.

From the beginning, its diagnosis has been essential to the right conduct of the war; and if at any time the war seems to fail, or foreign powers seem to lower, it is because our Government has not recognized the true character of the…

It is because partisans have failed to see the true character of the Rebellion, or been unwilling to recognize it, that they do not feel how absurd it is to say that the war on our part has been changed, when nothing has been done but to…

It is still a war to put down the Rebellion; but we are in earnest, and are determined that the Rebellion shall not save itself by skulking under the alias of Slavery.

Looking at the question abstractly, these two elemental forces are nothing but Slavery and Liberty.

Where Slavery is, there Liberty cannot be; and where Liberty is, there Slavery cannot be.

To uphold Slavery, there must be uncompromising denial of Liberty; to uphold Liberty, there must be uncompromising denial of Slavery.

If it fails to show itself anywhere, it is because Slavery has won its most detestable triumph, and blotted out the Heaven-born sentiment of Freedom.

Circumstances among us, going back to our earliest history, have given unprecedented activity to these two incompatible principles, and have at last brought them into bloody battle, face to face.

But it is only part of the universal conflict which must endure so long as a single slave shall wear a chain.

Slavery itself is a state of war, ready to burst forth in blood, whenever the slave reclaims that liberty which is his right, or whenever mankind refuses to sanction its inhuman pretensions.

On one side is the slave-ship, and on the other is the Mayflower.

One was freighted with human beings forcibly torn from their own country, and hurried away in chains to be sold as slaves: the other was filled with good men, who had voluntarily turned their backs upon their own country, to seek other…

By no effort of imagination do we see on one Slavery and on the other Liberty, traversing the ocean to continue here, on this broad continent, their perpetual, immitigable war.

On the other hand, New England always set her face against Slavery.

Like seeks like, and the Pilgrims of the Mayflower were followed by others of similar virtues, whose first labors on landing were to build churches and schools.

Many of them had the best education of England; some were men of substance, and there was no poverty among them that could cause a blush; while all were most exact and exemplary in conduct.

It is very different with the early settlers of Virginia, recruited from the castaways and shirks of Old England, and mostly needy men, of desperate fortunes and dissolute lives, who cared nothing for churches or schools.

I should not lift the veil which charity would kindly draw, if a just knowledge of their character had not become important in illustrating the origin of our troubles.

So far as it is intended to say that the war is part of the ever-recurring conflict between Slavery and Liberty, there is no objection to this illustration.

I know not if the armies of the Union, now fighting the world’s greatest battle for Human Rights, may not be called “Roundheads”; but I am sure that Rebels now fighting for Slavery cannot be called “Cavaliers” in any sense.

The original “Cavaliers” were English; but it is an historical fact that the Rebel colonies were not settled exclusively from England.

The blood of Scotch, Irish, Dutch, Germans, Swiss, French, and Jews commingled there, all of which is amply attested.