Let our republic, powerful child of Freedom, go forth, the Evangelist of Peace.

Let her offer to the world a Magna Charta of International Law, by which the crime of War shall be forever abolished.

Can Freedom be born, can nations be regenerated, only through baptism of blood?

In our aspirations, I would not be blind to the teachings of History, or to the actual condition of men, so long accustomed to brute force, that, to their imperfect natures, it seems the only means by which injustice can be crushed.

So doing, they wage a battle where all our sympathies must be with Freedom, while, in sorrow at the unwelcome combat, we confess that victory is only less mournful than defeat.

Through all these bloody mists the eye of Faith discerns the ascending sun, struggling to shoot its life-giving beams upon the outspread earth, teeming with the grander products of a new civilization.

From the birth of this new order will spring not only international repose, but domestic quiet also; and Peace will become the permanent rule of civilization.

I refer to that greatest, most preposterous, and most irreligious of earthly vanities, the monstrous reflection of War,--Military Glory.

Whatever the usage of the world, whether during the long and dreary Past or in the yet barbarous Present, it must be clear to all who confront this question with candor, and do not turn away from the blaze of truth, that any glory from…

It is the offspring of a deluded public sentiment, and will disappear, as we learn to analyze its elements and appreciate its character.

Augustine called the splendid vices, neglecting the simple virtues,--too long cultivated the flaunting and noxious weeds, careless of the golden corn,--too long been insensible to that commanding law and sacred example which rebuke all the…

By such profane devices men sought to establish that relation, whose beauty they perceived, though they failed to discern, that, by the ordinance of God, without any human stratagem, it justly comprehended all their fellow-men.

In the midst of Judaism, which hated Gentiles, Christianity proclaimed love to all mankind, and distinctly declared that God had made of one blood all the nations of men.

As all men are brothers, so, by irresistible consequence, ALL WAR MUST BE FRATRICIDAL.

None can hesitate in answer, unless fatally imbued with the Heathen rage of nationality, that made the Venetians declare themselves Venetians first and Christians afterwards.

Thus must it be, as mankind ascend from the thrall of brutish passion.

Nobler aims, by nobler means, will fill the soul.

There will be a new standard of excellence; and honor, divorced from blood, will become the inseparable attendant of good works alone.

Far better, then, even in the judgment of this world, to have been a doorkeeper in the house of Peace than the proudest dweller in the tents of War.

Clearer than in the venerated napkin, better than in color or marble of choicest art, it appears in each virtuous deed, in every act of self-sacrifice, in all magnanimous toil, in any recognition of Human Brotherhood.

It will be supremely manifest, in unimagined loveliness and serenity, when the Commonwealth of Nations, confessing the True Grandeur of Peace, renounces the War System, and dedicates to Beneficence the comprehensive energies so fatally…

Then, at last, will it be seen, there can be no Peace that is not honorable, and no War that is not dishonorable.

The National Government has been for a long time controlled by Slavery.

Ours be the duty, worthy of freemen, to place the Government under the auspices of Freedom, that it may be true to the Declaration of Independence and to the spirit of the Fathers!

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.