SHALL WE GIVE UP THE UNION? 265 Ex. CLXXIV.-SHALL WE GIVE UP THE UNION? Speech Delivered at New York, May 20, 1861. DANIEL S. DICKINSON. SHALL We then surrender to turbulence, and faction, and rebellion, and give up the Union with all its elements of good, all its holy memories, all its hallowed associations, all its blood-bought history? No! let the eagle change his plume, The leaf its hue, the flower its bloom But do not give up the Union. Preserve it to "flourish in immortal youth," until it is dissolved amid "the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds." Let the patriot and statesman stand by it to the last, whether assailed by foreign or domestic foes, and if he perishes in the conflict, let him fall like Rienzi, the last of the Tribunes, upon the same stand where he has preached liberty and equality to his countrymen. Preserve it in the name of the Fathers of the Revolution -preserve it for its great elements of good-preserve it in the sacred name of liberty-preserve it for the faithful and devoted lovers of the Constitution in the rebellious Statesthose who are persecuted for its support, and are dying in its defence. Rebellion can lay down its arms to Government -Government can not surrender to rebellion. Give up the Union!" this fair and fertile plain, to batten on that moor!" Divide the Atlantic so that its tides shall beat in sections, that some spurious Neptune may rule in an ocean of his own-draw a line upon the sun's disc, that may cast its beams upon earth in divisions-let the moon, like Bottom in the play, show but half its face-separate the constellation of the Pleiades and sunder the bands of Orion -but retain the Union! it Give up the Union, with its glorious flag-its stars and stripes, full of proud and pleasing and honorable recollections, for the spurious invention with no antecedents but the history of a violated Constitution and of lawless ambition! No! let us stand by the emblem of our fathers: "Flag of the free heart's hope and home, By angel hands to valor given, Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in Heaven." Give up the Union? Never! The Union shall endure, and its praises shall be heard, when its friends and its foes, those who support and those who assail, those who bared their bosoms in its defence, and those who aim their daggers at its heart, shall all sleep in the dust together. Its name shall be heard with veneration amid the roar of Pacific's waves, away upon the rivers of the North and East, where liberty is divided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon the Rio Grande. It shall rustle in the harvest and wave in the standing corn, on the extended prairies of the West, and be heard in the bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thousand hills. It shall be with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in the manufactories of New England, and in the cotton-gins of the South. It shall be proclaimed by the stars and stripes in every sea of the earth, as the American Union, one and indivisible; upon the great thoroughfares, wherever steam drives and engines throb and shriek, its greatness and perpetuity shall be hailed with gladness. It shall be lisped in the earliest words, and ring in the merry voices of childhood, and swell to heaven upon the song of maidens. It shall live in the stern resolve of manhood, and rise to the mercy-seat upon woman's gentle, availing prayer. Holy men shall invoke its perpetuity at the altars of religion, and it shall be whispered in the last accents of expiring age. Thus shall survive and be perpetuated the American Union, and when it shall be proclaimed that time shall be no more, and the curtain shall fall, and the good shall be gathered to a more perfect union, still may the destiny of our dear land recognize the conception, that "Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along, And a voice, as of angels, awoke the glad song, The queen of the world, and the child of the skies!" Ex. CLXXV.—A SONG ON OUR COUNTRY AND HER FLAG. Written in 1861, on the Raising of the Flag on Columbia College, New York, after the Attack on Fort Sumter. FRANCIS LIEBER. We do not hate our enemy- A SONG ON OUR COUNTRY AND HER FLAG. Our country is a goodly land; We'll keep her alway whole and hale; Our Flag! The red shall mean the blood Its blue, the sea we love to plough, 267 From strand, o'er mount and stream, to strand. The blue reflects the crowding stars, Our fathers came and planted fields, And manly Law, and schools of truth; Broad freedom came along with them Let Emp❜ror never rule this land, Then sing and shout for our free land, FREELAND our land may ever be; That faithful we be found and strong Ex. CLXXVI.-NEVER, OR NOW. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. LISTEN, young heroes! Your country is calling! You whom the fathers made free and defended, Leave not your children a birthright of shame! Stay not for questions while Freedom stands gasping! Break from the arms that would fondly caress you! Never, or now! cries the blood of a nation, Poured on the turf where the red rose shall bloom; From the foul dens where your brothers are dying, From the hot plains where they perish outnumbered, APPEAL TO SECESSIONISTS. 269 Ex. CLXXVII.-APPEAL TO SECESSIONISTS. From an Address Delivered before the Literary Societies of Amherst College, DANIEL S. DICKINSON. You desire peace! Then lay down your arms and you shall have it. It was peace when you took them up-it will be peace when you lay them down. It will be peace when you abandon war and return to your accustomed pursuits. When the government of our fathers shall be again recog nized, when the Constitution and the laws to which every citizen owes allegiance shall be observed and obeyed; then will the armies of the Constitution and the Union disband, by a common impulse, in obedience to a unanimous popular will. War is emphatically, and more especially is a war between brethren, a disgrace to civilization; and any war is a drain upon the life-blood of a nation, and originates in wrong. Its evils can not be written, even in human blood. It sweeps our race from earth, as if Heaven had repented the making of man. It lays its skinny hand upon society, and leaves it deformed by wretchedness and black with gore. It marches on its mission of destruction through a red sea of blood, and tinges the fruits of earth with a sanguine hue, as the mulberry reddened in sympathy with the romantic fate of the devoted lovers. It "spoils the dance of youthful blood," and writes sorrow and grief prematurely upon the glad brow of childhood. It chills the heart and hope of youth. It drinks the life-current of early manhood, and brings down the gray hairs of the aged with sorrow to the grave. It weaves the widow's weeds with the bridal wreath, and our land, like Rama, is filled with wailing and lamentation. It lights up the darkness with the flames of happy homes. It consumes, like the locusts of Egypt, every living thing in its pathway. It wrecks fortunes, brings bankruptcy and repudiation, and blasts the fields of the husbandman-it depopulates towns, and leaves cities a modern Herculaneum. It desolates the firesides, and covers the family dwelling with gloom, and an awful vacancy rests where, like the haunted mansion: "No human figure stirred to go or come, No face looked forth from open door or casement, |