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AUTHOR'S SPEECH IN ROCHESTER.
409
which would assert itself at last. Though loyal soldiers had been fired upon in the streets of Baltimore, though loyal blood had stained the pavements of that beautiful city, and the national government was warned to send no troops through Baltimore to the defense of the National Capital, we could not be made to believe that the border States would plunge madly into the bloody vortex of rebellion.
"But this confidence, patience, and forbearance could not last forever. These blissful illusions of hope were, in a measure, dispelled when the batteries of Charleston harbor were opened upon the starving garrison at Fort Sumter. For the moment the northern lamb was transformed into a lion, and his roar was terrible. But he only showed his teeth, and clearly had no wish to use them. We preferred to fight with dollars, and not daggers. 'The fewer battles the better,' was the hopeful motto at Washington. 'Peace in sixty days' was held out by the astute Secretary of State. In fact, there was at the North no disposition to fight, no spirit of hate, no comprehension of the stupendous character and dimensions of the rebellion, and no proper appreciation of its inherent wickedness. Treason had shot its poisonous roots deeper and had spread its death-dealing branches further than any northern calculation had covered. Thus, while rebels were waging a barbarous war, marshaling savage Indians to join them in the slaughter, while rifled cannon-balls were battering down the walls of our forts, and the iron-clad hand of monarchical power was being invoked to assist in the destruction of our government and the dismemberment of our country, while a tremendous rebel ram was sinking our fleet and threatening the cities of our coast, we were still dreaming of peace. This infatuation, this blindness to the significance of passing events, can only be accounted for by the rapid passage of these events and by the fact of the habitual leniency and good will cherished by the North towards the South. Our very lack of preparation for the conflict disposes us to look for some other than the way of blood out of the difficulty. Treason had largely infected both army and navy. Floyd had scattered our arms, Cobb had depleted our treasury, and Buchanan had poisoned the political thought of the times by his doctrines of anti-coercion. It was in such a condition of things as this that Abraham Lincoln (compelled from fear of assassination to enter the capital in disguise) was inaugurated and issued his proclamation for the 'repossession of the forts, places, and property which had been seized from the Union,' and his call upon the miltia of the several States to the number of 75,000 men—a paper which showed how little even he comprehended the work then before the loyal nation. It was perhaps better for the country and for mankind that the good man could not know the end from the beginning. Had he foreseen the thousands who must sink