If the instincts of patriotism did not prompt this support, I should find a sufficient motive in that duty which we all owe to the Supreme Ruler, God Almighty, whose visitations upon our country are now so fearful. Not rashly would I make myself the interpreter of His will; and yet I am not blind. According to a venerable maxim of jurisprudence, “Whoso would have equity must do equity”; and God plainly requires equity at our hands. We cannot expect success while setting at nought this requirement, proclaimed in His divine character, in the dictates of reason, and in the examples of history,--proclaimed, also, in the events of this protracted war. Terrible judgments have fallen upon the country: plagues have been let loose, rivers have been turned into blood, and there is a great cry throughout the land, for there is not a house where there is not one dead; and at each judgment we seem to hear that terrible voice which sounded in the ears of Pharaoh: “Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.” I know not how others are touched, but I cannot listen to the frequent tidings of calamity descending upon our arms, of a noble soldier lost to his country, of bereavement at the family hearth, of a youthful son brought home dead to his mother, without catching the warning, “Let my people go!” Nay, every wound, every sorrow, every hardship, all that we are compelled to bear in taxation, in want, in derangement of business, has a voice crying, “Let my people go!”