My parents before me, on both sides, were Virginians. On both sides of the house they were slaveholders, as most of the citizens of the Old Dominion are and have been. Although I am branded at home, since the inauguration of rebellion, with being myself an anti-slavery man, and a tory and the descendant of tories, I take great pleasure and pride in announcing to you that my father was a volunteer in the war of 1812, under Old Hickory. My uncle William, after whom I was named, lived and died a naval officer, and his remains sleep in the Navy Yard at Norfolk, Virginia. My uncle Alexander was also a naval officer, and his remains rest in the Navy Yard at New Orleans. My uncle John was also a navy officer. He died at sea and was thrown overboard, and became food for the fishes thereof. My uncle John was the third man who scaled the walls at the battle of the Horseshoe. [Applause.] On my mother's side--the Galloways--not a few lost their lives at Norfolk, from yellow fever, camp diseases and fatigue. They did not fight for a section of the country--not for the yellow fever swamps of the South--but for every State, and every particle of this glorious Union of ours. [Applause.] I may as well make a remark or two on the subject of politics. I am not here for the purpose of reviving any old party prejudice--not at all--nor yet with a view to drop a solitary remark that shall offend even the most fastidious political partisan who may be under the sound of my voice. In Tennessee, thank God, we have merged all political party questions into the one great question of the Union and its preservation. [Applause.] In all time to come--though I have been a Whig of the strictest sort--though I have lived up to the creed and fought Democracy in all its ramifications, and in all its windings--I would, in the language of Milton, see a man where cold performs the effect of fire--or, in the still more nervous language of Pollock, I would see a man where gravitation, shifting, turns the other way--even hell-ward--before I would vote for any man who was not an unconditional, straight-out Union man. [Great applause.] I have fought Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, systematically, perseveringly and untiringly, for the last twenty-five years of my somewhat eventful life. He has scored me on every stump in the State of Tennessee, and I have paid him back to the best of my ability. But honors with us are easy. [Laughter.] We take each other by the hand now, as brethren. [Applause.] Now I will fight for him, and under him--engaged as we are in the same cause, against the same vile foe to God and man, and especially to our country. [Applause.]