It has, however, been fittingly reserved for the chief of the rebellion himself to give the full and complete answer to this dishonorable complaint of failure. Not a month after the meeting of the Chicago Convention, and on the 23d of September last, Jeff. Davis uttered these words, in a public speech, at Macon, Geo.: '_You have not many men between eighteen and forty-five left_.... Two-thirds of our men are absent, some sick, some wounded, but _most of them absent without leave_. ... _In Virginia the disparity of numbers is just an great as it is in Georgia._' But let it be granted that after these three years and a half of war, and having accomplished such unquestionably important results, the Union is not yet restored, what then? Is that a reason for giving up now? Our fathers fought the British seven years without flinching; and under the indomitable leader God had given them, they would have fought seven years longer with equal determination. Are we less determined than they were? Are we such degenerate sons that we are willing to give up the legacy they left us, at half its original cost? There is just the same reason that we should yield the contest now as there was in 1861 that we should yield it then; neither more nor less. The integrity of the nation, the perpetuity of our institutions, the safety, honor, and welfare of the people are still at stake. If it is true that 'justice, humanity, liberty, and the public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made for a cessation of hostilities,' then those same holy principles were assailed when the war was begun. If the United States Government was the assailant, it did wrong, and has continued doing wrong ever since; and not a century of such wrong-doing can make the war just and right on our part. This brings us face to face with the question, Who began the war? Who, in this contest, has assailed the principles of 'justice, humanity, and liberty'? Who has attacked the 'public welfare'? Has it been the United States Government? Let us revert to the occasion of the war. Confining ourselves to what all parties admit--even the rebels themselves--the immediate occasion of the war was the election of a President distasteful, for whatever cause, to the Southern leaders. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States under the organic law of the nation, in strict accordance with all its modes and requirements, and none ever disputed the fairness of the election. That organic law is the Constitution, to which the South is bound equally with the North. The men of the Chicago Convention, who have recalled to our minds its high supremacy, neglected to express their opinion of those who, immediately on the election of President Lincoln, contemptuously spurned it, and have sought these three years and a half to overthrow it and destroy the Union which it upholds.