“There are those, however, who cry out for peace. Who does not desire it? Have we not had enough of fratricidal strife? Yes, verily. Has not enough blood been shed? Yes, a thousand fold more than ought to have flowed. Have we not had enough of lamentation and tears? Let the Rachels who weep for their children, and refuse to be comforted, answer. He has a stone for a heart who, looking on the desolations of war, does not sigh for peace. But peace at what price? At the price of truth? Shall we for the sake of peace give up the principle that good government must be obeyed? Shall we tamely abandon the truth that all men are equal in God’s sight, and have a right to the product of their own labor? Shall we timidly assent to the tyrannical doctrine that the normal condition of a portion of our race is slavery? We cannot purchase peace at so great cost. God giving us strength, we never will. Let our wives be widows and our children orphans; let them beg their bread from door to door; let them die without care in almshouses, and be buried uncoffined in the potter’s field; yea, ‘let a general conflagration sweep over the land, and let an earthquake sink it,’ before we yield one rood of our territory to those who, without cause, lifted up the red hand of rebellion against the government of our fathers in the interest of slavery. And why all this? Because the truth for which we contend is worth more than your life or mine—or more than the lives of a generation of men. When peace shall be obtained which is based in righteousness, which flows forth from justice established and exalted in the midst of the nation, which grants to all classes of men their inalienable rights, we will sing pæans of joy over it; but if we are to have a peace based on a compromise with iniquity, which will be as deceptive as the apples of Sodom, involving our children in disasters more dire than those which have befallen us, every lover of truth, and justice, and good government will hang his head in shame. O, God, save us in mercy, from such a peace! Give us anything rather than it. Grant us an eighty years’ war like that waged by the Netherlands, rather than pour into our cup such an insidious curse. “Brethren, be of good cheer. God now goes before us to battle, and grants us victories. This is no time for fear and faltering. We must quit ourselves like men, like Christian freemen. This conflict is not anomalous. There have been many such. Christ, the Prince of Peace, anticipated it, and His words coming across the centuries shall cheer us till the last blow is struck, truth vindicated and righteousness immovably established.”