The _proclamation of the President, calling for 75,000 troops_, and then calling _for a greater number_, would, in any Court in Christendom, outside of the United States, be regarded, under international law, as conclusive evidence that those troops were to be used against _a belligerent power_. Who ever heard of EIGHT MILLIONS of people, or of ONE MILLION of people, being ALL TRAITORS, and being ALL LIABLE TO PROSECUTION FOR TREASON AT ONCE. I find this recognition in the _exchange of prisoners_, which we know, as a matter of history, has occurred. I find it in the _capitulation at Hatteras_, at which, and by which, GENERAL BUTLER, of his own accord, when he refused the terms of surrender proposed by Commodore Barron, declared that the garrison should be taken as PRISONERS OF WAR; and that has been communicated to the Government, and no dissatisfaction expressed about it. And, gentlemen, I rest it, also, as to the recognition by our Government, on the fact to which MR. SULLIVAN so appropriately alluded--_the exchange of flags of truce_ between the two contending forces, as proved by one of the officers of the navy. A flag of truce sent to rebels--to men engaged in lawless insurrection, in treasonable hostility to the Government, with a view to its overthrow! Why, gentlemen, it is the grandest, as it is the most characteristic, device by which humanity protects men against atrocities which they might otherwise perpetrate upon each other--that little white flag, showing itself like a speck of divine snow on the red and bloody field of battle; coming covered all over with divinity; coming in the hand of peace, who rejoices to see another place where her foot may rest; welcome as the dove which returned to the ark; coming, I say, in the hand of peace, who is the great conqueror, and before whom the power of armies and the bad ambitions and great struggles of men must ultimately be extinguished. This, of itself, will be regarded by mankind, when they reflect wisely, as sufficient to show that our Government must not be brutal; and we seek to rescue the Administration from any imputation that it wants to deny to the South the common humanities which belong to warfare, by your refusing to let men be executed as pirates, or to make a distinction between him who wars on the deep and him who wars upon the land.