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the Revolution — preserve it for its great elements of good — preserve it in the sacred name of liberty — preserve it for the faithful and devoted lovers of the
Constitution in the rebellious States--those who are persecuted for its support, and are dying in its defence.
Rebellion can lay down its arms to Government — Government cannot surrender to rebellion.
Give up the
Union!
“this fair and fertile plain to batten on that moor.”
Divide the
Atlantic, so that its tides shall beat in sections, that some spurious
Neptune may rule an ocean of his own!
Draw a line upon the sun's disc, that it may cast its beams upon earth in divisions!
Let the moon, like Bottom in the play, show but half its face!
Separate the constellation of the Pleiades, and sunder the bands of
Orion I but retain the
Union!
Give up the
Union, with its glorious flag, its Stars and Stripes, full of proud and pleasing and honorable recollections, for the spurious invention with no antecedents, but the history of a violated Constitution and of lawless ambition!
No! let us stand by the emblem of our fathers,
Flag of the free hearts, hope, and home,
By angel hands to valor given,
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome
And all thy hues were born in Heaven.
Ask the
Christian to exchange the cross, with the cherished memories of a Saviour's love, for the crescent of the impostor, or to address his prayers to the Juggernaut or Josh, instead of the living and true God!
but sustain the emblem your fathers loved and cherished.
Give up the
Union?
Never! The Union shall endure, and its praises shall be heard when its friends and its foes, those who support, and those who assail, those who bare their bosoms in its defence, and those who aim their daggers at its heart, shall all sleep in the dust together.
Its name shall be heard with veneration amid the roar of
Pacific's waves, away upon the rivers of the North and East, where liberty is divided from monarchy, and be wafted in gentle breezes upon the
Rio Grande.
It shall rustle in the harvest, and wave in the standing corn, on the extended prairies of the
West, and be heard in the bleating folds and lowing herds upon a thousand hills.
It shall be with those who delve in mines, and shall hum in the manufactories of
New England, and in the cotton gins of the
South.
It shall be proclaimed by the Stars and Stripes in every sea of earth, as the American Union, one and indivisible; upon the great thoroughfares, wherever steam drives and engines throb and shriek, its greatness and perpetuity shall be hailed with gladness.
It shall be lisped in the earliest words, and ring in the merry voices of childhood, and swell to Heaven upon the song of maidens.
It shall live in the stern resolve of manhood, and rise to the mercyseat upon woman's gentle availing prayer.
Holy men shall invoke its perpetuity at the altars of religion, and it shall be whispered in the last accents of expiring age. Thus shall survive and be perpetuated the American Union, and when it shall be proclaimed that time shall be no more, and the curtain shall fall, and the good shall be gathered to a more perfect Union, still may the destiny of our dear land recognize the conception, that
Perfumes as of Eden flowed sweetly along,
And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung,
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise.
The Queen of the World, and the child of the skies.
