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| Union Square, New Yorl, on the 20th of April, 1861. |
Young men of the United States--you
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as we have observed, were in perfect agreement on this occasion, in a determination to support the Government in maintaining its authority.1
John A. Dix, a life-long Democrat, and lately a member of Buchanan's Cabinet, presided at the principal stand, near the statue of Washington.
The meeting was then opened by prayer by the venerable Gardiner Spring, D. D., when the President addressed a few sentences to the multitude, in which he spoke of the rebellion being without provocation on the part of the Government, and said:--“I regard the pending contest with the secessionists as a death-struggle for constitutional liberty and law — a contest which, if successful on their part, could only end in the establishment of a despotic government, and blot out, whenever they were in the ascendant, every vestige of national freedom. . . . We stand before the statue of the Father of his Country.
The flag of the Union which floats over it, hung above him when he presided over the Convention by. which the Constitution was framed.
The great work of his life has been rejected, and the banner by which his labors were consecrated has been trampled in the
dust.
If the inanimate bronze, in which the sculptor has shaped his image, could be changed for the living form which led the armies of the Revolution to victory, he would command us, in the name of the hosts of patriots and political martyrs who have gone before, to strike for the defense of the Union and the Constitution.”
Daniel S. Dickinson, a venerable leader of the Democratic party, said:--“We are called upon to act. This is no time for hesitation or indecision — no time for haste or excitement.
It is a time when the people should rise in the majesty of their might, stretch forth their strong arm, and silence the angry waves of tumult.
It is a question between Union and Anarchy — between law and disorder.”
Senator Baker, of Oregon, a leading member of Congress, who afterward gave his life for his country at Ball's Bluff, made an eloquent speech.
“Young men of New York,” he said--
1 An account of the proceedings of this meeting, containing the names of the officers, and abstracts of the several speeches, may be found in the first volume of the Rebellion Record, edited by Frank Moore.
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