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slave labor, no man who has examined the subject doubts.
By the imposition of this tax those men who fitted out the Alabama and sent her forth to prey upon our commerce, will be compelled by the laws of trade and the laws of nations to pay for the mischief they have done.
So that when we look around in this country, which has just begun to put forth her strength, because no country has ever come to her full strength until her institutions have proved themselves strong enough to govern the country against the will, even the voluntary will of the people — when this government, which has now demonstrated itself to be the strongest government in the world, puts forth her strength as to men, and when this country of ours, richer and more abundant in its harvests and in its productions than any other country on earth, puts forth her riches, we have a strength in men, we have an amount in money, to battle the world for liberty, and for the freedom to do, in the borders of the United States and on the continent of America, that which God, when He sent us forth as a missionary nation, intended we should do. So allow me to return your words of congratulation and your words of welcome, with words of good cheer.
Be of good cheer!
God gave us this continent to civilize and to free, as an example to the nations of the earth; and if He has struck us in His wrath, because we have halted in our work, let us begin again and go on, not doubting that we shall have His blessing to the end. Be, therefore, I say, of good cheer; there can be no doubt of this issue.
We feel the struggle; we feel what it costs to carry on this war. Go with me to Louisiana--go with me to the South, and you shall see what it costs our enemies to carry on this war; and you will have no doubt, as I have none, of the result of this unhappy strife, out of which the nation shall come stronger, better, purified, North and South--better than ever before.
The glory and high honors of my reception by the
Northern people cannot be more fully described than it was set forth in an extract from the
Richmond (Va.) Examiner of even date therewith:--
After inflicting innumerable tortures upon an innocent and unarmed people; after outraging the sensibilities of civilized humanity by his brutal treatment of women and children; after placing bayonets in the hands of slaves; after peculation the most prodigious, and lies the most infamous, he returns, reeking with crime, to his own people, and they receive him with acclamations of joy in a manner that befits him and becomes themselves.
Nothing is out of keeping; his whole career and its rewards are strictly artistic in conception and in execution.
He was a
