Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

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[76] city from pillage and destruction? And it will surely befall us if we do not stand by our flag. We do not mean to submit to Lincoln. Ho has commanded us to send troops. We send word that Kentucky will not do it. Will he compel us? Let him not dare it! Let him not rouse the sleeping lions of the Border States. She sleeps now-still and quiet, but it is not from lack of strength, courage, or power. She waits for the assault. Let it come, and, roused, she will crush the power that assails, and drag Mr. Lincoln from his high place. Can he make Kentucky help him kill? He has a right to demand troops, and he did. Glendower could, as he said, call spirits from the vasty deep, but would they come when they were called? Will the troops from Kentucky come at his call? No, they will never lend themselves to such a cause. But, Kentucky will stand firm with her sister Border States in the centre of the Republic, to calm the distracted sections. This is her true position, and in it she saves the Union and frowns down Secession. Let. us wait for reason to resume her seat. Let us not fight the North or South, but firm in our position tell our sister Border States that with them we will stand to maintain the Union, to preserve the peace, and uphold our honor, and our flag, which they would trail in the dust. We will rear ourselves as a rock in the midst of the ocean, against which the waves, lashed by sectional strife, in fury breaking, shall recoil and overwhelm those who have raised them! If we give up the Union, all is lost. There will then be no breakwater, but instead, Kentucky will be the battle-ground — the scene of a conflict between brethren — such a conflict as no country has yet witnessed. But if we take the true stand, the tide of war and desolation will be rolled back on both sides. If we must fight, let us fight Lincoln and not our Government. To go out of the Union is to raise a new issue with the North and turn the whole country against you. The ship of state is one in which we all sail, and when thus launched into the ocean, and about to founder because part of the crew rebel against the commander, it is the duty of all, unhesitatingly, to aid and save. Safety demands that we stand by the flag, by the Government, by the Constitution! In the distance you hear the shouts of men and the roaring of cannon. The foemen are gathering for the dreadful conflict, and when you cut loose from the Union it is to take a part. But you are secure from both as long as you remain neutral. You are to determine now. Examine all the points; look where you are going before you take the step that plunges you into ruin, and, calmly reasoning, free from excitement, determine to stand forever by the country, the Constitution, and the Stars and Stripes, aid be still the mightiest nation the world ever saw.

Judge Nicholas made a beautiful, eloquent, and patriotic speech, which was greatly applauded, and closed by offering a series of resolutions, the last of which, as follows, was adopted, the balance being withdrawn:

Resolved, That we hail in Major Robert Anderson, the gallant defender of Fort Sumter against overwhelming odds, a worthy Kentuckian, the worthy son of a patriot sire, who has given so heroic an example of what ought always to be the conduct of a patriot soldier, in the presence of the armed. assailants of his country's flag; that he, his officers, and men, have well earned the admiration and gratitude of the nation.

Judge Bullock was generally called for, and responded in a clear, forcible, and logical speech, indorsing the spirit of the preamble and resolutions adopted, and urging Kentucky to pursue the course laid down in them as the safest, wisest, and most noble for the first-born of the Union. His speech was characterized by that eloquence of diction so well known as an attribute of Judge Bullock's oratorical efforts. Ie was frequently interrupted in the course of his remarks by cheers and applause.

The Hon. John Young Brown followed in a speech unsurpassed in power and brilliancy. This gifted young orator rehearsed the history of the last Congress, the efforts for compromise, the surrender by the Republicans of the fundamental idea of the Chicago platform, in the positive non-extension of Slavery il the formation of the new Territories. He held his audience spell-bound, as it were, for more than an hour, as he poured out burning words of indignation upon those who have brought the country into its present unfortunate condition, or depicted the horrors of civil war. lie earnestly urged the neutrality of Kentucky in the present crisis, as the best and most practicable position for Kentucky to maintain her integrity in the Union, and to mediate between the antagonistic sections.

The meeting, which was entirely orderly, adjourned after giving rounds of cheers for the Union and for the American flag.--Louisville Journal, April 21.