The mass meetings yesterday.
great enthusiasm of the people.
addresses by the Hons.
R. M. T. Hunter, Secretary Benjamin, and others.
The largest and most enthusiastic meeting ever held in this city was convened at the African Church on yesterday.
Two hours before the time of meeting, the whole body of the church, aisles and windows, were crowded, and quite as large a concourse was obliged to stand in the streets, being unable to obtain access to the building.
The objects of the meeting were to adopt resolutions expressive of the feelings of the people of Virginia, excited by the gross insult put upon us by Lincoln in his late meeting with our. commissioners at Fortress Monroe, and to take counsel as to our future.
At a few minutes past 12 o'clock, Mr. R. M. T. Hunter, President of the meeting, attended by Mr. J. P. Benjamin, Secretary of State; Mr. Joseph Mayo, Mayor of Richmond; Captain Semmes, Confederate States Navy; the Hon. Messrs. Semmes, Henry, Maxwell, and others, and the Vice-Presidents of the meeting, entered the building.
As they ascended the stand, the Armory Band, which was in attendance, played the Marseilles Hymn.
At the conclusion of the air, Mr. Hunter, the President, requested that no calls might be made for speakers, as their names would be duly announced in the order in which they were to address the meeting.
Mr. Hunter then said: ‘
Having called you to order, it is proper that I should explain the object and purpose of this meeting.
We stand here to consider the most momentous public issue that ever agitated a nation. --One in which is involved the very life and being of a people, the existence of their laws and government, their life, liberty and honor.
Whatever is sacred in human affections, or- dear to the hearts of men, is involved in this countess; and may God grant us the wisdom to devise, and the power to execute, those measures which, under His hand, shall effect our deliverance in this great crisis of our affairs.
We are not responsible for the lives that have been given up in this contest, and our skirts are clear of the blood which has been shed.
We entered it to maintain the rights of self-government.--a right which should have been as dear to our enemies as to us. It is a great American idea — the growth of American soil — and should, in their eyes, be as sacred as it is to us. For four long years we have been engaged in a war, the like of which has not been seen in modern times; the only approximations to which were the wars of Wallenstein and Attila and the Thirty Years War of Germany; and now, after these years of waste and destruction, we have been lately informed by the President of the United States that there can be no peace except upon the conditions of laying down our arms and absolute submission; to come in as rebels, and submit to laws confiscating our property, and awarding the death penalty to our citizens.
Nor is this all. We are required to submit to an amendment, adopted to the United States Constitution, to turn loose the thousands of slaves in our midst, without restraint and without the education which they would require for self-preservation.
If anything more was wanting to stir the blood, it was furnished when we were told that the United States could not consent to entertain any proposition coming from us as a people.
That Government which makes treaties with the meanest and weakest of nations, tells us — a nation of seven millions of men, with arms in their hands,--that it cannot entertain any proposition coming from rebels.
Even upon the theory that we were rebels, upon what authority could they refuse to treat with us?
There has been no civil war of any magnitude which has not been terminated by treating.
In 1778, the British Government sent three commissioners to the rebel colonies, authorized to treat even with any "association of individuals," and to provide for a truce.
It has been a habit with all strong governments, after a war is over, and after it has vindicated its power, to render the future as little gloomy, and its yoke as easy to its subjects, as possible; but nothing of this sort comes from the United States.
Nothing comes from it to soothe our feelings, nothing to alleviate the terms of a settlement, if it were possible for such a settlement to be made.
It would seem possible that Lincoln might have offered something to a people with two hundred thousand soldiers, and such soldiers [applause] under arms.
Could it be probable, to him, that we could go into the United States Government as rebels, assuming the responsibility of all the blood that has been shed; confessing that we have kept up a wicked and useless war; submitting to laws confiscating our property and taking the lives of our people ! It is true, he said, that those laws would be administered by him in a spirit of kindness; but when did men ever give to one man the power over their lives and their property, and all that they hold dear; trusting to his spirit of kindness and divesting themselves of the to resist his tyranny ? [Cries of "Never," "never. "] And it is to be remembered, that whenever we go into the Union as a conquered people, we give, up the laws of the United States, and must take such as they choose to make for us; and we go in without representation in the making of those laws, for Mr. Lincoln told us — told me — that while we could send representatives to the Yankee Congress, yet it rested with that Congress to say whether they would receive them or not. Thus we would cast everything away and go to them as a subdued, subjugated and degraded people, to be in subjection by their soldiery? ’
is all told yet. More than 3,000,000 slaves are let Losse and $1,500,000,000 worth of property at one tell swoop.
These slaves are to under about and become the of the land.
Congress would be constantly interfering be- the white and black man. The laws would made by a Congress bottle to us, and any attempt in males these thriftless wanderer useful would be interfered with.
It, under the old Government, they interfered with our de institutions.
what would become of us if we were helpless in their hands, and those hands holding the power to arbitrate in all questions concerning us. They would raise questions about the State laws, and soon sweep away any barrier we might erect for the protection of social order and industry in our midst.
But, fellow-citizens, I will not attempt now to draw a picture of subjugation which must loom up before the eyes of every man who considers it. It would require a pencil dipped in blood to paint its gloom.
I pass this to the question of what is to become of the slaves.
We know that in large districts of our country the men have been taken away by them and women left.
Who is to support them ! Under our system they were provided for and happy; under their system they must perish.
That system will destroy the whole negro race in this country.
In the fierce competition for food between the white and the negro, the latter will be blasted like human life before the burning sirocco, and vanish like the mist before the sun. We drew the sword not for ourselves alone, but also for his sake, and the world, which stands coldly looking on, will find that the men whom they have excluded from their sympathy are the hope of the black race.
It was the exclamation of a celebrated French woman, "Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name !" and we may parody by exclaiming, Oh, Philanthropy, how much misery is caused in thy name ! Well may the negro rise up and pronounce judgment against it. Fellow-citizens, I have presented the future we are to endure if we are reduced to submission.
I turn now to what we are to gain with our success — Independence, Liberty, our women and children — everything dear to man. [Wild cheering.] Nay, more than this; we will cover the name of our country with glory — glory such as was never known before.
I venture to say that there was never such a contest, and never such glory, as we may win from it. We have the world against us. It has been said that its parallel may be found in the Dutch Republic; but they had the sea open to them and the French and English as allies.
Our forefathers had the French to aid them.
We stand alone, presenting the spectacle of a brave people, contesting, foot by foot, with double their numbers; excluded, commercially and sentimentally, from the world.
With our success we shall establish a system of government that shall challenge the respect of the world.
We shall solve the problem of the extension of the Anglo-Saxon race to the country south of us, and show that the white and the black races may be extended together.
Then shall the Confederate soldier return from the field, his sword dripping, and his brow crowned with laurels, a hero, whom after ages will venerate, and who will be an example to generations to come.
Are not these considerations to nerve every man to do his duty — to unite every heart and hand in the country?
I will not hold out the delusive hope that the struggle shall be easy or the sacrifices light.
But in such interests it is better to loose life than fail. --[Great applause.] Property I throw out of consideration.
What is it to us?
If we fail, it will be in the hands of a ruthless foe, who spares nothing.
I trust and believe in the success of our cause.
If our people exhibit the proper spirit, they will bring forth the deserters from their caves; and the skulker [A voice--"Give it to 'em"] who are avoiding the perils of the field, will go forth to share the dangers of their countrymen.
[Applause.] In war, as in religion, we must have works as well as faith.
The man who desponds is half whipped.
[Applause.] We must have faith in the determination of our country to suffer all and do all. If we determine upon that, I do not see why we cannot win our independence.
In this spirit, a French general ordered the sounding of the Massellaise, which changed a rout into a victory.
In this spirit, the ancients consulted the bodies of their animals they sacrificed.
In this spirit, the Roman Emperor accepted the vision of the cross in the sky. I do have faith.
I do not see, but I feel, that there is a righteous God.
in Heaven, who holds our destinies in his hand, and I do not believe.
He will allow us to be cast down and the wicked to prosper.
[Applause.] I believe, with the help of Providence, that that which stands as a triple wall of steel between us an subjugation will eventually win. [A voice-- "That's so."] It is time for croakers to push.
To despond is weakness.
Speech of Mr. Hugh W. Sheffey.
Mr. Hugh W. Sheffey (Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates) was then introduced to the audience. He said: ‘ Mr. Chairman, I have been requested to present to you, and this vast assemblage of American freemen, a preamble and resolutions prepared by others, which I am sure will meet with unanimous concurrence: ’ "Whereas, whilst the existing war between the United States and the Confederate States has been, and still is, a war of conquest on the part of the former, it has been waged by the latter in defence of life, liberty and property, and to secure the right of self-government for the people; and whereas, the President of the United States has recently declared that there is no government or authority, either State or Confederate, within the Confederate States with which he can make any terms, and that there can be no peace until the Confederate States shall lay down their arms and submit to the authority of the Government of the United States and accept the laws of the same, some of which threaten our people with all that is degrading in subjugation, and all that is cruel in conquest; now, therefore, be it "Resolved, That the events which have occurred during the progress of the war have but confirmed our original determination to strike for our independence, and that, with the blessing of God, we will never lay down our arms until it shall have been won. [Wild and long-continued cheering followed the reading of this resolution.] "Secondly. That as we believe our resources to be sufficient for the purpose, we do not doubt but that we shall conduct the war successfully, and to that issue; and we hereby invoke the people, in the name of the holiest of all causes, to spare neither their blood nor their treasure in its maintenance and support. "Thirdly. That we tender our thanks to our soldiers in the field for their noble efforts in behalf of the country, its rights and its liberties, and take this occasion to assure them that no effort of ours shall be spared to assist them in maintaining the great cause to which we hereby devote ourselves and our all." [Here the immense crowd outside became quite furious to hear, crying "Come out here, " "Adjourn to the Capitol Square," "The most important men are outside," etc.; and it was some time before "the most important men" would consent to resume their patrolling up and down in front of any window through which they could hear, and permit the speaker to proceed.] I know full well that I, in the list of speakers, have been requested to inaugurate this festival of eloquence not for any merit of my own, but because I am filling an office in the Virginia House of Delegates. Unworthy as I may be of the illustrious men who, from the colonial times, have preceded me, it is perhaps, meet that one who daily sits in the old arm-chair of the old colony should be here, in imitation of the example of those who occupied it, to advocate the same resolutions which animated the hearts and directed the purposes of our fore- fathers. [Applause] Yes, we are but living over the history of the past, and contending for the great rights of self-government which our forefathers battled for for seven long years. And if, under God's will, we should fail, let all the mementoes of the past be forgotten. Let that old chair, once filled by Edmund Pendleton, be consigned to the funeral pile of Liberty rather than be carried away as a trophy by Yankees. [Cheers.] I know I address citizens, soldiers and sailors from every State in the Confederacy. I am to be followed by gentlemen from other States, who will express the sentiments of their people. As a Virginian, I may be pardoned for saying a few words about the old Commonwealth--God bless her. [Applause.] She loved the old Union with an exceeding tenderness — the tenderness of a mother for the child she has borne. With pleading tones she invoked peace, and endeavored to stay the wrath of war; and it was not until she received that bitter insult which stung her honer, and which struck the honor of the South, that she threw aside the olive branch, and, with drawn sword, planted herself upon principles as lofty and immovable as her own Blue Mountains. Since that time she has stood calm and defiant, her brow bathed with that prophetic light of victory which will yet burst in full glory upon the gleaming plates of her armor. ‘ "Like some tall cliff that rears its awful form,Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm;
Though round its bass the mists and clouds be spread,
Eternal sunshine glitters on its head."
’ Those reverses we have experienced are but the tests of the fortitude and defiant courage of a people that has not faltered. They know the hour of danger, and they know that this conflict is for life or death — a struggle for personal honor and national existence. But the arrogant, insolent master of the North committed a great blunder if he deemed that danger intimidated the hearts of a brave people. There is a spirit of fierce and ster'n joy that the contest is now to be stern and sharp, and that, in the words of our President, we are to lock shields, and shoulder to shoulder go into the battle for victory or death. [Cheers.] The issue of which you, Mr. Chairman, have spoken has been fairly and frankly made. I do not say it was frankly intended — move of that after awhile — but it has been made, and can be neither shirked nor dodged. It is too late now. To retreat is to step into the grave of self-respect and honor. To advance boldly is our only safety. To use the language of a celebrated perpetrator of bulls in the Irish Parliament, the only way to avoid this danger is to meet it plumply, and to grapple with it as a monster that would take your life. Daniel Webster, when pressed to the wall on a question of politics said, "I take no step backwards." And so, in this contest, there exists no true Southern man or woman who would not echo back, in the face of the tyrant, "I take no step backwards." Seward, in his Auburn speech, announced the Yankee idea of this war. It was that the preservation of the Union was essential to the life of the nation. The highest incentive that crafty statesman held out to his money-loving hearers, whose nation's life was drawn from Southern productions, was this. But, sir, to a Southern heart there is an aspiration higher and nobler than this. Would that I had the voice and eloquence to invoke this sentiment in every city and hamlet and cottage of the South: It is that the independence of the Confederacy is essential to the honor of the South.-- [Great cheering.] Honor is the soul of a nation. Political convulsions and territorial divisions may destroy its material life, but as long as the people retain that high-toned honor which makes a people truly great, even though the race be crushed for a time, it will rise again and re-appear from amid the ruins of dissolved governments and crumbling nationalities. God, in my opinion, never made a race of which Stonewall Jackson is a type and President Davis the representative man [great cheering], and from which sprung that great and good old chieftain, Robert E. Lee [prolonged cheering], to be destroyed, though it were thrown into the lion's den, or into a furnace seven times heated. It cannot be done. They talk about subjugating the South. They who believe that the mind and heart can be subjugated by base, sensual natures. It cannot be done, sir. Even from the hand of a true conqueror the manhood of the South would pluck power, and, in a short time, the vanquished would rule the conqueror. Mr. Chairman. do not you feel (if you do not, I do,) stronger and braver than ten days ago? Do not you feel that the tide is on the turn? You spoke of the auguries of the ancients and of the signs of the times. I know that these signs will be revealed in favor of our country; I know that the tide of patriotism is running through the length of the Confederacy, and that that message from Hampton Roads, when it reached our telegraph lines, went like a shock from the centre to the circumference, and every man sprung to his feet, vowing to do or die rather than submit. [Cheers.] The fires of 1861 I feel burning brightly in my heart. The fires of aroused patriotism will consume a good deal of rubbish which has gathered since the commencement of the war, and it will be a jolly bonfire. It will not consume the doubters, but the doubts; not the croakers, but the croaking; not the money cormorants, but the greed for lucre; and from the crackling of the flames all will come out purer and brighter. Where is the reconstructionist now ? How does he take the issue? A week or ten days ago we heard many whispering — sometimes with bated breath and sometimes louder — about Reconstruction — Peace — precious Peace. Peace was so much yearned after that men forgot there was anything better than peace. They forgot the precious blood that had been shed. They forgot the desolated fields, scorched by the red flame of war. They forgot the orphan's wail and the widow's cry, and were almost persuaded to go back to the Union if they could carry their heads on their shoulders. Some were willing to run some risk with their heads if they might only carry with them their notes, and bonds, and title deeds, under their arms. [Laughter and applause.] Some were hitching up carts to carry their Confederate notes in, and some were arranging their woolly heads in line to take them with them into the Union--all under the glorious ægis of the Union as it was and the Constitution as it ought to be.-- [Laughter.] They urged the Government to resort to the masterly arts of statesmanship, and were quite sure that the President ought to send commissioners to Washington. Separate State action, and a convention of all the States, were talked over, and some few thought, perhaps, it would require the energy of the House of Representatives to get through with this big job. In the meantime, north of the Potomac the drama was approaching the fifth act. There they said the Union must be preserved, but slavery must be abolished. The rascally Democrats in the United States House of Representatives were refractory, and would not give their votes to make the two-thirds necessary to amend the Constitution so as to abolish it. The Republicans pressed them on all sides. Horace Greeley was seen hobbling to and fro in Congress performing his mysterious role.--After awhile, the venerable Blair appeared with wings on his shoulders. Cox and Brooks, anti-war Democrats, asked for time to see if the rebels would not submit to terms. The House, at last, consented to give time. Instantly Blair, the superannuated Mercury, spread his wings, and lo ! here he is in the Confederate capital. Courtesies are extended to him, and at length our President consented to send three of our most eminent men in a steamer, as they thought, (To the Chairman — Didn't you ?) to Washington. [Great laughter.] We had already heard on the streets of the fine dinners Stephens, Hunter and Campbell were getting in Washington, when, lo and behold, it turned out that they had stuck in Hampton Roads. As they were on their way, the whole Yankee nation rose to meet them. They sent their King from his throne, and their Prime Minister from his closet. The King came to greet his friends, [turning to the chairman, Mr. Hunter,] of whom, I suppose, he "had heard tell of before." The Prime Minister came to repress any imprudence on the part of his master and curb his "little jokes. " Was not this a climax worthy of the Yankee nation? At last the curtain was raised and no duck or dinner. [Laughter.] There stands Lincoln, with Seward an inch behind him, bowing out our commissioners and sending greeting to the South to surrender or perish, with the Yankee nation in the back ground laughing over this successful trick to catch the Democratic votes. On the 30th the conference took place, and on the 31st seven Democratic votes went over, and the amendment was adopted. And now we have the offer, what shall we do ! In reply to this question, I will ask another. Is the gallant Captain Semmes in this crowd ? If he is, give him another Alabama [cheers], and, with the proud flag of his country flying, let him again meet the Kearsarge. What would he say to the demand of the commander of the Kearsarge to surrender or perish? What but to clear the decks and give them a broadside; and, if he again sunk, he would leave us a proud example to follow. Also, my countrymen, let us clear the decks, and if we sink, at least the world will applaud us, and our children will not be ashamed of us; and from the wreck of the ship of state will be gathered relies for future worship. I say I have an abiding faith in our success, because I believe our men are true and high-toned, and devoted to the principles involved in this contest, because our women are virtuous, and would scorn the wretch who, with sackcloth on his loins and ashes on his head, would ask mercy from Abraham Lincoln; because I have faith in a power greater than Abraham Lincoln, whose thunders are louder than the tinkling of the silver bell of Seward; and because the Almighty, whether by a pillar of cloud or a pillar of fire, has always guided and directed us by His Providential hand. Now, what are the duties of the hour? The now burning spirit of patriotism will become cool unless we follow it up with patriotic sacrifice. Our duty is to give time, life itself; aye, even money; for it does seem that men love money — better than life itself. We must sustain our Government. To the President we should turn with confidence and trust; not as a man infallible — that wonder which has never been seen in the history of the world — but as a man who has been chosen by ourselves, endowed by the Almighty with some stirling qualities, at least; as a man whom we have chosen as helms-man while the tempest is rolling high, and when a single mistake may dash us to pieces. Woe to the crew which rises at such a perilous hour to do what they think ought to be done in the very crisis of fate. I am not one of those who are afraid of usurpation resulting from confiding faith reposed by a brave and virtuous people. Old Virginia could not be cheated out of her rights. She would shake off the hand as the lion does the dew-drop from his mane. Let others submit if they pleased. To Congress I would say, tax heavily and feed and clothe the soldiers who stand between us and subjugation, though the teeth of the people chatter with starvation. This answer of Lincoln has freed us from some submissionists. There are some who have weak knees or enervated spinal column, but this answer is a specific for their diseases. There is not a member of Congress who cannot now go back and say to his people: I took some of your horses, and negroes, and provisions — in fact, I took half you had, but I took it to keep Lincoln from getting the whole of it. The people not in the army have their sacred duty. They should be cheerful, hopeful, and cease complaining. One would think, from their complaints, that they had been in the trenches eating corn bread, and sometimes without that instead of taking their soup and fish at home. To my fair country women this to say: ‘I would ask them, in all seriousness, if they are doing their duty; if they are as unselfish, loyal and devoted as they once were; if they are cheering the desponding, visiting, like angels of mercy, the wounded soldier, and doing acts of charity whish the soldier may think of around his bivouac fire?"’If so, God bless you. But if you are not — if you have ceased to minister to his comfort; if you have Ceased to send him good cheer to camp; if you have ceased to turn your scorn upon dastardly stragglers from the ranks and the skulker; if you have forgotten the outrages on your sex; if you have forgotten the outrages on your sex; if you have forgotten that fair girl in Savannah who was made to walk, at the point of the bayonet, for hours under the Union flag. If you have done these things, it is time for you to awake from your dream. It is time that you should cease to look at these things as if they were afar in the dim distance. It is time for you to do your first labors over again, and to turn your smiles only upon the brave and loyal. If I could, in the future, see my countrywomen doing this, I should receive it as a prophetic vision, assuring me of the freedom and happiness of my country. In the words of the prayer of the patriot, I earnestly pray--" Esto perpetua."
