State, to the military head of the National Army, our fidelity, our confidence, our constant, devoted, unwavering support, rendered in the spirit of intelligent freemen, of large-minded citizens, conscious of the difficulties of government, the responsibilities of power, the perils of distrust and division, are due without measure and without reservation.

The Great Rebellion must be put down, and its promoters crushed beneath the ruins of their own ambition. The greatest Crime of history must receive a doom so swift and sure, that the enemies of Popular Government shall stand in awe while they contemplate the elastic energy and concentrative power of Democratic Institutions, and a Free People. The monstrous character of the crime has never yet been adequately conceived, nor is language able fitly to describe it. Groundless and causeless in its origin, it began and grew up, and continues, under the lead and direction of men who had received all the favors, and enjoyed all the blessings of our government, and who were bound by official oaths to maintain it. of consequences, and determined to ruin where they could not rule, they conspired against the welfare of nearly thirty millions of people, and their countless posterity; they plunged them, with inconceivable madness, into every danger, and suffering, and sorrow, which can be generated by domestic war; and they stand with souls blackened by the selfishness and audacious barbarity of the crime-red-handed and

Reckless

guilty before God and History, of the slaughter of the innocent, and the blood of the brave.

Whether right or wrong in its domestic or its foreign policy, judged by whatever standard, whether of expediency or of principle, the American citizen can recognize no social duty intervening between himself and his country. He may urge reform; but he has no right to destroy. Intrusted with the precious inheritance of Liberty, endowed with the gift of participation in a Popular Government, the Constitution. makes him at once the beneficiary and the defender of interests and institutions he cannot innocently endanger; and when he becomes a traitor to his country, he commits equal treason against mankind.

The energies, wisdom, and patience of the People, their capacity for Government as a corporate whole, and their capacity of voluntary obedience and subordination, whether in camp or at home, are now on trial. This is no merely local, accidental, temporary act of insurgency, to be treated by police measures, and civil correction. It is WAR, dreadful, solemn WAR. The influences, institutions, and adherents of despotic ideas and systems, reacting against the ideas of progression in liberal government, have arrayed themselves against the only people and the only national power where Democracy has a citadel and a home on the face of all the earth.

The despotic element in America, conspiring against our country's 'National Life, anticipated its

own earliest demonstrations of force by trying to extend the conspiracy to the inclusion of all the "nations who feel power and forget right." Involved in this controversy for life, for freedom, and for honor, let Massachusetts in following the flag and keeping step to the music of the Union, never fail to prove to all the world that in all the characteristics of her people she is to-day as she was of old when she it was who first unfurled the flag, and pitched the tune. Henceforth there will be no one to consider how to "reconstruct" the Union, excluding New England from the sisterhood of States. Wherever for treasure, or heroism, or blood was the call they heard, the people of New England have responded by opening the lap of their industry, and by the march of their braves. And now when the beauty of our Israel has been slain in our high places, and when her Lee, and Revere, and Rockwood, and Bowman lie in felons' cells, and hundreds of her sons wear out their hearts in sad captivity, victims of their valor and devotion to our Union, one irrepressible impulse moves our people and inspires our soldiers in the field-one prayer to see the day when an army of Loyal Americans shall hammer at the doors of their prison-houses, with both hands pledged to the solemn task of war, and with neither hand averted to uphold the Institution which is the cause of all this woe; and that their bow shall turn not back, and their sword return not empty, until the grand deliverance shall be accomplished.

Maryland.

I gladly point you to one oasis in the midst of all the resentments of the hour. A committee of the House of Delegates of the Legislature of Maryland, acting under instructions from that body, have addressed the Executive of Massachusetts, seeking to learn the condition of the widows and orphans of the patriots who were murdered at Baltimore on the 19th of April, and to be informed of any persons who were dependent on them for support, in order that the State of Maryland may take such action in that connection as befits its sense of justice and honor. Cordially appreciating the honorable and humane sentiments of the House of Delegates, the letter of their committee is herewith communicated to the General Court, and I have directed the necessary investigation to be made to answer its inquiries.

SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES:

I invoke your study to promote all the interests of morality, industry, thrift, and valor, so that our Commonwealth and her People may crown all the heights of enterprise, virtue, and honor. Attended by your wisdom, supported by your sympathy, I re-ascend the chair, so often and so worthily filled by great magistrates and good men, and you will assist my unequal steps in treading the paths their lives illu

mined. Inspired by trust in God and an immortal hate of Wrong, let us consecrate, to-day, every personal aspiration and every private hope, in one united apostrophe to our Country and her cause-"Where thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried."