surrender without dishonor. She is the weaker power, and her success
will be against the nature of things. Her dishonor lay in her attempt,
not in its relinquishment. But we shall fail, not because of mechanics
and mathematics, but because our manhood and womanhood weighed in the
balance are found wanting. There are few who will not share in the sin.
There are none who will not share in the shame. Wives, would you hold
back your husbands? Mothers, would you keep your sons? From what? for
what? From the doing of the grandest duty that ever ennobled man, to the
grief of the greatest infamy that ever crushed him down. You would hold
him back from prizes before which Olympian laurels fade, for a fate
before which a Helot slave might cower. His country in the agony of her
death-struggle calls to him for succor. All the blood in all the ages,
poured out for liberty, poured out for him, cries unto him from the
ground. All that life has of noble, of heroic, beckons him forward.
Death itself wears for him a golden crown. Ever since the world swung
free from God's hand, men have died,--obeying the blind fiat of Nature;
but only once in a generation comes the sacrificial year, the year
of jubilee, when men march lovingly to meet their fate and die for a
nation's life. Holding back, we transmit to those that shall come after
us a blackened waste. The little one that lies in his cradle will be
accursed for our sakes. Every child will be base-born, springing from
ignoble blood. We inherited a fair fame, and bays from a glorious
battle; but for him is no background, no stand-point. His country will
be a burden on his shoulders, a blush upon his cheek, a chain about his
feet. There is no career for the future, but a weary effort, a long, a
painful, a heavy-hearted struggle to lift the land out of its slough of
degradation and set it once more upon a dry place.

Therefore let us have done at once and forever with paltry
considerations, with talk of despondency and darkness. Let compromise,
submission, and every form of dishonorable peace be not so much as
named among us. Tolerate no coward's voice or pen or eye. Wherever the
serpent's head is raised, strike it down. Measure every man by the
standard of manhood. Measure country's price by country's worth, and
country's worth by country's integrity. Let a cold, clear breeze sweep
down from the mountains of life, and drive out these miasmas that befog
and beguile the unwary. Around every h