material nearly paralyzed; the inventive spirit which was
forever developing new resources destroyed, and our flag,
that carried respect everywhere, now mocked by enemies who
think its glory tarnished, and that its power is soon to
become a mere tradition of the past.

"For all these results, Mr. Davis, and for the three hundred
thousand lives already sacrificed on both sides in the
war--some pouring out their blood on the battle-field, and
others fever stricken and wasting away to death in
overcrowded hospitals--you and the fellow miscreants who
have been your associates in this conspiracy are
responsible. Of you and them it may, with truth be said,
that if all the innocent blood which you have spilled could
be collected in one pool, the whole government of your
Confederacy might swim in it.

"I am aware that this is not the language in which the
prevailing etiquette of our army is in the habit of
considering your conspiracy. It has come to pass--through
what instrumentalities you are best able to decide--that the
greatest and worst crime ever attempted against the human
family, has been treated in certain quarters as though it
were a mere error of judgment on the part of some gifted
friend; a thing to be regretted, of course, as causing more
or less disturbance to the relation of amity and esteem
heretofore existing between those charged with the
repression of such eccentricities and the eccentric actors;
in fact, as a slight political miscalculation or peccadillo,
rather than as an outrage involving the desolation of a
continent, and demanding the promptest and severest
retribution within power of human law.

"For myself, I have never been able to take this view of the
matter. During a lifetime of active service, I have seen the
seeds of this conspiracy planted in the rank soil of
slavery, and the upas-growth watered by just such tricklings
of a courtesy alike false to justice, expediency, and our
eternal future. Had we at an earlier day commenced to call
things by their right names, and to look at the hideous
features of slavery with our ordinary eyesight and common
sense, instead of through the rose-colored glasses of
supposed political expediency, there would be three hundred
thousand more men alive to-day o