frontier, in three years we have taken from the enemies of the
Union, by valor and generalship, thirty complete and thoroughly
furnished fortresses; we have captured over two thousand cannon; we
have reconquered and now hold nearly four thousand miles of
navigable river courses; we have taken ten of the enemy's principal
cities, three of them capitals of States; in thirty days last
summer we captured sixty thousand prisoners; we have penetrated
more than three hundred miles into the territory claimed by the
enemy; we have cut that territory into strips, leaving his armies
without effectual communication with each other; the main
operations and interests of the war, which were lately concentrated
about Baltimore, Paducah, and St. Louis, have been transferred, by
our steady and constant advance, to the narrow limits of the
seaboard Slave States; we hold every harbor but one, of a coast six
thousand miles long. And whatever we have taken we hold; we have
never turned back, or given up that which we once fairly
possessed.'

It has, however, been fittingly reserved for the chief of the rebellion
himself to give the full and complete answer to this dishonorable
complaint of failure. Not a month after the meeting of the Chicago
Convention, and on the 23d of September last, Jeff. Davis uttered these
words, in a public speech, at Macon, Geo.: '_You have not many men
between eighteen and forty-five left_.... Two-thirds of our men are
absent, some sick, some wounded, but _most of them absent without
leave_. ... _In Virginia the disparity of numbers is just an great as it
is in Georgia._'

But let it be granted that after these three years and a half of war,
and having accomplished such unquestionably important results, the Union
is not yet restored, what then? Is that a reason for giving up now? Our
fathers fought the British seven years without flinching; and under the
indomitable leader God had given them, they would have fought seven
years longer with equal determination. Are we less determined than they
were? Are we such degenerate sons that we are willing to give up the
legacy they left us, at half its original cost? There is just the same
reason that we should yield the contest now as there was in 1861 that we
should yield it then; neither more nor less. The integrity of the
nation, the perpetuity of our institutions, the safety, honor, and
we