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THE REBUKE

OF

SECESSION DOCTRINES

BY SOUTHERN STATESMEN.

UNION

PHILADELPHIA:

PRINTED FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION.

1863.

PATRIOTISM ABOVE PARTISANSHIP.

At a most enthusiastic meeting of the citizens of New York, attended, as it is estimated, by more than FIFTY THOUSAND citizens, Hon. JOHN VAN BUREN made a speech, from which we take the following passages:

THE UTTER CAUSELESSNESS OF THE REBELLION.

I heartily congratulate you upon this magnificent uprising of the people of the City of New York and the surrounding neighbourhood. It shows that there has been no abatement in that spirit of patriotism that distinguished the people of this country some two years since, on the first out-break of the rebellion, which has had no parallel in the civilized world. It is the first attempt on the part of men to upset a Government, when no man being engaged in that attempt was able, when it commenced, or has been at any time since, to name one single particular in which either his liberty, his property, or his life had been put in jeopardy No human being, whether he favoured the rebellion or whether he opposed it, has been able to understand how in any single. regard those who attempted madly to overthrow the Government of this country had been in the slightest degree injured. I defy the talent and ingenuity of the most acute rebel in the Southern country, or any sympathizer with him, to tell me how he has been injured by the Government of this country up to this day. It was an utterly unjustifiable attempt to overthrow the existing Government. I have often conceded that there were circumstances of irritation-circumstances of provocation-but these constitute an excuse, not a justification. This rebellion is wholly without justification, in my judg ment. This being the fact, it was natural for the people of this country to rise unanimously, as they did two years since, to put down the rebellion so unjustifiable, and in proof of that we assembled here, as other citizens in other portions of the United States have assembled, to declare to the constituted Government, whether it was an Administration of their own choice, or of their profession, that the time had come when party considerations must cease to operate, and when the people of this country with entire unanimity must uphold the Government of this country irrespective of all party considerations. I have entertained that opinion always, and although I did not address the meeting held two years since, I derived great gratification from the proceedings, and there never has been a moment from that time to this when I have seen anything to induce me to relax my efforts in upholding the Government and in putting down this rebellion. *** [See third page of cover.

THE REBUKE

OF

SECESSION DOCTRINES

BY

SOUTHERN STATESMEN.

BER

UNION

PHILADELPHIA:

PRINTED FOR GRATUITOUS DISTRIBUTION.

1863.

NOTE.

In the following pages will be found four very remarkable and highly interesting documents,—

1. GENERAL JACKSON's faithful reproof of the folly and madness of the Nullifiers in 1832.

2. The lament of that pure and highminded Statesman and Patriot, the late HON. H. S. LEGARE, over the prospect and perpetration of the the same suicidal act by the people of his native City and State.

3. The extraordinary, but most true and unexaggerated exhibition of the causelessness and wickedness of the present Southern Rebellion, which ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS made in his speech to the Georgia Convention. And

4. The Platform on which one of the Delegates to the NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION, at Charleston, in the spring of 1860, proposed to harmonize all parties, and secure the peace of the country to the end of the world!

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