tional humiliation will take unto themselves some other name -some name having no relation to the past, no relation to our great ancestors, no relation to those monuments and battle-fields which commemorate alike their heroism, their loyalty, and their glory.-Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861.

SECESSION AND SUBMISSION COMPARED.

WE are told by the disunionists that, in supporting a Republican administration in its endeavors to uphold the Constitution and the laws, we are "submissionists," and when they have pronounced this word, they suppose they have imputed to us the sum of all human abasement. Well, let it be confessed, we are "submissionists," and weak and spiritless as it may be deemed by some, we glory in the position we occupy. For example, the law says, "Thou shalt not steal;" we would submit to this law, and would not for the world's worth rob our neighbor of his forts, his arsenals, his arms, his munitions of war, his hospital stores, or anything that is his. Indeed, so impressed are we with the obligations of this law, that we would no more think of plundering from our neighbor half a million of dollars because found in his unprotected mints, than we would think of filching a purse from his pocket in a crowded thoroughfare. Write us down, therefore, "submissionists." Again, the law says, "Thou shalt not swear falsely;" we submit to this law, and while in the civil or military service of the country, with an oath to support the Constitution of the United States resting upon our consciences, we would not for any earthly consideration engage in the formation or execution of a conspiracy to subvert that very Constitution, and with it the. Government to which it has given birth. Write us down, therefore, again, "submissionists." Yet again, when a President has been elected in strict accordance with the form and spirit of the Constitution, and has been regularly installed into office, and is honestly striving to discharge his duty by snatching the Republic from the jaws of a gigantic treason which threatens to crush it, we care not what his name may or may not be, or what the designation of his political party, or what the platform on which he stood during the presidential canvass; we believe we fulfil in the sight of earth and heaven our highest obligations to our country, in giving to him an earnest and loyal support in the struggle in which he is engaged.

Nor are we at all disturbed by the flippant taunt that, in thus submitting to the authority of our Government, we are necessarily cowards. We know whence this taunt comes, and we estimate it at its true value. We hold that there is a higher courage in the performance of duty than in the commission of crime. The tiger of the jungle, and the cannibal of the South Sea Islands have that courage in which the revolutionists of the day make their especial boast; the angels of God, and the spirits of just men made perfect have had, and have that courage which submits to the law. Lucifer was a non-submissionist, and the first secessionist of whom history has given any account, and the chains which he wears fitly express the fate due to all who openly defy the laws of their Creator and of their country. He rebelled because the Almighty would not yield to him the throne of heaven. The principle of the Southern rebellion is the same. Indeed, in this submission to the laws is found the chief distinction between good men and devils. A good man obeys the laws of truth, of honesty, of morality, and all those laws. which have been enacted by competent authority for the government and protection of the country in which he lives; a devil obeys only his own ferocious and profligate passions. The principle on which this rebellion proceeds, that laws have in themselves no sanctions, no binding force upon the conscience, and that every man, under the promptings of interest, or passion, or caprice, may at will, and honorably too, strike at the Government that shelters him, is one of utter demoralization, and should be trodden out as you would tread out a spark that has fallen on the roof of your dwelling. Its unchecked prevalence would resolve society into chaos, and leave you without the slightest guarantee for life, liberty or property. It is true, that in their majesty, the people of the United States should make known to the world that this Government in its dignity and power, is something more than a moot court, and that the citizen who makes war upon it is a traitor, not only in theory but in fact, and should have meted out to him a traitor's doom. The country wants no bloody sacrifice, but it must and will have peace, cost what it may.-Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861.

NEUTRALITY OF KENTUCKY.

I DESIRE to say a few words on the relations of Kentucky to the pending rebellion; and as we are all Kentuckians here together to-night, and as this is purely a family matter, which

concerns the honor of us all, I hope we may be permitted to speak to each other upon it with entire freedom. Your legislature have determined that during the present unhappy war the attitude of the State shall be that of strict neutrality, and it is upon this determination that I wish respectfully, but frankly, to comment. Strictly and legally speaking, Kentucky must go out of the Union before she can be neutral. Within it she is necessarily either faithful to the Government of the United States, or she is disloyal to it. If this crutch of neutrality, upon which the well-meaning but illjudging politicians are halting, can find any middle ground on which to rest, it has escaped my researches, though I have diligently sought it. Neutrality in the sense of those who now use the term, however patriotically designed, is, in effect, but a snake in the grass of rebellion, and those who handle it will sooner or later feel its fangs. Said one who spake as never man spake, "He who is not with us is against us;" and of none of the conflicts which have arisen between men, or between nations, could this be more truthfully said than of that in which we are now involved. Neutrality necessarily implies indifference. Is Kentucky indifferent to the issues of this contest? Has she, indeed, nothing at stake? Has she no compact with her sister States to keep, no plighted faith to uphold, no renown to sustain, no glory to win? Has she no horror of that crime of crimes now being committed against us by that stupendous rebellion which has arisen like a tempest-cloud in the South? We rejoice to know that she is still a member of this Union, and as such she has the same interest in resisting this rebellion that each limb of the body has in resisting a poignard whose point is aimed at the heart. It is her house that is on fire; has she no interest in extinguishing the conflagation? Will she stand aloof and announce herself neutral between the raging flames and the brave men who are perilling their lives to subdue them? Hundreds of thousands of citizens of other States-men of culture and character, of thought and of toil-men who have a deep stake in life, and an intense appreciation of its duties and responsibilities, who know the worth of this blessed Government of ours, and do not prize even their own blood above it-I say, hundreds of thousands of such men have left their homes, their workshops, their offices, their counting-houses, and their fields, and are now rallying about our flag, freely offering their all to sustain it. And since the days when crusading Europe threw its hosts upon the embattled plains of Asia, no deeper, no more earnest, or grander spirit has stirred the souls of men than that

which now sways those mighty masses whose gleaming banners are destined ere long to make bright again the earth and sky of the distracted South. Can Kentucky look upon this sublime spectacle of patriotism unmoved, and then say to herself: "I will spend neither blood nor treasure, but I will shrink away while the battle rages, and after it has been fought and won, I will return to the camp, well assured that if I cannot claim the laurels, I will at least enjoy the blessings of the victory ?" Is this all that remains of her chivalry-of the chivalry of the land of the Shelbys, the Johnsons, the Allens, the Clays, the Adairs, and the Davieses? Is there a Kentuckian within the sound of my voice to-night, who can hear the anguished cry of his country as she wrestles and writhes in the folds of this gigantic treason, and then lay himself down upon his pillow with this thought of neutrality, without feeling that he has something in his bosom which stings him worse than would an adder? Have we, within the brief period of eighty years, descended so far from the mountain heights on which our fathers stood, that already, in our degeneracy, we proclaim our blood too precious, our treasure too valuable, to be devoted to the preservation of such a Government as this.

Hon. Joseph Holt, 1861.

AN APPEAL TO KENTUCKIANS.

THERE is not, and there cannot be, any neutral ground for a loyal people between their own government and those who, at the head of armies, are menacing its destruction. Your inaction is not neutrality, though you may delude yourself with the belief that it is so. With this rebellion confronting you, when you refuse to coöperate actively with your Government in subduing it, you thereby condemn the Government, and assume toward it an attitude of antagonism. You may rest well assured that this estimate of your neutrality is entertained by the true men of the country in all the States which are now sustaining the Government. Within the last few weeks how many of those gallant volunteers who have left home and kindred, and all that is dear to them, and are now under a Southern sun, exposing themselves to death from disease and to death from battle, and are accounting their lives as nothing in the effort they are making for the deliverance of your Government and theirs; how many of them have said to me in sadness and in longing, "Will not Kentucky help

us?" How my soul would have leaped could I have answered promptly, confidently, exultingly, "Yes, she will!" But when I thought of this neutrality my heart sank within me, and I did not and I could not look those brave men in the face. And yet I could not answer, "No." I could not crush myself to the earth under the self-abasement of such a reply. I therefore said-and may my country sustain me-"I hope, I trust, I pray, nay, I believe, Kentucky will yet do her duty."

If this Government is to be destroyed, ask yourselves are you willing it shall be recorded in history that Kentucky stood by in the greatness of her strength and lifted not a hand to stay the catastrophe? If it is to be saved, as I verily believe it is, are you willing it shall be written that, in the immeasurable glory which must attend the achievement, Kentucky had no part? If Kentucky wishes the waters of her beautiful Ohio to be dyed in blood-if she wishes her harvest fields, now waving in their abundance, to be trampled beneath the feet of hostile soldiery, as a flower-garden is trampled beneath the threshings of the tempest-if she wishes the homes where her loved ones are now gathered in peace, invaded by the proscriptive fury of a military despotism, sparing neither life nor property-if she wishes the streets of her towns and cities grown with grass, and the steamboats of her rivers to lie rotting at her wharves, then let her join the Southern Confederacy; but if she would have the bright waters of that river flow on in their gladness-if she would have her harvests peacefully gathered to her garners-if she would have the lullabies of her cradles and the songs of her homes uninvaded by the cries and terrors of battle-if she would have the streets of her towns and cities again filled with the hum and throngs of busy trade, and her rivers and her shores once more vocal with the steamer's whistle,-that anthem of a free and prosperous commerce, then let her stand fast by the stars and stripes, and do her duty, and her whole duty as a member of this Union. Let her brave people say to the President of the United States: You are our Chief Magistrate; the Government you have in charge, and are striving to save from dishonor and dismemberment, is our Government; your cause is indeed our cause; your battles are our battles; make room for us, therefore, in the ranks of your armies, that your triumph may be our triumph also.

Even as with the Father of us all I would plead for salvation, so, my countrymen, as upon my very knees, would I plead with you for the life, aye for the life, of our great and beneficent institutions. But if the traitor's knife, now at the throat of the Republic, is to do its work, and this Govern