It is said not to be safe for masters to visit their plantations in Georgia; when they do they will hardly carry much influence politically.

I repeat that in this problem are involved the issues of life and death.

If the negro population be recognized as an integral portion of the people of the States which rebelled, and governments can be organized on the basis of universal suffrage and equality before the law, Congress ought to recognize them, and the problem is solved forever.

If governments be allowed by the President to be organized on the basis of the exclusion of the mass of the negro population, then Congress ought to refuse to recognize them; but I fear it will not refuse.

If the question be submitted to the vote of any portion of the white population, the negroes will be excluded from power.

That result entails on us a barren agitation instead of a beneficent settlement. It carries with it a division of the friends of the government, and threatens to elevate its enemies to power.

For premature agitators I have small sympathy. They are cocks which crow at midnight; they do not herald the dawn, but merely disturb natural rest by untimely clamor.

But this is a question of political dynamics, which presses now for solution, and on it depends the chief fruits of the war.

If it be not rightly solved now, it will find no solution for a generation, and possibly none then without renewed civil commotions. Over the result I have no power. I can only hope and fear. Your obedient servant,

H. WINTER DAVIS.

LESSONS OF THE WAR. — THE AMERICAN CONTINENT REPUBLICAN.-SECURITY FOR THE FUTURE, AND SELF-GOVERNMENT BY LAW, WITH LIBERTY GUARDED BY POWER.

MR. DAVIS was invited to deliver the oration at the civic celebration of the 4th of July, 1865, by the city of Chicago. He complied with this invitation, and on that occasion the proceedings took place, and the oration was delivered, as set forth in the following account:

Never in the history of our country was the National Anniversary more generally and heartily observed than at its recent occurrence. The war had just closed. The troops were coming home. The people and the returned veterans had well earned, by the patriotic sacrifices of four years, and by its splendid result in a rescued nation, the right to make the ovation of patriotic rejoicing memorable. In all parts

of the country, in all the cities, in the larger towns, and in the rally by counties, festive celebrations took place on a large scale. The best talent of the country was enlisted for the intellectual portion of these occasions, and the utterances of not a few of these orators will possess a more than transient importance. The subsidence of the war has left important and vital questions of national polity and humanity to be decided in our day. Utterances which throw light on the path of the people, and are an aid to public duty, are worthy to gain a wider circulation than in the single locality of their origin. It is with this view that it has been decided to preserve in the present form the oration of Hon. Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, the orator of the day in Chicago. It is not necessary to claim for it the characteristics all loyal men will accord it on perusal. An extended reference to the other accompanying features of the day is scarcely called for. It was a general observance by our citizens, probably the first that ever united all classes of our community, all nationalities, and all organizations, in a common patriotic purpose of Fourth of July observance. The procession was in this respect representative. The officers of the day were Col. John L. Hancock, Chief Marshal, with Col. J. M. Loomis, Col. James H. Bowen, Chief Engineer Harris, John Durkin, and Jacob Koch, as marshals of the several divisions. In the proceedings of the day our returned war heroes bore prominent share. The audience-room was the largest that offered shelter to any gathering in the United States on that day. It was the mammoth Hall of the Sanitary Fair, then just closed. Probably not less than ten thousand were comfortably accommodated within reach of the speaker's voice. The following were the officers at the Hall:

President of the Day-Hon. J. B. Rice, Mayor of Chicago.

Vice-Presidents-Hon. Lyman Trumbull, Hon. Julian S. Rumsey, Hon. J. R. Jones, Daniel Brainard, Hon. J. B. Bradwell, Philo Carpenter, A. J. Galloway, James Miller, C. B. Blair, Michael M'Auley, Hon. Thomas Drummond, Fred. Letz, Hon. F. C. Sherman, Joseph Lane, Luther Haven, H. D. Colvin, Hon. Van H. Higgins, Geo. Schneider, Perkins Bass, Hon. S. S. Hayes, Saml. Hoard, Philip Wadsworth, Jonathan Burr, Hon. John C. Haines, Hon. Perry H. Smith, General J. B. Turchin, M. D. Ogden, Walter Kimball, D. D. Driscoll, J. Linton Waters, Robert Forsyth, A. V. Towne, A. Shuman, J. L. Scripps, George C. Bates, J. C. Fargo, Colonel G. W. Smith, Charles Randolph, W. W. Boyington, General S. P. Bradley, W. F. Tucker, Benj. Lombard, W. C. Coolbaugh, A. D. Tittsworth, Benj. V. Page, J. L. Reynolds, John V. Farwell, H. E. Sargent, E. C. Larned, C. Wahl, Maj. Gen. Webster, Brig. Gen. Stolbrand, I. Y. Munn, F. A. Hoffman, J. K. Pollard, J. Y. Scammon, C. N. Holden.

Secretaries—Joseph Medill, Charles L. Wilson, L. Brentano, J. W. Sheahan, and

A. Worden.

The exercises were the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Last Inaugural, the Declaration of Independence, and the delivery of the Oration. A magnificent feature of the day was the grand chorus of one thousand singers, with a monster orchestra, who gave, with thrilling effect, the patriotic songs on the programme. A grand banquet to the returned soldiers, in the adjoining Horticultural Hall, and a splendid exhibition of fireworks in the evening, were the closing observances of the day.

With this preface, we leave the reader to the enjoyment of the main feature of the occasion, preserved in the pages which follow. THE COMMITTEE.

ORATION.

The President introduced the orator of the day, Hon. Henry Winter Davis, as one who hailed from Maryland, but whose reputation was national; one who for many years has served his country faithfully in the councils of the Union.

Mr. Davis spoke as follows:

FELLOW-CITIZENS,—It is with unspeakable joy that I to-day congratulate you upon this auspicious return of our national birthday, proclaimed in the midst of doubt and the clash of arms, celebrated at the close of the Revolution when independence was accomplished, and now celebrated with additional joy, additional heartiness, and overflowing exultation at the second foundation of the American republic; for to-day that Declaration, then a promise, spoken in the spirit of prophecy, belied by the facts that were all around it-to-day that Declaration is true in right and true in fact from one end of this broad land to the other-true now not only in Virginia, and in Maryland, and the Carolinas; not now limited to the Alleghanies and the coast; but true for

the whole American people, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and covering every inch of territory from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico-every where true in right and true in fact-bought with precious blood wrung from reluctant hands, strengthened by the heart's blood of many of your brothers and many of your sons, through good report and through evil report, in the day of darkness and in the day of hope, till glorious light has crowned the cause with its final victory, and we meet here to-day to celebrate its jubilee.

Fellow-citizens, the American republic rested, in the fall of the year 1860, as peacefully and as quietly as the infant on the mother's breast, not dreaming of war, with no weapons to grasp, with no arms provided, with no army organized, with no generals to lead us save those at the plow, with no leaders but their enemies, in power, while a deep and wide-spread conspiracy, organized for years, was preparing to strike what it fondly hoped was the final blow at the integrity of the American republic and the glory of the American name. It proposed to expurgate the Declaration of Independence, and to declare that all men were not born free and equal; it proposed to repeal the Constitution of the United States, which embodied one government for all of these States forever; it proposed to defy the power of the government, and to assail the authority of the ballot-box with the sword; without a grievance, without a wrong, without a well-founded complaint, the conspirators against its existence had held the places of honor, had filled the positions of power, had dictated the policy of the government, till they aimed that blow at its being, so swiftly, so sharply, so deadly, that it had almost accomplished its purpose before you, in the great centre of the American republic, knew that the deadly blow was aimed, before you knew that the arm was raised to strike it. It was difficult for men to believe; it was long before the idea sank into men's minds that such wickedness and such bloody purposes actually existed. But gradually the light dawned upon the public mind, and the people found that it was not mere braggadocio, that it was not all a game of brag. They then found that it meant a struggle of no ordinary magnitude, a determination on the part of the South to stab the nation in a vital part; in a word, that it was what we now know it to be. They found that the rebels had a thoroughly-prepared, a wellconsidered, a perfectly-adjusted plan to tear in pieces the Union;

and instantly, as if by magic, from one end of this land to the other, men arose in arms to offer their lives for the salvation of their country. Generals were improvised, and regiments raised, and armies created, until men were bewildered with their numbers, scarce believing in the magnitude of the power the republic was disclosing to put down its enemies.

And yet, amid all this, there was a hesitation, a doubt in the minds of many, so deeply had it been grounded in the minds of the masses throughout the North, that whatever else might be touched, there was one emblem of royalty, one sign of aristocratic domination which must not be interfered with-that was slavery. So thoroughly were they convinced that the rebellion could not touch its strong-hold, that men were found picking their way tenderly and carefully through the South, as if they were marching through a powder magazine with a lighted candle, and were guarding it carefully for fear of an explosion, which would hurt their enemies. While we were divided, they were united; we hesitated, while they were decided; we sought to strike without doing them damage, they were aiming blows directly at the heart of the people; they fought to conquer, to destroy, we fought to save them; we fought tenderly, carefully, dealing with them as our fellow-citizens, who we fondly supposed were misled in an evil hour-accidentally as it were—and that suddenly a sense of their iniquity would break in upon them, and that by-and-by they would return, and we should all repose again peacefully under the shadow of the old patriarchal institution. But gradually the popular heart caught the real spirit of the rebellion, and their inspiration breathed itself in song. Around the camp-fires, from the solitary sentinel to the soldiers drawn up in battle array, the chords of the American heart were touched by the spirit of "Rally round the Flag, Boys," and that other inspiring heresy, "John Brown's Soul is Marching On," until the hearts of the people were warmed with its magic spell, and the people's voice reached and inspired the dull ears of those in power. Then, as the nation knew it was struggling, not only to retain reluctant States, but to expunge from its institutions that which made the Declaration of Independence a lie and a vain thing-then it was that the patriotic men rallied to the support of the government; and, though badly led, and badly directed, and often defeated and involved in disaster, still was heard the cry, "We come, three hundred thou