CXXXIX.

THE GOVERNMENT MUST BE MAIN

TAINED.

ANDREW JOHNSON.

The following remarks are from a speech delivered in the Senate of the United States, July 27, 1861, by Andrew Johnson, Senator from Ten

nessee.

See in Index, ISSUE, PURIFY, JOHNSON.

1. We have confidence in the integrity and capacity of the people to govern themselves. We have lived entertaining these opinions; we intend to die entertaining them. The battle has commenced. It is an issue on the one hand for the people's government, and on the other for its overthrow. It is freedom's cause. We are resisting usurpation and oppression. We must triumph; we will triumph. Right is with us, a great, fundamental principle of right. We may meet with impediments and disasters, and here and there a defeat, but ultimately freedom's cause must triumph, for

"Freedom's battle once begun,

Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."

2. Yes, we must triumph. Though sometimes I cannot see my way clear in matters of this kind, yet, here, as in matters of religion, when my facts give out, when my reason fails me, I draw largely upon my faith. My faith is strong, based on the eternal principles of right, that a thing so monstrously wrong as this rebellion cannot prevail. Can we submit to it? Is the Senate, are the American people, prepared to give up the graves of Washington and Jackson, to be encircled and governed and controlled by a combination of traitors and rebels? I say, let the battle go on it is freedom's cause until the stars and stripes (God bless them!) shall again be unfurled upon every cross-road, and from

every house-top throughout the country, North and South. Let the Union be reinstated; let the law be enforced; let the Constitution be supreme.

3. Do not talk about Republicans now; do not talk about Democrats now: do not talk about Whigs or Americans now: talk about your country and the Constitution and the Union. Save that: preserve the integrity of the government; once more place it erect among the nations of the earth; and then if we want to divide about questions that may arise in our midst, we have a government to divide in.

4. I know it has been said that the object of this war is to make war on Southern institutions. I have been in free States and I have been in slave States, and, so far as I have been, there has been one universal disclaimer of any such purpose. It is a war upon no section; but it is a war for the integrity of the government, for the Constitution and the supremacy of the laws. That is what the nation understands by it. This government must not, can not, shall not fall. Though your banner may have been trailed in the dust, let it be cleansed and purified, even though it have to be bap tized in fire from the sun and bathed in a nation's blood.*

*In a speech delivered at Nashville, June, 1864, Mr. Johnson remarked: "Let me say to you, Tennesseeans and men from the Northern States, that Slavery is dead. It was not murdered by me. I told you long ago what the result would be if you went out of the Union to save Slavery; that the result would be bloodshed, rapine, devastated fields, plundered villages and cities; and therefore I urged you to remain in the Union. In trying to save Slavery you killed it, and lost your own freedom. Your Slavery is dead, but I did not murder it. As Macbeth said to Banquo's bloody ghost,

"Slavery is dead, and you must pardon me if I do not mourn over its dead body; you can bury it out of sight."

Tell. Though they were doubled, and did weigh mɔ down Prostrate to earth, methinks I could rise up,

Erect, with nothing but the honest pride

Of telling thee, usurper, to thy teeth,

Thou art a monster!

How came they on me?

Think upon my chains?

It cannot take away the grace of life,-
Its comeliness of look that virtue gives,
Its port erect with consciousness of truth ;
Its rich attire of honorable, deeds;

Its fair report that's rife on good men's tongues:
It cannot lay its hands on these, no more
Than it can pluck the brightness from the sun,
Cr with polluted finger tarnish it.

Ges. But it can make thee writhe.

Tell. It may.

Ges. And groan.

Tell. It may; and I may cry

Go on, though it should make me groan again.

Ges. Whence comest thou?

Tell. From the mountains. Wouldst thou learn What news from them?

Ges. Canst tell me any?

Tell. Ay! they watch no more the avalanche.

Ges. Why so?

Tell. Because they look for thee.

The hurricane

Comes unawares upon them; from its bed

The torrent breaks, and finds them in its track.
Ges. What do they then?

Tell. Thank Heaven it is not thou!
Thou hast perverted nature in them.

There's not a blessing Heaven vouchsafes them, but The thought of thee doth wither to a curse.

Ges. That's right! I'd have them like their hills, That never smile, though wanton summer tempt them Ever so much.

Tell. But they do sometimes smile.

Ges. Ay! - when is that?

Tell. When they do talk of vengeance.

Ges. Vengeance! Dare they talk of that?

Tell. Ay, and expect it too.

Ges. From whence?

Teli. From Heaven!

Ges. From Heaven?

Tell. And their true hands

Are lifted up to it on every hill
For justice on thee!

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. Coleridge.

ERE sin could blight, or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care,

The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.

On page 251 the author of the following eloquent extract (which we were first to introduce into a reading-book, some years since) appears in a somewhat different character. There he is the earnest patriot and the gallanf soldier: here he is the enlightened astronomer, the reverent man of science. Mitchell combined in an eminent degree the best qualities of the man of ac tion and the man of meditation. His fame will be tenderly cherished by hi countrymen.

See in Index, BUOYANT, CLANGOR, MITCHELL.

1. To those who have given but little attention to the subject, even in our own day, with all the aids of modern science, the prediction of an eclipse seems sufficiently mysterious and unintelligible. How, then, it was possible, thousands of years ago, to accomplish the same great object, without any just views of the struc ture of the system, seems utterly incredible. Follow me, then, while I attempt to reveal the train of reasoning which led to the prediction of the first eclipse of the sun, the most daring prophecy ever made by human genius.

2. Follow in imagination this bold interrogator of the skies to his solitary mountain summit, withdrawn from the world, surrounded by his mysterious circles, there to watch and ponder through the long nights of many, many years. But hope cheers him on, and smooths his rugged pathway. Dark and deep is the problem; he sternly grapples with it, and resolves never to give up till victory shall crown his efforts.

3. He has already remarked that the moon's track in the heavens crossed the sun's, and that this point of crossing was in some way intimately connected with the coming of the dread eclipse. He determines to watch and learn whether the point of crossing was fixed, or whether the moon in each successive revolu