I. Winslow Ayer

“ We are living at a time when the public mind had almost become oblivious of what treason is. The time has arrived, my countrymen, when the American people should be educated and taught what crime is, and that treason is crime, and the highest crime known to the law and the Constitution. Yes, treason against a State, treason against all the States, treason against the Government of the United States, is the highest crime that can be committed, and those engaged in it should suffer all the penalties. ”

“ Happy, happy for the people of Chicago, having passed through one of the most critical periods of their existence, without knowing that they were threatened with any disaster, ignorant that there was a mine beneath their feet, just ready to be sprung at any moment, with their own fellow citizens pulling at the spring, willing to involve them in general and complete ruin—willing to subject them to the ravages of such bloodthirsty villains as the inmates of Camp Douglas. ”

“ Seward, or any other man, dares to deprive one person of his liberty without due process of law, that moment has the government been changed from one of the people to an autocracy—a tyranny. If any man to-day is free in this country, it is not because he is a good citizen, surrounded by the protection of the laws, but simply because Seward or Lincoln has not chosen to order his incarceration. ”

“ There are two sides to this case; two sides for the manifestation of sympathy. While here is an old, white-haired man before you, whose every thing is at stake; while here is a father, a generous, open-hearted, and impulsive man, whose all is at stake; and here is a soldier, who has fought in every clime, and who has taken up his sword to destroy life in every cause, whose everything is also at stake, yet there is, on the other side, your Government at stake. If these men be guilty, justice to the nation demands of you this day that you should convict them, and you must not waver. ”

“ We stand, to-day, as though in the presence of the nation's dead, and here, on the tomb of our chieftain, let us swear eternal enmity to treason and to traitors. Nor let us, when the assassin shall be arrested and punished—oh! let us not then think we have done our duty. I had rather the profane wretch who has done this deed were never taken, than that his execution should relieve our minds from one thought of our personal responsibility. No; rather let the wretch be a fugitive and vagabond, with the mark of Cain upon him. Let none slay him, for we ourselves are not guiltless. ”

“ But there seems to have been something, during these four years of the nation's trial, that has appeared to paralyze the native instincts of the American heart. This phantom, this siren of secession, with her enticing song, seems to have lulled to sleep the better part of human nature. At the sound of her voice, and the flash of her eye, men have sprung to arms, to grapple with the life of the nation, because it was free! They have followed, at the beck of the siren, over desolated homes; they have trampled over the dead corpses of murdered brothers, and innocent women and children. ”

“ All this while that contemptible print, the Chicago Times, was instilling treason into the minds of its readers, and doing all that it could to embarrass the Government, discourage patriotism, and to give aid and comfort to the rebels; our victories, with that sheet, were always unimportant; our cause was unholy; our President a despot; our Union soldiers were hirelings; our Union-loving citizens were abolition fanatics; Jeff Davis was a master spirit of the age ”

“ We have been accustomed to say, "slavery is sectional, and freedom national," let those who elect slavery take the results of slavery to themselves; let them suffer, if their choice brings suffering; but as for us, we wash our hands in innocency, and hold ourselves guiltless of blood." And so we have been going on ever since the outbreak of slavery in the form of armed rebellion. "They are the guilty parties, let them suffer." ”

“ Is no guilt ours? We may not have owned slaves, but we may have made a common cause with men owners—may have brought condemnation upon ourselves by our tolerance, by our compromises.
Sad and almost disgraceful is the record which exhibits our complicity with this sin. We began by making free States wait at the door of the Union until slavery had a counterpoise, or balance adjusted in the form of slave State, to preserve the balance against freedom in the National Senate. ”

“ Knowing as they did that had the question of secession been primarily an open one, for free discussion, that the masses of the people would have rejected the proposition with deserved scorn and indignation, and hung the ambitious adventurers who dared propose the sacrilege. They realized the importance of establishing the order in the North. The leaders saw with delight the working of secret organizations, where men were sworn to secrecy, and drawn onward step by step, till they reached the very brink of the fearful precipice. ”

“ This has given aid and comfort to treason in the South, and traitors in the North, and this has killed the good President.
The measure of our responsibility is the amount of our connivance at these things. No man is free from guilt who has winked at this wrong, who has interfered to prevent the punishment of wrong-doers, who has apologies for treason, who has not done all in his power to rebuke, denounce and punish the foes of the nation, at home and abroad. ”

“ Have we not been tolerant of the treason which has wrought this crime? Have we not been apologists for infamy under the name of different political opinions? Have we not spared when we should have punished—been merciful when mercy was but cruelty? We seem to have believed that because there were more serpents away from our homes, the few left here had no venom. We felt secure because the loyalists were more numerous than the traitors. ”

“ The day of the great Convention at length dawned upon at least a hundred thousand strangers in Chicago. Every hotel was densely packed from cellar to garret, private houses were filled to their uttermost capacity, while hundreds the night before, who could not find any kind of a shelter, took in plenty of whisky to prevent catching cold, and laid themselves quietly at rest in the gutters, much to the consternation of the myriads of rats that infest our streets. ”

“ You must know no man, be influenced by no bias, betray no sympathy, but must be firm in the performance of your stern duty. There are thirty millions of suffering people in this land, and against these, one man's life, if guilty, weighs little in the scale of justice. We have, unhappily, in the history of this war, frequently seen sympathy manifested for criminals, rebels and traitors—those who have brought this great injustice upon the true and the loyal. It is not mercy to acquit those guilty of cruelty to a people who are struggling for their very existence ”

“ From the hour of firing upon Fort Sumter to the present moment, the war has not been waged by the rebels as if in defense of the great principles of truth and justice, but with the malignity, the cruelty and barbarity which would, in many instances, put to blush the savages upon our western borders. In our dealing with them, the honor, integrity, fidelity and dignity of the nation have never been forgotten ”

“ The Michigan being captured, it is also easy to conceive that all the other portions of their plans could have been carried out, perhaps to a greater extent than already mentioned, that contributions could have been levied and exacted from the people, and especially that the Sons of Liberty and other secret societies would joyously seize such an opportunity as the protection of this man-of-war afforded them, to throw off the mantle of secrecy and darkness from their hell-born principles, and parade them to the view of the public in all their hideousness. ”

“ The nation now mourns the loss of the noble martyr of freedom, the truest heart, the most devoted patriot, the sincere advocate of republican institutions, and the friend of the people. In every city, town, and village, and hamlet of the land, is sincere mourning; deepest grief swells the hearts and dim the eyes of all who have hearts to feel, and fountains of tears, for the greatest bereavement that has ever befallen our nation. ”

“ With these views, shrewd and sagacious men established themselves early in Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and other States, and put the machinery in motion. The order sprung up in various sections of the country, and treason flourished well, as poisonous plants often show the greatest vitality. This plan was a success. Men high in rank and station—men from every profession and walk in life, embraced the principles of the order, and soon it could boast of legislators, judges of the higher courts, clergymen, doctors, lawyers, merchants and men from every avocation. ”

“ Let no man, of whatever political persuasion he may be, flatter himself for a moment that such a government could be Republican in its nature.
Having now traced, with perhaps a tedious hand, the rise and fall of two political Orders, ranking among the most powerful instruments of crime and public wrong of their day, the writer bids their unmourned remains farewell, to pass to the consideration in the succeeding chapter, of the desperate career and final explosion of the Order of the Sons of Liberty—a solemn warning to the American people forever. ”

“ For rebels in arms to commit cruelties and barbarities would have been expected, but for the authors of our ruin to be our very friends and neighbors, persons associated with us in business avocations, in social relations, and in the enjoyment of the same general blessings with ourselves, surpassed belief; yet such was the fact, and the faces that beamed smiles upon us by day, and joined us in our congratulations for national victories, by night were hideous with the dark designs and murderous intent. ”

“ What expression, or what degree of contempt is most appropriate for the citizens connected with these rebel efforts;—persons owing a true and faithful allegiance to the Government, yet aiding and abetting its public enemies, persons who while professing a common fealty with their fellow citizens, would welcome to their homes incendiaries, and incite them to murder and plunder those very fellow citizens, and compel them to suffer all the horrors of a cruel warfare! ”

“ Home traitors have been taught, and it is well if they profit by the lesson, they cannot form any society or order based upon treason, that can for any considerable time continue "secret." Its purposes will transpire, for the all-seeing eye of Him who reads the hearts of men, and will not suffer "a sparrow to fall to the ground without his notice," that God who hath decreed that this nation shall be re-united, shall be prosperous, free, happy, and truly great, will not suffer traitors to be successful, but will give them into the hands of those who reverence His mighty and terrible name ”

“ As the trial opened, and the charges if the indictment were made public, all sympathisers with the conspiracy affected to disbelieve its existence, and raised their eyes and hands to Heaven, in pious horror, and prayed that justice might be meted out to the accused, who were, they claimed, the best of citizens, the most devout Christians, the most zealous patriots, the most earnest advocates of law and order, and that their accusers might be shunned of all good men forever. ”

“ Failing of success upon the field, we find the Davis Government countenancing guerrilla warfare, burning bridges, murdering unarmed citizens, and desolating the homes of unoffending people, and committing piracy upon the high seas. Still failing of success and losing ground daily, but driven to desperation by the apparent hopelessness of their cause, they sink to the depth of infamy by establishing among us secret orders, the aim of which is to educate men of base passions to deeds of dark dishonor and unmeasured infamy ”

“ The cheek tingles with the blush of shame, when alas, it must be said that the pride of the American has been humbled by his too faithful adherence to the grand original compact of treason, even after the second most potent auxiliary to the plan had been tenderly touched with the wickedness of the scheme, and had withdrawn in dismay at the approach of the enactment of crime so revolting. ”

“ Men who were kind fathers, kind husbands and noble patriots, have forgotten it all in a day, and have become traitors, and inculcated doctrines that have, by the hands of fiends, stricken down that patriotic and noble leader of the human race. There is something in it which no man can comprehend. The doctrines which they inculcate harden the heart, and nerve the arm to crime, enabling them to commit robbery, arson and murder, for all is in her category ”

“ With this extreme, hence fallacious, doctrine of State Rights thus firmly imbedded in the hearts and heads of a zealous people, rendering them, upon conscientious principles, the ready tools of ambitious leaders, filled with lust for power and place, it should not be a matter of so much surprise, that, after years of uninterrupted and persistent education and training of the generations in their order, that the year of 1860 found the continent trembling beneath the crack of musketry, the tread of horse, and the roar of cannon. ”

“ The rapidity of increase in numbers, rendered them conscious of their strength, and they became openly defiant and talked treason upon the corners of our streets, and wherever little groups of people assembled. The mob spirit was excited, and all were ready for mischief whenever opportunity offered; and while all were bound to wait submissively till their leaders should give the signal for revolution, still many were restless and impatient for the hour to come, and hoped that they would not long have to wait. ”

“ When a far-seeing military commandant ordered the suppression of published treason, there were men in high places, and men all over the land, who outraged the loyal masses by interfering to prevent the execution of that order, on the ground of disturbing the freedom of the press; but when our ministers went into Richmond they were muzzled, and the result has been that treason has been littered, the good man called an imbecile—the generous man a tyrant—the restraint of traitors has been referred to as, usurpation of power, and prisons have been called Bastiles. ”

“ What say you, citizens of Chicago, concerning the band of traitors in your midst, who meditate and discuss such crimes as make the soul sicken, and the face blanch with horror; would not any honest man deliver this department of Jeff Davis' most efficient allies into the hands of the United States Government, by any means Heaven might place in his power? ”