Page:Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (Volume One).djvu/298



BOUT ten days before the 18th of June, 1861, Judge Hoar called at my office and invited me to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa oration at Cambridge on the 18th of the month. Although I had but little time for preparation, I accepted the invitation upon the understanding, or rather upon his request, that I was to deal with the questions then agitating the country. Among my hearers was the venerable Josiah Quincy, formerly President of the College. My address was so radical that the timid condemned it, and even Republican papers deprecated the violence of my language—they then living in the delusion that concessions, mild words and attitudes of humility could save the Union. Mr. Quincy was not of those. He gave to my address unqualified support, and I had no doubt that the majority of my audience sympathized with my views. There were, however, copperheads, and peace-men at any price, and gradually there appeared a more troublesome class of men who professed to be for the prosecution of the war, but criticised and condemned all the means employed. They were the hypocrites in politics—a class of men who affect virtue, and who tolerate and protect vice in government.

My address was called “The Conspiracy—Its Purpose and Power,” and as far as I know, it was the first time that emancipation was demanded publicly, as a means of ending the war and saving the nation. The demand was made in