(Rev) John Flavel ⁷ BIGELOW

I have received a copy one of Rev. John Flavel Bigelow's addresses.  It is 32 pages long.  
This speech was given on June 14, 1865--  two months after Lee surrendered (April 9, 1865). 
The title of the address is:
The Progress of the American Republic.
An ORATION Delivered at the 
CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION of the Town of Paxton,June 14th, 1865,
by Rev. John Flavel Bigelow, D.D.Worcester:
Printed By Edward R. Fiske & Son,1865.

The University of Vermont has a copy of his other address, the one given at 
the Baptist Church in Keeseville. I have ordered a copy, and it should come in 
about a week.
I will make copies for you.
In the meantime, here are a couple of quotes from the Paxton address:
"True, we have had evils in the national system, portending disaster, and one 
monster wrong, menacing certain destruction. This well-known danger was not 
one of mere weakness, threatening the dissolution of the political fabric, 
through the simple lack of cohesion in the materials; but the peril was that of 
explosion, through the antagonism of discordant elements. De Tocqueville could 
not have had an adequate conception of this form of peril, when he said that 
'the prosperity of the United States is the source of the most serious dangers, 
that threaten them.’ Doubtless there was and is much of peril threatening us 
from that quarter; but there was another more ominous portent. The darkening 
cloud of Slavery, however, so long casting its gloomy shadow over the land, is 
lifted, and its blighting effects are passing away. “ Pages 30-31

“Is the world any longer in doubt, with respect to the result of the great 
conflict? Not at all. Though contending with powerful and remorseless foes, the 
course of the country has been onward. The people of other lands, having 
looked, with a painful mixture of hope and apprehension, for the result of the 
struggle, are now rejoicing over the prospect lying before the friends of freedom. 
’The duel between Aristocracy and Democracy, in which there are no seconds, 
is determined in favor of the latter, the watchword being, as has been well 
said, on the one side, ‘Privileges for the few,’ and on the other, ‘Rights for 
all.’ Let us, then, cherish a serene faith in the future of the country and the 
progress of humanity; for despairing of these, we lose faith in God. “ Page 32
Don Papson 

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Speech
From: Don Papson  < NCUGRHA@aol.com >
Date: November 30, 2005
Rod,
I went over to the University of Vermont and picked up a copy of Rev. John F. 
Bigelow’s 1861 address at the Keeseville Baptist Church. I am sending you 
excerpts. They are incredible. The “What now, I ask, shall we do?” must be a 
part of our exhibit at the Estes House.
Don
P.S. Do you have an image of Rev. Bigelow? Are you in touch with any descendants who might have one?
Backgrouind:
On April 10, 1861, Brig. Gen. Beauregard, in command of the provisional 
Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina, demanded the surrender of the 
Union garrison of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Garrison commander Anderson 
refused. On April 12, Confederate batteries opened fire on the fort, which was 
unable to reply effectively. At 2:30 p.m., April 13, Major Anderson 
surrendered Fort Sumter, evacuating the garrison on the following day. The bombardment 
of Fort Sumter was the opening engagement of the American Civil War.

1860    South Carolina legislature convenes and votes to secede from the 
Union. Meanwhile, Congress  convenes in an effort to work out some compromise; the 
Crittenden Compromise is proposed,  which would restore the Missouri 
Compromise line across the continent.  The compromise is  ineffectual in the face of 
the events at hand. 
1861    March 4, Abraham Lincoln inaugurated president.
1861    March 11, The Confederate States of America adopts a Constitution.  
The Confederacy  presently includes only the seven states of the Deep South -  
Alabama, Florida, Georgia,  Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
1861    April 12, South Carolina troops fire on the Federal arsenal at Fort 
Sumter.  The Civil War begins.  The states of Virginia, North Carolina, 
Tennessee and Arkansas will secede from the  Union in coming months.  Though they are 
slave states, the "border states" of Delaware,  Maryland, Kentucky and 
Missouri will remain loyal to the Union.
1861    July 2, President Lincoln issues his suspension of habeas corpus in 
certain cases.
1861    July 22, U.S. Congress passes resolution declaring that the war is 
being fought to  "preserve the Union," not to destroy slavery.

----

Rev. John Flavel Bigelow gave an address in Keeseville calling for the 
defense of the unnion onf July 7, 1961, 15 days before Congress officially declared 
that the war was beging forunt to “preserve the union.”

Quotes from The Hand of God in American History. A Discourse Delivered in the 
Baptist Church, Keeseville, N.Y., July 7, 1861: Also Before the United 
Literary Societies of of New Hampton Institution. Fairfax Vt., July 15, 1861. By 
Rev. John F. Bigelow, Burlington:  W. H. & C. A. Hoyt & co., Printers. 1861. 

   Still, however complete her model; however excellent her construction; 
however noble her bearing, there was one leak in the hull of the Republic; though 
we are happy to believe that it is the only serious one, which the most 
thorough overhauling has ever detected. There was one rotten timber in her keel, 
and that was Slavery; but yet, as without it there would be a lack of materials, 
it was wrought into the structure, though with much perplexity as to the way 
of laying it, and with some misgivings as to the result. Jefferson and Madison 
uttered words of warning. Still they hoped for the best: they hoped that 
instead of increasing, the danger would diminish. Time rolled on: but instead of 
its diminution and cessation there has been an augmentation and a strengthening 
of the evil. The Slave Power, instead of diminishing and disappearing, as the 
founders of the Republic anticipated, has expanded in every dimension of 
census, interest, opinion and impudence, till it has precipitated upon the country 
the crisis of to-day. And now what is that crisis? that unsound and dangerous 
spot, always in the ship’s hull;, has opened in a mighty bilge, and is 
letting in upon us the turbid and disastrous waters of rebellion. A dozen, either 
more or less, of once loyal States are, to-day, in armed revolt against the 
Government of the Union, seeking, by fire and sword, its overthrow, and the 
establishment of Slavedom upon its ruins.
Page 30

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   Wesley pronounced slavery to be “the sum of all villainies.” The 
definition is pungent and complete. We have always believed it true, but never so 
cordially, so deeply, so entirely as to-day. For slavery alone, its advocates and 
propagandists are ready to give up or destroy everything beside. For this one 
thing, and that the worst and most infernal of all things, since all sins and 
all wrongs, oppression, adultery, rebellion and murder, are potentially 
wrapped up with it, and reside within it; they are ready to sacrifice 
everything--their country’s Government, its history, its hopes, its destiny, its glory, 
with the prospects and interests of freedom and religion for the world. For this 
one thing, in a sacrament of blood and death,they pledge “their lives, their 
fortunes,” and would their “sacred honor,” if they had any to pledge. They are 
demolishing the southern wall of the Temple of Freedom, and with its 
fragments, they are attempting to lay the foundations of despotism. Against law, 
against duty, against precedent, against the sense of all mankind beside, they have 
inaugurated a Slave confederacy on the soil won from tyranny by the toils and 
blood of the fathers, and consecrated to liberty. They have told the world 
that its Corner-stone is slavery; they need not have specified any particular 
part as being that thing, for slavery is the top, bottom and sides of the whole 
concern.” Pages 32-33
____
   What now, I ask, shall we do? The hour is a solemn one--the most momentous 
in the country’s history. Asking God, on whom we depend, in the language of 
Dr. Wayland, “to issue this awful exigency in the glory of His Son;” 
entreating Him to give to all our citizens virtue and patriotism, and especially to our 
rulers and legislators wisdom to know their duty, and courage to do it; and 
thanking Him meanwhile for the wonderful degree of these great qualities 
already exhibited by them, what, I again ask, shall we do? Shall we give up our 
national history, and look upon its last chapter as ending here? Shall we 
contemplate the hand of God as working in such a wonderful manner in our historical 
career, only to close up, in an abrupt collapse, a violent frustration of all 
its apparent plans and purposes? Shall this greatest and best realization of the 
Republican Freedom which the world has ever seen, be ruthlessly destroyed? 
Shall we disappoint the expectation of myriads who are suffering under 
oppression, and who are looking to our shores for the great hope and true home of 
down-trodden Liberty in all lands? Patriotism, Freedom and Religion answer No! 
Shall we sleep in torpid supineness until we are awakened by the iron heel of the 
despot upon our necks? Shall we permit the slave master to call his sable 
menials under the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, as he has said that he will do? 
The true sons of sires who served their country on Bemis’ and Bunker’s 
heights, on Erie and Champlain, answer No! What! Shall that traitorous Palmetto 
flag, the vile emblem of Slavery, ever float over the Granite hills and the Green 
Mountains of New England: on the banks of the Hudson, and from the summits of 
the Adirondacks? Shall it be raised in the Metropolis of the Empire State, 
and surmount the Keystone of the Federal Arch? Shall it be unfurled on the 
breezy prairies of the Northwest, and by the leaping waters of Niagara? No! An echo 
starting from the headlands of Maine, reverberated across a Continent and 
dying away on the waves of the Pacific, answers No! The flag of the Union shall every, 
as now, wave over them all, and not only so, but the National Motto shall be “the Stars and 
Stripes on every flag-staff from Maine to Texas.”
Pages 38-39

His conclusion reads:

“Then let the country stand firm. Let all her citizens see the question as 
standing heaven-high above all mere party issues: let all patriots, the lovers 
of Freedom and the lovers of their race surround her standard, and whether they 
come from the field or the shop, from the marts of Commerce, the halls of 
Science, or the Sanctuaries of Religion; let them maintain her cause. And do 
thou, O! God of our Fathers, if it may be, bring these men to a better mind and a 
better purpose, that they may restore their allegiance to Thyself, and to this 
most beneficent of human Governments; but if it may not be, that they will 
lay down their bloody arms, and come into the line of Thy great purposes of 
History, regarding Thy glory, and the good of mankind, through this once happy 
people, then do Thou, blast with the breath of Thy nostrils, their infernal 
designs, scattering them to the winds of Heaven; and let the curse of Meroz, 
scathing with the fires of Perdition, fall upon that man, or that class of men, 
whoever they may be, whether from the South or the North, from the East or the 
West,who shall lift the hand for the overthrow, or the rupture of this 
God-founded Republic.”
Page 42

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