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Sickles, Daniel Edgar, 1819-1914 [Address at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art]

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC09245 Author/Creator: Sickles, Daniel Edgar, 1819-1914 Place Written: s.l. Type: Manuscript document Date: November 1863 Pagination: 14 p. : Order a Copy

Address at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, mapping the path to Union victory. Powerful congressman in the New York Democratic Party, with ties to senior Union political and military leadership, assesses the war: "We cannot fail to see that our iron-clads and our victories have made friends for us in Europe. Let us remind my Lord Palmerston on New Year's Day that the concession of belligerant rights to the Southern insurgents was one of the instances in which the clever manager of European affairs made a blunder. Now is their time to undo this wrong.…Who believes that the forms or the substance of free institutions will survive another generation if the South prevail in this war?... There is only one negotiation which the South will respect- the sword. The President understands this and therefore he appeals to the country to fill up the army. The South must feel the overwhelming power of the Union; and when they are compelled to acknowledge its supremacy, they will lay down their arms and not until then." Page 14 is a fragment.

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