the perpetuity of its triumphs, behold the one in our unexampled prosperity as a nation, and the other in the impulses that, like an electric flash, bind heart to heart, throughout this vast assemblage, in the firm resolve that, cost what it may, rebellion shall go down.  Again, the American people are assembled in mass meetings throughout the nation, while the States once more rock in the throes of revolution.  Once more the cry to arms reverberates throughout the land; but this time we war against domestic foes.  Treason has raised its black flag near the tomb of Washington, and the Union of our States hangs her fate upon the bayonet and the sword.  Accursed be the hand that would not seize the bayonet; withered the arm that would not wield the sword in such a cause!  Everything that the American citizen holds dear hangs upon the issue of this contest.  Our national honor and reputation demand that rebellion shall not triumph on our soil.  In the name of our heroic dead, in the name of our numberless victories, in the name of our thousand peaceful triumphs, our Union shall and must be preserved!  Our peaceful triumphs?  These are the victories we should be jealous to guard.  Let others recount their martial glories; they shall be eclipsed by the charity and the grace of the triumphs which have been won in peace.  “Peace hath her victories not less renowned than war,” and the hard-earned fruits of these victories rebellion shall not take from us.  Our peaceful triumphs?  Who shall enumerate their value to the millions yet unborn?  What nation in so short a time has seen so many?  On the land and on the sea, in the realms of science and in the world of art, we have everywhere gathered our honors and won our garlands.  Upon the altars of the States they yet lie, fresh from gathering, while their happy influence fills the land.  Of the importance and value of our thousand peaceful triumphs time will permit me to mention only one.  It is now just two years ago when up the waters of the Potomac sailed the representatives of an empire till then shut out from intercourse with all Christian nations.  In the Eastern seas there lay an empire of islands which had hitherto enjoyed no recognition in the Christian world other than its name upon the map.  No history, as far as we know, illuminated it; no ancient time-marks told of its advancement, step by step, in the march of improvement.  There it has rested for thousands of years, wrapped in the mysteries of its own exclusiveness—­gloomy, dark, peculiar.  It has been supposed to possess great powers; and vague rumors have attributed to it arts to us unknown.  Against nearly all the world, for thousands of years Japan has obstinately shut her doors; the wealth of the Christian world could not tempt her cupidity; the wonders of the Christian world could not excite her curiosity.  There she lay, sullen and alone, the phenomenon of nations.  England and France and the other powerful governments of Europe have at various times tried to conquer this Oriental exclusiveness, but the Portuguese only partly succeeded, while all the rest have signally failed.  At length we, bearing at our masthead the glorious old Stars and Stripes, approach the mysterious portals and seek an entrance.  Not with cannon and the implements of death do we demand admission, but, appreciating the saying of Euripides, that