What are we to do, surrender meekly, or fight?
"History shows us how terrible a thing war is--especially revolutionary
war. Now, I have thought out a plan by which war and its attendant
calamity can be averted and the people be reinstated in their power.
"There is not a man here who would not enlist to-day at the call for
troops. Many of you have already proven yourselves patriots by your
service in the field and on the ships of the United States.
"Now, it is not always necessary to be on a battlefield in order to show
courage. Men can be heroes in the humble walks of life.
"What I want of you is a pledge that you will stand by me to put out of
existence the deadly foes of this country. I want you to swear that you
will not flinch when the moment comes for you to fight, even to the
death.
"Are any of you unwilling to swear that you would fight the foes of our
country to the bitter end?"
No one speaks. The excited condition of the speaker impresses the men
strangely. They do not know just how to take him.
"I shall at the next meeting name forty men, each of whom has been an
enemy of the United States; each of whom has seen the growth of his
private fortune built upon the ruin of homes; each of whom has opposed
every measure for the alleviation of the condition of the masses of the
people.
"Many of them are known to you as offenders of national notoriety.
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