“I spoke in Columbus on the President’s Proclamation....  But was not such an event worthy the awakening of every power—­the congratulation of every faculty?  What hath God wrought!  We may well exclaim how event after event has paved the way for freedom.  In the crucible of disaster and defeat God has stirred the nation, and permitted no permanent victory to crown her banners while she kept her hand upon the trembling slave and held him back from freedom.  And even now the scale may still seem to oscillate between the contending parties, and some may say, Why does not God give us full and quick victory?  My friend, do not despair if even deeper shadows gather around the fate of the nation, that truth will not ultimately triumph, and the right be established and vindicated; but the deadly gangrene has taken such deep and almost fatal hold upon the nation that the very centres of its life seem to be involved in its eradication.  Just look, after all the trials deep and fiery through which the nation has waded, how mournfully suggestive was the response the proclamation received from the democratic triumphs which followed so close upon its footsteps.  Well, thank God that the President did not fail us, that the fierce rumbling of democratic thunder did not shake from his hand the bolt he leveled against slavery.  Oh, it would have been so sad if, after all the desolation and carnage that have dyed our plains with blood and crimsoned our borders with warfare, the pale young corpses trodden down by the hoofs of war, the dim eyes that have looked their last upon the loved and lost, had the arm of Executive power failed us in the nation’s fearful crisis!  For how mournful it is when the unrighted wrongs and fearful agonies of ages reach their culminating point, and events solemn, terrible and sublime marshal themselves in dread array to mould the destiny of nations, the hands appointed to hold the helm of affairs, instead of grasping the mighty occasions and stamping them with the great seals of duty and right, permit them to float along the current of circumstances without comprehending the hour of visitation or the momentous day of opportunity.  Yes, we may thank God that in the hour when the nation’s life was convulsed, and fearful gloom had shed its shadows over the land, the President reached out his hand through the darkness to break the chains on which the rust of centuries had gathered.  Well, did you ever expect to see this day?  I know that all is not accomplished; but we may rejoice in what has been already wrought,—­the wondrous change in so short a time.  Just a little while since the American flag to the flying bondman was an ensign of bondage; now it has become a symbol of protection and freedom.  Once the slave was a despised and trampled on pariah; now he has become a useful ally to the American government.  From the crimson sods of war springs the white flower of freedom, and songs of deliverance mingle with the crash and roar of war.  The shadow