would have failed in her duty to the whole country. Not only would her men have been withheld from the field of general operations, but the loans and taxation which would have become necessary would have, to a large extent, diminished the ability of her people to comply with the pecuniary demands of the United States. She would also have necessarily interfered with and hampered all the military action of the Government and made herself, to some extent, responsible for any failures and shortcomings that may have occurred. In pursuance of the policy thus deliberately adopted this State has steadily devoted her men to the general service. From the beginning she has always been among the first to respond to the call of the United States, as is shown by her history, from the three-months' men and the Reserve Corps to the present moment.

Thus faithfully fulfilling all her own obligations, she has a right to be defended dy the national force, as part of a common country; any other view would be absurd and unjust. She, of course, cannot complain when she suffers by the necessary contingencies of war. The reflection that have, in too many quarters, been made upon the people of her southern counties, are most unfounded. they were invaded in 1862, when a Union army much superior to any force of the rebels (and on which they had of course a right to rely) was lying in their immediate vicinity and north of the Potomac. They were again invaded in 1863, after the defeat of the Union forces under Milory at Winchester, and they have again suffered in 1864, after the defeat of the Union forces under Crook and Averell. How could an agricultural people, in an open country, be expected to rise suddenly and beat back hostile forces which had defeated organized veteran armies of the Government? It is of course expected that the inhabitants of an invaded country will do what is in their power to resist the invaders, and the facts hereinafter stated will show, I think, that the people of these counties have not failed in this duty.

If Pennsylvania, by reason of her geographical position, has required to be defended by the national force, it has only been against the common enemy. It has never been necessary to weaken the army in the field, by sending heavy detachments of veterans to save her cities from being devastated by small bands of ruffians composed of their own inhabitants. Nor have her people been disposed to sneer at the great masses of law abiding citizens, in any other State,w ho have required such protection. Yet, when a brutal enemy, pursuing a defeated body of Union forces, crosses our border and burns a defenseless town, this horrid barbarity, instead of firing the hearts of all the people of our common country, is actually, in some quarters, made the occasion of mocks and gibes at the unfortunate sufferers, thousands of whom have been rendered houseless, and these heartless scoffs proceed from the very men who, when the State authorities, foreseeing the danger, were taking precautionary measures ridiculed the idea of there being any danger, sneered at the exertions to prepare for meeting it, and succeeded to some extent in thwarting their efforts to raise forces. These men are themselves morally responsible for the calamity over which they now chuckle and rub their hands. It might have been hoped-nay, we had a right to expect-that the people of the loyal States, engaged in a command effort to preserve their Government and all that is dear to freemen, would have forgotten, at least for the time their wretched local jealousies and sympathized with all their loyal fellow-citizens wherever resident within the borders of our common country. It should be remembered that the original source of the present rebellion was in