Speech of B. F. Dowell, Esq., delivered on the occasion of the Grand Union Jubilee, in Jacksonville, on the 22d inst.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Committee of Arrangements, for this grand jubilee, have requested of me a short speech. I am more than willing to comply with their wishes, because this is an appropriate time to meet together and review the struggle through which we have passed, and to rejoice over the grand prospect of the ultimate triumph of Liberty, Freedom and Union. I am happy to meet on this occasion so many proud true and loyal men and women—particularly the loyal Union-loving ladies. We have been taught from our youth that the ladies have always been in favor of Union to a man. When the ladies move, the lords of creation are sure to follow. the ladies of America have ever been noted for their patriotism and devotion to the Union, and so far as I am concerned, I would be willing to see one of them elected Chief Magistrate of the United States. Doubtless, we have many ladies in America as well and even better qualified to fill the presidential chair than Queen Victoria is to rule over the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland (cheering and laughter); yea, there are ladies in yonder ball, in hearing of my voice, who have more practical knowledge, and are as much entitled and as well calculated to command respect and obedience in America, as Victoria or any of her royal family is in England. The presence of so many ladies here tonight to give us “aid and comfort,” assures us we have been fighting in a good cause, and that this once glorious Union will be preserved through the instrumentality of Abraham Lincoln and Andy Johnson. (Loud and continued cheering.)

The election generally passed off peacefully and quietly. Jacksonville, our peaceable and quiet village, on the day of the election was only interrupted by a few treasonable shouts for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy. (Some one from the crowd said it was bad whisky.) It was bad liquor exciting a bad heart. It was liquor and treason combined, “for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” drunk or sober. God grant that we we [sic] may never again hear any one hurrah for Jeff Davis.

It is more than probable that if those who shouted for Jeff Davis on the day of the election had known it would have been condemned by a half million votes, they would have been as silent as the tomb. This election teaches Democracy that she can never win a national victory by pandering to and complimenting the sins of treason and slavery. This election has completely blasted the hopes of those who have cooly calculated the value of the Union, and expected to live to fill high places in a Pacific Republic. (Cheers and cries of good.) It teaches traitors on this coast that notwithstanding we have crossed the mountains, crossed the plains, crossed the Great American Dessert, and settled here on the western verge of half the world, we have not forgotten the land of our birth, nor the Union established by the patriotism and heroism of our fathers, and that we do not intend to barter our birthright, our continental nationality for an almost uninhabited, barren rock-bound land—a contemplated Pacific Republic (Continued cheering and cries of good.)…

Mr. Lincoln’s electors in 1860, were elected by a plurality vote, without a majority of the popular votes; but after four years of the severest trials that any administration ever had, the Electors for Mr. Lincoln are again elected by the largest popular vote, and the greatest majority that any President of the United States ever received.

(During Mr. Dowell’s comments on the majorities, there were frequent interruptions of loud and long cheering, and when he announced that McClellan had only carried Delaware, New Jersey and Kentucky, three groans were given for these three lonely sisters.)

The next Congress will stand 137 Union and 42 Democratic.

The people at the ballot box, in their sovereign capacity, have declared that the President’s Emancipation proclamation, which gives freedom to four millions of slaves, is a military necessity; that traitors shall lay down their arms, and that all who shall hereafter be born on American soil shall in truth and in fact, in the language of the Declaration of Independence be “born free and equal”—free without the chains of slavery around their necks, having equal rights, regardless of color, to acquire and hold property and to pursue their own happiness in their own way, to worship God after the dictates of their own conscience, without a master or an overseer’s lash to make them afraid. The curse of slavery, which we inherited from England, and which is the cause of the war, shall be wiped out; that Liberty, Freedom and true religion shall live and flourish forever and ever on the American continent. (Loud, long and continued cheering.)

Notwithstanding we have had nearly four years of civil war, which has desolated the fairest portion of the South, arrayed brother against brother and father against son in mortal combat; deluged our once peaceful and happy country in fraternal blood, and whitened our numerous battle fields with the bones of patriots and sages; yet the people by this election have declared that these appalling calamities are mere trifles compared to disunion or the destruction of our national government. The people, in thundering tones, have repeated the emphatic language of President Jackson that “the Union must and shall be preserved.” The fiat has gone forth that this war shall go on and be vigorously prosecuted until the American flag, the emblem of Liberty, Freedom and Nationality, shall wave peacefully and triumphantly over every county in every State in the so-called Southern Confederacy. (Cheering, and a voice in the crowd asked when will this be?) This unjust, unnatural and unholy war will end when Secessionists North cease to advocate the cause of the rebellion, and traitors south lay down their arms. (Three cheers and cries of good.)

I am not one of those who at the commencement thought it would soon end. Even now I can only conjecture when or how it will end; whether the Southern States will return to their allegiance together, or whether they will be compelled to return one by one remains for time to determine; but one thing is certain, we have passed the great crisis, and in time they will all surely return to their allegiance, and seek protection under our glorious old flag.

If Lieutenant General Grant surrounds General Lee and destroys his whole army, it is possible each State now in rebellion may soon return to their allegiance, with or without slaves, and slavery may only disappear by gradual emancipation; but if General Lee and his army escapes to Alabama or South Carolina, the war will be protracted, and the States will in time return to their allegiance one by one, without slavery. West Virginia has abruptly broken off from the Old Dominion. She has abolished slavery, and today clings to the old Union and the Constitution of the United States. Maryland and Louisiana have both recently adopted free State constitutions. Missouri has passed an emancipation law, and ere long, she too, will be identified with the free States. The shrieks of freedom, Union, and the thunders of our artillery have rolled along the Mississippi valley until our old flag floats peacefully along its banks, and over every town and village, from its source in the Rocky Mountains, to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico.

Today but few avowed traitors or secessionists can be found in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee or Kentucky. They are quiet, and only appear at the ballot box to give treason “aid and comfort,” by voting with the pretended peace party for the slow war horse, George B. McClellan. (Cries of good.) The strict constructionist in Congress may not count the votes of some of these States, but we have good reason to believe and to rejoice, that all of these slave holding States, except Kentucky, have cast their votes in favor of Lincoln and Johnson, and are now nearly ready with free Constitutions, to join the great loyal North, and to strike for freedom—for our democratic, republican principles, the Constitution, and the Union.

The loyal citizens of Georgia and North Carolina are battleing with traitors, and are trying to throw off the military despotism of the Southern Confederacy. With the aid of our armies, ere long, they, too, will return to their allegiance. When Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia return to the Union, we may soon expect to hear of all of our erring sisters coming back, and saying father Abraham, we “have sinned against heaven and in thy sight,” receive us back into the family of free States, without the pollution of slavery on our garments. (Cheers and cries of good.)

Then and not till then will a great nation truly rejoice, like the Patriarch of old when the prodigal son returned to his father’s house. When that glorious day shall come, a nation will kill the fatted calf and be merry, because our Southern sisters have been chained to illegal and unconstitutional State rights, by the teachings of demagogues and traitors; they have been dead and buried in the accursed sin of slavery, but live again and breathe constitutional liberty and freedom. Their false teachers of State rights have been banished from the land, and their black and dirty robes of slavery have been washed and purified in the blood of patriots. When that glorious day shall come, it will be meet that we shall make merry and be glad, and Abraham will say unto them, “you have forfeited you lives and property by your disobedience, but we desired not your negroes or any of your property; we only desired that you should obey the constitution of the United States and the laws made in pursuance thereof, therefore, you shall dwell in the land of your fathers, and you shall be near unto me, and your children and your children’s children and your herds, and all that you have I give unto you for an everlasting inheritance.” (Repeated, long and loud cheering.)