Class ^^ 5^ 
 
 Book 
 
 
OUR AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS 
 
 
 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE 
 
 de;liveked ix the ~ 
 
 FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CnURCn 
 
 IX PHILADELPHIA 
 
 AUGUST 6tli 1863 
 
 BY W. H. FURNESS 
 
 MINISTER 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 PUBLISHED BY T. B. PUGH 
 
 S. W. COKNEK SIXTH AND CHEST.M'T STS. 
 
 18 6 3 , 
 

 ^ 
 
 ^/^ 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 DEUT. YIII. 10. 
 
 "thou SHALT BLESS THE LORD THY GOD FOE THE GOOD LAND WHICH HE 
 HATH GIVEN THEE." 
 
 I come here to-day, my friends, with pecuHar alacrity. 
 I am glad of the opportunity offered us for the united 
 expression of the thankfulness that every thoughtful 
 man feels in view of our public affairs ; and who is there 
 that has not been made thoughtful in these times 1 It 
 is no formality that we are here this morning to 
 observe. We have reasons for the heartiest gratitude. 
 First and foremost among them all, beyond any special 
 cause for thanksgiving that Ave may have in recent 
 events, is the large liberty which is ours by the course 
 of nature, by inlieritance. And what I invite you now 
 to consider, that your hearts may swell with gratitude, 
 are the Equal Institutions to which it is our rare felicity 
 that we were born. Never have we had such reason to 
 prize them as now. Of these I propose particularly to 
 speak. 
 
 It is only very recently, within less than the last 
 three years, only indeed since the Rebellion broke out, 
 that the present generation has been made at all aware 
 of the worth of the social advantages enjoyed by the 
 population of these free Northern States. For long 
 years before, upon the return of our national birth-day 
 and as other occasions were presented, we were wont to 
 
glorify our civil and religious liberties in all manner of 
 high-sounding phrase. But there was very little of a 
 discriminating sense of their value. From a material 
 point of view we could not be blind to their worth. 
 We could not help seeing what power and wealth they 
 were accumulating, how rapidly and to what greatness 
 the nation was growing under them. But of their 
 choicest uses, of their moral effect, of the part which 
 they take in forming the character of the people, in 
 breathing a soul into the nation, in a word, in making 
 the nation what it is, we have had no clear and strong 
 sense, and mainly for two reasons. 
 
 First, because the moral influence of institutions is 
 never a matter of outward observation. Although it is 
 constant, it is silent and works in numberless unnoticed 
 ways. Men are affected by it as by the light, and they 
 take no more note of it than of the air that they are 
 breathing. Rarely do they know what spirit they are 
 of, or how much it is determined by the circumstances 
 and social forms established around them. The moral 
 results of these come under the eye only upon great 
 occasions, at critical hours. And they cannot even then 
 be handled, weighed, or measured. 
 
 And then again we have failed to appreciate the 
 moral effect of our free institutions, because it has been 
 hidden from us by the steadily increasing disturbance 
 caused by that unequal and oppressive institution which 
 has been suffered to coexist with them. The trouble 
 which this caused grew to be so serious that it soon 
 came to monopolize public attention. For years past it 
 has been the one engrossing topic. So that it has natu- 
 rally seemed to many that, however excellent in theory, 
 our republican institutions, practically, were serving but 
 
little purpose save the purposes of oppression and tend- 
 ing to the ruin of the nation. For fifty years and more 
 the Constitution was interpreted and the Government 
 administered with an all but exclusive concern for an 
 institution radically at war with every idea of equal 
 justice and personal liberty. Consequently our free 
 institutions, as representative of these ideas, seemed to 
 be so neutralized as to have become nothing more than 
 hypocritical pretences, the forms of liberty without its 
 life. 
 
 Thus has it happened that until the present trouble 
 came, we had a very imperfect notion of the value of 
 our pohtical system, what a gift of God it is. But 
 events are enlightening us. Notwithstanding the shadow 
 and the shame of a huge oppression long resting over 
 the whole land, we are finding out now as for the first 
 time that it has not been to no moral purpose that for 
 three-quarters of a century the growing millions of the 
 North have been associated upon such terms of personal 
 equality before the law, as had never before been reahzed 
 on this globe. Then it was, when the nation was suddenly 
 assaulted, that it broke upon us like a revelation from 
 heaven that, as we have had no privileged classes among 
 us, as the whole tendency of our Northern social life 
 has been, not only to permit, but to encourage the full 
 unfolding of every individual nature, and consequently 
 as no opportunity has been given for the upspringing 
 of those feehugs of mutual alienation, contempt and 
 enmity which unequal laws always sow, it had come 
 to pass naturally and of necessity that the hearts 
 of the people had grown into one. Without our being- 
 conscious of it, with all our State lines and State rivalries, 
 we of the North had become one people. Silently, 
 
gradually, insensibly, our republican institutions, while 
 in their formal and official action, they seemed wholly 
 perverted to the purposes of injustice, had been creating 
 a grand National Unity. So imperceptibly had the 
 creation gone on, that we never became aware of it, 
 until a violent attempt was made to disintegrate the 
 the nation. Then it was that one sentiment was found 
 animating the whole people of the North, and they rose 
 to the attitude of defence as one man. Then it was 
 that, when to foreign eyes and even to our own, we had 
 seemed to be crumbling into pieces, a living, mighty 
 nation was discovered. It was like the sudden unveiling 
 to the sun of some majestic statue which an artist, 
 hidden within an intricate scaffolding, had been for 
 years steadily at work in fashioning. 
 . For this then let us thank God to-day, that he has 
 given us institutions which so fully embody and so 
 faithfully apply the principle of human equality that the 
 hearts of the people have grown together and become 
 one. To this principle, thus brought into practical 
 operation, this Nation owes its existence and its vigor. 
 So constituted is our social condition, that instead of 
 the ill-will and hostility which must always abound 
 where all are not regarded by the law as equal and 
 alike, it is made the nature of our people to respect, 
 every man his neighbor's rights. It is as natural here, 
 this mutual respect, as iron and coal are in Pennsyl- 
 vania, or granite and ice in New England. 
 
 I do not mean, however, to say that the people of 
 these Free States are without fault in this respect. I 
 do not forget what human nature always has been and 
 is, and how the love of power and a host of selfish 
 passions, are always straining upon the leash, always 
 
endangering the good order of society. I do not mean 
 that all social evils have here come to an end. Far 
 from it. But I do say, that, so far as the civil order 
 of things here instituted is concerned, the tendency 
 has been and is to create an unprecedented degree 
 of social harmony. There is no occasion given here by 
 our social forms for the growth of those disorganizing 
 passions which unequal social arrangements always 
 favor, and which are forever threatening the internal 
 peace of nations, and creating the argument for strong 
 governments. On the contrary, our American social 
 system, so far as the political forms of a people, which, 
 while they are the people's work, become, in return, the 
 creators of the people, forming the popular character, 
 — so far, I repeat, our social constitution operates to 
 generate a controlling sentiment of respect for personal 
 rights, which is the security of the public peace, a 
 sound public conscience in relation to the intercourse 
 of man with man. 
 
 And so powerfully has it worked in this way, so 
 strong a sense of justice and personal liberty has been 
 wrought into the very being of our Northern people, 
 and become their second nature, the genius of the place 
 and the people, that, at this hour, when so deadly an 
 assault has been made upon the life of the nation, 
 when so powerful a conspiracy has been formed for its 
 destruction, and by a class of men upon whom the 
 nation has lavished its offices and honors, and whom it 
 has protected in the monstrous right which they claim 
 to make merchandize of humanity, when too, the peo- 
 ple, incapable of believing in the possibility of anything 
 so wicked and so insane as a rebellion against a 
 Government unexampled for its freedom, have been 
 
8 
 
 taken wholly unawares; at this hour, thus fie^.-cely 
 assaulted, thus taken entirely off t" -r guard, so deeply 
 has the sense of equal rights ) n planted in* the 
 Northern mind by the institutio' • of Freedom, that, 
 with the odds so fearfully against them at the moment, 
 the people have repelled the assault, have more than 
 kept their foes at bay, and everything indicates their 
 sure and perfect triumph. 
 
 Yes, friends, for the hopeful aspec /hich the Cause 
 of the Nation now wears, we are, ^ ibove everything 
 else, indebted to that which our Ji^' .olican Institutions 
 have made to be the rulina- o'enius c*f the North, — the 
 love of justice and freedom. We have had no great 
 men. But we have a great people, great, not through 
 any superiority of blood, not through the prestige of 
 any previously won martial renown, not through any 
 new and wonderful endowments of intellect, but great, 
 through that sense of equal rights, which the constant 
 influence of our social surroundings has converted into 
 an instinct, a feeling so identified w'^'h the very blood 
 and muscle of the people, that, li^ - the folly of the 
 fool, though you should bray them in a mortar, you 
 could not make them let it go. 
 
 Such is the blessed, the inestimable product of our 
 Hepublicanism. It has been introduced L , the Nor- 
 thern nature unconsciously, like the kingdom of God, 
 " without observation," through no merit, no effort of 
 ours. Our own will has had as littJ^ to do with it as 
 with our breathing or the circulation' )f our blood. It 
 is the pure gift and grace of God, vo- chsafed to us 
 through the happy circumstances in the midst of which 
 His bountiful Providence has appointed our lot. And 
 for this great favor, which we had done nothing to 
 
9 
 
 dese]:ve, let us offer our fervent thanks to the Great 
 Giver this day. y '■ to ourselves be the praise, but to 
 the Infinite Powei i whose hand the hearts of men 
 are as clay in the 1 id of the potter. 
 
 And thank God, ^jo, that our republican forms have 
 been so potent, and have produced a love of freedom so 
 strong that the nation is standing in triumph a trial 
 so severe as the present. For, I repeat, it is this, the 
 public spirit of ^' " North, that has brought us thus far, 
 and to which c success is due. We have a man 
 standing at the . 1 of the nation, who, for his im- 
 moveable singlene;5S of purpose, possesses the public 
 confidence to a degree which has never been exceeded. 
 We have in the National councils and in the field, 
 men, faithful and brave, whose names will be held in 
 undying honor. But neither, in council nor in the 
 field, has there appeared any extraordinary genius to 
 command events and compel success. To the spirit of 
 the people is it owing that the National integrity has 
 been so wonderfully maintained. It is this that, with- 
 out hesitation or nt, keeps pouring into the hands of 
 the Government, material resources that seem well nigh 
 inexhaustible. It is this, that is presenting to the 
 world so manly an instance of National patience under 
 delays t ^ , most wearisome and defeats the most 
 humiliating.^, It is this which accepts delays and de- 
 feats and all manner of errors as a gracious discipline, 
 intended to harden us into perseverance and render us 
 only the more ea^ucst. It is this which has organized 
 the humanity of the North, initiated the women into 
 one vast sisterhood of Mercy, and sent a host of men 
 and women to surround the battle-field Mdth all possible 
 
 means and appliances to alleviate its sufferings. It is 
 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 this, which, to so remarkable a degree, has saved the 
 general mind from the vindictiveness which a civil war 
 especially tends to kindle. It is this which is steadily 
 and rapidly gaining one of the grand triumphs of the 
 time: the destruction of the barbarian prejudice of 
 race, and the opening to the men of African descent of a 
 career in which they may not only receive justice, but 
 win gratitude and renown. And, above all, it is this 
 which has prompted thousands and hundreds of thou- 
 sands to rush to the defence of the country, in no spirit 
 of bitterness, not from any impulse of personal ill-will, 
 but to suffer and die in that sacred behalf. And 
 thousands, with a heroism which has never been sur- 
 passed, have made the last most costly sacrifice of 
 patriotism, laying life in its full bloom with its tenderest 
 ties and most brilliant hopes, upon the altar of their 
 native land. Never was chapel or shrine so hung all 
 round and all over with such precious votive offerings 
 as the temple of our National liberty is now. Dearer 
 than ever should our country be to her children, conse- 
 crated as she is by so much noble blood poured out for 
 her sake. Holier than ever should be her cause, and 
 more earnest than ever our purpose to cleanse her royal 
 robes of every stain and spot of the foid poison which 
 has threatened to destroy her. 
 
 For long years we have been told that these Free In- 
 stitutions of ours were only an experiment, that they 
 were on trial, and that it was very doubtful whether 
 they could stand any test. We did not perceive that 
 every year they lasted, they were working without 
 intermission, as busily as God works in the spring-time, 
 as busily as He works at all times, to moidd this people 
 and inspire them with a spirit which should be their 
 
11 
 
 strength at sucli an hour as this. The truth is, the 
 Evil One has been trying all the time to baulk the 
 institutions of Freedom. That we saw. That we could 
 not help seeing. For, as the Devil works always against 
 the grain of a Universe which he did not make, but 
 which the good God made for his own good purposes, 
 he must needs make a great noise and dust. He finds 
 nothing made to his hand. And though he use all his 
 cunning (and therein his genius chiefly lies,) to hide 
 his hand, and not let it be known what mischief he is 
 doing, he cannot entirely disguise himself, no, not even 
 though he put on the form of an angel of light and 
 move never so softly. With all his de\dces, he makes 
 such an uproar that he attracts universal attention. 
 And our attention being thus taken up, we forget 
 that the good God is working far more busily still. 
 He never rests. But as He has created all things 
 for His own good uses and every atom serves His will, 
 He makes no dust, no noise, and so His working es- 
 capes our notice, and we do not discern the operation 
 of His hands. 
 
 Thus has it come to pass that we have not seen how 
 the social order, estabhshed in these Northern States 
 has been forming the nature of the people. But now, 
 at this extraordinary period, when the seed so secretly 
 nourished has burst forth into gorgeous flower, — now 
 what escaped our notice is apparent enough. Now it 
 is plain h5w our Republican Institutions have gro"wn 
 into the popular heart. Now they are put to the test 
 and they have thus far stood it, how triumphantly ! I 
 am at a loss to conceive how they could be more severely 
 tried. Have not some hundreds of thousands of able- 
 bodied men, the strength and pride of the land, gone to 
 
12 
 
 hazard limb and life in support of the Government, and 
 this of their own free will or in deference to the demands 
 of the public sentiment of the country'? And now that 
 the public necessities require a still larger amount of 
 military service, could the people be subjected to a 
 severer test than the Draff? Could anything show 
 more satisfactorily what a deep foundation our institu- 
 tions have in the affections of the people than their 
 acquiescence in this compulsory measure '? To my 
 thinking, our Government is shown to be of unsur- 
 passed strength. Is there a Government now on the 
 face of the Earth, or has there ever been one, that can 
 boast so broad a basis in the good-will of its people '? 
 Our form of government ought to be the strongest in 
 the world, for it is the people's own choice ; and what it 
 ought to be, as is now shown, it is. 
 
 I do not overlook the fact that the unanimity of the 
 North is not absolute. It would be a suspicious cir- 
 cumstance if it were. It would look too much like the 
 unanimity of the South, and as if it had been produced 
 by the same means. What Southern unanimity is, we 
 all know. It is the result of a reign of force and terror, 
 to which the reign of terror in the old French Revo- 
 lution is but a passing shadow, and which was estab- 
 lished in the South, years before the Rebellion broke 
 out, dooming men to instant outrage and death, not for 
 any act done or word spoken, but for the opinions it 
 Avas suspected they must entertain as strangers of 
 Northern birth. Under such a rule, the people of the 
 South are of course unanimous. Only heaven-sent 
 saints and apostles could have been otherwise minded. 
 We can lay claim to no such imanimity. We were too 
 long associated with the South in upholding a system 
 
I 
 
 13 
 
 of oppression at war with our Northeni institutions, too 
 long was the Northern mind drugged with that poison, 
 to escape the blindness moral and mental, which it 
 causes. And it was no more than was to be expected, 
 that, when the hour of open disruption came, there 
 should be found a portion of our Northern people who 
 had become so perverted by the habit of advocating 
 tlie cause of our Southern brethren, that they had 
 entirely forgotten their Northern brethren, and had 
 learned to prefer the oppression of the African race to 
 the salvation of their country ; a class, to whom there 
 is nothing worthy in the land unless it is watered by the 
 tears and blood of slaves, no music in the voice of 
 Liberty, unless it mingles with the clanking of chains 
 and the groans of the oppressed. 
 
 So far n-om being surprised that there are so many here 
 in the North whose prejudice against a race is stronger 
 than their love of their country, we may well wonder 
 that there are not more, when we recollect how active, 
 for three quarters of a century, the Slave Power was in 
 depraving the moral sense of the nation, in deadening 
 the minds of the people to the supreme worth of equal 
 liberty, in teaching them to account the vital principles 
 of our Bill of Rights as mere " glittering generalities." 
 Why, the institution of Human Bondage was once so 
 powerful that it had become the fountain of office and 
 honor, and slave-masters were deferred to as scarcely 
 less than a titled nobility. It was prophecied at an 
 early period by one of the Pinckneys, that, if Slavery 
 lasted fifty years it would extinguish the love of liberty 
 in the land. It has extinguished it at the South, and 
 to such an extent that people there avow their prefer- 
 ence for monarchical institutions. And the wonder is. 
 
14 
 
 I say, that it has not unfitted the people of the whole 
 country, North as well as South, for a republican form 
 of government. At one time it really seemed as if the 
 prediction of the Southern statesman had come true, so 
 ready was the nation to concede everything to the Slave 
 Power, so unpopular was it everywhere to speak a loud 
 word in defence of the first and fundamental principle 
 of the Declaration of Independence. Then when the 
 very language of Liberty had become harsh to the public 
 ear, then it seemed as if the spirit of Liberty was indeed 
 extinct, and that the indignant remonstrances of a few 
 against the extending empire of the Slave Power were 
 but the dying spasms of our national life. 
 
 But it was not so, and let us this day thank Heaven 
 from our inmost hearts that it was not so. Instead of 
 being dismayed at such manifestations as we witness of the 
 existence of a class here at the North in sympathy with 
 the Southern idolatry of bondage, rejoice and be thankfid 
 rather that the spirit of Liberty has proved too strong 
 to be wholly overcome by the Slave Power. Although 
 such powerful influences were so long and so constantly 
 at work, such blandishments and such threats, — enough 
 to deprave the very elect, — now, thank God, it is made 
 apparent that the popular heart is true to freedom still, 
 and a unity of feeling exists, which, having brought the 
 nation thus far, will, I trust in heaven, suffice for all the 
 working purposes of this great exigency. 
 
 Whatever may appear to the contrary, the main tend- 
 ency of things is, not to the diminution, but to the in- 
 crease, of Northern unanimity. The course of events 
 is revealing, more and more plainly, the hatefulness of 
 the Slave Power, showing what barbarism follows in 
 its train. Strange is it, passing strange, after all that 
 
15 
 
 has occurred, at this late hour, that there should be any 
 persons among us of ordinary intelligence who do not 
 yet perceive that this bloody struggle, with all the mis- 
 ery it involves, is the direct and inevitable consequence 
 of that monstrous and deeply-seated Wrong. But such 
 persons there are, persons whom even the New York 
 riot, with its horrible barbarities, has left unconvinced; 
 persons who could not be persuaded of the truth though 
 Jackson and Clay and Webster were to rise from the 
 dead to declare it ; persons whose \iews are so com- 
 pletely inverted that they insist that it is not the thieves 
 who disturb the public peace, but the people who first 
 raise the hue and cry against them. Still, although 
 such there are, the main current runs in the right 
 direction, onward. The chains of prejudice and error 
 are loosening and dropping off all around us, and we 
 are constantly meeting with those who rejoice in their 
 newly found dehverance. 
 
 Let us be thankfid, then, for the spirit Avliich has 
 come to us through our Free Institutions. It is a thing 
 to be thanlvful for, for it is no acquisition of ours, but 
 the pure gift of heaven. Without our will, almost 
 against our wiU, by the force of our happy and freedom- 
 favoring circumstances, it has been breathed into us 
 until it has become a governing principle of the North- 
 ern mind. And, moreover, to the free bent, to the 
 genius for freedom, ingrained, naturalised into the 
 Northern character we owe our safety, thus far to this, 
 the grace of God, and to this unaided and alone. 
 
 The spirit of the North owes little of its strength to 
 any foreign sympathy. There is another nation on the 
 other side of the Atlantic, a people, from whom our 
 people sprung, and to whom we are united by strong 
 
16 
 
 ties of unprecedented intimacy. A common blood, a 
 common language, a common literature, a common love 
 of liberty and a common faith have bound Enerland and 
 America together as no two great independent commu- 
 nities have ever before been united in the history of the 
 world. The case has no precedent nor parallel. On the 
 one hand, England, venerable in the renown of centu- 
 ries and clothed in the authority of the highest civiliza- 
 tion yet attained by mankind ; on the other, America, 
 young, advancing, strong in her English blood, holchng 
 English opinion for the public opinion of the Avorld, 
 and emulating English greatness. When this ferocious 
 slaveholders plot was sprung upon us, had our mother 
 country evinced that feeling for us which her near 
 relationship to us and her high Anti-slavery reputation 
 justified us in expecting, what animation would it not 
 have given to the hearts of our people ! We did not look 
 to her, we never dreamed of looking to her, for material 
 aid. But we did expect that the public voice of England 
 would have come rolling in incessant thunders across the 
 Atlantic in denunciation of the attempt to erect a Slave 
 empire within the precincts of Christendom, and in 
 scorn of a proffered alliance with the dealers in human 
 flesh. Had that expectation been fulfilled, had we had 
 from England the moral support which our descent and 
 her great history warranted us in depending upon, there 
 is no telling, I repeat, what strength it would have 
 given us. It would have been more to us than whole 
 fleets of iron-clads. But, as we have learned to our 
 bitter cost, our dependence upon English magnanimity 
 was mournfully misplaced. When the life and death 
 struggle of Freedom and Slavery began, the English 
 government had no higher position to take towards it 
 
n 
 
 than the ground of a strict neutrality, moral as well as 
 material; and England feels no hurt to her honor in so 
 interpreting her laws as to permit pirates to be fitted 
 out in her ports and manned by Englishmen to prey 
 upon our commerce, and to put under bonds the vessels 
 returning to us from her shores, whither they had been 
 sent laden down with food for her starving poor. 
 
 It is well for us, however, that it has been so. Our 
 National Independence is thus become assured abroad 
 as well as at home. And only the more plainly is it 
 made to appear that to the Nation itself and alone is 
 the triumph of the Nation due. 
 
 But not only are we fighting the battle of Freedom, 
 uncheered by the sympathy we had a right to look for, 
 the fact is disclosed that, however friendly the interest 
 felt in us here and there abroad, there is no public 
 earnest national goodwill for the Republic anywhere in 
 all the world. Instead, however, of discouraging us, 
 the discovery of this fact must have no effect but to 
 impress us all the more deeply wdth a sense of the 
 grandeur of our Cause. We are contending, it appears, 
 for universal freedom, against all oppression, abroad as 
 well as here. The coldness, nay, the worse than cold- 
 ness of foreign governments, the satisfaction, which 
 they have not been able to conceal, at the prospect of 
 our breaking up, has reminded us of what indeed we 
 ought not to have forgotten, that monarchies and aris- 
 tocrasies are by nature hostile to republican institutions. 
 To princes and nobles and their retainers the idea of 
 equal rights is necessarily repugnant. They are bound 
 to despise it. Its triumph will be a disaster to all the 
 forms of despotism or mastership, limited or unlimited, 
 throughout the world. Having a Cause so great, we 
 
18 
 
 can afford to bear with composure the dislike of foreign 
 governments. l,et them stand aloof and make no sign 
 of sympathy with us, but send their congratulations to 
 the French usurper upon the success of his buccaneering 
 assault upon Mexico. It is enough that we know that 
 we have the prayers of every lover of liberty, of the 
 John Brights, throughout the world. Let us be con- 
 tent to wdn success through no outside help, but by the 
 pure strength of that love of justice and of freedom 
 with which, through the Free Institutions He has given 
 us, God has inspired this people. 
 
 And thank Heaven, my friends, to-day tliat our 
 republican system is as pacific in its external as in its 
 internal relations, as pow^erful to maintain peace with 
 others as to produce unity among ourselves. In times 
 past, before this civil trouble broke out, when we pre- 
 sented the appearance of an undivided Union, our 
 growth in power was so great that England and France 
 never sought, they took good care to avoid, all occasions 
 of quarreling with us. They paid us, in form at least, 
 a scrupulous respect. There w^as reason in those days 
 w^hy this country should inspire dread. But that reason 
 existed, not in our republican institutions, but in the 
 anti-republican power which was then in the ascendent 
 in our national councils. Slaveholding had fed and 
 fostered those passions from which, ever since the 
 world began, have come wars and fightings. It is the 
 essential vice of despotism, in all its forms, that it 
 necessarily developes the love of power to an inordinate 
 degree, and renders the privileged class, be they called 
 kings, lords, or slaveholders, imperious, impatient of the 
 restraints which the rights of others impose, quick to 
 take offence, to make their will the law to others as 
 
19 
 
 it is to themselves, and so comes discord. In fine, it 
 destroys the sense of justice in those who practice it, 
 and, as we are now learning to our cost, there is no 
 such thing as hving in peace with those who have lost 
 that, who do not hold the rights of others to be as 
 sacred as their own. Yes, this Republic, -svith its 
 mighty resources and rapidly increasing millions, was 
 indeed formidable to the peace of the world, but only 
 when the Slave Power, being in the control of its ad- 
 ministration, was breeding in it the lust of power which 
 alone could render it aggressive. But even British 
 statesmen, with all their native sagacity and high cul- 
 ture, have been so blinded by their aristocratic biases, 
 and by the greed and the prospect of immediate advan- 
 tage, that they do not perceive that, in the very nature 
 of things, a republican form of government hke ours is 
 and must be, of all forms of government, the most 
 pacific. 
 
 Where every man is habituated from his birth to a 
 restraining sense of the equal rights of others, and rulers 
 exercise their brief and limited authority under the 
 constant pressure of the principle of equality, which has 
 become the pervading sentiment of the people, there no 
 opportunity is afibrded for the growth of that excessive 
 love of power which is forever driving men and nations 
 to encroach upon the rights of others and so to make 
 wars inevitable. Hence it is that a community, based 
 upon an acknowledgment of the equal rights of all, 
 while it tends by its very nature to internal harmony, 
 is, of aU communities, least inclined to aggression. Were 
 this fact discerned, the nations would see that, in the 
 countenance which they are giving to the attempt that 
 is making to establish a slave empire on this soil, they 
 
20 
 
 are preparing to bring into Christendom a new fomen- 
 ter of discord, and putting in additional peril the peace 
 of the world. As they would avert wars and fightings, 
 they should accord their special sympathy to the cause 
 of the American Union now that it is striving unto 
 blood to rid itself of that one element, which is just 
 as truly hostile to its amicable relations to other coun- 
 tries, as it is now fearfully proved to be to its own 
 existence. 
 
 But unhappily this same war-generating element of 
 injustice, in greater or less strength, in forms more or 
 less disguised, is present, a vital element in all the lead- 
 ing governments of the old world, forming the views 
 and prompting the measures of those who administer 
 them, and therefore it is not a Slave empire, but the 
 E-epublic, which is most hated. And it must be con- 
 fessed, a republic is indeed terrible to all the upholders 
 of privilege and unjust power, and the more terrible, 
 the more faithful it is to its principles, the more har- 
 monious it is in itself, and the more disposed it is to 
 mind its own concerns and meddle with none ; for 
 then what an overwhelming argument is it against all 
 those social systems which, sacrificing the many to the 
 few, and continually disturbing the so-called balance of 
 power among themselves, make peace the exception, 
 and war the rule in the history of mankind ! It is in- 
 deed so. A true republic, a community, founded upon 
 justice and practically observant thereof, must be a 
 terror to the whole world of oppressors, hateful most of 
 all, as we now see, to those who are accustomed to 
 practice the grossest injustice. Well does Jefferson 
 Davis prefer association with hyenas to Union with the 
 free men of the North. There can be no doubt of that. 
 
 LBD'ib 
 
21 
 
 We may believe him there. It is a more congenial 
 companionship. 
 
 We shall never need to engage in a crnsade against 
 the despotisms of the old world. We must leave it to 
 them npon the slightest pretexts to interfere by force 
 of arms with other nations as the French tyrrint is now 
 doino^ in Mexico. It is their nature and their doom. 
 We have only to be true to ourselves, only to let the 
 light of the Ixepublic so shine, the light of harmony at 
 home and peace abroad, and civil and religious liberty 
 will fill the world with a glory, before which the dark- 
 ness of oppression, here and everywhere, shall vanisli 
 even as the morning mists disappear at the rising of the 
 sun. 
 
 Dear friends, notwithstanding all the sorrows of the 
 time, and they are neither few nor light, although in 
 our several circles we miss beloved ones, yet let us join 
 in hearty thanksgiving that God in his mercy is doing 
 such great things for us, inviting us to be fellow-laborers 
 with him in advancing the best interests of mankind. It 
 is in this sacred work that our friends, brothers, sons, 
 are hazardino- and offerinsf their lives. The ano-uish 
 of bereavement must be alleviated by a sense of the 
 glorious Cause for which these precious sacrifices are 
 made. Be it ours so to testify our gratitude to Heaven, 
 so to labor and endure to the end that it shall not be in 
 vain that this great price of blood is paid.