Pass \' - Book- i) n TE DEUM LAUD AMU S. THE CAUSE AND THE CONSEQUENCE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN; S)lniiibrjiliinrj inniiijii DELIVERED IN THE Harvard 8t. M. E. Church, Cambridge, Sunday Evenlus, 'Biov. 11, 1800, REV. GILBERT HAVEN. But as wp were allowed of God to be put in trust with the Gospel, even so we speak : not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts. 1 Thess. i, 4. BOSTON: J. M. HEWES, PRINTER, 81 CORNHILL, Sold bv J. P. Magee, No. 6 Cornhill. 18G0. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the j-ear 1860, By John M. IIkwf.s, In the Clerk's Office of tiie District Court of tlic District of Massachusetts. TO THE HON. CHARLES SUMNEI^, Who has spoken the bravest words for Liberty in the most perilous places ; who has suffered in behalf of the Slave only less than those who wear the martyr's crown ; who has come forth from that suffering with the profoundest, because experimental, sympathy with the Oppressed, with a more intense hatred of the Oppression, yet without any bitterness of heart against the Oppressor ; who will stand forth in the future times as the clearest-eyed, boldest-tongued, and purcbt-hearted Statesman of the age, — these few words of Thanksgiving and Praise for the mani- festation of the Presence and Power of the Almighty Kedeemkii in this greatest work of our time, are most respectfully dedicated. ^^ The following discourse is published at the request of many ■\vho heard it. Candor requires us to say, what those who read it will naturally suppose, that it did not meet the approval of all the audience. Those who disagreed with it when spoken, we trust will find it less objectionable upon perusal and reflection. It would have been issued earlier had not illness prevented. Events have transpired since its delivery that might slightly modify some of the subordinate thoughts, but its leading positions, we still believe, to be true. A word of thanks- giving may not be untimely, when so many men's hearts are failing tliem through needless fear. The Spirit, through its servant, said unto the churches, when a far greater darkness closed around a far greater cause, "Rejoice, and again I say, rejoice." Shall not we then hail with rejoicings the sun of Equal Liberty, now rising upon our land, though tempestuous clouds suddenly rush across the glowing sky V They are clouds without water — clouds without the lightnings of death. AVith the brightness of its coming it will scatter all this darkness, calm all this tempest, and fill the whole nation with the blessed radiance of universal Liberty. The motto of our land, by God's goodness, shall ever be, as it has been, " Libkkty and Union, now and roiiEVER, one AND INSEPARADLE." Cambridge, Dec. 25, 1860. DISCOURSE. "I ■WILL SING UNTO THE LOKD, FOU HE IIATII TRIUMPHED GLORIOUSLY. The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea." Exodus xv, 1. " But promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from the West, NOR from the South. " But God is judge : He putteth down one, and setteth up ano- ther." Ps. Ixxv, 6, 7. "Jesus saith unto them. Did ye never read in the Scriptures, the Stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of THE corner : This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." Matt, xxi, 42. One year ago last Sabbath evening, we assembled in this house to meditate on the beginning of the end of American Slavery. A fortnight before, a score of men had made a descent on a National Arsenal, freed some slaves, been captured by the soldiers of the Federal Government, their leader tried, con- demned and sentenced to be hung. You well remember the month that folio wed— far more exciting than the one through which we have just passed. For thirty days, from Calais to Galves- ton, only one name was on every lip, only one feeling in every heart. You all remember the day of his death : " Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright. The bridal of the earth and sky." Y^ou remember, far more clearly, the death itself, — more sweet, more cool, more calm, more bright, his soul's great bridal of earth and heaven. No death of greater beauty adorns the pages of sec- ular history — no one sublimer is in the annals of Christian mar- 6 tj'i-dom. Socrates, Avith the hemlock at his hps, was not more charming and chiklHke, Latimer, in the fire, Avas not more cheerful. Paul, among the lions, -was not more triumphant. It was by far the greatest death-scene in American history, and Avill shine forth purer and nobler with every passing year, and pass- ing age. A year has well nigh fled, and that life and death have been reviewed by me in such a fullness of immortal light as only the greatest sorrow can pour upon the soul. In tliat great light, his purpose and principles have only shone the purer, and I could not enter on the glorious subject of our present meditation, with- out repeating, as my maturest convictions, the approval my heart and your hearts then spontaneously uttered. We come to-night not to sorrow over liberty enslaved afresh — liberty, tried by the jury of the country, and without cause, with- out consideration, found guilty — liberty under sentence of death and on her way to the scaffold. No, thanks be to God, the be- ginning of the end of slavery gives us gladder scenes in the opening of the second act of its fast accomplishing drama. The defeat at Bunker's Hill and the death of Warren — a lost day and a lost leader, cast an immeasurable gloom, for a season, in spite of some redeeming features, over the American heart.* But the second great act, executed, hke this, in but little less than a year from the first, executed, like this, under the leadership of the chosen captain of their hosts, by Avhich a proud and mighty enemy, flushed with long success, and backed by the gigantic , powers of a great nation, without the firing of a gun, evacuated their most important post in the whole country, left it, never to return, — the great deed by which Washington purged Boston of its insolent and murderous foe, thrilled the whole nation with un- mitigated joy. So this peaceful evacuation by the arrogant, wealthy and long ruling Slave Power of the most important post it ever held or can hold, never to return, has caused such a flood of ccstacy as never before filled the liearts of this people, since the bells rang out the first declaration, and the bewildered multitudes * Sec iippoiiilix A. awoke to the realization of their existence as a united and free nation. The perplexing and saddening features of the event of last year do not mar this victory. No gallows tree stretches its black ai-ms athwart the golden sky, no dying groans, no stiffened forms attend the triumphal shout and march. Shall we not, then, come before His presence with thanksgivings whose right hand and holy arm hath gotten Him the victory. For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the Avest, nor from the south. But God is judge : he putteth down one and setteth up another. Not in the interest of the great party through whom He has done this work, do I appear, but in the interest of that cause which swells far, far beyond the power of that or any party to embrace, — the redemption of millions upon miUions of my fellow men. In their behalf 1 raise the song of praise. That redemp- tion draweth nigh. Power is passing away from the side of the oppressor. Power which belongeth unto God, is being employed by Him to break this infamous yoke. Shall we not laud and magnify his Name, in whose hand are the hearts of the children of men, that he has turned them as the rivers of water are turned, and made them sweep upon, soon we trust to sweep away, this rooted, and massy iniquity in their overflowing, swift rushing flood? You may ask is it not a profanation of the sanctuary to employ it for rejoicings over mere political strifes ? This is very far from an ordinary victory, and for its celebration we have the unani- mous voice of all ages and all i-eligions. Abraham praised God in a temple not made with hands, for the defeat of his enemies, and Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, the type of Christ, poured upon his head the divine benedictions. The victories of the Hebrew kings were celebrated in the temple, and some of the grandest psalms were written in praise of national dehverances. The heathen have followed this natural sentiment, and in all ages and nations have hung the tro- phies of their triumphs in their temples ; have made their praises to their gods rise above their shouts over their fallen foe. So the Philistines rejoiced before Dagon, when they had captured Sam- son ; and, in a later day, when tlicy gained possession of the Ark 8 of God. The history of Delphi and other templed spots is but a catalogue of such thanksgivings. The Christian world has, from the first, obeyed the ancestral, human law. " Te, Beum laudamus,'' "We praise thee, Oh God," has rung through the lofty arches of great cathedrals, and against the dome of heaven, for more than a thousand years, when the Lord had given their country deliver- ance in the day of battle. We have, therefore, abundant precedent in the universal prac- tice of our race for entering these courts, to-night, Avith thanks- "ivinirs, and these walls with praise. Have we abundant reason ? It may be said that these religious national rejoicings were be- cause of victories won on bloody fields, v.'on over a foreign foe and at the expense of human life. Is a mere periodical strife, peaceful and bloodless, between brethren of the same family, for the honors of civil life, is this to be placed beside the overthrow of the Egypt- ians, the destruction of the Assyrians, the redemption of Europe at Waterloo, of Italy at Solferino ? Is it not straining a point to thus elevate the mad whirl of quadrennial politics into a great national, a great world battle, which marks an epoch in the history of the race ? These questions are very proper. For if it be but the ordinary strife of ordinary politics, although the Church has the guardian- ship of these as she has of every other matter pertaining to human duty, yet she might safely leave them to the general course of her counsel and authority, without making their ephemeral vic- tories subject of especial exultation. Let us then ask, as a needful preliminary to our songs of glad- ness and of hope, what Avas the subject of controversy in the late conflict ? The only subject set before the people was slavery ; its exten- sion and nationalization, or its relegation to the regions now black- ened with it, there to " writhe in pain, And die amid its worshippers." Four parties were professedly in the field, but only two com- batants, — only one question. In different parts of the land, the two intermediate parties took different positions according to the 9 sentiment ruling there. In the South they contended against the domineering passion for the national supremacy of Slavery. In the North they fought with equal zeal against its ruling passion, the national supremacy of Liberty. Their bands flew across the field, now striking at the haughty slave power, and now, at the iron legions of Freedom. Behind them advanced steadily the great hosts with their ban- ners flying, each glowing with its one word. On the one side the gorgeous black flag — upon it, lurid flames shooting forth that word infernal. Slavery. On the other, the lustrous white flag, "so as no fuller on earth can whiten," with the logos celestial, Liberty, flash- ing from its radiant folds. Marching beneath them, each party felt, instinctively, immeasurably felt, that the issue involved the most vital questions ever submitted to this nation ; and, that the result was sure to be disastrous to freedom, if defeated, fatal to slavery, if it should go down in the battle. No other question was debated by the leading advocates of all parties. One of the candidates for the Presidency, and one of the ablest men in the country, traversed its length and breadth, making many addresses ; and the burden of every one was Slavery. True he endeavored to exclude it from the canvass, but he could not exclude it from his own speeches. It rounded every sentence, pointed every line. And it was not a little remarkable that so sagacious a statesman should not have perceived, that what had filled all his public life, good and evil, for a decade of years, was not to be banished from the general mind, nor set- tled in the national councils, except by a fair fight on the appoint- ed field. The other party, though attempting to banish it from their platform, showed the impossibihty of the attempt in its very phraseology. For its two chief words, " Constitution and Union," proved that they felt or fancied these to be endangered by the struggle with slavery. Its worthy appendix, "the enforcement of the laws," was aimed solely at the execution of the most unchristian and inhuman act that ever issued from a Christian legislature. If it were not so, I hope that other law foi' the suppression of the sale of intoxicating liquors, which especially 2 10 needs enforcement in this section, will be executed by this locally large and influential party. They will find enough Avho disagree with them as to the duty of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act, who will gladly aid them in executing the most excellent of Mas- sachusetts laws in her rum-ridden metropolis. From the unwilling, but universal confession of neutrals, there- fore, no less than from the declarations of real opponents, do we see clearly the field of conflict. The real weapons of the real fight- ers were all drawn from one armory, all waged in one battle. The only speaker that advocated the Southern party in this region made the strongest defence of human slavery ever made in Mas- sachusetts. There was an honest boldness that was refreshing to witness, in inviting Mr. Yancey to give a pro-slavery speech in Faneuil Hall — a boldness no party would have been equal to in any previous campaign. The invitation Avas not accepted by a timid man. No abler, no bolder speech was ever made in Boston than j\Ir. Yancey's, viewed as a eulogy on a system abhorrent in the utmost degree to almost every one of his audience. As he was here, so were his associates every where on slave soil. As he was here, so would the advocates of freedom have been, had they been allowed to speak in Richmond, Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans. So were they on their native heather, the broad free soil of the North. Not a syllable was breathed against the candidate of slavery, except his devotion to that system ; not a syllable against the victorious leader of the hosts of Freedom, except his opposition to it. " It is the cause," then, " it is the cause, my friends," that has organized, inspired, waged and won this national battle. It is the cause, too, that commands me to speak to-night, to speak in my official capacity, as an amdassador of Jesus Christ, upon one of the especial objects of my mission — the freedom, equality and fraternity of the human race. Some may yet complain that we drag the holy vestments of the altar in this mire of social strife. Do you remember how Phin- ehas, the priest of the Most High God, possibly while arrayed in most sacred robes, and, in his hand, the sacrificial knife consecra- ted exclusively to the service of the altar, rushed in among the 11 sinning Israelites and their idolatrous associates, slaying heathen and Hebrew in the midst of their profane abominations ? And do you remember how that Most High God said to Moses, " Phin- ehas, the son of Eleazer, the son of Aaron, the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say. Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace : And he shall have it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood : because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the children of Israel." Was it a greater deed for this minister to stay the plague of voluntary passion, than for us to seek to stay that plague which makes pure and pious men and women the victims of every conceivable lust that power, avarice or passion breeds ? If Christ showed that the zeal of the house of the Lord had eaten him up, by scourging from the temple, the seat of civil as well as religious authority, those that sold doves, shall we say his servants are not his followers, when they seek to scourge from our temple of civil and religious liberty those that sell men ? The temple of our national hfe has become defiled. Woe to that priest who is dumb before the defilers ! In Christ's day some of them shared in the business that profaned his house. In our day some of them share in the honors and profits of this far greater profanation. Let us obey the example he has set us, — not the decrees of timid, time-serving, wicked men. But this defence is unnecessary before this congregation. The contest as to the rights and duties of the ministry to engage in this work has long been settled in this region. Here and there, the rare exceptions requisite to prove a rule rise before us, denying the privileges of humanity to those who are set to apply to the hearts of men all the laws of the Divine Author of humanity. Not so with the multitudes. Slavery is to them an object not only of civil, but of religious detestation. Its defeat, on any field, is a cause of rchgious thanksgiving. Its defeat on the field where it has just fallen,— the field it has ruled the longest and the ablest, Avhere its chief seat is by choice, and by necessity if it retain any scat in the land, its overthrow and its expulsion from the throne of the na- 12 tional government, its flight to its native lair, and the soon coming fight there for bare existence, these are subjects of the most devout, the most rapturous praise. " Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and thy truth's sake." Let us, then, gratefully meditate on the late victory, consider- ing its cause and its consequence. I. Its Cause. Why has Freedom triumphed ? For two chief reasons among a multitude of lesser ones ; First, the growth of conscience as to the nature and effects of slavery ; and, Second, the growth of fear as to its political power and prospects. * The first and profoundest cause is the awakening of the con- science of the nation as to the dreadful character and workings of slavery. There must always be two periods, at least, of attack upon any organized iniquity before the tide of moral sentiment deluges and drowns it forever. The first awakening is moderately efficient, but the mighty sin is too strong for complete overthrow. The be- sieging hosts get weary and slumber on their arms. The enemy sallies forth and triumphs over them. They dwell in captivity to the evil they rose against. Again the conscience grows, again the vice is attacked, and in the new assault is left weaker than before, perhaps completely destroyed ; if not, the victorious right yields anew to the slumber of sloth and sin ; is chained and ruled afresh, again bursts its bands and sweeps on irresistibly to victory. Thus, by tidal waves of flux and reflux, the huge mountain of sin ' is finally buried beneath the deep, abounding ocean of truth. So the Jews moved forward, from Joshua to David, in the sub- jugation of Canaan. So Christianity has marched, is marching forward in the subjugation of the world. So Grecian idolatry, in a hand to hand fight with early Christianity, fell and rose, fell and rose, weaker at each resurrection, till three hundred years after its first defeat, that form, eminent and potent for more than a thou- sand years, fell, never to rise again. So Roman slavery stag- gered and tumbled before the sharp blows of the same Apostolic 10 o Christianity, — sprang to its feet with the ferocity and strength of a wounded Hon and rent its enemies in pieces ; again felt the shafts, again reeled and fell, again rose and raged, till, after half a mil- lennium, the golden rule of the Saviour and the golden command of his apostle to Christian masters, to give their servants that which was just and equal, were finally obeyed, and throughout Christian Europe, property in man passed into the execrable list, abjured and abominated by every person. The black race, in consequence of its seclusion and degrada- tion, was separated almost entirely from this influence. True, Africa had been honored with the earliest, and, in many respects, the ablest of Christian schools. Her sons had worn the conse- crated mitre, and sat in equal authority with the Bishops of Home and Jerusalem in Episcopal Councils. But the ravages of the Vandals nipped this budding civihzation, and Mussulman fanati- cism perpetuated the work northern Paganism had achieved. Christian Europe, hemmed in by Mohammedanism on the south and south-east, and by the wildest heathenism on the north and north-east, without extensive commerce and without mechanic arts, itself the child of northern idolatry, baptized with the child- ish Christianity of Rome, grew, by slow and unequal steps, to a true manhood in Christ. So far had she retrograded from her earliest faith in the last two centuries, that traffic in human flesh was again found among her lawful commerce. And though she never fell back so far as to acknowledge the right of property in the white and Christian man, she did finally recognize the idea of ownership in the African race. It was reserved for this land to inaugurate the work of univer- sal emancipation. That work began Avith the beginning of our history, and has risen and fallen, with mingled success and failure, to the victory of this hour. Massachusetts first refused to receive a cargo of slaves at the same time that Virginia first welcomed them. The principles involved in those two deeds have been in conflict, violent or latent, throughout our whole history. The fundamental law, on which universal personal freedom must stand, the law of perfect equality before God, has long been set- tled here, has never yet been acknowledged elsewhere in the 14 world. America was settled bj the flower of Protestantism before it had fallen into the sear and yellow leaf of formalism, or the thrice dead infidelity which covered all Europe, Protestant and Catholic, in the last century, with thorns and briars fit only for cursing. Our fathers, the Pilgrims and Puritans of ]\Iassachusetts, the Baptists of Rhode Island, the Quakers and Lutherans of Pennsyl- vania, the Episcopalians of Virginia, the Catholics of Maryland, and the Huguenots of Carolina, Avere all refugees from religious persecution. Every State was settled or largely populated by sufferers for conscience sake. And after a few ineffectual strug- gles to employ the same cramps and fetters upon others that had been visited upon themselves, they arose, one after another, to the true apprehension of the rights of conscience, and Puritan and Episcopalian, Baptist and Pedobaptist, Quaker and Lutheran, Huguenot and Catholic, came to that broad table land of univer- sal freedom to the religious sentiment which is still the most won- derful characteristic of this nation. So thoroughly had this doctrine filled the air of common life, long before the formation of our confederacy, that only the' brief- est and most incidental reference to the whole subject is found in our Constitution. I have heard a scholarly Englishman complain of it for this very defect — a defect like that found in the Bible, w'here proofs of the existence of God, and the obligations of Re- ligion are never given, its every line assuming these as accredited, universal truths. So did our fathers settle the other great question — the greatest that affects our human relations — the absolute right of every man to himself. Advancing, not ascending, on the lofty table land of tlie equality of every man before God, they stood upon that first of human truths — the equality of every man before his fellows. While Europe bowed down to certain families and individuals as royal and sovereign by right divine, and, as a natural consequence, esteemed the other extreme of society, whether peasants or slaves, as void of all rights Avhich the crouchers were bound to respect, the American people, coming together, through their representa- tives, themselves the nominal holders of slaves, unanimously, un- 15 hesitatingly, enthusiastically declared that " All men are created free and equal." Such a declaration by the founders of a nation the world had never heard before. Their first struggle was to establish their own equality before King, and Nobles, and ParHament, and a haughty people. They must prove the fallacy of the divine right of kings on the battle- field. Only one great inspiration can possess at a time, a man or a people. This broad platform must rest on the head of king and slaveholder, but it must be planted on that of the king first, as the most imminent and dangerous foe. Hence the revolutionary struggle and victory. When they had emerged from that conflict — when George the Third saluted George Washington, and, through him, the American people, as his perfect equal, then came a second duty — to preserve this equality among themselves. How perilous was their state you can faintly conceive, by seeing how all classes have just been swept into the current of an unnatural reverence for the youthful heir of that throne. These patriots were born royalists. A vast proportion of the people were, in feeling and theory, royalists. Every city was full of wealth and fashion thus devoted. If England's royalty and nobility Avere expelled, might not America substitute one of her own ? Italy has just proved the passion of a people for a king. Mazzini and Garibaldi had to yield to Victor Emanuel, republic- anism to royalty. So might it have been here. Our fathers saved us by self-denial. It was a greater work to deliver them- selves from themselves than from England. " Greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Every member of that Constitutional Convention could have had an American title of nobility. Lands for the support of that title Avere more abundant than William's barons found them in Eng- land in the eleventh century. The leaders of the people, Wash- ington, Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson, would have been of the blood royal or next the throne. They saw the peril. They must meet it. Tliey did. They especially guarded against inequality of rank, forbad the receipt of titles from foreign courts, and steered clear of the currents that might sweep them into that channel — a 16 senate without pay or for life, an executive for life or for a long term of years. And they consumated their precautions bj one of their earliest acts of legislation — forbidding the increase of the Society of the Cincinnati, or even its continuance among the sons of the original members, as this society, being composed of the officers of the Revolution, might, through the fascination of the military spirit, endanger their primal and most vital idea — equality, liberty. As we have said, only one fever can rage at a time, only one great duty be done at once. Therefore, while their sympathies went out for the slave population, while their conscience told them they should be ecpially ftiithful and honest to these as to them- selves, their exhausting labors were in another direction. They rested from their labors, fondly hoping their children would take up and apply their great principles to this oppressed people. Of the chief revolutionary patriots, Franklin alone was an avow- ed abolitionist. Jefferson wrote against slavery, or rather wrote reflections upon it, but never Avorked vigorously for its extinction. Franklin cast his influence on that side, probably, more because he dwelt among the liberty-loving Quakers than from an inherent passion of his own. Washington disliked it, but when urged by Lafayette to make the experiment of emancipating and hiring his negroes, he declines on account of the embarrassed state of his property, and yet he died shortly after, leaving an estate estimated at half a million of dollars, which is more than a million at the present valuation of money. The fact must be stated that while faithful to one half of their theory, they were practically indifferent to the other. While abolishing all titular distinctions and equalizing all the Avhite in- habitants, they failed to abolish the title of slaveholder, and to give their colored brethren that which was just and equal. The battle on this field exhausted all their energies. To keep this liberty from licentiousness, this equality from familiarity, to preserve an aristocracy, to sustain democracy against aristocracy, to secure state rights, to maintain the federal unity and strength, on these important fields the war raged, and the servant of ser- vants was unnoticed in his servitude among the great questions of 17 social and political equality that so violently agitated the govern- ing classes. This work was perhaps as much as one age could do. It was certainly more than any one age had previously done. The men who achieved it were more than thirty years in accomplishing it. Thomas Jefferson wrought wondrously for the rights of man, from 1776 to 1809 — thirty-three years of most remarkable service in a most remarkable cause. He was then past sixty — an old man, weary with the cares of State — not fit in vigor or vehemence for the great work of emancipation. Faihng to keep progressive he slid backwards, and dishonored his gray hairs by apologizing for slavery and defending the Missouri compromise. The genei^ation that succeeded them, as great men's sons are apt to be, were very poor imitators of their illustrious fathers. Most trees bear only biennially. Most generations are under a similar law. A great calm follows a great storm. The children of these revolutionary parents were feeble in principle, low in moral tone. They were tired of great ideas and great deeds. ^ The overstrained nature sprang back to the narrower range which men naturally prefer. The leading men of that age, men who have just left us, were far below their fathers in greatness of nature, and will be incalculably beneath them in greatness of fame. Clay, Calhoun, Adams, Webster and Jackson, its five representa- tive men, present to the historian no such lofty traits of character or service as shine in the names of five representatives of the preceding era, Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton and Franklin. John Quincy Adams alone of his peers held forth the light that glowed in his youth. But not he, till he had descended from the presidental throne into the vale of age and comparative political obscurity. Hardly a word of his can be quoted before his seven- tieth year, that has the ringing sound of liberty. How different from the young John Adams in the mass meetings of Boston, the provincial Congress and Independence Hall. Fortunate was he that those last few years and that congressional opportunity were given him. It was an era of the deadening of the conscience, on the sub- 18 ject of freedom. Church and State alike fell into the slumber. Political and religious compromises became the order of the day. The smtiment of the fathers was against slavery. But .sentiment can do nothing against sin. And so the sons came to endure, to pity, to embrace the unclean thing, and from Calhoun to Webster, fell down and worshipped the abominable idol their pious fathers had neglected to destroy. " New times demand new measures and new men." The new times had arrived. New men, and their new measures Avere not wanting. The third generation appears on the stage of action. The grandsires find their likeness in their grand-children, not their children. Thirty years passed from the triumph of Jefferson to that of Jackson, the representatives of the ideas of their generations. Thirty years have passed from the triumph of Jackson to that of the Anti-Slavery sentiment, not in the per- son of its recognized exponent, but still in the strength of its mighty feeling and purpose. This thirty years covers the era of this agitation, covers the adult life of its promoters. You will find on the Liberator of this year, "Volume XXX : " and this sheet has the honor of initiating the movement in this nation. The conscience was aroused very slowly. The deadly slumber Avas pleasant. Churches, societies, parties, every body disliked to be disturbed. But the young men sympathized with young Mr. Garrison and his young idea. Young Mr. Seward then emerging into public life, felt the throbbings of the new inspiration. Young Mr. Phillips and Mr. Sumner, then students at Harvard or on their way thither ; the youthful Tappan, and Leavitt, and Lovejoy, and Giddings, and Gerritt Smith, caught the flame in their fresh and sympathetic hearts, and commenced kindling it in the breasts of others. Dr. Channing and John Quincy Adams were almost the only men of accomplished fame that endorsed the enterprise, and they did not publicly cooperate with its youthful managers. Soon bitter conflicts sprang up in the breasts of these young philanthropists. The fresh armed men began to bite and devour one another, and were Avell nigh consumed one of another. Yet still the great inspiration moved on, through them, in spite of 19 them. New measures ■were required by the progress of the sentiment. The conscience growing, demanded a chance to ex- press itself at the ballot box. This was resisted by Mr. Garrison. He did more than this. Led by his love of free speech, he permitted some of his leading associates to burden the " animosus M?/aws"with gross infidelities and social absurdities. But its intense life threw ofi" all these deformities. Would that, in his sphere of effort, and to the measure of his large abilities and influence, he had kept this liberty from becoming licentiousness. Would that he, like Wilberforce, had kept his heart sweet with prayer and piety through the whole of this great war. Wiser minds, not larger hearts, took the reins ; or, rather, on different parts of the same field, with different weapons, they fought the common foe. This conscience has thus steadily increased until this hour. The vast majority of the men of to-day have grown up under its power ; for the mass of men are under forty-five years. The im- pressible youth of fifteen, who drank of this new wine when it was first pressed from the grapes of a fresh experience, is to-day the governor elect of your commonwealth. The poor youth of twenty, toiling in the solitude of western rivers and forests, learning to abhor slavery because of its contempt for honorable industry, is to-day the civil leader of the cause and country. Thus has the conscience which moved our grandsires to the great work of personal liberation, moved us towards the completion of their work, in the liberation of more persons than their valor saved, from a bondage infinitely worse than that which pressed them down. But, secondly, fears created by the rapid march of the slave' power have aided in this work. The growth of this power has been a necessary complement of the corresponding growth of the abolition sentiment. The Gospel is a savor of life unto life and of death unto death. Conscience is one and the same in every man. But conscience trampled upon, is sure to revenge itself by allowing the passions that expel it from its seat to assume a diabolic sovereignty. The Southern mind felt as keenly as the Northern that slavery was a sin. There was but one testimony 20 from the whole land in our early historv, and even as late as the lieginning of this agitation. But when the conscience began to be heard saying, clearly, " extirpate this evil. Let my op- pressed go free and break every yoke," — self interest said " Nay, I shall imjioverish myself by so doing. My mone}' is invested in slaves. My habits and tastes are educated in slavery. My heart incUnes to it.'' So they resisted the Spirit of God. They trampled under foot the national life-principle. They counted the revolutionary blood shed for them an unholy thing. They turned and rent those who cast these pearls at their feet, and who called ujxtn them to adorn their brows with their lustre. They began to defend the system through the press, in the forum, on the bench, from the pulpit. They sought to extend it. They sought to open the accursed trade which should populate their wildernesses with the barbaric merchandise. They en- throned themselves in the national legislature, in the prcsidental chair, in the supreme court. They trod out freedom of the press, freedom of speech, almost freedom of thought, in all the slave States. They were on the point of nationalizing slavery in the territories, in every free State. Their children, fifty years hence, will not believe their fathers zealously advocated practices so abhorrent to human nature. There was no real change in the Southern conscience. That still told them " You are verily guilty concerning your brother."" " Slavery is the sum of all villanies." I never saw a slaveholder who did not, when he spoke his real sentiments, make this confession. A gentleman who long lived in Alabama told me he had often heard slaveholders, worth a million of this property, say, " The slaves have just as much right to their freedom, as I, to mine." It was this conscience that made the whole South shake with indisguisable terror, when they heard that hero-martyr saying to their lx)ndmen " You are as free as I or your master. Here is a weajwn to defend yourself if they attemjit to enslave you. Here is one who will aid you in using that weapon, if they dare to attack you." Their audacious course consummated its malig- nity in the murder of that man whom every one of them knew was in the right and doing right. For thet/ saw, however blind we 21 might be, that he was of the blood royal of mankind, most of •whom rule the race from the scaffold. They felt that he was f proving in this deed, his lineal descent from the patriotic but i defeated Gracchii, and Demosthenes, and Wallace, and Hampden, and Vane, and Russell. But time would fail me to mention the grand list of martyrs for liberty into whose front ranks they saw him enter, who all died in the faith, not inheriting the pro- mises. This God-defying march of the hosts of Satan upon the sacred institutions, the more sacred inspirations of the land, helped to stimulate the already quickening conscience of the North, The heaviest eyes began to open — the dullest natures to stir. Every one whose heart throbbed with any of the life of their fathers, of their fathers' God, felt that the evil must be rebuked, must be repressed, must be extirpated, so far as any constitutional or moral power could do it. So the Church and the State have moved together, — here, slowly and cautiously, there boldly and manfully, every where motion, every where life, until the mighty work is wrought which puts our government, openly and entirely, on the side of Freedom. This then is the cause, this alone — the Spirit of God moving on the hearts of the children of men. " This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." " Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory." The Lord hath triumphed gloriously. " The horse and his rider," the Northern political slave and his Southern political master, " hath He cast into the sea." II. L(;t us 710W consider- the consequence of this victorij, u'hich is one in fact, though threefold inform. j First. It will suppress all efforts to extend slavery. Tiie', battle was waged at this point. Here, too, was it won. For the first time in all this long conflict the hostile parties agreed as to the object in dispute. Every previous Democratic Convention shut off the real issue from the people. The Whig and American parties, when alive, were ecpially careful. Tariff, banks, the Catholic (question, retrenchment and reform, all these have 99 turned away the gaze of the masses from their real danger and dutv. Mr. Douglas supposed that what had been, would still be, and therefore attempted to get up a Avar-cry that should mean nothing, while under its delusion, the people should again put in pow- er their haughty tyrant. But the honesty of the slave power swept away this subterfuge. They boldly placed at the head of their col- umns the universal supremacy of slavery. The free sentiment hailed the conflict. The deadly embrace is passed, and slavery lies prone upon the field. A tyrant once slain is slain forever. Error can never survive its Waterloo. Freedom had often fallen, but it rose ever the more beautiful and strong from its momentary defeat. Slavery has fallen, never to rise again defiant, success- ful. It will rule in New York and Boston before it ever rules again at Washington. It ruled there first only by our consent. We must rehabilitate it at home before we allow it to return thither. ('' This absolute and unquestioned gain — the point, the centre of the fight is almost incalculable. Some speak slightingly of it and say nothing is done. The Fugitive Slave act is recognized by President Lincoln as constitutional. He will favor the admis- sion of slave states if they come constitutionally to the door of the nation. These are not agreeable sights. Yet, consider how unlikely they are to occur. What slave state will seek admis- sion to an Anti-Slavery confederacy ? As for the fugitive from slavery, unless vital modifications are made in the present law, the people will take care that he is not returned. Can one here be seized, and sentenced to bondage again as unrighteously as An- thony Burns was, and pass down State street in broad daylight, fettered by a squad of foreign mercenaries, when more than a hun- dred thousand of the citizens of Massachusetts have put the most eloquent defender of the Personal Liberty bill in the chair of State ? The accursed oceanic slave trade will forever cease. New York will be relieved from the miserable honor of sending out these vessels, — Savannah and Charleston, the more miserable honor of receiving their cargoes. Africa and Cuba will be gird- led with a movin"! wall of fire throudi which but few of the dread- 23 ful craft can pass. If nothing more were done than is assuredly don-e, it is wonderful, it is worthy of unbounded thanksgivings. -^ But, secondly, we have done still more. We have set our- selves right before the Avorld. Wc shall cast our influence, as a great nation, on the side of universal liberty. For years we have been a by-word and a hissing among the nations. Not a word for freedom could escape the lips of our representatives abroad, for they were bound, hand and foot, mouth and tongue, with the graveclothes of this body of death. Our influence has been against freedom every where, in every man. The conscience of the slaveholder, the conscience of the tyrants of France and Aus- tria and Rome, were stifled in the deadly air which our govern- ment exhaled. All this is changed. America will stand forth in the glory of her earlier, better days ; — in a glory greater than that, for we now appear as the upholder of the rights of every man, of every hue and condition. Italians contend for the rights of Italians, Hungarians for Hungarians, Englishmen for English- men ; we, alone, for the black race, the weakest and least favored of the children of Adam. Napoleon boasted that he went to war for an idea. We fought for vastly more, — the foundation principle of humanity, — the oneness in blood and destiny of the human race. This influence is worth every thing. It is irrepressible, it is unavoidable. The acts and Avords of the Administration will be most careful and moderate, but this power it cannot repress. It is an Anti-Slavery Government. It was created because it was anti-slavery. That word assures us that a new life is breathed into the soul of the nation. It will thrill Avith its enthusiasm every section of the land, every corner of the globe. Distracted Mexico will now turn entreating eyes upon us, certain to see no wolfish leer in our gaze, hungering to reduce her citizens to slaves. The South American Republics Avill sit at our feet, and follow our footsteps in the upward march to perfect freedom. Ilayti will stand at our capitol among the great nations, its representative sitting with those of England and France, in the seats of ambas- sadorial dignity and equality. Italy and France, Germany and En'dand, will, as never before, admire and imitate the mistress of 24 nations, sitting in tlie glory of universal liberty on the highest seat of earthly authority. What is better than all, the sweet, summer morning air of free- dom will once more steal over the hot and arid plains of southern despotism. Blowing from the whole north, through Washington, through the Executive mansion, it will nerve with vigor many a soul now paralyzed with fear. The minister of Christ, who has there, for these many years, denied his Master, will weep bitterly, and speak earnestly against the fearful crime that has so long- cursed the church and his own soul. Literature will feel it. Southern Whittiers Avill arise, Avho shall make her hills and glades echo with their trumpet blasts of denunciation, their trumpet calls to the conflict and the victory. Mrs. Stowes Avill spring from their own soil, who will portray the evils and wrongs of their cher- ished '^ institution," the duty and blessedness of universal eman- cipation, in colors that shall outshine their marvellous prototype, because they Avill be drawn from personal experiences, and filled with the enthusiasm that only such experiences can inspire. The Avhole people will be made alive Avith the mighty wind, blowing from the hills of God over their fields of dry bones, and they shall stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army, for freedom. What is already seen on the northern border of the black abyss will be seen every where. St. Louis gives almost ten thousand votes for liberty, as many as Boston, and, better than Boston, with these votes sends a bold and earnest abolitionist to the national councils. Baltimore gives over a thousand votes for freedom, — as many as the whole State of Massachusetts gave twenty years ago. That thousand has become a hundred thou- sand here in a score of years. It will become thrice that there, ere half that time has passed. In every southern city, even Charleston, the worst, will be found representatives of an anti- slavery government. In every State, papers will be advocating its principles ; in every heart the Spirit of God, which is liberty, will assert its claims, acknowledged, be obeyed. And that ser- pent, in whose folds a great multitude of Laocoons are writhing in unspeakable agony, " that great serpent, which is the Devil and Satan," shall be bound, shall be hurled into the bottomless or, pit, shall disappear from this first and best of lands, and, with it, from the earth, forever. For, lastly, this glorious victory assures the speedy abolition of slavery. I say, speedy, not with a few months, or a Presidential term in view, but with only a few years, in comparison with its long life and wide dominion. The knell of slavery was struck last year in the heroic deed, and more heroic death of John Brown. He first shook the totter- ing Bastile to its foundations. It had been riddled, it had been undermined, but it had not rocked on its base till he put his hand upon it. It reeled to and fro like a slave ship in a storm, and well nigh foundered then. I have frequently mentioned this event with Avords of approval, such as but few, probably, in this audience will re-echo. It is proper, therefore, that I should pause and give a brief reason for my opinions. Our satirical neighbor says the millennium is near at hand, " When preachers tell us all they think." I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God on the highest of our duties. I shall not play the hypocrite now. Allowing the largest liberty of opinion to others, I claim equal liberty for myself. I know how the tide of misconception and condemnation still sets against Capt. Brown. I know that the Tribune and Independent, — anti-slavery journals of deserved in- fluence, — still speak of his attempt as a " raid," a term of dis- paragement, if not of reproach. I know Mr, Seward said he was "justly hung." I know that many cry out with horror at the bare idea of putting weapons in the hands of the slaves, to main- tain their freedom, and say, that he that apologizes for such an act defiles his sacerdotal garments and is become a companion with murderers. But, on the other hand, I see how Victor Hugo and the other great and pure patriots of Europe can find no words to express their admiration of the deed and its doer. Struggling in chains of despotism at home, they know how to appreciate the intense humanity of one, who strove not to save himself, but others from a far worse tyranny than crushes them down. I see the strong 4 26 arm of Massachusetts Avielding a sword, while she pronounces the sentence first uttered by the slaughtered patriot, Algernon Sydney, which might have been properly emblazoned, with Virginia's motto, on John Brown's banners, ^'- Unse 2:)etU j^lacidam sub Jiher- tatc qidetem,''^ — She seeks, with the sword, serene quiet under liberty. I see Hayti, the only really independent and enterpris- ing African State, hailing the man with a spontaneous, reverence and admiration, and out of her poverty sending to his family thousands of dollars, as a token of her gratitude. I find nothing in human nature, human history, or the Word of God that rebukes this sentiment. The gospel of Peace does not always require of its disciples non-resistance to every form of re- volting oppression, but sometimes demands of them a stern resist- ance even " unto blood, strivinarty coming into power is prevented from any direct efforts to abolish slavery. Cannot a society be organized in winch a!! can constitutionally, earnestly, liberally work ? Will not this society affbrd that basis V It may be said emancipation, by purchase, is no new idea. We at'icnow- ledgeit; if it v.'ere, we should doubt its wisdom. It has often been said that compensation must be given for the slaves ; but it has always, so far as I am aware, been said that such compensation siumld be given by tiie gen- eral or local governments to the local governments; — Co!ign;ss or the fiec States treating with the slave States, or the slave holders, as a mass. Mr. Webster advocated ajjpropriating tl'.e proceeds of the Public Lands for this object. Mr. Seward advocated buying up the slaves in the District of Co- lumbia, with the consent of all the masters, by appropriations from the na- tional treasury. Ilev. Di'. Bancs, and within a few vears, Mr. Burritt, have advocated special taxation for this purpose. Rev. D:-. Tliomson, in the Christian Advocate and Journal, and Mr. Thurlow Weed, in the Albany Journal, have lately advanced similar ideas. All of these are misled by the Entrlisli mode of abolishing slavery. Our governments, local or na- tional, unlike the European governments, rarely engage in works of pure benevolence. They'hei[) them, but they ilo not institute or maintain tlicm. This is done almost exclusively by voluntary societies. All of our religious, and almost all of our charitable and higher educational movements, are managed by such organizations. The jieculiarily of the idea we advocat*.; is, that it conforms to these habits and tasfis of our people. It is a voltm- tary society, like, the American Colonization or Kansas Aid Societies, boiii of wi)iaat and pro^peiuus 43 homes. INIoney would pour into its coffers from all classes, from those of every shaile of opinion. The greatest of these voluntary charities, the American Bible Society, has an annual income of about S4o0,000. But this society has not a tithe of the hold upon the hearts of the people, nor can it elicit but a fraction of the support that a Manumission Aid Society, rij^htly organized and officered, could command. Yet consider how powerful a society would be, receiving, as a free gift, such an annual income as this, and expending it in the ran- som of slaves and their home or foreign colonization. But such a society would have a much larger income than this. No Legislature, State or Na- tional, aids the Bible Society. They would all aid one devoted to the cause of voluntary emancipation. Mr. Everett, who has by his eloquence rescued the home of AVashington from infamy, would be imitated by hun- dreds of orators, laboring to rescue the land of Washington from far deeper infamy. Perhaps he would himself lead these followers in this noblest of enterprises. If each of the two millions of avowed opponents of slavery give an average of one dollar per annum, for its peaceful extinction, we should have two millions of dollars for annual disbursement. We believe a larger income than this could be secured ; for multitudes. South as well as North, slaveholders and non-slaveholders, who would not vote directly against slavery, would gladly aid in such an effort to exterminate it. Thus, with abundant means at command, it would rapidly eliminate the conscien-. tious masters from their more violent and wicked associates, and even these \ bitter enemies of freedom, melted by our large liberality, would cease to rage, cease to resist, until finally, all conspiring together, the South and the North, by private and public charity, by State and National appropriations, the great initpiity shall be lifted from every neck, and all sit in freedom and happiness under the equal protection of justice and liberty. Lest this estimate should appear extravagant, allow me to quote an extract from Mr. Emerson's speech in New York, in 185G. By inserting the word "Soci- ety" for " State," we have the very idea of this association, and an eloquent statement of its means and results. " Why, in the name of common sense and the peace of mankind, is not the summary or gradual abolition of slavery, in accfu'dance with the inter- ests of the South and tiie settled conscience of tlie North, made tlu- subject of instant negotiation and settlement ? Because it is proi)erty V Then it has a price. It is not a really great task to buy that jiropcrty of the planter. I say, buy, never conceding the right of the plantei' to own, but acknowledging tlie calamity of his position and willing to bear a country- nian's share in relieving liini, and bec;uise it is the (iiili/ praclicdhle course, and is innocent. [Louil applauso.] AVas there ever any contribution so enlliusiastically ])aul as this will be V Eveiy man will bear his jiart. We will give u[) (Kir coaches, and wine and watches. The church will nu-lt its ])la(c. The Fatiicr of his country shall wait, well ple;ised, a little longer fen- his monument. Fi-anklin shall wait tor his, tlie Pilgrim Fathers fur theirs, and Columbus, who uailed all his mortality for justice, shall wail a 44 * ""