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SERMON 
 
 OP TBE 
 
 DANGERS WHICH THREATEN THE RIGHTS OE MAN 
 IN AMERICA; 
 
 PREACUED AT THE MUSIO HALL, 
 
 ON SUNDAY, JULY 2, 1854, 
 
 By THEODORE PARKER, 
 
 Minister of the XXVIII. Congregational Society. 
 
 [PHONOaEAPHIOALLT REPORTED BX MESSRS. TEEEINTON AND UIIGHTOK.] 
 
 BOSTON: 
 BENJAMIN B. MUSSEY & CO. 
 
 1854. 
 
-4-33 
 
 In Bixohangre 
 Ooraell Uniir, 
 
 2 Fob 0& 
 
 boston: 
 
 OF FKENTISS AND SAWYER, 
 No. 19 Water Street. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 And he gave tliein their request; biit sent leanness into their soul. — 
 Psalm, cvi. : 15. 
 
 Next Tuesday will be the seventy-eightli anniversary of 
 American Independence. The day suggests a national subject 
 as theme for meditation this morning. The condition of 
 America makes it a dark and a sad meditation. I ask your 
 attention, therefore, to a Sermon of the Dangers which 
 threaten the E.ights of Man in America. 
 
 The human race is permanent as the INIississippi, and like 
 that is fed from springs wliich never diy ; but the several 
 nations are as fleeting as its waves. In the great tide of 
 humanity, States come up, one after the other, a wave or a 
 bubble ; each lasts its moment, then dies — past off, forgot ; 
 
 •' Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
 A moment white — then melts forever," 
 
 while the great stream of humanity rolls ever forward, from 
 time to eternity : — not a wave needless ; not a snow-flake, 
 no (h'op of rain or dew, no ephemeral bubble, but has its 
 function to perform in that vast, unmeasured, never-ending 
 stream. 
 
 How powerless appears a single man ! He is one of a thou- 
 sand milHon men ; the infinitesimal of a vulgar fraction ; one 
 
leaf on a particular tree in the forest. A single nation, like 
 America, is a considerable part of mankind living "at the time ; 
 but when compared with the human race of all time, past 
 and to come, it seems as nothing ; it is but one bough in the 
 woods. Nay, the population of the earth, to-day, is but 
 one tree in the wide primeval forest of mankind, which 
 covers the earth and outlasts the ages. The leaf may fall and 
 not be missed from the bough; the branch may be rudely 
 broken off, and its absence not marked ; the tree will die and 
 be succeeded by other trees in the forest, green with summer 
 beauty, or foodful and prophetic with autumnal seed. Tree 
 by tree, the woods will pass away, and, unobserved, another 
 forest take its place, arising, also, tree by tree. 
 
 How various the duration of States or men — dying at 
 birth, or lasting long periods of time ! For more than three 
 thousand years, Egypt stood the queen of the world's young 
 civilization, invincible as her own pyramids, which yet time and 
 the nations alike .respect. From Eomulus, the first half-mytho- 
 logic king of the seven-hilled city, to Augustulus, her last his- 
 toric Emperor, it is more than twelve centuries. At this day, 
 the Austrian, the Spanish, the French and German sovereigns 
 sit each on a long-descended throne. Victoria is " daughter of 
 a hundred kings." Pope Pius the Ninth claims two hundred 
 and fifty-six predecessors, canonical and "infallible." His 
 chair is reckoned more than eighteen hundred years old ; and 
 it rests on an Etrurian platform yet ten centuries more ancient. 
 The Turkish Thi-one has been firmly fixed at Constantinople 
 for foiir hundred years. Individual tyrants, like summer 
 files, are short-lived ; but tyranny is old and lasting. The 
 family of ephemera, permanent amid the fleeting, is yet as 
 old as that of elephants, and will last as long. 
 
 Btit free governments have commonly been brief. If the 
 
 Hebrew people had well nigh a thousand years of independent 
 
 national Hfe, their Commonwealth lasted but about three 
 
 centuries ; the flower of their literature and religion was but 
 
 • little longer. The historic period of Greece begins 776 
 
B. C. ; her independence was all over in six hundred and 
 thirty years. The Roman deluge had swallowed it up. No 
 Deucahon and Pyrrha could re-people the land with Men. 
 Her little States — how brief was their hour of Freedom for 
 the people ! From the first annual archon of Athens to her 
 conquest by Phillip, and the death of her Liberty, it was 
 only two hundred and forty-five years ! Her tree of Freedom 
 grew in a narrow field of time, and briefly bore its age- 
 outlasting fruit of Science, Literature, and Ai't. Now the 
 tree is dead ; its fragments are only curious Athenian stone. 
 The Grecian colonies in the East, JiltoHan, Dorian, Ionian — 
 how fair they blossomed in the despotic waste of Asia ! how 
 soon those liberal blossoms died ! Even her colonies in the 
 advancing West had no long independent life. Cyrene, 
 Syracusa, Agrigentum, Crotona, Massiha, Saguntum, — how 
 soon they died! — flowers which the savage winter swiftly 
 nipped. 
 
 The Rx)man Commonwealth could not endure five hundred 
 years. Her theocratic Tarquin the Proud must be succeeded 
 by a more despotic Dictator, with the style of Democrat ; 
 and Rome, abhorring still the name of King, see all her 
 liberties laid low. The red sea of despotism opened to let 
 pass one noble troop — the Elder Brutus at the head, the 
 Younger bringing up the rear, — then closed again and swal- 
 lowed up that worse than J^gyptian host, clamoring only for 
 *< bread and games " ! 
 
 The RepubHcs of Italy in the INIiddle Ages were no more 
 fortunate. The half-Grecian Commonwealths, Naples, Amal- 
 phi, Gaeta, — what promise they once held forth; and what a 
 warning fate! They were only born to die. A similar 
 destiny befel the towns of more Northern Italy, where 
 Freedom later found a home, — Milan, Padua, Genoa, Yai'ona, 
 Venice, Bologna, Florence, Pisa. Nay, in the midnight of 
 the dark ages, seven himdred years ago, in the very city of 
 the Popes and Caesars, at the bottom of that red Roman sea 
 of despotism, there was a momentary spot of dry free land ; 
 
6 
 
 and Arnaido da Brescia eloquently spoke of " Eonian Liberty." 
 The " llonian Republic " and " Eoman Senate " became once 
 more familiar words. Italian Liberty, Lombard Republics, — 
 how soon they all went down ! No city — not even Florence 
 — rkept the people's freedom safe three hmiclred years. 
 Silently the wealthy nobles and despotic priests sapped the 
 walls. Party spirit blinded the else clear eyes : " the State 
 may perish; let the faction thrive." The Republicans sought 
 to crush the adjacent feeble States. They forgot Justice, the 
 Higher Law of God : unworthy of Liberty, they fell and 
 died ! Let the Tyrant swallow up the Italian towns ; they 
 were unfit for Freedom. " A generous disdain of one man's 
 will is to Republics what chastity is to woman ; " they spurned 
 this austere virtue. Let them serve their- despots. " Liberty 
 withdrew from a people who disgraced her name." Let 
 Dante burn his poetic brand of infamy into the forehead of liis 
 countrymen. But wliile Freedom lasted, how fair was her 
 blossom, how rich and sweet her fruit ! What riches, what 
 bea,uty, what Science, Letters, Art, came of that noble stock ! 
 Italy was the world's wonder — for a day ; its sorrow ever 
 since. So the cactus flowers into one gorgeous ecstacy of 
 bloom ; then the excessive blossom, ^vith withering collapse, 
 swoons and dies of its voluptuous and tropical delight. 
 
 Liberty wanders from the North, though Italy the fairest of 
 all eartlily lands ; then sits sadly down on the tallest of the 
 Alps, and once more reviews these famous towns ; the jewels 
 that adorn the purple robe of history — all tarnished, 
 shattered, spoiled. Slowly she turns her face Northward 
 and longs for hope. But even the Teutonic towns where 
 Freedom ever wore a sober dress, were only spots of sunshine 
 in a day of wintry storm. Swiss, German, Dutch, they were 
 bi-ief as fair. In Novogorod and in Poland, how soon was 
 Slavonian Freedom lost ! 
 
 So in a winter day in the country, have I seen a little frame 
 of glass, screening from the Northern snow and ice a nicely 
 sheltered spot, where careful hands tended little delicate 
 
plants, for beauty and for use. How fair the winter garden 
 seemed amid tlie wildering snow, and else all-conquering 
 frost ! The little roses lifted up their face and kissed the 
 glass that sheltered from the storm. But anon, some rude 
 hand broke the frail barrier down, and in an horn- the plants 
 were frozen, stiff and dead; and the little garden was all 
 filled with snow and ice ; — a garden now no more ! 
 
 How often do you see in a great city a man perish in his 
 youth, bowed doA^oi by lusts of the body. The graves of 
 such stand thick along the highway of our mortal life, — 
 numberless, nameless, or all too conspicuously marked. Other 
 men we see early bowed down by their ambition, and they 
 live a life far worse than merely sensual death, — themselves 
 the ghastliest monuments, beacons of ruin ! And so, along 
 the laighway which mankind treads, there are the open sepul- 
 chres of nations, which perished of their sin ; or else trans- 
 formed to stone, the gloomy sphinxes sit there by the wayside 
 — a hard, dread, awful lesson to the nations that pass by. 
 Let America, 
 
 " The Heir of all the ages ! and the youngest born of time ! " 
 
 gather up every jewel which the prodigal scattered from his 
 hand, look down into his grave, and then confront these 
 gloomy, awful sphinxes, and learn what lessons of guidance 
 they have ; or of warning, if it alone is to be found ! Even 
 the sphinx has a riddle which we needs must learn, or else 
 perish. 
 
 The greater part of a nation's life is not delight ; it is dis- 
 cipline. A great political philosopher, who has survived two 
 revolutionary storms in France, has just now written, " God 
 has made the condition of all men more severe than they are 
 willing to believe. He causes them at all times to purchase 
 the success of their labors and the progress of tlieir destiny 
 at a dearer price than they had anticipated." 
 
 The merchant knows how difficult it is to acquii'e a great 
 estate ; the scholar, youthful and impatient, well understands 
 
tliat the way of science or of letters is steep and hard to 
 climb ; the farmer knowing the stern climate of New England, 
 her niggard soil, rises early and retires late, and is never off 
 4 his guard. These men all thrive. But, alas, the people of 
 America do not know on Avhat severe conditions alone national 
 welfare is to be won. Human Nature is yet only a New 
 England soil and climate for Freedom to grow in. 
 
 Nations may come to an end tlii-ough the Decay of the 
 /^ Family they 1 elong to ; and thus they may die out of old 
 age, — for there is an infancy, manhood, and old age to a 
 nation as well as to a man. Then the nation comes to a 
 natural end, and like a shock of corn fully ripe, in its season 
 it is gathered to its people. But I do not find that any State 
 has thus lived out its destiny, and died a natural death. 
 
 Again, States may perish by outward Violence, military 
 
 y conquest, — for as the lion in the wilderness eateth up the 
 
 wild ass, so the strong nations devour the weak. But tliis 
 
 haj)pened most often in ancient times, when men and States 
 
 were more rapacious even than now. 
 
 Thirdly, States may perish through their own vice, moral 
 or political. Their national institutions may be a defective 
 machine which works badly, and fails of producing national 
 welfare of body or spirit. It may not secure national unity of 
 action — there is no national gravitation of the great masses, 
 which fly asunder ; or it may fail of individual variety of 
 action — there is no personal freedom ; excessive national 
 gravitation destroys individual cohesion, and pulls the people 
 flat ; the men are Slaves ; they cannot reach the moral and 
 ' spiritual welfare necessary for a nation's continuous life. In 
 both these cases the vice is political ; the machinery is defec- 
 tive, made after false ideas. Or when the institutions are 
 y good and capable of accommodating the nation's increase and 
 growth, the vice may be moral, lying deeper in the character 
 of the peoj)le. They may have a false and unimprovable 
 form of religion, which suits not the natm-e of man or of God, 
 
9 
 
 xond which, consequently produces a false system of morals, 
 and so corrupts the nation's heart. They may become selfish, 
 gross, cowai-dly, atheistic, and so decay inwardly and perish. 
 If left all alone such, a people will rot down and die of 
 internal corruption. Mexico is in a perishing condition to- 
 day ; so is Spain ; so are some of ttie young nations of South 
 America, and some of the old of Asia and Europe. Notliing 
 can ever save Turkey, — not all the arms of all the allied 
 West ; and though Protestant and Catholic join hands, 
 Christendom cannot propagate Mahometanism, nor keep it 
 from going down. 
 
 Leave these nations to their fate and they will die. But 
 commonly, they are not left to themselves ; other people rush 
 in and conquer. The wild individual man is rapacious by 
 instinct. The present nations are rapacious also by calcu- 
 lation ; they prey on feeble States. The hooded crow of 
 Europe watches for the sickly sheep. In America, the wolves 
 prowl around the herd of buffaloes and seize the sickly, the 
 wounded, and the old. And so there are scavengers of the 
 nations, — fillibusters, the flesh-flies and carrion-vultures of 
 the world, who have also their function to perform. Wealth 
 and power are never left wdthout occupants. Rome was cor- 
 rupt, her institutions bad, her religion worn out, her morals 
 desperate ; Northern nations came upon her. " Wheresoever 
 the body is thither the eagles will be gathered together." 
 
 In Eui'ope, there are nations in this state of decay, from 
 moral or political vice. All the Italo^Greek populations, 
 most of the Celto-Roman, all the Celtic, all the old Asiatic 
 populations — the Hungarians and Tm-ks. The Teutonic 
 and Slavic families alone seem to prosper, full of vigorous, 
 new hfe, capable of making new improvements, to suit the 
 altered phases of the world. 
 
 In America, there is only one family in a state of advance, 
 
 of hardy health. Spanish America is in a state of decay ; 
 
 she has a bad form of rehgion, and bad morals ; her republics 
 
 only " guarantee the right of assassination ; " an empire is her 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 freest state. But in the North of North America the Anglo- 
 Saxon British colonies rapidly advance in material and spirit- 
 ual develojjment, and one day doubtless they will separate 
 from the parent stem and become an independent tree. The 
 roots of England run under the ocean ; they come up in 
 Africa, India, Australia, America, in many an island of the 
 seas. Great, fresh, living trunks grow up therefrom. One 
 day these oiFshoots will become self-supporting, with new 
 and independent roots, and ere long will separate from the 
 parent stem ; then there will be a great Anglo-Saxon trunk 
 in Australia, another in India, another iu Africa, another 
 in the North of our ovm Continent, and yet others scattered 
 over all the islands of the sea, an Anglo-Saxon forest of 
 civilization. 
 
 But in the centre of the North American Continent, the 
 same Anglo-Saxons have passed from their first condition of 
 scattered and dependent colonies, and become a united and 
 independent nation, five-and-twenty millions strong. Our 
 fellow-countrymen here in America compose one-fortieth part 
 of all the inhabitants of the globe. We are now making the 
 greatest political experiment wliich the sun ever looked do"WTi 
 upon. 
 ' ' First, we are seeking to found a State on Industry, and not 
 War. All the prizes of America are prizes of toil, not 
 fighting. We are ruled by the constable, not by the soldier. 
 It is only in exceptional cases, when the liberal institutions 
 of America are to be trodden under foot, that the constable 
 disappears, and the red arm of the soldier clutches at the 
 people's throat. That is the first part of our scheme — we 
 are aiming to found an Industrial State. 
 *■ ) Next, the national Theory of the government is a Democ- 
 racy — the government of all, by all, for all. All officers 
 depend on election, none are fore-ordained. There are to be 
 no special privileges, only natural, universal rights. 
 
 It would be a fafr spectacle, — a great industrial Common- 
 wealth, spread over half the continent, and folding in its 
 
11 
 
 bosom one fortietli of God's whole family ! It is a fair 
 di-eam ; nor Athenian Plato, nor English Thomas More, nor 
 Bacon, nor Harrington ever dared write on paper so fair an 
 ideal as our fathers and we have essayed to put into men. I 
 once thought this dream of America would one day become 
 a blessed fact ! We have many elements of national success. 
 Our territory for quantity and quality is all we could ask ; 
 our origin is of the Caucasian's best. No nation had ever 
 so fair a beginning as we. The Anglo-Saxon is a good hardy 
 stock for national welfare to grow on. To my American eye, 
 it seems that Human Nature had never anything so good 
 for popular liberty to be grafted into. We are already strong, 
 and fear nothing from any foreign power. The \'iolent cannot 
 take us by force. No nation is our enemy. 
 
 But the question now comes. Is America to live or to die ? 
 If we live, what life shall it be? Shall we fall into the 
 sepulchre of departed States — a new debauchee of the 
 nations ? Shall we live petrified to stone, a despotism many- 
 headed, sitting — another sphinx — by the wayside of history, 
 to scare young nations in their march and impede their 
 progress ? Or shall we pursue the journey, — a great, noble- 
 hearted Commonwealth, a nation possessing the continent, 
 full of riches, full of justice, full of wisdom, full of piety, 
 and full of peace? It depends on ourselves. It is for 
 America, for this generation of Americans, to say which of 
 the three shall happen. No fate holds us up. Our character 
 is our destiny. 
 
 I am not a timid man ; I am no excessive praiser of times 
 passed by ; I seldom take counsel of my fears, often of my 
 hopes ; — but now I must say that since '76 our success 
 was never so doubtful as at tliis time. England is in peril ; 
 the despots on the continent hate her free Parhament, Mdiich 
 makes laws for the people — just laws ; they hate her free 
 speech, which tells every grievance at home or abroad ,• they 
 hate her fi-ee soil, winch offers a home to every exile, — 
 repubHcan or despotic. England is in peril, for every tyi*ant 
 
n 
 
 hates her. Russia is in danger, for the two strongest powers- 
 of Cliristendom have just clasped hands, and sworn an oath 
 to fight against that great marauding empii'e of the East. 
 Their armies threaten her cities ; her sovereign deserts his 
 capital ; her treasure is carried a thousand miles inward ; the 
 Western fleets blockade her ports and sweep her navies from 
 the sea. But Russia has no peril like ours ; England has no 
 danger so great as that which threatens us this day. In the 
 darkest periods of the American Revolution, when Wasliing- 
 ton's army, without blankets, without coats, without shoes, 
 fled through the Jerseys, when they marked the ice of the 
 Delaware, and left Revolutionary tracks in frozen blood, we 
 were not in such peril as to-day. When General Gage 
 had the throat of Boston in his hand, and perfidiously dis- 
 armed the people, we were not in such danger. Yea, when 
 four-hundred houses in yonder town went up in one great 
 cloud of smoke towards heaven, the liberties of America 
 were not in such peril as they are to-day. Then we were 
 called to fight with swords — and when that work was to 
 be done, was America ever foxmd wanting ? Then our ad- 
 versary was the other side of the sea, and wicked statutes 
 were enacted against us in Westminster Hall. Now our 
 enemy is at home ; and something far costlier than swords 
 is to be called into service. 
 
 Look at some of these dangers. I shall pass by all that 
 are trifling. I find four great perils. Here they are : — 
 
 y" I. There comes the Danger from our exclusive Devotion to 
 Riches. 
 
 II. The Danger from the Roman Catholic Church, estab- 
 lished in the midst of us. 
 
 III. The Danger from the Idea that there is no Higher 
 Law above the Statutes which men make. 
 
 IV. The Danger from the Institution of Slavery, which is 
 -' based on that atheistic idea last named. 
 
13 
 
 I. Of the Danger which comes from our Exclusive 
 Devotion to Riches. 
 
 Power is never left without a possessor : when it fell from 
 the theocratic and military classes, from the priest, the noblo;, 
 and the king, it passed to the hands of the capitaHst. In 
 America, ecclesiastical office is not power ; noble or royal 
 birth is of small value. If Madison or Jefferson had left 
 any sons but Mulattoes, their distinguished birth would avail 
 them nothing. The son of Patrick Hemy lived a strolling 
 schoolmaster, and a pauper's funeral was asked for his body. 
 Money is power ; the only permanent and transmissible power : 
 it goes by device. Money " can ennoble sots and slaves and 
 cowards." 
 
 It gives rank in the Chiu'ch. The millionaire is always a 
 saint. The priests of Commerce will think twice before 
 damning a man who enliances their salary and gives them 
 dinners. In one thing the American Heaven resembles 
 the New Jerusalem: — its pavement is "of fine gold." The 
 ca]Ditalist has the chief seat in our Christian synagogue. 
 It is a rare minister who dares assail a vice which has riches 
 on its side. Is there a clergyman at the South who speaks 
 against the profitable wickedness wliich chains tln-ee million 
 American men ? How few at the North ! 
 
 In Society, money is genteel ; it is always respectable. The 
 high places of society do not belong to ecclesiastical men, as 
 in Rome ; to military men, as in St. Petersburg ; to men of 
 famous family, as in England and Spain ; to men of Science 
 and Literature, men of Geiiius, as in Berhn ; but to rich men. 
 
 Money gives distinction in Literatiu'e, so far as the literary 
 class can control the pubhc judgment. The colleges respect 
 a rich man's son ; they name professorships after such as 
 endow them with money, not mind. Critics respect a rich 
 man's book ; if he has not brains, he has brass, which is 
 better. The capitaHst is admitted a member of the Academies 
 
14 
 
 of Arts and Sciences, of collegiate societies ; if lie cannot 
 write dissertations, he can give suppers, and there must be a 
 material basis for Science. At anniversaries, he receives the 
 Honorary degree. " ' T is easier to weigh purses, sm-e, than 
 brains." A dull scholar is expelled jQ.-oni college for idleness, 
 and twenty years later returns to New England -with half a 
 million of money, and gets his degree. As he puzzles at 
 the Latin diploma, he asks, " If I had come home poor, I 
 wonder how long it would have taken the ^ Alma Mater ' to 
 find out that I was ever a ' good scholar,' and now * merited 
 an honorary degree ' — facts which I never knew before ! " 
 
 In politics, money has more influence than in Turkey, 
 Austria, Russia, England, or Spain. For in our politics the 
 interest of property is preferred before all others. National 
 legislation almost invariably favors capital, and not the labor- 
 ing hand. The Federalists feared that riches would not be 
 safe in America — the many would plunder the wealthy few. 
 It was a groundless fear. In an Industrial Commonwealth, 
 pro]perty is sure of popular protection. Where all own 
 hay-ricks no one scatters fii'e-brands. Nowhere in the world 
 is property so secure or so much respected ; for it rests on a 
 more natural basis than elsewhere. Nowhere is wealth so 
 powerful in Church, Society, and State. In Kentucky and 
 elsewhere, it can take the mui-derer's neck out of the halter. 
 It can make the foolish wise ; the dull man, " eloquent " ; the 
 mean man, " honorable, one of our most prominent citizens " ; 
 the heretic, " sound orthodox " ; the ugly, fair ; the old man, 
 a desirable young bridegroom. Nay, vice itself becomes 
 virtue, and man-stealing is Chiistianity. 
 
 Here, nothing but the voter's naked ballot holds money in 
 check ; there are no great families with their liistoric tradition, 
 as in all Europe ; no bodies of literary or scientific men to 
 oppose theii- Genius to mere material Gold. The chui'ch is 
 no barrier, only its servant, for when the minister depends on 
 the wealth of his parish for support, you know the common 
 consequence. Lying rides on Obligation's back. The minister 
 
15 
 
 respects the hand that feeds him: "the ox knoweth liis 
 owner, and the ass his master's crib." Yet now and then a 
 minister looks starvation in the face and continues his unpop- 
 ular ser\'ice of God. No pohtical institutions check the au- 
 thority of wealth ; it can bribe and buy the venal ; the brave 
 it sometimes can intimidate and starve. Money can often 
 carry a Bill through the legislature — state or national. The 
 majority is hardly strong enough to check this pecuniary sway. 
 
 In the " most democratic " States, gold is most powerful. 
 Thus, in fifteen States of America, three hundred thousand 
 men own thii-teen hundred millions of money invested in 
 men. In virtue thereof they control the legislation of their 
 own States, making their institutions despotic, and not repub- 
 lican ; they keep the poor white man from political power, 
 from comfort, from the material means of education and 
 religion ; they destroy his self respect, and leave liim notliing 
 but his body ; from the poorest of the poor, they take away 
 his body itself. Next they control the legislation of i\jnerica ; 
 they make the President, they appoint the Supreme Court, 
 they control the Senate, the Kepresentatives, they determine 
 the domestic and foreign policy of the Nation. Fmally, they 
 affect the laws of all the other sixteen States — the Southern 
 hand coloring the local institutions of New Haven and 
 Boston. 
 
 That is only one example — one of many. Russia is gov- 
 erned by a long-descended Czar ; England by a Queen, 
 Nobles, and Gentry, — men of ancient family, with culture 
 and riches. America is ruled by a troop of men with nothing 
 but money and what it brings : — tlu-ee hundred thousand 
 slaveholders and their servants. North and South. Boston is 
 under their thumb ; at their command the JNIayor spits in 
 the face of Massachusetts law, and plants a thousand bay- 
 onets at the people's throat. They make cartridges under the 
 eaves of Faneuil Hall. 
 
 Accordingly, money is the great object of desu'e and piu'suit. 
 There are material reasons why this is so in many lands : — in 
 
16 
 
 America there are also social, political, and ecclesiastical reasons 
 for it. " To be' rich is to be blessed : Poverty is damnation :" 
 that is the popular creed. 
 
 The public looks superficially at the immediate effect of 
 tills opinion, at this exceeding and exclusive desire for riches ; 
 they see its effect on Israel and John Jacob, on Stephen, Peter, 
 and Eobert : it makes them rich, and their childi-en respectable 
 and famous. Pew ask. What effect will this have on the 
 nation ? They foresee not the future evil it threatens. Nay, 
 they do not consider how it debauches the institutions of 
 America — ecclesiastical, academic, social, political; how it 
 corrupts the hearts of the people, making them prize money 
 as the end of life, and manhood as only the means thereto, 
 making money master, and human nature its tool or servant, 
 but no more. 
 
 The political effect of this unnatm-al esteem for riches is 
 not at all well understood. History but too plainly tells of 
 the dangerous power of priests or nobles consolidated into a 
 class, and theu- united forces dii'ected by a single able head. 
 The power of allied kings, concentrating whole realms of men 
 and money on a single point ; the effect of armies and navies 
 collected together and marshalled by a single wall ; is all too 
 boldly written in the ruin of many a State. We have often 
 been warned against the peril from forts, and castles, and 
 standing armies. But the power of consolidated riches, the 
 peril which accumulated property may bring upon the liberties 
 of an industrial Commonwealth, though formidably near, as 
 yet is all unknown, all unconsidered too. Ah'eady the con- 
 solidated property of one eightieth part of the population 
 controls all the rest. 
 
 Two special causes, both exceptional and fleeting, just 
 now stimulate the acquisitiveness of America almost to mad- 
 ness. 
 
 One is the rapid development of the art of manufacturing 
 the raw materials gathered from the bosom or the surface of 
 the earth. The invention of printing made education and 
 
17 
 
 freedom possible on a large scale ; one of tlie immediate results 
 thereof is this — the head briefly performs the else long pro- 
 tracted labor of the hand. "Wind, water, fire, steam, light- 
 ning, have become pliant forces to manufacture wood, flax, 
 cotton, wool, and all the metals. Tliis result is nowhere so 
 noticeable as in New England, where education is almost 
 universal. The New England school-house is the macliine- 
 shop of America. What the State invests in slates and 
 teachers pays dividends in hard coin. This new power over the 
 material world, the first and unexpected commercial result of 
 the public education of the people, gives a great and perhaps 
 lasting stimulus to the pursuit of wealth. It aflfects the most 
 uneducated portions of the world, — for the educated man 
 leaves much rough labor for the ignorant, and enhances the 
 demand for the results of their toil. The tliinking head raises 
 , the wages of all mere hands. Hence arises the increased 
 value of Slaves at the South, and the rapid immigration of 
 the most ignorant Irishmen to the North. They are to the 
 thoughtful projector what the INIerrimack is to the cotton- 
 spinner — a rude force pliant before his will. Dr. Faustus 
 is the unconscious pioneer of many a pilgrimage. 
 
 The other cause is the discovery of gold in California and 
 then in Australia. This doubles or trebles the pecuniary 
 momentum of America. Its stimulating influence on Ameri- 
 can covetousness, accumulation, and luxury is obvious. What 
 further and ultimate effects it will produce I shall not now 
 pause to inquire. When a whirlwind rises all men can see 
 that dust is mounting to the sky. 
 
 Besides, the form of American industry is changed. Once, 
 New England and all the North were chiefly agricultural ; 
 manufactures and commerce were conducted on a small scale ; 
 and therein each man wrought on his own account. There 
 was a great deal of individual activity, individuality of char- 
 acter. Few men worked for wages. Now, New England is 
 mainly manufacturing and commercial. Vermont is the only 
 farming State. Mechanics, men and women, work for wages ; 
 3 
 
18 
 
 many in the employment of a single man ; tlioiisands in the 
 pay of one company, organized by superior ability. The 
 workman loses liis independence, and is' not only paid but 
 governed also by liis employer's money. His opinions and 
 character are formed after the prescribed pattern by the mill 
 he works in. The old military organizations for defence 
 or aggression brought freedom of body distmctly in peril; 
 the new industrial organizations jeopardize freedom of mind 
 and conscience: all New England is a monumental proof 
 thereof. 
 
 Another change also follows : the military habits of the 
 North are all gone. Once, New England had more firelocks 
 than householders ; every man was a soldier and marksman. 
 Now, the people have lost their taste for mihta'ry discipline, 
 and neither keep nor bear arms. Of course a few holiday 
 soldiers, called out by a doctor and commanded by an apoth- 
 ecary, can overawe the town. 
 
 The Northern, and especially the Eastern and Middle 
 States, are the great centre of this industrial development. 
 Here, and especially in New England, the desire of riches 
 has become so powerful that a very large proportion of our 
 men of the greatest practical intellect have almost exclusively 
 turned their attention to purely productive business, to com- 
 merce and manufactures. They rarely engage in the work of 
 politics — unprofitable to the individual, and at first sight 
 merely preservative and defensive to the community. This 
 they shun or neglect, as the mass of men avoid military disci- 
 pline. 
 
 The statutes must be made and administered by politi- 
 cians. Here they are not able men. Of the forty-one New 
 England delegates in Congress, of the six governors, of the 
 many other professional leaders in politics, how many first- 
 rate men are there? how many middle-sized second-rate 
 men ? The control of the national affairs passes out of the 
 fingers of the North — which has yet three-fifths of the pop- 
 ulation, and more than four-fifths of the speculative and 
 
19 
 
 practical intelligence and material -svealth. The Nation, con- 
 trolled by the South, whose ablest men almost exckisively 
 attend to politics. Besides, the State politics of the North 
 fall into the hands of men quite inadequate to such a weighty 
 trust. This mistake is as fatal as it would be in time of war 
 to send all the able-bodied men to the plough, and the women 
 and children to the camp. We are mis-managed at home 
 and dishonorably routed in the Federal Capital. In the 
 present state of the world, I think no nation would be justi- 
 fied in turning non-resistant, tearing down its forts, disband- 
 ing its armies, melting up its guns and swords / and I am 
 sure the North suffers sadly from devoting so large a part 
 of its masterly practical men to the productive work of com- 
 merce and manufactui-es. Her politicians are not strong 
 enough for her own defence. In American politics, the great 
 battle of Ideas and Principles, yea of measures, is to be 
 fought. Shall we keep our Washingtons surveying land ? 
 
 The national effect of this estimate and accumulation of 
 riches is to produce a great and rapid development of the 
 practical understanding ; a great love for vulgar finery which 
 pleases the palate or the eye ; great luxury of dress, orna- 
 ment, fiu-niture. You see this in the hotels and public 
 carriages on land and sea, in the costume of the nation, at 
 public and private tables. Along with this there comes a 
 certain refinement of the public taste. 
 
 But there is no proportionate culture of the higher intel- 
 lectual faculties — of the Eeason and Imagination ; still less 
 of yet nobler powers — moral, affectional, and religious. 
 From the common school to the college, the chief things 
 taught are Arithmetic and Elocution; not the art to reason 
 and create, but the trade to calculate and express. Every- 
 thing is measured by the money standard. " The protection 
 of property is the great object of government." The politi- 
 cian must suit the pecuniary interest of his constituency, 
 though at the cost of Justice ; the writer, author, or editor, 
 the pecuniaiy interest of his readers, though at the sacrifice 
 
go 
 
 of Truth ; the minister, the pecuniary interest of his audience^ 
 though Piety and Morality both come to the groimd : Mam- 
 mon is a profitable god to worship — he gives dinners. 
 
 I think it must be confessed in the last eighty years the 
 general moral and religious tone of the people in the free 
 States has improved. This change comes from the natural 
 forward tendency of mankind, the instinct of development, 
 quickened hj our free institutions. But at the same time it 
 is quite plain to me that the moral and religious tone of 
 American politicians, writers, and preachers, has proportion- 
 ately and absolutely gone down. You see this in the great 
 towns : if Boston were once the " Athens of America," she 
 is now only the " Corinth." Athens has retreated to some 
 inland Salamis. 
 
 But, in general, this peril from the excessive pursuit of 
 riches comes unavoidably from our position in time and 
 space, and our consequent political institutions. It belongs 
 to the period of transition from the old form of vicarious rule 
 by theocratic, military, and aristocratic governments, to the 
 personal administration of an industrial Commonwealth. I 
 do not much fear this peril, nor apprehend lasting evil from 
 it. One of the great things which mankind now most needs 
 is. Power over the material world as the basis for the liigher 
 development of our Spiritual faculties. Wealth is indispen- 
 sable ; it is the material pidp around the Spiritual seed. No 
 nation was ever too rich, too well fed, clad, housed, and com- 
 forted. The human race still suffers from poverty, the great 
 obstacle to our progress. Doubtless we shall make many 
 errors in our national attempt to organize the productive forces 
 into an industrial State, as our fathers, — thousands of years 
 ago, — in organizing their destructive powers into a military 
 state. Once, man cut his fingers with iron, so now with gold. 
 All Christendom shares this peril, though America feels it 
 most. She is now like a thriving man, who gets rich fast, 
 and thinks more than he ought of his money, and less of his 
 manhood. Some misfortune, the ruin of a prodigal son per- 
 
21 
 
 isliing in quicksands of gold, will by and by convince him 
 that riches is not the only thing in life. 
 
 II. Or THE Danger which comes from the Soman 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church claims infalhbility for itself, 
 and denies Spii'itual Freedom, Liberty of Mind or Conscience 
 to its members. It is therefore the foe to all progress ; it is 
 deadly hostile to Democracy. To mankind this is its first 
 command — Submit to an external authority; subordinate 
 your human nature to an element foreign and abhorrent 
 thereto ! It aims at absolute domination over the body and 
 the spirit of man. The Catholic Church can never escape 
 from the consequences of her first principle. She is the nat- 
 ural ally of tp-ants, and the irreconcilable enemy of Freedom. 
 Individual Catholics in America, as elsewhere, are inconsistent, 
 and favor the progress of mankind. Alas ! such are excep- 
 tional ; the Catholic Church has an iron logic, and consistently 
 hates Liberty in all its forms — free thought, free speech. 
 
 I quote the words of her own authors in America, recently 
 uttered by the press. " Protestantism . . . has not and never 
 can have any rights where Catholicity is triumphant." "We 
 lose all the breath we expend in declaiming against bigotry 
 and intolerance, and in favor of religious hberty." "Eeli- 
 gious liberty [in America] is merely endured until the opposite 
 can be carried into execution without peril to the Catholic 
 world." "Catholicity will one day rule in America, and 
 then religious liberty is at an end." " The very name of 
 
 Liberty ought to be banished from the very domain of 
 
 religion." " No man has a right to choose his religion.'* 
 " Catholicism is the most intolerant of creeds. It is intol- 
 erance itself, for it is the truth itself." * 
 
 * The above, and many more similar declarations, may be found in a 
 little pamphlet — "Familiar Letters to John B. Fitzpatrick, the Catholio 
 Bishop of Boston, by an Independent Irishman." Boston, 1854. 
 
22 
 
 The Catholic population is not great in numbers. In 1853, 
 there were in America 1713 churches, 1574 priests,' 396 
 theological stuelents, 32 bishops, 7 archbishops, church prop- 
 erty worth about $10,000,000, and 1,728,000 Catholics. 
 But most of them are of the Celtic stock, AA^aich has never 
 much favored Protestantism or individual liberty in religion ; 
 and in this respect is widely distinguished from the Teutonic 
 population, who have the strongest ethnological instinct for 
 personal freedom. 
 
 Besides, the Catholics are governed with absolute rigor by 
 their clergy, who are celibate priests, a social caste by them- 
 selves, not sympathising with mankind, but emasculated of 
 the natural humanities of our race. There are exceptional 
 men amongst them, but such seems to be the rule with the 
 class of Catholic priests in America. They are united into 
 one compact body, with complete corporate unity of action, 
 and ruled despotically by their bishops, archbishops, and 
 Pope. The Catholic worshipper is not to tliink, but to 
 believe and obey ; the priest not to reason and consider, but 
 to proclaim and command ; the voter is not to inquire and 
 examine, but to deposit his ballot as the ecclesiastical author- 
 ity directs. The better religious orders do not Aasit America. 
 The Jesuits, the most subtle enemies of humanity, come in 
 abundance ; some are known, others stealthily prowl about 
 the land, all the more dangerous for their disguise. They all 
 act under the direction of a single head. One shrcAvd 
 Protestant minister may be equal to one Jesuit, but no ten 
 or forty Protestant ministers is a match for a combination 
 of ten Jesuits, bred to the business of deception, knowing 
 no allegiance to Truth or Justice, consciously disregarding 
 the Higher Law of God, with the notorious maxim that " the 
 end justifies the means," bound to their order by the most 
 stringent oath, and devoted to the worst purposes of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 All these priests owe allegiance to a foreign head. It is 
 not an American Church ; it is Koman, not free, individual. 
 
23 
 
 but despotic ; nay, in its designs not so mucli human as 
 merely papal. 
 
 The Catholic Church opposes eveiything which favors 
 Democracy and the natural rights of man. It hates our fi-ee 
 churchesj, free press, and above all our free schools. No owl 
 more shuns the light. It hates the rule of majorities, the 
 voice of the people ; it loves violence, force, and blood. 
 
 The Catholic clergy are on the side of Slavery. They find 
 it is the dominant power, and pay coiu't thereto that they 
 may rise by its help. They like Slavery itself ; it is an insti- 
 tution thoroughly congenial to them, consistent with the first 
 princijjles of their church. Their Jesuit leaders think it is 
 " an ulcer which will eat up the Republic," and so foster it 
 for the ruin of Democracy, the deadliest foe of the Eoman 
 hierarchy. 
 
 Besides, most of the Catholics are the victims of oppression, 
 poor, ilhterate, oppressed, and often vicious. Their circum- 
 stances have ground the humanity out of them. No sect fur- 
 nishes half so many criminals — victims of society before they 
 become its foes j no sect has so little philanthropy, none is'SO 
 greedy to oppress. All this is natural. The lower you go 
 down the coarser and more cruel do you find the human 
 being. 
 
 I am told there is not in all America a single Catholic 
 newsj)aper hostile to Slavery ; not one opposed to tyranny in 
 general ; not one that takes sides with the oppressed in 
 Eui'ope. There is not in America a man born and bred in 
 the Catholic Church, who is eminent for Philosoj)hy, Science, 
 Literature, or Art ; none distinguished for Philanthropy ! 
 The water tastes of the fountain. 
 
 Catholic votes are in the market ; the bishops can dispose 
 of them — politicians will make their bid. Shall it be the 
 sacrifice of the free schools ? of other noble institutions ? In 
 some States it seems not unlikely. 
 
 I do not think our leading men see all this danger. But 
 the baneful influence of the Church of the Dark Ages begins 
 
24 
 
 to show itself in the press, in the schools, and still more in 
 the politics of America. Yet I am glad the Catholics come 
 here. Let America be an asylum for the poor and the down- 
 trodden of all lands ; let the Irish ships, reeking with misery, 
 land their human burthens in our harbors. The continent is 
 wide enough for all. I rejoice that in America there is no 
 national form of religion ; — let the Jew, the Chinese Budd- 
 hist, the savage Indian, the Mormon, the Protestant, and the 
 Catholic have free opportunity to be faithful each to his own 
 conscience. Let the American Catholic have his bishops, his 
 archbishops, and his Pope, his Jesuits, his convents, his 
 nunneries, his celibate priesthood of hard drinkers, if he will. 
 Let him oppose the public education of the people ; oppose 
 the press, the meeting-house, and the ballot-box ; nay, oppose 
 temperance and rehgion if he likes. If, with Truth and 
 Justice on our side, the few Catholics can overcome the many 
 Protestants, we deserve defeat. We should be false to the 
 first principles of our democratic theory, if we did not grant 
 them their unaHenable rights. Let there be no tyranny ; let 
 us pay the Catholics good for ill; and cast out Satan by the 
 finger of God, not by the Prince of Devils. This peril is 
 easily mastered. The Catholic Church has still many lessons 
 to offer the Protestants. 
 
 III. Of the Danger from the Idea that there is 
 NO Higher Law above the Statutes of Men. 
 
 Of late years, it has been industriously taught in America 
 ' that there is no Law of Nature superior to the Statutes wliich 
 men enact ; that Politics are not amenable to Conscience or to 
 God. Accordingly, the American Congress knows no check in 
 legislation but the Constitution of the United States and the 
 will of the majority ; none in the Constitution of the Universe 
 and the Will of God. The atheistic idea of the Jesuits, that 
 the End justifies the Means, is made the first principle in 
 American politics. Hence it has been repeatedly declared 
 
25 
 
 by " prominent clergymen " that politics sliould not be treated 
 in the j)ulpit ; they are not amenable to religion ; Christianity 
 has nothing to do with making or administering the laws. 
 When the Pharisees and Saddncecs have silenced the Prophet 
 and the Apostle, it is not difficult to make men believe that 
 Macchiavelli is a great saint, and Jesuitism the revealed 
 religion of politics ! Let the legislators make what wicked 
 laws they will against the Rights of Man ; the priest of com- 
 merce is to say nothing. Nay, the legislators themselves are 
 never to refer to Justice and the Eternal Eight, only to the 
 exj^ediency of the hour. 
 
 Then when the Statute is made, the magistrate is not to 
 ask if it be just, he is only to execute it ; the people are to 
 obey and help enforce the wicked enactment, never asking if 
 it be right. The highest virtue in the people is — unques- 
 tioning submission to the Constitution ; or, when the Statute 
 violates their conscience, to do " a disagreeable duty " ! Thus 
 the political action of the people is exempted from the juris- 
 diction of God and his natural moral law ! Christianity has 
 nothing to do with politics ! 
 
 Within a few years this doctrine has been taught in a great 
 variety of forms. At first it came in with evil laws, simply as 
 the occasional supjjort of a measure ; at length it is announced 
 as a Principle. It has taken a deep hold on the educated 
 classes of the community ; for our " superior education " is 
 almost wholly of the intellect, and of only its humbler 
 powers. It appears among the lawyers, the politicians, the 
 editors, and the clergy. Some deny the natural distinction 
 between right and wrong. " Justice " is a matter of conven- 
 tion ; things are not " true," but " agreed upon " ; not 
 '' right," only "assented to." There is no "moral obliga- 
 tion." Government rests on a compact, having its ultimate 
 foundation on the caprice of men, not in their moral nature. 
 What are called Natural Rights are only certain conveniences 
 agreed upon amongst men ; legal fictions — their recognition 
 is their essence, they are the creatures of a compact. Prop- 
 4' 
 
26 
 
 erty has no foundation in the nature of things ; it may consist 
 of whatever the legislature determines — land, cattle, food, 
 clothing ; or of men, Avomen, and children. Dives may own 
 Lazarus as well as the dogs who serve him at the gate. 
 There is no political morality, only political economy. 
 
 This conclusion arises from the philosophy of Hobbes and 
 Filmer ; yes, from the first principles of Locke and Rousseau. 
 It is one of the worst results of materialism and practical 
 atheism. It takes different forms in different nations. In a 
 monarchy it has for its axiom, " The King c^an do no wrong ; 
 he is the Norm of law. Vox Regis vox Dei " ; in a Democ- 
 racy, The majority can do no wrong ; they are the Norm of 
 Law — Vox Pojpuli vox Dei." So the Statute becomes an 
 idol ; loyalty takes the place of Religion, and despotism 
 becomes enthroned on the necks of the people. 
 
 It is not surprising that this doctrine should be taught 
 from the pulpit in Catholic countries — it is conformable to 
 the general conduct of the Roman Church. It belongs also 
 with the sensational philosophy which has done so much to 
 break to pieces the theology of the Dark Ages ; — and does 
 not astonish one in the sects which build thereon. But at 
 first sight it seems amazing that American Christians of the 
 Puritanic stock, with a philosophy wliich transcends sensa- 
 tionalism, should prove false to the only principle which at 
 once justifies the conduct of Jesus, of Luther, and the Pm-i- 
 tans themselves. For certainly if obedience to the established 
 law be the highest virtue, then the Patriots and Pilgrims of 
 New England, the Reformers of the Church, the glorious 
 company of the Apostles, the goodly fellowship of the 
 Prophets, and the noble army of martyrs, nay, Jesus liim- 
 self, were only criminals and traitors. To appreciate this 
 denial of the first principle of all religion, it would be neces- 
 sary to go deep into the theology of Chiistendom, and touch 
 the fatal error of all the three parties just referred to. For 
 that there is now no time. 
 y One of the consequences of this atheistic denial of the 
 
27 
 
 natural foundation of human laws is, the Preponderance of 
 Parties, An opinion before it becomes a law, Avhile it is yet 
 a tendency, becomes organized into a faction, or party. 
 JNIembers of the party feel the same loyalty thereto which ^ 
 narrow patriots feel for their nation, or bigots for their sect ; 
 they give up their mind and conscience to their party. So 
 fidelity to their party, right or wrong, is deemed a great 
 political virtue ; the individual member is bound by the party 
 opinion. Thus is the jjrivate conscience still further debauched ^ 
 by the second act in this atheistic popular tragedy. 
 
 Thus both national and party politics are taken out of the 
 jurisdiction of morals, declared not amenable to conscience : 
 in other words, are left to the control of political Jesuits. 
 An American may read the natural result of such principles 
 in the downfall of the Grecian and Italian Republics, or Avait 
 to behold it in his own land. 
 
 IV. Of the Dangers from the Institution of 
 Slavery which rests on this False Idea. 
 
 Slavery is the child of Violence and Atheism. Brute 
 material force — that is its father : the atheistic idea that there 
 is no Law of God above the passions of men — that is the 
 mother of it. I have lately spoken so long, so often, and ^ 
 with such publicity, both of speech and print, respecting the 
 extent of Slavery in America, and its constant advance since 
 1788, that I shall pass over all that theme, and speak more 
 dii-ectly of the present danger it brings upon our Freedom. 
 
 There can be no national welfare without national Unity of 
 Action. That cannot take place unless there is national 
 Unity of Idea in fundamentals. Without that a nation is a 
 *' house divided against itself"; of coui'se it cannot stand. 
 It is what mechanics call a figure without equihbrium ; the 
 different parts of it do not balance. 
 
 Now, in the American State there are two distinct ideas — • 
 Freedom and Slavery, 
 
28 
 
 Tlie Idea of Freedom first got a national expression seventy- 
 eight years ago next Tuesday. Here it is. I put it in a 
 philosophic form. There are five points to it. 
 
 First, All men are endowed by their Creator with certain 
 natural rights, amongst which is the right to life, liberty, and 
 the pursiiit of happiness. 
 
 Second, These rights are unalienable ; they can be ahenated 
 only by the possessor tliereof; the fother cannot alienate 
 them for the son, nor the son for the father ; ncr the husband 
 for the wife, nor the wife for .the husband ; nor the strong for 
 the weak, nor the weak for the strong ; nor the few for the 
 many, nor the many for the few ; and so on. 
 
 Third, In respect to these all men are equal ; the rich 
 man has not more, and the poor less ; the strong man has not 
 more, and the Aveak man less : — all are exactly equal in 
 these rights, however unequal in their powers. 
 
 Fourth, It is the function of government to secure these 
 natural, unalienable, and equal rights to every man. 
 
 Fifth, Government derives all its divine right from its 
 conformity with these ideas, all its human sanction from the 
 consent of the governed. 
 
 That is the Idea of Freedom. I used to call it "the 
 American Idea " ; it was when I was younger than I am to- 
 day. It is derived from human nature ; it rests on the 
 immutable Laws of God ; it is part of the natural religion of 
 mankind. It demands a govei-nment after natural Justice, 
 which is the point common between the conscience of God and 
 the conscience of mankind ; it is the point common also 
 between the interests of one man and of all men. 
 
 Now this government, just in its substance, in its form 
 must be democratic : that is to say, the government of all, by 
 all, and for all. You see what consequences must follow 
 from such an idea, and the attempt to re-enact the Law of 
 God into jjolitical institutions. There will follow the freedom 
 of the people, respect for every natiu-al right of all men, the 
 rights of their body and of their spirit — the rights of mind 
 
and conscience, heart and sonl. There mnst be some restraint 
 - — as of chikhen by their parents, as of bad men by good 
 men ; but it will be restraint for the joint good of all parties 
 concerned ; not restraint for the exclusive benefit of the 
 restrainer. The ultimate consequence of tliis will be the 
 material and spiritual welfare of all — riches, comfort, noble 
 manhood, all desirable tilings. 
 
 That is the Idea of Freedom. It appears in the Declaration 
 of Independence ; it re-appears in the Preamble to the 
 American Constitution, which aims "to establish Justice, 
 ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
 promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Lib- 
 erty." That is a religious idea ; and when men pray for the 
 "Reign of Justice" and the "Kingdom of Heaven" to 
 come on earth politically, I suppose they mean that there 
 may be a Commonwealth where every man has liis natural 
 rights of mind, body, and estate. 
 
 Next is the Idea of Slavery. Here it is. I put it also in 
 ' a philosophic form. There are three points which I make. 
 
 First, Thei-e are no natural, unalienable, and equal rights, 
 wherewith men are endowed by their Creator ; no natiu-al, 
 unalienable, and equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness. 
 
 Second, There is a great diversity of powers, and in virtue 
 thereof the strong man may rule and oppress, enslave and 
 ruin the weak, for his interest and against theirs. 
 
 Third, There is no natural law of God to forbid the strong 
 to oppress the weak, and enslave and ruin the weak. 
 
 That is the Idea of Slavery. It has never got a national 
 ^ expression in America ; it has never been laid down as a 
 Principle in any act of the American people, nor in any single 
 State, so far as I know. All profess the opposite ; but it is 
 involved in the measures of both State and Nation. This 
 Idea is founded in the selfishness of man ; it is atheistic. 
 '^ The idea must lead to a corresponding government ; that will 
 
30 
 
 be unjiist in its substance, — for it will depend not on natural 
 right, but on personal force ; not on the Constitution of the 
 Universe, but on the compact of men. It is the abnegation 
 of God in the universe and of conscience in man. Its form 
 will be despotism, — the government of all, by a part, for the 
 sake of a part. It may be a single-headed despotism, or a 
 despotism of many heads ; but whether a Cyclops or a Hydra, 
 it is alike " the abomination which maketh desolate." Its 
 ultimate consequence is plain to foresee — poverty to a nation, 
 misery, ruin. At first. Slavery came as a Measure ; nothing 
 was said about it as a Principle. But in a country full of 
 schoolmasters, newspapers, legislatures, talking men, — a 
 measure without a principle to bear it up is like a single twig 
 of willow" cast out on a wooden floor ; there is notliing for it 
 to grow by ; it will die. So of late the principle has been 
 boldly avoM-ed. Mr. Calhoun denied the self-evident truths 
 of the Declaration of Independence ; denied the natural, 
 unalienable, and equal rights of man. Many since have done 
 the same — political, literary, and mercantile men, and, of 
 course, ecclesiastical men ; there are enough of them always 
 in the market. All parts of the Idea of Slavery have been 
 affirmed by prominent men at the North and the South. It 
 has been acted on in the formation of the Constitution of 
 every Slave State, and in the passage of many of its laws. It 
 lies at the basis of a great deal of national legislation. 
 
 Hear the opinions of some of oiu- Southern Patriots : — ■ 
 "Slavery is coeval with Society:" "it was commended by 
 God's chosen Theocracy, and sanctioned by His Apostles in 
 the Christian Church." All ancient literature "is the litera- 
 ture of Slaveholders ; " " Pome and Greece owed their lit- 
 erary and national greatness exclusively to the institution of 
 Slavery ; " " Slavery is as necessary for the welfare of the 
 Southern States as sunshine is for the flowers of the prairies ; " 
 "a noble and necessary institution of God's creation."* 
 
 * Richmond Examiner, for June 30, 1854. 
 
31 
 
 " Nature is the motlior and protector of Slavery ; " " Domestic 
 vSlavery is not only natural and necessary, but a great blessing." 
 " Free Society is a sad and signal failure ; " it " does well 
 enough in a new country." " Free Society has become 
 diseased by abolishing Slavery. It can only be restored to 
 pristine health, happiness, and prosperity, by re-instituting 
 Slavery." " Slavery may be administered under a new 
 name." "Free Society is a monstrosity. Like all monsters, 
 it Avill be short-lived. We dare and do vindicate Slavery in 
 the abstract." The negro "needs a master to protect and 
 govern him ; so do the ignorant poor in old countries."* 
 
 " There is no moral wrong in Slavery ; " it " is the normal 
 condition of human society." " The benefits and advantages 
 which so far have resulted from this institution we take as 
 lights to guide us to the brighter truths of its future history." 
 " We belong to that society of which Slavery is the distin- 
 guishing element, and we are not ashamed of it. We find it 
 marked by every evidence of divine aj^proval." f 
 
 These two Ideas are now fairly on foot. They are hostile ; '' 
 they are both mutually invasive and destructive. They are 
 in exact opposition to each other, and the nation which em- . 
 bodies these two is not a figure of equilibrium. As both are 
 active forces in the minds of men, and as each idea tends to 
 become a fact — a universal and exclusive fact, — as men with 
 these ideas organize into parties as a means to make their 
 idea into a fact, — it follows that there must not only be strife 
 amongst philosophical men about these antagonistic Principles 
 and Ideas, but a strife of practical men about corresponding 
 Facts and Measures. So the quarrel, if not otherwise ended, 
 will pass from words to what seems more serious ; and one 
 will overcome the other. 
 
 So long as these two Ideas exist in the nation as two polit- 
 ical forces, there is no national unity of Idea, of course no ., 
 
 * Ibid, June 23, 1854. t Charleston Standard, (S. C.) June 21, 1854. 
 
/ 
 
 unity of action. For there is no centre of gravity common to 
 Freedom and Slavery. They will not compose an equilibrious 
 figure. You may cry " Peace ! Peace ! " but so long as these 
 two antagonistic Ideas remain, each seeking to organize itself 
 and get exclusive power, there is no peace ; there can be none. 
 The question before the nation to-day is, AVhich shall 
 prevail — the Idea and Fact of Freedom, or the Idea and the 
 Fact of Slavery ; Freedom, exclusive and universal, or Slavery, 
 exclusive and universal ? The question is not merely. Shall 
 the African be bond or free ? but. Shall America be a De- 
 mocracy or a Despotism ? For nothing is so remorseless as 
 an idea, and no logic is so strong as the historical development 
 of a national idea by millions of men. A measure is nothing 
 without its Principle. The Idea which allows Slavery in 
 South Carolina will establish it also in New England. The 
 bondage of a black man in Alexandria imperils every white 
 woman's daughter in Boston. You cannot escape the conse- 
 quences of a first Principle more than you can " take the leap 
 of Niagara and stop when half-way down." The Principle 
 which recognizes Slavery in the Constitution of the United 
 States wovdd make all America a Despotism, wliile the Prin- 
 ciple which made John Quincy Adams a free man woidd 
 extirpate Slavery from Louisiana and Texas. It is plain 
 America cannot long hold these two contradictions in the 
 national consciousness. Equilibrium must come. 
 
 Now there are three possible ways of setthng the quarrel 
 between these two Ideas; only tlu-ee. The categories are 
 exhaustive. 
 
 This is the first : The discord may rend the nation asunder, 
 and the two elements separate and become distinct nations — 
 a Despotism with the Idea of Slavery, a Democracy with the 
 Idea of Freedom. Then each will be an equilibrious figure. 
 The Anglo-Saxon Despotism may go to ruin on its own 
 account, while the Anglo-Saxon Democracy marches on to 
 national welfare. That is the first hypothesis. 
 
33 
 
 Or, second : The Idea of Freedom may destroy Slaveiy, with ' 
 all its accidents — attendant and consequent. Then the na- 
 tion may have unity of idea, and so a unity of action, and 
 become a harmonious whole, a great industrial Democracy, 
 re-enacting the laws of God, and pursuing its way, continu- 
 ally attaining greater degrees of freedom and prosj)erity. 
 That is the second hypothesis. 
 
 Here is the third : The Idea of Slavery may destroy Free-^ 
 dom, with all its accidents — attendant and consequent. 
 Then the nation will become an integer ; only it will be a 
 unit of despotism. This involves, of course, the destructive 
 revolution of all our liberal institutions, state as well as 
 national. Democracy must go down ; the free press go 
 down ; the free church go down ; the free school go down. 
 There must be an industrial despotism, which will soon 
 become a military despotism. Popular legislation must 
 end ; the Federal Congress will be a club of officials, like 
 Nero's senate, which voted his horse first consul. The State 
 legislature will be a knot of commissioners, tide-waiters, 
 postmasters, district-attorneys, deputy-marshals. The town- 
 meeting will be a gang of government officers, like the 
 " Marshal's Guard," revolvers in their pockets, soldiers at 
 their back. The Habeas Corpus will be at an end ; trial by 
 jury never heard of, and open courts as common in America 
 as in Spain or Rome. Commissioners Curtis, Loring, and 
 Kane, will not be exceptional men ; there will be no other 
 "judges;" all courts, courts of the kidnapper; all process 
 summary ; all cases decided by the will of the government ; 
 arbitrary force the only rule. The constable will disappear, 
 the soldier come forth. All newspapers will be like the 
 '^ Satanic press " of Boston and New York, like the Journal 
 of St. Petersburg or the Diario Pomano, which tell lies when 
 the ruler commands, or tell truth when he insists upon it. ^ 
 Then the wicked will walk on every side, for the vilest of men 
 will be exalted, and America become the mock and scorn 
 and hissing of the nations will £ro down to worse shame than ^ 
 
34 
 
 was ever heaped upon Sodom ; for "svith her hist for Aveahh, 
 land, and power, she also will have committed the crime 
 against nature. Then America will be another Italy, Greece, 
 Asia Minor, yea, like Gomorrah — for the Dead Sea will 
 have settled down upon us with nothing living in its breast, 
 and the rulers will proclaim Peace where they have made 
 sohtude. 
 
 Which of these thi-ee hypotheses shall we take ? 
 
 I. Will there be a Separation of the two elements, and a 
 formation of two distinct States, — Freedom with Democracy, 
 and Slavery with a tendency to despotism ? That may save 
 one half the nation, and leave the other to voluntary ruin. 
 Certainly it is better to enter into life halt or maimed, rather 
 than having two hands and two feet to be cast into everlast- 
 ing fire. 
 
 Now, I do not suppose it is possible for the Anglo-Saxons 
 of America to remain as one nation for a great many years. 
 Suppose we become harmonious and prosper abundantly : 
 when there are a hundred millions on the Atlantic slope, 
 another hundred millions in the Mississippi Valley, another 
 hundi-ed millions on the Pacific slope, and a fou.rth hundred 
 millions in South America, — it is not likely that all these 
 will hold together. We shall be too wide-spread. And, 
 besides, it is not according to the disposition of the Teutonic 
 family to aggregate into one great state any very large body 
 of men ; division, not conglomeration, is after the ethnologic 
 instinct and the historical custom of the Teutonic family, and 
 especially of its Anglo-Saxon tribe. We do not hke central- 
 ization of power, but have such strong individuality that we 
 prefer local self-government ; we are social, not gregarious 
 like the Celtic family. I, therefore, do not look on the union 
 of the States as a thing that is likely to last a great length of 
 time, under any circumstances. I doubt if any part of the 
 nation will desire it a hundred years hence. 
 / True, there are causes wliich tend to keep us united : com- 
 
35 
 
 inunity of ethnologic origin — fifteen millions are Anglo-Sax- " 
 on ; — unity of language, literature, religion ; historic and legal 
 traditions, and commercial interest. But all these may easily 
 be overcome, and doubtless will be. So a dissolution of the 
 great Anglo-Saxon State seems likely to take place, when the 
 territory is spread so wide that there is a practical inconve- 
 nience in balancing the nation on a single governmental 
 point ; when the numbers are so great that we require many 
 centres of legislative and administrative action in order to 
 secure individual freedom of the parts as well as national 
 unity of the whole ; or when the Federal Government shall 
 become so corrupt that the trunk will not sustain the limbs. 
 Then the branches which make up this great American Ban- 
 yan tree will separate from the rotten primeval trunk, draw 
 their support from their own local roots, and spread into 
 great and independent trees. All this may take place without 
 fighting. Massachusetts and Maine were once a single State ; 
 now, friendly sisters. 
 
 But I do not think this " dissolution of the Union " will ' 
 take place immediately, or very soon. For America is not 
 ruled — as it is commonly thought, — either by the mass of 
 men who follow their national, ethnological, and human in- 
 stincts ; or by a few far-sighted men of genius for politics, 
 who consciously obey the Law of God made clear in their 
 own masterly mind and conscience, and make statutes in 
 advance of the calculation or even the instincts of the people, 
 and so manage the Ship of State that every occasional tack is 
 on a great circle of the Universe, a right line of Justice, and 
 therefore the shortest way to welfare : but by two very differ- 
 ent classes of men ; — by Mercantile men, who covet money, 
 actual or expectant Capitalists ; and Political men, who want 
 power, actual or expectant office-holders. These appear 
 diverse ; but there is a strong unanimity between the two ; — 
 for the mercantile men want money as a means of power, and 
 the political men power as a means of money. There are 
 noble men in both classes, exceptional, not instantial, men 
 
36 
 
 with great riches even, and great office. But as a class, these 
 men are not above the average morahty of the people, often 
 below it ; they have no deep, religious faith, which leads 
 them to trust the Higher Law of God. They do not look 
 for Princi]3les that are right, conformable to the Constitution 
 of the Universe, and so creative of the nation's permanent 
 welfare ; but only for exjiedient Measures, productive to 
 themselves of selfish money or selfish power. In general, they 
 have the character of adventurers, the aims of adventurers, 
 the morals of adventurers ; they begin poor, and of course 
 obscure, and are then " democratic," and hurrah for the 
 people : " Down with the powerful and the rich " is the 
 private maxim of their heart. If they are successful and 
 become rich, famous, attaining high office, they commonly 
 despise the people : " Down'with the people ! " is the axiom 
 of their heart — only they dare not say it ; for there are 
 others with the same selfishness, who have not yet achieved 
 their end, and raise the opposite cry. The line of the na- 
 tion's course is a resultant of the compound selfishness of 
 these two classes. 
 
 From these two, with mercantile and political selfishness, 
 we are to expect no comprehensive Morality, which will secure 
 the Rights of mankind ; no comprehensive Policy, which will 
 secure ex^^edient measures for a long time. Both will unite 
 in what serves their apparent interest, brings money to the 
 trader, power to the politician, — whatever be the consequence 
 to the country. 
 
 As things now are, the Union favors the schemes of both 
 of these classes of men ; the politician gets power, the trader 
 makes money. 
 
 If the Union were to be dissolved and a great Northern 
 Commonwealth were to be organized, with the Idea of Free- 
 dom, three-quarters of the Politicians, Federal and State, 
 would pass into contempt and oblivion ; all that class of 
 Northern demagogues who scoff at God's Law, such as filled 
 the offices of the late Whig administration in its day of power. 
 
37 
 
 or as fill the offices of tlie Democratic administration to-day -^ 
 they would di'op down so deep that no plummet would ever ^ 
 reach them ; you would never hear of them again. 
 
 Gratitude is not a very common virtue ; but gratitude to 
 the hand of Slavery, which feeds these creatures, is their sole 
 and single moral excellence ; they have that form of gratitude. / ' 
 When the hand of Slavery is cut off, that class of men will 
 die, just as caterpillars die when, some day in May, the 
 farmer cuts off from the old tree a great branch to graft in a 
 better fruit. The caterpillars will not vote for the grafting* 
 That class of men will go for the Union while it serves them. 
 
 Look at the other class. Property is safe in America : and 
 why ? Because we have aimed to establish a government on 
 natural rights, and property is a natural right ; say oligarchic 
 Blackstone and socialistic Proudhon what they may, property 
 is not the mere creature of compact, or the child of robbery ; 
 it is founded in the Nature of Man. It has a very great and 
 important function to perform. Nowhere in the world is it 
 so much respected as here. 
 
 But there is one kind of property wliich is not safe just 
 now : — Property in Men. It is the only kind of property ■ 
 which is purely the creature of violence and law ; it has no y 
 root in itself. 
 
 Now, the Union protects that "property." There are three 
 hundred thousand Slaveholders, owning thirteen hundred 
 millions of dollars invested in men. Their wealth depends ^ 
 on the Union; destroy that, and their- tmnatural property 
 will take to itself legs and run off, seeking liberty by flight, 
 or else stay at home and, like an Anglo^axon, take to itself 
 firebrands and swords, and burn down the master's house and 
 cut the master's throat. So the Slaveholder wants the ^' 
 Union ; he makes money by it. Slavery is unprofitable to / 
 the nation. No three millions earn so little as the three 
 million Slaves. It is costly to every State. But it enriches y 
 the owner of the Slaves. The South is agricultural ; that is 
 all. She raises cotton, sugar, and corn ; she has no commerce, 
 
no inanuflictures, no mining. The North has mills, sliips^ 
 mines, manufactures ; buys and sells for the South, and makes 
 money by what impoverishes the South. So all the great 
 commercial centres of the North are in favor of Union, in 
 fiivor of Slavery. The instinct of American trade just now is 
 hostile to American Freedom. The Money Power and the 
 Slave Power go hand in hand. Of course such editors and 
 ministers as are only the tools of the INIoney Power, or the 
 Slave Power, will be fond of " Union at all hazards." They 
 will sell their mothers to keep it. Now these are the con- 
 trolling classes of men ; these ministers and editors are the 
 mouth-pieces of these controlling classes of men ; and as these 
 classes make money and power out of the Union, for the 
 present I think the Union will hold together. Yet I knoAV 
 
 ■"' very well that there are causes now at work which embitter 
 the minds of men, and which, if much enforced, will so 
 exasperate the North that we shall rend the Union asunder 
 at a blow. That I think not likely to take place, for the 
 
 • South sees the peril and its own ruin. 
 
 II. The next hypothesis is, Freedom may triumph over 
 ^ Slavery. That was the expectation once, at the time of the 
 
 Declaration of Independence ; nay, at the formation of the 
 Constitution. But only two national steps have been taken 
 against Slavery since then — one the Ordinance of 1787, the 
 other the abolition of the African Slave Trade ; really that was 
 done in 1788, formally twenty years after. In the individual 
 States, the white man's freedom enlarges every year ; but the 
 Federal Government becomes more and more addicted to 
 Slavery. That hypothesis does not seem very likely to be 
 adopted. 
 
 III. Shall Slavery destroy Freedom ? It looks very much 
 / like it. Here are nine great steps, openly taken since '87, in 
 
 favor of Slavery. First, America put Slavery into the Con- 
 stitution, Second, out of old soil she made four new Slave 
 
States. Third, America, iu 1793, adopted Slavery as a Fed- 
 eral institution, and guaranteed her protection for that kind of 
 property as for no other. Fourth, America bought Louisiana 
 in 1803, and put Slavery into it. Fifth, she made INlissouri 
 a Slave State, and then Arkansas. Sixth, she made Slavery 
 perpetual in Florida. Seventh, she annexed Texas. Eighth, 
 she fought the Mexican War, and plundered a feeble sister 
 republic of California, Utah, and New Mexico, to get more 
 Slave Soil. Ninth, America passed the Fugitive Slave Bill, 
 and has since kidnapped men in New England, New York, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Micliigan, Wisconsin, Illi- 
 nois, Indiana, in all the East, in all the West, in all the 
 Middle States. All the great cities have kidnapped their own 
 citizens. Professional Slavehunters are members of New 
 England Churches ; kidnappers sit down at the Lord's table 
 in the city of Cotton, Chauncey, and Mayhew. In this very 
 year, before it is half through, America has taken two more 
 steps for the destruction of freedom. The repeal of the INlis- 
 souri Compromise and the enslavement of Nebraska : that is 
 the tenth step. Here is the eleventh : The Mexican Treaty, 
 giving away ten millions of dollars and buying a little strip of 
 worthless land, solely that it may serve the cause of Slavery. 
 Here are eleven great steps openly taken towards the ruin 
 of liberty in America. Are these the worst ? Very far from 
 it ! Yet more dangerous things have been done in secret. 
 
 I. Slavery has corrupted the mercantile class. Almost all 
 the leading merchants of the North are Pro-Slavery men. 
 They hate freedom, hate your freedom and mine ! This is 
 the only Christian country in which commerce is hostile to 
 freedom. 
 
 II. See the corruption of the Political Class. There are 
 forty thousand officers of the Federal Government. Look at 
 them in Boston, — their character is as Avell known as this 
 Hall. Read their journals in this city, — do you catch a 
 
 y 
 
40 
 
 whisper of freedom in them ? Slavery has sought its menial 
 servants, — men basely born, and basely bred : it has cor- 
 rupted them still further, and put them in office. America, " 
 like Russia, is the country for mean men to thrive in. Give 
 him time and mire enough, a worm can crawl as high as an 
 eagle flies. State rights are sacrificed at the North ; central- 
 ization goes on with rapid strides ; State laws are trodden 
 under foot. The Northern President is all for Slavery. The 
 Northern Members of the Cabinet are for Slavery ; in the 
 Senate, fourteen Northern Democrats were for the enslavement 
 of Nebraska ; in the House of Representatives, forty-four 
 Northern Democrats voted for the bill, — fourteen in the 
 Senate, forty-four in the House ; fifty-eight Northern men 
 voted against the conscience of the North and the Law of 
 God. Only eight men out of all the South could be found 
 friendly to justice and Mse to their own local idea of injus- 
 tice. The present administration, with its supple tools of 
 tyranny, came into office while the cry of " No Higher Law " 
 was echoing through the land ! 
 
 HI. Slavery has debauched the Press. How many lead- 
 ing journals of commerce and politics in the great cities do 
 you know that are friendly to Freedom and opposed to 
 Slavery ? Out of the five large daily commercial papers in 
 Boston, Whig or Democratic, I know of only one that has 
 spoken a word for freedom this great while. The American 
 newspapers are poor defenders of American liberty. Listen 
 to one of them, speaking of the last kidnapping in Boston : 
 " We shall need to employ the same measures of coercion as 
 are necessary in monarchical countries." There is always 
 some one ready to do the basest deeds. Yet there are some 
 noble journals ; such as the New York Tribune and Evening 
 Post. 
 
 IV. Then our Colleges and Schools are corrupted by 
 Slavery. I do not know of five colleges in all the North 
 
41 
 
 wliicli publicly appear on the side of freedom. What the 
 hearts of the presidents and professors are, God knows, not I. 
 The great crime against humanity, practical atheism, found 
 ready support in Northern colleges, in 1850 and 1851. Once, 
 the common reading books of our schools were full of noble 
 words. Read the school books now made by Yankee pedlers 
 of literature, and what liberal ideas do you find there ? They 
 are meant for the Southern market. Slavery must not be 
 offended ! 
 
 V. Slavery has corrupted the Churches ! There are twenty- / 
 eight thousand Protestant clergymen in the United States. 
 There are noble hearts, true and just men among them, 
 who have fearlessly borne witness to the truth. I need not 
 mention their names. Alas ! they are not very numerous ; I 
 should not have to go over my fingers many times to count 
 them all. I honor these exceptional men. Some of them 
 are old, fiir older than I am ; older than my father need have 
 been ; some of them are far younger than I ; nay, some of 
 them younger than my children might be : — and I honor 
 these men for the fearless testimony which they have borne — 
 the old, the middle-aged, and the young. But they are very 
 exceptional men. Is there a minister in the South who 
 preaches against Slavery ? How few in all the North ! 
 
 Look and see the condition of the Sunday Schools. In 
 1853, the Episcopal Methodists had 9,438 Sunday Schools ; 
 102,732 Sunday School teachers ; 525,008 scholars. There 
 is not an Anti-Slavery Sunday School in the compass of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. Last year, in New York, they 
 printed more than two hundred and forty railHon pages of 
 Sunday School books, not a line against Slavery in them all. 
 They issued, on an average, two thousand bound volumes 
 every day in the year, not a line against Slavery in them. 
 They printed also two thousand pamphlets every day ; there 
 is not a line in them all against Slavery ; not a line showing 
 6 
 
that it is wicked to buy and sell a man, for wliom, according, 
 to the Methodist Episcopal Church, Cln-ist died. « 
 
 The Orthodox Sunday School Union s^icnt last year $248,- 
 201 ; not a cent against Slavery, our great National Sin. 
 They print books by the million. Only one of them contains 
 a word against Slavery ; that is Cowper's Task, which contains 
 these words — my mother taught them to me when I was a 
 little boy, and sat in her lap : — 
 
 " I would not have a Slave to till my ground, 
 To carry me, to fan me -vvlien I sleep, 
 And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
 That sinews, bought and sold, have ever earned ! " 
 
 You all know it : if you do not, you had better learn it and 
 teach it to your children. That is the only Anti-Slavery 
 word they print. Once they published a book written by 
 Mr. Gallaudet, which related the story, I think, of the selling 
 of Joseph : at any rate, it showed that Egyptian Slavery was 
 wrong. A little girl in a Sunday School in one of the South- 
 ern States one day said to her teacher, " If it was wrong to 
 make Joseph a Slave, why is it not wrong to make Dinah, 
 and Sambo, and Chloe Slaves ? " The Sunday School teacher 
 and the Church took the alarm and complained of the Sun- 
 day School Union : " You are poisoning the South with 
 your religion, telling the children that Slavery is wicked." 
 It was a serious thing, " dissolution of the Union," " levying 
 war," or at least, " misdemeanor," for aught I know. What 
 do you think the Sunday School Union did ? It suppressed 
 the book ! It printed one Sunday School book which 
 had a line against Egyptian Slavery and then suppressed it ; 
 and it cannot be had to-day ! Amid all their million books, 
 there is not a line against Slavery, save what Cowper sung. 
 There are five milHon Sunday School scholars in the United 
 States, and there is not a Sunday School manual which has 
 got a word against Slavery in it. 
 
43 
 
 You all know the American Tract Society. Last year the 
 American Tract Society in Boston spent ^79,983.46 ; it visited 
 more than fourteen thousand families ; it distributed 3,334,920 
 tracts — not a word against Slavery in them all. The Ameri- 
 can Tract Society in New York last year visited 568,000 
 families, containing three million persons ; it spent for home 
 purposes $406,707 ; for foreign purposes |422,294 ; it 
 distributed tracts in English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, 
 Swedish, Norwegian, Italian, Hungarian, and Welch — and 
 it did not print one single line, nor Avhisper a single word 
 against this great national sin of Slavery ! ■ Nay, worse : — if 
 it finds English books which suit its general purpose, but 
 containing matter adverse to Slavery, it strikes out all the 
 Anti-Slavery matter, then prints and circulates the book. Is 
 the Tract Society also managed by Jesuits from the Roman 
 Church ? 
 
 At this day, 600,000 Slaves are directly and personally 
 owned by , men who are called " professing Christians," 
 *' members in good fellowship " of the churches of this land ; 
 80,000 owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, 250,000 
 owned by Methodists ; — 600,000 Slaves in this land owned 
 by men Avho profess themselves Christians, and in churches 
 sit down to take the Lord's Supper, in the name of Christ 
 and God ! There are ministers who own their fellow men — 
 " bought with a price." 
 
 Does not this look as if Slavery were to triumph over 
 Freedom ? 
 
 VI. Slavery corrupts the Judicial Class. In America, 
 especially in New England, no class of men has been so 
 much respected as the judges ; and for this reason : we have 
 had wise, learned, excellent men for our judges ; men Avho 
 reverenced the Higher Law- of God, and sought by human 
 statutes to execute Justice. You all know their venerable 
 names, and how reverentially we have looked up to them. 
 Many of them arc dead ; some are still living, and their 
 
44 
 
 hoaiy hairs are a crown of glory on a judicial life, without 
 judicial blot. But of late Slavciy has put a different class of 
 men on the benches of the Federal Courts — mere tools of 
 the government; creatures which get their appointment as 
 pay for past political service, and as pay in advance for iniquity 
 not yet accomplished. You see the consequences. Note the 
 zeal of the Federal Judges to execute iniquity by statute and 
 destroy Liberty. See how ready they are to support the 
 Fugitive Slave Bill, which tramples on the spirit of the Con- 
 stitution, and its letter, too ; which outrages Justice and 
 violates the most sacred principles and precepts of Christian- 
 ity. Not a United States Judge, Circuit or District, has 
 uttered one word against that " bill of abominations." Nay, 
 hoAV greedy they are to get victims under it ! No wolf loves 
 better to rend a lamb into fragments than these judges to 
 kidnap a Fugitive Slave, and punish any man who dares to 
 speak against it. You know what has happened in Fugitive 
 Slave Bill Courts. You remember the " miraculous " rescue 
 of Shadrach : the peaceable snatching of a man from the 
 hands of a cowardly kidnapper was " high treason ; " it was 
 "levying war." You remember the "trial " of the rescuers ! 
 Judge Sprague's charge to the Grand Jury that if they thought 
 the question was which they ought to obey, the law of man 
 or the Law of God, then they must " Obey both ! " serve God 
 and mammon, Christ and the Devil, in the same act ! You 
 remember the "trial," the "ruling" of the Bench, the 
 swearing on the stand, the witness coming back to alter and 
 "enlarge his testimony" and have another gird at the joris- 
 oner. You have not forgotten the trials before Judge Kane at 
 Philadelphia, and Judge Grier at Christiana and Wilkesbarre. 
 
 These are natural results of causes well known. You 
 cannot escape a Principle. Enslave a negro, will you ? — you 
 doom to bondage your own sons and daughters, by your own 
 act. 
 
 Do you forget the Union meeting in Faneuil Hall, Novem- 
 ber 26, 1850, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Day ? It 
 
45 
 
 was called to endorse the Fugitive Slave Bill — a meeting to 
 promote the stealing, of men in Boston, of your fellow-wor- 
 shippers and my parishioners. Do you remember the Demo- 
 cratic Herods and Whig Pilates, who were made friends that 
 day, melted into one unity of Despotism, in order that they 
 might enslave men ? They had unity of idea and unity of 
 action, that day. Do you remember the speeches of Mr. 
 Curtis and Mr. Hallett ; their yelp against the unalienable 
 rights of men ; their howl at God's Higher Law ? The 
 worser half of that platform is now the United States Court ; 
 ^ — the Fugitive Slave Bill Judge, the United States Attorney. 
 They got their offices for their political services past and for 
 their character — very fit reward to very fitting men ! A 
 man professes a fondness for kidnapping, hurrahs for it in 
 Faneuil Hall : — give him the United States Judgeship ; 
 make him United States Attorney — - fit to fit ! When Slavery 
 dispenses offices, every service rendered to despotism is well 
 paid. Men with foreheads of brass, with iron elbows, with 
 consciences of gum elastic, whose chief commandment of their 
 Law their Prophets and their Gospel, is to 
 
 *' crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, 
 
 "Where thrift may follow fawning," 
 
 verily they shall have their reward ! They shall become 
 Fugitive Slave Bill Judges ; yea. Attorneys of the United 
 States ! 
 
 In 1836, a poor Slave-girl named Med, who had been 
 brought from Louisiana to Boston by her master, sued for 
 her freedom in the Courts of Massachusetts. Mr. Benjamin 
 R. Curtis appeared as the Slavehunter's counsel, long, and 
 stoutly, and learnedly contending that she should not receive 
 her freedom by the laws, constitution, and usages of this 
 Commonwealth, but should be sent back to eternal bondage.* 
 
 * The girl was set free, and the principle laid down that Slaves coming to 
 a free State with the consent of their masters, secured their freedom. An 
 
46 
 
 On tlie Tth of March, 1850, Mr. "Webster made his Speech 
 against freedom, so fatal to hunself, but soon after found 
 such a fire in his rear that he must return to Massachusetts 
 to rescue his own popularity — then apparently in great peril. 
 On the 29th of April, the same Mr. Curtis, faithful to his 
 proclivities to\yards Slavery, made a public address to the 
 apostate Senator, at the Revere House, and expressed his 
 " abounding gratitude for the ability and fidelity " which 
 Mr. Webster had " brought to the defence of the Constitu- 
 tion and the Union," praising him as " eminently vigilant, 
 wise, and faithful to our country, without shadow of turn- 
 ing." At the Union meeting in Faneuil Hall, (Nov. 26th,) 
 Mr. Curtis declared the fugitive Slaves " a class of foreigners," 
 " with whose rights Massachusetts has nothing to do. It is 
 enough for us that they have no right to be here." Other 
 services, similar or analogous, which he has rendered to the 
 cause of inhumanity, I here pass by. 
 
 This is a world in which " men do nothing for nothing ; " 
 the workman is worthy of his hire ; in due time Mr. Curtis 
 received his reward. 
 
 He has lately (June 7th) '' charged " the Grand Jury of 
 the Circuit Court of the United States, pointing out their 
 duty in respect to recent events jn Boston. A federal enact- 
 ment of 1790 provides that if any person shall wilfully 
 obstruct, resist, or oppose any officer of the United States in 
 executing any legal writ or process thereof, he shall be im- 
 prisoned not more than twelve months, and fined not more 
 than three hundred dollar. . Mr. Curtis charges that the 
 
 account of the case was published in the BostoJt Daily Advertiser of August 
 29, 1836, and introduced with the following editorial comment : — " In some 
 of the States there is, we believe, legislative provision for cases of this sort, 
 [namely, allowing the master to bring and keep Slaves in bondage,] and it 
 would seem that some such provision is necessary in this State, unless we 
 would prohibit citizens of the Slaveholding States from travelling in this 
 State with their families, and unless we would permit such of them as wish 
 to emancipate their Slaves, to throw them at their pleasure upon the people 
 of this State." 
 
47 
 
 offence is a misdemeanor ; to constitute the crime it is " not 
 necessary to prove the accused used or even threatened active 
 violence." " If a multitude of persons should assemhle, even 
 in a public highway, with the design to stand together and 
 thus prevent the officer from passing freely along the way, 
 . . . this would of itself, and without any active violence, be 
 such an obstruction as is contemplated by this law." 
 
 So much for what constitutes the crime. Now see who are 
 criminals : " All who are present and actually obstruct, resist, 
 or oppose, are of course guilty. So are all who are present, 
 leagued in the common design, and so situated as to be able, 
 in case of need, to afford assistance to those actually engaged, 
 though they do not actually obstruct, resist, or oppose." 
 That is, they are guilty of a misdemeanor, because they are in 
 the neighborhood of such as oppose a constable of the United 
 States, and are " able " " to afford assistance." " If they are 
 present for the purpose of affording assistance, though no 
 overt act is done by them, they are still guilty under tliis 
 law." They are guilty of a misdemeanor, not merely as 
 accessory before the fact, but as principals, for " in misde- 
 meanors all are principals." 
 
 " Not only those who are present, but those who though 
 absent when the offence was committed, did procure, counsel, 
 command, or abet others to commit the offence, are indictable 
 as principals." But what amounts to such counselling as 
 constitutes a misdemeanor? "Evincing an express liking, 
 approbation, or assent to another's criminal design." " It need 
 not appear that the precise time, or place, or means advised, 
 were used." So all who evinced an express liking, approba- 
 tion, or assent to the rescue of Mr. Burns are guilty of a 
 misdemeanor ; if they " evinced an express liking " that he 
 should be rescued by a miracle wrought by Almighty God, — 
 and some did express "approbation" of that "means," — they 
 are indictable, guilty of a "misdemeanor;" "it need not 
 appear that the precise time, or place, or means advised, were 
 used " ! If any colored woman, during the wicked week — 
 
48 
 
 which, was ten days long — prayed that God woukl deliver 
 Anthony, as it is said his angel delivered Peter, or said 
 " amen " to such a prayer, she was " guilty of a misde- 
 meanor ; " to be indicted as a "principal." 
 
 So every man in Boston who, on that bad Friday, stood in 
 the streets of Boston between Court Square and T "Wharf, 
 was "guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to a fine of three 
 hundred dollars, and to jailing for twelve months. All who 
 at Faneuil Hall stirred up the minds of the people in opposi- 
 tion to the Fugitive Slave Bill ; all who shouted, who clapped 
 their hands at the words or the countenance of then- favorites, 
 or who expressed " approbation " by a whisper of " assent," 
 are "guilty of misdemeanor." The very Avomen who stood 
 for four days at the street corners, and hissed the infamous 
 Slavehunters and their coadjutors ; they, too, ought to be 
 punished by fine of three hundred dollars and imprisonment 
 for a year ! Well, there were fifteen thousand persons " as- 
 sembled " " in the highway " of the City of Boston that day 
 opposed to kidnapping ; half the newspapers in the country 
 towns of Massachusetts "evinced an express liking" for 
 freedom, and opposed the kidnapijing ; they are all " guilty 
 of a misdemeanor ; " they are " Principals." Nay, the ministers 
 all over the State, who preached that kidnapping was a sin ; 
 those who read brave words out of the Old Testament or the 
 New ; those who prayed that the victim might escape ; they, 
 likewise, were " guilty of a misdemeanor," liable to be fined 
 tlu-ee hundred dollars and jailed for twelve months. Excel- 
 lent Fugitive Slave Bill Judge ! Mr. Webster did wisely in 
 making that appointment ! He chose an approjDriate tool. 
 The charge was worthy of the worst days of Jefii-eys and 
 the second James ! 
 
 We all know against whom this judicial iniquity was 
 directed — against men who, at Faneuil Hall, under the 
 pictured and sculptured eyes of John Hancock and the three 
 Adamses, appealed to the spirit of humanity, not yet crushed 
 out of your heart and mine, and lifted up their voices in 
 
49 
 
 favor of Freedom and the Eternal Law of God. If lie liad 
 called us by our names, he could not have made the thing- 
 plainer. You know the zeal of the United States Attorney, 
 you have heard of the swearing before the Grand Jury and at 
 the Grand Juiy. Did the Judge's lightning only gloAv with 
 judicial ardor and zeal for the Fugitive Slave Bill? — or was 
 it also red with personal malignity and family spite ? Judge 
 you ! 
 
 But, alas ! there was a Grand Jury, and the Salmonean 
 thunder of the Fugitive Slave Bill Judge fell harmless — 
 quenched, conquered, disgraced, and brutal, — to the ground. 
 Poor Fugitive Slave Bill Court ! it can only gnash its teeth 
 against freedom of speech in Faneuil Hall ; only bark and 
 yelp against the unalienable rights of man, and howl against 
 the Higher Law of God ! it cannot bite ! Poor, imbecile, 
 malignant Court ! What a pity that the Fugitive Slave Bill 
 Judge was not himself the Grand Jury, to order the indict- 
 ment ! what a shame that the Attorney was not a petty jury 
 to convict ! Then New England, like Old, might have had 
 her " bloody assizes," and Boston streets might have streamed 
 with the heart's gore of noble men and women ; and human 
 heads might have decked the pinnacles all around the town ; 
 and Judge Curtis and Attorney Hallett might have had their 
 place with Judge Jeifreys and John Boilman of old. What 
 a pity that we have a Grand Jury and a traverse jury to stand 
 between the malignant arm of the Slavehunter and the heart 
 of you and me ! Perhaps the Court will try again, and find 
 a more pliant Grand Jury, easier to intimidate. Let me sug- 
 gest to the Court that the next time it should pack its Jury 
 from the Marshal's "guard." Then there will be unity 
 of Idea; of action, too— the Court a figure of equilibrium. 
 At a Fugitive Slave Bill meeting in Faneuil Hall, it is 
 easy to ask a minister a question designed to be insulting, 
 and not dare listen to the proffered reply ; easy to bark at 
 Justice, and howl at the unalienable rights of man ; easy to 
 denounce the vengeance of a corrupt administration of Slave- 
 7 
 
50 
 
 hunters upon all who love the Higher Law of God ; but He 
 Himself has so fashioned the hearts of men that we instinct- 
 ively hate all tyranny, all oppression, all wrong ; and the 
 hand of history brands ineffaceable disgrace on the brass fore- 
 heads of all such -as enact iniquity by statute, and execute 
 wickedness as law. The memory of the wicked shall rot. 
 Scroggs and Jeffreys also got their appointment as pay for 
 then- service and their character — fitting bloodhounds for a 
 fitting king. For two hundred years, their names have been 
 a stench in the face of the Anglo-Saxon tribe. Others as 
 unscrupulous may take wai-ning by their fate. 
 Thus has Slavery debauched the Federal Courts. 
 
 VII. Alas me ! Slavery has not ended yet its long career 
 of sin. Its corruption is seven-fold. It debauches the 
 elected officers of our City, and even our State. In the Sims 
 time of 1851, the laws of Massachusetts were violated nine 
 days running, and the Free Soil Governor sat in the State House 
 as idle as a feather in his chair. In the wicked week of 1854, 
 the Whig Governor sat in the seat of his predecessor ! 
 Massachusetts was one of the inferior counties of Virginia, 
 and a Slavehunter had eminent domain over the birth-place 
 of Franklin and the bm-ial-place of Hancock. Nay, against 
 our own laws the Free Soil Mayor put the neck of Boston in 
 the hands of a "train-band cajjtain" — the people "wonder- 
 ing much to see how he did ride " ! Boston was a suburb 
 of Alexandria ; the Mayor a Slave-catcher for our masters at 
 the South ! You and I were only fellow Slaves ! 
 
 All this looks as if Slavery was to triumph over Freedom. 
 But even this is not the end. Slavery has privately emptied 
 her seven vials of wrath upon the nation — committing seven 
 debaucheries of human safeguards of our Natm-al Rights. 
 That is not enough — there are other seven to come. This 
 Apocalyptic Dragon, grown black with long-continued deeds 
 of shame and death, now meditates five further steps of 
 
51 
 
 crime. Here is the programme of the next attempt — a 
 new political Tragedy in five acts. 
 
 I. — The acquisition of Dominica — and then all Hayti — 
 as new Slave Territory. 
 
 II. — The acquisition of Cuba, by purchase, or else by 
 private filibustering and public war, — as new Slave Terri- 
 tory. 
 
 III.— The reestablishment of Slavery in all the Free States, 
 by Judicial " decision " or legislative enactment. Then the 
 Master of the North may " sit down with his Slaves at the 
 foot of Bunker Hill Monument ! " 
 
 IV. — The restoration of the African Slave Trade, which is 
 already seriously proposed and defended in the Southern 
 Journals. Nay, the Senate Committee on Foreign Eelations 
 recommend the first step towards it — the Avithdrawal of our 
 fleet from the coast of Africa. You cannot escape the conse- 
 quence of your first principle : if Slavery is right, then the 
 Slave-trade is right ; the traffic between Guinea and New 
 Orleans is no worse than between Virginia and New Orleans ; 
 it is no worse to kidnap in Timbuctoo than in Boston. 
 
 V. — A yet further quarrel must be sought with Mexico, 
 and more Slave Territory be stolen from her. 
 
 Who shall oppose this five-fold wickedness ? The Fugi- 
 tive Slave Bill Party ; — the Nebraska Enslavement Party ? 
 Northern serviHty has hitherto been ready to grant more than 
 Southern arrogance dared to demand ! 
 
 All this looks as if the third hypothesis would be fulfilled, 
 and Slavery triumjih over Freedom ; as if the nation would 
 expunge the Declaration of Independence from the scroll of 
 time, and instead of honoring Hancock and the Adamses 
 and Washington, do homage to Kane and Grier and Curtis 
 and Hallett and Loring. Then the preamble to our Consti- 
 tution might read — " to establish injustice, ensure domestic 
 strife, liinder the common defence, disturb the general wel- 
 
52 
 
 fare, and inflict the curse of Londagc on ourselves and our 
 posterity." Then we shall honor the Puritans no more, but 
 their Prelatical tormentors ; nor reverence the great Re- 
 formers, only the Inquisitors of Rome. Yea, we may tear 
 the name of Jesus out of the American Bible ,• yea, God's 
 name ; v/orship the Devil at our Lord's table, Iscariot for 
 Redeemer ! 
 
 See the steady triumph of Despotism ! Ten years more 
 like the ten years past, and it will be all over with the liber- 
 ties of America. Everything must go down, and the heel of 
 the tyrant will be on our neck. It will be all over with the 
 Rights of Man in America, and you and I must go to Austria, 
 to Italy, or to Siberia for our freedom ; or perish with the 
 liberty which our fathers fought for and secured to them- 
 selves, not to their faithless sons. Shall America thus 
 miserably perish ? Such is the aspect of things to-day ! 
 
 But are the people alarmed ? No, they fear nothing ; only 
 the tightness in the money market ! Next Tuesday at sun- 
 rise every bell in Boston will ring joyously ; every cannon 
 will belch sulphurous "Welcome fi-om its brazen tlii-oat. 
 There will be processions, — the Mayor and the Aldermen 
 and the Marshal and the Naval Officer, and, I suppose, the 
 " Marshal's Guard," very appropriately taking their places. 
 There is a chain on the Common to-day : it is the same chain 
 that was around the Court House in 1851 ; it is the chain that 
 , bound Sims ; now it is a festal chain. Beware the chain ! it 
 is of the Father of Lies ! There are mottoes about the Com- 
 mon — " They mutually pledged to each other their lives, 
 their fortunes, and their sacred honor." I suppose it means 
 that the mayor and the kidnappers did this. " The spirit of 
 '76 still lives." Lives, I suppose, in the Supreme Court of 
 Fugitive Slave Bill judges. " Washington, Jefferson, and 
 their compatriots ! — their names are sacred in the heart of 
 every American." That, I suppose, is the opinion of Thomas 
 Sims and of Anthony Burns. And opposite the great Park 
 Street Church, — where a noble man is this day, I trust, dis- 
 
53 
 
 coursing noble words, for he has never yet been found false to 
 freedom — " Liberty and Independence, our Fathers' Legacy ! 
 — God forbid that we their sons should prove recreant to the 
 trust ! " It ought to read, " God forgive us that we their 
 sons have proved so recreant to the trust ! " So they will 
 celebrate the Fourth of July, and call it " Independence 
 Day ! " The foolish press of France, bought and beaten and 
 trodden on by Napoleon the Little, is full of talk about the 
 welfare of the " Great Nation ! " Philip of INIacedon was 
 conquering the Athenian allies toAvn by town ; he destroyed 
 and swept off two-and-thirty cities, selling their children as 
 Slaves. All the Cassandrian eloquence of Demosthenes could 
 not rouse degenerate Athens from her idle sleep. She also 
 fell — the fairest of all free States ; corrupted first — forgetful 
 of God's Higher Law. Shall America thus perish, all im- 
 mature ! 
 
 So was it in the days of old : they ate, they drank, they 
 planted, they builded, they married, they Avere given in mar- 
 riage, until the day that Noah entered into the Ark, and the 
 Flood came and devoured them all ! 
 
 Well, is this to be the end ? Was it for this the Pilgrims 
 came over the sea? Does Forefathers' Kock assent to it? 
 Was it for this that the New England clergy prayed, and their 
 prayers became the law of the land for a hundi-ed years ? 
 Was it for this that Cotton planted in Boston a little branch 
 of the Lord's vine, and Roger Williams and Higginson — he 
 still lives in an undegenerate son — did the same in the city 
 which they called of Peace, Salem ? Was it for this that 
 Eliot carried the Gospel to the Indians ? that Chauncey 
 and Edwards and Hopkins and Mayhew and Channing and 
 Ware labored and prayed ? for this that our fathers fought — 
 the Adamses, Wasliington, Hancock ? for this that there was 
 an eight-years' war, and a thousand battle fields ? for this the 
 little monuments at Acton, Concord, Lexington, West Cam- 
 bridge, Danvers, and the great one over there on the spot 
 
54 
 
 which our fathers' blood made so red ? Shall America 
 become Asia Minor ? New England, Italy ? Boston such as 
 Athens — dead and rotten ? Yes ! if we do not mend, and 
 speedily mend. Ten years more, and the Liberty of America 
 is all gone. We shall fall -^ the laugh, the by-word, the 
 proverb, the scorn, the mock of the nations, who shall cry 
 against us. Hell from beneath shall be moved to meet us at 
 our coming, and in derision shall it welcome us ; 
 
 " The heir of all the ages, and the youngest born of time." 
 
 We shall lie down mth the unrepentant prodigals of old 
 time, damned to everlasting infamy and shame ! 
 
 Would you have it so ? Shall it be ? 
 
 To-day, America is a debauched young man, of good blood, 
 fortune, and family, but the companion of gamesters and 
 brawlers ; reeking with wine ; wasting his substance in riot- 
 ous living ; in the lap of harlots squandering the life which 
 his mother gave him. Shall he return ? Shall he perish ? 
 One day may determine. 
 
 Shall America thus die ? I look to the past, — Asia, 
 Africa, Europe, and they answer, " Yes ! " Where is the 
 Hebrew Commonwealth ; the Roman Eepublic ; where is 
 liberal Greece, — Athens and many a far-famed Ionian town ; 
 where are the Commonwealths of Mediaeval Italy ; the Teu- 
 tonic free cities — German, Dutch, or Swiss ? They have all 
 perished. Not one of them is left. Parian Statues of Liberty, 
 sorely mutilated, still remain ; but the Parian rock whence 
 Liberty once hewed her sculptures out — it is all gone. 
 Shall America thus perish ? Greece and Italy both answer 
 " Yes ! " I question the last fifty years of American history, 
 and it says, " Yes." I look to the American pulpit, I ask 
 the five million Svmday School scholars, and they say " Yes." 
 I ask the Federal Court, the Democratic Party, and the 
 Whig, and the answer is still the same. 
 
55 
 
 But I close my eyes on the eleven past missteps we have 
 taken for Slavery ; on that seven-fold clandestine corruption ; 
 I forget the Whig party ; I forget the present Administra- 
 tion ; I forget the Judges of the Courts ; — I remember the 
 few noblest men that there are in society. Church and State ; 
 I remember the grave of my father, the lessons of my mother's 
 life ; I look to the Spirit of this Age, — it is the nineteenth 
 century, not the ninth ; — I look to the history of the Anglo- 
 Saxons in America, and the history of Mankind ; I remember 
 the story and the song of Italian and German Patriots ; I 
 recall the dear words of those great-minded Greeks — Ionian, 
 Dorian, iEtolian ; I remember the Romans who spoke and 
 sang and fought for truth and right ; I recollect those old 
 Hebrew Prophets, earth's nobler sons. Poets and Saints ; I 
 call to mind the greatest, noblest, purest soul that ever blos- 
 somed in this dusty world ; — and I say, " No ! " Truth 
 shall triumph. Justice shall be law ! And if America fail, 
 though she is one-fortieth of God's family, and it is a great 
 loss, there are other nations behind us; our Truth shall not" 
 perish, even if we go down. But we shall not fail ! 
 
 I look into your eyes — young men and women, thousands 
 of you, and men and women far enough from young ! I look 
 into the eyes of fifty thousand other men and Avomen, whom, 
 in the last eight months, I have spoken to, face to face, and 
 they say, " No ! America shall not fail ! " 
 
 I remember the women, who were never found fliithless 
 when a sacrifice was to be offered to great princix^les ; I look 
 up to my God, and I look into my own heart, and I say. 
 We shaU not fail ! We shall not fail ! 
 
 This, at my side, it is the willow ; it is the symbol of 
 weeping : — but its leaves are deciduous ; the autumn wind 
 will strew them on the ground ; and beneath, here is a 
 perennial plant ; it is green all the year through. When this 
 willow branch is leafless, the other is green with hoj)e, and 
 its buds are in its bosom ; its buds will blossom. So it is 
 with America. 
 
 LfffC. 
 
56 
 
 Did our fathers live ? are we dead ? Even in our ashes 
 live their holy fires ! Boston only sleeps ; one day she will 
 wake ! Massachusetts will stir again ! New England will 
 rise and walk! the vanished North be found once more, 
 queenly and majestic ! Then it will be seen that Slavery is 
 weak and powerless in itself, only a phantom of the night. 
 
 Slaveiy is a " Finality," is it ? There shall be no " Agi- 
 tation," — not the least, — shall there ? There is a Hispaniola 
 in the South, and the South knows it. She sits on a powder- 
 magazine, and then plays with fire, while Humanity shoots 
 rockets all over the world. To mutilate, to torture, to burn 
 to death revolted Africans whom outrage has stung to crime 
 — that is only to light the torches of San Domingo. This 
 Black Bondage will be Eed Freedom, one day ; nay. Lust, 
 Vengeance, redder yet. I would not wait till that Flood 
 comes and devom-s all. 
 
 "When the North stands up, manfully, united, we can tear 
 down Slavery in a single twelve-month; and when wc do 
 unite, it must not be only to destroy Slavery in the territories, 
 but to uproot every fragment of Slavery throughout this 
 whole wide land. Then leanness will depart from our soids ; 
 then the blessing of God will come upon us ; we shall 
 have a Commonwealth based on righteousness, wliich is the 
 strength of any people, and shall stand longer than ^gypt, — 
 National Fidelity to God our age-outlasting Pyramid ! 
 
 How feeble seems a single nation ,* how powerless a solitary 
 man ! But one of a family of forty, we can do much. How 
 much is Italy, Rome, Greece, Palestine, ^gypt to the world .'' 
 The solitary man — a Luther, a Paul, a Jesus — he out- 
 weighs millions of coward souls ! Each one of you take 
 heed that the Republic receive no harm ! 
 
 W46 
 
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