THE DUTY
OF THE
AMERICAN SCHOLAR
TO
POLITICS AND T"l 3TIMES.
AN ORATION,
D ELIVERED
ON TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1856,
BEFORE THE
LITERARY SOCIETIES OF WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY,
MIDDLETOWN, CONN.
BY
GEOR GE WILLIAM CURTIS.
NEW YORK:
DIX, EDWARDS,& CO., 321 BROADWAY.
1856.
_
of t.,6 
I 
TO
I
JOSIAH  QUINCY,
The scholar and patriot, who, born with our great revolution,
has always illustrated the principles that made it
great, this discourse is, with affectionate
veneration, inscribed.
NEw YORK, August 20, 185a.
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ram
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I 
ORATION.
GENTLEMEN: The summer is our literary festival.
We are not a scholarly people, but we devote to
the honor of literature some of our loveliest days.
When the leaves are greenest, and the mower's
scythe sings through the grass; when plenty is on
the earth, and splendor in the heavens, we gather
from a thousand pursuits, to celebrate the jubilee
of the scholar.
No man who loves literature, or who can, in
any way, claim the scholar's privilege, but is glad
to associate the beauty of the season with the object of the occasion; and grace with flowers, and
sunshine, and universal summer, the homage
which is thus paid to the eternal interests of the
human mind.
We are glad of it, as scholars, because the season is the symbol of the character and influence
of scholarly pursuits. Like sunshine, a spirit of
generous thought illuminates the world. Like 
6
trees of golden fruit in the landscape, are the
philosophers and poets in history. Happy the
day! Happy the place!  The roses and the stars
wreathe our festival with an immortal garland.
Too young to be your guide and philosopher, I
am yet old enough to be your friend.  Too little
in advance of you in the great battle of life
to teach you from experience, I am yet old enough
to share with you the profit of the experience of
other men  and of history.   I do not come today a mounted general. I hurry, at your call, to
place myself beside you, shoulder to shoulder, a
private in the ranks. We are all young men; we
are all young Americans; we are all young American scholars. Our interests and duties are the
same. I speak to you as to comrades. Let us
rest a moment, that we may the better fight.
Here, in this beautiful valley, under these spreading trees, we bivouac for a summer hour. Our
knapsacks are unslung, and our arms are stacked.
We give this tranquil hour to the consideration of
our position and duties.
The occasion prescribes my theme; the times
determine its treatment.
That theme is the scholar; the lesson of the
day is the duty of the American scholar to politics.
I would gladly speak to you of the charms of
pure scholarship; of the dignity and worth of the 
7
scholar; of the abstract relation of the scholar to
the State.  The sweet air we breathe, and the repose of mid-summer, invite a calm ethical or intellectual discourse. But, would you have counted
him a friend of Greece, who quietly discussed the
abstract nature of patriotism on that Greek summer day, through whose hopeless and immortal
hours Leonidas and his three hundred stood at
Thermopyle for liberty?  And, to-day, as the
scholar meditates that deed, the air that steals in
at his window darkens his study, and suffocates
him as he reads. Drifting across a continent, and
blighting the harvests that gild it with plenty from
the Atlantic to the Mississippi, a black cloud obscures the page that records an old crime, and
compels him to know  that freedom allways has its
Thermopylo, and that his Thermopylw is called
Kansas.
Because we  are scholars of to-day, shall we
shrink from touching the interests of to-day? Because we are scholars, shall we cease to be citizens?
Because we are scholars. shall we cease to be
men?
Gentlemen, I am  glad that, speaking of the
duty of the American scholar to the times, I can
point to one who fully understands that duty,
and has illustrated it, as Milton did.   Among
fellow-countrymen, that scholar falls defending 
8
the name and rights of his countrymen; and one
of those countrymen stares at him, as he lies insensible, and will not raise him, lest his motives
be misunderstood; and another turns his back
upon his bleeding colleague, because for two years
he has not been upon speaking terms with him.
Gentlemen, the human heart is just, and no traitor
to humanity escapes his proper doom. Sacred
history hands down to endless infamy the Priest
and the Levite who passed by on the other side.
Among gentlemen, this scholar pleads the cause
dear to every gentleman in history, and a bully
strikes him down. In a republic of free men, this
scholar speaks for freedom, and his blood stains the
Senate floor. There it will blush through all our
history. That damned spot will never out from
memory, from tradition, or from noble hearts.
Every scholar degrades his order, and courts the
pity of all generous men, who can see a just liberty
threatened, without deserting every other cause to
defend liberty. Of what.use are your books? Of
what use is your scholarship? Without freedom of
thought, there is no civilization or human progress; and, without freedom of speech, liberty of
thought is a mockery.
I know well that a conventional prejudice consecrates this occasion to dull abstractions and timid,
if not treacherous, generalities. It would allow me 
9
to speak of the scholar, and of the American scholar, in his relation to Greek roots and particles, but
would forbid me to mention his duties to American topics and times. I might speak of him as a
professor, a dialectician, a dictionary, a grammar,
but I must not speak of him as a man. I know
that a literary orator is held to be bound by the
same decencies that regulate the preacher. But
what are those decencies? Is the preacher to rebuke the sins of Jerusalem, or of Philadelphia?
Is he to say in general, "be good,'" when he sees
in what particulars we are bad, and counsel silence
and peace, when silence and peace are treason to
God  and man?  Are  the liars to cry to the
preacher, "It is not your business to denounce lying; we pay you to preach against sin?" But the
preachers' Master cried, "Woe unto you Scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye devour widows'
houses." He specified sins, and classified sinners.
In our day the hot adjuration to a clergyman not
to soil his pulpit with politics, is merely the way
in which the nineteenth century offers him the
thirty pieces of silver.
What are politics but the Divine law applied to
human government? Politics are the science of
the relation of men in human society; and as the
founder of Christianity taught peace and good-will
to men, how can the Christian preacher better
-    -:1   4 -
..    -.. I I. 
10
fulfill his office than by showing how peace and
good-will may be introduced among men, and by
exposing, in all the terror of truth, those whose
policy fosters war and hatred among men? Why
does the pulpit command so little comparative respect, but because it does not apply truth to life?
When the American people has great sins to account for, the smooth preacher touches with the
dull edge of his reproof the sins of the Jewish people. Therefore, with us, the lecture-room is more
thronged than the church, because the lecturer
addresses the moral sense of the people upon their
moral interests, and the most popular lecturers are
the preachers who are most faithful in their pulpits
to God and man-for their cause is one.
What is true of the preacher is true of the orator. I should insult your manhood, I should forget my own, if, in addressing you to-day, and here,
I did not say what I conceive to be the duty of the
scholar to-day, and here.
I. Of the scholar. The popular idea of the
scholar makes him a pale student of books, a recluse, a valetudinarian, an unpractical and impracticable man. Hie is a being with an endless capacity of literary and scientific acquisition. He is
only a consumer, not a producer; or, if so, only a
producer of useless results. Learning is supposed
to be put into him, not as vegetables into the 
11
ground, whence, as they spring again, covering the
earth with beauty, and feeding the race, so learning is to flower into heroic deeds, and consoling
thoughts: but it is absorbed by him, as vegetables
are thrown into a cellar, where they lie buried,
not planted, producing only some poor, pallid, useless shoot, as his learning only germinates into
some treatise upon the ablative absolute.
In the old plays and romances we have the same
picture of an absent pedant, the easy prey of
every knave, the docile husband of a termagant;
who, because he could read a tragedy of A]schylus,
could not tie his shoes. He belonged to great
establishments as an encyclopedia, in the same
way that the fool belonged to them as a jestbook.   Scholars were  popularly  ranked  with
women, having all their weakness, and none of
their charms.
This estimate grew naturally out of their exceptional character as monks; for, at the beginning of modern history, learning came out of the
monasteries with the ecclesiastics. By religious
vows the monks were separated from all secular
interests, including the family relation. The reputation of the scholar arose from the character of
the monk. The monk was a man who dealt professionally with ideas rather than men. He was
therefore held to know nothing of men. Dreamer, 
12
poet, vagabond, and scholar, grew to be synonymous names. But while the mass of monks undoubtedly justified this judgment, it is in the few
and not in the mass that their characteristics are
to be sought; they were accused of not knowing
men, but Gregory was a monk, and they belonged
to the most sagacious organization in human history. They were called pedants and moles, but
Abelard and Martin Luther were churchmen and
scholars. To call grammarians, formalists, and
swollen sponges of learning, scholars, is to call a
parish clerk a statesman.   To call Bentley and
Parr scholars, is to insult Johnson and Milton.
Sydney Smith tells of Dr. George-who, hearing
the great king of Prussia highly praised, said that
he had his doubts whether the king, with all his
victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek verb in
mi, If you call Dr. George, and Wolff, and
Heyne scholars, what name have you for Goethe
and Schiller?
In any just classification of human powers and
pursuits, the scholar is the representative of
thought. Devoted to the contemplation of truth,
he is, in the state, a public conscience by which
public measures may  be tested; the scholarly
class, therefore, to which, now, as of old, the
clergy belong, is the upper house in the politics of
the world. 
0
13
Now, there is a constant tendency in material
prosperity, when it is the prosperity of a class and
not of the mass, to relax the severity of prin ciple. Therefore, we find that the era of noble
thought in national history is not usually coinci dent with the greatest national prosperity. Greece
was not greatest when rumors of war had ceased.
Rome was not most imnperial in the voluptuous
calm of Constantinopolitan decay. The magnificent monotony of Bourbon tyranny in France, and
the reign of its shop-keeping king, were not the
grand eras of French history. Holland began as
generously as America, and Holland has sunk into
the imbecile apathy of commercial prosperity,
without art, without literature, without a noble
influence in the world, and with no promise of the
future.
When Napoleon reviled England as a nation of
shopkeepers, it was not an idle phrase. Napoleon
knew, that, both historically and in the nature of
the case, it was the tendency of a long peace to
foster trade, and that it is the inevitable tendency
of trade, which is based upon self-interest, to destroy moral courage, because trade demands peace
at any price, and peace is often to be purchased
only by principle. When he said a nation of shopkeepers, he meant a nation whose ruling principle
was private gain, rather than public good; and the
a 
14
sagacious ruler knew that corruption and cowardice are twins.
The tendency of selfish trade is demoralizing,
because its eagerness for peace constantly lowers
the.moral ideal. The private pocket inevitably
becomes the arbiter of public policy. Plausibility
supplants honesty; sophistication takes the place
of simplicity, and the certain evils of the existing
condition are resolutely preferred to the splendid
possibilities of progress.
Thus it arises that the very material success for
which nations, like individuals, strive, is full of the
gravest danger to the best life of the state, as of
the individual. But as in human nature itself are
found the qualities which best resist the proclivity
of an individual to meanness and moral cowardice
-as each man has a conscience. a moral mentor
which assures him what is truly best for him to doso has every state a class, which, by its very character, is dedicated to eternal and not to temporary
interests; whose members are priests of the mind,
not of the body, and who are necessarily the con servative party of intellectual and moral freedom.
This is the class of scholars. This elevation and
correction of public sentiment is the scholar's office
in the state.
To the right discharge of this duty all his learn ing is merely subsidiary; and if he fail   devote 
15
it to this end, he is recreant to his duty. The end
of all scholarly attainment is to live nobly. If a
man read books merely to know books, he is a
tree planted only to blossom. If he read books to
apply their wisdom to life, then he is a tree plant ed to bear glorious fruit. He does not think for
himself alone, nor hoard a thought as a miser a
diamond. He spends for the world. Scholarship
is not only the knowledge that makes books, but
the wisdom which inspires that knowledge. The
scholar is not necessarily a learned man, but he is
a wise man. If he be personally a recluse, his
voice and influence are never secluded. If the
man be a hermit, his mind is a citizen of the world.
If, then, such be the scholar, and the scholar's
office, if he be truly the conscience of the state,
the fundamental law of his life is liberty. At every
cost, the true scholar asserts and defends liberty of
thought, and liberty of speech. Of what use to a
man is a thought that will help the world, if he cannot tell it to the world? Such a thought comes to
him as Jupiter came to Semele. He is consumed
by the splendor that secretly possesses him. The
Inquisition condemns Galileo's creed. Pur muove
-still it moves-replies Galileo in his dungeon.
Tyranny poisons the cup of Socrates; he smilingly
drains it to the health of the world.   The church,
towering vast in the midst of universal supersti 
16
tion, lays its withering finger upon the freedom of
the human mind, and its own child, leaping from
its bosom, denounces to the world his mother's
madness.
I speak, of course, of the ideal scholar, of what
the scholar ought to be, rather than of the historical men who have been called scholars; and yet, I
think we shall find the man whom we should select
from history as the scholar, as also the man who
most nearly fulfills the conditions I have mentioned.
In English history, which is also our history,
who is the scholar? Is it Roger Ascham, a pedant
and a schoolmaster? Is it Ben Jonson, with his
careless, cumbrous ease, borrowing his shilling,
fighting his duel, writing his plays and his stately
verses, and lighting up the " Mermaid" with his
witty revelry?  Is it either of the churchmeneven Jeremy Taylor, whose written wisdom
breathes like organ music through English literas
ture; or George Herbert, whose life shone with
the beauty of holiness? Is it the sad Swift, the
versatile Addison, the keen Pope, or the fastidious
Gray, noting when crocuses opened, and roses
bloomed, leaving one poem and the record of a
life as inoffensive as that of a college cat; or
Bentley, or Porson, or Parr, who made valuable
notes on valuable Greek classics; or Dr. Johnson, 
17
gravely supporting an aristocratic public policy,
while he powerfully and pathetically rebuked
aristocratic private conduct? Let the name of Dr.
Johnson never be mentioned among scholars without a sad respect; but is he, distinctively, the
scholar in English history?
There is one man, gentlemen, I have not mentioned. Your hearts go before my tongue to name
him. Technical scholarship begins in a dictionary,
and ends in a grammar.  The sublime scholarship
of John Milton began in literature and ended in
life.
Graced with every intellectual gift, he was per sonally so comely, that the romantic woods of
Vallambrosa are lovelier from their association
with his youthful figure sleeping in their shade.
He had all the technical excellences of the scholar.
At eighteen he wrote better Latin verses than have
been written in England. He replied to the Italian poets who complimented him, in purer Italian
than their own. He was profoundly skilled in
theology, in science, and in the pure literature of
all languages.
These were his accomplishments, but his genius
was  vast and vigorous.   While  yet a youth,
he wrote those minor poems, which have the
simple perfection of productions of nature; and,
in the ripeness of his wisdom and power, he 
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turned his blind eyes to heaven, and sang the lofty
song which has given him a twin glory with
Shakespeare in English renown.
It is much for one man to have exhausted the
literature of other nations, and to have enriched
his own. But other men have done this in various
degrees. Milton went beyond it to complete the
circle of his character as the scholar.
You know the culmination of his life. The first
scholar in England, and in the world at that time,
fulfilled his office. His vocation making him especially the representative of liberty, he accepted the
part to which he was naturally called, and, turning
away from all the blandishments of ease and fame,
he gave himself to liberty and immortality.
Is the scholar a puny, timid, conforming man?
John Milton showed him to be the greatest citizen
of the greatest Commonwealth. Disdaining to
talk of the liberty of the Shunamites, whens the
liberty of Englishmen was imperilled, he exposed
the details of a blind tyranny in words which are
still the delight and refuge of freedom, and whose
music is majestic as the cause they celebrate. The
radiance of those principles is still the glory of
history. They still search out and expose the
wiles of tyranny, as the light of a great beacon,
flashing at midnight upon a mountain top, reveals
the tents of the enemy skulking on the plain. 
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While the men of Norfolk, and of the fens, were
mustering to march away for liberty-to return no
more-he did not stay to conjugate Greek verbs in
mi, nor conceive that the scholar's library was his
post of honor. In words that are'the eternal rebuke
of every scholar, of every literary man, of every
clergyman. who, in a day when human liberty is
threatened, does not stand for liberty, but cringes
under the courtesies of position, Milton cries to us
across two hundred years, with a voice of multitudinous music, like that of a great wind in a forest:
"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,
unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out
and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race
where that immortal garland is to be run for, notwithstanding dust and heat."
Can you not fancy the parish beadles getting up
and walking rapidly away from such sentiments?
Can you not fancy all the noble and generous
hearts in the world shouting through all the centuries, "amen, amen!"
Gentlemen, the scholar is the representative of
thought among men, and his duty to society is the
effort to introduce thought and the sense of justice
into human affairs. He was not made a scholar to
satisfy the newspapers or the parish beadles, but to
serve God and man. While other men pursue
what is expedient, and watch with alarm the flick 
20
ering of the funds, he is to pursue the truth, and
watch the eternal law of justice.
But if this be true of the scholar in general, how
peculiarly is it true of the American scholar, who,
as a citizen of a republic, has not only an influence
by his word and example, but, by his vote, a direct
agency upon public affairs. In a republic which
decides questions involving the national welfare by
a majority of voices, whoever refuses to vote is a
traitor to his own cause, whatever that cause may
be; and if any scholar will not vote, nor have an
opinion upon great public measures, because that
would be to mix himself with politics, but contents
himself with vague declamation about freedom in
general, knowing that the enemies of Freedom
always use its name, then that scholar is a traitor
to Liberty, and degrades his order by justifying
the reproach that the scholar is a pusillanimous
trimmer.
The American scholar, gentlemen, has duties to
politics in general; and he has, consequently, duties to every political crisis in his country; what
his duties are in this crisis of our national affairs,
I shall now tell you, as plainly as I can. The
times are grave, and they demand sober speech.
To us young men the future of this country is intrusted. What names does history love, and every
honest man revere? The names of those who gave 
21
their youth and strength to the cause which is
waiting for us to serve it.
II. The object of human government is human
liberty. Laws restrain the encroachment of the
individual upon society in order that all individuals
may be secured the freest play of their powers.
This is because the end of society is the improve ment of the individual, and the development of
the race. Liberty is, therefore, the condition of
human progress, and, consequently, that is the best
government which gives to men the largest liberty
and constantly modifies itself in the interest of
Freedom.
The laws of society, indeed, deprive men of lib erty, and even of life, but only when by crime they
have become injurious to society. The deprivation
of the life or liberty of the individual under other
circumstances, is the outrage of those rights which
are instinctively perceived by every man, Jbut are
beyond argument or proof.
Human Slavery annihilates the conditions of human progress. Its necessary result is the destruction of humanity; and this not only directly by its effect upon the slave, but indirectly by its effect upon
the master. In the one it destroys the self-respect
which is the basis of manhood, and is thus a capital crime against humanity. - In the other it fosters
pride, indolence, luxury, and licentiousness, which 
22
equally imbrute the human being. Therefore, in
slave states there is no literature, no art, no progressive civilization. Manners are fantastic and
fierce; brute force supplants moral principle;
freedom of speech is suppressed because the natural speech of man condemns slavery; a sensitive
vanity is called honor, and cowardly swagger,
chivalry; respect for woman is destroyed by universal licentiousness; lazy indifference is called
gallantry, and an impudent familiarity, cordiality.
To supply by a travesty of courage the want of
manly honor, men deliberately shoot those who
expose their falsehoods. Therefore, they go armed
with knives and pistols, for it is a cardinal article
of a code of false honor that it is possible for a
bully to insult a gentleman. Founded upon crime.
for by no other word can man-stealing be characterized, the prosperity of such a people is at the
mercy of an indignant justice.  Hence a slave society has the characteristics of wandering tribes,
which rob, and live, therefore, insecure in the
shadow of impending vengeance. There is nothing
admirable in such a society but what its spirit
condemns; there is nothing permanent in it but
decay.   Against nature, against reason, against
the human instinct, against the Divine law, the institution of human slavery is the most dreadful
that philosophy contemplates, or the imagination 
23
conceives. Certainly, some individual slaveholders
are good men, but the mass of men are never better than their institutions; and certainly some
slaves are better fed and lodged than some free
laborers; but so are many horses better fed and
lodged than some free laborers; is, therefore,
a laborer to abdicate his manhood and become a
horse? and, certainly, as it exists, God may, in a
certain sense, be said to permit it; but in the same
way God permitted the slaughter of the innocents
in Judea, and he permitted the awful railway
slaughter, not a month ago, near Philadelphia.
Do you mean that as comfort for the mothers of
Judea, and the mothers of Pennsylvania?
History confirms what philosophy teaches. The
eastern nations and the Spanish colonies, Rome in
her decline, and the southern states of America,
display a society of which the spirit is similar,
however much the phenomena may differ. Moral
self-respect is the first condition of national life,
as labor is the first condition of national prosperity; but the laborer cannot have moral respect
unless he be free.
The true national policy, therefore, is that
which ennobles and dignifies labor. Cincinnatus,
upon his farm, is the ideal of the citizen. But
slavery disgraces labor, by making the laborer a
brute,  while it makes the slaveholder the imme 
24
diate rival of the free laborer in all the markets
of the world. Hence, Tiberius Gracchus, one of
the greatest of Roman citizens, early saw that, in a
state where an oligarchy at the same time monopolized and disgraced labor, there must necessarily
be a vast demoralized population, who would demand support of the state, and be ready for the service of the demagogue, who is always the tyrant.
Gracchus was killed, but the issue proved the prophet. The canker which Rome cherished in her bosom, ate out the heart of Rome, and the empire
whose splendor flashed over the whole world, fell
like a blighted tree. Not until slavery had barbarized the great mass of the Romans, did Rome fall
a prey to the barbarians from abroad.
Gentlemen, it is a disgrace for all of us, that in
this country, and in this year of our history, the
occasion should require me to state such principles
and facts as these. History seems to be an endless iteration.   But it is not so.   Do  not lose
heart. It only seems so because there has been
but one great cause in human affairs-the cause
of liberty. In a thousand forms, under a thousand
names, the old contest has been waged. It divided
the politics of Greece and Rome, of England,
France, America, into two parties; so that the
history of liberty is the history of the world.
As American citizens, we are called upon to
"i. 
25
fight that battle by resisting the extension of the
institution which I have described. The advocacy
of the area of its extension is not a whim of the
slave power, but is based upon the absolute necessities of the system.  An institution which is mentally and morally pernicious cannot be economically advantageous. To suppose so is to accuse
God of putting a premium upon sin. The system
of slave labor, by demoralizing the population and
exhausting the soil, absolutely demands expansion.
Of this economical fact there can be no doubt.
The state of Virginia, for instance, has a finer
climate, richer and cheaper soils, with less expensive means of developing their wealth, than Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts.  At the
Revolution Virginia had twice the population of
Pennsylvania, much more disposable capital, and
the best facilities for external commerce and internal communication.  In 1850, the cash value of
farms in Pennsylvania was $25 an acre. In Virginia, $8 an acre. In New Jersey, with a soil inferior to that of Virginia, the average value of
farming land is $44 an acre. Governor Johnson,
late governor of Virginia, says, that at a period
not very remote, her trade exceeded that of all
New England; and Norfolk surpassed New York
in the extent of her shipping. At the Revolution,
the commerce of Virginia was four times that of 
26
New York.  In 1853, the imports into New York
were $180,000,000, and into Virginia, less than
$400,000. Lands in Virginia capable of producing
twenty-five to thirty bushels of wheat to the acre,
and only twenty-four hours by ra,il from New
York, are to be had for a fortieth of the price of
similar lands in New York itself.
Virginia is a northern slave state, but a senator
from Alabama, the most southern of the slave
states, confesses of his own home: " a country in
its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a foresttree had been felled by the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas."
These are specimens of the statistics which are
to be found in books that any man can read. All
the travellers tell the same story. They find fat
slaves, and a starved and exhausted soil. Desolation, like a miasma, broods upon the land.
Extension of area is therefore vital to the system, and we shall find that the political power of
slavery in the United States has been constantly
directed to the acquisition of territory.
When the Union was formed, the system of
slave labor existed in all of  the states except
Massachusetts.   At the North, however, it was
nominal only; several of the states had provided for
its removal, and it soon disappeared. The Constitu 
27
tion carefully forbore to mention the subject of slavery by name; and it is an axiom that every grave
state paper is to be interpreted by the well-known
opinions of its authors in the matters to which it
relates. The difficult points in settling the Constitution are those which relate to slavery.   The
Convention threatened to be wrecked upon it.
Now we have the opinion of this subject held by
the most eminent members of the Constitutional
Convention, expressed either in debate upon this
very instrument, or in some other connection with
the same great question.  In 1786, George Washington wrote to John F. Mercer: "It is among
my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which
slavery in this country may be abolished by law;"
and by his will he emancipated his own negroes.
Thomas Jefferson says, in his Notes on Virginia,
"The whole commerce between master and slave
is a continual exercise of the most unremitting
despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other.  * *   Indeed, I tremble for
my country when I reflect that God is just, and
his justice cannot sleep forever;" and Jefferson introduced into the Congress of the old Confederation, the famous and noble free clause of the
Northwest Ordinance. Benjamin Franklin was
President of the first Abolition Society.  In the
Convention, Gouverneur Morris, of Pennsylvania, 
28
declared it to be "The curse of Heaven upon the
State where it prevailed." Elbridge Gerry, of
Massachusetts, said the Convention must be careful not to give any sanction to slavery. James
Madison thought it "wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property
in man."  And I am glad to say, upon the banks
of this river, that two of the great men whom
Connecticut sent to that Convention, Oliver Ellsworth and Roger Sherman, both protested against
any sanction of the system by the Constitution.
It is evident that the fathers regarded slavery
with aversion, and as an institution so temporary
in its nature that, although essentially hostile to
the very objects of the Union, it should not be a
bar to union. But hating it, and convinced of its
temporary character, they would not allow the
great charter of our liberties to be defiled with its
name. Persuaded by the same spirit of concession
to a temporary evil, they allowed the slave-trade
to continue until the year 1808-then to be terminated, if Congress willed.
But with the beginning of the new Government
began the debate upon slavery. In the very first
Congress, Mr. Parker, of Virginia, said that the
clause allowing the slave-trade was contrary to
revolutionary principles, and ought not to be permitted.   Petitions  against the slave-trade and 
29
slavery began to present thiemselves. Benjamin
Franklin headed an anti-slavery petition to the
first Congress, which does the eyes good to read.
In the debate upon receiving the petitions con cerning the slave-trade, in which the slave party,
before the Union was in operation, began with the
cry of disunion, James Madison said that Congress
might guard against the introduction of slaves into
new territory.
The petitions relating to the subject were gene rally returned, and the petitioners were in every
way reviled and insulted by the rank slave power.
In 1798, upon the question of the erection of a
territorial government for Mississippi, the bill de clared that the Territory should be regulated in
every respect like the territory northwest of the
Ohio, excepting only that slavery should not be
prohibited.
Mr. Thatcher, of Massachusetts, moved to strike
out the exception, and prohibit slavery, in accordance with Jefferson's original plan of prohibition in all new territory, south as well as north
of the Ohio. He said, and his words have still the
eloquence and pertinence of truth, "We are about
to establish a government for a new country. The
government of which we form a part, originated
from, and is founded upon, the rights of man, and
upon that ground we mean to uphold it. With 
30
what propriety, then, can a government emanate
from us in which slavery is not only tolerated, but
sanctioned by law? It has, indeed, been urged,
that as this territory will be settled by emigrants
from the southern states, they must be allowed
to have slaves; as much as to say that the people
of the South are fit for nothing but slavedrivers; that if left to their own labor they would
starve."
At such sentiments as these, boldly uttered by
an American freeman, when the country was yet
weak with a seven years' struggle for freedom, the
Slave Power shook its head indignantly, and said
that such remarks were very mischievous, and rejected Mr. Thatchler's motion.
The constant threat of disunion, which was freely uttered by the Slave Power, had its effect. The
national slave-trade was prohibited, but not without clauses which annulled the principle of the bill
-for it allowed the forfeited slaves to be sold, if
a state so decreed.
The slave senators said that, undoubtedly, slavery was a misfortune. Mr. Macon, of North
Carolina, said it was a curse, but the country had
it, and must not talk about it, but endure it. This
half concession of the justice of the anti-slavery
sentiment, the extreme difficulties of inaugurating
the new government, and the determination of the 
31
Slave Power to be humored or to dissolve the
Union, gradually silenced the discussion. Even
Jefferson closed his mouth. Other questions of
immediate importance arose.   The war of 1812
was to be fought. Meanwhile, the introduction of
new Southern States, especially adapted, as was
asserted, to slave-labor, the sudden and immense
increase of the cotton interest, only served to resolve the Slave Power to make the long silence
upon the question the sleep of death.
But in 1819, the volcano began to smoke once
more. Then took place the great debate upon the
Missouri Compromise. Mr. Tallnmadgc, of New
York, spoke on the occasion for America and mankind. His words have so singular a pertinence to
the debates of this day in Congress, that I quote a
few of them:
"If it is not safe now to discuss slavery on this
floor, if it cannot now come before us as a proper
subject of general legislation, what will be the
result when it is spread through your widelyextended domain? Its present threatening aspect,
and the violence of its supporters, so far from
inducing me to yield to its progress, prompt me to
resist its march. Now is the time! The extension
of the evil must now be prevented, or the opportunity will be lost forever. * * * If the Western
country cannot be settled without slavery, gladly 
32
would I prevent its settlement till time shall be
no more."
Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, fixing his eyes upon Tallmadge, said, as the slave section has always said,
that if the Northern members persisted, the Union
would be dissolved.
Mr. Tallmadge-let us remember his name,
young Americans, with those of our great menMr. Tallmadge said: "Language of this sort has
no effect upon me. My purpose is fixed. It is
interwoven with my existence. Its durability is
limited with my life.  It is a great and glorious
cause, setting bounds to slavery the most cruel
and debasing the world has ever witnessed. It is
the cause of the freedom of man."
It was the most famous debate in our history.
Rufus King frankly declared that it was a question
of slave or free policy in the National Government.
Every argument that has been used in the discussion by the Slave Power during the last two years
was then presented, and completely refuted by the
representatives of freedom. The legislatures of
the states especially instructed their representatives how to vote. The country shook as in the
toils of an earthquake. The vote was taken, and
tie Stave Power conquered.  The slave delegations voted in a body for the bill, and Mr. Pinckney wrote home, on the day of the decision, "We 
33
have triumphed."   The  Slave Power  had triumphed, because the Congress of a free people
had agreed to allow slavery in territory where it
had the power to prohibit it, this power being expressly acknowledged by a Slave President, and a
cabinet of which John C. Calhoun was a member.
It had extended to a free territory the privilege
of representation upon a basis of slaves, thus deliberately preferring the slave system of labor, to
which privilege there was not the shadow of claim,
and which had been granted to the Revolutionary
slave states in consideration of the system which
existed there at the time of the formation of the
Union, and of the great mutual struggle just
passed. John Quincy Adams, also one of the
cabinet, recorded his opinion that it was a triumph
of the Slave Power. It was so considered then.
Time has proved it since.
At the same time with the passage of the Missouri Compromise, President Monroe ceded to
Spain the region now known as the state of Texas,
in consideration of the territory embracing the
state of Florida.
This completed the line of slavery along the
Atlantic. The President was reproached by the
slave party for thus ceding territory which would
allow a free state to lie on the very lines of sla very. Mr. Monroe wrote to Gen. Jackson that 
34
the cession was necessary to pacify the Northern
sentiment He knew that having secured Florida
to slavery, Texas could be retaken when wanted.
Gen. Jackson replied, that "for the present we
ought to be contented with the Floridas." We
meaning the slave party.
All this is what is humorously termed "a settlement" of the slave question-the Slave Power
having "settled" the question of the Territories
and Texas as the wolf settled Little Red Riding
Hood and Little Red Riding Hood's Grandmother.
This word "settlement" is the eternal tragical
joke of our political history.
. For some years after 1820 the subject was not
directly vexed, but the resolution of the Slave
Power never relaxed. If the moral minority from
the North ventured a word which favored a decent
respect for the principles of our Government, the
Slave Power had only to shake its gory locks and
cry "disunion," and the frightened North hurried
to abdicate its constitutional rights and moral
honor.
In 1835, Mr. Calhoun, the most sagacious of
southern statesmen, opposed the reception of petitions by Congress which alluded to the subject
of Slavery. Even in the District of Columbia,
Slavery denied the right of petition, because it
must, in the nature of the case, deny every natu 
35
ral right of man or of freemen. The moral mi  nority, headed by John Quincy Adams, white  headed patriarch of Constitutional liberty, gave
battle. Mr. Calhoun cried "disunion." The Slave
Power echoed "disunion,"' and the right of peti tiol was denied to freemen by the legislators they
had themselves appointed.
This was an immense victory for the Slave
Power; for it revealed to them a state of demoral ization in the party of Freedom. It showed the
Slave Power that it could accomplish its ends by
depending upon the moral weakness of the enemy
rather than upon its own numerical strength. The
historian commemorates a national crime when he
records that during all these debates the party of
Freedom had a majority of votes in Congress.
From the moment of this clear perception of
Northern demoralization the course of the Slave
Power has been swift and fearful. Texas was, of
course, soon retaken, entailing upon us a war
with Mexico, and opening an outlet for Slavery
which seemed illimitable among the miserable
states of the great Isthmus.
During the few subsequent years the national
demoralization seemed to be complete. The great
American experiment was palpaply failing. A
Republic or government of the majority, whose
permanent prosperity must depend upon free la 
36
bor, was yielding to the policy of slave-labor as a
national principle. The Federal Government in
its most important initiative function, that of
making the organic laws of new territories, was
administered exclusively for the benefit of a small
privileged class, that privilege resting upon the
most odious human crime. The Unioin had come
to mean a league for the diffusion of Slavery
among men. The Constitution was declared to
have been framed to nationalize the system, and
was so interpreted. It was perfectly understood
that political preferment depended upon subservience to the Slave Power. He only could be chief
among freemen-he only head of a Government
which was founded to secure the blessings of
Liberty, who favored the extension of human
Slavery.
At the North the whole question was settled by
calling it a very difficult question. So closely entwined were the interest of trade and the slave
system, that the subject was not allowed to be
discussed.   The professed abolitionists were reviled as fanatical traitors, and the entire practical
silence of the North was justified by saying that
the discussion of the subject had only increased
the difficulty by inflaming the Slave Power; as if,
because a burglar may shoot you if you oppose
him, therefore burglary must not be mentioned. 
37
The question was considered so difficult that it
was never asked. We were sinking deeper and
deeper in the slough, and, because it was so very
hard to get out, we must not even make the effort
to escape suffocation. Good manners forbade all
allusion to slavery. All places which Northern ers and Southerners frequented, Newport, Sara toga, the mountains, among which Liberty was
born, and the sea, which is the very symbol of Free dom, across which she has fled a hundred times to
found her immortal empire, were silent over the
spreading pestilence.   The pulpit held its tongue;
the press, which in a free land should be the
alarm bell of liberty, was muffled. If a man from
the free states died for liberty, as Lovejoy died
at Alton, he was called a fanatical fool, and Freedom had no other epitaph for her martyr. Other
countries to which we superciliously asserted our
superiority asked, contemptuously, "What' is this
Republic which makes cattle of men, and whips
women when they grieve that their children are
sold away from them?" And we replied: "You
don't understand the peculiarities of the situation." We tried to believe that the Slave Power
regretted slavery, because it said, with every new
link of the chain it forged, that it was a great misfortune. But when the chain was long enough
and strong enough, as it had now grown to be,
9 
38
the Slave Power deserted the old ground that the
system was a necessary but temporary evil, and
claimed that slavery was a divinely-appointed
missionary system for the Africans-an institution
just in itself and profitable for the country.
The two most eminent living statesmen, Mr.
Clay and Mr. Webster, protested, indeed, that
they were opposed to the extension of slave territory. But Mr. Clay was himself a slaveholder,
and a little later Mr. Webster refused to vote to
prohibit slavery in free territory.
The Slave Power was mad with its own success.
Its pride grew purple with audacity. It called
smooth, complaisant men in the free states, who
forbore to say that slavery was a sin, and who
worked hard in the interest of the Slave Power,
patriots and lovers of the Union-as if a political
and commercial union might not be bought at too
dear a price. But, pursuing its great end-narnely, the absolute numerical control of the Federal
Governmnent-the Slave Power tried once more
the quality of free state humanity and patriotism.
The fugitive slave bill was passed.
I say no more of that bill than that it manifestly prefers the inhuman letter of the law to the
justice which is the end of all law. It was a
measure in the interest of slavery and not of
Freedom, and it was passed under the old threat 
39
of disunion from the Slave Power. But the North
seemed to be eager for shame.   The free states
hurried to kiss the foot of the monstrous power
that claimed the most servile allegiance. Gesler
put his cap upon the pole, the people bowed in
homage, and the fainting hope of the world murmured, "Then William Tell is dead."
History is not a series of causeless consequences.
Event follows event in time, as minute follows
minute in the day. I tell you that if the Slave
Power had not found itself obsequiously courted
by what was called the respectable public opinion
of Boston, to do its worst wrong in the very
shadow of Faneuil iHaIl, a son of Boston and a
senator from Massachusetts would never have
been smitten to the floor, unawares and defenceless, for having spoken to a greater issue of the
same cause for which Samuel Adams and James
Otis spoke, and Joseph Warren fell.
The course of the Slave Power was now reckless. There was no longer need of concealment or
moderation when its natural enemy was its most
servile ally. It resolved to strike one final blow
to secure the future and to put the question of
slavery extension beyond debate.   Human affairs
are uncertain. The support it had received from
the North might be withdrawn. There might be
a reaction. Freedom might resume that actual 
40
superiority which it still had, numerically, in Congress. The circumstances attending the passage
of the fugitive slave bill having exposed the entire demoralization of the free majority, it was to
be supposed that no resistance would be made to
any audacity.
In that spirit, and with that knowledge, the
Missouri Compromise was repealed, and all the
western territory of the United States, larger in
area than all the settled states, was opened to
the possibility of slave-labor. The Slave Power
threw off every mask of nationality, of common
honor, and of common decency. It deliberately
did a deed which would have caused an individual
to be hooted from the society of honest men and
branded as a liar. Its darling doctrine was that
the Union is a contract. But a national contract
exists only in the honor of the parties, and the
Slave Power repudiated its honor as it had lost
its shame. As a man swindles a friend to support
a prostitute who ruins him soul and body, so the
Slave Power broke its faith with the free states
to cherish an institution which has been its physical and moral destruction.   Whom the gods would
destroy they first madden, and so lawless, so audacious, so appalling,  was this assault upon  the
slavish submission of the free states, that it instantly restored them their sight if not their
[ 
41
strength, and, God willing, the glad future
shall cry that William Tell was not dead but
sleeping.
I shall not repeat the history of the Kansas
iniquity. You know that every one of the slight
pretences of protection for free institutions in Mr.
Douglas's bill was immediately destroyed. You
know that the bill affected to allow the people of
Kansas to settle their own government, and you
know that the President of the United States
senate which passed the bill, himself led hordes
of men from Missouri and controlled the elections
against the people of Kansas. You know that
the delegates, so elected, passed laws for the Territory, which outraged humanity, common sense,
and the Constitution of the United States. You
know that the people of Kansas refused to submit
to a Missouri mob.  You know that the President
of the United States endeavored to compel that
submission by means of the national army.   It
was the final triumph of the Slave Power. Its
success could not be greater. The President of
the United States orders the army of the United
States to force slavery upon a free territory, and
while I speak to you the crime goes on. But also
while I speak to you twenty millions of a moral
people, politically dedicated to liberty, are asking
themselves whether their government shall be
....:. 
42
administered solely in the interest of three hundred and fifty thousand slaveholders.
At last we are overtaken by a sense of the
grandeur of the issue before us; but so long did
God delay the dawning that good men despaired
of day.
Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen, thought, which the scholar represents, is
life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral
life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must
breathe and see before he can study, the scholar
must have liberty, first of all; and as the American
scholar is a man and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must
precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual
inspiration of freedom in politics.  He must recognize that the intelligent exercise of political rights
which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a
republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him
do his duty. The course of events is incessant,
and when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed
is done.
Young scholars, young Americans, young men,
we are all called upon to do a great duty. Nobody is released from it. It is a work to be done
by hard strokes, and everywhere. I see a rising 
43
enthusiasm, but enthusiasm is not an election; and
I hear cheers from the heart, but cheers are not
votes. Every man must labor with his neighbor,
in the street, at the plough, at the bench, early and
late, at home and abroad.  Generally we are concerned, in elections, with the measures of government. This time it is with the essential principle
of government itself.  Therefore, there must be
no doubt about our leader. He must not prevaricate, or stand in the fog, or use terms to court
popular favor, which every demagogue and traitor
has always used. If he say he favors the interest
of the whole country, let him frankly say whether
he think the interest of the whole country demands the extension of slavery. If he declares for
the Union, let him say whether he means a Union
for freedom or for slavery. If he swear by the
Constitution, let him state, so that the humblest
free laborer can hear and understand, whether he
believes the Constitution means to prefer slavelabor to free labor in the national representation
of the territories. Ask him as an honest man, in
a great crisis, if he be for the Union, the Constitution, and slavery extension, or for "Liberty and
union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. Every man loves his easeloves to please his taste. But into how many 
44
homes along this lovely valley came the news of
Lexington and Bunker Hill, eighty years ago, and
young men like us, studious, fond of leisure, young
lovers, young husbands, young brothers, and sons,
knew that they must forsake the wooded hillside,
the river-meadows, golden with harvest, the twilight-wvalk along the river, the summer Sunday in
the old church, parents, wife, child, mistress, and
go away to uncertain war.   Putnam heard the
call at his plough, and turned to go, without waiting. Wooster heard it, and obeyed.
Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was
dear, and love as beautiful, to those young men as
it is to us, who stand upon their graves. But because they were so dear and beautiful, those men
went out, bravely to fight for them and fall.
Through these very streets they marched, who
never returned. They fell, and were buried; but
they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers
that make your valley fair, not greener are the
pines that give your river its name, than the
memory of the brave men who died for freedom.
And yet, no victim of those days, sleeping under
the green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every murdered man whose
bones lie bleaching in this summer sun upon the
silent plains of Kansas. 
45
Gentlemen, while we read history, we make
history. Because our fathers fought in this great
cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Because, two thousand years ago, Leonidas stood
against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes
was slain, nor, thank God, that Leonidas is not
immortal. Every great crisis of human history is
a pass of Thermopyle, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they
cannot conquer. And so long as Liberty has one
martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out
for her, so long from that single drop of bloody
sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts
as countless as the forest leaves. and mighty as the
sea.
Brothers! the call has come to us. I bring it
to you in these calm retreats. I summon you to
the great fight of Freedom. I call upon you to
say, with your voices, whenever the occasion offers, and with your votes, when the day comes,
that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very
heart of the continent, the upas tree of slavery,
dripping death dews upon national prosperity, and
upon free-labor, shall never be planted.   I call
upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the
vine and the olive of a Christian civilization. I
call upon you to determine whether this great experiment of human freedom, which has been the 
46
scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be also
our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the
hope of the world.
The voice of our brothers who are bleeding, no
less than of our fathers who bled, summons us to
this battle. Shall the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast western empire,
rise up and call us blessed or cursed? Here are
our Marathon and Lexington; here are our heroic
fields. The hearts of all good men beat with us.
The fight is fierce-the issue is with God. But
God is good.