Page images
PDF
EPUB

who bore them, from the wives and sisters who love them, to the fields of bloody strife—there to do soldiers' duties, bear soldiers' burdens, and fill soldiers' graves? Why is it that thousands of the men and the women of Christian America are sorrowing, with aching hearts and tearful eyes, for the absent, the loved, and the lost? Why is it that the heart of loyal America throbs, heavily oppressed with anxiety and gloom, for the future of the country?

These crimes against the peace of the country and the life of the nation are all, all to eternize the hateful dominion of man over the souls and bodies of his fellow-men to make slavery perpetual and its power forever dominant in Christian and Republican America. These sacrifices of property, of health, of life these appalling sorrows and agonies now upon us, are all the inflictions of slavery, in its gigantic effort to found a slaveholding empire in America. Yes, slavery is the "architect of ruin" who organized this mighty conspiracy against the unity and existence of the Republic. Slavery is the traitor that plunged the Nation into the fire, and blood, and darkness of civil war. Slavery is the criminal whose hands are dripping with the blood of our murdered sons. Before the tribunal of mankind, of the present and of coming ages before the bar of the ever-living God --the loyal heart of America holds slavery responsible for every dollar sacrificed, for every drop of blood shed, for every pang of toil, of and of death for every tear wrung from suffering agony, or affection, in this godless rebellion now upon us. For these treasonable deeds, these crimes against freedom, humanity, and the life of the Nation, slavery should be doomed by the loyal people of America to a swift, utter, and ignominious annihilation.

Slavery, bold, proud, domineering, with hate in its heart, scorn in its eye, defiance in its mien, has pronounced against the existence of republican institutions in America, against the supremacy of the Government, the unity and life of the Nation. Slavery, hating the cherished institutions that tend to secure the rights and enlarge the privileges of mankind, despising the toiling masses, as mudsills" and "white slaves," defying the Government, its Constitution and its laws, has openly pronounced itself the mortal and unappeasable enemy of the Republic. Slavery stands now the only clearly pronounced foe our country has on

66

the globe. Therefore, every word spoken, every line written, every act performed, that keeps the breath of life, for a moment, in slavery, is against the existence and perpetuity of democratic institutions - against the dignity of the toiling millions of America - against the liberty, the peace, the honor, the renown, and the life of the Nation. In the lights of to-day that flash upon us from camp and battle-field, the loyal eye, heart, and brain of America sees and feels and realizes that THE DEATH OF SLAVERY IS THE LIFE OF THE NATION! The loyal voice of patriotism throughout all the land pronounces, in clear accents, that AMERICAN SLAVERY MUST DIE THAT THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC MAY LIVE! H. Wilson.

CCXCII.

THE FANATICISM OF MASSACHUSETTS.

THIS, sir, is not the first time in her history that Massachu setts has drawn upon herself reproach and rebuke for unbending adherence to the rights of human nature. In the days of her colonial existence, her unshrinking devotion to the rights of mankind often drew upon her the censure of the pliant supporters of the British Crown; but the world now quotes and commends her inspiring example. Now her abhorrence of human slavery brings upon her the condemnation of its advocates and apologists, but the hour will yet come, in the march of time, when her unwavering fidelity to an unpopular cause in spite of obloquy and reproach, will be a source of inspiration to men struggling to recover lost rights. Massachusetts clings with the tenacity of profound conviction to the teachings of her own illustrious sons. She was taught by Benjamin Franklin that 66 'slavery is an atrocious debasement of human nature;" by John Adams that "consenting to slavery is a sacrilegious breach of trust;" by John Quincy Adams that "slavery taints the very sources of moral principle "establishes false estimates of virtue and vice;" by Daniel Webster that "it is a continual and permanent violation of human rights" opposed to the whole spirit of the Gospel, and to the teachings of Jesus Christ;' by William Ellery Channing that "to extend and perpetuate the evil, we cut ourselves off from the communion of nations; we

[ocr errors]

66

[ocr errors]

sink below the civilization of our age; we invite the scorn, indignation, and abhorrence of the world." Massachusetts cannot

forget or repudiate these words of her immortal sons.

The distinguishing opinion of Massachusetts concerning slavery in America is often flippantly branded in these Halls, as wild, passionate, unreasoning fanaticism. Senators of the South! tell me, I pray you tell me, if it be fanaticism for Massachusetts to see in this age, what your peerless Washington saw in his age "the direful effects of slavery?" Is it fanaticism for Masachusetts to believe as your Henry believed, that "slavery is as repugnant to humanity as it is inconsistent with the Bible, and destructive to liberty?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe as your Madison believed, that "slavery is a dreadful calamity?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your Monroe, that "slavery has preyed upon the vitals of the Union and has been prejudicial to all the States in which it has existed?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your Martin, that "slavery lessens the sense of the equal rights of mankind, and habituates us to tyranny and oppression?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your Pinckney, that "it will one day destroy the reverence for liberty, which is the vital principle of a Republic?" Is it fanaticism for her to believe with your Henry Clay, that "slavery is a wrong, a grievous wrong, and no contingency can make it right?" Surely, Senators who are wont to accuse Massachusetts of being drunk with fanaticism, should not forget that the noblest men the South has given to the service of the Republic, in peace and in war, were her teachers.

H. Wilson.

CCXCIII.

DEFENCE OF MASSACHUSETTS.

ASSACHUSETTS, in her heart of hearts, loves liberty— loathes slavery. I glory in her sentiments; for the heart of our common humanity is throbbing in sympathy with her opinions. But she is not unmindful of her constitutional duties, of her obligations to the Union and to her sister States. Up to the verge of constitutional power she will go in maintenance of her cherished convictions; but she has not shrunk, and she does not mean to shrink, from the performance of her obligations as a

member of this Confederation of constellated States. She has never sought, she does not seek, to encroach, by her own acts or by the action of the Federal Government, upon the constitutional rights of her sister States. Jealous of her own rights, she will respect the rights of others. Claiming the power to control her own domestic policy, she freely accords that power to her sister States. Conceding the rights of others, she demands her own. Loyal to the Union, she demands loyalty in others. Here, and now, I demand of her accusers that they file their bill of specifications, and produce the proofs of their allegations, or forever hold their peace.

[ocr errors]

In other days, when Adams, Webster, Davis, Everett, Cushing, Choate, Winthrop, Mann, Rantoul, and their associates graced these chambers, Massachusetts was then, as she is now, the object of animadversion and assault. I have sometimes thought, Mr. President, that these continual assaults upon the Commonwealth of Massachusetts were prompted not by her faults, but by her virtues rather not by the sense of justice, but by the spirit of envy and jealousy and uncharitableness. Unawed, however, by censure or menace, she continues in her course, upward and onward, to the accomplishment of her high destinies. She is but a speck, a mere patch on the surface of America, hardly more than one four-hundredth part of the territory of the Republic, with a rugged soil and still more rugged clime. But on that little spot of the globe is a Commonwealth where common consent is recognized as the only just basis of fundamental law, and personal freedom is secured in its completest individuality. In that Commonwealth are one and a quarter million of freemen, with skilled hand and cultivated brain, with mechanic arts and manufactures on every streamlet, and commerce on the waves of all the seas with institutions of moral and mental culture open to all, and art, science, and literature illustrated by glorious names with benevolent institutions for the sons and daughters of misfortune and poverty, and charities for humanity the wide world over. The heart, the soul, the reason of Massachusetts send up unceasing aspirations for the unity, indivisibility, and perpetuity of the North American Republic; but if it shall be rent, torn, dissevered, she will not lose her faith in God and humanity,

she will not go down with the falling fortunes of her country without making a struggle to preserve and perpetuate free institutions. So long as the ocean shall roll at her feet, so long as God shall send her health-giving breezes and sunshine and rain, she will endeavor to illustrate, in the future as in the past, the daily beauty of freedom secured and protected by law.

H. Wilson.

CCXCIV.
EMANCIPATION.

HALL these once slaves but now freemen be remanded back

SHALL

to bondage? No: "personal property once forfeited is always forfeited." No slaves once legally free are always free. No, no; thrice no, by the ashes of our fathers, by the altar of our God! The "chosen curses," and the "hidden thunder in the stores of heaven" will forbid the rendition a crime to them, a malediction to their masters, a shame to us, and a disgrace to the age. If these children of wrong and oppression are the lawful spoil of our victorious arms, give up to the enemy your proudest national memorials the sword of Washington, the staff of Franklin, that time-worn but immortal parchment which first authoritatively published your Independence to the world — give up to him the blood-stained flags and trophies which, upon the bristling crest of battle, our heroic defenders have wrenched from his desperate grasp; give up to him this Capitol itself, and throw at his feet the President's head, before you give up the most abject of these bondsmen disenthralled; for in surrendering them you will squander one of those priceless moments, big with the future, worth more than a whole generation of either bond or free, the rare and pregnant occasion — placed in your hand by the fortune of war of wiping forever African slavery from the American continent.

[ocr errors]

If this deliverance is ever vouchsafed, then shall we be purged forever of the sole source of our weakness and dissension in the past; then will pass away forever the sole cloud that threatens the glory of our future; then will the American Union be transfigured into a more erect and shining presence, and tread with firm footsteps a loftier plane, and cherish nobler theories, and carry its head nearer the stars; then will it be no profana

« PreviousContinue »