Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1845-11-28
SPEECH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS,
AT THE ANTI-TExAN Mass MEETING IN
FANEUIL HALL.

FANEUIL HALL.
You told us, Sir, at the opening of this
meeting, that Texas stood on the Threshold
demanding admittance to the Federal Union.
That | understand to be the precise point
which our action is to touch. We come to
rally our State to meet that emergency; to
rouse the people to protest against her en-
trance.
Your words, Sir, recall to my mind an an
ecdote of one whose living image looks dow
upon us from these walls,-l mean, Samuel
Adams. When once his wife told him she
expected, that day, to come into the family, a
colored girl that one of her neighbors had CIV
en- her,-"n0t as a SaUei' said the high-sou-
led patriot; ''if she passes this threshold,
she leaves her letters behind her."
| hail this movement, friends and fellow
citizens, as one of kindred spirit. 1t says to
Texas, standing at our door with her consti-
t%utional provisions for Slavery, "Only free
women can pass this threshold:-only free
men ought to dwell under this roof"
| anticipate and advocate, in this movement
all that energy and moderation, which you,
Sir, have invoked; but confess the difficult
ty of being moderate, about &dcery, and in
faneul HaM (Applause.) 1t is hard to be
moderate here-and as Luther said to Eras-
mus.
''To tread on eggs without breaking them"
1t was the word of Wellington to his troops
on the eve of Waterloo, "What will they
think of us at homel' We are here, | trust,
to put it under bonds, signed, sealed, and de-
livered to our Senators and Representatives,
what we shall think of them at home; what
we expect, and what only we will sustain
and if they do not resist the entrance of Tex
as as a slave State, | hope such a voice will go
up to the Capitol from Massachusetts, as
shall if necessary, rouse its very stones to
rise and mutiny!" (Applause.)
/ come, tonight, with various emotions to
sustain the resolutions before you, and share
somewhat in the hope they express. But if
it be indeed too late, there still are reasons
why / wish to come again and again to Fan
euil Hall, to protest against this deed of
Texan Annexation. ! believe that only in
struggle can virtue live in a land like this,
where Slavery is incorporated into the Con
s~titution and Government of the natlon.-
Here, as on the Pontine marshes, sleep is
death. One of those whose names have just
been read to US as examples, has fallen from
his high estate, a warning to US not to sit
down in the lap of corruption. No, Sir, there
is no safety but in battle array-there should
be no slumber but on your arms.
Il " llpld III III uiih " 'SNNSt HN -
correspondence with the Secretary Of this
Commonwealth, who has just addressed us.
1t comes from the attorney of slaves In Viz
ginia, fifty in number, the descendants of a
woman of color who, two years after the a.
doption of our Bill of Rights, was stolen from
the town of S%outhwick, in Massachusetts;
and now, after the lapse of two generations
each handing down the memory that their
mother was free, these, her posterlty, ask a
certificate of the State of Massachusetts, that
the Constitution of 1880 was broad enough
to cover the rights of the long forgotten slave
of 1882.
God bless the noble hearts that framed it!
They rest from their labors, and the blessings
of their great work do follow them forever
more! The Constitution they framed in
1880 for the Bay State, in 1915 sweeps fifty
human beings from the grasp of the Old Do
minion, and places them beneath the broad
shield of its own State Feedom. applause
| commend the example Of that forlorn and
enslaved family to the State of MasSachu.
sets, during the darkness of national Sla.
very, through which she must struggle in or.
der to preserve even her own freedom invio.
late. Still, through the long night of forget
fulness to which they were consigned, have
they chung to the little thread of tradition tha'
bound them 10 the Hancocks, the Adamses
and the Otisis of Massachusetts; and still, il
like manner, let us hand down to our chill
dren, by the constancy of our protest, thu
memory of our freedoms's birthright, anC
swear them upon her alter that they thought
fully bide their time" and omit no effort Il
take, at last, upon Slavery, a freeman's deer
and abiding revenge! (Applause.)
/ believe there is power in the continue
testimony, even of a single individual, to d,
a mighty work for Freedom. One vote sen
+ Oliver Cromwell to the long Parliament
Little thought the holder of that vote that hi
hand was to send Charles Stewart to tn
scaffold, in front of Whitehall; and, who tina
stands here tonight can say that his W i
not the will, whose expression shall FINAL
turn the chances Of the LOTT What then vii
, be the moral might of the united voices of
r State, in a~rousing the failing heart of a nation
"Divide the thunder into single tones" say
i, the German Schiller, "and it becomes a lul
laby for children; but pour it forth in on
. quick peal, and the royal sound shall shak
the heavens!"
' So shall it be with this Commonwealth
e Let her pour forth her peoples voice in on
! undivided note of protestation, without wa
: ting till parties practice self-denial, OF polit
It clans become brave: moderate | would hav
= il, with you, Mr.. President, but most emphf
y tic in its energy; ''for the people, like the al
are never heard but when they speak in thu
der" Clear, emphatic, and undoubted,
would our act might be; so as to claim an
arrest the attention of all Christendom-s
4 that, hereafter, when on the worlds highway