Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1845-12-19
From the .Gnii-Slarary Standard.
REVOLUTIONS.

" 49, f"1 WV EpaA0
they' They are changes in the policy or es-
tablished usages of a people, which, though
they come not without observation, are vet
silent and unmarked in their earlier and mora
important processes. He was a wise man
who said, We live in the midst of a Rev.
o%lution and do not know it!' The race hss
been ever in a revolutionary state; though we
note in the calendar only the last results
Where freedom of thought and expression is
permitted, the progress OF revolution is more
plain to the observing eye, and may be urged
on with greater momentum. But it is al
ways at work.
Hence our hope in the moral movement a.
gainst Slavery. We look around US; and il
seems as if its foundations were established
forever. The system is guarded by the des-
perate ferocity with which the slave-uwner
maintains its integrity, and by the supine-
ness and selfshness which prevent the funds
set apart by Church and State, from molest-
ing it. 1t is defended by commercial timid-
ity, by clerical craft, by political knavery.-
Its lines extend TO the remotest frontiers of
the land, and its ~impregnable citadel lies in
the Constitution of the nation. Its assailants
are exposed TO cross fires from every side,
and their numbers are from time to time di-
minished by treachery and desertion. Here
it would seem as if there were an institution
beyond the reach of reforming hands. Is it
not idle to waste life and strength in attack
ing III SO has looked each onward move
ment of the race, until the time of its tri-
umph. So insignificant and insufficient did
1t appear, in the first stages of its progress,
to undiscerning eyes. Such has been the
fate OF the earlier champions, who have mar
shalled onward the successive revolutions
which have changed the policy of nations
and Of the world. 1t moved the laughter of
| tho ,o,,rtiorS - El;,,1,,L a. 80 IL S.z..Ial
demeanor and prim self-righteousness of men
who chose to suffer persecution and want,
rather than hear ian ill-mumbled mass said
in the churches of the Reformed Establish
ment. Buttheir grand-sons found it no laugh
ing matter at Naseby and Marston-Moor.-
And the next sovereign but one to the lion
hearted Queen, sealed with his blood tho
Revolution those obscure fanatics had begun
upon the scallold at Whitehall. The squah-
bles between the Royal Governors and tho
legislatures of the American Colonies, have
in themselves no intrinsic dignity, and they
often seemed to contemporaries as f~actious
and contemplate. But it was from the seed
that was thus sown and fostere1 that the
Tree OF Liberty, we hear so much of, grew
up in l776, and it is to this, that such shell
ter as its branches have afforded, is DUE
The suppers of the wits of Paris, a hundred
years ago, and the blasts of ridicule which
were bredthed from them,
"How to o'erthrow a fool, and how to shake
4 th%rone;'
were not things to arouse the jealousy of tho
despotism Of a thousand years. And vet be-
fore the century was over, they had laid throne
and altar in undistinguishable ruins, and Civ
en- a shock to the established state of things
in Europe which will be felt to the end of
time.
II wac n nlorinra Da,a1,;ez :--r.
it was, by which Englishmen, through the
long and painful struggles of more than forty
years, ascertainod their rights and recorded
them In the Acts of Settlement of 1889. But
the trlumphs Of that Revolution were due as
much to the men who in the preceding CEN
tury had reaouhced their liyings, for con-
science sake, ard led forth their iiocks to for
eign or 10 desert lands, as to those whose moro
fortunate hands crowned the work they had
begun. They were as truly the martyrs of
liberty whose blood followed the lash of tho
beadIe as they were whipped at the c~art-tail
through the town, or stained the pillories
where their ears were left as monuments of
their fidelity, as were Hampden, or Vane, or
/, sidney, who ungrud gingly poured forth their
lives IN her cause, at Chalgrave-feld or on
IowerHllI. 1t was a memorable Revolution
which severed the tie that connected the ihir-
teen colonies to the parent country; though its
benefits have been SO mournfully cuftailed TO
us by the short-sighted selfshness of those
who achieved it. Butthat Revolution began
a not with the battle of Lexington, or even with
the spirit Of resistance aroused by the Stamp
; Act. 1t begun almost as soon as the first
. emlgrdnts IN Massachusetts made the old char
: ter the pfetence for an independent Govern
ment; and It's progress may be traced through
all the phases which opposition to the parent
State assumed in different provinces. 1t was
: a great Revolution that tumbled in the dust
} the dynasty of the Bourbons, with all the ac-
cumnlatlon of abuses that clustered aroundi il.
But 1t did not date from the assembling of
the S-tates-General in 1875; nor were tho
\ coarse and cruel hands that consummated it,
those TO which it was chilly due. For many
!, years before, the philosophers and encyclope-
dists had been preparing the way for tho
= mighty change, and schooling mems minds
y to expect and to demand it.
On any one day previous to the successful
issue OF any of these revolutions, the existing
state of things in either of these nations, seehs-
ed fixed as the foundations OF the earth.-
And yet the change came in due time. We
- look about us, and the great Institution Of on,
land, incorporated as it is with almost every
other institution, social, civil, and religious,
20 stands up before US, with its battlements in
sulting the heavens, and its foundations go
ing down 70 he'll. Almost all the moral force.