New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-02-07
LECTURE on SLAVERY
RALPH WALDO ExrRsoy.

nv RALPH WALDO ENrRsoS.
~. Eleventh Lecture of the Ne~-York Anti
c,.verv sociesy's second Annual Course ~ns deliv-
cred last evening in The Tabernacle, by RAIPu WAL
no EsrRsos. Notwithstanding the intense cold OF
the evening the building was den.ely crowded with
an attentive audience. OLIVER Johnson, in introduc-
ing Mr.. Emerson, said;
We are all shrinking and shivering to-nigh. under
wind, whose keen and freezing edge reminds us OF the
stern fact that there is geographical North. con-
oratnlate you, ladies and gentlemen that, mingfing
with the chilling currents that are sweeping down
from the region of hyperboresn SHOWS, there comes
for our State Capital blast which inspires the hope
,ba, there IT, at lsst, political North! This auson
., tho election of Senator Seward wss received with
loud ard general sppsuse.l l think that, being al
very good hunored tonight We are in jus. the proper
mood for listening to the lecture now to be deliv-
cred. introduce TO you Mr.. RALPH WALDO EnER-
SON. of sncord, Massachusetts,. Applause
Mr.. ExIRsoy then spoke in the following words:
GtsTLInEs, We meet here the third generation in
the humiliation Of our fathers, when they msde the
evil contract With the Shareholder at the formation
of the Government. We have added to this the new
and s,rar ge Fugitive Law OF ls50. The pht year
bss added the pouderous Nebraska and Kansas egis-
laton and we have 10 consider that however strongly
the tides of public sentiment have set and are set
ting whether in New York, whether in h4ssachusetts,
uhetber in Wisconsin, towards Freedom. yet tue
coce Of Slavery in this ry is unrepeaed and Is
AZ this hour more malignant, ia present and in pros
meet than ever before. The recent action has brought
Il home To the Nothern Ststes and msde 1t mpossi-
HE 10 avoid. Gentlemen, know the subject seems
exhausted. The honest man Is soon weary OF crying
"thief" Who can long continue 10 feel an ioter-
est in cordemripg homicide, or wife beating IL
lie said that negdtion is fat sfalr; one must
write with red. hot iron TO make any impression
ppon this subject Our friends were, therefore, herein
wise at they invited the Southeners, the dishn-
euisbed patrons and natural fathers Of the system to
come and speak for it, / think il would not have
been IN ADVISED had they ssked only such, and put
the vhoe duty Of defending il on the Save owners.
! am very suIe that il would have surprised the
Nortbe rners have DO little there was to say
But the difficulty was, that they would not come.
All the persors invited, with only one or two brave
executions we're absolutely otherwise engaged IL
is left 10 us 70 open the mater, each as he can and to
consider il as atter-not a thing that stanss by
Itself that il, a thing which quickly tires and clogs
but as thing 10 system. high state OF general
health csIpot long coexist with mortal dlseAe IN
any part II one member suffers. all the members
suffer Then. again we must fnd relief in the uni
form gloom in large constructions OF history wherein
Slavery ard war enter es necessary SHADOWS IN
the vast pictures Of Providence. Gentiem.n, me
GIVING facts we have TO consider ara these: That In
Republic, protesting TO base its laws on liberty;
securing the greatest good to the greatest number,
and on the doctrines Of Chrstishity, in part
of tina county Slavery is allowed TO subs:t and when
the poor people who are the victims OF tins abuse
oslitipp this process Of being stripped and peeled
run away into States where that practice not per-
mtted, law has been passed, reqpiring US here TO
seize tbese poor people send them back TO be stripped
and peeled again, and so long as they Ave. Well,
III. was not the grief I. shocking 10 hear 81 the
safe rings of these men but the country WA five
hundred and thousand miles of and however e4gued
with ours, was yet independent 1t wds dead Law
which lad been made in an hour of weakness and
fear We bad guarded ourselves from executing it;
there was no fesr that would come to be valid But
The restitution was here that even wel-born, well-bred
well grown men among ourselves, not outca'ts, not
foreiguers but baptised vaccinated, bigh-plsced,
official men should obey the official law. Aud
when we went to the Courts, the interpreters Of
Gods right between man and man; they said
catch the slave end force him back. Nov, that WAS
mott extraordinary symptom. Slavery 10 an evil,
as cholera is They will be purged out by the health
Of the system. know that it will 60 at last and go
with tattooing and cannibalism. And as We cannot
refuse TO tide in the same planet with the NewIea-
lander, 20 cannot with the Southerner. We must,
| but we msy say TO him, you se you, and an l. and
| God send you a speedy conversion. But TO fad il
here in this country, IN land OF schools and sermons
in the bills ef the White Mountains and the Hsfack
under the eye Of tn moet eDterprisipg men of the
world stsggers our faith in human progress. Gen
il.uen we msst eonsicer IT an accident of larger
calamity Ii rests on skepticism, which is not local
! but universal The tone Of society and the press
| slavery IL only an index of the moral pulse, aud
call slavery and the tolerance 1t fnds wort in this
the stupendous frivolty il betrays in the heart and
head Of our society, socety without faith, without
sius society d, ing Of inabition. 40 inpoverishing
tkeItciem scaters disease through opinions then
through our practice. ] find this skepticism very
widespread. Your msn wait object, want founds.
ton They would gladly have something to do
ADEQUATE 10 the po wes they feesome foeman worthy
of their steel-some love that would make them
greater than they are which not finding, they take
some second bes-they clip into some niche or crevice
| of the state come countDg-room or warehouse, or
! whatever ered6table employment They are not
supported by any sense OF greatness and this repu-
table Office screens them from criticism. And gentle.
| men, we are led TO cast shreTd glances into co.
ciety. Ameng intellectual men you will find waiting
for an impatient quest for more knowledge Ii is be-
ieved that ordinarily the mind agrees with the body,
that the movement of thought comes with the power
of action and in nations that il is in times OF their
greatest external power that their best minds have
| appeared. But in America q man of broad com.
| prehepsiye mind has not accompanied the expansion
of her power. Instead Of men Of thought books are
found critics instead Of thinkers punsters instead OF
poets They think the age for poetry passed-they
think the missionary belongs TO the savage. Go into
the festoored and tempered brllancy of the drawing
| roomt-the flower Of our society, for whom every
favor every accomI lshment every facility has been
| secufed-vil you find genius and courage expanding
those fair forms is their beauty only mistake, or
an aged cunping' Have they already grown worldly
wisel No illusions for them. A few cherished their
esrly dream, but contumacy and the soft appliances
of faction cover them with ridicule. They fall and
great lie the eoDgra,uaton OF their rehoed com.
panions that ihese sefwilled Protestants have
settled down into sensible practices. II was
only heroic soul conversing with eternity that
| can endure. The same career invites Us. The meth
cd Of nature is still The same. God instructs an
through the imagination. But whether your men
reach 10 reatea and ideas not every god is still
thee sitting in his sphere Your mortal come, into
life and the instant and necessarily feels himself in
snow-storms OF Illusions among other things, he fan
cies himself lost in the crowd but there he is alone
and they alone they pouring their grand persu ssions
% In Lead him Elytium. he baiisd and ds-