Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1855-02-10

,Slqyerv '' " y"
The fremont Temnle last nicbt vvoe cro,vdod ot
an early hour to boor tLo anti-slnvorv loctmo Tto
orator was Ralnb Waldo Emerson WHO vas listened
to throurbout with breotbless interest and fire.
ouentlv onrlauded
Gentemen and ladies. We sit here. the third
generation in tbe humiliation of our foref,thers
When tbev made an evil contract With the slayebod
ers ht tho formation of III, government. We have
added TO that the new stringences of the fugitive
law of 1850.
The last wear has added the ponderous Nebraska
and Kansas legislation and we have now to CON
slider that however strongly the tides of nublic
sentiment have set or are setting towards freedom
the code of slavery in this country is at this hour
unrepealed and is at this hour more malicnant in
present and in prospect than ever before. Recent
action has brought it home to New England, and
made it impossible for us to avoid This is the
grave topic for us and it is for us not to treat it
as a thing by itself that quickly tires and cloys
but as it stands in our systcm-how it can consist
with the advantages and supcrorities we fondly
ascribe to ourselves A high state of moral health
cannot long co-exst with moral disease in a7y
part If one member suffers the whole suE
fers
The cryinp fncts are those That in n nation
which processes to base its laws ON liberty or the
securing the greatest rood of the greatest number
and in conformity with the doctrines of CHRISTIAN
ity-in a part of this country the practice of sla
very is allowed to subsst. and when those moor
people its victims, disiknr this strinnn@ and
peeiing process run away into states where this
practice is not permitted-a law has been passed
recurring us who sit here to seize thsse moor neo-
ple tell them thew have not been Numbered
enough, but must 60 back to be strpped and peeled
again and as long as they live. Well, that was
not the grief 1t was shocking to hear of the suf-
ferings of these men but the country was 500 or
1000 miles off. and. however learued with our
selves, was at least independent; and for the ma
tonal law that enacted this completely and threw
us into cons piracy with the thief, it was an old
dead law, made in the hour of weakness and fear.
and which we had guarded ourselves from execut-
ing.
1t is now revived or made stringent. but there
was no fear or so we rersuaded ourselves. that #
would be valid; But the dissatisfaction was here.
among ourselves, not outcasfs, NOT f,roionors nnt
beggars, not conyiets; but baptized, y9ccinoted,
schdoed, high placed official men, who abetted
the evil law, who by all means catcI, the slave
and force him back and when we went TO the
courts, to the interpreters Of Gods law between
and man, said, "for Gods sake take the slave
and send him back" (Applause.)
This was most extraordinary symptom Sla-
very is an evil, as cholera is, that will be purped
out by the health of the system; eing unnatural
and violent, know it will yield at last, and 90
with cinnibism, sea-kings dvelism burknp 4;
and as cannot refuse to ride in the same planet
with the New Zealander, so we must be content to
20 to the Southern planter, and saw "vou arc vou
and am |, and God Send you an early conversion
Laughter and appause)
But to find it here in our sunliaht-hcre in the
heart of the Puritan traditions-in an intellectual
country-in the land of schools of Sabbnths and
of sermons, under the shadow of the white hills of
Kitardin aud the Hoosac-n the ewes of the most
Ingenious. industrious and sef-helping men in the
world staggers our faith IN human progress
@ (Applause.)
Gentlemen Ladies: | must yet consider it as
an accident OF larger calamity. 1t rests on
skeptlclsm, which Is not local but universal. The
tone of our public sentiment the tone Of our press
on slavery, is only an index of the moral pulses
and call slave.y, and the tolerance it finds here
worst in this the stupendous frivolity it finds in
the heart and head of our society-a society with
out falth society without aims society dying
OF lnantlon' .
LOOK 1 at our politics The great parties co-eval
mia @ 'ne l?rrIJn Oh the government do not in
spiro US with exalted hope. The democracy-does
1t stand really for the good of the many, of the
poor! Inc party OF property and education, the
wing party nave they ever addressed themselves
10 6s ne splen purpose OF relieving this country Of
That party has resisted every progressive step.-
Did free trade come from thcm-hayo they urged
the great questions of reform the prophetic action
of the time? No. they would nail the stars TO the
sky, and with their eyes over their shoulders ixed
on the past, they adore their ancestors the foun
ders OF the Constitution. NOlun,uS mutari we do
not WISH TO change the laws of New England
they wish their age should be absolutely like the
last. What does this mean? There is no confes
SION OF destitution like this fierce conservation
Can anything proclaim so loudly the absence of all
ann OF principle? What means this desperate
grasp upon the past if not that they have no hone
no law In their own minds, no principle. no future
OF their own? Some foundaton.we must have and
five can see nothing we cling desperately to those
we believe can see,
Our politics have very low, and gentlemen
OF character will no longer 90 into them II Is
fast becoming, if it has not aleady become dis
creditable work. Those who have gone to Con
gress from us were honest, wellmeanng men,
heard congratulations from good men, their friends
when they went to Washington, that thew were
'honest and thoroughly reliable, yes, obstinateIy