Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-11-12

pet phrases and Rash words, 80 tina, if you should
Dig our Egyptian Huukerism up from the grave in
to which it is rapidly sinking, We should have to
have a commentator Of the stue German blood to
find out what oil these queer, old, peculiar, imagin-
able paraphrases mean in this middle of the Nine
teenth Century. That was one evidence of pro-
gress. AT that time we had another-I believe
immortal maxim. l believe that the age of bullets
is over. 1 believe that the age of ideas is come.
My idea is public opinion, literature, education.
But some men seem to think that our %institu-
tons are necessarily safe because we have free
schools and cheap books, and a public opinion that
controls. But that is no evidence of safety. In
dia and China have had schools, and a school sys-
tenn almost identical with that of Massachusetts,
for fifteen hundred years. Ard books arc as cheap
in Central and Northern Asia as they are 10 New
York. But they have not secured liberty, nor Sc
cured a controlling public opinion to either nation.
Spain for three centuries had municipalities and
town governments, as independent and as self
supporting, and as representative Of thought as
New England or New York has. But that did not
save Spain. De Tocqueville says that FIVE years
before the great revolution, public opinion was as
omnipotent in France as il is to-day, but it did not
save France. You cannot save men by machinery.
What India, France and Spain wanted was live
men and that is what we want to-day men who
are willing to look their own destiny, and their
own functions, and their own responsibilities 10
the face. Grant me to see, and Ajax asks no
MORE" was the prayer that the great poet put in
TO the lips of his hero in the darkness that over
spread the Grecian camp. All we want of Amer
lean citizens is the opening of their own eyes and
seeing things as they are. And you see the great
Commonwealth of Virginia, fifty represented by q
pyramid standing upon its apex. A Connecticut
born man entered OF one corner Of her donations,
and fixed his cold grey eye upon the government of
Virginia, and nearly vanquished it by his very
gaze. For it seems that Virginia asked leave ito
be-" of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. [Cheers
and applause. Connecticut has sent out many q
school master to the other thirty States ; but she
never has sent one out before as she has sent that
Litcbfeld born school master to Harper's Ferry,
to write upon the National Bridge, in the face of
nations. his copy book Resistance to tyrants is
obedience to God" Loud cheers
INSTRUCTION THE LESSON OF THE HOUR.
l said the lesson Of the hour was instruction.
l ought not to apply that word to John Brown of
0sawatomie, for there was no instruction in his
case. 1t is a great mistake to call him an insur-
gent. The principle that l have endeavored so
briefly to open to you, of absolute right and wrong
states what? Commonwealth no civil society,
there is no government of Virginia !" There is no
such thing. There is none that can exist, except on
the basis of impartial, equal submission of all its
citizens, and by the performance of the duty of
rendering equal justice between man and man.
Everything that calls itself a Government, and re-
fuses that duty, or has not that assent. is no Gov
ernment. 1t is only a pirate ship. Virginia. the
Commonwealth of Virginia. She is only a chron-
10 instruction. I mean exactly what I say
I am weighing my words now. She is
o pirate ship, and John Brown sails the
sea q Lord High Admiral Of the AL
mighty, with letters Of marque and ~reprisal
against every rate that he meets on Gods ocean
Of hs nineteenth century [Cheers and applause.
l mean literally and exactly what say. In Gods
World there are no majorities. no minorities one
is q majority. You have often heard Lere, doubt
less, and / need not tell you the ground Of morals.
The rights of that one mar are as sacred as those
Of tho Commonwealth of Virginia. John Brown
u"o w a iiSut W uduR NOEeEnOT w l56 us
Governor Wise has to hang him. TCheers You
see l am talking of that absoldte essence Of things
that lives in the sight of the Eternal and the In
finite; not as men Judge it in the cribtod morals
of the nineteenth century, and the herd Of States
that calls itself an empire to traffic in cotton and
sell slaves.
John Brown began his life-his active life, in
Kansas. The South planted that seed it reaps the
first fruit now. People do me the honor to say, in
some of the Western papers, that this lie traceable
to some teachings of mine. 1t is too much honor
to such as me. Gladly, if it were not fulsome
vanity, would I clutch this laurel Of having any
share 10 the great resolute daring Of that man
who flung himself against an empire in behalf Of
justice and liberty. 1t was not the bravest men
who fought at Saratoga and Yorktown in the wal
of 1776. d! no there was some man in Lexing
ton or on some Village height, that fired the sigma
gun shat reused resistance against an empire till
then thought Irresistible. This man has done The
same.
Well, men say, he failed. Every man has hi,
Moscow. Suppose he did fail, every man meets
bis Waterloo at last. Suppose be did fail, he ha,
done a great deal still. Why this is a decent
country to live in now. Laughter ard cheers. =
Actually, in this Sodom Of ours, seventeen men
have been found ready to die for an idea. God be
thanked, to John Brown that he has discovered
them. [Cheers and applause.] 1 should feel some
pride if l was in Europe, in confessing that I was
an American. Applause. We have redeemed
the long infamy of twenty years of subservisnce
But look back q bit. Is there anything new
about thisi Nothing at all. 1t is the natural re
suit of anti-slavery teaching. For one l accept il,
/ expected it. -
Why, in 1885 it was the other way. Then i
was my bull that gored your OK. Then idea
came in conflict, and men Of violence, and mer
WHO had not made up their minds to wait for tn
slow conversion Of conscience. men who trusted i,
their own right hands. men who believed in bowl,
knives. Why, they sacked the city of Philadel
phia, they made New York to be governed by
mob, Boston saw its Mayor suppliant, and kneel