Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1862-10-22


Mexico there are now five hundred men who
left as left. They are in the mountain fast
nesses, hunted like wolves. Are they to have
help? Give them a chance and they will bleed
for their country, die for it, redeem it; and
there are men enough there to-day, to redeem
it if they were organized and had arms in their
hands. Let no man be permitted to live in
the government who will dare again to strut
his little hour upon any stage and breathe
treason to his fellow men. (Cheers.)
Restore the government and the constitu-
ton, and its laws to all, fellow citizens.
With all my heart. Restore the Union as 1t
existed for the year just preceding the rebel
lion? God forbid. cloud, prolonged, and
repeated applause.) Am l to be RENTED
back to the soil of Texas, to be hunted by as
sassins the little remnant of my life? (No,
no. Am l to go there to teach my little son
that the chief blessing of his great future is to
run from street to street, and from man to
man, and insist that he is as sound man on
the subject of slavery as lives? (Cheers. Am |
to see my neighbors and friends hung by the
neck, because they have doubted that the
chief business of the Great Ruler of the Uni
verse is in directing and controlling and ma
turing andperpetuating theinstitution of slave
ry ? Cheers. No, fellow citizens; if can
not go there and strike hands with my friends
at home; if l cannot be again united with my
family, except upon the terms that | am to
live in such society as existed there, hard as
it is to utter, | can find it in my heart to say,
let me never see them. But if you mean by
the restoration of the Union as it was, res
toration of that Union such as our fathers in
tended it to be, then, with all my heart, let us
have it. Great applause.)
The issue is simple; it is plain. The way
fnrOu mo ba l.,
may be a fool SLAVERY ON THE ONE HAND,
AND LIBERTY ON THE OTHER. loud APP
plause.) And yet, felow-citizens, for these
brief desultory words, honestly spoken, am
yet to be further tried. Friends, doubtless,
who have stood up for me heretofore, will say
l am not prepared for this yet. But fear
not for them they will arrive in due time
where l stand, and l will add, even at the ex-
pense Of being considered arrogant, if you
please, that what have said to- night, all I'M
interesting as it may be to you, will strike
cord deep in the hearts of my people. know
how the people feel, their modes of thought,
to what conclusions their minds have already
been brought. 1t is GO YOUR NEGROES, OR MY
CHILDREN" l love my children best; do
not intend to part with the hopes that have
predicated upon my little son. He has, or
ought to have, he did have, until you took it
est honors in his country's gift. He shall
have it. will fight that my son may be free,
even at the expense of freeing your negroes.
Let me, then, fellow citizens, indulge the
hope that if it shall be my fortune again to
visit home and friends, can say, and say it
truthfully, | am a free mani am not merely
a theoretical freeman-I have the constitution
OF the United STAGES guaranteeing me my free
dom; but have what is dearer still, | have
countrymen, l have society, have brethren,
fellow citizens all over the States without an
exception, who intend that | shall practice as
a freeman throughout my life. They intend
that shall indulge the noblest right that can
be given to man-the right of thought and of
impressing my thoughts, humble though they
be, upon the minds of others. Ii | can 90
home with that kind of freedom, want it;
less than that | never shall be satisfied with.
(Cheering.) Hundreds of men have persisted
because they thought, because they had loved
freedom, and INDUCED occasionally in specu-
lations as to how freedom was best to be pre-
served; they have been hung like felons.
want that to cease. want the government Of
the United States to treat every man in the
land as an enemy who will attempt to impose
further restrictions upon the right of free
people to think and to talk. (Cheers.)
When | see that, then | can lift my hands
and say, Blessed, indeed, is this government
Then l can accept that flag as the emblem of
freedom, really, unqualiiedly, having gained
new luster by the very struggle in which its
citizens have engaged to-day. 1 will indulge
the hope that victory upon the field may not
only perch upon the standards of our arms,
but that moral halo will surround it from
consciousness of those who are fighting that
they are struggling to sustain liberty, and to
crush the last remains of slavery. (Enthusi-
astic cheering) Let, then, our last thought
upon government and society be, am yet
citizen of free government; l still occupy
the position of recipient of the largest ra-
tional human liberty; am yet on freedoms
soil, with freedoms banner floating DER me.
(Applause.)