Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1870-08-17
CASTELAR, ON Lincoln.


CASTELAR, on Lincoln.
The following is an extract from the
great speech of the Republican Deputy,
CASTELAR,, in the Spanish Cortes, on the
question of emancipation:
l wish to present You another exam
pie of decided purpose to accomplish
gradual abolition. refer to the example
of America. The
Puritans are the patriarchs of liberty;
they opened ewsworld on the earth;
they opened new path for the human
conscience; they created new society.
Yet, when England tried to subdue them
aud they conquered, the republic tri-
umphed and slavery remained. WASH
ington could emancipate his slaves
franklin said that the Virginians could
not invoke the name of God, reiainng
slavery. Jay said that all the prayers
America sent up 10 heaven for tbs pres
ervation of liberty while slavery contin.
ued, were mere blasphemies. Mason
mourned over the payment his descend,
ants must make for this great crime of
their fathers. Jefferson traced the line
where the black wave of slavery should
be stayed.
NevertEe ess slavery inSreased contin-
ualb. l beg that you will pause mo-
ment to consider the man who cleansed
the terrible stain which obscured the stars
of the American banner. | beg that
YOU will pause a moment, for his immor-
tai name has been invoked for the perpet-
uation of slavery. All! the past centu-
ny has not, the century to come viii not
have fgure-head so grand. because as
evil disappears, SO disappears heroism
also. E 2.
| have often contemplated and descrb-
ed his life. Born in cabin of Ken
lucky, of parents who could hardly re.d; ;
born a new Moses in the solitude If the
desert where are formed all great and
obstinate thoughts, monotonous like tae
d4sert, and, like the desert, sublime;
growing up among those prmeval for SITS,
which, with their fragrance, send cloud
of incense, and with their murmurs, a
cloud of prayers, TO heaven; boalman
at years. in the impe;uous current Of
the Ohio, and at IL in the vast and tran
quill waters of the Mississippi; later. a
woodman, with ax and arm filing the
immemorial trees to open way to un-
explored regions for his tribe of wander.
ing workers; reading no other book than
the Bible, the book of great sorrows and
great hopes, dictated often by prophets
10 the sound of tie letters they dragged
through Nineveh and Babylon; child
of Nature, in word, by one of those
miracles only comprehensive among free
people, he fought for the country, and
was raised by his fellow citizens to con
gress at Washington, and by the nation
to the Presidency of the Republic; and
when the evil grew more viIulent, when
those states were dissolved, when the
shareholders uttered their war cry and the
slaves their groans of despair-lhe wood
chopper, the boatman.- the son of the
great West the descendant of Quakers.
humblest of the humble before his con.
science, greatest of the great before his
tory ascends the capital, the greatest
moral hight of our times, and strong and
serene with bis conscience and his
thought; before him a veteran army,
hostile Europe behind him, England ia.
voring the south, France encouraging
reaction in Mexico, ia bis hands the riven
country; be arms two millions of men,
gathers half million of horses, sends
his artillery 1900 In week from the
hanks Of the Potomac to the shores of
Tennessee; fights more than 600 battles ;
renews before Richmond the deeds of
Alexander, of Caesar; and, having eman-
cipated 100000 slaves, that nothing
might be wanting, he dies in the very
moment of victorv-like Christ, like Soc.
rates, like all redeemers, at the foot of his
work. His work Sublime achievement
over which humanity shall eternally shed
its tears, and God his benedictions!
But Lincoln. you will tell me, attempt.
ed gradual emancipation. This is true;
never evade the truth. But the privi-
legged classes shat their eyes and opposed
it, as they shut their eyes here and OPP
pose every profound and radical reform.
| And Immediately abolition came. When
man of the wisdom and political pru-
dence of Abraham Lincoln appealed to
supreme measures, il was because be was
convinced that the hope of compromise
was gone, that gradual steps are imprac
ticable in reforms demanded by justice
and humanity. Since then, the United
States. having turned their slaves into
men, have devoted themselves 20 convert
ing these men into citizens.
You talk to me Of exceptional laws.
Many hove you given to sustain the in
fuence of priests and the tyranny o
kings. | admit your exceptions if you
will present me 1000, 900 beasts convert
ed into 1000 900 men.