New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-06-21
was to be . prominent actor and in some re-

he on that occasion: ut was the eenti-
ment of that great apostle Of freedom, Ben
jamin Franklin, uttered during the trials of
the revolution, that where liberty is there
is my country In similar strain ! would
say, where liberty is there is my party.
Such an organization is now happily consti-
tuted here in Massachusetts and IN all the
free States under the name of the Repub.
lican party. Its corner stone is freedom;
it's broad, all sulsaining arches are truth,
justice and humanity. Like the ancient
Roman capitol, at once temple and a cita-
del, it shall be the tit shrine for the genius
of American institutions" A grand pro-
phecy. fearfully verified. For though the
republic was convulsed by the shock of
hundreds Of thousands OF opposing combat
ants, and our soil was drenched from the
Potomac to the Mississippi with traternal
blood, while the nations heart was each
day. wrung with fresh agony az her sons on
each side by thousands daily fell. Never
thelees the irrepressible, adaptative genius
of constitutional liberty was able to pre-
serve and did preserve our free, representa-
tive government. severed from the reproach
and danger of slavery, purified, transformed
into the guardian Of impartial freedom-the
.'temple of free institutions iIviolate-the
Citadel still further fortified.
When he entered the Senate. in 1851, the
slave influence was an autocracy. 1t was
timidly Obeyed in the executive mansion,
and was dominant in both houses of Con-
gress, and with few exceptions, with the
public press OF the country. 1t had not
only controlled the national policy, but it
was insolent in Its apparently confirmed
power, and was wrathful and resentful
toward opposition. 1t made up in naughty
intolerance for its conscious want of right
ful strength. Bat with the bravery of
those who attack great plumbers, sustained
only by living sense Of the Justice of a
cause, he struck blow after blow against
thiss entrenched evil. He portrayed its
horrors and its worongs. He attacked it
through history, through political economy,
through ethics, and through the Holy Bible.
Day after cay, month after month, and
year after year, bis philippics reeounded
through the Senate chamber against this
ramiied, thoroughly organized and well
nigh nat;onalized system, whose smile was
courted as the passport TO political power,
whose frown was dreaded as the precursor
of lasting Punishment. Well nigh alone
he breasted the sentiment Of the whole
Senate, and the political aversion of those
in power. How weary must he sometimes
have been, as the assertion of the great
doctrines OF human liberty, and that too in
a republic, fell upon an audience only to
bitterness, until it came near 10 obloquy !!
Who that remembers the fierce opposition
which he encountered when ne sought
to be heard on his bill repeating the fugi-
tive slave law can fail to remember the
courage, the persistence, the resources,
which he exhibited in contest which to
the multitude promised only defeat and
disasters. But, never faleering, never dis
heartered. be fought on.
In the Senate never did he allow an op-
portunity TO pass to speak for the enslaved.
And such words They had the fervor and
faith OF the utterances OF the Hebrew
prophets. They seemed to well up and
overflow from soul filed with sense of
the hideousness OF slavery, and with a
longing 10 see all the slaves set free and a
determination to accomplish their freedom
by so accommodating the arguments that the
moral sense OF the nation must rouse itself
hom its apathy and 60 fearlessly with him.
The most memorable of his senatorial
efforts are three, one of which he entitled
Liberty National, Slavery Sectional in
which he strove to prove, and cid prove by
the most exhaustive and rich collection OF
authorities drawn from the fathers, and
from the line of argument drawn from the
constitution and the various relative pro-
visions. that the government was one upon
the prin ciples ana in the interests of free
dom, and that the dogma of the supporters
of slavery that where the constitution went
there it carried and protected slavery was
an arrogant assumption. His intense SYM
parhy with the oppressed, and the retribu-
ton which ne devoutly believed sooner or
later attended oppression, he breathed forth
in the concluding sentence, borrowed from
an Oriental writer: beware said he, 'of
the groans OF wounded souls; Cypress not
to the utmost single heart, for solitary
sigh has power 10 overset the whole world"
The second Of his grand congr essional
efforts he denominated The Crime Against
Kansas 1t was protest against the re-
peal of the ordinance Of freedom known as
the Missouri compromise. 1t was more
than an argument. though as such it was
massive: u was also an impassiOI ed note
of warning, addressed 10 the thoughtful
throughout the country, to beware of the
aggresslons OF slavery, and it was a denun-
citation OF slavery big with the threat of its
impending overthrow, now that face to
face and life and death struggle had been
precipitated between it and freedom. Listen
TO his entreaty. emonstrance and confident
prediction: From the depths of my SOUL"
said he, ''as loyal citizen and as a Senator,
plead. demonstrate and protest against
the passage OF this bill. struggle against
it as against death: but az, in death Itself,
corruption puts on interruption and this
mortal body puts on immortality, so from
the sting OF this hour / find assurances of
that triumph by which freedom will be re-
stored to her immortal birthright in the
republic"
1t was for this he received the violence,
which, like that buffet to which more than
mortal lips replied, "God shall smite thee,
thou whiied sepulchre," to his other quail
ties added that last and most irresistible in
a great moral cause-that of great personal
suffering endured for that cause's sake 1t
was for this he received the blow which, in
the Senate chamber-the theatre of his pro-
longed struggles, and destined to be that of
his great victory-felled him to the floor.
His cause, strong to invincibility before,
from that moment took on new strength
from the person of its advocate. Thence
forth throu ghout the world, those who had
Tor the slave, won to Senator
thus smitten, by feeling in which admira.
ton and sympathy were blended, We're IN
drawn into a more fierce an
tagOnism toward a system which had been
the real author of this indignity and cruel
ty. Thereafter from his lips words of pro-
or Indictment dOubly infamed, for
they OF right kindled a zeal which has
turned the tide in many a moral conflict, in
that they were spoken by one upon whom
had been set the seal of persecution, in
design wrathtul. but in effect lew and
higher consecration.
After sojourn abroad under medical
treatment FOR several years. he was enabled
% resume his seat in the Senate. He re-
lewed his undated warfare in his grandest
.hort-one which tasked to the utmost,
wen his moral heroism which he STYLED the
'Barbarism of Slavery" In this effort he
assumed the offensive. He attacked slav-
Try from foundation to turret. He arraign-
ID it before the bar of the public opinion of
he civilized world and charged it not only
With being Il system of unmitigated wrongs,
,ut as blighting and degrading the civiliza-
ion which tolerated it. His other animad-
-ersions had been bitter, this was gall; they