The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-06-08

listers to show that religious tolera
ton was the cornerstone of the new
Republic.
And yet this constitution protec
ted human slavery, and the slave
trade. The principal change made in
the original Declaration of Indepen-
dence was the striking out of a
passage condemning the King of
England for his support of the slave
trade more severely than was ap-
proved by the Southern members.
'EWhile the masters were contend
ing. for freedom and the natural
rights of man," says writer of that
day, theslaves were doomed to per-
petual bondage. Such is the incon
sistency of human nature. Eighteen
hundred slaves were found at York
town after hesurrenderandr restored
to their masters. No slave wasany
nearer his freedom after the surren-
der at Yorktown than when Patrick
Henry first sounded the notes of
liberty among the hills and wales of
Virginia." And how could the
principles of the Declaration be
carried out under the stars and
stripes where slavery existed.
What were the stars and stripes
but a hollow mockery when waving
over the prison pen and the auction
block? How could our great system
of free public instruction, our free
schools, do their benefcent work in
States where the laws forbade to
teach the slave to read or write?
And where the violators of such
laws were subject to fine and i'm
prisoment? John Wesley called
slavery the "sum of all villainies"
Abraham Lincoln said long before
he was President, "if slavery is not
wrong, then nothing is wrong" But
we all remember how the land rung
with the cry, "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians;" the Diana of their tenn
pie being the system of slavery.
And there are many of us here who
remember it all, and that wonderful
uprising which followed the firing
upon our troops at Fort Sumpter.
Thus the war became stern neces-
sity, a noble self sacrificing duty
upon the part of those who believed
in the Declaration of the Founders;
the inalienable right of all men to
life, liberty and the pursuit of hap
piness. Drunk with the wine of
success, they struck down the flag
which protected the affairs of their
idol and the temple wherein it was
enthroned; then the war became a
necessity on the part of the govern
ment:-
Fulfilling of vision none had understood;
The breaking of the Apocalyptic SEAL
Twice rang the summons hail and fire and blood
When, lo the third angel blew his trumpet
peal.
Loud walled the dwellers on the myrtled coasts
The green savannas swelled the maddened
cry,
And with yell from all demon hosts
Fell the great star wormwood from the sky.
Bitter it mingled with the poisoned flow
OF the warm rivers winding to the shore;
Thousands on thousands drank the waves of
death and woe;
But the star wormwood stains the heavens no
more.
Rome had her triumphs round the conqueror's
car
The ensigns waved the brazen larions blew
And DER the reeking spois of bandit war,
With outspread wings, the cruel eagles few
Arms, treasures, captives, kings in clanking
chains,
Urged on by tramping cohorts, bronzed and
scared,
And wild-eyed wonders shared on Syban plains,
Ostrich and lion and camelopard.
| Vain all that Praetors clutched or counsels
wrought,
When Rome's returning legions crowned
their lord,
| Less than the least brave deed, these hands had
wrought.
We clasped unclenching from the blood-stain-
ed sword
| From Shilohs dark and bloody ground,
From old Antietam's storied field
| Where waves o'er many billowy mound
The treasure that the harvest yield.
Through Wilderness of fear and doubt,
On Gettysburg's historic plain
Above the clouds on old Lookout
| Where Freedom unflrled her flag again!
Baptized anew in patriot blood,
And bearing every beauteous star,
And hailed again, with glad acclaim
| By millions watching from afar.
Dream like those years of conflict
Not dream, death, ruin, ashes tell their awful
tale.
| Read by the flaming war tracks lurid gleam,
No dream,-but truth that turned the nations
pale,
| When on the pillar raised by martyr hands
Burned the rekindled beacon of tn right,
| Sowing its seeds of fire, in all tn lands;
Thrones looked centuries older, by its light.
The Emancipation Proclamation
which struck the manacles from the
I-1 e fo,,,, ,1,sII;o,, e,lauac onH