Year: 1860

slavery AT the NOtth, For one, can never near /
the oftrepeGted story but MY heart burns within
me- as if were the first time the tale were told,
and long for that speech which is given to some
men to speak the burning word that shall kindle
every heart that can remain before the facts cold
and Indifferent, The fncts of slavery-the cruel
oppression at the South, and the cruel prejudice
at the North-are the things which call us here
year after year. These things are repeated year
after year; and so long as they are, our duty re.
mains to make our protest against them, and en-
deavor, however feebly to put our hands and our
hearts to work, declaring that we will not rest SO
long as these facts remain facts, so long MS the
slave is stripped of every right, hunted, sod re-
duced from a man to chattel, annihated in
everything that is dearest to man.


Yes, the slave is here You read in the papers
the other day. as did, the story of the slave that
came creeping and trembling out of some secret
place on board Of the steamer that was bearing
back to Boston the delegation that went to the
Charleston Conyyntion. lie had to come out be-
cause he must have water and bread. And what
followed? Was there pity in one heart ;here2
Perhaps there was, but it was not shown. lie
who had risked SO much for his freedom-gving





giving-was sent back to the bondage from which
he had fed. There was not one of all those men
claiming to be the representatives of the principle
Of human rights and democracy who would speak
word in behalf of tha mans liberty. The ship
turned back on her course, turned away from the
North Star, towards which lie thought he was
speeding; he was put on board another vessel,
which carried him back to be a slave forever
That a symbol Of our government-that ves-
vel which turned away from the North Star
which, drawn by cruel magnet Of the Slave
Power, turns back and puts down every slave, by
the power Of its strong right arm who 10 seeking
to assert bis freedom. We are all in that ship,
and the black man is with US, and up to this day
we have been taking him back, regardless of his
claims to freedom, regardless of the sufferings he
has endured to secure it, and delivering him over
to eternal slavery, like those Democrats on board
the "Spaulding"-to save our party or to save
our Union. It's because these things are SO that
we white men must stand by the black man when
he pleads for his race, or when he cannot knows
not how to plead for himself.


But while these ever-recurrng facts of slavery,
everrecurfing in dorkor and torriblO mOOsure,





its power is to PERI etuate itself and to grow, if
but let alone, we are not to sit down in despair,
because, as 1 think, the word that is spoken to
US is word of hope also. think We can see
in this evil, as in all evil that Divine Providence
which sets the doom Of destruction within every
wrong and evil. We can see how, by its exces-
ses Of tyranny, the Slave Power is working out
its own destruction; and sometimes it seems as If
wo might almost stand aside, leaving it to so on
in its work of corruption, confident that out Of that
corruption will come the reaction that shall make
new reforming power to overthrow it.


l have spoken Of ship that sailed but the other
day in American waters l remember a story of
another ship. In the year 1919, French ship
sailed from the coast of Africa with a crew Of
twenty-five men and cargo of slaves fastened
down under the matches. She had not been out
many days when, passing through the heat of
the tropics, there broke out among the slaves a
terrible disease of the eyes, which threatened to
make them all worthless, and the physician of the
ship, moved perhaps by pity, and the captain,
moved By the fear Of losing the profits of his voy-
age, directed that some of them should be taken
out on the deck, in order that they might breathe
the fresh air, it, perchance, their disease might
be stayed. They came out one after another, and,
looking upon the water and the hold they had
left, they put their arms around one another and
jumped into the sea, under the influence of the
superstition that thereby they would be carried
back at once to their own land. The captain order
ed that some Of their number should be shot to pre-
vent the example being followed, and the remain.
Ger were shut down in the.hold again, and the
disease spread, until not one Of the human cargo
was free from it. 1t grew more and more loathe-
some. But it did not stop there; it spread among
tho white men on board, and one after another
was seized with the disease, and become totally
blind At last there was but one man left on board
the ship who could see how to steer. While in
this miserable condition, another ship is seen and
the hope of assistance is confidently cherished
but on nearing her, it is found that she, toO is q
slave ship, and that the same terrible disease has
broken out there. have sometimes thought that
our country was like that slave ship. The slaves
whom we have stolen, the slaves whom we have
hid away down in the hold, as " e pursued ouI
career Of growing enterprise, commerce and
wealth, the slave whom we oppressed and crushed
under the matches of our power, has given US a
/
ing, every part Of its body polite, with the corrup
ton of this awful disease Of slavery. We have
taken away the black mans rights and our right:
are nearly gone. 1t must be so. There is O
brotherhood between the white man and the
black; and if we will not recognize him as ouI
moral brother, we will have to recognize him as
our physical brother, by that unity of ruin which
binds up tho fate of one people with that of the
other. We are blinded, because we are willing
that the slave should be blinded, that he might
be better worked in the prison-house of his bond
age. We are all in one ship; we cannot throw
the black man overheard. Thank God, we are
not 6ll blind Thank cd there is seeing eye
in this land, which, with clear percep tion, has
seen from the first through all the utter wrongful
ness and sin Of slavery-has foreseen the doom
that lies against this land il it persist in enslav
ing the black man; has foreseen that only by right
eousneaa and iuatice and obedience To Gods law