Year: 1862

From sermon delivered by Henry Ward


Beecher Sunday night week, we reproduce


the following eloqaent passage:


Tho Free States OF the North have oaly
just turned back in time. The war they make


in the struggle to escape, is war of ideas, ol
fundamental and eternal principles. 1t is the
spirit of absolute governments-of the old op


rressive governments ever hostile to the spirit
Of self governments what they have to meet


We know that we shall have the final victory
but whether through sad reverses and through
cycles OF delay, we cannot tell. The right is
on our side-every idea Of Gods providence,
every aspiration of the human soul struggling
upward, every hope Of humanity, the cry Of
the coming generations, the scheme Of uuiyer-
sal liberty filling the void with prayer and
warning exhort us not to yield, not to om-
promise, but to go right onward to do battle
to the bitter end in this great, good fight. :
The principle Of darkness, the banded minions
Of oppression, all the congregated elements Of
evil assail the house Of liberty. / am in the
habit Of saying distinctly what think, and l
do declare that the opposition formed here 10
the North against this government is the
meanest, the blackest, and the most hyr ocrt.
ical ever conceived on the earth. There, they
have the benefit Of my candid opinion, il they
want it. Laughter and applause. And now
| add that, whatever may have been my friend
ships, that they are warm at all times, / will
not stand, l will not strike hands-no, not
with my own brother-witb those who are not
now openly and forever on the side of liberty.
l had in this contest meant to overlook all
party divisions, but now when see Satanic


influences land such they no doubt are-ayain
combining against the North, will not touch
any man who is with them unless it is with
the tesom Of the rod We have DO material
here for conflict among us, and the blood, the
massacre, of the old Paris days Of murderous
revolution might well return, did not those
who foster --and such men thero are, beyond
peradventure, 10 our Jnidst-cloak their wick.
eduess iu sort of sneakiug prudence. Ttcv
come to the Government saying: How art
thou, my brother?" while they plunge their
dagger under the fifth rib.


Then, brethren, rise to the imminence Of the
danger. Cast your votes for liberty-cast
them as far as you can out of tbs night of re
bellion toward Gods throne! Go back to the
days of Jefferson, Madison and Franklin, and
stand by them and their great princples-"all
men free and equal!" Never can We have
war so cheap. Compromise will brng no
peace. Such peace would at each recurring
election, revive the question whether some
other State should not go out of the Union of
liberty. You have got upon your feet
keep upon them; you have got your hands ont
and your heats TO strengthen them-keep
them out and stretch them further! Never
was such spectacle Of shame before beheld


for fifty years. as was seen in the National
House Of Representatives. Northern dough-
faces cringiug in the presence Of Southern
slave drivers! Let it never be seen again
Does material interest stand in the way? The
slave free will spend 500 in your factories,
where the slave in bondage can't spend 81
The slave buys no books, no carpets, no pianos
Freedom makes commerce; the pow will say
to the farmer, Freedom makes me bright
vote fos Freedom. All the factories will sing
this anthem, excepting one kind only-ti e
cat O nine-tail factory-and that, too, on sec.
ond thought will join in the chorus. The
loom, the spinning janny, and the mill will
echo it. The natural state of man is not sim
plicity, it is complexity of wants; it is not
poverty, it is comfort. Like the tree, man
rises first a naked stem, but the expanding oak
shoots forth ten thousand branches, and asks
for moro room below, more heaven space above.
Everything pleads for the policy of emancipa
tiop, and now that ii is uttered, let us not
fall back. If we go to pieces, who shall re-
store the shattered temple. The Pbydian
marble mourns in Athens amid the rnins Of
the rent Acro?olis, and points the moral Of
the broken State The doctrine of divisions
anil secession is the doctrine Of the devils.-
Let us have no part in it, but cling to one
Government, one Constitution, one policy
the doctrine of all men free and equal-aud
all the machinery Of devildom sLall not pre-
vail. st4