Year: 1877

it, will be looking for some equivalent !;
and you and | know from the history of
the past what equivalent they will de-
mand, what, if they are consistent with
their own views, they must demand.


The idea that Christian ministers are
too sacred a commodity, too celestial a
factor, in human life, to have anything
to do with the question who makes and
executes the laws of the land; that
they must content themselves with
praying in their closets, at home, while
the small politicians, the petty wire
pulfers of our great cities, determine
the destinies of the nation, hand it here
or hand it there, as they may please
the idea that a citizen can be a good
Christian on Sundays and then go to
work and pack primary meetings, and
doctor returns, and vitiate the whole
process by which an appeal is made to
the people for their honest Judgment in
the choice of rulers; by which an ap-
peal is made to the Supreme Ruler of
nations as to His choice, ought to be
secuted forever from this land. A man
who cOnnives at fraudulent voting in a
republic, be he in New York or LOuisi-
ana, is neither a true Christian nor a
true patriot.


Again, if the ballot in the hands of
every American citizen be the express
sion of the divine element in our system
of government, it should be cast in the
the interest of humanity, in the inter-
est of free nation. God gave us this
country he sent our fathers here with
their peculiar ideas of civil and religious
liberty, to develop them here. That is
the manifest destiny of this nation.
Those ideas have become national. He
gave us this country for the sake of
humanity, not for the sake of race or
party or a church, but for the sake of
the world. If the problem of human
rights keeps coming up like BanQuo's
ghost, and iOstling our public men from
the seats of ease and power, where they
seek to intrench themselves, it cannot
be helped. If they would fain persuade
themselves that this or that constitu-
tional amendment, or this or that Pres
idential election will settle it forever,
and then the chaIiot-wheels of state
will drag no more heavily, it will prove
a delusion and a snare. When God in
carnated himself in humanity he put
himself into this problem. The prob
lem of human rights is an eternal one.
So long as men are wrOnged their
wrongs must be righted. 1t is so in
this country at least, and our statesmen
will find it so.


When slavery was abolished the vet
eran anti-slavery leaders disbanded, as
though all the work had been done.


But it was only begun. Social chaos
remained behind. Slavery had been
| Snr with fha


bellion had provoked active war with
another and out of these two came
the present chaos of Southern affairs
the social and civil debris of two wars


All, if the citizens of the South had
honestly accepted the situation when


by the throes of civil war a new nation


of freemen had been born, in ignorance


and feebleness and want; if they had


said to themselves, ave have been


very guilty concerning our brethren )"


if they had at once recognized the true


citizenship of their late bOndmen, taken


the new problem as from the hand of


the God of battles, to whom they had


appealed, and addressed themselves to


the work of furnishing these men for


that citizenship; if instead of sitting


back in sullenness and disgust, because


their black brother, who had been the


innocent occasion of the conflict, had


at last, chance to become a citizen


and a man-had at last Il right to call


himself and his wife and children his


Own-had at last a home which was his


castle, the threshold of which neither


task-master nor negrO-trader, blood.


hound nor United States marshal could
cross if addressing themselves to this


task, as the wiser and more Christian


race, they had at once and forever ac.


cepted the constitutional amendments
as determined by the arbitrament o.
the sword, which they themselves haC
unsheathed, the work would have beer
done. All honor to those of them who
did so. But ever since the war many
of them have been like the viper in the
fable, biting the file that severed the


chains of the bondmen; like the Egyp
tians of old, looking across that sea o
blood through which God had made ;


pathway of escape for his poor, Op
pressed people, if perchance they nigh


discover some way of getting them bacl
again, or of abrdging their freedom.


The truth is, we have very uncom
Portable preamble to our Declaration o
Independence, so long as there is within
our borders any class of our citizen
who are not protected in their enjoy
ment ''of life, liberty, and the pursui
of happiness" We are committed t.
| the world, to our fathers and to pos
terity, as well as to the Judge of all tn,
earth, as a people who have taken i
upon themselves, have taken it to b,
| their mission, their role, to recognize
{ and establish the law of human equal
J ty and brotherhood in civil affairs with
in all the land. We have said in tn
: words of the Apostle, "Who is veal
, and we are not weak who is offended
! and we burn not 2" This, according t,
3 our own Interpretation, is what thi
/ country is for, to afford an as asylum
f a refuge for the oppressed. But is i
f for the oppressed of other lands alone
, Do we distinguish against man be
5 cause of his complexion, because of hi
f previous degradation, because he wa
4 born on our own shores? Do we dis
t tinguish against a man because ou
t fathers have constituted him the vic
( tim of a system, one of whose safeguard
= it was to make it an act of felony
e should any man teach him to read o
n write his own native tongue? And es
f pecially will the freemen of this nation
Y in employing the ballot, distinguis
D against a man who was loyal to tn
o Government when he was surrounde,
: only by disloyalty, and who now cast


his ballot often at the peril of his life


Shall the American citizen, with whor
/" free ballot is his highest dignity, an


to whom it gives the power of minglin
= his voice with the voice of his fellow
g citizens all over the land, as they de
n termine into whose hands the guidanc
h | of nuhlic affairs the Shaninn of th