I say it is the home of the working
man; as one of her poets has recently said,--
'For her free latch-string never was drawn in
Against the poorest child of Adam's kin.'
And in that land there are no six millions of grown men--I speak of the
Free States--excluded from the constitution of their country and its
electoral franchise; there, you will find a free Church, a free school,
free land, a free vote, and a free career for the child of the humblest
born in the land. My countrymen who work for your living, remember this:
there will be one wild shriek of freedom to startle all mankind if that
American Republic should be overthrown.
Now for one moment let us lift ourselves, if we can, above the narrow
circle in which we are all too apt to live and think; let us put
ourselves on an historical eminence, and judge this matter fairly.
Slavery has been, as we all know, the huge, foul blot upon the fame of
the American Republic; it is a hideous outrage against human right and
against Divine law; but the pride, the passion of man, will not permit
its peaceable extinction. The slave-owners of our colonies, if they had
been strong enough, would have revolted too.
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