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Show Edwin M. Wheelock. mg cv ry yoke.'' Our Fathers thoug ht that the F ederal Con:=: tit11t ion had gi\·cn S l:wery its dcath-bluw. ,Jefferson thourrht the Ordinance of 17 7 hnd dug it ' g r:w c. Tit men of 1< 0 believed that the destruction of the S lave Trade had dried up its fountains. The re ' ult has mocked them a ll. A Lalf c ntury has r olled by, and now it i ' mothering in tenor and mnnicr fifteen States, and throwing its dark shndow over all tlte r es t. Is this to rro on? John Brown aid, "No !" and marched to Harper's F erry . It is a g rea t mi ~ tak e to term thi , act the be,r;innin,r; of bloodshed and of civil war ; never could there be a g reater error. 'V c have had bloodshed and civil war for the la t ten years; yes, fol' the la t ten years. The campaig n began on the 7th of J\Iarch, J 850. The dis olution of the U nion dates from that day, and we have had no con titution since. On that day Daniel "\Vcb' ter wa put to death. Ah ! and such a death ! And from that time to this there ha not been a month that has not ecn the oil of Freedom invaded, our citizens kidnapped, impri ·oned, shot, or driven by thou:and ' into Canada. Thi · once free N orth of our ha been changed into an Ame rican Coa t of Guinea, where the lave-pirate of Virginia, with the Pre idcnt of these United States a his blood-hound, hnnts hi , human • prey as his brother-pira te on the n egro coa. t hunts there. vVhen the kidnappers on the African coa t would capture a town, they surround it in the night, and s teal the inhabitants under cove r of the darkness. But our la rgest cities have been again and again captured in full daylight, and by a me re ha ndful of ncrrro-thieves · and 0 ' their citizen stolen without even the snapping of a g un-lock. The proud city of B oston has b een taken three time . I myself have seen two hundred thousand citizens, nearly two hunclt·ed poli ce, and fifteen hundred well-armed soldier3, urr endcr without firing a shot, to about six ty marines, who held them all pa. ive prisoners for ten days. And yet these were the children of men who started up r e volutionists ''the instant Edwin M. Wheelock. the hand or gov('rnment wa thrust int o their pocket:-; to take a few J><'llC • from them!" No, it i · not true tl1at the eonfl ict or Harper':-; F en y i:1 th b<·ginning of a <' i,·il war, -that woul<l be lik e say ing that the ca ptu re of York town was the beginning of the r e \"olut iona ry st ru gO'Ie. T he meaning of that new sign is this : Freedom, for tcu year weakly . tanding on the dcfi.m i ,·e, and for tc·n years <.l ·D ·at ell, has now become the as~nilant , and has now gained the Yictory. The Bunker Hill of our second. revolution has been fo ug ht, and the ·econu "\Va rren has paid the glorious fo rfeit of hi · }if•. J ohn Brown felt that to enslave a mnn is to commit the great e~t possiule crime within the r each of humnn capacity. lie wa. a t war, ther efore, with the sJa.yc system. H e f lt that its vital principle wa.~ the mo:-;t atro ·ions nthci::;m, wi thholding the k ·y of' kuowle<lge, aorogatitttr the marriage r elation, r ending f~unili es asunder a t the a uction block, mak ing tbe State that protect · it a ba nd of pirat ·s, and the Church that enshrines it a. baptized b rot hcl. lie knew that t be <'a use needed not talk, not eloquence, but action, life, principle wa lking on two feet. lie had mall f~tit h in polit ic:. lie :-;aw that the beau ideal of a Democrat was one " that couhl poll the most vote::; with the fe w e~t m ' n." And that. the object of H.cpublicanism, during the next year, would. be to find the most a vailable candida te for the Presidency. A nd. he decided that the ba.rbari ·m that h old in bloody chains four millions of our people, for the purpose. of lu r re and lu."t ; "that makes every bix th man and woman in the country liable to be sold a t auction; that forbids, oy tatute, every .' ixth man and woman in the nat ion to leam to r ead ; that make. it an indictable offe nce to teaeh cvc'ry ixtlt man and woman in the country the alphabet; that forbids e very . ixth man and woman in the nation to hnYc a busbnnd or wi fe, and that annihila tes the sa nctity of' marriage by s tatute, systematically, ana or pnrpose, in regard to one 6ixth part of a nation calling itself Chri:::.tian;" • |