Sermons on Slavery and the Civil War
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Boston,

1851-1865.

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SERMONS ON SLAVERY AND TJ CIVIL WAR. Boston, 1851-1865. 1.- Hall,N. The limits of civil obedience. 2.- Weiss,J. Reform & repeal. -3.- Tyng,D.A.

Our country’s troubles. 4.- Gannett,E*S. The state of the country. 5.-

Sears,E.H. Revolution or reform. 6.- Dewey,O. On patriotism. 7.-

Stone,A.L. The divineness of human govern ment. 8.- Frothingham,O.B. The let-alone policy. 9.- Dewey,O. A sermon preached on the national fast day, at Church Green, Boston. 10.- Hedge,F.H. The national weakness. 11.-

Walker,Jas. The spirit proper to the times. 12.- Ware,F.W. Our duty under reverse. -13.- Bartb, C.A. Our sacrifices. 14.- Ware,J.F.W. Manhood, the want of the day. 15.- Ellis,G.E-.The nation’s ballot and its de cision.

16.- Stearns,Wm.A. A sermon delivered before the executive & legislative departments of the Government of’Massachusetts. - Bartol,C.A.

Extravagance. 1-Dexter,H.,M. What ought to be done with the freedmen and with the rebels? 19.- Stone,A.L. The work of New England in the future of our country. 287562 -Ai I

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f 4 . I 11 11 I “., 4 , *1 I

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THE LIMITS OF CIVIL OBEDIENCE. A SE RI MON PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, DORCHESTER, JANUARY 12, 1851. By NATHANIEL HALL. Vubtiseb b! Request.

BOSTON: ‘WM. CROSBY AND H. P. NICHOLS, 111, WASHINGTON STREET. MDCCC LI.

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BOSTON: TIIURSTON, TORRY, AND EMERSON, Printers, Devonshire Street.

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IT becomes me to state, what those who heard it will perceive, that this Sermon has been somewhat altered from what it was as preached, -not at all in respect to any principle or position, but by the enlargement upon some points, which the time allotted to a Sunday’s Discourse forbade in its delivery. Let me further say, that I have yielded with no little reluctance to the request for its publication, - a reluctance which has been overcome, in part, by the known fact that its views have been greatly misrepresented, unintentionally or otherwise; and also in the hope, perhaps a presumptuous one, that it may do something in helping to guide some few minds with regard to the subject it discusses. The temerity, as it may seem to some, of publishing views opposed to those of so many who have the respect and confidence of the community, I do not feel. Truth is independent of persons. It is not received of men, though they may help us to obtain it. Whatever there may be of it in these humble pages, is not mine, but God’s.

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SER MO N. ROMANS, XIII. 1, 2. ” LET EVERY SOUL BE SUBJECT UNTO THE HIIGHER

POWERS. FOR THERE IS NO POWER BUT OF GOD; THE POWERS THAT BE ARE ORDAINED

OF GOD. WHOSOEVER, THEREFORE, RESISTETH THE POWER, RESISTETH THE ORDINANCE

OF GOD.” CIVIL government exists by Divine appointment, and is therefore to be respected and obeyed. Such is the abstract proposition which this passage includes and presents. It is a proposition which reason and common sense confirm and indorse. Natural religion, in this particular, has no controversy with revealed. In order to perceive how plainly this is so, let us fix, for a moment, on another proposition, lying back of this,-
namely, civil society is of Divine appointment. The propositions are not identical, inasmuch as society must, at some time, have existed without government. Civil society is of Divine appointment-is an institution of God. And this is evident, in the fact of those original instincts in man, leading him directly, we may say impelling him,

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to such result; in the fact, also, that society is essential to the development and well-being of the individual and the race. Man isolated from his fellows, living by and to himself, with that only which his individual strength and talent might supply, if he continued to exist at all, would do so at a most wretched rate. All the progress of the race, all its advances in whatever makes life most desirable, for its higher as well as its inferior ends, has been conditioned upon the existence of society. Society, then, is of Divine appointment. It is written, in these facts, as by the finger of God. And if this be so, then Government is of Divine appointment, inasmuch as society cannot fulfill its ends, cannot exist to any good purpose, without it. The very idea of civil society supposes the surrender, in certain directions, and to a certain extent, of individual rights, and the suppression of individual impulses and desires, in submission to a general, constituted authority, and for the sake of benefits not otherwise to be secured. And if civil government be of Divine appointment, it follows, that obedience to its authority and laws is a sacred obligation. The conclusion is so very obvious, that I cannot conceive of its being gainsayed. I do not know that it is, as a general proposition. There is no difficulty, I apprehend, as to the abstract rule.

The difficulty is in relation to specific cases which come under it; for the rule, general and universal 6

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7 as is its principle, has its limitations and exceptions. No one would say, that obedience to civil government was a sacred obligation in all cases-whatever it might command. Were it to command, for instance, that parents should cruelly maim or torture their children, or teach them any gross immorality, or that people generally should practise theft, or utter profanity, or the like,- who would say that it was a sacred obligation to obey it, as regards these things? AVhere, then, if limit there be, does that limit lie. By what principle is it defined? WVe want a principle, -
something which shall keep us from being driven hither and thither, now towards this conclusion and now towards that, as others may urge us by their reasoning, or their rhetoric, or their sophistries, We want a principle, which we can see to be a true one, and by which each may judge, in the premises, for himself. There are times when we are liable to be blinded to the clearest principles, which, at other times, and in other circumstances, we see as such; when, by reason of the mental confusedness caused by selfinterest, or prejudice, or passion, or a wiew to consequences, the strongest intellects fail to perceive, what, to the ingenuous mind of childhood, knowing nothing of these distorting media, is plainly evident. We all need to be on our guard against influences existing on either side of the question now before us-no longer a mere ethical abstraction -

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s to prevent us from a true decision. In no heats of unhallowed excitement, but in the calm of sober reflection, should we seek to know concerning it. And here is one, among other reasons, why on the Sabbath, and in its public assemblies, in the hush of earthly strife, amid devotional and holy thought, it should have a consideration and discussion. The principle, then, I repeat, what is it? - by which to limit and bound the general proposition, which, as such, all admit,- that obedience to civil government is a sacred obligation. It has its limitations, as we see, when specific cases are presented, - as the wisest and best of all times have practically maintained. How shall we know and define them? Does not the answer lie in this consideration? that the relations we sustain to civil government, do not, and cannot, overlay and interrupt those moral relations which we sustain to Him by whose appointment it exists. Whatever society, through its government, may do, it may not disturb those relations-it may not come between the soul and God-it may not come between the soul’s sense of duty to -Him and the performance of that duty. Whatever authority God may have delegated to human governments, it cannot be an authority-every sentiment and principle within us forbid the thought -to abrogate or suspend any one of those moral requirements which spring out of the essential attributes of His nature,

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9 and are eternal as himself It cannot be that the laws upon the statute books of States, are, in any conceivable or possible circumstances, to limit or lessen our obligation to the law, traced by the very hand of the Almighty, ineffaceably, upon the tables of the heart. Civil government, as a creature of God, is bound to conform its requirements to the laws of its Creator. As an instrumentality included within, and forming a part of, His moral government, it is bound to conform itself to the principles of that government. Whenever it does otherwise, whenever it requires of its subjects what is a palpable violation of these principles, it has, so far, ceased to be of God’s ordaining. In setting at naught, by its enactments, an eternal moral law, it is criminally false to the purposes of its existence. In commanding others to set it at naught in their practice, it has, so far, forfeited its claim to their obedience. Am I stating a principle inconsistent with the teaching of the text? Nay, I claim the passage, in its connection, as in confirmation of the principle. The “powers” to which the Apostle counsels subjection are, evidently, assumed to be such as keep themselves conformed to the laws, and true to the purposes, of their great Ordainer - such as “are not a terror to good works, but to the evil,“such as “are ministers of God for good; to execute ‘;e *:

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wrath upon him that doeth evil.” This is his own express description of the powers ordained of God. And beside, that Paul did not mean, in this and kindred passages-so often cited now-a-days, as if they were the condensation of gospel morality-to teach the duty of unconditional obedience to civil government, is evident enough from his own practice.

Civil government has its constituted limits; its God-appointed sphere. In its requisitions within those limits and that sphere, to its laws which violate no sense of obligation to a moral law, we are to be obedient. We may deem its enactments unwise and inexpedient, but may not, for that reason, disobey them. We have confided the judgment of these points to the government, and must abide by that judgment. We may feel its enactments to be oppressive and injurious,- they may abridge our comforts, they may waste our fortunes, they may restrain us in the exercise of natural rights and civil privileges; but we may not, for this reason, disobey and resist them. The authority of government is a rightful one, even in its abuse, while-it keeps itself within its constituted limits. We are to bear with the personal evils which the State inflicts, or take ourselves from its jurisdiction, until, through legitimate and constitutional methods, we may obtain relief - excepting always those instances of general and extreme oppression, constitutionally irremediable, : ~ lt

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1i which justify revolution. WVe have no right, in view of our personal grievances, so far as they relate to physical and secular interests, to put in jeopardy, by a resistance to government, and by our exemple of disobedience to its authority, the good which, on the whole, it may be the medium of conferring. So much we may concede. But when government, by its enactments, demands of us the doing of an unrighteous and inhuman act, known and felt as such by the enlightened judgment of mankind; demands what seems to us a palpable violation of the law of God; when it thus invades the region of the moral sentiments; when it breaks into the sacred court of Conscience; the case is widely different. It has, in so doing, transcended its constituted limits. It has gone out from its appointed sphere. It has assumed a right which was never given it-which it was never designed it should possess. It has dared the attempt to extend its sway where God has reserved to Himself the sole prerogative of reigning; and disobedience is the sacred obligation. Government may sin against me, if it will, and answer for it to its great Ordainer; but it may not compel me to sin. It may inflict injury upon me, if so, in its perversity or its ignorance, it choose to do; - I will endure it;- but it may not compel me to inflict injury upon another, whom God is telling me to befriend. It may not compel me ‘I

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12 to violate the immortal sentiments of justice and mercy which God’s own spirit breathed within me when he gave me being. It has no right to do this; and I have no right, as a moral and accountable being, to obey it, if it should. I have no right. It is not left to my choice. The line of duty is proclaimed to me by the voice of the Infinite within my soul. The question of consequences, then, is an impertinence. As I have a soul to save and an account to give, I must, at all hazards, obey God. Here, then, is the principle by which to limit the general proposition, that obedience to civil government is a sacred obligation. It is such so far as its requirements are not in conflict with the law of God. It is no new principle, now, for the first time, recognized and applied. It is not strained after for an emergency, ingeniously evoked from the mists of sophistry, or elaborately wrought of metaphysical subtleties. It is simple as Nature. It is clearly to be discerned as the lights of heaven. It is one of the fundamental truths of religion, and tile strangeness is, that, at this late day, there should be a necessity for restating it. It is no new principle; it has been asserted again and again. Calvin, in his Institutes of Religion, says-” In the obedience which we have shown to be due to the authority of governors, it is always necessary to make one exception, and that

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13 is entitled to our first attention-that it do not seduce us from obedience to Him, to whose will the desires of all rulers ought to be subject, to whose decrees all their commands ought to yield, to whose majesty all their sceptres ought to submit. If they command any thing against Him, it ought not to have the least attention; nor, in this case, ought we to pay any regard to all the dignity attached to magistrates.”

Milton says: “Whatever magistrate takes upon him to act contrary to what St. Paul makes the duty of those that are in authority-i. e. to what is morally lawful and good -that magistrate is not ordained of God, and, consequently, to such a magistracy no subjection is commanded, nor is any due, nor are the people forbidden to resist such authority.” Professor Stuart (I quote his words simply to show that it is not a new principle), in commenting on the very passage of the text, has these words-let him reconcile them with what he has since written -” The extension of the principles here enjoined, so as to make them imply inxplicit subjection to the magistrate in cases of a moral nature, where he enjoins what God has plainly forbidden, would be a gross violation of the true principles of Christianity, which demands of us, in all such cases, to obey God rather than man; the ap])ostle himself was a most eminent example of exception to

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such a sweeping general principle of civil obedience. It is only when magistrates keep within the bounds ofmnoral prescription, that obedience is a duty.” Blackstone, who will not be suspected of theological bias, or weak sentimentalism, has said, in his Commentaries on English Law -” The law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid, derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.” He instances, also, offences, “which, if any human law should enjoin us to commit, we are bound to transgress that human law, else we offend both the natural and the divine.” The principle has not only been recognized, but, in all ages, has been practically maintained. Men have gone to prison and to death in their acceptance of it. Some of the noblest deeds that history records were done in view of it. It was tested, of old, in the fiery furnace, and the lions’ den. Rather than disobey God at the instance of human law, rather than sacrifice their convictions to their loyalty, men have endured every suffering and wrong, committing themselves and their cause to God. It is a principle which is calling for its martyrs now, and shall not be without them.

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I And yet how many, in our day and community, wise and good people too, accept it not, at least in a certain application of it. It is looked upon with suspicion and fear. It is denounced as impracticable and dangerous.

The doctrine of a “higher law” than that of the Constitution, in civil matters, obtains but little currency among us. Nay, it has been ridiculed in our popular assemblies; it has been reviled by our leading statesmen; it has been preached against from our pulpits. In churches standing on pilgrim ground, it has been said that we are to have no conscience in these matters, or such only as comports with obedience to the State, -no individual and private conscience, but only a sort of collective and public one, -that the laws of the land are, at all events, to be obeyed; that the Union is every thing; and that the sacred sentiments of justice and humanity are to be violated for the sake of its preservation. I confess, brethren, I stand aghast at such views in perfect amazement that they find the adoption which they do. I respect, in many cases, the individuals who promulgate them, but I can have no respect for the views.

They are to me unchristian and atheistic. A few years ago, the religious portion of our community was alive with alarm at the promulgation of what it deemed most harmful heresy, with regard to the external authority of the Bible. But here, it seems to me, is a heresy to be dreaded I

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16 with a tenfold greater dread, -a heresy which strikes, as I view it, not at the external authority, but at the very life of the Bible,- the supreme authority of its eternal principles. I call in question no one’s motives. I pass no judgment upon men, but only upon views and doctrines; and upon these I am bound to pass judgment, taking God’s Word in my hand, and interpreting it by whatever light He may vouchsafe to me; and if I deem them false and evil, I have no option but to declare it. I know very well that it is easier to state a principle than to apply it; and that, to many minds, there are objections to the application of this now set forth, which seem to them weighty and insuperable. It may be replied, that if the principle be a true one, it must, therefore, be a practicable one; and that we have no right to suffer the apprehension of evil, as the possible result of its application, or the certainty of it, to lead us to question its rightness, or to flinch from its application. It is a principle which rests not on the calculations of expediency, but in the fact of God’s moral attributes, and our relation to him as moral beings. We have not proved its rightness by showing it to be profitable, though we might assume its profitableness in showing it to be right. Right is always practicable, and it is always profitable,certainly in the highest sense, and in the great result. But let us look at some of the more prominent

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17 objections which lie against the application of this principle, and the apprehended evils they assume, as we hear them continually set forth. The principle is, that we are bound to obey the requisitions of human law, except where they conflict with the law of God, as made known in our souls and in his Word; that we are bound by an authority higher than its own, to do, in all cases and always, what is therein proclaimed to us as right.

“But,” it is said, “if you allow each individual to judge for himself what is right, and obey or disobey according to his judgment, you open the door, at once, to the worst of social evils and disorders; one man may deem this law iniquitous, another that, until, in the diversities of moral judgments, there may be no law which shall command a universal obedience, and society be reduced to a state of confusion and anarchy.” The answer is, -that this is supposing a result which we do not know will occur,-
which is not likely to occur. The human conscience is not so uncertain a guide as it is thus assumed to be; the law of Right is not so indistinctly apprehended. There may be weak consciences, there may be perverted consciences, as we know there are; but these, in every community, will be the exceptions. With the great majority of men, conscience, if not allowed to be blinded and turned aside by sordid and unworthy aims, will pronounce on the great points of 3 I

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moral obligation very much the same decision. “But, then, the liberty given would be abused; men would plead conscientious convictions, as an excuse for disobedience to an offensive law, when there was no conscience about it, but only an imagined selfinterest, or a stubborn self-will.”

Allow that, to some extent, it might be so,- is not every principle, and every prescribed rule of action, however sound and true, liable to be abused l Is not evil incident to the practical workings of civil government, always and every where? And what do we, when we say that the individual is not to judge for himself, what is morally right and obligatory in the requirements of the State. Is it not to dishonor and disown the very principle which lies at the foundation of our Protestantism? Does the right of private judgment have reference only to matters of belief, and not to those of conduct? Yea, and it is a right which we may not surrender. It involves a priceless privilege not only, but a solemn duty. God has bound it upon us in the trust of a moral nature. If, as moral beings, we are individually accountable; if, at the great day, each must answer for himself as to his fidelity to the law of Right; by each for himself must be the decision as to what that law requires of him. In giving to each the capacity of moral judgment, God requires of each its exercise, in relation to civil as to all other matters; and each, - let this be felt, - each is 18

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19 responsible for the manner of its exercise. Not rashly or lightly or irreverently, not in prejudice or passion or excitement, not in a self-sufficient inconsiderateness of others’ views and arguments; but deliberately, soberly, humbly, seeking all helps around us and above, in the love of truth and in the fear of God, are we severally to form our judgment as to what is right and obligatory. And thus judging and thus acting, I cannot conceive that any great harm would come to society in the application of our principle. “But,” again it is said, “your principle strikes at the authority of all government; and government, as you allow, there must be. You counsel resistance, and resistance is rebellion.” The reply is, that the resisttance counselled is not the forcible resistance which is rebellion, but that which consists in disobedience, with a passive submission to whatever penalty may be thereto attached. The authority is acknowledged which enacts the law, and enforces the penalty.

We would resist that authority, not in its legitimate exercise; not in its unlawful exercise, unless it go to the length of commanding us to do iniquity; and not then as an authority to punish for our disobedience to its command. The moral right to do it we deny, in relation to God; but not the authority, in relation to man. I will submit to government so far as to endure wrong, but never to do it. This is the course I

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20 which the early Christians adopted. They suffered wrongfully - they took the spoiling of their goods they went to prison and to death,- and resisted not the enforcing power. It might sway itself over the body, but it could not bend the soul from its allegiance to its God. “But,” again it will be urged, “what if a law, which, in the application of your principle, you would feel justified in disobeying, be based upon, and in strict accordance with, a compact, entered into at the formation of the government, and to which each individual, as a member of the State, has become a party, and is bound to recognize and support. Upon your own principle,” it will be said, “the law should be obeyed. You would have us adhere to the Bight, and surely it is right to do that which we have promised to do.” Not, I answer, not if we have promised to do that which is wrong, - according to that acknowledged principle in human law, that “if the condition of a bond be, to do a thing which is intrinsically wrong, the obligation is void.” Allow that, as an individual subject of the Sfate and a partaker of its benefits, I am a sharer of what ever obligations have been entered into in the past in its behalf, and which still constitutionally exist; allow, again, the question to be a settled one, that the law in view is legitimately and rightly based upon that compact, and in strict accordance with it,

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21 as it was understood and intended by those who, originally, for civil ends, assented to it; - allow this, there still comes up the simple question, but the fundamental and majestic one, Is it right, morally and intrinsically right? “Personal security, personal liberty, and private property,” says Blackstone, “are the three great primary and inherent rights. No human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.” Let the compact in question be judged by these received principles of common law, - a compact whose end and aim is the better securing of millions of human beings, uncharged of crime, in a condition in which they are deprived of all these great, primary, and inherent rights,- and this, as the beginning only of its dire oppression. We are not to be driven from pressing the question for its true reply, because of the bearing of that reply upon those illustrious men who formed the Constitution. Honor and praise to them for all they did for freedom and human rights! It is not for us to reconcile their agreement to such a compromise with their noble acts and sacrifices, their acknowledged wisdom and moral worth. We are to look, simply and only, as accountable and Christian men, to the moral aspect of this provision, as it appears to us, and as it stands connected with the law which we are now com

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22 manded to obey. For myself, I cannot acknowledge the binding obligation of any compact, made for me in the past, or of any law, enacted on whatever pretence or by whatever earthly power, by which I am compelled to do to a fellow-being, whom God is telling me to love and help, the very worst thing I can do to him, - send him to a fate, worse-as he feels it, and as it is - than death. “But,” it is still further urged, “what if, by the application of your principle, you bring about the dissolution of the national Union, you sunder in twain this fair brotherhood of States, and thus draw down upon us the worst of social woes, and prejudice and put back the cause of freedom, and all the best interests of humanity, throughout the world.” The picture is, indeed, an appalling one, on which we have been called so often, of late, to look, of the probable and almost certain consequences of a dissolution of the Union. Who does not love that Union, for the glorious achievements in which it had its origin; for the priceless privileges of which it is the medium; for the thrilling hopes it has everywhere enkindled? But if it can be preserved only by a deliberate compromise with oppression and wrong, by a smothering and denial of the sacred sentiments of humanity, then, the time has come, in the purposes of God, so declared in this very fact, for its dissolution. Where has God told us,

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23 that for the securing of any good whatever, we might violate any one of his commandments? Let Hlim break the awful silence of His heavens and audibly proclaim it, or marshal their silvery flames into a legible decree, that, so far as may be deemed necessary for the maintenance of the American Union, there is an abrogation of His law; that, for this end, His voice within may be slighted, and His blessed Christ forsaken; that, for this end, the soul may scoff at the immortal majesty of Justice, and the celestial sweetness of Compassion; - let Him do this, and then, and not sooner, may we entertain the thought of being authorized in such a course.

And let us not imagine that the evils consequent upon our action, as a people, in relation to this law, are all on the side of disobedience to it. Let views like those which have come forth from the high places of the land, and been echoed back from many a pulpit of the Church, be practically adopted, become a part of the public morality; let the pleading sentiments of humanity be put down, and the Law of God dethroned from its supremacy, in obedience to this most inhuman and unrighteous law - and is there no evil worthy to be deprecated in that demoralization, public and private, which cannot but ensue? Looking at it merely in its civil bearings, is there nothing to fear from it? What constitutes the stability of a State, and gives security beneath its laws, I

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24 but a reverence for moral principles,- for the great Fountain of Law,-
in the hearts of the people? Who are the real disorganizers. they who teach the absolute morality, or they who advocate the morality of expediency? they who announce and heed a Higher Law, or they who scout the idea of it? What is it that really endangers the permanency of our Republic? What but that monster Wrong,fostered beneath its shade, coeval with its birth and strengthening with its strength, which is denying to three millions of human beings the sacred rights of humanity. What but that terrible Iniquity, whose retribution is already upon us, in a blunted national conscience, a lessening love of freedom, a depressed humanity, a fettered gospel; and which, if much longer upheld and fostered, must bring down upon us, as God is just, his more fearful judgments? And yet, we are told that our safety lies in conciliating and strengthening it, by committing ourselves more fully to its support, and sharing more directly in its deeds. Do we realize what a blighting censure is passed upon our nation and ourselves, when it is thus assumed that our civil safety is dependent upon our holding, with tightened grasp, the chains of the enslaved, and in aiding with our own hands to rebind them upon those who, in the might of an intrepid manhood, have sundered them and fled?

Humiliating, indeed, is the fact, if fact it be, that

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25 only by lending ourselves to this basest work to which a human being can be put, is our “glorious” Union to be preserved. Humiliating and most strange the fact, that the permanency of a free Republic should be secured only by suppressing the love of Freedom, and the dictates of Humanity, and the sentiment of Justice, in the breasts of its subjects. And are we men, and yet willing to admit that any good, supposed to be dependent upon the permanency of our Republic, is an equivalent for the price thus demanded for it. Ah! what will all our prosperity be worth, if, underneath its dazzling glare, the work of moral deterioration and decline,- by that very prosperity fed and fostered, shall be going forward? What is the Union worth, if, instead of being the home of holy Freedom, and the nursery of noble souls, it is to exist but by being false to Freedom and the soul?

What is it worth, if the mere honest advocacy of human rights and a higher law,- if the mere breathings within it of God’s own Truth, -if the mere echoes, beneath its majestic dome, of the tramp of sacred Justice, be sufficient, as we are told they are, to topple down the pillars of its strength? At any rate, I see but one course for us, as Christian men, in relation to this subject, which I have thus again brought before you. The path of duty and of safetv thev are ever identical -is in an 4.

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uncompromising fidelity to whlatev(er GoD shall show us, through the sentiments of our hearts and the teachings of Christianity, to be right.

Let no human authority ever restrain us from this path. Let no leanings of sordid desire tempt us from it. Let no view of consequences allure or affright us from it. And let nothing-no fear of men, no alienation of friends, no edict from whatever source - prevent us from advocating the cause of the oppressed,- from obeying the dictates of humanity in their behalf, whenever Providence shall grant us the opportunity. ‘26

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REFORM AND REPEAL, A SERMON PREACHED ON FAST-DAY, APRIL 6, 1854. AND

ANARCHY, A SERMON PREACHED ON JUNE 4,1854, AFTER THE RENDITION OF ANTHONY

BURNS. BY JOHN WEISS. BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, AND COMPANY, 111 WASHINGTON

STREET. 18 5 4. LEGAL

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CAMBRID GE: METCALF AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO TIIE UNIVERSITY.

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REFOORM AND REPEAL. To WHAT PURPOSE IS THE MULTITUDE OF YOUR SACRIFICES TO

ME? SAITH THE LORD….. WASH YE, MAKE YOU CLEAN: PUT AWAY THE EVIL OF YOUR

DOINGS FROM BEFORE-M3INE EYES; CEASE TO DO EVIL, LEARN TO DO WELL; SEEK

JUDGMENT, RELIEVE THE OPPRESSED. - Isaiah i. 11, 16,17. IF we consent to notice at all the day which the Executive appoints for a Public Fast, we should do it without reservation, in a religious spirit, and moved by conscientious desires to make a full exposure and statement of our delinquencies. A Fast is either a conventional support given to an ancient usage, whose foundation in the popular sentiment has crumbled away; or it is a solemn opportunity, deliberately embraced by men who are willing to grant their imperfection, to take counsel together in an atmosphere that is not vitiated by party feeling and that usually transmits the expressions of Christian faith. - Our presence here forbids the suspicion that a day for public confession of sin may be hypocritically proclaimed and in the same mind observed. We are serious in our attendance here; we know that sins exist, and direct infractions of Christian law, and that we are not entirely irresponsible. We neither come to make confession of sin a public entertainment, or a brief moral excitement for the private con

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4 science, which shall be satisfied with empty feeling. It is to refresh our sense of Christian justice and morality, to contrast our methods of government and legislation with absolute principles, and to rekindle our hatred of oppression, of compromise, of political and moral servitude, that we are here. In the presence of God, and in the act of worship, we forbear to indulge in any imputation of bad motives, or in personal indignation levelled against persons. We observe results, we deal with principles, we contrast the effects of associated action with the eternal sentiments of the Gospel. And if we find a principle of Divine equity, or a rule of common morals and decency, violated, we proclaim it because we reverence what is just, we confess it because we know that we are implicated in all the public manifestations which create government and carry on the life of a country. We dare not enter into the question of motives; we can only expose a corrupt level of sentiment. Men may live on such a level unconsciously, and may share its immoral actions in mechanical obedience to legal requisitions, out of gregarious instincts, and from lack of the highest enlightenment. Among other public evils, we find this coarse and oppressive one of assumption of criminal intent; and it is no better when combined with vindication of principles than when it is used against principle to eke out a defence of wrong. Moreover, the amount of character to be defamed may be great or little, but the sin of defamation is equally great in all cases, because impartial and unerring judgment is not within the capacity of man, even when all the lights of knowledge guide him, and his passions sleep; least of all when hie is thinking and speaking in the dust of a conflict, stimulated by pressing

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5 exigencies, hurt in his feelings, touched in his self-esteem, ruled by his sect or party. This is a great evil, and we are responsible for it, because we confine neither our tongue nor our heart in strict obedience to principles, but let them indulge in personalities; and when we fight, our vanity feels as much compromised as our conscience. There are degrees of defamation and depths of brutality; and when we see an extreme case, we indulge our outraged sensibilities. But for that very case we are responsible; for God has so involved us in a common life, that moderate expressions of passion countenance and nourish violent expressions of it; the imputation of a selfish motive couched in genteel phrases stimulates an imputation that is chopped out coarsely, with little regard to the blandness of art. A careless retort begets a brutal answer. It is simnply thle tendency to personal and partisan judgments that is accountable for the worst of them; and if a man is disposed to worship the impartiality of the Saviour, who showed us that it is practicable to unite sternness of principles with charity for persons, he will be equally disgusted, wherever he looks over the steaming plain of public life, equally repelled to see passion and selfishness alive under all banners, whether their mottoes are political or moral, equally discouraged to see men vitiate their principles with imputations and unbridled speech. And this is oneltnanifestation of public depravity, and one characteristic of the national life, which we confess and mourn to-day. As we then proceed in this self-examination, let us arraign no individuals before the bar of our imperfect judgment; but rather take notice of results and phenomena, and proclaim their evil. It is high time that the people of this country should scru.

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6 tinize more closely the methods by which important acts of legislation are discharged. If we say that the two branches of Congress faithfully represent the people, we shall be justified in saying that transactions, which are called by courtesy legislation, are signs of public depravity; and that we are responsible for them, because we do not think it of sufficient consequence to purge and renovate the national councils by a sterner and more religious stock of men. These transactions occur under the ascendency of both parties; without them it is supposed to be impossible to carry on the government, whatever policy may reign. Between parties there may be a difference of degree in this respect, one being less venal and notorious than the other; but that is all. When the representatives of the people arrive at the head of government, and become initiated into the routine of business, they seem to tacitly admit all the corrupt traditions of the place, and make no combined and uncompromising effort to abolish them for ever. Some admit them with personal complicity, others with indifference. No honorable attempt is made by the majority to do business without them. No league of puritans in love with justice resists and breaks the evil charm. It is a sign of great public depravity when men are unwilling to view a measure dispassionately, as the sworn servants of the people, confining themselves to is intrinsic merits, intent upon promoting the highest good alone, unbiased by their secret necessities. It shows how great a body of the people are unconcerned for a scrupulous morality in those whom they elect, when not a bill of im portance can acquire vitality without the influence of a supplementary congress of committees flush of money, and agents expressly delegated to manufacture votes;

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7 when companies of men can in this way reap enormous profits by the success of their projects; when speculation can swell and thrive upon grants of land almost fabulous for enterprises that are never expected to be completed, or that demand estimates far more economical; when one bill cannot pass until it is made a subject of barter, and balanced by another bill; when, in fine, every avenue that leads to the sacred centre where the firm and pure lawgivers ought to sit in calm deliberation, is besieged and choked by the men who think it right to pick up their living between the selfishness of those without and the selfishness of those within, whose faith is that every man has his price and that every measure is a marketable thing. Are we ready to confess that this represents the country; that the life which rests so proudly upon the common school and the cornerstones of ten thousand churches culminates into this display of unconscious vulgarity and corruption; that private justice, led through the artificial channels of party, becomes public wrong by the time it reaches its outlets; that personal honesty is at last represented by official corruption? And we are told that the conflicting interests of the national life admit no remedy. More than this; some people deliberately acknowledge, that, if a man would have any influence at the Capitol beyond the details belonging to his district, he must be a good shot, and all the better fitted to maintain his position and command attention if he understands the arts of the pugilist and has the unconquerable brain of the toper! If a man considers that he is put down, and politically annihilated, unless he retorts the fierce invective which seeks to stay his course, and is forced in turn to handle the popular weapons of intimidation, then the public integrity,

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8 which the school and church are said to foster, is responsible to displace him by a man who fears God, a tranquil patriot, unseduced by the blandishments and unmoved by the violence of disappointed opponents. It ought to be the settled purpose of religious minds to give their power to men who remember the sincerity of the early days of the republic, and who do not submit to the delusion that the complicated interests of the present and the great development of various energies demand corruption in the ante-room, or vulgarity and unmanly deference and weak compromises upon the floor. The place which has been so desecrated by the presence of our coarsest traits and our most imperfect culture, where men emerge who have strength and tact without the refinement of religion, and who, having been trained to regard nothing but expe. diency, force their policy upon us in every department of the common life, ought to be swept clean; the Cromwell of indignant conscience ought to interrupt the low-minded debate, and scatter the creatures of the hour, never again to vex that sacred air with their confusion. Moral sense and Christian faith should make a league, and purge that place, and sweep its avenues clear of the agents of selfishness, and re-establish patriotism within, and support with mighty constancy the mien who will test all things by justice and by principle,-support them, insist upon them, return them again and again, urg,e them as the living protests of outraged sentiment against everything that is less than magnanimous and righteous. Let the clear air of an awakened North, that has memories of ancestral virtue, and is converted by the Gospel, arise, and blow among those pillars, and sound in earnest beneath those domes, and blow, till every vestige of the present disorder is swept

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9 out to oblivion, with its vicious rhetoric and its paltry stratagems; let it blow till the place becomes so sweet that it shall seem not amiss if the sincere dignity of the forefathers should rise there again, to utter the words which savor of Christian traditions, and recall the profligate re public to the cleanliness of its youth. Make it again a spot where religious faith may direct and modify personal ambition, and the character of the Saviour may be remem bered well enough, at least to unfold there a higher con sciousness, if not to inaugurate his holiest thoughts. There is a theory which is beginning to obtain some credence, that the country will suffer nothing from public abuses and the errors of legislation. We are supposed to possess the recuperative power of a vigorous nature, which repels contagion and throws off disease, leaving all its vital functions undecayed. It is said that the capacity of the country is one thing, and the action of government another: however vicious the latter may be, the former transacts its business undisturbed, stretches its sinews in defiance of the threads of evil policy, and goes on its way conquering and rejoicing, entirely absorbed in realizing all its fervent tendencies. Some even maintain that one advantage secured by-a democratic form of government can be seen in the facility with which security and happiness are preserved independently of any kind of legislation. Thegross indulgences which the body politic absorbs and carries off would destroy a less elastic and reliant people. What a delusion is this, which could only be originated by conceit and unreflecting energy! It is the argument of an indefatigable Messalina. The vigorous youth may boast of the number of bottles he can carry off without a headache or the loss of a single hour on the morrow. Great is the 2

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10 ability of rugged youth to bear the wrongs which indulgence must inevitably inflict; elasticity will conceal the ravages of vice, till its overtasked instinct can tolerate the folly no longer, and the hour arrives when Nature claims her just revenge. Then the shaken frame trembles after every pleasure, and the impotent and paralytic close impends. So is the republic presuming upon the recuperative power of its youth; with one hand it lifts the cup of profligate enjoyment, and with the other drives its free activities and releases expanding destiny from all constraint. And what is this engrossing ambition but itself a kind of profligate enjoyment, which hardens and corrupts the nation as surely as it does the man? Let us not be misled because we see that youth has also generous impulses, and develops much that is good. Vice nevertheless disorganizes.

What is to make a republic independent of the law of God which causes misery to spring from folly? The world’s history is nothing but God’s commentary upon the text, “He that sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” What undiscovered quality of nature repeals in our favor that text, and permits us to violate holy mor als, superior to penalties? Will the vast extent of unoc cupied ground, where migrating millions can settle and prosper, preserve health and virtue merely because it can keep up an animal content! Can the conscience and soul of the republic escape from justice on the broad, rolling territories where crops will grow in spite of evil laws? Will this popular absorption in the material interests of the continent divorce us from the effects of our own legis lation, make the spirit of the country irresponsible, compen sate for violations of justice? If the republic itself is not to settle with God for republican corruption, what shall

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11 settle with God, or what is the invention by which this supple nation proposes to remove the sting from national indulgence, and to establish a new species of Providence in this hemisphere? Look for the root of this monstrous illusion in the popular idea of success. Because bad laws do not seem to interfere with money-making, - because the corrupt influences at the seat of government do not stay the printing-press, nor suspend the clink in navy yards and factories, nor prevent hospitals and colleges from being founded, -because habits of public profligacy do not impede, but rather accelerate, private and corporate enterprises, and the railroad usurps the track of the buffalo, and the new city springs full-grown out of barrenness, -because, in one word, youth may still continue to be youthful and enthusiastic, and health may laugh at croaking antiquity,-
therefore the republic may be badly managed, and the national conscience set at an imperfect standard, and the numerous channels of public life may transmit the bad influence across the whole surface, with impunity. That it does not do so, be convinced, even now, in the hour of energy: see the retribution even now commenced in mental servility, in moral indifference, in obsequious political enthusiasm, in acquiescence in the existence and the effects of slavery. See the absolute principles of Jesus denied by the platforms of parties, who invariably accept what has been enacted, oblivious that they ever remonstrated and appealed. Is this success? Is this the maturity of power and vigor upon which we enter? It is rather the first touch of avenging paralysis. Let us return to temperance and chastity. Yes, we have above all things cause for humiliation, that the moral sentiment submits so easily to the condi

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12 tions of slavery. On this point we can indulge in some salutary remembrances. Step by step the power’of slavery has enlarged its litnits, and magnified its constitutional privileges. It has succeeded in making the policy of the country one of deliberate compromise, till at last both the great parties acknowledge slavery to be a national interest, and freedom a subordinate principle, whose development must only be consistent with the safety of its proud antagoniist. From the annexation of Texas to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Bill, what concentration and rapidity of triumph! It was foretold to us in clear and anxious words, that the element of compromise was stamped upon the national policy solely for the aggrandizement of slavery; and every step of its triumph was foretold. It was urged upon us that a doctrine of compromise, so far from bringing peace and settlement, was a doctrine fruitful of strife and agitation; and that anything like a finality was impossible so long as the theory of slavery was respected. And all such prophecies will be rapidly fulfilled, until the theory of no compromise, and constitutional amendment, acquires political embodiment. Those who prefer the alternative of waiting till slavery dies out, will leave the alternative to their distant posterity.

Slavery desires nothing better than to hear us continually saying that we are content to have it stop just where it is; it will shift the stopping-place so long as our contented temper lasts. What keeps the country in continual agitation and alarm? Is it the principle of freedom?

What makes all finalities obsolete and ridiculous? Is it the antislavery sentiment? Can we not see the settled purpose of slavery to make its life perpetual, and that for this chiefly it values the Union and the Constitution and the deferential North? To pre

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13 serve and extend its political dominion, to press new sap out of the old compromises, or, with equal singleness of aim, to cut down compromises that have lost their sap, to make the Union the mighty protector of its auctions and coffles, its hunting expeditions, its daily horrors and op pressions, -for this slavery trains its political sagacity, and consecrates the intellect and conscience of its children. We have been foretold this; we live to see it verified. We are convinced that, whatsoever single measure fails, the great instinct against freedom will not succumb: with every opportunity, and when least expected, it will send forth its tenacious purpose, in far-reaching contempt of our vaunted finalities; not simply desiring to be recognized and protected, but determined to prevail. Shall we trust it when we see its tact and resolution, -when we must know that every selfish impulse which enslaves the heart of man stimulates its efforts and keeps it sworn to selfdefence and conquest? Our country is not excepted from the laws of retribution, and its wonderful vitality cannot be for ever braced against such a spreading malady. To say that peace and settlement will result from successive bargainings with slavery, is to say that health results while elements of death prey on the vital powers. We must try to change all this, and that right speedily. Freedom is the great interest and central principle of this republic. To establish and perpetuate the blessing of freedom was it ordained, and furnished with these opportunities. To show that freedom is not only a universal right, but a necessity, did the counsel of God step westward, out of the traditions and encumbrances of Europe, to enjoy in this unpledged solitude another world. And this new domain, which has been kept for freedom, is com

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14 mitted to slavery, and this Union, which sprang out of a revolt against tyranny, is pledged to protect slavery; and this Constitution, which was made to express the Divine object in the settlement of this republic, to guarantee the enlargement of liberty, and to formally vindicate the rights of man, turns out to be a slave-whip in the hands of those who live and thrive upon the wrongs of man! And we, who have been divinely ordained to worship freedom, are to respect precisely that element in this free instrument which protects slavery! There is the root of this criminal inconsistency; and the conscience of freedom will have no peace till every slave element in the Constitution is repealed. That is the ultimatum of a united North, pledged with all its heart, with all its soul and strength and mind. Till that time comes, we shall all be held to our Antichristian bargain to return the fugitive. Against that bargain let this pulpit at least again pledge its profession of Christian discipleship, and let this Bible still seem greater and holier than the compromises of man. Though the floods of slavery cover all parties and obliterate all the ancient landmarks, may they rage around the bases of the Northern pulpits, and find that they are portions of the Rock of ages; from their incorruptible security let the golden rule be pro. claimed to confound all compromises, and to inspire the hearts of men with horror at supporting injustice that they never would endure. Doubtless it seems as if nothing but compromise could ever be the policy of this republic. At the sound of the word Liberty, all kinds of obstructions and political contingencies occur to us. That is because the heart is not filled with the reality of liberty, and it does not appear to us, as it did to our fathers, something religious and imperative,

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15 which makes us pledge to it our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. The political shifts of the moment seem more imposing than an immortal principle; and because we are afraid to repeal a compromise, we content ourselves with re-establishing it. But when we say that Freedom is chi merical, we are withstanding God. He holds men respon sible for freedom, as he does for faith and personal salva tion. Freedom is God’s project, the long-cherished inten tion of the infinite wisdom. If our hearts were burning with a faith for freedom, then slavery would be chimerical, and everything in the organic law of the country that sup ports it would be stricken out for ever. This shall be the policy of the future, to make the principle of freedom an element of personal religion, and to make its power aggressive, till it has put its enemy beneath its feet. Then slav.

cry would indeed be remanded back to its natural limits, and kept within them, to meet the hour of its necessary retribution. And we should be free indeed, with the word Compromise stricken out of our papers and our hearts, and the hunter of slaves forbidden to call us his helpers. Repeal of constitutional slavery shall be the politics of the future, around which all questions of less moment and of temporal regard shall stand in their due places, while liberty prevails. If nowhere else, then in the Church of God the true faith of the republic shall be cherished, and its ensign shall be held aloft. Here we demand to be liberated from slavery, for the Bible is our Constitution, and we will compromise for nothing below its golden rule. On the pulpit steps at least the panting fugitive shall rest, and feel the Bible over him like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. In churches shall independence be again proclaimed, and their bells shall again vibrate with the sacred word.

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16 It shall be so interwoven with our creeds, that whoso accepts religion accepts freedom, and is consecrated to the idea of a pure republic. The purity and justice of Jesus urge us to the unalterable resolution. We will make the halls of legislation clean and righteous; its crowd of hangers-on shall be rebuked, and the air shall again circulate through its avenues; we will strike the fetters from our printing-presses, and make the syllables of liberty to come out clear and bold; we will make the Constitution one entire and perfect instrument of freedom, and then confidently ask the millions of the earth to behold the experiment of a successful republic. Do you care at all for this? Are we among those who are content, so long as nothing interferes with thriving? May God for ever prevent this country from achieving such success as that! May a notion of such patriotism never pollute the hearts of our children! If a man truly loves his country, he will love her health, and his effort will overleap the present moment to secure her future glory, founded upon consistency and liberty. Now may all the churches of the living God lift up their prayers for the day when our beloved country shall have in genuine success the reward of her obedience!

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LEGAL ANARCHY. LET EVERY SOUL BE SUBJECT UNTO THE HIGHER POWERS.- Romans xiii. 1. WHETHER IT BE RIGHT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD TO HEARKEN UNTO YOU MORE

THAN UNTO GOD, JUDGE YE. - Acts iv. 19, THE Christian theory itself is able to solve this apparent contradiction in Christian teaching; and we shall find that it does this without damage to its reverence for human authority on the one hand, or for individual conscience on the other.

Nothing can be plainer than the injunctions which we find in the New Testament to render obedience to an existing government, and to the powers with which it clothes certain persons in the name of law and justice.

These injunctions are laid down without exceptions, and we cannot avoid perceiving that they are meant to contain a universal rule that guides human conduct through all the various developments of human government.

And. yet nothing also can be plainer than that the Apostles themselves sometimes disobeyed human ordinances, whenever these conflicted with an overpowering sense of individual duty, and God seemed more clearly established in conscience than He did in law. They did not shrink from taking the consequences of this disobedience; they were content to suffer violence rather than to violate the religion 3

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18 which clothed them with their great commission. Their doctrine supports the majesty and sufficiency of law, as the representative of Divine justice and the preserver of rights and order. Their conduct sometimes appeals from law to the divine fountain itself, and they excite within us a consciousness that an absolute principle of the Christian religion is a higher law, as many times as human authority contradicts it. The Apostles do not serve us with a table of exceptions to law; our knowledge that they ever thought it necessary to make exceptions is only implied in their doctrine, though sometimes expressed in their conduct. They proclaim the great principles of religious justice, and assume that human law shall labor to represent and embody them. Holding, therefore, themselves a Christian theory of law, they unqualifiedly teach obedience to authority.

And this is the principle which reduces the apparent contradiction between their doctrine and their conduct; this principle, that their idea of law was a thoroughly Christian one. It also explains, in a manner entirely consistent with our private sense of right, all the passages which counsel so strongly submission to the higher powers,that is, to existing modes of human authority. If you take those passages in their connection, you will be struck to see how they all contain the Apostles’ idea that law itself is righteous, and a terror only to the evil-doer. If it had appeared to them that the general tendency of human development were to make the law itself an evil-doer, we should not find them teachers of loyalty. But as they take for granted that the human mind is making a providential effort to embody the Divine justice in governments and laws, notwithstanding the disturbances of human pas

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19 sion, they proclaim that men cannot enjoy the blessings of safety and progress unless they heartily support this system of law, which seeks to develop and protect the natural and social rights of man. Let us examine some of these passages, to show how clearly they contain this principle.

“The powers that be are ordained of God: whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” But how does this appear to be the case? It appears, “for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good.” What a union of Christian authority and simplicity; how impressively it rebukes and admonishes human law, while it seems so innocently to confide in it! It is clear to us that Paul paid his loyalty to his private Christian conception of human authority as the minister of God. Do we not already see how he teaches, implicitly, the possibility that exceptions may arise? His very theory, to which he summons unconditional obedience, justifies his conduct when he refused such obedience. “Wherefore ye must needs be subject,” he says, ” not only for wrath,” i. e. not merely out of fear, “but also for conscience’ sake”; because authority, which is presumed to be a minister of God, cannot be supposed to conflict with private conscience. “For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing”; namely, to preserve peace and comfort, and to enforce justice against the evil. Here we come upon the local circumstance which suggested this doctrine of obedience. The new Roman converts felt that the truths I

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20 which had been awakened in their minds made them subjects of an invisible kingdom, and responsible only to the Spirit which was present in their hearts. And the same scruple which was started while the Saviour lived arose again, -whether they ought to pay taxes to a heathen government. The answer of the Saviour implied that disciples were to obey every ordinance of an existing government; but when he added the clause, “Render to God the things that are God’s,” he vindicated his own religion for having abolished Paganism by the opposition of his disciples to the ordinances of idolatry and superstition. They did resist the power and suffer the consequences, whenever the things of God became involved. By making a special case out of the tribute, Paul, following the doctrine of Jesus, instructs them to disobey no laws and regulations of a heathen government that do not involve their personal religion. Tribute may be an inconvenient and even an oppressive imposition; yet they cannot refuse to pay it, when levied by the regular authority for the purpose of maintaining the general system of the laws. Unless that system is maintained, Paul has no safety as a Roman citizen, and his appeal to Cesar before Festus would have been an empty phrase. Mark the distinction which Paul and all the early Christians make between paying taxes, which went in part to%support a public idolatrous worship, and refusing to recant by assisting in such worship when threatened by the terrors of martyrdom. So can a Christian support the general powers of any government, for the sake of its average of law and order, while he refuses homage and duty to its heathenism. All this is involved in Paul’s doctrine that Law is the minister of God.

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21 To be convinced of the unity of the apostolic doctrine upon this subject, let us examine some other passages that express it in the strongest manner, being careful not to wrench any single one from the natural connection in which they all lie imbedded. In the First Epistle of Peter we read, ” Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake; whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well.” Here again recurs the same assumption that the law is a righteous standard, judging vicious men and opposing their demoralizing tendencies: “for so is the will of God that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,” i. e. that by cheerfully obeying heathen ordinances you may refute those who ignorantly accuse you of acknowledging, as disciples of a new religion, no existing authority; “as free, and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness.” But supposing a heathen ordinance uses its legality for a cloak of maliciousness, - to persecute disciples and compel them to offer sacrifice to idols and to make their oaths to Jupiter, - then we find the early Christians refusing their obedience, because they saw that the law was attempting something beyond the punishment of evil-doers and for the praise of them that do well. They had all been reared in the conscience of the Saviour, who performed a Christian deed at a time that was illegal: they refused to perform an unChristian deed that authority had rendered legal. And they suffered the consequences; “for this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.” The conscience towards God thus exalts itself above the secular authority, and Christianity quali

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22 fies its own doctrine of obedience, because the law itself contradicts the Christian theory from which its authority is derived. The disciple, for conscience’ sake, will suffer, because he can neither actively nor passively countenance a legal outrage of his moral sense. He takes no oaths before God, much less before the statue of the heathen Jove. And how plain the deduction is, that a disciple cannot be accessory in imposing upon others what he is willing to suffer from only because he is unwilling to obey. And finally, in the Epistle of Paul to Titus, he reiterates his Christian theory when he says, “Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work.” It is so clear that he presumes the magistrate to be cooperating with society for every good work, that we are not surprised when Peter and John are put in mind not to obey magistrates who decree that they shall not disturb the public peace by preaching Christianity. In such a crisis Peter places the restraint of an enlightened conscience upon this doctrine of obedience, and asks them to judge whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto them more than unto God. And when the council summon him, saying, “Did we not straitly command you” not to propagate these principles, he and all the other Apostles answered and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men “! How doubly winged with might is this right of conscience driven home to our hearts, when we see it wielded by the men who had been with Jesus, and had learned from him to thirst for righteousness and to obey the golden rule? How doubly careful should it make our conscience also to learn of Jesus, and to urge the rights of the individual soul, when he has made them known to us, with the force of

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moral resistance, and, if it be necessary, with all the sufferings that power can inflict upon righteous disobedience! Then from an examination of the Scripture doctrine, we find it pervadingly and strongly on the side of authority, but yet implicitly justifying Apostolic resistance, and assuming that exceptions may arise, making obedience to temporal anthority sinful. But who, or what source of authority, shall decide, when such an exception has arisen? It is plain from the Apostolic example, that our answer must be, Such a decision must be made by a conscience containing Christian principles. But, it is urged, by those who fear lest the authority of law become weakened, any conscience may pretend or imagine that it is inspired by Christian principles, and any man pronounce at pleasure that the law is vicious, and any crotchet may become an article of faith. Then the door is thrown wide open for all the disorders which breed in an agitated society, and there may be as many crises and revolutions as there are human idiosyncrasies. Any system of law is better than such a state of anarchy. Theoretically this is true: in fact it is nothing but an axiom to say that the restraint of an authority which is sometimes vicious is better than the dissolution of all society by the conflicting egotism of passionate and half-enlightened men. Nobody doubts that truism. But practically this danger is always very remote from every form of government; for two reasons; - first, because the law-abiding instinct is so powerful in the mass of men, that they are very slow to suspect authority, and the genuine call of conscience, in cases of exception, moves them with great difficulty; and secondly because, in every civilized government, the infliction of gross injustice is very rare compared with its general administration of 23

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24 rights and order. Such is a practical answer to a possible objection.

The mass of men have an inborn faith in law, and the object of government is protection, an average security, general rights, and justice. Here let me anticipate rebutting evidence, which a famous case in history is always supposed to furnish. What made the French Revolution a period when all the follies that vanity could engender crowded each other in quick succession, in the names of truth and liberty, to be alternately quenched in the blood and tears of so many victims? Because it is a dangerous thing to give men an opportunity to exercise the rights of conscience? Far from it; no case in history shows us so clearly the dreadful revenge of spiritual dissolution that follows frivolous and arbitrary power. For a century had the throne been using its legality as a cloak for maliciousness, and philosophy, inoculated with this spirit of caprice, trifled with the laws of human faith, and robbed conscience of its pure and absolute Christian mnaterial. So when corrupt authority became suddenly extinguished, the whirlwind was reaped where the wind was sown. Sanguinary egotism triumphed, not because there is danger in conscience, but because conscience had been demoralized by legal crime, and priestly apathy, and philosophical frivolity. Out from the foundations of a sensual throne, that had maintained for generations its consistency of vice, burst these wild waves that tossed so tumultuously before they found their rest. Such is the lesson of that period, in favor of the rights of a genuine and healthy conscience, by showing how organized corruption can educate a people to tread the steps of vanity and blood. Anarchy had been sitting on the throne long before it drove its phantoms, in derisive swiftness of succession, through the

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25 blood-stained streets. What kind of anarchy is so in wardly destructive, as that of a peaceful and triumphant iniquity? What disorder will compare with the orderly execution of a corrupt law? What strikes so bitterly at the inner peace, what relaxes so fatally the sense of moral obligation, and what shakes so rudely our reverence for a just and interposing God? What can we believe in, when disorder borrows all the elements and majesty of Law successfully to organize itself; when we see the pow ers that are ordained of God using their holy ordination to make a sin prevail? If there were danger in conscience, a thousand times better run that danger, than suffer the public sensibilities to be so shocked to see the Law, that servant of God, holding its egis to shelter a corruption, and levelling its shining blade against the breast of justice.

Can the preservation of material order atone for that? What shall it avail though streets and cities are never stirred from their propriety, if all the anarchy, impressing all the law, takes advantage of the public peace to wreak its will? The greater the tranquillity that attends the commission of a wrong, the greater is the tumult and disorder in the very citadel of human life! But it is not enough to conclude that practically the right of conscience in a law-abiding community does not lead to anarchy. For a genuine conscience, in its indtgnation, may, like Peter in the garden, borrow the instru. ments of human passion to effect a righteous purpose. If Apostles have modified their doctrine of obedience by the exigency of a conscience, and if, therefore, we can find, in the last resort, no way for our individual salvation and no protection for truth except in the dictates of a Christian moral sense, how shall we use it in those rare cases 4

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26 where the law violates equity and perpetrates what Jesus would condemn?

How shall we use our conscience? In the first place, our opposition must never borrow the element of material force. We have no right as private citizens to maim or kill another citizen because he is in opposition to our conscience. The right of selfdefence does not extend far enough to establish our personal principles by violence; however much legal or illegal power may outrage them, our resistance must still partake of the nature of a principle, and either suffer or conquer as a moral power.

Because, violence introduces the whole train of personal vices, revenge, pride, hatred, bloodthirstiness, into the service of the spiritual nature; and the alliance is an abomination to the temper in which a Saviour’s truth was glorified. You never heard of violence being undertaken in a pervading sense of religious sanctity; and men, struggling hand to hand and foot to foot, with white lips and flashing eyes, are never filled with the venerable dignity of the principles they may have soberly espoused.

The animal must ravenl and triumph over all the spiritual powers, and indignation must sink down into fury, before a man can kill another man in the service of truth. That original service to which the genuine conscience bound itself has then been exchanged for the service of wrath; Justice drops her scales, and with madly uplifted point, but with still blindfold eyes, rushes into the middle of a brawl: No wonder that violence has so often destroyed the causes that hate its agency, and have no communion with its bestial deeds. And especially in a republican form of government, where the voice of an enlightened people is the check to tyranny, and the grossest wrong might drop, with a silent vote, away to oblivion, violence defeats its purpose. It borrows

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27 the spirit of the very outrage it is opposing, and turns it into its appropriate emblems of the club and sword. With these it aims blows, not against those who are responsible for originating legal outrage, but against those whom the publie peace employs. Is it strange that the popular instinct hastens to array itself upon the side of material order, and the powers that be triumph once again over the power that ought to be?

It is hard enough to induce a law-abiding people to lift its conscience above its legal duty, and to acknowledge that an exception has arisen where obedience is unchristian. Where the work is going on of creating a public opinion upon conscientious grounds, the anarchy of a mob reacts in favor of the anarchy of an oppressive law. Violence lifts a Medusa’s head, with all its dripping snakes, before the melting conscience, and freezes it again to obdu racy. In the second place, we must oppose injustice by refusing to lend it personal aid and countenance. We must not be impressed into its service; we must withdraw on every side, resolute to suffer penalty, but not to abet iniquity, and leaving the law to perform its unholy function as it can. It shall be demanded of us in our serious moments, during our uplifted prayers, and at the hour of death, if our hands or voices have ever aided men to violate the law of Christ. It shall be asked if we preferred to take our portion with the oppressed, or to strengthen by even the favor of a look the office of the oppressor.

Remember that in another world than this we meet the liberated fugitive, where the pressure of authority can no longer serve us with a pretext; and there shall God remind us of our Saviour’s words, -” Inasmuch as ve did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.” Such

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28 moments of triumphant conscience come to us before the day of our death, and the sorrow of Jesus seems repeated in the person of the fugitive, from whom the curse of man withholds the benefit of the golden rule. Can we countenance the power of law in inflicting upon him, what would be worse to us than death? Can we feel the fount of honor springing bravely and refreshingly within us, if our remotest act has been a link in his fetter? Shall we use our liberty as a cloak for such maliciousness?

Let the law rather couple us with him, and send us both to the servitude from which he escaped with such exulting hopes. Surely, honor would find that fate sweeter than the remembrance of having helped a man to kidnap!

Can law make us do that thing? Let the gaol hide us from the sweetness of day,- let fines confiscate all our substance, before a whisper of our breath helps to push the slave back again into his misery. So aid us God, to abhor the office and duty of policemen to oppression. In the third place, we must oppose this iniquity by attempting to repeal it altogether.

Dark and bitter is the future to us, liable to continual disgrace, teeming with the opportunities of agitation and disorder, full of moments that shall goad to unexpected madness, unless we are able to do this thing. The sense of loyalty in the heart of this people will be shattered by the successes of this unholy law. Remove the anarchy that lives by authority, before the anarchy of awakened passions fills the street. Preserve in the people their salutary sense of the sacredness of Law, and let them worship her as the unblemished servant who has received her ordination at the hands of God. Pull from her white attire, which adorns her as she sits in judgment, this bloody mantle which expedient men have thrown

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29 around her, and let her garment have a hem that we can stoop to kiss with honor and devotion. Can we be any longer seduced to believe that the blessings of peace and Christian grace can reign among us, and that injustice can be a fountain of harmony? Step by step has the power which governs us proceeded to the accomplishment of its deliberate policy, and every step has shown that the next has been premeditated; it passes with equal indifference over solemn contracts made with man, and the still holier principles of Divine equity. It depends upon our loyalty to be its passive servant to the end. And it is now, as ever, the duty and office of the Christian pulpit to ask the people to judge whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto men more than unto God. The health and vigor of the public conscience stand affected, and the efficiency of public worship to keep alive the memory of a perfect Saviour, to preserve it from the stains of dissolute compromises, that it may be our guide and judge, a counsellor of Christian loyalty, a comforter to the oppressed. How far the shadow has crept over us while we have slept! It lies across our altars, it would fain creep so high as the voice of the preacher, and touch his prophecy with paralyzing chill. Shall we be loyal to the extent of extinguishing the source of true loyalty in an uncontaminated Gospel?

Where shall Law build her foundations, and where shall Justice plant her pillars, except upon that cornerstone? It is a duty of religion, as well as a dictate of morality, to remove what brings so great a scandal upon the divine ordination of authority; that the life of the people may tranquilly rest upon assurance of justice, that patriotism may be as large as duty, and that all our inheritance of manliness from former times may be kept devoted

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30 to the liberty which they secured, and be no longer held to service as slavery’s protector. Into this solemn purpose the success of this or that party cannot enter: let not the fatal name of party be so much as mentioned in connection with this sacred duty. Where the health of conscience and the purity of law are concerned, where a clear conception of the Gospel’s redeeming principles is involved, but one hope should light us on the single path which we must tread, that all men may come together into the power of one opinion, to demand repeal, and with single-mindedness to demand it, till the voice grows loud enough to confirm its claim. Do not let the side-whispers of party mingle with its clear and certain tone, for it is to proclaim a holy mission, being no less than that of reinstating the sanctity of law and withdrawing the countenance of a Christian people from the ways of the oppressor. If our heart be single, free from ambitions, and filled with the power of truth alone, we shall see Divine justice win a perfect triumph. Then at last we shall enjoy peace united with honor, because we shall have sealed up the source itself of anarchy. And let this be our prayer: 0 God, who hast brought us thus far in the path of our destiny, fill our souls with the heavenly light of a true purpose, that we may make our testimony in union and devotion, and cause our future to repay with righteousness thy mercy to us in the past.

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OUR COUNTRY’S TROUBLES. A SEBMON PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OF THE EPIPHANY, P

H I L A D E L P H I A, J U N E 29, 1856 BY REV. DUDLEY A. TYNG, .,..

RECTOR. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST OF LAYMEN IN BOSTON. B OSTON: PUBLISHED BY

JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: JEWETT, PROCTOR AND

WORTHINGTON. NEW YORK: SHELDON, BLAKEMAN AND COMPANY. 1856.

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CAMBRIDGE: ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS.

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iA” S E R M 0 N. 1 CORINTHIANS XII. 26. WHETHER ONE MEMIBER SUFFER, ALL

THE IMEIBERS SUFFER WITH IT: OR ONE IMEMBER BE HONORED, ALL THE MEMIBERS

REJOICE WITH IT. IT is a mooted question how far the Christian pulpit may, and ought to be enlisted in the consideration of current events, and the discussion of questions of public interest. It is undoubtedly a great evil when the teachers of religion forsake their appropriate themes to mingle in all the heated controversies of the day. Nothing could be more calculated to break down the influence of the ministry, and to rear up insuperable barriers of angry prejudice against the message of mercy which it is its chief business to declare. But may there not also be an opposite extreme? May there-not be silence when great principles are at stake? May not great wrongs go unchallenged of the pulpit till there be supposed nothing in them inconsistent with religion? May not the dread of offence be carried so far as to put the pulpit in bondage? And may not the refusal to take sides in great questions of public

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4 opinion, result in the gospel’s being supposed to have nothing to do with the affairs of society, and in contempt on all hands for the ministry for its fear of speaking out? Ministers have the same interest in society and its institutions as other citizens; perhaps more so: for their happiness is peculiarly bound up in the right influence of religious and moral principles upon the community. Society can suffer in no member without a true-hearted Christian ministry suffering with it. Religion itself, moreover, is often vitally affected by events transpiring in social and political life. Evil principles may be at work in the social system, whose ultimate tendency is to destroy the practical influence of Christianity over the conduct of men, and to undermine the foundations of their faith. Is the pulpit to keep silence until the adversaries of the faith, having completely invested it with intrenchments in public custom and opinion, are boldly demanding its surrender? Human nature is an unit.

Its many interests are but one body. And the sufferings of any one of its members are felt in the vital organs. Questions of social and political economy, as well as of moral principle, may be the media of deadly wounds to the religious life. In fact, Christianity enters into every interest of man. And as Christians and Christian ministers we are interested in every thing that concerns humanity. We cannot disconnect our religion from the details of our common life. It affects or is affected by them all. “They are many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have

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5 no need of thee; nor again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you.” “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.” Owing to the close interchange of sympathy and influence, the events of the day may assume a deep religious significance. The same events which in one aspect agitate commercial interests, and in another convulse the political circles, may in yet another be fraught with stirring interest for the religious community. And while they awaken great contention on the plane of social or political life, they may also, from the higher stand-point of the Christian patriot, be seen to affect the dearest rights and interests of men, and to endanger great principles to the support of which the pulpit is bound. At such times the Christian ministry may be criminal if it does not speak out boldly in behalf of right, carefully avoiding, indeed, the arousing of those passions which belong to the lower aspect of events, but fearlessly and dispassionately directing public sentiment by the higher principles of divine revelation. It seems to me that we have now reached such a time. Events are transpiring which bear most momentously on all our rights as men, and duties as Christians. All that is most dear and valuable torus as citizens is put in jeopardy. The principles and influence of Christianity, which first founded our institutions, can alone preserve them to us in their integrity in the present crisis. And I claim the right as a Christian minister to declare what I believe to be important truth, and to do mny part, small as it may be, 1’

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6 towards tile settlement of the difficulties which encompass us. I claim a patient hearing, and a candid comparison with the principles of the Bible. If I am wrong, I am open to conviction; if I am right, the declaration of the truth will bring the responsibility of walking by its light. With this prefatory statement let me call your attention, I. To the EVILS to be deplored. For the first time in the history of this country, it is the scene of civil war. Armed men, in battle array, are marching on its soil. and carrying with them all the horrors of a hostile invasion.

Towns are sacked, houses pillaged, property plundered and destroyed, women and children driven in terror from their homes, and men shot down by their own doors! Society is in confusion, public security at an end, peaceful industry interrupted, and a thriving Territory reduced to a state of nature, where the only protection is that of force, and the household cannot lie down at night without fear of the assassin. Families are driven out from lands which they have tilled and houses which they have built, and warned to leave the country or be hung. Fields lie unsown, and crops are left unploughed, because armed marauders have stolen the farmer’s horses and killed his oxen, and obliged him to skulk in secret for fear of his life, or join bodies of his neighbors who have armed in defence of their homes and families. All the horrors which existed when invading armies marched with blood and desolation on our soil; all the suffering which drenched our frontiers when the warwhoop of

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7 the savage aroused the sleeping household for the tomahawk and the fagot, are now renewed in unhappy Kansas. Hardly a day passes without bringing telegraphic news of some new outrage, so dreadful that we can scarce realize its possibility, or arouse ourselves to feel as the occasion demands. And who are the authors of all these outrages on American citizens? Not the savage Indian nor the foreign invader, but their own countrymen, citizens of our own free and happy land, imbruing their hands in brothers’ blood. And what is the crime for which their brethren are thus subjected to invasion and violence? Merely dfference of opinion. Merely assertion of their right to think, speak, write, and act according to their own conscience and interests in forming the institutions of a Territory into which the capital and population of the country were invited by a solemn act of the Federal Government. On the 30th of May, 1854, the Territory of Kansas was thrown open to settlers by act of Congress, and the privilege of determining the character of its institutions accorded to those who should become residents of its soil.

Attracted by this opening for industry and enterprise, large numbers of persons from all sections of the country emigrated to the Territory, and soon made its prairies to smile with cultivation and dotted its surface with towns and villages. Never country opened with brighter prospects. But how soon was this bright morn overcast. On the 29th of November, 1854, the infant Territory was to elect a delegate to appear and speak in its behalf in the National Congress. On that day more than one thousand armed men from an ad

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8 joining State invaded the Territory, drove judges and legal voters from the polls, and by fraudulent ballots elected a man of their own. On the 30th of March, 1855, the inhabitants of Kansas were to have elected their Territorial Legislature. More than four thousand armed men from the same State again invaded the Territory, took possession of the polls and elected their own candidates, some of them residents of their own State.

The recent investigations of the Congressional Committee have proved that of five thousand five hundred votes cast on that day, less than one thousand were of actual residents of the Territory. Surely it was bad enough to see a Legislature imposed on them by force and fraud. But what sort of laws did they pass? Hear, and ask yourselves whether we live in the nineteenth century, and in a free and Christian republic. They reenacted in a mass all the slave laws of Missouri, merely adding that wherever the word State” occurs in them it shall be construed to mean “Territory.” They made the non-admission of the right to hold slaves in the Territory a disqualification for sitting as juror. They enacted that to say that persons have not a right to hold slaves in that Territory should be punished with two years’ imprisonment at hard labor. That writing, printing, or circulating any thing against slavery should be punished with five years’ imprisonment at hard labor. That the harboring of fugitive slaves should be punished with five years’ imprisonment at hard labor. That assisting slaves to escape should be punished with death.

That assisting slaves to escape from any Territory, and take refuge in that Ter

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9 ritory, should be punished with death. That the print ing or circulation of publications calculated to incite slaves to insurrection, should be punished with death. To secure these laws perpetuity, they enacted that all who do not swear to support the Fugitive Slave Law should be disqualified as voters, but that any one might vote who will pay $1.00, and swear to uphold the Fugitive Slave Law and the Nebraska bill. And, still further to guard against all contingencies, they appointed non-residents to town and county offices for six years ahead. Thus, by one stroke of combined fraud and force, the great question of social rights, whose settlement had been pledged to the citizens themselves, were decided by an invading army, whose agents established slavery against the wishes of the people, disfranchise all who oppose it, open the polls to all pro-slavery non-residents, and shut up all who speak, write, print, or circulate any thing against it with long imprisonment at hard labor. What has become of the rights of American citizens? Talk of obedience to law!

Would you, would any American, obey such laws so imposed? Where were the spirit of our Revolutionary fathers, if such oppression could be submitted to? Where is our republican government, if such rights can be taken away?

But what was done in opposition? There was no armed resistance, no collision with assumed authority. The people of Kansas simply denied the legality of the enactments and the obligation of obedience, and falling back on inherent rights, went through the preliminaries of a State organization, and applied to Con

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10 gress for relief. That relief has not been yet afforded. And what has since transpired? A third, fourth, and fifth armed invasion has taken place, each with increased aggravation of outrage. Pillage and plunder and murder have increased from day to day. Large bodies of armed men from distant and adjoining States are in the Territory, with no attempt at becoming settlers, without means of honest support, living by the pillage of those who differ from themselves in sentiment, and perpetrat ing cruelties unknown even in war. Government troops have been used to overawe all attempts at resistance, and moved about so as to expose unprotected towns to violence. A fourfold process of oppression has been used to ruin and drive out those whose only crime is the claiming of rights guaranteed them by the very law which invited them to Kansas. First, innumerable indictments for imaginary crimes are made out by a corrupt judiciary against all Free State men of influence, while the worst of crimes by men of opposite politics have gone unnoticed. Secondly, armed hordes of ruffians, under pretence of maintaining C law and order,” patrol the country, committing all the outrages which have been described. Thirdly, the United States dragoons are made use of by the local authorities to suppress any risings for selfdefence, and kept out of the way when attacks are to be made. And lastly, “Vigilance Committees” are appointed to drive off, with threats of ” Lynch law,” all those who, by the other methods, have not been subdued. All this has been going on for months. And recent accounts announce that the sufferers themselves are driven by des

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11 peration to armed defence, and the hostile bands are now watching each other, and meeting in deadly con flict. Civil war is begun. And where is it to end, un less it can be suppressed at once in the place of its birth?

Let it not be said that we have no interest in this matter. Distant and feeble as she may be, Kansas is a member of our body politic. The same life-blood which nourishes our own community flows through her. And the wounds and anguish which she endures are felt to the remotest parts of the Republic. Ties of friendship and of blood unite her suffering children to all sections of our country. And were these wanting, a common nationality binds them in one body to us all, and the great heart of humanity enfolds them in its sympathies. “Whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.” At the same time that these events have been transpiring, another scene has been enacted which has inflicted a still deeper wound on the honor and peace of our country. A member of the Senate of the United States, a man honored equally for his virtue and his attainments, has been stricken down and beaten by a member of Congress till his blood stained the floor of the Senate, for words spoken in debate. It matters-not what were the words which gave offence, though it may well be supposed that language unchallenged at the time by a body whose majority were in opposition to the speaker, did not transgress the ordinary limits of parliamentary debate. It matters not what were the words, nor who the speaker, nor who the assailant. It

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12 was a principle which was stricken down. And that principle is one of all the pillars of our free institutions. Without the right of freedom of speech, neither our liberties nor our religion are secure. If the bludgeon is to be the ruling power in our country, where will be our boasted freedom and national Christianity? If the flag of our country, and the symbols of her liberty cannot protect the members of her government within the walls of her Capitol, in the discharge of their official duty, what is to become of our republic? With the freedom of the press overthrown in Kansas, and the freedom of the Senate assailed in Washington, how long before the freedom of the pulpit shall be also at the mercy of a popular majority or of a reckless and excitable bully? There is not a legislator, or an editor, or a clergyman in the country, whose right to advocate what he conscientiously believes, nor a citizen whose right to representation of his sentiments, has not been assailed in the blows which laid the eloquent Sumner senseless on the Senate chamber. But the act itself is not so ominous of evil as its indorsement. To hear it defended and eulogized throughout the whole section represented by the assassin, by public assemblies giving votes of thanks for his iniquity, by the press almost unanimously holding it up as worthy of imitation, and by fellow-representatives who screen the offender from punishment, may well make one feel sadly apprehensive for our country. It indicates that we are becoming unworthy of our heritage, and that the sentiment of justice and right has rotted away in the foundation of government. Alas for our country, when

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13 the makers of her laws dare not speak in defence of what they deem human right, or must go armed with deadly weapons for protection in the discharge of their duty! God forbid that the ministers of religion should refuse to speak in reprobation of the evil. II. But let us look, secondly, at the inmpelling principle of these outrages. They have all one impulse, the aggressive spirit of slavery. Let it be noted and remembered that all these wrongs grow out of a determination to extend the area of human bondage. Why are armed hordes now traversing Kansas with pillage and murder? Simply that they may extend over it the blight of slavery. Why are men illegally arrested, robbed, driven from home, hunted like beasts, or shot down dead in the fields? Simply because they desire to save their home and family from the blight of slavery. Why are they denied the protection of a government whose pride it is to protect its citizens to the farthest verge of the habitable globe? Merely because they will not submit to force and fraud to be cursed with slavery. Why was Sumner assailed and beaten in the Senate? Merely because he spoke too pointedly and plainly for their deliverance firom the attempted curse of slavery.

The sole impulse of all these outrages is the desire to extend slavery.

The sole crime of the sufferers is the invincible desire to be free. The blood of a Senator has stained the floor of the Senate chamber, the blood of her citizens has been poured out like water on the virgin soil of Kansas, merely that it may be made a land of bondage. The whole South is aroused and pours forth invading armies, and the whole 2

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14 influence and power of the Federal Government are employed to aid them, merely because the actual resi dents of Kansas, in the exercise of the rights guaranteed them by the law which opened the Territory to settlers, are largely determined that it shall be free. Ignoble contest! Where slavery is let it remain. Let it be apologized for and mitigated as it can. I am not one of those who would attack the South for the inheritance of perplexity and shame which Northern cupidity was originally a joint agent in introducing. Let them mourn over the embarrassments and evils of their lot, and strive to discharge their duty as Christian masters to the people they have found dependent and in servitude. Thus out of their birthright of misfortune they may work out a blessing to the subject race, and a mission of mercy for themselves. To apologize for an involuntary evil is one thing. To strive to extend and perpetuate it is another. We may regard the former with the truest charity. But as freemen and Christians, what must we say of the latter? But why are Southern men so madly resolved that Kansas shall be thrown open to slavery? Is it because they desire themselves to be residents of the country? Very few of them have any such idea. But it will give them, first, and increase of political -power. It will wheel another State into the phalanx, and give them two more Senatorial votes for that control of the Government which the far swifter progress of the Free States has taken from them in the House of Representatives. Few among us have reflected on the political power given by slavery to the few. Three fifths

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15 of all the slaves are counted in with the whites as the basis of representation, largely increasing the political importance of the white person at the South over the white person at the North. Of the whites, large numbers are either disfranchised by a property qualification, or are completely under the control of their wealthier neighbors. Political honors and influence are confined to a few. In the whole fifteen slavehlolding States there are less than one hundred thousand persons owning more than ten slaves each. How many of these are desirous of deserting their plantations and emigrating to Kansas? But these are the persons who control the policy of fifteen States, and by their influence at home and at the North have controlled the policy and monopolized the honors of the General Government. Is it to be wondered that they should make such desperate efforts to extend so disproportionate an importance?

And as it grows so it will grow until this whole land of liberty shall be made tributary to the perpetuation of human bondage. The establishment of slavery in Kansas will give them, secondly, a new market for slaves. The pecuniary value of slavery arises not from the productive. ness of slave labor. It costs much and produces little, wastes largely and wears out the soil it cultivates. Left to itself, it impoverishes, in the long run, both land and owner, and would gradually work out its own extermination. But slave-breeding compensates for the expensiveness of slave labor. To breed human beings for sale, to rear immortal souls that they may be driven like cattle to the market and sold to the highest bidder, is

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16 a profitable business. Families and estates are main tained by such breeding and sale, often of blood rela tions. To keep up the price the market must be ex tended. New States and Territories must have their virgin soil thrown open to slavery, and as their lands also become impoverished, join the slave-breeding States in the ceaseless cry of the horse-leech and her daugh ters. Kansas is now invaded and outraged merely that it may be made a land of bondage, and that for the increase of a political power inimical to our free institu tions, and a stimulus to the breeding of human beings for sale. And what is the pretence under which these evil deeds are covered up, and the acquiescence of the country in them is sought? It is the equal right of men of all sections of the country to go with their property into the national territory. It is said that to deny the right of slaveholders to carry their property there, is to destroy the equality of our citizens. As this is the grand plea, which is designed to, and to some extent does, impose on the public mind for excuse of all these enormities, it is essential that it should be examined. Let it be observed then, in the first place, that the claimed right of carrying one’s idetzicalpropert with him in removal, is an absurdity. How much property is there in its nature so local that it cannot be removed? Who could remove his farm, or his fishery, or his water-power? Yet who ever thought of declaiming against the injustice of Nature and Providence, because he could not take them to Kansas? The proceeds of their sale he can take. And has any

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17 body ever denied to the slaveholder the right to take to Kansas the proceeds of the sale of his slaves as well as the proceeds of the sale of his plantation? Secondly, the right of property in human beings is not a natural rig,ht, but merely the result of local laws. Outside the jurisdiction of those laws, the right does not exist. There are States where lotteries are allowed by law. A lottery interest is the property of its holder. Because lotteries aire proscribed in Kansas or elsewhere, has the lottery holder cause to complain of the overthrow of his constitutional rights? Shall Kansas be invaded and drenched in blood because its inhabitants will not pass the local laws which in other States have made lotteries property? With as much reason as because they will not establish property in human flesh and blood. The property which results from local laws can be sold where those local laws have made it valuable, and its proceeds taken wherever the owner may please. And is the Union to be convulsed, a peaceful Territory made the scene of war, and industrious citizens robbed and murdered, because some hotheaded individual has resolved that instead of taking his thousand dollars to Kansas in gold and silver, he will take it in the shape of a lottery office or a brother man?

Let the flimsy pretext be understood. If the right of holding human beings as property results merely from local law, it is limited by the law which created it. If it be a natural right it is as indefeasible in Pennsylvania as it is in Kansas. And this will be the final issue. But thirdly, it seems to be entirely forgotten that there are rights on the other side. It is a fundamental 2*

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18 principle in law that one man must not, by his property, injure that of his neighbors. The welfare of the one must give way to the welfare of the many. Now if one man has property in a fellow, there are thousands of others who have more undoubted property in themselves. If one claims the right of making the bodily labor of his fellow subserve his own comfort and advantage, there are thousands of others who claim a divine and indefeasible right to make their own good arms available to their own support and advancement. And these two rights conflict. For slave labor and free labor are opposed to each other. Slavery degrades bodily labor.

It makes a man’s bodily strength and manual skill less availing for his own profit and elevation. It thus diminishes and takes away his inherent property in himself. It lessens his pecuniary reward, and shuts up the door of promotion. The question is, therefore, between the right of one man to the muscles of his neighbor and the right of thousands to the full benefit of their own muscles. It is whether one man is to leave his slave behind him, or whether a thousand white citizens are to be enslaved if they go. The rights of all our laboring classes, ten thousand to one slaveholder, are invaded in the attempt at the violent subjugation of Kansas. Moreover, there are many methods of remunerative labor of more intellectual character that are available only in a free community. In fact, there is scarcely a department of ingenuity or power, which the history and present state of our country do not show to be circumscribed and depreciated by the presence of slavery. The intellectual, literary,

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19 and inventive, as well as the bodily powers of man become less available for individual and social pros perity. Every man, therefore, who is not himself a slaveholder, is interested for himself, his children, his relatives and friends in the exclusion of slavery. His property and their property in their own minds and bodies is depreciated by the introduction of slave labor. The inalienable rights which God himself has given to him and them are arrayed against the merely local and transferable, not to say disputable, right of the slaveholder. The suffering in Kansas, the suffering of Sumner, is not in resistance of human right, but it is martyrdom in defence of the rights of the many against the aggression of a few. And the question is not whether there shall be maintained the rights of a few thousand slaveholders, but whether shall be maintained the rights of millions of freemen. II. But, thirdly, let us not lose sight of the divine agency in all the troubles which have come upon us. We are taught in Holy Scripture that the providence of God overrules the actions of men no less than the operations of nature. Every human agent is to the Lord only as the saw in the hand of him that shaketh it. No man can have any power at all against tie object of his hatred or oppression, except it be given him from above. “Man proposes, but God disposes.” And therefore when there is evil in a city or a country, we are to look above the human instrumentalities, and humble ourselves uinder tile hand of God, and inquire why He hath dealt so greivously with us. Especially is this the case in public calamities. For as bodies

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20 politic have no existence in the world to come, their judgment and recompense, unlike that of individuals, can take place only in this world.

The question which we ought to ask ourselves, therefore, is, “Wherefore hath the Lord dealt thus with His servants?” Many are our national offences. But there is ever a correspondence between the offence and its punishment. And we are to search out the sins and errors for which this special visitation has been sent. Doubtless, one sin for which we are suffering is the base spirit of truckling and pandering to sectional interests and prejudices, which has for so many years characterized the prime movers of our political machinery. Politics have been a mere trade, conducted without honesty or principle for selfish aggrandizement. Vainly do we look for patriotism in the wire-working of our political parties.

The whole government is administered upon the principle of the division of the spoils. There has been no prejudice so opposed to the spirit of our institutions, no sectional interest so degrading, that political leaders, low and high, were not willing to sell themselves to it for votes. There has been no combination of parties too inconsistent, unprincipled, and corrupt to be entered into for the sake of office and public money. In particular, the leading political parties have for years been conducted in rivalry of subservience to the interests of slavery. The interests of the nation have been disregraded and sacrificed in disgraceful un derbidding for the slaveholding vote. There was no deep so low for one party to descend into, that some “lower deep still opening wide” was not discovered by

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21 the other. For more than a generation has this system of self-abasement been going on. No wonder that those who have been the objects of this solicitation should have been educated into the idea that the whole gov ernment of the country should be conducted for the benefit of slavery. If our unhappy country is now suffering from Southern violence, it has been brought on us by that long and increasing self-abasement of Northern politicians. Especially is this the case with our present agitations. A new scene of commotion had been settled by new concessions, to which for the sake of peace, all parties had assented. The whole land was at rest and quiet. Slavery was demanding nothing more, and its opponents had made up their minds to acquiesce in the settlement, when, for pure party purposes and for personal aggrandizement, the time-honored barrier of freedom was overthrown as a new bid in the auction which has sacrificed the domain of the nation for the slaveholding vote. Let the authors of the iniquity be nameless here, as they deserve to be in the annals of the Republic. Insane and unprincipled ambition is the source of all the agitation and turmoil and bloodshed which has been rending the land asunder. The whole people have witnessed so tamely the successive betrayals of their interests, and voted so docilely on the issues hey presented, that hope had been conceived of their inlimited submission. The sectional jealousies which it Aas stirred up anew, and the attempt to secure, by violence, what slavery understood to be offered it by the measure, is its natural consequence, and the providen

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22 tial punishment of the nation for the iniquity which it sanctioned and encouraged. Another political sin for which the nation is thus suffering, is the neglect of political duty by respectable citizens. We have boasted much of our political rights; but we have been sadly unmindful of our political duties. Hlow large a proportion of the most respectable and influential of our citizens have wholly abstained from the nomination and election of our rulers. The whole business of nominations has been given up to caucuses, chiefly composed of the ambitious and the vile. Assemblies in which no respectable person could appear, have brought out candidates of their own, for inferior offices, and conventions of interested men have long wrangled out the nomination to higher posts of those to whose election they could pin their own hopes of office to be acquired or retained. All honesty and all patriotism have quite disappeared from our political system. Politics have become a trade so low that few respectable men dare touch it. Not an election can be carried without money, and bargaining, and rum. And in consequence not a bill can be carried through our national legislature without bribes. Yet orderly and respectable citizens see those iniquities without troubling themselves for thleir correc tion. Absorbed in their own business and comfort, they leave the rule of the country they care not to whom. And yet they boast of their political rights. But God has given no right without obligation of use.

The right of selfgovernment involves the duty of selfgov

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23 ermment, the duty of selecting and electing the rulers of our people.

This sacred duty, due to ourselves, mankind, and God, has been wofully neglected, and, therefore, God has turned our neglect into our punishment, and chastised the land with misrule and civil war. Kindred and consequential to these has been another sin-the entire divorce of the whole system of politics from the fear of God. If respectable men, when they kept aloof from the selection of condidates for office, also threw away their allegiance to party, the evil would be less. But, by a strange confusion of moral sense, the obligation to party is made unquestionable and supreme. No matter what may be the character of its agents-no matter what may be the evil princi ples or iniquitous measures incorporated in its action, how many good men there are for whom the single consideration, that it is the action of their own party, is enough. They ask no questions, listen to no argu ment, recognize no higher authority. How few Chris tian men ever think of taking counsel of God in questions of public affairs, and giving religion the control of their politics. How few citizens recognize their responsibility to God for their political influence. How few men of principle bring their political conduct to the same tests as their ordinary intercourse. Now, let it be remembered, that the ultimate responsibility of every measure rests with the people, and in this matter, as in all others, each one must answer for himself. Caucuses of the idle and dissolute may nominate whom they please, leaders of political parties may venture on what

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24 iniquities they will, but to the people belongs the responsibility of their adoption. Without the sanction of the people they sink into the obscurity which they deserve. It is on this principle that God is dealing with us as a people. The American people have been characterized by a blind and unscrupulous adherence to party - the political morality of our country has become a by-word and a hissing - the whole people, by negligence or party spirit, have become partakers in the guilt of actions which, if they had not been in politics, would be a loathing to the moral sense of the community. And, therefore, God has punished the nation with the legitimate results of their own misconduct. For these national offences God has justly brought upon us disgrace and suffering, and a discord which threatens the direst disasters in the future. IV. But let us inquire, fourthly, into the providential design of these afflictions. What lesson are they sent to teach, what practical end to secure? Why have the truckling subserviency of Northern politicians and the arrogant aggressions of the slave power been allowed to proceed so far unchecked, and to bring forth such disastrous fruits? Is it not to bring back the public mind to the views of slavery which were entertained at the formation of our government, and so to open anew the way for its amelioration and ultimate removal? A great change has come over the public sentiment in regard to slavery within the last twentyfive or thirty years. Previous to that time it found its apologists neither North nor South. It was lamented and deplored on every hand as a necessary evil. The most that

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25 could be said in regard to it was that living men were not responsible for its introduction, and that it was not yet safe to attempt its abrogation. All professed to look forward to a time when it should cease to be. With this view all1 moderate men were satisfied. They blushed at it as an anomaly in the land of freedom, and mourned over it before God as an evil they would not have laid to their charge. The strengthening of liberty, the growth of civilization, and the influence of Christianity, then held out the hope of approaching deliverance. And the feeling of many pious and excellent people is still the same. But the public aspect and expression of slavery is entirely altered. It is now claimed on the one hand, and the doctrine is assented to on the other, that it is a fundamental part of our national policy; that our Constitution is designed for its protection, and that it is to grow and extend itself without limit on the’national territory. All hope and idea of its removal is discarded.

It is transformed into a permament element of American society. The programmes of political leaders now allow no hope to the unfortunate slave and his no less unfortunate master. The inherited evil is transformed into the wilful sin of the present generation. The original sin of slavery is fast becoming, through corrupt politicians, the freewill crime of the American people. This presents the matter in a very different aspect before God and the civilized world. Whatever may be said in the way of temporary extenuation, slavery and human right, slavery and the Christian law of love are in irreconcilable opposition. To do the best we can with an inherited evil, until Provi 3

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26 dence enables us to put it away, may receive blessing from the Lord.

But because of some incidental advantages to resolve on its permanence and extension, will surely receive his curse, and bring ruin to our country.

So gradually has the change of temper and purpose been introduced, that, as a nation, we were hardly aware of the sin in which we were becoming ensnared. But the recent events have given such a shock to the spirit of freedom as to arouse the nation to perceive the gulf before us. May it be made the means of a recoil of public sentiment which shall put the system of human bondage back where it was at the formation of our government. May this demonstration of its spirit and tendency prevent all tampering with it in future. Thus God will make the wrath of man to praise Him; and then, doubtless the remainder of wrath will He restrain. V. It now remains that we should consider the duties of the present crisis. The time will not allow more than a brief enumeration. 1. The first duty of the crisis is a right public sentiment. Ours is a government of opinion. To public opinion every party and every coalition is compelled to bow. It is mightier than bayonets. The only difficulty is in bringing the national mind to a decision. There is freer circulation of news in this country than in any other, and yet there is surprising ignorance and unconcern of what is taking place in the country. Many of our countrymen have no adequate idea of what has occurred in Kansas. They know that there has been trouble and fighting, but their information is

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27 most partial and incorrect. Very few of the political journals have presented a faithful report of facts. They have been advocates and not witnesses, catching up events for special pleading for party effect, instead of relating the whole truth before the tribunal of the people. Now let every person seek to inform himself and his neighbors of events as they are. Put the facts before the people. Let them know the outrages which have been committed. Let them understand the spirit which has actuated them, and the end at which they aim. Let them be taught to view the facts and prin ciples of the present crisis, irrespective of party affini ties. And who can doubt that the American people will condemn this imbruing of hands in brothers’ blood, and tyrannizing over brethren in questions of right; rebuke the aggressor, and spread the mighty shield of public sympathy and favor over the persecuted. This cause is to be tried, not by violence, but at the bar of public opinion. And whenever an intelligent decision on full and impartial testimony shall be given by the tribunal, all the agitators will be powerless. Violent men, on all sides, may threaten what they please. They might as well threaten the Pacific Ocean as the resolved judgment and conscience of the nation. Our first duty is, therefore, to enlighten the public mind. Make the daily journals feel that it is their interest to spread all the facts and the testimony of all sides before their readers. Make use of the mail for distribution of documents to your acquaintance. Organize a system of political colportage, which shall leave tracts at every man’s door, and through the crowds at the markets

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28 send them everywhere on the wings of the wind. This is the true system of republican government, and the true way to correct a public evil. 2. A second duty of the crisis is the pecuniary relief of the sufferers in Kansas. The operations of husbandry have been broken up by ruthless invaders. There will be no crops to nourish the inhabitants. Every department of trade and labor has been so paralyzed by fear and violence that industrious men are without the means of livelihood. Behind all the other enemies of Kansas stalks famine, threatening to complete the extermination. Families are compelled to leave their homes and farms for want of bread. Besides which, insatiable robbery has plundered hundreds of every thing that could be carried off. Horses, wagons, oxen, cows, sheep, provisions, clothing, money have been seized in broad daylight by roving marauders. The suffering inhabitants must return penniless to their former homes, or they must starve on the spot amidst their own fertile but desolated fields. Send them the relief which they need. Cheer their disconsolate spirits by the knowledge that there are thousands of their countrymen who sympathize with their misfortunes and condemn their wrongs.

Give them food to eat and raiment to put on. Provide them with bread in the wilderness, and bid them remain and put their trust in the God of forces. The agencies of collection and distribution are already organized.

Our brethren in other cities have already begun to pour in their benefactions. Let the city of the peace and liberty-loving Penn emulate their example.

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29 3. The third duty of the crisis is the reinforcement of the pioneers in Kansas with Free State settlers. The organic law of the Territory has guaranteed to its act ual settlers the right of determining their own insti tutions. The American people will see that that right is not defeated by force or fraud. The soil was once consecrated unto freedom. It is yet pledged to free dom, if free men have the enterprise to settle it, If four to one is not a sufficient majority to secure the pledged result, then send ten to one. If twenty thou sand will not make it free, then pour in one hundred thousand. The law of majorities is to settle it. Let it be so large that force and fraud will be unavailing. Even armed marauders will have to yield to public opinion. Let its expression in the multiplication of liberty-loving settlers be overwhelming. Send men who are industrious and will work; men who are intelligent and know their rights; bold, and will defend them. Send men who are peaceable and patient, who love law and order in its true sense, and have property dependent on its preservation; whose hands love the implements of labor, but who will not hesitate to take down the implements of war to repel the invaders of their household. Send them with their flocks and their herds, with their wives and their little ones, with their saw-mills and their schoolmasters and their ministers, and let them go up into this land that floweth with milk and honey, and the God who guided Israel will give them an inheritance. The question must be decided not by the rifle and the bowie knife, but by the axe and the ploughshare. Therefore, appeal to no war

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30 like feeling to send counter bands of ruffians for counter outrage, but send settlers of the soil, strong in the conviction of right, and resolute in the determination to maintain it. 4. The fourth duty of the crisis is the independent and conscientious use of the ballot-box. Let the fear of God and the love of man bring party predilections to an honest argument at the bar of conscience. Party will die, but the country will live. Party will die, but we shall live to answer at a higher tribunal respecting a freeman’s privilege and a freeman’s duty. We are the sovereigns of the republic. We are to decide the issues of opinion and the choice of rulers for ourselves. It matters not what interested and designing men on the one side or on the other may agree upon for selfish ends; it is ours to review and decide the question for ourselves, for the benefit of our country. And it is God’s to bring us and them into judgment, and to give sentence on our actions according to truth. 5. And finally and chiefly, the crisis calls us to general humiliation and prayer before God. The Lord’s hand is to be seen in our afflictions as well as man’s. Vainly would the enemies of the public peace have plotted mischief, if the Lord had not allowed them to bring it to pass in punishment of our sins. And vainly shall we endeavor to escape the punishment unless we humble ourselves before Him who has inflicted it. Many and great have been our sins, individual and national. The Lord has been provoked every day by ingratitude, irreligion, and crime. In our prosperity we have forgotten Him who gave us our goodly heritage.

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31 We have said, “Who is the Lord, what profit is there if we shall serve Him?” We have been ungrateful for His favors. We have kicked at His judgments. We have gloried in our institutions and government, as though they were any thing without the God who founded them. We have almost deemed it impossible for public and political iniquity to ruin us. And, there fore, we have seen all branches of government defiled by corruption with an apathy or indolent acquiescence which has made the whole people partakers in the in iquity. Never till we return unto the Lord, and make our supplication humbly before our Judge, will He remove His chastisements from off our country. All means; all plans will fail without Him. But the Lord is gracious and merciful. He listened to the intercession of Moses for his people, and of Abraham for Sodom; and hlie will now listen to the prayers of His people. The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much. Let Christian men, then, humble themselves before God. Let them confess the sins of their people and their own implication in them.

Let them plead singly and unitedly with God for His overruling Providence in protection of our country. Let them pray daily and earnestly for their rulers and for all in authority. Let them pray for the defeat of iniquity, and the suppression of violence, and the protection of the depressed. Let them pray for the right guidance of the popular mind in the issues before it. Let us all remember that promotion cometh not from the North or from the West, nor yet from the South, but that the Lord, He putteth down one, and raiseth up another,

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32 and beseech his intervention. Let us beseech Him to ameliorate sectional animosities, and to turn the hearts of the people like rivers of water to the common good. Let us thus remember God in our calamity, and the God that maketh men to be of one mind in an house will restore peace to our distracted country, and establish our liberties on an impregnable foundation.

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THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY: DISCOURSE PREACHED IN THE FEDERAL STREET

MEETINGHOUSE IN BOSTON, SUNDAY, JUNE 8, 1856. BY EZRA S. GANNETT.

Vublsbe’t bo Request BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS, & COMPANY, 111, WASHINGTON

STREET. 1856. k, ON I

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BOSTON: PRINTErD BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 22, SCHOOL STREET.

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DISCOURSE. ISAIAH, LIX. 1, 2. THE LORD’S HAND IS NOT SHORTENED, THAT IT

CANNOT SAVE; NEITHER HIS EAR HEAVY, THAT IT CANNOT HEAR: BUT YOUR

INIQUITIES HAVE SEPARATED BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR GOD. THiERE are times when speech is a duty, and times when silence is a virtue. There are times when, if one gives expression to the feeling with which his heart is burthened, he will be moved to say what his cooler judgment might not approve; and times when the calmest judgment forbids a suppression of the indignant or sorrowful feeling with which the breast labors. When we met here a fortnight ago, I was glad that the solemnities of the approaching iveek suggested a topic which drew our thoughts away from the painful facts of which it might then have been difficult to speak without transgressing the boundaries of Christian discussion. And, on the last Sunday, the associations to which we are accustomed to yield ourselves kept our view fixed on the great

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4 Sufferer. Through these two weeks, the facts to which I allude have lost none of their mournful significance, although the intense feeling which they at first excited may have settled into a more deliberate estimation of their character. It seems to me, that at this moment a voice should come from the sanctuaries of religion, addressing itself to the exigencies of the period. If only political interests were imperilled or involved, the sanctuaries of religion should not be disturbed by the intrusion of themes foreign from the purpose to which they are devoted. But, in the present state of our country, every interest dear to man,- the progress of civilization, the well-being of society, the fundamental principles of righteousness, the vital elements of character, the reality of moral distinctions, the meaning of life; all that the pulpit is erected to explain or enforce; the value of the gospel as a law, and its efficacy as an influence, -all these are brought within the scope of the inquiry now on every one’s lips, What shall be done That question does not simply ask, What shall patriots do? or what shall republicans do? or what shall Americans do? using these, not as party names, but in their better and broader sense. It compels us to consider what Christians should do. And to this inquiry, drawing its proper answer from the Bible and the gospel, I reply, Repent and pray. This is the time to think of God; the time to humble ourselves before Him, for we all need his forgiveness; the time to

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5 seek from Him the wisdom and the help which He alone can give, and without which I see in the future only a history that it makes one sick at heart to regard as even possible. It ought not, perhaps, to surprise us, that, under the exasperation of feeling which no one is ashamed to confess, so little has been said of our dependence on God; a dependence which, as we look backward, must remind us of obligation that no neglect of ours can annul, and, as we look onward, opens to us the only trust to which we can retreat from our fears. Yet is not our perilous condition a result which we have induced? The present is but the maturity of the past; and, if shame and anxiety fill our hearts, while the cloud of the Divine displeasure hangs over our country, it is “our iniquities that have separated between us and our God.” When the apprehension of imminent evils drives us to consider what methods of relief or security we can adopt, shall we rely on human strength, and forget that “the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear “? In all which has proceeded from the tongues or pens of the North within this fortnight, that has come under my eye, I have seen nothing in which I have felt a more hearty concurrence than in what was said by the minister of the Mount Vernon church, on the last Sunday afternoon. If one or another sentence in that discourse might be amended, its purpose and tone claim more than com

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6 mendation,- they invite imitation; and if I can lead you, my friends, to the same exercises of penitence and prayer to which it was his desire to conduct his hearers, I shall speak as I ought at this time. I anticipate the admonition, not to trespass on party ground. The preacher should not lead his congregation through the turbid waters of political strife, it is said: and I both accept and approve the restriction. But is it not one of the most lamentable errors into which a people can fall, that they refuse to take such subjects as demand our present consideration out of the warfare of temporary interests. What! questions that lay hold on the first principles of personal duty and social order; questions that relate to the very existence of liberty, and the preservation of government, - those mutually suggestive ideas and mutually dependent facts; questions that embrace great moral issues; - to be treated as mere portions of party policy, and be dragged from their majestic importance to become the materials out of which ambition shall construct the steps by which it may climb to eminence! No, no! Upon such questions, the people should disown all ties but those which bind them to justice and honor. There should be no consent of a party to the commission of crime, or the perpetration of outrage. Any party should be ashamed of complicity with brutal violence; every man should hasten to disclaim sympathy with an assault on the safeguards of freedom and the rights of

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humanity. We go behind the divisions which preference for this or that man, or this or that measure, creates, to the truths on which the institutions that we all value rest as their only support, when we call upon our hearers to discountenance the substitution of injury for argument, or of brute force for legal restraint. The party spirit which is so rife in this country, and which falls like a mildew on every generous impulse, while it puts fetters on all independent action, stands in the double relation of effect and cause to a yet greater evil under which we suffer; far greater, because it is the most disastrous of all evils, whether for an individual or for a community to cherish. I mean the banishment of moral and religious convictions from practical life. We are not practically a Christian nation, nor even a nation of theists. Though not guilty of an open denial of God, yet, in the primitive sense of the word, as “without God in the world,” we are atheists. While avoiding a direct avowal of infidelity, we treat both Christian rules and Christian sentiments with a neglect that is equivalent to unbelief Especially does this disregards of the considerations by which the mind should be governed appear in our political action. Hiow few bring their decision upon the support they shall give or refuse to a measure of the government, or to a candidate for office, under the light which faith in any thing above or beyond this world would throw upon it! 7

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8 Because the Church neither receives the patronage of the State nor attempts to control the State by any direct action, it seems to be thought that the Church and the State have nothing in common; as if the truths which have built up the one were not the basis of the other. Every question that enters into the history of civil government has a moral and religious side. Does a war with England, or with any country, cast its gigantic shadow over our future prosperity? The statesman or the private citizen, who, in forming his opinion upon the propriety of such a conflict of national forces, leaves out of view the antagonism between war and the spirit of the gospel, omits the most important element of a correct judgment. Is the extension of Slavery beyond the bounds within which its noxious influence is now felt, attempted? That any one may determine upon the right course for him to pursue in reference to this subject, he must take into account the effects of such an institution upon the character alike of the master and of the slave. Are the use of deadly weapons, and a resort to dastardly violence, encouraged by the example of men holding seats in the national Legislature? The morality of the land, surely, is not bound to keep silence, lest it should meddle with matters that do not lie within its province; for what amidst all the forms of human wickedness may be exposed by the religious teacher, if such conduct must pass without his rebuke? Even if it were true that the ordi

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9 nary business of government has no religious connections, whenever selfishness and passion become dominant influences, when the sanctity of law is contemned and the essential rights of freemen are invaded, when rapine and murder are the methods used to adjust political differences, the Christian who does not speak in behalf of righteousness is disloyal to his Master. There are some offences which, as they do not admit of palliation, forbid silence. We may lament the introduction into Congressional debate of a style of personal recrimination as ill suited to any good end, as it is inconsistent with Senatorial dignity; but no discourtesy of the tongue can excuse the arm lifted with a deliberate purpose of vengeance. The want of moral and religious principle in those who are the chosen guardians of the public interests should humble us to the dust; for they represent either the sentiment or the negligence of the people, without whose active or passive consent such men could not have the opportunity of abusing high trusts. The political profligacy of the times falls back upon the people, as the authors of the downward course which we are treading. There is too little fear of God in their hearts, and too little love of righteousness. A nation cannot prosper which denies to moral considerations their proper influence over public affairs. The tendencies which are manifesting themselves among us cannot but be unfavorable to the conti 2

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10 nuance of our free institutions. These institutions are not in themselves immortal, nor inaccessible to harm. They are not made of adamant or granite; their strength lies in the character of the people.

Nothing can endanger their stability more than the indulgence, on the one hand, of ambitious, selfish, and violent tempers within the present boundaries of the republic; or, on the other hand, an enlargement of our territory without regard to the justice of the acquisition or to the previous condition of those whom such enlargement may bring into the Union. An insane passion for unlimited growth is tempting us to place both our external and our internal relations in jeopardy. We are greedy of success, and, if not unscrupulous, are impatient in regard to the means.

We thirst for dominion, and covet the exercise of an influence that may bring us into collision with the Powers of the Old World; instead of enjoying the immunity from European jealousies and conflicts which our situation might afford us. We abound in self-conceit, and claim an admiration to which we show ourselves but poorly entitled. We are growing passionate, turbulent, savage, profane. With all the expense that is lavished on education, and all the benevolent agencies that are established, we are losing refinement of manners, disparaging intellectual culture, fostering habits of extravagance, countenancing luxury and display, and precipitating ourselves upon a change in our moral condition which

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11 must materially affect our political state. Virtue and piety are the defences of popular government. Let them be broken down, and the best constructed sys tem of organized liberty will be precarious. It can last but a little time without justice towards man and faith towards God. One effect of the example which we are now present ing is, to discredit the theory of our institutions abroad. In the Divine providence, the experiment of intrusting a people with the task and risk and glory of selfgovernment was committed to us for the instruction of the world.

Never was such a responsible position held by a people before; never such an opportunity enjoyed of benefiting mankind. Through the years of our weakness and youth, while we fell into some mistakes, we on the whole sustained the burthen, which it was an honor to bear, with dignity and success. Gradually the contempt of the old despotisms was turned into respect or fear, the hopes of those who sighed for emancipation firom tyranny in Europe were inflamed by admiration of our career, the infant republic took its place among the great Powers of the earth; and moderation and discretion alone were needed to have made our history a light that would have guided the Eastern continent into the enjoyment of constitutional liberty, if not of republican government. But with our prosperity we became self-sufficient, immoral, and reckless In the spectacle which our public affairs have offered to

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12 the nations, they have beheld a retrograde civilization. Our boasted superiority is sinking into a fierce lawlessness; our legislation has become unprincipled, our policy grown rapacious; our prominent men distinguish themselves by acts that would be disreputable in private life; the institution which, at the commencement of our Union, though a palpable contradiction of the fundamental principle of our political order, was permitted to remain because its decay was thought to be sure and to be safer than its immediate eradication, has increased in visible magnitude, and still more in secret influence, till it overshadows the whole land; violence stalks through the chambers of the capitol, and civil war is already enkindled on the borders of the republic;- and what must now be the effect of our example abroad, but to fill the hearts of good men with disappointment, and to animate the supporters of monarchical and aristocratical institutions with proud exultation? Why should they not exult’ They see enough to dispel the fears that were once inspired as they looked across the Atlantic, and are waiting for our downfall to read a lesson on the inefficiency of popular government, which centuries may not erase from the memories of men. 0 my country! how unwise, how unfaithful, hast thou been! The effect upon ourselves of our misuse of the position in which we were placed, as a people with whom liberty and law should have been co-ordinate

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13 terms, is seen in the loosened morality which pervades the land. Look into our cities, and you find a luxuriance of vice such as indicates a rich soil left without the care that might have made it productive of the most substantial harvest. From the villages which were once the seats of Puritanic propriety we receive painful intelligence of crime, besides many a tale that marks a want of religious restraint. The great West heaves with its excess of life, suspended as it were between a magnificent destiny and an ignoble materialism. Polygamy has planted its homes in the fertile plains that were an unknown region a few years ago, and Paganism has erected its altars of idolatrous worship on the shores of the Pacific.

Honest and able men prefer the retirement of private life, to an exposure of character and person amidst the vulgar passions that infest the scenes of public duty; and, worse than all, the people are losing their faith in freedom, in goodness, and in God. Life is becoming a scramble for outward success; politics are given over to unworthy management; and, unless some check be provided, the future pages of our history will describe the decadence and fall of the noblest structure ever raised by human hands. In this picture of national disaster, one circumstance is especially suited to create gloomy apprehension. The country is divided on a question of sectional interest. In former times, the division has been kept more or less clear of this fearful issue. Now it is

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14 brought to a direct struggle between the North and the South. One or the other must yield. Each says it has made all the concession it will make; each speaks of the injustice it has received in the past, and spreads its angry menace over the future. I am not now considering which of these antagonists has right or strength on its side. Each believes it has both strength and right. What, to human view, must follow but open contention,- the arbitrament of the battle-field? I know that it is common at the North to deride the threats of the South, as an attempt at intimidation, which will be relinquished the moment it shall fail of its purpose. But they who reason in this manner forget that pride and passion do not take counsel of sound judgment. The South will not pause to calculate consequences. When what it calls its honor is assailed, and what it holds to be its chief interest is endangered, it will prefer defeat to submission. The history of the world has been written in vain, if it do not teach us that men will fight rather than yield, though the chances of success be all against them. The temper of the South is desperate, as well as arrogant. The leaders of opinion there may be few, but determination does not wait to count numbers. What, then, is before us? Perhaps a civil war, the first spark of which, struck in a territory but yesterday unsettled, may wrap the whole country in its fiery surges. Are we prepared for this? Some there

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15 are who answer, Yes, let it come; and others who say, It never will come. To the latter I reply, Your confidence may be misplaced; and to the former, Your decision betrays more of impetuosity than of thoughtfulness.

Have you remembered how much war always causes of suffering and sin Have you considered that no war is so internecine, because no hatred is so intense, as that in which former friends are arrayed as enemies Have you anticipated the miseries that must ensue, for years and years, when fraternal relations shall have been converted, by an enforced peace, into smothered but burning desires for revenge? Have you brought before your imagination the world’s discouragement, when this fair heritage of constitutional freedom shall have been drenched in fratricidal blood?

“Bombastic extravagance,” may be the only reply that some persons will give. Not so, my friends. Not a word in the sentences I have just spoken goes beyond the inevitable truth. I ask the Christian to ponder well his meaning, when he talks of bloodshed as if it were but a display of military lines on our Common. War is the last resort of civilized man, if it should ever be the means adopted by a Christian people for the maintenance of their rights. I do not say, that, in the final extremity, whether for an individual, or a nation, or the oppressed part of a nation, selfdefence, though through blood, is not a duty; but it then derives its justification from the irresistible instincts of our nature. The bold talk

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16 about fighting before the awful necessity comes, and thousands of miles from the scene of peril, has a very different sound from that voice which speaks only in the last emergency. I read with sadness the language of Christian men and Christian ministers, whose brave words, if they be well considered, are bloody words. To me, the musket and the Bible do not seem twin implements of civilization. With or without war, the tempers which now present their hostile fronts to each other may, and if not in some way or other appeased must, sunder the Union. Well, say many who a few years ago would not even listen to a suggestion so painful, that is not the greatest of evils. I admit it is not. I admit that we may be driven to this as the part of the alternative, which alone we can take and keep clear consciences before God and man. But I do affirm, - and every one who thinks soberly will agree with me,that this will be a lamentable conclusion of a history, the first chapter of which is bright with the names of Washington and his compeers. The dissolution of this Union of States may not be the greatest of evils, but is it not next to the greatest. Is it not an evil which we should deprecate, and to prevent which we should be ready to sacrifice every thing but truth and right? I cannot think of such a termination of American freedom without tears that the heart weeps, if they do not flow down the cheeks. It is easy to flout at such emotion, and easier still, but not

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1, more kind nor more honorable, to represent such feeling as sympathy with the slaveholder; but no wish to avoid misrepresentation so gratuitous and unjust shall deter me from confessing, that I can con template the overthrow of this Union only with fear and grief. Let the alternative involved in the rela tions of Slavery to the Union be brought before me under circumstances which compel me, if I cling to the one, to encourage the other, and I shall know that God has called me to the sad duty of helping to destroy the citadel of the world’s hope. But, till I see that duty too plain to be mistaken, I will pray that it may not be made the test of my submission to a solemn and dark Providence. Shall we, then, give way to despair, or indolently wait for the Divine will to be unfolded in events whose purpose we cannot misapprehend? No. That is not the counsel of a believing or a patriotic heart, of one who loves freedom, or whose ” hope is in the Lord.” Never may we despair, when the great interests of humanity are at stake; never doubt that a way will be opened for the success of just principles and the preservation of good institutions. Be watchful to detect the first sign of duty, and ready to obey the first call to action that shall come from a higher wisdom than that of man. Be patient till the hour comes; be prompt when it comes; be firm while it lasts. It has come, I am told. I know not but it has. I 3 a -1 -

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18 do believe that we are in a more critical situation than ever before since our present form of government was inaugurated. But I think, that if the hour of final decision had come, we should see, more clearly than we now see, what we must do. The country is agitated, perplexed, distressed.

At such a time, our trust must be, not in man, but in God; the light that shall illuminate our path must be sent from Above. This is the time for humble and penitent thought, for deep searching of the spirit within us rather than for passionate declamation, for earnest calmness rather than for superficial vehemence. Never was there a time when self-control was more important, difficult though it be; never a time, when one should be more studious that his speech be just as well as frank. This is no time for fraudulent words, and no time for rash acts. If in a single sentence now uttered I have departed from the gravity of a most momentous theme, I have been false to my purpose. I have wished, my friends, to show you the urgency of the requisition, which, in view of the fearful possibilities with which we are encompassed, enjoins upon us serious and deliberate preparation for whatever a day or a year may bring forth. Let every one be in earnest, and let every one feel the solemnity of the period. God grant that when our injured Senator shall return to the seat whence he was stricken down by a cowardly blow, and the country shall wait in eager solicitude for his vindication of the rights of free speech

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19 and the privileges of Congressional debate, while by his manly eloquence he shall awaken shame and remorse in hearts that need to feel such pangs, he may say nothing which the severest wisdom shall not approve! God grant that the persecuted citizens of Kansas may not forget, that, if selfdefence be a law of nature, retaliation is a breach of the gospel! God give us all, the discernment and the determination which the exigency demands! God give them to us, I say; for from Him alone can we receive the light or the support which we need. To Him must we look. His “arm is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.” Human counsel at a time like this is insufficient. It is poor and impotent. To God must we turn, in sorrow and in faith; to the God of our fathers, to Him who has been our God through all the past, to Him who will never leave us without assistance if we ask for it. He may have permitted us to be surrounded by these anxieties, that we might feel our helplessness and turn to Him. This is the time for lowly and importunate prayer. Better than the crowded hall is the closet of secret supplication; wiser than the noisy assembly, the devout congregation. There need not be less of bravery because there is more of piety, less of righteous indignation because there is more of humble confession, nor less love of freedom because there is more reliance on God. Prayer should be on all our lips, and in all our

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20 hearts. There should be personal intercession and united petition. We should pray for our rulers, for our legislators, for our fellowcitizens, for ourselves. We should cast our country upon the Divine care, which will not refuse to accept the burthen. O my God! guide us, help us, save us, for the sake of that loving-kindness which Thou didst show to our fathers, and for the sake of that compassion which Thou hast for all thy creatures.

Forgive the sins which we have committed, and grant us true repentance.

Dispel the darkness that overhangs, and remove the fears that beset us.

Allay the jealousies and subdue the animosities that separate us from Thee, as well as from one another. Let fireedom and peace and union be the watchwords of the whole land, while the people shall walk together in the obedience of thy commandments and under the protection of thy holy name.

Hear this our prayer, for thy great mercy’s sake! Amen.

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4 A DISCOURSE OCCASIONED BY THE PRESENT CRISIS. PREACHED AT WAYLAND, MASS., SUNDAY, JUNE 15, 1856. BY EDMUND H. SEARS. J BOSTON: CROSBY, NICHOLS & COMPANY, 111 WASHINGTON STREET. EBENEZER CLAPP, Jun. 184

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DISCOURSE. “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.“I-LIuKE 19: 42. THERE is a national as well as an individual retribution. But there is this difference. Individuals live on after death. Nations as such do not. Consequently individual retribution may not be consummated here. National retribution always is. National sin receives its terrible avengement in time; and a nation, no more than an individual, can escape the law by which it comes. It is the old lesson which history is ever preaching to us anew -” Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the reproach of a people,” and persevered in is inevitable ruin. It is not very often that I think it worth while to turn aside from the ordinary topics of this place and hour. My aim generally is to unfold the central truths of the gospel so as to bring us individually to bow before them and feel their power. But I do not forget that we are citi zens, and have duties to the times and the country we live in, and that the gospel should sometimes have a wider application to the sins of the times, and these times in particular. ” Vice prevails, and impious men bear sway.” The recent outrages which so shock the sensibilities of all good men, demand something more than a temporary burst of passion. They demand calm thought, settled purpose, and earnest effort in the broadest light of the religion we profess. It is hardly necessary to denounce from this place the attempted assassination at the capital, nor the crimes and rob beries, protected by government, on our western borders. But it does become us to inquire, of what are these the omens? and what do they demand of us? and, why have we come to this? In a country like ours every individual is not only concerned for national sin, but, in some mea sure, is responsible therefor. Let us dwell then, with subdued emotion, upon the state of the times, and the duties that grow out of them. They are times of great wickedness, portending signal retributions. What do we mean by national sin and national retribution? What is the present crisis, and how has it come upon us? And, What are the duties of the hour? 1. We do not mean by national sins, or public crimes, all the sins which are committed in a commonwealth. There is a vast amount of crime within every state, for which the state itself is in no wise responsi ble. I do not know how many assaults and felonies, how much of

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4 violence and tumult, how much of more subtle and secret sin, in the shape of lust, of fraud, and of falsehood, are committed in our own state, from year to year. The court calenders would show them to be very great, and yet the court calenders do not disclose one-fourth part of the real amount. But these do not become the crimes of the state till they are put into the shape of state enactments, and made the state policy and state action. Before that, they are committed against the state, and against the law. The law is the public judgment against them, and government is exercised to discourage and repress them, and banish them clean away, if it be possible. The state itself may be yet righteous, and the collective man stand before God as obedient to his law, and the minister of his will.

Man does wrong to his brother every day and every where, but gener ally against law and beneath the inflictions of its judgments. But when vice has so spread its leprosy through the common mind and heart, as to pass into public law and public policy, the state itself becomes the criminal.

When the wrong passes into legislation, and goes out into deed through the executive, the commonwealth stands forth as a culprit before God. The collective man is a pirate and a robber. It is an organism of wrong; and though there be ten righteous men in it, or ten thousand, these will not save it. It has become like Sodom, and continuing such, the lake of Sodom will settle over it at last. When wrong has become so organized as to make the state its permanent body, controlling its functions, and wielding its public men to do its bidding, the commonwealth is an embodied diabolism; humanity dies out of it, and demonism becomes its life and soul. Then comes national retribution, sometimes slow, but always sure. It comes in the shape of those sudden and eruptive changes, which involve terrible sufferings in private life. Change! That is the word which perplexes monarchs, and all else who cling to organized wrong. But there are two kinds of change. One gentle, gradual, progressive, which does not destroy the body, but renews its vigor, like the change from sickness to health, like the changes of spring time, like the change from night to morning, like the changes which Christ would have produced in the Jewish state, if the priests and rulers would have yielded to his persuasions. This is when the wrong yields pliantly to the truth; and so the state, like the individual, grows into a more perfect form of humanity. It is otherwise when unrighteousness and wickedness have become its fixed policy, its possessing spirit. Change then must rend and destroy ‘the body, before right and truth can be set free. Men may cry peace and union. There is no peace and no union where demonism possesses the public body and controls its functions. “If thou hadst known in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes.” “Thine enemies shall not leave in thee one stone upon another -because thou knewest not the day of thy visitation.”

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5 ” Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee -how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but ye would not.” To a nation that has become the fixed organism of wickedness, change comes not as reform, but in the awful shape of revolution; when chasms yawn everywhere; brother is set against brother; the business of life is at an end; the human heart runs gall; and no man knows but the ground will open under his feet the next moment. Such is sin when it becomes national; such its final and inevitable consummation. Men will not believe it, but keep crying peace and safety, though the shores of time are covered with the wrecks of nations that went down because they would not believe it. 2. We will now apply these principles to the present crisis. Every one who was not willing to be deceived by mere shows and expedients, may have seen for the last twenty years that a crisis was coming upon the country, as sure as the tread of doom. The nation is yet young - only seventy years old. It emerged from the throes of revolution with a fair and a glorious promise; for it left old errors and abuses behind, and embodied in its form of government the principles of liberty and justice. It is true that human slavery existed in most of the states at the close of the revolution, - in Massachusetts among the rest. But it was not recognized as a thing to be encouraged and adopted, and taken up into the new form of government. It was recognized only as a thing to be discouraged and denationalized, and finally to pass quietly out of existence as a relic of medieval darkness and barbarism. It did so pass away from state after state, and the constitution of the United States was so carefully framed as not to recognize it in terms, so that it might die out, while the frame of government remained the same. During the first proud years of the republic, it existed only as a sectional institution, understood then to be on the wane, while the powers of the national government were wielded on the side of liberty and right. Such was the first age of the republic, when Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Pinckney, Henry, and Madison, avowed themselves antislavery men; and they thought they had established not a slave, but a free republic. Slavery existed only as a state institution, under municipal and not national law. But from this local and disfranchised position it crept up towards the seat of power. I will not trace its encroachments step by step, which must be familiar to your minds. It soon entered the courts, and perverted the judgments of the bench. It grew bold, and clamored and threatened, and won from the North the Missouri Compromise, the first open parley with sin. It brought new slave states into the union. It made northern men its tools, and stifled debate by the famous twenty-first rule. It struck down the right of petition, and when John Quincy Adams

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6 defended that right, it set upon him with dirks and revolvers. It wrested Texas from Mexico. It was “the robbery of a realm.” It brought the plundered territory into the union, and turned a free province into slave soil. The more it was gorged with plunder, the more hungry it grew. It filled nearly all the seats of power, from the White House to the post office, and turned the patronage of government into a stupendous system of bribery to northern virtue. It still looked southward with a hungry eye.

Secretly it invaded Mexico, with pillage and robbery, and then exclaimed “

See! Mexico is making war upon us.” It made all but fourteen men in the House of Representatives vote the brazen falsehood. It controlled all the resources of the country to wage that unrighteous war, and despoiled Mexico of her richest provinces, in order to make more room for slavery.

It passed the fugitive slave bill, which completes the work of making all the northern states hunting ground for slaves, and northern men hunters, under pains and penalties,- which throws down the old safeguards of personal liberty, and drags men into bondage without a jury trial, or without any trial at all, except before creatures of its own appointment.

It comes snuffing along its bloody trail across your very fields and around your very homes, and calls upon you to join in the chase. Having got all it wants from the Missouri Compromise, it breaks the compromise, throws it to the winds, and opens all the new territories to slavery.

Having debauched and broken down the northern virtue by the compromise measures, the way was clear, and the monster iniquity comes in. Kansas and Nebraska are the vast central region of North America, of boundless fertility, as if the valley of the Nile had been reproduced on the banks of our western rivers. There northern enterprise, in advance of the slavepower, as it always is in a fair field, had gone with the peaceful arts of industry; with its churches and schools, its saw mills and free labor; and a free state was rapidly rising, and covering the most lovely region of the world with the trophies of peaceful industry. Slavery watches the experiment from afar, much as the devil watched the first experiment in Paradise. It invades the territory on election days. It marches in armed men from a neighboring state, drives the citizens from the ballot-box with dirks and revolvers, puts in its own creatures, and imposes upon the new state the bloody code of servitude. The slavepower uses the President, and, through him, the military, to force slavery upon a free people at the point of the bayonet. The government joins hands with robbers and ruffians; it leads them on; it disarms the citizens, and arms the banditti; it gives up peaceful towns to be sacked, plundered and burnt; and the peaceful citizens to be murdered, sometimes in sight of their wives and children. You must go back to the invasion of the Netherlands by the Spaniards, if you would get a parallel to this crimson atrocity, this blackness relieved only by gouts of blood.

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7 The next step in this drama was not only natural but necessary. Deeds so black as these, or rather, so red, will not bear the siftings of free debate. There are men in Congress who hold them up to the light, and denounce them. One man, from Massachusetts, distinguished in both hemispheres for eloquence and scholarship, in whom the old spirit of liberty was yet burning bright and clear, laid open the iniquity in language which was severe only because it was true. It becomes necessary that such men should be silenced; and when violence and ruffianism have been abetted by those in the highest places, its spirit goes by natural ten dency into all their creatures and underlings. When Philip II. could not conquer the Prince of Orange in the field, he offered a reward for his assassination. Hle found a creature to do it, who crept into the family of the prince, and put a bullet through his heart; and the heirs of the assassin were pensioned for the deed. The slave despotism finds a crea ture fit for its work; and he creeps upon his victim unawares, and strikes him down with a bludgeon, in the senate chamber. If this were all, the deed would be less significant. Personal violence is not so rare a thing at the capital as to overcome us with a special wonder. But events prove that the assassin is only the agent of the same power that wields the President, and sacks the villages of Kansas. It takes up his cause, applauds and honors him, votes against investigation, fills the halls of Congress with armed men, and the streets and public houses with bullies.

The seat of government becomes the reign of violence, and northern men must utter northern opinions, if at all, with bated breath, and under the fear of bludgeons and pistols. So it is that a most malignant demonism has crept slowly into the places of power, till it possesses the organization of the government, its executive, most of the time its houses of legislation, its armies, its revenues, its vast system of offices that ramifies into every town and village. It injects its poison through all the veins of the republic, making the government pliant to its will, and diffusing barbarism and ruffianism under the forms of law, when it can, and in defiance of all law when it cannot. Crime has ceased to be individual; it clothes itself ig nationality. The nation itself becomes the robber, the assassin, the kidnapper, the incendiary, - a vast propaganda of guilt and crime, whose hands do, reek with blood. But we have not seen the last of this encroaching and wide-spreading barbarism.

These are only the first acts of a great tragedy. The future which the slave despotism has outlined for itself, is as clearly discernable as the shadow of the dial on the plate. Kansas being subjugated, slavery is to be forced upon those young territories, and spread its black shadow over that vast and lovely region till it touches the Rocky Mountains. If you will cast your eye upon the map, you can easily measure the dimensions of the great question now pressing upon every citizen through

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8 out the country. Just take a pencil, and, beginning on the Missouri boundary, describe a line that shall include the disputed territory of Kansas. It is so large that you could put from twelve to fifteen states like Massachusetts right into it. It is threaded by noble rivers, rolling through vast valleys of rich virgin soil, which nothing but slave cultivation can ever impoverish. Fremont, who passed through it in 1842, describes it as an immense agricultural region, of undefinable resources.

The Rocky Mountains rise up on the western limit, as the condensers of the moisture and the coolers of the atmosphere, but the middle and eastern portion enjoys a mild climate, and has golden weather a month at a time.

You have been told that it is too far north for slave cultivation. Just run your eye along the map, and you will see that it lies in the latitude of no less than five slave states, in which we never yet heard that planters or negroes were in danger of freezing out. You will see, moreover, that it lies in the heart of the continent, and that its future will exert a shaping influence over the great valley of the Mississippi.

You see that if slave institutions are established there, so they will be in New Mexico, in Northern Texas, probably in Utah, and that thence slavery will push out for the Pacific coast. On the other hand, if free institutions are established there, they will cut off slavery from the Pacific, will extend probably to New Mexico and Utah, and even to Missouri. This great region was pledged to freedom by the Missouri Compromise, and it becomes obvious why slavery in its dark counsels saw that that bond must be broken, and why, when freedom had gone thither and preoccupied the soil, it must be driven out, or extinguished in its own blood. Slavery means to fill this region, and control what is to be the great thoroughfare of the country, and the key to the whole future of the west. Such is the act of this momentous drama now enacting before our eyes. What will be the next? New provinces are to be wrested from Mexico, and carved into slave states, as fast as the freebooters can get leisure to do it. They are working and plotting at that business now. Then Cuba is to be brought into the union as a slave state, either by purchase or by another predatory war. What then? With this overwhelming preponderance of power on the part of the slave despotism, do you think it will be safe any longer to question it, or debate its measures? The right of free speech will be struck down, and the reign of terror at the capitol become permanent and complete. Congress will become what the parliaments were to Henry VIII. Its chief business will be to register the rescripts of tyranny. The man who protests against it with point and energy, shall be silenced with an office or with a club. What next? The free states shall be opened to the ingress of slavery. By some fit supplement to the fugitive slave bill, or by judicial decisions already preparing, which shall render such supplement unnecessary, any

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9 one who pleases may bring slaves into the free states and keep them and employ them there at will, and so the distinction between slave and free states will become merely nominal. That decision once published, slave coffles may be driven any where over free soil, and slave houses estab lished in any of your ports, under the flag of the union, and under the protection of the whole naval and military power. One great central power is to override state sovereignty, and swallow it up, and thus the nation be turned into a black republic, wielding all its forces for the pro tection and spread of human bondage. And what will be the next step? It is already announced and demanded. The slave trade shall be opened again, and legalized. The new territories will create an immense slave market, which the slave-breeding states cannot supply. Under the specious doctrine of free trade for all that the constitution recognizes as property, all restrictions shall be taken off from trade in man, and the slave-ship may come from Africa again, with its human cargo, not under the black flag, but under the star spangled banner, which has become black enough for all purposes. This outline has been marked out in the counsels of the slave despot ism, and unless signally arrested, we shall see it filling up stage after stage, by a succession of strokes, at the boldness of which thie northern sen timent ceases to be shocked with wonderment. Talk of it as a question between the north and the south! It is no such thing. It is a question between civilization and barbarism; between Christianity and heathendom; between light and darkness; between heaven and hell, incarnating themselves on the earth. It is whether the ages shall roll back again, and ‘brute force reign in the place of moral power, and the government of a free people be changed to an oligarchy of tyrants. That is the question, and that is the crisis to which we have come at last. The moral question of slavery has been argued mainly as it affects the rights of the negro. I submit to you that that is not just now the paramount issue. The most important question is not how it affects black men, but how it affects white men. In regard to white men, there are two types of character which it stamps indelibly on all it touches. One is ferocity, the other servility. To possess irresponsible power, and wield it from generation to generation, will quicken in any race of men the love of rule, till it becomes unscrupulous, insatiable and cruel. Like the snake which the Fury shook into the bosom of the Latian mother, it skims unseen over the whole man, instils its poison through the blood, and turns all its currents into madness. It brooks no opposition. It perverts the reason and demonizes the manners. But this is not all. It makes its tools more despicable than itself. Woe to him who has once yielded himself to go upon its errands! All the pith of virtue is taken out of him. He becomes like those who were supposed to have signed,their names in the devil’s book.

His individualism is lost. His free agency is lost. 2

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10 His opinions are not his own. His soul is not his own. He is flexible as a rag in the hands of another. Slavery tends inevitably to separate men into these two classes of lords and menials. In this way it does as much evil north as it does south. It touches parties with its torpedo-strokes, and the shock runs through the whole north, and the moral sentiment is benumbed. It speaks, and the parties face about at its word. It touches the pulpit, and the priest preaches atheism, and reads the ten commandments backward. It touches the bench, and the judge becomes its oracle. He packs the jury-box, and overrules principles of law which five generations had bled to establish. Since the black centralism at the capital has thrown its coils around the free states, it is remarkable to observe how the whole tone of moral character at the north has been sinking downward and downward. The style of conversation in society is apologetic and sometimes atheistical, and the utterance of a fresh moral sentiment disturbs its dead atmosphere like a flash of lightning. Such is the question-barbarism or civilization. Slavery waxing and freedom waning, or the reverse. Slavery, with education and a corrupted Christianity for a few, and gross ignorance and brutality for the many; creeping up the rivers and over the prairies, southward over the plateaus of Mexico, and northward into the free states, and up to the Canada line; changing the republic into an oligarchy, degrading labor, taking virtue out of manhood, crushing free debate with daggers, clubs and constructive treasons, till “Light dies before its unereating word.” Or freedom, with free schools, its system of universal education and universal toleration; labor, with the spring of freedom in its sinews and the nobility of manhood on its brow; Christianity, full-orbed and complete, spreading westward and dotting the wilderness with light, spreading southward and girdling the darkness with civilization. These are the two things that are now in conflict. One must wane before the other; and the American government is to be turned into a stupendous agency for extending one or the other over the western continent. It is a question which is quickly to be decided. It hinges on the hour; and if you look down the long future, you will see myriads of agonized faces looking out to see what the decision shall be. 3. THE DUTIES OF THE HOUR. If only we knew the things which belong unto our peace, from what woes and calamities would the knowledge save us! But individuals and communities alike fall into the error of believing there can be peace without purity. The individual thinks he can retain his evils, instead of plucking them out and casting them away, and so he carries them along with him into his enjoyments. But they grow and fester and spread disease, and overpower him and destroy him in the end. So it is with the common

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11 wealth. It is the policy of shallow statesmanship, not to reform iniquity but to compromise with it for present convenience, not knowing that it belongs to the very nature of evil to feed on compromises till it gets strong enough to go without them. What are the duties of the hour?

becomes a question of overwhelming importance to every practical and honest man. It ceases to be a question of mere ” politics,” which we can put by or not, according to our taste. It is a paramount question, in which religion, morals, education, civiliza tion, Christianity itself, yea, personal safety, are all involved. Its gran deur and solemnity should absorb the interest of every man, woman and child, for they are concerned in it beyond all matters of worldly expe diency. It concerns the ministry of religion, for it becomes a question whether there shall be any religion left which is worth preaching, and which has not been eviscerated of its vital principles, and accommodated to the corruptions of the day. Out of the present crisis there are two paths that open before us,-and only two.

One is through violence and revolution. When the public organism has become possessed with the spirit of evil, and is used chiefly for its work, the last remedy is to break it in pieces, and let right and justice go free. It is a terrible remedy! but if there is no other, it comes to that in the end. It may not come now; but if things must go on it will come inevitably before the slave-despotism has filled up its pro gramme and finished its horrible drama. The state has no such violent agitators as those who attempt to enforce peace and order by crushing down the moral and religious sentiments of a people. That the civilization of the western continent is to go down, or glimmer feebly as the outside border of a malignant and centralized barbarism, is not for a moment to be believed.

It cannot be in the plan of Providence. Two considerations show you it is not. Look at the elements which make up this confederacy. The north has a very large infusion of the Anglo-Saxon element, and this has been the element of liberty both in the old world and the new. The present is the old conflict rwiewed between the Cavalier and the Puritan,- one fiery and domineering, the other patient, sometimes mercenary, but fertile in expedients, and most-to be feared when conquered. To suppose that this expanse of free states, a development out of Puritan labors and institutions, and in which the Puritan spirit is not dead but only sleeps, covering a region which belts the continent from ocean to ocean, sometimes through ten degrees of latitude, is to be subjugated and finally absorbed into a centralized and brute despotism, would belie the whole Anglo-Saxon history, from the days of Alfred. The Cavalier spirit here in the United States has already produced its Stuart, its Strafford, its Buckinghams, and its Jeffreys. If they push the plan far enough of intimidating the parliaments and sending a bloody assize over the country, they will undoubtedly raise up from the Puritan element a Milton, a Pym, a Hampden and a Cromwell. We

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12 may deprecate the issue. It leads us to a chasm which no man can look into without a shudder. But it will be too late then to betake ourselves to Union-saving. That work will have passed out of the hands of the politicians. When human nature itself rebounds after a long and a painful tension, a spirit not of man is let loose and sweeps through it, and the individual must bend before it like reeds that shake in the whirlwind.

There is another view which leads us to believe that the remedy must come by revolution, unless we provide a better one. It is not very likely that God will throw away three hundred years of history. It is not likely that a resurgent barbarism will bear us all back to the middle ages. But it comes to that, if this encroaching and brutal oligarchy is to be fixed finally upon our necks, and freedom, and light, and education, and thriving industry, and art, and letters, and science, and invention, and Christianity itself, must go down before it, or pale away as the mere fringe on its border. It does not follow, however, because God will save us from that destiny, that he will do it without judgments and calamities.

Reform is the work of man, when there is virtue enough in a people to yield to that change, which is peaceful progress. Revolution is God’s remedy, when a people are past reformation and need punishments. It is the cup of the Divine anger. National retribution must follow national crime persevered in and unrepented of. And it may be as a reward for all our servility and all our compromises with wrong; because we have joined hands with oppression; because we have set the commands of kidnappers above the great law of Jehovah; because we have hunted the poor man and the unprotected woman through our streets and fields; because we have removed landmarks and plundered our neighbor, and imbrued our hands in his blood; because we have put wicked men into high places, to promote selfish interests, sacrificing justice to trade and humanity to commerce;- it may be that for all this Providence is bringing us into a condition from which we shall not emerge except through terrible judgments; that our exodus, “Li k e Israel’ s of y ore, Through a Red Sea is doomed to be, whose surges are of gore.” Twenty years ago - yes, ten - the despotism that is submerging us might have been turned back upon itself, if northern men would have put God-worship above man-worship, humanity above party, and the Bible above the ledger. But every time we have dallied with the slavepower we have sown the wind, and it becomes more certain every year that we shall reap the whirlwind. I do not doubt the result. If, in the rhetoric of a distinguished statesman, “the constellation under which we have risen to so much glory and renown” should be broken up, it would not “sink, star after star, into obscurity and night.” It would recombine with better affinities, and shine with a sweeter omen on the traveller, but after how much of fratricide, and suffering, and hatred, and desolation, no tongue can tell.

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13 But there is another path that opens to us out of this encroaching tyranny. It is a peaceful one, if only we have the grace to choose it and walk in it. The right of suffrage is yet left us, and the peerage of the bludgeon is not finally established. But what is to be done? Let us look at the state of things among us a little more nearly if we would learn what are the duties of the hour. It may seem strange to some that there is so much talk at the north in favor of public justice, that results in nothing; that every bold stroke which slavery makes towards absolutism is followed by a cheap utterance of indig nant protests that finally die away like an empty sound. The feeling which the late and the passing outrages excites in all honest minds, will perhaps die away with the words and paper resolves that have given it utterance, until a fresh and a darker outrage excites it again. But look for a moment at the elements which compose us as a people and a nation, and we shall see how this is so. With the exception of the papacy, there never was a more cunningly devised system than this American oligarchy, to bend the human will to its measures and purposes. There are in the United States about 350,000
slaveholders. It is this comparatively small number that “keeps this dreadful pother o’er our heads.” It is this comparatively small number that rules the other twentyfive millions, and uses the national organism for all this gigantic wickedness. How does it manage to do this? These 350,000 men are the owners of three millions of slaves; and with these they have the capital, the influence and the political power in the slave communities. Then there are four millions of white population in the slave states, who are not slaveholders, and whose interests are averse to the institution. But they are comparatively poor and uneducated, without rank, without influence, sometimes brutalized and depraved, always in a state of vassalage to the slave-aristocracies. Where slavery is, there can be no system of popular instruction, and so this mass of poverty and ignorance is chained to the slave system as its degrading appendage, just as the peasantries were to the feudalism of past ages. It occupies the back country in the slave states, spreads over the sand hills and more barren regions, while slavery holds the rich plains and commercial cities; so that slavery in its own territory is a minority, but holds the majority in vassalage. Then there are fifteen millions of northern freemen, swelling the revenues of the country by their productive industry. You would suppose that these should be of some account in shaping the destinies of the republic; but the slave oligarchy makes them subservient to its interests, and even the tools of its wickedness. This it does in two ways.

First, through the relations of trade. The commerce between the north and the south is extensive and lucrative. Slavery is an immense consumer, and draws largely upon northern industry. But this internal trade is conditioned on the fact that the merchant shall be pliant and managable on the matter of slavery. The slave-despotism, too, threatens I

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14 the union, and keeps a vague fear always hanging over the mercantile interests, which would be brought first into peril. The coinmnercial class complies with the conditions, and very naturally follows the bent of its peculiar interests. The merchant has wealth, and along with it he has social rank and influence. He forms the society of the metropolis, and gives it tone. The town imitates the metropolis, and the village imitates the town,- and hence the style of sentiment that runs down society from top to bottom. Capital, with its concomitants, gives tone to metropol itan respectability, and makes abject sentiments appear in the daily talk of fops and the gentilities of either sex. The smaller fops and the gen tilities next lower down take up the tone and imitate it, and so the style of servility, like a French fashion, goes down through the imitative classes, and the utterence of the fresh and wholesome truths of liberty and righteousness becomes eccentric and strange. The commercial interest, again, does the great business of the country. It fees the ablest counsel.

It builds the most splendid churches, and pays the salaries. Thus the tone of the professions becomes degraded also, and their influence, to a considerable extent, goes over to the MIoloch of slavery. Thus it is that strangers from the limited monarchies of the old world are amazed to find in a firee republic the same stifling atmosphere that lies on the plains of Russia and Turkey. The slave-despotism has another hold upon these fifteen millions through the relations of political interest. The north splits into parties, and the slave-despotism comes in and holds the balance between them. It says which shall go up and which shall go down; but it first touches them with bribes, and draws all the pith and nerve out of them, till they bend like an osier in its hands. Like the daughters of Lear, it makes them vie with each other in glozing professions and falsehoods, and the one most thoroughly demoralized it takes into special favor, and shares with it the emoluments of place and the patronage of power. The patronage is doled out on this one condition, that the recipient shall be dumb as to liberty, but available for all the purposes of slavery. So it is, that fifteen millions of white people in the north, and four millions more’at the south, making nineteen millions in all, become subsidized to this overshadowing oligarchy that ramifies through all the free states and makes them drink the cup of her accursed sorceries. So it is that the voice of freedom that once swept the northern hills like a blast, sinks away to the dying zephyr of a summer’s eve. We see a centralized despotism shutting down over us like a cover, and we are powerless as a man in a nightmare, and cannot lift a finger to stay it. We see our own emigrants, the kith and kin of New Eingland, because they hold the sentiments of the pilgrims, plundered and murdered by legalized robbers, and our hands are tied that we cannot stir. Our representatives are threatened by bullies, and our senator knocked down in his place, and enough northern presses are found to apologize, and Massachusetts men give the assassin the hand of fellowship.

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15 Fit fellowship it is! Ferocity and servility mess together. One eats the bread and the other licks up the crumbs! The duties of the hour become obvious enough. There is an immediate duty which we owe to those who have gone from us, and who, with infinite peril, are bearing up the standard of freedom and civilization in Kansas. They are not waging, their own warfare. That is the spot where the decisive conflict is going on, and freedom and civilization, in the persons of these outraged and injured people, should be sustained by the aid, the sympa thy, and the prayers of every friend of religion and humanity. They are suffering for you and your children quite as much as for themselves. Through their labors and sufferings the glorious future may be formed, under Him who shapes that future, by the martyrs of the present hour. Living or dying they must succeed, and their noble deeds go down to posterity to inspire its heroic songs! We have moral and religious duties. There is no peace for the country, no safety for northern institutions, no safety for us and our children, no security for the civilization of the age, until slavery is dislodged from the national organism, and reduced to its first subordinate and local position; until the government of the country is wielded for liberty, righteousness and civilization, and not for oppression, unrighteousness and barbarism. And this cannot be done until the tone of virtue and moral sentiment here at the north be brought up to its ancient manliness and glory. The ancestral spirit ought to breathe through us again, if we would not have it shake the bones of the fathers under the ground we tread on. The pilgrim ghosts that throng the air, and whose bones are strewn over all our hills and valleys, ought to inspire us with ancient and heroic virtues. Let us repudiate the doctrine, that our duty to the country we live in, and which we ought to love, requires of us to cloak its sins and glorify its crimes. He is no true friend to the peace of the country who does not expose faithfully the great evil that infests her. They are the worst of agitators who endeavor to hide the ruin that is working destruction, and is sure to break forth every year with a new desolation. Every day goes to demonstrate the folly and the impotence of your merely worldly-wise statesmen, end to show that truth and justice are the most conservative of all principles of action. The time has come, or is fast coming, when a faithful exposure of the nature and tendencies of the slavepower, would appeal to the very instinct of self-preservation and selfinterest to mnen of common intelligence, as it certainly does to every sentiment of brotherhood anmong the followers of Christ-to all who desire to see Christianity go forth on her western mission, uncrippled of her power and unshorn of her glories. It is moral opinion, freely uttered, that rules the world. Let it break forth again with its ancienlt tone in social life and in public, in the street, in the field, in the shop, in the pulpit, in the forum, in the church, and in the state -and the northern air would be cleared of the miasma that has loaded it, and become keen and bracing as when it swept the Mayflower into Plymouth bay.

Servility and venality could not breathe in it and

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16 live. Taken once more into the lungs of fifteen millions of free people, how long could 350,000 men subsidize them to the propaganda of barbarism? Is there a conservative man who fears damage to his business or his investments? Let him watch the steps of revolution, and provide against it in time. Is there a man of peace, who dreads the horrors of civil strife? Let him not rest till the cause of strife is removed clean out of the way. Is there a firiend of virtue, who would not see it tamed down and blighted, and all majesty and nerve taken out of it? Let him oppose its most pervading and subtle tempter. Is there a friend of education, who would see its blessings pervade and elevate the masses? Let him remember that where slavery goes, popular education cannot, either for white men or black. Is there a Christian man, who hears the admonition “

Inasmuch as ye did it not to the least of these, ye did it not to me?” Let him see in the future the imploring millions who ask to be saved from being driven by the whip to toil. Is there a friend of law, who desires a government of law, and not one of mobs, and lynch-fires, and daggers, and bludgeons? Let him remember that the power which possesses the government with the spirit of ruffianism is the same that spreads ruffianism through the streets, the coffee-houses, the halls of legislation, and lets it run loose in the territories, drunk with whiskley and blood. Is there a laborer, that would not see his calling degraded by a nearer contact with servitude? Is there a woman that regards her sex, and dreads the worst foe to wom-an’s rights and woman’s purity? If so, this cause is eminently yours. Every motive that can appeal to us as citizens, as men, and as Christians, urges us to give the old Puritan sentiment of liberty a new and emphatic utterance. Mlore than this. It urges us to new action; to sink all inferior issues in the one great issue of Right against organized Wrong. It urges us to put justice above party, and humanity above local politics. It urges every man to stir up in himself and in his neighbor, the old pilgrim virtues of allegiance to God and faithfulness to the country. Pray to him for light, and then vote as you pray. What are the worldly interests of to-day compared with the great interests of religion and humanity, extending over a continent, and sweeping down through all posterity? REvOLIUTION O R EFORM! If we will not choose the one, God will leave us to the other. The only hope left, short of revolution, is that there is virtue enough, and religion enough, and conscience enough in the country to outvote the demonism that controls its organization; that there is so much abhorrence of wrong, and love of righteousness; so much detestation of tyranny, and love of liberty and of man; so much fear of God, casting out all other fear; so much true love of the country, and the whole country; and so much intelligence to see the tremendous issue that impends,- as to unite enough of the wise and good in a common cause against iniquity, and turn its tide. But if not -then I tremble to look upon your children and upon mine! For I know that if we cannot meet this crisis, if we only succeed in staving it off a little longer, it will fall upon them with swiftly accumulating woe!

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ON PATRIOTISM. THE CONDITION, PROSPECTS, AND DUTIES OF THE AMERICAN

PEOPLE. A SERMON DELIVERED ON FAST DAY AT CHURCH GREEN, BOSTON. BY THE

REV. ORVILLE DEWEY. PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. M

DCCC LIX.

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[The Congregation, at whose request this Sermon is printed, will ob serve that a part of it was omitted in the delivery.] RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.

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DISCOURSE. Psalm cxxii. 2, 7, and 8 verses. Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem. Peace be within thy walls and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions’ sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee. And Matthew xxiii. 37. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! I CANNOT help noticing, as I pass, this extraordinary language of Christ. Poor, neglected, unknown, a simple teacher by the waysides of Judea, with no position in worldly eyes; yet if he had been a departing king, mourning over his people, he could not have spoken more loftily. Is there not some strange, unborrowed, supernal majesty in this appeal? But it is not this of which I am to speak now, or for which I have drawn my text from sacred records, several hundred years apart. It is rather to point out the abiding naturalness and beauty of the sentiment of patriotism. For thus it is, that from age to age are forever echoing, words of every language, which proclaim how dear is men’s native land. From David, who sung that ancient song, to him who wept over Jerusalem; and by all men

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4 who have felt the touches of the gentlest or of the grandest humanity, thus have been repeated the words-songs, adjurations, or words of orators or historians, which proclaim the sacredness of country and home. Whether we can explain the sentiment or not, all men feel it, and nobody ever thought of defending it. There are sentiments indeed, that are more expansive. Our minds naturally range beyond all local boundaries. Science and philosophy are of no country. We belong to the world, it is true; and there is a humanity that is as wide as the world. But, that tract of earth which I call my native soil, my native clime: that spot where my childhood grew, where my parents have lived, and my kindred shall live after me; that is holy ground, set apart and severed from all the world beside; and framed, ay, its very hills and valleys, its slopes and river-banks, moulded and framed into some mysterious ties and sympathies with my very life and being. And I must be able to tell, what never yet was told-to tell what this inmost life and being are, before I can interpret all that is written on this tablet of home and country; before I can tell what home and country mean. But one thing is plain and palpable to my mind, that when I say “my country,” I say what no amplification can add to; that I say more than any epithets can describe; that I speak of that which is a part of me, and I of it; that whatever touches it, touches me; and whoever assails it, assails me. It must be a dull man that feels neither pride nor shame for his native land. And if, from a disbanded nationality, I were wandering and fleeing, and the world should point the finger and say,

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5 ‘ aha! ye had not the force nor sense nor virtue to live, or keep your bond, or hold together;” that taunt would darken the very shadow and sorrow of exile. And yet, though as I firmly believe, there never was a country which men have had more reason to love and cherish, than we have to love and cherish this country; yet here and among us, I think that the sentiment of patriotism is exposed to peculiar dangers. We have no uniting head, King or Queen, to whom the feeling of patriotic loyalty can attach itself. Our devotion is to an abstract Constitution; and though it is a noble kind of devotion if it can be sustained; yet if you were to cross to the father-land, you would be struck with the difference between our respect for the Constitution and the personal feeling which rises from a whole people to the fair majesty of England; to a crown which is at once the top of honor, and set round with all the gems of private virtue. Then again, there is nothing here to shield the head of the State, from every sort of violent and even scurrilous abuse. Every newly-chosen President seems to be set up, not as the image of the public order, but as a target to be shot at. The attack of course provokes defence; but the defence is apt to take the tone of partizanship rather than of true and unbiased respect. All this must hurt the sentiment of patriotism. If the head of the family, the judge on the bench, the minister at the altar, were the subject of this perpetual wrangling, the very institutions they preside over-home, law, religion-smust suffer indignity and dishonor from such treatment. In a free State, it may be said, can anything be done to prevent it? That I will consider soon; at any rate I will consider

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6 whether we should not try to do something. But once more; our freedom, with the unchecked opportunity it offers for the acquisition of gains, luxuries, comforts, and for the indulgence of all sorts of private opinions and preferences, is liable to run out into an individualism, a thinking and caring of each one only for himself, and a neglect of our political duties, which are in direct antagoniism with the love of country. There is a class of persons in this country, and I fear it is an increasing class, who, disgusted with politics, or fastidiously averse from free mingling with the people, or engrossed with business, are shrinking from their duties as citizens; who refuse to take office, avoid as much as they can every species of service to the public, even that of sitting on juries, and who neglect to deposit their ballot at the polls.

In fact, there is a disintegration of society here, that is hostile not only to patriotic, but even to fixed party sentiments. I have said thus much in general, with the view to open to you the subject on which I propose to address you this morning: and that is, our country, the love of our country, and the circumstances in our condition that are liable to weaken that great patriotic bond. I shall discuss a variety of questions; but they will have at least this unity; every question will come to this point, the love of our country, the right appreciation of it, the willing service which patriotism demands to be rendered to it; nay, the filial consideration and loyalty with which we ought to speak of it. And first, let me say a word, of a reckless habit which we have, of speakin# about the country. It may be regarded as a small matter-speech, the talk of the street,

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7 the license of debate, in caucus or Congress-but I cannot think it so.

Speech is the birth of opinion; and opinion is the womb of the unborn future. What we think and say, the coming generation are likely enough to do. Idle talk may resolve itself into dreadful fact. Let all men among us, talk as some men do; and a hurricane might pass over the land with less harm, than that idle or angry breath. Nay, there are those who talk, as if they did not care how soon the worst came to pass. Disgusted with what they call the popular tendencies; disgusted with the upheaving of the popular mass, which they have never tried to direct or control; disgusted with the insubordination and irreverence of the young; disgusted altogether with our politics, they say-I have heard them say, “let the worst come; the sooner the better; the worse the better! ” Now I confess that I can never hear this kind of talk, or anything approaching to it, without great pain. It discourages and saddens me. It discourages everybody. It is not good to hear. It is not good to think or say. I know that there is often a more grave and considerate talking, about popular derelictions and public corruption; and though I cannot altogether gainsay the justice of it, I must say it seems to me there is too.much of it-such as it is. Let us do something and not always talk. Or if we must talk, let it be to inquire what we can do. But it is too often cold, scornful, sarcastic, bitter talk that I hear. If it were more painful, there would be less of it. I sat by a couple of gentlemen lately, who were speaking at length, of bribery and corruption in Congress. I could not help saying, “this talk always

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8 makes me sick.” So said one of them, “it makes me sick.” But it went on.

It always goes on. Fault finding is always eloquent; and it is easy. If the object were to inquire how we can correct our own, or our people’s errors, it were profitable. But if it be only to vent our spleen, it is perilous. We may say of it, in relation to our country, what Burns says in another connection, it petrifies the feeling.” And is it not a very strange thing? Was the like ever seen before; a people so recklessly criticizing itself; smiting the government, the country, and the country’s hope, in one suicidal blow? This passes the ordinary limits of party animosity. Is there anything like it in England or France? Was there in old Rome? till its disastrous and declining days came, and seemed to justify the despair of Cicero, and the satire of Tacitus. But in its prosperous days were such words ever spoken? Why, I have heard a man standing in the high Senate of these United States-I have heard a senator say, “The president, and his cabinet, and both houses of congress, ought to be taken and pitched into the Potomac.” If he had said such a thing in old Rome, he would himself have been pitched into the Tiber, and would have deserved it. And lately, in a speech in Congress, I hear the president called a ” brigand!” I take it upon me to rebuke such mad speaking. It should not have been possible to say or to hear such things in the Capitol. The man who undertook to say them, should have been drowned in hisses if it had been in a popular assembly, or if in the Senate, he should have been withered by its awful frown. I do not deny that

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9 there should be a strict and solemn inquisition into the ways of the government and of the nation; but I do deny that such indecent and abusive language should be used. I svill not admit that it is right ever to speak thus of our country, or its government. This sublime nationality; this embodied life of thirty millions of human souls; this gathlering under the awful wings of Providence, of six millions of families; this majestic Rule that presides over them; this struggling welfare and sorrow and hope of a great people, all bound up in the country’s prosperity and progress; this whole stupendous evolution of the fortunes of 1humnanity, is it to be treated as lightly as if it were a game of football, or as angrily, with as much passion and despite, and rash exclamation of oaths or curses, as if it were a pugilistic fight? How different was the spirit, lhow reverent, protective, and tender, with which Jesus looked upon his people!

And, indeed, what commandintg dignity appears in his address to it! And how evenly and perfectly was the balance held in him, between indignation and love! The government was in bad hands enough; and he was disowned, and rejected, and persecuted; the Pharisees, the rulers, the Sanhedrim would not know himn; and yet sadly and indignantly as he speaks of all the wrong and evil there was ii. high places-yet no reckless satire or scorn ever fell from his lips; but his great and loving heart burst out in melting expostulation, saying, “0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thlee, howxv often would I have gathered thy chil(lren even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” 1)

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But the true question, I may be told, were, whether the country and government deserve to be spoken of with satire and scorn. This question concerns two very different things-the country and the government-and I shall treat of them separately. Does the government deserve it? Is it as bad as it is often said to be? Has it become more corrupt than it was in former days? Has it declined from its pristine integrity. It may be true; I am afraid it is true; but it is to be remembered that our saying so does not prove it. Just as hard things have been said all along, of all the administrations, after the first; and even that, even Washinigton’s, did not escape the most bitter reproaches. But just as hard, nay, harder things, were said of Jefferson and John Adams, and Madison and Monroe.

Party animosity raged even more fiercely then, than it does now. I have had, for my part, some salutary experience upon this matter. 1 remember the time when I was taught by those around me, to regard Thomas Jefferson as the basest and most dissolute and unprincipled of men. And I do not doubt that there are some here, who could tell me, that John Adams was treated with scarcely more decorum. Well, I have lived to see these two men in their old age, treating one another with respectful consideration, writing amiable and friendly letters to one another; and I b(have lived to see the time when they died on the same dayon that memorable fourth of July; and then I heard the voice of loud lament and eulogy bursting forth from the whole country; from all parties alike. It was a great lesson to me; and I resolved that I would never listen to the words of party clamor any more. And how is it 10

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11 not,, with NWebster, and Clay, and Calhoun! Why, it is coming to be generally admitted, even by their opponents, that however they may have erred, however they may have acted under biases and prejudices, they loved their country; and that in the circumstances in which they were placed, they did what they thought was right. Can any more be said of the integrity of statesmen than this? And if there be men now standing high among us-I say not this or that man-but if there be any who may meet with a similar reversal of the popular or party award, from the calm judgment of posterity, nay, and are likely enough, judging from the past, to do so, ought it not to stir a sacred caution in our minds, how we treat them?

Doubtless a government may grow more and more corrupt. Doubtless there are found, from time to time, in seats of power, bad men and bad magistrates.

But it must be a sad thing, it must be a terrible thing, for us on mere party and mistaken biases, to admit that the whole government of the country is sinking deeper and deeper in corruption every year. Neither Statesmen, nor any other men, can fairly be expected to be better than we account them to be. This constant depreciating and vilifying of the government, by one half of the people, tends to bring about the very state of things we lament over, and we may help to verify in misery and disgrace, the very prophecy of our haste and wrath. I admit that in some respects, there is a descent from the dignity and perhaps virtue of former days. It is constantly said, that an inferior class of men is chosen to public office; and I will not deny it. Every nation perhaps, has its golden age; or what seems to be such.

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In the early times of the Republic, the natural anxiety of the people, called the highest men into the public service. We have grown easy and careless. But this is not all. The representative principle was not at once developed here in its full force; or rather it was not abused, as it is now. For a long time there was a class of men, regarded as superior persons, to whom the people naturally looked as their leaders and legislators. That natural aristocracy is no10w to a certain extent disowned; and the candidate for office is preferred perhaps, because he is cot of that class. It is an unfortunate reaction. Then too, men of culture and refinement, are more and more shrinking and retiring from public life.

It is an unfortunate tendency. The consequence of all this, is seen in a deterioration of manners, in our high places. We hear of rude and abusive personalities in debate, nay, of actual combats and blows in the halls of Congress; of blows more wounding to the public heart, even than to the unworthy combatants. That rule in Congressional speeches which is called the “one hour rule,” however necessary it may have been, and however just and reasonable, has uindoubtedly had the effect to lower the dignity of debate. Formerly, a few leading members discussed great questions. Now, a much larger class are brought +pon the floor; and the manners are worse.

Then again, terrible questions are now brought forward, questions about the public lands, about annexation of territory, about slavery, which try the integrity, the virtue, the composure, the self-possession of public men, more than they were tried in formter days. All this, I trust, is transitional, and will pass away. It does not prove to nme that the natural 12

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18 tendency of free suffrage and a free Constitution, under fair conditions, is to carry a governmlent downward. But the more serious question is about the moral progress or deterioration of the whole country. Government is, to the people, a mystery. The eye of the popular conscience is not fairly opened to it. Hence it comes to pass that things are abetted in public, which would not be tolerated in private life. This separation between political and personal morality, which is doing so much mischief all over the world, it is to be hoped is temporary here, and will be searched into and stigmatized and stamped with utter reprobation, by a more enlightened public opinion. Men, I trust, will come to look at the persons who administer public affairs, as keenly as they investigate the conduct of bank or railroad directors, nay, and will judge and act as stockholders, in the great national interest, demand(ling, irrespective of party biases,demanding, I say, probity in the one as much as in the other, resolving to elect no man to public affairs who is not an honest and good man. But the question about the national character is disembarrassed from these considerations; and it cuts deeper. It is a nmomentous question certainly, and demands the gravest and most anxious study. It is a question for ourselves. It matters little comparatively what others say of us, though they are saying much on the other side, at the present moment.

Nor is this surprising; for the example of universal suffrage and of popular rule, which we have set up here, must of course be subjected to the severest scrutiny. Does it work well? is the question.

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Theories are nothing; does it work well? And there is a party in England which maintains that it does not. They say that everything is running down here. Is it true? Are we becoming a more unprincipled, vicious, dissolute people? Are we less honest, less temperate, less benevolent, less reverent, less pure in manners and morals, than our predecessors were half a century ago? Has our freedom run out into general license? Or is there to be seen in the country at large, any tendency of the kind? This is not the place to say how humble is the estimate which every right-minded people must form of its virtues; or how deep is the sense, which every conscientious and thoughtful man must entertain of the national defects; let the nation be which it will, American or French or English. Next to the burden which his own faults lay upon such a man, I believe, is the sad feeling he has, in contemplating the too commnon depravity and degradation around him, the baseness in high places and low, the drunkenness and debauchery, the sins, secret and open, which cover all the world with darkness, and fill it with tears. This is doubtless a wise direction of men’s thoughts, whether in this country or any other country; whether for a Fast Day or any other day. And I will not leave it to be inferred, from anything I shall say, that I am insensible to this humbling and painful contemplation of our moral condition. Before a righteous conscience let every people bow low; before accusers speakinig in the interest of kingship and aristocracy, and trying to discredit free governments, it must assume a different attitude. t, 141

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And the question here, let it be observed, is not how bad we are, but whether we are regularly and constantly growing wvorse; whether we are going down in niational character; and I deliberately say, I do not believe it; I do not admit any such thing. Nay, it is rather observable, that the men who are wont to speak the most bitterly of their country-I mean the uiltra-reformers, the abolitionists, for instance, and comne-outers of all sorts -do nevertheless comfort themselves with the belief, that their labors have not been in vain; that there is a better tone of sentiment and a better state of morals among us, than there was twenty years ago. But I do not deniy that there are some bad indications, explicable, I think, however, on other grounds than that of a general tendency and sweep downwards. In the moral condition of a people, there will always be oscillations. There are local circumstances, affecting moral conduct; there are great movements of society; there are reactions; all writers on statistics know this, and the moral critic is bound to consider it. Thus, in the education of the young, obedience fails to be enforced amnong us, to an extent positively alarming; but I believe that it is a reaction from the ol( parental rigor; and I think I already see indications of return to.wholesome discipline. Then again, we have heard much of social disorders; of the bowie-knife and lyncl-law on our Western border. This state of things is evidently owing to circumstances; and, what is especially to be observed, this border line of semi-civilized life, instead of coming this way, as it should, according to the argument of deterioration, is constantly retreating. So in our I5

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16 cities, we have seen violence and sad misrule, enough to furnish a loud argument against us on the other side of the water, and loud admonition to ourselves. The truth is, we have been slowly learning, how, under our popular system, to govern cities. And I think we are solving the problem.

And again I say it is observable that the disturbance is retiring; it is passing, so to say, along down our coast cities; and in one after another it is controlled. We had mobs in Boston, New Bedfor(l, Providence, New York. We have them no more. Disorders still prevail in Philadelphia, especially amonig the fire-engine companies-organizations which I hope will ere long be entirely supplanted by the use of steamengines-and in Baltimore, from political causes. The truth is, and we are finding it out, that nothinglt but military force will hold in check the lower populace of our cities. With regard to mnisrule, to corruption in our city governments, the only remedy lies in agencies far more difficult to be called forth. For until the superior classes in our cities, the men of wealth and ed(lucation, will consent to take the part which they ought to take, in our elections and in our municipal affairs, there will be mnisrule and corruption, injuring the public interest, and shaming all good men. The evil is growing so monstrous, that I cannot help believing, it will drive us upon the obvious remedy. Then once more, it is said that crime is iiicreasinig in this country faster than population. Is it strange that it should (lo so? Does it fairly indicate the general character of our people, when it is well known that so much of it is impI)orted from foreign countries? Of the criminals convicted in our I

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17 Courts,-a large proportion come from abroad. In some instances, we are told, that the very penitentiaries and almshouses of the continent of Europe, have been emnptied of their miserable tenants, to be shipped off to America. More than nine tenths of the paupers and beggars in our cities come fiom the Old World. Everybody knows how rare it is, to meet with a native Americanl mendicant. There is altogether a mode of reasoning about this matter, or rather a way of representing things, that is unfair and unjust. The foreign journals get hold of here and there a fact, or of a gossiping story told by some traveller, and forthwith set it up as a placard against a ,whole people. And they talk too, of mobs and popular outbreaks here. Have they none, in the cities of Europe? There has not been, I confidently say, since we have been a nation, such a stable and undisturbed order of society in the world, as our own. They say tauntingly, ” here is a iyotlIug people, a people in the flush of its morning, a people that ou-ht to be in a condition of pristine virtue and innocence, and yet so full of vices and crimes, so “full of sores and ulcers,” that its friends, as they look at it, must hang their heads in shamne. The case is not so. Society here is primarily an offlhoot from society in Europe, in its average condition. And then in later days, what shoals of the base and abandoned, have been floated to this country from foreign shores! And what miultitudles of ignorant and miserable paupers from abroad, have been cast upon our hands, employing, as we well know, all the benevolent energies of our cities! I think we deserve some better return than taunts for our care of them. 3

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b 18 It is indeed a very extraordinary condition of things. No people in the world, was ever before subjected to such a trial. Ah! it is very easy to stand with folded hands on the opposite shore, and say, ” what a bad plight you are in!” As to the absolute question of our growing better or worse, there are many things to be considered(l. The liberalizing and enlightening of a people, have their perils; we may welcome the general result, and yet look with anxiety at some of the processes and steps. The growth of wealth and luxury, is still more perilous; but some extravagance in living, and some foolish fashions-late hours and lavish entertairnments, though economically bad, and bad for health. may not be so bad as the case-hardened rigor of the old Puritan time, the stern face which it wore toward all the gayeties and pleasures of life, the mingled hypocrisy and fear which it branded into the youthful mind. The notion that the more miserable a man is, and feels, and lookcs, the better man he is; and the more happy and gay, the worse-this wrong to Providence, this base crouching under its mighty dome of light and blessingwe may well be thankful that it is passing away. Changes which to the strict and conservative eye wear a bad aspect, may not be for the worse. There is more liberality with regard to amusements; but certainly the festal habits of our people have improved. There are not so many brutal fights on public days, as there were forty years ato; there is not so much drunkenness at feasts, or town meetings, or nmilitary parades; there is not so much profane swearing. In fact, it is capable of demonstration, I believe, that fifty or eighty years ago, under the incrusta b

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19 tions of the old Puritanism, viler streams of intemperance and licentiousness, were stealing through our New Eng land society, than can be found now. In short, I say that society, in its whole spirit, tone, and character, is improved. There is less intolerance, whether religious, political, or social, than there was half a century ago. New views, whether with regard to the rights of men, or the sphere of woman, or the improve ment of society, receive a more hospitable entertainment than they did then. Slander, running its gossiping round, leaving its poisonous slaver wherever it winids; I believe there is less of it than there was.

People have l)ooks, reviews, newspapers, lectures, concerts to occupy them; and the neighbor’s character oftener escapes. And in business, that system of preference-credits, that dishonorable evasion of fair and open responsibility; I ask you, if it is not in greater discredit, than it was twenty years ago. And in fine, I put it to any discerning and thoughtful man, who has reached middle life, whether he does not find society more just, tolerant, frank, and fearless, little enough as there is of all this, than it was tweniity years ago. Mly subject in this discourse, is the love of country. We cannot love our country as a country should be loved, but it must be-I hope it will not be thought a weakness to say-with somnethiug of reverence and tenderness, with somnething of enthusiasm and pride for it; and we cannot hear it recklessly vilified or wrongfully accused, without remonstrance. It is to these l)oints therefore that I have now been speaking. In the same patriotic interest I am tempted to add a word or two on another point. I

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2O In the all-criticizing spirit of the time, there is a sort of incredible talk among us about national failure, about the sundering of the national bond, about the disuniting of these States; these Federal States as we call them. Tile possibility of using such language arises in part, I think, from our calling them Federal States,-deriving our notion, or our nomenclature at least, firom the old Colonial time. We are not confederated States as, till recently, the Swiss Cantons were. We are not a league, but a nation. We are one nation, as much as any other nation is.

And what other nation in its palmy day, ever talked of disunion, as some among us do. “Dis?Azat? “-I could imagine a sensible man to say, who heard the word for the first time, and fancied he did not rightly hear-“
disaffection, I can understand, distrust, disorder, but disunion? You might as well talk of a disunion of the Alleghany mountains from one another. You might as well talk of the disunion of the MisSiSSippi River from itself.” Nay, and these are not only illustrations, but facts. Nature has made this North American empire )zorczlly indissoluble. How are you to cut the Mississippi River in two, giving the southern half to one nation and the northern half to another?-the southern dictating on what terms the northern should pass through. And our railroads fast engirdliniig the whole empire, and our common interest and honor, and our patriotic memories, growing more venerable as they grow ol(ler, constantly bind us more strongly together. To be sure, I do not know what tl((c be in the future; but for the present time I hold( it to be but patriotic policy and( decency, to shut our ears against that miserable, paltry, party word, I

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disunion-spawn of factious discontent, and reckless freedom. But do not the Southern States, from time to time, threaten to break off’ and go out of the Union? Not the southern Sates; only one, and that only once. For the rest, soy)e )eC)z at the South talk in this wild fashion; that is all.

But I do not deny that this is enough, and more than enough. I do not deny that the difficulty to which I now refer is serious enough. But is it insuperable? It is the only question that threatens the national integrity. Is there no solution for it but a violent and bloody one? I cannot, and I do not believe it. But I confess that no shadow of mystery, that ever hung over the fairest fortunes of the human race, has seemed to me darker than this. Why it is, tl)hat the Almighty Providence has permitted this root of bitterness to be planted inii the soil of our Republic, to trouble the grandest political experiment that ever was made in human affairs, no mortal eye can see! It may be that since, in this fair domain and under this large frieedom-since, I say, prosperity, wealth, and luxury were to start forth on such a career as they never ran before, one thing was permitted that should try men’s souls; that should humble our pride, that should task our patience, our calmness, our forbearance, our love of country to the utmost. Would to God that we could see it in this light, instead of throwing upon this (debatable ground the burning coals of strife! Instead of doing all that we can to provoke and vilify, and estrange one another, would that we could sit downi together as brethren, and as in the pres g1

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ence of God, and sincerely and solemnly ask; what we can do?iwhat we ought to do? What is our duty? What is right? What is best for all? Here is a people planted upon our territory; a portion of the human race; inferior to ourselves, if you please, but human and placed here without any fault of our own; nay, placed here against the remonstrances of our fathers; nay, more, so far as we are concerned, put, by an inscrutable Providence, into our hands; and now what is our duty to them? What ought a just people to do for them? What ought a paternal and Christian government to do? What ouilht we to do, I say; for there is a question of {lte right, which is above every other question. I grieve to hear any high-minded man, swayed by party biases, speak lightly of this highest law. Without it, we are not men, but brutes. No men, nor nations can truly respect themselves, unless they bow in reverence before this sublime authority. What is the cainonized virtue of ages; what do we venerate in heroes and miartyrs; what is it, without which there is left no worth nor dignity in the world, but tile r/#/ht? Nations mlay rise and prosper; generations may sweep over the earth, and eloquent histories be writteni of them; planets iight roll, and stars wheel round their mighty centres-they are but dust and ashes, unless the law of the everlasting ri/yht reigns over them! What, then, is it right for us to do with regard to this African people? Emancipate them at once; turn them adrift from our care, and take off the hand of restraint; let them be free as ourselves; free to work or to be idle 22?

‘k

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as they please, firee to roam hither and thither as they will, firee to vote or to bear arms like other fireemen? I do not say so. I may be wrong, but that is not my opinion. Certainly there is a profound convictionI to the contrary, among the Southern people. What is the right then? I answer, it is to consider and care for these people, so strangely and sadly intrusted to uts; to consider and care for them as men. It is to educate, instruct, Christianize them. Why, we send missions to the farthest heathen for that. It is to pass laws for the gradual amelioration of their condition. It is ultimately to emalncipate them. With regard to the steps, I cannot go into detail. The problem will be one of immense difficulty and complication, far greater than that which was involved in the treatment of the serfs in the Mid(lle Ages. But this at least we can do. We can set up {gie’iyl{ to be the sovereign law in this whole proceeding. There is always a conflict, more or less, between natural right and municipal regulation. In the case of Slavery, that coiiflict is carried to the extremest point of contradiction. It is in vainii to deny it. The slave has a perfect right, if he can, to run away. I never saw a man, North or South, who denied it. But the nmunicipal lawv steps inand stops him. It is a grievous solecism; it is a sad conflict between a iiian’s rights and society’s rights. But I cannot deniy that society has a right to restrain actions, otherwise right, naturally’right, wvhich tend to its own destruction. I have a natural right to eat and drink, and to buy and sell what I will-alcohol, or poison, or gunpowder-yet society claims the right, by license-laws, to restrain me. 28 .0

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But still there is a Supreme Law which says that that contrariety shall be lessened, as fast as the general welfare and safety will permit. And to hold that extremest contradiction to natural right which slavery p)resents-to hold it, I say, fast clenched; to repel the very idea that it ought to be lessened or loosened in any way; to say that it is right and always shall be, to buy and sell men and their posterity after thema forever; and to (ldemand( that the comnioni and supreme Goverimelnt of the land shall, by its action, avouch this local and mulnicipal boiid to be altogether right, shall adopt, espouse, recognize it, shall enact into its laws, legitimate in its territories, this grand and world-condemned wrolig to humanity; this is what we never can consent to. Alas! the time was, when the South mainly agreed with us in this; when it admitted that slavery was an evil, and in its oriogin a wrong, which must be corrected in due time. But it has beeni goaded by the violence of our disputes, into an opposite position. Is it not possible that it should take a step backward; while we on our part, forsake the attitude of sectional antagonism, except in opinion, which we cannot help; and that we should all agree, that slavery should be left just where it is; to be dealt with by those who alone have the charge and the responsibility; just as if the Southern people were a foreign nation; our common, our general government, doing nothing for it, nor against it, but simply letting it alone; simply keeping the bond of the Constitutionii; no more disclussing it in Congress, than if it were Russian serfdotn; making no fugitive slave-laws, nor ailly other laws about it; but simply, I repeat, letting it alone. If the !2

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people of the South could consent to that, ceasing to be propagandists of their system, it would be doubtless a con cession of municipal or pecuniary claim on their part, to moral principle; but, would it not be a noble concession? Why, the whole progress of justice and freedom in the world has involved precisely that concession. Arbitrary kingships, aristocracies, customs, laws, rights of posses sion, have always been giving way to the moral claim. The ordinance of‘87 was precisely such a concession. Upon no other principle was slavery prohibited from going into the Northwest Territory. And when we at the North, refuse to open the New Territories to that system, it is, in my mind, mainly upon the same ground. If the slaves were ordinary property, if they were but horses or oxen, we should think it monstrous to say to their owners, “You shall not take them there.” It is because they are men, because their presence there would iinjure the public interest-would injure the free white laborer; because, in short, it is a thing that ought to be repressed, not extended, that we insist upon that concession. Would it not be an honor to the Southern men to make it? It would be returning to the ground with regard to this institution, which their fathers held. It would be to throw off from their shoulders, the_ responsibility for a system which they did not create, but have inherited. Now, alas! they assume and avouch it to be their own, and to be right and good. The moral sentiments of the world are against that stand. Can they hold it? I have thus far been engaged ill the discussion of some questions concerning the treatment of our country, con 4 25 0 .4

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cerning its moral condition, and the one great danger to it. And here, perhaps, I ought to stop; but I cannot leave the subject, without undertaking to say something of what a true patriotism demands of us; what of duty, fealty, and affection. I must detain you with one preliminary remark, which goes through the whole subject. It is this; and I would emphasize it: Universal civilized modern society is entering upon a political condition, which devolves an entirely new kcharge and responsibility upon citizenship. Under absolute rule the subject had little to do with regard to government, but to submit to what was ordained for him. There was no pulpit, nor press, nor caucus, nor ballot that could fairly speak out; or that could exert any efficient influence upon public affairs. The popular conscience, instead of being educated to a sense of duty to the common weal, was crushed down by political injustice and oppression. Indeed, the spectacle of selfishness, seated on the throne and ruling in the court, too often taught the people only to be selfish,-to hoard their property or to tie it up in entails, and to pursue their pleasures, with little sense of what they owed to the country. The Grecian and Roman republics did, indeed, during their brief continuance, develope.a vigorous love of country, but scarcely inculcated any duty to it, beyond that of fighting its battles. Now, it is not to be so, it must not be so, in our modern free States, if they are to work out any happy condition or high destiny. We are to make and keep and guard the State; we, the people, are to do it, by personal care and fidelity. The machinery of the public 206 i

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order will not roll on smoothly and safely without our intervention; nay, we are the machinery. The govern ment cannot go on prosperously without us, we standing aloof and looking on; nay, we are the government! Here it is, I conceive, that our modern free commu nities have fallen into an immense and perilous mistake. We have inherited our ideas of citizenship from former times and from a different order of society; and they do not apply to our condition. Always and everywhere the more liberty there is, the more duties there are to be done. All along on the line of progression, from animal instinct or from the lowest point of barbarism, up to the highest intellectual power and freedom, it will be found that more and more depends upon the individual; that more and more trusts are committed to him. The whole framework of government and society, becomes more and more complicated. The King of Dahomey, or the Emperor of China, has but few laws; and the people have nothing to do but to obey them. We make the laws, multiply them, change them, execute them. No man stands alone, or can rightly stand apart. Every citizen is brought into immediate relations with the welfare of the State. Every citizen has duties to perform to the country. And every instrumentality, organ, 9nd office, that has power to influence the public welfare, should be subject to the same patriotic obligation. It should be recognized, first, in our schools and colleges. There should be taught in them, as a distinct branch of education, the duties of citizenship. InI our technical views of what constitutes education, this practical and pressing interest has been strangely overlooked. !27 )O

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I am told that the schools of semi-barbarous Japan are ahead of us in this respect; that the children there are instructed in the actual duties of coming life. We want, in our schools, a Political Class-Book, more comprehensive and simple, too, than any I know of,-though an excellent work of the kind was written by Mr. William Sullivan, of this city,-a book that should instruct youth in the nature of our government, in the duties of citizens, of voters, jurors, magistrates, and legislators; in the morals of politics and parties, in the principles upon which the vote should be given; how much should be conceded to party organization, and what should never be conceded to it. And if there were a plain chapter or two on Logic, I think it would be well,-teaching the young something about the principles of right reasoning, -that of which our people know less than of almost anything else; our politics, our caucuses, our newspapers, are about as full of one-sided and fallacious reasonings as they can hold.

Next, the pulpit owes a duty to the country. We are constantly complaining that political morality is at a low ebb, and is sinking every day, lower and lower. What duty of the pulpit is plainer, than to speak of immorality, and especially of that which cuts most directly and deeply into the heart of the common welfare, political immorality? This wretched and ruinous distinction between public and private virtue, between political and personal integrity; this permitting and expecting men in official stations, to act on principles that would dishonor them in trade and at home; this giving all fealty to party and none to the country; whose 98 r

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duty is it to strike at this stupendous demoralization, if it is not that of the preacher? If, as a trustee of private funds, a lman cannot cheat or embezzle without a black mark being set upon him, without being driven out from the society of all honest and honorable men; shall a public trust be violated, a trust confided to a man by his fellowcitizens, a trusteeship for the whole country and for unborn generations; shall it be violated and nothing be said of it, but that it is just what might be expected? Shall this huge dereliction be visited only with a sneer; and that, more at the miserable state of the country, than at the men who dishonor it? The sacredness of every political trust; the awfulness of government-I speak advisedly; the solemn significance, the binding and religious obligation of the oath, with which a man swears that he will “well and truly” serve his country; what holy bond can be more properly insisted on, in the pulpit, than this? No “sanctitude of kings” ought to be more venerable than the magistracy of a free State. No holy conclave ought to be more sober and conscientious than a congress of men, chosen and set and bound, to think and act for the welfare of a great people. And why shall not the pulpit speak of and for the country, for the common weal? Why shall it not speak great and solemn words for patriotic duty, for sobriety and thoughtfulness, and moderation, and mutual love? Why shall it not plead for the country? I cannot help thinking that if all the pulpits in the land, were to do their duty in this respect, the result would be marked and visible; and we should not have all political action dese !9 AO

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30 crated as it now, too often, is, cast out under the trampliig feet of party violence and recklessness, a game for the adroit, a butt for satire, rather than a bond for conscience and honor. If the clergy want texts they may find enough of them, in David and Isaiah, and in the books of the New Testament. The relation of the Press, to the country is sufficiently recognized; and the only question is, about the use it shall make of its acknowledged and immense power. I am glad that it is free; and no abuse of which it is capable would seem to me so odious as a government censorship; as the ignominious bondage which is now imposed upon the Press in France.

Where there is not free debate of every kind-free talk in the streets, free speech in public, free printing everywhere-there is no political freedom. Still I could wish that the press might considerfor itself, what restrictions patriotism, justice, and honorable fair play, should lay upon it. A man should inot feel more at liberty to put forth rash, hasty, and inconsiderate words, because he is an editor, cloaked in his closet, but less, incomparably less. The private man speaks to his neighbor; the editor of a newspaper, to thousands. I have observed with pleasure, that two or three Conventions of Editors have been lately held in the country.

I hope there will be more of them. Why should not discussions be entertained in such Conventions, on the principles upon which the Press should be conducted-on Editorial duties and rights, and inter-editorial courtesy and forbearance? The clergy meet together to consider their duty and work: so do teachers of youth. r ‘k i

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31 Why might not editors? Their position makes them teachers and guides to the people. And why, in fact, should there not be in our system of education, a distinct department of preparation for the editor’s chair, as well as for the law, or medicine or theology? It is every man’s interest and duty, as far as possible, to hold just, large, well-proportioned views of things. Why should a man be willing to be one-sided, to be given over to partial and party views of subjects, because he is an editor? Are we never to see in party prints any fair admission of what is right on the other side? And there is another thing still more vital to the editorial conscience and honor. There is a line which should never be crossed without sacred caution: it is the line beyond which lies the domain of private character. I do not mean of the private life only, but of a man’s essential claims to rectitude of purpose. Personalities seldom serve any good end; they subserve many bad passions. Measures may be freely and roughly handled; motives may not. And the contest here is too unequal for honorable assault-except in very extreme cases. The man who commands a battery, should beware, for his honor, how hle opens it upon an unarmed man. For the single man against such a force, is virtually unarmed.- He has no fair chance. He cannot answer. He does not answer; except in words, which if they become common, will alike degrade the press, and destroy its power”Oh! it isn’t worth noticing; it is only a newspaper!” A free State, I repeat, unlike a despotism, must engage the services of all its citizens, in their appropriate duties. A representative system requires of every man the vote. t 10

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82 Trial by jury, demands that every man should sit on the jury, when he is summoned to that service. And to fill a public office, when the expressed wish of the citizens designate the man, is scarcely short of an obligation. Our compact is, thus to serve one another, in the great interests of the Commonwealth. Travellers in this country have made it a reproach against us, that we are all engaged in politics. We ought to be engaged in them; not as petty politicians, but as men observant and thoughtful, and anxious for the common weal. Mr. Wordsworth, the great English poet, once said to an American visitor, with whom he had talked a long time on the English and American systems ” I am chiefly known to the world as a poet; but I think that during my whole life, I have given ten hours’ thought to politics for one to poetry.” The visitor said in reply, “I am not surprised at that; for the spirit of your poetry is the spirit of humanity; and the grandest visible form of human interests,is politics.” Was he not right? And do not the most influential men and the highest minds among us, owe an especial duty to the country? There are not a few men among us who seemn to me strangely insensible to this duty.

There are respectable persons that I hear say, and who seem to pride themselves in saying, that “they care nothing about politics.” Business men in our cities avoid as much as they can, sitting on juries; preferring to pay a fine for neglect. There is a conservatism among the more wealthy and cultivated classes, that looks with cold disdain or strange timidity upon those popular elements, that are working out the common weal or woe.

Instead of stepping forward and taking their proper place, they

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shrink into corners. This timidity of conservatism is in Atglo-Saxon men the strangest thing! Let the popular wave arise, and they flee before it, like sheep before a pack of wolves. Let municipal questions agitate the people, and violence be threatened; and they turn back and leave it for those who wzill, to take the lead. They say that tile public interests, nay and the very rights of property, are in peril; and they do nothing but submit. Is there no English hardihood left among us for emergencies like these? Is the fairest chance for selfgovernment and national freedom, ever accorded to men, to be given over to pure faintheartedness or scorn?

I would not, however, be thought to speak with Unreasonable severity of these doubts and fears of conservatism. I would not make a bugbear of this distrust. I feel it in a degree myself; every thinking man feels it. And it is not peculiar to us in this country. In every country thoughtful men feel it. In France, nay in England, do they not feel it? Do they not entertain the question, whether the present order of things will hold; whether changes, whether revolutions may not come? But this is what I say.

Is this distrust to be made an argument for deserting the post of duty, for giving up the cause of the country? _ It is against this faintheartedness that I contend; and I hope I may be pardoned for doing so pointedly and earnestly. I would use no unbecoming adjuration, but I would s-y, if it were proper for me to say, to all conservative doubters for the sake of everything momentous and holy, Sirs, arouse you to your duties. Slavery excepted, I know of nothing more ominous for the country than 5 88 I 4

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your own position in it. Why, I have been told that a distinguished foreigner who has spent a year or two amon-og us, says he has hardly met a man in the higher society, who did not look with entire distrust to our future. If it be so, I will tell you whom he has met. He has met you, the ultra-conservative men of the country. He could never have heard anything like this, froin the great body of our intelligent people. But if the danger were real, I can tell you what would do more than anything else to avert it. Let thirty men that I could nanme in each of our cities, and a hundred in each State, go freely into the popular assemblies; let them speak there; let them speak wisely, manfully, kindly, liberally, and generously-with a heart full and warin for their brother-men and for the common country; and I believe the effect would be incalculable. Do you say it would be troublesome to vote and serve on juries, and to go and speak in popular assemblies? But what duty is itot sometimes troublesome? To rear a family, to provide for it, to build up an estate, is troublesome.

The student’s, the lawyer’s, the physician’s life has its troubles, its disagreeable things to do. The soldier must stand sentinel, stand in the trenches, stand in the imminent deadly breach; and ill should we think of him, if he lay in his luxurious teit when hardship and danger demanded him. And are the duties that we owe to the whole embodied life of the Republic, to be exempted from the obligation that presses everywhere else?, No, I firmly say it; we must march up to the breach wheni duty or danger to our country calls; we, in the wh(ole country, we, in cities. All the respectability, influence, k 84 i

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wealth, learning, culture in our cities, should be seen at the polls, and often at the primary meetings. If in timid ity, in cowardice, in fastidiousness or scorn, they stand backl and give place to ignorance, brutality, and violence, whose then will the fault be, if the lower elements get uppermost? Troublesome, indeed! Let me tell you that something more troublesome will come; ay, trouble that we think little of now, if we neglect to guard the house. Troublesome, forsooth! Where are the courage and manliness and self-sacrifice of honest and honorable men?

For I say, if we could truly understand it, that amidst ease, and abundance, and luxury, there is as much self-sacrifice required to keep all right and safe, as there is in scenes of revolution and blood. We CnOW, that if every manI in this country will do his duty, all will go well. And of whom may we demand that they do their duty, if not of those who have, or conceive that they have, the most at stake? And what if such a man were stricken down, by popular violence-stricken down at the pollsny, murdered, martyred! It would be a glorious martyr(lom. It would do more to appall the lawless and arouse the negligent, than a whole life could do. But, says some learned or fastidious and delicate gentleman, “what can I do in the primary assemblies? They wont hear me.” There it is again-that mistimed timidity or morbid self-esteem. But I say they will hear. They want to hear from those whom they involuntarily respect as men of wealth, education, and influence. And they must hear from them.

Republics must be brotherhoods. Free communities, free cities cannot go on well, if the most influential persons in them retire in disgust 85 I 4

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and disdain from all participation in their affairs. The English aristocracy are beginning to feel this; they are learning that “Aptfcrot-the best-must mean something more than fashionable idlers or mere cultivators of their estates; and they are more and more mingling with the people, at least in their social, municipal and political affairs and interests. They are living more for the public and for the common weal, than they once did. Nothing else can justify their position, in an intelligent and increasingly free community. And nothing else can make any similar position right, in a free country. This is the price that a guarded liberty must pay: a guarded liberty I say, and none other can be kept, or be long worth keeping. This is the price, I believe, and therefore I insist upon it -this care, this common interest, this intervention in affairs, of the highest men among us, this friendly and fraternal mingling together of all the elements that constitute a free nationality. A free nationality, I say; and I believe that we have yet to come to a new idea of what it is; of what our own is; of what every nationality is. It is God’s ordinance. Men cannot work out the ends for which they are placed on earth, without being gathered into communities under the protection of government. This national bond is God’s ordinance; and it must have man’s respect, reverence, and cherishing affection. We are not-and we oztugkht not-to care for England or for Franc(e, as we do for our own country. Here the God of Nations has set us down; and drawn about us the bonds of the public order; and girdled us round with ocean barriers and chains of ocean lakes; and 36

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87 spread out this realm of day-dawn and sunset, and healthy climates, and mighty forests, and glorious prairies, loIng kept and hid from other lands by the waves and storms of the mighty deep-this realm richer than the Hesperides, vaster than Imperial Rome,-to be the em pire of a great people. We love our country. We are proud of it. We know that no nation on earth ever set out on such a career before. It had its beginninys in the most advanced civilization in the world; and other good elements have mingled and become blended with it. We love our country. Let us love it.

Let us be proud of it. I will listen to any high patriotic adjuration, to any solemn admonition; but I will not listen to any cold and blighting disparagement. Not only has there been a more rapid growth in wealth and population here, than anywhere else, but more inventions of the subtle intellect have originated here than in any other country; more churches and schools and colleges have been built; more books and newspapers and journals have been printed and read; and more enterprises have been undertaken here, for the reform of morals, for the relief of the poor, and the fallen, and the insane, for the spread of religion at homne and abroad. And shall any clique of croakers or fanatics stand before this mighty people and point the finger and say, “Aha! go down! go to pieces!

you are going down; you are not worthy to live!” No! wide let patriotic honor and trust and hope beat, from North to South, from East to West; like the mighty ocean waves that engirdle us; like the fresh breezes that sweep through our valleys. For this reason

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38 -for the culture of patriotic sentiments, I am glad to witness that enterprise which is taken up by our whole people, for setting apart and consecrating the residence of the Father of his country, to be his perpetual memorial. I am glad that it is to be done by individual contributions rather than by act of Congress. I am glad that efforts and appeals of every kind, that journals, and speeches, and eloquent orations have gone forth, to stir the national heart. To gather up, and fix, and perpetuate through all time the great memories of our national life-what place so fit as Mount Vernon! It may be to this country, I will not say what Versailles is to France; for the voluptuous and selfish monarch who built it, stamped upon it quite another character, and did more, in fact, to bring down ruin uponI the monarchy than ever was done by any other single action; but it may be what the last king of France desired to make of Versailles, a grand historical monument. Tile gardens of Versailles, about as large as the estate of Mount Vernon, are laid out with walks through avenues of trees, with many a turn and winding into bowers and boskets, adorned with sheets and falls of water, and filled with fountains. The palace walls are hung with historical pictures of the great men and times of France. Why may not Mount Vernon become in time the more than Versailles of America-its tangled woods cleared up, its barren fields covered with living verdure, and pathways opened all around and through its ample domain, for the generations of all coming time to walk in-drawn thither by attractions of lanidscape-art, and historic pictures and statuary, and I

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89 touched by historic memories surely not less grand and inspiring than those of any people that ever lived. Yes, and above all, let the great name of Washington rise; of him who did more than any man to make us a people, and whose name more than any man’s binds us together; of him whom the great poets, and orators, and historians of all countries unite to-day, to proclaim the most perfect model of heroic patriotism; of him who served us without recompense, who governed without ostentation, and whose sway was that of patience, probity, wisdom and modesty; of him whose imperturbable dignity controlled officers and soldiers alike; whose natural vehemence was chastened by the solemnity of his mission; and whose calmest words thrilled the hearts of men like electric fire; of him who was a tower of strength in the day of our weakness, and a pillar of fire in the darkness and storm; and who, had an imperial diadem been offered him, in the day of his victory, would not have reluctantly declined it, as Cesar did, but would have trampled it under foot as a painted bawble; of him, whom, when he died, a weeping nation declared to be ”’ first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” ? I

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A

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THE DIVINENESS OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT; A DISCOURSE DELIVEBED IN PARK STREET

CHURCH, BY REV. A. L. STONE, D. D., ON THE OCCASION OF T H E NATIONAL

FAST, Thursday, September 26th, 1861. BOSTON: H E N R Y H O Y T, No. 9

Cornhill. 1861. .- 0

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THE NATIONAL FAST. t bines human (Obetnment. Romans xiii. 1-4. ” LIET

EVERY SOUL BE SUBJECT UNTO THE HIGHER POWERS. FOR THERE IS NO POWER BUT OF

GOD: THE POWERS THAT BE ARE ORDAINED OF GOD. ” WHOSOEVER, THEREFORE, RESISTETH THE POWER, RESISTETH THE ORDINANCE OF GOD: AND THEY THAT RESIST

SHALL RECEIVE TO THEMSELVES DAMNATION. “FOR RULERS ARE NOT A TERROR TO

GOOD WORKS, BUT TO THE EVIL. WILT THOU, THEN, NOT BE AFRAID OF THE POWER?

Do THAT WHICH IS GOOD, AND THOU SHALT HAVE PRAISE OF THE SAME. “‘FOR HE IS

THE MINISTER OF GOD TOiHEE FOR GOOD. BET IF THOU DO THAT WHICH IS EVIL, BE

AFRAID: FOR HE BEARETII NOT THE SWORD IN VAIN; \OR HE IS THE MINISTER OF

GOD, A REVENGER TO EXECUTE WRATH UPON HIM THAT DOETH EVIL.” IN the midst of our homes there walks a silent, invisible power, seldom coming forth -

1. of.1 N 4

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4 THE DIVINENESS OF into expression and assertion, which in en ergy and in beneficence is, of all earthly forces, most like to the power of God. Like that supreme power, it is ubiquitous without dividing or weakening itself; it wields its mastery without putting forth its strength, and it controls its subjects with a pressure so gentle that they are unconscious of its administration. Between man and man, and over all the great material interests of the individual and the community, this Power keeps watch and ward with unsleeping vigilance and incorruptible fidelity. You build between your field and your neighbor’s a frail palisade of chestnut or pine, not higher than your shoulder, through which he could hew in a moment, over which he could vault at a bound, and when you have finished your task, this invisible builder comes in and carries your fence up 0

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HfUMAN GOVERNMENT. 5 to a height no ladder of human climbing can scale, and makes it thick and solid with a strength which artillery can not overthrow. Within these lofty walls which you see not, but which you know to be impregnable, you plow, and till, and reap in quiet security all the season long. You send a lad to the bank with a thousand or two dollars fluttering in his hand. He passes by hundreds of tall and strong men, to some of whom a tenth of what he holds would be great riches, some of whom have sought all day in vain to earn or beg a shilling for a half-famished circle at home, but you have no fear for the safety of the boy or the treasure. An invisible guardian goes with him, holds a shield before him, overshadows him from behind, and tickets him on every side like choice articles at a fair, “hands off,” to the hungry looks that 1*

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6 TilE DIVINENESS OF covet the prize. I write my name in a book and lay it down where I will, it cannot be appropriated; this sleepless agency watches it, challenges all comers for the secret of that name, and preserves the volume for the owner. I lie down at night within wooden walls, and drop a bar indeed across the outer door, but the panels would yield to a blow of a rugged fist; thinner and frailer yet is the glass of my windows running down to the ground - silent reaches of unwatched fields stretch away from my threshhold into groves of oak and thickets of cedar, fit hiding-places of mischief, but my slumbers are undisturbed by foes within or alarms without, while the purlieus of a great city are haunted by the idle, the poor, the vicious, who would gladly enough share my comforts without compensation. But they see painted over the door in letters that

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HUMIAN GOVERNMENT. 7 gleam out through the night and cut into the black opaque of the window as with the point of a diamond, and diamond lustres lingering on the tracery, a talismanic “no admittance,” through which they cannot break. Who thinks of this unseen protection all around us like the air we breathe, as needful, as healthful, and beneficent, and yet coming and going, and abiding without fall of foot or rustle of garment, and doing its work as mightily and as silently as the forces of heat and attraction! But what would life and society be without it? A continual struggle of warring atoms and elements - a camp of Ishmaelites, every man’s hand against every other, the will of the strongest tyrannizing-no right but that of might; industry unrewarded, acquisition impossible save by violence, and the

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8 THE DIVINENESS OF rule of exchange, the caprice of savage barbarity. But see how the harvests ripen untrampled, unmolested. See how the freighted ships go lonely over the wide waste of waters, free to all keels, and bring their treasures back to port. See how each laborer tills his little plot of ground, sure of the crop for his dependent brood. See how rich trains of merchandise roll across the breadth of the continent, through darksome vallies and over solitary plains, with no convoy of armed men.

See how traders and artisans crowd their show-windows with the gayest and costliest fabrics and wares, within half-reach of covetous fingers. See how even in wild gorges and mountain fastnesses, the wary miner heaps his glittering pile within his canvas citadel, and sleeps without the quickening of a pulse. Hiow every man goes and comes, far and near, Al f

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. panoplied in safety like an ancient knight in mail, without forging one link of defen sive armor, the selfishness that would way lay his steps, snatch the fruit of his toil, flood his meadows, cut off his springs, poison the air he breathes, disturb his rest, intercept the liht of heaven from his mansion, defile his name, or profane his ear, held back by the touch of a soft invisible finger, that paralizes its arm in its lustiest strength - and tell me what this mighty protecting and avenging guardianship is worth to men! Strike down this arm of LAW, lifted in defence over every human head -desolate the homes and thoroughfares of life of this wide diffused conserving Presence, and society, with all that it includes of progress for the race, ceases to be, and men are turned back from friendships and brotherhoods and 9 it

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10 THE DIVINENESS OF all alliances, to the instincts and ferocities of the forest brute. It is LAW that watches my cottage door and the silent meadows around. It is LAW that builds the fences of the field so high. It is LAW that keeps the rich man’s palace and the poor man’s garden against marauding iolence, that flings out its protecting flag over the unarmned ocean trader, that leads the slender bank messenger through the crowd, and sets its inviolable seal on the curtain of the gold-digger’s tent; that surrounds every precious human right, as though with a solid cubic crystal, through which any eye may look, but no earthly arm can break. If there be one sanctity next to God that is sacred, dear and inviolable among men, it is the sanctity of LAW. But this invisible power has its visible seats and symbols. Law as a social force O 10

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 11 exists in connection with formal Government. It must show the eternal principles of Justice and Equity applied. These specific ordinances must be shaped to their special ends. They must be uttered by some competent and accredited authorization. Law must translate itself into its plural-be written out in Statute Books, set up its Courts of Judicature, gather its professional expounders, appoint executive officers, magistrates, policemen, its higher and lower tribunals, act with definite functions, and by commissioned agents. In this way it becomes concrete, takes hold of human relations, gets into practical working -
supplies a solid substance against which men who throw off its shadowy, invisible restraints - dash themselves to their hurt and their discomfiture, and learn the sharp lesson that to rebel against right rule is “to kick against the pricks.” 0 4

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12 THE DIVINENESS OF Law and Civil Government then go together. Government is the form, Law the life - Government the body, Law the soul. Destroy the body and you dismiss the indwelling spirit. It flies to and fro like Noah’s dove, over a vast wrathful sea - the masterless billows of human passion. It returns to the bosom of God, finding no resting place on earth. It is apresenceangel that he draws in with his breath when the black blast of anarchy sweeps over the dwellings of men. The sanctity of Law then, is the sanctity of Government, just as the sacredness of life is the sacredness of the flesh which it inhatits. And just as Law in its solemn restraints and its wide conserving beneficence is indispensable to human fellowship and intercourse, so is Government. Sooner might you leave the orbs of starry systems uncontrolled by the

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HIUMAN GOVERNMENT. 1 laws of the Creator, and hope for order and harmony amid clashing worlds, than take from human necks the yoke of equal Gov ernment, and expect jostling human hearts to abide under the laws of peace and con cord. What price soever we set upon Law as the Guardian of all sacred interests on earth and among men, that measures the sacredness and worth of Government. And now we reach another point, and a more momentous question -Whence is the authority of law? Who builds the majestic fabric of Civil Government? Is this great sanctity left to the estimates and the election of the human will? Is government but a human device,-and are men to say how they will be governed, on what principles, or whether they will be governed at all? Not for a moment do those questions hang in doubt.

Broad, sweeping, positive 2 13

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14 THE DIVINENESS OF is the Scripture, “THE POWERS that be are ordained of God.” So universal is the language that we are not allowed to fall back upon excepted cases, “THERE IS NO POWER BUT OF GOD.” The origin, the supremacy of civil government are of God. Not only has he an all superintending Providence that connects itself with the assignment of each individual lot -so that it is He who sets up and casts down - who distributes crowns and raises men to power, but Government, apart from men and from forms - the Government that exists - though in its dynasties and royalties founded in wrong and usurpation and violence is his ordinance, is accepted and established among his decrees-is clothed with divine sanctions and prerogatives, and sways a scepter borrowed from the right hand of Jehovah. We need to come back in our

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HiUMAN GOVERNMENT. 15 day to this fundamental conception of what Government is,- it is a vice-regency of God over social humanity. In the very freedom of our Institutions as we have exercised it and theorised upon it, there has lain a great Atheistic peril. We have so blazoned and blackened the capitals of DEMOCRACY, that we have overlaid and blotted out that other and elder word Theocracy. We have mouthed it for these three generations that “the people are the source of political power,” till we have come to understand by it not that the people’s Government is divine, because it is an ordinance of God - but that there is nothing diviner than the popular will. In what we call our immortal “Declaration of Independence,” we have set a thing that will have to be stricken down out of that upper immortality, and if it live forever 0 0

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16 THE DIVINENESS OF live in the nether eternity of hopeless rebellion.

And that utterance is that “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” There may be attached to these words a sense not reprehensible. But as we go on repeating them 
reading them out year after year before great popular assemblies, and teaching them to our children as the political Gospel of our land, they do turn our regard more and more from God, as the source and ordainer of civil power, to man. Government becomes thus not a divine ordinance, but a human thought. It is a policy of the governed. It is a preference of individuals. It is the aggregate concessions of those who, for the sake of dwelling together, strip themselves of a portion of their independence, and make over a common stock of

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HU3IAN GOVERNMENT. 17 delegated power to the community. It is thus a fabric which man rears -and which man may, as a natural consequence, tear down. When it pleases any of the con stituent personal elements of such a social state to resume what he has conceded, his allegiance ceases, his bands are dissolved and his old complete independence inures to him. I am glad for one that the voices of the religious press, and the voices of the pulpit are just now rebuking this Impiety. For the natural perversion of this doctrine is bearing fruit-fruit bitter and poisonous as the apples of Sodom. No! The great uni versal principle is, that Government derives its legitimate authority from the fact that it Is, inasmuch as that fact proves it a divine ordinance. While it is it is of God. Paul was writing to the Christians of Rome. On the throne of the Roman Empire sat 2’

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18 THE DIVINENESS OF the Tyrant Nero-whom Tacitus calls, in one of his intense lines, “A beast in human shape and the very monster of mankind.”

There were no free Governments then the world over - none that were penetrated with Christian ideas. They were cruel, corrupt, despotic, and in the interests of Heathenism and Idolatry. But even they were of God, and if a Christian asked what he should do as a citizen, when he renounced Paganism and its abominations, should he refuse any longer his civil obedience to such Governments! Paul answers, “Nero and Caligula are ordained of God. They represent, for the time, the supreme political authority. God has permitted them to be clothed with the sanctities of administrative power.” The maintenance of Government is a vast inappreciable good. Any Government is better than no Govern

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 19 ment. A despotism that sits galling on human necks and inaugurates a pagan faith as the religion of a people, is better than the wild horrors of anarchy. And a Pagan religion is a great deal better than no religion, immeasurably higher and safer than rank infidelity and blank Atheism. God does not sanction corruption, and cruelty and Heathenism, but he may delegate to a corrupt, cruel, heathen man, the office of administering and enforcing Law% on earth. We must come back to this conception of the sacredness of Government, that it is set up in God’s name-by virtue of his right to exercise and to delegate administrative power-and as an inherent part of his own divine supremacy over the creature. It is to train us up as subjects-to tutor us in subordination to bring nearer to us

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0 ~ THE DIVINENESS OF the scepter of power than his own distant imperial throne - to discipline us in selfrestraint, to help us in the control of our appetites and passions, to clear up our discernment of practical righteousness, and attune us to the harmonies of an orderly universe. The necessity of Law and Government, comes not thusjust of the social exigencies of men thrown together in communities. It exists in a man’s own heart-though all alone He wants not more a God for his instinctive homage, than he wants a rule to live bya statute to lean upon-an orbit of duty in which to move. He is and must be every where and in every condition a subject of Government, and a citizen of the Commonwealth of Jehovah. As God’s own nature is obedient to law -and the very law which he prescribes to all 20

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HIUMAN GOVERNMENT. 21 creatures - the Law of Love, so there exists a necessity that the creature should conme under the dominion of Law - not merely that he may be able to mingle with his fellows, and reap the common benefits resulting from human alliance, but that he may put on the image of the High and Holy One and be forwarded in the nurture of endless obedience. For these ends God takes up the Institution of Human Government out of the hand of man, and makes it an ordinance of his own will - a sanctity of his own sovereign enactment. I do not think we have lingered too long in this part of our subject. It is a serious question whether we have not in this country in the very wantonress of personal freedom, drifted away on all the political currents of our national life from the God of our fathers. We have left God out of our

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22 TiHE DIVINENESS OF civil nationality. We have had no coin for the great Republic on which we have cut “Dei gratia.” We have not looked up and seen Government descending upon us by the “jure divino” of Kings, or of any other style of magistrate. Why, you and I can make laws. We can construct a Government. Government is not a divine institution; it is framed in a town meeting. “A power” is not ordained of God. He is created in a caucus.

It isn’t the will of Heaven that supplies our Public Functionaries; it is the party nomination. Well, if it is all in our hands-if it all lies with us, what is to hinder us from stepping out if we choose, withdrawing our investment in the concern, and letting such others carry it on in their own way and for themselves as choose to cohere. This is license, not liberty-this is anarchy, not civil

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. order - this is Atheistic, not Puritanic. And herein is our first great need of return to God. It is in this old nearly lost idea of Government, and in this view of its wide temporal and spiritual beneficence, that we see the greatness of the crime of rending and subverting Government. It is violence to a divine institution. It is slipping the neck out from beneath a yoke imposed by the sceptered hand of the Great King. Even as our Scripture declares, “Whoso ever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” There is one, and but one limitation to this duty of civil obedience. As Government is divine, it must express the divine attributes and coincide with the divine will. And so strong is the argument for its legitimacy derived from its existence, that it must be 23

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24 THE DIVINENESS OF taken to be in coincidence with the divine will, so far as to constrain our obedience, unless we find it set over against some explicit rescripts of God. If God command one thing by express statutes, and civil government command the opposite, we may know that that is a bastard government, and has in that requisition no right of dominion. If God say, “hallow my Sabbaths,” and civil government say, profane them, and license theatres, and bear-baitings, and bull-fights on that day; if God say honor the Son, even as you honor the Father, and persecuting civil government say, blaspheme the name of Christ, then our obligation to conform ceases. There comes in then this other Scripture utterance. The outraged conscience of the citizen may meet the fulminations of the civil powers, with this apos

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 25 tolic challenge, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye.” Here and there in the world’s reproachful history in the sad annals of humanity - a government comes so obviously, odiously, and intolerably to fail of being in any proper sense a representative of the supreme gevernment, setting aside and contradicting every divine attribute, employing all its force to overthrow the first principles of the divine order, that not Christianity but human nature will no longer endure it. God makes earth and man so sick of it, that they spue it out of their mouth. But this limit of personal obedience, and this reserved right of revolution, are very rare of practical realization. It is a great and terrible evil to overturn a government, even a bad and wicked government. It dissolves all bonds 3 25

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26 THE DIVINENESS OF of social duty and communial order. It stirs up the sentiments of society fromn their lowest deeps. It teaches for years, perhaps for a generation, the perilous lesson that all governmental restraints may lose their binding force, and leaves men’s minds unhinged, restless, without solid anchorage in the stability of existing relations, compacts and duties. Even when it must be, in the last resort, the good so purchased, however great, is well nigh balanced by the terrible cost. How awful then, must be the criminality of such a procedure, when it is the offspring of evil ambition and unholy passion; when it is attempted not in the name of religion, or of humanity, or of social progress or of the personal conscience, but in the name of a cause that shows blacker against the horizon of this day in earth’s chronicle, than

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 27 any other blot within her crystal belt I When such a wanton assault is committed against the divine sanctity of human Government, we wonder not that the Scripture waxes hot with wrath, and issues its fateful decree -” they that resist shall receive to themselves DAMNATION.” It is the shadow of this great criminality which to-day darkens half the land. It is the rending of a nationality divinely founded, it is rebellion against good government -the ordained vicegerent of God. If this black scheme of treason be carried by its own force of arms, or by our weakness of principle, it is not the revolution of Government, it is the dissolution of Government, and of all Government.

Those mad hands strike not alone at the pillars of this stately temple of Empire, but at the mightier pillars that bear up the throne of universal 0

0

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28 THE DIVINENESS OF civil law. The indictment that will weigh most heavily on these rebel heads, when God judges and visits, will be, not in the interruption to our material prosperity, in the deep anguish of wrestling against business reverses, the bitterness of seeing want darkening the cottage doors, in the pouring out of national treasures like water, in the sorrow of parting households, the trembling of heart that watches for all tidings of the absent, and starts at the fluttering of a leaf, in the weary marches-the strange exposures-the devastating diseases-the wounds -the deaths of war, but in the contravention and subversion of all that God stands for min his ordinance of civil Government. t is, as he views it, an assault upon the .ugust banner of his supremacy. When armed treason struck at the starry flag on Sumter’s battlements, it struck as high as the stars on heaven’s own field of blue.

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HUMAN GOVERNMEgT. 29 Were these insurrectionists at the last extremity beneath intolerable wrong, where endurance ceases to be a virtue and revolution becomes a dreadful reality? Was it against an iron-handed, iron-heeled despotism, that had too long trodden them in the dust, they revolted? Was it not against a representative Government, in whose councils they sat, whose policies they helped to frame, whose high offices they filled-a Government allowing larger personal liberty, and more generous to diversity of opinion and interest, than any other beneath the sun, - a government so gentle in its pressure, so far from all violence and harshness of coercion in its normal functions, that it is proverbially the absence of all governing force? Was there in the sharpness of what they had suffered, or in the inspiration of what they hoped a justification 3*

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30 THE DIVINENESS OF for this great parricide? What had they suffered? Not one shadow of wrong, not the least encroachment upon one right, not the slightest civil disability or prejudice, nothing keener than a check upon domineering ambition-a hint that in the fluctuations of the popular will their star might not always be in the ascendant, a silent showing of the hands that the people of the land preferred to have our old unchanged Constitution administered in the interests of freedom and humanity. In all this there was no color of departure from either the letter or the spirit of Constitutional law. The Constitution covered them as before, with its broad shield. The new President inaugurated the new era with a solemn oath to support the Constitution. Not a line of it was, or could be erased -
not a line of it perverted to their loss.

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 31 Neither fraud, nor force, nor philanthropy, nor fanaticism deflected by a hair’s breadth the course of the national administration from its law-regulated orbit. Was here a just occasion, in what had been suffered, for that final dread horror of bringing government to the block? And what was there in the other direction? What bright promise in which the world could rejoice, and for the sake of which, History could forgive their rashness, lured them on? What hoped they for?

Something grand and great, the attainment of which should excuse all excesses, before the tribunal of coming ages, the enlargement of a subject race -the elevation of some down-trodden people -lifting up from darkness, and shame, and wrong, some neglected and oppressed portion of the human family, - the extension of the area of light 0 10

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32 TiHE DIVINENESS OF and freedom? For such hope’s sake they might have strained the bonds of legal duty -mankind would have judged them leniently. But for that fell scheme of an empire built on the necks of groaning millions-for the sake of the ignoble crown of plantation lordship - for the lust of privilege rooted in feudal darkness, alike debasing to master and serf, which even semi-barbarous Russia has flung off into the black receding past, so that she, too, cheers us in this death-grapple, for the sake of burdening all the fair central zone of this new Hemisphere with such a curse to land and labor and mankind-belting these broad regions of light with a kingdom of darkness, over which might stream through the heavens our northern auroral splendors, but across whose borders no apostle of truth and liberty should ever pass,-so great a

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 33 crime, for so foul an end - is this the justification with which treason fronts the present and the future, and the muse of History, and the violated ordinance and stern inquest of God? And in the face of these facts, clear as noon, some men keep asking, “must we push this dread duel?” “Is it worth it all? ” “Can’t we have peace?” “Must we push this dread duel? Is not this terrible scourge of war ruining all the material interests of the country - taking half a million strong arms from the ranks of producers, draining off a million of wealth a day prostrating all business -overthrowing staunchest houses-cutting off the earnings of the poor-reducing multitudes to beggary, and entailing burdens upon us and our posterity, under which many generations must go bowed down?”

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34 THiE DIVINENESS OF My friend, can you think of nothing else but your “business?” Is all well, in your estimation, if trade go well? Would you be quite willing to see the government shattered, and law trampled under foot, and our nationality blown up by the infernal machine of treason, if you could pay your notes and collect your debts, and keep your credit good? What do you reckon God’s ideal to be in the life of a nation? That men shou!d buy and sell, and have great marts, and garner broad harvests, and grow rich and fat, and gouty with ease and luxury? Might not prosperous business be our ruin? Might not gainful industry and trade uninterrupted lead us swiftly down into the mire of corruption, sensuality and profligacy? Is not God’s end in us, that we should stand by him -

serve his great ri

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‘IUMAN GOVERNMENT. 35 pening purposes on the earth - build in his name, not palaces or towers for ourselves, but the grand, august fabric of a Christian civilization - in which the frail, the timid, and the suffering of all peoples may find shelter and cheer? And when the pinch comes, shall we falter and cry out, “Oh my business -my trade - what shall become of that? ” Well, what will become of it, beneath the ruins of a fallen Republic-what enriching commerce will remain to a people who consent that all bands of Government shall be but as ropes of sand? Nay, but there is no ruin, if there be no loss of manhood, and honor, and a good conscience.

Poverty is not ruin, nor wealth prosperity. If we give all that fourscore years of peace and plenty and unexampled growth have heaped together within our borders, empty every

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36 THE DIVINENESS OF coffer in this grand crisis, we may stand up in that noble poverty, as the fruit of such a purchase and sacrifice, a greater, freer, and mightier peop)le, all the world being judge, and God on his throne sealing the verdict, than ever were possible in bloated wealth and sordid mammon worship. But ” is it worth it all? ” It is a hesitating voice and half under breath that puts the question. ” Is what we fight for worth the cost?” What do we fight for? Nearest, simplest, most instinctive is the answer, “self-preservation.” But there is a world of meaning in that one word. All that our fathers came for, wrought for, suffered for, prayed for, bled for - “building grander than they knew,” we fight for in this war. Their great experiment-their holy mission of founding and preserving a free Christian State, is handed down to us.

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 37 The foundation principles of popular Government and Free Institutions, Institutions founded not in ideas of privilege and caste, but in simple, natural equity and human brotherhood are at issue, in our career as a nation, and of course in this instant contest. The embodiment in positive forms of law, and social development of the world’s best progress hitherto, the ripest and richest results of all the laboring past of human story is entrusted to our keeping, and for that we fight.

For the proper nobility of humanity as born of God and redeemed of God,for equal rights among men, for the largest and fairest representation of the interests of the subject in the laws and the administration of Government -for a religion free from the defiling alliance of political policies, and yet pervading all the atmosphere of the land, and baptizing unto a spiritual 4

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38 THE DIVINENESS OF life, all its sons and daughters; for these sublime trusts this nation has stood, and for these, with a renewal of hearty consecration, we have put on armor now. The real stake is all that our country has represented to the world’s hope-all that fair vision seen in her, with desire and with fear, as her light rose on the nations. Not only is this worth fighting for, it is worth falling for as a nation, worth dying for, worth failing of. It is so great a good that if we kInew all our outlay of blood and treasure must be in vain to realize it, it were worth the offering; the great martyrdom would make our name holy through time and through eternity. “But must we fight for it-can we not have peace?” We were at peace till a day came when our hearts took on a new hope for the security of these great prizes.

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 39 That hope provoked the deadly strife. And now look at those two armies, well nigh the mightiest that Christendom ever saw in battle array-see, while our own cheeks tingle, that flush of victory on Southern brows, hear their boasts of Southern valor and Northern cowardice, guage the temperature in those bosoms, of exasperated feeling, bitter hate, and scornful pride-see how deep their hands are dipped already in treason’s bloody work-how their all is cast on this die-see how the strongest and fellest passions of our nature push them on, lust, avarice, ambition and revenge, and then repeat your question, “can we not have peace? ” Shall we disband that army whose living wall is all that keeps that fiery flood of insurrection from rolling on over the hill of the Capitol, over the monumental city, over the scene where the first

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40 TIlE DIVINENESS OF chimes of Independence were struck long ago, over our midland mines and forges, over the stateliest homes of commerce, and dashing its burning waves even against the base of yonder granite shaft?

Is there anything but red-handed war that can save the North from such a vengeful chastisement? The first sign of yielding, the slightest motion toward running up the white flag, would swell the rebel breasts with tenfold audacity and purpose; and every man that calls “peace!” “peace!”

while that horde lies behind its rifled cannon, costs the country a company of men, with all its charges for the war, and its irreparable waste of life. We could not now treat for peace, without such flouts and taunts, terms so ignominious, conditions so humbling, and demands so grasping and so fatal to Government and Freedom, that no

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HUMAN GOVERNMIENT. 41 depth of blackness and darkness would be deep enough and black enough for us to hide in-no veil could cover the shame of such a dishonor. Do we understand what it is that is demanded? What does separation mean, if it could be adjusted? Say nothing of inevitable jealousies and breaches, of raids and reprisals, of endless and savage border warfare across the breadth of the Continent, of irreconcilable interests arnd policies touching at ten thousand sore points; leave out the protest of broad vallies, and great rivers, and boundless plains, and ccntinious mountain ridges, against being thus cut in twain, complete the separation, and what is it f or? To SECURE AMERICAN SLAVERY! To set up on this Continent, and in its fairest and richest portion, a great undivided Slave Empire, that shall do all things with 4*

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42 THE DIVINENESS OF in its borders according to its own sweet will, with none to molest or make it afraid; that shall extend, if it please, by purchase or by treaty, or by conquest over the Sunny Isles and far toward the Southern Isthmus, and consolidate itself with such forces and securities, that the world could not for a century of ordinary progress, throw off such a horrible incubus; think of yielding so much of our wealth, and more than half our territory, owing allegiance and duty, now by every bond to this Government of ours, yielding all this to such a doom! No whatever bribe, which the world could contain, were thrown in to buy of us such a peace-infinitely rather would I, as a citizen of this land, see the earth open beneath us and swallow us down quick, and leave only a black chasm where all our glory was! It is God’s commission to civil Gov

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 43 ernment that it bear the sword, and it is not anti-Christian to be faithful to that commis sion. Nothing is so Christian now, as that the Government act its divinely pre scribed part as “a Revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” Any false tenderness, any maudlin Christianity about fulfilling this commission, would be the deadliest cruelty, the most glaring impiety. But I hear some faint heart whispering, “We cannot conquer a re-union -we may overrun, subjugate and hold military possession, but the Union never again can be.” How does “Faint Heart” know? Is he a prophet beyond all men? Has the Union been so cordial and loving that he despairs of seeing such harmony restored? Has he reflected how many there are on rebel ground that would hail with jubilant voices, the 43

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44 THIE DIVI.ENESS OF coming of the day that should end the reign of terror beneath which they now bow in silence? Can he not conceive that naughty men may be made to behave well? May there not be yet other forces that shall take part in the strife? May there not be new elements yet, in that social life and civilization of our Southern land? But fail or win is not the question - it is for us to do our best for our country, for our Government, for our kind, for our trust, for our God, for our duty; and win or fail, our name, and fame, and future will be clear, and out of the issue will be gathered some tribute for human good and God’s glory. So go we forward. Momentarily the crisis is becoming more eventful-the issue grander. It is not what it was, pending the last Presidential election-the triumph

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HIUMAN GOVERNM1ENT. 45 of a party. It is not what it was when the plot first broke its shell, the unearthing of treason. It is not what it was when the first hostile gun was fired-the restoration of broken peace The wide front which rebellion shows, the vast efforts it has put forth, the consolidated scheme it has founded deep and built high, the broad flag it has unfurled, and the great armies it has raised, the rocking of the whole nation in this terrible convulsion for life or for death, have put before the country and the world, another and a more radical issue. In dread silence that issue is coming on and rising up before us. All minds think it-all hearts throb it. Providence is leading straight toward it. The madness of rebellion itself has made it. The hands that stirred up strife are responsible for it. The necessities of this guilty war demand it. And that

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46 THE DIVINENESS OF Institution of Slavery, which, if the peace had been kept, would have still found shelter under our national 2Egis-which no soldier of New England could have touched, which might have kept its life green and vigorous on our soil till this 19th century of the Christian years had expended itself, THAT is cast into the scales of battle. Many are eager that the Government should proclaim this issue, and announce to the country and the world that we war for the overthrow of this great evil. Is not the truer and the more commanding statement, if we must have proclamation, that we fight for the maintenance of Government? There can be no debate upon that statement. Nobody can question the right to draw the sword, or to stain it red for that issue. No scruple can lisp that we transcend law in the name of law. We shall not thus, of

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IHUMAN GOVERNMENT. 47 our own intent and purpose, make the cause of emancipation a cause of violence and blood. We shall not endanger the strain ing of loyal consciences, and the disaffection of many patriot hearts. I could wish that in all this matter of proclamations we could have the grace of silence. The thing is not to proclaim but to act. Not to announce, but to march. Not to send out paper missives but patriot armies.

They are sure to be emancipation armies. Shall we, therefore, dishonor our great reform by striking with armed hand, directly and of set purpose, for that? Rather let the event interpret the work. “The stern logic of events,” will show emancipation actual, inevitable. Let that logic frame the declaration, and not our lips. Men may pick flaws in proclamations, and take sides, and question the right and wis i

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48 THE DIVINENESS OF dom, but what the progress of the on-rolling war necessitates, that has unquestionable vindication. I am much mistaken if this is not the whole breadth of difference between the Administration and the youthful General of the West. The latter was moved to anticipate by proclamation - the former would go silently forward, unfettered, uncommitted, unreproached, to do the very same thing, as soon as the infallible conduct of events should lead to it. Nor is this going, blindly forward. It is following hard after God, closing in quick and fast upon the advance of Providence. Did the Israelites go blindly forward when they followed the pillar of cloud and of fire? Would it make us any more clear-eyed to set up a scheme of our own, project that forward into the future, and run after it? This anxiety to settle the hour and the

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 49 method of deliverance, and proclaim it, is like the eagerness of the disciples in their last interview with their risen Master. “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom?” And he rebuked them; what they needed was not to be told something, but to be endued with power; not to be made prophets of the future, but to act with courage and boldness, in the living present. So far as emancipation is wrought out by violence and blood, make rebellion responsible. It is rebellion that dashes, the chains of the slave with the battle axe. The plague they have invoked frees their thralls. We strike for Law and Union, for country and God’s great ordinance of Government, and the stiffness of rebellion makes that stroke shatter all the fetters of bondage. Let 5 49

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THlE DIVINENESS OF the ” body” of proclamations ” lie a mouldering in the dust,” THE “SOUL is marching on” “Glory Hallelujah!” It is best so. Let events lead us. Let God in Providence lead us. Can there be any want of enthusiasm in following such a leadership? Will it stimulate us to a more heroic ardor to fly a flag of our own? Was it a sluggish response that came back on the full Northern gale when the imperilled Capital called, and our country’s voice woke the echoes of our Northern homes? Don’t let us fall out in writing proclamations and prophecies - let us move right onward and make jubilant history. We love to read of the world’s heroic ages-to kindle our souls with the thought of what we might have been and done had our lot been cast in such a time-and to ‘Do

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 51 show a noble scorn of all who faltered then. Now the stress is upon us. The times that try men’s souls have come round again here. A more eventful conflict, for greater principles, and grander issues, the long, scroll of human story has not recorded. If we have longed to be heroes, to panoply ourselves and stand up to do battle in a just cause, now is our time. What are we ready to undertake in this holy war for country and liberty and human progress? We must have patient and considerate sympathy for those in authority -the Heads of State - the Heads of Armies. We must submit with willing self-denial to the universal derangement of industrial pursuits, bear it - stand up under it, accept this cost of the high struggle without fretting and grumbling. We must spare something from our luxuries, our comforts,

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52 THE DIVINENESS OF and from what we have called our necessaries, for the needs of the soldier and the soldier’s family. We must stifle our heart’s surging pain and give up our sons and brothers and lovers to the march and field. If we are wanted, we must stand ready to go; and bind up earthly hopes, earthly prospects, earthly affections, the care of wife and babe, and life itself, in one not too costly sacrifice, and lay it upon our country’s altar. Shall these times pass over us and we be content to have no personal share in them, save that our eyes were open upon them, and our lungs breathed the air so stirred and vibrant? Shall we recur to them haply some day with grey hairs on our brow and a group of grand-children at our knees, and recite the thrilling events now crowding the diary of life here, and when those eager lips ask us, “What did

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HUMAN GOVERNMENT. 53 you do, grandfather?” stammer out a lame apology that, “we had too much to attend to, to get away,” or that “we were in too good a place to lose,” or that “we were afraid soldiering might have an unfavorable effect upon our business habits,” or that “we thought perhaps we might be taken sick!” Could we bear the wondering reproach of those youthful eyes? Would not the ashen cheek of age blush crimson? WTe are to nerve ourselves for the whole struggle, longer or shorter. No half work now. Finish it thoroughly, and finish it forever - so that this issue while the world stands shall never need on these shores to be tried again.

Go through with it. Rebellion and all its vital causes must be plucked up by the root. For one, I will consent to no peace till I can go every where over the soil of my country, and talk and

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54 THE DIVINENESS OF write, and publish and preach what I will in the interests of truth and freedom, without let or hindrance, and find the whole land open and safe for every citizen to traverse, or dwell in without one honest conviction contraband of the climate and latitude. Let us not be in a hurry to stop fighting, but do all God has for us to do with swords in our hands. The prophet Elisha bade King Joash take bow and arrow and shoot through the open window; and as the king shot, the prophet named the bolt, “the arrow of the Lord’s deliverance from Syria.” Then after this hint he bade the king smite with the arrows upon the ground.

And he smote thrice and stayed. “And the man of God was wroth with him, and said thou shouldst have smitten five or six times; then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it.” If it pleases

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HUMtAN GOVERNMENT. 55 God by this sacrament of battle to consecrate this land unto the glorious future of Christian freedom, let us not cut short the administration of this great sacrament. Above all, with deep personal penitence and unfeigned humility let us get near to our God in the full conditions of prevailing prayer, and cry mightily unto him, that he make our time of scourging a time of great deliverance, and through our rent and torn body, cast out with the right hand of his power the mighty Demon that has baffled and defied all other spells.

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TH PI i THE LET-ALONE POLICY. , itrniaii, BY REV. O. B. FROTHINGHAM. JUNE

9, 1861. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED AT No. 5 BEEKMAN STREET. 4 I 0 8 0 No

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a

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SERPMON Ehlraim is joined to idols: let him alone.-Hosea:x. 17. I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. If!ttthet; v. 39. IT is interesting sometimes to see how the same verbal doctrine looks from two different points of view, and how the truest doctrine may be misjudged by people taking the wrong view of it. We have here, announced by an old, and by the new prophet, a doctrine which wise and noble men broached for a wise and noble purpose, but which men foolish and ignoble have perverted to ends ignoble and foolish. It is familiarly known as the doctrine of “laissez faire,” or, as we say in English, the doctrine of “Let us alone “-the “Letalone Policy.” Respecting this doctrine, a great deal is to be said both for and against. A great deal is to be said for it, as originally meant; a great deal is to be said ogacizst it, as vulgarly understood. The doctrine came up in Europe at a time when human nature, oppressed, beaten down, clogged, worn-out by excessive government, began to grow restless, and to protest against the tyranny of over-legislation. The world had been regulated by its rulers past all endurance, and was getting desperate under the fretting action of the

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leading strings. Government had its hand in everybody’s business, insisted on doing everything, and did everything badly. Government undertook to adjust prices of food, to regulate railways, to superintend house building, to fix cab fares, to inspect sewers, to vaccinate children, to send out emigrants, to prescribe hours of labor, to examine lodging-houses, provide public libraries, read and sanction plays, overhaul passenger-ships, test the knowledge of mercantile captains, see that small dwellings were supplied with water, patronize different branches of trade and manufacture; in short, to regulate endless things, from a banker’s issues to the boat fares on a river. It even undertook to say for men and women how they should save their souls, what articles of religion they should believe, where and in what form they should worship, what proportion of their income they should set aside for the maintenance of the Church, for the support of charitable institutions, for the diffusion of Christianity. Men and womien were scarcely permitted to do anything for their own interest or in their own way. Human nature was forbidden to work in obedience to its own divinely-appointed laws, but must stand still with clogged wheels, and be pushed this way and that by a set of state and ecclesiastical functionaries. When affairs were in this hopeless condition, Adam Smith, in the name of the people, raised the cry of “Let us alone,” and he meant simply, “Hands off of human nature”; leave human nature free to supply her own wants, in her own way; leave God’s system of checks and balances to its own operation; leave men and women at liberty to say what they need, and how they will meet their need; do not tie up a nation’s hands and feet with red tape, nor throw secretaries and bureaus in the way of the people’s advance. Let us at least try the experiment of managing our own affairs. This was the doctrine of “Let us alone ” a doctrine which resulted 2

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3 or tended to result in republicanism in politics and freedom of conscience in religion. All that is greatest and most glorious and most hopeful among ourselves, all that is peculiar to our institutions, whether secular or religious, comes from this doctrine of” Let us alone.” It is a doctrine that meant, not idleness, not indifference, not heedlessness, not lawlessness, not the giving up of all responsibility for the wise direction of things, not an abandonment of moral control over unruly elements, not loosening of the reins to every license. It is a doc trine that meant work, activity, business, self-posses sion, self-respect, self-help, taking hold of things by the right handle, and regulating things according to rules of economy and justice. It meant, let the hounds loose upon their prey-the wolves and foxes that had been terrifying and ravaging society long enough. This was the doctrine of laissez faire; let us alone, and we will do our work, we will educate and cultivate and develop our own temporal and spiritual estates. But when an idler or a trifler gets hold of the doctrine, it means something very different from this. Then it means: Let matters take care of themselves, and go to the mischief, if they will, in their own fashion, or their own no-fashion; it means what democracy means to the vulgar, “Every man for himself, and the fiend take the hindmost.” But to come back to Ephraim. Ephraim was one of the ten tribes which, in a period of anarchy and misrule. had cast off its allegiance to the law of Jehovah, and been faithless to the sacred traditions and worship of the nation. No matter about him, says the prophet; no matter what becomes of him; leave him to follow his own course; do not meddle with him in the way either of enmity or friendship; let him alone. What reasons the prophet might assign for letting Ephraim alone we can hardly conjecture. There may have been wise and good ones, which we should acquiesce in at once, if we knew all the circumstances of the

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4 case. As we do not know them, we will not waste time in guessing at the prophet’s thought, but will try to imagine some of the reasons which a politician might give for such a piece of advice. 1. In the first place, he would be likely to say, “Let Ephraim alone, because his idolatry is none of our business. The tribes are independent tribes, with independent possessions, and, to some extent, an independent government. If one of them chooses to separate himself from the rest, to set up an independent State, to adopt a new social system, to adore Baal and Astarte instead of the Lord God, that is his affair, not yours or mine.’” The very thing the English papers say to-day about Carolina and Mississippi; the very thing the Secessionist says; the very thing the idle Conservative says the very thing the selfish citizen and neighbor and guardian and parent says, of the foolish, ignorant, vicious and abandoned people, who give themselves up to profligacy, immorality and irreligion. Let them alone; it is none of our business. If people choose to be ignorant and foolish and intemperate and suicidal, whose concern is it but their own? The argument, I repeat, of the thoughtless, the idle and the trifling. It is none of my business that a man makes varnish; but what if he sets up his factory in the rear of my residence? It is none of my business that a man does not choose to send his children to school, but lets them play about the streets; but what if his children entice mine to play with them, beset them on their way to school and tempt them to play truant, or waylay them as they come home from school, and teach them vagrant habits and vagrant vices? It is no business of mine that a man carries on his traffic on Sunday; but what if he carries it on in a way to insult and annoy pious people who wish the day for meditation and rest? It is no business of mine that a man believes and practises all the abominations of Mormonism; but what if he undertakes to

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5 undermine the moral principles of society and break up the peace of homes and degrade human nature to the animal? Whatever concerns humanity, more or less immediately concerns me. We are all members of the same body, and if one of the members suffer, all the memnbers suffer with it; if one is wounded, all bleed with it; if one is tainted, the poison affects them all. MIore than once, the rag of clothing from an infected ship has thrown a whole city into mourning. Mlore than once, the “boiled grass ” on which the people fed has cost the king his throne. More than once, the virus of moral disease, infused into some little remote vein of the finger or foot, has cost a State its life. ile who refuses to be his brother’s keeper stands in imminent danger of being his brother~s victim. It is hardly true, then, to say that Ephraim’s idolatry is his own affair, and that he may safely be left alone with it. Principles have a mysterious power of reproduction; actions propagate themselves; ideas and feelings spread by divine or infernal contagion, so that, for every falsehood and vice and sin in the world, every one of us is the worse, though not participating in it, nor so much as knowing of its character or its existence. 2. Again: it may be urged that Ephraim should be let alone because he is incorrigible, and all attempts to interfere with him would make him no better, and perhaps might make him worse. A very good reason this, when given by wisdom and nobleness and earnest interest in our brother’s welfare; but how good is it when given by indolence and self-indulgence?

Are we not all too ready to take for granted that our brother is incorrigible? that he has committed himself to his idolatry more completely than he has-that he has involved himself in vice more deeply than he actually has done-that his error is more studied, his crime more deliberate, his guilt more conscious, his wickedness more settled and purposed and malignant than it is?

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6 For my part, I cannot believe that any man’s fault is absolutely incorrigible; if I could believe that, I should show but little faith in the Author of human nature; for I should think it possible there might be a fatal flaw in the most perfect work of the all-perfect Creator; I should disbelieve in the Infinite Power and Goodness; I should disbelieve in the blessedness of the immortal life. When Jesus, speaking of one’s duty towards an offending brother, says, Try on him your personal influence; if this will not do, try the influence of friends; if that fails, try what the Church can do; and, all these failing, reckon him as an heathen man and a publican, I do not suppose him to authorize the abandonment of the man to his infirmity or sin as an incorrigible person. I understand him to direct that a new order of influences is to be brought to bear on him; he is to be taken up at the beginning, as one who stands on the lowest level of humanity; everything is to be done for him as for one who is wholly uninstructed and weak; so far from being let alon)e, he is to be put back into the primnary school of experience and tutored like a child. Did Jesus treat the heathen man or the publican as one with whom he had nothing to do? On the contrary, he lavished upon him a more peculiar attention, and went very far out of his way to find him and reclaim him. We give our brothers up too easily. Parents give up their children, guardians their wards, teachers their pupils, neighbors their poor, citizens their paupers and vagrants, States their idiots, lunatics and criminals, nations their dangerous and perishing classes, much too easily. It is so much less trouble to let them alone; so much less expense, too, at the moment, that letting alone soon passes for the best principle and the wisest policy, and we let our great resources of conviction and conversion slumber till they sleep their last sleep, while the evil they might have exterminated once,swells and multiplies and establishes itself too firmly for any

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human agency to remove it. That an evil seems to us incorrigible is, therefore, no good ground for letting it alone. 3. But once more: it may be said, if Ephraim is left to himself, he will, in time, put an end to his own offence. The idolatry to which he is joined is so miserable and debasing a thing, it corrupts its devotees so fast, it brings along with it so many abuses and turpitudes, it is associated with so much that is infamous and deadly, that it will do its own work full surely and full soon if permitted to run out into its ultimate consequences. It is too deeply infected with every element of corruption to live long, and, if allowed, it will stab itself with a more fatal weapon than you can wield against it. All this may be very true, but the objection to it is, that while evil does contain in itself the elements of its own defeat and decay, and will, in time, bring down its own destruction, these elements do their office -very slowly; they take ages and ages to accomplish their providential mission, and they accomplish it at length at the expense of multitudes of most precious lives, of happiness by the heart full, the home full, the city full, of human order and security and peace to an incalculable extent. No doubt poor Ephraim’s idol will prove itself a foul abomination one of these days; but by the time it does so, it will have been the death of poor Ephraim and a good many more less siniling than lie. Do not leave it alone, therefore, if there is any hope that you may be able to stop it before it stops itself in this very deadly manner.

Besides, do you wish Ephraim to be destroyed, and not saved rather? You do not let the suicide alone; why should you let the sinner alone? You do not let alone the man or woman who holds the pistol or the cup ready to put an end to a painful mortal existence; why let alone the man or woman who holds the vice or the folly or the guilt which is fast destroying the immortal soul? We 7

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8 seize on the brink of the river the wretched girl whose shameful life is too bad to be borne any longer, and drag her back to the world she loathes; why not seize the moral suicide who, in killing himself, kills not only himself, not only his eternal self, but the divine selfliood, also, of men and women who are bound up in the same bundle of existence with him? It is hard to see why not. And so the third argument for letting Ephraim alone falls dead. 4. There yet remains one-this that if well let alone, Ephraim will see the folly of his own courses, and like the prodigal in the parable, will return to his old home a penitent man. If you interfere with him, lie may be vexed and angry; his vanity may be piqued; his pride may be wounded; he will, perhaps, persist in his evil career from sheer determination to have his own way, and will deliberately ruin himself in order to spite his unwise but well-meaning physicians. Let him alone, and he will discover his error for himself, and will have no hesitation in confessing it; mieddle with him, and you put him upon a defence of his error. There is force in the suggestion. This is a point to be considered, no doubt; not, however, to be considered till it has been tried a little. For the simple fact isand this. also, is a fact to be considered-that the more people sin. the less are they inclined, as a rule, to see the folly of it. The St. Augustines, who are saved by their sins, are exceedingly rare in history. The repentant prodigals are not so common that we may expect a fresh instalment of them every year, as the product of the open dram-shops and busy gambling-houses. Everything depends on this, whether the evil or the good in the system, the sickness or the health, is most powerful and the miost active. If the first prevails, then no pains should be spared to increase the power of the second; if the second prevails, there can be no harm in assisting it that its victory may be the quicker and the surer.

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9 No one denies that there has been and is a vast deal of unwise interference with personal and social wickedness; interference that not only makes bad no better, but makes bad a good deal worse-meddling with infidelity, meddling with atheism, meddling with pauperism and intemperance and licentiousness; but the fault here lies in the Rnode of interference, not in the j)i’cii-le of it; the inference from the failure is not that the evil, whatever it be, shall be let alone, but that it shall be reached in other ways. One thing is most sure, that men are converted from evil onlyby force of glood; that force may operate in one way or another-it may operate directly or indirectly-it may operate by way of cure or by way of prevention; but operate it 9I’,tst, and idleness, scepticism, trifling will never help it to operate at all, but will hinder and stop it forever and ever. No harm ever came from the general accumulation of character. No harm ever came from the cleansing of the moral atmosphere in which our souls live, and this interferes with all evils, large and small, as the sunshine interferes with marsh fevers, and as the free air of heaven interferes with all the diseases that flesh is heir to, without using a drop of medicine. The l~issez faire doctrine, rightly understood, does not mean. let evil things take care of themselves, but let them be taken care of by the unhampered, untrammeellecl, unrestricted powers of good. No evil thing ever, in appreciable time, diminished or took itself off through being let alone.

Through being let alone, no evil thing ever did anything but grow and spread and magnify itself. and put down suckers like the banyan tree, till it became a vast forest of evil things. The old conflict between light and darkness never ceases for a moment and one might as well say that the night air would cease to be unwholesome if the dawn would only cease to break:. as that evil would become innoxious if good would

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10 only go to sleep. There are those who tell us now, that all the woes that have come upon us in our civil war are the fruit of our meddling with the peculiar institution of the South; that if we had let slavery alone we should now be at peace. They charge the national trouble on the antislavery people of the North. They even go so far as to say that, if slavery had been let alone, it would have quietly disposed of itself, and hidden itself away among the things of the wicked past. They assure us that more than once it was gasping in the delirium of death, when an ill-timed friction and agitation gave new circulati’on to its blood, and stimulated it to new energy. Virginia, they declare, was thinking seriously of its abolition; Kentucky was tired of it, and was considering how it might be put away, when the teazing spirit of the Abolitionists stung it into fresh desperation, and goaded it into a feverish and obstinate struggle for new life. -My friends, a very superficial knowledge of history will suffice to show how mistaken such an impression as this is, by showing that slavery languished, when it did languish, simply because it was unprofitable; and revived, when it did revive, simply because the invention of a cotton-gin had prodigiously stimulated the cotton culture and added enormously to the value of slave labor in the market. The institution did seem likely to die of starvation; it recovered and flourished because it received an abundant supply of food. This history teaches, plainly enough, to all who care to know it. And history, moreover, teaches this: that slavery never has been to any considerable extent, interfered with, never to any extent that need cause its friends serious alarm. The let-alone policy has been very strictly pursued in regard to the institution. The Constitution has protected it from assault, the government has thrown over it its powerful shield; special laws have interposed between it and its assailants; the public

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11 sentiment of the country has at least apologized for it, if it has not approved of it; the public sentiment of the North has never risen to the point of pronouncing it a sin. or even an evil, or so much as a mistake.

No great party has ever declared itself its exterminator. The powerful classes in society have steadily justified and defended it, and deplored all criticism even of its character. The Abolitionists have been a small body of people, obscure in position, poor in material resources of money and influence, having no single commanding and widely circulated organ, repudiated, despised and spit upon by all who valued their good name in the world. All the great powers and interests and estates among us conspired to secure for the Southern institution a very complete and absolute letting alone. The Church let it alone, the political parties let it alone, the mercantile class let it alone, the capitalists let it alone.

If it was approached, it was approached only to be flattered and courted; its rights were asserted with a vehemence that bordered on extravagance; its great staple of cotton was exalted above every product of the earth.

Now, when we consider all this, is it not apparent that the “let-alone”

policy, and not the meddling” policy, is at the bottom of all our present troubles? Who is responsible for the insolence and arrogance that have struck so high a pitch in the last few months, for the overweening conceit of power, the extravagant assertion of privilege, the imperious and boastful temper, the wild expectations and visionary hopes, which have caused great States to rise in confident rebellion, and are luring whole communities towards certain destruction? Who, I repeat, is answerable for this? They who have done their little best to show the wrong and mischief of slavery, or they who have labored so successfully to defend it and vindicate it and shield it? WVho encouraged these deluded and betrayed people to believe that an overwhelming majority at the North

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12 would favor their uprising, and thus have aided the uprising? Certainly not those who refused to let slavery rlo?e. For nmy own part, friends, let me say I have one pure consolation amid all the terrors of the time-it is, that I have done what I could with my smnall power, in my small way, and in my small sphere of influence, to strengthen the forces that bore against that bad institution. )Iany foolish words I have spoken in other connections, many weak words, many words I would gladly unsay, if I could, on other themes; but these words about the guilt of slavery I would rather repeat and multiply. Of them I am not ashamed. And when I stand at the last great bar, and am held to judgment for all the idle things I have spoken, I shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that these, like the widow’s two mites, will be accepted as a heart-offering to the cause of humanity; a cup of cold water to the little ones who thirsted in the hot Sahara of the world. You see, my friends, that I do not believe in the doctrine of “Let us alone,” as it is commonly understood. I believe in it only in the best sense, as meaning “Leave us free to attack evils and remove them; untie our hands, loose our tongues, emancipate our thoughts and speech, that we may bear down irresistibly upon evil and the evil man.”’ It is in this sense that Jesus understands. accepts. and preaches the doctrine, when he says, “Resist not the evil man; but whosoever smites thee on the one cheek, turn to him the other.” Surely Jesus could not by these words intend to take all restraint from wickedness, to remove all obstacles from its path, and leave it free to override goodness as it might choose. He meant, doubtless, to put surer restraint upon it, to throw heavier obstacles in its way, to make it incapable of overriding goodness at all. He meant to bind it as the fairies in the fine Northern MAythus bound the tameless wolf Fenrir with a chain made of the noise of the cat’s footfall. the beards of

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13 women, the roots of stones, the fishes’ breath, and the spittle of birds. The chain was invisible and intangible, and the great beast knew not when it coiled about him. But it held motionless the creature whom the violent gods, with their iron cables, could not restrain. What Jesus says is this: Do not return the bad man’s deed in kind. If he wrongs you, do not you wrong higm; if he smites you with the fist, do not you smite back with the fist; if he steals your property, do you forbear to retaliate by stealing his; if he practises with dagger and poison, do not you practise with dagger and poison; if he shuts you up in prison for speaking your honest mind, and scourges you, and covers you with tar and feathers, do not be tempted to do likewise to him or his; if he slanders you, and lies about you, and calls you coward and “mud-sill,” never retort on him his foul Billingsgate, but oppose patience to his fury, and let the gentle answer at once turn away the wrath and rebuke it. Christ says only, Do not try to beat the adversary at his own weapons. There are other weapons of finer edge and harder temper; try these; learning first of me how to use them. This is the way Paul puts it: “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if lihe thirst, give him drink.” Why? That he may be made stronger to kill you? No, but because in so doing you kill him by heaping coals of fire on his head. Were Jesus alive to-day, and the spokesman of the nation, would he say to Mir. Jefferson Davis, “You have smitten me on the right cheek, called Sumter smite me now on the left cheek, called Pickens; you have taken from me the arsenals and mints and buildings, which were my cloak; take now, I pray you, the government offices and archives, which are my coat also; you have compelled me to walk out of your territory many a weary mile; say the word, and I am ready to walk twice the distance, even to walk out of the country altogther; you ask me for the city of

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14 Washington; here it is at your service; you would ‘borrow of me the national treasury; behold the keys thereof at your command.” Would Jesus say this? Not if he supposed that Mr. J. Davis would take him at his word.

Not if he supposed that Mr. J. Davis would be so stubborn in his evil mind as to stand unrebuked and unshamed by this demonstration of magnanimity and divine patience. Not if he supposed that the moral force of such an attitude would prove utterly ineffectual to stay the impending ruin. He would say it, if he said it at all, simply with the purpose and intent of Mesistig SIr. Davis more effectually than arms would do it: of resisting him with the potency of awe and shame and jpatie1ice. This was Christ’s mode of resistance. A very mighty and prevailing mode it is, when one knows how to use it, and there are moral sentiments to use it upon; a mode of resistance which will come more and more into vogue as men become educated and Christianized; a mode of resistance which we all should understand and train ourselves in, and become proficients in the use of, for it is the mode of resistance which becomes the highest order of men and women, and is employed always by the angels and the blessed gods. It is strange enough that Christ should be accused of preaching “non-resistance ” to evil and evil men. Bring that charge against all the world rather than against him. For he is the only great Teacher who has ever preached an utter and uncompromising resistanice to evil and evil men. lie would never let the wicked alone. He did not leave the Pharisee alone in his pride, nor the Sadducee in his scorn, nor the lawyer in his craft, nor the priest in his cruelty; he sought the curst leper in the wilderness, the tormented sinner in his cave. The demons who had dragged their miserable victims out into waste places and among the solitudes of the tombs saw him coming, and cried out,

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15 Let us alone; what have we to do with thee? ” But the Great Spirit went in among the very tombs, and cast the demons out, making them take refuge in the swine’s flesh where they belonged. What Jesus did when alive, his religion has continued to do since his death. It is the only religion that has put wickedness fairly on the defensive and pushed it to the wall, and made it cry for quarter. It is the only religion that has made stubborn knees bend in prayer, and strong hearts break with penitence. It is the only religion that has made the robber baron give up his bloody plunder, and the robber king put off his bloody crown. It is the only reliaon that has unleashed the moral forces of man, and set them in full cry after the monsters of iniquity. The peculiarity of it is that it will not let wickedness alone, that it will give it no rest even in the grave, but pursues it with a terrible retribution into the shadows of another world, and scourges it through the long galleries of eternity. It puts a whip into the hands of every living conscience, with full commission to lash the rascals naked through the world, and when the world’s barrier is past, it puts the same ihip into the hands of the mighty angels whose mercy means restoration to goodness. Bad men cry out to be let alone. MIr.

Jefferson Davis, infested with evil spirits, cries out, “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, spirit of justice and order and liberty and law?” No. Mir. Jefferson Davis; the high gods love thee too well to let thee alone. Thou shalt not be let alone. Though thou gain ever so many victories with thy chivalry, and drive the nation’s goddess from her holy seat, and make for thyself a solitude of what was once a fair and fruitful land, thou shalt not be let alone. The spirit ofjustice and order and liberty and law will haunt thee; the convictions of the civilized world will encompass thee about on every side, will beset thee behind and before, will lay their hands

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of iron upon thee; the laws of the universe will close in upon thee; angels and fiends shall provoke thee and cling to thee, until by pity or by terror thou art subdued. Think not, because justice on an evil thing is sternly delayed, there is therefore no justice, or but an uncertain one, in this world. Think not, because the evilminded goes free and joyous, and the pure-minded goes fettered and sad, that God is not, in his own way, dealing with them both. It is our blessedness to believe that the Holy Spirit of wisdom and love never leaves human sorrow or human sin alone, but is always working to console the one and eradicate the other. And if he does not do it all at once, it is because he works with such fine and subtle powers, not to invade our personality, but to refine and elevate and immortalize our being. It is our blessedness to think that he is with us in our sunshine and our shade, and will never let us go from the shadow of his awe or the sunshine of his bounty. Yea, O Lord, it is our blessedness to believe that thou hast searched us and known us, that thou knowest our down sitting and our uprising, and understandest our thought afar off. “Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” 16

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A SERMON, PREACHED ON THE NATIONAL FAST DAY, AT CHURCH GREEN, BOSTON. BY

REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, PASTOR OF THE CHURCH. BOSTON: TICKN OR S T NFIELD: T I CK NOR &- F IE L DS. 1 8 6 1. -z - i to i .i”  A -

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Printed by Geo. C. Rand & Avery, 3 Cornhill. 0

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S E R MA 0 N. TEXT - THE S80TH PSALM. I SHIALL take for my text this morning, the Psalm which I have just read to you. It is applicable to the occasion on which we are met together. Its application here, to-day, is even more striking than it was originally. In this way it was that many a text of the old time was ” fulfilled,” -filled fuller of meaning, when applied to the events of a later day. And so it is now. For here God hath planted a nation, far greater and more prosperous than that of the Hebrews. He has ” cast out the heathen, and planted it.” It is by ordinance divine, we believe, - though we do not defend every human action connected with it,- that poor, ignorant, wandering tribes were to give place to a great and civilized people. This North American continent was not meant to be a mere hunting-ground. Not wild native growths were to overrun and occupy it; but the seeds of civilized empire were to be planted here. They were

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4 planted; they grew, - let the toil and pains and sufferings of the early time, let its nurturing blood, tell how they grew, - till they took “deep root and filled the land; till the hills were covered with their shadow, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars; till they sent out their boughs to the sea, and their branches unto the river; ” till, in short, a land a hundred times larger than Palestine, was filled with more than thirty millions of people, all abiding under one grand sovereignty, in such peace, and freedom, and prosperity, and abundance, and rapid progress, as were never seen in the world before. This planting of a nation, but especially of such a nation, is something sublime and solemn to contemplate. Government of some kind, - without which social order and private security cannot exist,- is certainly the ordinance of God. And, therefore, all mankind have agreed to brand treason as a crime against heaven and earth, and they have stricken it with pains and penalties, with attainders and forfeitures, beyond any other crime against society. But if ever the footsteps of a divine providence have been seen in the growth of any nation, it appears to me that it is in this, our American nationality.

If any government ever were, I believe that this is an ordinance of God.

And if any treason were ever more inexcusable and monstrous than any other yet seen on earth, I believe it is this which we witness to-day.

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5 And, therefore, without wishing to use opprobrious terms, I cannot but regard the language of the text as applicable to the present painful crisis of our national affairs.’ Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.” It is a wild, self-willed, passion ate, mad, and reckless invasion of the public order, - this Southern revolt; and if we have any self-respect, any loyalty, any regard for law and lawful rule, we must treat it accordingly.

And well may we add the prayer, ” Return, we beseech thee, 0 God of Hlosts! look down from heaven, and behold and visit this vine, and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch which thou madest strong for thyself.” The President of the United States has invited us to assemble ourselves together, to offer such a prayer; and this, not merely as we do every Sunday, but with some special thoughtfulness, humiliation, and sorrow. On one account, I am well disposed to do so. I do most heartily mourn over this dreadful conflict in which we are engaged with the revolted Departments of the South. I mourn over this awful spectacle of Christian men, who were lately fellowcitizens, embruing their hands in each other’s blood. I mourn with those who mourn for the absent, the wounded, and the dead. All

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6 war is horrible, but this to me is the most horrible of all wars. But, at the same time, I do most heartily respect, approve, and enter into, the feelings of those who have sprung to the support of the government in this great emergency. It is loyalty to law and lawful sovereignty. It is to defend the national integrity and stability and honor, that our people have taken up arms. And yet, I cannot but wonder at the buoyancy and eagerness with which our soldiers go into the fight, - demanding it, and singing, shouting, as they march to the battle-field. I would rather see them on their knees, in prayer, and solemn sel-consecration to that awful work. That awful work, I say; and I cannot look upon it in any other light. It is to me the most tragic spectacle under the sun. If our people must strike this blow, as I believe they must, yet they should strike with reluctance and sorrow. It is the act of Brutus, slaying his own sons for treason and conspiracy against the state. It is, perhaps, too much to expect of a people, - a whole people,  that it will take up arms altogether in this spirit. We must take men as they are; and few are the men that can fight in pure sorrow for those whom they assail. But so, if possible, should men strike for the right. So should they wound and kill their fellows, -in sorrow, though indignation be mingled with their sorrow. So especially should a rebellion be put down, .1

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where the antagonists were lately our fellowcitizens, and may have been our friends. This is a contest, which, whatever passion or frenzy there be on the other side, requires on ours much reflection and cool determination. If we were resisting foreign invasion, - if we were fighting people of another nation and name than our own, it would be a different thing. But we are fighting our own people. We wound those whom we would fain comfort and heal. We slay those whom we love. I say it. and maintain it. I will not be swept away from this ground by the passions of the hour. I have known many of the Southern people. I have seen them in their homes. I have seen the system of domestic service, by which their homes are supported. But, although I dislike their system, and think it in principle utterly wrong, I do not hate them,; though I have brought upon myself their displeasure by my plain speaking of slavery, yet I held, and still hold them, in dear esteem for their many virtues. Still, and nevertheless, I oppose them; and I would do so, though they were the dearest friends on earth. Though they were Christians, as holy as the apostles, I would do so; as Paul “withstood Peter to the face;” and for the same reason, -” because they are to be blamed.” But, though I think them wrong, and to be blamed, and to be resisted, yet is it right, one may say, to resist them in this manner? Since they desired to separate 7 I

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8 from us, why should we not have yielded to them, and have said, ” Go in peace?” I answer, that to have done so would have been to strike at the roots of all civil government. All lawful sovereignty, all political order, any such thing as nationality, would be impossible upon this principle. But let us consider first, the question of war in general, and then, the question of this particular war. The sadness and horror I feel at this war, drive me upon considering what place war has in the world, -
what place in the providence of God, - what place in the duties of men.

With regard to war in general then, in the first place, or with regard to war abstractly considered, I have been led of late, to ask whether we have not to revise our theories. I never went to the length of some of our Peace Societies; but thus far I went,- I was inclined to admit that war is never justifiable except for selfdefence. When invaded, we might fight; but in no other case. Now, however, I doubt whether this limiitation can be defended. In reconsidering the subject I am struck at the outset with this potent fact,-that war seems to have been a part of the normal condition of nations, ever since the beginning of the world; in fact, just as defect, ignorance, mistake, conflict of opinion, is a part of its normal condition. It has been said in one of the discourses called

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9 out by the present crisis,* that probably no man has ever lived to the period of seventy years without encountering this fact of war; and I am inclined to think that the statement might be made still stronger; namely: that no nation has existed forty years without being engaged in some war, external or internal. And there has hardly been a year, or perhaps a moment of time, since the world began, when war has not been going on somewhere. It is computed that more than six thousand millions of the human race have perished in battle,- about seven times the present population of the earth. Now such a fact must be resolved into some kind of consistency with a providential order. The fact stands; it stares us in the face; and it seems to be inevitable. How could it be so, if all war, or all but defensive war, is contrary to the will of God? YIr. Prudhon, the French writer, in a work lately published, “on War and Peace,” has attempted to legitimate this fact; to show it as incorporated into the very constitution of the world, and as a part of the lawful and ordained condition of men and nations. He maintains that there is ” a right of war,” founded on ” the right of force;” that is to say, that any nation, deprived by another, or conceiving itself to be deprived, of what is lawfully its own, - a fishery or territory, a fort or arsenal,-has a perfect right to reclaim it by force, and, if * That of Dr. Ellis, of Charlestown.

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10 necesary, by military force. Hle maintains that war is a divine thing,; an ordinance of heaven, for the adjustment of national claims, not otherwise possible; that the right to use such force lies at the bottom of all nationality, of every political constitution; that the noblest nations are the surest to fight for their rights, and the meanest people to surrender them. And then he goes on to glorify war, as the tribunal of justice, the fountain of honor? the source of progress and improvement among nations, in a strain in which I confess, eloquent as he is, that he is too hard for me. For I believe that peace is a diviner tlthing,-which he also seems to admit; I believe that patience and forgiveness are more divine than exaction and force; and that, as the world improves, there will be less war, and, ultimately, none at all; and that nations will yet find a way, by conventions and arbitrations, to settle their disputes without bloodshed; as citizens of the same State now do. Still, I cannot refuse to see that something of what MIr. Prudhon says, is true. Force does lie at the bottom of all political order; and there are occasions when it must be used, and, in the imperfectness of our present civilization, must be used in war. And if I go back to the natural and essential condition of humanity, I can come to no other conclusion.

Suppose, -I hope you will pardon the homeliness of my illustration for its appositeness,- suppose, I say, that I

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11 and my neighbor are living side by side, in a state of nature, with no common government to appeal to; and he says to me, ” This piece of land, this farm on which you live, is mine;” and I reply, “No, it is mine; it was my father’s before me; he gave it to me, and it is mine.” ”’ Nay,” he says, ” It is mine;” and he comes on with the strong hand to take possession. What am I to do? Amn I to acquiesce? May I not resist him’?

And if, when I do so, he pulls a stake from the fence, and I another, and they become as spears in our hands, -nay, and if I am beaten down by him, better that I should fall asserting my right, than tamely to yield it to wrong. I should at least have bravely set forth my sense of justice; and I should help, though falling, to spread the sense of justice among my neighbors. But if I did nothing, and all men around me did nothing, in such a case, to vindicate the right, all justice would fall to the ground.

And I myself should be despoiled on every hand. One man has taken my land, another would take my house, saying, “he will not resist;” another would snatch my purse; and I should be turned out, shelterless, to perish. No, that must not be; that was not meant to be. On the contrary, I believe that God has given me the right to protect my life, my person, and my property, in giving me the power and the instinctive will to do so. So it is witb nations. What sort of a nation would

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12 that be which should form its constitution in this wise? ” We think it advisable that we should be one people, and should have a form of government; we hope that all the citizens will respect and obey it; -we wish that no one would steal or rob on the highway, or murder anybody, for we think it is very wrong; -and we desire that other nations will let us alone; that they will never attack our ships or our cities; that nobody will take our forts or arsenals, for we should be very much displeased at it.” No; that might be a constitution for a flock of sheep, but not for a nation of men. No, a mighty rill lies at the bottom of every nationality; a will to use force to preserve its integrity and to execute its laws; and its language is: We, the king; or, we, the nobles; or, we, the people ordain the constitution and the laws; and we will use all necessary force to restrain and punish all crime, and, above all, the crime of treason., ?)ithli; and to resist and overwhelm all invaders of our rights without.

This latter is war. And now let it be considered, that justice is not always palpably on one side. Nay, I believe that there is a conscience on both sides, always, at the bottom of every war; for war is not robbery nor piracy, where the marauder knows that he has no right, but a solemn levying of the national force. I do not believe that nations fight but upon the ground that they have the right upon their side. The greatest mystery, -if I sought to find.4 one, -in the

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system of Providence, is this difference of opinion, with all its consequences; and yet I see, that among imperfect beings, it is inevitable; that it was, in the nature of things, impossible to constitute a race of moral and imperfect beings, without this element of trouble. And the standards of war are the bloody signals lifted up to proclaim and defend opinions. Cousin has somewhere said that every battle is the conflict of ideas; nay, more, and that the right always gains the victory.

This can be true only in one sense, viz: that the moral verdict of the world is always, ultimately, given in favor of the right, even though it sinks in the visible contest. Thus the Three Hundred at Thermopyle fell; but the ages have rung with celebration and triumph over that mighty deed.

Fallen, sunk in death, they are crowned with immortal victory. I have said these things upon war in general; giving only hints instead of descriptions, for which I have no space at present; and I have said them to show you that war is not always unnecessary; that all war is not unholy and profane; that there may be such a thing as a righteous war, -and in such a war I believe we are now engaged. Let us consider it. Let me speak of this matter in the first place, as I-etween us and the southern people, though I may have nothing in particular to say that is new upon it. But I have often imagined myself, knowing many of them as I 1 3 I

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14 do, to debate this question with them in person, in coinversation. I have thought of what they would say, and what I should reply to them. “You put the blame of this war upon us,” they would say; “but it is not upon us. We are wronged; we are oppressed; we are fighing for our liberties. We have a right to separate from you. You have made us desire to do so. You have contemned our social system. You have made the relation of fellowcitizens utterly disagrceable to us. Why do you attempt to hold us?

Why will you not let us alone? Why will you not let us depart in peace?” “

In peace?” I answer, ” in peace! do you say? Was not your very first step to arm yourselves, and to take your stand in armed defiance to the common Government over us all, to which we had all alike sworn fealty? Your leaders took that fatal initiative, and you followed. It was not we who began the fight, but you. You were long arming yourselves before we ever moved,- as we have found to our cost. ” But wherein were you wronged? What right was denied you? You held your slaves, and had power over them, untouched. Slavery was a municipal institution, with which the General Government did not propose to interfere, and does not now. Is some Northern criticism; grant it were severe at times, a sufficient reason for breaking the national bond? And do you really demand, as the

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15 price of a mere political union with you, that our mouths and minds shall be shut in silence on this subject? It would be greater bondage than any you complain of. We must speak; all the world must speak of it. The fires of criticismi are burning all around you; and the South, instead of reasoning or letting others reason, seems’ like scorpion girt with fire,’

more likely to destroy itself and its favorite institution together.

Yes,‘the in stitution!’ -this, disguise it who may, is the cause, at bottom, of the whole difficulty. You are indignant with our opinions about slavery. Only let us of the North say, ‘ We have changed our mind; you have convinced us that we were wrong; we have come to see that slavery is a just and admirable thing, and are sorry that we opposed it,’ and you would be good friends and good fellowcitizens. with us to-morrow. “But, at any rate,” they say, “we have a constitutional right to separate.” That is the fatal theory,- the other feeling is the impulse,- but that is the fatal theory which supports this whole Southern movement. Not treason, revolt, rebellion, is it,- but secession is the word that covers up all the mischief. John Bell, of Tennessee, is the only man that I have heard of, connected with this movement, that plainly said, ” I am going to be a rebel.” But he said what is true. For it is rebellion. It is just as much rebellion as it would be for Normandy or Burgundy, provinces of France, or for Scotland or Ireland,

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parts of Britain, to break off, arm themselves, and bid defiance to their respective governments. Thus should I argue with the Southern people, or any company of them, if I could meet them face to face. But sorrowful is the arguing which, carried into action, must cost thousands, and perhaps ten thousands, of human lives. I mourn over the necessity by which it is urged. A day of thoughtfulness, humiliation, and grief, is a fit season for it. It is fit that a great people, engaging in such a contest, should bow down before God in prayer and sorrow. And I do not wonder that the heart of a humane man should sink within him at the prospect of this bloody encounter between the loyal people of America and the revolted States. Nor am I surprised that there are some among ourselves who say, “

Let us have peace rather than all this sacrifice of blood and treasure;”

who say, ” Although the Southern people are in the wrong, yet they think themselves in the right, and it is hard to crush them down, even if we can do so; let us go on with a Northern and Southern republic; there are evils and perils in the plan, but it is better than this fratricidal war.” And again, I am not surprised that people abroad, looking as idle spectators upon what is passing in a far-distant country, regard this war as a contest between rival States, - Mexican or South American States; or, at any rate, have come to the conclusion that a revolt which has assumed such immense proportions, should be considered as a sue 16

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cessful revolution, or as warranting a permanent political division. Yet I firmly maintain that all these ways of thinking are wrong; here in the house of God, and amidst the so lemnities of prayer and humiliation, I firmly maintain that neither the horror of bloodshed, nor brotherly sympathy, nor cold, unsympathizing foreign criticism, are entitled to be our guidance in the awful circumstances in which we are placed. There is a higher plane of thought, I conceive, than that on which these considerations are placed. Above the mere impulses of humanity and sympathy, I believe, we must rise, if we would rise to the height of this great argument. And we must look farther than our foreign critics do, if we would understand the duty of the hour. I see, first, a grand question of right, of lawful sovereignty, as between ourselves and the Southern people. There is a right, there is a lawful sovereignty, somewhere in this controversy? Whose is it? Somebody must yield here. Who? Some principles must give way. Which? Loyalty or rebellion? The freedom interest or the slave interest? The right of a majority, or the right of a minority? The conscience of a nation, or of a broken fragment of a nation? The claim, our lawful claim to the national property and domain,- our claim to the national fortresses, arsenals, munitions, and mints; or the claim to 17

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18 seize and despoil them? Which, I say, shall be surrendered,- supposing that there were an equally strong conviction on both sides? When it is demanded of us that we shall give up what we believe to be the national law and sovereignty, or that we shall suffer the grand fabric of the government to be broken down with impunity, can it in justice be expected of us that we should consent to it? In honor, can we do it,-in conscience, in loyalty, in obedience to any principle of virtue or religion? Even in a private relation, where I might have a personal right to make any sacrifice I pleased, -yet even then, if a man were to assail me who was only half as strong as I am, -if he were to snatch my purse, and should lift his hand to strike me, could it be expected that I should let him go on and work his will upon me? Would it be thought strange if I should lay my hand upon him, and, using only so much force as was necessary to restrain him, should consign him to the police or to prison? And certainly the plea for forbearance and humanity,- the claim to be ” let alone,” -the exclamation that he was very hardly and cruelly dealt with, would be thought, by every bystander, to be a very strange one in his mouth. And this plea for humanity, it must be remembered, has two sides to it. There are other human beings to be considered, besides those who are engaged in this revolt. If the Southern rebellion could succeed, the slave-trade would

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19 be reopened; a great slave empire would be built up upon our borders; it would extend itself over new regions; and all the misery and injustice of African bondage would be perpetuated, through what period none can tell. In the interest of humanity and of the human race, in a just participation in the recognised duty of all civilized nationas, I think we are bound to prevent that, if we can. Not to say that if this slave government could establish itself, and stand side by side with ours, instead of a war of a year or two, we should open the bloody history of endless wars. To any man among ourselves who dissents from a whole loyal people in this matter, I would say, -what ground do you take? Do you say that secession is righlt? Then, doubtless, we are all wrong. Do you admit that it is wrong, -politically, morally wrong,-a false and fatal principle in all government, and without all just cause as against ours; and then do you say that we are to yield everything that this false and ruinous principle demands of us? Where is our manhood, if we can do so? I have heard this called a politician’s war. It is utterly false to say so.

Opposition to it, rather, is a politician’s opposition. It is a nation’s war. And we should stand with bent head,- cowed and ashamed before all nations, if we could thus tamely submit to national dismemberment and ruin. We should incur the scorn of the Southern people themselves, and should deserve the taunts which they cast upon our courage and manhood

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20 Yet, not before our own people alone, but before all nations and all ages, we stand in this dread controversy. I say again that there is a higher plane of thoughlt from which this contest is to be surveyed, than that on which we place an ordinary civil war. The world has far more at stake here than it had in the struggle between the houses of York and Lancaster. That was a war of family interests; this is a war of principles-principles of universal concern. In the breadth and permanence of the interests involved, it is more like the Thirty Years’ War in Germany, or that of Holland and the Netherlands with Spain, or that of the French Revolution. I see here a great government, with a peculiar, a popular, and what is to us a precious title to sovereignty, which the rude hand of rebellion would pluck down, and cover with opprobrium, and blight with failure, before the eyes of all the world. I see a great Republic, seated on the shores of a new world, spreading from the Atlantic to the Pacific sea; built up in the affections of (till lately) thirty millions of people; the pride and hope of its loyal subjects; the resort and refuge of multitudes from the old world; with unexampled prosperity in itself, and dwelling in peace and honor with all nations. And now, for no justifying cause, for an interest in slavery, for the gratification of passions that have sprung from that bitter root, a violent hand is raised to strike at this great image of the public authority, to

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21 break it in pieces, and to scatter it in the dust. And the question is - Shall we permit it? It is truly said that ” Democracy is on its trial”

in this crisis. Has it nurtured in us a faintheartedness, a recklessness, a love of ease or of property, that is willing to let this mighty fabric go to wreck and ruin? Has it emasculated the noble Saxon race, and made us mere worldlings and cowards? For one, I answer, No. Shall the aristocracies of the old world pass by, wagging their heads in scorn and saying, “Aha! ye could boast of your great Republic, but ye cannot fight for it?” Shall all noble lovers of liberty in the world hang their heads in shame for us and say, “Alas! for our hopes and the hopes of mankind!”

And again I answer, No. And I say no, not in pride or passiou, not in any hatred of the South, but under the most solemn sense of duty. To us this is a holy war. Religion - in the highest and widest view of it -commands us to do what we are doing. We have a trust committed to us, as we believe, by the Infinite Authority, and it is in fealty to God, and fidelity to man, that we feel bound to keep it. We cannot yield up lawful sovereignty, the national domain and honor, and the peace and welfare of unborn generations, to the reckless assault that is made upon them. We believe that we should displease the just God, if we did so. We believe that ours is a righteous cause, and, I repeat, a holy war. And if the Southern people say, We, too, have a conscience;

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be it so. All men, I suppose, have a conscience of some kind. The question is -Whose is the right conscience? The rebel conscience, or the loyal conscience? They may say, Why cannot you yield to us? We say, Why cannot you yield to us? The question is, Who ought to yield? Upon this question we have no doubt. If upon this question there must be an awful and bloody conflict, if conscience on either side can find no other solution, God pity us! and God defend the right! 22 I II

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Ett National Mrafncs A DISCOURSE DELIVERED IN THE FIRST CHURCH, BROOKLINE, ON FAST DAY, SEPT. 26, 1861. BY REV. F. H. HEDGE, D.D. BOSTON: WALKER, WISE, AND COMPANY, 245, WASHINGTON STREET. 1861. ,.

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‘ 7 z

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S E R M 0 N. ‘ LET NOT HII! THIAT GIRDETH ON HIIS IIARNESS BOAST HIMSELF

AS IIE THAT PUTTETH IT OFF.” - 1 Kings xx. 11. WHEN President Lincoln, five months ago, put forth his Proclamation, announcing a combination against the laws of the land too powerful to be suppressed by ordinary methods, and calling for seventy-five thousand troops to meet this exigency, there mingled, with the grief and indignation awakened in us by the treason which necessitated such an appeal, a thrill of patriotic joy at this demonstration of a new energy on the part of Government, after so many months of passive submission. We gloried in the prospect of a speedy solution of our national difficulties by a vigorous assertion of the Federal authority. Our spirits, which had settled into sullen gloom, almost despair of our country’s future, were raised to a pitch of jubilant expectation, as we felt, through all our bones, the shock of national consciousness which that manifesto communlicated to the loyal States. The States were not slack in acknowledging the appeal. Massachusetts, true to her historical primacy, with promptness worthy her illustrious pedigree, re i i,

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4 sponded to the call. Her Governor’s word gave back the President’s like its echo; a regiment of her sons, equipped and on the march in less than six days, was the echo to that; and a second 19th of April, dated with her blood, initiated and auspicated the new conflict. The seventy-five thousand were mustered and sent; and to these were added as many more. Our hearts were established: we were not afraid. The prevalent expectation was, that a three-months’ campaign would suffice, if not to heal all difficulties, and reinstate the shattered Union, at least to crush the power of the rebels, and make it impossible for them to pursue their disorganizing course and to carry out their nefarious design. So we girded on our harness with some boasting. With what result? The three-months’

campaign, inaugurated with so much enthusiasm, after some less important engagements, terminated with the battle of Bull Run. The three months expired, - five months have elapsed, - and the rebel power is still unsubdued. “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.” The rebels are not crushed, nor even so weakened as yet to despair of final success, or to manifest the least inclination to recede from their position. So far as they are weakened at all, it is by want of means, by their straitened economy and financial embarrassment, and not by the triumphs of the Federal arms. The Federal arms have not triumphed in any important engagement, except when opposed in overwhelming force to a weak resistance on the part of the enemy.

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5 And, although the disaster at Bull Run cannot be re garded as a victory on the part of the rebels, it added greatly to their confidence, and therefore to their strength; while it terribly rebuked our own overween ing confidence in ourselves, and proved to us how little enthusiasm and patriotic determination will avail, with out military discipline, without wise conduct, pru dence, and self-control. An army of brave men, - for such unquestionably they were, - by mere conceit of approaching danger, not real, imminent peril, overtaken with a panic which dissolves all bonds of military orga nization, almost of human fellowship, and converts a body of warriors into a herd of frightened deer, flying at the top of their speed when none pursued, never halt ing to ascertain whether any just cause existed for their alarm, utterly bereft of counsel and reason, and given over to a passion of insane terror, - this, after all the noisy demonstrations, the congratulations and harangues, the receptions and parades, which solemnized the setting forth of these hosts, though not an uncommon occur rence in war, and though no worse than a hundred panics recorded in history, is still a shame and a tragedy, which sadly illustrates the difference there is between promise and performance, between girding on and put ting off. ileanwhile, the pirates of the new Confederacy, in defiance of the public sentiment of Christendom, are pursuing their prey, and snatching their plunder, on all our seas.

Hundreds of vessels, with large amounts of value, have been seized by these bold buccaneers, who have thus far eluded all attempts to arrest their career. 1*

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6 Such, then, is our position at the present time. With vast resources and superabundant strength at our disposal, we have not as yet, for want of headship, of adequate organization, unity of purpose, and harmony of counsel, succeeded in applying those resources and that strength with decisive effect. The enemy in our borders, whom a well-directed effort might crush into dust, is still unsubdued, undaunted,- still mocks us through our own indirection. The fact is humiliating, and, like all humiliations, a salutary lesson to such as are willing to be instructed by it, - a lesson of weakness which it much concerns us to lay to heart. As a nation, we are proudly conscious of our strength: it were well we understood our weakness also, our national infirmities and faults. Of some of these, I propose now to speak. Onie element of weakness is our self-conceit, -the vain-glorious persuasion that we are, on the whole, the greatest people and the wisest that ever occupied the earth with their labors, or tracked it with their footprints. One can pardon some degree of self-importance to a great and prosperous nation: I suppose there never was one without it. Let a people think well of their ability, and cherish a high sense of their providential mission. We accept it as a sign of national health. But let the conceit bear some proportion to the fact, and let it respect the national calling rather than the national merit; else it is a sign of morbid development, great superficial expansion, with no proportionate increase of substance. We Americans not only arrogate to ouselves a great destiny, in which, if we are true to our

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7 opportunities, we may be right; but we boast of great doings, in which we are certainly wrong. We confound prosperity with merit; we mistake a growth which is partly due to natural laws, partly to rare opportunities, and partly to a certain shiftiness of constitution, for a proof of greatness; we plume ourselves on our expansion; we give ourselves airs on the strength of a rapid, perhaps unexampled, increase of population, and a corresponding success in trade. When I hear such boasts, I cannot help recalling what an English cynic says of our pretensions: “Brag not yet of our American cousins. Their quantity of cotton, dollars, industry, and resources, I believe to be almost unspeakable. But I can by no means worship the like of these. What great human soul, what great thought, what great noble thing, that one could worship or loyally admire, has yet been produced there? None! The American cousins have done none of these things.” I cannot help remembering, that the little republic of Athens, while yet in its youth, with its limited territory, population, and means, produced, within a century after the Persian wars, the immortal works which are still the chief boast of letters and art; and, what is more, the immortal men whom the world still honors as little less than divine. The most that we can say of ourselves is, that we have occupied a large territory with our civilization, such as it is, and invented some ingenious contrivances for the expedition of business, and the merely mechanical intercourse of life. Mechanical ingenuity, directed to material ends, is, thuis far, our chief distinction as a people. And even here our merit is not

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8 supreme. The steamship is a great addition to the sum of human means; but the ship itself, which preceded it, was incomparably greater. The electric telegraph is a cunning invention; but the art of writing, about which little noise was made at the time, was a greater advance in civilization, and a greater blessing to mankind. The real and most important achievement, and therefore the true test of a nation, is the national character. Tried by this standard, the American people can claim no preeminent rank among the nations. Here our weakness is painfully evident. It is true, the national character is not yet fully developed, and lnust not be too severely judged. True it is also, that the national character has many excellent and noble qualities, among which I may mention generosity, kindliness, and daring. But these are offset by fatal defects. Chief among these is a certain looseness which pervades the intellectual and moral life of the nation, debilitating its mental capacity, and vitiating all its action. Intellectually, this trait appears in the superficiality, the crudeness, the want of discipline, of thorough and effective training, which characterize American life and are due, in part, to the very constitution of our republicanl society, in which the facilities afforded for a certain kind of success, the chance of a prosperous career, to niere self-assertion, with little or no culture, and no laborious preparation of any kind, tend to lessen the demand for thorough education, and consequently reduce its standard and restrict its means. Where a hasty education will suffice for social and political sccess, the greater part will seek no other. To an Ame

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9 rican, the last criterion of merit, and the supreme mark of his calling, is to get the most votes; and, in this, it is not the best educated that succeed best, but the most unscrupulous and the most importunate.

Accordingly, our public men, as a general rule, are worse educated, worse trained, and worse mannered, than those of any other civilized nation. A thoroughly taught and cultivated American gentleman is proverbially a rare phenomenon, and nowhere more so than in public life. The men who represent us in the courts of Europe, represent, too often and too faithfully, our ignorance and ill-breeding. With no knowledge of the language of the country to which they are sent, or of French (the language of courts), with no tincture of polite or diplomatic learning, with no one qualification for the post they occupy but the service rendered in procuring the election of the chief who sends them, they seem rather to have been accidentally cast ashore in those strange lands, than delegated thither as the plenipotentiaries of a great nation. There are splendid exceptions, I know, extending through all our history, instances like those of Irving, Wheaton, Everett, Bancroft, and that of the accomplished ambassador who now represents us at the court of Vienna; but such has been the prevailing type. How, indeed, can it be otherwise? How should we be better abroad than at home? The representation is according to the constituency. The same want of thoroughness appears in the home-departments of State, whose incumbents are mostly, and grossly deficient in knowledge and tact, equal to no exigency requiring brain and heart instead of routine.

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10 A great crisis like the present finds them incompetent and unprepared.

Viewed in its moral aspects, the looseness of which I speak is manifest in the want of reverence and subordination, which forms so conspicuous a trait of our nationality, and proves, at the present juncture, so serious an obstacle in our military operations. The American is not taught by the genius of the civil polity under which he lives, as other nations are by theirs, to respect and obey his superiors. On the contrary, the lesson he learns from his political experience is, that he has no superiors,- a lesson of equality, which, unless counteracted by domestic training or corrected by his own good sense, he is apt to interpret as a right to his own way in every condition and relation of life: a principle of action utterly incompatible with military discipline. It is difficult for him to admit the idea of a superior, much more to submit himself with unquestioning obedience to one who is placed in authority over him.

Subordination is the first and fundamental principle, not only of military organization, but of social order. This lesson the American citizen has yet to learn; and, if the war shall serve to enforce it, it will prove a providential school of a very important civil virtue, as well as of a moral and Christian grace. The same looseness appears in the moral indifference, which, not content with mitigating, has gone far to abolish, the criminal code, or the application of it in practice; which overlooks the gravest transgressions in public men, if associated with popular qualities; which tolerates bankruptcy of the most aggravated and fraud

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11 ulent kind as a mercantile mishap, not compromising the social position of the offender; - an indifference to which the audacious filibuster is as worthy a hero as Scott or Kane; and which views criminality in general rather as i[ an interesting variety of human nature, than as damnable guilt. Suppose our national difficulties settled, the re bellion suppressed, the Union restored: I fear that the leader in this conspiracy, whose crime against this country is unsurpassed in the annals of treason, so far from receiving his deserts on the gallows, would become the popular hero of the day. Should he visit the loyal States, I fear he would be received with public honors, and would be as likely as another to be elected President of the United States. We may certainly claim, as a people, the merit of extraordinary freedom from vindic tiveness; but we must also plead guilty to a most extraordinary degree of moral indifference. One other element of national weakness I will men tion; and that is our present system of political admini stration, which has come to be a regular quadrennial revolution, extending through all the departments of State, and including every Federal office in the land. No sooner has any functionary become sufficiently versed in the duties of his station to discharge them with credit to himself and with profit to the nation, than immedi ately he is ejected, and his place supplied by a novice, who, mindful of the brief and precarious tenure of his position, is chiefly intent on making the most that can be made, in the way of pecuniary gain, of the opportu nities it affords. The mischief arising from this source is incalculable. Not only are character and talent of

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12 the highest order almost necessarily excluded from the service of the State by a system which makes office the reward of successful demagogism, but a lottery is opened with each Presidential term to hungry adventurers, whose only idea of office is that of a prize in the game of politics, with opportunity of plunder. If occasionally men of the better sort, who might excel in some honorable calling, are tempted by the hope of political preferment to mix in this arena, they do so at the expense of their morals or their time; for this is a race in which merit, self-respect, and scrupulous integrity, are sure to be distanced by importunity, chicanery, and brazen-faced impudence. Can they condescend to tamper with electors, and to foul their hands with low intrigue? If not, let them stand aloof from the game, and renounce all hope of success in that direction. This is a system which throws to the surface the dregs of our American civilization, and opens an impassable gulf between merit and political eminence. The present century has witnessed a steady decline in the character of our public men. Where shining ability and high-minded patriotism were once the rule, they have come to be-the exception. To the Jeffersons, the Adamses, and Clays, has succeeded a race of jobbers and hack politicians. Such are the results of this deplorable system of quadrennial rotation in office. This has made us, with all our prosperity, our rapid growth, and extended commerce, a byword and a hissing among the nations. Since the throne of the world was sold at auction to the highest bidder, there has been nothing in its way so base as American politics. So demoralizing, so disor i *y -f

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13 ganizing, is the tendency of this system, that even the rupture of the Union, at the prospect of which we startle and are now so distressed, could bring us nothing worse than our own chosen and established methods were all these years preparing for us. All this must be reformed, or we slide to inevitable ruin, from which, hitherto, our ample territory and vast material resources alone have saved us. The quarrel between North and South which now agitates the land is but an anticipation of (unless it shall prove, as I trust it may, our deliverance from) greater evils that wvere threatening us before this outbreak, and that must have arrived, independently of the present crisis, by the natural termination of the course we were pursuing. We were rushing, with a speed unexampled in the history of nations, to the civil dissolution which precedes despotism in the natural order of history. The war now enkindled by sectional conflicts, with all the evil and miseries attending it, will prove, in the end, the greatest of blessings, if it serves to arrest this downward tendency; if it opens our eyes to our political errors and vices, and puts us in the way of reforming them; if it raises to the supreme power a truly wise and independent man, with an eye to discern what is needful, and strength of will, in spite of precedent and popular clamor, to enforce it,- a man who, without respect to party, shall put the right men in the right places; retaining the competent and faithful of former administrations, and fearlessly ejecting the incompetent of his own; and whose influence, backed by Congress and the nation, shall avail to make that practice the law of the land. I see no salvation for this people, no 2

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14 way of redemption from political ruin, until the principle is established of permanence in offices whose term is frot prescribed by the Constitution, nor necessarily affected by the exigencies of State, - a permanence limited only by the competence and good behavior of the incumbent. Such a system of administration would tend to make office no longer the reward of electioneering and the prize of demagogues, but the fit investment of intellectual and moral worth; it would tend to take the affairs of State out of the hands of jobbers and pettifoggers and barroom politicians, and commit them to those who are equal to the trust; it would tend to stop the mouths of the orators of the stump, to abate the nuisance of the popular harangue, and to purify the national speech; it would make the annual and quadrennial elections a safe and peaceable process, instead of the hurly-burly it now is, inflaming the passions, setting friend against friend, dividing households, and imbittering all the intercourse of life; it would help to do away with this periodical Walpurgis, this uncovering of the hells of wrath and strife; and, finally, it would make politics with us what they are in other lands, - a science of civil and international relations, instead of a trade and a trick, which none can be concerned in and not be defiled; it would give us counsellors instead of speculators; magis trates whom we can sincerely respect, instead of available ciphers; and make, in the good old Bible phrase, “our rulers peace, and our exactors righteousness.” I shall not speak of slavery in connection with this subject of the national weakness; not because I do not feel it to be the great weakness of the land,- the i IN_

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15 head and firont of our offending, but because the subject has been so thoroughly discussed as to need no comment of mine, and, at present, no further ventilation. Those who do not see it to be the crowning evil of our polity are not likely to be converted by any illustration which I can give it. The faults and vices I have named, if not the imme diate cause of our troubles, are yet, in so far as the head and heart and hand of the nation have been weakened and its action vitiated by them, the true source of the mortifications, the disappointments, and all the bitter experiences, of this year of sorrows. God grant these experiences- “his chastisements,” as our Chief Magistrate calls them -may work in us the good work of discipline and reform,- may open our eyes and bring back our hearts to forsaken truth and violated law!- that we may learn wisdom and learn obedience by the things we suffer, and rise firom the humiliation of this affliction, a purified people, “zealous of good works.” And now, fellowcitizens, it befits us to consider what is needful and good for the present distress. Here we are, committed to a war whose term no mortal can predict, whose issues defy all human calculation; a war which will cost us hundreds of millions of money, and, it may be, hundreds of thousands of lives; a war which wvill beggar our commerce, check our industry, decimate our cities, dismember our households, ingulf our beloved, and wring our hearts with unspeakable anguish. What shall we say, in view of these horrors? what policy embrace? what course pursue? I know but one counsel in this emergency. One thought is uppermost in my

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16 heart; one word gushes up to my lips. It is hard to say it, in the face of all this tribulation and woe; but I know of nothing better: that word is, Onward!onward, while a dollar remains in our treasury, and a regiment in the field! - onward, with due caution, but with unabated zeal and indomitable hearts! We have girded on our harness; and cursed be he that would bid us put it off until one of two issues arrives to our arms, -
until we have quite conquered the enemies of our peace, and driven rebellion into the sea, or we ourselves are so far conquered as to have no means and no hope left; until it becomes evident, and is forced on our reluctant minds, that we have undertaken an impossibility, and are fighting against God, and must needs submit to his decree and the stronger foe, and accept the rupture of the Union as the bitter end and the heavenly doom! There are times when the cry of peace is the voice of treason, frightful and hateful as war ever is. Precious is peace; but liberty and right are more precious still: and liberty and right are at stake in this contest,- the liberties and rights bequeathed to us by our fathers, and bought with their blood. For certain it is, that if we fail to conquer the rebels who have lifted their parricidal hands against the common mother of us all, the National Union, they will eventually conquer its, and exercise a deadly dominion over us, if not by force of arms, by the surer weapons of political intrigue,- by insidious tampering with our commerce, by fell collusion with traitors on this side, by sowing dissension in our counsels and strife in our ranks, till province after province is i

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17 added to thle new confederacy, and, piece by piece, what remains of the old Union is broken up. For the hydra of Secession is a monster that will not cease to ravage and destroy until the life is burnt out of it by the searing application of loyal arms. There will be no drawn game in this warfare: our only alternative is to conquer or succumb. The cry of peace has been raised, here and there, by those whose political prospects or material interests are imperilled or impaired by the war. What would they have? what kind and conditions of peace would they propose? Shall the North - that is, the Federal Government-lay down its arms, and say to the rebels, “We have erred: we repent. Go your way; do what -yoLu will: we oppose you no longer”? If such be their meaning, let them declare it, and see how many they can draw to their side. But no: they would have a convention for mutual adjustment. Suppose the colnvention assembled: what is there to adjust that the Constitution has not adjusted? Will the South accept that arbiter? The seceding States have already disowned it. For the North to offer more than the compromises of the Constitution would be saying to the rebels, “We submit to your will: put your feet on our necks.” Mlay I never live to see the day when that concession shall take effect! Better a war of extermination than such adjustment. The demand for peace has hitherto, so far as I know, been confined to the North, the party aggrieved and assailed,- the party acting in defence of the Union and the Constitution. It must come from the other side

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18 of the Potomac; the cry must go up from the ranks of Secession, and be accompanied by return to the old allegiance,- before our warfare can be accomplished. Great are the difficulties attending this struggle for nationality. There never was a conflict so complicated and embarrassing as ours. Had we only the known, declared, and open enemy to encounter, our task would be comparatively light. But we have to contend with secret foes; our enemies are partly those of our own household; Treason lurks in our own ranks, in league with Rebellion outside, and furthering its cause.

If we fail at last, it will be the treachery that walketh in darkness, not the destruction that wasteth at noonday, to which we succumb. But we will not admit the thought of failure, with such an overweight of means and forces as falls to our side, with such issues as hang on our success,- the interests of civil society, the cause of order the world over, the cause of liberty for all time. Let us rather think, with such interests at stake, that Nature herself is in league with us; that the stars, in their courses, fight on our side; that humanity travails with the burden of our victory. Let us think that the shades of our fathers look solemnly down on this solemn struggle to preserve what they gave. And, with these, let our piety connect the more recent memories of those who have fallen in this campaign,- the proto-martyrs of our cause. High among these, shines the honored name of Lyon, than whom no braver ever led the van in the field of death. He sleeps well: his memory is blest. 1-1.

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19 ” There is a tear for all who die, A mourner o’er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry, And Triumph weeps, above the brave.”

And so let the day of public humiliation be to all the people of this Union a day of new consecration and new hope. May He who weighs the nations in his balance find this nation true to his word, and trusting in his name, in war as in peace! May those who gird on the harness of battle wear it without boasting, but with cheerful courage and unfaltering trust; and, when in due season we shall put it off, may our boasting be not in ourselves, but in God, who giveth us the victory! 0 Ir

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A I

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(1)e Spirit Proper to tlje iimes. A SERMON PREACHED IN KING’S CHIIAPEL, BOSTON, SUNDAY, MAY 12, 1861. BY JAMES WALKER, D.D. PRINTED AT THE REQUEST

OF THE WARDENS OF THE SOCIETY. BOSTON: PRESS OF GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, NXo.

3 CORNHILL. 1 8 6 1.

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is SE R]M ON. “1 With such sacrifices God is well pleased.”’ -Hebrews xiii. 16. I am to speak of public spirit, as manifested in a willingness to make sacrifices for the public good. The necessity for making sacrifices would seem to be founded in this: as we cannot have every thing, we must be willing to sacrifice some things in order to obtain or secure others. Wicked men recognize and act upon this principle. Can you not recall more than one person in your own circle of acquaintances who is sacrificing his health, his good name, his domestic comfort, to vicious indulgences? Worldly people recognize and act upon this principle. Look at that miser: he is hoarding up his thousands and his tens of thousands, but in order to do so, is he not sacrificing every thing which makes life worth having? It is a mistake to suppose that religion, or morality, or the public necessities, ever call upon us to make greater sacrifices than those which men are continually making to sin and the world, to fashion and fame, to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” In times of ease, and abundance, and tranquillity, the public takes care of itself. There are few sacrifices on the part of individuals for the public good, because there are few occasions for such sacrifices.

They are not made because not called for, because not needed. Moreover, private benevolence is apt at such times to become less .1

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4 active, and, for the same reason, that is to say, because less of it is required. This state of things is seized upon by those who are eager to put the worst possible construction on human nature and human conduct, as evidence of extreme degeneracy. How often are we to be told that our present troubles are sent upon us in order to lift the whole community out of the mire of money-getting propensities, where every thing like public spirit was in danger of being swallowed up and lost? I protest against this wholesale abuse of what has been, - at best, a gross exaggeration.

The whole truth in this matter is told in a few words. By constitution, by habit, by circumstances, our people are intensely active; and this activity, for want of other objects, has been turned into the channels of material prosperity. If, therefore, you merely affirm their excessive eagerness in acquisition, I grant it; but if, not content with this, you go on to charge them with being niggards in expending what they have acquired, I deny it, emphatically, utterly. Read the history of what has been done in this commonwealth, in this city, during the last twentyfive years for humanity, for education, for science and the arts, for every form of public use or human need, and then say, if you can, that public spirit has been dying out. Our people have never been otherwise than public spirited, and hence the promptness and unanimity of their response to this new call to public duty. Hence also our confidence in it, -not as an excitement merely, which a day has made, and a day may unmake, but as an expression of character. Let us, however, be just to the excitement itself, considered as the sudden and spontaneous uprising of a whole community to sustain the government. We need demou A

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5 strations of this kind,.from time to time, to reassure us that all men have souls. It is worth a great deal merely as an experiment, on a large scale, to prove that the moral and social instincts are as much a part of human nature as the selfish instincts. But he must be a superficial observer who can see nothing in this vast movement but the play of instincts. It is a great moral force. Not a little of what passes for loyalty or patriotism in other countries is blind impulse, growing out of mere attachment to the soil, or the power of custom, or a helpless feeling of dependence on things as they are. “If my father in his grave could hear of this war,” said a Spanish peasant, “his bones would not rest.” Yet what earthly interest, what intelligible concern had Spanish peasants in the rivalships and struggles of princes who thought of nothing but their own or their family aggrandizement. Of such loyalty, of such patriotism, there never has been much in this country, and there never will be. The loyal and patriotic States have risen up as one man to maintain the government, because the government represents the great ideas of order and liberty. It is not an excitement of irritation merely, or of wounded vanity, or of a selfish and discomfited ambition. It is, as I have said, a great moral force, a reverence for order and liberty; an excitement, if you will have it so, but an excitement resting on solid and intelligible principle, and one, therefore, which trial and sacrifice will be likely to convert into earnest and solemn purpose. I suppose some are full of concern as to the effect which trial and sacrifice will really have on this new outbreak of public spirit. They fear that suffering for our principles will abate our confidence in them, or at least our interest in them, and so the ardor will die away. So doubtless, 1*

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6 it will in some cases, for every community has its repre. sentatives of “the seed that was sown on stony ground; but it will be the exception and not the rule. Human nature, if it has fair play, will never lead a single individual to think less of a privilege or blessing, merely because it has cost more. When has religion interested men the most, and the most generally? Precisely at those times when men were religious at the greatest sacrifices. Indeed, it is on this principle that we explain the decay of a proper love of country among us for the last twenty or thirty years; it is because we have had so little to do for our country. A foreign war, even a famine or a pestilence, if it had been sufficiently severe, would have saved us from our present trouble and humiliation. So long as the people think and feel together, they hold each other up, and the sacrifices in which they express their public spirit, instead of wearing it out, will purify it and keep it alive. And this is not all.

From the language sometimes used in speaking of sacrifices for the public good, it might almost be supposed that the making of them is simply painful, simply distressing. But is it so? Of course both instinct and duty impel us to look out for ourselves; but is it not equally true that both instinct and duty impel us to help one another, and provide for the common weal? A generous and noble deed, -simply painful, simply distressing! I will not deny that a long life of selfishness, meanness, and servility may bring here and there one to look on things in this light, but not until he is, in the language of Scripture, “without natural affection.” “Public spirit,” so an eminent jurist has defined it, “is the whole body of those affections which unite men’s hearts to the commonwealth.” What I insist upon is, that these

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7 are real and natural affections, and that, in acting them out, we find a real and natural satisfaction. Who will say that the happiest moments of his existence have not been those in which he was conscious of living for others, and not for himself? There are many things in the present aspect of our public affairs to fill us with regret and anxiety, but a gleam of light shines through the cloud. Every man and woman and child will be moved to act more unselfishly, more nobly; life will cost more, but it will also be worth more. It is extremely difficult to do justice to this human nature of ours,- capable at once of such mean and little things, of such noble and great things. There is, however, one distinction which all, I suppose, will accord to it: I mean its tendency to rise up and meet great emergencies. In every soul that lives there is an untold amount of latent energy and public spirit which only waits for the occasion to call it forth. Read the history of the Netherlands, - a people made up, for the most part, of merchants and manufacturers, of traders and artisans, growing rich and apparently thinking of little else. A blow is struck at the free institutions which they had inherited from their ancestors; immediately a new spirit reveals itself, and all Europe rings with the story of their heroic daring and suffering. The sacrifices which the country asks for in time of war are those of property, labor, and life; and she does not ask in vain. We are continually reminded that this rebellion has taken place at a moment of great national prosperity, to blast it all. The sacrifices of property, in a thousand ways, must be immense; every man, however, from his diminished fortune, is “ready to distribute,” and

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8 “not grudgingly or of necessity.” His public spirit makes him love to give. I doubt whether it is common for rich men to think any better of themselves merely because they are rich; but if they can make their riches, and their financial skill, available to save the State, they will think better of themselves, and they will have a right to do so. There is a natural jealousy of wealth, especially when it takes the form of a passion for accumulation, which demagogues and fanatics know how to use for bad ends. One of the incidental benefits resulting from a great national struggle is, that all these social misunderstandings and heart-burnings are suspended, are healed. The people see and feel and acknowledge that a real title to nobility is found, not in wealth itself, but in wealth generously and nobly bestowed. Others are manifesting their public spirit by sacrifices of time and labor. And here I wish I could find fit terms in which to acknowledge the services and sufferings of women. You have heard of the Spartan mother equipping her son for battle, and giving him, last of all, the shield, with the brief and stern farewell, “With it or on it.” We expect no such stoicism now, but we expect what is better. We expect that Christian mothers, with hearts bleeding for their country, and bleeding for their children, will say, “It is the will of God that they should go,” and, furthermore, that they will go, having always been taught at home that there are many things worse than death. And then how many fingers are busily at work in all classes, rich and poor alike, to provide for the comfort of those who go? They even ask for the privilege of tending the sick and wounded. How many, brought up in ease and affluence, would follow in the steps of her whose tender voice, the very rustle of whose dress by the

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9 bedside of the dying soldier was as a glimpse of heaven I have heard men call this “romance.” But is it well, o right, or tolerable, in times like these, to look round fo side motives, when the motive avowed is reasonable and probable? I believe, as I believe I live, that many who never knew what it is to work before, are ready to thank God for the chance they now have to live to some purpose But will our men fight? There is no denying that this word sounds disagreeably in a Christian discourse still, I have no misgivings in respect to it,- no extrava gances to take back; not the beginning of a doubt but that there are wars which, on one side at least, are neces sary, and just, and holy. The Bible contains no express and unqualified prohibition of war; neither can such prohibition be said to be intimated or implied in any text o in the general tenor of Scripture, without making it sub versive, at the same time, of civil government.

Besides, I remember that the first person not a Jew, in whose favo our Lord wrought a miracle, was a Roman centurion; and that the first person not a Jew admitted into the Christian church, was also a Roman centurion; and not a syllable is said against their calling, neither is there a shadow of evidence that they ever changed it. Undoubtedly it is the legitimate and certain tendency of the spirit of the gospel, as it is more and more diffused in the world, to introduce universal peace; but the spirit of the gospel acts from within outwardly, and not from without inwardly. Thus the stop to be put to war is to be expected, not so much by chaining down those irrepressible instincts which lead men to resist wrong, as by eradicating the disposition to do wrong. Wars will cease when all men are Christians, and perfect Christians; but this will not be to-day nor to-morrow.

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10 Accordingly, I am not surprised that the call to arms has been responded to with such enthusiasm, -or that it is sustained by the whole moral and religious sentiment of the community. Men are ready to offer up not only their money and their labor, but also their lives. Are you afraid that your sons and brothers will be cowards mqrely because they are not duelists? because theyhave never been engaged in a street-fight? because prayers were made at their departure? or because they have carried their bibles with them? Did Cromwell’s soldiers flee before the cavaliers because they were sober and God-fearing men? Our people have no love for fighting, as a pastime; let it, however, become a serious business, and they will show that their veins are full of the blood that flowed so freely in other days. These are some of the ways in which a people may manifest their public spirit, and in which our people are manifesting it now. “With such sacrifices God is well pleased.” I have given a definition of public spirit from the jurists, but I like still better the Bible definition. In the words of the prophet, “They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage.” In looking back on what has been said, I find I have not spoken against anybody, not even against our enemies. Perhaps we have had enough of invective; at any rate the pulpit may spare it. God is my witness, I feel no vindictive resentment, no bitter hostility against those who have been swept away by this terrible delusion. Moreover, I confess to being greatly moved by the circumstance that in some respects what is true of us is true also of them. They seem to be of one mind; their religious men appeal with confidence to the righteous

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11 Judge; their women are working day and night to help forward the cause.

If it were a mere question of interest, or passion, or prejudice between us and them, it might be said that one side is as likely to be self-deceived as the other. But it is not. By striking at the principles of all constitutional and free government, and this too avowedly for the purpose of founding society on the servitude of an inferior race, on whose toil the more favored races are to live, they have put themselves in opposition to the settled convictions and the moral sense of good men all over the world. To the student of history it is no new thing that a whole community should be given over “to believe a lie,” - not the less mad, because all mad together. The process by which this state of things is brought about is always substantially the same. Egotism, vanity, disappointed ambition, sectional jealousies, a real or supposed interest or expediency induce them to wish that a wrong course were the right one.

They try to convince themselves that it is so, and all such efforts to sophisticate the conscience, if persisted in, are punished by entire success. The spectacle does not inspire me with hate; it fills me with wonder and profound melancholy. Do these men think that by altering their opinion of right they can alter the nature of things, or make wrong come out right in the great and solemn issues which are before us? We stand where their own great men stood in the best days of the republic. As regards the leading rights and interests at stake, our consciences are but the echo of the conscience of the Christian world. The fathers of the Revolution, one and all, are looking down with sorrow and indignation on this attempt to break up and destroy their work.

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12 Nevertheless, it can do no good to begin by overvaluing ourselves, or undervaluing our enemies. We know that the behests of a righteous Providence will be accomplished, but we do not know in what way. It is more than probable that in the troubles and distractions which have come upon the country we ourselves have something to answer for. For this reason reverses and humiliations may be in store for us, before we are accounted worthy to carry out the Divine judgments. But there can be no doubt as to the end. A struggle has been forced upon us by a doomed people, if the laws of nature do not fail, if there is any meaning in the moral sentiments of mankind, or any justice in heaven.

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OUR DUTY UNDER REVERSE: SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OF THE

“CAMBRIDGEPORT PARISH,” SUNDAY, 28 JU,LY, 1861. BY JOHN F. W. WARE.

VrinteW bg Bequests BOSTON: PRINTED BY JOfHN WILSON AND SON, 22, SCHOOL

STREET. 1861. A

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1) r,

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S EI R M 0 N. Eccles. vii. 14. -” IN THiE DAY OF ADVERSITY, CONSIDER.” Tis is one of those morsels of genuine wisdom vlwhich we find scattered through the Book of Ecclesiastes, which show the writer to have been no mean man, -greater than his philosophy would sometimnes lead us to imagine. He had gone beneath the surface of the various experiences which had checkered his life. An evident, struggling faith constantly relieves the half-cynic, half-epicurean character of his essay, and leaves a healthy impression with the reader, though in itself evidence of the unhealthiness of the writer. To me, there is something brave as well as wise in these words of this half-heathen author. I do not find the Christianity of men and women quite up to them yet. I see them under their adverse days: they are not bravely bearing up, searching for and holding the good. Adversity is the panic of their souls: it makes them recreant to former conviction and conduct. The shade upon thdeir life has struck deep, and chilled or changed them sadly. They are not the brave men you took them to be, but broken, cowardly men. They complain, they whine, they fold their hands, they give up; they lose interest in affairs, confidence in man, faith in God. One little breath of adversity wrecks their manhood.

They do not pause, look about, consider, seek to understand the thing itself, compel it to I

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4 give up its hidden blessing, make it the new and better vantage-ground.

The one simple advice of our author is, “In the day of adversity, consider.” Do not be in a hurry; do not rashly condemn others do not hunt, with busy but useless ingenuity, after far-off causes; do not spend time, strength, temper, in lamentation, -in wishing things had been otherwise, in calling yourself a fool, or cursing circumstance; do not mope; do not despair; do not be rash: only consider. I call that the advice of a brave as well as a wise man; and I need not pause to tell you why. It is not advice, however, we are very prone to take. Shakespeare tells us, ” Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Older philosophers have spoken highly of it.

Bacon says, “Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament: adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revelation of God’s favor.” Ourselves we know that there are the best uses ill reverse, bitter to the taste, but afterwards sweet; so that it may well be doubted if any true man would willingly go back beyond the reverse, and accept the former estate, with its weaknesses and limitations. It may be put down as one of the truest attendant blessings of our present state, that it has its reverses; and yet we find no one to love, no one to welcome, no one to pray for, this great teacher and benefactor,- this sower drawing us nearer to God, and giving us glimpses of high life so as no other. We pass-our lives dreading it. We say hard things of God because he permits it. When it overtakes us, it benumbs us as a palsy. We are crushed by its weight; we are deaf to its teachings; we are aghast at its sweep. It takes self-possession and faith from us. We settle into dead, helpless apathy; or we run to and fro railing or raving.

God is not our friend. What have we done to deserve this at his hand? I I

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5 Now, this is weak and foolish and wicked. Reverse is a necessity to our best growth. Adversity comes in to give what prosperity has failed in doing,- to compel us to just that we will not do, except as we are compelled. When the life runs along freely, and man gets to feel that the thing which has been shall always be; when the apparent suc cess and triumph of the present and temporal makes him overlook the presence and the supiemacy of the eternal,there is no deep thought; the events of life come and go with no heed from us; the high relations of man, his vast connection with things and God, his duties, his abilities, his responsibility, scarcely occur to him, or break but fitfully in, to be driven at once away before the more pleasing, if not pressing, necessities of the moment. In prosperity, he does not, will not, - I do not say, cannot, - consider. Adversity is the pause in which he must. It brings things out in their proper hues, shapes, places; it dispels the mirage success has conjured; it tells great truths; it strips away disguise; it reveals life, duty, accountability, God; and will not lose its hold of the soul, glorying in its littleness, until it has heard, if it will not heed, solemn things. Adversity comes to man that he may consider; and that is his first great duty in the day of it. You anticipate, probably, my purpose to use these words less in a personal application than in a national one. We may call this a day of adversity. Never did a brighter sabbath look down upon the earth than that last past; and never, perhaps, were the hearts of a people more buoyant. We thought there might be, while we were gathered within the quiet walls of our holy places, the deadly combat elsewhere; in which those we knew and loved strove sternly, even to the death, for those rights dearer to them and to us than life. There was an expectation that was confidence; no premonition of disaster and defeat.

Lured by a

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6 foe who had again and again taught us that his power lay in his wiles, with music, banners, songs, as to a holiday parade, marched the men of a great Republic; and all the people applauded, and waited with impatient confidence to hear of the blow which had struck to the heart of the foul monster raging to destroy a Government at once our pride and hope. May we never know again what so terribly on the morrow we learned! May never sabbath see again such profaning and such woe! We have met with a reverse, and it is hard to allow it. There had been a good deal of unseasonable and unreasonable bragging; and so our pride is concerned, and we are sore.

Valuable lives are lost; loved ones have been laid low; hearts and homes are desolate: but that is the inevitable necessity and consequence of any battle. The day was lost after it was carried; but I think, if you will look largely at it, that was to thank God for. It gives us, what we greatly needed, the opportunity to consider. It is just that thing which a wise man, in his own affairs, turns to his good, - out of which he builds success. And, if you ask me what I think of it, I shall answer as I have all the week long, -that I think it the best thing that could have been.

To me it is the presage of victory. I am the more hopeful of the Republic, because it has pleased God, in the outset, to give her the day of adversity. I subscribe, heart and soul, to the noble and Christian sentiment of Montgomery, - the so-called Border ruffian; and may God give us more such ruffians! He says in a letter to a friend, on the 15th July, -speaking of his movements on the Missouri frontier, -” It has constantly happened to us, that our disappointments have been better than successes, and our blenders have been our best moves. We have been constantly reminded, that the Almighty rules in the affairs of men; that he directs alike the battle and the l.

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storm.” There is the true ring to that; not of the clarion, but of a well-tried faith. It is just that we need in our day of adversity,- to consider that man moves best sometimes when he blunders; and that there is a God who not only rules, but overrules. Let me place before you two or three considerations, to which the hour urges. We are all talking and thinking, criticizing and faultfinding. Let us do something worthier, and strike deeper. I look at this crisis in the national history as one of the judgment-days of God. It is not we who have been outraged by the South, -
we who are to punish; but vwe have ourselves been false to God, and are under chastisement. North, as well as South, has sinned, and come far short of what it was her duty to do. I wish we could look at it that way.

MAen who live and believe only in to-daywho have never watched God in history-have no idea of his sure retributions; how clearly can be traced his visitings upon national dereliction and crime. History is largely only retribution; the generation possibly escaping, but the iniquity visited on the third and fourth unerringly. One who knows all that, must feel that we are under the divine displeasure, and that because of our infidelity to our privilege and our profession is this terrible scourge upon us. A little and loyal one, planted here in the wilderness, became a thousand.

God nourished the vine the fathers planted. We grew to a great people. We stood before kings. There was none superior. On the sea, on the land, we knew no masters; and the sun, in all his course, saw no land blessed like this. But our nation was builded upon a principle. It had a base such as none other. Not the mere accident of discovery, the necessity of migration, the freak of traffic, a better climate, or the lure of gold, made it; but a broad, eternal truth, which nations 7 I

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8 had sighed and groped after, - which sighing and groping nations ever since have recognized as the one great thing needed to their healing. That is the source of our prosperity, that had made us a name to be trembled at and revered,- that gave us the grasp we had,- was the single secret of our success. But it entailed duties upon us, to which, it is proved, we were not equal. We struck the parricidal blow when at the height of our prosperity. The principle on which our fathers builded was stigmatized as a “sounding and glittering generality.” Men who held to the old faith of the founders were taunted about a “higher law.” Slavery, in the early day, the small cloud of evil, in ours had swelled to the gigantic, overmastering tyranny; ever more and more imperious, getting, only to cry “more.” Nothing it asked for but it had. Compromise sapped the manhood, the integrity, of the North. Trade, manufactures, social position, expediency, party policy, fiercely seconded the mpst exorbitant demand.

Slavery became national; and, before the slavepower, this fair, vast heritage, sacred to freedom, trenmbled, yielded, and was all but lost.

Now, it is impossible that such desertion of principle, such timid yielding, should go unpunished. We had basely surrendered that which came to us consecrated by the trials, tears, prayers, blood, of our ancestors.

We had the advance post in the great cause of civilization and Christianity, and we fled from it in base and causeless panic. We talked of freedom; our boast was, that the humblest, seeking the protection of our flag, was safe: while we gave the lie to all, not by the existence of slavery, which we could not help; not by its horrors, which we could not control; but by fawning before its power, helping it to any thing it desired. Esau sold his birthright when he was starving; and the name of that I i II

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9 poor, starving man has gone to the ages in undeserved opprobrium. We bartered ours when we were full, and that we might hold to our trade and our manufactures, our comfort and our gold, - to peace, though bought at the price of disgrace,-consented to yield our trust. It is the blackest blot on the record of human history. If the act of starving Esau have covered his memory with shame, what shall the coming ages have in store for this generation? Shall God stand by, and not avenge himself? It is come: “[Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.” The great laws of God override our human policies, and vindicate themselves in our disasters. Our trade, our commerce, our plenty, our peace,- where are they? What has the cringing and fawning and compromising, and denial of principle and manhood, yielded? To-day the cry of battle is in the land; to-day the prestige of our old fame is gone; to-day enterprise stands dumb, the wheels of industry are idle, the white sails furled; all is disorganized: and, if we look about us for the cause, it is that we have sinned. Again: we should consider that this is not our own work in which we are engaged, but that God is using us as instruments in bringing about a mighty change; and it may please him to give immediate results not desired by us, or opposed to our desires. Remember, the work is his. We desire to perpetuate a Union, of which we are now beginning to know the value, as a matter of pride, affection, policy. It is the Government for which we contend. The great fundamental principle, the bulwark of our and of all liberty, is yet in abeyance. I heard an intelligent gentleman from England say, that would this country show that she entered into this contest heartily, solely as the champion of liberty, there would be no second opinion in England: it was doubt as to the loftiness of her motive which held the English people back. To me 2

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10 it is evident, that God means by this war the death, not merely of the slavepower, but of “the institution.” Hie is using us as the means, as he used the Jews to plant the great idea of the unity of God; and it may be that the unity of this nation is no more essential to that, than the continued unity of the twelve tribes was to the other. The divine way of settling this great difficulty may be by allowing a separate power, based upon the atrocious principle set forth by the so-called Confederacy, that the nations may see it in all its horror and iniquity, that it may fall once and for ever. It may be, too, -for so apparently adverse is the Great Disposer, often, to human plans,that our arms shall fail; that the cupidity of the English Government - which I believe dreads our success as I believe the English people pray for it-shall lead her to interfere: we may find ourselves surrounded by foes, and harassed by factions; brought to a distress we little dream, and made to stoop as never nation stooped.

And yet the great cause is safe, if we shall give ourselves, heart, soul, life, to work,- not selfishly, for our own idea; but nobly, for the will of God. The great trouble with men, in any grand crisis, is, that they will not look for and heed the purposes of God: they will not take up a principle as his; but they call it theirs, arrange their own plans, set up their own work, and, if they fail in these, count all as lost. Yet history, life, are perpetually showing us that our reverse is God’s success; that our puny plan must often fall before God’s greater thought, that his glory may come in, and a good we had not thought of be established. Said some one to me, in the days of despondency through which we have just passed, ” Have you not lost confidence in our commander?” - “

No,” I replied: “my creed is still, first God, and then Scott.” I believe myself a patriot. I believe this nation set among the peoples to work out a great

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11 problem. I believe her sun will never set, till her sounding and glittering generalities, her mere abstractions, shall have become the solid corner in the foundation of all realms. Be it that I mistake; that the grand onward march shall be all disaster, and this uprising of the people vain: still I know that God steadily keeps in view the triumph of the truth, and the good of man; and, if we perish, nations unborn shall read how their blessing came out of our disaster and death. There are mighty complications all about this question, when treated as a mere matter of national policy. Let us try to let the question of policy alone, and go into the contest for God and the truth, contentsthat it shall have God’s issue. If we are not faithless, but believing; if we are not recreant, but loyal,- I have no fear but we shall keep our honor and our home. God will recommit his precious truth to our new, our better keeping.

And I think this time of adversity presses another consideration upon us.

Who shall be our leader in this strife? As if to do all he could for us, Providence has lengthened out the years and the skill of a single man, and by great and varied experience proved him to be the man for a nation’s trust. But has Gen. Scott been our leader so far? Mlust it not rather, to our shame, to our present confusion, be said, that he has been harassed and finally led by the insane impatience of the people, the infernal insolence of newspaper editors and correspondents, and we know not what intrigues of cabinet and politics? It is time that he who is nominally chief should be really that; and I, for one, unrepublican as it may seem, - human, and liable to err, as I believe him, -would not hesitate to allow him, for the crisis, all that Napoleon grasped, confident that it would be better for the people so, better for the cause, than to be subjected longer to the torrent of abuse, crude criticism, I i I I, II I t I I I i

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12 and strategic wisdom, of newspaper reporters, correspondents, editors, even of clergymen, which have disgraced our press, and jeoparded every thing. The press in this country is, no doubt, a blessing; but it is, at times, a curse. Any arrogant, angry, factious man, that can write a paragraph, can get it printed, or control a paper; and the mischief that way made may be seen written indelibly all over the history of this generation. You may put the cause of the disaster of last Sunday upon incompetent commanders, upon indecently inquisitive civilians going to a battle as to a play, upon a drunken leader of reserve; but the cause of causes, humanly speaking, is the metropolitan press, fed by conceited correspondents and self-magnifying editors. May the Lord deliver us from fighting any more battles under their generalship! .Nor must ti-s war be led by any political faction,- be turned to any selfish or party aggrandizement. We of the people have sublimely said, “Let party and faction sleep.” The rulers must say the same. It is no time to think of divisions, to push favorites, to build up cliques, to make capital: it is the time for stern, steady, united work, -a time to show that we can be disinterested. Let all self and littleness, all intrigue and dispute, sleep. The country, the cause, our God, want our undivided, untainted, unsuspected patriotism. For myself, I have confidence in the Executive; and, so far as I ever do, I believed in, and still do, the party electing him. What it was possible for man to do under such circumstances, I believe he, with his advisers, has done. We who sit here, and criticize special acts, condemn freely, and complain, have no idea of the herculean labor undertaken and carried out these past four months. The world has never seen the like; history will make the award; ourselves will yet be ashamed at our fretful conclusions. All

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13 honor -honor from the heart as well as from the headto those loyal men!

Still they are men, pressed upon by outward circumstance such as men ever yield to. They have made mistakes, no doubt. Much of necessity had to be done without due thought. And, then, men always must mistake; and their great danger lies, their great mistake seems to have been, in yielding to party necessities,- as, I believe, any other party would have done, -
putting men iii places of greater or less responsibility because of accidental political position or influence. This must be stopped. The people must stop it. Arms is a profession. We have not honored it enough.

It requires more than bravery to make a soldier; more than knowledge of tactics, more than precision in a drill, to make a commander. The soldier, especially the leader, needs to know, to have measured, to have tested, himself; to be sure, before he takes men into battle, before he offers himself as the sacred champion of a nation’s honor, that he can act discreetly, with thorough self-possession, under emergency. The testimony of many brave men is to bewilderment under a first fire. Take men out of civil ranks suddenly, and how can it well be otherwise? At the best, we are at a disadvantage from the necessity of depending upon untried men: but let.us insist that men of education and experience shall not be overslaughed by politicians; that place shall only be given for cause.

What inducement is there for men to give their lives to preparation for just this work, if, at the moment of demand, they are to be set aside, and see all their hardworked-for honors borne away by some untried aspirant?

Without denying the preeminent qualifications of some civilians for command, it were safer, as well as juster, as a general thing, to put a well-tried sergeant at the head of a brigade or division, than a lawyer, a merchant, or a governor. Some men are so born to command, can so handle N

I

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14 themselves and others, see so far, organize so rapidly, have the thing so clearly in them, that there should be no question. That merit alone should entitle to place. If it be that our rulers are succumbing any way to party dictate or necessity, let the people rise, and bring the rulers to their duty. There are dangers enough without this. The name, the idea, of party must be buried now. A stone, not to be moved even by an angel, must be put upon its grave. The man who goes for party, - in high place, in low place, -be he citizen, be he President, let him be accursed! Our cause is just; our cause is God’s. For it, he asks not partisans, but men.

I confess my surprise at the tone of many, not only at first, but still.

For one, I do not feel like trying to console myself with the quotation, “

All is not lost;” but rather I do console myself in the conviction, that nothing is lost. So far, all is well. This reverse is given, that we may consider; and given first, thank God! Not even will I own that the hands have been put back upon the dial, because the campaign is checked, and must be begun anew. To the nation, for the cause, the reverse is healthy.

It will bring us to think; it will show the work that is before us, in its terrible and solemn magnitude; it will hush the bravado spirit, so wide-spread and so offensive; it will show the demand for all our resource, all our wisdom, all our faith; it will make us realize, what we have only said, that this is our trial-day. Let every man put himself down to study seriously out the teachings of the hour, take this as a personal appeal; let him rise from his thought a purer patriot, a better man, prepared to suffer and to do,- and it will all go well. There is no room in the present for doubt or fear. Every thing encourages. It is a vast stride the cause has taken since last Sunday’s bloody field. What victory could have I L

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15 done the like? Already God’s hand is seen in the reverse. It was needed: it is working well. Mav it work cornpletely!- purging away all low motive; cleansing our councils of all but patriotism and faith, our armies of all but courage and honor, ourselves of all but conviction of the holiness of our cause, and confidence in God. Let the army and the people, the rulers and the ruled, now advance in sympathy and mutual respect. Let there be no chicane, no meddling, no hypercriticism. Let ours be union indeed: and then again, speedily, the holy banner of freedomthe well-loved, well-tried “stars and stripes ” shall spring to its place in the clear upper air; and, as its graceful folds unbend themselves to the wooing of every wind, the nations shall look up to see in it the assurance that every chain is snapped, and there is on earth, not only peace, but LIBERTY! )

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rN

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OUR S,4CRIFICES. A SERMON PREACHED IN THE WEST CHURCH, NOVEMBER 3, i 86I, BEING THE SUNDAY AFTER THE FUNERAL OF LIEUT. WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM. BY C.

A. BARTOL. PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. B 0 S TON: TI C KNOR AND FIELDS. 1861. v

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A University Press, Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company.

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N Q). SE R M ON. “THE BEAUTY OF ISRAEL IS SLAIN UPON THY HIGH PLACES.” - 2

Samuel i. 19. WHAT a dreadful sacrifice, I have repeatedly heard it said, and you have repeatedly heard it said, if you have not repeatedly said it yourselves, as tidings of one after another fresh calamity from the theatre of the nation’s struggle smite on our ears. But no sacrifice stands alone, begins and ends in itself, or is ever to be regarded as so much blank loss. Let us not overlook the use of sacrifice. It is the law of our life, that all earthly progress in every good cause starts in sacrifice, lives on sacrifice, and without ever-new sacrifice would faint and die. It was a great sacrifice, and David so esteemed it, when Saul and his son Jonathan, and two other sons besides, lay dead on the field under the arrows of the Philistine archers, who took great spoil of the Israelites’ wealth also and their weapons of war. David writes a dirge on the occasion, perhaps the earliest from his sublime pen; and, if so, then the tender muse of his sacred poems truly was born r

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4 in sorrow and baptized in tears, as the very child of sacrifice. Yet, sad as the occasion was, it was not wholly lamentable. The death of Saul from the dart and the sword, and the fall on the field of Jonathan, whom David loved as he probably never loved man or woman else, with the knitting to him of his very soul, were not sacrifices absolute. Great use was there in the seeming waste of that royal and princely blood. The Philistines with their savage barbarous host were not helped on to victory by the slaughter that exacted those precious lives. Their stroke recoiled.

The blood of Saul and Jonathan, that ran out of their veins, apparently to stop still and clotted as a pool on the earth, ran back somehow and was re-infused into the people. It made the blood of the whole kingdom tingle with unprecedented life and zeal. The damp sprinkling at the mouth of the furnace kindles the fire it but superficially quenches to a hotter glow; and no vital current that still flowed was so mighty for the triumph of the Israelites as that which was spent and spilt like water on the ground.

David, warrior and king as well as psalmist, was kinged indeed, as he was crowned in form, by the martyrdom he mourned; the wild tribes of Amalek, the freebooters and enslavers of their day, were scattered before his sceptre and spear; - and, had there been no other fruit from the gore that enriched the ground of Gilboa, the ode itself that has come down to us with immortal inspiration, a song and a picture too, were 1,

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5 worth, in its stirring influence as a grand celebration of friendship and honor, the lives of a thousand men. Though David curses the mountains to have no rain or dew, food for all time has been gathered from their growth out of death. We have had ages of success in this country; now has come our age of sacrifice. Manhood as noble and leadership as brave as Saul’s, youth as lovely and winning as Jonathan’s, have been immolated to that spirit of war which so pervades the race of man, like the air overhangs land and sea, and rages as fiercely now in our American borders as once on the Hebrew shores. But is it a bad age, undesirable to live in, because it is an age of sacrifice? No,- every sacrifice for a worthy object is really in the soul no sacrifice at all. We never made or can make a bare sacrifice for truth and justice, our country and God. The blessed use overpays all our surrender. When, in any affair, we get more than we give up, are we not to be content with the dealing? “These are our sacrices,” said one man to another on leaving this church last Monday. “

And our glories too,” was the reply. Fidelity to our convictions and living as we believe, at whatever cost of substance or existence, are the only glories we are equal to; - and he is but a craven who weighs comfort or fortune or peace for a moment in the scale with honor and duty and the public weal. What is your or my flesh and blood in comparison with loyalty to our principles? Verily, it is to be ac .4 0

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6 counted but as so much dirt and stones in the streets, or a little dust in the vast sweeping of the floor of mortality into the grave. If it be wanted for any worthy service, let us say, Here it s! Much has been said of the sacrifice of property, which might all have been spared had we interposed no obstacle to this Southern rebellion, had we smothered our resentment at the insult to our flag, and let the insurgents with their institutions have their own way. But in what a torrent to repel them we drain our funds! Foreign writers, especially in England, have sent over sardonic speculations and queries how we, with our government and banks, shall solve the financial problem looming through the clouds of battle in our lowering political sky. In the American land and American soul Providence will find or put value enough to solve it. Europe may dismiss both her honest over-solicitude for our welfare, and any premature exulting at our downfall, disbeliever however she may be in our democracy, forgetting her own revolutions and consuming wars. There has been some destruction of property of which only as a melancholy abomination we can think. But it has been not at our own, but the anarchists’ hands, that railways and bridges are wantonly destroyed and coastlights put out.

Nearly all at least of our sacrifices of property, the fruit of industry, have been in the legitimate furtherance of our righteous aims. Yet an enormous sacrifice we must own it to be. The mustering and accou - fy I

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7 tring of forces, the pay-roll and rations for subsisting the army, the huge negative loss in a wide desertion of the pursuits of productive industry, the vast expense of the naval military power in its splendid fleets, - one of which has just sailed: Heaven-sped be it on its righteous errand! and all the munitions of battle; - the treasure that is fired away in the explosive powder, whistling ball, bursting shell, and countless missiles, most of which are lost in space or buried in the ground, barren of any result; - the time, the strength, the skill, all of which are money, consumed in the long indecisive strife, taxation aggravated and the future pledged; - our imagination staggers in attempting to sum up the sacrifice in the form of property which labor and capital and trade hardly earn and slowly accumulate, - property, yes, perhaps a thousand millions, enough to endow countless colleges and asylums, lavished on the demon of war. But if, with all this expenditure, a stand is made against oppression and wrong, if a prospect is opened for liberty and union, if the republic can be redeemed by this sacrifice, shall it not be made with a joyful will? Truly, all profusion for such ends is economy,-and excellent housekeepers they from whom it comes! To what better account can our property be put? What should we do with the heap of our riches, if we were allowed to go on swelling it, in a course of endless prosperity? Nothing but good, think you, abolishing distress and poverty, equalizing the human lot, promoting

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8 science and art, building up at home and in heathen parts the kingdom of God? - or much evil too, hardening ourselves in avarice, enervating ourselves with luxury, corrupting ourselves with vice, and going the same down-hill track other nations have taken, Rome and Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, with the fat and recalcitrating Jeshurun, whose name personified the degenerate Israelites, amid all their milk and honey, of old? Dubious, from human nature as well as history, to such questioning would be the reply. But we are not allowed to go on uprearing these ant-hills of our golden sand. We are stripped of our increasing wealth. Our glittering houses of earthly gain, under the tramp of the living ideas of the time, are broken and diminished. Great and grievous appears the sacrifice.

Simple sacrifice, however, it is not. One advantage will come of it. We shall at least never rot in our riches. Those stooping from age will now no longer more with gold than with years be cumbered and bowed to the ground. Our youth will not, in idleness and dissipation, run riot with the means otherwise bestowed. Our children, with our estates, will be devoted, in some mode of service, at home or at the seat of conflict, to the commonwealth. Nay, we shall, with this substance of ours, not only serve and sacrifice to, but rescue and for our posterity perpetuate the commonwealth yet, for all that has come and gone of our temporary reverses and the power of treason, so poor but for its robberies, to keep still on foot; - and what price for I’

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9 such ransom of the land shall be deemed too high? Truly, it shall not be reckoned with silver or much fine gold. With it, as with wisdom, not even rubies shall be compared. If freedom be the purchase, the money it comes to shall be a very little thing, though the purse of Croesus were emptied.

But we have only begun to tell the story of sacrifice when we speak of property alone. We might be better off, reduced to Spartan simplicity, by losing half of that. I think many of us would be. We are making a great sacrifice, however, of happiness too. The weeping of young and elder women, which you and I have noticed in the doorways, as the successive regiments formed and passed along, shows but a few drops of the flood of grief within. The heartthrob as you part from, perhaps never to see again, that which is dear to you as the apple of your eye, is not light, though it makes no noise, like the pulsing drum and trumpet, in the air. The anxiety of wives and mothers, lovers and friends, respecting the absent, however meekly borne as from the will of God, wears on the springs of life. The report of a fatal result to some object of affection rends the heartstrings in which his form was enwoven. When tidings of wounds or death have reached one dwelling, the doubt pervading the entire community whither now the angel of death will fly, and on what threshold next the waiting inmates may see the crimson stain, weighs as a burden which only the grace of Heaven can help to bear. The whole Christian feeling of the people too is troubled and torn 2 r

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10 at the horrid spectacle of war between fellowmen, fellowcitizens, nay, offspring sometimes of the same ancestry, begotten and born of one parentage, perhaps rocked in the cradle together and consecrated from the womb to brotherly love, now arrayed on opposite sides, and seeking to pierce each other’s breasts. But the sacrifice even of happiness in all this affectional and moral pain we must make cheerfully. Do you say it is an excessive sacrifice? Whether it is excessive depends on what it is made for; and I plead, there is for it reason enough, and a fully atoning object. It is no more than belongs to our actual cause. Jesus Christ did not hesitate to promulgate his religion, though he foresaw it would divide families and make a man’s foes to be those of his own household, and put a sword into numberless hands; for, spite of all such mischief and misery, he knew how preponderant to the world would be the benefits of his Gospel.

We must not draw back from our dread crisis and ordeal of fire; for it is the only mode that appears of maintaining our fathers’ enterprise of a free and Christian community on these Western shores. What other practicable method there is will you tell me? I see none. As the bitter sacrifices multiply and grow severe, some are tempted to ask if we have not in all this business made some horrid mistake. They shrink from further waging the terrible strife, and are almost ready for any mean compromise. But the sufferers, from whom the sacrifices have

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11 been or may be taken, do not shrink. They have counted the cost. They, like Jesus, have had their agony beforehand. It has been in the garden more than on the cross. Therefore they, like him, endure the cross so meekly, with a serene beauty of behavior by which some, who think only of their affliction, are amazed. They conclude their offering to country, to liberty and God, when they send their sons and brothers to the war.

Besides in this matter of sacrifice, let us remember, sacrifice in some shape we cannot avoid. It is for us, as for the Hebrews, standing among their flocks, to determine what particular sacrifice we will choose.

Sacrifice, greater or less, we must make. We have but an alternative.

Should we withhold our present sacrifice, what must be the substitute? Our whole political system broken up! The banner of the United States,- God bless it! -not only fired at on one fort or lowered from a single staff, but everywhere displaced, banished, and destroyed! The seat of government taken, and the federal authorities, by the vote of the whole people fairly chosen, disgraced and dispersed! An end to that dream of liberty for which our sires crossed the sea, and were willing to cross the other narrower but more fearful sea of death, as so many of them did. A worse despotismn than they fled from, a slavery they would have shuddered to foresee, and as they look down from heaven must deplore, spreading without check through our territories, prescribing as a sovereign

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12 our legislative policy, winning or forcing the mnagnificent stretch of our soil to itself; or, if the stubborn old Puritan stock should still revolt and hold out against its insolent sway, leaving this little corner of New England out in the cold here to shift for itself and be subject to all the ignominious dictations of a neighboring despotic realmn. Will you make such a sacrifice, instead of the sacrifice you have already brought?

One or the other you must elect. Which, brethren and sisters, shall it be?

How should we like sacrifice coming in this style, of the kicks and buffets of one domineering empire or of a row of arrogant rival States?

Would not all this other sacrifice be the greatest and worst? For one, I must say it is no point of wavering with me. By no reverses is my judgment changed. The will of God, which is equity, is not changed. Your resolve, which is patriotism, is not changed. No, - rather than fail to vindicate the proper institutions of the land, let us rise, and let us fall, to the last man! Let us not be nice in our preference as to the blow that shall smite us or the ditch into which we shall be thrown. Let us pick out a big burial-place for what may remain of us or ours; or, should we survive our country and American liberty, let us emigrate to some other clime, till it please God to take us to the franchise of heaven. But we have not come to despair of the republic. We do not expect its foes to conquer. It is not unlikely their strength, kept up with valdr so 0

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13 fierce and grim in a bad enterprise, when it yields, may suddenly give way, with awful and utter collapse. But only by the virtue of our unfaltering resolve pressing hard upon it. There is nothing for us, then, but to stick to that side of sacrifice we have espoused already, and turn it from the horn of a dilemma into a horn like David’s, exalted with honor. We must gain the victory. To gain it in battle, we must gain it in our hearts; we must gain it in our households, we must gain it at home.

But one end of our army in fact is in the field. The other end is here. It is composed, not of men, but women. Tender maidens and venerable matrons are in it, instead of soldierly veterans and valiant youth. The unsheathed needle is all their armory, instead of cannon, musket, and sword. But it serves as well; nay, it is, in their hands, essentially strong to support cannon and musket and sword. If our case is won, to them as much as to the ranks in uniform will the credit be due; for, without woman’s siding with him, in nothing can man succeed. Well is it recorded that woman was formed of man and brought to him.‘The rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman.” Were her encourgement withdrawn, I should be unnerved, if I could be by anything less than the abandonment of the Most High. It is glorious to see woman’s rights by woman herself all absorbed now in woman’s duty. Let man and woman together yield the sacrifice of this sad but necessary war. We thought in r

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14 deed war for us was over. We heard it grumbling on in the distant corners of the earth; but we fancied the monster, formerly ravaging here too, now a phantom for us, gone from our paradise too far to come back, as in a quiet night we see Mars and the Great Bear so cool and noiseless in the sky. Yet it revisits us in all its wrath. Let us deal with and carry it on in such a spirit and design as shall convert it from an enemy to a friend. Let us make it, not the ruiner, but regenerator of our land. Then all the sacrifices it exacts will be sanctified. God willing and his children faithful, they shall be sanctified. By the same blast which blows away the first froth of self-confidence from the surface, the deeper purpose is stirred. Our gloomy fear, too, as well as vanity, the wind shall scatter. As I looked at twilight lately from my window, I saw the evening star in splendor such as I never saw equalled before. Clouds had been on it; mists had obscured its face. But they had passed with fugitive haste, nor robbed it of a single beam. Why with such especial brightness did it shine to the eye? It shone so brightly because it had been dimmed!

So shall it be with this other planet, of light and freedom, our country in the West. Clouds may blot its lustre. They are over us now. But they will break, as, at this moment of my speaking, yonder storm breaks and lets into these windows a clearer ray. We may sacrifice our sunny happiness for a while. But not for outward happiness

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15 were we made, but for inward blessedness, through self-denial at first, completed in ecstasy at last. If we can bless each other and society by coining our comfort and heart’s blood into a self-sacrificing service, let us not hold back. Familiar events prove that to property and happiness we must personally, like the-Jews in old Canaan, for ourselves or those dearest to us, add the sacrifice of life. To one, among many such noble and widely commemorated sacrifices, I wish, in closing, to refer, not to gratify myself or any others peculiarly concerned, but, through the public attention, already fixed on it by circumstances of thrilling interest, for the benefit, as great as can be derived from any sermon, of delineating what I must consider a model of human worth. William Lowell Putnam, born July 9th, 1840, Lieutenant in a Massachusetts company, fell bravely fighting for his country, in the act probably of at once leading on his men and making a step to the relief of a wounded officer, in the battle of Ball’s Bluff, October 21st, 1861, and he died, at the age of 21, the next day. The State that gave him birth, and to which he gave back honor, joined with his kindred and friends in celebrating his obsequies-in this church, last Monday, October the 28th. The coffin lay on the same spot occupied, nine months ago, by that of Dr. Charles Lowell, his maternal grandfather. The corse of the soldier and hero, surmounted with the sword unwielded and motionless in its scabbard, was not unworthy to succeed here that of the II 1

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16 preacher and saint; for spiritual weapons were no cleaner in the hands of the first than carnal ones in those of the last. Striking was the contrast made by the youth’s silken locks and smooth, fair cheeks, cold in death, with the white hair on the furrowed brow that had also reposed at the shrine so long vocal with well-remembered tones of an eloquent and holy mouth. But there was more union than separation. The benignant resolution of the elder’s expression was repeated in the sweet firmness of the young man’s lips. They seemed as near together in spirit as circumstantially wide apart. The two venerable names of Lowell and of Putnam-the eminent jurist, as beloved as he was distinguished - were well united in that of the youth; for he justified every supposable law of hereditary descent by continuing in his temper and very look, with the minister’s loving earnestness, the singular cordiality, the wondrous and spotless loving-kindness, which in his paternal grandfather’s manner was ever like a warm beam of the sun. The delicacy due to the living allows me only to point to a picture such as is seldom exhibited, in Samuel Putnam was born 1768, and died 1853. At the bar he was particularly distinguished for his knowledge of Commercial Law, a chivalric sense of honor and duty, and uniform amenity of manners. On the Bench of the Supreme Court, where he served for twentyeight years, the exhibition of these powers of mind and elements of character gained for him universal affection and respect; and his opinions in that branch of the law are esteemed among the most valuable contributions to jurisprudence to be found in the Reports of the State of Massachusetts.

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17 his only surviving grandparent, of an intelligently contented, industriously cheerful, Christian old age,still growing riper and fresher towards almost ninety years. A worthy grandchild William was. Hle bore out in action, in danger and death, every rising signal and promise of his brief but beautiful life. In the conflict, he cared more for others’ peril than for his own. He sank, from all hiss forward motion, under one mortal wound. But, while he suffered, he smiled. He deprecated any assistance to himself as vain; he urged all to the work before them, and even forbade his soldiers to succor him. “Do not move me,” he said to his friend; “it is your duty to leave me; help others; I am going to die, and would rather die on the field.” With noble, yet well-deserved support, however, he was borne nearly a mile to the boat at the fatal river’s brink by Henry Howard Sturgis of this city, who left him only to return to fight in his own place, and afterwards watched him like a mother in the hospital, hoping for his restoration. As he lay prostrate, knowing he could not recover, he beckoned to his friend to come to him, that he might praise the courage of his men in the encounter, rather than to say anything of himself. With such patient composure he endured his anguish and weakness, probably no mortal but himself could suspect how far he was gone. He sent home the simple message of love. Brightly, concealing his pangs, he wore away the weary hours. Cheerfully, on the Tuesday morning which was his last on earth, he spoke to his 3 r

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18 faithful servant, George. He closed his eyes at length, and did not open them again, presenting, and perhaps knowing, no distinction between sleep and death. Hle “is not dead, but sleepeth,” might it not have been said again? But, like the child raised by our Lord, he slept but a little.

The greatness of his waking who shall tell? I looked often and earnestly on that young man’s face, in the house and by the wayside; and now that I can see it in the flesh no longer, it still hangs and shines conspicuous in the gallery of chosen portraits in my mind. I would fain put into some photograph of words what it expressed, and what the likeness fortunately taken of him largely preserves, respecting others’ testimony while I render my tribute, and blending their views with my own; for I find in all estimates of him a notable uniformity. The first impression which any one beholding him would have received, was of a certain magnanimnity. The countenance was open, and, as from an ample doorway, the generous disposition to meet you came out. There was a remarkable mixture of sweetness and independence in all his aspect and bearing. From his very gait and salutation you would perceive that his mind was made up, and he meant something by his glance or utterance; as one who knew him said, there was character in whatever he did. I am not sure a discerner of spirits might not have gathered, before he elected his part, from his effective carriage and fine physical development, signs of a military taste. Yet, if the I

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19 martial inclination were in him, it was combined with a strong aversion to take life or inflict distress. He proved once more, as it has been proved ten thousand times, that the brave is also the tender heart. But above all mortal considerations of pleasure or pain was his regard for justice and truth. He had a rare native rectitude. He never deviated from sincerity. If anything could grieve him, or, even in his childhood, move him for a moment from the admirable felicity of his temper, it would be any calling in question of his word. But the sensibility in him that felt all forgave all too; and without the sensibility that measures our forgiveness, our forgiveness is nothing worth. Beyond any passion, he evinced the reason in which his passion was held. Coolness in him covered enthusiasm; the gravity of deep though early experience repressed the sparkles of natural humor; a heart wistful of affection attended self-reliance; the modest and almost diffident was the courageous soul; by ready concession to another’s correctness in any debate, he curbed a mounting will; and he suited the most explicit clearness of opinion to the perfect gentleman’s ways. With his seriousness went along a keen sense of the ludicrous, by which alnost every highly moral nature is quick to observe what is outwardly awry, as well as what is intrinsically wrong; but he was more apt, when he laughed, to laugh at himself than at other folks. He could contend also, but never from love of contention. He would fight only for a great object; he went to the I t.

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20 war in his country’s emergency, at the outset proposing to go as a private; and he intended to return to the study and practice of the law if he survived. If he survived: but no sanguine thought of surviving did he entertain. Hle had no reserves; he was a devotee in arms. He offered himself as though less to slay than be slain were his end. No more of hero than martyr was in his mood, as in his doom. He threw his life in without scruple, with the ancient judging it sweet and decorous to die for one’s country; and the parental presentiment, that die he would, was mnatched in the entire readiness for such an event with which the always fearless son, under no shadow of his own apprehension, marched on to the fatal fray. In every extremity he was self-possessed. If by one word I must mark the quality most prominent in his deportment, I should call it balance. Did this unqualified courage, in one extraordinarily conscious of existence, and with constitutional tenacity rooted in the present life, spring from the faith he so vividly had in immortality? and did that faith in turn spring from a profoundly religious trust in God? I believe it! I believe even the exuberant, vivacious, frolicsome boy had in him the germ, afterwards to open, of all this faith and trust. Imnpulsive, he did not act from impulse, but from that contemplation on the truth of the universe which told him on what impulse to proceed, and marked his way over the earth into the heavens. Precious intellectual gifts, mostly philosophic, I

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21 though with no want of imagination, were in our brother, so that his friend abroad, Gue6pin, expected in him great scientific attainments,-
while he spoke French, German, and Italian, in the style of the common people, whom he loved, as well as the dialect of the refined circles. He was fond of reading, but only of the best works in composition of any kind; and he left an exciting romance half finished, at the hint of something not wholesome or altogether lofty in the author’s tone. His mind and heart were in unison, and on his young companions, as well as elders, he made the same stamp of a superiority permitting only one idea of him.

It were hard to tell whether the reflective or executive faculties prevailed, so exact in his very nature was their poise. But the moral in him ever presided over the intellectual. Not for distinction, but duty, he lived, as he died. I know how the dead are eulogized, and what a eulogy I give; but out of the sincere thoughts of my heart I give it,- that those who knew him best, while they admired his talents, were never able to discover his faults. Such is one of our sacrifices of life. A dawn predicting individual excellence through-a long career, as plainly as the yet beardless Raphael’s picture of the holy marriage was said to be prophetic of all his subsequent fame, has suddenly withdrawn its lustre from the earth. Is the sacrifice too great? I ask his kindred, is it too great? Would you have your boy back? Under the old i

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22 -dispensation, when a sacrifice God would surely accept was to be made, a firstling of the flock, a lamb without spot or blemish, was singled out for the altar. A firstling of the flock, a lamb without spot or blemish, has been selected now. God himself, for this very purpose, as I think, of a measureless blessing to enliven the common heart, has chosen a victim from our beloved fold. No, we would not have him back. We would have him where he is! In the victim may we see the victory too. In the follower, as in the master, may the twofold lesson of triumph with sacrifice be seen.

May the Divine wisdom, that loses life more certainly to save it, and gives up to gain all, shown so well in a new example, have imitation everywhere and continuance without end. Be humbly proud, be sacredly envious of the dead in the pattern displayed; for imitation and continuance it has! The enlistment, at the public need, of educated young men is not damped, but inspirited, from a companion’s or kinsman’s expiring breath. That breath passeth far through the whole air, into their nostrils! “‘I must go,” said one of them to his father, - ” I feel like a poltroon here at home.” Go with my blessing,” was the father’s re-ly. As the father himself told me this yesterday, he could talk no farther, for tears, but turned away. May the spectacle, so frequent among us, the most beautiful spectacle now beneath the sun, of boyhood tearing itself from mothers’ embraces and fathers’ arms, and happy homes, and loving dissuasives, to

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23 consecrate itself to country’s good, prefigure another spectacle, of a country purged of its errors and renewing its youth. May Heaven bless to our redemption every vicarious sacrifice, of the wounded and still exposed, as well as the dead; - and so may all loss and self-surrender be sanctified in a perpetual resurrection, from the Most High, on earth and in heaven, of “the beauty of Israel,” slain upon our high places, till the blood of the martyrs, which is the seed of the Church, shall be also the life of the state. Standing, for us and ours, “as on life’s utmost verge,”

at the edge of whatever may come to mortals, so to the Eternal we pray; -
and may the Eternal to what even on earth is immortal in us too, answer our prayer! Then we shall not have sacrificed on his altar in vain. All our sacrifices will redound alike to his glory, our country’s welfare, and our own final gladness and peace. It is no sacrifice of truth, justice, freedom, or any human right, that we make. Only lower and cheaper things we sacrifice to these principles which are the attributes of God. Fixed be our faith that something, not of tile dust and not laid low on the field, something which the funeral procession cannot marshal, nor the nighty state precede, nor the whole earth, whose mouth opens for the dead, swallow up, has escaped alive above the bonds we yet wear, into the region where is liberty, unity, peace, and light, with no need of the sun, for the Lord God dth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof I I k

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I I

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MANHOOD, THE WANT OF THE DAY. A SERMON PREACHED IN THE CHURCHII OF THE

CAMBRIDGEPORT PARISH, MARCH 1, 1863, BY REV. JOHN F. W. WARE. REPRINTED

FROM THE MONTHLY RELIGIOUS MAGAZINE. B O STON: LEONARD C. BOWLES, 119

WASHINGTON STREET. 1863. I

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UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, CAMBRIDGE.

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SERMON. “THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.” - Matthew xvi. 3. THERE were signs of the times in our Saviour’s day which a wise man might have easily discerned and profited by. The future was coming with observation. The people were not observing. The deepening shadows did not disturb them.

They had eyes, but they would not see. They did nothing to avert their doom. There are signs of the times to-day. Shall we let bigotry, prejudice, party spirit, ignorance, blind us to them? Shall we let the shadows deepen, and the night of terror come; shall we tamely wait for, court, our doom? So far as I can see, it seems to be generally felt that we are now arrived at the crisis of our crisis, the point of extreme peril. Our national trial has had just the history of all antecedent trials of its class. Nothing’ new has happened, is happening, to us. We have had parallels given us from all history, from the old history of the Bible and the early experience of the children of Israel, from the war of England with France under Bonaparte, from our own antecedent wars, - and they are very eloquent and convincing, showing how History ever repeats herself, and that these NW-b

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4 great national disorders, as the lesser disorders of the human frame, have their laws of development, that they go on increasing in violence and complication up to a certain point, which is the point of real peril, the true crisis, the crisis of the crisis. There the great struggle commences; there the whole thing is decided. Life or death hangs trembling in the balance. At that point nations and men die; that point safely passed, nations as men return to greater health and strength. The real crisis is upon us to-day. There is no mistaking it. We have once or twice before thought ourselves at the turning-point, because we had no just idea of the character and magnitude of the contest; but it is here to-day, where and as we had not looked for it. Let all that is true and noble in us rise to the demand of the occasion, and we are safe. The spectacle we now present is that of a people upon whom are the most solemn and pressing demands for unity of action, if not of sentiment, wasting themselves by internal doubts and jealousies, intrigues and oppositions, affording through these aid and comfort to an implacable foe, compared with which alany foreign intervention would be trifling. The enthusiasm which for the moment bound in one all discordant elements, and held dumb before it even the petty meannesses of party, has subsided before the prolonged, exacting trial, and has been replaced largely by sentiments, desires, fears, utterly unworthy of a people with a history, a capacity, such as ours. Never was there a nation so bound by every solemn consideration to utter unanimity, never did a cause so need a single heart and will. We are not found equal to the hour. The subsidence of enthusiasm has not been followed by tre sterner, better sentiment of

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5 duty. The country is not filled, inspired, with a sense of its obligation to itself, its history, to the race and to God. It does not know that the hand never goes backward upon the dial of time; that there is no retrograde to Providence more than to fate. It sighs for that old bondage it has left. It sees peace, plenty, security, in that old, dark Egypt behind, and about it only desert terrors, and before it encamped hosts of difficulties - sons of Anak - between it and its rest. The promised land is well enough, were we only there; but being here, and all this lying between, our faint hearts turn back, and we sigh for the past, even demand the Moses of our escape to lead us back. It is the’ old story,- History repeating herself; God calling a people to a great duty, granting them a grand opportunity, setting before them a glorious destiny; the people springing with alacrity to accept it, but without sitting down to count the cost, becoming dispirited, almost renegade, when reverses, delays, keep back the fulfilment of their hope. It was somewhat pardonable in a mob like that which had just passed the Red Sea to be discouraged and rebellious under the presence of apparent dangers, fenced cities and giants; but for us to hesitate, for us to look longingly back, for us to crave a restored past, for us to waver before a frowning future, is to put us back to the level of the runaway slaves of Pharaoh. It is a bad sign that which we see to-day,- a noble people faltering in a noble duty. It comes to us from secret conclave of crafty men, from treacherous resolves in legislative bodies, from corrupt utterings of a licentious press, from what men say in the streets, or only hint, or convey through sneers and flings, that after all but hurt and degrade themselves. You feel everywhere that there is a taint to the

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atmosphere. A hearty, unconditional patriotism feels itself ill at ease, oppressed. Said a friend, coming fresh from two years’ service: “What does all this mean? Never in my life did I hear such terrible things as since I came North. What are you about? There is nothing of this in the army. It could n’t stay there. The army is not interested in your this and that of politics, but the army sees before it a bitter,, implacable, resolute foe,- a foe which has no idea of yielding, a foe which must be put down, or all that is high, holy, and hopeful in this nation will be, which must be conquered, or it will conquer, - and that is the one fact about which the army thinks.” An officer, returning from a short furlough, writes: “You can’t imagine how good it seems to be back among a set of good, loyal, sensible-talking men. Talk about demoralization, - why, in the whole army there is notas much as in one ward in the city of New York. All the officers who have come back from the North come with the idea that you are all scared to death. It pleases them to see the strong ground government is taking, and you see, if the necessity arises, if this army won’t see the draft enforced.” I have heard from more than one recently from the battle-fields, that it would only need a leader to bring that army northward, to stamp out this despicable treachery here, before it marches southward to root it out there. Not long since I heard that one of our great commanders, who is held in highest personal regard by all loyal men, say that he saw “nothing to apprehend except in the state of feeling at the North.” In front the army has a foe it respects, because it is brave; but the foe behind it despises as honorable men despise all things mean. What splendid utterances have we had from it lately,- West and East!

And there are more

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7 behind. Sometimes I have thought we were to owe our salvation from internal as from external enemies, to the brave men who have gone from us, and going seem to have left so little manhood behind them! No: I will take that back. There is a deal of manhood left. I look for a second thought from our people. There are signs of it already. It is not so dark and desperate as it seems. We are not sunk so low. I believe there will be reaction, in which the people will show what they are. Misguided, deceived now, they will rise and shake off this new bondage, and speak out clear and strong for the great right. They have been disappointed, and now they are deceived. I think they will cure themselves, and the cure will be radical. The signs of the times point to this. We shall pass the point of peril. This is the people’s struggle every way,- no matter of rulers, or of parties, or of caste, or of individual ambition. The people have risen, - the people will carry through the war. They may be timid; they may halt; but they will in the end conquer. Designing men, with their sophistries and specious pleas and policies, may for a while deceive; some who never triumphi over a prejudice or desert a party-lead will follow; but the real people, the whole people, are to be unconditionally loyal. I hear men say that what the times want is a man. I do not believe it. I do not so read the signs. I know History is against me, and I respect and bow before her teachings, for they are as the words of God. Still I think these times are unlike other times, and I more than doubt if the same means in all things be required as in other days. I know how England suffered until Cromwell came; I know

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8 how the truth was bound until Luther spoke; I know the throbs and throes of my native land till Washington was made our chief; and I know how all through history the coming of the longed-for champion has been the signal for the rally of the brave and waiting, the death-knell of tyranny, ignorance, and wrong, - that until the man has come, all has seemed halting and hopeless. The great epochs in philosophy, science, religion, arts, poetry, national policy, human progress, are coeval with the lives of single men, who advanced them by their genius or their will, and have bound themselves and them in one inseparable immortality. But is it always to be so? When a generation or a race becomes imbued with truths and principles once the property of, once but dimly seen even by, a single mind, - when that which was once exceptional in the individual becomes as the very life and breath of the people themselves, runs way down into and through all classes, -may we not well feel that the need of a special, providential man is removed, and cease to expect a Shakespeare to our literature, a Washington to our struggle? You may find to-day in France the reins gathered into a single hand, you may find a Confederacy born of and shaped and ruled by a single will; but in a Federal Union, no room, as I believe, no possibility, for such rule. I do not know that it would really help us, were such thing possible, should Washington himself return to lead again his country out of her peril. With our people as they are, I doubt if that would be a success. Individual men rule, help, save, where the average public tone and character are low. They inspire by their exceptional position. But lift the average of society up, educate, civilize, Christianize the mass, let it for two or three generations live under the influences we have,

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9 imperfectly as we have yielded to them, - and I do not think they need, or would yield to, the guiding of any man, no matter what their peril. For one I do not expect the crisis to give us a man. Some men shake their heads at this. They can’t separate themselves from their chosen idea.

Crises always have de veloped a man. We wait for, we want a man, - we shall have no success till he be come. Each new general in turn has been the man, till he has been set aside, and still we get no nearer. To-day, after two years’ strife, there is no more prospect of such an one than in the beginning. Suppose our salvation must wait till such man come, from what quarter is to be his coming? Only from among military men all will say. Then-we, here, look to the army of the Potomac. It is McClellan; it is Hooker. But to the West McClellan and Hooker are little. The people there have their separate war, as it were, their separate aim, their separate army, their separate hero. Let Rosecrans open the Mississippi, hlie is their man. But the opening the Mississippi is not our object of present moment. We want to take Richmond. The man who should take Richmond would be our man. But the taking Richmond is a matter of little moment to the West. They would go into no enthusiasm over our hero,-he would not be to them the man for the hour. They would not accept our man,-we would not accept theirs. Simply, then, it is impossible in a country so vast as this, each part having its separate, distant task, for the one so to enter into the successes of the other as to feel the magnetism of its victory, drop its local attachments, confidence, prejudice, and unite upon one central man. Hooker may be the hero of Richmond, Rosecrans or Grant 2

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10 the hero of the Mississippi, Banks or Burnside of Texas, Hunter of Charleston, God grant it all! - but not one of them, and no other, can be the coming man; and we wait in vain, and waste ourselves in waiting.

Better than this, I believe the crisis will give us men. It is men we want, a broader, freer, surer, more self-relying manhood. We are very much paralyzed, very much inltimidated, in grave doubt, because the tone of manhood has not been kept up. Material success has enervated, and the character of party and sectional politics has belittled, and we have grown large in some ways only to grow small in others. We have not had an overplus of moral sentiment. We have grown too suspicious of religious faith. These things have long been telling against us, though we would not believe it. We have been running down in our manhood. Trade, social life, politics, religion, show it. But there is a big manhood underneath. Let it have time to assert itself, let it see clearly through this mist of trade and politics and society, and all that lowers, let it fall back upon the grand underlying principles, which it knows very well about and owns fealty to, and we shall have that big manhood out, visible, supreme. And such times as these bring about this change with great rapidity. See how prolific the time, not a man, indeed, but men! - no one huge overgrowth, but what a grand average, -not among shoulder-straps, I Grant you, but in the rank and file, that band of heroes and martyrs, marching to victory or death, with all the better courage of the noblest warriors of antiquity, sanctified by all that is sublime in self-sacrifice and faith, - gone from our homes, sons of our hearts, with as pure a purpose and as godly a resolve as ever crusader, or knight, or roundhead, or provincial. I

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11 They are to-day’s men. They make a man unnecessary. Their example is contagious. Men are springing up all about us. There are braves in our home-guards too, - men who will not stand by and see the altar of our liberty and hope polluted by any coward touch, men who are not heard amid the brawlers in streets, at meetings, in legislatures, or read in newspapers, - in whom faith and resolve are silent, because deep. To-day let this disloyalty that is loud-mouthed and vague, that is underhand and disguised, that is open and defiant, put itself into any one tangible form, and it will find a spirit in this people that will hurl it to the deepest depths, - a spirit, not to kill it, but to let it live and cower and wail forever, - that shall brand it with a name as undying and as despised as that of the Tory of our Revolutionary history. Yes, and this very day, though we do not brand or exile or imprison or shoot or hang, we mark the disloyal man, and his name and presence become a hissing and an offence. All efforts of any man or any party will fail at this crisis.

I’think the times show that. A man, a party, cannot rise and rule. Manhood shall rise and rule. I dare say a successful candidate for President may be found somewhere among our generals, but he will be taken, as others, on the ground of a general availability. The war will end, and end right, without having developed, without our being clearly indebted to, one man.

There is to be no second Washington. The rulers of this country are the people. They are to be its saviours. A genuine, well-balanced, thoroughly fused popular sentiment - a thing in which you and I have part-is to be our guide, our safety. When that is had, the end is. In that, victory and peace. De Tocqueville says, 0

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12 that “in the United States society governs itself for itself. All power centres in its bosom. The people reign in the American political world as the Deity does in the universe.” Let the people reign, then. Let us put forth our might. Let us be true to our profession, our birthright, our opportunity, our privilege. Let us cast off the emasculate manhood degrading us, and put on the braver manhood, and let that braver manhood be the one unifying life running through and transmuting all. And what do we need as ingredients in this larger manhood, our stay, our staff, our hope? To what do the times point? 1. Real principle. I say real, because there is a spurious principle, a well-executed counterfeit, with which men sometimes deceive themselves, and oftener hope to deceive others. Many, too many, have only the principle of their set, their party, their creed, their parent or friend, their prejudice or selfishness, and when any strain comes, when you really want to know what they are and where they are, when there is a grand chance, at some cost, to show the quality of their principle, you find it has not the real ring. You can’t get it by a certain point. It is at best of the letter which killeth, not of the spirit which maketh alive. You will find it turning back and walking no longer with you, fertile in doubts and quibbles, anxious about other people’s decision or doing, condemning its friends, excusing its foes. We do not want any such principle to-day. The times will not bear it. Nothing halfway will do. The principle of to-day must be broad, fixed, immutable.

It must not quote precedent or party. It must come up unflinchingly to the hour’s demand and duty. There is a great deal to be settled which can 0

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13 only be settled through principle. If there is to be bargaining, chicanery, compromise, - a yielding for peace when there is no peace, -
the work cannot stand. God is against it, and so sure as our past infidelity to principle and to him has brought us into this dire calamity, so surely will our present bring us, or, what is infinitely worse, our children, into greater. This thing has got to be settled on principle,-
not by the Republican party, or by the Democratic party, or any go-between party. Why must we have parties now? Why cannot a man to-day utter an honest conviction of his soul, even in the House of God, without some contemptible gibe at his preaching for party? For myself I have never been a party man. Since I have been old enough to judge I have never seen the party I could go with. From the moment the war opens I know no party, and till it ceases I will know none. The man who will stand by his country without demur, who will do every duty of every hour, who will hold prejudice, preference, party, at bay for the time being, and cast himself, body, heart, soul, into the day’s struggle, remembering nothing but his duty to the land which has borne and cherished him, that man shall have my confidence, my honor, and if it comes to so poor a thing, my vote. To-day there are two sides, and no third,- two parties, and none other conceivable. Either a man is for his country or against her. He that is not with her is against her. It is no time to split hairs, to haggle over this or that, to run back to party lines, precedents, shibboleths. We are in the vortex of the whirlpool. For one, I yield unconditional obedience to any mandate of the powers that be. That I do not approve is not now the question. It would be strange if I, or

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14 any man, at such a crisis, should approve everything. Let the question of approval or disapproval rest. It can wait. I go for my country as those who are her constituted rulers decree she shall go, and I heartily believe of them, mistaken as they have been and will again be, that, amid embarrassments and painful gropings such as we cannot know, with an honesty of loyalty that any party in power, I trust, would show, they are trying to carry out the principles of the Constitution,- the Constitution of the Fathers, not of party,- so far as it is possible under the contingency that the spirit of that instrument shall be carried out. I believe that, in the end, that Constitution, better understood than before, enlarged in some of its bearings, is to have a heartiness of support, a loyalty of reverence and service, it has not had. It is to be a spirit vitalizing our institutions, our laws, our very lives, not a letter, the convenient sport of every intriguer. But if the powers that be prove dishonest, the time and way are clear for their removal, and opportunity to search for better. Meanwhile my creed for the crisis is, a ready yielding to the powers that be. To turn against them is to turn against the country they for the time represent. Let us see the end of this with honor; let us put this thing through. Let us nail the flag to the mast, sink the foe that threatens, -then settle the difficulty on our own quarterdeck. Let us brand every disloyal man, shoot every insubordinate soldier, in high place as low place, conquer a peace, a sure peace, a righteous peace, -then we can attend to other things. 2. Another want is patience. One cannot but wonder now at the mad impetuosity with which we rushed into this thing, cried, On to Richmond! and expected to have all quiet again (

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15 in three months. The storm had been gathering too long for that. The impatience in which we all share is a very large and dangerous element in to-day’s despondency, and gives hope to its treachery. I charge it upon the press of the land, even that which boasts itself respectable and conservative, that it has used its opportunity and its power, too often without scruple, to foment this natural and inevitable impatience, with regard more to its sales than the truth, its own gain than the comfort and peace of already strained and aching hearts. I appeal for proof’to letters of special correspondents, perpetually provoking a hope perpetually doomed to disappointment; to staring bulletins, before which the crowds pause and doubt and hope; to absurdest, basest rumors, given the benefit of newspaper sanction and circulation; to Saturday evening telegrams, making a Sabbath of apprehension and unrest. The mischief this way done is incalculable. Nothing will excuse it. The public mind, uneasy, diseased, alternating between its hopes and fears, seizes greedily anything that is offered. Deceived so many times before, it believes this time, only to find itself deceived again, only to be made more fiercely, irritably impatient. It is the duty of the press to-day, as of every public man and power, to soothe and inspire, not to pander to the sickly craving for mere news, or lend itself to a lie. We must have more patience,- a patience that shall not flinch if the war lasts for years, outlasts the generation.

We ought to have done with coaxing ourselves into the idea that it will be short, and settle ourselves down to doing every demanded duty and bearing every appointed burden; and in God’s good time the war will end. We can’t hasten it by prophecy or by fretting. They who patiently wait will never lose.

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16 3. We must have faith. A voice comes up from the army to me, and it strikes me very solemnly: ” As you believe in God, do what you can to keep up’faith in him at home.” Strange words these to come up from a camp,- for the camp to urge upon the pulpit! How much meaning they have! how much they are needed! This is God’s affair, not man’s. We are working for him, building as we do not know, - mere hod-carriers, painfully bearing on our shoulders material for an edifice which shall be shaped as we know not, which shall grow into a grace and beauty and stability we dream not of; for its builder and maker is God. How sad it is to see men so blind, - so wilfully determined not to see God in this day’s marvellous doing! Just see how he has pushed aside and overruled, not merely our blunders, but our best doings; and when men have so persistently striven to narrow the strife to some low issue, see how he widens it, and then men accept as military necessity - is that not wellnigh a blasphemy?- that which he proclaims as Divine will. I ask any candid man, Is it not evident, - would it not be to you, if you stood unconcerned, outside the strife,- is it not evident that God means by this war to raise the black manl so that he shall have the chance to prove his capability? Long enough we have stood in his way. God, who has tried one great experiment on this continent, is preparing to try anlother, and this America is to be the seed-ground (f a larger civilization and a broader liberty than she has yet seen; and so shall her honor and her glory spread. Faith in God! Let us have it, and reverently follow as he leads. Friends! The signs of the times are such as to make us

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17 thoughtful, earnest, resolute, not such as to discourage or to depress.

That is the worst cowardice which allows itself to despair. The work at this crisis is not to be done by the army alone. There is treachery at home. We have sat here, exempt from the terrors and perils of war, enjoying our wonted comforts and luxuries, congratulating ourselves upon our marvellous material success, forgetful of our own stern duties, too long. The cannon and the bayonet have been too exclusively our agents and our hope. Our difficulties were to be settled on the field. Thile day shows us our mistake. While we have slept, a busy enemy has sowed his tares. The conflict comes nearer home. Our safety, the safety of the Republic, our honor, our hope, can no l1nger be intrusted to a distant army, be it never so successful, never so loyal. We must rouse to do our part. There is work for each and all. The home tone must be changed. It is notoriously evident that the demoralization is here,- that what of it there is in the army does not originate there, but springs from, is fomented by, the selfishness, the treachery, of those at home acting upon the timidity, the fainting hope, the real desire for peace of many. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We have forgotten that, and again History repeats herself, revealing, at the very crisis of our struggle with the enemies of the Republic, the existence and the industry of foes at home, who care nothing for tlhe country and the cause, nothing for honor and humanity, if they may hope to gain their own ends. So, before, many times, a great people have been conquered, not by the enemy in front, but by the treachery within. So, many times, has the spirit of party raged, divided, subdivided, and wasted, and the foe has seized an easy victory. . 3 I t

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18 We are warned: let us be wise. The spirit that dared lift itself against the integrity of Washington lifts itself today against principles and hopes to which he gave his manhood. The tomb by the Potomac cannot yield its dead, and the great hero once again resume his place at the head of a bewildered people. We do not need the miracle. The remedy lies with the people alone. They do not need a great, central mind. The theory of our government - the very cornerstone of the Republic - is, that the people rule. That is the experiment we try; that is what we claim as our success. Let us prove that it is so. The crisis comes, and it rests with the people-you, me, all of us-to say what its issue shall be. It shall be, it can be, only good, if every man of us is at his post, true to the hour as the compass to the pole; if, forgetting party, prejudice, any, every low hope and aim, we remember only our country’s peril, aind’yield her our unconditional loyalty. It needs no one great master mind at the helm. The times demand unity among the people, - that our guide, that our salvation. Men of thought! be up and stirring Night and day: Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, Clear the way i, Men of action! aid and cheer them As ye may! There’s a fount about to stream, There’s a light about to beam, There’s a warmth about to glow, There’s a flower about to blow; There’s a midnight blackness changing Into gray. Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way! I

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19 Once the welcome light has broken, Who shall say What the unimagined glories Of the day? What the evil that shall perish In its ray? Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; Aid it, hopes of honest men; Aid it paper,- aid it type,Aid it, for the hour is ripe, And our earnest must not slacken Into play. Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way!. Lo! a cloud’s about to vanish From the day; And a brazen wrong to crumble Into clay; Lo!

the right’s about to conquer: Clear the way! With the right shall many more Enter, smiling, at the door: With the giant wrong shall fall Many others, great and small, That for ages long have held us For their prey.

Men of thought and men of action, Clear the way! I I .1

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0 .t

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GIT,, tit 5 attlat anb itf _Pltion,: A DISCOURSE DELI’ERElI) IN

AUSTIN-STREET CHUIRCH, CAMBRII)GEP(O)RT, ANI) IN HARVARD CHURCH, CHARLESTOWN, ON SUNDAY, NOV. 13, 1864; 33ting the %unbaa following the Vrifbentfal E[ectfon. BY GEORGE E. ELLIS. BOSTON: WILLIAM V. SPENCER, 131, WASHINGTON STREET. 1864. A

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DISCO Ut RSE.*S ACTS i. 24, 26: “And they prayed and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen…. And they gave forth their lots.” THERE is a striking contrast between two scenes presented to us in Gospel history, in the record of both of which we read of the casting-of-lots. There is all possible difference between the two applications or meanings of that same phrase in the two incidents. In the one case, an issue was staked on what is called “blind chance;” in the other, on a deliberately solemn expression of a devoutly guided will in forming a judgment. The Roman soldiers, the mechanical officials at the Saviour’s cross, when that tragedy was over, “cast lots” for his garment. The eleven apostles, purposing to fill one vacancy in their former fellowship, to preserve the national, traditional sanctity and associations with the number” twelve,” gave forth their lots.

In both cases, so far as was visible to the eye, the method of decision was the same. The word “lot” is suggestive to us of an appeal to chance.

To cast a lot, to throw, to toss, to stake a venture on the die, are all tokens that men commit to the decision of hap what they will not dispose by intelligence or choice, or the decision of the higher’Will. Any tool or implement or test will serve for that use. But when, instead of the word “lot,” we use the word “ballot,” we begin to discern a difference; and the difference mounts and strengthens, till all thought of an appeal to chance leaves our minds, the more we interpose of human preference, purpose, or will. The rude soldiers on Calvary were entitled to the spoils of *

Reprinted from the ” Monthly Religious Magazine,” 1

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4 THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION their victim. Some of the lesser ones they could distribute. The seamless robe, the most coveted, could not be divided, They put to trial in their own way a familiar hazard in their own game of life, when they tossed the sticks or the dice to decide which of them should gain the prize. It would illbecome the winner, if he should wear it. All chance prizes are apt.to suggest incongruity in their use. We can hardly call the other scene a trial by lot. There were no dice there.

Chance was excluded from the appeal; and a wise, discerning, and guiding Power above was asked to overrule the decision, not on a throw or by a count, but in the hearts of human arbiters. The eleven apostles selected by name two men standing nearest their own special fellowship, and both alike fulfilling the specific requirements of the case, both alike qualified, both unobjectionable, for exactly the same work and service.

They bowed in prayer for God’s best guidance in rebuking private partialities, and suggesting any ground, were it but the slightest, for preference. And then, after bowing before God, they signified their choice. For any thing we know, the result of the ballot was perfect unanimity. Such may be the difference between the lot and the ballot. The intervention of the human choice and will is one element of the difference; the recognition of the divine oversight is another. What is the significance of that trial and decision by the ballot which has just been made by our citizens counted by millions? Would that we could pronounce it to be a complete and infallible decision, on the part of every individual on either side in it, between absolute right and wrong; between full wisdom and blind folly; between sure good and the sum of evils! It would be a convenience, if, in any human controversy or contest, a dividing line were manifestly drawn so straight and sharp and deep, between the conlflicting elements which are ever warring in this world with their respective champions. But common experience, to say nothing of charity, forbids us to look in human affairs for such an anticipation of the judgment. Honest and high-souled patriots and Christian men were found on both sides of this

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THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. party-issue. Its own complications, and the known qualities of human nature, not only prove, but account for, the fact, that the individual men of the gaining and the losing side are not to be classified by the distinction of righteous or unrighteous, wise or foolish, in their characters and aims. One who sincerely so believes, however, may modestly venture the avowal of his belief, that the result of the great balloting would not have been different, if some shadowy warden of the polls had overmastered the voting so that all the wise and good and righteous had actually voted on one side. But again: we discard the imputation and the claim which would go with such a pretence as a matter of fact. Let there be not only magnanimity, but fair, right admission in the case. Let not the driving-out of what we call one evil spirit bring in seven others. Let us soothe the irritations of the strife among ourselves, and give over opprobrious names, and prevent the suppuration of wounds which may all heal with an unimpaired vigor for the whole body. The honored Chief Magistrate, to whom accrues so high a tribute from the decision, has set a beautiful example of graceful and kindly recognition of right purposes and honest aims in those who did not vote for him. So effective has been that token of a right spirit in him, that not a few who are the subjects of it would be glad now to give him the votes which they cast against him. But though a balloting among men on great political or party issues does not sharply and completely divide between the champions of wisdom and folly, of good and evil, it does engage and put to trial all the mixed and conflicting measures of those warring elements which are found in each individual man who takes part in lt. To one who can read human nature thoroughly and deeply, how easy the solution of marvels and proclivities and variances which to most of us are so baffling! Men make up their minds, they say: they form their opinions: they mature their judgments: and then they pronounce, and act accordingly. There are but few citizen voters who would not resent a denial of this claim on their part.

And yet to how many 5

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6 THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. abatements and qualifications is it justly subject! The most that it can be made to mean is, that a voter, through force of some overbalancing influence, motive, or reason, decides on which of two sides he will dispose himself. The character of the reason, bias, or purpose which controls his decision, may range over the whole scale of good and evil. You only multiply units when you count a million. A ballot on a party-issue, whether cast by tens or millions of men, is but a larger testing and exhibition of all the complicated elements of human nature in each single man. A party, however large, however exalted its professions, must regard itself as falling, proportionately, just so far short of absolute freedom from bias or error, and of absolute infallibility of judgment and principle, as would the best man composing it in his own private capacity. Our whole race has not a vice or a virtue, a passioni or an infirmity, a quality of wisdom or of folly, of which each man has not in himself the germ in some stage of its growth and fruitage. Still we understand better the mixed elements and biasses of will and judgment, and the abatements and excesses of the good and the evil of human nature, when brought out in the crowd, than when manifested in an individual. Yet there is a significance, a moral of an intelligible character, in the result of that huge ballot. Whatever there was at stake in the trial transfers all its import to measure that meaning of the decision as on one side, rather than the other, of the alternative at issue. The voice of the nation, expressing its will and purpose, approves, and therefore proposes to pursue resolutely and at all costs, the military policy which it has already tried for four years. The people must be understood as ratifying, not repenting of, not even murmuring over, or asking to reconsider, a course of which it has had fair experience. The majority is a decisive one; and under its expressive verdict, if the question were tried again this week, it would doubtless be yet larger: so reassuring is the influence of such a decision on those who make it, while it also has a converting power on many of those who withstood it!

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THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. If ever we ascribe to the verdict of men, counted one by one to millions, a significance bearing, if not on the absolute right, yet at least on their convictions of what is right, we can scarce deny or depreciate the weight of that decision now. Those who, after experience of war, resolve to continue it, must, at least, be regarded as more resolute than those who begin a war. All means and efforts were engaged to make the decision an intelligent one, and to bring the elements which entered into it within the comprehension of ordinary minds. The burden which the nation is bearing, and that which it would need to assume, with the sure ratio of its increase and severity, with the consequent vexations and risks, were candidly disclosed. The resources, also, of the nation were deliberately estimated on the basis of its reserved energies, as in part a matter of statistics, and, for the rest, of reasonable hypothesis. Deference was paid to the high standard of common intelligence among the nativeborn voters, by laying before them, in carefully prepared documents, the materials for unbiassed judgment. The usual artifices of a political campaign were subjected to all the restraints and cautionary measures which are consistent with liberty for both parties. Even the popular harangues were, in general, of a high tone; and only a very few of the public speakers were so far misled by their own ill temper or their selfish aims as to leave recorded against them legitimate reasons, if not for political, at least for social, proscription. The opposition did good service towards insuring the same intelligence of decision, by presenting all the cogent reasons, all the actual obstacles, as well as all the bugbear and fictitious apprehensions, which might warrant its own measures, or qualify the convictions, the purposes, or the zeal of the party in power. There was less than ever before of that inconsistency between our professed reliance upon the inltelligence of the masses, and the tricks and cajoleries, the trumpery catch-words and silly devices which address themselves to those who help to fill the net, without being conscious that their destined use is that of bait. If, as is affirmed by those who should know, some hundreds of hired 7

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8 THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. torch-bearers appeared, for the same fee, in the city processions of both parties, they will have occasion only to remember which party happened to have the pleasanter weather for its night-tramp, and the more rallying creature-comforts for protection against a cold. Those who, in reviewing the struggle, are curious to pursue it into its private and personal partisanships, may employ their ingenuity, with or without their charity, in accounting for the position of this man or that, by a smouldering animosity, or a laid-up grudge from former antagonisms. Nor will individual instances be lacking, to be discussed between the generous and the suspicious, of conversions and avowed convictions and new positions attached to the names of public men.

Such of us as are happily exempted by profession or principle or temperament from the more exciting and passionate experiences connected with such a struggle, may find in it rich materials for quiet thoughtfulness and for profound speculation. On the whole, the occasion was one which we all feel and know is burdened with momentous and near consequences. As it will enter into history, who of us would not be glad, if, in the calm and security of some other scene or age, he might read the matured issues of the nation’s balloting and its decision? From the clustering homes of our northern and western lands, in crowded cities, snug towns, and scattered rural dwellings, have come those whose ballots have wrought this decision. M’any of them were cast after prayers as sincere as those which preceded the choice of an apostle. Those ballots were dropped by hands which have been wrung in woe over the desolations of the war made in those thousand homes. The populous metropolis of the land, the tentre of all disturbing and dangerous influences, cast a ballot in which some forty thousand majority were counted by the opposition, coming from foreigners by birth,- as yet unskilled in our highest patriotism, and from exiles, and sympathizers with sedition, resident there. But that local majority was more than neutralized outside the capital, in the rural regions of the State, by its nativeborn and educated inhabitants. The ,.I

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THE NATION’S BAIILLOT AND ITS DECISION. voice of the people is not the voice of God; but only the voice of God can silence it. And only his will in manifest demonstration can thwart its purpose. Such is the significance of this ballot. It is not the triumph of a divine decree, but it is the ratifying of an intelligent resolution of man. There was an alternative for choice, - a positive two sided issue submitted to the people for their ballot. That alternative on the one side was simple; on the other, vague and complicated. On the one side it was this: Shall we pursue our military policy unchanged in method or design or leadership, with the one sole purpose of crushing rebellion, and saving and vindicating the nation? On the other side, the alternative, as presented by a party composed of heterogeneous and discordant elements, was not simple, but compound, confusing, not definable, except by many distinctions and qualifications.

To some who espoused the opposition, its aim was hardly distinguishable, except as to leadership, from that which the Government was pursuing, and the people have ratified. But a leading motive or purpose scarcely consists with joint or distracting motives or even wishes not approving its own direct and sole design. And so an opposition which professed only a desire for some change in the conduct of the war entered into fellowship with those who pronounced the war a crime and a failure, hopeless, and therefore to be given over by other efforts for peace. So incongruous and discordant were the elements of the party in opposition, that, in the event of its political success, it would have found within its own ranks and councils, under some modifications indeed, though essentially the same irreconcilable aims and purposes, and the same differences of opinion as to methods and means which constituted the grounds of its antagonism to the party in power, -now no longer a party. Precisely the same strife which has been convulsing the politics of the nation would have been transferred in a more condensed, but by no means a more tractable, or a less distracting or alarming form, into the sharper 9

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10 THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION discords of a cabinet and an Administration dictated to by those who might claim to have given them the power. There was really no issue between the two parties, the substance of which was not manifest in the incorporated, but not assimilated, elements of the party in opposition. Of what sort the precipitate from such a combination would have been, even those who compounded it could not reasonably predict. The decision of the nation has adopted the simpler alternative of the issue. And yet, though the resolve to pursue the war unchanged in councils and in leadership sounds and is simple in its statement, it is one to which many discordant elements contribute, and which is full of perplexities and anxieties in its details. It avows what we purpose to do, and then it throws us back on our ways and means. Its purpose is to put the maintenance of our American National unity foremost in resolve, and in political and military measures and enterprises. The whole soil of the United States of North America is regarded as held in fee by the nation; and all who live on its territory are held in allegiance to its laws and edicts. Under certain just restrictions of right policy and humanity, the question of territorial integrity and unity takes precedence of all others. The purpose is, that the law of the nation shall extend over the whole of it, whatever may befall the inhabitants or the peculiar institutions of any rebellious portion of it,-town or state, individual or confederacy. If people abroad find it difficult to comprehend the idea which underlies this resolution, it may be because it is an American idea nationalized by the American people. W7e have all learned how dull and slow even our English kinsfolk have been to apprehend this idea of ours. They are beginning, however, to take it in; and their learning it now may save themi trouble for the future. It claims special notice, that, in this stern trial of purely American principles on so broad a field and with such momentous national issues, we should have had a purely American Chief Magistrate. Our President is all indigenous man, the product of our own soil and circumstances, in a I

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THE NATION’S BALLTOT AND ITS DECISION. region where the peculiarities of place, of influences, and products are most distinctively characteristic.

He is no courtier, no scholar, no trained expert in the manners of academies or drawing-rooms. His features would baffle the moulding skill of classic Grecian art, and perplex the chisel of genius, in fashioning their marble counterpart. Marble would not be the suitable material for their presentment. In vain would the Roman toga attempt to round into easy grace of shape and attitude the angularities of his limbs. The canvas which is to be animate with his portrait must be content to be excluded from all galleries of beauty. Talleyrand would be impressed with the waste rather than with the lack of direct self-committal in his plain-spoken words. He is, indeed, home-born, homebred, the product of our own soil, and of that, too, beyond the mountain-ridge of the primary deposit. The wits and triflers of the press, and many silly story-tellers, have shown a poor ingenuity in fabricating reports of him and his sayings, designed to heap ridicule on him. His lack of the graces and of the polish of artificial manners, his plain-spoken ways, and his shrewd aptness in blunting impertinent or obtrusive approaches by facetious indifference, make him an easy victim for those skilled in the little arts of malice and slander. But he has already made the mark of character, and won the homage rendered to straight-forward, high-toned integrity. The statesmen and diplomatists of the old world, after taking time to place him and to analyze him, have now discerned the specific cast and genus of the man; and they accord to him an honor which State craft and official dignity by no means imply, even if they consist with it. History is ransacked in vain for a parallel to him, though, in its revolutionary annals, it gives us, in its representative characters, many striking contrasts to him.

Destined, we may well believe him to be, to a wide and an exalted fame! A man of a godly and revering frame of heart, ruling his own spirit, unselfish and faithful towards his fellowmen, pure and devoted in ministering the most conspicuous office of government on the whole earth, -such he seems thus far to 2 11

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12 THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. have proved himself. And his trial has been sharp and stern. If such as he has been he still shall be, - and there is a pledge of prolonged identity in the man, and of perseverance in the style of his virtues, - then, when he becomes a character of history, to say nothing of the attractions of the picturesque in personal history, or the diagnosis of a marked individuality,- will he not stand among the world’s very greatest and very best? How men aimong us with human hearts can turn him into a jeer, call him a tyrant, malign him as a trimmer or a demagogue, -is not indeed a wonder; for folly in all its shapes is naturalized among us: but it is a sad token of the lack of all manly nobleness and generous sympathy. What cares and burdens, what responsibilities and anxieties, what days and nights are his! But the choice of a leader is not the disposal of the conflict, nor the solution of the dread perplexities of our future. There is a dim and difficult way before us. The thronging, deepening anxieties of the national struggle appal the hearts of mlany; and only those of lightest hope and weakest judgment would presume to indicate any near result, or to shape its conditions. The future can be cheered or forecast by us only through the positive assurances and facts which the present gives as encouragement. In looking on into the future, and conceiving and laboring for any prospect or plan for the solution of the mighty result, there are two sources or grounds of our wise reliance: first, a confident hopefulness of a desirable and a rewarding issue for the conflict; and, second, an intelligent and bold acknowledgement of the many practical difficulties, embarrassments, complications, and tangled conditions of the struggle. WVe need first and most the strength and leading of an unwavering, full-freighted hope, true confidence, humble, thoughtful, chastened, as may be, held under allowances for all divine overrulings of our ignorance or our wishes; but still a confident hope, a conviction, that the dread struggle will repay its cost, and be crowned with a triumphant success.

Let that hope be seated in our hearts! It will be to us

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THIE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. strength, cheerfulness, solace, and provision under all that lies between us and its full fruition. - And the past and the present will furnish warrants for that hope. We have retraced no step, yielded no resolution, depreciated or distrusted no motive, which has thus far guided us. The will and purpose of the people have been declared by ballot. In face of all the known and apprehended exactions of the struggle projected into the undefined future, under the burden of an increasing drain of men and nmoney, of taxation and personal sacrifice, the voice of the people is, that the strife against rebellion should be vigorously pursued, and that the same mind and will and lead which have thus far directed it shall retain the power, skilled by practice, and approved in resolve and aim. A strong and reasonable hope in any enterprise which engages the’ energies of men centres in the consciousness of ability and purpose within themselves. Ieave not most of us thought and felt, all along the course of this awful fraternal strife, that, if we have so great a cause to be saved, it must have in itself some self-saving power; a vitality and vigor which will reenforce us while we are serving it? There must be a virtue, an energy, in our national cause, which has a potency in itself, using us as instruments for its success, for its triumph. This prompting of patriotism as a spirit lying behind and within the inspiration of men and women, not only of armies, but of those who fill them and feed them and pay them, and minister to their wounded, and honor their dead, - this spirit of patriotism is the mightiest weapon of war. Like the sun, it feeds its own flames; and men do not see or know how its unwasted supplies are secretly renewed. We are often reminded in these peaceful, thriving regions, that we do not realize the war. No; nor do we know the resources within us on which we have not yet drawn. Our hope has power and grace behind it. The question of cost in money, the enormous outlay, the heaping debt, will not impair or chill that hope. Putting all thought of repudiation or national bankruptcy out of view, we can contemplate the possibility, if stern necessity should require, that the great majority of those who hold thc pecu 13

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14 THE NATION S BALLOT ANDI) ITS DECISION. iliary national obligations should, by voluntary proffer and petition to the Government, propose to surrender every money-claim for the sake of the country, for the sake of posterity. And as to men, - men for the camp and field and for the ships, - the men stand behind the ballots which represent the people’s purpose one way, to secure its fulfilmnent in another. The second ground of our wise reliance is found in a bold and intelligent facing of all the practical difficulties before us. They are many and huge ones. It requires courage to face them in their dim, bewildering vastness and terror. But it would not be wise to attempt to shape them, for they are misty at best; and some of them will never become solid, and others of them will vanish.

But we must face many of them as realities, stern and perilous; and we must say to ourselves, as one by one they take shape, this is to be mastered and disposed of. Of one thing we may be certain, as illustrated by personal and universal experience of the relations between foreboded and actual evils, that no more dismal realities can be visited upon us than those which have been made familiar to our apprehensions by the dark predictions of some among us who have opposed the national purpose, or the conduct of the war. Many of us, in the exercise of our best intelligence, settled in our minds the irrevocable decision, that, as failure would be total and permanent ruin to us, all inflictions and calamities short of that were to be regarded as conditions for averting it, and therefore to be submitted to, without halting or even protest. The object which we have in view has steadily become more definite, more dear, and more sacred, as effort and sacrifice have carried us deeper into its vitalities. Our cause6 has won an element of inexpressible potency for appeal and resolution in the precious and endeared offerings made to it. Its youngest victims stand as our sagest councillors, the purest priests at the nation’s altar, the most hopeful prophets of sure triumph. The Christian conscience of the people, without the help of cunning casuistry, but with the full, calm, earnest conviction of a heart-purpose, assures us that a grand .r

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THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. and holy inspiration of humanity overrules all other motives and aims of the war. The majority of our soldiers in field and camp, with heads bared, and faces turned heavenward, may affirm that they are fighting for a cause in which their present foes are to have a full share of good with themselves, and that the sum of blessing to each depends upon our success. Whether this war shall prove, on the nation’s part, to have been a crime or a righteous enterprise, depends upon what is yet to transpire as the way and the terms of peace, and not upon mere reference to its origin, nor upon its method up to this stage of it. If we shall feel bound conscientiously, not from necessity, to close it, yielding the point and the prize of the Rebellion to those who stirred it, then it is now a crime. Our refusal at the first, our delay, our resistance to grant what we shall ever be induced to own was a rightful demand, have been and are unjustifiable. Measured by the scale of loss and woe for which we shall thus be proved culpable, our crime will be marked as of daring and awful heinousness. So far the conscience of the nation is not pricked by reproach or misgiving. Realizing more profoundly and intensely, as, to our own amazement, we measure the course of the war by years, what horrors of scourge and misery it brings with it, the moment has not been known when the nation’s second judgment has doubted whether it were wise or right to have entered upon it. The whole issue at stake, as it showed its balanced alternative to us, when the match burned down to the powder, has remained unchanged. It was then, and is now, the alternative of a wrecked and ruined nationality, embracing, the world’s noblest experiment and hope, or of a country saddened, lacerated, humiliatcd, but purified and reinstated in its lofty distinction, by a stiuggle which develops and assures its true life. The great Teacher spoke one of his truths of largest compass and of most profound import in the words: “No man can serve two masters.” No man can divide the allegiance of his heart. Nor can a nation do that. We have 15

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16 THE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. tried to do it; and we failed.

The snakes of discord were hatched in the very cradle of the nation; and they were not strangled there. W’hether the human or the reptile antagonist shall retain its life, is the issue which waits decision in our civil war. It is the greatest of wars, because for the greatest stake that was ever at issue in war. It is, in its conduct on this nation’s part, the most humane war that was ever waged on the earth, engaging in us the least of ferocity, of barbarity, of reckless and fiendish cruelty, and the most relieved and chastened by forbearing mercy and thoughtfulness as to every needful measure of severity. Traitors and spies and deserters are leniently dealt with. The first and the most unpitied victims of all other convulsions and wars, they are all but tolerated, not to say, unmolested, among us. Editors of newspapers, and public plotters and declaimers against Government, are allowed a license of free speech and writing; the exceptions to which, in a very few and those not the worst cases, are, by the same tolerance of utterance, represented as instances of the most tyrannical oppression. The prisoners caught from the ranks of the nation’s foe are housed and fatted, not for the slaughter, but to offset, when the time shall come to show them, the cadaverous victims from our own households who have been rotting and starving in Southern pest-houses. The angels of mercy, laden with alleviating and luxurious gifts gathered from all the household cupboards of the land, attend, with equal zeal, upon the sufferings of friend and foe. Our people have wrought and adorned the largest and richest frame in which the picture of the Good Samaritan has been or ever can be set. AIeanwhile, it is not in human nature to be satisfied under such circumstances as are now before us and around us, without asking questions, and shaping wishes into anticipations, about the future. What can we reasonably look for as the solution, the method for disposing of the terrible conflict? Our efforts and hopes, taken together, ought to fashion out something like expectations. We read the edicts of the military leaders, the editorial columns of the newspaper

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TIIE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. writers, and the official documents of the political schemers in the region of rebellion. They are full of resolution, of defiance, of boastful assurance, of sworn determination never to yield the ground on which they have planted themselves. Of course, these utterances will be in tone and purport such as we find them to be. For from whom do they come? MAany superficial or dismayed readers among us peruse these utterances of the instigators and master-spirits of the Rebellion; and, hastily inferring that they speak the mind and will of a whole people, sadly say, “These tokens do not intimate any repentance, any sense of failure or discouragement, any readiness for conciliation on the part of our foe.” Such persons have merely to put the simple question, From whom come these sturdy and defiant boasts and pledges? They can all be traced, as can the first plottings and the dragooning initiatives of the Rebellion, to a fellowship of men not exceeding in number a single score. Of course, they must remain committed to a cause, whose disaster is to them absolute wreck of all earthly aims, with the blot of eternal infamy on their names. So far as human retribution or vengeful penalty awaits them, the councils and courts of the nation will, in all probability, be spared its infliction. It will come upon them, in all the severity of which they will be able to bear it, from the dupes and victims of their own pitiless ambition and mnisleading falsehoods. There are those among us who say they are waiting for the days of peace, to read what they feel most interest in, - the internal secret history of the war, in the councils and privacies of the rebels. There will, indeed, be startling and confounding disclosures from those sources. But beyond all the woes and tragedies vhich have been opened to our knowledge as they transpired, will be the harrowing revelations of private, household griefs, of dark atrocities, of outrages and brutal inhumanities incident to the iron-heeled despotism and barbarous passion by which the plotters of the Rebellion have overawed and tyrannized over the people whose glorious heritage and birthright they have sought to sacrifice. It requires no help-from the imagination to draw the scenes of agony which have crushed the ee.:* * 17

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18 TIHE NATION’S BALLOT AND ITS DECISION. hearts, and overborne the patriotism, of hundreds of thousands in Southern homes. Therefore, the hope of Northern Christian patriots is, that the war will find its end in the protest and rising of the people in the region of the Rebellion against their own leaders. To bring about that righteous result, is the sole purpose of the discomfiture, the sufferings, and the defeat which we expect our army and navy to inflict on the organized forces of the Rebellion. We have assured the Southern people that we are their true friends. They will believe it when they have stricken their own real enemies. That there is, in the heart of our Chief Magistrate, a purpose of magnanimous dealing which he evidently finds it hard to reserve in announcement till the fit moment for it has come, but which will meet the demands of the opportune time, and reconcile the strife, who of us doubts?

Shall we not all be satisfied at least to have extended the time for the maturing of the opportunity for such a peace? i AOW

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A SERMON DELIVERED BEFORE THE ~ t itibe ant tegislati!e dpartments OF THE

OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE ANNUALI ELIECTION, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 6, 1864. BY

WM. A. STEARNS, D. D. _ BOSTON: WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, NO. 4

SPRING LANE. 1 8 64. GOVERNMENT I

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4 IL )I

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(Lommou talt4f of HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, STATE HOUSE, } BOSTON, January 12, 1864. 5 DEAR SIR,-Pursuant to an Order, unanimously adopted, the undersigned were appointed a Committee to present to you the thanks of the House for your able and instructive Discourse, delivered before the Government of the Commonwealth on the 6th inst., and to request a copy of the same for the press. It gives us pleasure to communicate to you the action of the House, and we trust it will be both agreeable and convenient for you to comply with the request at an early day. Most respectfully yours, M. S. UNDERWOOD, JOSEPH ALLEN, CHARLES BEECHER, Committee. To the Rev. Pres. STEARNS, Amherst, Mass. AMHERST COLLEGE, January 18, 1864.

GENTLEMEN,-Your note of January 12th, requesting, in behalf of “the House of Representatives,” a copy of the Sermon recently preached “before the Government of the Commonwealth,” camne duly to hand. Have the goodness to express my acknowledgments to that honorable body, and inform them that a copy of the Discourse is at their disposal. Respectfully and truly, I am, gentlemen, Your obedient servant, W. A. STEARNS. Messrs. M. S. UNDERWOOD, JOSEPH ALLEN and CHARLES BEECHER. II

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-r .A

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DfI HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, January 23, 1864. The Committee on Printing, to whom was referred the Order from the Special Committee on the Election Sermon of Rev. Prof. Stearns, of Amherst, providing for the printing of five thousand copies thereof, have considered the same, and report that, in their opinion, the importance of the topics so ably discussed by one who has been called by the casualties of war to endure a most painful sacrifice, the extraordinary interest felt by the people of the Commonwealth in the principles involved, and the desirableness of a wide dissemination of the patriotic sentiments inculcated therein, fully justify the printing of the extra number of copies proposed. They therefore recommend that said Order, as reported, be adopted by the House For the Committee, CHAS. W. PALFRAY, Chairman. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, January 21, 1864. ORDERED, That five thousand copies of the Discourse delivered by the Rev. Dr. STEARNS before the Executive and Legislative Departments of the State Governmenr.t, on the 6th inst., be printed for the use of the Legislature. W. S. ROBINSON, Clerk.

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S E R M O N. 2 SAMUEL, X. 12. BE OF GOOD COURAGE, AND LET US PLAY THE MEN

FOR OUR PEOPLE’ AND FOR THE CITIES OF OUR GOD: AND THE LORD DO THAT VHICH

SEEMETH HIM GOOD. Thank God we have still a country. We have a country which treason, rebellion and the opinion of foreign nations notwithstanding, gives at this moment brighter promise of perpetuity and ultimate nobleness, than it has given for a quarter of a century before; a country whose prospects, compared even with a year ago, are as the broad-breaking dawn to the dark night of tempest which preceded it. The steadily waning power of the rebellion; the remarkable contraction of the area which it dominates; the great victories which electrified the country in midsummer, and those which have recently crowned our arms; the marked progress which has been secured in the military measures of emancipation, and the improved sentiment and intelligence of the people

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8 in reference to that much abused race who are the innocent occasion of this strife; the change which has taken place in some foreign nations, from adverse dispositions and acts towards a real neutrality, if not cooperative sympathy; the trial and growing strength of the Constitution, evincing its wisdom and power in proportion to the strains which are put upon it; the new confidence inspired in our republican governments by the calmness and strength with which they have put down domestic insubordination and executed wholesome laws; the nmanifestation of suppressed patriotism in seceded States, and of the returning loyalty of thousands, perhaps millions, whom the rebellion had swept into its frightful vortex; the healthful condition of our public finances and the wonderful prosperity of the loyal people generally, together with their evergrowing determination to maintain the integrity of the nation, however great may be the sacrifices, and however protracted the struggle;-All these facts and considerations are adapted to inspire us with courage, and call out our gratitude. On this early day of January, 1864, at this first assembling again of the legislature of our honored Commonwealth, it is right and becoming that we express our united thanks to Almighty God for his goodness, -1 -

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9 and greet one another with a courageous “Happy new year.” But though gratitude and courage are seemly, we have no time for glorying-hardly time for rejoicing. We must address ourselves to more serious thoughts and undertakings. When the life of a nation is at hazard; when political earthquake has shaken the government and its foundations are still trembling; when hundreds of thousands of peaceful citizens, summoned from their occupations, are marching everywhere in military array; when precious blood is flowing, and aceldemas spot the land, and homes are draped in mourning, and tears are dropping, and all hearts are throbbing with anxieties;-solemn thinking and earnest working demand our attention; nor can I properly select any subject for consideration on an occasion like the present, not connected with the condition of the times, and the circumstances in which we are placed. It will be the business of the hour to reflect on some’ of the problems of social prosperity, and especially to inquire what we can do to defend, perpetuate, and enlarge the life of the nation. First of all, we must prosecute this terrible war to its righteous results. The rebellion must be 2

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10 put down. It must be put down, if there were no other reasons for it, because it is rebellion. Government is a nullity so far as it is impotent against or tolerates rebellion. Would any of the great Powers of the earth-would England, or France, or Russia, for any cause - tolerate rebellion within their dominions? And shall we for no cause? Never. But what we call rebellion, the insurgents call secession, and justify as a right. There is no such right. Secession has no foundation to rest upon.

Its assumed basis is the idea of independent sovereignty in the States.

But no State ever had such sovereignty; no, not for a moment. From the beginning, and always, the States have been clusters of population, suspended from and nourished by some common vine. Originally they were British dependencies. The I)eclaration of Independence was not the declaration of separate colonies, but of a National Congress, which represented the colonies and expressed their unity. The ” Articles of Confederation” adopted in 1781, were not the terms of an original league, so much as the principles of a union already existing. They declared, however, the unity to be perpetual, and they confirmed the declaration by irrevocable conditions, especially by the surrender and acceptance of territories, for %6 -1

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11 the general good. When it came to be known, through the tests of experience, that the written compact intended to express and strengthen the pre-existing union was operating rather to limit its power and hinider its usefulness, the nation set itself to the construction of a National Constitution. It was framed and adopted by “the people of the United States,” and was intended not to originate a union, but to make the existing union more intelligible and more perfect. When adopted, it was adopted not merely by the States as States, but more expressly by ” the people” of the States as a people. It gave, expressed and everywhere implied, all the powers requisite for its perpetuity, and none whatever for its destruction. From that day the nation’s life has been a constitutional and inviolable unity. As a unity, it has not only carried on the usual operations of government, but it has purchased territory, and conquered territory, and annexed territory, and divided territory into new States, and admitted States, and been a Body “joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, making increase unto the edifying of itself.” Nor, whatever may be said of disturbing elements always wvithin it, is there a nation on the face of the earth whose parts have so intergrowln, complicated them w

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12 selves with each other, and compacted themselves into one as our own.

Secession, then, is rebellion, and rebellion must be put down. It is not necessary to present a fiurther reason for overthrowing it. But it is well to keep always before ius the consequences which would follow from its triumph. We should not only admit a principle of national disintegration into the body politic, and introduce years, perhaps centuries, of anarchy, shame and misery, but we should suffer a terrible and odious despotism to rise and domineer at our side. This fact has not yet been sufficiently pondered. A Southern confederacy, were it possible for such a monstrosity to exist, from the character of its population and the nature of its institutions, as well as the disposition of its leaders, would be a great warpower on our borders. * It would consist chiefly of three principal estates:-an oligarchy of large slaveholders; a great working class of African bondmen, indefinitely increased by the foreign slave-trade; and a vast standing army, constituted chiefly of what are now called “poor whites.” Such an army would be necessary. It would be necessary to keep down the slaves; to defend a mighty wrong against the adverse sentiment and action of the civilized world; to make aggressions upon neighboring territory, for slavery,

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13 like the ” daughters of the horse-leech,” will forever ” cr), give,ive, e;” and finally, as a standing menace and power of violence against any free State or nation arou.nd it. The material of thle army must be what I have described; for it is available, and adapted to the purpose, and there is no other position for it in a slaveholding confederacy. The poor whites in such a community, too proud and too indolent to labor, too ignorant and impotent to rule, without schools, without the functions of high citizenship, without the means of bettering their condition which the working classes of the North possess, would become soldiers. They would be the great ftyhtin class of the South; and the great and only ,great fighting class, as a class, on the continent. We are addicted to the arts of peace, and, though we cani figlt and have fought with indomitable courage and persistency, our employments and our tastes dispose us to peace. But should a Southern confederacy, by any possibility, be established, we’should be compelled to fight in selfdefence, and that too from generation to generation, until it slhould be destroyed, or we ourselves go under. Some imnagine that the rebellion needs coaxing and compromising, and that then it will subside. We coaxed it and compromised with it before it

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14 fairly broke out. We almost gave up our manliness to appease it. But it never would down. Our alternative is submission to its extremest demands, the degradation of ourselves and our posterity, the surrender of our birthrights of freedom, or its subjection by force. What has any Northern man to expect from its success, from giving it any measure of sympathy, from withholding denunciation, from keeping back the sword. We may or may not sympathize with a particular administration, we may or may not approve of all its acts and policies, we may belong to this school of politics or to that; we may even believe that the terrible issue now upon us, by wiser counsels might have been avoided; but circumstances being as they are, what have any of us to hope for in the triumph of the rebellion, or of the principles which sustain it? We may crouch and fawn before it, but it will despise us. We may betray our country to it, as Iscariot sold his Master, but when, in remorse, we throw down the price of blood, the response will be, “What is that to us?” and we shall have no alternative but the shame and despair of him who went away and hanged himself. Apologies for treason, irresolution, halfway measures, soft words, are all just now out of place. What we need is blows, and hard blows,

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15 and blows all the time, till rebellion submits itself. Would you have even the respect of the enemies of your country, you must conquer them.

Nay, would you have a country, you must conquer its enemies. Foreign nations may cry out against us, and profess to be shocked by the terribleness of this war, as though their own histories were immaculate, and they were not at this moment drawing the sword. But they know as well as we, that if we are not the most degenerate and the meanest of the nations, we shall prosecute this war to a righteous close. Let treason and mad ambition rend us asunder, when sacrifices and efforts might have saved us, and their own future historians would write of us, that in an age when Italy, “the land of political earthquakes and volcanoes,” after desperate struggles, rose in power and bound itself into the unity of a mighty people, America, the freest, the happiest, the basest of the nations, went down ingloriously, and was buried in imbecility and shame. No, God helping us, we shall perform our terrible duty; we shall triumph; freedom fought out for man will triumph; humanity will triumph; and a multitude of the heavenly host will praise God again, and cry, “Glory to God in the highest, for on earth there is peace and good-will towards men.”

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16 We must, in the next place, take higher views of the value of a nation, and especially of our own nation, than was common among us before the war.

What is a nation? It is a great community of people, held together by common bonds, under one government, and compacted into a living organic whole. It is distinguished by its unity in one body politic firom other communities of people, organized and held together among themselves in a similar way. The diversity of races and interests; the number and character of populations; configuration of the earth’s surface, divided as it is by seas, and continents, and mountains and rivers, with that depravity and selfishness of man which induces the larger and stronger communities to oppress the weaker,-make divisions into nations a necessity. Human necessities are Divine decrees. What natural theology thus teaches, revealed religion confirms. There is a King of kings, and an administration above administrations. “The Lord is governor among the nations.” “The MIost High divideth to the nations their inheritance.” “lie hath made of one blood all nations, and hath determined the bounds of their habitation.” A nation is thus a vast and divinely-quickened organism-a millionhanded and million-hearted life-everywhere sensi I”

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tive, everywhere throbbing with vitality. It wraps utip in its own being the most precious interests of the human race. It inspheres and protects great histories, examples, ideas, principles; the ashes of ancestors, mlonuments of by-goone days; the activities of great populatioins,-in cities, in towns, in villages, -thronging in masses, scattered in solitudes, covering banks of rivers, spreading up the sides of mountains and down along the shores and harbors of the ever sounding sea; the germs, too, of coming growths and the welfare of hundreds of millions thronging upon our imagination firom the future. Institutions, churches, schools, homes, souls more than can be numbered, are involved in its destiny. It comes down from the past, and is the offspring of the centuries. It looks towards the future, and is fraught with good or ill to unborn generations.

It has relations to all the other organized )opulations of the earth. It is one of the famlily of great organic lives, which divide among them and possess the globe. Its prosperity throws sunshine into countless homes; its adversity blights the hopes and joys of vast comnmtinities. Millions tremble when it is agitated; millions stagger with faintness when it is heavily struck; and when it falls, its dying groans sometimes terrify all the habitations 17 31 3

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s18 of men. Whoever strikes at a nation strikes at an immense life, involving immense interests, and he that lifts a parricidal arm against it, commits a crime, the enormity of which can be measured only by infinities. What greater study, then, for statesmen and patriots than the study of nations? We should study them in their rise, in their greatness, in their fall. We should study their organizations, their weaknesses, their powers; we should study their convulsions and their revolutions, their relations to contemporaries, their position in the world’s progress, their special missions for mankind, and their conltributions to human advancement. We should study them in their relations to Ilim, who, in the faith of all Christendom, is the centre of human history, and towards the glory of whose kingdom all that went before was preparing, and all that follows will contribute. Especially should American citizens study their own nation. They should study and comprehend it. They-should comprehend the nation in its history, in its institutions, in its industries, in its sections and prejudices, in its spirit and tendencies, in its resources and capacities, in its geographical conformations, in its dangers. They should compre

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19 hend the nation, as one among the great family of nations, and as belonging to the present period of the world’s life. They should comprehend the stars in their individualities, and in their relations to each other, and in the unity of the constellation which inshrines them.

They should honor the nation as one of those great public lives which cannot be destroyed or injured, without imperilling the welfare of millions. They should love the nlation, not only as philanthropists and patriots, but as members of a vast fraternity, embarked in the same ship of State, with their affections, and hopes, and interests all on board.

They should sacredly perform their duties to the nation as its citizens, and, by consultations, by the honest expression of opinions and reasons, by suffrage, by administration when called to it, strengthen and adorn it.

They should esteem it honorable to live for the nation-more honorable, if necessary, to die for the nation. We must also take higher views of civil government, especially of the importance of our own government as adapted to us. Government is the principle of order. so enforced that the movements of the many shall be harmonized, and the best good of the individual and of the whole secured.

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20 In this respect, it resembles gravitationi, by which Deity directs the onrushing spheres through their myriad orbits, prevents collisions and saves creation from the return of chaos. Government has its foundation in the perfections of God-especially in those eternal laws of right by which Hle would direct the conduct of men in their relations to each other, and in that goodness of the common Father, which seeks the welfare of all.

Government is made necessary to men by the circumstances in which they are placed. Necessities are divine. Government is therefore of divine origin, and a divine ordinance. The old dogma, “the divine right of kings,” is only a perversion of the divine right, or rather, the divine duty of government. God ordained it. Order is alike the law of His being, and a condition of human happiness. In the lofty language of Miltonl, “He that hath read with judgment of nations and commonwealths, of cities and-camps, of peace and war, sea and land, will agree that the flourishing and decaying of all human societies, all the moments and turning of human occasions are moved to and fro upon the axle of discipline. Yea, the angels themselves, in whom no discord is feared, as the apostle who saw them in his rapture

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21 describes, are distinguished and quarternioned into their celestial princedoms and satrapies, according as God himself has writ his imperial decrees througoh the great provinces of heaven.’ Government, then, is not designed for the advan tage of one or a few over others, but for the good of all. It was not only ordained by him who is alike the Father of all, but for men who are alike Hlis offspring, and brethren of each other. Nor is there any reason why, in this great family of children, one should assume to crowd down another and exalt himself. I would not say that if the one or the few were preeminent in wisdom and goodness, and would wvield power for the benefit of all, it nmight not be desirable to place it in their hands. Nor would I say that all men are in all respects equal; they are not. But it is the right of all alike that government should be wielded for their benefit, and that each should have equal privileges with others, modifled only by the necessity of the circumstances in which they are placed. What, then, is that fo)rm of government which God has ordained for man? Some will expect me to say at once-the democratic or republican form. That is not my answer. I believe in republics, but it follows from the principles laid down, that the

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22 normal form of government for a given people is that which is best adapted to promote most impartially the highest good of the individual and the whole. It may be a patriarchate, autocracy, oligarchy, limited monarchy, or limited democracy, or some mixed form; if it is best adapted to the good of a people, and been established, it is the form divinely ordained for them. W’hy need we, as Americans, contend with England,‘rance or Russia as to their modes of government, till we have settled the question that democracy would make them each a better, happier, wiser nation?.W hat is best for one community might not be for another. It is not certain that any of the great nations of Europe are yet capable of selfgovernment. Besides, existing governments can rarely be changed without revolutions. Revolutions are evils, though in exceptional cases they may ultimate in good. Hence that principle of international law as well as Christianity, that “the powers that be are ordained of God;” and Thence the apostle’s exhortation ” to pray for kings and for all that are in authority, that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty.” And yet I hesitate not to say, that for communities which are capable of it, a republican or representative government is the divinely ordered form. The

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23 rational natures of men, their common paternity, their brotherhood, make it evident. But the logical consequence of this position, some will sayv, is democracy, not republicanism. Bv no means. If all were absolutely equal, convenience would still demand representation. But when, as matter of fact, there are diversities of ability and adaptation to govern, should not a wise people appoint its best qualified men to the management of its affairs. And what is this but delegated selfgovernment? and what is delegated selfgovernment but republicanism? Consider now our government as approximating the best standard. It is representative throughout. It derives all its powers in all its departments, directly or indirectly from the people, and restores those powers, after limited periods, to the people again. The completeness with which the representative principle is carried out distinguishes our American constitutions both from the ancient democracies and the freest monarchies of modern times. Nothing can be better in theory, if the people are equal to it in practice. Our republicanism, also, is the result of intelligence and virtues illumined by thousands of years of political experiment. The course of progress I

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24 among the historical nations has always been from the Orient westward.

The civilization of Europe is far higher than the civilization of Asia.

And the advance nations of Europe, at this day, are those which approach nearest in locality to America. It was not till antiquity had perished, and mediteval centuries had rolled away, that our western continent was revealed. Meanwhile, He who appoints the bounds of human habitations, was preparing a people to settle it. In the new world, every thing was new.

The germ of its institutions was started under providential necessities, in the Mayflower, as she ploughed her perilous way through the Atlantic towards unpromising landing-places on this side the deep. Very early in New Eiingland, and to some extent at the South, the two great problems of our civilization offered themselves for discussion;-the proper forms of government for the Chlurch, and the proper forms of governmenlt for the State. These questions were investigated by free and superior minds, in communities untramnmelled by the past, and under circumstances most favorable to their solution. The question of the Church was settled first; the question of the State, illumined by that of the Church, hastened on to a similar conclusion. The result was civil and religious liberty.

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25 When the British yoke was broken, the spirit, habits and necessities of the people determined the method of their local institutions, while a Divine Providence, signally manifested, ill a course of overruling events, constrained the formation of a national government. The Convention which constructed the Constitution was composed of remarkable men. They were selected from the peerage of the race. Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Randolph and their associates, constituted an assemblage which for wisdom and patriotism was never equalled. In high appreciation of their difficulties and responsibilities, they bowed reverently before the Father of lights, praying daily that He would “illuminate their understandings,”

confessing that ” God governs in the affairs of men, and that if a sparrow cannot fall without his notice, an empire cannot rise without his aid.”

The political fabric they erected, its approval by the people, and the peaceful revolution which established its supremacy, can be regarded by the Christian statesman familiar with those perilous times, only with adoring wonder and gratitude. Taking all the circumstances into consideration, it was a stupendous, not to say miraculous success. Not that the Constitution was perfect; perfection does not belong to the finite. But it is difficult even now to see 4

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26 how so many and such conflicting interests could have been harmonized on any principles or comipromises essentially different. Nor can I doubt that on the whole, it had the Divine sanction. God is eminently practical in His administrations. In Hiis management of great communities, the best conceivable gives place to the best practicable. As human activities enter into His plans, He seems to consider circumstances, opinions, customs and prejudices even, as facts, and to deal with them accordingly. Hence He often tolerates and regulates what, in the abstract, He never approves. On this principle, I believe our Constitution the best which the whole nation could bear, and had it been administered always in its spirit and design, the nation, as such, would have escaped the judgments of Heaven, though sonei of the States might have suffered for great evils embodied in thlem.

As it is, though corruption has bred civil pestilence, though political depravity has outrun horsemen, though a monstrous ambition has defied the heavens, and hands black with perjury have grasped the pillars of the State to overthrow it, I believe that no government on the globe is’

better fitted, not only for the happiness of its subjects generally, but to put down rebellion and work out

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27 those terrible problems which are rocking the nation. Let us, then, accept our own government and sustain it. Constructed by men who knew how to avail themselves of the experience of all ages, formed in the vast and free spaces of a new country where no antiquated corruptions had grown into it, adopted by a population which had struggled up into freedom against hereditary prestige and oppression, and, outgrowing the period of colonial pupilage, had achieved independence, it was a government for the people. If anv of the chief fathers of the Revolution had the smallest leaning towards monarchy, every one of them agreed that nothing but republicanism was desirable, was possible for America. The republican spirit has been gaining strength for generations. The masses will die for it. Let no man suggest a monarchy for us. An extreme democracy is an American possibility; so, perhaps, is a military despotism; but not a ctnstitutional monarchy. The materials for it arc wanting. We have neither the great wealth of an aristocratic clergy, nor the “immense interests of a secular nobility” to sustain it. The British constitution for England, the emperor for France, if you please, but Europe should know, above all we ourselves should ‘N 7

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28 know, that republican institutions are not only the highest forms of government, but to us they are necessities. Let the American people, as well as statesmen, study the government. We should study it in our colleges and common schools, and by our firesides, as well as in Congress and our legislatures. We should study government in its broadest principles, and its application to nations, but most of all the government under which, as free citizens, we are sheltered. There is one lesson respecting government which we need most of all to learn, and that is obedience. Obedience to government because it is government. The proper ground of obedience to law is not ordinarily its reasonableness, or its equity, but its imposition by rightful authority. This doctrine had always been accepted in the army, in the navy, and to some extent in our merchant ships; the nature of the service in these cases made the necessity of it obvious. But in our pulpits, our schools, our homes, and our political teachings, the ideas of rightful authority and unquestioning obedience were becoming obsolete. Men were learning to reason about laws, as though the question of obedience should turn, not on the fact of their being laws, but on their

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29 propriety. A doctrine of nullification, according to private judgment, was surreptitiously creeping in. It was undermining the foundations of our civil government,. North as well as South, and the idea of government as government was passing away. The times demand a higher teaching. Insist on abstract right, as eloquently as you will, but let government be paramount in its sphere. A constitutiorial government should be absolute within the limits of the constitution, and the extent of those limits is not a question for private judgment, but for the public tribunals. The quality of badness in laws is a reason for changing, not for disobeying them. All laws are to be obeyed while they are laws. Governments take the moral as well as the political responsibilities of administration upon themselves.

Private responsibility is satisfied, when the individual, by his suffrage and the full power of his influence, has done his duty as a citizen. If there are extreme cases which justify rebellion,-and I do not deny that there may be,-they are only such extremes as strengthen the rule, and are to be dealt with as extremes and exceptions, and not elevated into principles. Conscience, to be sure, must have supremacy; but the supremacy of an enlightened conscience requires obedience to the laws. An T

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30 enlightened conscience will teach that it is right to do some things in obedience to law which it would not be right to do, if there were no law.

Let extraordinary cases, like that of DI)aniel when idolatry was law, like the old martyrs when blasphemy was law. be excepted; but any general setting up of private judgments against authorized tribunals would destroy law. and introduce anarchy and destruction. Our human instincts, if unperverted, recognize and demand the supremacy of government. Men fly firom anarchy to despotism for the sake of it. WVVe ourselves. when for a time it seemed as if we had no government, began to estimate aright the miseries into which we were plunging. And when, at length, the voice of legitimate qauthority came thundering forth from the Capitol, nineteen millions recognized it as authority, and sent up a great shout of exultation. From that moment, the entire people began to have new conceptions of government. Obedience was accepted as a duty, and loyalty became (1 virtue. From this vantage-grounid, we must re-establish the authority of government. W5hile -e sacredly guard all the liberties of the people, we must show them that liberty is not license-that in human as well as in the D)ivine government, perfect liberty is found only in the line of obedience to rightful authority.

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31 And the rising as well as the risen generation must be made to understand the meaning of that almost obsolete imperative, OBEY. We must take higher views than heretofore of the office and importance of military organizations in sustaining free governments, and that not only during the present war but in coming years. We have made great mistakes both in theory and practice on this subject. Our custom of business, our peace-loving dispositions, our geographical position at a distance from the warlike nations, our sentiment and habit of protest against military ambition and despotic violence, our philanthropy, our Christianity wrongly interpreted, all helped to lead us astray. force, constraint, punishment were put at discount. The idea of justice went down before that of a mistaken benevolence. The soldier belonged to history or to foreign tyrannies, or to some national gala-day, or vanit-v fair. Love, persuasion, mioral influences were the motive powers to lift society. I have no word against peace. L believe in peace. I believe in the apostolic exhortation,’-If it be possible, as much as lieth in you live peaceably with all men.” Infinitely beautiful is the sentiment of mercy. But the attribute of justice, if it should seem less

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32 amiable to any, is no less to be reverenced. Justice is at the foundation of the moral order of the universe. Practical truth is often the resultant of extreme, conflicting theoretical principles. It is found, in this case, not in justice alone, nor in mercy alone, but where “1mercy and truth meet together, and righteousness and peace embrace each other.”

Let us applaud the disposition for peace. Persuasion is admirable, but the moral universe is not constructed on that principle alone. As in nature, so it is in revelation. He who wept over Jerusalem, denounced desolation upon it, and the gospel which records, “Blessed are the peacemakers,”

commends civil government ” as the terror of evil doers.” So far had our peace principles carried us, that when the war broke out we were almost as defenceless as children. And even now, I suppose, that out of our great cities, there is scarcely a community in Massachusetts which could protect itself from an insurrection. God forbid that any necessity should make of us a military, much more, a war-loving nation. But we must have a different practice and a different teaching on the questions of selfdefence. Innocence is not sufficient for protection. Imbecility invites aggression. Christians must be men, citizens must be soldiers, magistrates must bear the sword, -.f

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33 and bear it not in vain. Let the schools, let the churches teach justice, then, as well as benevolence, -nay, teach justice as the highest form of benevolence. Let the young men be taught, let the government arm and train them, to uphold justice. Law, order must be sustained.

Rebellion, anarchy, violence put down. Let the soldier look upon himself not as his country’s mercenary; not as the mere circumstance and ornament of authority; not, most of all, as a great public murderer; but as an officer of justice called by God and his country to the high duty of sustaining government, and by his own strong heart and hand, protecting the welfare of the people-his mission that of a destroying angel, who, though destroying, is an angel still. We must also gather up the lessons of the times, and forward the purposes of Providence as revealed in theii.

WTe read the lessons and learn the purposes in results already attained or foretokened, and in the necessities brought clearly to view. What has the war done for us? It has developed in all our free States an intense and almost universal patriotism. It has set forth the idea and stimulated the sentiment of loyalty. It has brought up the notion of government as such, and begun to 5 I i

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34 enthrone it again on the hearts of the people. It has put appropriate ihonor upon the eternal attribute of justice and shovwn the importance of penalty, both human and di vine. It has given a death-blow to that mawkislh philanthropy whiclh expended its unhealthful sympathies, not in punishing crime and protecting, innocence, but in sheltering criminals from retribution, and which was emasculating the people of all manliness and moral power. It has settled the question of the great strength of republican governmenits. It has given the people an unbounded confidence in free institutions. It has taught self-sacrifice, and that there is something to live for outside of self; It has taught patience, moderation, persistency in the right under discouragemenits, and self-possession under calumny. It has taught self-knowledge, anld helped to remove sonlething of an immnense conceit from the l)opular head. It has taught humility, and impressed the old belief that God governs the nations-It has taught one doctrine, partially, and but partially, understood before-the Divine abhorrence of slavery. While it was practiced as a necessit)T; while it was allowed as anl evil and a wrong, as soon as possible to be corrected,-the Judge of all men looked on with forbearance, and seemed to require us to do fT

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35 the same. But when it came to be accepted as “the fundamental doctrine of civilization,” the normal basis of firee institutions; when ministers of the gospel had come to declare it right, and good and desirable-a God-blessed arrangement, revealed in the sacred Scriptures, and to be defended by them; when Christian men joined in the shout, slavery everywhere and slavery forever’-then the heavens began to thunder. From that day it was manifest, as Mr. Jefferson said, that ” there is no attribute in the character of God which can take sides with it; from that day it began to be apparent that the time of visitation had come. The war also has taught respecting slavery, that never again must this great republican government be wielded for its extension and perpetuity. Never again must its unchristianizing and unciviliziug influences be allowed to predominate on this continent. The war is terrible. But the war has taught us-waged as it is on one part to crush the slaveholders’ conspiracy and to put down the slaveholders’ rebellion, a conspiracy and a rebellion started and carried on against any limitation of that accursed institution which has been the cause of all our troubles from the beginning -never to ask, never to suffer a peace, till slavery has received a blow which will insure its destruction,

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36 in time. That dark spirit of evil-it has breathed moral pestilence over the land, and plotted the destruction of all freedom in it. Not satisfied with perverting justice, corrupting the people, making us ashamed before the world, it struck at the government, it rent the nation, it insulted our flag, it slaughtered our sons, and as God is true, it shall never be for)given. Let it go down, peacefully if it may, in blood and fire if it must. Meanwhile, you have no call to rashness. I would be the last man to encourage that reckless spirit which overrides compacts and violates oaths of office. Though regarding slavery with abhorrence, and always praying for its overthrow, I have been accustomed to feel that its continued existence was not the special responsibility of the free States; that it could not be directly assailed by our government without violation of the Constitution, and such rivers of blood as are now flowing among us And still I say, let the pledges of the Ccol-istitution, whether expressed or implied, be maintained till they are constitutionally amended. All that ought to be done, can be done, is doing by the civil or the military power which the Constitution affords. God is in the heavens. “He that believeth shall not make haste.” When His time comes, we shall

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know it. Opinions, inspirations of the public heart, circumstances which no mortal man can bend, will reveal it. Meanwhile, events are disclosing the Divine intentions. Eighteen months ago, in a public discourse, I had the honor to say: “We can see the hands on the horologe of the centuries passing up to the hour when the doom of slavery is to be struck.”’ Since these words were uttered, from the great clock of human history has the awffil peal rung out, and while the sound echoes and re-echoes over the country and reverberates among the nations, the angels of destiny have put down the recordthe death-blow of slavery and rebellion, in the year of time, January 1st, 1863. I was intending to speak also of a duty which now is, and soon will be more strongly upon us, viz.: the duty of our statesmen and citizens to assist in forming the character of the nation.

We live in an age of the world when there is opportunity for a new kind of national eminence and power. Whichever of the great nations would distinguish itself before the world, for magnanimity and justice in all its foreign relations, so as deservedly to secure the confidence of mankind, might not only obtain the smniles of Providence, and become the noblest of 37 11

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38 nations in itself, but have a real though moral supremacy over them all. If ally here may have been predestined to a higher statesmanship than that to which most of us have yet attained, I would ask them to remember this among the observations of the hour, and do something to lift the government they may help to administer out of the miserable duplicities and circumventions of diplomacy; out of that spirit of quick resentment and imperious, not to say insulting demand, which provokes and predisposes to war, and bring it to conduct like an open, honorable, fair-minded man.

Why should not an intelligent republic, conscious of greatness, stand more on its dignity? Why should we be so easily exasperated by opprobrium from abroad? Let the jealous or the ill-natured say what they will, self-possession and repose become a people who understand their position.

Call not these ideas chinmerical. If virtue and moderation are elements of greatness in individuals, so they are in nations. If it is difficult to quarrel with a strong, magnanimous, just and kindly man, so it would be difficult for any hostile power to quarrel or officiously intermeddle with a nation of such characteristics. Look at our own condition. There is a power in this land hardly second to that of an immense army. It is the wis

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39 dom and honesty, and the reputation of it inspiring confidence at home and abroad, which belong to the character of ABRAIHAMI LINCOLN. I hasten to one remaining topic. It will be our special duty as republican patriots, to educate the people. The importance of education is confessed.

But public sentiment, on this subject, is still incommensurate with the urgencies of the case. \Whoever observes the ignorance, obscenity, profaneness which the drag-net of a popular enrolment sometimes collects, has materials enough for political despair. But still lower down, if possible, are those terrible populations which in periods of insurrectionary excitement sometimes rise to view. The remedy is not despotism, but education. Mere utilitarianism demands it. Education excites to enterprise. Enterprise furnishes bread, and bread helps contentment. W\e boast of our culture; and many a poor man is a nobleman.

But can you not find voters in almost every town, and sometimes by the hundred, whose ignorance and passion fit them better for the violences of the mob than for the responsibilities of citizens. NTot natural disposition so much as lack of advantages has been their bane. Let them, at least let their children, be educated. Compulsory education, where -t

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40 compulsion is needed, is alike a charity and a law of liberty. Let them be taught the rudiments in schools, always remembering, however, that reading and wiriting are not all. Knowledge is well, but wisdom is better.

Right motives must be inculcated, and right feelings inspired. Our youth must be habituated to reflection, self-control, and the exercise of judgment. The virtues of industry, frugality, public spirit and justice; the sentiments of honor, self-respect and kindness; the duties of loyalty to government and obedience to the laws, and the greatness of living and dying for country,-should be enforced upon them. They should be taught reverence-in which democracies are proverbially deficient-and that true dignity which is an attribute of good character, in the humblest as well as in the highest. The moral nature should be specially cultivated, conscientiousness should be developed, and a regard for truth and honesty made laws of life. I am proud for what the old Bay State has been doing for her youth, from the beginning. I am proud of a Commonwealth which inserted in her Bill of Rights, almost a century ago, such a sentence as this: ” A constant adherence to the principles of piety, justice, moderation, temperance, industry

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41 and frugality, are absolutely necessary to preserve the advantages of liberty, and to maintain a free government;” and which recognizes all these virtues in her Constitution, and requires the elected rulers to bestow them, through education, upon the people. I am proud to be the citizen of a State which expends money so liberally upon her schools, which appreciates her university and her colleges as fountains of liberty and fortresses of defence. I would gladly speak with honor of those truly great men among us,-benefactors of the race,-who, uniting high character with property, have so liberally cultivated good learning, and established endowmenlts for the promotion of knowledge and virtue in the present and coming generations. But we have no time for commendations. There is work to be done. The grandeur of Massachusetts will never rest on the extent of her domains. If knowledge is power, her influence will increase in proportion as she educates her people. This education must be given to the country. It must be given.not only in schools and colleges, but through every possible way of influence; through wise and liberal legislation; by sermons, lectures, addresses, speeches; by newspaper articles, reviews, and the varied powers of the press; by home 6 N

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42 instruction and by Sabbath schools. Educated men must educate others.

Those who are up must lift up those who are down. God has placed some on eminences, not to glorify themselves on the heights, but to raise others to their sides. Socrates among the ancients, and Dr. Arnold in our times, are examples for us. There is but one brighter than these in history, and that is the Great Teacher. He sympathized with the masses, and associated with them to elevate them. We must do the same. We are all of one family, and we have our choice to make the humbler members of it good and respectable, or live annoyed by their ignorance, and imperilled and perhaps ruined by their want of principle. Christ chose the former alternative. He came down to men, that Hie might lift them up by his religion Christianity, while it saves and blesses all who believe, especially regards and elevates the masses. And this brings me to say emphatically, and what is among the deepest convictions of my heart, that you cannot educate a people for high citizenship without religion. Look over the earth; Christian nations tower like mountains above others, and those are highest in which Christianity has most power. But I will dwell here only on one point. In order to a moderate religious influence in a community,

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43 there must be an immense religious power in portions of it. A cool inculcation of Christian moralities upon the mass, is not enough; there must be enthusiasm somewhere. The rivers will dry up when the rains are stayed, unless there are fountains to feed them. So if you would influence communities by religious motives, you must be assisted by those deep experiences in many persons which belong to the highest types of godliness. The patriot who thinks he can educate the people in schools, without the churches; the Christian who thinks that the churches can be powerful without an intense Christian life among some of its members,-have never learned the laws of influence. As in every human being there must be a strongly pulsating heart in order to vigor in the limbs, so there must be vast numbers of devoted Christian people-a strong central religious life-if you would have a general religious life, or expect to restrain and guide a community by a sense of religion. Not only as a Christian minister, but as a patriot, I would urge on all good citizens the wisdom of encouraging an earnest Christianity, in all the religious denominations of the State. This sentence from the Farewell Address of the Father of his Country should never be forgotten: “Whatever

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44 may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality may prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” To His Excellency the Governor, I respectfully turn, with confident assurance that by him, and the distinguished gentlemen immediately associated with him, the leading sentiments of this discourse will not be disowned. The patriotism, the patronage of education, the energy, and most of all the humanity which mark the administration of the preceding year, add strength to our faith when we pray, ” God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

Gentlemen, Legislators of the Commonwealth, I cannot lose this opportunity of commending to your regard the interests of our country, though it may be sufficiently dear to you. Patriotism is a characteristic of noble minds. The rustic Bard of Ayr turned aside his weeding-plough and spared the rough burr-thistle “for dear old Scotia’s sake “and one far greater than bard or statesman wept for his country, when he foretold the evils which

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45 were coming upon it. And shall not the American citizen love his native land? “Land where our fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims’ pride, Sweet land of Liberty.” Some among us have thought it pleasant and becoming to die for it; shall not we who survive most earnestly live for it? As you look upon your country, ” the strong staves broken and the beautiful rods,” let me say to each of you, gentlemen, in higher words than human, “Behold thy mother.” She asks the help of her sons. Of you, among the chosen rulers, she asks wisdom in legislation, integrity of intention, patriotism, devotiion. “Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people and for the cities of our God,” and His providence will smile upon us. The war will be brought to a righteous close. Liberty and lahv will be established, and we may hope for the time when the whole nation will become what Milton said a Commonwealth ought to be-” ONE HUGE

CHRISTIAN PERSONAGE, ONE MIGHTY GROWTH AND STATURE OF AN HONEST MIAN,”

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A SERMON FOR THE TIMES, PREACHED IN THE WEST CHURCH, ON FAST DAY, APRIL 7, 1864. BY C. A. BARTOL. BOSTON: WALKER, WISE, AND COMPANY, 245, WASHINGTON

STREET. 1864. -+

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S E R M 0 N. ” GATHER UP THE FRAGMENTS THAT REMAIN, THAT NOTHING BE LOST.”

John vi. 12. SUITABLY summoned as we are to-day to consider all our sins, yet, among the sins we commit, none is more noticeable or dangerous now than that which, in so brief and homely a way, in a single word, we call extravagance. But what is extravagance It consists in all waste or excess of expenditure, running beyond the need of the occasion in the way of food, dress, display, or any mode of outgo, especially for one’s self.

Superfluity of whatever, in ornament, apparel, sensual delight, must have its material or workmanship brought from abroad, when imports exceed exports, and the balance of trade is against us, is peculiar extravagance.

We give the credit of economy to a man in the country if he lives largely on what he gets off his farm: so we are an economical people so far as we can live on what we get from our great farm of America. Transport, carriage, is expense, and not seldom extravagance. It is extravagance when we are poor, and the articles are dear that we procure and convey. Great enjoyment in this world does not always imply extravagance. Said a young, noble-hearted artist, to whom the beauty of Na

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4 ture and of pictures, and a choice society were open, “I have the luxuries of life, though not its comforts.” Not the pleasures of the imagination or the charm of beauty to the soul, but the pampering of sense, and parade of vanity, come under the head of extravagance; and this extravagance, to a just sensibility, is always revolting, and even unclean. Dirt has been quaintly and profoundly defined as matter in the wrong place. Have you not remarked it thus? Have you never seen a soft robe or beautiful necklace in the wrong place, on one who could not rightly afford pearl, diamond, fur, or lace? Perhaps, on that very person, it was thought rare and splendid, was envied and coveted, without a spot from the street, and breathed costly perfume all around: but I am afraid it comes under the philosophic definition I refer to; namely, matter in the wrong place! There is a great deal of such matter in the wrong place, in our day. But it is all foul extravagance. Yes, how many a ring and sparkling gem, how many a bracelet and band, from undue outlay, on the fingers or wrists, or in the hair of one who owes, or should have directed with a different disposition, the very money it was bought with, has, to a discerning eye, less purity than the unwashed grime of the day-laborer!

There is no impurity in that! But, that we may fairly estimate and be moved to avoid this sin, the objections to it should be seriously considered, and particularly drawn out. Let me try, then, to tell you exactly what extravagance, in its true features, is. It is irreligious, it is unchristian, it is unpatriotic, and it is unjust.

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5 First, It is irreligious. What an economist is Nature, so made by God!

She economizes even the light she so immensely possesses; catches it on the moon as a candle after the sun has gone down, as we say, when he is but rising on other lands; and sends it inconceivably far to us from the stars. She economizes heat, equalizing it for the life and health of the whole world, by currents in the air and ocean and of the electric fluid.

She economizes water to answer a thousand successive important purposes, in a thousand different places, with the same drop. How nicely and carefully she sifts out its minutest portions from the briny sea to cleanse the air and revive the plants at this season, to fill the springs, and paint the sky, and support all human life! How, with her mighty elemental agencies, she crumbles and bears down the barren rock from the mountains and hills, to fertilize, for boundless and endless crops, the valley and the plain! How she makes the ashes even of the dead spring into grass, and blossom into flowers! How, applying the same economy to crude mineral, from the very gravel in the ground she distils a curious, delicate wash to protect the tender stalks of the growing grain; though you may not think what perhaps cuts your hand to bleeding is this varnish of flint! How she saves every hair, particle, nail-paring, and exhalation, to turn it to some account! How she converts ice, and the snow that manures the poor man’s ground, into harvests of corn and wheat! How she nourishes her vegetable offspring, so that her anignal may not die of hunger! The roots of a shrub, thirsty for a supply that had been drawn aside by an artificial channel, have been known, in

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6 their resolution not to be defrauded, to find their way to the aqueduct under ground, and bore a hole through its soft wooden plug, that every fibre might drink its fill, as was divinely intended. To one who looks with a careless view on Nature, it seems as if every thing with her were in extravagant excess. We quote the line about “many a flower born to blush unseen,” and we talk of the floods that are poured away to no purpose. But a closer inspection corrects this error, and shows how frugal her utility, and perfect her order; enough, but “no room to insert a particle,” however Art may re-arrange her forms to educate and give scope to human power. If we, then, are wasteful of our means and resources, we do not follow Nature, so prudently using her infinity of riches. On our little stipend we are extravagant; and, in being extravagant, also irreligious. But, secondly, All extravagance is unchristian. Our text alone would prove this. We are not justified in our profusion because we have sufficient to be reckless with. The disciples had sufficient to be reckless with after the feeding of the multitude of five thousand in the desert. It was a miraculous plenty on which Jesus gave the charge, “Gather up the fragments.” So when we say, in excuse or palliation of any who line very extravagantly, “Oh! they have enough;” or when our domestics burn out the coal, and throw away the meat, because, for their well-off employers, “It is no matter; they will not mind it; nobody will know it to-morrow, or it will be all the same a thousand years hence,”-it is unchristian and false. Hiow that same Jesus, whom

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we confess as our pattern, economized his time! “Are there not twelve hours in the day? ” he asked. He spent nights in prayer that had been postponed by his labors in the light. He was “straitened,” he declared, till his “baptism” of toil and trial should be “accom plished.” Need I mention how his apostles followed his example, and repeated his precepts?

He and they practised no absurd follies of extravagance. They did not get themselves up with any cost of extra clothing. They wore no changes of garments for the discharge of their sacred office, but walked about in Judea and Galilee in the common garb of the people. How much sublimer so!

On the ground, therefore, of their own simplicity, they could, as they did, consistently condemn all curious or extreme adorning of the person as much as over-indulgence of the appetite. Extravagance is, then, certainly nchristiatn. Thirdly, All extravagance is unpatriotic. It is emphatically so now at the crisis we have reached of our fate. In our new Canaan, with our vast territory and our thin population, and few mouths in comparison to feed, we have had, in past time, enough and to spare. In a land literally flowing with more milk and honey than ever Palestine could contain, how wondrously our abundance has overflowed, and run away half used! Our barns, our houses, our hotels, as every observer or wayfarer must have noticed, have been full to bursting with the means of living. To the traveller abroad, the contrast has been amazing between this and foreign lands. We have neglected and thrown by what other nations would have stored and sold or used. Our poor 7

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8 have squandered; our beggars have left in the alleys what the mendicants in the Austrian Tyrol would race in their tatters beside your carriage after, and the rag-rakers in Paris pounce upon, and the lazzaroni in Naples break out into thanksgivings and benedictions for. In those regions, one does not encounter pieces of white bread on the sidewalk, half-picked bones in the gutter, or victuals in the gateway, which those that have been just asking for them do not value enough to carry home.

Extravagance has grown out of our abundance, - an extravagance, however, which, let me say, we are now not in a condition safely to continue. All the circumstances are changed. The yield of our soil, relatively to our numbers and wants, has diminished. Our productive have, by hundreds of thousands, been turned into unproductive laborers; nay, destroyers of earthly value. Our tillers and sailors, our fishermen and shepherds, have become how largely soldiers and naval fighters! What went by the name of our institution, has, in its consequences, proved, as one called it, indeed our destitution. Truly, slavery is a most extravagant thing. The specie-basis of our banks is long since, for any redemption of their bills, gone. A huge debt is swelling. Paper-property abounds. But here is the test, which no argument or legislation can wink out of sight, - that prices of indispensable articles enormously and fearfully rise. Our state has come to be that of other battle-worn and army-ridden peoples.

Taxation, like a spectre, is striding on our reduced capital. Our posterity is overhung with a cloud of embarrassment and obligation, which many generations - before they are born

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9 beseeching us to beware of thickening it - will not clear up. We can only say, as is said of Great Britain, that the common liability may be a common bond. Meantime, we go on, God knows for how long, till we succeed in putting the Rebellion down, I hope; burning up and blowing away our wealth at the cannon’s mouth, lavishing it for the sustenance of our troops, and, on one side or the other in the civil conflict, converting into wreck and cinder cotton-bales and bridges, light-houses and forests, products of Nature and works of civilization which might further the foe, or stand in our military way. Ah! how utterly horrid war would be if anarchy were not worse, and we could not believe, as we do, that national regeneration will issue, like a soul from a lifeless corse, out of the carnage and smoke! In such premises, what is all additional expense of extravagant living; building, as I have heard, in New York, marble stables and billiard-rooms and private theatres, purchasing endless glitter of gems, and dancing our time and strength and satin-vestments away at the ball, like sailors, who, before the wreck, clamor for the liquors to be brought out, - I ask you, and wish I could ask the entire country as one man, what is it but a deadly, annihilating, and wellnigh unpardonable siln? Surely it is ttpatriotic at least. Lastly, It is unjust. Any thing is unjust that tends to shrink up the real worth of nominal property, and make a dollar, dearly and hardly earned by human toil as with a price of blood, go only half as far as it did. Verily this is what comes of all extravagance. It is not confined in its result to the fortunes of the extravagant

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10 man. They may not be substantially affected: nevertheless, more cunningly than’ any slim-fingered Italian handkerchief-snatcher, it stretches its grasp for unseen theft into every bank, meagre purse, worn wallet, and private drawer, to abstract, as by strange jugglery, part of their valuable contents. The owners, confused, rub their heads, and cannot exactly see how it is that the dollar thus suffers and sweats. It matters not so much to such as have a great many dollars; but to the working population, with their little savings, it is of serious consequence to have their funds collapse, and the oil and meal, the coal and the rent, come twice as high. Do you say this happens inevitably by laws of trade and finance, and cannot be called unjust, because by no wilful act occasioned? I answer, I am not much of a political economist or financier; but can there be any doubt that the consumption of imported delicacies and splendors, as Shakspeare says, “painting our outward walls so costly gay,”

raises the rate of exchange and valuation of gold, while it lowers the worth just so much of the notes in which alone the corporation he trusted will restore the poor man’s principal, or pay his dividend? This is to be laid mainly at the door of extravagance. The slow adjustments of wages atone not for its extinction of value. Your extravagance, then, my friend, is unjust. It is sheer plunder, and you a plunderer in it. It robs those already pinched and needy. If there is any proverb for peculation outrageous and inexcusable, it is stealing from the poor’s purse; and this all extravagance does. While pouring out treasure and life for what is essen

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11 tial, let us then, in all else, retrench, though we pass or bring back no sumptuary laws. It is well to be good customers, so far as we can, to other folks on earth, and observe a properly international comity of bargain and barter. But as one, involved in his affairs, ought to pass by a fine shop without entering; so, now that our estate as a people is so heavily mortgaged, we should refuse to be tempted by exorbitant European wares. With our commerce tormented by the English policy, and our claim disallowed in high quarters for the piratical depredations it has furthered, it is not unkindness or revenge, but justice, self-respect, and proper providing, as an apostle exhorts, for our own household, to avoid fetching and purchasing any endless amount of English manufactures, cloths, watches, knives, all curious utensils which we can do without, and to resort, instead, to our own products, practising a Spartan severity.

While France, too, figured as a fox in her able but distrusted ruler, takes advantage of our weakness to thrust into our neighborhood a dependent despotism for a tool, threatening as a burglar’s jimmy to our republican doors, whether we warn her off with any Monroe-doctrine or not, is it not desirable to be somewhat abstemious as to French silks and wines, and deal rather in domestic calicoes, homespun and home-brewed, Croton and Cochituate, and our fresh springs? Extravagance of every kind let us abjure. Theological writers discourse of the Christian economy. Let us be sure all economy is Christian, when, beyond the theories of the schools, it becomes a fact in our lives. Let us remember, that, on the contrary, all extravagance

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12 at home must be paid for in blood on the field! In being spendthrift of our money, we are spendthrift of the drops from the veins of our brothers and sons. Let no red stain from their ebbing life cleave to the skirts of our garments! Let none of their dying groans disturb the peace of our slumbers! By sobriety, and devotion of our being to the cause for which they fight and expire, let us co-operate with their arms for the salvation of our land. Then the day of our redemption will hasten. The chariot of God, whose wheels are in the pulses of our hearts, will go forward more swiftly. No heedless living will prolong the terrible strife. Victory will wait on self-consecration to the common weal. Our triumph will crown our temperance, and the heroes and martyrs who have become angels, when they witness our effectual repentance of the wasteful transgression that so insanely goes along at the very time with dwindling resources and aggravated demands, will smile down on the accomplishment by us of the work they so painfully began. Boston: Printed by John Wilson and Son. i I

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WVHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE WITH THE FREEDMEN AND WITH THE REBELS? A SERMON

PREACHED IN THE BERKELEY-STREET CHURCH, BOSTON, ON SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 1865, ,_ BY RTYN DEXTER. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY MICIIOLS & NOYES, 1865. HENRY MA I

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IS

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CORRESPONDENCE. REV. H. M. DEXTER. DEAR SIR, At a meeting ot after divine service, on Sunday aft a Committee to request you to I preached in the forenoon of that tial service at this time, allow us to our request. Most cordially and fraternally yours, B. W. WILLIAMS, JOHN H. COMER, WILLIAM

WILLETT, W. H. HOLLISTER, ISRAEL P. WARREN, JONA. A. LANE, STILLMAN B.

ALLEN, Committee. BOSTON, April 24, 1865. MESSRS. B. W. WILLIAMS, JOHN I GENTLEMEN,-I am taken by s your kind note of yesterday, and co refer may be of public benefit, if pri its positions, and so earnest in the yield to your request. Faithfully, your friend and pastor,, HENRY M. DEXTER.

HILLSIDE, ROXBURY, 25th April, 1865. [On account of the great length of the discourse, some passages which here appear were omitted in the delivery.]

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I

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SERMON. IsA. xxxii. 17: “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance for ever.” WE are doubtless all familiar with the fact, that on newly made land, such as we have plenty of around us, it is needful that every pile of the thousands which are driven to stiffen the foundations of a great building should be hammered home until it brings up on the old solid earth underneath; or that stone which rests upon it will gradually subside from its horizontal level with its fellows, and rupture, disfigurement, and insecurity above, - sometimes even to the loftiest height of the structure, - will follow.

This fact goes a little way toward illustrating the manner in which, in a republican form of government, responsibility rests underneath upon every single individual. Hence, in such a civil condition as ours, it is of immeasurable consequence that the masses of the people; in their views and acts for the nation, be grounded firmly upon the eternal rock of truth and justice. And this is my reason for speaking to you, this morning, as I am about to speak. We are approaching the end of the Rebellionr. We are so near to it, that those questions which its settlement makes practical are now in order, and indeed press themselves upon every mind. Every man is bound, by the highest considerations, to meditate upon them, and to mature a well-considered opinion in regard to them,-one which he can feel safe to act upon now, and to abide by hereafter. Those questions, so far as they are intricate, new, and troublesome, are two: viz., what ought to be done with those  NK

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people who have been slaves, and who are now, or will shortly be, free; and what ought to be done with those rebels who are already subdued and in our hands by choice or conquest, or are soon to be so. All other questions are merely of expediency, as to a little more or a little less, a little longer or a little shorter: these are of principle; and their solution must so obviously affect our whole national future, as to make it of the utmost consequence that they be answered rightly; that the great body of loyal men, if possible, think alike in regard to them. It is no time now for divided counsels. I propose to do what I can, this morning, to aid you to understand these questions, and to perceive what principles of moral and Christian duty relate to them, and must necessarily shape all just answer to them. That fundamental general truth which is hinted by our text most clearly underlies all particular reply, - settle them rightly, and they will stay settled; never otherwise. Before the workmen began to pile up that massive shaft on the other side of the Charles, which meets the sun in his coming, and whose summit takes the last kiss of the departing day, they dug down twelve feet, and they dug outward till they touched fifty feet on every side, and laid their granite there broad and deep, below the utmost reach of the surge of the frost, on the solidest substance of the solid hill, because they knew that otherwise there could be no permanence to their towering masonry. And if we do not dig down now, until we lay bare the substratum of absolute right, we cannot build for the future so that the freezing and thawing of the elemental agencies shall not heave down what we build. That which is purely just, and thoroughly and everlastingly right, will be sure to stand in a republic; because God is satisfied with it, and man will be satisfied with it; for it provides equitably for all, and so places every man that it is for his interest to have things remain as they are, whence a majority can never be brought to desire radical change, and so there can never be such change.

If we can now do what is right in the sight of God and man in regard to the freedmen and the rebels, we shall have no trouble now; we shall never have any, because it will be for nobody’s interest to make 6

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7 any, and none will be made. But if we do what is wrong, for the sake of some imagined present benefit,- as our fathers did in the compromises of the Constitution with regard to slavery, because they feared that otherwise they should lose the Union, and thought that the certainty of union with slavery would be better than the risk of no Union, -we may rest assured that God’s silent forces will lift and throw our settlement, until it tumbles down, some dark day, into such anarchy as thlese last four years have seen, with blood and tears. “The work of righteousiness shall be peace; and the effect of righlteousness, quietness and assurance forever.” I. WHAT, THEN, IS IT RIGHT FOR OUR NATION TO DO WITH THE

FREEDMEN? In 1860 there were nearly four millions of slaves, and for the ten years then last past they had been increasing at the rate of nearly twenty-four per cent.* It is then fair to infer that they have increased twelve per cent in the nearly five years which have elapsed since that census was taken, giving us now a total of nearly four millions and a half. These are, very largely, already free: when the Rebellion heaves its last gasp, and lies still in death, they will all be their own masters, and we may safely count on having four and a half millions of freedmen.

Add to these the nearly five hundred thousand colored men and women who were free before, and we shall have a total colored free population of about five millions; probably not far from one-eighth of the entire population of the Republic. I take it for granted that the stubbornest mind will yield me assent to these two positions concerning themI; viz., they never can be enslaved again, and they never can become non resident.

They do not wish to go anywhere else; we have no right to drive them away; t we could not spare them, nor could they be sent. They will stay here, as a body, some where in our national domain; in some condition that is sub *

National Alnanac for 1863, pp. 308, 310. t See, on this point, the clear reasoning of The African’s Right to Citizenship. Phlliladelphia, 1865.

8vo. pp. 31.

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8 stantially that of free people. The question is, Where, and in what condition? Where? If they are free to go where they choose, one thing is clear: thev wil] not come North, save in rarely exceptional cases. That remarkable report made last year by the commission appointed to inquire into the condition of the free colored people, the ex-slaves, in Canada,*
settles it, on soundest principles, that a rigid climate is intolerant of them; that they can only live and thrive where they would prefer to live and thrive, in those portions of the Union which, in temperature, most nearly resemble their native land. If left to themselves to choose, there can be no doubt that the great majority of them will prefer to live at the South as freemen, where they have so long lived as slaves; where the climate suits thenm;t where they are accustomed to the soil; and where constitutions like theirs are wellnigh indispensable for any successful agriculture. Those tropical cotton-fields, and sugar-plantations, and rice-swamps, where they have for generations delved sadly under the lash, must lie waste, or freedmen must take up the shovel and the hoe with the new elasticity and enthusiasm of a personal interest in their labor,. and beautify them with the joy of harvest. White men cannot do that work as well as they can, if; indeed, they could do it at all. The work needs to be done. The spindles and looms of the world famish for the cotton, and the markets are hungry for the rice and the sugar. There, where they can do what needs to be done, and what they need to do, and long to do, and what the world needs to have them do, is surely the place for them. Let them live at home. The Rebellion has wasted the former white residents.

The entire State of South Carolina - viper’s nest of secession and treason and assassination-had, by the last census, but 1,284 * THE REFUGEES FROM

SLAVERY IN CAxNADA WEST. Repotot to the Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission, by S. G. Howe. Boston: 1864. 8vo. pp. 110. “If slavery is utterly abolished in the United States, no more colored people will emigrate to Canada, and most of those now there will soon leave it. There can be no doubt about this. Among hundreds who spoke about it, only one dissented from the strong expression of desire to go’ home.’ In their belief, too, they agreed with Rev. iMr. Kinnard, one of their clergy, who said to us,‘If freedom is established in the United States, there will be one gy?eat black streak reaching from here to the uttermost parts of the South.’

“-,Rejort (as above), p. S28. tis *1

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9 more white inhabitants than the simple increase of the population of New-York City had been during the ten years then last past; * and, though the proportion of skulks and office-bear. ers (always careful to keep out of longest range of shot and shell) has doubtless been very large there, there can be no doubt, that, if left to the whites, its broad acres would scarcely now average a man to a square mile. Let. then the freedman dwell there and in kindred spots. But in what condition? HERE Providence gives us our alternative, where our volition may come in to affect the result.

We seem to be shut up to the fact, that the negro people are to be here somewhere, and to share our future, - the past settles that; and that they had better do so in the South, -the whole fitness and necessity of things settle that. But when we come to the question, under what auspices, and in what condition, they shall stay there, we approach the field lying open to our sense of what is right and expedient, and ask questions which we are bound to answer with utmost care and honor. The principle which will be our clew out of all perplexity, it seems to me, is simply this: the freedmen should be recognized as men, should be treated as mnen, and should be aided to take care of themselves as men. This once established, all becomes clear. We have now among us about the same number of foreign-born citizens (I do not include, of course, the children of foreign-born parents) as we shall have of freedmen, - say five millions; and a large proportion of these are quite as degraded in character, and as low in all brain-culture, as the blacks: but it has never so much as entered our heads to treat them as if they were not men; on the contrary, we have recognized them as men, and sought to aid them to take care of themselves as such. There are in our land, already, near 40,000 Chinese; near 30,000 Mexicans; near 5,000 Portuguese; as many Spaniards; 500

Islanders from the Pacific, and 150 Turks; who, as classes, would present quite as serious a question as to their suitableness for our citizenship as is presented by the negro class. I am not sure but the low, * The increase of New-York City had been 290,104; the total white population of South Carolina was 291,388. 2

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10 imbruted, Papal part of the two millions now among us, who were born in Ireland, presents a much more serious one; and yet we scarcely have thrown even any delay in the way of their blundering straight uip to the ballot-box with a vote. We are confused on the negro question by the folly of our past. After having allowed the black man for so many years to be sold as a thing, our own consistency seems, in a manner, pledged to deny his manhood. But what say the simple, honest facts? Every one of those physical tests by which the comparative physiologist draws the line between manhood, and that animal life which is less than manhood, leaves the negro on the side of humanity. The ablest and most elaborate of our recent writers on physiology expressly argues that the abnormal peculiarities of negro manhood are due to assignable natural causes.* Dr.

Pickering t has classified eleven distinct races in the human family, two of which are white, three brown, four blackish-brown, and two black. One of the white races, one of the brown, and three of the blackish-brown,-
five others of the eleven,- have hair which is as truly crisped and woolly as that of that black race which we call the negro. So that, if’ we turn the negro out of the human family for his hair, we throw out five other races as well; while, if we throw him out for his color, we throw out another race with him, besides introducing, at least in this country, endless questions of modified color, which we should be bound to accept as indicative of modified manhood. And if we turn to that, in some respects, most convincing branch of this argument of race-affinity which language furnishes, we shall find, in the words of a recent author in this department, I that there is ” nothing to prove the * ” I believe, therefore, that the coloration of the skin, whatever the particular tint may be,- tawny-yellow, olive-red, or black, is connected with the manner in which the liver is discharging its functions…. Having thus traced the coloration of the skin to existing peculiarities of hepatic action, I may repeat the remark already nmade, that it is not improbable, that, in the most degraded negro type, the prognathous form of the skull may be attributed to the same cause. Not that this alone is always the cause; for a prognathous skull can by degrees arise, as we have seen, in any race, even the white, from a variety of causes, such as misery, want, or an oppressed social state.“Draper’s Human Physiology, p. 589. t The aoces of ]fal. p. 2. * Races of t/e Okl WIorld, by Charles L. Brace, p. 310. I

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11 negro radically different from the other families of man, or even mentally inferior to them.”” One of our intelligent New-Englanders,* who has labored as a missionary for fifteen years in one of the most degraded portions of Africa, has recently made public the result of his investigations, experiences, and judgments on this subject, indorsing in the fullest manner the previously published opinion of one of our most accomplished scholars, to this effect: “The Afirican nature possesses a latent capacity fully equal, originally, to that of the Asiatic or the European. Shem and Japhet sprung from the same loins with Ham. God made of one blood those three great races by which he repopulated the globe after the deluge.” t Nor need this be left to be matter of inference merely.

Many names on the world’s list of illustrious men are the nam es of Africans and negroes. Terence, who contests with Cicero and Caesar the palm of a pure Latinity, and whose deep pathos, subtle wit, and rhythmic skill, will make his writings memorable to the end of time, was an African and a slave. Tertullian, who, clothing the most brilliant conceits of a fertile imagination, the most caustic satire, and the most impetuous logic, in language often so uncouth as to be wellnigh barbarous, has yet been almost equally eminent with those who have acknowledged him as a master and those who have branded him as a heretic, was a Carthaginian.

And Augustine, acute, comprehensive, full of life and vigor, whose heart of fire impressed ineffaceably upon the Christian world his theology o f predestination and freewill, was a Numidian. So Tonssaint L’Ouverture, the noble patriot of H’ayti, was a thorough negr o; yet Wordsworth immortalized his greatness in one of his s weetest sonnets, and Whittier apostrophized him thus: ” Everywhere thy name shall be Redeemed from color’s infamy; And men shall learn to speak of thee As one of earth’s great spirits, born In servitude, and nursed in scorn; * Rev. Lewis Grout.

Zulu-land, &c., p. 185. t Prof. W. G. T. Shedd, in Bibliotheca Sacra, xiv.

637.

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12 Casting aside the weary weight And fetters of its low estate, In that strong majesty of soul Which knows no color, tongue, or clime; Which still has spurned the base control Of tyrants through all time.” And who, that knows any thing about the literature of the present day, does not know that Alexandre Dumas, the most fertile, if not the most popular, French writer of the generation,- his daily work averaging thirty-two printed octavo pages, and his income from the pen reaching $12,000 a year,* is of the proscribed blood, with its strongly-marked physical characteristics?

Did you ever hear Frederic Douglass make an argument? and, if you have, did you not feel that you would be making a remunerative bargain if you could exchange your head for his? To be sure, he stands far above the average of his race, or any other, in intellectual ability; but he is a true, thorough negro still: so that. if he is a man, they are men; if they are not men, he is not a man. The negro not a man! After the advantages won for the nation in this struggle by the sagacity of negro pilots, and the intrepid fidelity~of negro guides, and the heroic bravery of negro troops, it is an insult even more to our manliness than to theirs to deny that they are men; humble in culture, in most cases, to be sure, (what should we be if our grandfathers had been Bushmen in Ethiopia, and we had been through their slave-experience?) and, it may be, with a low average of some manly qualities; but still MEN; fit to be trusted and trained to take care of themselves,- fit to be welcomed to dwell by our side, and help bear our burdens and enjoy our triumphs. This being settled once for all and forever, (and does anybodv think God will give us abiding peace, or ought to, until it is settled?) other conclusions will follow readily.

1. They must be provided with a place where they can live as mnen. All men must be somewhere; and if we expect the freedmen to be industrious, and to support themselves and aid us by honest labor, they must have a home. If they are to till * New American Cyclopedia, vi. 666. .I 11

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the soil, they must have the soil to till. If they are to inhabit South Carolina and other portions of the South whose climate and soil are congenial to them, they must have South Carolina and other Southern soil in possession. How shall they get it? Who owns it now? There can be but one answer. By the law of the land, as things were before the Rebellion, 350,000 slavehlolders owned these four and a half millions of negroes,-
now freedmen,and the land which they tilled. When those planters turned traitors to the United States, as ninety-nine in every bundred of them did, they distinctly renounced its protection of their social rights, including that to their deeded lands, and dared its heaviest penalties, in the expectation that they should readily resist its power, and establish a new government of their own, which would take up the defence of those social rights, and more than make them good against all claimants within and all force without. They deceived themselves. They staked all, and have lost all. The majesty of the Government which they despised has swept over them, and they lie prostrate and helpless before it. Thousands of them have fallen in the shock of battle. Those who remain are, or soon will be, fugitives in strange lands, or captives in our hands. Thley no longer own those broad plantations. The title has passed, through their treason and subsequent death, self-banishment, or conquest, into the hands of the nation which they sought to destroy, but which has fallen on them, and ground them to powder. Let the nation now divide this conquered, confiscated territory among the freedmen, by gift, or by sale on suitable terms, with due latitude of time of payment. Let it break up that old feudal, unrepublican monopoly of land in the hands of a few men of enormous wealth, and cut up the plantations into little farms, placing each able-bodied freedmanri in possession of a spot which, under suitable restricions, he can make his own home, and leave to his children after him. The nation has the legal right to do this, as who can question? * It’

* I am, of course, aware that the Constitution (art. iii. sect. 3) expressly provides that ” no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted;” so that, considering this Rebellion purely as an act of treason, the nation would not gain the power of decreeing perpetual forfeiture of rebel lands.

But considered as a civil war, in which the rebels staked all their goods 18

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14 would be an act of beautiful justice, in the sight of God and man, to do it; that the acres which these negroes have been forced, in the old days of unpaid sweat, and stripes, and tears, and blood, to earn, they should now receive. It would be an act of wise forecast for the future; sowing the seeds of loyalty thick along the old furrows of treason. Thtus let them find their homes. 2. Thtey must, for a time, be paternally cared for and aided in their new life. It is wonderful how well they behave, how industrious they are, and with what rapid strides they march up toward some simple learning and some rude independence. But as it would not be a very’prudent thing to turn loose four and a half millions of children to their own care, without any oversight, so these adult children will be the better for some proper fatherly supervision, until they shall become accustomed to the new way. This ought not to be of such a character as to interfere in any manner with the freedmian’s essential freedom: no system of apprenticeship, or similar legacy and reminder of the old slavery, is wise or wanted. So it would be a very poor plan to hire them out (as has been often suggested, and sometimes attempted) to their former masters, if you could find their masters. In the first place, there is too much in sulch a system to remind one of the old slavegang, and overseer with his lash; and in the second place, the genius of our institutions, as I have intimated, frowns upon those large tracts of land in one ownership. It is the old feudal way, unwholesome for a republic. A farm for every laborer, and every laborer for his own farm, is her millennial motto. This one fundamental will cover all the ground. Let the Government lay down the scriptural rule, “If any will not work, neither shall he eat;” leaving alone the industrious neu gro to take care of himself, and move onward and upward by the momentum of the same social forces which carry along the white man; only constraining the exceptional lazy to some honest employ, and furnishing due asylum for those victims of misfortune who are incapable of work, and have no friend and properties, and lost them, the case is different; as the confiscation acts of Congress sufficiently declare. -)r

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to maintain them.* If we can trust the grass to grow, and the trees to blossom and bear fruit, under the bright urgency of the spring and summer sunshine, we can trust the great mass of emancipated negroes to become thrifty farmers and mechanics, and valuable members of the great industrial body, by the natural promptings of opportunity and selfinterest, in the propitious air of freedom. 3. We ought to aid in their education to become intelligent citizens. Unintelligent citizens are a curse to a republic, and a dead weight upon it. These poor fellows, after so many generations of cruelty following ages of African barbarism, must have help in their first endeavors after knowledge. That help they have already proved that they will use well. Never was there such a desire to read and write; never such progress in the rudiments before, as is reported, without exception, from all our schools of contraband(s. So that we have, at once, the allurement of the prospect of almost incredible success, the promptings of philanthropy, the urgency of duty, the iripulse of gratitude for what they have done for us, and the gravest considerations of common safety, to impel us to act promptly, wisely, and sufficiently, in aiding the suddenly fireed negro to know how well to use his sudden freedom. 4. Thefreedman ought to be allowed and encouraged, so soon as his education shalt be suficient, to become a full, voting citizen, without any statutory disability, with the rest of us. That is, all embargoes upon citizenship, founded upon color merely, should be removed by national law. This ought to be done, because it is both right and expedient. It is right, because color has nothing to do with natural prerogatives; as would be palpable at once, if any government were to disfranchise all citizens having light hair and blue eyes, for that ad for no other reason. And it is expedient, because the freedmen will be made more useful members of society by being put into the possession of all their natural rights, and by being stimulated to the best possible standard of attainment and behavior - See a very suggestive and valuable letter from Edward S. Tobey, Esq., of this city, to the editor of the”

Baltimore Clipper,” published in the * Clipper” of 23d Feb., subsequently printed in the “Boston Daily Advertiser,” and (largely) in the “Congregationalist” of 7th April last, in which the question of the freedmen is very ably discussed, and the view hinted at above is elaborated. 15

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16 by the possibility of advancement in proportion to demonstrated ability; because so long as we refuse them the full privileges of citizenship, they being cultured up to them, we make our system inconsistent with itself, and therefore weak; because the experience of New England, which has long allowed colored citizens, under circumstances in many respects unfavorable to them, to vote, has proved the safety and wisdom of such a course; and because the nation will need the votes of these men - sure to be for freedom, and for all that is good for freedom -
to counterlalance other votes, which must be taken account of in the filture; and it cannot afford, with the tremendous possibilities which coming years present of the influx of foreign influence at our polls, to throw away the reenforcement there of these affectionate, loyal, liberty-loving, native Americans. 5. Once more, it is our duty to conquer and abandon our foolish and wicked prejudice against the negro on account of his color. He is a child of God as we are; and God, who made us white, made him black. He cannot help his color; is no more to blame for it than we are for being ugly in features, instead of comely, if we are so; for being short instead of tall, or the reverse. We have a right to our preferences, of course. It is nobody’s business if I think somebody beautiful in whom you see no beauty; if I am fond of the society of some person who has no attraction at all for another. But to set up the single accident of color, as being the one decisive consideration in all questions of social respect; to despise a negro because he is black; to gather up the skirts of your garments from possible contact with him, in the horsecar or in the street, however neat, well-dressed, and gentlemanly he may be; to make him continually feel that you look down upon him, and withdraw from him, and abominate him, for something which he cannot mend, and for which he is not in fault,- this is not high-minded: it is not the way of the true gentleman, of the true lady; it is not the spirit of the Christian; it is not the style of the intelligent and honest republican.

It is the narrow, mean, low-bred impertinence of the person who is afraid to concede that character does not consist in color, lest he should lose his own character in so doing. I

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17 It is, thank God, an impertinence which is almost wholly cotifined to this country, and is one of the legacies of that accursed system of slavery whose virus has contaminated all our affairs. An English drawing-room or a French chateau is unconscious of it.* If we desire to treat our new freedmen and freedwomen rightly before God, we shall rid ourselves of this. We need not marry them, nor give them in marriage; we need not walk arm in arm with them in the streets; we need not prefer them in any respect to our own color,- those are questions regarding social, not political equality: t but we may, and we must, learn to conquer this reasonless repugnance; to respect and honor and love them, in their appropriate place, just as we do our Irish and German i fellowcitizens in their place; and we must recognize their place as being that of full, honorable, republican manhood and womnanhood. This, then, is my answer to the question, what we are now bound, in Christian honor and right, to do in the case of the freedmen: viz., we ought to divide among them the confiscated lands of their late rebel masters; we ought to give them fatherly watchfulness and help in their first occupancy of their little farms; we ought to provide for their education in the rudiments underlying good citizenship; we ought to make them citizens in full, so soon as they are fit for it; and we ought to overcome and abandon that senseless and wicked prejudice, which forever passes them by on the other side, * ” Pev.

S. R. Ward attracted attention in the company as a full-blooded African, -tall enough for a palm-tree. I observed him in conversation with lords, dukes, and ambassadors, sustaining himself modestly, but with self-possession. All who converse with him are satisfied that there is no native difference between the African and other men.- MIrs. Stowe’s Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, ii. 105.., t “Political and social equality are two essentially different states. Political equality exists in this country between individuals of the white race. But neither in this country nor in any other does social equality exist. Nor can it ever exist, unless there occur a charge in the nature of man which now and always has led him to aggregation with those only with whom he holds the same general views, feelings, likings, and desires. Because I advocate the political equality of my white butcher, or baker, or candlestick-maker, does it follow that I should be willing to marry his daughter, or find it agreeable that he should marry mine? Then why should it be represented, as the consequence of maintaining the justice of granting political equality to the blacks, that all who agree with those views should be in favor of amalgamation?

“-The African’s Right to Citizenship, p. 24. ‘N 3

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18 and taboos them everywhere, simply because they differ in color from ourselves. This brings us to our second general question: - II. WHAT OUGHT

OUR NATION TO DO WITH THE REBELS? I am not about to discuss the subject of reconstruction as it affects the old States that went into rebellion, and endeavor to indicate a policy on which they should be brought back: that seems to me rather a question of statesmanship, and the Constitution, and of expediency, than of moral right; and so one which I have no call, as I have no inclination, to consider here. The question of moral right, which I would entel upon, underlies that, and concerns the treatment of the individuals who rebelled, and is prior to all questions about their future relations to the nation. Should they be pardoned? Should they be punished?

And, if so, in what manner, and to what degree? Exactly what are the facts which should shape our answer? What have they (-done, and what is their present status? On the 20th of December, 1860, it having been settled on the 6th day of the previous month that Abraham Lincoln was to be the next President, by a vote of 180 electors against 123 for all others, a convention of the people of South Carolina, of 169 members, passed unanimously an ordinance repealing the act of the 23d of May, 1788, by which the Constitution of the United States had been ratified by the people of that State. Mississippi followed suit, Jan. 9, 1861, by 84 yeas to 15 nays. A convention of the people of Florida took similar action one day later, by a vote of 62 yeas to 7 nays. Alabama reached a vote on her secession ordinance the next day, by 61 yeas to 39 nays. Georgia did likewise, on the 19th of the same month, by 208 yeas to 89 nays. On Jan.

26, Louisiana took similar action, by 103 yeas to 17 nays; and Texas went next, on Feb. 1, by 166 to 7. These seven States met by delegation in convention at Montgomery, Ala., on the 4th February following, and confederated as a new government, electing Jefferson Davis for President, and Alexander H. Stephens for Vice-President. Then Sumter fell, civil war

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19 followed, and Virginia, North Carolina, and other reluctant slave States, were dragged into the vortex of revolution, and their sons swelled the Confederate armies. In every slave State that seceded, except possibly South Carolina and Mississippi, there were individuals of influence and character who were opposed to secession, -in some cases there were many such, - most of whom afterwards succumbed to the ferocious pressure brought to bear upon them; though here and there one has resisted, and been faithful to the Union, to the end. From these facts, it will be obvious that the inhabitants of the States which have been in rebellion may be divided into these five classes; viz.: (a) Decided, influential, and more or less violent traitors from the beginning. (b) Those who were originally doubtful, or even opposed to secession, who yielded to the pressure, and went, at last, warmly into the war against us. (c) Those originally doubtful or opposed to secession, who remained so, or grew bitter against it; but who were compelled, to save their lives, to join the ranks of the traitors, and were driven at the point of the sword and the bayonet to fight against us, their hearts and judgment all the while protesting. (d) The many mostly of the uneducated poor whites -who were deceived by false statements into a willing support of the Rebellion, and have never had the opportunity (as some of them have scarcely the ability) to form an intelligent opinion upon the matters in controversy. (e) The few who have been for the Union through all, who have evaded the conscription, and by flight or concealment, or by some artifice, have managed to avoid bearing arms against us, or giving aid and comfort to our enemies. If the present survivors of these five classes could be dis tinctly separated, so as to be dealt with each by itself; there would be little difficulty in deciding what ought to be each man’s fate. But this, of course, is impossible. The nearest practicable method of approach to absolute justice would seem to be the treatment of what remains of the Southern populations, undcler these three heads: I

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20 (a) Prominent, influential, intelligent traitors from the beginning, choosing treason, and driving the reluctant into it; with all who have shared in the Rebellion, and have not repented of their guilt. (b) All, however they may have entered upon the Rebellion, except its leaders, who are now truly repentant. (c) All who have kept themselves pure and loyal through all, except as outward force may have for a time constrained them.

The latter class should be honored with exceeding honor, and, so far as they are fit for it, should be relied upon; almost without exception, for all important official service to the Government in the near future. Their privations should be borne in mind, and their losses of property compensated from the confiscated estates of the leaders of the Rebellion.

The second class should be forgiven, and, under proper restrictions,- in the case, at least, of all who have borne commissions against us, reaching to a disqualification from voting, or bearing any office of trust and honor, for years to come, should be permitted to resume their old places as co-workers in the peaceful pursuits of their regenerated social system; care being taken to scrutinize the genuineness of their repentance, and especially to insure their fair treatment of all freedmen who may happen to settle by their side.* The first class, who were the rich slavehlolders; the great cotton-ocracy; the politicians; the governors and senators; the disciples of Calhoun, who boasted when South Carolina seceded, as did Barnwell Rhett, that “this was not a thing produced by Mfr. Lincoln’s election, or by the non-execution of The freed people are truly and unreservedly our friends, and they-re almost the only ones. They are more intelligent as a class, and more available as a trustworthy material for citizenship, than I expected to find them. The poor whites whom 1 saw are decidedly inferior to the average of the slave population.

If there is to be for the future a stable basis for loyal States in the South, it must be made up largely of the freed people. It will not do at present to trust the ballot in the hands of the white men who have been rebels, and still are such, under the name and guise of Union men. . O.. f the true spirit and character of many of the pretended Unionists who have taken the oath, the negroes seem to be apparently much better informed than some of our mnilitary officers. Tiey lurk about the city, seeking to injure the cause they still hate. Iincendiarv fires are frequent. -

Special Charleston Correspondence ” New-York Tribune,” April 22, 1865.

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the Fugitive-slave Law,- it is a thing which has been gathering head for thirty years;” and more especially those survivors of the eighty-two Confederate generals who were educated at West Point,t and perjured themselves by turning our own swords and our own science against us; and those ” magnanimous ” Floyds and Lees, who went from the highest places of our counsels to theirs, not forgetting to carry our secrets with them, as they had beforehand sent our guns and treasure; those arch-traitors, who studied treason for years in advance, and reduced it to a science, and gloried in it, - what ought to be done with them? Here we touch the quick of our subject. Let us keep cool, and reason about it as if it were a problem of mathematics. Andy Johnson says that ” robbery is a great crime, and arson is a great crime, and murder is a great crime; but treason is the greatest crime.” It is very common to say that treason is a very great crime, worse than murder; but I do not think it self-evident that it is so, on simple inspection. Thank God, we have had small occasion before to form any practical opinion about treason in this country; and, however great or however small a crime it may be, it has never come home to claim a judgment from us, as murder and arson hlave done. Let us, then, carefully inquire what treason is, that we may form for ourselves some intelligent estimate of the guilt of it, aLnd determine what disposition the public safety (and so the law of right, which protects the public safety) requires should be made of men who are traitors in the first degree. The word came into our language through the old French traison [trahison], from the Latin traditio, and literally signifies “the act of betrayal,” of ”’ treacherous giving-uj); ” and technically, as it is used in our law, it has the sense of ” the act of attempting to overthrow the government to which the offender owes allegiance.” It includes, you will see at once, the two ideas of armed hostility to the Government, and of treacherous hostility,- from within where it is not to be expected, and not from without. It differs from other armed hostility to the Government, as the work of the sneaking Greeley’s American Conflict, page 345. t National Almanac, 1863, p. 690. 21

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assassin, who comes behind and puts his pistol to the back of the head of his unsuspecting victim, differs from fair combat in which both parties are forewarned, and have some real, if not equal, chance. Hence there was exact and discriminating truth in that remark of our new President the other day, when he spoke of treason as the assassination of Government. It follows, of necessity, that treason must be just as much worse than murder, as the murder of a government is worse than the homicide of a single man. So it follows that it is worse than any other crime can be, for this reason: All other crimes take place in the body politic, over which government has power, and so they are amenable to government, and it can punish them but treason rises a step higher, and kills the avenger, and, in so doing, licenses all crime to run riot; for there is no longer any power to restrain it: that power itself is struck down, and there is none to avenge it, or enable it any longer to avenge others. So that the crime of treason, as it were, includes all other crimes, and makes them possible, by taking all restraint out of the ways, and making it impossible to punish them. Or take another view of it. Consider what are the blessings of organized society as compared with anarchy. Consider how much it conduces to human comfort and prosperity for men to dwell together in communities, enjoying each other, aiding each other, and being aided by each other. Consider that such dwelling together is only made possible by Government, which assumes the protection of each man in his own house, and the security of each man in the enjoyment of his owni property. Consider that all which hinders the covetous from the violent seizing of your goods, the man who has a spite against you from burning your house abour’your ears at midnight, the lustful scoundrel from the abuse of your most precious ones, that all which stands between you and yours and murder, robbery, rape, arson, and the whole catalogue of awful deeds which God-forsaken man, in his most diabolical wickedness, can do to his fellow-man, is the Government; the law, which is the voice of Government, saying,” Thou shalt not do these things;” so that, if the Government is overthrown and that voice ceases, you are overthrown, and all these calami 22 iv

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ties are made possible to you; so that, if the Government is murdered, you are liable to be murdered, and there will be none to help you; and your only real safety will be to take your little ones and your goods, and flee to some far, solitary place, where you can reasonably hope to garrison yourself against all miscreant invaders, and there sleep with revolvers and loaded rifles within reach of your outstretched arm, and walk abroad, and work, never knowing but behind the next tree lurks your assassin.

Consider that, between that wellnigh savage state and your present comfort and security, nothing stands but Government, and then remember that the traitor lifts his arm to stab that Government, and let in all these woes upon you; and say if it is not clear to you that treason is as much worse than any other one crime, as all crimes condensed into one are worse than any one. Look at it from still another point of view. Government is an ordinance of God.- “The powers that be are ordained of God.” The civil ruler, Paul says,‘his the minister of God to thee for good.” ” He beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore we must needs be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.” The reason of this divine indorsement and authorization of human government, nay, of this almost adoption of it as a subordinate branch of the divine government, suggests itself in the indispensable relation of it: in the first place, to God’s taste and will, who is a God of order, and not of confusion; in the second place, to human prosperity and happiness, which God desires, and would promote; and in the third’place, to the coming of the kingdom of God, which is the great end for which the world stands. Good morals, education, social culture, piety, churches, missions, general godliness, and peace and joy, all things good, which God loves and longs for here, and which Christ died to procure for man,-are jewels which require setting in the groundwork of a stable, just, civil government, and cannot be without it. Hience it was that the apostle thundered in the ears of the restless if not lawless 23 IN

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East, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers; for there is no power but of God:” and Peter counselled the strangers of Asia Minor, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers.” All legitimate and reasonably just human government being thus adopted of God, and infused by him with a sacredness which makes an offence against it a crime against him, it follows that that highest offence against it, which violently seeks its overthrow, nmust be the highest crime against him of which man is capable, in that range of crimes which pertains to this world. In any and every aspect, then, treason asserts terrible preeminence, - the darkest, deepest, deadliest, most damnable deed possible to human wickedness. How ought such a crime to be punished? If the murderer, in the first degree, of a man, deserves, as God and most men judge, the punishment of death, does the murderer of a nation deserve any less? Can there be any safety to a community with any less? Can there be any dignity to justice with any less? Our American law of treason is very merciful.

Lord Bacon enumerated thirty-three varieties of treason in England in his time;* and the old English punishment of treason, down to the thirtieth year of George the Third,t was horrible: the convict forfeited all his property to the crown; was drawn on a hurdle to the gallows; there hanged; then was cut down, disembowelled, and his entrails bI)urned before life was extinct; and the body was then beheaded and quartered, and the head and quarters stuck upon Temple Bar or Westminster Hall, or some other conspicuous place, until the chances of time, and weather, and the birds, disposed of them! But our fathers, in the Constitution, carefully defined our law of treason, limitimg it to the one simple act of levying war against the nation, proved by two witnesses, or by confession in open court; while Congress, in the exercise of the power given it by the *

Works, xv. 320-322. t Blackstone’s commentaries, 92; Diary of John Evelyn, ii. 840. 24

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25 Constitution, enacted that the punishment of treason shall be simply death by the ordinary means of execution. To apply, now, these principles and facts to the case of the rebels, there is not room for the semblance of a doubt that every man of them who has been in arms against us, or who has adhered to those who have been in arms, and given them aid and comfort,* legally is guilty of treason, and, before the tribunal of public justice, deserves death. Daniel Webster said, on the 28th of May, 1851, in his speech to the young men of Albany, “The act of taking away Shadrach [I take it there is no forgetfulness here who ” Shadrach” vwas] from the public authorities in Boston, and sending him off, was an act of clear treason. I speak this,” he says, “in the hearing of men who are lawyers; I speak it out to the country; I say it everywhere, on my professional reputation. It was treason, and nothing less; that is to say, if men get together, and com bine, and resolve that they will oppose a law of the Government, not in any one case, but in all cases; if they resolve to resist the law, whoever may be attempted to be made the subject of it, and carry that purpose into effect, by resisting the application of the law, in any one case, either by force of arms or force of numbers, that, sir, is treason.”’ t If that was sound reasoning as applied to the North in that case, it is sound reasoning now in the case of almost the entire South. Nobody will, I presume, deny in this case the “overt act,” - that war has actually been levied against the nation. Whence it follows that every soldier, from Gen. Lee down to his humblest camp-follower; every non-combatant who has stood behind the soldiers and ordered and aided them on, from Jefferson Davis and-his Cabinet and his pretended Congress down to the humblest mule-driver who has done his little utmost to help the military power of the Rebellion to crush the nation, is guilty of treason, and legally deserves the halter. * “If war be actually levied, that is, if a )ody of men be actually assembled in arms for the purpose of effecting by force a treasoniaible design, all those who perform any part in the conspiracy, however minute, or however remote themselves firom the scene of action, if actually leagued in the general enterprise, are considered as traitors.”- Duer’s Constitutional Jurisprudence, p. 335. t Works, ii.

577. t Aaron Burr escaped condemnation for treason because no overt act could be proved -Parton’s Life of Aaron Burr, ii. 119-158. 4

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But all of them are not morally guilty, and it is surely safe for us to show mercy to all who have not been intelligent and willing participants in the general overt acts of crime. Those who were deceived into this treason, or who were driven into it, we may safely forgive and reinstate on proof of present loyalty. So too, as I have already said, it will doubtless be safe for us to restore to peaceful residencethough not immediately to full citizenship -the masses of the uneducated and unintelligent rank and file, who, by this time, have bitterly repented of their guilt. The great practical difficulty in the way of all these attempts at reconstruction lies in the fact, that slavery has so barbarized the South, that all the sweet and saving force of truth seems to have perished out of Southern speech, and the solemnity of ai oath to have ceased to be a power over the rebel mind.” Events, continunall y occurring, demonstrate - if I may venture to amentl Hlamlet to suit the case ” That one may swear and swear, and be a villain; At least, I am sure it may be so in Dixie.” Our only safety must be in keeping the power in the hands of those of never-questioned loyalty (with the freedmen), for a time of probation long enough both to win these barbarians gradually to a better mind, and to test the honesty of their professions. We face then, again, the last great question of all: What shall be done with the arch-traitors, who, after plotting thirty years, sprang their mine under our feet, and came so.near to ingulfing in its hideous chasm the temple of our liberty? Legally and morally, they deserve the punishment of death. *

“We talk of human nature as if it belonged to all men. We must look at another character in men; that is, slaveholding nature. It is as malicious as a rattlesnake, as vindictive as a tiger, and as treacherous as the father of lies; it is cruel, it is insolent, it is internal. I knew what it was long ago. I have summered with it, and wintered with it; I have watched it in all its forms; and I tell you there is no living with it on this continent. It is a blessed thing that the loyal people are beginning to see what it is. They will see more of it. My opinion, founded on my knowledge of the heart, is, that, while the first chapter of the war is about to close, another is about to open. Then every one will get a perfect knowledge of this slaveholding nature.” Cairo (Ill.) Correiponi(ent of “New York Tribune,” 18th April (in a letter describing the exultations of the people at the news of the President’s assassination). i 26 -.r

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27 So any competent jurist on earth, so any impartial jury on earth, would pronounce. Is there any sufficient reason why they should not be so punished? (1.) It is pleaded in their behalf, that their act rose to the dignity of a revolution, and so swings clear from the sweep of the penalties of treason. But a revolution is a rebellion. come to its majority. All rebellions begin as treason, as everybody admits; but if one grows broad enough and strong enough successfully to resist, and then to overthrow, the government which it opposes, and goes on to thrust itself into its place, and tread down the old sovereignty under its feet, then it expands and solidifies into a revolution, and, as a revolution, justifies itself, and holds itself harmless from the punishment of treason, because it has annihilated all power of punishment over itself. “Unless crowned by success,” said Judge Woodbury in regard to the Dorr revolt in Rhode Island,-” unless crowned by success, and thus subsequently ratified,” *
rebellions will be punished as treasonable. Mr. Everett defines a revolution as “one of those great movements by which a people, for urgentcauses, introduces [i. e., succeeds in introducing] organic changes in the framework of its government, and materially renovates, or wholly reconstructs, the fabric of its political relations.” t But the rebels had no justifying cause for their revolt, and they have utterly failed in it; so that they have neither gained the dignity nor indemnity of a revolution. Their struggle will go down to the end of time as the great Rebellion of 1861-1865, never as the Revolution of that date; and this plea cannot save their necks. (2.) But, it is urged, there are so many of these rebels, that it would be dreadful to hang them all. It would be a dreadful event. But this fact of number does not modify their desert of hanging. If twenty men break into your house to-night, and murder your sleeping children in cold blood, and are arrested by a superior force in’the act, it would seem very dreadful to punish the whole twenty; but it would be impossi * Writings, ii. 76. t Orations and Speeches, iii. 297. $

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28 ble to give a sound reason for not doing so. See how dangerous, as well as absurd, a precedent you establish for all the future, if you take the ground that one hundred, or one thousand, or ten thousand men, may, with impunity, commit a a crime for which one or two or three of them would be sent straight to the gallows I What a bounty that would be offering for gigantic atrocities and wholesale villanies! There can be neither law nor expediency, least of all genuine benevolence, which must always sacredly consider and promote the greatest good of the greatest number, -in such a procedure. There may be considerations, on the whole, making it inexpedient to execute the extreme penalty of the law on all these miserable men; but that their number ought to stand in the way of their condemnation, cannot for one moment be allowed. (3.) But, it is said, it is bloodthirsty and barbarous to take such ground, and condemn the whole body of these arch-traitors in the first degree. That depends upon circumstances. It would have been denounced by multitudes as a barbarous and bloodthirsty act if Andrew Jackson had arrested and executed John C.

Calhoun as a traitor in the Spring of 1833, as, to the end of his days, he regretted hlie had not done,* - or if President Buchanan had hung the South-Carolina commissioners t when they had the impudence to come to Washington, in December, 1860, to “negotiate ” for South Carolina’s share of the assets of the “late” Union; but if eithercertainly if both -of these things had been done, in all human probability, it would have saved the lives of millions North and South. This Rebellion needs to be so settled up,: that there shall never be another one between now and the day of judgment; and it would be both cheap and humane to * “In his last sickness, he [ General Jackson] declared, that, in reflecting upon his administration, he chiefly regretted that he had not had John C. Calhoun executed fol treason.’ My country,’ said the general,’ would have sustained me in the act, and his fate would have been a warnaing to traitors in’ (ll t,nie to comee.’” Parton’s Life of Andrew Jacksoni, iii.

447. t ” Messrs. R. W. Barnwell, James L. Orr, al(nd x-Govelior Adams, commissioners from the State of South Carolina, reached Washington on the 26th, under instructions to negotiate with the Federal Executive a partition of all the properties and interests of the sovereign and independent State of SoLth Carlolia, in the Union from which she had seceded.” - Greeley’s Ames icon Conflict, i. 411.

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29 hang ten thousand rebels, if that were necessary, to prevent the land from being drenched again, at some future day, with fraternal blood. It must be established, as now, henceforth, and forever, the fundamental principle of this Republic, that the parricide who lifts his hand against its life and sovereignty dies without mercy and without hope; and then we shall have no more rebellions; as, in such a government of the people as ours, there never can be just cause for any, because there can be no grievance which cannot )be redressed in a constitutional manner.

Sufficient severity now, to bequeath that lesson to the future, is the most humane and Christian disposal of the question before us, which the possibilities of the case allow. (4.) But, it is said, it would be an unheard-of thing. So was the Rebellion. The world never saw the like. It was, perhaps, an unheard-of thing to hang thirty-seven Dacotah Indians, on the 26th December, 1862, at Mankato, in Minnesota, for the horrible atrocities of the Sioux massacres,- atrocities well.-nigh as savage and appalling as those of the rebels at Fort Pillow and Andersonville.*

Doubtless it was an unheard-of thing; but, in the feeling that it was just and necessary, it was done. Extraordinary diseases require extraordinary remedies. (5.) But the great _plea against the position which Itake is, that less than the capital condemnation of all these chief traitors for their treason will answer the purpose just as well, and even better. Well, I grant that what we ought to seek is not vengeance for the past, but that justice, with reference to the past, which shall be our security for the future. If it were possible for us to know that amnesty to these rebel chiefs would be just as safe for the nation in coming years as condemning them to be hung for their treason, that would alter the case materially.

But we cannot pierce the future. We have but one-lamp to throw forward light into its dusky recesses, and that is the lamp of expelience and of consequent probability. And, with all proper’respect for the party usually miscalled”Democratic,” I beg to ask how long a time you * See History of the Sioux Wai and.fassacies of 1862 and 1863, by Isaac V. D. Heard, for the sickening details. t

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30 think would elapse, after the resumption by these amnestied rebels of their political place and function, before you would have them scheming in a grand “Democratic” coalition to perturb the State? They are born politicians; they are bred politicians; they are practised and unscrupulous politicians; they know all the secrets of the wires, and can make the people think they see what they don’t see, as cunningly and successfully as Maelzel used to hide his “Director” in his chess-playing ”’ automaton,” while he was turning it round before the audience, and open ing one door after another, and pulling out the drawer, as much as to say, “You see it all; you see there can be no man inside; you see the cranks and the wheels, and the springs (wonderful!) which make it go.”* Can you trust such men back again in their old places in Congress? I hlope, and unto God I pray, that that sky-lifted dome of the Capitol may sink to the utmost centre of the riven earth before the voice of one of those miscreants again wakes its echoes! You would put them on their most solemn oath of allegiance, would you? Yes, and what good would that do with men withwhom perjury has been for four yearsthe habit of daily life? There are no words of solemn swearing before the most high God which they have not already trampled in the mire of their infamous treachery. Drive a nail into rotten wood, and expect it to bear the strain which a spike will bear in an oak; but insult not God nor man with talk of more oaths from these persons. But you think less will answer, because slavery is practically dead, and these rebels will no longer have any temptation to new treason!

That may be, and it may not be. I think they would have slavery again in five years, with Northerr help. But the great question is not in regard to their future conduct so much as the relation of the method of the adjustment of their crime to the cause of’ public justice, here and in other lands, in all coming years. Let them off easy, and you endanger the inference by and by, these popular gov * See Fiske’s Book of the First Amneiican Chess Congress, pp. 423-484; and Wor,ks of the lote E. A. Poe, iv. 346-370.

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31 ernments never punish treason: it is safe to rebel; for, if we succeed, we go in, and all else go out; if we fail, we shall have amnesty, and our risk is thus disproportioned to the possible prize. I have said that treason has not been practical with us in this land. We never had an execution for it against the nation; though poor demented old John Brown was hung for what was alleged to be treason against the State of Virginia.

But we had a trial for treason once, and a condemnation. It was in the presidency of old John Adams, in 1799, in a time of fierce excitement between the Federalists and what were then called the Republicans.*

Congress had levied a direct tax, among other things, on houses, arranged in certain c]asses; and among other means for making that classification was a measurement of the windows. In a portion of Pennsylvania, a violent and insurrectionary hostility, principally among Germans, arose against this, until the officers were compelled to desist from measuring people’s windows preparatory to its collection. Warrants were issued from the District Court against the insurgents, and the marshal arrested some thirty persons; but in the village of Bethlehem he was attacked by an armed party under the leadership of one John Fries, and his prisoners rescued. The President immediately issued a proclamation, the military were called out, and Fries and his accomplices were captured. Fries was tried for treason, and condemned, on the ground that he had constructively levied war against the nation. A flaw was found, however, in the proceedings, andil a new jumy summoned, which, after full hear ing, again condemned Fries, and with him two others. The President consulted his Cabinet. “Painfiul,” was the reply of Col. Pickering, his Secretary of State, “as is the idea of tak ing the life of a man, an opportunity is now presented, in exe cuting the just sentence of the law, to crush that spirit, which, if not overturned and destroyed, may proceed in its career, and overturn the Government.” t John Adams, after long con sideration of the matter, issued to each of the condemned a full pardon. He has given, in a letter written sixteen years * Hildreth’s History of the Urnited States, 2d( Series, ii. 312. t Life and Works of John Adams, i. 573.

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32 after, his reasons for the act. “What good, what example, would have been exhibited to the nation by the execution of three or four obscure, miserable Germans, as ignorant of our language as they were of our laws and the nature and defini tion of treason? - pitiful puppets danced upon the wires of jugglers behind the scene….. Had the mountebanks been in the place of the puppets, mercy would have had a harder struggle to obtain absolution for them…. My judgment was clear that their crime did not amount to treason. They had been guilty of a high-handed riot and rescue, attended with circumstances hot, rash, violent, and dangerous: but all these did not amount to treason; and I thought the officers of the law had been injudicious in indicting them for any crime higher than riot, aggravated by rescue.” * Here, it is too true, was the grand mistake. John Fries was not really guilty of treason; but he had been indicted and twice tried for it, and twice convicted of it: so that John Adams, in pardoning him as an act of personal justice, was in a manner compelled to establish something like an apparent precedent for the non-punishment of treason against the Republic. It would have been hard for poor Fries, but it would probably have been a blessing to the nation, if he had been then hung.

Doubtless his execution would have frowned down in advance subsequent South-Carolina nullification, and the strangling of that at its birth would have stifled this Rebellion in embryo. Judging the probabilities of the future, then, by the facts of the past, it does not seem as if any thing short of the capital condemnation of the unquestionably leading traitors who survive the Rebellion can be safe for the nation. With what face can we ever punish any crime again, if we (d not now punish theirs?

How can we move on, as a nation, with the decree, as a part of our organic law, that treason shall be punished with death, if we do not now execute that lavw? If we do not execute, we must repeal it. And are we prepared officially, deliberately, to take the ground before God and man, that the worst villany -that assassination of gov * Life and Wowks of John Adams, x. 153. I

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33 ernment, which includes all other misdemeanors-shall no longer be considered and treated as a crime in this nation? I am not bloodthirsty; I am not angry; if I know my own heart, I bear no malice even toward those who are starving our poor prisoners to idiocy and death, to the best of their lessening ability, even while I speak, to-day: but, as a moralist and a Christian and a patriot, I protest that there is but just this one answer, -tich in law or equity can be honestly and rightly given to the question, What ought to be done with the* educated, intelligent, influential rebels, whether combatants or non-combatants, in the war that is drawing to its close? It is that which our new President prophetically announced on the floor of the Senate, when, four years ago, he stood in his heroic loyalty solitary and alone among his Southern brethren, and which he has with such ringing emphasis iterated and reiterated during the past eventful week: They should be arrested as traitors, they should be indicted as traitors, they should be tried as traitors, and they should be condemned as traitors! Hiere I part company with Andrew Johnson in word, in order that, as I believe, I may abide with him in spirit. I say they should be condemned to be hung as traitors; I do not say they should all be hung as traitors. I think the ends of public justice may be met with less than that. I would try, and condemn to be hung for treason, every rebel who was registered as colonel, or as of higher rank, in the Confederate army, or was of corresponding prominence in the civil service.

I would hang a selection of a very few of the guiltiest, as an offering to the violated law and our murdered brothers, and a warning to the world and all the future, and then I would let the rest go, - under sentence, with the rope round their necks. I would let them go as Cain went; I would let them go, with the clearest understanding that if they ever touch with their accursed feet this soil of ours again, - without some act of individual amnesty, earned for some far future day by years of penitence and reformation,- that postponed halter shall swing them still! This was what moral right and political justice calmly said ten days ago. Can less be said since that dread fall, when ” I and you and all of us fell down, Whilst bloody treason flourished over us “?

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34 Our martyred nobleman is in his coffin, passing in triumphal, though funereal, march from his place of martyrdom to his sepulture; with such a mourning, in depth of sorrow even more than in breadth of reach over the minds of men, as the world never saw. Well rounded and complete in every gentle virtue and radiant quality; ready for heaven, and having done a work on earth so large and glorious, in a time so short, that he himself might have anticipated fat the end drew near, - we cannot mourn for him.

“Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee, - air, earth, and skies.

There’s not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee: thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.” But let no loyal mind ever, for one moment, forget that treason murdered him. And now shall treason, which before merited the most appalling punishment known to humanity, merit it less, and be amnestied and forgiven? It is impossible. The slavepower has ejected its deadliest venom with its expiring throes. It has admonished us that there is no safety for any thing good and great, so long as it has one breath of being left. The first gun fired at Sumter thundered through the land as an initial alarum. This pistol-shot -jarring the continent more than all columbiads - warns us to rally once again, or all will be lost in the very hour of triumph; warns us that there is, as Bunyan declared, “a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven;” warns us to gain new life for sternest justice out of the stimulus of this new eath. ” No, not in vain he died, not all in vain, Our good, great President! This people’s hands Are linked together in one mighty chain, Drawn tighter still in triple-woven bands To crush the fiends in human masks, whose might We suffer, oh too long! No league, nor truce, Save men with men! The devils we must fight With fire. God wills it in this deed. This use

Wordsworth (Sonnet to Toussaint L’Ouverture), Works, p. 212. II

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35 We draw from the most impious murder done Since Calvary. Rise then, 0
countrymen! Scatter these marsh-light hopes of Union won Through pardoning clemency. Strike, strike again! Draw closer round the foe a girdling flame: We are stabbed whene’er we spare; strike in God’s name! ” Thus, then, I answer our two questions: 1. This is what we ought to do in the case of the freedmen: Give them homes on the confiscated lands of the rebels; aid them in their first occupancy, as they may need; educate them to be intelligent, virtuous, and useful copartners with us in the nation; make them voting citizens in full (every disability of color removed), so soon as they shall have trained themselves for the intelligent discharge of that responsibility; and rid ourselves, at once and forever, of that unchristian and inhuman notion, that essential humanity has any thing to do with the color of the skin. 2. This is what we ought to do in the case of the rebels: Welcome, honor, reward and remunerate, out of the effects of traitors, for their sacrifices, the few who have been faithful among the faithless through all; forgive, and, under suitable restrictions with regard to their conduct toward the freedmen, and with suitable probation as to their resumption of the elective franchise, restore the great mass who were deceived or dragooned into rebellion, or who, rushing hastily into it, have bitterly repented their error; and arrest, try, convict and sentence to be hanged for treason, all prominent surviving rebels, who plotted against us in the old times of Union, stole their education, their arms, much of their treasure, and our secrets, and then perjured themselves and turned against us, and robbed us of our forts and our navy-yards, and have since murdered, and worse than murdered, thousands and tens of thousands of our noblest sons, and at last cowardly assassinated our venerated President, their own kindest friend; hang a few - a half-dozen - of those highest in station and lowest in infamy, in vindication of outraged justice, and in perpetual demonstration to the future that the powers that be in this land are ordained of God, and that the magistrate C. P. Cranch, in ” New York Tribune,” 19th April, 1865.

‘A

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36 bears not the sword in vain; and then dismiss the remainder, fugitives and vagabonds through the world, with halters round their necks, liable to be tightened at the first sheriff’s hand, if they ever dare to pollute our free future with their foul presence! This is what I have to say. Am I wrong? Then point out my error; lead me as a child, by the hand, into the more excellent way: for of all things I most desire, for myself and for you, right action, - God-fearing, God-pleasing action, now. Am I right?

Then act on these principles I Advocate them! Stir up your neighbors to adopt them! Tone up the public mind! Oxygenate the moral atmosphere I Make it impossible to have it otherwise! “The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever!”

*nX mag (00 sabt tDe wieW Ntates of gmtria t

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. A SERMON DELIVERED

BEFORE THE (~tetulbt and tgi slatile tpartmtnts OF THE GOVERNMENT OF

MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE ANNUAL E LECTION, WEDNESDAY, JAN. 4, 1865. BY A. L.

STONE, D. D. B O STON: WRIGHT & POTTER, STATE PRINTERS, No. 4 SPRING LANE.

18 6 5. 0 t I

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SENATE CHAMBER, BOSTON, January 9, 1865. Rev. A. L. STONE: DEAR

SIR,-Pursuant to an Order, unanimously adopted, the undersigned were appointed a Committee to present to you the thanks of the Senate for your able and instructive Discourse, delivered before the Government of the Commonwealth on the 4th inst., and to request a copy of the same for the press. Trusting that it will be both agreeable and convenient for you to comply with the request at an early day, We remain, Very truly yours, HENRY BARSTOW, A. M. IDE, JOSEPH A. POND, Committee. BOSTON, January 16, 1865. GENTLEMEN,-I herewith submit to your disposal the Discourse for which you ask in the name of the Senate, with my grateful acknowledgments for the courtesy of that body, and for your own in communicating their wishes. Very respectfully yours, A. L. STONE. Hon. Messrs. HENRY BARSTOW, A. M. IDE, JOSEPH A. POND, Committee of Senate of Massachusetts.

ftmflntalttof sttst. 0

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gnmmoutaltt of s IN SENATE, January 16, 1865. The Committee, to whom was committed the Order in relation to the Election Sermon, preached before the State Government on the 4th inst., have attended to that duty, and have received a communication from Rev. A. L. STONE, D. D., expressing his acknowledgments for the courtesy of the Senate, accompanied by a copy of the Sermon, and report the accompanying Order. Per order, HENRY BARSTOW.

SENATE, January 17, 1865. Concurred. S. N. GIFFORD, Clerk. IN SENATE, January 16, 1865. ORDERED, That eight thousand copies of the Election Sermon preached before the Government of the Commonwealth, on the 4th inst, be printed for the use of the Legislature. 0 .s

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I I

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SER M O N. ISAIAH, lviii. 12. AND THEY THAT SHALL BE OF THEE SHALL BUILD

THE OLD WASTE PLACES: THOU SHALT RAISE UP THE FOUNDATIONS OF MANY

GENERATIONS; AND THOU SHALT BE CALLED THE REPAIRER OF THE BREACH, THE

RESTORER OF PATHS TO DWELL IN. We cannot to-day, be narrow, and shut our thoughts within the limits of the Commonwealth. TEE TIMES are educating us all into views and sympathies broad as the land. We stand in these hours on an eminence, and our horizon is the borders of the Republic. We are lifted to the dome of our nationality, and our field of vision stretches to the water-line that marks either ocean shore-the blue of the lakes and the blue of the gulf. We cannot name our State, or any State, without thinking at once of our whole country. We are weaned fromn the idea that a State is complete by itself. It is one component part of a Federal Government, held to its sisters by a deathless bond. It is a branch of a living and fruitful vine, in which 0

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND alone it has life and fruitfulness. Except it abide in the vine, we may reverently apply the scripture, it ” is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” Let the stars in the heavens break from their constellations, but let not one on our field of blue, part the chain of celestial gravitation and attempt to shine alone. It shall soon become a ” wandering star,” going out in the blackness of darkness forever.” We belong to a nationa nation living stillfair, and strong, and whole-undivided and indivisible-wearing still on its brow, for all the jealous kingdoms to read, the old familiar inscription, “E pluribus unum”-and girding itself anew for the race of the future. And the question which I desire briefly to discuss to-day, is this: What is the work of Mfassachusetts and of New E ngland in this near future of the whole country? We may say, in the firs place, that the life of New England cannot be dissevered from the national life. There has been in some quarters certain idle and flippant talk in reference to such a readjustment of the national boundaries as should ft 8 i’

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. leave this old Puritan Commonwealth and her five sisters outside the walls of the new confederation. But our connection with the Republic is not a matter of territorial contiguity and geographical lines. Let men run border lines as they please; let them frame ordinances of separation; let them build a Tartar wall between us and the great homestead; neither civil nor material barriers can exile us from the family circle. It were just as possible to separate from the loaf the leaven that made it light and sweet, or from a human life the principles and influences of its early nurture. New England is not a certain limited portion of the national domain-a sharp eastern angle that can be clipt off. No map of the Union gives to the eye her flil and proper extent. No engineering art can explore and project her share of our continental heritage. Her life is ubiquitous in the nation. From her fountain heart the warm arterial currents have circulated through the whole body and flowed out to the remotest extremities. Her sons have gone forth into every habitable place of the broad land. They have carried with them her enterprise, her intelligence, her art, her ingenuity, the pure and ordered life of her homes, the tranquil securities 2 9 i

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND of her law-abiding communities, her system of common schools, academies and colleges, her reverence for the Sabbath, the memory and the love of her household altars and public sanctuaries. Their first harvests as they have occupied and opened up virgin soil have been not what the earth yielded to the hand of tillage;.they sowed first of all, Puritan ideas-the seeds of New England institutions; and that which grew earliest beneath their husbandry has been the transplanted life of their own native hills and valleys. Here are indestructible channels which cannot be closed, and through which the fountained abundance of New England’s fulness has flowed out and is flowing still across the prairies, and along the central valley and through the wilderness and unto the far Pacific coast. New England can no more be divorced from the Union than the maternity of a mother from her children. That maternity is in their form and features; it gives the coloring to cheek and hair; it looks from their eyes, it speaks from their tongues, it runs in their veins, it beats in their hearts. Not even by miracle could it be separated from them.

Separate New England from the Union? Give us back our sons and daughters, more than half a 10 i Ji

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. 11 million of them, from all the homes of the land outside our borders! Give us back our millions of capital that have already changed so much of the western wilderness to a smiling garden; whitened the length of its rivers with the foam of swift steamers, and braided over the land the iron strands of trade and travel; turn back upon us the deep streams of wealth that flow out annually to those granaries of the West for their cereal stores! Give us back the forceful and fruitful words that have gone forth from her press, her pulpit, her rostrum of public oratory, from every platform and every page on which the eloquent lips of her sons have spoken; words that have quickened and controlled the intellectual life of generations, and guided popular movements in every part of the country; this public speech of New England that has gone forth free, and fresh, and vital, as the air of heaven, gather it up and restore it to its authors; separate it from the popular mind and heart, from the principles and the practice of our homebred millions! Give us back the messengers of a pure Gospel that have gone forth at our sending with large self-sacrifice, to plant the banner of the cross in “western wilds,” and bear it on in the very van of our spreading civilization, and with them the i ‘k.

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND churches they have built, and the fair Christian order they have reared amid the outlawry of frontier settlements! Give us back the broad bright river of our charities, that has branched to so many thresholds of suffering through these four tragic years! Give us back the brave blood that has drenched a hundred battle-fields, and reddened the trail of New England feet wherever the armies of the Union have marched!

When all this can be done-when the nation will consent to this-then may men talk about “leaving New England out in the cold.” Till then, her place is in the warm hearts of the people-her life mingled with the life of the nation  one and inseparable.” We have, we may say, in the second place, to kceep New England undegenerate. The greatness of New England’s influence is not so much in what she does, as in what she is. The two go together. When she works, when she speaks, it is the back-ground of character that lends to both their weight. Just as when an individual utters his thoughts-it is not so much what he says as who says it. The chief emphasis of words and of deeds comes from the heart of the doer and the speaker. There is no premium in the 12 f I

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. 13 sphere of moral power, upon idleness, frivolity, and corruption. Both for men and for communities, if we would have the influence pure and strong, these attributes must first be demonstrated in the character. It is when those who speak in the name of New England can say  Look at her,” that their oratory is beyond tongues of flame and words of fire. We have it in charge then to guard the purity and nourish the strength of this homelife. The fountain must be full and clear if the streams are to be pure and copious. We must keep the New England ideal rounded and perfect in her actual. There are some things New England cannot be. She cannot be the granary of the nationa great agricultural producer. A single prairie lot where the horses trot at the plough in one straight furrow of miles before they turn, and where, later, the reapers seem struggling like wrecked mariners in. the wide, tawny harvest sea, “Rari nantes in gurgite vasto,” would swallow as a little morsel all the farming life within our borders. She cannot be a grower of tropical fruits and flowers-breathing from red, ripe lips the fragrance of tropical airs, a tiller of ‘k

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND the vine, the orange, and the olive,-a nurse of pale invalids hurrying from cold coast winds to seek soft bowers and sunny vales. She cannot show in her granite cliffs and rude ravines the yellow, glittering scales to which the greed of all nations should come rushing and tramplinghewing down her hills and turning her peaceful wilds back into the bald desolations of old chaos. But she can be the fountain-head of intelligence for the people, kindling in every little vale and hamlet, for the poorest and humblest, the lights of letters and learning-building on favored heights her tall towers of Science, to scatter their rays afar, -calling to her classic halls the wisest teachers of the day-shedding upon all the paths of her children, from the untiring enginery of her press, the white leaves of daily knowledge and high research, as orchard trees shed the blossoms of spring-as this January sky sheds its snowflakes to-day. She can be the schoolmistress of the land, teaching the alphabet of all good nurture, -leading’er pupils up through the great volumes of wisdom, and quarrying out the massive granite of her thoughts for all intellectual builders. She can be the mother of art and of invention, so that the right hand of all labor, whether of the 4 14 0

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IN THE FUTURE OF’ OUR COUNTRY. mind, the shop, or the field, shall stretch itself out to her for the most facile implements of its craft. She can be the asserter and defender of all humane and noble principles, so that every champion of truth and freedom, every lover of the right and of his fellow-man, shall draw inspiration from her words and strength from her steadfastness. She can especially be the mother and nurse of men. This is her royal staple. The sands of the Cape are barren and rough, and bleak are the Berkshire hills; but the barren sands and the bleak hills grow men. To train the generations of her sons and daughters is the most peculiar work of New England within her borders. She does not put her infants out to nurse. Her generous breasts sucklile all her babes. She is to take each new-born child of every home, and to solve over it this problem: Given a fresh young life, how to conduct it to the noblest manhood, the purest womanhood! From the cradle to the fullest prime-and onward to the chamber of rest-she is to be to this life in all its physical, mental, and moral culture, the institutions that, from first to last, shall develop, mould, and guard it-the atmosphere that shall fill its lungs, and drape it round about, a wise and faithful foster-parent.

Beyond all the newer and I5

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND more unfurnished portions of our country, she is to provide within her rocky portals a nursery for the children of the Republic. There is one word which, more than any other, holds before our thought the whole New England ideal. It is not only a descriptive, but an inspiring word. It leads us back to the presence and the heroisms of our dead fathers. There throb in it the stern, strong pulses of martyr life.

It is keyed to the’music of our early forest temples, in which the Pilgr’imuns worshipped God, “And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang To the anthems of the free.” Oh! that our New England might be, late and forever, what she was at first-PURITAN! Once a word of reproach, veined with sneering irony, History has written it as our proudest eulogy. To keep it unblotted down the ages is our most sacred trust. For this there must be a real, practical, public faith in God. WVe must believe that he is a God nigh at hand, and not afar off. We must not exile him to the seventh heavens-a cold, remote, hazy spectre. There must be with us a reverent sense of his constant presence, and a devout recognition 16 i -,

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. 17 of the mingling of his counsel and his hand in all our private and public affairs. How near he was to our fathers; they walked with him, and talked with him, and questioned his will at every step of life! Their eye sought his, their hand touched his in every strait. We must not be afraid to name him, and avouch him, and appeal to him, in our proclamations, and State papers, and legislative acts, and judicial decisions. We ought to be afraid to leave him out, and to withdraw our public life from the shadow of those tutelar sanctities.

If ever we cease to be here a God-fearing people; if we drift away from the faith of a divine, revealed religion, and its rightful control of human affairs; if we give up the Christian Sabbath as an effete instittition; if we discard the Bible as God’s code of laws for individuals and for States; if we dissociate politics and religion, breaking up the old Puritan bridal, which wedded them, and pronounced over them this nuptial benediction, “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder;” if we make our public days of thanksgiving and of humiliation, mere festive holidays, in which we seek our own pleasure rather than to please and propitiate God; if we divorce thus the voice of the State, the course of law, the decrees of justice, and 3 0 *A

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND the popular life, from the word and authority of God, we shall have emptied our old baptismal name of all its significance,-keeping the form but not the life, the shadow not the substance,-and in that hour and in that act the sceptre of New England’s power will be broken, her crown lost, and her banner that she planted in the wilderness, with its ancient heraldry, ” Christo et ecclesice,” trail dishonored in the dust. Let all of us rather conspire to lift up again the old Puritanic ideal. “It is certain,” declares one of the early New England voices, ” that civil dominion was but the second motive, religion the primary one, with our ancestors in coming hither. … It was not so much their design to establish religion for the benefit of the State, as civil government for the benefit of religion.” Another voice, a century earlier, testified that the fathers “came not hither for the world, or for land, or for traffic; but for religion, and for liberty of conscience in the worship of God, which was their only design.” This sacred interest was first everywhere. As near the law of God as they can be,” was the instruction of the General Court of Massachusetts, in old time, to its committee appoipted to frame laws for the Commonwealth. 18 f i

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. Only in the reproduction and general diffusion of this spirit can we hope to make the New England of the past, the New England of the future, a power and a glory in the land. Looking forward now and beyond our own confines, we may say, in the third place, that it belongs to us to live in and for the future of the whole country.

This, too, is one part of our inheritance from a Puritan ancestry. Our fathers were builders for the future. They lived for all the coming ages.

They laid deep foundations whereon they hoped there might rise, after their day, the walls of a Christian empire, to stand until earth’s ” cloud capt towers” should fall. We are fond of saying, “they builded more grandly than they knew.” Perhaps that is true in respect to the political fabric of which they laid the cornerstone, and the material results that have followed their work. But they had a vision of a spiritual temple that should rise from their humble beginnings, until its dome should span the continent and its arches echo the psalms of meeting and mingling nations.

Foundation-work is congenial to the sons of New England. It runs in our blood to be pioneers of a spreading Christian civilization. 19 i IN

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND We must look forward, for our past is brief. It is kindling and inspiring, but it is yet fresh and new. We have no calendar of hoary centuries, stocked with events and revolutions that have marked off the eras of history, and rich with the spoils of time. Compared with the life of nations and the courses of history, we began but yesterday.

Looking back a glance reaches the starting point. More naturally we turn our gaze forward. Not records, but prophecies, hold our eyes. Untempted to live on the glories of a dead ancestry, we are inspired to do something for our posterity to commemorate. We must look forward, for our ideal is higher than we have reached. We may have been vain and boastful, but none of us can believe that the summit of American greatness has been reached.

The magnificent capabilities of the continent and the adaptation of our forms of life to all possible p r o g r e s s on such a theatre, rebuke our complacency in the past and hold in prospect a sublime goal for which we have yet to gird up our loins and run. We must look forward, because revolution leaves us not a finished task, but only a clear track. Give us peace and victory to-morrow, I 20

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. and it brings us only a vacation from fighting, none from work. Revolution does not create a civilization. It opens the door and ushers it in, if it be prepared. If this revolution of ours succeed fully, it will have helped to rid us of some malign forces in the development of American life-at least, of some incarnations of those forces-it will deliver into our hands a nation saved from crumbling apart; - but what this nation shall be and do, what it shall live for and realize, is a problem that would yet remain. Nations must work as God works on the earth, for something yet beyond and numatured. When they pause and say, this is the limit and con summation of our doing, he will say of each of them, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?” At every stage of progress they must renew their devotion to what is incomplete in the divine scheme for man. Casting off all dead and useless appendages, burning their ships behind them as they touch new shores of discovery and conquest, they must follow hard after the guiding steps that are tracking man’s way to the calm heights of a perfect social state. We may ask, then, in the fourth place, what are the specific tasks to which we are to address 21 i

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND ourselves in working for the future of the whole country? The nearest duty of all is to push this war triumphantly through.

Persistent rebellion is alone responsible for all the blood and treasure it shall yet cost to maintain the supremacy of the government. That supremacy can only be maintained by showing its power to be, as well as its right to be, when both are called in question. Let no sign.of weariness or impatience in the protracted struggle come from us, while a rebel banner taints the air. The length of the war has been absolutely indispensable for the full sense of nationality-the unity and authority of the Federal Government, to enter and possess the hearts of the people-for the radical revolutionizing of the old social system of the South-for the education of the masses up to the political and moral issues of the present hour. Let no voice among us call for peace while treason stands erect and defiant. Let no sigh of complaint freight any wind that blows from the North toward the Capitol. To every fresh call.for men let us give quick, consenting response. The armies that have been marching through the summer and autumn from victory to victory, 22

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. must needs find their ranks thinner; and the final strokes are yet to be delivered. We have to fill the ranks, to stimulate enlisting, to sound the call for volunteers at all the gateways of our hills and in the streets of our towns, to compensate the forsaken tasks of labor’s thrifty hands, to keep a light on the hearth of the absent soldier’s home for his wife and babes, and bread on the board, and “the wolf from the door.” “Fight it through!” Let the press emblazon it, morning and evening. Let the ministry of Him who came to send the sword on earth before his reign of peace, give it voice. Let legislation in town and State give it all helpful, practical endorsement. Let the whole heart of New England give it clear and ringing echo. And here, especially, where the word was first spoken that broke the silent terror of the beginning, let that sound have once more full volume and cheerful tone: “The sons of Massachusetts, to the rescue!” WVe have, of course, a duty of ceaseless vigilance. The transition periods of a nation’s life are perilous crises.

They inaugurate the dynasties of moral forces that are to sway the sceptre for a cycle whose diameter no man call calculate. The fortunes of this nation are in transition now. 23

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24 -THE-WORK OF NEW ENGLAND We have reached the line, sailing on in the Ship of State, and are crossing it into seas unploughed before. In respect to opinions, morals, public leaders, society and institutions, we are leaving the old and entering upon the new. On the other side of this great chasm that separates our past from our future, our national story is to begin afresh our annals to open a new volume. Public sentiment is to be reformed. New banners are to float in the van of national progress. We are to take down and rebuild many a shattered line of our walls of empire. We are to legislate and to act upon novel questions, without precedents. What shall we carry on with us? What shall we leave behind? What new elements shall come in to leaven the whole lump-what old elements shall be extirpated or neutralized? What things vital and precious, the legacy of the past, shall be studiously garnered up? What dead weights shall be thrown off? Who will watch to see that no divine gift of the old’

civilization is dropped outno seed principle of our earlier liberties and evangelisms blown away or smothered no ancient guaranties of public faith and honor and popular privilege weakened or forgotten? Who will scrutinize as carefully the forces that harness i I I/

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. themselves to the onward movement, and make sure that no wanton, profane hand lay hold of the sacred ark of our hopes-that no seed principle of mischief be sown where many hands are scattering grain broadcast-that no insidious attempt to twine around our swelling limbs fetters that shall one day cripple our growth and our free motion, shall prosper? This is precisely the demand that invokes New England intervention. Her weight in the wavering scales of our public destinies is not the weight o f numbers, nor of territorial greatness and promise -nor of political predominance. The centre of political power has forever receded from the East. It will visit no more the Atlantic slope of the Alleghanies. It is crossing meridian after meridian, westward still.

Let it pass. Our moral sceptre remains. It is open to us still to sway the nation b y the force of ideas-to rule through the royalty of principles that can never be discrowned. Let the questions which we have just asked get their clear and authoritative answers in the voice and the attitude of this little sisterhood of commonwealths, and we rule the confederacy still. But we must look well at the foundation of the principles which we attempt to assert and main 4 25 I

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND tain. They must have an unquestionable right of supremacy. They must be royal “jure divino.” They must be no temporary policies and expediencies, but everlasting facts and laws. They must take hold of what is imperishable-have their roots in the very nature of God, and be linked to the car of His omnipotent providence. The divineness of government, the supremacy of law, order imperial, human equality, the inalienable rights of man, intelligence, freedom, law and religion, the four immovable pillars of communal peace and perpetuity; standing by these, holding and teaching this faith, New England will be a power in the Union forever. For these principles, then, she must be jealous with an infinite jealousy in watching the country through this present crisis.

This is the turn of the fever. There must be no negligence nor slumbering now. Every change must be noted. Every pulse must be felt. The slightest aberration is of moment. We must be Argus-eyed,. so that no future disaster shall impeach our vigilance in this critical hour. Another duty of ours concerns the deliverance of this land from the bondage of the past. That deliverance is not yet complete. For one, I am I 26 I

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. restless and anxious until that consummation come. We have been in covenant with a great wrong. We admitted it into partnership with our national life. We awarded it rights and immunities.

It proved itself a fraudulent partner from the beginning, but we were held by the bond. We kept it. There was an inherent incompatibility, but the covenant remained. Through all this time our proper national civilization was not born, but only conceived. Jacob and Esau struggled together in this pregenital strife-never dissociated-the one clasping the other’s heel. It was meant that this land should be a home of liberty and justice, for all God’s creatures to the end of time; that the rights of man should stand and grow here as the old forests of the wilderness had stood and grown, their roots striking deep downward, their tops branching upward to the open, free heaven, their arms intertwining, and the streams of a continent watering their lusty life. There was to be one land on the face of the earth in which political and religious freedom should walk over its length and breadth without let or threat; one where there should be on the body and on the soul no 4 27

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND chain. So our founders builded. So our fathers and mothers suffered, and wrought, and prayed. And the new temple of promise rose fair and stately, and its light streamed afar, and many feet, weary and wounded, hastened thither to rest within this secure asylum. But alas, what shrines were built within! Was there one to a pure faith? Was there another to equal law? Was there a third to maiden Liberty? But what other fourth shrine is that, grim and dark, crowding these three; what grisly demon sat within, usurping place in that fair fellowship? Alas, for the new hope, and the new nation, and the new world! Alas, for our bright western star, so soon turning wan and dim! But God had not joined this compact with evil. His hands were not tied, if ours were. He has a way of annulling covenants with crime. He found the means to shatter our inviolable bond. He sent the earthquake of revolution to shake down the demon shrined in our sacred temple. It stood strong. It had its foundation deep, and had been buttressed with massive masonry. It was clamped and riveted to the temple walls with many a bolt of iron. But the earthquake was stronger yet. It shook and heaved and wrenched apart till it 28 t

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. seemed as though the temple itself would fall. Many said, it will fall. It did, indeed, tremble and rock, and its lights were shivered. But it stands yet, with tower and dome catching the light of earliest and latest day; and the dark shrine is overturned. It lies prostrate and in ruins. Its horrid deity is fallen-like Philistia’s Dagon before the ark-maimbd and broken, with the stump only remaining.

Thus is the bond parted. Thus the covenant ceases. And we have to watch now that no hand rebuilds that demolished shrine; that no malign craft sets up Dagon’s stump again in our great temple. Surely, we have felt the curse of this corroding bond long enough. Shall we ever bow our necks to it again? Shall we suffer any man among men, or any fiend from below, to press its poisonous links into our flesh once more? We have the shattered materials of that dark altar to sweep out of the consecrated temple, the last vestige of that horrid idolatry to banish and bury forever. This work is not yet done. It needs finishing. There are those who would knit again the ruptured strands of the old, rent covenant. Men of New England, legislators of Massachusetts, suffer this never to be! Here, where the m.

ost strenuous voices of the great 29 I

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND reformation have been uttered from the beginning, let them still sound forth, full and clear. You will have to watch against cunning, selfishness, and intrigue; against many a nobler sentiment of mistaken generosity and magnanimity, and lingering reverence for the Constitution as it was -and against that foul monster, fouler and more misshapen than Satan saw sitting portress at the gate of hell-PARTY

SPIRIT. I do not feel safe or at peace, while any legal remnant of this accursed thing clings to us. See to it, that this bondage of the past be utterly and forever doomed. Take you care that this incubus of evil never more throne itself upon our national life. From this last point, we may rise to a higher and more general affirmation. We must see to it, that the whole course of this government, both in its constitutional law, and in its pubic admitnistration, shall be deternmined by strict right and divine principle. Have we or have we not yet learned the lesson, that evil built into the templed life of a people is an element of weakness and corruption in the structure? It may seem to the builders a necessity. The whole work may pause as though there could be no further progress without allowing 30

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. the wrong a place. Admitting it, the walls may go swiftly up, as though vindicating the expediency of the measure, by a success fair and grandand not else possible. But God has taught us that this demonstration is a delusion and a terrible mistake. The columns so reared have to be taken down again; that is the divine teaching. It is not real progress to build in with evil that the work may go swiftly forward.

It goes swiftly to decay. All that is built upon it is lost labor. It cannot stand. While God reigns, nothing propped with wrong shall remain firm. That crumbling support will one day fail, and the superincumbent pile lean to its fall. Nothing but truth and right will stand. There is not a trumpet tone so loud in all history as that which proclaims it now, that our national disaster is the fruit of national crime the issue of mingling evil with the foundations of the republic. Are we not educated yet into the conviction that we must build altogether in righteousness, if we build for posterity anl the golden future? Have we not acquired a conscience yet, in the heart of this American people? Shall we not walk at length by its light, without swerving? 31 w

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND What is God’s idea in a great nation? Merely the better carrying on of commerce and the elaboration of the art of comfortable living? Is it not that it shall stand the noblest representation of the principles of His own supreme government; nay, the actual vice-regency of his sceptre among men; a temple of concrete justice, in which no right shall suffer harm, and no wrong find a shelter?

If in any of its decrees and procedures it contradict his attributes, malign his character and annul his statutes, will he accept it as his ideal, and write upon its front “esto _perpetua?” Will He not write that other sentence in the old Hebrew-m ene, mrne kel, upharsin? We are rebuilding here; we must take better care this time. It should seem enough to say that right is right, -but we must add that right is safety, right is perpetuity, right is immortality. Wrong is death and destruction, wrong is treason and disloyalty. We are taking stern measures with rebellion now. But every seeming patriot who consents to aniy unrighteousness in the reconstructed nation is a more insidious and a more deadly traitor to the Union than any man with arms in his hands in all the rebel hosts. 32

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. In this task of rebuilding, only the most resolute steadfastness, only the most sleepless vigilance will keep evil out. The demand will be incredibly urgent. ” Yield here!” ” Give way there! ” ” Consent to this unimportant compromise and embarrassment will be obviated, and all will go smoothly!” The pinch will be the sorest when rebellion collapses. With the rebels at our feet suing for terms, we shall remember that they were our brothers. All our generous sensibilities will be moved toward them. Our bowels will yearn over them. We shall feel that we cannot be hard with them. We shall be put upon our magnanimity. We shall take them by the hand and lift them tenderly up. We shall be inclined to give. them more than they would have the face to ask. We shall desire to show them that the hand that struck down their parricidal weapons was never a hand of hate,-but of grieved and reluctant justice.

That will be a perilous hour for the constancy of principle. Then, when any voices ask us if the name and in the spirit of fraternal conciliation to welcome the erring and the conquered back with their old properties and relations, including some remnant of the ancient wrong, or some new vicarious wrong, it will be hard to’ resist. There 5 33 p

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND is, of course, a place and a sphere for compromise. We may yield our interest, we may forego advantage, we may waive opinion and preference for peace and harmony; but we have it as the most solemn charge of these years of violence and blood, to yield nothing of righteousness and justice to any demand for any gain so long as the world standeth. It is a part of our work which ought to have distinct and formal mention, to deepen in the hearts of the peo]ple the sentiment of the sacredness of government. There has been in the very nature of our institutions a chronic and growing strain upon this sentiment. Everything in this land tends to the elevation of the individual. We teach that each man, standing erect in the image of his God, is the peer of every other.

We provide for the largest training of the individual. He is a graduate of the schools. He is master of tongue and pen. He is a reader of books. He takes at least a daily newspaper; perhaps he posts himself morning and evening upon all the progress of thought and the chronicle of events. He has his opinions. He embraces, it may be, some system of social and political philosophy. More frequently he holds to tenets and prejudices, which are his own and 34 f

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. unshared. He is the architect of his own fortunes. Every track is free to him. He may aspire hopefully in any direction, and cut for himself steps to any eminence of name, and place, and power. IHe has his own religious training and religious creed, with no State establishment to coerce him into uniformity. He looks up to no man.

He is dependent upon no one. He brooks interference from none. The nation is bristling all over with these individualities, as isolated and distinct, and as sharp as the quills of the “fretful porcupine.” How can these millions of independent thinkers be made to see alike, feel alike, and act alike in the matter of the common supremacy of government? The more intelligent and self-reliant they become, the more complete each separate manhood is, the more difficult the problem grows. How can you make any two or more of such constituents take the same yoke and wear it peacefully together? What but anarchy can come of such diverse and resolute elements? Now if government were something that existed here independently of these self-poised minds, framed for them, laid upon them, with an inherent power to be and to constrain subordination, the 35

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND conditions of the problem were instantly changed.

But with all this independence of thought and opinion, each man is himself clothed with political power. He is a sovereign. There is none above him.

He is himself a maker and administrator of laws. Of these millions of sovereigns how will you make one harmonious, self-consistent, and authori tative sovereignty? Government is their creature, not their monarch. How will you teach them to revere what their hands have made? They will the government into being. If it doesn’t please them they can take it down and set up another. Is it natural that they should fall before it and do it homage? All public officials are their servants, whom they have invested with liveries, and to whom they pay wages. Is it to be expected that they should kiss the feet of their servants? They feel that it is their right and their duty to watch, to criticize and to rebuke these public servants; and in this duty they cheer filly abound. Is this the way to cultivate reverence and submission? How obvious is it that the maintenance of government, and especially the hallowing of its authority over such a constituency of free, intelli gent, independent, and sovereign minds, is one of 36 I

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. those problems concerning which there is always the hazard of an ill-omened issue. Disloyalty and treason, and sympathy with both are the logical inference of this inflated sense of the popular relation to the government of the land. We need to insist upon the divineness of human government. Our children must be taught it from the cradle, that however constituted, “the powers that be are ordained of God.” If men. elect, God crowns. If we lead our rulers to the chair of state, God puts the sceptre into their hands. They become then, not our officials, but His. They are the servants, not of popular caprice, nor the will of majorities, they are the servants of the Throned Justice, the supreme Right. The natural philosophy of government ought to have clearer, more nimpressive, and more constant explication in all the literature that trains the American mind. Our school books, the press, the rostrum, the pulpit, should discuss with more earnestness and more simplicity, the fundamental principles of that philosophy. If men are to dwell together in communities, there must, of course, be social order. The opposite of this is anarchy, chaos. For order there must be law,-equal, impartial, universal law. 37 k

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND For the supremacy of law there must be administrative authority, -the right and the power to institute and enforce law. For the ground of this right, the charter of this authority, we come back again to the will of God, who accepts earthly magistracies as his vicegerents, and clothes them with his own delegated sanctity. There is no land under heaven that so needs the popular demonstration and the constant iteration of these truths as ours. And it is but the nearest inference to add, that there is none where the righteousness of the statute and the purity of the magistrate are more closely connected with the sacredness of the government in the popular heart. Civil enactments, whose inspiration is partisan intrigue, or mercenary favoritism-an unjust ruler, setting up the dynasty of his own passions, prejudices and partialities-a corrupt legislator, writing in the statute book with unclean hands-a magistrate swayed by selfinterest, and purchasable with gold,-these give public contradiction to their divine paternity, and make contempt of government and revolt against law the instinct of all noble natures. So far as the popular faith goes, the legitimacy of civil government, as an ordinance 38 I

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. of Heaven, runs in the channel of purity and equity. For public impression, the proof of divine authorship halts when the divine likeness fails. If we would keep men’s hearts among us loyal to civil authority, and help to make the Supremacy of Law inviolable through the land, we have it in solemn charge to guard the avenues to power from all profane approach, and to exercise the functions of office, legislative and executive, in all honesty and good conscience. I think it is worthy, also, of a moments separate plea, that we utter the sentiments and beliefs of New England in full, clear, unequivocal speech. We must hold fast here to our birthright of free thought and free speech. There is nothing that concerns the honor and progress of the nation, or the rights of humanity, in reference to which it is not our privilege to inquire, to form our conclusions, and to declare them in the hearing of our fellowmen. Every principle, every measure that seeks ascendancy in this land,-every ancient, every fresh founded institution, we have a right to discuss.

Whatever subtle leaven would insinuate itself into the life of the nation-whatever comes to us with the imposing front of precedent and authority, and assumes the prerogative to control our history, we, 39

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND may use our sharpest faculties to search out, and to show forth their nature and their claim. The honest thoughts-the deep convictions-the intense sympathies of our New England hearts, frankly and boldly uttered, have been no mean power in the nation in rectifying public sentiment, undermining the security of wrong, and preparing the national mind for generous and radical progress. There have been those who would have laid a finger of iron on New England’s lips, and silenced her faithful witness. But she keeps her birthright yet. Let her guard it well for the future. Let her maintain her right to question, to, investigate, to form her opinion upon the wisdom and the morality of all that courts the popular suffrage, not as one ambitious to hold a barren sceptre, but earnest to pour her own copious life into the public veins for the health and vigor of the nation’s being. This is one imperial prerogative of New England, one most sacred obligation, to overstep her own boundaries with -the forceful moral influence of her public testimony against all civil and social wrong; her strong protective plea for every imperilled right.

Our numbers are few and our territory small; we have no Valley Stream flowing from our hills through the length of the northern continent. But 40

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. from the pure cool fountains of these moral and intellectual heights we may send forth a ceaseless utterance for truth, right, and liberty,-a deep, broad river, watering all the land.

There will come upon us soon a call to help repeople and resettle a desolate South. There is one symbol of prophecy upon the brow of which we might, write as its most fitting interpretation this word-WAR. It is that ” fourth beast,” that Daniel saw in his night vision, rising out of the “great sea,”-” dreadful, and terrible, and strong, exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue, with the feet of it.” Under these horrid hoofs, many parts of the South have become a waste’more dreary than any untamed wilderness. In the wilderness of savage nature there is nothing suggestive of violence and destruction. But in following the track of an invading army, we walk amid the wreck of what was once fair and blooming order. The fences are gone from the fields once bearing up thrifty tillage and rich harvests.

Granaries and barns have sunk into black heaps of coal and cinder. The lone chimney tells where the peaceful cottage rose. A ranker growth of 6 6

41 6

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND tangled weeds betrays the site of the garden. Rows of stumps recall the once fruitful orchard. The level fields of the farm have been ridged up with earth-works, and ditched with rifle-pits. In the once companionable hamlet not a dweller remains. A house or two may yet be standing above the blackened ruins of its fellows, but without doors or window lights, and with wind and storm sweeping through its dismal chambers. Fragments of household furniture lie scattered around, half embedded in the earth. A schoolhouse or a church at the fork of confluent roads, show in their pierced and shattered walls, how the meeting tides of battle surged around that salient angle. Within, the floor has been rudely cleared, for what purpose many a dull stain on the boards gives testimony.

The public roads lead you to the bank of bridgeless rivers. There are no vehicles of travel remaining, no implements of husbandry, no tools of art.

No flocks nor herds wander in the pastures, no beasts of draft or burden wait for the harness. The narrow, curving level keeps the memorial of the railway; but the sleepers are burned, and the iron twisted into rusty contortions. Civilization must begin again with all her tasks repeated, and these melancholy ghosts haunting the scenes of her old 42

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. triumphs. Immense regions at the South, are thus blighted. The obduracy of rebellion, and rebellion is still obdurate, has brought upon itself this unsparing scourge. It seems to me that this tenacity of purpose with the southern leaders and ruling classes, is of God. It wears the aspect of a judicial decree. It is like the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart, that the whole southern system of life, labor and society may be drowned together in this red sea-and not a vestige of the old malign civilization of that portion of our country, survive these bloody years. Upon such a radical devastation there will come in our new duties, to explore these wastes-to map out the vast territories over which the ploughshare of extermination has been driven-to open up the promise of these fertile and masterless estates to the keen eyes of northern thrift and the hurrying tread of emigrant feet-to Americanize the new busy marches that will soon press, with mightier armies, and with more peaceful weapons-those silent fields -and to send thither the seeds of New England life and institutions, to be scattered broadcast and first of all to occupy the ground. There will be also a work, worthy our best endeavors, to bring up, ennoble and save a degraded 43

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND remnant of southern population. Here all that is generous and charitable, all that is magnanimous and forgiving in the heart of New England, will have free scope. We shall have to show our former enemies how sincerely and truly we can be, and are their friends.

We shall have to bless them in spite of their prejudices and all the depressing weight of their old habits. We shall have to show them how much better we can do for them than they have ever done for themselves. We shall need to parcel out for them new estates-to organize for them home industries-to put into their hands the implements of various work-to help them lift a roof-tree over their heads-to inspire them with hope, diligence, economy, and the ambition for selfimprovement-to set before them on their own soil, the models of our own sweet and comfortable domestic life-to build schoolhouses and churches and send them teachers and preachers, and sift into all their brightning consciousness the light of letters, the issues of the daily press, and-a fresh, healthful, evangelical literature. This grand charity will tax our faith and our self-denial to the utmost for years to come. How many voices will call mournfully to us throughout this bereaved and and desolate South! What fragments of broken 44

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IN THE FUTURE 0O1 OUR COUNTRY. homes will appeal to us! How many wandering fugitives, not knowing on which side the grave their kindred are; houseless, friendless, penniless, with tragic memories behind them and no light of hope before, will wait our coming to bless them with a shelter and renew for them some faint interest in life. Of course the future of the African R?ace in this land, is a problem that will press us as it will press the whole country with its urgent and difficult conditions. This land that has held them in bondage, will have to give them a home. This nation that has been to them a taskmaster, will have to be a foster-parent and a protector. With their restored manhood, they must have such a start in respect to their material interest, and their social prospects, as well as in all that relates to their intellectual, moral, and religious nurture, that the future shall, if possible, if they enter its open door, grandly overpay their sorrowful past. For this full redemption of the emancipated slave, New Elhgland must by wise and unstinted charities, by generous legislation and by all social magnanimities, do her royal share.

This is a glance only at the tasks crowding in upon us in the days that now are and the days that I 45 I

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THIE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND are to come. It covers but a small part of the whole field of our duty to our age and our race. But there is enough in these few specifications to invoke our most strenuous diligence, our loftiest consecration. It rests with us, and those who shall succeed us, to make this New England of ours,by her pure life and steadfast principle, her just laws, beneficent institutions and stainless morals, her clear and commanding utterance for immortal right, her public and private charities, her sense of the grandeur of the ordeal through which this nation and all it involves of hope and promise for man is passing now, and above all her faithful adherence to the original ideal of a Puritan Commonwealth, walking and talking with God, and holding His will everywhere supreme,-an angel of mercy and guidance to our whole land, for this and for all after times. We congratulate the State rather than his Excellency that this occasion signals no retirement from the chair of her chief magistracy. It was not needed for him, for any completeness of personal or official honor, for the very summit of a just and wide fame that the people of Massachusetts should once more with such large consent put the reins of her public affairs into those tried and skilful 46

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IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY. hands. She honors herself most by so placing this high trust. She knows, and beyond her borders the central govenment and the nation know, with what prescient forecast, what timely providence, what hopeful courage, what unquenchable loyalty, what indefatigable diligence, and what thoughtful tenderness her administration at home and abroad has been conducted through these dark days of revolution and conflict. Her internal order and prosperity, her renown in the high places of the field, both the spirit and the comfort of her sons doing brave battle for the sacred flag, her weight in the scale of right on the grave questions of the hour, are the bright record which justifies the inference that she is governed well. If we could spare you, sir, we would give you release from these solemn cares, and follow you with our commemorative gratitude into the peaceful retirement of private life. But in these stern days of work, when our whole New England has so much to do to inaugurate the elect and waiting future, we pile our public burdens upon you once more, and beseech the God of our fathers to give you strength to bear them as worthily in the year to come as in these historic years that have gone.

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THE WORK OF NEW ENGLAND. And may the gentlemen of the Senate, the Council, and the House of Representatives,-called of their fellow citizens to the discharge of duties which would at any time have invoked their best wisdom and highest fidelity, be quickened to discern at what a point they stand in the history and fortunes of the republic, and the lengthening scroll of human progress; and forgetting their own ease and emolument, and rising above every personal and private interest, give to the care of the State, and the honor and safety of the nation in these troubled times, all their heart, and all their soul, and all their mind, and all their strength! And before the term of official duty which opens for you to-day shall have run out, may we be called to join, with all the people of the land, in keeping such a day of public thanksgiving to Almighty God as has never gathered our joy and praise in the past, -over a nation saved, united, free, at peace with itself, with all the world and with the Throne of Infinite Justice and Goodness! 48

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