LIBERTY, that most sacred word, without which all other words are vain,
without which, life is worse than death, and men are beasts! I never see
the word Liberty without seeing a halo of glory around it. It is a word
worthy of the lips of a God. Can you realize the fact that only a
few years ago, the most shocking system of slavery--the most
barbarous--existed in our country, and that you and I were bound by
the laws of the United States to stand between a human being and his
liberty? That we were absolutely compelled by law to hand back that
human being to the lash and chain? That by our laws children were
sold from the arms of mothers, wives sold from their husbands? That we
executed our laws with the assistance of bloodhounds, owned and trained
by human bloodhounds fiercer still, and that all this was not only
upheld by politicians, but by the pretended ministers of Christ?
That the pulpit was in partnership with the auction block--that the
bloodhound's bark was only an echo from many of the churches? And that
this was all done under the sacred name of Liberty, by a republican
government that was founded upon the sublime declaration that all men
are equal? This all seems to me like a horrible dream, a nightmare
of terror, a hellish impossibility. And yet, with cheeks glowing and
burning with shame, before the bar of history, we are forced to plead
guilty to this terrible charge. We made a whip-ping-post of the cross
of Christ. It is true that in a great degree we have atoned for this
national crime. Our bravest and our best have been sacrificed. We have
borne the bloody burden of war. The good and the true have been with us,
and the women of the North have won glory imperishable. They robbed war
of half its terrors. Not content with binding the wreath of victory upon
the leader's brow, they bandaged the soldiers' wounds, they nerved the
living, comforted the dying, and smiled upon the great victory through
their tears.
They have consoled the hero's widow and are educating his orphans. They
have erected a monument to enlightened charity to which time can add
only grandeur. There is much, however, to be accomplished still. Slavery
has been abolished, but Progress requires more. We are called upon to
make this a free government in the broadest sense, to give liberty to
all. Standing in the presence of all history, knowing the experience
of mankind, knowing that the earth is covered with countless wrecks of
cruel failures; appealed to by the great army of martyrs and heroes who
have gone before; by the sacred dust filling innumerable graves; by the
memory of our own noble dead; by all the suffering of the past; by all
the hopes for the future; by all the glorious dead and the countless
millions yet to be, I pray, I beseech, I implore the American people
to lay the foundation of the Government upon the principles of eternal
justice. I pray, I beseech, I implore them to take for the corner-stone,
Universal Human Liberty--the stone which has been heretofore rejected
by all the builders of nations. The Government will then stand, and the
swelling dome of the temple will touch the stars.