I HAVE thus endeavored to show you some of the effects of slavery, and
to prove to you that a step in order to be in the direction of progress
must be in the direction of freedom; that slavery either of body or mind
is barbarism and is practiced and defended only by infamous tyrants or
their dupes. I have endeavored to point out some of the causes of
the abolition of slavery, both of body and mind. There is one truth,
however, that you must not forget, and that is, that every evil tends
to correct and abolish itself. I believe, however, that the diffusion
of knowledge, more than everything else combined, has ameliorated the
condition of mankind. When there was no freedom of speech and no press,
then every idea perished in the brain that gave it birth. One man could
not profit by the thought of another. The experience of the past was
in a great degree unknown. And this state of things produced the same
effect in the mental world, that confining all the water to the springs
would in the physical. Confine the water to the springs, the rivulets
would cease to murmur, the rivers to flow, and the ocean itself would
become a desert of sand. But with the invention of printing, ideas began
to circulate, born of the busy brain of the million--little rivulets of
facts running into rivers of information, and they all flowing into the
great ocean of human knowledge.
This exchange of ideas, this comparison of thought, has given to each
generation the advantage of all the past. This, more than all else, has
enabled man to improve his condition. It is by this that from the log
or piece of bark on which a naked savage floated, we have by successive
improvements created a man-of-war carrying a hundred guns and miles
of canvas. By these means we have changed a handful of sand into a
telescope. In the hands of science a drop of water has become a giant,
turning with swift and tireless arm the countless wheels. The sun has
become an artist painting with shining beams the very thoughts within
our eyes. The elements have been taught to do our bidding, and the
electric spark, freighted with human thought and love, defies distance,
and devours time as it sweeps under all the waves of the sea.
These are some of the results of free thought and free labor. I have
barely alluded to a few--where is improvement to stop? Science is only
in its infancy. It has accomplished all this and is in its cradle still.
We are standing on the shore of an infinite ocean whose countless waves,
freighted with blessings, are welcoming our adventurous feet. Progress
has been written on every soul. The human race is advancing.
Forward, oh sublime army of progress, forward until law is justice,
forward until ignorance is unknown, forward while there is a spiritual
or temporal throne, forward until superstition is a forgotten dream,
forward until the world is free, forward until human reason, clothed in
the purple of authority, is king of kings.