MR. CHAIRMAN, LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN:--It is hard to follow an
address of such extraordinary beauty, simplicity and power; but
it now becomes my duty at your command, sir, to move an address
of hearty congratulation to our distinguished guest, William
Lloyd Garrison. (Cheers.) Sir, this country is from time to time
honored by the presence of many distinguished, and of a few
illustrious men; but for the most part we are contented to
receive them with that private cordiality and hospitality with
which, I trust, we shall always receive strangers who visit our
shores. The people of this country are not pre-eminently an
emotional people; they are not naturally fond of public
demonstrations; and it is only upon rare occasions that we give,
or can give, such a reception as that we see here this day.
There must be something peculiar in the cause which a man has
served, in the service which he has rendered, and in our own
relations with the people whom he represents, to justify or to
account for such a reception. (Hear, hear.) As regards the
cause, it is not too much to say that the cause of negro
emancipation in the United States of America has been the
greatest cause which, in ancient or in modern times, has been
pleaded at the bar of the moral judgment of mankind. (Cheers.) I
know that to some this will sound as the language of exaggerated
feeling; but I can only say that I have expressed myself in
language which I believe conveys the literal truth. (Hear,
hear.)
I have, indeed, often heard it said in deprecation of the amount
of interest which was bestowed in this country on the cause of
negro emancipation in America, that we are apt to forget the
forms of suffering which are immediately at our own doors, over
which we have some control, and to express exaggerated feeling
as to the forms of suffering with which we have nothing to do,
and for which we are not responsible. I have never objected to
that language in so far as it might tend to recall us to the
duties which lie immediately around us, and in so far as it
might tend to make us feel the forgetfulness of which we are
sometimes guilty, of the misery and poverty in our own country;
but, on the other hand, I will never admit, for I think it would
be confounding great moral distinctions, that the miseries which
arise by way of natural consequence out of the poverty and the
vices of mankind, are to be compared with those miseries which
are the direct result of positive law and of a positive
institution, giving to man property in man. (Loud cheers.) It is
true, also, that there have been forms of servitude, meaning
thereby compulsory labor, against which we do not entertain the
same feelings of hostility and horror with which we have
regarded slavery in America.
* * * * *
It was a system of which it may be truly said, that it was twice
cursed. It cursed him who served, and it cursed him that owned
the slave. (Hear, hear.) When we recollect the insuperable
temptations which that system held out to maintain in a state of
degradation and ignorance a whole race of mankind; the horrors
of the internal slave-trade, more widely demoralizing, in my
opinion, than the foreign slave-trade itself; the violence which
was done to the sanctities of domestic life; the corrupting
effect which it was having upon the very churches of
Christianity, when we recollect all these things, we can fully
estimate the evil from which my distinguished friend and his
coadjutors have at last redeemed their country. (Cheers.) It was
not only the Slave states which were concerned in the guilt of
slavery; it had struck its roots deep in the free States of
North America. * * *
We honor Mr. Garrison, in the first place, for the immense pluck
and courage he displayed. (Cheers.) Sir, you have truly said
that there is no comparison between the contests in which he had
to fight and the most bitter contests of our own public life. In
looking back, no doubt, to the contest which was maintained in
this country some thirty-five years ago against slavery in our
colonies, we may recollect that Clarkson and Wilberforce were
denounced as fanatics, and had to encounter much opprobrium; but
it must not be forgotten that, so far as regards the entwining
of the roots of slavery into the social system, in the opinions
and interests of mankind, there was no comparison whatever
between the circumstances of that contest here and those which
attended it in America. (Hear, hear.) The number of persons who
in this country were enlisted on the side of slavery by personal
interest was always comparatively few; whilst, in attacking
slavery at its head-quarters in the United States, Mr. Garrison
had to encounter the fiercest passions which could be roused. *
* * *
Thank God, Mr. Garrison appears before us as the representative
of the United States; freedom is now the policy of the
government and the assured policy of the country, and we can
to-day accept and welcome Mr. Garrison, not merely as the
liberator of the slaves, but as the representative also of the
American Government. (Cheers.) * * * *