Are we so mean, so base, so despicable, that we may not attempt to
express our horror, utter our indignation, at the most brutal and
atrocious war that ever stained earth or shocked high Heaven? at the
ferocious deeds of a savage and infuriated soldiery, stimulated and
urged on by the clergy of a fanatical and inimical religion, and rioting
in all the excesses of blood and butchery, at the mere details of which
the heart sickens and recoils?
If the great body of Christendom can look on calmly and coolly while all
this is perpetrated on a Christian people, in its own immediate
vicinity, in its very presence, let us at least evince that one of its
remote extremities is susceptible of sensibility to Christian wrongs,
and capable of sympathy for Christian sufferings; that in this remote
quarter of the world there are hearts not yet closed against compassion
for human woes, that can pour out their indignant feelings at the
oppression of a people endeared to us by every ancient recollection and
every modern tie. Sir, attempts have been made to alarm the committee
by the dangers to our commerce in the Mediterranean; and a wretched
invoice of figs and opium has been spread before us to repress our
sensibilities and to eradicate our humanity. Ah, sir! "What shall it
profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" or what
shall it avail a nation to save the whole of a miserable trade and lose
its liberties?