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AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED IN THE

Central Presbyterian Church,

omoj^oo.

JULY 4th, 1865,

BY THE PASTOR,

REY. FREDERICK T. BROWN, D. D.

CHICAGO :

Jameson & Mobse, Printers, 12 and U La Salle Street.

1865.

AN ADDRESS

DELIVKKED IN THE

Central Presbyterian Cliurch,

GHZICA-G-O,

JULY 4:th, 18(>5,

BY THE PASTOR,

REV. FREDERICK T. BROWJN, D. D.

CHICAGO:

Jameson & Morse, Printers, 12 and 14 La Salle Street.

1865.

The pastor of the (Central Presbyterian Church, believing it to be the duty of the Church to observe this 4th of July, appointed a service for the day. And that it might not conflict with the gene- ral observance of the Day by the Citizens of Chicago, (including his congregation,) appointed the hour of 9 A. M.

The address then delivered is now published by request of Mr. A. H. HoGE, Judge E. S. Williams, Judge Lincoln Clark, Jno. Lyle King, Esq., Hev. John Woodbridge, B. D., John WooDBRiDGE, Jr., Esq.. Messrs. T. M. Jones, R. M. Welch, Walter ]]utler, W. P. Dickinson, A. B. Blaikie, W. W. Chandler, Ada3I Holliday, Capt. Chas. McClure, and others.

ADDRESS.

This is a great day to the American people — the greatest in the history of this nation ; not as the Fourth of July simply, but as this particular Fourth of July. This Fourth of July, (as some one has happily said,) corresponds to the first Fourth of July as the spiritual birth of a man corresponds to his natural birth — the one a birth to a spiritual, holy, eternal life, the other a birth to a natural, corrupt, temporal life. This Fourth of July symbolizes not only the life of the nation, but also its regenerated, enduring life. It has also been compared with three others of its predeces- sors ; the Fourth following the conclusion of the Revo- lutionary War, the Fourth following the adoption of the Federal Constitution, and the Fourth following the peace after the last war with England. But a very short comparison will show that it stands apart from, and is superior to each of these. The Fourth follow- ing the Revolutionary War commemorated, indeed, our national independence, but the nation was small, weak, deeply in debt, and composed of discordant, separate state sovereignties, and its future was dark, uncertain and discouraging. The Fourth following the adoption of the Federal Constitution commemorated the consoli- dated sovereignty of the nation, but the adoption was by a bare and reluctant majority of the popular vote.

and was secured by compromises that wholly satisfied neither Federalists nor Democrats. The Fourth fol- lowing the last war with England commemorated our prowess on the land, and our victories on the sea, but we had not secured the denial of the " right of search " (for which the war was begun), nor any other material advantage, and we were again discordant and bur- dened by an enormous debt. We have but to look at those three days, days of rejoicing and thanksgiving, we admit, and then at this day, to see how much greater this is — how much fuller of joy, and life, and promise. This day commemorates many things, more than I can speak of; the close of war, the return of peace, the consummation of the Union, and things that have been secured b}^ the war and will bear fruit in the peace ; and we should call them to mind to-day for the double purpose of giving God thanks, and learning from them what He would they should teach.

True, there are some citizens of the Republic, the overthrown and dethroned conspirators against its life, and their deluded and vanquished followers, who will npt rejoice to-day ; but their sorrow and humiliation is the measure of our joy and glory; and the day will come when, if not they, their children and children's children, will join with our's in giving thanks to Al- mighty God for the victories and defeats this day commemorates.

And there are others, loyal men and women, who have been made to drink so deeply of the cup of sorrow by the calamities of the war, that they will not find it easy

to rejoice to-day. Selfish sorrow will put in a strong plea for itself, and say, " I do well to sorrow ; what is the nation's gain to my loss?" And even unselfish sorrow cannot so deny nature as not to feel that the joy of this day has been bought at a fearful price — at a price that impoverishes all the rest of this mortal life. Mrs. Browning's womanly tearful song of the patriot Italian mother, both whose boys had been shot fighting for the independence of United Italy, and who could not sing her song of victory in chorus with the rejoicing nation, (though have it otherwise she would not if she could), expresses the feelings of thousands of unselfish loyal American hearts to-day. The fathers and mothers whose idolized sons have been sacrified to maintain, strengthen, and purify this heritage of God — the wives who gave their beloved husbands to see them return no more ; the brothers and sisters whose brothers sleep the sleep of the slain ; the maimed and wounded, the diseased and disabled — these cannot rejoice with unalloyed rejoicing. And in the cups of all who are worthy to be citizens of the Republic, there is to-day one big drop of bitterest bitterness for the foul murder of the most magnanimous, large, and warm hearted man of his age, whom we had learned to love as we love a personal friend, whom we were proud to call the peer of George Washington, whose genial hu- manity, common sense, and obedience to the will of God, were our admiration, and were becoming the world's wonder. We miss him to-day ; we miss his proclamation inviting us to observe this day by national thanksgiving. We feel that something is wanting —

6

there is fin empty seat at our feast at the head of the table, and we hardly dare to look toward it for fear of the tears that will come into our eyes. And yet it is better so. God gave Abraham Lincoln — quaint, home- 1}% manly, faithful, reverential, modest Abraham Lin- coln— the noblest work to do of this nineteenth century, (how many nobler have there been in all the nineteen centuries?) and he did it nobly — did it, hav- ing vowed to God in his closet, on his knees, that he would do it — and then was not, for God took him We miss him, but he is not lost to us, only consecrated, and his death consecrates his work. We will then still take our cup of thanksgiAdng, with this big drop, and with all our drops of bitterness in it, and call upon the name of the Lord.

And is there not something sublime, something al- most divine, in the sight of a people who have suf- fered as this people have, and who still sorrow, and still most sorrow, spontaneously, without proclama- tion, as if moved by one common impulse, rising up to give thanks to Almighty God, and then sitting down at his feet and saj^ing, "Our Heavenly Father, teach us by this sore discipline to be wiser and better children than we were before. Teach us to love truth, mercy, and justice. Teach us to follow thee more closely, to obey thee more implicitly, to see thee more clearly, to love thee more truly. Teach us to feel and to reverence our common brotherhood as thy children, and to look not every one on his own things, but every one also on the things of otliers ?" To nie it

seems so. Aud I thauk God that lie has put it into the hearts of the American people to make this Fourth of July a great Feast Day of joy, gi'atitude and thanksgiving : not by Presidential proclamation, now that our chieftain sleeps, but by the motion of his own Spirit.

I might fill up this hour with one subject, Peace. And, doubtless, the immediate and chief gladness of the day to hundreds of thousands will be peace. The war is over. Our brave "boys" are coming home. The hospitals are closing. The rebel prisons are empty. Swords are beating into plow-shares, and spears into pruning hooks. The voice of the turtle is heard in the land, and the time for the singing of birds has come. O, Peace ! this peace, after a long, bloody, fratratcidal war, is a most blessed thing. But of peace I have nothing more, directly, to say. I will go back, and sjieak of other things.

Less than five years ago, this nation was in a most sad state. Sick unto death, though she knew it not; leprous from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, though she suspected it not. I will prove the truth of this statement under four heads :

1. Slavery. When, in 1787, the Constitution of the United State was adopted, there was but one opinion in the country on the subject of slavery, viz : that it was iniquitous and unprofitable ; unjust to the slave, demoralizing to the master, inimical to free labor, and antagonistic to free institutions. No one thought of defending it, either from the Scriptures

8

or on the ground of political economy. The slave States, especially, were weary of it, and lamented it as a heavy curse. It was the Old Man of the Sea whom they had innocently, or rather, unsuspectingly, taken on their shoulders and now could not shake off. The average price of able-bodied slaves was only from $250 to $300. But, in 1803, Louisiana was purchased, when the price of slaves went up to from $500 to $600, and some began to say, that possibly, after all, the institution might become profitable : but still the moral sentiment of the country was against it. With the acquisition of Florida in 1819, the price of slaves ran up to $800 and $1000, and slavery in the Southern States began to be regarded with de- cided favor ; it was clearly profitable, and some Christian men were found who said, but timidly, it could be proved from the Scriptures that it was a divine institution. Then began in the North the anti-slavery agitation, that has been so misrepresented and abused, in opposition to the pro-slavery change of feelings and teachings in the South, and to bring back the sentiment of the country to what it was in the beginning — the natural, or, if you will, unnatural father of abolitionism was slavery. But the leaven of iniquity continued to work. As new cotton, su- gar and rice fields were opened, slaves increased in value and slavery became more and more profitable. In the older northern slave States, where slave labor was no longer profitable, it was profitable to breed slaves to sell to the more southern States. The aver- age annual income to Virginia from this source, for

9

more than a score of years preceding the rebellion, was from five to ten millions of dollars ; one year, it is reported, running up as high as twenty millions. And as slaves increased in value, and slavery became increasingly profitable, the evidence increased in clearness that the institution was not only beneficent but divine. In 1845 Texas was annexed. The price of slaves went up to $1,500 and $2,000, audit became as clear as proofs from Holy Writ that the institu- tion had the especial favor and protection of God, that to say aught against it was to be a " troubler of Israel," and that to be an abolitionist was to be an infidel.

Thenceforward, for fifteen years, slavery ruled the country. It had but to ask, or rather demand, to receive. It had but to threaten, to be obeyed. Aye, it had but to signify its wish, to obtain. It subsidized the politics, the literature, the social cus- toms, and, to a great extent, the religious and theo- logical faith of the country. It was the one sacred thing that must not be doubted, under penalty of heresy and outlawry ; and that must not be touched, except to caress and bless. When, O, when! since the birth of the Son of man, did any other en- Ughtened Christian people humble themselves so ab- jectly before any other god so ugly and abominable ! But, " clear weather cometh out of the North." A spirit of formidable opposition to these monstrous as- sumptions of slavery was quietly assuming shape. The slg-very propagandists were aware of it, and laid

10

their plans to anticipate it, and frustrate it by break- ing in twain the nation, establishing a great slave empire with one-half of it, and gradually absorbing such portions of the other half as were of most value to them — the great Middle, Western, and North- Western States. And, though these objects were avowed openly and boastfully, so skillfully had they worked poisoning the public mind at the north, that at the commencement of the rebellion, and even after eighteen months of fighting, no effective organiza- tion could have been secured in the loyal States, having for its avowed object to strike down slavery in striking down the rebellion. Even so lately as last November, we saw how deadly was this poison and how subtly it lurked in the veins in the hun- dreds of thousands of votes cast in the loyal States in opposition to the anti-slavery policy of the admin- istration.

2. State Sovereignty. The articles of confedera- tion, adopted in 1778, after trial of nearly ten years, were found defective, mainly from causes originating in the assumed independent sovereignty of the indi- vidual states, forbidding such a coalescence as would make one sovereign organic whole. The convention to frame a constitution for the United States, had for one of its prime objects to remedy this defect. Its aim was to frame a constitution for the United States, (now making one nation,) that should secure the individuality and independence of the separate States, and their union and dependence as one State — as the members

11

of the body are separate and independent members, and are united in the body and make one man. The eye sees for itself, the ear hears for itself, the hand handles for itself : in this sense, each is sovereign and independent. But, in a larger sense, each is dependent on the body from which it takes its life, and all are united to make one perfect whole. The constitution of the man governs the whole man as a unit, and gov- erns each and all the members, that, united, make the man. The aim of the convention was to frame such a constitution for the United States. In its judgment, it was as monstrous in politics to have independent State sovereignty in the Union, as it would be in physiology to have independent member sovereignty in the body. That a State had no more right or power to secede of its own mation from the union, than an eye had to secede of its own motion from the body. The consti- tution framed by the convention was of this sort, after mature deliberation, and a thorough discussion of the mooted points of State and national sover- eignty. It was then submitted to the States for adoption or rejection ; when, in each of them, these mooted questions were again discussed with all the earnestness, eloquence and learning the best minds of the day could bring to bear upon them. And, when all was said that could be said against the constitution, it was adopted by the States in 1787, and became by solemn covenant and agreement the constitution of the United States. Of course simultaneously with this adoption, the independent sovereignty of the States, by their own act of surrender, ceased to exist.

12

But, pari passu, with the change of public opinion in the South touching slavery, beginning with the acquisi- tion of Louisiana in 1803, increasing with the purchase of Florida in 1819, and culminating with the annexation of Texas in 1845, was a change touching the doctrine of State sovereignty : it was, in fact, part of the deep policy of the slavery propagandists to secure their ends with that institution by means of this heresy. Independent State sovereignty was simply the mason's trowel wherewith to build up the tower slaver}^; then to be thrown aside; but of this the people were not told. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Why damage the reputation of your tool till it has done your work ? Wise master builders, after their kind, were those slavery architects. Accordingly, in and out of season, they magnified state pride above national pride — that it was more honorable to be a Georgian, a Virginian, a South Carolinian than an American : and, as sedulously, taught the people the heresy of State sovereignty — that their first allegiance was to their State, their second to the United States ; and that in a conflict of authorities, they must be loyal to their State, disloyal to the United States.

It was an insidious principal of evil ; fair to look upon, beguiling in speech, and appealing strongly to the exclusiveuess and pride of the human heart ; hut in character disorganizing and disintegrating — sap- ping the power, marring the beauty, destroying the life of the fairest and strongest State. Fortunately for the people of Europe, it is one of those devils

10 O

their governments long since cast out. France, as she is, is a power in the world. But France disintegrated to her twenty or thirty original Gaulish Provinces, each an independent sovereignty, each claiming an independent and superior allegiance from its citizens, were nothing. It is something grand to be an Eng- lishman. But, England disintegrated to her original Saxon States, it were not grand to be a Sussex, Essex, or Kentish man. France is a united, absolute sovereignty ; so is England : hence their grandeur and power. As a matter of merely personal pride and pleasure, it may be something to the citizen himself to have been born in Normandy, or Brittany, or Provence, in Essex, Sussex, or Kent; Imt to the world it is nothing. To the world, France comprehends all her provinces, and is greater than them all ; and England compre- hends ail her counties, and is greater than them all. These are obvious truths touching England and France ; they should be just as obvious touching America. It is somethins: 2:rand to be an American. But, America disintegrated to her individual States, each an independent sovereignty, each claiming an independent and superior allegiance from its citizens, it were not grand to be a Pennsylvanian or Virgin- ian, an Illinoisan or a South Carolinian. The Repub- lic of the United States is a power in the world. But a Republic of these disunited States were nothing. State pride within its legitimate bounds is V)oth a good and a pleasant thing. But when (as in the southern States, and in the interests of slaveiy, it did) State pride becomes State sovereignty, and State

14

sovereignty is magnified above National sovereignty, and the citizen is taught that his first and supreme allegiance is to his State, even to rebellion against the United States, then it becomes a monstrous folly, or a monstrous crime, or both. And this very crime and folly was perpetrated against the Republic, in defiance of the Constitution, when eleven States seceded from the Union, and formed the so-called Southern Confederacy.

3. Sectional Alienations. What these aliena- tions were, you know, and you know it was both the policy and the practice of the leaders of public opin- ion in the South to foster, aye, to create them. It is of the nature of slavery to be exclusive, arrogant, domineering, supercilious. In their papers, in public harangues, from the rostrum, from the pulpit, by all manner of ways, the southern people were taught that they were a superior race ; that the grace, beauty, womanliness, bravery, chivalry, manliness of the na- tion were with them. And that the people of the free States (by blood, birth, education, association, labors) were common, vulgar, cowardly, mean-spirited ; that they could be insulted and trampled on with impu- nity ; that association with them was degrading and contaminating, etc., etc., ad nauseum. These were appeals to human pride that could not easily be with- stood by a people who, for the most part, staid at home, had few schools, and read but few books or newspapers. And, if I may judge from what has been reported to me, from what I saw and heard in a

15

somewhat extensive acquaintance in the South previ- ous to the rebellion, and from what has apj)earecl in divers forms during the rebellion, these false glorifica- tions of self, and these lying slanders of others, had ripened to a bountiful harvest.

4. Commercial Corruption. By this I do not mean fraud, nor dishonesty, but the worship of the God Mammon. This worship was confined to no sec- tion, but was common to the whole country. The country was prosperous beyond example. Everything that was touched (in the field, in the shop, in the warehouse, in the manufactory, on the land and on the sea) turned to gold. The very earth was full of gold, or of things that could be converted to gold. Consequently Mammon was the popular God ; he had his temples, his altars, his fragrant incense, his costly offerings, everywhere. Nothing was too good for him, nothing was too costly to sacrifice to him. Of course this was corrupting, and in many ways little suspect- ed. Truth, justice, mercy, righteousness, were com modities bought and sold in the market places, aye, were openly hawked about the streets. Great was God Mammon, and commerce was his prophet.

I repeat, less than five years ago this nation was in a most sad condition. Sick unto death, though she knew it not ; leprous from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot, though she suspected it not. Four fatal diseases had fastened upon her: slavery, independ- ent State sovereignty, sectional alienation, and com- mercial corruption.

16

But how is it to-day touching these tour thiugs 'i Shivery ! what is slavery to-day ? Where is shavery now ? AVho among us are so poor as to do it rever- ence ? We have broken the shackles of caste, pre- judice and dominion, and say of slavery in all the States of the Union : " Cast it out, cast it out, and let its burial be the burial of an ass."

Independent State sovereignty ! where is it to-day? Who will ever hear of it again, now that the rebellion is put down ? Shallow, flimsy, sophistical, treacher- ous, when it had done its wicked work, the rebels themselves treated it with scorn. It worked well to disintegrate the old Republic ; but it did not work well to consolidate the new Confederacy ; and the rebel leaders would none of it. It worked well as a lever to lift the seceding States out of the Union into the Confederacy; but then it was openly disgraced; and the deluded men who had followed the phantom so far were told, "no State may touch that lever now, to lift itself out of the Confederacy, either to independence, or back again into the old Union." Yes, independent State sovereignty among the States of this Union (and with it the right of secession) is dead and buried ; and let all the people say. Amen ! Henceforth the Republic is a unit, an organic whole, a body with its living soul, a sovereign State with absolute powers; our brave boys in blue have settled that question beyond all further controversy. And henceforth the proud l)oast of the citizens of the United States will not be some State name, but the

17

one name that comprehends, and includes, and ccives . their chief worth to all the States — American.

Sectional Alienation. Jefferson Davis, beinp^then in power at Richmond, said : " This war has dng a gulf, broad and deep, and filled it with blood, between the North and the South, that can never be crossed, at least not by us to come to you." I do not believe it. I have read too much history, too much of the history of the fratricidal wars of other nations, Jews, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, when brother plundered a brother's heritage and shed a brother's blood, and then forgot, and forgave, and loved as before, to have any faith in declarations of eternal hatred and separation by alienated brethren of the same nation. And the facts in this history of ours are, that the alienations existed before the war, and that the war broke them down, or at least under- mined them. Studied, malignant, persevering misre- presentation had embittered the southern people against the people of the north. But the war l)rought them together, and then it got to be known through- out the rebel States that they were not fighting with mean-spirited wretches, cqarse, vulgar, cruel, and cowardly ; but with a brave, intelligent, magnanimous people, who harbored no malice, but who knew their rights, and knowing, dared maintain them. And as we are one people, (in blood and birth,) and were made to differ so far as we do by an accursM institu- tion and malignant misrepresentation, it will be clear

contrary to nature (now that institution is destroyed,

3

18

, now we know each other as we are, now the war is over, and when the makers of the mischief are hung, or imprisoned, or transported, or put under ban,) if the people themselves do not come together, to walk and work, to praise and pray as brethren.

CoMMEKCiAL CORRUPTION. Mammon still has his temples, altars, sacrifices, worshippers. But Mammon is not (as five years ago he was) the God of this na- tion. We have learned that there is something better than money, and something to do better than to make money. Look at the men, of her best men, this na- tion gave to maintain the Union. Look at the blood so cheerfully shed in that behalf. Look at the fathers and mothers who gave their darling sons, and the wives who gave their beloved husbands, and the strong life-loving men who gave themselves. Look at the money given in ways almost without number, and in amounts almost beyond computation. And look at the steadfast, unflinching determination, in many a dark hour, that looked the worst in the face and simply said: "cost yet what it may, this work must be done, and thoroughly done." Aye, the war wiped the reproach of this form of commercial corruption away from this nation.

To-day, then, as on no previous fourth of July, we are a free people ; four millions of colored people, aud twenty-seven millions of wliite people are stripped of their Shackles and stand up together before the world freemen. And the nation is one ; one and indi. visible in its majestic sovereignty. And we do now,

19

more than ever before, and shall yet, more and more, respect and love one another as brethren. And we have learned in the furnace of affliction to hold the finest yellow gold but as dross in comparison witli patriotism, philanthropy, benevolence, liberty, and duty to God and man. These things make this a high day, the first and greatest of all days to this nation. And these are not all.

The nation is stronger than she was before the war. The wastage of the war in men in the loyal States has been made up by emigration. The wastage in material has been more than made up by the in- creased energies and developed industries of the people. She is more respected by other nations; Europe has looked in wonder and alarm at the resources and powers of the nation brought into use in and by the war. There is not in all Europe so effective an army or navy as we had when the war ended; and both were improvised in less than four years, and could be called together again and put upon a fresh war foot- ing, if necessary, with magnical celerity.

She has tested and proved her republican institu- tions— tested them to carry on a war, tested them during a war, tested them by elections. State and Na- tional, in time of war, tested them by disbanding her forces at the close of the war, tested them, in these and other ways, more severely than any monarchy of modern times has been tested or could stand testing, and triumphantly proved them. What was theory, is now demonstrated truth.

20

She is now free to develop lier unparalleled and magnificent resources. When I look at Virginia (desolate and poor), and think of what God made her, (of her noble bays and rivers, her rich valleys and uplands, her beautiful mountains, her extensive forests, her unrivalled water powers, her inexhaustible mines of coal and iron,) and then compare her with Pennsylvania, or New York, so rich, so populous, so prosperous — when I look at Kentucky, by nature the garden of the West, and compare her as she is, (her cities, her population, her schools, her agricul- ture, her manufactures,) with Ohio or Illinois, and seeing the marvellous and humiliating contrasts, ask, "Whence is this f I am answered, "One word, slavery, will tell you the whole tale." While I lived in Georgetown, I loved to climb the Heights and look down upon that scene of almost magical beauty spreading away from my feet. But I wondered to see so little life. " Why," I asked, " are not these undulating hills covered with cottages and ^nl- jas? Why is not the old town slumbering below a city of a hundred thousand souls? Why is not that rapid river off to my right crowded for miles and miles up toward the coal fields with manufactories ? Why is not that broad beauti- ful sweep of water before me swarming with merchant vessels from all parts of the world ? Why do I not hear the shriek of the locomotive and see the swiftly-moving trains of cars coming from the North, the South, the East, and the West ?" I asked these questions, and got for my answer, Slavery.

21

Aye, slavery, wlierever it has its home, blasts like the mildew, paralyses like the palsy, kills like the plague. But slavery is dead. The bloody hand of war, striking down the slave holders' rebellion, struck down also slavery. And the country, the whole country, is open for the development, by free, paid, joyful labor, of her unparalleled and magnificent re. sources. Standing in this day, as in a gate-way, and looking forward into the future, east and west, north and south, over the domain of this regenerated Re- public, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf, a vision of beauty, prosperity, wealth, power, intelligence, happiness, rises before me such as the sun shines upon nowhere else in the world. Such as is possible, perhaps, only here, and in these conditions in all the world. I see it, I be- lieve it. I have faith to believe it both possible and true.

But what of our duties? They are many. I will speak of but two ; both so obvious and so great that I dare not pass them by, and also so comprehen- sive that they include a multitude of others.

One of these is, to seek to attain to some true apprehension of our position and responsibilities as citizens of this regenerated Christian nation. I am not conscious of any inclination to vain-glorious boasting concerning this thing, or any disposition to magnify the Republic above what she is. But as I see her, she occupies the proudest and most command- ing position of any nation in the world, and has in

22

her possession, to be dispensed, more gifts and bless- ings than all the combined Christian nations of the earth. In these respects she stands alone in the midst of the nations as the almoner of God's great bounty, in things temporal and things spiritual. I know of nothing, I can conceive nothing, that man can have to use, for himself, for others, for God, that he may not have here. Home, position, education, influence, religion ; every door to every good thing, to every best thing, stands wide open. And we, the citizens of the Republic, are the possessors, and must be the conservators and perpetuators of these things. Do we see this? Do we feel it? Do we appreciate it? Time was, more than two thousand years ago, in Palestine, when the Jew, in a restricted sense, stood toward all the rest of the world where we stand now. Did he understand his position ? Perhaps not. Was he faithful ? Perhaps not. But shall not we under- stand, and be faithful ? I love my country, and I see such a future before her, if her children are wise, faithful and God-fearing, as makes me well nigh sick with intense joy.

The other is, to deal justly by the people whom God has brought out of bondage. The cause of the oppressed is God's cause, always, and everywhere. If at this time we would have God on our side, we must be on the side of these for whom He has bared His right arm. They are His children — His, because He is the common Father of all men, and His, be- cause an unusually large portion of them are of the

redeemed by Jesus Christ. When it was darkest with us during our fearful struggle, they had light always in their dwellings. When we hardly knew where to look for help, their faith had hold of the arm that rules the world. And I cannot doubt that our triumph was largely due to the Mth and prayers of those who were ever true as steel to us, and who trusted God with the unquestioning trust of a child in its father. And you will remember how God held us back from victory, and chastened us, and demanded of us sacrifice after sacrifice, till we were willing to say, "The enslaved shall be free." But we must do more than this. We must do for them and give to them all that is included in bein^ freemen in such a Republic. I know they are degraded. I know they are ignorant. I know them as they are from actual contact and association with them. But I know, also, that they are true, honest, faithful, capable, and that every breath they breathe is instinct with the very spirit of our re- publican institutions. Can we stand in doubt of such men ? Can we be unjust to such men ? Before God, no. We must take them by the hand, and lift them up, and lead them on, and give them whatever we claim of right for ourselves. Till we do this we our- selves are slaves, to caste, to color, to prejudice, as five years ago we were slaves to slavery itself. These four millions of colored people are not, as a whole, more ig- norant or degraded than were the two millions of Hebrews who followed Moses out of Egypt into the desert, and they are far more docile and tractable, and far less opinionated and rebellious ; but they, by

24

the exercise of freedom, became worthy to be free- men. These are worthy now, have made full proof of their worthiness by uncommon sagacity, unflinch- ing fidelity, and unsurpassed bravery. It is their right, then, to be put in possession of all their rights as freemen ; and we cannot deny them this without trampling upon the fundamental prin- ciples of the Republic and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

H ^^ 89

MtCKMAN

BINDERY INC.

W^f^ N. MANCHESTER, '^ ".

INDIANA 46962 J ^

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