not discuss dead issues while there are more liv ones than we can manage. In this discussion chief concern is not with slavery, but with the f that grow out of its abolition. I have nothing do with slavery, except only as its facts and iss affect us of to-day. I say "us." I mean the groes and the white people of this whole Nation. am not, in the least degree, responsible for the int duction of African slaves into this country; I not responsible for being born in a slave-hold community; I am not responsible for being b the son of a slave-holder-a man who feared G and "served his generation according to the will God," who never treated a slave unjustly or kindly, and who was followed to his grave (Dece ber 26, 1862) with their loud lamentations. Let be remembered that of the white people of t South who are now suffering so many of the ills slavery, who are now paying, in a hundred ways, fearful a price for the imposition of slavery up the very civil and social institutions under whi they were born--let it be remembered that the m jority of these people never did own slaves. Let be remembered, also, that of those who must no bear the responsibilities of citizenship, who mus now, through a thousand struggles, and against thousand adverse minds, win for their section o the Union what, but for slavery, they would hav inherited--let it be remembered that the majorit

of these men have "come of age" since 1861. And let those men who, so far as their civil life is concerned, were "born free" from the entanglements of slavery, remember, also, that they are not of the past, but of the present and the future; let them remember that God has set them free as well as the negroes, and that now the "truth" should "make them free" altogether and forever.

Again I say, I will not discuss the dead and buried slavery. If slavery must be discussed, there are plenty of people who are masters of the argument; plenty of people who have delight in it. One may, it is to be hoped, in such a country and in such an age as this rejoice that the negroes are "free," without being required, in order to prove his sincerity, to contemn the memory of his fathers, who conscientiously believed that they ought not to be set free. I will neither malign nor contemn the memory of my fathers, for I cannot forget that the Federal Constitution, which not only recognized slavery, but inwrought it into the very bone and fiber and blood of our institutions, was framed nearly one hundred years ago. But I do rejoice in the emancipation of the negroes. To ask a Southern man to denounce the past history of his people, because he recognizes the facts of the present and believes in the possibilities of the coming time, would be as reasonable as to require a son of the Pilgrim Fathers to vindicate his present intolerance

of persecution by declaring Cotton Mather to have been a hypocrite and a villain.

There is no more slavery in our country. The former advocates of slavery-such of them as are still alive, for the majority of them are dead-fully accept emancipation. Let the former advocates of emancipation accept it also, and have done with digging up slavery as an everlasting theme of anniversary orations. It would be just as sensible to denounce George III. on every anniversary of American Independence. Now his Majesty George III. is dead and buried; let him rest. We would suspect one of poverty of intellectual resources if he found himself unable to get through a "Fourth-of-July" speech without making faces and hurling epithets at the poor old king. It is said that the monarchists, when Charles II. was restored to his father's throne, dug up the bones of Cromwell and hung them on Tyburn Hill. It was not statesmanship but passion that did this. True wisdom, to say nothing of magnanimity, would have left his bones in their grave. Even slavery is entitled to its grave. In that grave, for it is very deep, both parties should bury their quarrel, without resurrection.

Slavery is done with. The negroes have been set free once and for all, as every body knows. It is done, and it will never be undone. There are many reasons for this opinion. Three I mention:

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First, If there were any to desire their re-enslavement, they know full well that the might and conscience of the Christian world are against it. There is no fool mad enough to breast a tidal wave that moves with the force of a whole ocean. Secondly, Their re-enslavement is not desired. The few "old masters" who still live-and let it be remembered by just men that most of them are dead-do not desire it. (I have known but one man among the "old masters" who said he wished his slaves again. He said this a few months after Appomattox. In less than twelve months he was elected to office by negro votes!) Thirdly, Every body knows, fully and definitely, that the re-enslavement of these freed negroes cannot, by any possibility, be brought about. One of the wants of our generation is silence on this subject. It is not only true that the Southern people do not desire the re-enslavement of the negroes, but it is true, also, as has been mentioned, that the majority of Southern people never owned slaves, and it is further true, that thousands upon thousands of them never believed in the institution, and they ask on this subject silence. Are they not entitled to ask this much?

I do not claim to have been among those who never believed in slavery. Time was when I did believe in it thoroughly, and when I defended it to the best of my ability. I make no apology for having believed in it. I was taught to believe in it; I