the ultimate fate of this bill I cannot pretend to decide. That some measure, however, substantially embodying its provisions, will receive the sanction of Congress, I have no doubt. This may not happen at the present session, but its postponement cannot be far in the future. The policy of making the public lands free will prevail, because, as I believe, the people have willed it, and their will cannot return to them void. It will prevail, because it appeals to the American pocket, and at the same time to the American heart. It will prevail, because, like the question of cheap postage, it comes home to the business and bosoms of the million, and lays humanity under contribution to its success. It will prevail, because it appeals to the democratic idea of the nation, and promises to make effective the right of the people to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Great names, eminent statesmen, are ranging themselves among its advocates; but my reliance is upon the intelligence and integrity of the people, -upon the agricultural, mechanical, and laboring masses of the country. Politicians may denounce and revile it; they may brand it as "agrarianism,” and demagogism," but they will be powerless to stay its progress, or prevent its final triumph. It is incarnate in the popular heart; it rests upon the immutable principles of justice; it forms an important part of the great reform movement of the - a link in the chain of the world's progress; it is in harmony with "the power that moves the stars, and heaves the pulses of the deep."

66

age,

THE

STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF THE SLAVE POWER THE DUTY OF ANTI-SLAVERY MEN.

DELIVERED IN CINCINNATI, APRIL 27, 1852.

[This speech, delivered a few weeks before the National Conventions of the Whig and Democratic parties for 1852 were held, fitly deals with these organizations, and arraigns them as alike the allies of slavery. Its picture of the Free and Slave Power of the nation is well drawn, while its discussion of the morality of political action, and the relations of the Church to Slavery, give it an exceptional character as a political speech.]

MR. PRESIDENT, -In obedience to the call of our anti-slavery friends in this city, we have assembled from various sections of the country to consider what more can be done for the three millions of slaves in these United States; what new labors and sacrifices the crisis demands at our hands; and we desire, at all events, to lift up our voices in continued rebuke of the transcendent and overshadowing iniquity of this nation.

The free power of the United States on the one hand, and the slave power on the other, are the parties to the great struggle in which we are engaged; and I propose, in the outset, to glance at the position and relative strength of these contending forces, and thence to deduce such conclusions as facts may warrant, bearing upon the question of present duty.

What do we understand by the slave power of this country? It is embodied, primarily, in the slaveholders of the country, numbering, say two hundred and fifty thousand, making a liberal estimate, and many of these are women and minors. The entire white population of the slave States, according to the late census, is six millions one hundred and sixty-nine thousand four hundred and thirty-eight. The slaveholders, therefore, constitute only about one twenty-fifth of this number, or in other words, for every slaveholder there are twenty-five non-slaveholders, or twenty-four twenty-fifths of the people having no direct connection with slavery. If we include the whole population of the South, white and colored, bond and free, the slaveholders will only amount to about one fortieth of the aggregate, thirty-nine fortieths of the whole being non-slaveholders. If we take into the calculation the entire present population of the Union, setting it down in round

numbers at twenty-five millions (which cannot be very far from the truth), the slaveholders will constitute only the one hundredth part of the same, leaving ninety-nine hundredths non-slaveholders, and deeply interested, socially, morally, and politically, in the overthrow of the peculiar institution.

Here then, in this small fraction of the people of the country, the slave power is lodged. This is the terrible presence before which our politicians and priests bend their cowardly backs, and seemingly glory in the abjectness of their humiliation. I am now talking about the weakness, the apparent insignificance of this wicked and domineering oligarchy. I shall speak of its strength presently. Look, if you please, at the forces which stand opposed to this squad of despots. First, I mention the three millions and more whom they hold in bondage, and who, of course, are opposed from the very depths of their hearts to the system under which they suffer. Denied that principle of everlasting justice, a fair day's wages for a fair day's work, sold like merchandise to the highest bidder, despoiled of their dearest rights and the holiest relations of life, and plundered even of their humanity by law, is it not inevitable that they are brooding in secret over their wrongs, and nursing in their bosoms long-cherished, deep-seated, and implacable hatred of the rule of their tyrants? Let no man regard lightly, either the moral or physical power of such a people; for every ray of light which dawns upon their minds, every kindling passion which fires their hearts, is the sure prophecy of their deliverance. Well may the slaveholder tremble, when he reflects that "God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever."

Next, let us remember, that these slaveholders have to struggle against a rapidly augmenting dislike of their institution among the millions of their own race in the South, who hold no slaves. Multitudes of these feel that they are crushed to the earth by this heartless aristocracy, degraded to a condition which slaves themselves need not envy, and that all hope of bettering their lot is denied them, so long as the reigning order of things continues. This hostility to slavery will increase just in proportion as its hands are strengthened and its exactions multiplied, thus hastening a fearful crisis, by the action of causes that must inevitably produce it, were the millions in bondage to continue quiet and submissive. We have good reasons for believing that at this time there are thousands among the non-slaveholders South, not only smarting under the relentless power of slavery, and meditating schemes of resistance, but looking forward with anxious hopes to

some movement in the free States which will embolden them to stand up in the midst of their oppressors, and make their power felt in the politics of the country.

Again, there is opposed to the handful of slaveholders a growing anti-slavery sentiment among the fourteen millions of people in the free States. It finds its life in the truths of the Declaration of Independence, the traditions and example of our political fathers, and the teachings of our Saviour and his Apostles. It will gradually and finally penetrate all hearts, and pervade all minds in the North. This, in fact, is the great dread of the slaveholder and the doughface, notwithstanding the pretended "finality" of their compromises. They lack faith in their own devices. The spirit of freedom, “crushed to earth" by external forces, "will rise again," and in more effectual ways make itself understood. Even now, in this dark and despondent hour of anti-slavery progress, I doubt not it is silently darting its light into the minds of the multitude, softening the inhumanity of their hearts, quickening the irinsensibility into resolves, and thus preparing the ground for a rich harvest for freedom in future years.

Lastly, the voice of the civilized world is against slavery. Public opinion, according to Mr. Webster, is the strongest power on earth. "We think," says he, "that nothing is strong enough to stand before autocratic, monarchical, or despotic power. There is something strong enough, quite strong enough, and if properly exerted will prove itself so, and that is the power of intelligent public opinion in all the nations of the earth. There is not a monarch on earth whose throne is not liable to be shaken to its foundations

by the progress of opinion, and the sentiment of the just and intelligent part of the community." This terrible power is arrayed against the slaveholders, and we need not wonder at their alarm. It should not surprise us that they labor so unremittingly to guard against domestic foes, when the moral power of the world is threatening to shake their despotic power to its foundations. A hostile influence is wafted to our shores upon every gale from abroad. And the great fountain and source of opinion, the literature of the world, is against them. The poets, orators, philosophers, historians, and moralists of every civilized country, unite in one loud chorus against the enslavement of their race. And who can measure the power of the world's literature, now so wonderfully multiplying itself in the minds of the million by methods unknown to the past? Who can calculate the influence of "Uncle Tom's Cabin " as a missionary of anti-slavery reform, going forth "into all the world" as the

harbinger of deliverance to the African race? "The pen," says Dr. Channing, "is mightier than the sword," and "the press is the mightiest engine ever set in motion by man." All the great forces of the world are in league with the free power of the country, and their warfare against the lords of the lash can only end with the last vestige of their rule in the United States.

But let us turn now to the other side of the picture, and contemplate the strength of the slave power, judged by what we know of its actual achievements. The slaveholders, as we have seen, numbering only one twenty-fifth of their white brethren of the South, one fortieth of the entire population of the South, and one hundredth part of that of the Union, are yet the real sovereigns in this Republic. The powers of the government are in their keeping, and they determine all things according to the counsels of their own will. They say to the politician of the North "Go, and he goeth; to the Northern priest, "Do this, and he doeth it." They lay their mesmeric hands upon the moral pulse of the nation, and it ceases to beat. Nothing that is earthly can stand before the dread authority of these men. They are the reigning lords and masters of the people, white and black. Look at the facts. They hold in the most galling bondage three millions of their fellow-creatures, being more than twelve times their own number. They keep in subjection and comparative slavery more than six millions of their own race in the South, who dare not even murmur at their lot. They lord it over fourteen millions of people in the free States, subsidizing their leaders in Church and State, debauching the public sentiment of the country, and pragmatically announcing and then enforcing, the conditions upon which the Union shall be preserved. They determine who shall be our Presidents and Vice-Presidents; who shall be the Speakers of the House of Representatives, and the presiding officers of the Senate; who shall stand at the head of the important committees of both houses, and how those committees shall be constituted, all with special reference to the slave interest. They secure to themselves or to their Northern slaves the monopoly of all the important offices of the government, of the judiciary, the army, the navy, and our foreign diplomacy, hoisting their black flag in distant nations of the earth. They rifle the mails of the United States, and decide what shall and what shall not be conveyed by them under the impudent surveillance which they thus set up with impunity. They imprison hundreds of our colored freemen from the North and sell them into perpetual slavery, by a law lower than the Constitution, for the crime of being found in