"voice within " he thought he heard was no fancy; and, more, that He who spoke that voice extended his protecting and guiding hand, enabling him to obey it. That, or far more than the ordinary amount of moral courage, must have inspired him when, in reply to the auctioneer who had just struck off the last article of his property, which had been seized and sold to pay the fine imposed, and who had expressed the hope that he would never be guilty of the like offence again, he said: "Friend, I have n't a dollar in the world; but if thee knows a fugitive who needs a breakfast send him to me." No more true heroism was exhibited by Luther at Worms, hardly more by the Apostles before the Sanhedrim. It was the utterance of a sublime trust, under circumstances well calculated to test the strength of both courage and principle.

No wonder, then, having outlived the fury of his persecutors, and the system which made them such, that he became an honored member of the community which had hunted him with such ferocity; that the closing years of his ripe old age were peaceful and serene; that, when he died, the whole community seemed moved as the heart of one man; and that his funeral seemed rather an ovation to a conqueror than the sorrowful rites around the lifeless form of a departed friend. It was a fitting close, too, to so triumphant a career, that representatives of the race he had done so much for became his own selected bearers of his body to the grave. His, too, was the rare good fortune, seldom accorded to reformers, of receiving here something like an adequate reward for their sufferings and sacrifices, not only in the accomplishment of what he labored for, but in the popular recognition of the virtues that made him thus heroic and effective.

Such was the Underground Railroad and the system of efforts it represented. They who engaged in those efforts were generally Christian men and women, who feared God and regarded man; and they did it because, in their esteem, such service was but obedience to the royal law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." They acted, indeed, in full view of the fact that in obeying that law they must often disregard human statutes; but this they were prepared to do, and to

accept the consequences, the censures, reproaches, and arguments they were sure to encounter; the fines, imprisonments, and even death itself, to which they were constantly exposed. To the argument, generally twofold, that such interference was both unlawful and inexpedient, they returned for reply, that, though unlawful in the courts of earth, they were sure it could not be in the court of Heaven; and that that could not be inexpedient which was so clearly right. They found warrant, too, in the infinite worth of the human soul, the wide difference between a chattel personal, subject to all the accidents of property, the helpless victim of human caprice, passion, and self-interest, and the freeman, at liberty to develop the vast capabilities of his humanity for both time and eternity. The difference between Frederick Douglass, an ignorant and imbruted serf of an ill-tempered and brutal Maryland slaveholder, cowed and hopeless, and Frederick Douglass, with his imperial intellect, cultivated and resplendent, swaying thousands by his eloquence, and reaching forth his strong arm to lift up his race; between the Edmondson sisters, sold on the block for the vilest purposes, and the same, refined and Christian women, gracing the domestic and social circle, was so great that they could not doubt the expediency of any efforts which might result in such a transformation. And though the thousands thus rescued did not exhibit so wide discrimination, they felt it a glorious privilege, at whatever risk and cost, to give them the opportunity of such, or even far less, improvement. There was, however, no election. To them it was the Master's

"Living presence in the bond and bleeding slave";

and the piteous entreaty of the latter was but the voice of Him they could not disobey. To them it was both a promise and a warning

"That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed,

In the depths of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need;

But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod,

And herds with lower natures the awful form of God !"

French Revolution of 1848. - General rejoicings. -Resolutions of congratulation introduced into Congress. - Amendments of Ashmun and Schenck. Speeches. Popular demonstrations. Escape of slaves. Sad fate of the fugitives. — Popular excitement and indignation. - Demonstrations against the "National Era."-Action of Mr. Giddings. Mr. Palfrey's resolutions. Remarks of Stephens, Haskell, Toombs, Stanton, Thompson, Bayly, Wick, Giddings, and Root. - Hale's resolution in the Senate. - Remarks by Calhoun. - Foote's threat. Remarks of Jefferson Davis, Butler, Douglas, Cameron. Reply of Hale to assailants. - Trial and conviction of Drayton and Sayers. Imprisonment and pardon.

EIGHTEEN hundred and forty-eight was the "year of revolutions." A tidal wave of thought and feeling passed over Europe, toppling thrones, sweeping away dynasties, and unsettling the political and social institutions of the people. France was especially disturbed. Its king was deposed and driven into exile, and the house of Orleans ceased to be one of the reigning families of the Continent. Though the fulfilment did not come up to the promise, nor answer the sanguine expectations generated by the revolution, yet for the time being a republican government was organized, and France took her place among the democracies of the earth.

This country shared largely in the enthusiasm of the hour. Meetings and resolutions of congratulation proclaimed the general rejoicing; and nowhere were these demonstrations more noisy and extravagant than at the seat of government. Early in April, President Polk sent a message to Congress announcing the event, and affirming that "the world has seldom witnessed a more interesting and sublime spectacle than the peaceful rising of the French people, resolved to secure for themselves enlarged liberty." On the same day a series of

resolutions was introduced into the House expressing satisfaction that "the sentiment of self-government is commending itself to the favorable consideration of the more intelligent" of the nations; announcing "the hope that downtrodden humanity may succeed in breaking down all forms of tyranny and oppression"; tendering their warmest sympathies to the people of France and Italy in their present struggle. Mr. Ashmun of Massachusetts offered, as an amendment, that "we especially see an encouraging earnest of their success in the decree which pledges the government of France to early measures for the immediate emancipation of all slaves in the colonies." Mr. Schenck of Ohio offered, as an amendment to the amendment, the words "recognizing, as we do, that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude."

On these resolutions and amendments there were several eloquent speeches, too jubilant, indeed, over what had transpired, and too extravagant in the anticipations expressed for the future, revealing, as they did, what is now patent to every beholder, that none at that time fully appreciated the real power of despotism in either hemisphere, the tenacity of its hold, or the terrible struggle that would be required for its overthrow." It is," said Mr. McClernand of Illinois, "the triumph of liberty over tyranny, of truth over error, of humanity over inhumanity, . . . . the enunciation that the time is rapidly approaching when in Europe military force must bow to moral force, when kings must bow to the supreme majesty of the people, when the masses of Europe have only to will it to be free."

"I solemnly believe," said Mr. Hilliard of Alabama, “that the time has come when kingcraft has lost its hold upon the human mind. The world is waking from its deep slumber, and mankind begin to see that the right to govern belongs not to crowned kings, but to the great masses." And yet, great as were his gratulations over the alleged downfall of kingeraft, he was not prepared to recognize the abstract doctrine of human equality, or to welcome the elevation of man as man. He even expressed the apprehension that "the fraternity which has been adopted may not be consistent with well-regu

lated liberty; it may be the dream of idealists, and not the conception of philosophical statesmen," while he regretfully alluded to Mr. Ashmun's amendment as something foreign, "as a matter which does not belong to it." He also volunteered the somewhat defiant assertion that there was everywhere at the South a purpose to maintain the claim of the masters on their slaves "with a courage and firmness which nothing can intimidate or shake."

With like inconsistency Mr. Haskell of Tennessee, while asserting that the kingdoms of Europe "were upheaving beneath the throb of liberty which was animating the bosoms of the people," and "that it was from this country that they had caught the flame," declared that he was "sick and tired of this continual thrusting in this subject of slavery," which was calculated "to stop the progress of freedom, to injure this government itself, and put out this light toward which with hope were turned the eyes of the downtrodden world."

The few antislavery men in Congress bravely defended their principles; nor did they fail to point out the glaring inconsistency of singing pæans over the triumph of freedom in Europe, and at the same time avowing a persistent determination to perpetuate a far more despotic and hopeless tyranny here. Mr. Giddings, noting the inconsistency, exclaimed : "Look from that window, and there you will see a slave-pen, whose gloomy walls in mute but eloquent terms proclaim the hypocrisy of the deed!" And all this, he reminded the House, is sustained by laws enacted by Congress. "Will not the French cast back all such pretended sympathy with abhorrence? Will they not look with disgust on such deception and hypocrisy, when they see a nation of slave-dealers tendering their sympathy to a free people?"

In the debate on similar resolutions, unanimously adopted by the Senate, Mr. Hale, sharing in the general enthusiasm, though, as the event proved, speaking too despairingly of his own nation and too hopefully of those across the water, gave expression to both his hopes and fears. "I have sometimes thought," he said, "in dwelling upon the history of this Republic, that I had seen indications, fearful and fatal, that we