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3. For the friends of silence to keep their own counseland this seems as little likely to be tried as the others to succeed.

Strange is it to ask us to forbear to talk on a subject which involves the welfare of 20,000,000 men! As well ask a man in a fever not to be heated and a consumptive person not to cough, to pine away and turn pale. Miserable counsellors are ye all, who give such advice. But we have seen latelythe Lion of the Democrats and the Lamb of the Whigs lie down together, joined by this opinion so gentle and so loving, all at once, that a little child could lead them and so "fulfil the sure prophetic word." Yes, we have seen the Herod of one party and the Pilate of the other made friends for the sake of crucifying the freedom of mankind.

But there is one way in which I would modestly hint that we might stop all this talk" in Congress and out of Congress," that is to "discuss" the matter till we had got at the truth, and the whole truth; then to "agitate " politically till we had enacted justice into law, and carried it out all over the North and all over the South. Then there would be no more discussion about the Fugitive Slave Bill than about the "Boston Port Bill;" no more agitation about American slavery than there is about the condition of the people of Babylon before the flood. I think there is no other way in which we are likely to get rid of this discussion.

Such is our condition, such its causes, such our dangers. Now for the lesson look a moment elsewhere. Look at continental Europe, at Rome, Austria, Prussia, and the German States at France. How uncertain is every government! France the stablest of them all! Remember the revolution which two years ago shook those States so terribly, when all the royalty of France was wheeled out of Paris in a street

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cab. Why are those States so tottering? Whence those revolutions? They tried to make iniquity their law and would not give over the attempt! Why are the armies of France 500,000 strong, though the nation is at peace with all the world? Because they tried to make injustice law! Why do the Austrian and German monarchs fear an earthquake of the people? Because they tread the people down with wicked laws! Whence came the crushing debts of France, Austria, England? From the same cause; from the injustice of men who made mischief by law!

It is not for men long to hinder the march of human freedom. I have no fear for that, ultimately,-none at all,simply for this reason, that I believe in the infinite God. You may make your statutes; an appeal always lies to the higher law, and decisions adverse to that get set aside in the ages. Your statutes cannot hold him. You may gather all the dried grass and all the straw in both continents; you may braid it into ropes to bind down the sea; while it is calm you may laugh and say, "Lo, I have chained the ocean!" and howl down the law of him who holds the universe as a rosebud in his hand-its every ocean but a drop of dew. "How the waters suppress their agitation," you may say. But when the winds blow their trumpets the sea rises in his strength, snaps asunder the bonds that had confined his mighty limbs, and the world is littered with the idle hay! Stop the human race in its development and march to freedom? As well might' the boys of Boston, some lustrous night, mounting the steeples of this town, call on the stars to stay their course! Gently, but irresistibly, the Greater and the Lesser Bear move round the pole; Orion in his mighty mail comes up the sky; the Bull, the Ram, the Heavenly Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Maid, the Scales, and all that shining company pursue their march

all night, and the new day discovers the idle urchins in their lofty places, all tired, and sleepy, and ashamed.

It is not possible to suppress the idea of freedom or forever hold down its institutions. But it is possible to destroy a State; a political party with geographical bounds may easily be rent asunder. It is not impossible to shiver this American Union. But how? What clove asunder the great British party, one nation once in America and England? Did not our fathers love their fatherland? Aye. They called it home, and were loyal with abundant fealty; there was no lack of piety for home. It was the attempt to make old English injustice New England law! Who did it, the British people? Never. Their hand did no such sacrilege! It was the merchants of London with the "Navigation Act; " the politicians of Westminster with the "Stamp Act; "the Tories of America-who did not die without issue-who for office and its gold would keep a king's unjust commands. It was they who drove our fathers into disunion against their will. Is here no lesson? We love law, all of us love it; but a true man loves it only as the safeguard of the rights of man. If it destroy these rights he spurns it with his feet. Is here no lesson? Look farther then.

Do you know how empires find their end? Yes, the great States eat up the little. As with fish, so with nations. Aye, but how do the great States come to an end? By their own injustice and no other cause. They would make unrighteousness their law and God wills not that it be so. Thus they fall; thus they die. Look at these ancient States, the queenliest queens of earth. There is Rome, the widow of two civilizations, the pagan and the Catholic. They both had her and unto both she bore daughters and fair sons. But, the Niobe of Nations, she boasted that her children were

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