Speeches Before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society: January, 1852 (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from Speeches Before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society: January, 1852

This view is one that Mr. Webster ridiculed in the depots of New York. The time has come when he is obliged to change his tone when he is obliged to retrace his steps to acknowledge the nature and the character of the age in which he lives. Kossurn comes to this country - penniless, and an exile; conquered on his own soil; flung out as a weed upon the waters; nothing but his voice left - and the Secretary of State must meet him. Now, let us see what he says of his rub-a-dub Agitation, which consists of the voice only of the tongue, which our friend pillsbury has described. This is that tongue which the impudent statesman declared, from the drunken steps of the Revere House, ought to be silenced - this tongue, which was a rub-a-dub Agitation to be despised, when he spoke to the farmers of New York.

He says We are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral influence. Who is? Nobody but a Revere House statesman. We are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral influence, and the influ ence of public Opinion, and the influence of the principles to which great men - the lights of the world and of the present age - have given their sanction. W110 doubts, that in our struggle for liberty and independence, the majestic eloquence of chatham, the profound reasoning of burke, the burning satire and irony of Col. Barre, had influences upon our fortunes here in America? They had influences both ways. They tended, in the first place, somewhat to diminish the confidence of the British ministry in their hopes of success, in attempting to subjugate an injured people. They had influence another way, because all along the coasts of the country and all our people in that day lived upon the coast - there was not a reading man who did not feel stronger, bolder, and more determined in the assertion of his rights, when these exhilarating accents from the two Houses of Par liament reached him from beyond the seas.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from Speeches Before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society: January, 1852

He knew better. He knew better the times in which he lived. No matter where you meet a dozen earnest men pledged to a new idea - wherever you have met them, you have met the beginning of a Revolution Revolutions arc not made," they come. A Revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations arc laid far back. The child feels; he grows into a man, and thinks; another, perhaps, speaks, and the world acts out the thought. And this is the history of modern society. Men undervalue the Anti-Slavery Movement, because they imagine you can always put your finger on some illustrious moment in history and say, here commenced the great change which has come over the nation. Not so. The beginning of great changes is like the rise of the Mississippi. A child must stoop and gather away the pebbles to find it. But soon it swells on broader and broader, bears on its ample bosom the navies of a mighty Republic, fills the Gulf, and divides a Continent.

I remember a story of Napoleon that illustrates my meaning. We arc apt to trace his control of France to some noted victory, to the time when he camped in the Tuilleries, or when he dissolved the Assembly by the stamp of his foot. He reigned in fact when his hand was first felt on the helm of the vessel of state, and that was far back of the time when he had conquered in Italy, or his name had been echoed over two Continents. It was on the day when five hundred irresolute men were met in that Assembly which called itself, and pretended to be, the government of France. They heard that the mob of Paris was coming the next morning, thirty thousand strong, to turn them, as was usual in those days, out of doors. And where did this seemingly great power go for its support and refuge? They sent Tallien to seek out a boy lieutenant, - the shadow of an officer, - so thin and pallid that when he was placed on the stand before them, the President of the Assembly, fearful, if the fate of France rested on the shrunken form, the ashy check before him, that all hope was gone, asked - "Young man, can you protect the Assembly?" And the ashen lips of the Corsican boy parted only to reply - "I always do what I undertake." Then and there Napoleon ascended his throne; and the next day, from the steps of St. Roche, thundered forth the cannon which taught the mob of Paris, for the first time, that it had a master. That was the commencement of the Empire. So the Anti-Slavery Movement commenced unheeded in that "obscure hole" which Mayor Otis could not find, occupied by a printer and a black boy.

In working these great changes, in such an age as ours, the so-called statesman has far less influence than the many little men who, at various points, arc silently maturing a regeneration of public opinion. This is a reading and thinking age, and great interests at stake quicken the general intellect. Stagnant times have been when a great mind, anchored in error, might snag the slow-moving current of society. Such is not our era.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.