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pendence. If they think so, of course they have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. Lincoln's conscientious belief that the negro was made his equal, and hence is his brother; but for my own part, I do not regard the negro as my equal, and positively deny that he is my brother or any kin to me whatever.

I do not believe that the Almighty ever intended the negro to be the equal of the white man. If He did, He has been a long time demonstrating the fact. For thousands of years the negro has been a race upon the earth, and during all that time, in all latitudes and climates, wherever he has wandered or been taken, he has been inferior to the race which he had there met. He belongs to an inferior race, and must always occupy an inferior position. I do not hold that, because the negro is our inferior, therefore he ought to be a slave. By no means can such a conclusion be drawn from what I have said. On the contrary, I hold that the negro shall have and enjoy every right, every privilege, and every immunity consistent with the safety of the society in which he lives. On that point, I presume there can be no diversity of opinion. You and I are bound to extend to our inferior and dependent beings every right, every privilege, every faculty and immunity consistent with the public good.

Now, my friends, if we will only act conscientiously and rigidly upon the great principle of popular sovereignty, which guarantees to each state and territory the right to do as it pleases on all things, local and domestic, instead of Congress interfering, we will continue at peace one with another. Why should Illinois

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be at war with Missouri, or Kentucky with Ohio, or Virginia with New York, merely because their institutions differ? This doctrine of Mr. Lincoln of uniformity among the institutions of the different states is a new doctrine, never dreamed of by Washington, Madison,1 or the framers of this government. They knew that the North and the South, having different climates, productions, and interests, required different institutions. Mr. Lincoln and the Republican party set themselves up as wiser than these men who made this government, which has flourished for seventy years under the principle of popular sovereignty, recognizing the right of each state to do as it pleased.

Under that principle we have grown from a nation of three or four millions to a nation of about thirty millions of people; we have crossed the Alleghany Mountains and filled up the whole Northwest, turning the prairies into a garden and building up churches and schools, thus spreading civilization and Christianity where before there was nothing but savage barbarism. Under that principle we have become, from a feeble nation, the most powerful on the face of the earth, and if we only adhere to that principle, we can go forward increasing in territory, in power, in strength, and in glory until the republic of America shall be the north star that shall guide the friends of freedom throughout the civilized world. And why can we not adhere to the great principle of self-government upon which our institutions were originally based? I believe that this new doctrine preached by Mr. Lincoln and his party will dissolve the Union if it succeeds.

1 James Madison, president of the United States from 1809 to 1817.

LET THE OPPRESSED GO FREE 1

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON

(1859)

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON (1805-1879) was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts. He became interested in the slavery question, and was for a time publisher of an antislavery paper in Baltimore, Maryland. Later he removed to Boston, founding and editing the Liberator, a paper devoted to the abolition of slavery. At the time, public sentiment was against him, and he was mobbed in the streets of Boston; the same city, however, at the close of the Civil War, erected a statue to his memory.

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God forbid that we should any longer continue the accomplices thieves and robbers, of men-stealers and women-whippers! We must join

in the name of freedom. As for the Union, where is it and what is it? In one half of it no man can exercise freedom of speech or the press - no man can utter the words of Washington,2 of Jefferson,2 of Patrick Henry

2

except at the peril of his life; and Northern men are everywhere hunted and driven from the South, if they are supposed to cherish the sentiments of freedom in their bosoms. We are living under an awful despotism that of a brutal slave oligarchy. And they threaten to leave us, if we do not continue to do their

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1 From an address delivered in Boston shortly after John Brown was hanged.

2 See biographical notes, pp. 37, 64, 19, and selections from the addresses of Washington, Jefferson, and Henry.

work, as we have hitherto done it, and go down in the dust before them! Would to heaven they would go! It would only be the paupers clearing out from the town, would it not? But no, they do not mean to go; they mean to cling to you and they mean to subdue

you.

But will you be subdued? I tell you our work is the dissolution of this slavery-cursed Union, if we would have a fragment of our liberties left to us! Surely between freemen, who believe in exact justice and impartial liberty, and slaveholders, who are for cleaving down all human rights at a blow, it is not possible there should be any union whatever. "How can two walk together except they be agreed?" The slaveholder with his hands dripping in blood — will I make a compact with him? The man who plunders cradles — will I say to him, "Brother, let us walk together in unity"?2 The man who, to gratify his lust or his anger, scourges woman with the lash till the soil is red with her blood - will I say to him, "Give me your hand; let us form a glorious Union"? No, never never! There can be no union between us -"What concord hath Christ with Belial?" What union has freedom with slavery? Let us tell the inexorable and remorseless tyrants of the South that their conditions hitherto imposed upon us, whereby we are morally responsible for the existence of slavery, are horribly inhuman and wicked, and we cannot carry them out for the sake of their evil company.

By the dissolution of the Union we shall give the

1 Cf. Amos iii. 3.

3 Cf. II Corinthians vi. 15.

2 Cf. Psalms cxxxiii. 1.

finishing blow to the slave system; and then God will make it possible for us to form a true, vital, enduring, all-embracing Union from the Atlantic to the Pacific; one God to be worshiped, one Savior to be revered, one policy to be carried out; freedom everywhere to all the people without regard to complexion or race; and the blessing of God resting upon us all! I want to see that glorious day! Now the South is full of tribulation and terror and despair, going down to irretrievable bankruptcy, and fearing each bush an officer! Would to God it might all pass away like a hideous dream! And how easily it might be! What is it that God required of the South, to remove every root of bitterness, to allay every fear, to fill her borders with prosperity? But one simple act of justice, without violence and convulsion, without danger and hazard. It is this: "Undo the heavy burdens, break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free!" 1

1 Cf. Isaiah lviii. 6.

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