"It is a work which demands the full concurrence of all the States, and, sooner or later, it must be accomplished. Common sense will not cease to upbraid us with inconsistency, humanity will not be satisfied, nor Heaven fully propitiated, while we hold up boastfully in one hand this declaration, affirming that "all men are created equal," and grasp with the other the manacles and the scourge.
"Whatever may have been inferred by reason from a difference of physical attributes, and whatever may have been forced by criticism out of the word of God, the traffic in human flesh is contraband by the law of Nature written in our hearts, and forbidden by the whole tenor and spirit of the religion revealed in the Gospel.
"Even in the darker and imperfect dispensation of the ancient Jews, every fiftieth year, at least, brought freedom to all the inhabitants of the land. It is almost needless to say, that, if he who first procured the slave and brought him hither had no right to do so, then neither could he who bought him acquire a rightful ownership. There is no property to a private man in the life or the natural faculties of another; no right can accrue by purchase, or vest by possession, and no inheritance on either side descend. A title, which by its very nature was void from the beginning, can never be made good; a dominion which Heaven never gave, must be perpetuated, if at all, by means which it will never sanction."...
Surely, the trumpet of this youth gave no "uncertain sound."
"One blast upon that bugle horn.
Were worth ten thousand men."
To the recognition of such qualities it was due, probably, that in 1829 he was called to New York city to assume the editorship of a journal ("Journal of Commerce") founded by an association of gentlemen, and which afterwards exerted great influence upon public opinion. He declined the offer, unwilling to leave his Alma Mater at a critical epoch in her history. He stayed by her to die in her service.
His widow, Mrs. Sarah L. (Gilman) Chamberlain, daughter of Dr. Joseph Gilman, of Wells, Me., and niece of Mrs. President Brown, survived him twenty years, residing at Hanover. The memory of her moral, intellectual, and social worth is warmly cherished by all who knew her.
Mr. Lancaster adds: "Professor Chamberlain was tall, erect, square built, well-proportioned, and of graceful mien and bearing,—such a man as the eye could rest upon with pleasure. His voice was clear, sonorous, yet smooth and agreeable."
Professor Folsom says:
"Professor Chamberlain, the youngest member of the Faculty, who was only twenty-three years old when, in 1820, he entered on his professorship of the Latin and Greek Languages and Literature, and only thirty-three when he died, was much admired and loved and reverenced by many of us. To myself, whenever I think of Dartmouth, his image invariably appears, and he stands out among the objects presenting themselves second only to that of Dr. Tyler, as the latter appeared when at his best and noblest in the pulpit. It was indeed in that same pulpit, and before I came under his instruction, that I first heard him, when he delivered an oration on the Fourth of July in the year 1826. It was to a crowded audience, filling the floor and the galleries. I doubt whether there is one survivor of that number, whether student or townsman, from whose recollection can have faded away the image of the orator, his form and attitude, his voice and action, and some of his thrilling words, especially when he described the nation holding in one hand the Declaration of Independence which proclaims human equality, and with the other grasping the manacles and scourge to torture millions of human beings bought and sold, and compelled to labor in slavery.