It only remains, under this head, that I should speak of the Apology infamous,—founded on false testimony against the Emigrant Aid Company, and assumptions of duty more false than the testimony. Defying truth and mocking decency, this Apology excels all others in futility and audacity, while, from its utter hollowness, it proves the utter impotence of the conspirators to defend their Crime. Falsehood, always infamous, in this case arouses unwonted scorn. An association of sincere benevolence, faithful to the Constitution and laws, whose only fortifications are hotels, school-houses, and churches, whose only weapons are saw-mills, tools, and books, whose mission is peace and good-will, is grossly assailed on this floor, and an errand of blameless virtue made the pretext for an unpardonable Crime. Nay, more,—the innocent are sacrificed, and the guilty set at liberty. They who seek to do the mission of the Saviour are scourged and crucified, while the murderer, Barabbas, with the sympathy of the chief priests, goes at large.
Were I to take counsel of my own feelings, I should dismiss this whole Apology to the ineffable contempt which it deserves; but it is made to play such a part in this conspiracy, that I feel it a duty to expose it completely.
Sir, from the earliest times, men have recognized the advantages of organization, as an effective agency in promoting the business of life. Especially at this moment, there is no interest, public or private, high or low, of charity or trade, of luxury or convenience, which does not seek its aid. Men organize to rear churches and to make pins,—to build schools and to sail ships,—to construct roads and to manufacture toys,—to spin cotton and to print books,—to weave cloths and to increase harvests,—to provide food and to distribute light,—to influence Public Opinion and to secure votes,—to guard infancy in its weakness, old age in its decrepitude, and womanhood in its wretchedness; and now, in all large towns, when death has come, they are buried by organized societies, and, emigrants to another world,[84] they lie down in pleasant places, adorned by organized skill. To complain that this prevailing principle has been applied to living emigration is to complain of Providence and the irresistible tendencies implanted in man.
This application of the principle is no recent invention, brought forth for an existing emergency. It has the best stamp of Antiquity. It showed itself in the brightest days of Greece, where colonists moved in organized bands. It became part of the mature policy of Rome, where bodies of men were constituted expressly for this purpose,—triumviri ad colonos deducendos.[85] Naturally it is accepted in modern times by every civilized state. With the sanction of Spain, an association of Genoese merchants first introduced slaves to this continent. With the sanction of France, the Society of Jesuits stretched their labors over Canada and the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. It was under the auspices of Emigrant Aid Companies that our country was originally settled by the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth, by the Adventurers of Virginia, and by the philanthropic Oglethorpe, whose “benevolent soul,” commemorated by Pope, sought to plant a Free State in Georgia. At this day, such associations, of humbler character, are found in Europe, with offices in the great capitals, through whose activity emigrants are directed hither.
For a long time, emigration to the West, from the Northern and Middle States, but particularly from New England, has been of marked significance. In quest of better homes, annually it presses to the unsettled lands, in numbers counted by tens of thousands; but this has been done heretofore with little knowledge, and without guide or counsel. Finally, when, by the establishment of a government in Kansas, the tempting fields of that central region were opened to the competition of peaceful colonization, and especially when it was declared that the question of Freedom or Slavery there was to be determined by the votes of actual settlers, then at once was organization enlisted as an effective agency in quickening and conducting the emigration impelled thither, and, more than all, in providing homes on its arrival.
The Company was first constituted under an Act of the Legislature of Massachusetts, April 26, 1854, some weeks prior to the passage of the Nebraska Bill. The original act of incorporation was subsequently abandoned, and a new charter received in February, 1855, in which the objects of the Society are thus declared:—
“For the purposes of directing emigration westward, and aiding in providing accommodations for the emigrants after arriving at their places of destination.”[86]