“They will be terrible as the flaming syllables on Belshazzar’s wall! They will speak in language startling as the trump of the Archangel, saying: ‘You have trampled on mankind long enough! At last the voice of human woe has pierced the ear of God, and called His judgment down! You have waded to thrones through rivers of blood; you have trampled on the necks of millions of fellow-beings. Now kings, now purple hangmen, for you come the days of axes and gibbets and scaffolds.’
“Such is the message of that declaration to mankind, to the kings of earth. And shall we falter now? And shall we start back appalled when our feet touch the very threshold of Freedom?
“Sign that parchment! Sign, if the next moment the gibbet’s rope is about your neck! Sign, if the next minute this hall rings with the clash of the falling axes! Sign by all your hopes in life or death as men, as husbands, as fathers, brothers, sign your names to the parchment, or be accursed forever!
“Sign, and not only for yourselves, but for all ages, for that parchment will be the textbook of freedom—the Bible of the rights of men forever. Nay, do not start and whisper with surprise! It is truth, your own hearts witness it; God proclaims it. Look at this strange history of a band of exiles and outcasts, suddenly transformed into a people—a handful of men weak in arms—but mighty in God-like faith; nay, look at your recent achievements, your Bunker Hill, your Lexington, and then tell me, if you can, that God has not given America to be free!
“It is not given to our poor human intellect to climb to the skies, and to pierce the councils of the Almighty One. But methinks I stand among the awful clouds which veil the brightness of Jehovah’s throne.
“Methinks I see the recording angel come trembling up to that throne to speak his dread message. ‘Father, the old world is baptized in blood. Father, look with one glance of thine eternal eye, and behold evermore that terrible sight, man trodden beneath the oppressor’s feet, nations lost in blood, murder and superstition walking hand in hand over the graves of their victims, and not a single voice to whisper hope to man!’
“He stands there, the angel, trembling with the record of human guilt. But hark! The voice of Jehovah speaks out from the awful cloud: ‘Let there be light again! Tell my people, the poor and oppressed, to go out from the old world, from oppression and blood, and build my altar in the new!’
“As I live, my friends, I believe that to be His voice! Yes, were my soul trembling on the verge of eternity, were this hand freezing in death, were this voice choking in the last struggle, I would still with the last impulse of that soul, with the last wave of that hand, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember this truth—God has given America to be free! Yes, as I sank into the gloomy shadows of the grave, with my last faint whisper I would beg you to sign that parchment for the sake of the millions whose very breath is now hushed in intense expectation as they look up to you for the awful words, ‘You are free!’”
The unknown speaker fell exhausted in his seat; but the work was done.
A wild murmur runs through the hall. “Sign!” There is no doubt now. Look how they rush forward! Stout-hearted John Hancock has scarcely time to sign his bold name before the pen is grasped by another—another and another. Look how the names blaze on the parchment! Adams and Lee, Jefferson and Carroll, Franklin and Sherman.