Nothing stands upon a more adamantine basis of truth than the principles which decide between Human Freedom and Human Slavery. These eternal principles happen now, in a peculiar degree, to be implicated in the shifting and uncertain current of politics; and political storms may seem for a time to overwhelm them. But the cloud which obscures the sun does not annihilate it; and these principles are sure to emerge and shine unclouded in their native splendor forever. Every act, whether of individuals or of governments, whether committed in past days or in our day, which compromises the sacred principles of Human Freedom, or postpones its interests to other interests, is set down, in the calendar of fate, for ultimate and universal execration. This is just as certain as it is that the great crimes of the race committed in past ages,—the persecutions of the early Christians, the tortures of the Inquisition, or the atrocities of the African Slave trade,—are now condemned by the awful verdict of history and the ever-sounding reprobation of mankind. In the spread of Christianity, in the advance of civilization, in the moral development of the people, a tribunal is now preparing, which will pronounce sentence of condemnation against the abetters of slavery, to be promulgated as from Sinai, and preserved in the archives of eternity. The Progress of the Age bears us on, not only to a forward, but to an upward point; and what we now say against the apostates to duty and the traitors of mankind, in past ages, however much they may have been honored, caressed, and rewarded in their day, will soon be said of every one amongst ourselves who leads or joins the band of conspirators against the Rights of Man.
Every Young Man, however obscure or powerless he may seem, can do something for the cause of freedom. Whatever disadvantages the youth may labor under, they have one all-compensating advantage. A longer period of life is before them, and deeds which can only be accomplished through years of labor, they can achieve. But our success depends infinitely less upon our strength than upon our motive. When we supply the virtuous will, God supplies the power; so that the result corresponds, not to our weakness, but to his omnipotence. We are thus made able
——“to join
Our partial movements with the master wheel
Of the great world, and serve that sacred end,
Which He, the unerring Reason, keeps in view.”
Those Young Men of Massachusetts, then, of the noble lineage of the Pilgrims, who have been nursed amid the influences of sanctuary and school, in whose bosoms is the sacred depository of future and boundless hopes, but who are now counselled to abandon their integrity, who are brought into peril of being corrupted by the lures of wealth, or fascinated by the dazzling of worldly honors, or swept away by the pressure of the multitude that do evil, I adjure to stand fast and immovable on those sacred and eternal principles of Human Liberty which came down to us through the fires of oppression and the agony and blood of martyrs, but came from God;—principles that can never suffer the decays of time, which kings nor senates of kings can ever abolish, and which, however much the passions of men may seek to taint or defile them, are ever beautiful and fair, as the names of all their disciples shall hereafter be. I call upon Young Men to throw themselves forward in imagination into middle life, or old age, and there behold how these mighty questions will look in the retrospect of time, when the brilliant robes which now gild the tempter are gone, and only the ghastly fiend remains; when the passion that prompted the crime is dead, and only the remorse survives. Think not of luxury, or wealth, or ignoble ease, but only of an heroic conflict, careless of the present strength of the foe. Take no bribe from the hand of power, in whatever disguise of beauty it may come, but spurn it and its author alike. Let your future manhood realize the generous aspirations of your youth; and, amid the seductions of the present hour, prize only the jubilant memories you can lay up for old age. It may grieve you to break friendships, but truth and duty are your nearest friends. It may be painful to live amongst those who upbraid and condemn you; but be a coward when virtue is in peril, and your own accusing conscience you must live with forever. Study those exemplars of excellence who came purified and resplendent out of fiery trials. It is said of Francis the First, that when he read the valorous exploits of Gaston de Foix, he wept tears of emulation. Rejoice, then, though marshalled in the fore front of battle when the Rights of Humanity are in danger, and you shall rejoice again and forever in their triumph. Read and ponder what was so nobly said by one of the heathen of the old world, and be ashamed, yea, weep for your country and your kind, if the Christianity of America has fallen below the paganism of Rome. Seneca says,—
“Virtue covets danger; and whatever may be her aim, she never stops to consider how much she may suffer, since her sufferings are a part of her glory. Military men glory in their scars. With exultation they point us to their blood flowing in an honorable cause. Though they who return unharmed from the field of battle may have done as many and as noble deeds, yet it is the wounded soldier who receives double honors. God provides for those whom he would make most honorable, by furnishing them with opportunities for achieving valiant and noble deeds. Hence he strews difficulties along their path. It is in the storm you see who is worthy to be a pilot; and in battle, who is the soldier.... How can I know with what constancy and endurance one will bear up against reproach and obloquy and popular odium, if he has grown old amidst the applauses of the world, if he has never encountered misfortune, and has been followed by the indiscriminating favor of men?... Be not affrighted, I beseech you, at the dangers which were intended by the immortal gods only as stimulants to exertion. The season of calamity is virtue’s opportunity. They, rather, are to be esteemed wretched, who lie torpid in luxurious ease, whom a sluggish calm detains on the great voyage, like vessels that lie weltering on a sea without a gale. Whom God approves and loves, he exercises, and tries them again and again, and thus inures them to hardship; but those whom he designs to enervate, he spares and indulges and saves them from impending ills.... The bravest of the army are they whom the commander selects for the most perilous service. The general details his choicest men to send on secret expeditions by night, or to explore an unknown way, or to dislodge a garrison from their entrenchments. No man chosen for such an enterprise is ever heard to say, ‘My commander has wronged and dishonored me,’ but rather, ‘He has known well whom to choose.’ Such, too, is the language of those who are required to suffer what would make the timid and the ignoble weep. We stand honored in the divine regards when the great experiment, how much human nature can endure for a virtuous cause, is tried in ourselves.... As teachers deal with their scholars, so God deals with good men. He demands most of those in whom he has most confidence.”
West Newton, October, 1851.