Benjamin Franklin, whose life was my school-book, in an address to the Senate and House of Representatives, said:
“From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birthright, of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity, and the principle of their institution, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery; that you will be pleased to countenance the restoration of liberty to these unhappy men, who alone, in this land of Freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this distressed race; and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you, for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men.”—B. F., Pres’t (F. Gazette, 1790).
During the dreary night I often awoke, and I remember once, when thus arousing, those beautiful lines came into my mind:
“When for the rights of man we fight,
And all seems lost, and friends have fled,
Remembering in Misfortune’s night,
New glory rests on Virtue’s head,
Duty remains, though joy is gone,
On final good I fix mine eyes;
Distance all fear, and, though alone,