Threw off their chains-each felt himself a man.
Thrones that had stood for ages were no more;
Man ceased to suffer; tyrants ceased to reign;
And all throughout the world, from shore to shore,
Were loosed from slavery's fetter and its chain;
And those who once were slaves came up as free,
Unto New England's soil, to keep their jubilee.
New England! 't was a fitting place, for it
Had sent its rays upon them, as a star
Beams from the glorious heaven on slaves who sit
In chains, to lure them where free seraphs are;
The light it had shed on them made them start
From their deep lethargy, then look and see
That they of Freedom's boon might have a part,
Their nation glorious as New England be.
And then like men they struggled till they won,
And Freedom's high-born light shone as a noonday sun.
Men gathered there who were men; nobly they
Had long and faithful fought 'gainst error's night,
And now they saw the sunlight of that day
They long had hoped to see, when truth and right
Should triumph o'er the world, and all should hold
This truth self-evident, that fellow-men,
In God's own image made, should not be sold