The Civil War, of the sad ravages and awful agony of which we are this day reminded, was the inevitable result of the “irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,”—between freedom and slavery.
Removed sufficiently from those troublous days to look at facts calmly and to speak of them without anger, let us be just, let us be truthful. The courts had exalted slavery, had hedged it round by law, and nationalized it. In that most august tribunal—in that high place immortalized by the transcendent greatness of a Marshall and the unfathomed learning of a Story, which had witnessed the marvelous displays of oratory of Pinckney, Webster and Choate—in the Supreme Court of the United States—slavery met and vanquished freedom. The Dred Scott decision gave up this nation to bondage, and made it possible, under the law, to sell wives and babes in Faneuil Hall and to call the roll of slaves on the sacred spot where Warren fell! Thenceforth Congress could not interfere with slavery; states were powerless to prevent it. And thus it came to pass that in the land of Washington, Franklin, and Wayne, in the land of Adams, Henry, and Sherman, in the land whose sons died for liberty on a hundred fields—who stormed the walls of Quebec and left their blood on the snow at Valley Forge—in this our beloved land—in this republic—slavery was king. The time to gather the bitter fruit of the accursed upas tree planted at Jamestown in 1620 was near at hand.
An awful storm, pregnant with death and woe, was gathering, and the people sought a leader. They were sore distressed with a multitude of counsel, and they cried:
God give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue,