Are you tender and charitable to me if you enter my house, my castle, and debauch my children from the faith that they have been taught? Are you tender and charitable to them and to me when you teach them that I have instructed them in falsehood, that their mother has rocked them in blasphemy, and that they are now among the fools and the witlings of the world because they believe in my precepts? Is that the charity that you speak of? Heaven forbid that liberty of speech such as that, should ever invade my home or yours!
We all understand, and the learned gentleman will admit, that his discourse is but an eloquent apology for blasphemy. And when I say this, I beg you to believe me incapable of resorting to the cheap artifice of strong words to give point to a pointless argument, or to offend a courteous adversary. I think if I put it to him he would, with characteristic candor, say, "Yes, that is what I claim—the liberty to blaspheme; the world has outgrown these things; and I claim to-day, as I claimed a few months ago in the neighboring gallant little State of New Jersey, that while you cannot slander man, your tongue is free to revile and insult man's maker." New Jersey was behind in the race for progress, and did not accept his argument. His unfortunate client was convicted and had to pay the fine which the press—which is seldom mistaken—says came from the pocket of his generous counsel.
The argument was a strong one; the argument was brilliant, and was able; and I say now, with all my predilections for the church of my fathers, and for your church (because it is not a question of our differences, but it is a question whether the tree shall be torn up by the roots, not what branches may bear richer fruit or deserve to be lopped off)—I say, why has every Christian State passed these statutes against blasphemy? Turning into ridicule sacred things—firing off the Lord's Prayer as you would a joke from Joe Miller or a comic poem—that is what I mean by blasphemy. If there is any other or better definition, give it me, and I will use it.
Now understand. All these States of ours care not one fig what our religion is. Behave yourselves properly, obey the laws, do not require the intervention of the police, and the majesty of your conscience will be as exalted as the sun. But the wisest men and the best men—possibly not so eloquent as the orator, but I may say it without offence to him—other names that shine brightly in the galaxy of our best men, have insisted and maintained that the Christian faith was the ligament that kept our modern society together, and our laws have said, and the laws of most of our States say, to this day, "Think what you like, but do not, like Samson, pull the pillars down upon us all."
If I had anything to say, ladies and gentlemen, it is time that I should say it now. My exordium has been very long, but it was no longer than the dignity of the subject, perhaps, demanded.
Free speech we all have. Absolute liberty of speech we never had. Did we have it before the war? Many of us here remember that if you crossed an imaginary line and went among some of the noblest and best men that ever adorned this continent, one word against slavery meant death. And if you say that that was the influence of slavery, I will carry you to Boston, that city which numbers within its walls as many intelligent people to the acre as any city on the globe—was it different there?
Why, the fugitive, beaten, blood-stained slave, when he got there, was seized and turned back; and when a few good and brave men, in defence of free speech, undertook to defend the slave and to try and give him liberty, they were mobbed and pelted and driven through the city. You may say, "That proves there was no liberty of speech." No; it proves this: that wherever, and wheresoever, and whenever, liberty of speech is incompatible with the safety of the State, liberty of speech must fall back and give way, in order that the State may be preserved.
First, above everything, above all things, the safety of the people is the supreme law. And if rhetoricians, anxious to tear down, anxious to pluck the faith from the young ones who are unable to defend it, come forward with nickel-plated platitudes and commonplaces clothed in second-hand purple and tinsel, and try to tear down the temple, then it is time, I shall not say for good men—for I know so few they make a small battalion—but for good women, to come to the rescue.
GENERAL WOODFORD'S SPEECH.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen>: At this late hour, I could not attempt—even if I would—the eloquence of my friend Colonel Ingersoll; nor the wit and rapier-like sarcasm of my other valued friend Mr. Coudert. But there are some things so serious about this subject that we discuss to-night, that I crave your pardon if, without preface, and without rhetoric, I get at once to what from my Protestant standpoint seems the fatal logical error of Mr. Inger-soll's position.