Then it was that our fathers made a mistake. We have got to praise them for what they did that was good, and we will mention what they did that was wrong.
They forgot the principles for which they fought. They forgot the sacredness of human liberty, and, in the name of freedom, they made a mistake and put chains on the limbs of others.
That was their error; that was the poison that entered the American blood; that was the corrupting influence that demoralized presidents and priests; that was the influence that corrupted the United States of America.
That mistake, of course, had to be paid for, as all mistakes in nature have to be paid for. And not only do you pay for your mistake itself, but you pay at least ten per cent, compound interest. Whenever you do wrong, and nobody finds it out, do not imagine you have gotten over it; you have not. Nature knows it.
The consequences of every bad act are the invisible police that no prayers can soften, and no gold can bribe.
Recollect that. Recollect, that for every bad act, there will be laid upon your shoulder the arresting hand of the consequences; and it is precisely the same with a nation as it is with an individual. You have got to pay for all of your mistakes, and you have got to pay to the uttermost farthing. That is the only forgiveness known in nature. Nature never settles unless she can give a receipt in full.
I know a great many men differ with me, and have all sorts of bankruptcy systems, but Nature is not built that way.
Finally, slavery took possession of the Government. Every man who wanted an office had to be willing to step between a fugitive slave and his liberty.
Slavery corrupted the courts, and made judges decide that the child born in the State of Pennsylvania, whose mother had been a slave, could not be free.
That was as infamous a decision as was ever rendered, and yet the people, in the name of the law, did this thing, and the Supreme Court of the United States did not know right from wrong.