strength — which, filling the people of the North, shall make them tread under foot past antipathies, decayed dissensions, and those irritating names which now exist only as the tattered ensigns of ancient strife. It is right to be taught by the enemy; and with their example before us and their power brandished in our very faces, we cannot hesitate. With them Slavery is made the main-spring of political life, and the absorbing centre of political activity; with them all differences are swallowed up by this one idea, as all other rods were swallowed up by the rod of Aaron; with them all unite to keep the national government under the control of slave-masters; and surely we should not do less for Freedom than they do for Slavery. We too must be united. Among us at last mutual criticism, crimination, and feud, must give place to mutual sympathy, trust and alliance. Face to face against the SLAVE OLIGARCHY must be rallied the UNITED MASSES of the North, in compact political association planted on the everlasting base of justice - knit together by the instincts of a common danger, and by the holy sympathies of humanity - enkindled by a love of Freedom, not only for themselves, but for others - determined to enfranchise the national government from degrading thraldom — and constituting the BACKBONE PARTY, powerful in numbers, wealth, and intelligence, but more powerful still in an inspiring cause. Let this be done, and victory will be

ours.

44*

THE SLAVE OLIGARCHY AND ITS USURPATIONS -THE OUTRAGES IN KANSAS-THE DIFFERENT POLITICAL PARTIES-THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.

SPEECH ON THE EVENING OF 2D NOVEMBER, 1855, at FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON.

FELLOW-CITIZENS OF BOSTON: Are you for Freedom or are you for Slavery? This is the question which you are to answer at the coming election. Above all other questions, whether national or local, it now lifts itself directly in the path of every voter, and calls for a plain and honest reply. There it is. It cannot be avoided. It cannot be banished away. It cannot be silenced. Forever sounding in our ears, it has a mood for every hour stirring us at times as with the blast of a trumpet then visiting us in solemn tones, like the bell which calls to prayer - and then again awaking us to unmistakable duty, like the same bell, when at midnight it summons all to stay the raging conflagration.

among us who seek to Some clamor for finan

And yet, there are persons put this great question aside. cial reform, and hold up a tax-bill; others clamor for a modification of the elective franchise, and they hold up the Pope; some speak in the name of old parties, calling themselves Democrats or Whigs; others in the name of a new party, which shall be nameless at pres

ent. Surely the people of Massachusetts will not be diverted from the true issue involving Freedom for broad territories and Freedom for themselves — by holding up a tax-bill or by holding up the Pope. The people of Massachusetts are intelligent and humane. They are not bulls to be turned aside by shaking in their eyes a bit of red cloth; nor are they whales to be stopped by a tub. The pertinacious and exclusive advocacy with which, at this crisis of Freedom, humbler matters and even personal aspirations have been pressed, in disregard of a sacred cause, finds a prototype in an effort of selfishness, which, occurring at the very crisis of our Revolution, was chastised by the humor and eloquence of Patrick Henry. The story is familiar. Our small army, contending for Freedom, was reduced to the depths of distress: exposed, almost naked, to the rigors of a winter sky, and marking the frozen ground with the blood of shoeless feet. "Where is the man," said Patrick Henry, "who would not have thrown open his fields, his barns, his cellars, the doors of his house, the portals of his breast, to receive the meanest soldier in that little famished band? Where is the man? There he stands; but whether the heart of an American beats in his bosom, you are to judge?" It was to John Hook that he pointed, who was then pressing a vexatious claim for supplies taken for the use of these starving troops. "What notes of discord do I hear?" exclaimed the orator, “They are the notes of John Hook, hoarsely brawling through the patriot camp, Beef! Beef! Beef!" And now, among us, the selfishness of John Hook is renewed, and politicians disturb the hour, as they hoarsely brawl their petty claims through our patriot camp. But above all these

is heard the great question, which will not be postponed, Are you for Freedom, or are you for Slavery? "Under which king, Bezonian, speak or die!" Are you for Freedom, with its priceless blessings, or are You for Slavery, with its countless wrongs and woes? Are you for God, or are you for the Devil?

Fellow-citizens, I speak plainly; nor can words exhibiting the enormity of Slavery be too plain, whether it be regarded simply in the legislative and judicial decisions by which it is upheld, or in the unquestionable facts by which its character is revealed. It has been my fortune latterly to see Slavery face to face in its own home, in the Slave States; and I take this early opportunity to offer my testimony to the open barbarism which it sanctions. I have seen a human being knocked off at auction on the steps of a court house, and as the sale went on, compelled to open his mouth and show his teeth, like a horse; I have been detained in a stage-coach, that our driver might, in the phrase of the country, "help lick a nigger; and I have been constrained, at a public table, to witness the revolting spectacle of a poor slave, yet a child, almost felled to the floor by a blow on the head from a clenched fist. Such incidents were not calculated to shake my original convictions. The distant slaveholder, who, in generous solicitude for that truth which makes for Freedom, feared that, like a certain Doctor of Divinity, I might, under the influence of personal kindness, be hastily swayed from these convictions, may be assured that I saw nothing to change them in one tittle, but to confirm them; while I was entirely satisfied that here in Massachusetts, where all read, the true character of Slavery is better known than in

the Slave States themselves, where ignorance and prejudice close the avenues of knowledge.

you

And now, grateful for the attention with which honor me, I venture to hope that you are assembled honestly to hear the truth; not to gratify prejudice, to appease personal antipathies, or to indulge a morbid appetite for excitement; but with candor and your best discrimination, to weigh facts and arguments in order to determine the course of duty. I address myself particularly to the friends of Freedom — the Republicans on whose invitation I appear to-night, but I make bold to ask you of other parties, who now listen, to divest yourselves for the time, of partisan constraint -to forget for the moment that you are Whigs or Democrats, or how you are called, and to remember only that you are men, with hearts to feel, with heads to understand, and with consciences to guide. Then only will you be in a condition to receive the truth. "If men are not aware of the probable bias of party over them, then they are so much the more likely to be blindly governed by it." Such is the wise remark of Wilberforce; and I fear that among us there are too many who are unconsciously governed by such bias. There are men, who, while professing candor, yet show that the bitterness of party has entered into their whole character and lives, as the bitterness of the soil in Sardinia is said to appear even in its honey.

At this election we do not choose a President of the United States, or member of Congress; but a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and other State officers. To a superficial observer, the occasion seems to be rather local than national; it