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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/25653-h.zip b/25653-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f652778 --- /dev/null +++ b/25653-h.zip diff --git a/25653-h/25653-h.htm b/25653-h/25653-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..881777d --- /dev/null +++ b/25653-h/25653-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1758 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society, by Henry Ward Beecher. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + /*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ + + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {line-height: 1.2em; + text-align: justify;} + pre {font-size: 0.9em;} + pre.note {margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 1.0em; + text-align: left;} + div.trans-note { + margin: 10%; + padding: 0.25em; + font-size: 0.9em; + background-color: #E6F0F0; + color: inherit; + } + /* Headers ---------------------------------------------- */ + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + /* Horizontal Rules ------------------------------------- */ + hr {width: 65%; + margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; + margin-top: 2.0em; margin-bottom: 2.0em; + clear: both;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + hr.short {width: 20%;} + hr.tiny {width: 10%;} + hr.tight {margin-top: 1.0em; margin-bottom: 1.0em;} + /* General Formatting ---------------------------------- */ + .sc {font-variant: small-caps;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .spacious {letter-spacing: 0.1em;} + .normal {font-weight: normal;} + .heading {font-weight: bold; text-align: center;} + p.break {margin-top: 2.5em;} + span.pagenum {position: absolute; + right: 1%; + color: gray; background-color: inherit; + letter-spacing:normal; + text-indent: 0em; text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-variant: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-size: 8pt;} + /* Links ------------------------------------------------ */ + a:link {color: blue; background-color: inherit; text-decoration: none} + link {color: blue; background-color: inherit; text-decoration: none} + a:visited {color: blue; background-color: inherit; text-decoration: none} + a:hover {color: red; background-color: inherit} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories +of Man and Society, by Henry Ward Beecher + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society + Great Speech, Delivered in New York City + +Author: Henry Ward Beecher + +Release Date: May 31, 2008 [EBook #25653] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFLICT OF THEORIES *** + + + + +Produced by K. Nordquist, Richard J. Shiffer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="trans-note"> +<p class="heading">Transcriber's Note</p> +<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as +faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other +inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an obvious error +is noted at the <a href="#END">end</a> of this ebook.</p> +</div> + +<h1>GREAT SPEECH,</h1> + +<br /> + +<h3 class="normal">DELIVERED IN NEW YORK CITY,</h3> + +<h5 class="normal">BY</h5> + + +<h1>HENRY WARD BEECHER,</h1> + + +<h5 class="normal">ON THE</h5> + +<h2>Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories</h2> + +<h2 class="spacious normal">OF MAN AND SOCIETY,</h2> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>January 14, 1855.</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4 class="spacious">ROCHESTER:</h4> + +<h5>STEAM PRESS OF A. STRONG & CO., COR. OF STATE AND BUFFALO STREETS.</h5> + +<h5>1855.</h5> + +<br /> +<hr class="tiny" /> +<br /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[pg 3]</a></span></p> +<h2> +<i>Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories</i><br /> +<span class="spacious">OF MAN AND SOCIETY.</span></h2> + + +<p>The Eighth Lecture of the Course before the Anti-Slavery Society, was +delivered, January 14, 1855, at the Tabernacle, New York, by the Rev. +<span class="smcap">Henry Ward Beecher</span>. The subject, at the present time, is one of +peculiar interest, as touching the questions of Slavery and +Know-Nothingism, and, together with the popularity of the lecturer, +drew together a house-full of auditors.</p> + +<p>There were a number of gentlemen of distinction, occupying seats on +the rostrum—among whom were the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, James Mott, +of Philadelphia, and Mr. Dudley, of Buffalo.</p> + +<p>Mr. Beecher was introduced to the audience by Mr. <span class="smcap">Oliver Johnson</span>, who +said:</p> + +<p><i>Ladies and Gentlemen</i>: The speaker who occupied this platform on +Tuesday evening last, in the course of his remarks upon the wide +degeneracy of the American Clergy on the Slavery Question, reminded us +that there was in a Brooklyn pulpit, <span class="smcap">a man</span>. We thought you would be +glad to see and hear such a <i>rara avis</i>, and therefore have besought +him to come hither to-night to instruct us by his wisdom and move us +by his eloquence. I trust that, whatever you may think of some other +parts of the lecture of <span class="smcap">Wendell Phillips</span>, you will, when this +evening's performance is over, be ready at least to confess that in +what he said of the Brooklyn preacher he was not more eulogistic than +truthful.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Beecher</span>, on presenting himself, was received with loud and hearty +applause. He spoke as follows:</p> + +<p>The questions which have provoked discussion among us for fifty years +past have not been questions of fundamental principles, but of the +<i>application</i> of principles already ascertained. Our debates have been +between one way of doing a thing and another way of doing it—between +living well and living better; and so through, it has been a question +between good and better. We have discussed policies, not principles. +In Europe, on the other hand, life-questions have agitated men. The +questions of human rights, of the nature and true foundations of +Government, are to-day, in Europe, where they were with our fathers in +1630.</p> + +<p>In this respect, there is a moral dignity, and even grandeur, in the +struggles, secretly or openly going on in Italy, Austria, Germany, and +France, which never can belong to the mere questions of mode and +manner which occupy us—boundary questions, banks, tariffs, internal +improvements, currency; all very necessary but secondary topics. They +touch nothing deeper than the pocket. In this respect, there would be +a marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and the +grander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for one +subject—<i>Slavery</i>. <span class="smcap">That</span> is the <span class="smcap">only</span> <i>question, in our day and in our +community, full of vital struggles turning upon fundamental +principles</i>.</p> + +<p>If Slavery were a plantation-question, concerning only the master and +the slave, disconnected from us, and isolated—then, though we should +regret it, and apply moral forces for its ultimate remedy, yet, it +would be, (as are questions of the same kind in India or South +America,) remote, constituting a single element in that globe of +darkness of which this world is the core, and which Christianity is +yet to shine through and change to light. But it is <i>not</i> a +plantation-question. It is a national question. The disputes implied +by the violent relations between the owner and the chattel may only +<i>morally</i> touch us.—But the disputes between the masters and the +Government, and between the Government, impregnated with Slavery, and +the Northern citizen, these touch us sharply, and if not wisely met, +will yet scourge us with thorns! Indeed, I cannot say that I believe +that New England and the near North will be affected <i>locally</i>, and +immediately by an adverse issue of the great national struggle now +going on. But the North will be an utterly dead force in the American +nation. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[pg 4]</a></span> She will be rolled up in a corner, like a cocoon waiting for +its transmigration. The whole North will become provincial; it will be +but a fringe to a nation whose heart will beat in the South.</p> + +<p>But New-England was not raised up by Divine Providence to play a mean +part in the world's affairs.</p> + +<p>Remember, that New-England brought to America those principles which +every State in the Union has more or less thoroughly adopted.</p> + +<p>New-England first formed those institutions which liberty requires for +beneficient activity; and from her, both before and since the +Revolution, they have been copied throughout the Land. Having given to +America its ideas and its institutions, I think the North is bound to +stand by them.</p> + +<p>Until 1800, the North had distinctive national influence, and gave +shape, in due measure, to national <i>policy</i>, as she had before to +national institutions.</p> + +<p>Then she began to recede before the rising of another power. For the +last fifty years, upon the national platform have stood arrayed two +champions in mortal antagonism—New-England and the near +North—representing personal freedom, civil liberty, universal +education, and a religious spirit which always sympathises with men +more than with Governments.</p> + +<p>The New-England theory of Government has always been in its +element—first, independent men; then democratic townships; next +republican States, and, in the end, a Federated Union of Republican +States. All her economies, her schools, her policy, her industry, her +wealth, her intelligence, have been at agreement with her theory and +policy of Government. Yet, New-England, strong at home, compact, +educated, right-minded; has gradually lost influence, and the whole +North with her.</p> + +<p>The Southern League of States, have been held together by the cohesive +power of Common Wrong. Their industry, their policy, their whole +interior, vital economy, have been at variance with the apparent +principles of their own State Governments, and with the National +Institutions under which they exist. They have stood upon a narrow +basis, always shaking under them, without general education, without +general wealth, without diversified industry. And yet since the year +1800, they have steadily prevailed against Representative New-England +and the North. The South, the truest representation of Absolutism +under republican forms, is mightier in our National Councils and +Policy to-day than New-England, the mother and representative of true +republicanism and the whole free North.</p> + +<p>And now it has come to pass that, in the good providence of God, +another opportunity has been presented to the whole North to reassert +her place and her influence, and to fill the institutions of our +country with their original and proper blood. I do not desire that she +should arise and put on her beautiful garments, because she is my +mother, and your mother; not because her hills were the first which my +childhood saw, that has never since beheld any half so dear; nor from +any sordid ambition, that she should be great in this world's +greatness; nor from any profane wish to abstract from the rightful +place and influence of any State, or any section of our whole country. +But I think that God sent New-England to these shores as his own +messenger of mercy to days and ages, that have yet far to come ere +they are born! She has not yet told this Continent all that is in her +heart. She has sat down like Bunyan's Pilgrim, and slept in the bower +by the way, and where she slept she has left her roll—God grant that +she hath not lost it there while she slumbered!</p> + +<p>By all the love that I bear to the cause of God, and the glory of his +Church, by the yearnings which I have for the welfare of the human +kind, by all the prophetic expectations which I have of the destiny of +this land, God's Almoner of Liberty to the World, I desire to see Old +Representative New-England, and the affiliated North, rouse up and do +their first works.</p> + +<p>Is it my excited ear that hears an airy phantasm whispering? or do I +hear a solemn voice crying out, "<i>Arise? Shine? thy light is come, and +the glory of the Lord is arisen upon thee!</i>"</p> + +<p>I am quite aware that the subject of Slavery has been regarded, by +many, as sectional; and the agitation of it in the North needless, and +injurious to our peace and the country's welfare. Whatever may have +been the evils, the agitation has only come <i>through</i> men, not <i>from</i> +them. It is of God. It is the underheaving of Providence. Mariners +might as well blame <i>you</i> for the swing and toss of their craft when +tides troop in or march out of your harbor, as us, for heaving to that +tide which God swells under us. Tides in the ocean and in human +affairs are from celestial bodies and celestial beings. The conflict +which is going on springs from causes as deep as the foundations of +our institutions. It will go on to a crisis; its settlement will be an +era in the world's history, either of advance or of decline.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[pg 5]</a></span>I wish to call your patient attention to the real nature of this +contest. It is,</p> + +<p><i>The conflict between Northern theories and Southern theories of man +and of Society.</i></p> + +<p>There have been, from the earliest period of the world, two different, +and oppugnant, doctrines of man—<i>his place, rights, duties and +relations</i>. And the theory of man is always the starting point of all +other theories, systems, and Governments which divide the world.</p> + +<p>Outside of a Divine and Authoritative Revelation, men have had but one +way of estimating the value of man. He was to them simply a creature +of time, and to be judged in the scientific method, by his +<i>phenomena</i>. The Greeks and the Romans had no better way. They did not +know enough of his origin, his nature, or his destiny, to bring these +into account, in estimating man. Accordingly they could do no better +than to study him in his developments and rank him by the <span class="smcap">power</span> which +he manifested. Now if a botanist should describe a biennial plant, +whose root and stem belong to one season, whose blossom and fruit +belong to another, as if that were the whole of it which the first +year produced, he would commit the same mistake which the heathen idea +of man commits in measuring and estimating a being whose true life +comes hereafter, by the developments which he makes in only this +world.</p> + +<p>From this earthly side of man springs the most important practical +results. For the doctrine of man, simply as he <i>is in this life, +logically deduces Absolutism and Aristocracy</i>.</p> + +<p>If the <i>power of producing effects</i> is the criterion of value, the few +will always be the <i>most</i> valuable, and the mass relatively, +subordinate, and the weak and lowest will be left helplessly +worthless.</p> + +<p>And the mass of all the myriads that do live, are of no more account +than working animals; and there is, no such a theory, no reason, <i>a +priori</i>; why they should not be controlled by superior men, and made +to do that for which they seem the best fitted—Work and Drudgery! +Only long experiment could teach a doctrine contrary to the logical +presumption arising from weakness. There could be no doctrine of human +<i>rights</i>. It would be simply a doctrine of human <i>forces</i>. <i>Right</i> +would be a word as much out of place as among birds and beasts. +Authority would go with productive greatness, as gravity goes with +mass in matter. The whole chance of Right, and the whole theory of +Liberty, springs from that part of man that lies beyond this life.</p> + +<p>As a material creature, man ranks among physical forces. Rights come +from his spiritual nature. The body is of the earth, and returns to +earth, and is judged by earthly measures. The soul is of God, and +returns to God, and is judged by Divine estimates. And this is the +reason why a free, unobstructed Bible always works toward human +rights. It is the only basis on which the poor, the ignorant, the +weak, the laboring masses can entrench against oppression.</p> + +<p>What, then, is that theory of man which Christianity gives forth?</p> + +<p>It regards man not as a perfect thing, put into life to blossom and +die, as a perfect flower doth. Man is a <i>seed</i>, and birth is +<i>planting</i>. He is in life for cultivation, not exhibition; he is here +chiefly to be <i>acted on</i>, not to be characteristically an agent. For, +though man is also an actor, he is yet more a recipient. Though he +produces effects, he receives a thousand fold more than he produces. +And he is to be estimated by his capacity of receiving, not of doing. +<i>He has his least value in what he can <span class="smcap">do</span>; it all lies in what he is +capable of having done <span class="smcap">to</span> him.</i> The eye, the ear, the tongue, the +nerve of touch, are all simple receivers. The understanding, the +affections, the moral sentiments, all, are primarily and +characteristically, recipients of influence; and only secondarily +agents. Now, how different is the value of ore, dead in its silent +waiting-places, from the wrought blade, the all but living engine, and +the carved and curious utensil!</p> + +<p>Of how little value is a ship standing helpless on the stocks—but +half-built, and yet building—to one who has no knowledge of the +ocean, or of what that helpless hulk will become the moment she slides +into her element, and rises and falls upon the flood with joyous +greeting!</p> + +<p>The value of an acorn is not what it is, but what it shall be when +nature has brooded it, and brought it up, and a hundred years have +sung through its branches and left their strength there!</p> + +<p>He, then, that judges man by what he can do, judges him in the seed. +We must see him through some lenses—we must prefigure his +<i>immortality</i>. While, then, his <i>industrial</i> value in life must depend +on what he can do, we have here the beginning of a <i>moral</i> value which +bears no relation to his <i>power</i>, but to his future destiny.</p> + +<p>This view assumes distinctness and intensity, when we add to it the +relationship which subsists between man and his Maker.</p> + +<p>This relationship begins in the fact that we are created in the divine +image; that we are connected with God, therefore, not by Government +alone, but by nature.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[pg 6]</a></span>This initial truth is made radiant with meaning, by the teaching of +Christianity that every human being is dear to God: a teaching which +stands upon that platform, built high above all human deeds and +histories, the advent, incarnation, passion, and death of Christ, as a +Savior of men.</p> + +<p>The race is a brotherhood; God is the Father, Love is the law of this +great human commonwealth, and Love knows no servitude. It is that +which gilds with liberty whatever it touches.</p> + +<p>One more element to human liberty is contributed by Christianity, in +the solemn development of man's accountability to God, by which +condition hereafter springs from pure character here.</p> + +<p>However heavy that saying is, every one of us shall <i>give an account +of himself</i> before God—in it is the life of the race.</p> + +<p>You cannot present man as a subject of Divine government, held +responsible for results, compared with which the most momentous +earthly deeds are insignificant, plied with influences accumulating +from eternity, and by powers which though they begin on earth in the +cradle, gentle as a mother's voice singing lullaby, go on upward, +taking every thing as they go, till they reach the whole power of God; +and working out results that outlast time and the sun, and revolve +forever in flaming circuits of disaster, or in sacred circles of +celestial bliss; you cannot present man as the center and subject of +such an august and eternal drama, without giving him something of the +grandeur which resides in God himself, and in the spheres of +immortality!</p> + +<p>Who shall trifle with such a creature, full bound upon such an errand +through life, and swelling forth to such a destiny? Clear the place +where he stands?—give him room and help, but no hinderance, as he +equips for eternity!—loosen the bonds of man, for God girds +him!—take off all impediments, for it is his life and death and +struggle for immortality!</p> + +<p>That this effect of accountability to God was felt by the inspired +writers, cannot be doubtful to any who weigh such language as this:</p> + +<p>"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us +not, therefore judge one another any more, but <i>judge this rather, +that no man put a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall in his +brother's way</i>."</p> + +<p>By making man important in the sight of God, he becomes sacred to his +fellow. The more grand and far-reaching are the divine claims, the +greater is our conception of the scope and worth of being. Human +rights become respected in the ratio in which human responsibility is +felt. Whatever objections men may hold to Puritanism—their theory +since the days of St. Augustine has constantly produced tendencies to +liberty and a prevalent belief in the natural <i>rights of man</i>—and on +account of that very feature which to many, has been so offensive—its +rigorous doctrine of human accountability. Here, then, is the idea of +man which Christianity gives in contrast with the inferior and +degrading heathen notions of man. He is a being but <i>begun</i> on +earth—a seed only planted here for its first growth. He is connected +with God, not as all matter is by proceeding from creative power, but +by partaking the divine nature, by the declared personal affection of +God, witnessed and sealed by the presence and sufferings of the +world's Redeemer. He is a being upon whom is rolled the responsibility +of character and eternal destiny! Of such a creature it were as +foolish to take an estimate, by what he <i>is</i> and what he can <i>do</i> in +this life, as it would be to estimate by an eagle's egg, what the old +eagle is worth, with wings outspread far above the very thunder, or +coming down upon its quarry as the thunder comes! It is the Future +that gives value to the Present. It is Immortality only that reaches +down a measure wherewith to gauge a man. If a heathen measures, the +strong are strong, and the weak are weak: the rich, the favored, must +rule, and their shadow must dwarf all others. If a Christian measures, +he hears a voice saying: "<i>There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is +neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are +all one in Christ Jesus.</i> Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, +which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother."</p> + +<p>These are the things that give value to man.</p> + +<p>It is not to be said that there is no difference between men; that one +is not more powerful than another; that one is not richer in genius +than another; that one is not more valuable to <i>society</i> than another; +that education, refinement, skill, experience, give no precedence over +their negatives. But God takes up the <i>least</i> of all human creatures, +and, declares, "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the <i>least of these</i>, +ye have done it unto me." In a household, a babe is vastly less than +the grown-up children. But who dare touch it, as if it were as +worthless as it is weak?</p> + +<p>So God pleads his own relationship to the meanest human creation, as +his protection from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[pg 7]</a></span>wrong; as the evidence of his rights, as the +reason of his dignity! There is something of God in the meanest +creature. He is sacred from injury! In these truths we find the reason +why Christianity always takes <i>hold so low down</i> in human life. Things +that have got their root need little from the gardener; but the seeds, +and tender sprouts, and difficult plants, require and get nurture.</p> + +<p>A Christianity that takes care of the rich, the strong, the governing +class, and neglects the poor, and ignorant, and the unrefined, as the +antitype of Christ.</p> + +<p>It is in this direction only, that the declaration of man's equality +is true. No heathen nation could say that "all men are born free and +equal"—for in more earthly respects it is false. But it is a truth +that stands only and firmly in those grand relations which man +sustains <i>to God, to Eternity, and to future dignity</i>—all are equally +subjects of these. Man is ungrown. All his fruit is green. If he must +stand by what <i>he is</i>, how surely must he be given over to weakness, +to abuse, to oppressions. The weak are the natural prey to the strong, +and superiority is a charter for tyranny.</p> + +<p>But if he be an heir, waiting for an inheritance of God, eternal in +the heavens, woe be to him that dare lay a finger on him because he is +a minor!</p> + +<p>I dwell the longer upon this view because it carries the world's heart +in it. We must deepen our thinkings of man, and bore for the springs +of liberty far below the drainings of surface strata, down deep, +Artesian, till we strike something that shall be beyond winter or +summer, frost or drouth.</p> + +<p>I do not believe that there is a doctrine of individual rights nor of +civil liberty that can stand outside of Christianity. They are to be +seen revealed in nature, but there is none to interrupt them with +authority. Christ is the World's Emancipator, for he hath declared +that men belong to <i>Him</i>; and an oppressor thus becomes a felon, a +robber, and a wronger of God, in the person of every poor and wretched +victim!</p> + +<p>A Christianity that tells man what his origin is—of God; his destiny, +to God again; his errand on earth, to grow toward goodness, and make +the most of himself—this Christianity is rank rebellion in +despotisms, and insurrection on plantations. It cannot be preached +there.</p> + +<p>These two radical theories of man—man, a physical creature to be +judged by effects produced in Time; or man, a spiritual creature, to +be judged by the development to which he is destined, are at the root +of all the antagonisms between the spirit of northern and southern +institutions: northern policy and southern policy. In the North, it is +the public sentiment of the people, that all men are born free and +equal; that every man has an inalienable right to life, liberty and +the pursuit of happiness, forfeited only by <i>crime</i>. The North believe +that personal and political liberty are not only <i>rights</i> of man, but +their <i>necessity</i>, that man cannot thrive nor develop, with the true +proportions of manhood, without liberty. It is the northern sentiment +that a man must be prepared for liberty, and that the act of <i>birth</i> +is that preparation; that no creature lives which is the better for +oppression, and who will not be the better for freedom, which is the +natural air appointed for the soul's breathing. The North disdains +every pretense that men are injured by sudden liberty. A famished man +may injure himself by over-feeding; but that is an argument not +against food, but against famine. It is the northern sentiment, and +justly deduced from the Christian theory of man, that society should +redeem all its own children from ignorance, should secure their +growth, equip them for citizenship, make all the influences of society +enure to the benefit of the mass of men. The southern sentiment is the +reverse of this. It holds that all men are not born free and equal; +that men have not an inalienable right to life, liberty and the +pursuit of happiness; and that men are not in their very constitution +fitted for liberty, and benefited by it. They hold that liberty is an +attribute of power; that it is a blossom which belongs to <i>races</i>, and +not to mankind; that a part were born to rule, and a part were +ordained to serve; that liberty is dangerous to the many; that +servitude, the most rigorous, is a blessing; that it accords with the +creative intent of God, and with his revealed institutions; that a +nation cannot be homogeneous, and should not aim at it; that there is +a law and scale of gradation, on which the top is privilege and +authority, the bottom labor and obedience. <i>These are the radical +theories of the respective sections of the land.</i> Men often are +profoundly ignorant of the principles which control their policy, as a +ship is unconscious of the rudder that steers her. Many are found, +both North and South, whose conduct over-rules their theory, and who +are better or worse than their belief. There are southern men who are +more generous than their theory, and there are northern men who are +grossly untrue to the northern theory, which, with their lips, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[pg 8]</a></span>they +profess. There are southern men with northern consciences, and there +are northern men with southern consciences. But, in the main, these +respective theories reign and regulate public procedure. There is not +a man so poor in the North, or so ignorant, or souseless, as not to be +regarded as a Man, by religion, by civil law, and by public opinion. +Selfishness and pride, avarice and cunning, anger or lust, may prey +upon the heedlessness or helplessness of many. Society may be full of +evils. But all these things are not sequences of northern doctrines, +but violations of them. If sharks in great cities consume the too +credulous emigrant; if usurers, like moths, cut the fabric of life +with invisible teeth; if landlords sack their tenements and pinch the +tenant—all these results are against the spirit of our law, against +public feeling, and they that do such things must slink and burrow. +They are vermin that run in the walls, and peep from hiding-holes, and +we set traps for them as we do for rats or weazels. But, in the South, +the subordination of man, to man, in his earnings, his skill, his time +and labor—in his person, his affections, his very children—is a part +of the theory of society, drawn out into explicit statutory law, +coincident with public opinion, and executed without secrecy. A net +spread for those guilty of such wrongs against man, would catch +States, and Legislatures, Citizens, Courts, and Constitutions.</p> + +<p>In the North the most useless pauper that burdens the Alms-House—the +most uncombed foreigner that delves in a ditch—the most abject +creature that begs a morsel from door to door, <i>is yet a man</i>; and +there is, not in theory only, but in the public sentiment, a +sacredness of rights, which no man, except by stealth, can violate +with impunity. There is no other law for the Governor of New-York or +of Massachusetts, than for the beggar in your streets. That which +protects the dwelling and the property of the rich man, belongs just +as much to the hovel of the beggar. God sends but one sun, and it is +the same light that kindles against the roof of a mansion, that dawns +upon the thatch of a hut. The same air comes to each, the same +showers, the same seasons, summer and winter. And as is Nature, so in +the North, is law, and the distributive benefits of society. They +bathe society from top to bottom! The rich, the learned, the refined, +the strong, may know how to make a better use of the air, but they +have no more air of privilege to breathe, than the poorest wretch.</p> + +<p>In the South, exactly the reverse is true, not by stealth, not by +neglect of a recognized principle, but as the result of men's ideas, +and by organized arrangements. Touch a hireling's wages, in the North, +and the Law stands to defend him and beat you down! Take the laborer's +wages in the South, and the law stands to defend you, and beat him +down.</p> + +<p>Beat a man, in the North, for a private wrong done, and the law will +strike you. But in the South, it is the right of the white, +unquestioned and unquestionable to beat every third person in the +community.</p> + +<p>Let the proudest mill-owner break but the skin of the poorest +operative in Lowell or Lawrence, and both law and public sentiment, +alike, would grasp and punish him!</p> + +<p>But in the South the law refuses to look at any degree of cruelty in +chastisements upon the universal laborer, short of maiming or death, +and public sentiment is but little better than the law.</p> + +<p>The laborer in the North answers to a tribunal; in the South, to a +master, incensed, passionate, vindictive in justice executed upon all +symptoms of resisting manhood!</p> + +<p>In the North, nothing is more sacred than a man's family and his +children. It would not be possible for a man to do public violence to +a family circle without vindictive penalty. Let him separate a mother +from her daughters, let him employ a hireling ruffian to carry off the +boys into the country and parcel them out there—let him scatter the +flock, and leave the children motherless, and the parents childless, +and what do you think would become of <i>him</i>?</p> + +<p>In the South it is a part of the civil rights of men to do these +things whenever they please. And though public sentiment is better +than law, yet as no public sentiment on earth is a match for legalized +lust, or avarice, or the grip of misfortune, these things are +continually done, and remorselessly. Cruelty, chastity, virtue, do not +mean the same things in the South as in the North. A man is not +blemished by deeds and indulgencies, upon a plantation, among slaves, +which in the North, would strike him through with infamy and house him +in the penitentiary.</p> + +<p>In the South, there are many roads leading from the top of society to +the bottom, but not <i>one</i>, not <span class="smcap">one</span> from the bottom to the top.</p> + +<p>In the North, if the citizen chooses to walk in it, <i>there is a road +from every man's door</i> up to the Governor's chair or the Presidential +seat!</p> + +<p>It needs no words, now, to convince you, that out of such different +theories of men, there will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[pg 9]</a></span>exist in the North and in the South, +extremely different ideas of Society, Government, and Public Policy.</p> + +<p>In the North, first in order of consideration is man, the individual +man; next the family, made of those of common blood, and by far the +strongest, as it is the most sacred of all institutions. Then comes +the township, which presents the only spectacle of an absolute +political democracy. For, here only, do citizens assemble in mass and +vote, directly and not by representation. Next comes Society at large, +or the mass of citizens grouped into States. And in Society, in the +North, there are no classes except such as rise out of spontaneous +forces. Wealth, experience, ability set men above their fellows. There +they stand as long as there is a <i>real</i> superiority. But they stand +there, not by legal force, nor to exercise any legal power, or to have +one single privilege or prerogative, which does not belong just as +much to every citizen clear down to the bottom. All that a class +<i>means</i> in the North is, that when men have shown themselves strong +and wise men give them honor for it. Death levels it all down again. +Their children inherit nothing. They must earn for themselves. There +is no division of society into orders, by which some have privilege +and some have not, some have opportunity and advantages which others +have not.</p> + +<p>In the South, society is divided into two great and prominent +classes—the ruling and the obeying—the thinking and the working. The +labor of the South is performed by three million creatures who +represent the heathen idea of man.</p> + +<p>All the benefits that have accrued to man from Christianity, are +appropriated and monopolized by the white population.</p> + +<p>Here is a seam that no sophistry can sew up. Here is a society +organized, not on an idea of equal rights, and of inequalities only as +they spring from difference of worth, but on an idea of permanent, +political, organized inequality among men. They carry it so far that +the theory of Slave law regards the slave not as an inferior man, +governed, for his own good as well as for the benefit of the society +at large, but it pronounces him, in reiterated forms, not a man at +all, but a chattel.</p> + +<p>When a community of States, by the most potential voice of Law, says +to the whole body of its laboring population, Ye are not <i>men</i> and +shall not be; ye are chattels—it is absurd to speak about kind +treatment—about happiness. It is about cattle that they are talking! +Our vast body of laboring men do not yet feel the force of such a +theory of human society. But, if that political system, which has +openly been making such prodigious strides for the last fifty years, +and effecting, secretly, a yet greater change in men's ideas of +society and government, shall gain complete ascendancy, they, in their +turn, and in due time will know and see the difference between a +Republican Democracy and a Republican Aristocracy?</p> + +<p>Out of such original and radical differences, there must flow a +perpetual contrast and opposition of policies and procedures, in the +operation of society and of business. We will select but a few, of +many, subjects of contrast, Work, Education, Freedom of Speech and of +the Press, and Religion.</p> + + +<p class="break">I. <span class="smcap">Work.</span> Among us, and from the beginning, Work has been honorable. It +has been honorable to dig, to hew, to build, to reap, to wield the +hammer at the forge, and the saw at the bench. It has been honorable +because our people have been taught that each man is set to make the +most of himself. The crown for every victory gained in a struggle of +skill or industry over matter is placed upon the soul; and thus among +a free people industry becomes education.</p> + +<p>It is the peculiarity of Northern labor, that it <i>thinks</i>. It is +intelligence working out through the hands. There is more real thought +in a Yankee's hand than in a Southerner's head. This is not true of a +class, or of single individuals, or of single States. It pervades the +air. It is Northern public sentiment. It springs from our ideas of +manhood. These influences, acting through generations, have been +wrought into the very blood. It is in the stock. Go where you will a +Yankee is a working creature. He is the honeybee of mankind. Only Work +is royal among us. It carries the sceptre, and changes all nations by +its touch, opening its treasures and disclosing its secrets.</p> + +<p>But with all this industry, you shall find nowhere on earth so little +<i>drudging</i> work as in the North. It is not the servitude of the hands +to material nature. It is the glorious exercise of mind upon nature. +They vex nature with incessant importunities. They are always prying, +and thinking, and trying.</p> + +<p>In California, gold is found in quartz formations. But in New England, +and the free inventive North, in the geology of industry, gold is +found everywhere—in rye straw and bonnets, in leather and stone, in +wool, felts and cloths; in wood, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[pg 10]</a></span>stone, and in very ice. It is +wrapped up in the beggar's raiment, which unroll in our mills into +paper—yesterday, a beggar's feculent rags; to-day, a newspaper, +conveying the world's daily life into twenty thousand families. And so +great are the achievements of labor that everybody honors it. It +stands among us as an invisible dignity. Four spirits there are that +rule in New England—religion, social virtue, intelligence, and +<i>work</i>; and this last takes something from them all, and is their +physical exponent. So that not only is work honored and honorable, but +the want of it is an implied discredit. The presumption is always +against a man who does not labor.</p> + +<p>In the South, the very reverse is true, as a general proposition.</p> + +<p>It is true, because labor is the peculiar badge of Slavery. It does +not stand, as with us, a symbol of intelligence, but a symbol of +stupid servitude. It is the business of those whom the law puts out of +the pale of society and accounts chattels, and who, by the opinion of +society, are at the bottom, and under the feet of respectable men. To +work is, therefore, <i>prima facie</i> evidence of degradation. It is +ranking oneself with a slave by doing a slave's tasks; as eating a +beggar's crust with him would be a beggar's fellowship.</p> + +<p>But this is not the whole reason, nor the chiefest and more potent +reason of the difference between public feeling about <span class="smcap">Work</span>, North and +South.</p> + +<p>The ideas of men in the South do not inspire any such tendency. Men +are judged there not by what they are and are to be, but by what they +<i>can now do</i>. Only such things as have an echo in them, that +reverberate in the ear of public opinion, that produce an effect of +notice, honor, advancement <i>in the</i> <span class="smcap">opinions</span> of men, are relished. In +the North, men are educated to <i>be</i> something—in the South to <i>seem</i> +something. The North tends to <i>doing</i>—the South to <i>appearing</i>. And +both tendencies spring from the root of opposite theories of men and +notions of society.</p> + +<p>And it is this innate, hereditary indisposition to work that, after +all, is the greatest obstacle to emancipation. Laziness in the South +and money in the North, are the bulwarks of Slavery! To take away a +planter's slaves is to cut off his hands. There is where he keeps his +work. There is none of it in himself. And it is this, too, which leads +to the contempt which southern people feel for northern men. They are +working men, and work is flavored to the Southerner with ideas of +ignominy, of meanness, of vulgar lowness. Neither can they understand +how a man who works all his life long can be high-minded and generous, +intelligent and refined.</p> + +<p>Not only is there this contrast in dignity of work, but even more—<i>in +rights of industry</i>. Work, in the North, has responsibilities that are +prodigious educators. We ordain that a man shall have the fullest +chance, and then he shall have the results of his activity. He shall +take all he can make, or he shall take the whole result of +<i>indolence</i>. It is a double education. It inspires labor by hope of +fruition, and intensifies it by the fear of non-fruition. The South +have their whole body of laborers at work without either +responsibility. They cut it off at both ends. They virtually say to +the slave, in reality, "<i>Be lazy</i>, for all that you earn shall do you +no good; be lazy, for when you are old and helpless we are bound to +take care of you."</p> + +<p>It is this apparent care for the helplessness of slaves, that has won +the favor of many northern men, and of some who ought to have known +better the effect of taking off from men the responsibility of labor, +in both ways, its fruition and its penalty. Once declare in New York +that Government would take care of poverty and old age, so as to make +it honorable, and it would be a premium upon improvidence. With us, it +is expected that every man will work, will earn, will lay up, will +deliver his family from public charity. There is, to be sure, an Alms +House to catch all who, by misfortune or improvidence, fall through. +But such is the public opinion in favor of personal independence +springing from industry, that a native-born American citizen had +rather die than go to an Alms-House. Foreigners are our staple +paupers. Our charity feeds the poor wretches whom foreign slavery has +crippled and cast upon us. But the whole South is a vast work-house +for the slave while young, and a vast alms-house for him when old, and +neither young or old, is he permitted to feel the responsibility for +labor. And this, too, explains the <i>apparent</i> advantage which the +South has over the North in the matter of pauperism and distress. The +northern system intends to punish those who will not work. It it not a +system calculated for slaves nor for lazy men. If indolence comes +under it, it will take the penalty of not working. And nowhere else in +the world is the penalty of indolence, and even of shiftlessness, so +terrible as in the North, as nowhere else is the remuneration of a +virtuous industry so ample and so widely diffused.</p> + +<p class="break">II. There is just as marked a contrast upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[pg 11]</a></span>the subject of education, +and especially of Common Schools. In the North we have <span class="smcap">Common</span> Schools. +This is more than a School. It is more than a public school. It is a +<i>Common</i> School, in distinction from a <i>select</i>, or class school. It +is a public provision for bringing together, upon a perfect equality, +the children of the rich and the poor, the noble and ignoble, the high +and the low. It is a provision of our institutions, by which every +generation is led to a line and made to start equal and together. +There will be inequality enough as soon as men get into life. Some +shoot ahead; some, like dull sailors in a fleet, are dropped behind, +and men are scattered all along the ocean. But the <i>Common</i> School +gathers up their children and brings them all back again to take a new +start together. Thus our schools are not mere whetstones to the +intellect; they are institutions for evening up society; they resist +the tendency to separation into classes, which grows with the +prosperity of a community; they bind together, in cordial sympathy, +all classes of citizens. For nothing is more tenacious than schoolday +remembrances, and the last things that we forget are playmates and +schoolmates.</p> + +<p>The South may have schools. But never <i>Common</i> Schools. The South has +no <i>common</i> people. There can be States, there, but never +<i>Commonwealths</i>. There is no <i>common</i> ground, where the theory of +society grades men upon a perpendicular scale. It is a society of +<i>classes</i>, and a society of <i>classes</i> can never be a <i>community</i>. When +the whole labor of a State is performed by a degraded class, that are +not included in the State as citizens or social beings, it is +impossible but that the class next above them should feel the force of +those theories and ideas which have produced such a state of things. +It is so. The poor white population of the South is degraded. They are +ignorant—they are not fertile in thought or labor. They are not so +low as the slaves, nor so high as those who own slaves. There are +three classes—the top, the middle, and the bottom; and two of these, +the top and bottom, being fixed and legal, the middle is modified by +them both.</p> + +<p>In such a Society, there cannot be a <i>Common School</i>, in any such +sense as we mean it. Indeed, there cannot be <i>general education</i> in +any State where ignorance is the legal condition of one-half the +population, as is the case in many Southern States. Ignorance is an +institution in the South. It is a political necessity. It is as much +provided for by legislation and by public sentiment, and guarded by +enactments, as intelligence is in the North. It must be. The +restrictions which keep it from the slave will keep it from the +whites, excepting, always, the few who live at the top. There cannot +be an atmosphere of intelligence. Slaves would be in danger of +breathing that. There cannot be a common public sentiment, a common +school, nor common education. Knowledge is power, not only, but +powder, putting the South in the risk of being blown up, by careless +handling and too great abundance.</p> + + +<p class="break">III. Closely connected with this, and springing from the same causes, +is a contrast between the North and the South, in respect to free +speech and open discussion by lip and by type.</p> + +<p>The theory of the North is, that every man has the right, on every +subject, to the freest expression of his opinions, and the fullest +right to urge them upon the convictions of others. It is not a +permission of law; it is the inherent right of the individual. Law is +only to protect the citizen in the use of that right.</p> + +<p>It is the theory of the North that society is as much a gainer by this +freedom of discussion as is the individual.</p> + +<p>It is a perpetual education of the people, and a safeguard to the +State. There is the utmost latitude of speech and discussion among our +citizens. The attempt to abridge it would be so infatuated that the +most dignified Court that ever sat in Boston would become an object of +universal merriment and ridicule, that should presume to arrest and +cause to be indicted any man for free speaking in old Faneuil Hall. +Merriment, I say, for who would not laugh at a philosopher who would +set snares for the stars, and fix his net to catch the sun, and +regulate their indiscreet shining. Darkness and silence are excellent +for knaves and tyrants; but the attempt to command the one or the +other in the North, changes the knave to an imbecile and the tyrant to +a fool.</p> + +<p>But should any power, against the precedents of the past, the spirit +of our people, the theory of our civil polity and the rights of +individual man succeed, and make headway against free speech, and put +it in jeopardy, it would convulse the very frame-work of society. +There would be no time for a revolution—there would be an <i>eruption</i>, +and fragmentary Judges, Courts and their minions would fly upward +athwart the sky, like stones and balls of flame driven from the +vomiting crater of a furious volcano! No. This is a right like the +right of breathing. This is a liberty that broods upon us like the +atmosphere. The grand American doctrine that men may speak <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[pg 12]</a></span>what they +think, and may print what they speak—that all public measures shall +have free public discussion—cannot be shaken; and any party must be +intensely American that can afford to destroy the very foundation of +American principle that public questions shall be publicly discussed, +and public procedure be publicly agreed upon. Right always gains in +the light, and Wrong in the dark. An owl can whip an eagle in the +night!</p> + +<p>The South, holding a heathen theory of man—an aristocratic theory of +society,—is bound to hold, and does hold, a radically opposite +practice in respect to rights of speech and freedom of the press.</p> + +<p>There is not freedom of opinion in the South and there cannot be.</p> + +<p>Men may there talk of a thousand things—of all religious doctrines, +of literature, of art, of public political measures—but no man has +liberty to talk as he pleases about the structure of southern society, +and apply to the real facts of southern life and southern internal +questions that searching investigation and public exposure which, in +the North, brings every possible question to the bar of public +opinion, and makes society boil like a pot!</p> + +<p>Yes, you may speak of Slavery, if you will defend it; you may preach +about it, if you shingle its roof with Scripture texts; but you may +not talk, nor preach, nor print abolition doctrines, though you +believe them with the intensity of inspiration!</p> + +<p>The reason given is, that it will stir up insurrection. And so it +will. It is said that free speech is inflammatory. So it is. That it +would bring every man's life in the South into jeopardy; that, in +self-defence, they most limit and regulate the expression of opinion. +But what is that theory of Government, and what is the state of +society under it, in which free speech and free discussion are +dangerous? It is the boast of the North, not alone that speech and +discussion are free, but that we have a society constructed in every +part so rarely, wisely, and justly, that they can <i>endure</i> free +speech; no file can part, but only polish. We turn out any law, and +say, <i>Discuss</i> it! that it may be the stronger! We challenge scrutiny +for our industry, for our commerce, for our social customs, for our +municipal affairs, for our State questions, for all that we believe, +and all that we do, and everything that we build. We are not in haste +to be born in respect to any feature of life. We say—probe it, +question it, put fire to it. We ask the <i>experience of the past</i> to +sit and try it. We ask the ripest <i>wisdom of the present</i> to test and +analyze it. We ask enemies to plead all they know against it. We +challenge the whole world of ideas, and the great deep of human +interests to come up upon anything that belongs, or is <i>to</i> belong, to +public affairs. And then, when a truth, a policy, or a procedure comes +to birth, from out of the womb of such discussion, we know that it +will stand. And when our whole public interests are rounded out and +built up, we are glad to see men going around and about, marking well +our towers, and counting our bulwarks. May it do them good to see such +architecture and engineering! And it is just this difference that +distinguishes the North and the South. We have institutions that will +stand public and private discussion—they have not. We will not <i>have</i> +a law, or custom, or economy, which cannot be defended against the +freest inquiry. Such a rule would cut them level as a mowed meadow! +They live in a crater, forever dreading the signs of activity. They +live in a powder magazine. No wonder they fear light and fire. It is +the plea of Wrong since the world began. Discussion would unseat the +Czar; a free press would dethrone the ignoble Napoleon; free speech +would revolutionize Rome. Freedom of thought and freedom of +expression! they are mighty champions, that go with unsheathed swords +the world over, to redress the weak, to right the wronged, to pull +down evil and build up good. And a State that will be damaged by free +speech ought to be damaged. A King that cannot keep his seat before +free speech ought to be unseated. An order or an institution that +dreads freedom of the press has <i>reason</i> to dread it. If the South +would be revolutionized by free discussion, how intensely does that +fact show her dying need of revolution! She is a dungeon, full of +damps and death-air. She needs light and ventilation. And the only +objection is, that if there were light and air let in, it would no +longer be a dungeon.</p> + + +<p class="break">IV. There is a noticeable contrast between Northern and Southern ideas +of Religion.</p> + +<p>We believe God's revealed word to contain the influence appointed for +the regeneration and full development of every human being, and that +it is to be employed as God's universal stimulant to the human soul, +as air and light are the universal stimulants of vegetation.</p> + +<p>We preach it to arouse the whole soul; we preach it to fire the +intellect, and give it wings <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[pg 13]</a></span>by which to compass knowledge; we preach +it to touch every feeling with refinement, to soften rudeness and +enrich affections; we build the family with it; we sanctify love, and +purge out lust; we polish every relation of life; we inspire a +cheerful industry and whet the edge of enterprise, and then limit them +by the bonds of justice and by the moderation of a faith which looks +into the future and the eternal. We teach each man that he is a child +of God; that he is personally one for whom the Savior died; we teach +him that he is known and spoken of in heaven, his name called; that +angels are sent out upon his path to guard and to educate him; we +swell within him to the uttermost every aspiration, catching the first +flame of youth and feeding it, until the whole heart glows like an +altar, and the soul is a temple bright within, and sweet, by the +incense-smoke and aspiring flame of perpetual offerings and divine +sacrifices. We have never done with him. We lead him from the cradle +to boyhood; we take him then into manhood, and guide him through all +its passes; we console him in age, and then stand, as he dies, to +prophesy the coming heaven, until the fading eye flashes again, and +the unhearing ear is full again; for from the other side ministers of +grace are coming, and he beholds them, and sounds on earth and sights +are not so much lost as swallowed up in the glory and the melody of +the heavenly joy!</p> + +<p>Now tell me whether there is any preaching of the Gospel to the slave, +or whether there can be, and he yet remain a slave? We preach the +Gospel to arouse men, they to subdue them; we to awaken, they to +soothe; we to inspire self-reliance, they submission; we to drive them +forward in growth, they to repress and prune down growth; we to +convert them into men, they to make them content to be beasts of +burden!</p> + +<p>Is this <i>all</i> that the Gospel has? When credulous ministers assure us +that slaves have the means of grace, do they mean that they have such +teaching as <i>we</i> have? Or that there is any such <i>ideal</i> in preaching? +The power of religion with us is employed to set men on their feet; to +make them fertile, self-sustaining, noble, virtuous, strong, and to +build up society of men, each one of whom is large, strong, capacious +of room, and filled with versatile powers.</p> + +<p>Religion with them does no such thing. It doth the reverse.</p> + +<p>With them it is Herod casting men into prison. With us it is the +angel, appearing to lead them out of prison and set them free! In +short religion with us is emancipation and liberty; with them it is +bondage and contentment.</p> + +<p>It is very plain that while nominally republican institutions exist in +both the North and South, they are animated by a very different +spirit, and used for a different purpose. In the North, they aim at +the welfare of the whole people; in the South they are the instruments +by which a few control the many. In the North, they tend toward +Democracy; in the South, toward Oligarchy.</p> + +<p>It is equally plain that while there may be a union between Northern +and Southern States, it is external, or commercial, and not internal +and vital, springing from common ideas, common ends, and common +sympathies. It is a union of merchants and politicians and not of the +people.</p> + +<p>Had these opposite and discordant systems been left separate to work +out each its own results, there would have been but little danger of +collision or contest.</p> + +<p>But they are politically united. They come together into one Congress. +There these antagonistic principles, which creep with subtle influence +through the very veins of their respective States, break out into open +collision upon every question of national policy. And, since the world +began, a republican spirit is unfit to secure power. It degenerates it +in the many. But an aristocratic spirit always has aptitude and +impulse toward power. It seeks and grasps it as naturally as a hungry +lion prowls and grasps its prey.</p> + +<p>For fifty years the imperious spirit of the South has sought and +gained power. It would have been of but little consequence were that +power still republican. The seat of empire may be indifferently on the +Massachusetts Bay or the Ohio, on the Lakes or on the Gulf; if it be +the same empire, acting in good faith for the same democratic ends.</p> + +<p>But in the South the growth of power has been accompanied by a marked +revolution in political faith, until now the theory of Mr. Calhoun, +once scouted, is becoming the popular belief. And that theory differs +in nothing from outright European Aristocracy, save in the forms and +instruments by which it works.</p> + +<p>The struggle, then, between the North and the South is not one of +sections, and of parties, but of <i>Principles</i>—of principles lying at +the foundations of governments—of principles that cannot coalesce, +nor compromise; that must hate each other, and contend, until the one +shall drive out the other.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[pg 14]</a></span>Oh! how little do men dream of the things that are transpiring about +them! In Luther's days, how little they knew the magnitude of the +results pending that controversy of fractious monk and haughty pope! +How little did the frivolous courtier know the vastness of that +struggle in which Hampden, Milton and Cromwell acted! We are in just +such another era. Dates will begin from the period in which we live!</p> + +<p>Do not think that all the danger lies in that bolted cloud which +flashes in the Southern horizon. There is decay, and change, here in +the North. Old New-England, that suckled American liberty, is now +suckling wolves to devour it.</p> + +<p>What shall we think when a President of old Dartmouth College goes +over to Slavery, and publishes to the world his religious conviction +of the rightfulness of it, as a part of God's disciplinary government +of the world—wholesome to man, as a punishment of sins which he never +committed, and to liquidate the long arrearages of Ham's everlasting +debt! and avowing that, under favorable circumstances, he would buy +and own slaves! A Southern volcano in New-Hampshire, pouring forth the +lava of despotism in that incorrupt, and noble old fortress of +liberty! What a College to educate our future legislators!</p> + +<p>What are we to think, when old Massachusetts, the mother of the +Revolution, every league of whose soil swells with the tomb of some +heroic patriot, shall make pilgrimages through the South, and, after +surveying the lot of slaves under a system that turns them out of +manhood, pronounces them chattles, denies them marriage, makes their +education a penal and penitentiary offence, makes no provision for +their religious culture, leaving it to the stealth of good men, or the +interest of those who regard religion as a currycomb, useful in making +sleek and nimble beasts—a system which strikes through the +fundamental instincts of humanity, and wounds nature in the core of +the human heart, by taking from parents all right in their children, +and leaving the family, like a bale of goods, to be unpacked, and +parceled out and sold in pieces, without any other protection than the +general good nature of easy citizens; what shall be thought of the +condition of the public mind in Boston, when one of her most revered, +and personally, deservedly beloved pastors, has come up so profoundly +ignorant of what we thought every child knew, that he comes home from +this pilgrimage, to teach old New-England to check her repugnance to +Slavery, to dry up her tears of sympathy, and to take comfort in the +assurance that Slavery, on the whole, is as good or better for three +millions of laboring men as liberty. He has instituted a formal +comparison between the state of society and the condition of a +laboring population in a slave system and those in a free State, and +left the impression on every page that Liberty works no better results +than servitude, and that it has mischiefs and inconveniences which +Slavery altogether avoids.</p> + +<p>Read that book in Faneuil Hall, and a thousand aroused and indignant +ghosts would come flocking there, as if they heard the old roll-call +of Bunker Hill. Yea, read those doctrines on Bunker Hill—and would it +flame or quake? No. It would stand in silent majesty, pointing its +granite finger up to Heaven and to God—an everlasting witness against +all Slavery, and all its abettors or defenders.</p> + +<p>At this moment, the former parties that have stood in counterpoise +have fallen to pieces. And we are on the eve, and in the very act, of +reconstructing our parties. One movement there is that calls itself +American. Oh, that it were or or would be! Never was an opening so +auspicious for a true American party that, embracing the <i>principles</i> +of American institutions, should enter our Temple of Liberty and drive +out thence not merely the interloping Gentiles, but the +money-changers, and those, also, who sell oxen, and cattle and slaves +therein.</p> + +<p>It is not the question whether a Northern party should be a party of +philanthropy, or of propagandism, or of abolition. It is simply a +question whether, for fear of these things, they will ignore and rub +out of their creed every principle of human rights!</p> + +<p>I am not afraid of foreigners among us. Nevertheless, our politicians +have so abused us through them, that I am glad that a movement is on +foot to regulate the conduct of new-comers among us, and oblige them +to pass through a longer probation before they become citizens. In so +far as I understand the practical measures proposed and set forth in +the Message of the Governor of Massachusetts, I approve them.</p> + +<p>But I ask you, fellow-citizens, whether the simple accident of birth +is a basis broad enough for a permanent National party? Is it a +<i>principle</i>, even? It is a mere fact.</p> + +<p>Ought we not to look a little at what a man is <i>after</i> he is born, as +well as at the place where? Especially, when we remember that Arnold +was born in Connecticut and La Fayette in France.</p> + +<p>If then, a party is American, ought it not to be because it represents +those principles which are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[pg 15]</a></span>fundamental to American Institutions and +to American policy? principles which stand in contrast with European +Institutions and policy!</p> + +<p>Which of these two theories is the American? The North has one theory, +the South another; which of them is to be called <i>the American</i> idea? +Which is American—Northern ideas or Southern ideas? That which +declares all men free &c., or that which declares the superior races +free, and the inferior, Slaves?</p> + +<p>That which declares the right of every man to life, liberty, and the +pursuit of happiness—or that which declares the right of strength and +intelligence to subordinate weakness and ignorance?</p> + +<p>That which ordains popular education, freedom of speech, freedom of +the press, public discussion—or that which makes these a prerogative, +yielded to a class but denied to masses?</p> + +<p>That which organizes Society as a Democracy and Government, and +Republic—or that which organizes Society as an Aristocracy, and +Government as an Oligarchy?</p> + +<p>Which shall it be—that of organized New England townships, schools, +and churches—that resisted taxation without representation—that +covered Boston harbor with tea, as if all China had shook down her +leaves there—which spake from Faneuil Hall, and echoed from Bunker +Hill; or that policy which landed slaves on the Chesapeake—that has +changed Old Virginia from a land of heroes into a breeding-ground of +slaves—that has broken down boundaries, and carried war over our +lines, not for liberty, but for more territory for slaves to work, +that the owners might multiply, and the Aristocracy of America stand +on the shores of two oceans, an unbroken bound all between?</p> + +<p>If <i>a National</i> American party is ever formed, by leaving out the +whole question of Human Rights, it will be what a man would be—his +soul left out!</p> + +<p>An American National party—Liberty left out!</p> + +<p>An American party—Human Rights left out!</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, such a party will stink with dissolution before you can get +it finished. No Masonry can make it solid—no art can secure it. No +anchor that was ever forged in infernal stythy can go deep enough into +political mud to hold it!</p> + +<p>If you rear up an empty name; if you take that revered name American, +all the world over radiant and revered, as the symbol of human rights +and human happiness—if you sequester and stuff that name with the +effete doctrines of despotism, do you believe you can supplicate from +any gods the boon of immortality for such an unbaptized monster? No. +It may live to ravage our heritage for a few days, but there <i>is</i> a +spirit of liberty that lives among us, and that shall live. And +aroused by that spirit, there shall spring up the yet unaroused hosts +of men that have not bowed the knee to Baal—and we will war it to the +knife, and knife to the hilt.</p> + +<p>For, <span class="smcap">it shall</span> be; America <i>shall be free</i>!</p> + +<p>We will take that for our life's enterprise. Dying, we will leave it a +legacy to our children, and they shall will it to theirs, until the +work is done, our fathers' prayers are answered, and this whole land +stands clothed and in its right mind—a symbol of what the earthly +fruits of the Gospel are!</p> + +<p>If a National party is now to be formed, what shall it be, and what +shall its office be?</p> + +<p>It shall be a peacemaker, say sly politicians. Yes, peace by war. But +an American party, seeking peace with the imperious Aristocracy by +yielding everything down to the root—one would think no party need be +formed to do that. Judas did as much without company. Arnold did that +without companions.</p> + +<p>An American National party must either be a piebald and patched-up +party, carrying in its entrails the mortal poison of two belligerent +schemes, former legendary disputes, and agitation, and furious +conflict; or, to be a real national party, it must first be a +<i>Northern</i> party and <i>become</i> national. We must walk again over the +course of history. Here in the North Liberty began. Its roots are with +us yet. All its associations and all its potent institutions are with +us. Having once given forth this spirit of liberty, now fading out of +our Southern States, the North should again come forth and refill the +poisoned veins that have been drinking the hemlock of Despotism with +the new blood of Liberty! Let us give sap to the tree of Liberty, that +it may not wither and die!</p> + +<p>When Hercules was born, but yet a child, the jealous Juno sent two +serpents to his cradle to destroy him. Hercules or the serpents must +die. Both could not lie in the same bed. He seized them and suffocated +them by his grip, while his poor brother, Iphiclus, filled the house +with his shrieks. An infernal Juno, envious of the destined greatness +of this country, hath sent this serpent upon it! What shall we do? +Shall we imitate Hercules or Iphiclus? Shall we choke it; or shall we +form a timid <i>National</i> party and <i>shriek</i>?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[pg 16]</a></span>Gentlemen, you will never have rest from this subject until there is a +victory of principles. Northern ideas must become American, or +Southern ideas must become <i>American</i>, before there will be peace. If +the North gives to the Nation her radical principles of human rights +and democratic Governments, there will be the peace of an immeasurable +prosperity. If the South shall give to the country a policy derived +from her heathen notions of men, there will be such a peace as men +have overdrugged with opium, that deep lethargy just before the mortal +convulsions and death! All attempts at evasion, at adjourning, at +concealing and compromising are in vain. The reason of our long +agitation is, not that restless Abolitionists are abroad, that +ministers will meddle with improper themes, that parties are +disregardful of the country's interest. These are symptoms only, not +the disease; the effects, not the causes.</p> + +<p>Two great powers that will not live together are in our midst, and +tugging at each other's throats. They will search each other out, +though you separate them a hundred times. And if by an insane +blindness you shall contrive to put off the issue, and send this +unsettled dispute down to your children, it will go down, gathering +volume and strength at every step, to waste and desolate their +heritage. Let it be settled now. Clear the place. Bring in the +champions. Let them put their lances in rest for the charge. Sound the +trumpet, and <i>God save the right</i>!</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The latter portion of the lecture was frequently interrupted by +boisterous applause.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>After Mr. Beecher had taken his seat, there were loud calls for Mr. +<span class="smcap">Giddings</span>, whereupon that gentleman came forward and said that he had +not come to make a speech, but, like a good Methodist brother, he +would add his exhortation to the excellent sermon of his clerical +friend. In conclusion, Mr. Giddings besought all to enter heartily +into the contest for Freedom—to trust in God and keep their powder +dry! [Loud applause.]</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<a name="END" id="END"></a> +<div class="trans-note"> +<p class="heading">Transcriber's Notes</p> +<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other +inconsistencies.</p> + +<p>The transcriber noted the following issues and made changes as +indicated to the text to correct obvious errors:</p> + +<pre class="note"> + 1. p. 4, "lees" changed to "less" + 2. p. 4, "themother" changed to "the mother" + 3. p. 5, "Revleation" changed to "Revelation" + 4. p. 5, "oppugnent" changed to "oppugnant" + 5. p. 5, "prodncing" changed to "producing" + 6. p. 5, "weekness" changed to "weakness" + 7. p. 6, "Cristianity" changed to "Christianity" + 8. p. 6, "Chris'," changed to "Christ," + 9. p. 6, "unto the "least" changed to "unto the least" + 10. p. 7, "sprours" changed to "sprouts" + 11. p. 7, "Cristianity" changed to "Christianity" + 12. p. 7, "southren" changed to "southern" + 13. p. 7, "aud" changed to "and" + 14. p. 7, "fouud" changed to "found" + 15. p. 8, "breath" changed to "breathe" + 16. p. 8, "choses" changed to "chooses" + 17. p. 8, "Govenor's" changed to "Governor's" + 18. p. 9, "agaih" changed to "again" + 19. p. 10, "achievments" changed to "achievements" + 20. p. 10, "feculant" changed to "feculent" + 21. p. 10, "inate" changed to "innate" + 22. p. 13, "grapsits" changed to "graps its" + 23. p. 14, "llke" changed to "like" + 24. p. 15, "Junot" changed to "Juno" +</pre> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Conflict of Northern and Southern +Theories of Man and Society, by Henry Ward Beecher + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFLICT OF THEORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 25653-h.htm or 25653-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/5/25653/ + +Produced by K. 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+1,1658 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories +of Man and Society, by Henry Ward Beecher + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society + Great Speech, Delivered in New York City + +Author: Henry Ward Beecher + +Release Date: May 31, 2008 [EBook #25653] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFLICT OF THEORIES *** + + + + +Produced by K. Nordquist, Richard J. Shiffer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + +[Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text +as faithfully as possible, including obsolete and variant spellings +and other inconsistencies. Text that has been changed to correct an +obvious error is noted at the end of this ebook.] + + + + +GREAT SPEECH, + +DELIVERED IN NEW YORK CITY, + +BY + +HENRY WARD BEECHER, + +ON THE + +Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories + +OF MAN AND SOCIETY, + +January 14, 1855. + + + + +ROCHESTER: + +STEAM PRESS OF A. STRONG & CO., COR. OF STATE AND BUFFALO STREETS. + +1855. + + + + + Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories + OF MAN AND SOCIETY. + + +The Eighth Lecture of the Course before the Anti-Slavery Society, was +delivered, January 14, 1855, at the Tabernacle, New York, by the Rev. +HENRY WARD BEECHER. The subject, at the present time, is one of +peculiar interest, as touching the questions of Slavery and +Know-Nothingism, and, together with the popularity of the lecturer, +drew together a house-full of auditors. + +There were a number of gentlemen of distinction, occupying seats on +the rostrum--among whom were the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, James Mott, +of Philadelphia, and Mr. Dudley, of Buffalo. + +Mr. Beecher was introduced to the audience by Mr. OLIVER JOHNSON, who +said: + +_Ladies and Gentlemen_: The speaker who occupied this platform on +Tuesday evening last, in the course of his remarks upon the wide +degeneracy of the American Clergy on the Slavery Question, reminded us +that there was in a Brooklyn pulpit, A MAN. We thought you would be +glad to see and hear such a _rara avis_, and therefore have besought +him to come hither to-night to instruct us by his wisdom and move us +by his eloquence. I trust that, whatever you may think of some other +parts of the lecture of WENDELL PHILLIPS, you will, when this +evening's performance is over, be ready at least to confess that in +what he said of the Brooklyn preacher he was not more eulogistic than +truthful. + +MR. BEECHER, on presenting himself, was received with loud and hearty +applause. He spoke as follows: + +The questions which have provoked discussion among us for fifty years +past have not been questions of fundamental principles, but of the +_application_ of principles already ascertained. Our debates have been +between one way of doing a thing and another way of doing it--between +living well and living better; and so through, it has been a question +between good and better. We have discussed policies, not principles. +In Europe, on the other hand, life-questions have agitated men. The +questions of human rights, of the nature and true foundations of +Government, are to-day, in Europe, where they were with our fathers in +1630. + +In this respect, there is a moral dignity, and even grandeur, in the +struggles, secretly or openly going on in Italy, Austria, Germany, and +France, which never can belong to the mere questions of mode and +manner which occupy us--boundary questions, banks, tariffs, internal +improvements, currency; all very necessary but secondary topics. They +touch nothing deeper than the pocket. In this respect, there would be +a marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and the +grander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for one +subject--_Slavery_. THAT is the ONLY _question, in our day and in our +community, full of vital struggles turning upon fundamental +principles_. + +If Slavery were a plantation-question, concerning only the master and +the slave, disconnected from us, and isolated--then, though we should +regret it, and apply moral forces for its ultimate remedy, yet, it +would be, (as are questions of the same kind in India or South +America,) remote, constituting a single element in that globe of +darkness of which this world is the core, and which Christianity is +yet to shine through and change to light. But it is _not_ a +plantation-question. It is a national question. The disputes implied +by the violent relations between the owner and the chattel may only +_morally_ touch us.--But the disputes between the masters and the +Government, and between the Government, impregnated with Slavery, and +the Northern citizen, these touch us sharply, and if not wisely met, +will yet scourge us with thorns! Indeed, I cannot say that I believe +that New England and the near North will be affected _locally_, and +immediately by an adverse issue of the great national struggle now +going on. But the North will be an utterly dead force in the American +nation. She will be rolled up in a corner, like a cocoon waiting for +its transmigration. The whole North will become provincial; it will be +but a fringe to a nation whose heart will beat in the South. + +But New-England was not raised up by Divine Providence to play a mean +part in the world's affairs. + +Remember, that New-England brought to America those principles which +every State in the Union has more or less thoroughly adopted. + +New-England first formed those institutions which liberty requires for +beneficient activity; and from her, both before and since the +Revolution, they have been copied throughout the Land. Having given to +America its ideas and its institutions, I think the North is bound to +stand by them. + +Until 1800, the North had distinctive national influence, and gave +shape, in due measure, to national _policy_, as she had before to +national institutions. + +Then she began to recede before the rising of another power. For the +last fifty years, upon the national platform have stood arrayed two +champions in mortal antagonism--New-England and the near +North--representing personal freedom, civil liberty, universal +education, and a religious spirit which always sympathises with men +more than with Governments. + +The New-England theory of Government has always been in its +element--first, independent men; then democratic townships; next +republican States, and, in the end, a Federated Union of Republican +States. All her economies, her schools, her policy, her industry, her +wealth, her intelligence, have been at agreement with her theory and +policy of Government. Yet, New-England, strong at home, compact, +educated, right-minded; has gradually lost influence, and the whole +North with her. + +The Southern League of States, have been held together by the cohesive +power of Common Wrong. Their industry, their policy, their whole +interior, vital economy, have been at variance with the apparent +principles of their own State Governments, and with the National +Institutions under which they exist. They have stood upon a narrow +basis, always shaking under them, without general education, without +general wealth, without diversified industry. And yet since the year +1800, they have steadily prevailed against Representative New-England +and the North. The South, the truest representation of Absolutism +under republican forms, is mightier in our National Councils and +Policy to-day than New-England, the mother and representative of true +republicanism and the whole free North. + +And now it has come to pass that, in the good providence of God, +another opportunity has been presented to the whole North to reassert +her place and her influence, and to fill the institutions of our +country with their original and proper blood. I do not desire that she +should arise and put on her beautiful garments, because she is my +mother, and your mother; not because her hills were the first which my +childhood saw, that has never since beheld any half so dear; nor from +any sordid ambition, that she should be great in this world's +greatness; nor from any profane wish to abstract from the rightful +place and influence of any State, or any section of our whole country. +But I think that God sent New-England to these shores as his own +messenger of mercy to days and ages, that have yet far to come ere +they are born! She has not yet told this Continent all that is in her +heart. She has sat down like Bunyan's Pilgrim, and slept in the bower +by the way, and where she slept she has left her roll--God grant that +she hath not lost it there while she slumbered! + +By all the love that I bear to the cause of God, and the glory of his +Church, by the yearnings which I have for the welfare of the human +kind, by all the prophetic expectations which I have of the destiny of +this land, God's Almoner of Liberty to the World, I desire to see Old +Representative New-England, and the affiliated North, rouse up and do +their first works. + +Is it my excited ear that hears an airy phantasm whispering? or do I +hear a solemn voice crying out, "_Arise? Shine? thy light is come, and +the glory of the Lord is arisen upon thee!_" + +I am quite aware that the subject of Slavery has been regarded, by +many, as sectional; and the agitation of it in the North needless, and +injurious to our peace and the country's welfare. Whatever may have +been the evils, the agitation has only come _through_ men, not _from_ +them. It is of God. It is the underheaving of Providence. Mariners +might as well blame _you_ for the swing and toss of their craft when +tides troop in or march out of your harbor, as us, for heaving to that +tide which God swells under us. Tides in the ocean and in human +affairs are from celestial bodies and celestial beings. The conflict +which is going on springs from causes as deep as the foundations of +our institutions. It will go on to a crisis; its settlement will be an +era in the world's history, either of advance or of decline. + +I wish to call your patient attention to the real nature of this +contest. It is, + +_The conflict between Northern theories and Southern theories of man +and of Society._ + +There have been, from the earliest period of the world, two different, +and oppugnant, doctrines of man--_his place, rights, duties and +relations_. And the theory of man is always the starting point of all +other theories, systems, and Governments which divide the world. + +Outside of a Divine and Authoritative Revelation, men have had but one +way of estimating the value of man. He was to them simply a creature +of time, and to be judged in the scientific method, by his +_phenomena_. The Greeks and the Romans had no better way. They did not +know enough of his origin, his nature, or his destiny, to bring these +into account, in estimating man. Accordingly they could do no better +than to study him in his developments and rank him by the POWER which +he manifested. Now if a botanist should describe a biennial plant, +whose root and stem belong to one season, whose blossom and fruit +belong to another, as if that were the whole of it which the first +year produced, he would commit the same mistake which the heathen idea +of man commits in measuring and estimating a being whose true life +comes hereafter, by the developments which he makes in only this +world. + +From this earthly side of man springs the most important practical +results. For the doctrine of man, simply as he _is in this life, +logically deduces Absolutism and Aristocracy_. + +If the _power of producing effects_ is the criterion of value, the few +will always be the _most_ valuable, and the mass relatively, +subordinate, and the weak and lowest will be left helplessly +worthless. + +And the mass of all the myriads that do live, are of no more account +than working animals; and there is, no such a theory, no reason, _a +priori_; why they should not be controlled by superior men, and made +to do that for which they seem the best fitted--Work and Drudgery! +Only long experiment could teach a doctrine contrary to the logical +presumption arising from weakness. There could be no doctrine of human +_rights_. It would be simply a doctrine of human _forces_. _Right_ +would be a word as much out of place as among birds and beasts. +Authority would go with productive greatness, as gravity goes with +mass in matter. The whole chance of Right, and the whole theory of +Liberty, springs from that part of man that lies beyond this life. + +As a material creature, man ranks among physical forces. Rights come +from his spiritual nature. The body is of the earth, and returns to +earth, and is judged by earthly measures. The soul is of God, and +returns to God, and is judged by Divine estimates. And this is the +reason why a free, unobstructed Bible always works toward human +rights. It is the only basis on which the poor, the ignorant, the +weak, the laboring masses can entrench against oppression. + +What, then, is that theory of man which Christianity gives forth? + +It regards man not as a perfect thing, put into life to blossom and +die, as a perfect flower doth. Man is a _seed_, and birth is +_planting_. He is in life for cultivation, not exhibition; he is here +chiefly to be _acted on_, not to be characteristically an agent. For, +though man is also an actor, he is yet more a recipient. Though he +produces effects, he receives a thousand fold more than he produces. +And he is to be estimated by his capacity of receiving, not of doing. +_He has his least value in what he can DO; it all lies in what he is +capable of having done TO him._ The eye, the ear, the tongue, the +nerve of touch, are all simple receivers. The understanding, the +affections, the moral sentiments, all, are primarily and +characteristically, recipients of influence; and only secondarily +agents. Now, how different is the value of ore, dead in its silent +waiting-places, from the wrought blade, the all but living engine, and +the carved and curious utensil! + +Of how little value is a ship standing helpless on the stocks--but +half-built, and yet building--to one who has no knowledge of the +ocean, or of what that helpless hulk will become the moment she slides +into her element, and rises and falls upon the flood with joyous +greeting! + +The value of an acorn is not what it is, but what it shall be when +nature has brooded it, and brought it up, and a hundred years have +sung through its branches and left their strength there! + +He, then, that judges man by what he can do, judges him in the seed. +We must see him through some lenses--we must prefigure his +_immortality_. While, then, his _industrial_ value in life must depend +on what he can do, we have here the beginning of a _moral_ value which +bears no relation to his _power_, but to his future destiny. + +This view assumes distinctness and intensity, when we add to it the +relationship which subsists between man and his Maker. + +This relationship begins in the fact that we are created in the divine +image; that we are connected with God, therefore, not by Government +alone, but by nature. + +This initial truth is made radiant with meaning, by the teaching of +Christianity that every human being is dear to God: a teaching which +stands upon that platform, built high above all human deeds and +histories, the advent, incarnation, passion, and death of Christ, as a +Savior of men. + +The race is a brotherhood; God is the Father, Love is the law of this +great human commonwealth, and Love knows no servitude. It is that +which gilds with liberty whatever it touches. + +One more element to human liberty is contributed by Christianity, in +the solemn development of man's accountability to God, by which +condition hereafter springs from pure character here. + +However heavy that saying is, every one of us shall _give an account +of himself_ before God--in it is the life of the race. + +You cannot present man as a subject of Divine government, held +responsible for results, compared with which the most momentous +earthly deeds are insignificant, plied with influences accumulating +from eternity, and by powers which though they begin on earth in the +cradle, gentle as a mother's voice singing lullaby, go on upward, +taking every thing as they go, till they reach the whole power of God; +and working out results that outlast time and the sun, and revolve +forever in flaming circuits of disaster, or in sacred circles of +celestial bliss; you cannot present man as the center and subject of +such an august and eternal drama, without giving him something of the +grandeur which resides in God himself, and in the spheres of +immortality! + +Who shall trifle with such a creature, full bound upon such an errand +through life, and swelling forth to such a destiny? Clear the place +where he stands?--give him room and help, but no hinderance, as he +equips for eternity!--loosen the bonds of man, for God girds +him!--take off all impediments, for it is his life and death and +struggle for immortality! + +That this effect of accountability to God was felt by the inspired +writers, cannot be doubtful to any who weigh such language as this: + +"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us +not, therefore judge one another any more, but _judge this rather, +that no man put a stumbling block, or an occasion to fall in his +brother's way_." + +By making man important in the sight of God, he becomes sacred to his +fellow. The more grand and far-reaching are the divine claims, the +greater is our conception of the scope and worth of being. Human +rights become respected in the ratio in which human responsibility is +felt. Whatever objections men may hold to Puritanism--their theory +since the days of St. Augustine has constantly produced tendencies to +liberty and a prevalent belief in the natural _rights of man_--and on +account of that very feature which to many, has been so offensive--its +rigorous doctrine of human accountability. Here, then, is the idea of +man which Christianity gives in contrast with the inferior and +degrading heathen notions of man. He is a being but _begun_ on +earth--a seed only planted here for its first growth. He is connected +with God, not as all matter is by proceeding from creative power, but +by partaking the divine nature, by the declared personal affection of +God, witnessed and sealed by the presence and sufferings of the +world's Redeemer. He is a being upon whom is rolled the responsibility +of character and eternal destiny! Of such a creature it were as +foolish to take an estimate, by what he _is_ and what he can _do_ in +this life, as it would be to estimate by an eagle's egg, what the old +eagle is worth, with wings outspread far above the very thunder, or +coming down upon its quarry as the thunder comes! It is the Future +that gives value to the Present. It is Immortality only that reaches +down a measure wherewith to gauge a man. If a heathen measures, the +strong are strong, and the weak are weak: the rich, the favored, must +rule, and their shadow must dwarf all others. If a Christian measures, +he hears a voice saying: "_There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is +neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for ye are +all one in Christ Jesus._ Whosoever shall do the will of my Father, +which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and sister, and brother." + +These are the things that give value to man. + +It is not to be said that there is no difference between men; that one +is not more powerful than another; that one is not richer in genius +than another; that one is not more valuable to _society_ than another; +that education, refinement, skill, experience, give no precedence over +their negatives. But God takes up the _least_ of all human creatures, +and, declares, "inasmuch as ye have done it unto the _least of these_, +ye have done it unto me." In a household, a babe is vastly less than +the grown-up children. But who dare touch it, as if it were as +worthless as it is weak? + +So God pleads his own relationship to the meanest human creation, as +his protection from wrong; as the evidence of his rights, as the +reason of his dignity! There is something of God in the meanest +creature. He is sacred from injury! In these truths we find the reason +why Christianity always takes _hold so low down_ in human life. Things +that have got their root need little from the gardener; but the seeds, +and tender sprouts, and difficult plants, require and get nurture. + +A Christianity that takes care of the rich, the strong, the governing +class, and neglects the poor, and ignorant, and the unrefined, as the +antitype of Christ. + +It is in this direction only, that the declaration of man's equality +is true. No heathen nation could say that "all men are born free and +equal"--for in more earthly respects it is false. But it is a truth +that stands only and firmly in those grand relations which man +sustains _to God, to Eternity, and to future dignity_--all are equally +subjects of these. Man is ungrown. All his fruit is green. If he must +stand by what _he is_, how surely must he be given over to weakness, +to abuse, to oppressions. The weak are the natural prey to the strong, +and superiority is a charter for tyranny. + +But if he be an heir, waiting for an inheritance of God, eternal in +the heavens, woe be to him that dare lay a finger on him because he is +a minor! + +I dwell the longer upon this view because it carries the world's heart +in it. We must deepen our thinkings of man, and bore for the springs +of liberty far below the drainings of surface strata, down deep, +Artesian, till we strike something that shall be beyond winter or +summer, frost or drouth. + +I do not believe that there is a doctrine of individual rights nor of +civil liberty that can stand outside of Christianity. They are to be +seen revealed in nature, but there is none to interrupt them with +authority. Christ is the World's Emancipator, for he hath declared +that men belong to _Him_; and an oppressor thus becomes a felon, a +robber, and a wronger of God, in the person of every poor and wretched +victim! + +A Christianity that tells man what his origin is--of God; his destiny, +to God again; his errand on earth, to grow toward goodness, and make +the most of himself--this Christianity is rank rebellion in +despotisms, and insurrection on plantations. It cannot be preached +there. + +These two radical theories of man--man, a physical creature to be +judged by effects produced in Time; or man, a spiritual creature, to +be judged by the development to which he is destined, are at the root +of all the antagonisms between the spirit of northern and southern +institutions: northern policy and southern policy. In the North, it is +the public sentiment of the people, that all men are born free and +equal; that every man has an inalienable right to life, liberty and +the pursuit of happiness, forfeited only by _crime_. The North believe +that personal and political liberty are not only _rights_ of man, but +their _necessity_, that man cannot thrive nor develop, with the true +proportions of manhood, without liberty. It is the northern sentiment +that a man must be prepared for liberty, and that the act of _birth_ +is that preparation; that no creature lives which is the better for +oppression, and who will not be the better for freedom, which is the +natural air appointed for the soul's breathing. The North disdains +every pretense that men are injured by sudden liberty. A famished man +may injure himself by over-feeding; but that is an argument not +against food, but against famine. It is the northern sentiment, and +justly deduced from the Christian theory of man, that society should +redeem all its own children from ignorance, should secure their +growth, equip them for citizenship, make all the influences of society +enure to the benefit of the mass of men. The southern sentiment is the +reverse of this. It holds that all men are not born free and equal; +that men have not an inalienable right to life, liberty and the +pursuit of happiness; and that men are not in their very constitution +fitted for liberty, and benefited by it. They hold that liberty is an +attribute of power; that it is a blossom which belongs to _races_, and +not to mankind; that a part were born to rule, and a part were +ordained to serve; that liberty is dangerous to the many; that +servitude, the most rigorous, is a blessing; that it accords with the +creative intent of God, and with his revealed institutions; that a +nation cannot be homogeneous, and should not aim at it; that there is +a law and scale of gradation, on which the top is privilege and +authority, the bottom labor and obedience. _These are the radical +theories of the respective sections of the land._ Men often are +profoundly ignorant of the principles which control their policy, as a +ship is unconscious of the rudder that steers her. Many are found, +both North and South, whose conduct over-rules their theory, and who +are better or worse than their belief. There are southern men who are +more generous than their theory, and there are northern men who are +grossly untrue to the northern theory, which, with their lips, they +profess. There are southern men with northern consciences, and there +are northern men with southern consciences. But, in the main, these +respective theories reign and regulate public procedure. There is not +a man so poor in the North, or so ignorant, or souseless, as not to be +regarded as a Man, by religion, by civil law, and by public opinion. +Selfishness and pride, avarice and cunning, anger or lust, may prey +upon the heedlessness or helplessness of many. Society may be full of +evils. But all these things are not sequences of northern doctrines, +but violations of them. If sharks in great cities consume the too +credulous emigrant; if usurers, like moths, cut the fabric of life +with invisible teeth; if landlords sack their tenements and pinch the +tenant--all these results are against the spirit of our law, against +public feeling, and they that do such things must slink and burrow. +They are vermin that run in the walls, and peep from hiding-holes, and +we set traps for them as we do for rats or weazels. But, in the South, +the subordination of man, to man, in his earnings, his skill, his time +and labor--in his person, his affections, his very children--is a part +of the theory of society, drawn out into explicit statutory law, +coincident with public opinion, and executed without secrecy. A net +spread for those guilty of such wrongs against man, would catch +States, and Legislatures, Citizens, Courts, and Constitutions. + +In the North the most useless pauper that burdens the Alms-House--the +most uncombed foreigner that delves in a ditch--the most abject +creature that begs a morsel from door to door, _is yet a man_; and +there is, not in theory only, but in the public sentiment, a +sacredness of rights, which no man, except by stealth, can violate +with impunity. There is no other law for the Governor of New-York or +of Massachusetts, than for the beggar in your streets. That which +protects the dwelling and the property of the rich man, belongs just +as much to the hovel of the beggar. God sends but one sun, and it is +the same light that kindles against the roof of a mansion, that dawns +upon the thatch of a hut. The same air comes to each, the same +showers, the same seasons, summer and winter. And as is Nature, so in +the North, is law, and the distributive benefits of society. They +bathe society from top to bottom! The rich, the learned, the refined, +the strong, may know how to make a better use of the air, but they +have no more air of privilege to breathe, than the poorest wretch. + +In the South, exactly the reverse is true, not by stealth, not by +neglect of a recognized principle, but as the result of men's ideas, +and by organized arrangements. Touch a hireling's wages, in the North, +and the Law stands to defend him and beat you down! Take the laborer's +wages in the South, and the law stands to defend you, and beat him +down. + +Beat a man, in the North, for a private wrong done, and the law will +strike you. But in the South, it is the right of the white, +unquestioned and unquestionable to beat every third person in the +community. + +Let the proudest mill-owner break but the skin of the poorest +operative in Lowell or Lawrence, and both law and public sentiment, +alike, would grasp and punish him! + +But in the South the law refuses to look at any degree of cruelty in +chastisements upon the universal laborer, short of maiming or death, +and public sentiment is but little better than the law. + +The laborer in the North answers to a tribunal; in the South, to a +master, incensed, passionate, vindictive in justice executed upon all +symptoms of resisting manhood! + +In the North, nothing is more sacred than a man's family and his +children. It would not be possible for a man to do public violence to +a family circle without vindictive penalty. Let him separate a mother +from her daughters, let him employ a hireling ruffian to carry off the +boys into the country and parcel them out there--let him scatter the +flock, and leave the children motherless, and the parents childless, +and what do you think would become of _him_? + +In the South it is a part of the civil rights of men to do these +things whenever they please. And though public sentiment is better +than law, yet as no public sentiment on earth is a match for legalized +lust, or avarice, or the grip of misfortune, these things are +continually done, and remorselessly. Cruelty, chastity, virtue, do not +mean the same things in the South as in the North. A man is not +blemished by deeds and indulgencies, upon a plantation, among slaves, +which in the North, would strike him through with infamy and house him +in the penitentiary. + +In the South, there are many roads leading from the top of society to +the bottom, but not _one_, not ONE from the bottom to the top. + +In the North, if the citizen chooses to walk in it, _there is a road +from every man's door_ up to the Governor's chair or the Presidential +seat! + +It needs no words, now, to convince you, that out of such different +theories of men, there will exist in the North and in the South, +extremely different ideas of Society, Government, and Public Policy. + +In the North, first in order of consideration is man, the individual +man; next the family, made of those of common blood, and by far the +strongest, as it is the most sacred of all institutions. Then comes +the township, which presents the only spectacle of an absolute +political democracy. For, here only, do citizens assemble in mass and +vote, directly and not by representation. Next comes Society at large, +or the mass of citizens grouped into States. And in Society, in the +North, there are no classes except such as rise out of spontaneous +forces. Wealth, experience, ability set men above their fellows. There +they stand as long as there is a _real_ superiority. But they stand +there, not by legal force, nor to exercise any legal power, or to have +one single privilege or prerogative, which does not belong just as +much to every citizen clear down to the bottom. All that a class +_means_ in the North is, that when men have shown themselves strong +and wise men give them honor for it. Death levels it all down again. +Their children inherit nothing. They must earn for themselves. There +is no division of society into orders, by which some have privilege +and some have not, some have opportunity and advantages which others +have not. + +In the South, society is divided into two great and prominent +classes--the ruling and the obeying--the thinking and the working. The +labor of the South is performed by three million creatures who +represent the heathen idea of man. + +All the benefits that have accrued to man from Christianity, are +appropriated and monopolized by the white population. + +Here is a seam that no sophistry can sew up. Here is a society +organized, not on an idea of equal rights, and of inequalities only as +they spring from difference of worth, but on an idea of permanent, +political, organized inequality among men. They carry it so far that +the theory of Slave law regards the slave not as an inferior man, +governed, for his own good as well as for the benefit of the society +at large, but it pronounces him, in reiterated forms, not a man at +all, but a chattel. + +When a community of States, by the most potential voice of Law, says +to the whole body of its laboring population, Ye are not _men_ and +shall not be; ye are chattels--it is absurd to speak about kind +treatment--about happiness. It is about cattle that they are talking! +Our vast body of laboring men do not yet feel the force of such a +theory of human society. But, if that political system, which has +openly been making such prodigious strides for the last fifty years, +and effecting, secretly, a yet greater change in men's ideas of +society and government, shall gain complete ascendancy, they, in their +turn, and in due time will know and see the difference between a +Republican Democracy and a Republican Aristocracy? + +Out of such original and radical differences, there must flow a +perpetual contrast and opposition of policies and procedures, in the +operation of society and of business. We will select but a few, of +many, subjects of contrast, Work, Education, Freedom of Speech and of +the Press, and Religion. + + +I. WORK. Among us, and from the beginning, Work has been honorable. It +has been honorable to dig, to hew, to build, to reap, to wield the +hammer at the forge, and the saw at the bench. It has been honorable +because our people have been taught that each man is set to make the +most of himself. The crown for every victory gained in a struggle of +skill or industry over matter is placed upon the soul; and thus among +a free people industry becomes education. + +It is the peculiarity of Northern labor, that it _thinks_. It is +intelligence working out through the hands. There is more real thought +in a Yankee's hand than in a Southerner's head. This is not true of a +class, or of single individuals, or of single States. It pervades the +air. It is Northern public sentiment. It springs from our ideas of +manhood. These influences, acting through generations, have been +wrought into the very blood. It is in the stock. Go where you will a +Yankee is a working creature. He is the honeybee of mankind. Only Work +is royal among us. It carries the sceptre, and changes all nations by +its touch, opening its treasures and disclosing its secrets. + +But with all this industry, you shall find nowhere on earth so little +_drudging_ work as in the North. It is not the servitude of the hands +to material nature. It is the glorious exercise of mind upon nature. +They vex nature with incessant importunities. They are always prying, +and thinking, and trying. + +In California, gold is found in quartz formations. But in New England, +and the free inventive North, in the geology of industry, gold is +found everywhere--in rye straw and bonnets, in leather and stone, in +wool, felts and cloths; in wood, in stone, and in very ice. It is +wrapped up in the beggar's raiment, which unroll in our mills into +paper--yesterday, a beggar's feculent rags; to-day, a newspaper, +conveying the world's daily life into twenty thousand families. And so +great are the achievements of labor that everybody honors it. It +stands among us as an invisible dignity. Four spirits there are that +rule in New England--religion, social virtue, intelligence, and +_work_; and this last takes something from them all, and is their +physical exponent. So that not only is work honored and honorable, but +the want of it is an implied discredit. The presumption is always +against a man who does not labor. + +In the South, the very reverse is true, as a general proposition. + +It is true, because labor is the peculiar badge of Slavery. It does +not stand, as with us, a symbol of intelligence, but a symbol of +stupid servitude. It is the business of those whom the law puts out of +the pale of society and accounts chattels, and who, by the opinion of +society, are at the bottom, and under the feet of respectable men. To +work is, therefore, _prima facie_ evidence of degradation. It is +ranking oneself with a slave by doing a slave's tasks; as eating a +beggar's crust with him would be a beggar's fellowship. + +But this is not the whole reason, nor the chiefest and more potent +reason of the difference between public feeling about WORK, North and +South. + +The ideas of men in the South do not inspire any such tendency. Men +are judged there not by what they are and are to be, but by what they +_can now do_. Only such things as have an echo in them, that +reverberate in the ear of public opinion, that produce an effect of +notice, honor, advancement _in the_ OPINIONS of men, are relished. In +the North, men are educated to _be_ something--in the South to _seem_ +something. The North tends to _doing_--the South to _appearing_. And +both tendencies spring from the root of opposite theories of men and +notions of society. + +And it is this innate, hereditary indisposition to work that, after +all, is the greatest obstacle to emancipation. Laziness in the South +and money in the North, are the bulwarks of Slavery! To take away a +planter's slaves is to cut off his hands. There is where he keeps his +work. There is none of it in himself. And it is this, too, which leads +to the contempt which southern people feel for northern men. They are +working men, and work is flavored to the Southerner with ideas of +ignominy, of meanness, of vulgar lowness. Neither can they understand +how a man who works all his life long can be high-minded and generous, +intelligent and refined. + +Not only is there this contrast in dignity of work, but even more--_in +rights of industry_. Work, in the North, has responsibilities that are +prodigious educators. We ordain that a man shall have the fullest +chance, and then he shall have the results of his activity. He shall +take all he can make, or he shall take the whole result of +_indolence_. It is a double education. It inspires labor by hope of +fruition, and intensifies it by the fear of non-fruition. The South +have their whole body of laborers at work without either +responsibility. They cut it off at both ends. They virtually say to +the slave, in reality, "_Be lazy_, for all that you earn shall do you +no good; be lazy, for when you are old and helpless we are bound to +take care of you." + +It is this apparent care for the helplessness of slaves, that has won +the favor of many northern men, and of some who ought to have known +better the effect of taking off from men the responsibility of labor, +in both ways, its fruition and its penalty. Once declare in New York +that Government would take care of poverty and old age, so as to make +it honorable, and it would be a premium upon improvidence. With us, it +is expected that every man will work, will earn, will lay up, will +deliver his family from public charity. There is, to be sure, an Alms +House to catch all who, by misfortune or improvidence, fall through. +But such is the public opinion in favor of personal independence +springing from industry, that a native-born American citizen had +rather die than go to an Alms-House. Foreigners are our staple +paupers. Our charity feeds the poor wretches whom foreign slavery has +crippled and cast upon us. But the whole South is a vast work-house +for the slave while young, and a vast alms-house for him when old, and +neither young or old, is he permitted to feel the responsibility for +labor. And this, too, explains the _apparent_ advantage which the +South has over the North in the matter of pauperism and distress. The +northern system intends to punish those who will not work. It it not a +system calculated for slaves nor for lazy men. If indolence comes +under it, it will take the penalty of not working. And nowhere else in +the world is the penalty of indolence, and even of shiftlessness, so +terrible as in the North, as nowhere else is the remuneration of a +virtuous industry so ample and so widely diffused. + + +II. There is just as marked a contrast upon the subject of education, +and especially of Common Schools. In the North we have COMMON Schools. +This is more than a School. It is more than a public school. It is a +_Common_ School, in distinction from a _select_, or class school. It +is a public provision for bringing together, upon a perfect equality, +the children of the rich and the poor, the noble and ignoble, the high +and the low. It is a provision of our institutions, by which every +generation is led to a line and made to start equal and together. +There will be inequality enough as soon as men get into life. Some +shoot ahead; some, like dull sailors in a fleet, are dropped behind, +and men are scattered all along the ocean. But the _Common_ School +gathers up their children and brings them all back again to take a new +start together. Thus our schools are not mere whetstones to the +intellect; they are institutions for evening up society; they resist +the tendency to separation into classes, which grows with the +prosperity of a community; they bind together, in cordial sympathy, +all classes of citizens. For nothing is more tenacious than schoolday +remembrances, and the last things that we forget are playmates and +schoolmates. + +The South may have schools. But never _Common_ Schools. The South has +no _common_ people. There can be States, there, but never +_Commonwealths_. There is no _common_ ground, where the theory of +society grades men upon a perpendicular scale. It is a society of +_classes_, and a society of _classes_ can never be a _community_. When +the whole labor of a State is performed by a degraded class, that are +not included in the State as citizens or social beings, it is +impossible but that the class next above them should feel the force of +those theories and ideas which have produced such a state of things. +It is so. The poor white population of the South is degraded. They are +ignorant--they are not fertile in thought or labor. They are not so +low as the slaves, nor so high as those who own slaves. There are +three classes--the top, the middle, and the bottom; and two of these, +the top and bottom, being fixed and legal, the middle is modified by +them both. + +In such a Society, there cannot be a _Common School_, in any such +sense as we mean it. Indeed, there cannot be _general education_ in +any State where ignorance is the legal condition of one-half the +population, as is the case in many Southern States. Ignorance is an +institution in the South. It is a political necessity. It is as much +provided for by legislation and by public sentiment, and guarded by +enactments, as intelligence is in the North. It must be. The +restrictions which keep it from the slave will keep it from the +whites, excepting, always, the few who live at the top. There cannot +be an atmosphere of intelligence. Slaves would be in danger of +breathing that. There cannot be a common public sentiment, a common +school, nor common education. Knowledge is power, not only, but +powder, putting the South in the risk of being blown up, by careless +handling and too great abundance. + + +III. Closely connected with this, and springing from the same causes, +is a contrast between the North and the South, in respect to free +speech and open discussion by lip and by type. + +The theory of the North is, that every man has the right, on every +subject, to the freest expression of his opinions, and the fullest +right to urge them upon the convictions of others. It is not a +permission of law; it is the inherent right of the individual. Law is +only to protect the citizen in the use of that right. + +It is the theory of the North that society is as much a gainer by this +freedom of discussion as is the individual. + +It is a perpetual education of the people, and a safeguard to the +State. There is the utmost latitude of speech and discussion among our +citizens. The attempt to abridge it would be so infatuated that the +most dignified Court that ever sat in Boston would become an object of +universal merriment and ridicule, that should presume to arrest and +cause to be indicted any man for free speaking in old Faneuil Hall. +Merriment, I say, for who would not laugh at a philosopher who would +set snares for the stars, and fix his net to catch the sun, and +regulate their indiscreet shining. Darkness and silence are excellent +for knaves and tyrants; but the attempt to command the one or the +other in the North, changes the knave to an imbecile and the tyrant to +a fool. + +But should any power, against the precedents of the past, the spirit +of our people, the theory of our civil polity and the rights of +individual man succeed, and make headway against free speech, and put +it in jeopardy, it would convulse the very frame-work of society. +There would be no time for a revolution--there would be an _eruption_, +and fragmentary Judges, Courts and their minions would fly upward +athwart the sky, like stones and balls of flame driven from the +vomiting crater of a furious volcano! No. This is a right like the +right of breathing. This is a liberty that broods upon us like the +atmosphere. The grand American doctrine that men may speak what they +think, and may print what they speak--that all public measures shall +have free public discussion--cannot be shaken; and any party must be +intensely American that can afford to destroy the very foundation of +American principle that public questions shall be publicly discussed, +and public procedure be publicly agreed upon. Right always gains in +the light, and Wrong in the dark. An owl can whip an eagle in the +night! + +The South, holding a heathen theory of man--an aristocratic theory of +society,--is bound to hold, and does hold, a radically opposite +practice in respect to rights of speech and freedom of the press. + +There is not freedom of opinion in the South and there cannot be. + +Men may there talk of a thousand things--of all religious doctrines, +of literature, of art, of public political measures--but no man has +liberty to talk as he pleases about the structure of southern society, +and apply to the real facts of southern life and southern internal +questions that searching investigation and public exposure which, in +the North, brings every possible question to the bar of public +opinion, and makes society boil like a pot! + +Yes, you may speak of Slavery, if you will defend it; you may preach +about it, if you shingle its roof with Scripture texts; but you may +not talk, nor preach, nor print abolition doctrines, though you +believe them with the intensity of inspiration! + +The reason given is, that it will stir up insurrection. And so it +will. It is said that free speech is inflammatory. So it is. That it +would bring every man's life in the South into jeopardy; that, in +self-defence, they most limit and regulate the expression of opinion. +But what is that theory of Government, and what is the state of +society under it, in which free speech and free discussion are +dangerous? It is the boast of the North, not alone that speech and +discussion are free, but that we have a society constructed in every +part so rarely, wisely, and justly, that they can _endure_ free +speech; no file can part, but only polish. We turn out any law, and +say, _Discuss_ it! that it may be the stronger! We challenge scrutiny +for our industry, for our commerce, for our social customs, for our +municipal affairs, for our State questions, for all that we believe, +and all that we do, and everything that we build. We are not in haste +to be born in respect to any feature of life. We say--probe it, +question it, put fire to it. We ask the _experience of the past_ to +sit and try it. We ask the ripest _wisdom of the present_ to test and +analyze it. We ask enemies to plead all they know against it. We +challenge the whole world of ideas, and the great deep of human +interests to come up upon anything that belongs, or is _to_ belong, to +public affairs. And then, when a truth, a policy, or a procedure comes +to birth, from out of the womb of such discussion, we know that it +will stand. And when our whole public interests are rounded out and +built up, we are glad to see men going around and about, marking well +our towers, and counting our bulwarks. May it do them good to see such +architecture and engineering! And it is just this difference that +distinguishes the North and the South. We have institutions that will +stand public and private discussion--they have not. We will not _have_ +a law, or custom, or economy, which cannot be defended against the +freest inquiry. Such a rule would cut them level as a mowed meadow! +They live in a crater, forever dreading the signs of activity. They +live in a powder magazine. No wonder they fear light and fire. It is +the plea of Wrong since the world began. Discussion would unseat the +Czar; a free press would dethrone the ignoble Napoleon; free speech +would revolutionize Rome. Freedom of thought and freedom of +expression! they are mighty champions, that go with unsheathed swords +the world over, to redress the weak, to right the wronged, to pull +down evil and build up good. And a State that will be damaged by free +speech ought to be damaged. A King that cannot keep his seat before +free speech ought to be unseated. An order or an institution that +dreads freedom of the press has _reason_ to dread it. If the South +would be revolutionized by free discussion, how intensely does that +fact show her dying need of revolution! She is a dungeon, full of +damps and death-air. She needs light and ventilation. And the only +objection is, that if there were light and air let in, it would no +longer be a dungeon. + + +IV. There is a noticeable contrast between Northern and Southern ideas +of Religion. + +We believe God's revealed word to contain the influence appointed for +the regeneration and full development of every human being, and that +it is to be employed as God's universal stimulant to the human soul, +as air and light are the universal stimulants of vegetation. + +We preach it to arouse the whole soul; we preach it to fire the +intellect, and give it wings by which to compass knowledge; we preach +it to touch every feeling with refinement, to soften rudeness and +enrich affections; we build the family with it; we sanctify love, and +purge out lust; we polish every relation of life; we inspire a +cheerful industry and whet the edge of enterprise, and then limit them +by the bonds of justice and by the moderation of a faith which looks +into the future and the eternal. We teach each man that he is a child +of God; that he is personally one for whom the Savior died; we teach +him that he is known and spoken of in heaven, his name called; that +angels are sent out upon his path to guard and to educate him; we +swell within him to the uttermost every aspiration, catching the first +flame of youth and feeding it, until the whole heart glows like an +altar, and the soul is a temple bright within, and sweet, by the +incense-smoke and aspiring flame of perpetual offerings and divine +sacrifices. We have never done with him. We lead him from the cradle +to boyhood; we take him then into manhood, and guide him through all +its passes; we console him in age, and then stand, as he dies, to +prophesy the coming heaven, until the fading eye flashes again, and +the unhearing ear is full again; for from the other side ministers of +grace are coming, and he beholds them, and sounds on earth and sights +are not so much lost as swallowed up in the glory and the melody of +the heavenly joy! + +Now tell me whether there is any preaching of the Gospel to the slave, +or whether there can be, and he yet remain a slave? We preach the +Gospel to arouse men, they to subdue them; we to awaken, they to +soothe; we to inspire self-reliance, they submission; we to drive them +forward in growth, they to repress and prune down growth; we to +convert them into men, they to make them content to be beasts of +burden! + +Is this _all_ that the Gospel has? When credulous ministers assure us +that slaves have the means of grace, do they mean that they have such +teaching as _we_ have? Or that there is any such _ideal_ in preaching? +The power of religion with us is employed to set men on their feet; to +make them fertile, self-sustaining, noble, virtuous, strong, and to +build up society of men, each one of whom is large, strong, capacious +of room, and filled with versatile powers. + +Religion with them does no such thing. It doth the reverse. + +With them it is Herod casting men into prison. With us it is the +angel, appearing to lead them out of prison and set them free! In +short religion with us is emancipation and liberty; with them it is +bondage and contentment. + +It is very plain that while nominally republican institutions exist in +both the North and South, they are animated by a very different +spirit, and used for a different purpose. In the North, they aim at +the welfare of the whole people; in the South they are the instruments +by which a few control the many. In the North, they tend toward +Democracy; in the South, toward Oligarchy. + +It is equally plain that while there may be a union between Northern +and Southern States, it is external, or commercial, and not internal +and vital, springing from common ideas, common ends, and common +sympathies. It is a union of merchants and politicians and not of the +people. + +Had these opposite and discordant systems been left separate to work +out each its own results, there would have been but little danger of +collision or contest. + +But they are politically united. They come together into one Congress. +There these antagonistic principles, which creep with subtle influence +through the very veins of their respective States, break out into open +collision upon every question of national policy. And, since the world +began, a republican spirit is unfit to secure power. It degenerates it +in the many. But an aristocratic spirit always has aptitude and +impulse toward power. It seeks and grasps it as naturally as a hungry +lion prowls and grasps its prey. + +For fifty years the imperious spirit of the South has sought and +gained power. It would have been of but little consequence were that +power still republican. The seat of empire may be indifferently on the +Massachusetts Bay or the Ohio, on the Lakes or on the Gulf; if it be +the same empire, acting in good faith for the same democratic ends. + +But in the South the growth of power has been accompanied by a marked +revolution in political faith, until now the theory of Mr. Calhoun, +once scouted, is becoming the popular belief. And that theory differs +in nothing from outright European Aristocracy, save in the forms and +instruments by which it works. + +The struggle, then, between the North and the South is not one of +sections, and of parties, but of _Principles_--of principles lying at +the foundations of governments--of principles that cannot coalesce, +nor compromise; that must hate each other, and contend, until the one +shall drive out the other. + +Oh! how little do men dream of the things that are transpiring about +them! In Luther's days, how little they knew the magnitude of the +results pending that controversy of fractious monk and haughty pope! +How little did the frivolous courtier know the vastness of that +struggle in which Hampden, Milton and Cromwell acted! We are in just +such another era. Dates will begin from the period in which we live! + +Do not think that all the danger lies in that bolted cloud which +flashes in the Southern horizon. There is decay, and change, here in +the North. Old New-England, that suckled American liberty, is now +suckling wolves to devour it. + +What shall we think when a President of old Dartmouth College goes +over to Slavery, and publishes to the world his religious conviction +of the rightfulness of it, as a part of God's disciplinary government +of the world--wholesome to man, as a punishment of sins which he never +committed, and to liquidate the long arrearages of Ham's everlasting +debt! and avowing that, under favorable circumstances, he would buy +and own slaves! A Southern volcano in New-Hampshire, pouring forth the +lava of despotism in that incorrupt, and noble old fortress of +liberty! What a College to educate our future legislators! + +What are we to think, when old Massachusetts, the mother of the +Revolution, every league of whose soil swells with the tomb of some +heroic patriot, shall make pilgrimages through the South, and, after +surveying the lot of slaves under a system that turns them out of +manhood, pronounces them chattles, denies them marriage, makes their +education a penal and penitentiary offence, makes no provision for +their religious culture, leaving it to the stealth of good men, or the +interest of those who regard religion as a currycomb, useful in making +sleek and nimble beasts--a system which strikes through the +fundamental instincts of humanity, and wounds nature in the core of +the human heart, by taking from parents all right in their children, +and leaving the family, like a bale of goods, to be unpacked, and +parceled out and sold in pieces, without any other protection than the +general good nature of easy citizens; what shall be thought of the +condition of the public mind in Boston, when one of her most revered, +and personally, deservedly beloved pastors, has come up so profoundly +ignorant of what we thought every child knew, that he comes home from +this pilgrimage, to teach old New-England to check her repugnance to +Slavery, to dry up her tears of sympathy, and to take comfort in the +assurance that Slavery, on the whole, is as good or better for three +millions of laboring men as liberty. He has instituted a formal +comparison between the state of society and the condition of a +laboring population in a slave system and those in a free State, and +left the impression on every page that Liberty works no better results +than servitude, and that it has mischiefs and inconveniences which +Slavery altogether avoids. + +Read that book in Faneuil Hall, and a thousand aroused and indignant +ghosts would come flocking there, as if they heard the old roll-call +of Bunker Hill. Yea, read those doctrines on Bunker Hill--and would it +flame or quake? No. It would stand in silent majesty, pointing its +granite finger up to Heaven and to God--an everlasting witness against +all Slavery, and all its abettors or defenders. + +At this moment, the former parties that have stood in counterpoise +have fallen to pieces. And we are on the eve, and in the very act, of +reconstructing our parties. One movement there is that calls itself +American. Oh, that it were or or would be! Never was an opening so +auspicious for a true American party that, embracing the _principles_ +of American institutions, should enter our Temple of Liberty and +drive out thence not merely the interloping Gentiles, but the +money-changers, and those, also, who sell oxen, and cattle and slaves +therein. + +It is not the question whether a Northern party should be a party of +philanthropy, or of propagandism, or of abolition. It is simply a +question whether, for fear of these things, they will ignore and rub +out of their creed every principle of human rights! + +I am not afraid of foreigners among us. Nevertheless, our politicians +have so abused us through them, that I am glad that a movement is on +foot to regulate the conduct of new-comers among us, and oblige them +to pass through a longer probation before they become citizens. In so +far as I understand the practical measures proposed and set forth in +the Message of the Governor of Massachusetts, I approve them. + +But I ask you, fellow-citizens, whether the simple accident of birth +is a basis broad enough for a permanent National party? Is it a +_principle_, even? It is a mere fact. + +Ought we not to look a little at what a man is _after_ he is born, as +well as at the place where? Especially, when we remember that Arnold +was born in Connecticut and La Fayette in France. + +If then, a party is American, ought it not to be because it represents +those principles which are fundamental to American Institutions and +to American policy? principles which stand in contrast with European +Institutions and policy! + +Which of these two theories is the American? The North has one theory, +the South another; which of them is to be called _the American_ idea? +Which is American--Northern ideas or Southern ideas? That which +declares all men free &c., or that which declares the superior races +free, and the inferior, Slaves? + +That which declares the right of every man to life, liberty, and the +pursuit of happiness--or that which declares the right of strength and +intelligence to subordinate weakness and ignorance? + +That which ordains popular education, freedom of speech, freedom of +the press, public discussion--or that which makes these a prerogative, +yielded to a class but denied to masses? + +That which organizes Society as a Democracy and Government, and +Republic--or that which organizes Society as an Aristocracy, and +Government as an Oligarchy? + +Which shall it be--that of organized New England townships, schools, +and churches--that resisted taxation without representation--that +covered Boston harbor with tea, as if all China had shook down her +leaves there--which spake from Faneuil Hall, and echoed from Bunker +Hill; or that policy which landed slaves on the Chesapeake--that has +changed Old Virginia from a land of heroes into a breeding-ground of +slaves--that has broken down boundaries, and carried war over our +lines, not for liberty, but for more territory for slaves to work, +that the owners might multiply, and the Aristocracy of America stand +on the shores of two oceans, an unbroken bound all between? + +If _a National_ American party is ever formed, by leaving out the +whole question of Human Rights, it will be what a man would be--his +soul left out! + +An American National party--Liberty left out! + +An American party--Human Rights left out! + +Gentlemen, such a party will stink with dissolution before you can get +it finished. No Masonry can make it solid--no art can secure it. No +anchor that was ever forged in infernal stythy can go deep enough into +political mud to hold it! + +If you rear up an empty name; if you take that revered name American, +all the world over radiant and revered, as the symbol of human rights +and human happiness--if you sequester and stuff that name with the +effete doctrines of despotism, do you believe you can supplicate from +any gods the boon of immortality for such an unbaptized monster? No. +It may live to ravage our heritage for a few days, but there _is_ a +spirit of liberty that lives among us, and that shall live. And +aroused by that spirit, there shall spring up the yet unaroused hosts +of men that have not bowed the knee to Baal--and we will war it to the +knife, and knife to the hilt. + +For, IT SHALL be; America _shall be free_! + +We will take that for our life's enterprise. Dying, we will leave it a +legacy to our children, and they shall will it to theirs, until the +work is done, our fathers' prayers are answered, and this whole land +stands clothed and in its right mind--a symbol of what the earthly +fruits of the Gospel are! + +If a National party is now to be formed, what shall it be, and what +shall its office be? + +It shall be a peacemaker, say sly politicians. Yes, peace by war. But +an American party, seeking peace with the imperious Aristocracy by +yielding everything down to the root--one would think no party need be +formed to do that. Judas did as much without company. Arnold did that +without companions. + +An American National party must either be a piebald and patched-up +party, carrying in its entrails the mortal poison of two belligerent +schemes, former legendary disputes, and agitation, and furious +conflict; or, to be a real national party, it must first be a +_Northern_ party and _become_ national. We must walk again over the +course of history. Here in the North Liberty began. Its roots are with +us yet. All its associations and all its potent institutions are with +us. Having once given forth this spirit of liberty, now fading out of +our Southern States, the North should again come forth and refill the +poisoned veins that have been drinking the hemlock of Despotism with +the new blood of Liberty! Let us give sap to the tree of Liberty, that +it may not wither and die! + +When Hercules was born, but yet a child, the jealous Juno sent two +serpents to his cradle to destroy him. Hercules or the serpents must +die. Both could not lie in the same bed. He seized them and suffocated +them by his grip, while his poor brother, Iphiclus, filled the house +with his shrieks. An infernal Juno, envious of the destined greatness +of this country, hath sent this serpent upon it! What shall we do? +Shall we imitate Hercules or Iphiclus? Shall we choke it; or shall we +form a timid _National_ party and _shriek_? + +Gentlemen, you will never have rest from this subject until there is a +victory of principles. Northern ideas must become American, or +Southern ideas must become _American_, before there will be peace. If +the North gives to the Nation her radical principles of human rights +and democratic Governments, there will be the peace of an immeasurable +prosperity. If the South shall give to the country a policy derived +from her heathen notions of men, there will be such a peace as men +have overdrugged with opium, that deep lethargy just before the mortal +convulsions and death! All attempts at evasion, at adjourning, at +concealing and compromising are in vain. The reason of our long +agitation is, not that restless Abolitionists are abroad, that +ministers will meddle with improper themes, that parties are +disregardful of the country's interest. These are symptoms only, not +the disease; the effects, not the causes. + +Two great powers that will not live together are in our midst, and +tugging at each other's throats. They will search each other out, +though you separate them a hundred times. And if by an insane +blindness you shall contrive to put off the issue, and send this +unsettled dispute down to your children, it will go down, gathering +volume and strength at every step, to waste and desolate their +heritage. Let it be settled now. Clear the place. Bring in the +champions. Let them put their lances in rest for the charge. Sound the +trumpet, and _God save the right_! + + * * * * * + +The latter portion of the lecture was frequently interrupted by +boisterous applause. + + * * * * * + +After Mr. Beecher had taken his seat, there were loud calls for Mr. +GIDDINGS, whereupon that gentleman came forward and said that he had +not come to make a speech, but, like a good Methodist brother, he +would add his exhortation to the excellent sermon of his clerical +friend. In conclusion, Mr. Giddings besought all to enter heartily +into the contest for Freedom--to trust in God and keep their powder +dry! [Loud applause.] + + * * * * * + +[Transcriber's Notes: + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including obsolete and variant spellings and other +inconsistencies. + +The transcriber noted the following issues and made changes as +indicated to the text to correct obvious errors: + + 1. p. 4, "lees" changed to "less" + 2. p. 4, "themother" changed to "the mother" + 3. p. 5, "Revleation" changed to "Revelation" + 4. p. 5, "oppugnent" changed to "oppugnant" + 5. p. 5, "prodncing" changed to "producing" + 6. p. 5, "weekness" changed to "weakness" + 7. p. 6, "Cristianity" changed to "Christianity" + 8. p. 6, "Chris'," changed to "Christ," + 9. p. 6, "unto the "least" changed to "unto the least" + 10. p. 7, "sprours" changed to "sprouts" + 11. p. 7, "Cristianity" changed to "Christianity" + 12. p. 7, "southren" changed to "southern" + 13. p. 7, "aud" changed to "and" + 14. p. 7, "fouud" changed to "found" + 15. p. 8, "breath" changed to "breathe" + 16. p. 8, "choses" changed to "chooses" + 17. p. 8, "Govenor's" changed to "Governor's" + 18. p. 9, "agaih" changed to "again" + 19. p. 10, "achievments" changed to "achievements" + 20. p. 10, "feculant" changed to "feculent" + 21. p. 10, "inate" changed to "innate" + 22. p. 13, "grapsits" changed to "graps its" + 23. p. 14, "llke" changed to "like" + 24. p. 15, "Junot" changed to "Juno" + +End of Transcriber's Notes] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Conflict of Northern and Southern +Theories of Man and Society, by Henry Ward Beecher + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFLICT OF THEORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 25653.txt or 25653.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/6/5/25653/ + +Produced by K. 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