peak; but my heart is full, my country is bleeding, my people
are perishing around me. But I feel as a South Carolinian, I am
bound to tell the North, go on! go on! Never falter, never
abandon the principles which you have adopted. I could not say
this if we were now where we stood two years ago. I could not say
thus when it was proclaimed in the Northern States that the Union
was all that we sought. No, my friends, such a Union as we had
then, God be praised that it has perished. Oh, never for one
moment consent that such a Union should be re-established in our
land. There was a time when I looked upon the Fathers of the
Revolution with the deepest sorrow and the keenest reproach. I
said to their shadows in another world, "Why did you leave this
accursed system of slavery for us to suffer and die under? why
did you not, with a stroke of the pen, determine--when you
acquired your own independence--that the principles which you
adopted in the Declaration of Independence should be a shield of
protection to every man, whether he be slave or whether he be
free?" But, my friends, the experience of sixty years has shown
me that the fruit grows slowly. I look back and see that great
Sower of the world, as he traveled the streets of Jerusalem and
dropped the precious seed, "Do unto others as ye would that
others should do unto you." I look at all the contests of
different nations, and see that, whether it were the Patricians
of Rome, England, France, or any part of Europe, every battle
fought gained something to freedom. Our fathers, driven out by
the oppression of England, came to this country and planted that
little seed of liberty upon the soil of New England. When our
Revolution took place, the seed was only in the process of
sprouting. You must recollect that our Declaration of
Independence was the very first National evidence of the great
doctrine of brotherhood and equality. I verily believe that those
who were the true lovers of liberty did all they could at that
time. In their debates in the Convention they denounced
slavery--they protested against the hypocrisy and inconsistency
of a nation declaring such glorious truths, and then trampling
them underfoot by enslaving the poor and oppressed, because he
had a skin not colored like their own; a