, to wake this
stolid nation from its sleep of death.

In circulating our petition many refused to sign because they
believed slavery a divine institution, and therefore did not wish
to change the status of the slave. Others, who professed to hate
slavery, denied the right of Congress to interfere with it in the
States; and yet others condemned all dictation, or even
suggestion to Congress or the President. They said, "_Let the
people be still_ and trust the affairs of State to the management
of the rulers they, themselves, have chosen." And many of our
"old Abolitionists," believing _their_ work done, that the war
had killed slavery, knocked the bottom out of the tub, not only
declared our work one of supererogation, but told us that
petitioning, as a means of educating the people or influencing
Congress, had become obsolete.

Under all these discouragements, with neither press nor pulpit to
magnify our work, without money or the enthusiasm of numbers, in
simple faith, into the highways and hedges we sent the Gospel of
Freedom, and as of old, the people heard with gladness. A very
large majority of our petitioners are from the unlettered masses.
They who, knowing naught of the machinery of government or the
trickery of politics, believe that, as God reigns, there is
justice on the earth. As yet, none of our large cities have been
thoroughly canvassed; but from the savannahs of the South and the
prairies of the West--from the hills of New England and the
shores of our lakes and gulfs, have we enrolled the soldiers of
freedom; they who, when the rebels shall lay down their arms,
with higher, holier weapons must end the war. Through us, two
hundred thousand[45] people--the labor and virtue of the
Republic--have spoken in our national Capitol, where their voices
were never heard before.

Those unaccustomed to balance influences, who judge of the
importance of movements by their apparent results, may deem our
efforts lost, because the Amendment and Emancipation bills have
not yet passed the House; but _we_ feel that our labors for the
past year, in the circulation of tracts and petitions and
appeals--in our lectures and letters, public and private, have
done as much to kill the rebellion, by educating the people for
the final blow, a