ion, with the muse
of history recording his words as they drop from his lips, with the
colossal figure of American Liberty leaning on a column entwined
with the emblem of eternity over his head, with the forms of
Washington and Lafayette speaking to him from the canvas--turns to
the image of the father of his country, and, forgetting that the
last act of his life was to emancipate his slaves, to bolster up the
cause of slavery says, '_That_ man was a slaveholder.'

"My countrymen! these are the tenets of the modern nullification
school. Can you wonder that they shrink from the light of free
discussion--that they skulk from the grasp of freedom and of truth?
Is there among you one who hears me, solicitous above all things for
the preservation of the Union so truly dear to us--of that Union
proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence--of that Union never
to be divided by any act whatever--and who dreads that the
discussion of the merits of slavery will endanger the continuance of
the Union? Let him discard his terrors, and be assured that they are
no other than the phantom fears of nullification; that, while
doctrines like these are taught in her schools of philosophy,
preached in her pulpits, and avowed in her legislative councils, the
free, unrestrained discussion of the rights and wrongs of slavery,
far from endangering the Union of these states, is the only
condition upon which that Union can be preserved and perpetuated.
What! are you to be told, with one breath, that the transcendent
glory of this day consists in the proclamation that all lawful
government is founded on the inalienable rights of man, and, with
the next breath, that you must not whisper this truth to the winds,
lest they should taint the atmosphere with freedom, and kindle the
flame of insurrection? Are you to bless the earth beneath your feet
because she spurns the footsteps of a slave, and then to choke the
utterance of your voice lest the sound of liberty should be reechoed
from the palmetto-groves, mingled with the discordant notes of
disunion? No! no! Freedom of speech is the only safety-valve which,
under the high pressure of slavery, can preserve your political
boiler from a fearful and fatal explosion. Let it be admitted that
slavery is an institution of internal police, exclusively subject to
the s