are only three great charters of freedom among Anglo-Saxon
peoples: the Magna Charta, which the barons wrung from King John at
Runnymede; the Declaration of Independence, which a few colonials threw
at the head of an obstinate king; the Emancipation Proclamation, which
Lincoln cast into the balance for the Union. The Magna Charta gave
freedom to the nobility; the Declaration of Independence brought freedom
down to the plain people; the Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln set free
the under-man, and proclaimed liberty to the slave and the serf
throughout the world.

Massachusetts had no small part in the second great charter of liberty.
This is attested not only by the signatures of Hancock, the Adams's,
Paine, and Gerry to that great document, but here are Boston, Concord,
Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and a thousand memorials of the Revolution
besides. Great indeed as was the part that Massachusetts played in
achieving independence, greater still was her share in the Emancipation
of the slave. Lincoln himself said that Boston had done more to bring on
the war than any other city; and when Emancipation had been achieved he
generously credited the result "to the logic and moral power of Garrison
and the anti-slavery people."

This day, therefore, belongs to Massachusetts. It is a part of her
glorious history. Emancipation was but the triumph of Puritan
principle--the right of each individual to eat his bread out of the
sweat of his own brow or not at all. The history of the abolition of
slavery in America could not be written with Massachusetts left out; the
history of Massachusetts herself, since the Revolution, would be but a
dreary, barren waste without the chapter of her part in the
Emancipation.

The House does well to pause in its deliberations to commemorate this
anniversary. In 1837 your predecessors threw open the old Hall of
Representatives to the first meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery
Society. A year later, the legislature adopted resolutions against the
slave-trade, for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,
and the prohibition of slavery in the territories.

The fathers early enacted that there should be neither bond slaves nor
villeinage amongst us except captives taken in just wars and those
condemned judicially to serve. When it was attempted to land the first
cargo of slaves upon her soil, the people seized them and sent them back
to their own country and clime. In spite of the prayer