FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43  
44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   >>   >|  
Oh, speed the moment on When Wrong shall cease, and Liberty and Love And Truth and Right throughout the earth be known As in their home above. 1836. A SUMMONS Written on the adoption of Pinckney's Resolutions in the House of Representatives, and the passage of Calhoun's "Bill for excluding Papers written or printed, touching the subject of Slavery, from the U. S. Post-office," in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Pinckney's resolutions were in brief that Congress had no authority to interfere in any way with slavery in the States; that it ought not to interfere with it in the District of Columbia, and that all resolutions to that end should be laid on the table without printing. Mr. Calhoun's bill made it a penal offence for post-masters in any State, District, or Territory "knowingly to deliver, to any person whatever, any pamphlet, newspaper, handbill, or other printed paper or pictorial representation, touching the subject of slavery, where, by the laws of the said State, District, or Territory, their circulation was prohibited." MEN of the North-land! where's the manly spirit Of the true-hearted and the unshackled gone? Sons of old freemen, do we but inherit Their names alone? Is the old Pilgrim spirit quenched within us, Stoops the strong manhood of our souls so low, That Mammon's lure or Party's wile can win us To silence now? Now, when our land to ruin's brink is verging, In God's name, let us speak while there is time! Now, when the padlocks for our lips are forging, Silence is crime! What! shall we henceforth humbly ask as favors Rights all our own? In madness shall we barter, For treacherous peace, the freedom Nature gave us, God and our charter? Here shall the statesman forge his human fetters, Here the false jurist human rights deny, And in the church, their proud and skilled abettors Make truth a lie? Torture the pages of the hallowed Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood? And, in Oppression's hateful service, libel Both man and God? Shall our New England stand erect no longer, But stoop in chains upon her downward way, Thicker to gather on her limbs and stronger Day after day? Oh no; methinks from all her wild, green mountains; From valleys where her slumbering fathers lie; From
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41   42   43  
44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
District
 

States

 
printed
 

touching

 
slavery
 
interfere
 
spirit
 

resolutions

 

subject

 

Pinckney


Territory

 

Calhoun

 

mountains

 

freedom

 

treacherous

 

madness

 

Nature

 

henceforth

 

barter

 

favors


humbly

 

Rights

 

slumbering

 

verging

 
fathers
 
silence
 

valleys

 

padlocks

 

forging

 

Silence


jurist

 
service
 
robbery
 

Oppression

 

hateful

 

England

 

chains

 

downward

 

Thicker

 
longer

stronger
 
sanction
 

rights

 

church

 
skilled
 

gather

 

statesman

 

fetters

 

abettors

 
hallowed