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THE GREAT TRIAL 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE GENIUS OF ClYILIZATION 
 BROUGHT TO JUDGMEiNT. 
 
 BY A. 0. HAEIfESS. 
 
 THE MISSION OF TRUTH. 
 
 To wake on earth the human soul, 
 
 A power tyrants can't control, 
 
 Nor slavery's shackles bind ; 
 
 Through freedom's realms it loves to roam, 
 
 Its idyl is a cottage home, 
 
 Its lightning is the mind. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BARCLAY & CO., 
 
 No. 21 North Seventh Street. 
 1873. 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
/ T < ? '?' 
 
 i i. i 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 THE GENIUS OF CIVILIZATION BROUGHT TO 
 JUDGMENT. 
 
 i«ov 9di ai ^KOTT^aoO "io JoA oi ^ailnooos l>'ji9*aji 
 
 >;»j. -!u: »v 
 
 BY 
 
 A. c. HARisrEsa 
 
 imzu' 
 
 18 7 3. 
 

 >-v« 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 A. C. HARNESS, 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 TO MARY. 
 
 Dbxt him not, Mary, 
 
 Confess him ; 
 Deny him not, mother, 
 
 But bless him. 
 A picture is this boy 
 Of thy youth's tender joy, 
 When all thy life was innocence, 
 And Heaven's kind beneficence 
 Imprinted on my kindled heart 
 This image lovely as thou art. 
 Until my quick and burning brain 
 In travail felt a mother's pain. 
 
 A^- 
 
 lU 
 
 Deny him not, Mary, ^ ; 
 
 Confess him ; luo'J 
 
 Deny him not, mother, -if fn<[ 
 
 But bless him.. 
 He is thy darling boy, 
 The child of youth's first joy. 
 The darling of thy youth and beauty, 
 A tried sentinel found on duty. 
 Who watched through all that midnight gloom, 
 
 And waited where the dead were sleeping ; 
 He watched and wept at freedom's tomb 
 
 While freedom's friends were weeping. 
 
 V 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 Deny him not, Mary, 
 
 Confess him; 
 Deny him not, mother. 
 
 But bless him. 
 The \Katchman tells the night, 
 The niorn is Pawning bright. 
 Hark ! hark ! 'tis freedom's song of glory. 
 Which tells to earth the joyous story, 
 That freedom's dead shall live again 
 
 (They are not dead but only sleeping). 
 And laughter ring along the plain 
 
 Where freedom's friends are weeping. 
 
 4.1€ ,)oo m\ 
 Deny him not, Mary, .,^ „,-)„, 
 
 Confess him ; 
 Deny him not, mother, 
 
 But bless him. • ^— ^ ^_: 4,^^^.,;,! ,\ 
 Behold his little feet, .,,, ^-jfj^M^T yA) to 
 And the deed with joy greet, / 
 
 With buoyant, boyish speed & running. 
 And candor ever free from cunning, 
 And see them mount the rampart's height 
 Which tyrants built in freedom's night. 
 And wave above their tyranny 
 The Flag of blood-bought Liberty, 
 
 Deny him not, Mary, , -I 
 
 Confess him ; "i J snalaoD 
 
 Deny him not, mother, •• '^ ' '''-^ -rn^Q 
 But bless him. 
 
 Though earth-born is thy boy. 
 
 Heaven watched his birth with joy. 
 
 And sweet, sweet angelic minstrelsy 
 
 Did welcome him with its melody. 
 
 He brings glad tidings, Love and Peace, 
 ; -,. Of good for all and good for each ; 
 
 For Zion's king is come to reign. 
 
 To build Jerusalem again. 
 
 vi 
 
CONTEN"TS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The First Witness 22 
 
 The Second Witness 74 
 
 The Third Witness . , , . , . . , 117 
 
 The Fourth Witness 218 
 
 The Fifth Witness 269 
 
 The Sixth Witness 294 
 
 The Seventh Witness 350 
 
 (vii) 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 THE GENIUS OF CIVILIZATION BROUGHT TO JUDGMENT. 
 
 Not long ago I was traveHng through one of the 
 large cities of the country looking at the many sights, 
 which are both curious and entertaining to a man from 
 the country. The hubbub, the noise, the jumble of men 
 and animals, and vehicles of every description, confuse 
 not a little the rustic mind, which is in the habit of seeing 
 all these things assorted, and each one occupying its own 
 place. How vividly the world with all its unevenness and 
 injustice comes before you in a city ! Nothing, however, 
 struck me so forcibly, as the marked contrast between 
 the different classes and conditions of mankind. Not far 
 apart stand palaces and hovels. Here you see wealth 
 with all its extravagant dissipations, its silly fashions, 
 and gaudy show ; there you see poverty in rags and 
 wretchedness. When you see on the one hand the beg- 
 gar in his looped and windowed raggedness, and on the 
 other the bondautocrat in his palatial residence with its 
 princely surroundings, you can hardly believe that they 
 are both made of the same dust. The daughter of the 
 bondautocrat, arrayed in the gayest style of fashion, 
 sweeps carelessly by the beggar-woman, whose tattered 
 rags hardly serve the purposes of decency*. Chariots 
 gilded with costly ornaments, and drawn by sleek, fiery 
 steeds, dash by the dray-cart with its toilsome luggage, 
 as if it were a hearse bearing some vile contagion to the 
 grave. Palatial halls, adorned with elegant furniture, ring 
 with festive merriment; while close beside these, garrets 
 and cellars, crammed with the wretched, moan out sighs 
 A* 9 
 
10 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 of despair. Surely these beings do not all belong to the 
 same brotherhood. These happy children of fortune must 
 be celestial beings. They have only come on a visit to 
 this lower world to give its inhabitants some notion of 
 the glories of the world they inhabit. Only the poor, 
 friendless children of toil belong to this earth ; its dust 
 and sweat cling to them. The wretched too belong to 
 earth, for it drinks up their tears. How much your no- 
 tion will be changed by a little better acquaintance with 
 the two! Go to the bondautocrat and give him half of 
 your property to get money for the other half, in order 
 to relieve yourself from some crushing misfortune, and 
 he will not exhibit the least sign of gratitude. On the 
 contrary, this cold-hearted, soulless creature will try to 
 persuade you, that you are under obligations of eternal 
 friendship to him. How will his eyes gloat over this new 
 heap of earthly trash I How his soul bows down to 
 worship this filthy idol ! How does it glory in the pros- 
 pect of having goods laid up for many days I How 
 sweetly does it say to itself, "eat, drink and be merry"! 
 How now, why art thou so pale ? why dost thou tremble, 
 proud, unfeeling man ? Hark, hark, that dread sum- 
 mons I " Thou fool, this night thy soul will be required 
 of thee." The beggar's cry, "give me a penny," startles 
 me from my reverie. My heart turns me round to answer 
 the piteous cry. Poor, blind beggar, how many pass heed- 
 lessly by I Have they heard thy cry so often that they 
 have become indifferent to it ? or have they never heard 
 it? I at least'am. thy brother mortal and will give thee 
 a penny. 
 
 But stop — that uniform— he has been a soldier. He 
 was my enemy. He killed my brother, the last one I ha^ 
 in the world, the youngest born, the pet of our widowed 
 mother. He burned our houses and barns, and made our 
 country, once so rich and beautiful, a desert. He robbed 
 me of my liberties — my birthright,— a heritage which my 
 father and his father had won in a common struggle 
 against a common enemy. Anger came into my heart, 
 and I turned away. But I had not gone far when a 
 voice whispered to me, " If thine enemy hunger feed him, 
 if he thirst give him drink." I went back and dropped the 
 
TUE GREAT TRIAL. \\ 
 
 coveted penny into the beggar's box. How sweetly fell 
 on my ears the fervid, earnest " God bless you" which 
 came from the beggar's lips, ay from the beggar's heart 1 
 When I saw those sightless orbs rolling heavenward as 
 if, though blind, they could see the benediction going up 
 to the Father of all mercies, ah, then I knew the rich 
 man's home is on earth, the beggar's home is in heaven. 
 
 Few, few will think of thee now any more; 
 
 But few will attend and weep at thy grave : 
 Because thoii wast old, and friendless, and poor, 
 
 Adversity's prey and misery's slave. 
 
 And yet had life's morn a promise for thee, 
 Its grassy green fields and its fragrant flowers, 
 
 An orient sun and friends all aglee. 
 
 Wild visions of love and its blissful hours. 
 
 But clouds have obscured the light of that sun ; 
 
 Hands, which helped build for thee love's shady bowers, 
 Have scattered their leaves as if it were fun, 
 
 And strewed thy lone pathway with hope's withered flowers. 
 
 How drear to thee now appears earth's rocky shore ! 
 
 A desert where not a wild flower is found 
 To catch thy last tear — thou 'It soon weep no more — 
 
 And distill its remembrance above thy low mound. 
 
 How welcome to thee '11 be the roar and the surge 
 Of death's dark wave when it breaks on that shore ! 
 
 For earth will deny thee a requiem dirge, 
 
 Because thou wast old, and friendless, and poor. 
 
 Thrice welcome to thee '11 be the ebb of its tide, 
 And quick as a dream will thy voyage be o'ei 
 
 To realms, mystic realms, where spirits abide 
 And richest of treasures remain for the poor. 
 
 It was then a feeling of indescribable joy came over 
 me. I fell into a sweet sleep, and dreamed a dream. I 
 thought I was passing through a country which I had 
 once known well. Some things were familiar to me still ; 
 but so many cLnnges had been made, sad changes, that 
 I almost persuaded myself that either the past or the 
 present was a dream. The fields which were once green 
 with the verdure of prosperity had become a waste. The 
 forests, whose leafy hands the mysterious spirit of love 
 once waved to beckon the breeze, had disappeared. The 
 
12 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 old-fashioned mansion-houses, large, airy, and as spacious 
 as the hospitality which had once made them the abodes 
 of pleasure, were heaps of ruins. Every place seemed to 
 be neglected but the grave-yards. These only had pros- 
 pered, and gathered into their garners of death the un- 
 ripe harvest, which was the hope of the land. Many had 
 gathered there to weep. The grandmother was there, 
 the mother, the widow, the orphan planting flowers, 
 which seemed to wither and fade, so poor was the land 
 become, and so burning was the sun which blazed in the 
 brazen sky. 
 
 I watched until they were all gone but one. She bent 
 over a grave from which an unpropitious sky withheld 
 its dews, and shed upon it a copious shower of tears, sing- 
 ing, in a low, sweet voice, these lines : 
 
 Beneath affection's shower of tears 
 
 Remembrance' sweetest flowers will bloom, 
 
 And on the waste of long, long years 
 Shed fragrance round thy lowly tomb. 
 
 I drew near her, and tried to comfort her. She thanked 
 me for my kind words, and was grateful for my sym- 
 pathy. At length I asked her why she did not return 
 home. Startled at the mention of that word home, she 
 stared at me a moment and then answered : ** Alas, I 
 have no home. The red siroccos of war have swept my 
 home away. I have no bread, and have come here with 
 my babe, my last earthly hope, to die." The child which 
 she held in her arms — and I just then noticed it for the 
 first time — had a sickly, pale, white look, like marble. 
 So low was its breathing that only the quick touch of a 
 mother's love could feel the little stream of life, which was 
 fast ebbing away. And the little blood which had passed 
 over her own pallid, sorrowful face when I first spoke to 
 her, was now gone, and there stood before me (horrible to 
 tell!) a skeleton, — a shadow of a human being. 
 
 Did I dream, or was it a ghost ? I trembled lest other 
 graves (and there were many around me) should open 
 and send forth their ghostly tenants. With a woman's 
 quick perception she saw the cause of my consternation, 
 and assured me that she was mortal. ** I have had but 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. Ig 
 
 one wish to live,'* she added, "this long time, and that 
 was for the sake of my child. Soon it will cease to need 
 a mother's care," she continued, " and then I will need 
 no longer the sympathy of the world. Grief and famine 
 would have carried me to my grave long ago ; but I could 
 not die so long as I could feel this little heart beat," point- 
 ing to her babe. 
 
 Whilst I was wondering what I should do to relieve 
 this poor woman, who seemed to be friendless and alone 
 in the world, and looking around to see from whence I 
 could obtain help, I saw in the distance many large cities. 
 They seemed to be situated on beautiful eminences, high 
 above this low valley ; for although I have omitted to 
 speak of it before, the place we were in was a low narrow 
 valley. Clouds hung constantly over it, so that one 
 could not see far before him. It was only when I looked 
 toward those shining cities that I could see a great way. 
 The brightest sunshine was in them, and their glory daz- 
 zled my eyes. Just as I was setting out in the direction 
 of the largest and apparently the most splendid of them 
 all, I saw one descending the hill on which it stood, and 
 coming toward us. It seemed to me — but maybe it was 
 only because I wished it — that he was carrying some- 
 thing which looked like a basket. At all events, I made 
 up my mind to wait until he should come in speaking 
 distance, or turn off in some new direction. To my great 
 joy he came on right straight to us. He told me before 
 I had time to ask him, that he had come down to feed and 
 comfort the poor of this land. Indeed, I believed as much 
 before he told me, for he had at least the outward marks 
 of a good man. His grave face and saintly air bespoke 
 a man of the priestly order, and he, moreover, carried 
 under his arm the Bible. 
 
 Then came into my mind many beautiful texts which 
 I have often read in that book; one especially did impress 
 itself on me : " Love thy enemy;" for the habit this man 
 wore marked him as one of the people who were the ene- 
 mies of those who dwelt in the valley. I told him of the 
 poor woman at the grave, and he started at once to her. 
 He lifted out of his basket a piece of bread and other 
 tempting eatables, which I supposed he would at once 
 
 2 
 
l^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 hand to the woman. But to my great surprise, he laid 
 them back, aud offered her a scroll. 
 
 Never shall 1 forget the picture of agony which her face 
 presented when she read this paper. The sad, weak smile 
 which lit up her face when she first saw the bread was 
 gone: a ghastly paleness took its place. Her trembling 
 hand, as if paralyzed, let fall the scroll which she had 
 grasped so eagerly a moment before. She turned away 
 from the good man, as he seemed to be; and in that new 
 direction one stood before her of frightful aspect. This 
 new visitor seemed to be not a man, but rather a skeleton 
 of iron. His face wore a grim, unearthly smile, which 
 seemed to be in mockery of her woe ; and the hand he 
 extended to her seemed not like a human hand, for the 
 fingerswere joints of steel opening and closing on powerful 
 springs.* But wonders, it seemed, would never cease in 
 this strange place ; for when the woman saw this horrible 
 phantom, her countenance grew bright, and her whole 
 face became radiant with beauty. Never before, not even 
 at Hymen's altar, where a thousand visions of beauty 
 throng the mind of the bride and dance in airy shapes on 
 her sweet face, have I seen a child of earth so transformed 
 into beauty. Her delicate hand, now white as marble, 
 was seized by that iron grip, and the joints of the skeleton 
 phantom made a rattling noise as he led her away. They 
 had not gone far, when they came to a dark, narrow lane, 
 where they both disappeared. 1 turned to the good man 
 (for such I still took him to be) and asked what this 
 meant. But he seemed to be as much disappointed as I 
 was. With a fierce look on his countenance, and in an 
 angry voice, he said to me, " Let her go." I sat down on 
 a rock hard by, and, covering my face with my hands, 
 wept over the woes of the children of men. 
 
 While I wept one called to me ; and when I had un- 
 covered my face I saw before me one in the shape of a 
 man, but his face shone with the brightest of unearthly 
 glory. I trembled with fear, and bowed down before 
 him in the attitude of devotion. He lifted me up, and 
 bade me worship God who made the heavens and earth, 
 the seas and fountains of water. He said that he was a 
 prophet of the Almighty, sent to reveal his will to the 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 15 
 
 children of men, and to comfort them with the promises 
 of future good. His name was the Word of God. Feel- 
 ing somewhat reassured, I besought him to explain to me 
 the wonderful things which I had seen that day. He 
 began by telling me that the place we were in was the 
 Valley of Humiliation. It lies on the way which leads 
 to the better land, and travelers going thither must 
 necessarily pass this way. The great king who owns 
 this country has another and a better for those of his 
 subjects who are true and faithful. They must needs 
 come this way, because a great river runs between this 
 country and that. So deep is this river, and so swift its 
 current, that it is impassable at any other point except 
 just where this valley strikes it. The wisdom of the 
 king with all his council was employed in making the 
 passage secure at this point ; nor can any one, not even 
 those next to him in wisdom and power, cross over at 
 any other place. I asked what cities those were in the 
 distance, which were so beautiful, and who were the in- 
 habitants, — especially the one who had just gone back 
 from the valley ; for the good man, so called, had left us, 
 and was then ascending a hill which led to one of those 
 cities. These, he said, were cities of Vanity, which Pride 
 had built on the hills of Prosperity. The people you see 
 in this valley once lived in cities like these. But a great 
 storm came. Its whirlwinds were devouring flames which 
 consumed those cities, and destroyed all their wealth and 
 beauty. Indeed, so intensely hot were those winds of 
 fire that they even melted down the hills on which those 
 cities stood. So only this narrow valley is left, veiled in 
 the clouds of sorrow and sprinkled over with the bitter 
 ashes of disappointment. The old men and women and 
 children, at least many of them, escaped this storm because 
 they hid out of its way ; but the young, and the brave, 
 and the strong who attempted to withstand it were de- 
 stroyed. These hillocks are their graves, for their friends 
 have gathered them from the different places where the 
 storm overtook them. The poor woman you saw weep- 
 ing over that grave had lost everything by the storm. 
 Her property was all destroyed, and she had come with 
 her infant to weep in despair at the grave of her husband, 
 
16 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 who too had fallen ifi the storm. Her cupboard was 
 empty, and she had come here with her babe to die. The 
 good man (as he seemed to be) who came down from that 
 city is the chief priest of a sect who are called Pharisees ; 
 you have doubtless read of them in the Scriptures. They 
 like to be considered as the saints of the Lord. They 
 make long prayers, and wear long faces. They preach 
 in fine churches, and for rich congregations who can pay 
 them big salaries. They make themselves all things to 
 all men, that they may by some means get a hold of their 
 money. They encompass sea and land to make a prose- 
 lyte, and when he is made they make him twofold more 
 the fit child of the devil than themselves. They are 
 scrupulous in exacting from others a rigid conformity to 
 the ordinances of the church ; especially do they exact from 
 all tithes of mint, cummin, and anise. Every Sunday 
 is desecrated by attention to the church's secular matters, 
 indeed is specially set apart to attend to the financial 
 affairs of the church. The preacher you saw and mistook 
 for a good man is the chief priest of this sect of Pharisees ; 
 for he preaches in a bigger church and to a richer con- 
 gregation than any of his brothers. He gets too a larger 
 salary, and draws larger crowds. He has cultivated a 
 popular style of oratory, a theatrical air, and a clownish 
 wit. The people of this country have been cheated and 
 humbugged so long, that a man is esteemed a clever fel- 
 low in proportion to his capacity to make asses of them ; 
 and so debauched have their moral notions become that 
 vulgarity is held in the highest repute. Hence a man 
 who can say the most filthy thing is held in the highest 
 esteem, and looked upon as the wittiest man. This old 
 Pharisee has won a pre-eminent fame, by desecrating the 
 pulpit with vulgar, clownish airs and filthy, lascivious 
 jests, such as would grace the lowest comedy. For instance, 
 a short time ago he said the pretty Caucasian women of 
 America were only fit to be used as a bait to catch Sambo 
 and Cuffy. The dupes of this old reprobate who applaud 
 or hiss from force of habit, rather than from sense or 
 feeling, cried out, what a smart thing! But when some- 
 body else told them that stuff was not wit, they com- 
 menced hissing, and at once the polluted old Pharisee tried 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. H 
 
 to lie out of it. This was considered a very creditable 
 performance by his people. Indeed, it is considered by 
 the priesthood of this generation, just as it is by their poli- 
 ticians, a clever thing to do a dirty trick, and get out of it 
 by telling a big lie. This old Pharisee (whom you mis- 
 took for a good man) had come down among the poor 
 people of this desolated country in the name of charity ; he 
 had bread along, but only gave it on certain conditions. 
 That poor, starving woman had to sign that scroll before 
 he would give her bread. The following is a copy of it : 
 ** I, A. B., do solemnly swear that the l|ite war, brought 
 on this country by a run-mad political faction for the 
 purpose of destroying its ancient democracy and build- 
 ing a military despotism on its ruins, for the purpose of 
 destroying its freedom and establishing in lieu thereof 
 civil and religious persecution , for the purpose of chang- 
 ing the condition of the negro from being the slave 
 of man individually to the slave of the government, so 
 that he might be used as a political power to enslave the 
 white man; for the purpose of creating a vast public 
 debt, — the great foundation-stone of monarchy and aris- 
 tocracy ; for the purpose of making a mongrel race of 
 mules by mixing the poor white trash with the negro, so 
 that our bondautocratic masters may have a better breed 
 of slaves to serve them, and better mules to bear their 
 burdens of debt and taxation ; for the purpose of raising 
 a large army and navy, — that power which tyrants may 
 rely on to defend their usurpations, and which an aristoc- 
 racy may trust to defend their robberies and plunderings 
 of the people at large ; and finally, for the purpose of re- 
 modeling our government, and making it like those grand 
 and powerful nationalities of Europe (Russia, Prussia, 
 France, and England), where a thousand poor people live 
 hard and work hard to gratify the idleness, the dissipa- 
 tions, the whims and caprices of one, — was a holy and 
 just war, and all who opposed it, or who do now oppose 
 its plans and purpose, are traitors and rebels. I believe 
 further, that my husband, who spent all his property and 
 his life iu opposition to this war and its purposes, was a 
 traitor and rebel ; and I will teach our babe to believe 
 this, and curse his father's memory. I, A. B., do further 
 
 2* 
 
Ig THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 solemnly abjure my faith in the Bible, and the God of the 
 Bible. I believe in pharisaism, which means mesmer- 
 ism, spiritualism, free-loveism, woman's rights, mongrel- 
 ism (especially for " poor white trash"), divorce, child- 
 murder, lying, stealing, adultery, fornication, hatred, 
 revenge, war, and everything which is contrary to the 
 charity, the benevolence, and purity of the Christian re- 
 ligion. I do further swear that I have no faith in the 
 God who made me, and in whose hands my breath is^ 
 but I believe in Mammon, the golden god which our holy 
 hypocritical priosthood has made for us to worship. I 
 believe our Mammon hath power to tear down the pillars 
 which support the throne of the King of heaven, and to 
 establish his empire in the earth forever. I do further 
 swear that I will honor and serve this god, and be loyal 
 to his faithful servants, the priests, the politicians, and 
 bondautocrats." 
 
 This is the scroll which the good man, so-called, offered 
 to the poor, starving woman. Is it any wonder that she 
 looked wildly around her for some escape from the power 
 of this devil? Is it any wonder that she hailed with 
 expressions of joy (in that hour of her utmost need) that 
 skeleton phantom, death ? — to the guilty, the king of 
 terrors ; to the innocent, the kind liberator from the 
 tyranny and persecutions of man. But why that smile 
 of trkimph, that gleam of ineffable joy in her face ? I, 
 who have promised never to leave or forsake those who 
 put their trust in me, stood behind that skeleton phan- 
 tom and held up to her eyes the telescope of faith, and 
 through it she saw the promised land, the paradise of 
 God. There will she hunger no more, neither thirst 
 any more ; for the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall 
 feed her, and lead her unto living fountains of water, and 
 God shall wipe away all tears from her eyes. 
 
 I asked him why the Almighty, who had power to 
 prevent it, permitted such things to be done ; why he 
 suffered the strong to trample the weak under their feet ; 
 why he permitted war with all its ravages, its wastes, 
 and its desolations ; why he permitted the weak and the 
 innocent, like the poor woman at the grave, to be insulted 
 and mocked ; and, above all, why he permitted these crimes 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 19 
 
 to be done in his name, and in the name of his religion. 
 He answered, that one of the hardest things to make 
 man believe is his own depravity. God knows that man 
 is wiek^, and could nip his wicked designs in the very 
 bud ; but how then would man know his own wicked- 
 ness ? Let man be free to act, and then the world can 
 see his evil deeds. And then, too, these wrongs against 
 his fellow-man are tenfold worse when they are consid- 
 ered as sins against God. A man might plead some ex- 
 cuse for injuring his fellow-man. His fellow-man may be 
 his enemy, and plotting evil against him; he may hold 
 towards him feelings of malice and revenge. God can- 
 not hold such feelings : his heart is full of love and com- 
 passion for man ; he offers to him his friendship, his pro- 
 tection, with all the blessings of earth and heaven. God 
 permits these things to convince his intelligent creatures 
 both of his mercy and of his justice. If he would exe- 
 cute swift judgment on the wicked, if he would cut them 
 off before they had fully declared their plans and pur- 
 poses, the world would never have seen the deep de- 
 pravity of human nature, as it is seen by the Deity. 
 Neither would the world understand the justice of God 
 in denouncing such awful penalties against the wicked. 
 Indeed, if a flash of lightning struck down everybody 
 who sinned, the world would soon be depopulated. Every 
 man will be judged according to his deeds, whether they 
 be good or evil. Then must every man be left free to 
 act, to do good or evil, as he may choose. When men 
 or nations have made their record, when they have filled 
 up the measure of their iniquity, then the judgment 
 comes. And who shall be able to stand in the great day 
 of his wrath ? God's thoughts are not your thoughts, 
 nor are his ways your ways ; he never leaves nor for- 
 sakes those who trust in him ; he never suffers them to 
 be tempted above what they are able to bear. The 
 wicked have power over the body only. They may bury 
 the clay part, but the living spark, the soul, is inextin- 
 guishable. The canting Pharisee, who insulted the poor 
 friendless woman at her husband's grave, may spend his 
 life in prosperity ; for big pay may sell a cheap religion to 
 the bondautocratic thieves and robbers, whose slave he 
 
20 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 is ; there may be no bands in his death. Ephraim. is 
 joined to his idols: let him alone; Grod, in his anger, 
 gives up the wicked to a strong delusion, to believe a He ; 
 their last sleep is as gentle as the close of a summfeV's day. 
 But where shall their awaking be ? When you remember 
 the beautiful triumph of the poor widow woman, can 
 you help exclaiming in your heart, " Let me die the 
 death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his"? 
 It was an adage among heathen nations that the mill of 
 the gods grinds slow. In those times it took nations 
 a long time to fill up the measure of their iniquities ; the 
 devil did not have the implements to work with he has now, 
 — gunpowder, steam, electricity, and so on. It then took 
 wicked nations a long time to make a record ; it was a 
 long time before their evil deeds were known to the world. 
 Judgment was delayed so that justice might be vindi- 
 cated. It is different in these times. The wicked deeds 
 of a nation are flashed at lightning speed over the earth. 
 The record is soon made up, and then the judgment sets. 
 Come with me, and I will show you the Great Trial. 
 
 I looked, and lo ! a throne surrounded with clouds and 
 darkness, and voices came from it, and thunderings and 
 lightnings ; and from that throne descended another throne 
 to earth. One sat on the throne which came down to 
 earth, clothed in pure white ; and he held in his hand a 
 sword, which gleamed like fire. His name was Justice, 
 and the sword he held in his hand was called judgment. 
 A trumpet sounded from the throne, and many obeyed 
 its summons. Among those who came to the sound of 
 the trumpet was a woman in princely apparel. She was 
 most gorgeously arrayed in costly silks, with rings of gold 
 in her ears, and on her fingers. The crown on her head 
 was set with sparkling diamonds. Her manner was light 
 and frivolous, and her talk was foolish ; although she was 
 summoned there to be put on trial for the many charges 
 of crime and folly made against her. Even there, in the 
 presence of the judgment-seat, she did not refrain from 
 dancing and singing foolish songs and making silly jests. 
 
 The name of this grand prisoner was the Genius of 
 Civilization. Many witnesses were called to testify 
 against her; \ remember the testimony of only a few of 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 21 
 
 tbem. Indeed, many testified at the time, for the judge 
 had a number of ministers with him, and each one could 
 listen to one of the witnesses and record his testimony. 
 
 But I have omitted to tell of two great personages, 
 who attended the prisoner, and were her principal minis- 
 ters and advisers. The first was named the State. He 
 was a young man who had just passed his youth, and 
 made the sober business turn of life ; that period of life 
 which is so often miscalled the sensible and practical ; a 
 time when love gives place to work, when we look upon 
 those who were once bound to us by tender recollections 
 and sweet associations as machines to do our threshing 
 and reaping at a profitable hire ; that time in life when 
 fancy's dreams are banished for cold, cunning calculations, 
 made under the glaring gaslight of gold, instead of the 
 sweet, genial sunlight of the soul. His person was tall, 
 manly, and well-proportioned ; the traces of youthful 
 courage and generous pride were still plainly visible, and 
 it was truly painful to see them fading under the sinister 
 smile of policy ; his manner had evidently been drilled in 
 all the etiquette of studied politeness, and his dress had 
 both the style and air of diplomacy. The other minister 
 was called the Church.* She, like the queen she served, 
 was dressed most gorgeously, and decked with costly 
 ornaments. And yet was her manner more grave, and 
 dignified, and thoughtful. She wore over her face a veil 
 called humility ; but through this veil you could discover 
 an expression of artfulness and guile ; she looked with 
 envious eyes at the crown upon the head of her queen. 
 She cast at the queen's other minister lascivious glances, 
 and put on when talking with him the most seductive airs. 
 Her plot evidently was to seduce the great minister, the 
 spouse of the queen, so that she might wear his crown. 
 
 * The church, as a social gathering of Christian people, I love, 
 nor does it matter to me by what name it may be called. But popery 
 in modern times has drifted back into the superstition of the Middle 
 Ages; and protestantism has fallen into that rationalism which sets man 
 himself up for a god, and persuades him to deny his Creator. " High 
 above all conflict, this hope we can never relinquish ; there will yet arise, 
 from the ocean of error, the unity of a conviction, untroubled in its stead- 
 fast security, the pure and simple consciousness of the everduring and 
 all-pervading presence of God." — Hanke's History of the Popes. 
 
22 'I'UE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 THE FIRST WITNESSJ'''^>"'»^^« «rf^^ 
 
 The first witness I saw wore the semblance of Washing- 
 ton, and his name was the Genius of Patriotism. He saM : — 
 
 What shall I call them ? I once called them fellow- 
 citizens. That term would not be applicable now. 
 They have no country to be citizens of. They have 
 voted away their country to the priests and poli- 
 ticians. Shall I call them patriots ? It Would be a mock- 
 ery to call them patriots, who, like Esau, have sold their 
 heritage for a mess of pottage. They have exchanged 
 the substantial blessings of a good government, justice, 
 economy, liberty and prosperity, for Mormonism, free- 
 loveism, mesmerism, spiritualism, woman's rights, negro 
 suffrage, and miscegenation, i. e. lust, infidelity, insanity, 
 folly, crime, chaos, and anarchy. Ten stars blotted out 
 from their political constellation, — white silver stars, once 
 as bright as the brightest that shone there, stars which 
 shed upon the earth the brightest genius of the Caucasian 
 race. In their stead they propose to pin to the sky, with 
 bayonets, black negro stars. Patriots ! No, let me call 
 them slaves. Each one has around his neck a noose with 
 a double drawstring ; the preacher has hold of one end, the 
 politician pulls the other. Slaves ! yes, I will show them 
 their base servility. I will show them that they are but 
 the menials of that upstart usurper, the bondautocrat. 
 I will show it to them, so that when their children grow 
 up — (here a little boy playing close by stopped to listen) 
 play on, my little bright-eyed boy ; don't listen to me. 
 It will be time enough for thee to know the degradation 
 which thy father is preparing for thee many years hence. 
 Yes, thou mightest learn it many years hence, and still 
 have long enough time to suffer. 
 
 Play on ; I will not show thee the dark and ominous 
 cloud which hangs over thy future, lest the bright smile 
 which plays on thy innocent, unconscious face, should 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 23 
 
 depart forever. For so plaia does it seem to me, that I 
 think even your little eyes, though unused to looking at 
 things in the distance, could tell what this cloud means. 
 Play on. It will only be a little while until those little 
 hands will be toiling to pay back to the bondautocrat the 
 money he lent the government to buy thy father, to be sent 
 to the war and lose his arm. 'Tis only a thousand dollars. 
 The bondautocrat's wife wants a shawl ; 'tis the lady's 
 whim and she must have it, even if you should not have 
 a dollar left to buy the necessaries of life for the partner 
 of your degradation. And there is thy little playfellow ; 
 his father fought for thirteen dollars a month, and 
 was killed the third month of the service. Thirty-nine 
 dollars ! Don't the bondautocracy insure life cheap ? Your 
 little orphan playfellow will soon pay that, and then he 
 can help you. But what did your father fight for, bleed 
 for, die for ? To please the preacher and politician, the 
 servile ministers of bondautocracy. What did they fight 
 for ? To change nature's laws, to thwart the decrees of 
 Heaven, to make the black man white, and the white man 
 black. Whither art thou drifting, my boy ? Thy lin- 
 eage, thy name, whither is it drifting, my boy ? That 
 name which once brought the pretty blush of love to thy 
 mother's fair cheek. I remember how, when the blush 
 deepened over that pure white skin, the hand of chastity 
 chased it away ; and thus did it come and go, blush after 
 blush, until passion subsided in the sweet pink-tinted rose 
 of virtuous love. Where will be the blush of thy bride, 
 my boy? Ask thy father who has been fighting to win 
 for thee a negro bride, that beautiful blush hid under the 
 thick rhinoceros skin of the negvo. Thy father's bride 
 had pretty blue eyes. 
 
 "And as soft was her eye 
 As the blue of the sky, 
 When morn's distilling its dews from above; 
 Its brightness was veiled in the mists of its love." 
 
 Where will be the pure cerulean blue in the eye of thy 
 bride ? Mixed and muddled with the cold, glassy glare 
 of the negro's eye. Well could thy father say of his 
 pretty bride, — 
 
24 THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 "All the stars of heaven ; 
 The deep blue noon of night lit by an orb, 
 Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world ; 
 The hues of twilight, the sun's gorgeous coming; 
 His setting indescribable, which fills 
 My eye with pleasant tears, as I behold 
 Him sink and feel my heart float softly with him 
 Along that western paradise of clouds ; 
 The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice. 
 The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love: 
 All these are nothing to my eyes and heart 
 Like Mary's face ; I turn from earth and heaven 
 To gaze on it." 
 
 What wilt thou say of thy bride, my boy? the negro 
 wench thy father would wed thee to ? 
 
 As black as is her hide, 
 
 So low must be my pride. 
 For her smell is as strong as the smell of a skunk; 
 How can I wed a negro unless I first get drunk ? 
 
 But thy name, my boy ; thy father's name, that name 
 to which thy mother gave her youth, her beauty, her 
 obedience, and her love: whither is drifting that name? 
 Alas ! I see it on the black tide of miscegenation drift- 
 ing to oblivion. You may violate nature's laws, but 
 you cannot escape the penalty. God has made your 
 race the most beautiful in the world ; and if you attempt 
 to destroy that beauty, he will blot you out. Look at 
 that filly : how slender and tapering are her legs ; how 
 springy her step ; her broad, intelligent forehead, lit by 
 big, bright eyes ! Look at her mane, falling in silky 
 waves over her neck! How gracefully, too, her tail 
 swings in the air! — easily adjusting itself to every new 
 position, as if to steady and balance all her actions. 
 Among all the animals in the world none is so beautiful. 
 Will she consort with the dull, stupid ass? Will she 
 consent to be the mother of the slow, servile mule ? See 
 how she spurns him with her heels, and then dashes 
 wildly over the plains. See how she turns her head 
 back, as if in scorn, — hurling at the ugly beast she has 
 left in the distance a neigh of proud mockery. With a 
 higher and nobler instinct than man's boasted reason, 
 she refuses to insult nature by degrading her own being 
 
THE FIRST WITS ESS. . 25 
 
 and marring lier own beauty. Not 'till man, imbruted 
 man (I be^ the brute's pardon, bedeviled man), wal- 
 lowed in the filthy mire of licentiousness, and smeared 
 all over with the slime of cupidity, until not only his 
 reason is perverted, but even the lower instincts of bis 
 animal nature are debased and degraded ; I say not till 
 man has haltered that filly with his iron curb, and 
 chained her f6et with hobbles, will she yield to the em- 
 braces of the ugly beast which nature has made for the 
 drudgery of servitude. 
 
 But the same almighty power which set bounds to the 
 waves of the deep has said to the waves of human folly 
 and human crime, thus far shall ye go, and no farther. 
 The Creator has denied to this mongrel race the power 
 of reproducing its kind. So of all mongrel races. In a 
 few years they are lost in extinction. But these anahz- 
 ers of nature teach another lesson, which the people of 
 this country uiay learn to their own profit. For whom 
 is miscegenation intended ? for what class of the people ? 
 'Will the pretty daughters of the bondautocrat mai-ry a 
 big buck negro ? Will his rich son kiss the thick, husky 
 lips of a negro wench ? Hardly, I think. In this money- 
 loving age the one can buy a lover of her own choosing ; 
 the other too can buy beauty and accomplishments in his 
 own circle, and a half-dozen pretty mistresses among the 
 poor besides. For whom then is it intended ? Why, 
 who is it that bears all the wrongs of society? Who 
 has to dress plainer, eat less, and work harder to pay the 
 taxes? Who* has to go to the battle-field when war 
 comes, to suffer, to bleed, and to die? on whose backs 
 are these curses saddled? The bondautocracy's ? Was 
 there ever such a war before as the one which is just 
 over ? Were taxes ever so high ? Did you ever see the 
 bondautocrats dress so finely and fare so sumptuously ? 
 Did you ever see them before spend so lavishly, and still 
 have so much to spend ? Did 3^ou meet their sons in the 
 ranks of the army ? How many of them do you suppose 
 got killed in the war? How many are hobbling about 
 on crutches ? How many of them are going around witii 
 one or both arms off, begging bread ? Think you that, if 
 thev were all mustered into line, that vou have a corpo- 
 B 3 
 
26 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 ral's guard ? I think I have a guess what class of the 
 people miscegenation is intended for. But if I tell, it will 
 offend the bondautocrat and his servile ministers, the 
 preachers, and the politicians. I happened to hear the 
 bargain which was struck between them. I heard the 
 bondautocrat say to the priest and politician, — 
 
 " These asses (negro slaves) are pretty good beasts of 
 burden ; but they are too slow for the times. They did 
 very well in old fogy times, when everything had to be 
 toted or hauled in wagons. But, my dear sirs, in this 
 age of steam and electricity they are too slow, entirely 
 too slow. Besides, they are too ignorant and improvi- 
 dent ; their slow speed and wasteful habits take too much 
 out of the net profits. With such unprofitable animals as 
 these it takes at least three generations to become a million- 
 aire. My good friends, can this matter be remedied ? 
 I call you my friends, because I believe you are." 
 
 " Yes, sir" (both speaking at once), " we are your 
 friends to the full length of your purse-strings." 
 
 ** Well, m}^ good friends, my purse-strings are pretty 
 long ; and if }• ou can correct this evil, they will be much 
 longer, sirs, much longer." 
 
 "We have already," answered the politician, "pre- 
 pared the way for this business. Tbe negro slaves have 
 been set free ; and now if we can manage to get a 
 cross between them and the 'poor white trash,' we will 
 have just such a set of slaves as you desire. A race 
 of mules, sir, between the ass and the horse, more 
 sprightly and active, sir, than the ass, and more dura- 
 ble and submissive to burdens than the horse. My 
 friend the preacher, and myself, have agreed upon a 
 plan which will make the thing a certain success. It 
 shall be my business to have laws enacted requiring the 
 herd-pens (free schools), where the colts are trained, to be 
 common, so that the colts of the horses (white children) 
 and the colts of the asses (negro children) shall be trained 
 together. By a law of association things which are 
 kept constantly together will assimilate in disposition. 
 temper, and feeling. Besides that, the tendency of all 
 earthly things is downward to the dust. The young of all 
 animals are more ready to catch vicious habits than good 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 27 
 
 ones. Now, sir, upon these two maxims in morals we 
 have based our calculations that the horse colts will soon 
 become so much like the ass colts, that tlie natural 
 repugnance which the Creator has established between 
 them will be so far overcome, that we will have no diffi- 
 culty in making them cohabit with each other. Thus 
 jousee, good master bondautocrat, we will furnish you 
 with a race of mules much more serviceable than the asses, 
 and much more tractable than the horses. My friend, 
 the priest here, who will have the superintendence of 
 those herd-pens, will order a course of training for these 
 colts suitable to the purpose." 
 
 '• You just bring the colts all together," answered the 
 preacher, " and I will be answerable for the mixing. I 
 have in my theological chest a powder which will act 
 like a charm. You can both testify how successful I 
 have been in mediciniug the old horses. Equality, sugared 
 with universal suffrage, I have administered to them with 
 the happiest results. I have laughed in my sleeve, gentle- 
 men, and I have no doubt you have too, to see how 
 easily these animals are deceived ; how willing they 
 are to take the shadow for the substance, the mere prom- 
 ise for the thing itself. Especially have I been amused 
 to see how you lead them around. Mr. Politician, I have 
 seen many of them haltered and led to the polls by others 
 to vote; and although they were voting the sentiments 
 of others, and voting away their own liberties, yet did 
 they prance around and neigh as proudly as if they were 
 free, and had no halters on. I then thought to myself, 
 "Well, it won't take long to mnke asses of you. ludeed, 
 although they still retained the characteristics of horses, 
 the noise they made bore a strong resemblance to the 
 braying of the ass. Now the new powder I have is only 
 the" expressed essence of the old powder, equality; but 
 its chief beauty is its name, miscegenation. It is a most 
 admirable thing. In the first place, it is new; and in 
 these times, when every change means reform, that is a 
 great deal. I know plenty of people who would be dis- 
 gusted with mongrelism ; but they think miscegenatiou 
 the sum of excellence. How much there is now a days 
 in big, high-sounding words ! I've preached many a ser- 
 
28 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 mon to these people, which did not contain a single 
 thought, — a mere jumble of big words harmoniously ar- 
 ranged, smoothly connected and musically spoken; and 
 although they did not learn a thing from them, for there] 
 was nothing in them to learn, yet did they praise them 
 to the very echo. Only the other day I preached a sermon, 
 which I prefaced with the declaration that nobody could 
 be a Christian who did not understand theology. My 
 discourse was made up of a number of fine sentences 
 which I had picked out of the writings of learned divines 
 who had written in defense of our sect. Indeed, I had 
 to laugh at the thing myself, for it looked like Joseph's 
 coat of many colors ; nay, worse, for the different patches 
 had been patched on without regard to either harmony or 
 contrast. Big and little, white and gray, blue and green, 
 were pinned together just as I had grabbed them iip out 
 of my old sermon-bag; really, I don't know which 
 amused me most, the folly of the sermon, or the igno- 
 rance and credulity of my hearers. They called it splen- 
 did, grand, beautiful, eloquent. I heard afterward that 
 one of the congregation objected to it, and made this 
 very plausible complaint of it, that he didn't understand 
 theology, and therefore could not be a Christian. He 
 went on to controvert it by some quotations from that 
 old fable-book, the Bible. He said that he had learned 
 from that old book, that the way of the Christian, though 
 but a narrow path, is yet so plain that a wayfaring man, 
 even if he be a fool, need not err therein. He said that 
 he had further read that the Author of Christianity him- 
 self, when on earth having met with one who was blind, 
 touched his eyes, and immediately the sight of the blind 
 man was restored. It gave such joy to the blind to be 
 able to see, that he went about telling all whom he met 
 and praising his deliverer. But the scribes and Pharisees 
 said to the man whose sight had been restored. Who was 
 he that opened* your eyes, and how did he do it ? tell us 
 the science, the philosophy of the thing ; make the things 
 plain according to our doctrines, our theology. He an- 
 swered them, 1 neither know who he was nor how he did 
 it; but this I know, that whereas I was blind now I 
 see. But the Pharisees reviled him, and cast him out 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 29 
 
 because he believed his sight was restored, when he 
 could not tell who did it and how it was done. I was 
 not a little disturbed," said the priest, " when I saw mj 
 good horses so closely-cornered. I was afraid this fellow 
 would put some bad notions into their head, and they 
 would not be so serviceable to me as they had been. How- 
 ever, I was soon relieved, for directly they laid back their 
 ears, and kicked the fellow away as an infidel and heretic." 
 The politician smiled, and remarked that answer Was 
 very conclusive, if not very logical. 
 
 " My dear sir," answered the priest, " the conclusion 
 is the end of logic, as it is of everything else." 
 
 " I was just thinking," said the politician, " that it looks 
 a little inconsistent in your Protestant sects, who were 
 born of heresy, and have lived all your lives under the 
 damning curse of excommunication, to be casting out 
 heretics." 
 
 " People who live in glass houses," said the priest, 
 " ought not to throw stones. I observe that nowadays 
 when you can't answer the arguments of your political 
 opponents in your deliberative bodies, that you call them 
 rebels and traitors, and then expel them. You yourself 
 voted to expel a member of Congress just in the manner 
 stated above. Now, if I remember rightly, you told me 
 once that your grandfather fell at the battle of Lexing- 
 ton, just after the loyal General Pitcairn, of his majesty's 
 service, had called out to him and his comrades, ' Lay 
 down your arms and surrender, you rebels and traitors I' 
 If we commit the same offense, we have at least some 
 excuse for it. Our loyalty is a little older than yours, — 
 over two centuries. Yours is scarcely more than three- 
 score and ten ; the limit of human life. Indeed, I know 
 among you some of the most noisy and clamorous at that, 
 whose loyalty was very questionable at the breaking out 
 of the late war." 
 
 " My friend, you speak with a good deal of warmth : 
 coolly," replied the politician. 
 
 "Sir, you must excuse me," replied the priest, still a 
 little tart. "I can bear to-be told of my faults by an 
 honest man ; but to be lectured by one who has com- 
 mitted the same ofifense, and that too in a more flagrant 
 
 3* 
 
30 ~ THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 and outrageous manner, is enough to nettle the patience 
 of a saint." 
 
 "And that," said the politician, smiling, "is more than 
 you profess to be." 
 
 This hit was so palpable that the priest laughed, and 
 then remarked: "My dear sir, let us leave off this un- 
 profitable discussion, and turn to the herd-pen business. 
 This," he added, "if you will allow me to use that 
 eminently philosophical, practical, and expressive phrase 
 of the times, will, I think, pay better." 
 
 " My dear sir," put in the bondautocrat, who had been 
 occupied during this discussion on some business calcula- 
 tion ; " repeat that phrase. It falls on my ear as does 
 the soft restrained *no' of the yielding damsel upon the 
 ear of her lover. Make it pay! Ah, there is music in 
 that. I hear in it, sir, the jingle of gold, and gold means 
 loyalty, power, honor, office, royalty. Loyalty, why, bless 
 fne, I took contracts from the government to furnish sup- 
 plies. I had out my agents, I don't know how many, to 
 iiuy provisions, horses, and I'd like to have said men, but 
 1 guess the word horse will cover that species too ; in- 
 deed, we bought some of them almost as cheap. Loyalty ! 
 bless the word, it made my pile just ten times what it 
 was, with a fair prospect for doubling every five years: 
 that beats compound interest two to one. Power! wh}^ 
 my friends, am I not just making a contract with you to 
 make a new breed of mules, to create a race of slaves 
 tit for thfs enlightened and progressive age? Power, 
 gentlemen ! are we not about to harmonize discords, rec- 
 oncile antipathies, and reverse the order of nature ; aye, 
 more, annul the decrees of Heaven itself ? Who will have 
 the hardihood not to bow down and worship our god ? 
 Whoever he may be, let him remember the fate of the ob- 
 stinate Hebrew who was cast into the lions' den." 
 
 " My good friend," interrupted the preacher, agitated 
 and trembling, " don't repeat that sentence. There is no 
 nusic in it to my ears." 
 
 "Why, what's the matter, friend priest?" asked the 
 bondautocrat. " What means all this consternation ? 
 Didn't you tell me that you had no faith in that old book 
 of Jewish fables ?" 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 31 
 
 "I have none, sir," answered tlie priest; "but even 
 devils believe and tremble. Did not even the fierce lions 
 tremble and crouch before the gaze of the friendless cap- 
 tive, who refused to bow down aiid worship the heathen's 
 god ? It was the same Daniel who w^as sent for to inter- 
 pret the vision of judgment which startled the impious 
 Belshazzar from his licentious revelries. A mysterious 
 hand passed over the wall, leaving behind it a blaze of 
 fire. The godless king turned pale and shook like a man 
 with ague; the Chaldean soothsayers and interpreters 
 trembled before the fearful vision : not so the prophet 
 who had refused to worship the god of men and kings. 
 He boldly dipped into the quivering flame the pencil of 
 prophecy, and as he traced it along the wall letters of fire 
 followed it, blazing forth the doom of the Chaldean em- 
 pire, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upfiarsin. Now, when I re- 
 member that the offense of the wicked king was 'the 
 Lord thy God, in whose hands thy breath is and whose 
 are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified,' I thought I saw 
 the same dreadful hand on that wall." 
 
 The bondautocrat with a smile of contempt turned away 
 from the preacher, and addressing himself to the politician, 
 said: " Friend, I see we will have to manage this busi- 
 ness our^^elves. It is a bold undertaking, and will require 
 stout hearts to carry it through. This chicken-livered 
 priest will be of no service to us. Well," he added, "the 
 fewer agents we have the better it will pay them." 
 
 " The better it will pay,^^ repeated the priest, recover- 
 ing from his fright, — " the better it will pay. Pay, pay I 
 that's what I work for, that's what I live for, that's what 
 I preach for. Pay, pay: what will you have me to do?" 
 
 "Go to the devil," said the bondautocrat, with a sneer. 
 
 " Go to the devil," repeated the priest: " go to the devil. 
 Willitpay ? Will it pay ? Well, wait a little," he added, 
 "till 1 catch my breath, and get over this scare, and I 
 think I will be ready to sttirt." 
 
 " I am sure," said the politician, " you will have to keep 
 this man in your service, for he is prepared to go a little 
 further in the business than I am." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Priest," said the bondautocrat, " let us hear 
 something more of this mule-breeding business." 
 
32 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 " As a proof of my capacity to serve you in this matter," 
 said the priest, " I was just giving you an illustration of 
 my success in horse training. When our friend here, the 
 politician, shall have all the colts gathered into the herd- 
 pens, I will proceed to administer the powder I spoke of, 
 viz., miscegenation. As the thing is repulsive to the 
 natural taste, it will be necessary to disguise it a little 
 with an admixture of something more palatable. You've 
 seen likely those little slices of bread and butter called 
 Sunday-school books. The flour these things are made 
 of is brought from the mill of truth: but falsehood is so 
 largely mixed in the dough as to change both the flavor 
 and effect of this bread upon the system. Once get the 
 taste perverted, and you have a morbid appetite which 
 you can modify gradually to suit any kind of food you 
 may wish to give. If you will examine these pieces, you 
 will find them not true and natural, but entirely artificial; 
 the bread itself made out of cheat, and the butter nothing 
 more than the milky whey of phariseeism. To drop the 
 figure, you will find in reading these books that they con- 
 tain no true picture of human life ; but the characters who 
 figure in them are all either little angels or little devils. 
 It don't take children long to find out this imposition, and 
 then one of two results must follow: either they will be- 
 lieve nothing and become infidel, or else with that selfish- 
 ness so common to human nature, they will assume the 
 good character and become Pharisees, which is only 
 another form of infidelity. For, once wrap around a human 
 soul the phylactery of pharisaism, and you have made it 
 impervious to truth. You can hardly persuade one to take 
 medicine who is sure in his own mind that he is not sick. 
 Tne next medicine we administer, and it is an admirable 
 preparation, is the yellow-back novel. Equally far from 
 nature and truth as the other, this is intended to act upon 
 other organs and develop other passions, to stir up licen- 
 tious lusts, and to fill the mind with lascivious images. 
 These act like a charm. After reading a faw of these 
 they are unable to restrain their animal passions at all, 
 but are ready for anything which will indulge them, how- 
 ever brutal it may be. But the very best thing to facili- 
 tate this business will be to introduce into these herd- 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 33 
 
 pens (common schools), as guides and leaders for the 
 colts, a new species of mares, which are, I believe, natives 
 of this country. The unnatural shape of these big ugly 
 mares serves to deceive both the horse colts and the ass 
 colts, so that both can be easily persuaded to follow them. 
 By nature theyai'e abortions, brought into this breathing 
 world before their time, scarce half made up. They are 
 raised in the mountains of pharisaism, and fed upon 
 laurel, nightshade, hellebore, and other noxious weeds of 
 infidelity. They don't often breed; but whether it is 
 because their hideousness makes them disgusting to the 
 other sex, or because being so unnatural they are devoid 
 of those affections and passions which lead other animals 
 to reproduce their kind, has not been determined. But 
 the devil or some other enemy of this world has furnished 
 them with big, filthy-looking udders, in which settles the 
 distilled essence of tht>*poisonous herbs they feed upon. 
 These udders are supplied with as many teats as the dif- 
 ferent kind of poisonous herbs they eat. Some of these 
 creatures have only one teat, and it gives out a milk which 
 is according to the; herb it feeds on, eitlier mesmerism, 
 spiritualism, freeloveism, mormonism, equality, or what 
 not. But others have all these teats, and in addition one 
 other big black one protruding from the bottom of the 
 udder, and reaching nearly to the ground. There seems 
 to be a duct or channel of communication leading from all 
 the other teats into this one, and pouring into it all their 
 different kinds of poison. Here they are mixed and dis- 
 tilled into the quintessence of poison. This teat is mis- 
 cegenation, and when pressed or sucked it gives out a 
 yellow, sickly, fetid matter called mongrelism. I've no 
 doubt both you gentlemen know from the description the 
 animals I allude to." 
 
 "I would take them to be," said the politician, with a 
 knowing smile, " those animals commonly called the 
 strong-minded. If," continued the politician, "you can 
 once get the colts to follow these creatures and suck them, 
 I am sure we would have no further trouble. The ass 
 colts being naturally low and near the ground will suck 
 them without any difficulty; but the horse, which nature 
 has lifted higher above the ground, will not be brought to 
 
 B* 
 
84 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 it so easily. It will be, in the first place, a little incon- 
 venient ; and then there is a somethin<^ in the nature of 
 all animals except snakes, a pride which rebels against 
 the idea of stooping, groveling, crawling." 
 
 The boEidautocrat here remarked, in an under-tone, 
 "I think I know some exceptions to this rule besides 
 snakes." 
 
 "Your remark, Mr. Politician," put in tlie preacher, 
 "brings out a fact, which shows how perfectly those 
 animals are suited to our purpose. You see they have 
 other teats higher up, and coming down at intervals: 
 mesmerism, spiritualism, freeloveism, etc. These other 
 teats they can suck without getting on their knees, and 
 besides, they are not quite so disgusting; so you see a 
 skillful feeder will work them down so gradually that 
 they will get on their knees before they are aware of it." 
 
 " But, gentlemen," said the bondautocrat, " what will 
 become of my colts ? tell me. Since this thought has 
 come into my mind I don't much like the business." 
 
 "Mr. Bondautocrat" (both speaking at once), "you 
 need give yourself no uneasiness on that score. Why, 
 my dear sir," continued the politician, "you can have a 
 nice little herd-pen of your own, where your colts can be 
 trained to your own mind. Indeed, neither Mr. Priest 
 nor myself expect to train our colts after tlie fashion we 
 have been describing, any further than will be necessary 
 to fit them to take our place when we are gone. We will 
 use the 'poor white trash' for this purpose, sir; 'the 
 poor white trash,' the scrub breed which we bought up 
 to do the drudgery of the war, the vulgar masses, sir, on 
 whose shoulders we are quietly shifting the expenses of 
 that same war, together with the -heavily accumulating 
 costs of government. It is astonishing, sir, how well all 
 these things are working together to further our plans. 
 The war was the most fortunate event of all. It created 
 the necessity for an immense amount of money. That 
 mouev you gentlemen loaned to the government at a 
 pretty high rate of interest; indeed, the debt was more 
 than doui)led in this way. The government gave its 
 promise to pay for many a dollar which wasn't worth a 
 half-dollar ; I am sure that more than half of the debt 
 
THE FIRST WIliXESS. 35 
 
 was made by these three things, — frauds, speculations, 
 and the exorbitant premiums the government paid for the 
 money it Ijorrowerl." 
 
 To this the bondautocrat ans^vered rather angrily, "I 
 do not see the drift of your argument, sir. Do you mean 
 to question my integrity, or the validity of my claims 
 against the government?" 
 
 "Not by any means, my dear sir," said the politician ; 
 "I meant simply to state a fact; and that fact, so far 
 from being derogatory to you, is one of the highest com- 
 pliments to your financial ability. You managed to loan 
 your money to the government for more than double 
 what it was worth, exacting, at the same time, a condi- 
 tion, that is, exemption from taxation, which will double 
 it again after a while. My dear sir, I thought we politi- 
 cians were sharp fellows, but this beats us three to one. 
 By the way, I've thought often that your profession did 
 not deal as liberally by ours as you ought to. It was by 
 and through us that you have obtained those special 
 privileges which make you the ruling power of this 
 country ; and yet when we ask for some liberal remuner- 
 ation, such as will enable us to live handsomely when 
 the shifting whims of the rabble shall retire us from office, 
 you refuse it, and we are compelled to sell ourselves to 
 some new master, as we did not long ago to the w^hisky 
 monopolists, in order to make the rise, I cannot but 
 thitik, sir, that in this matter you stand in your own 
 light. It increases the number of your profession and 
 .puts more burdens on the backs of the people." 
 
 " You politicians," retorted the bondautocrat, sharply, 
 " are like leeches, you are never satisfied ; your cry is all 
 the time, more. You are a reckless set of spendthrifts ; 
 your extravagant demands would break us up if we did 
 not manage by skillful stratagems to shift the burden on 
 somebody. Whom will we put the burden on, if not the 
 people? Don't be squeamish about the matter. The 
 people have many backs, good, strong, square backs too. 
 What else are they fit for but to bear burdens? As a 
 proof, look how patiently they submit. Like the camels, 
 they even get down on their knees to receive them. Ay, 
 worse ; for when the camel is overloaded he will refuse 
 
36 Till-: GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 to get up ; but these creatures, when you overload them, 
 will ask you to change their natures and make out of 
 them a mongrel race of mules, that they may be better 
 fitted for their servitude. Don't talk to me, sir, about the 
 people. This stuff may do to tickle their ears, while you 
 impose some new burden on them ; but to one who sees 
 their menial subserviency, such twaddle is disgusting. 
 The fact is I can't see how you are going to make mules 
 by crossing such creatures with asses, for they are no 
 better than asses themselves. Why, think of this fact 
 for one moment. In the brief space of six years, at one 
 dash I might say, burdens have been placed on their 
 backs, such burdens as it took the governments of 
 Europe, which you call despotic, a hundred years to put 
 upon the backs of their serfs. Yes, in the brief space of 
 six years the burden of debt has been piled up to nearly 
 three billions, the annual expenses quadrupled, tens o^ 
 thousands of idle, vagabond negroes fed and clothed at 
 their cost, the original plan of their government by means 
 of States abolished, and military satrapies set up in their 
 stead ; their ancient Constitution utterly ignored in their 
 national assembly, the chief executive office and the 
 supreme judiciary paralyzed by legislative restrictions, 
 and a system of social law adopted w^hich proposes the 
 conversion of their own children into a mongrel race of 
 mules, that they may be the better able to carry the vast 
 additional burdens which inevitably belong to their 
 future. I venture the assertion, without fear of success- 
 ful contradiction by any facts which have accrued in the 
 past, or which may accrue in the future, that no people in 
 Europe would permit so many and so great changes in 
 their political and social systems without a convulsion 
 which would swallow up the thrones of their royal mas- 
 ters. I ought perhaps to except the serfs of Russia, who 
 never had any idea of what freedom is ; indeed, I was not 
 a little amused to see them receive not long since with 
 acclamations of joy the edict of their royal master, that 
 henceforth lie would be the one, sole, absolute master of 
 his people, and that he would hold in his own hands, and 
 at his disposal, the life and property of every man, woman, 
 and child in his vast empire. 'Tis true he did this in the 
 
THE FIRST W/TA'ESS. S^J 
 
 name of freedom, but the object of the czar was not that 
 the serfs might be free, but that their masters might be 
 slaves; not that any man in Russia might be free, but 
 that every man in Russia might be a slave ; something 
 after your mode of freeing the negroes in the South, Mr, 
 Politician," said the bondautocrat, with a smile. "Poor 
 old decrepit Austria! I would except her too, if she was 
 not beneath all notice. Indeed, her people have been 
 slaves so long, even tradition and fables give no account 
 of when they were free. Gentlemen," continued the 
 bondautocrat, " when I consider all these facts, notorious, 
 glaring facts, this mule-breeding business seems to me to 
 be a work of supererogation, a useless expense. Nor 
 am I in the habit, like you, Mr. Politician, of spending 
 money when there is no necessity for it. That system 
 of doing business don't pay. So," continued the bondau- 
 tocrat, turning to the priest with a smile of mingled pity 
 and contempt, "we will save you the trouble and ex- 
 pense of your proposed visit to his Satanic majesty. I 
 think it won't pay. Pray, sir, what do you think about 
 it? Speak out." 
 
 " Gentlemen," answered the priest, after some little 
 reflection, "it seems to me that you have only looked at 
 the surface of things. I am better acquainted with 
 the people than either of 3'ou. I have been more inti- 
 mately associated with them ; I've had more to do 
 with them. This ignorance and frivolity you see 
 floating on the surface are not ever3Mhing. Ko, there 
 is a deep current, a soul, a wave of fire, under the drift 
 you've been looking at. Let some Hampden, some Lu- 
 ther, some Yoltaire, some Patrick Henry, with the hand 
 of inspiration, pull this drift apart and let into the smoul- 
 dering fire, beneath, the air of truth, and you would see 
 a conflagration such as the world has never witnessed. 
 Then, sir, the priest would have plenty of company to 
 the devil. We would start in a hurry, sirs, pay or no 
 pay. Nor would we be long in going, for the human 
 soul, when once waked up, is a consuming fire to those 
 who have trifled with it and betrayed its confidence. 
 The condition of things you see around you is not natural, 
 but all artificial. It has been brought about gradually 
 
 4 
 
t1 
 
 38 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 and by a long system of training. I know this because 
 I've had a heap to do with the training; and besides, I 
 can well remember when things were not as they now are. 
 I can remember when it was necessary for a preacher to 
 be a Christian, for the representative of the people to 
 be a patriot, and when the rich man, in order to be popular 
 and influential, had to be honest, kind, and benevolent. 
 But now the .priest is most esteemed who evades the truth 
 of Christianity entirely, who makes the strait and narrow 
 path so broad and crooked that the world can go to 
 heaven without going out of its own highway. The 
 politician is most popular who is most accomplished in 
 trickery, most reckless in disregarding the constitution of 
 his country, and most successful in striking sharp bar- 
 gains with the lobby agents of moneyed monopolies. 
 And the respect which is paid to the rich man is deter- 
 mined not by his integrity and benevolence, but by the 
 number of his thousands or millions, whether they have 
 been accumulated by honest industry and good sense, or 
 by fraud (buying Congress, for instance, to pass some law 
 to give him the monopoly of his business), or directly 
 filching from the poor their hard-earned trash. Do not 
 delude yourselves with the idea that all these changes 
 have been brought about without a cause. Nor must 
 you forget the fact that there are causes suflicient, if rightly 
 used, to change the whole current of events i-yea, amply 
 sufficient to undo all that we propose to do, and to damn 
 us besides. It is our profession, gentlemen, which has 
 prepared the people for the present condition of things. 
 The politician complains of not being paid for his ser- 
 vices in this matter,and arrogates to himself the credit of 
 having done it all. But the truth is we have done more 
 than the politician and get worse pay. We have put the 
 , people to sleep, we have administered to them the fatal 
 opiates of infidelity. Indeed, I never preach to them 
 without being reminded of that graphic description of' 
 one of the prophets, 'They have eyes, but they see not; 
 ears, but they hear not.' For instance, this mule-breeding 
 business of ours is a deliberate purpose and plan to degrade 
 their offspring and fit them for perpetual servitude. The 
 thing is so palpable that if they were not blind they would 
 
' THE IIRST WITNESS. 39 
 
 see it, if they were not deaf they would hear it. Suppose 
 their eyes were opened for a moment, their ears un- 
 stopped, and tliey should see and hear these things as 
 tliey are. Gentlemen, it would be better for us if we had 
 a millstone around our necks, and were cast into the 
 middle of the sea." 
 
 "Mr. Preacher," said the politician, "I think you are 
 arrogating to yourself claims which do not belong to you. 
 It was the dogma of equality and universal suffrage 
 taught by us which has brought about the present con- 
 dition of things." 
 
 "My dear sir," answered the priest, "the dogma of 
 equality you claim was held and taught by the fathers 
 of the country, the men who created and organized our 
 government. Now, if what you say is true, why did not 
 the present condition of things exist then ? Why would 
 not the same cause produce the same effect then as now ? 
 Why did not the founders of the government provide, in 
 its organization, for everybody to vote ? Why did they 
 not liberate their slaves, and let them vote ? Gentlemen," 
 continued the priest, " you seem to be under a misappre- 
 hension in regard to the whole matter. I think it will be 
 belter, before we go any further, to set the thing right. 
 To my mind there are difficulties in our way, which you 
 don't seem to see at all. The truth is this, the whole 
 doctrine of equality is a humbug. The men who framed 
 this government didn't believe a word of it. This is 
 clear, first, from a history of their actions ; they never 
 attempted to carry it into the practical operations of their 
 government, either State or national. Secondly, from 
 the very nature of the case it was impossible ; the causes 
 which lead to the principal emigration to this country 
 grew out of that great revolution in the affairs of p]urope 
 commonly called the Reformation. Almost every state 
 of Europe become a battle-field in the war between the 
 Catholic Church and the. Reformers. This was the 
 greatest awakening of the human mind the world had 
 ever seen. The art of printing had been discovered. 
 The Bible had been translated into the vulgar tongues of 
 the different nations of Europe. When the people com- 
 pared its truth, its purity, and its justice with the errors, 
 
40 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 the licentiousness, and the tyranny of the church, they 
 abandoned the church by thousands. So wonderful was 
 the revolution it brought about that in an incredibly short 
 space of time the Reformers had built up great parties in 
 all the kingdoms of Europe. Indeed, every state was 
 divided. In one state the church party held the power, 
 and in another the Protestant party. The party which 
 held the powder in any one state would persecute the 
 other party : they would impose civil and political disa- 
 bilities ; indeed, this was the mildest form of persecution. 
 The block, the rack, the wheel, the dungeon, and in short 
 every species of torture, was resorted to, to destroy 
 heresy on the one hand, and to break down popery on 
 the other. Catholic France, for instance, persecuted the 
 Protestants; Protestant England, on the other hand, 
 persecuted the Catholics. Men living in a country where 
 their religion was not the prevailing religion, found it 
 necessary to do one of three things : to recant publicly 
 and abandon their religion, to hide their faith, or else to 
 endure the pains and penalties of the laws enacted against 
 them. Men who had faith in their religion, and the 
 moral heroism to maintain their faith at every cost, deter- 
 mined to risk the Indian scalping-knife and the wild beasts 
 of the American forests raiher than to yield the truth. 
 
 " Such were the men, men conscientiously and hecoically 
 Christians, who settled this country and founded our 
 government. These men, with the light of the Bible to 
 guide them, could no more believe that all men are equal 
 than you and I, with the light of the sun to guide us, 
 could believe that all men are of the same color. The 
 Bible from beginning to end, both the Old and New Testa- 
 ments, recognizes at all times, at all places, under all cir- 
 cumstances, the inequality of man. It speaks of princes 
 and people, the noble and ignoble, the wise and the 
 simple, the great and the small, the rich and the poor. 
 All the different persons we find there have different 
 talents. Christ himself tells us that God has given to 
 one man five talents, to another three, and to another one ; 
 We find the one has a talent to preach, one to prophesy, 
 one to exhort, one to rule, and so on. More than this, 
 men who made the Bible the rule of their faith, and the 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 41 
 
 guide of their life, had always their wits about them ; 
 they reasoned soundly, rationally, and wisely. Now, 
 reasoning from the analogies of nature, the law of ine- 
 quality is the order of the universe. Beginning with the 
 great First Cause, God, the creator and author of all 
 things, we have the archangels, the angels, and man — 
 man in highest intellectual endowments, and man coming 
 down step by step, until he gets so low that you can 
 scarcely tell him from the animal. So you can trace the 
 animal down, from the horse and dog — and these are so 
 intelligent that man can almost talk with them — to the 
 sponge, which so nearly resembles the vegetable that it is 
 hardly distinguishable from it. So you can follow the 
 gradations of life in the vegetable world, from the rose, 
 whose beauty and fragrance speak the language of love 
 so eloquently, to the toadstool and fungous growth on the 
 body of trees, which have so little life that you can hardly 
 tell them from dead matter. No, gentlemen, equality was 
 born at other times, and under other circumstances. 
 
 "While Luther and hiscolaborers in the great work of 
 reform used the simple sword of truth, the word of God, 
 they were irresistible. They went conquering and to 
 conquer. They overran Germany, England, France, 
 Switzerland, and indeed nearly all Europe., But when 
 they forgot that the great end and aim of Christianity, 
 its alpha and omega, its beginning and its end, its pro- 
 phecies and its preaching, its laws and its ordinances, its 
 doctrines and its ceremonies, is, as was beautifully set 
 forth by its divine liead, 'to love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself,' the Reforma- 
 tion stopped. Yes, as soon as they forgot this truth and 
 sat down to quarrel with each other about their foolish 
 theologies, their silly doctrines and stupid creeds, the 
 Reformation not only stopped but commenced going 
 backwards. When the Reformers commenced building 
 ecclesiastical courts, and making ecclesiastical laws, not 
 for the purpose of promoting the glory of God and the 
 good of man, but for the purpose of getting into their own 
 hands power and authority, the Reformation began to go 
 backwards. In the mean time the Catholic Church had 
 reformed many of its abuses ; in her hour of danger she 
 
 4* 
 
42 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 had called to her aid a uew class of men. She got into 
 other and better hands. Her new rulers commissioned 
 Loyola and men like him to undertake her defense. They 
 went forth, with Jesuit and other new orders, like an 
 army of martyrs, fired with a holy zeal to defend the 
 church, and die, if need be, in her defense. This army 
 attacked the Protestants, no longer governed by the spirit 
 which begot the Reformation, but divided and wrangling 
 with each other about their foolish creeds. Thousands 
 of good men — honest, conscientious, and benevolent men 
 — had espoused the cause of the Reformation because they 
 believed it to be the cause of truth. But when they saw 
 the new churches falling into the same errors and com- 
 mitting the same follies as the old church had done, when 
 they saw the Reformers teaching for doctrines the com- 
 mandments of men, and laboring to build up for them- 
 selves power and authority by means of ecclesiastictil 
 courts, they determined to go back to the mother church. 
 Their purpose was pushed on not a little by the fact that 
 the old church, purified in the tires of tribulation, not only 
 exhibited a holier zeal, but was performing more of the 
 practical duties of Christianity. In going back, however, 
 they had to pass over the debatable ground of skepticism. 
 Here, in this land of doubt and infidelity, was born the 
 dogma of equality. 
 
 " Whether it was because France contained a larger 
 proportion of men of this class than other countries, or 
 whether it w^as because her people had been more cursed 
 by the church, and oppressed with a more intolerable 
 despotism than any other people of Europe, it will not be 
 necessary for us to inquire; it will be sufficient for our 
 purpose to know that France adopted this new philosophy, 
 and made it at once her politics and her religion. The 
 liistory of her long struggle to build up a system of re- 
 ligion and government upon this infidel idea, together 
 with its utter and terrible failure, are too well known to 
 be described here. Every one who has read history at 
 all remembers vividly the dark deeds of that reign of 
 terror; how that the streets of her cities ran red with 
 blood ; how that Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, took 
 possession of the river Seine, and refused to be propitiated 
 
THE FIRST WirXESS. 43 
 
 until hundreds of innocent little children were offered as 
 sacrifices to its dark waters; how that a strumpet was 
 placed upon the throne, and the people commanded to 
 worship her as the goddess o^ reason : while the Chris- 
 tian world looked with horror upon this terrible tragedy, 
 it could but look with contempt upon the pitiable and 
 disgusting farce which wound it up. How truly pitiable 
 it w^as to see a people confessedly great, a people phys- 
 ically, morally, and intellectually equal to any nation 
 on earth, w^eakened, worn out, and exhausted by this 
 ague-fit of infidelity! to see them conscious of their own 
 wretchedness, begging their old taskmasters, the nobility, 
 and the priesthood, to come back and save them from the 
 madness of their own crimes and follies ! Surely, gentle- 
 men, this sight was not calculated to recommend a sys- 
 tem of philosophy to such men as the VVashingtons, 
 Henrys, Adamses, Franklins, and Hamiltons of America. 
 The truth is, France had at the beginning of that revo- 
 lution a great soldier and statesman, trained under 
 "Washington and thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
 American liberty, the Marquis de Lafayette. But for 
 trying to stay the fanatical run-mad proceedings of her 
 National Assembly, and for daring to recommend a 
 policy rational, wise, and consistent, Lafayette had to 
 fly from his country." 
 
 " Mr. Priest," interrupted the bondautocrat, "I don't 
 see the use of all this history. What has it to do with the 
 case in hand ?" 
 
 "The fact I've been trying to show you is this: that 
 the condition of affairs now existing in this country is 
 wholly unnatural ; that it has been brought about by a 
 certain definite cause, and that cause is infidelity. I re- 
 peat it, such monstrous falsehood could never have been 
 imposed upon the human mind unless it had first been 
 lulled to sleep with the opiates of infidelity. Why, sir, 
 any man who is not asleep can tell just by looking 
 around him that there are plenty of men not equal to 
 him, and plenty of others to whom he is not equal either 
 physically, intellectualh^ morally, or socially. He would 
 know, too, that the simple fact of voting don't make him 
 equal to men who are his superiors, nor make those men 
 
44 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 equal to him who are his inferiors. He would know that 
 by a little practice his horses and dog's could be taught to 
 vote, and if voting produces equality his horses and dogs 
 would be equal to him and equal to other men. The 
 common people w^ould know that they haven't got jfs 
 much learning as I have, nor as much talent as my 
 friend the politician, nor the luxurious refinements and 
 elegancies of life which your wealth enables you to have. 
 In what, then, does this equality consist? In voting — a 
 mere name. They come to the polls, and vote, and then 
 go back to their drudgery and toil, which other people 
 get the benefit of, just like other slaves. It does seem to 
 me that these people, although both blind and deaf, ought 
 to feel that suffrage is only a bauble for them to play with, 
 while other people reap the fruits of their labor." 
 
 "What is the use," interrupted the bondautocrat, with 
 impatience, " of this labored effort to prove what nobody 
 doubts ? I reached the conclusion by a shorter cut long 
 ago, that these people wont make mules by crossing them 
 with asses, for they are asses themselves." 
 
 ''Suppose," retorted the priest, a little nettled, "that 
 some Patrick Henry, gifted with inspiration, should 
 preach to these people and wake them up. Suppose they 
 should demand of my friend the politician the Union he 
 promised them the war would save and not destroy, as it 
 has done. Suppose they should demand of me the free- 
 dom which I promised from the pulpit the war would 
 bring, when in fact it has brought on them the despotism 
 of an oppressive and intolerable taxation. Suppose they 
 should demand of you the equality which you promised 
 the war would bring, when in fact it has built up a 
 moneyed aristocracy, tenfold greater than any which 
 existed in the country before. Suppose this requisition 
 should come to us, not as a petition, but as the demand 
 of a right, — a right which they as American citizens 
 inherited from their fathers, a right which no power on 
 earth has authority to take from them, — what, sir, would 
 become of your conclusions ? what, sir, would become of 
 us ?" 
 
 " Mr. Priest," said the politician, "this is a view of the 
 matter which had never occurred to me ; and it strikes 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 45 
 
 me very forcibly as being true. If it is true, this is a 
 more perilous undertaking than I supposed, and the risk 
 is more than I feel willing to undertake." 
 
 "What, Mr. Politician!" said the bondautocrat, "you 
 getting scared too?" 
 
 • *' I am willing," said the politician, "to do anything 
 which will pay, except to go to the devil. If these 
 people are as terrible as the priest would have us believe, 
 I am afraid that is where we will go to before we get 
 thrcfugh." 
 
 " Gentlemen," answered the bondautocrat, " I don't 
 know that there is such a thing as going to the devil, or 
 such a place to go to ; but I do know there is such a place 
 as Wall Street; and such things as gold, greenbacks, and 
 bonds; I know, too, that all these things are for hire at 
 paying rates, and ready always for a speculation wliich 
 promises to pay." 
 
 " This thing will pay beyond a doubt," answered the 
 priest, " if we can only carry it through. It will make 
 secure, Mr. Bondautocrat, what has ah-eady been gained. 
 Besides this, it will lead into your coffers a stream of 
 replenishment constant and unfailing. Once succeed in 
 crossing the ' poor white trash ' with the negro, and you 
 will have a mongrel race of slaves, without spirit or 
 courage ; a race whose docility and tameness will enable 
 you to keep them in servitude forever. Now, what better 
 basis could you have to build an aristocracy ou than a 
 class of laborers, who will be made fit by natural laws 
 for servitude ? You have no idea, sir, how the infusion 
 of a little negro blood will tame that wild, fierce torrent 
 which rushes through the veins of the Caucasian. 
 Besides this, it will thicken up the skin, and make him 
 less sensitive to the yoke of slavery: they will not gall 
 so quick. But, gentlemen," continued the priest, " we 
 must not lose sight of the fact that this business is risky, 
 and that it will require all the wisdom and power we 
 possess to carry it through. In the first place, we must 
 keep the people constantly asleep with the opiates of in- 
 fidelity. As this is more especially my part of the busi- 
 ness, I will see to it that it is not neglected. The most 
 sure way to do this is to keep them amused by some 
 
46 . THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Dew toy. Just now we have hang'mg, like a plaything 
 around their necks, woman's rights. This bauble will do 
 for some time yet. By t4ie time it gets old and wears 
 out, as temperance, prohibitory laws, mesmerism, spirit- 
 ualism, etc., have done, we will have something new. In 
 the mean time, Mr. Politician, do you do all in your power- 
 to centralize the government, enlarge its powers, increase 
 the military departments, and keep everything in the 
 hands of our party." 
 
 "Everything is w^orking to our hand," answered the 
 politician. "If our reconstruction policy is carried 
 through, and it will be beyond a doubt, my part of the 
 business will be done." 
 
 "Why did you not keep up the military government 
 in the South V asked the bondautocrat. " That, it seems 
 to me, would have been the very policy to enlarge the 
 army." 
 
 " My dear sir," answered the politician, " our system 
 will answer the purpose much better than a direct mili- 
 tary government. It will take twice as large an army 
 to keep those negro governments straight as it would 
 require to carry on a single military government. 
 Under military rule the better class of citizens in those 
 States would control the government. For I care not 
 whom we might send there as military governors, they 
 would recognize at once the vast superiority of the dis- 
 franchised party over the party to whom we have in- 
 trusted the governments as reconstructed. The black 
 and white negroes," said the politician, smiling, " who 
 have the management of things down there, are wholly 
 incompetent to carry on any government." 
 
 "The negroes and ' poor white trash,'' I guess," said 
 the bondautocrat. 
 
 "If you had left the word poor out you would have 
 hit it exactly," said the politician, — " the negro and white 
 trash. To give the devil his dues," continued the poli- 
 tician, " no class of their people entered upon the war 
 with more zeal, and maintained their cause with greater 
 fidelity, than the laboring people of the South. Indeed, 
 sir had their wealthy citizens exhibited the same spirit 
 o^ ielf-sacrificing devotion, we never could have whipped 
 
THE Filler WITS ESS. 47 
 
 them. The rich men of the South went into tlie war, 
 those of the cotton States more especially, for the pur- 
 pose of creating a new government, which they supposed 
 would add greatly to their wealth and importance. But 
 the masses of the people went into it because it was an 
 invasion of their homes. They looked upon it as a tyran- 
 nical iisurpation of power by the federal government, for 
 the purpose of trampling underfoot their long-cherished 
 doctrine of State rights. Indeed, they looked upon the 
 whole thing as a violation of the constitutional compact 
 between the States, a total subversion of our system of 
 government, and an outrage upon the genius of Amer- 
 ican liberty. The democratic party of the North not only 
 entertained the same political notions, but they actually 
 urged the South into the w^ar. When, however, the 
 South got into the difficulty, they not only deserted her, 
 but actually helped to destroy her, — an instance of 
 treachery, meanness, and cowardice such as the world 
 never saw before. The rebels I hate most heartily ; but 
 the party who were their friends until they got into 
 trouble, and then turned round and helped destroy them, 
 and the political principles which they held in common 
 with them, I despise. I think, sir, we deserve a good 
 deal of credit for the way in which we managed that 
 thing. In the first place, we bought up the old party 
 leaders with office and gold, until we got the rank and 
 file into line, and then we kicked them out. The South 
 to-day is divided into two parties. The one party con- 
 sists of the brave and iionorable men who, whether rich 
 or poor, were ready to sacrifice their lives and property 
 in defense of what they believed to be the right; my 
 enemies as they are, I cannot but admire the genius, the 
 constancy, and the heroism they exhibited in their des- 
 perate defense of a bad cause. The other party is made 
 up of the odds and ends, the rag-tag and bob-tails, the 
 >egroes and white trash indeed; poor white men who 
 were cowards, and afraid to go into the army, or deserted 
 it after they w^ere in ; rich white men who thought the 
 North was the strong side, and that they had better stay on 
 that side to save their property; men who never had any 
 country but their own farms; never worshiped any God 
 
48 7/^^ GREAT Th'IAL. 
 
 but mammon, and never told the truth when it was more 
 profitable to tell a lie : lastly, mean white men, who 
 fought atjainst us until they saw that we were the strong 
 party, and then suddenly changing sides, they sought to 
 make amends for their crimes and conciliate us by violent 
 and excessive persecution of their own people. To this 
 jumble of ignorance, cowardice, and meanness we have 
 intrusted the government of these States. The devil 
 himself could not have devised a better excuse for making 
 trouble there and creating a necessity for a large standing 
 army. Another advantage, sir, which our plan has over 
 that of military governments is this: it will not be so 
 objectionable to the people. From the very infancy of 
 our government the people have been taught to look with 
 suspicion upon standing armies. Nothing was so abhor- 
 rent to the minds of the fathers of our country. They 
 regarded a standing army as the sum of all evils. So very 
 unpopular with the people has this thing always been, 
 that with all the party changes which this country has 
 witnessed since its organization, do party has ever been 
 rash enough to advocate a standing arniy. At this time 
 a large number of our voters are emigrants from the 
 states of Europe, and large military establishments are 
 still more unpopular with them than with native citizens ; 
 they had standing armies at home, and they know what 
 they mean." 
 
 " Did I not understand you to say," asked the bond- 
 autocrat, " that your plan will require larger armies than 
 the other ?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, twice as large ; but the difference will be 
 this. In the first plan the army is used directly to govern, 
 in the other it is used indirectly. In other words, under 
 military rule the army would govern the people ; under 
 our reconstruction policy the army will govern the gov- 
 ernments of the people. The people, sir, believe in self- 
 government; nor would they permit an army to be kept 
 in the South to rule the people there. But when we tell 
 them that we are keeping an army there to support and 
 uphold the cause of freedom and universal suffrage, it 
 makes it all right. Had Napoleon Buonaparte told the 
 French people that he wanted large armies to make him- 
 
THE FIRST wiTxrss. 49 
 
 self master of his people, and their kinp:, they would have 
 chopped his head off; but wlien he told them he wanted 
 the army to' protect the liberty and glory of France, they 
 applauded him. After he g-ot the power in his hands the 
 people found out what he was doing ; but then it was too 
 late. We must keep the people in ignorance until we get 
 our power established. Still another advantage our plan 
 has: if we may use military power to govern a Southern 
 State when it is refractory, why may we not use it upon 
 a Northern State too ? Some of the Northern States may 
 object to the rule after awhile, but their m*uths will be 
 estopped from complaining if w^e use the military; for 
 surely if they sanction its use against other States, they 
 will have do just grounds of complaint' if it should be 
 used against them. Don't you see the point of my argu- 
 ment, Mr. Bondautocrat?" 
 
 "Ah, my dear sir," replied the bondautocrat. "these 
 are the points I like ; and then I admire your way of 
 going right straight to them. Our friend the priest 
 always has to give us first a great long preamble of his- 
 tory and philosophy, and every few steps he sees the 
 hand write on the wall at Pharaoh's feast, and stops to 
 put up a finger-board with danger writ on it. Indeed, I 
 don't believe he has quite gotten over the first scare I gave 
 him when I incidentally alluded tro that old Jew Bel- 
 shazzar — was it not? — that the lions eat up." 
 
 " My dear sir," said the priest, a little nettled at the 
 ignorance of his master, " Ifear my history will fare worse 
 in your bands than Daniel did in the paws of the lion." 
 
 "I confess I never studied your history and "philos- 
 ophy," said the bondautocrat; " nor do I regret it, for I 
 have made other studies pay me better than these fool- 
 eries have paid you. Men are my books, and I have 
 studied them to some purpose. I've made it pay, sir: 
 millions. Don't you think I've made better use of my 
 books than you have of yours?" 
 
 "Yes," answered the priest, a good deal nettled, 
 "you've used the politician to betray his country and 
 sell its liberties, and the priest to betray his God, and 
 sell his soul to the devil, in order to filch from the peoj)le 
 their hard-earned trash, that your coflTers might be filled." 
 c 5^ 
 
50 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 " Ha I ha !" laughed the bondautocrat. " I have been 
 a more prudent man than you, and invested my funds to 
 better advantage, that's all. When my salavy was one 
 thousand dollars, I saved five hundred ; and when it got 
 to be five thousand, I saved twenty-five hundred, — half, 
 yes, always half. As soon as I got able I started a 
 factory. It was a good business, paying me about five 
 thousand a year. Hands were cheap, and provisions 
 low ; a*t least I bought for them the cheap kind. This 
 was about ten per cent, on the capital invested. In the 
 mean time I met with a lobby member of your body, Mr. 
 Politician, and he proposed for ten thousand to get a bill 
 put through to protect my business. I at first objected, 
 for it looked like risking too much upon an uncertainty. 
 When he assured me, however, that it would make my 
 business pay fifty per cent., and that there was no risk 
 in tlie matter at all, I closed the bargain at once. After 
 he got my money he told me that I had better have 
 another ten thousand ready, for it might require that 
 much more. He said he could not tell the exact amount 
 it would take, but he knew there was a sum which would 
 do the business beyond a peradventure. It did take the 
 other ten thousand. This was several years ago, when 
 the business was comparatively new and things didn't 
 w^ork so smoothly as they do now. They were afraid of 
 the people then, and had to work very cautiously. Indeed, 
 there were plenty of men in your body then, Mr. Politi- 
 cian, called patriots, who were on the lookout for these 
 things. For if they could find them out and report them 
 to the people, it would make them extremely popular. I 
 suppose Mr. Priest would tell us that the people were not 
 asleep then, as they are now. Really, some change does 
 seem to have come over the spirit of their dream. Not 
 long ago, Mr. Politician, I heard a member of your body, 
 while giving an account of his stewardship to his con- 
 stituents, allude boastingly to one of these transactions by 
 which he himself had made a good round sum ; and his 
 people applauded him and sent him back for another 
 term. By the way, Mr. Politician, what has become of 
 those men in your profession whom they used to call 
 patriots? The old set I know are all dead and gone; but 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 51 
 
 T suppose they were not all baclielors. Some of them 
 must have left children behind, and what has become of 
 them? These times we never see them nor hear them 
 spoken of at all." 
 
 "You seem, sir," answered the politician, "to have 
 been so much absorbed with your business as to lose 
 sight of the many changes of this progressive age. This, 
 however, has been rather a change in name than in fact. 
 Patriotism was only another name, sir, for loyalty. Both 
 words mean fidelity to your government; patriotism and 
 loyalty are synonymous terms : either may be used for the 
 other. My friend here, the priest, who is a more profound 
 scholar than I am, will correct me if I am wrong." 
 
 " To some extent you are right," said the priest, 
 smiling. " For our purpose your definition is not only 
 correct, but most admirably expressed, — a pretty thing to 
 show to the eyes of the blind, and a musical thing to 
 tickle the ears of the deaf." 
 
 " I don't understand you," said the politician, a little 
 out of humor. 
 
 ''Well, gentlemen," answered the priest, "to make a 
 sharp point, and to go rig-ht straight to it, George Wash- 
 ington was a patriot and Benedict Arnold was a loyalist; 
 Marion and Sumter were patriots, while the tories of 
 the Carolinas and their Indian allies were loyalists." 
 
 "I claim to be a loyalist," said the politician, with 
 warmth, " and you don't mean to class me with Arnold 
 and the tories of the Carolinas, do you ?" 
 
 " I do not propose to class you at all," said the priest. 
 " I was simply stating facts. Loyalty means fidelity to 
 a reigning power, to an existing government. Patriotism 
 means fidelity to your country and to the people of that 
 country. In Europe loyalty means fidelity to the king, 
 whether he be a father to his people or a tyrant and task- 
 master. In America lo3^alty means fidelity to a particular 
 party in power, whether it is trying to promote the good 
 of the country and the happiness of the people, or to hold 
 possession of the government for selfish and ambitious 
 ends. Do you believe that, in imposing on the Southern 
 people the infamous government you have just described, 
 you had a proper regard for their rights and happiness, 
 
52 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 or for the welfare of the whole country ? Would you 
 pretend to say that we, who are trying to make a mongrel 
 race out of the common people of this country, in order 
 that they and their children may be slaves forever, are 
 acting with a just regard for their rights and happiness? 
 Gentlemen, it is well for us that patriotism is forgotten. 
 'Tis well for us that the word has become obsolete ; it 
 will be well for us to let it sleep with the people. I look 
 upon it as a dangerous word, especially in the bands of 
 those who have forgotten its meaning." 
 
 "Another finger-board!" said the bondautocrat, smiling. 
 
 " I am afraid," said the priest, " that you and the 
 politician will get off the road before we get to the end 
 of our journey, despite all my finger-boards." 
 
 "Mr. Priest," said the politician, "this is pretty plain 
 talk of you, to say the least." 
 
 "I am sorry," answered the priest, ," that it is neces- 
 sary for me to talk so plain, for there are some things 
 better understood than said. And yet they had better 
 be spoken out plainly than not to be known. If w^e go 
 into this business with our eyes shut we will certainly be 
 swamped, — be hanged, I might say ; for if the people find 
 out what we are up to, hanging will be considered too 
 good for us." 
 
 "I cannot but think," said the bondautocrat, "that the 
 priest attaches more importance to this matter than it 
 deserves." 
 
 " That is my opinion, too," said the politician. " Look, 
 for instance, at the governments of Europe ; every one 
 of them is an aristocracy. Indeed, it seems to be a thing 
 not hard to do, but something which comes of itself. It 
 secm.s to follow as a matter of course from the very 
 nature of the case. To tell the truth," continued the 
 politician, "this thing of democracy is -all humbug; it 
 never has succeeded, and never will." 
 
 " I agree with you exactly," said the bondautocrat. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the priest, "the practicability of. 
 democracy is a question which we need not discuss. 
 It has been heretofore the government of this country, 
 and the people believe in it. Nor will they give it up 
 without a desperate struggle, unless they can be cheated 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 53 
 
 out of it. The case of European governments is not analo- 
 gous ; and even if it was, it would not bear the inference 
 you propose to draw from it. We propose to do in a short 
 time what it took the g'overuments of Europe generations 
 and ages to accomplish. Nor indeed did Xhay succeed ex- 
 cept by indirect means. Kings would make war upon neigh- 
 boring states, and this would be a pretext for raising large 
 armies. When the war was over the danger of another war 
 would be a good excuse for keeping up the arni}^. ' In time 
 of peace prepare for war' served the purpose of kings to gull 
 the people, just as the cry of freedom and equality have 
 served our purpose. After they succeeded in getting up 
 large armies, and weaning those armies from the people 
 by long separation, they could afford to disregard the 
 people. The armies soon became attached to the kings, 
 for they were the masters who fed and clothed them, led 
 and drove them. More than that, these things were 
 done when the European world were just emerging from 
 barbarism. The wonderful facilities for giving informa- 
 tion to the people, and enlightening them in regard to 
 matters affecting their rights and happiness, did not exist 
 then as they do now. Nor did every n»an then have a 
 Bible in his house, that mortal enemy of oppression and 
 tyranny. Aside from all these things, it is historically 
 true that no state of Europe surrendered its liberties 
 without more than one desperate struggle to prevent it. 
 We had better look this thing straight in the face, and 
 prepare to meet its many dangers, and not try to per- 
 suade ourselves that it is a thing easy to be done. In- 
 deed, my friend here, the politician, and myself, can afford 
 to work hard to accomplish it ; and you, Mr. Bondauto- 
 crat, can afford to pay well. It will secure to us and our 
 children those peculiar and special privileges which the 
 aristocracy, the politicians, and the priesthood enjoy 
 under the governments of Europe. Much has already 
 been done. A mighty revolution has been wrought in 
 American politics. The whole plan and policy of our 
 government has been changed. The spirit which origi- 
 nated it and organized it is dead, — yes, to all intents and 
 purposes, dead, for it can neither see nor hear, so nearly, 
 gentlemen, does sleep resemble death. We have put the 
 
 5* 
 
64 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 patient to sleep, and all that is necessary now is to keep 
 on hand a plentiful supply of the opiates of infidelity. 
 While the patient is asleep, do you make haste, Mr. Poli- 
 cian, to perform your operation, and do it well. Open a 
 vein and infuse a little negro blood ; and when the 
 patient wakes up he will be as tame and spiritless as we 
 would have him to be. What an admirable mudsill for a 
 wealthy aristocracy ! No aristocracy of Europe has a serf- 
 dom as subservient as ours will be, nor half as safe. Their 
 serfs have in their veins the pure Caucasian blood, and in 
 their heads 'the quick, fervid, flashing* brain of the Cau- 
 casian. Every now and then the exaction of tyranny heats 
 that blood to the boiling-point, and the friction of galling 
 oppression sets that brain on fire ; and then loyalty and 
 royalty, kings and their thrones, aristocracies with the 
 gold, the pomp, and splendor which they have manufac- 
 tured out of the sweat and tears of the people, are wasted 
 in the 'consuming flames of that fire. Our mulattoes, 
 quadroons, and octoroons will give us no trouble. This 
 will be the beauty of our aristocracy ; it will last forever 
 and never be disturbed by revolution." 
 
 " Bat I have been told," said the bondautocrat, " that 
 mongrel races will run out; and if it be true, what will 
 become of our race of mules ?" 
 
 " That is true," answered the preacher, — " a truth de- 
 monstrated by science, history, and analogy. But, my 
 dear sir, we can easily get around that difficulty : while 
 it is running out we will keep running it in. In other 
 words, we will keep up fresh infusions of blood from both 
 sides. Ireland and Germany will supply us with fresh 
 horses (poor white trash), and the supply of asses (ne- 
 groes) on hand is pretty large. It will last for some time 
 yet. By the time it runs out we will have the matter in 
 our own hands, and can ship fresh supplies from Africa." 
 
 " What !" interrupted the politician, " the ignorant, 
 filthy negro, fresh from barbarism ?" 
 
 "And why not?" answered the preacher. "The doc- 
 trine which we are teaching the 'poor white trash' is, 
 that a man is rather a better man for being a negro. It 
 then follows as a matter of course, the better the negro 
 the better the man. So the very lest man would be a 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 55 
 
 simon pure, fresb from Guinea. These times," said the 
 priest, " the negro is the model man. Now the character- 
 istics of the negro are a broad foot, flat nose, and strong 
 smell. The negro fresh from the sod would be the high- 
 est model, for his foot would*be broader, his nose flatter, 
 and his smell stronger; and as for the black skin, which 
 seems to be above par just now, why the Guinea nigger 
 would shine with all the brightness of a tropical polish. 
 The easiest thing done in the world, sir \ We have 
 already persuaded the people to believe that the negro is 
 a noble race, so noble that although they have been sub- 
 jected to the demoralizing and degrading tyranny of a 
 brutal system of slavery for generations they are still 
 equal to the white man. Now if this be true, and whether 
 it is or not they believe it, could they hesitate to believe 
 that a negro fresh from his native sunny home, where he 
 has never been subjected to the debasing influences of 
 slavery, is better than the white man ? This reasoning 
 is so clear that no one can refute it." 
 
 " Ah, my dear sir," said the politician, " the negro has, 
 notwithstanding his slavery, been for a long time under 
 the influence of our enlightened and progressive civiliza- 
 tion ; and this has vastly improved his condition physic- 
 ally, morally, and intellectually." 
 
 " That," answered the priest, "is the argument of the 
 slave-holder. He claims that he found the negro the 
 most degraded of all barbarians, and that slavery is a 
 system of education admirably suited to his natwre and 
 condition ; that under his pupilage the negro progressed 
 more rapidly towards civilization than any barbarian race 
 ever did under any system of education. Now all of this 
 is true if the negro is, as we have made the people believe, 
 equal to the white man. The different families of the 
 Caucasian race in Europe, who in their native barbarism 
 were infinitely superior to the negro, have been under the 
 influences of that same progressive civilization for over 
 eighteen hundred years; and yet they are not educated 
 up to a fitness for self-government. The very best of these 
 nations have repeatedly made the experiment, and most 
 signally failed. Why, only a few years ago, the people 
 of this country had such high notions of citizenship under 
 
56 't'HE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 our government, its duties and responsibilities, that they 
 believed even the German and Irish emigrants were not 
 fit to be intrusted with it. I repeat it, sir : if slavery, 
 which only a few generations ago found the negro so 
 ignorant, so filthy, and so degraded an animal that he 
 was hardly considered as belonging to the human species, 
 has in this short space of time made him equal to the 
 most virtuous and enlightened of the Caucasian race (for 
 such we claim to be), and made him fit to enjoy the broad 
 freedom and to discharge the grave duties of a citizen of 
 the freest government in the world, then does it follow 
 be3'ond a cavil that slavery is the most beneficent system 
 of education ever devised by human wisdom. It would 
 follow also that the slave-holder is the greatest benefactor 
 of mankind ; so likewise would it follow that the deso- 
 lating and destructive war which we have waged against 
 those people is a crime without a precedent in the history 
 of human wrongs " 
 
 " Another cross-road for another finger-board," said the 
 bondautocrat, smiling. 
 
 " The same old cross-road, and the same old finger- 
 board," said the priest. "I have come to it from a new 
 direction, to see if you gentlemen would know it." 
 
 " I see on it," said the politician, "■ the same old sign, 
 ' Don't wake up the people.'" 
 
 "Exactly," said the priest; " a people who believed 
 yesterday that they ought to sacrifice their lives to liber- 
 ate a race of slaves from a debauching and degrading 
 servitude, and to-day believe that those same slaves are 
 as good or a little better than they are themselves, must 
 be laboring uuder some dreadful infatuation, — an infatua- 
 tion not less powerful than the witchery of infidelity." 
 
 " I believe," said the politician, addressing the bond- 
 autocrat, " that these priests have had us bewitched too. 
 For really this is a view of this whole matter which had 
 never occurred to my mind before." 
 
 "I never trouble my mind," said the bondautocrat, 
 " about your philosophies. My objection to slavery was 
 that it was not a paying institution. Some years ago I 
 visited a sister of mine down South, who had married a 
 slave-holder ; and I came to the conclusion, while on 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 67 
 
 that visit, that she and her husband were worse slavesthan 
 their negroes. Their negroes were the slowest hands 
 I ever saw, and then iheir improvidence, and neglect! 
 why, they wasted half as much as they made. You have 
 no idea what a trouble, too, it was to take care of the sick, 
 the old, and decrepit. I laughed, and told them that my 
 slaves up North did me twice as much service, without 
 half the care and expense. I was opposed to it, gentle- 
 men, simply because it wouldn't pa^. I strongly suspect 
 that you, Mr. Politician, opposed it for the same reason ; 
 you found it easier to abuse slavery and be a represent- 
 ative of the people, with free access to the public crib, 
 than to stay at home and work." 
 
 " You guess well," said the politician, laughing. " An 
 admission I would not like to make outside of this council- 
 chamber ; but as our deliberations are strictly private and 
 confidential, it don't matter. I suppose your outer door 
 is locked," continued the politician, addressing the bond- 
 autocrat. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he answered, " I locked it myself." 
 
 "And I," said the priest, "put in the iron bolt after 
 you left it." 
 
 "And wrote danger over the door," added the bond- 
 autocrat, smiling. 
 
 " Could the people know," said the priest, " the facts 
 which have been disclosed here to-night, it would be a 
 useless precaution to write danger over the door. Aye, 
 your bolts and bars too would be useless, for they would 
 melt in the fire of their auger." 
 
 " I suppose, Mr. Priest," asked the bondautoerat, "that 
 your opposition to slavery sprung from motives of benevo- 
 lence ?*' 
 
 " Benevolent motives like mine !" said the politician, 
 with an expressive look; "benevolent feeling for himself 
 and family." 
 
 " 'Most as good at guessing- as the bondautoerat," said 
 the priest. " Why is it that we are so reluctant to confess 
 souje things, even to those who know the.m as well as 
 ourselves? This is the point, gentlemen, I've been 
 driving at all this time." 
 
 " Well," said the bondautoerat, with a smile, " 1 
 c* 
 
58 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 thought you were only driving at it, for I have never yet 
 been able to see anything where you have been putting 
 up all those finger-boards. Straight to it, Mr. Priest, 
 and let us see the bugbear which has frightened you so 
 often, and which you have used so repeatedly to frighten 
 us with." 
 
 "Then, gentlemen," answered the priest, "to be as 
 candid as yourselves, I was oi)posed to slavery for the 
 same reason that you were. I opposed it because I found 
 that policy would pa?/ better. I advocated abolition for 
 the same reason that I preached temperance, teetotal- 
 ism, know-nothingism, mesmerism, spiritualism, woman's 
 rights, equality, miscegenation, and so on. When these 
 humbugs were first started, I set my face against them, 
 because they were all clearly contrary to reason and 
 Scripture. Not only did my conscience condemn them, 
 but they were abhorrent to my feelings as a man. 
 But when I compared my little old-fashioned church and 
 the little assembly of plain, unpretending people who 
 worshiped there, with the splendid new churches around 
 me, when I looked at their fine organs, fine choirs, and 
 their large rich congregations, I began to cave in. More 
 especially was this the case, when I found out that men, 
 with less than one-third the brains and information which 
 I possessed, were getting three times as big a salary. 
 My famil}^ too, complained. My wife was particularly 
 bitter on my old-fogy notions, as she chose to call them. 
 She complained, too, that whilst the daughters of other 
 ministers were educated at boarding-schools and received 
 into the first circles of society, her daughters had to 
 go to common schools and to associate with common 
 people. I never tried to reason with her, because I never 
 in my life met with a woman who had the remotest idea 
 of what reason is. If their whim is to do wrong, an 
 angel couldn't persuade them out of it. And let it be 
 said to their credit, if their whim is to do right, the devil 
 couldn't beguile them to do wrong. I have often regret- 
 ted that Mother Eve didn't take a prejudice to the tree of 
 good and evil knowledge, for if she had we might have 
 been in a paradise to this day. At length, fretted by my 
 poverty, my pride, and the ceaseless importunities of my 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 59 
 
 wife, I announced my intention to preach an anti-slavery 
 sermon. I pretended to have examined the subject and 
 found out my error; but henceforth my place would be 
 in the very front rank of reformers. A great many 
 people came out to hear me. Indeed, many admired my 
 talents and learning who did not like my politics. I put 
 my best foot forward, you may be sure, and my effort was 
 applauded to the very echo. Sometimes the people would 
 weep, sometimes they would laugh, and sometimes they 
 would applaud. This latter demonstration seemed to me 
 to be very much out of place. It gave me such a shock 
 that I surely would have broken down, had it not occurred 
 when I was nearly through. Not many of my own con- 
 gregation had come out to hear me. The few who did 
 come were so much offended that they got up and left 
 the church. It seamed to them to be a horrible desecra- 
 tion. The next day a committee w^aited on me from 
 the church, to remonstrate against my course; when I 
 refused to heed their kind but earnest remonstrance, they 
 reminded me of my inconsistency. I answered tartly 
 that good men saw their errors and repented of them ; 
 only bad men hold on to them. They then asked me 
 kindly but firmly to resign my charge, that they might 
 get another minister. I told them I would do it with 
 pleasure ; I did not want to preach for a people who did 
 not desire to hear me. Gentlemen, excuse me ; I tremble 
 yet to think of that parting scene. An old gray-headed 
 man, who had been a father in the church and a father 
 to me, was the last to shake hands with me. As his pal- 
 sied hand grasped mine he looked into my face with that 
 mingled expression of truth, love, and piety which we so 
 often see in the faces of those who are about to start to 
 their long home. Firm in his own integrity, yet weeping 
 out of pity for an erring son, he let fall on my ears words 
 which tingle there still. ' My son,' said he, ' I will 
 start in a few days to the better land. My sands of life 
 are nearly run out. One thought has cheered me and 
 brightened the gloom of that dark valley through which 
 I must soon pass. It was the thought that our little flock, 
 ever pure and unspotted from the world, would come to 
 me there, together with our loved pastor. But if vou 
 
60 THE CHEAT TRIAL. 
 
 continue in your present course, you at least can never 
 come to me. The frail bark you are now in cannot stem 
 Jordan's angry flood ; but swiftly down the dark river of 
 death will it sweep to that ocean whose waves are fire, 
 and whose shores are eternity. This, this will be the 
 last farewell.' Had the stars of heaven been mine, and 
 they all of silver, I would gladly have given them to be 
 able to recall one day of my life. Gladly would I have 
 bid farewell to earth with all its glittering baubles ; all, 
 yes all, rather than bid that sainted old man that last 
 farewell. Often now does that tremulous voice break in 
 upon my reveries, or startle my midnight sleep with those 
 awful words, — ' This, this is the last farewell.' " 
 
 The priest here became so deeply agitated that he 
 could not control his feelings any longer. Even the bond- 
 autocrat seemed to be touched with pity, and respected 
 the pause. 
 
 "For a month afterward," continued the priest, after 
 recovering his self-possession, " I was receiving letters 
 of congratulation upon my conversion to the cause of 
 humanity. And then my church had turned me off. 
 How delicious it is to be made a martyr of, especially 
 in a bad cause ! I got directly a half-dozen calls to big 
 churches." 
 
 "Of course," said the politician, "you accepted the 
 one which offered the biggest pay." 
 
 " Not exactly," answered the priest. " For I found 
 out upon inquiry that the pay there had been run up to 
 the high-water mark, and was then rather on the ebb. I 
 accepted the next best offer, because they were not as yet 
 so heavily taxed, and were able to pay a good deal more. 
 They did really in the next year double my salary. At 
 once I set myself to work to please my new people, and 
 whilst engaged in this study, I discovered why people 
 would pay so much more for a preacher who would make 
 abolition, free-love, and woman's rights speeches, than 
 for one who would preach to them the truths of the gos- 
 pel. I was not long in finding out the secret. I found 
 this new Christianity was both cheaper and more palat- 
 able than the truths of the Bible. Men who had spent 
 the week in financial gambling, commercial chicanery, 
 
THE FIRST WITXKSS. 61 
 
 political trickery, judicial sophistry, or indirectly filching 
 from the poor their hard-enrned cash, would come oa. 
 Sunday and hear a thrilling- appeal in behalf of the poor 
 oppressed negro. They would get up a state of good 
 feeling, shed a plentiful supply of tears, giv^e a few dol- 
 lars to the church, and subscribe sometiiing for the pub- 
 lication of some new book written in defense of the 
 cause of humanity, that is, Maine liquor laws, mesmerism, 
 spiritualism, woman's rights, etc. They would then go 
 home fully satisfied that they had done God and man suffi- 
 cient service not only to atone for the sins of the past week, 
 but that the excess of charity deposited to their credit would 
 be enough for the next week, should disease or accident 
 burr}'- tliem suddenly to their account. At the end of 
 the year it would be easy, out of a net income of several 
 thousands, to give the priest a few hundreds, who had 
 beguiled the long, tedious hours of Sunday with pleasant 
 music and learned discourses, seasoned just to their taste. 
 How cheerfully even could they give a fraction of their 
 abundance to one who had opened the door of heaven 
 wide euou'jfh for them to go in with all their sins on their 
 backs! How very relishable, too, it made the sermon, 
 to season it well with hatred of those who didn't belong 
 to this new sect of Christians! When the prohibitory 
 law was the mania, how I would abuse those who 
 claimed that whisky and wines might be profitably used 
 on some occasion^. How 1 used to abuse, as infidels, 
 those who refused to believe in mesmerism, spiritualism, 
 and all the other isms which have been set up by infi- 
 delity to supplant Christianity. But my principal reli- 
 gion was to hate and revile the slave-holder. How I 
 would work up their feelings on this subject, utitil their 
 hearts were filled with the bitterest hatred ! How much 
 more palatable it is for the human heart to hate than to 
 love! The measure of a man's Christianity was the 
 degree of his hatred. The most devout Christian in my 
 church (for he was the bitterest hater of the slave-holder) 
 worked about a hundred laborers, and he would fleece 
 them to the very bufi*. Besides hiring them always at 
 re<luced wages, he would manage, by furnishing them 
 with provisions and clothing, to get back half of the 
 
 G 
 
62 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 small wages he had agreed to pay them. But then these 
 poor devils were only ' poor white trash.' 
 
 " Gentlemen, this religion, or rather irreligion, is a 
 good religion for the rich ; but then the rich are only a 
 very small proportion of the people. The great majority 
 of the people are the laboring classes, and this religion 
 don't sait them. Suppose somebody would preach to 
 them Christianity, what a walking up there would be I 
 It is a good religion for the common people. One of its 
 marked characteristics, as given by its great Author, is, 
 the poor have the gospel preached to them. Christianity 
 says to the financial, commercial, and every other species 
 of gambler, Thou shalt not steal. It says to the rich, 
 Go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor. It 
 don't trifle with the laborer by giving him the bauble of 
 suffrage and an imaginary equality, whilst he is toiling 
 for wages which don't furnish the comforts, nay, hardly 
 the necessaries, of life. It says, Thou shalt not muazle 
 the ox which treads out the grain ; it says the laborer is 
 worthy of his hire. It claims, too, for its great head the 
 Creator, the fruits of the earth, and the cattle upon a 
 thousand hills, not to pamper the few, and gratify their 
 licentious lusts, but to feed and clothe and comfort all. 
 I have no doubt, gentlemen," continued the priest, "the 
 fact has never occurred to you that at the beginning of 
 the war we had a worse system of slavery in the North- 
 ern States than that which existed in the South. We 
 bought our slaves, hundreds of thousands of them, at 
 prices ranging from five hundred to two thousand dollars 
 per head ; we bought them at these prices, too, to go to 
 the slaughter-pens of war ; to endure the toils, the pri- 
 vations, the dangers, and insults of a soldier's life ; to 
 lose their arms and legs ; to lie unburied upon a hundred 
 battle-fields, and to leave their wives widows and their chil- 
 dren orphans. I say, to endure all these hardships, and to 
 come to this awful end, we bought them at prices ranging 
 from five hundred to two thousand dollars, to be paid in an 
 uncertain and fluctuating currency, always at a discount. 
 This was the estimate the masters put upon their slaves 
 in this land of freedom and equality. And the estimate 
 was just, for any number of purchases could be made at 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 63 
 
 these rates. At the same time, negro slaves were selling 
 in the South at prices ranging from fifteen hundred to 
 three thousand dollars in gold. I mean young, hearty, 
 and able-bodied men, such as we bought for the war. 
 They, too, were bought, not to be subjected to the priva- 
 tions and hardships of war, but to do honest labor ; not 
 to be wounded, maimed, and destroyed, but to raise rice,- 
 cotton, sugar, and tobacco, to feed and clothe mankind ; 
 the purchaser bein^ bound, after the slave ceased to be 
 serviceable, either from accident or age, to take care of 
 him till death. What became of our slaves after the 
 war was over ? We, indeed, give them a little land as a 
 bounty; but this is away off in the wilderness. As it is 
 wholly inaccessible to them, — for they are too poor to 
 use it, — they are compelled to sell it at a mere nominal 
 price to those who stayed at home during the war and 
 made money. These parties buy it, and let it lie, to be 
 a fortune some of these days for their children ; or else a 
 number of them buy up these claims until they get a 
 large body of land, and then they join and buy Congress 
 to make a railroad through it. That's not all; these 
 poor devils are put to work to pay back the money which 
 was used to buy them with. For this money is a part 
 of the government debt; and who pays that but the 
 laboring classes, the same men who were bought up to 
 do the fighting? The rich don't pay it; for, as oppress- 
 ive as the taxes now are, they are getting richer. No, 
 sir, it is the common people on whom all the burdens of 
 debt must eventually fall. But, gentlemen, it seems to 
 me to be useless to discuss this matter any further. You 
 see that we are standing on dangerous ground. You 
 see, too, the necessit}^ of doing our work quickly and 
 thoroughly. We must move heaven and earth to get 
 things in our power before the people wake up. When, 
 we get the government in our hands, and this we must do 
 at all hazards, let them wake up ; we can then afford to 
 laugh at them. But, to put the thing beyond the possi- 
 bility of danger, we must perfect this mule-breeding 
 business. Let us once get a cross between the negro and 
 ' poor white trash,' and our work will be done for ever." 
 " 1 think," said the boudautocrat, "there is some truth 
 
64 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 in your view of the matter, and some clanger, too. At 
 all events, there will be nothing lost by being on the safe 
 side." 
 
 " I agree with you," said the politician ; " but I hardly 
 think as much haste and precaution necessary as does 
 my friend the priest." 
 
 " You politicians," answered the preacher, " are a 
 reckless set of men. You not only do things which are 
 foolish and inexpedient, but you do such things when 
 there is no earthly necessity for th(^. For instance, 
 3''ou have imposed an unlimited stamp-tax on the people, — 
 an extremely bad thing at best, because of its origin. It 
 was one of those wrongs which led our fathers to throw 
 off the authority of the British government and set up 
 for themselves. Now, instead of trying to conceal the 
 obnoxious association of this thing from the people, it 
 would seem that you are trying to remind them of it 
 constantly. For you have on every stamp the face of 
 George Washington, whose memory is dear to the Ameri- 
 can people, because he led their fathers successfully in that 
 long and terrible struggle against this same infamous 
 stamp-tax." 
 
 *' You mistake," said the politician ; " it is not the same 
 tax, but a very different one. That was taxation without 
 representation." 
 
 " Are not," said the preacher, " the children of Patrick 
 Henry, of the Marions, of the Sumpters, and the children 
 of the Lees, aye, the very descendants of Washington 
 even, — are not the children of those noble men who gal- 
 lantly flew to the help of our fathers, and made a com- 
 mon cause with them, paying this stamp-tax without 
 representation?" 
 
 " They are rebels, and don't deserve representation," 
 said the politician. 
 
 " I find out," said the preacher, " that they who want 
 to play the tyrant over their fellow-men are never at a 
 loss for a plea. England had one, and a very good one 
 in her own estimation, when she wanted to impose the 
 stamp-tax on our fathers. England has one, and a good 
 one in her own opinion to-day, for trampling Ireland un- 
 der her feet. Russia bad one for blotting out the exist- 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 65 
 
 ence of'PoIaad. Austria had an excuse for destroying 
 the freedom of Hungary. France had an excuse for 
 keeping Italy in chains. Indeed, every despot who has 
 ever scourged the world has had an excuse for it, — one, 
 too, which was good in his own estimation. We have 
 an excuse for doing what we are now about, trying to 
 make a race of mules out of the negroes and ' poor white 
 trash.' But do you think the 'poor white trash' — if 
 they knew what we were at — would consider our excuse 
 a good one ? My dear sir, there is an extreme degree of 
 folly in this thing of putting Washington's face on these 
 stamps, which looks to me like infatuation. If we don't 
 act with more prudence than this, the people will find us 
 out; and then, as I said before, it were better for us if a 
 millstone were hanged about our necks and we were cast 
 into the midst of the sea. This stamp-tax ought to have 
 been avoided anyhow, on account of its obnoxious asso- 
 ciations,* Why, the rebels will say, and how will you 
 answer them, that if they were never justifiable before in 
 being rebels, they are now ; for you have imposed on 
 them the same wrongs which led our fathers and their 
 fathers to rebel. That rebellion we justify and applaud. 
 They will say they fought us because they Ijelieved that 
 we intended to impose those grievous wrongs on them. 
 By imposing those wrongs as soon as we got the power 
 in our hands, and that, too, in the most palpable and 
 unpopular shape, we justify both their suspicious and 
 their conduct." 
 
 " Well," said the politician, " after all, we are only fol- 
 lowing the example of your profession. After the war 
 w^as over, and I saw the South a heap of ruins; when I 
 saw the mothers at the graves of their sons, like Pk^achel 
 weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted 
 because they were not, I could not but pity them, as 
 badly as I hated them and as earnestly as I worked 
 against them. About that tinje I read a long discourse, 
 in w4iich the author took occasion to mock at those 
 wretched mothers and to insult their woe. There was a 
 heartlessness in this thing which looked to me heathenish. 
 Whose image and superscription do you suppose I found 
 on this discourse? none other than his who died for his 
 
66 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 enemies, bis who, when be looked over Jerusalem/that 
 proud and rebellious city, and saw, with the eye of 
 prophecy, the woes which w^ere about to overtake it, 
 wept. Yes, he wept for them who were preparing to 
 slay him. How different, too, was his language : ' O 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered 
 thy children together, even as a ben gathereth her brood 
 under her wings !' And yet this discourse I speak of, 
 so bitter and malevolent, had on it the sign of the cross, 
 
 for it was signed the Rev. , the chief priest of your 
 
 sects; I say sects, because I don't know whether he 
 belongs to the Pharisees or Sadducees : I suspect the 
 latter, for he certainly don't believe in a hereafter." 
 
 ** I know whom you mean," said the preacher ; " he 
 repented of that afterward, and recommended a kind and 
 conciliatory policy towards the South." 
 
 "1 know how much he repented,''' said the politician, 
 " Such a monster may repent of some unintentional good 
 he has done, but never of evil. That crafty old Machia- 
 velli who runs the machine at Washington, and watches 
 so closely the changes of political sentiment, wanted a 
 good strong weather-cock to see if the heavy gale wbich 
 had been blowing from the north, and bearing the ship of 
 state along with it, had not subsided enough for them 
 to make headway against it. He duped this creature 
 with false promises, or equivocal ones at least, such as 
 he always makes, to become his weather-cock. When 
 he found the current was too strong to be stemmed, he 
 left the weather-cock to be blown away or to turQ^with 
 the wind. The world was amused to see this weather- 
 cock — for such he is and ever has been — a mere negative 
 thing, without a spark of moral courage, that vital and 
 inherent life-principle ,which gives motion to noble bodies, 
 and enables them to move against the times and tides 
 around them. — I say that the world was amused to see 
 this weather-cock, so contrary to the nature of the thing, 
 fluttering for a time against the wind. They did not 
 know that it had been electrified by the touch of political 
 power and patronage. It didn't last long, however. A 
 
 heavy gale from his church at put the thing back 
 
 in its place, and showed to the world that a weather-cock 
 
TEE FIRST WITyFSS. Ct 
 
 is only a weather-cock after all. Hi?, rich paymasters at 
 
 his fine church iu murmured their dissent; and 
 
 the thought of losing ten thousand a year, without the 
 certainty of high political preferment, was too much 
 wind for even a big weather-cock. Most truly has he 
 repented of the little good he proposed to do to the 
 South, and followed those bitter and revengeful inclina- 
 tions of his cowardly soul with a new zeal." 
 
 " This mule-breeding business, gentlemen," interrupted 
 the bondautocrat with a smile, " is a big undertaking ; 
 but really I would rather try my hand at that than to 
 attempt to make honest men of you two, if half you say 
 of each other be true. I think," he added, "that it would 
 be easier to make mules out of the negro and ' poor white 
 trash' than to make patriots and Christians of politicians 
 and preachers." 
 
 "As to being a Christian," said the politician, "I 
 never made any pretensions to that. My friend the 
 priest can answer for himself." 
 
 " 1 suppose," said the priest, " I am just about as good 
 a Christian as you are a patriot." 
 
 " Well, really," answered the politician, " I never claimed 
 to be a patriot any further than patriotism means loyalty." 
 
 "And that," said the preacher, "is just far enough to 
 get the loaves and fishes, and not " 
 
 " And not," put in the politician, " far enough, brother, 
 to honor the miracle that made them." 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the bondautocrat, "to talk seems 
 to be the business of both your professions ; to act is the 
 business of mine. Let us determine upon a plan of 
 operations for the future, and go to work." 
 
 " Well," said the preacher, " it is my part of the busi- 
 ness to prepare the minds of the people for miscegena- 
 tion ; yours, Mr. Politician, to make the thing practical 
 by legislation ; and yours, Mr. Bondautocrat, to pay 
 expenses. Take care, Mr. Politician, to so shape the 
 policy of the government that we can use force, if per- 
 suasion fails; for this purpose we must get the whole 
 power into our own hands." 
 
 "I was afraid at one time," said the politician, "that 
 our impeachment scheme would fail. Indeed, many of 
 
68 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 our party were timid, and hesitated to go into it until 
 the New York democracy came to our aid. When they 
 passed those resolutions at the Cooper Institute and 
 other places, declaring that, notwithstanding the thing 
 was wicked, and unconstitutional, and revolutionary', 
 they would nevertheless submit to it if we did it, there 
 was no further trouble. Had they taken a bold and 
 determined stand against impeachment, we never could 
 have carried the thing through." 
 
 "Ah," said the priest, "Mr. Bondautocrat and myself 
 were watching that thing; we prepared those resolu- 
 tions, and put them into the hands of their leaders. The 
 same game, you remember, Mr. Politician, we played at 
 the beginning of the war. There was really no necessity 
 for the war, and if the Democratic party had taken a bold 
 stand against it there really could not have been any 
 war. Indeed, three-fourths of the Southern people were 
 opposed to the war and opposed to disunion. But when 
 we forced on them an invasion of their country they 
 were bound to take sides. There were, in the State of 
 Virginia alone, a majority of sixty thousand opposed 
 both to war and to disunion. By the way, they were 
 those men of high courage and unshaken purpose who, 
 when they did go into the thing, held out to the bitter 
 end. They — the Union men of the South — held out 
 against us long after the Secessionists had caved in. I 
 repeat, had the Democratic party of the North determined 
 that there should be no war, there never would have 
 been any disunion, for a majority of the Southern States 
 would h-ave refused to go out. In a few years the cotton 
 States would have been tired of shivering outside in the 
 cold, and would have been glad to come back. But, sir, 
 that would have defeated our policy, and destroyed all 
 our plans. We would have had no big debt by which 
 to build up a grand aristocracy; we would have had no 
 mongrel breed of slaves to build our aristocracy on ; and 
 then we would have had no grand and powerful govern- 
 ment like those of Europe — nothing, sirs, but a simple 
 economical democracy, in which the aristocracy and 
 priesthood enjoy no special privileges. But we went to 
 work and bought up the Democratic leaders with gold 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 69 
 
 and office together, until we ^ot the rank and file into 
 the army, and then we kicked the leaders out. The same 
 game we will play again. Let them meet at the Cooper 
 Institute, and wherever else they please, and pass their 
 resolutions; we will make the same bargain with the 
 rabble that old Frederick of Prussia did with his ' poor 
 white trash.' ' My people,' said that wise king, ' may say 
 what they please, so long as they let me do as I please.' " 
 
 " I am atVaid," said the bondautocrat, " they will beat 
 us in the elections next fall."* 
 
 "And what if they do?" answ^ered the politician; 
 " while we have the power of impeachment they may 
 elect as many Presidents as they please. My dear 
 sir," continued he, " we will manage the business like 
 that eminent statesman, Count Bismarck, is doing it in 
 Prussia to-day : he gives universal suffrage to the people, 
 bids them elect whom they please; and then he tells 
 their representatives what to do. So, when the people 
 send members of Congress here who don't suit us, wc 
 will send them back; and when they elect their Presi- 
 dent, if he does not suit us we will impeach him. We 
 will make Andy Johnson an example, and his case will 
 serve as a precedent. Universal suffrage ! Yes, we will 
 let them all vote, negroes, women and all,, just so long 
 as they will let us hold on to the government and exer- 
 cise its powders. The Southern States we have all right, 
 and if it becomes necessary we will pass a law, just be- 
 fore the presidential election, allowing the negro to vote 
 in the Northern States. We must wait with that, how^- 
 ever, until the political excitement gets high, so high 
 that our own party will be willing to accept anything 
 rather than be beaten ; and then, just long enough before- 
 hand to get the benefit of this thing, we will pass a law 
 allowing the negroes to vote in all the States. If all the 
 negroes vote, we will be able to outvote them. If the 
 people won't let them vote, as will be the case in some 
 places, we will call that fraud and violence, and reject 
 the election. The fact of the business is, nothing is 
 wanted but a bold front and determined action to carry 
 
 * This was written in 1868. 
 
10 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 us through. The Northern people who have property 
 will let the government go, yea, every vestige of it, be- 
 fore they will resist. Resistance might lead to war ; 
 war would endanger their property, and their property 
 is dearer to them than their democracy, their country, or 
 their liberties. Indeed, men who have property are 
 right, for under strong governments property is more 
 secure and enjoys always peculiar privileges. A strong 
 government always for the rich : it will in time secure 
 to them the honors and emoluments of aristocracy. We 
 need have no fears of that class of society ; 'tis only 
 the 'poor white trash' who are likely to give us trouble. 
 The only effectual way of taming them that I know of 
 will be to get a little negro blood into their veins," 
 
 "I have thought," said the preacher, "that it would 
 help the business along very much for some of our party 
 who have talent and influence to marry their daughters 
 to negroes. It would be unpleasant, 'tis true, but we 
 must do a great many unpleasant things to accomplish 
 our purpose. It goes a great way with the ' poor white 
 trash' for some of their leaders to set them an example. 
 Suppose one of you gentlemen lead off." 
 
 "My daughters," said the politician, a good deal ex- 
 cited, "have been differently educated." 
 
 "Mr. Priest," put in the bondautocrat, with a wily 
 smile, "as this is a moral question, it seems to belong to 
 your profession particularly to set the example." 
 
 "My dear sir," answered the priest, "I am too poor. 
 My salary is large, it is true, but yet it takes it all to 
 keep my family up to the top of society. That society 
 thinks like we do, that this is a very good thing for the 
 'poor white trash,' but a very bad thing for the first 
 circles. If a negro should come into my family we 
 would have to come down, and I, perhaps, would lose 
 my salary besides. If I was rich like you, it would be 
 a different thing. A man who is rich can do what he 
 pleases, and nobody calls him to account. It would be 
 the very making of my friend the politician ; it would 
 make him popular with the 'poor white trash,' who do 
 the voting, and this would secure for him any office he 
 might desire." 
 
THE FIRST WITNESS. 71 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the politician, a good deal out of 
 temper, " I am willing-, as I said before, to do anything 
 but go to the devil or to send my daughters there; and 
 as marrying my daughters to negroes would amount to 
 about the same thing, it is out of the question to talk 
 about it." 
 
 "I think," said the bondautocrat, ''it would look 
 better in the priest than in either of us, and have niore 
 weight besides; so if you will go into it, Mr. Priest, 
 I will guarantee the pay." 
 
 "The pay," said the priest, absorbed in thought: "the 
 pay — how much, sir?" 
 
 "Why," said the bondautocrat, " dollars for your 
 
 daughter and dollars for yourself." 
 
 "Change the figures a little," said the preacher: "— - 
 dollars for my daughter and — dollars for myself. My 
 daughter, sir, will have to move in a different circle, and 
 won't need so much. A little will make her comfortable 
 in ihe society in which she will have to move. As a 
 compensation for the loss of one of my daughters, I will 
 spend this money in lifting the others higher up. Indeed, 
 my daughters too are educated against this thing ; but 
 one of them is not so bright as the rest,' and her disposi- 
 tion, too, is kind and confiding. I think — yes, I think — 
 I can persuade her to it. My family won't like it, either; 
 but then the idea of heiyig rich, — yes, sir, the idea of 
 being rich! — I think that will do the work,-:-! think 
 that will do the work,'' repeated the preacher to himself. 
 "The pay, sir, the po,y^ — when may I expect that?'' 
 
 " The half of it I will put in the hands of our friend 
 here to-morrow, and the balance as soon as the matter 
 shall be settled." 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said the preacher, "as it is late I 
 will bid you good-night. We must meet often to report 
 and consult. Let none of our secrets get out; we must 
 tell nobody outside, of our league, not even our wives. 
 Good-night!" 
 
 "Well, I am poor," said the politician, "and don't 
 profess to be over-conscientious; but before I would 
 marry one of my pretty daughters to a negro, I would 
 turn soldier and eat hard-tack. Marry my daughter to 
 
72 Tilh: GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 a negro! — my offspring and theirs degraded forever! 
 Sooner would I follow them to the grave! yea, sooner 
 would I see their beauty blasted by the plague, the leprosy, 
 or any other curse that heaven might send ou them !" 
 
 "I agree with you," said the bondautocrat. "I love 
 money: it has been the object of my life to make it; to 
 make money is mv hope for the future; and yet, rather 
 than m}^ daughter, so beautiful and accomplished, should 
 lose her beauty — her pretty blushes and her pretty blue 
 eyes — in the dark, dead skin of the negro, and his 
 glaring, glassy eyes, I would go from the city to the 
 mountains, and from a palace to a cabin! What man- 
 ner of men are these preachers, anyhow? I never ac- 
 counted myself a very good man, but surely I never 
 dreamed of a man as bad as that fellow. He has talents ; 
 he has learning. He told me truths here to-night that I 
 never knew before; indeed, he seems to know almost 
 everything, and yet I never met with a man so bad. I 
 never thought much of these priests; really I never 
 thought much about them any way. I took them to be 
 men of soft hearts and mostly of soft heads. This 
 fellow has any amount of brains, but no heart at all. He 
 must certainly be an exception, — a black sheep in the 
 laock." 
 
 "Not by any means," answered the politician. "The 
 good man is the exception in this profession. I have 
 been thrown a good deal with them, and have found 
 them to be, as a class, the most villainous and heartless 
 men in the world. Of late years it has gotten to be 
 very common for these priests to turn politician, and I 
 have found them, almost without an exception, to be 
 mean and unprincipled men. I think it is the large ac- 
 cession to our profession from that class which has made 
 the name politician the synonym of scoundrel. Look at 
 the proceedings of their synods and conferences after the 
 war: they exhibit nothing but a spirit of the most ran- 
 corous hate. Could they have had the power they would 
 have gone down South and taken possession of all the 
 church property. More than that, sir: I verily believe 
 they would have compelled those unfortunate people to 
 attend their preaching of malevolence, hate, and abuse. 
 
iiif: first wrryKss. 73 
 
 or put tlieni to the rack and torture. What is most re- 
 markable is that all their ecclesiastical bodies — all the 
 Protestant ones, at least (1 am a Protestant, and keep 
 posted about their doings) — showed the same cruel and 
 ruthless spirit of revenge. I indeed had do love for the 
 rebels, and yet I could not but pity their wretched situ- 
 ation after the war. I wanted to destroy their govern- 
 ment; but these priests, from the way they talked and 
 acted, would have destroyed them both soul and bod3\ 
 I am sure that not one of them in a hundred has any 
 idea of the better instincts of humanity, much less of the 
 divine benevolence of the Christian religion. But it is 
 late, and we must part. Good-night, sir ; I wish you 
 pleasant dreams." 
 
 "I think," said the bondautocrat, smiling, "I shall 
 dream to-night of stars and garters, coronets, dukedoms 
 and lordships." 
 
 "You shall realize them all some of these days," re- 
 plied the politician, "if our plans are only successful." 
 
 "So good-night, my lord, good-night." 
 
*li THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 THE SECOND WITNESS. 
 
 A POOR man came upland made this complaint; a 
 neighbor, or rather a man living in his neighborhood, 
 bad stolen his horse; not that exactly either, but had 
 taken his horse without his knowledge, and held him 
 against his consent upon some flimsy pretext of owner- 
 ship. His friends advised him to go to the court of 
 justice, and petition the court to compel the party to 
 restore the property. 
 
 As he was an uneducated man, and not familiar with 
 the etiquette. practiced in those courts, he employed an 
 officer of the court to present his prayer for him. The 
 petition was drawn up vvitii great formality, and offered 
 to the court. The party who had taken his horse had 
 employed another officer of the court to object to the 
 petition, and to show the court it was not just. This 
 party read the petition, and made numerous objections 
 Finally, after a long discussion, in which the officers 
 of the court abused each other and each other's clients, 
 the petition was handed to the court. The court 
 decided that it could not consider the petition at all, be- 
 cause its language was :iot polite. It seemed that my 
 lawyer (for this is the name of mese officers of the court) 
 had omitted to put in the petition two little lawyer's 
 words, in detinue, and this so offended the dignity of 
 the court that he threw the petition out and refused to 
 try the case on its merits at all. 
 
 I wanted my lawyer to put these little words in, but 
 the court would not consent. I wondered why that was 
 called a court of justice, which refused to hear a poor 
 man's petition simply because its own officers did not 
 understand its parlance. I supposed of course that the 
 oourt would order this officer, whose ignorance or neglect 
 iiad subjected me to delay and expense, to pay iwe ; but 
 what was my surprise when it ordered me to pay the 
 fellow, for his blunder, and the other officers who had 
 
THE SECOND WITXESS. ♦75 
 
 made a record of it ! I wondered if he kept the record 
 to show to his children. Mj law\ er, however, assured 
 me that my claim was just, and that he would mend the 
 form of my suit so as to make it unobjectionable to the 
 court. So I paid the costs, one-fourth the value of the 
 property I claimed, and left with the promise that if I 
 waited patiently for three mouths the court would con- 
 descend to hear my cause. 
 
 At the expiration of the time appointed, the case came 
 up, and as the form was polite in its language we pro- 
 ceeded to trial. Innumerable witnesses were introduced, 
 and examined upon almost every question except the 
 one in controversy. After the testimony was all taken 
 down, the lawyers of both sides showed^ by certain laws 
 made for other cases, that each party was entitled to the 
 horse : the party who had stolen him more especially, 
 because he had possession of him. After these learned 
 and able arguments the matter was submitted to twelve 
 judges. They retired to a private room, to consult and 
 make up a verdict. Their brains were so muddled by 
 the sophistries of the lawyers, and the contradictory 
 rules of law which each party had laid down to suit his 
 own side, that it was a long time before they knew 
 whether they were standing on their heads or feet. 
 Finally, one old fellow, who had horses to lose himself, 
 asked this question : Gentlemen, if I could take a horse 
 from one of you, ought I not to be made pay for it ? 
 Certainly, answered all of them. Well, it is evident to 
 my mind that this old man's horse was taken without 
 compensation. "But the law, the law I" answered a 
 half-dozen. As to the law, he answered, there seems to 
 be as much on one side as the other, and we will just let 
 that go for what it is worth. They all agreed that this 
 was a correct view of the case, and came out with a 
 verdict for me. 
 
 The opposite party claimed that as my claim was 
 made up of two separate sums, that I could only recover 
 one of them, and the smaller one at that. The learned 
 judge decided that as the amount claimed by me was in 
 two sums, and there was a line between them, I could 
 i»ot recover but one; for, said ho, with the wise look of 
 
•76 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 a Solomon, a line is not the sign of addition in this 
 court, and therefore the two sums can't be added up. 
 The old man said he could well understand how a line 
 might not be the sign of addition, but he couldn't for his 
 life tell why he should lose his horse because an officer 
 of the court didn't understand the court's arithmetic. 
 Thinking there was some mistake in calling this place a 
 court of justice, I concluded to take the small fraction of 
 ray claim which they had allowed, and get as fast away 
 from the place as possible. So I asked them to pay me, 
 and let me go. 
 
 Sir, answered the clerk, we don't work here for 
 nothing. It will take this money, and more too, per- 
 haps, to pay your expenses in this suit. Startled at this 
 announcement, I made haste to get away. Just as I 
 was mounting my horse (for I had one other left), an- 
 other officer of the court caught him by the bridle, and 
 said, "Not so fast, old man; this horse is ours." 
 "Yours? no, sir! I raised him from a colt." "But 
 your suit here ! the costs in that will take this horse 
 to pay for it." I told him, said the old man, I had 
 already come to the conclusion that courts of justice are 
 gambling shops, where men meet to throw high dice, 
 and pay half the stake for the privilege of a throw; but 
 when you come to take all, and all the balance a man 
 has, this is a new wrinkle, something new and some- 
 thing worse. "As a general thing," he answered, "we 
 doti't take more than half of the stake. Sometimes, how- 
 ever, we take all ; and, occasionally, where the suitor is 
 very weak and very ignorant, we take all the stake and 
 all the bnlance he has." 
 
 The old man further said these courts of justice re- 
 minded him of a school kept in his neighborhood when 
 he was a boy. The old pedagogue was smart enough 
 when teaching the boys their A, B, C, and ciphering as 
 far as the rule of three; but he was exceedingly crazy 
 on the subject of learning. He looked upon a liberal 
 education as the highest gO(Hl, and upon the man who 
 was fortunate enough to possess it as something more 
 than mortal. His peculiar weakness, though, was mathe- 
 matics. Mistaking the arbitrary rules which he found 
 
THE SFCOND WITNESS. "77 
 
 laid down, with their limited and relative value, for 
 fundamental truths, he believed, like many smarter and 
 crazier men, that not only the material universe, but 
 the attributes and perfections of the Deity even, could 
 be measured by them. Nor did it ever enter his head 
 that there might be too much of a good thing even. If 
 rules are good, and surely they are, why then the more 
 of them the better. And if the few siujple ones we Jinow 
 are good, surely those deep and complex ones we don't 
 know must be better still. 
 
 So did the old man reason about this hobby. These 
 are sound principles ; now for their application. The 
 more rules I have to govern my school the better. The 
 more comj)lex these rules are, the better. Therefore will 
 I make many rules, and make them out in a jargon 
 which nobody understands, not even myself. As the 
 old man had never seen a Greek or Hebrew book, and, 
 had never been taught Egyptian hieroglyphics or Arabic 
 characters, he was driven to the necessity of inventing 
 something to answer his purpose. This was not hard 
 to do, however, for learning is always fertile of inven- 
 tions. Tlie discoverers of science have this great advan- 
 tage : they begin where everybody else has stopped. 
 They are taken as the story of a traveler .to some un- 
 known country: accepted without dispute ; because, as 
 nobody else has ever been there, nobody can dispute its 
 truth. I shall never forget the day the old man opened 
 his school. " Boys," he said (with that pompous air and 
 dictatorial manner which belong to that class of men), 
 '* boys, let it be understood once for all that this school 
 will be governed by rules. And the great rule upon 
 which every other rule is founded is this, that every boy, 
 it will be presumed, knows what the rules are; so it will 
 be no excuse for a boy who breaks a rule to say that he 
 did not know what the rule was." 
 
 The old master then hauled out sixteen reams of 
 musty foolscap, tracked all over with the strangest- 
 looking characters you ever saw. Out of this he pro- 
 ceeded to read his rules. He had not gone far, however, 
 until he laid aside his vast pile of rules, remarking as he 
 did so that, as it would occupy the whole quarter, he pro- 
 
 7* 
 
7g THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 posed to teach, to read tliem all, he would jast take it for 
 iranted that we knew them. How the illiterate country 
 3oys stared with mouths agape at the wisdom which 
 could read such strange stuff as that! One poor fellow, 
 I remember, carried his admiration for his master's 
 wisdom so far as to get a sound thrashing for it. He had 
 ust begun to study the art of making letters and figures, 
 ivithout, however, any definite idea of their meaning or 
 purpose. So one day he covered the whole side of his 
 elate with unmeaning marks of almost every shape and 
 size. With an air of one conscious of having done some- 
 thing extraordinary, he walked up to the old pedagogue, 
 handed him his slate, and asked hini very politely to read 
 that. The old master in a towering passion cried out, 
 '* You fool ! how do you expect me to read such stuff as 
 that ?" " Why, master," said the boy, as much surprised 
 at the master's ignorance as the master was at his, — 
 "Why, master, I thought anybody who could read your 
 rule-book could read •anything." 
 
 It turned out afterward that this wonderful rule-book 
 was the manuscript of some old schoolman to prove 
 that the earth is a flat surface, and stationary, while the 
 celestial bodies move round it. It was written in Greek. 
 By some accident it had fallen into the hands of the old 
 pedagogue, and being told that it contained the rules 
 which governed the celestial bodies, he concluded they 
 would do to govern a school as well, at least with some 
 changes, for change always means reform. One day, 
 while examining with the close and critical eye of a phi- 
 losopher the foot of a chicken which his wife had killed 
 for a broil, he concluded that it would answer, in lieu of 
 something better, the place of Greek type in revising and 
 altering his book of celestial rules, so as to make them 
 serve the purpose of governing a school. So he took 
 the chicken-foot, dipped it in ink, and tracked over the 
 whole manuscript. 
 
 Two years afterward the old man turned over his 
 school to a brother chip, having become too old to man- 
 age it. He turned over also the book of rules, for which 
 he expected to have no further use. And since change 
 means reform in modern philosophy, although it boasts 
 
THE SECOXD Wiry ESS. t9 
 
 that its principles are the legitimate deductions of reason 
 and logic, the new master had to change the rules. For 
 this purpose he got a duck's foot, and tracked the old 
 manuscript ov'er again. It made sad havoc, indeed, with 
 the original Greek characters, and marred the beauty of 
 many of the chicken -tracks ; but what of that? — there 
 has been a change, and of course the thing must be better 1 
 The same boy who got whipped for the chicken-tracks 
 got a thrashing for the duck-tracks too. He was some- 
 what of a wag, and the new master overheard him say, 
 one day, that the master had done wrong for lecturing 
 him for not knowing that a duck-track means that a boy 
 must swallow tobacco juice to keep from spoiling the 
 floor; and further, that if the good master had a stripe 
 for every one of his duck-tracks which he did not know 
 the meaning of, his posterior would be so tender that he 
 would not be able to sit down for a month. 
 
 The last I saw of the old master vyas at a public sale 
 in the country, and this was some years after the inci- 
 dents I've just mentioned. I was talking to a group of 
 men, as is usual at such places, when thev came up, both 
 of them riding asses. I thought that was nothing out 
 of place, considering the fact that they were learned 
 philosophers. Among the group I spoke of was the 
 waggish boy whom both of them had thrashed. He 
 was now a sprightly, quick-witted man. He provoked 
 a discussion at once with the learned pedagogues by 
 some disparaging remarks about mathematics, for this 
 was a weak point with both the philosophers. So eager 
 were they to defend their favorite hobby that they did 
 not even take time to dismount and hitch their asses. 
 Their old pupil insisted that the simplest rules of arith- 
 metic were only relatively and conditionally true ; that 
 it was not absolutely true that two and two make four. 
 "For," said he, ])ointing to the fence where horses were 
 hitched, "two horses and two fence-stakes will make 
 neither four horses nor four fence-stakes." The old mas- 
 ters angrily and philosophically replied that they could 
 not expect anything better from him; "for," said they, 
 " we never could teach you anything when a boy, nor beat 
 any knowledge into you." With this remark they started 
 
go THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 a^ay ; but their old pupil, a little nettled, called a halt, 
 and begged their forgiveness for having expressed himself 
 so positively. "Indeed," he added, "the present discus- 
 sion has thrown much light on the subject, and led me to 
 question seriously the correctness of my former views. 
 "I begin to think," he continued, "that two and two do 
 make four: for instance, two philosophers and two jack- 
 asses make four " " Begone, you impertinent rascal !" 
 
 shouted both of the old masters, at the same time digging 
 their beasts with their heels and trotting away. 
 
 Since the so-called courts of justice, under the pretense 
 of restoring one horse, stole another from me, I have 
 paid some attention -to their doings. Cannot any one 
 who has attended their courts trace the close resemblance 
 betw^een them and the schools which I have just de- 
 scribed ? What are the laws themselves but chicken- 
 tracks and duck-tracks? Who knows what they are? 
 The legislatures who make them don't know; the law- 
 yers who devote their lives to the study of them differ 
 as to their meaning; the judges who interpret them differ. 
 Has he not seen two opposing counsel get up and each 
 one prove that his side is the right side, and prove it, too, 
 bythe same musty calfskin? Has he not seen a magis- 
 trate decide a case one way, a jury revei'se the decision, 
 the judge overrule their decision, and a higher court re- 
 verse it again ? If they had nothing to guide them but 
 laws about celestial bodies, written in Greek, and revised 
 by chicken-tracks, could they disagree more than they 
 do? Has he not seen murderers set at liberty by undue 
 influence brought to bear upon tlie judges ? Has he not 
 seen thieves shielded from the penalties due their crimes 
 by some wretched technical quibble? Has he not seen 
 the heads of the judges so puzzled by the sophistries of 
 learned counsel that they did not know whether they 
 W'ere standing on their heads or heels? Has he not seen 
 numbers of cases kei)t in court, at an enormous expense, 
 for years, which were so plain that any sensible njan in 
 the community could have decided any one of them in 
 an hour and at one hundredth part of the cost? Has 
 he not seen the guilty go free, the innocent go unpro- 
 tected, the just man wronged, the ignorant cheated, the 
 
THE SECOXB WITS ESS. 81 
 
 weak crushed, and the poor robbed ? Has he not seen 
 truth perverted, and the ends of justice utterly defeated 
 by the application of arbitrary rules, miscalled princi- 
 ples ? 
 
 To give you an illustration of the last-mentioned 
 wrong-: two gentlemen, acquaintances of mine, found an 
 old survey claimed by nobody, lying between their farms, 
 which they supposed before joined. They agreed to 
 divide it equally between them, each keeping the part 
 next to his ow^n farm, and held by him before in posses- 
 sion. Each selected a friend to act as his agent in divid- 
 ing the land. Their instructions were to first throw out 
 any portion of said land covered by other surveys which 
 the parties held by undisputed title, the balance to be 
 divided according to quality. It w^as further especially 
 agreed between the parties, that in case it turned out 
 any time afterward that either party had a better title 
 to any part of the land so divided, it should be relin- 
 quished by the other party, and a new division made. 
 
 In surveying the land, it appeared that a portion of it 
 was covered by an older title of one of the parties, and 
 it was thrown ou^, and the balance divided. Shortly 
 afterward it was ascertained that the other party had a 
 good and substantial title to nearly all the good laud in 
 the one tract which had been divided. But as the party 
 who had got the advantage in the trade was dishonest 
 enough to take advantage of the quibbles of the law, the 
 other party had to be the loser; the matter had been 
 admitted to record in the court, and no oral testimony 
 could change it. For the sake of maintaining an arbi- 
 trary rule the court refused, upon the testimony of two 
 witnesses, whose evidence against any person in the 
 community would have sent him to the penitentiary or 
 gallows, to expunge from its record a palpable fraud. 
 And this, with an impudence which knows no blush, they 
 dubbed principle. 
 
 One of the old masters I've described was appointed 
 to make a map of the country. Having no practical 
 knowledge of the country, he got the direction of a river, - 
 which ran through the neighborhood at a particular 
 place, and on his plat traced it on in the same direction 
 
82 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 into another river. The officer who had employed him 
 complained of this, and told him that the river emptied 
 into another river, in a different direction. The old man 
 sat down to show him his calcuhition, and that following- 
 this principle the river must empty there. "My dear 
 sir," interrupted the officer, "your principle may be a 
 very good thing to follow, and a river is easily led ; but 
 I think you could hardly persuade it to follow your prin- 
 ciple across two mountains." Just so may learned law- 
 yers make arbitrary rules out of principle in their theories, 
 and draw them out in straight lines on paper; but when 
 they attempt to do it in practice, they must by some un- 
 natural means force them across those mountains which 
 justice has planted in their way. One would be just as 
 likely to find justice by following arbitrary rules as he 
 would be to find the mouth of a river by taking its course 
 at some particular point and following that course. 
 Principles so understood have no positive value, no in- 
 trinsic excellence. Just as the meanderings of a river 
 are determined by the adjacent country, so are principle? 
 determined by attendant circumstances. If any princi- 
 ple could be followed as an arbitrai^r rule, it would be 
 safe to say that a man who beats a fellow-man ought to 
 be punished. And yet who would say that a man ought 
 to be punished for beating a rake to shield the virtue of 
 a wife or daughter from his beastly lusts? 
 
 For six thousand years man has been trying to build 
 a tower of Babel to heaven. All his efforts have had 
 the same result, a confusion of tongues and a failure 
 of purpose. He has tried innumerable systems of laws 
 and systems of religion. They have all brought him 
 to the same melancholy end, the politicians' fool and 
 the priests' slave. I verily believe that man's only hope 
 for happiness is the utter destruction of these vast 
 engines of oppression. Drive the politicians and priests 
 into the sea : the one sits like a nightmare upon the body 
 politic, and the other upon the souls of men. 
 
 But these wiseacres will ask, how are we to get along 
 without them and their systems? There was a time in 
 the history of human-kind when these were pertinent 
 questions, when man left to the g'uidance of reason 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. 83 
 
 groped his way in heathenish darkness. Heaven, in 
 its nierey, sent him wise and good rneu, divinely com- 
 missioned to be his leaders and examples. To his chosen 
 })eople he sent the Abrahams, the Jacobs, the Moseses, 
 the Joshuas, and the prophets. To heathen nations he 
 sent the Lycurgi, the Solons, the Socrates, the Platos, 
 and those great poet-prophets, Homer, Virgil, and so on. 
 It was wise and virtuous in these people to follow, for 
 they had no better guides. And while they followed 
 their leaders they were wise, and virtuous, and happy. 
 But when their leaders, and prophets, and lawgivers 
 passed away, bad men, in the name of progress and re- 
 form, or freedom and humanity, commenced building sys- 
 tems of their own; and mankind, deluded by their 
 promises and deceived by theii^ tricks, were soon reduced 
 to moral and political slavery. Ever since the world 
 was created, the Creator has held communion with his 
 creatures. To different races of mankind, to different 
 nations, and in diiferent ages, he has made different reve- 
 lations of his being, his character, and purposes. God 
 the father of all has left no nation or family of his crea- 
 tures without a religion. Indeed, this is the distinction, 
 and only distinction, between man and the brute. 
 
 By religion I mean not only our knowledge of a su- 
 ])reme Being, and our accountability to him, but also our 
 capability to please or displease him. We indeed who 
 live under the light and wisdom and benevolence of the 
 Christian religion are disposed to look upon nations who 
 have other systems as being without any religion. Their 
 faith we stigmatize as a superstition ; but because the 
 Creator has chosen to give to one age or nation a clearer 
 dispensation of his government is no reason why other 
 ages or nations have been left without any knowledge of 
 God and his truth. Shall we say the Greeks had no re- 
 ligion because the Jew^s had a better religion? As well 
 might we say the Jews had no religion because the Chris- 
 tian has a better. Whilst the Jews looked through a 
 glass darkly, the Christian sees face to face. The Jew 
 came to God by the agency of the priesthood, with all 
 its forms and ceremonies, its sacrifices and burnt-offerings; 
 the Christian by a simple act of faith, guided by the 
 
84 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Spirit of truth, goes straigh tto the throne of heaven and 
 chiims its King as his father, and its Prince — the only- 
 begotten Son of the Father — as his elder brother. I am 
 fully persuaded that the spirit of Leonidas and his de- 
 voted little band, who offered their own lives as a sacri- 
 fice upon the altar of their country, was the same spirit 
 which led the apostles and prophets and martyrs to die 
 for brighter and fuller manifestations of Heaven's truth. 
 
 The difference between true religion and false religion 
 — such as hypocrisy, pharisaism, fanaticism — is, that true 
 religion leads a man to offer himself as a sacrifice for the 
 good of his fellow-men, and false religion leads him to 
 offer other men as sacrifices for his own sins. Jesus 
 Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of his 
 enemies; but priestcraft, lx)th the pharisaism of the Jews 
 and popery and protestantism of later times, have been 
 in the habit of offering their enemies as sacrifices for their 
 sins. If anybody will take the pains to read the deliver- 
 ances of the general assemblies, synods, and conferences 
 of the Protestant churclies of this country since the war, 
 be will be astonished at their rancorous and bitter hatred. 
 They are full of murders and revenge, — full ot malevo- 
 lence, hatred, and persecution. This spirit is not the 
 spirit of Christ, whose religion they profess, but the 
 spirit of the devil, whose children and servants they are. 
 Go among these canting hypocrites, and watch their 
 conduct in society, and you will not be astonished any 
 longer. You will see that these priests and their prose- 
 lytes are like the Pharisees of old, whited sepulchres, — 
 pretty on the outside but within full of iniquity and ex- 
 tortion. 
 
 How many of these preachers are there who will not 
 sell you an indulgence, to carry on any kind of di.shonest 
 business you may wish to engage in ? You may make 
 money by any dishonest means you choose, so that you 
 keep out of the clutches of the law; and the laws nowa- 
 days are made to protect thieves and robbers who are 
 successful. U you pay a good per centage of your dishon- 
 est gains to your priest, he will give you all the privi- 
 leges of the church, with assurance of continued pros- 
 perity in this world and eternal happiness in the world 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. 85 
 
 to come. Where do riches come from? Are not the 
 millions which fill the cofl'ers of the rich made up of the 
 pennies which have been taken unjustly from the daily 
 earnings of the poor ? One of these rich men may have 
 a thousand laborers working for him, and by taking ten 
 cents a day from the labor of each one, it makes a hun- 
 dred dollars. In this way he goes on robbing his fellow- 
 men until his stealings amount to millions, and then, to 
 get the praise of men (and this is always the religion of 
 Pharisaism), he makes some magnificent donation to the 
 church; perhaps it is to build a splendid temple of wor- 
 ship, where the rich may meet on Sunday and be enter- 
 tained with fine music and fine sermons, cunningly de- 
 vised words of human wisdom. 
 
 To the poor, friendless children of toil Sunday is a 
 beautiful day: it is a day of rest; it is the shadow of a 
 great rock in a weary land. The sabbath-da\^ is to the 
 laborer what a spring is to a traveler through a" hot, dry 
 couatry — a medicine both healing and strengthening. It 
 gives him new energy and hope; it sends him on his 
 way rejoicing; it is what Shakspeare calls sleep — "sore 
 labor's bath." Biit have you never observed how un- 
 welcome this day is to the rich ? how tedious and 
 solemn? how anxious they are to get rid of it? It is 
 not a day for sweet contemplation for them. They 
 cannot bear to look at their doings for the past week in 
 the light of its pure truth. They cannot honestly and 
 conscientiously go to God and thank him for all their 
 prosperity and happiness. They, it would seem, ought 
 to be grateful, .or they have the richest abundance. 
 They live in palaces; they dress in purple and fine 
 linen ; their daily fare is as sumptuous as the feast of a 
 king. Why do not their hearts run over in fullness of 
 gratitude for all these good things? Ah, when they re- 
 member that all this excess is made up by taking from 
 others what was necessary for their comfort, they do not 
 want to go to that God who weighs everything in the 
 even balance of justice. If they would go to God him- 
 self, he might say unto them, "Go and sell what thou 
 hast, and give to the poor." This would make them 
 sorrowful, for they have threat possessions, and their 
 
 ^8 
 
86 Tllf: GREAT TUIAL. 
 
 hearts are fixed on tlieni. No, no. They will go to the 
 priests, and they will fix the matter up to suit They 
 will make a religion for the occasion. The priest, for 
 one thousand or five thousand dollars a year, will give 
 them some musty theology, some fauaticalism, or some 
 sickly profession of philanthropy, and this, they are per- 
 suaded, will do for a ticket to get into the church, and 
 into heaven after they die. 
 
 Sometimes these people quiet their consciences by 
 olfering to some other benevolent purpose a portion of 
 their ill-gotten gains. They offer this as a sacrifice to 
 charity: for instance; they will give a few hundred 
 thousands out of their millions to build a college or theo- 
 logical seminary. Is this charity, to build a college or 
 fine library for the benefit of the few? The many 
 cannot have access to these places, and if they had they 
 would not have the time or the means to use them ; and 
 these few, by means of the tricks of learned philosophy 
 which are taught at colleges, are enabled to practice 
 those political juggleries by which the masses of man- 
 kind are made their dupes and slaves. Is it charity to 
 build theological seminaries where piyests are educated 
 in the learned sophistries called theology, and skilled in 
 the use of those cunningly-devised words of human 
 wisdom by which they are enabled to enslave the souls 
 of men, and to build up, on the ruins of truth and virtue, 
 great ecclesiastical despotisms? Is it charity for one 
 man to rob a hundred of the fruits of their labor, and 
 then contribute a portion of the theft to the education of 
 a half-dozen priests in the learned sophistries and super- 
 stitious juggleries by which popery has kept the human 
 soul in ignoble bondage for hundreds of years? And 
 since the Protestant priesthood has become more bare-^ 
 faced in its pious frauds than popery even, why would it 
 be charity to educate men in the tricks which it uses to 
 enslave the souls of men ? 
 
 \Vould this thing be charity anyhow, if even these 
 donations were made to worthy purposes ? After these 
 commercial and financial thieves have robbed their fellow- 
 men of millions, — after they have accumulated such a 
 vast mass of plunder that they can no longer hide it con- 
 
THK SECOND WITNESS. 8T 
 
 veniently, — is it charity to give back a small portion of 
 this overrunning and wasting part to those from whom 
 it was all unjustly taken? 
 
 This is the religion which the priesthood of this coun- 
 try teach the people. Let any man look around him, not 
 afar off, but in his own immediate neighborhood, and see 
 if these things are not so; look right at home, and not 
 abroad. You need not go off to the north or south or 
 east or west; you need not go to the Greeleys and Phil- 
 lipses and Beechers and Cheevers, who have got rich 
 by teaching this false religion ; who have cheated and 
 humbugged their fellow-men until they have made for- 
 tunes, and then come out openly and boldly in favor of 
 mammon for a god of the people and an upstart bond- 
 autocracy for their masters. 
 
 Look right at home: who are the members of your 
 churches, — the leading and influential members? Who 
 are the men who, by their connection with the church, 
 control the morals of the society in which you live ? Are 
 they not the business men of the world, who make money 
 and get rich ? Are they not the men who hire laborers 
 for less wages than they are able to work for, without 
 sacrificing their own comfort or that of their family ? In 
 their business transactions with their hirelings, do they 
 not take advantage of their superior intelligence and 
 knowledge of trade to cheat them out of their too small 
 wages, which they have agreed to pay them ? Does not 
 this religion consist in going to meeting on Sunday and 
 carrying along a part of the money which they have 
 made during the week by fraud or extortion, to propitiate 
 their priests ? Does not the priest persuade them that a 
 just God will be pleased wnth these unholy offerings? 
 Don't these men, by precept, teach their children that the 
 chief end of man is to glorify God ? Don't they teach 
 their children, both by precept and by example (the only 
 effective mode of teaching), that their true end is to 
 learn how to do business, — that is, get rich, make money ? 
 Are not the children of these men, and the world around 
 them, horrified at their inconsistency when they compare 
 their professions with the simple, plain, and unmistnkable 
 teachings of the Bible? Are not their children and the 
 
38 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 worldly people around them driven to infidelity by con- 
 founding the wicked hypocrisy of these men with Chris- 
 tianity ? 
 
 . Ay, look into your heart and see if there is not a tacit 
 admission there that Christianity is nothing but a delu- 
 sion and a cheat? You would not have the courage to 
 make this admission out loud ; perhaps you will be afraid 
 to make it to yourself, without any qualification ; but look 
 well and see if this evil spirit has not crept into your 
 soul through the window of doubt, or unbolted its door 
 with the key of suspicion ? Who are the best men in your 
 community ? (And by good men I mean such as swear 
 to their own hurt, and change not.) Who are the neigh- 
 bors in your own community? (And by a neighbor I 
 mean the good Samaritan, who picked up the man who 
 had fallen among thieves and was wounded, and carried 
 him to his home and dressed his wounds, and anointed 
 them with oil.) If you should fall among thieves, and 
 be wounded, whom would you have to pass that way, — 
 the prominent and influential men of the church, or the 
 men of the world who live in your midst? If you should 
 get into trouble and need, not good advice, but substantial 
 aid, whom would you go to, — to members of the church or 
 to men of the world ? Who are the generous, liberal, kind- 
 hearted men in your community? Who are the greedy, 
 avaricious, and unfeeling ? Who are the men who worship 
 mammon as their god and bow daily at his shrine? 
 Who are the men in your own community who would 
 sacrifice their word, their honor, their affections, their 
 friendship, ay their very soul, for money ? Are they not 
 the prominent and influential members of the church? Are 
 they not men who blaspheme God by a hypocritical profes- 
 sion of his holy religion, and insult the common sense of 
 njankind by the criminal inconsistency of their conduct ? 
 By their fruits ye shall know them : do men gather 
 figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns? This is the true 
 and only true rule to measure men and their institutions 
 by ; this is the rule given by the great Master himself. 
 Lord Bacon persuaded men to apply this rule to the 
 physical world, and what a wonderful revolution did it 
 work there ! It utilized steam and electricity, and in- 
 
THE SECGXD WITXESS 89 
 
 vented all those wonderful implements which have done 
 so much to improve agriculture and the mechanic arts. 
 If men would apply this same rule to the moral world, 
 it would work out for them results as beautiful and as 
 good as it did in the material world. 
 
 Let us reject all of those systems and creeds of religion 
 and politics which profess one thing and do another. 
 Let us reject all of those religious systems and creeds 
 whicl\ promise righteousness and holiness, but produce 
 wickedness and filth; which promise judgment and jus- 
 tice, but produce error and misery ; which promise love, 
 but produce hate; which promise peace, but produce dis- 
 cord ; which promise nothing but good, and produce 
 nothing but evil. Let us reject too those political sys- 
 tems which promised peace and prosperity, but produced 
 calamity and war; which promised union, but gave dis- 
 union and strife; which promised freedom, but gave in- 
 stead a consolidated despotism with its military satrapies ; 
 which promised equality, and gave an upstart moneyed 
 aristocracy, the meanest, lowest, and most unprincipled 
 that ever robbed the labor of any people, — an aristocracy 
 made up of commercial thieves, financial gamblers, lying, 
 thieving politicians, a bigoted, persecuting priesthood, 
 who are hired to cheat and deceive the masses of the 
 people with false religions, whilst their taskmasters rob 
 and plunder them. 
 
 Read your Bibles, and see if these are not the same 
 scribes and Pharisees, and lawyers and doctors, who 
 were cheating and defrauding, and robbing and plunder- 
 ing mankind when Christ came to earth. Christ said of 
 the priestcraft of that age (and it was the same church 
 which God had established among the Jews thousands 
 of years before). Even publicans and harlots will go into 
 heaven before you. And again, Not every one that says 
 unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven, but he that doeth the will of my father which is 
 in heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, 
 have we not prophesied in thy name, in thy name cast 
 out devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 
 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you ; 
 depart from me, ye that work iniquity. 
 
90 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 It is a notorious fact that a large proportion of the 
 people of this country, disgusted with the h3^pocrisy of 
 the church, so called, have been, by confounding this 
 impudent pharisaism with Christianity, driven into infi- 
 delity. It is a notorious fact that men, when they come 
 to have business transactions with a member of a church, 
 have less confidence in him on that account, and watch 
 him more narrowly than they would otherwise do. It 
 is a notorious fact that the church, so called, has been 
 taken possession of by those cold, calculating sharpers 
 who are called the business men of the world, men who 
 love money with all their mind, soul and strength, and 
 their own gains as they love themselves; men who wor- 
 ship mammon as their god, and on his altar ofl-er as sacri- 
 fices truth, virtue, friendship, love : everything beautiful 
 and good in the world is sacrificed to this prince of devils. 
 
 Men know these truths, and feel them. To avoid their 
 evil consequences, they are plunging into every mad 
 project which infidelity can suggest. There are as many 
 quacks making pills to cure these moral maladies, as there 
 are making pills to cure the physical disorders of men. 
 Mesmerism, spiritualism, mongrelism, divorce and child- 
 murder, and every beastly lust which the unbridled pas- 
 sions of men wake up, is accepted as a religion and wor- 
 shiped as a god. In such miserable illusions as these 
 does poor blind infidelity seek happiness. In their hurjy 
 to escape these awful evils, the Protestant people of this 
 country are, manv of them at least, going back to popery. 
 How pitiable are the devices which man resorts to, when 
 once he has lost his faith in God. How unhesitatingly 
 does he violate the plainest laws of reason and connnon 
 sense. Christians, who have seen the wonderful fruits 
 of Christianity, in the peace, prosperity and happiness of 
 their own country, go back to popery, the very mother 
 of modern superstition, with all its ignorance and degra- 
 dation ; go back to popery, where some priest, ignorant, 
 licentious, and vile, in the name of St. Peter exalts hin»- 
 self above God, and all that is called God ; who, even 
 when committing follies and excesses shocking to com- 
 mon sense and even to decency, sets himself up as an 
 infallible teacher and guide for his people. 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. 91 
 
 Take a glance at tlie world, ar.J sec what popery has 
 done for it in the last two or three centuries. At the 
 beginning- of the sixteenth century popery had reduced 
 mankind, soul and body, to a degree of ignorance and 
 degradation which could not be any longer borne. The 
 souls of men were abject slaves to priestcraft, and their 
 bodies to kingcraft. By those institutions of deception, 
 and fraud, and crime, were the masses of mankind so com- 
 pletely robbed and plundered that they had to rise up in 
 self-defense and throw off their power. Martin Luther, 
 an obscure and unknown monk, led the way. He an- 
 nounced the Bible to be the only sj^stem of religion which 
 had the sanction of heaven ; he declared that the Bible 
 was the word of God, that is, a message right straight 
 from heaven to man ; that man needed no priest to offi- 
 ciate for him in religious matters ; that we have a High- 
 priest to whom everj^ man, woman and child could go 
 and have his sins forgiven. While Luther stuck to these 
 simple, plain, and unmistakable truths of Christianity, he 
 w^as irresistible ; popery fell before him everywhere. 
 These simple notions of truth were omnipotent, nothing 
 could stand in their way; they took possession of Eng- 
 land, Scotland, Holland, Prussia, and seized strongholds 
 in most of the other European states. 
 
 How natural is it for man to become vain and conceited ! 
 Luther and his helpers in the good work soon persuaded 
 themselves that they had accomplished this wonderful 
 revolution ; and, to gratify their pride and their vanity, 
 they sat down to build up systems of their own. As 
 soon as they aljandoned that simple faith which accepted 
 the word of God as the truth and the only truth, as soon 
 as they began to build up systems and theologies of their 
 own, in a word, as soon as they forsook faith for reason 
 and philosophy, the progress of their triumph ceased. 
 Whilst they refused to fight their enemies with any other 
 weapon than the Bible they were victorious in every fight. 
 But as soon as they exchanged that for reason and philoso- 
 phy, popery got the advantage, and the tide of victory was 
 turned. For hundreds of years popery had been drilled 
 in the use of these weapons ; her priests were deeply 
 learned in all the cunningly devised words of human wis- 
 
92 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 dom. Whilst the Reformers used the smooth pebbles of 
 the brook they could easily strike down the Goliaths of 
 popery ; but when they armed themselves with the sword 
 and helmet of their enemies, they fell directly before the 
 powerful blows of the Philistine giants. 
 
 Bur, fortunately for the world, whilst the priests (Cath- 
 olic and Protestant) were disputing about their theologj, 
 the people were reading their Bibles. Hence it was that 
 Christianity, although it soon died in the churches- so 
 called (both Catholic and Protestant), still lived among 
 the people, because the people had in their hands the 
 source of all wisdom and knowledge and truth. But in 
 some of the countries of Europe the Bible had just entered, 
 when the Reformation began to be interrupted in its 
 progress by the folly of its professed friends. Take Spain 
 for instance, at that time one of the most powerful of the 
 European states. As soon as the Reformation reached 
 Spain, it was seized and dragged into the Inquisition : 
 and then, b}^ means of every species of torture which a 
 brutal and despotic priesthood could suggest, it was put 
 to death. Spain permitted that ignorant and despotic 
 superstition, popery, to put out the tires which truth was 
 kindling in her borders : and dearly has she paid for it. 
 For the richness of its soil, and the salubrity of its cli- 
 mate, Spain is one of the most desirable countries in the 
 world; her people at the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury were among the first people of Europe for all those 
 powers and accomplishments which elevate and adorn 
 human nature; in arts, and arms, and literature, and phi- 
 losophy, the Castilian had no superior in the world. But 
 in an evil hour they preferred darkness to light, the ignor- 
 ance and tyranny of popish priestcraft to the knowledge 
 and freedom and happiness of the Bible truth. They pre- 
 ferred the slavery of the pope to the liberty of Jesus 
 Christ. For this sin God Almighty has cursed her with 
 the blight of decay. For two hundred and fifty years 
 Spain has been going backward ; although she has w^ith 
 in herself all the elements of power and prosperity, her 
 ignorance and weakness have made her a proverb among 
 the nations, and an object of pity or contempt to all. 
 
 Look too at the colonies which Spain has planted in 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. 93 
 
 the New World — her Mexico, and South American states. 
 So weak and ignorant are they all, that a government can 
 hardly last among them more than a twelvemonth. They 
 have gone through revolution after revolution, and always 
 come out worse than they went in. The reason is obvi- 
 -ous. A light has come into the world, even the word of 
 God, to light every man that cometh into the world. 
 This light is wisdom, and virtue, and truth. Those who 
 accept this light will be free and prosperous and happy, 
 but those who reject it will be poor and blind and naked 
 and miserable. This is true not only of individuals, but 
 of nations also. 
 
 Look at Italy, that land of sunshine and flowers ; Italy, 
 with its proud city of Rome, the mighty empire of 
 the Caesars ; Italy, whose martial glorv was once the 
 wonder of the world, whose almost perfect models of the 
 fine arts, of poetry, of painting, and of sculpture, surviv- 
 ing the wreck of a thousand years, live freshly to-day iu 
 the admiration of mankind. This rich and beautiful land, 
 the head-quarters of the pa})acy, the very seat of that vile 
 priestly despotisn) which curses the world, is the picture. 
 of weakness and decay, the very abode of ignorance, vice 
 and crime. This is the condition of every country in the 
 world where popery has had undisputed sway. 
 
 Whilst these things are true, living, indisputable facts, it 
 is equally true that poor barren countries, where the Bible 
 has been accepted as the religion of the people, have made 
 the most extraordinary progress in knowledge and wis- 
 dom and virtue. These things the Bible has accomplished 
 for many of the nations of Europe and this country; 
 notwithstanding the fact that all of those people have 
 been cursed with a hireling priestcraft, whose whole time 
 is spent in perverting its simple truths, so that they may 
 keep up their own power over the souls and bodies of men. 
 
 In no country in the world has the Bible been so gen- 
 erally received, as the religion of the people, as it has been 
 in the English sp^akin-g domains ; and in no countries iu 
 the world has man made such extraordinary progress iu 
 all whiph belongs to his happiness ; our belief in the truth 
 leads us to freedom and prosperity, to greatness and to 
 glory. But when a peaple become great and prosperous, 
 
54 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 tbev become proud and haughty. So did we. And 
 like that wicked old king-, we said, All these things have 
 we done by the might of our power, and for our own 
 glory. We began to trust in our own wisdom and 
 strength, we began to confide in union, in States' rights, 
 in this political faction, or that; we began to trust in 
 priestcraft, with their almost innumerable doctrines and 
 theologies. That vile infidel devil, abolitionism, with its 
 vast train of evils, came along. 
 
 There was an abolitionism, actuated by genuine human- 
 ity and guided by principles of Christian truth, which 
 advocated the liberation of the negro upon the ground 
 of justice. In other words, it was opposed to slavery, 
 because there were many abuses connected with that in- 
 stitution clearly repugnant to the teachings of Christian- 
 ity. With these people I have no quarrel. But I mean 
 that abolitionism which hypocritically used tbe name of 
 religion and humanity to get power in its own hands, 
 and then turned out to be the vilest tyrant in the world. 
 I mean that abolitionism which denounced slavery as a 
 <hing too bad for the half civilized negro, and turned right 
 around and made slaves of the noblest of the Caucasian 
 race. I mean that abolitionism which teaches for religion 
 mesmerism, spiritualism, mongrelism, child-murder, di- 
 vorce, and ever}^ crime which its father the devil can sug- 
 gest. I mean that abolitionism which by lies and trick- 
 ery got possession of this government, and converted it 
 at once into a military despotism; which/by a gigantic 
 system of public robbery and plunder, made the expenses 
 of our government fifteen hundred millions of dollars for 
 three years, whereas for seventy years before the war the 
 expenses all put together had not amounted to that sum. 
 
 All the evils which afflict this country can be distinctly 
 traced to infidelity; and this infidelity has been taught 
 the people by a hireling priesthood. When priestcraft 
 succeeds in perverting the morals of the people, then 
 everything else becomes poisoned. As a people's relig- 
 ion is, so will be their social and political institutions. If 
 their religion is the pure Bible Christianity, their institu- 
 tions will be wise and virtuous, and they themselves will 
 be free and prosperous and hnppy. But "the wicked 
 
THE SLCOAD WITNESS. 95 
 
 shall be turned into bell, and all the nations that forget 
 God." 
 
 How does it happen then that men called infidels have 
 been the advocates of freedom and humanity, when peo- 
 ple called Christians were the friends of proscription and 
 persecution ? How does it happen that Voltaire and 
 Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson should be the advo- 
 cates of civil and religious liberty, whilst the priestcraft 
 of their day, professing the love and charity and faith of 
 Christianity, were nevertheless the advocates of tyranny 
 and persecution ? It happens in this way : these church- 
 men are not Christians, but scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites. They are the same people against whom the Au- 
 thor of Christianity denounced such terrible woes, when 
 he was on earth ; the same people of whom he said, — ■ 
 Even publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of 
 heaven before you. And I will say unto them on my 
 right, I was an hungered, and you gave me meat. I was 
 thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was sick and in prison, 
 and you ministered unto me. Then they will answer and 
 say, Lord, when saw we thee hungry and thirsty, and 
 gave thee meat and drink, and when saw we thee sick 
 and in prison, and ndnistered unto thee ? Then will I 
 answer unto them : inasmuch as you did it unto the least 
 of these little ones, you did it unto me. 
 
 How strange is i-t that many in that great day will 
 stand on the right hand for deeds of charity and kindness 
 and benevolence which they know not of! Methinksthey 
 will be there who obey this commandment: " When thou 
 doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy 
 right hand doeth." " Not every one that saith unto me, 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but 
 be that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven. 
 And many will say unto me in that day. Lord, have we 
 not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out 
 devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works ? 
 And then will 1 confess unto them, I never knew you; 
 depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." These I take it 
 will be a hireling priestcraft, who make religion consist 
 in forms and ceremonies, ordinances and observances; 
 who make religion consist in paying tithes of mint, cum- 
 
96 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 min and anise, to bolster up that vile ecclesiastical des- 
 potism which lords it over God's heritage. These I take 
 it will be those bigoted and self-righteous churchmen who 
 in their conceit thank God that they are not as other men, 
 who are always gouging their fingers into the eyes of 
 other people, to pull out the mote they see there, whilst 
 they neglect a beam in their own eyes. These I take it 
 will be those canting Pharisees, hypocritical professors of 
 religion, who spend their lives robbing their fellow-men 
 by the legalized tricks and frauds of their business pur- 
 suits, until they are w^orth millions, and then with a great 
 sounding of trumpets give back a few hundred thousands, 
 a mere fraction of their stealings, to those they have 
 robbed. 
 
 -Are there not daily exhibitions of this truth in this 
 boasted land of liberty and equality, of freedom and hu- 
 manity ? Hundreds of boys and girls, yet of tender age, 
 are huddled together in those pens of iniquity and vice 
 called factories, with a miserable smattering of the rudi- 
 ments of education picked up in those filthy herd-pens 
 called free schools, to start with. Having nobod}'' to as- 
 sociate with but themselves, and being tiiemselves ignor- 
 ant, they are effectually shut out from all further oppor- 
 tunity to get knowledge. Although it is in a land of 
 equality, they are not permitted to associate with their 
 njasters, and if they were they would learn nothing from 
 them. For they, the best of them, are educated only in 
 the arts of gain, skilled only in those business tricks, 
 sharp practices, by which men overreach their fellow-men 
 and get without just compensation their property or their 
 labor. Their literature for the future consists of little 
 speckled-back Sunday-school books, full not of truthful 
 pictures of human life, but of distorted caricatures. The 
 characters are all little angels, or little devils. The chil- 
 dren for the most part, like their parents, persuade them- 
 selves that they are the little angels ; and, wrapped in 
 the mantle of conceit, the}^ are forever afterward invul- 
 nerable to the most pointed arrows of truth. They grad- 
 uate in reading yellow-back novels or cheap newspaper* 
 and periodicals, filled with sentimental stories written to 
 excite the animal passions, to fill the mind with lewd 
 
THE SECOND WITXLSS. 97 
 
 thoughts, and to debauch the body with the pollutions of 
 wlioredom. 
 
 What a preparation for fornication, adultery, divorce, 
 child-murder, and other crimes and follies, which are to- 
 day so common in this land of freedom and humanity, 
 the home of our modern self-righteous Pharisees! 
 
 There too are they shut in from nature, with its green 
 fields, its pretty flowers, its shady trees, its singing birds, 
 its bright and sparkling waters, which flow like streams 
 of mercy from the fountain of love to lead the soul back 
 to its source, the bosom of its God. There too are they 
 worked hard at uuremuuerative wages, until disease or 
 age unfits them to work any longer; and then they are 
 turned out, like an old horse who has a hard master, to 
 shift for themselves upon the poor, barren, picked com- 
 mons of public charity. Their masters, in the mean time, 
 by taking a little off of the wages of each slave, are mil- 
 lionaires. They give a fraction of their big fortunes, made 
 up of their stealings from labor (and this they give be- 
 cause they have more than they can conveniently hide 
 away), to build some fine church or other charitable insti- 
 tution, so called. Yes, fine churches, with their fine or- 
 gans, and fine choirs, and fine sermons — all gotten up to 
 entertain and amuse the rich phylacterized Pharisees who 
 worship there ! And all the newspapers of the country, 
 and more especially the religions ones, so called, adver- 
 tise these benefactors of mankind, and praise their charity 
 until the minds of honest people are disgusted. 
 
 Modern religion in this thing, as in everything else, 
 does the very opposite of what it is commanded to do. 
 It goes right in the teeth of the plain, simple commands 
 of Christ whom it claims as its author. "Take heed that 
 ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them ; 
 otherwise ye have no reward of your father which is in 
 heaven." If these body-destroying and soul-blighting 
 institutions existed anywhere else but in the land of 
 liberty and equality, freedom and humanity, how w^ould 
 these pious reformers, the Greeleys, the Phillipses, 
 Beechers, and the Cheevers, labor to destroy them! 
 Into what a tempest of anger would they work them- 
 selves against these institutions! If those children who 
 E • 9 
 
98 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 from their childhood to old age are wronged and robbed 
 were only black children, instead of "poor white trash," 
 how would the kind hearts of these benevolent men boil 
 over in sympathy for them ! And how would their holy 
 anger be worked up against their cruel taskmasters I But 
 philosopher Greeley bears the wrongs of the " poor white 
 trash" with wonderful equanimity ; he coolly advises 
 them, when they make a strike to raise their wages above 
 the starving point, not to get out of temper, not to get 
 mad. If indeed they can starve long enough to force 
 their rich taskmasters into a compliance with their most 
 reasonable request, it will be well and good ; if not, why 
 let them bear their wrongs patiently I 
 
 The Creator thought he was conferring a mark of honor 
 and distinction on us, to whom he had given higher intel- 
 lectual gifts, and finer sensibilities, in giving us a pretty 
 white skin ; but man has found out better. For these 
 marks of Heaven's favor do not only exclude us from all 
 claim upon man's charity and benevolence, but from all 
 right to that even-handed justice which a righteous God 
 has enjoined upon man to do to his fellow-man. Ah I I 
 can understand this thing well enough. Those black 
 slaves were the slaves of Jeff. Davis and General Lee, 
 slaves of the Virginians and Carolinians; these white 
 slaves are the slaves of Greeley and Phillips, the slaves of 
 New Yorkers and Yankees. A certain farmer said to a 
 lawyer, "My bull has gored your ox; what will be done 
 about the matter ?" " Why," answered the lawyer, "it 
 is plain enough, you must pay the damages." " I mis- 
 take," replied the farmer; " it was your bull that gored 
 my ox." " Well, well," said the lawyer, " we will see 
 about it." 
 
 Certain slaves went to the Greeleys, the Phillipses, 
 and Beechers, and said, " Look how Jeff. Davis and Lee 
 hold the black men in slavery ; they make them work for 
 their victuals and clothes ; they determine too the num- 
 ber of hours they must 'work each day, and the quantity 
 and quality of victuals and clothes they must receive." 
 The friends of humanity answered, " They are cruel, 
 brutal and barbarous ; you must stir up your anger against 
 them ; you must make war on them and destroy their in- 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. 9ft 
 
 stitutions and liberate their slaves." Their slaves accom- 
 plish this good work, and then comeback to these friends 
 of freedom and humanity, and say, " We too are slaves, 
 the slaves of social and political institutions, the slaves of 
 commercial thieves and financial gamblers, the slaves of 
 great moneyed monopolies, the slaves of a hireling priest- 
 craft, the slaves of political factions, the slaves of intolera- 
 ble burdens of debt and taxation, the slaves of a mean, low- 
 born, heartless bondautocracy, who have robbed us until 
 we are poor, and then disgraced us by making money the 
 measure of merit and the mark of respectability ; our task- 
 masters determine how many hours a day we must work, 
 and how much victuals and what kind of clothes we must 
 eat and wear; and so short were our rations, that during 
 the Mast long, hard winter' many of us were seized by 
 abundant and importunate beggary, and dragged around, 
 the pitiable objects of public and private charity. What 
 must we do, Messrs. Greeley, Phillips, Beecber, Cheever, 
 etc., what must we do ?" And these amiable gentlemen 
 answer, "Don't get out of humor. Discuss the matter 
 good-temperedly with your taskmasters ; and if you can 
 reason them into a better treatment of yourselves, well 
 and good. Or if you strike for higher wages, and can 
 starve long enough to force your masters to respect your 
 rights, well and good. If not, w^hy be good servants and 
 endure your wrongs patiently." 
 
 ** Why, Messrs. Greeley, Phillips, Beecher, Cheever, 
 etc., this is not the advice you gave these people when you 
 were discussing negro slavery." " Ah ! my dear sir, you 
 see ' circumstances alter cases ;' these poor white trash 
 are our slaves ; we don't tell them so, but it is so never- 
 theless. If they would get mad and destroy slavery here, 
 what would we do for slaves ? what would w^e do for a 
 mud-sill for our aristocracy ? how could we be rich ? how 
 could our wives and daughters live in great style ? how 
 could they live in the first circles ? No, no, that would 
 never do; we would all be brought down to a level with 
 the ' poor white trash.' Ay, our wives and daughters 
 would have to associate with these vulgar people, and 
 that would be a great scandal for people who belong to 
 the first circles." 
 
100 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Since these are the religions people of this age, — the 
 churchmen, the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, — is 
 it any wonder that honest and conscientious men should 
 be infidels ? Men, without looking into the matter as they 
 should, confound the church, so called, with Christianity; 
 and because the church is bigoted, superstitious and 
 intolerant, they reject Christianity. 
 
 When Voltaire looked around him and saw the church 
 (both Catholic and Protestant) governed by the most 
 ruthless spirit of persecution, he wisely came to the con- 
 clusion that those ecclesiastical hierarchies were the 
 enemy of both man and God. Priestcraft had joined with 
 kingcraft to degrade and enslave the whole human race. 
 The kings and priests and aristocracies of Europe, who 
 constitute less than a hundredth part of the people, arro- 
 gated to themselves power over all things human and 
 divine. By divine right kings ruled the bodies of men, 
 and priests their souls; and the millions of their fellow- 
 beings whom they held in abject slavery they looked upon 
 as creatures made for their use, just as cattle and horses 
 were. If man worked hard and had clothes enough to 
 keep him from freezing, and bread enough to keep him 
 from starving, he got these things not as the just reward 
 of his labor, but by the grace and favor of his king. If 
 man had the comforts and hopes of religion, he had those 
 things not because he believed in God, and kept his laws, 
 but because he believed in the commandments of the 
 priests and observed the ordinances of the church. Loy- 
 alty was the duty of the people, no matter what wicked 
 and profligate tyrant robbed them of their liberty, their 
 lives and their property. Obedience to the church, no 
 matter how wicked and blasphemous its practices were, 
 was the duty of the people. No matter what drunken 
 priest filled the chair of St. Peter, his word must be 
 obeved, even thoui^h it was in blasphemv of the word of 
 God. 
 
 Voltaire turned from popery,* which he saw doing the 
 w^orks of the devil and not the works of God, to protest- 
 
 * I speak of popery and protestantism as political powers, and not as 
 social and religious institutions. 
 
THE SECOND WnWES^!. 101 
 
 ant'srn. But protestantism, so called, was tlien nothing 
 more than popery in miniature. Episcopacy, presbyte- 
 rianism, and a hundred other cieeds and sects, were but 
 bastard children, begotten by popery in her whoredoms 
 with the political power. With an unblushing impudence 
 these illegitimate children arrogated to themselves, each 
 and all of them, the power of St. Peter. English epis- 
 copacy as much like popery as it is possible for a daugh- 
 ter to be like a mother in form and features ; its very 
 founder a lecherous old tyrant, who, to gratify his animal 
 passions, had cast away the pure and virtuous wnfe of 
 his early love; it was persecuting and proscribing like 
 popery everybody who did not conform to its ceremonies 
 and ordinances. Yoltaire, looking merely at the surface 
 of things, came to the conclusion that these churches, so 
 called, were the enemies of God and man, because they 
 were evidently doing works meet for the devil. And thus 
 far Yoltaire was right ; but when Yoltaire said Christian- 
 ity was false because these churches which claimed to 
 be Christians were false he was wn'ong. 
 
 Yoltaire rejected Christianity ; he and his brother phi- 
 losophers taught that all men were '* created equal," and 
 that all men are naturally good. The French people ac- 
 cepted the teaching of these men as the truth, and, taking 
 their philosophy as the compass to guide their way, they 
 launched their ship of state, with reason at the helm, 
 upon the wild ocean of human speculation. Never did 
 any ship of state have so perilous a voyage. Driven by 
 every wind of passion and tossed by every wave of power, 
 the angry storm of justice dashed it about like a plaything 
 for a little while, and then drove it wildly and madly 
 upon the rocky shores of ruin. How pitiable was it to 
 see these infidel philanthropists drifting hopelessly upon 
 the broken fragments of this wreck, and begging their old 
 taskmasters, kingcraft and priestcraft, to save them from 
 utter death ! 
 
 When Thomas Jefferson saw episcopacy in Virginia 
 prohibiting Baptists and others from preaching, when he 
 saw Puritanism in New England hanging witches and 
 burning heretics and exiling better people than they were 
 themselves, he knew these things were the works of the 
 
 9* 
 
102 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 devil. These things were done by the churches, which 
 flaimed to be Christ's ministers in the world and the 
 representatives of his religion. Without examiuing the 
 matter he rashly came to the conclusion that Christian- 
 ity and priestcraft were the same thing, and rejected 
 both. But Thomas Jefferson had a nation of Christians 
 to deal with, and not a nation of infidels, as Yoltaire 
 had; yes, a nation of people who had the Bible, and on 
 ihat account had higher and better notions of Christian- 
 ity than their churches had. A light had come into the 
 world, to light every man that cometh into the world. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson* saw that light, and, without know- 
 ing where it came from, used it to find out the true no- 
 tions of social and political reform. . 
 
 Jesus Christ had taught, and nobody else had, that all 
 men are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
 piness ; in other words, that man is the child of God 
 and the brother of his fellow-man. Jefferson taught re- 
 'igious toleration and other liberal Christian laws; and 
 is far as he taught these liberal and beneficent principles 
 of Christian charity and benevolence, and attempted to 
 incorporate them into the social and political institutions 
 of his country, the people went with him, although their 
 churches were not with him, for the people were ahead 
 of the churches. The people read the Bible, and believed 
 in it ; the churches read theologies of Luther, Calvin, 
 Cranmer and Wesley. The people followed the com- 
 mandments of God ; and the churches, as they have 
 always done, followed the commandments of men. 
 
 Jefferson was a shrewd politician, and never offended 
 ihe will of the people. He was perhaps one of the most 
 inconsistent politicians of his day ; perhaps he changed 
 oftener than any other. Instead of moulding public sen- 
 timent, he was moulded by it. Exceedingly thin-skinned, 
 he was a first-rate political barometer ; being extremely 
 sensitive to popular impressions, he was an admirable 
 index of the political sentiments of his country. He vveut 
 so far in his theories as to incorporate in the Declaration 
 
 * Mr. Jefferson rejected the forms of Christianity, but followed its 
 spirit. 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. 103 
 
 of lodependence an infidel falsehood borrowed from the 
 French school of philosophy ;* but he never attempted 
 to carry it into practice. If he had, the Christian people 
 of America would have rejected him and his infidel phi- 
 losophy. Is it not remarkable thffit one infidel sentiment 
 incorporated into our political institutions, "that all men 
 are created equal," should have proved the bane of those 
 institutions? How dangerous is a little error mixed with 
 a g-reat deal of truth ! 
 
 This sentiment, that all men are created equal, was 
 taken up by a sect of infidel philosophers, headed by 
 Theodore Parker and Wendell Phillips. At first they 
 tried to defend it as a doctrine of the Bible ; but failing" 
 in that, they blasphemously trampled the Bible under 
 their feet. Thejj tried to show that the Constitution of 
 the United States recognized it ; but when they failed in 
 that they tore up that great charter of American liberty 
 in the presence of the people. As they did not have to 
 deal with a Christian people, as Jefferson did, but with a 
 people whom priestcraft had lulled to sleep, with the 
 opiates of infidelity, they succeeded in making their wild 
 schemes acceptable. The result so far everybody knows: 
 a civil war with all its ruin and desolation, the ancient 
 democracy of America destroyed, and a military despot- 
 ism established on its ruins ; a public debt, and a system 
 of taxation as oppressive as that of Russia, forced on the 
 people ; an upstart aristocracy, insatiable in their greed 
 of plunder, rules the government State and national; 
 and the millions of white laborers, the mud-sill of this 
 despicable aristocracy, work like the serfs of Europe for 
 their victuals and clothes, and get but short rations at 
 that. That whole school of infidel philosophers, the 
 Greeleys and Phillipses and Beechers, are to-day the de- 
 cided friends of that political usurpation and bondauto- 
 cratic tyranny which are robbing the labor of this country, 
 and reducing the working people to the condition of Eu- 
 ropean serfs. With an unblushing impudence, these men, 
 in the name of freedom and equality, are trying to build 
 
 * Mr. Jefferson's notions of equality are explained by the words "life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
lOi THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 up a great moneyed aristocracy in this country, — a power 
 which has destroyed the freedom of every other people 
 in the world, and made the working millions slaves of 
 kings and aristocracies. 
 
 Let the people know •from these things that they can't 
 trust infidelity, whatever professions it may make. In the 
 first place, it is the child of the devil, and like its father 
 it is a liar always. But even if it were possible for it to 
 tell the truth, it is the blind guide which leads the blind, 
 and they both fall into the ditch. For a little while the 
 great democracy of America was free. The down-trodden 
 people of other lands and other countries looked to them 
 with hope ; the tyrants who were cursing the world with 
 oppression looked with apprehension and dread upon the 
 growing prowess of liberty. But political factions and 
 religious creeds are doing for it what they have done for 
 every other country in the world. Kings and priests 
 get up quarrels about some foolish questions of politics 
 or theology, divide the people, and plunge them into war; 
 war makes vast debts and taxations and large standing 
 armies, and these things make slaves of the masses. 
 Lying political factions and a hireling priesthood have 
 done the same thing in this country. The faction called 
 the democracy has been in the service of the slaveocracy 
 for years and years, and the infidel abolition faction has 
 been in the service of the great moneyed power of the 
 North. This faction bought up the priests and pulpits, 
 and every Sunday was desecrated by sermons full of 
 falsehood and malicious hate ; Beecher even carried his 
 Sharp's rifle into the pulpit, so eager was he for war. 
 He took good care, however, to keep out of the way, not 
 only of bullets, but of all the privations and hardships 
 which attended the army. 
 
 These men indeed claim that they have destroyed negro 
 slavery, and urge that in mitigation of their other offenses. 
 Is this true ? Is the negro free ? The people of the 
 United States who were not directly interested in slavery 
 as owners of negroes saw it in two distinct aspects. As 
 a social institution, which had existed in the States almost 
 from their very birth, they were disposed to look upon it 
 favorably. For many reasons they were unwilling to 
 
^im SECOND WITNESS. 105 
 
 disturb it. In the first place, it would necessarily give a 
 mighty shock to the wiiole indastrial interest of the 
 country, even if it could have been abolished without 
 war. In the second place, the people of the North, as 
 well as the people of the South, knew that the negro was 
 unequal to the white man in every particular. 1 say 
 they all knew this except a little faction of infidels, called 
 abolitionists, made up of crazy men and weak-minded 
 women. This inequality, which the people knew from 
 instinct and common sense, made it impossible for the two 
 races ever to live together as a homogeneous people. 
 God had separated them by insuperable laws; and no 
 human power, even though it be aided by the devil, can 
 ever unite them. By no political alchemy can a negro 
 ever be converted into a white man. The most that can 
 ever be done in this way, even thouirh Beecher should 
 use his own daughters, and the daughters of the yard- 
 stick and goose-quill nobility who worship at the church 
 of the Puritans, as a bait to medicine the negro into a 
 white man — I say even by this process, so shocking to 
 the instincts of decent people, nothing more can be done 
 than to produce a mongrel race of mules, fit only for servi- 
 tude (high-bred as these mares may be, coming from 
 the first circles so-called), and without the power of per- 
 petuating its kind. 
 
 Then, if they cannot live together as one people, they 
 cannot live together at all, unless you recognize distinctly 
 the right of the superior race to rule. Reasoning in this 
 way, the common sense of the American people told them 
 that it was better to tolerate slavery with all its evil 
 practices, some of which were really shocking to just 
 notions of humanity, than to set the negro free without 
 knowing what to do with him. With all the fuss about 
 mongrelism which has been made in this country, I do 
 believe that among the abolitionists themselves not one 
 in ten honestly and sincerely believe in equality. I am 
 sure that not one in ten would permit a pretty daughter of 
 his to marry a negro, or a sprightly son to marry a negro 
 wench, although there might be no other objection in the 
 world except that the party was a negro. The leaders who 
 advocate these practices so repugnant to all high notions 
 
 E* 
 
106 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 of virtue, the Greeleys, the Beechers, and Cheevers, do 
 wilfully and deliberately falsify the truth for purposes of 
 personal and political ao^grandizement. The followers of 
 these blind guides, the miserable dupes of fanaticism, are 
 laboring under a wretched delusion which nothing can 
 dispel but a proposition to practice their doctrine in their 
 own families ; this simple practical test would, I am sure, 
 wake nine out of ten of these moral clairvoyants out of 
 their dream of folly. 
 
 But negro slavery assumed another character, which 
 alarmed the American people, and excited that jealousy 
 which has ever watched their liberties so closely. Slavery 
 set itself up as a political power, claiming the right as 
 such to rule one-half of the territories of the United 
 States. As a social institution among the States, the 
 people said, let it be ; but as a national power claiming 
 the right to rule the national government, an aristocratic 
 and despotic institution, it excited at once the fear and 
 hatred of the masses of the people. The object of the 
 war, as far as the great masses of the American people 
 were concerned, was to destroy slavery as a political in- 
 stitution. As a political institution, a great power in the 
 land, it did years ago take possession of that great 
 political faction called the democracy, and used it to do 
 its bidding. A free people cannot permit any power to 
 rule them, no matter what it is. Hence the enmity to 
 negro slavery, and the long and bloody war to destroy i*.-^ 
 
 But is not the negro a power still in the hands of a 
 political faction, and so in a more offensive sense than 
 he ever was before ? Has not this political faction, the 
 professed tool of that great money-power called the bond- 
 ocracy, by force and fraud through their military satraps 
 and carpet-bag agents,- organized the negroes of the South 
 into a great political power to do their dirty work ? And 
 what work do they propose to do? Why, they propose 
 to change the ancient democracy of America into a great 
 consolidated despotism, the ruling power of which will 
 be a great money-power called the bondocracy. Because' 
 slavery was a vast lever of power in the hands of a po- 
 litical faction, in the service of a great aristocracy, to rule 
 the country, the people destroA^ed it ; and does anybody 
 
THE SECOND WITNESS. lOY 
 
 suppose the people, who sacrificed so many h'ves to prevent 
 that thing-, are g-oing to permit the negro to be armed and 
 organized in the service of the jacobins who are tliemselves 
 by their own professions the tools of the great moneyed 
 aristocracy of the North, called the bondautocracy ? 
 
 I repeat that the enmity of the Northern people to 
 slavery sprung from the fact that it was an organized 
 political power, which used the Democratic party to build 
 up and extend the aristocracy of the South. It was for 
 this reason that the people made war on it, and destroyed 
 it. And yet, with these facts staring them in the face, 
 the jacobins have turned right around and organized the 
 negro into a great political power to build up and perpet- 
 uate a great moneyed aristocracy in the North, an aristo- 
 cracy infinitely more offensive to the people than the 
 other. For the slaveholders of the South were as a gen- 
 eral thing men of some education and polish ; more than 
 that, they were frank and candid, and in their dealings 
 with their fellow-men kind hearted and generous to a 
 fault. These popular traits in the character of the aris- 
 tocrats went far towards reconciling the people to the 
 aristocracy. But this new aristocracy, this cold-blooded, 
 cold-hearted, labor-robbing bondautocracy, this yard-stick 
 and goose-quill nobilit}', these commercial thieves and 
 financial gamblers, these cotton-and-spoon-stealing gen- 
 erals who never did any fighting, these quartermasters 
 and commissaries, these government contractors and 
 substitute-buyers, these merchant-princes and bankers 
 who promised to pay the expenses of the war until 
 the war was over, and then said they only lent this 
 money to the government, and now want the laboring 
 people w4io did the fighting to pay them back twice as 
 much money as they lent and a big interest in gold be- 
 sides, — I say this aristocracy has not one redeeming fea- 
 ture in its character, not one element of character which 
 is not repulsive to every democratic freeman in America. 
 
 From these facts people may learn lessons of wisdom 
 and profit: they may learn that they can't trust priest- 
 craft, that they can't trust political factions ; that mam- 
 mon, the money-god, which has for six thousand years 
 made slaves of the masses of mankind, can alwavs hire 
 
m 
 
 THE GRKAT TRIAL 
 
 priestcraft and political factions to do his bidding. They 
 will learn too that this money-god, this mammon, to whom 
 they have given their hearts, instead of to that God who 
 made them, and in whose hands their breath is, is cruel, 
 unjust and tyrannical; that he robs the many, in order 
 that the few may be rich ; that he makes slaves of the 
 many, in order that the few may live in pomp and pride 
 and splendor ; he teaches hate instead of love, war instead 
 of peace ; instead of freedom, prosperity and happiness, 
 he gives a people slavery, ruin and misery. Why then 
 should the people worship this god ? Why had they not 
 better worship the God of the Bible, that God who has 
 promised them (and his promises will stand when the 
 heavens and the earth shall pass away) a land flowing 
 with milk and honey ? He promises them freedom and 
 prosperity and happiness; yea, he promises to rain on 
 them showers of blessings. Our fathers worshiped that 
 God, and were ever any people so richly blessed ? Did 
 ever any people enjoy so much freedom and prosperity? 
 They read the word of God, and believed in that; they 
 kept his laws and observed his statutes to do them. And 
 oh. what a harvest of good did they reap! 
 
 But we believe in priestcraft, and obey its command- 
 ments, its theology. It has taught us to worship gods 
 of gold and silver, and beastly lusts, and passions called 
 isms, and hate and revenge, and war and tyranny. 
 And what a harvest of woe have w^e reaped ! This 
 mammon has established his empire over this country; 
 his headquarters are in Wall street, New York. From 
 that point he issues his decrees. The national govern- 
 ment, the State government, in a word, every political and 
 social organization in the whole country, is subject to his 
 authority. This power commanded the Republican faction 
 to nominate Grant, and the Democratic party to nomi- 
 nate Seymour. To show how universal its power is, let 
 me state this simple fact: the Governor of Tennessee 
 asked for arms to arm the militia of that State. The 
 legislature was about to pass the law, when a prohibitory 
 command came from Wall street: Tennessee bonds are 
 falling in the market, and if you pass that militia bill we 
 will send them lower. That's enou<>:h ! the bill won't be 
 
TH?: SLCoyo rrirxfjss. 109 
 
 passed. It does not help the matter to say that the 
 Governor of Tennessee is a madman, a canting old priest, 
 who for years and years has blasphemed heaven and in- 
 sulted earth by preaching for Christianity abuse and slan- 
 der of everything and everybody who was good. It 
 does not If^lp the matter any to say that the Tennessee 
 legislature is a foul gang of usurpers and thieves, put 
 into power by that poor, weak, shallow mimic of a 
 tyrant who to-day* disgraces the Presidential chair. It 
 does not help the matter to say that in this case the 
 power was exercised for good. To talk about a people 
 being free, and a country being the land of liberty, when it 
 has an aristocratic power, a great moneyed power, which 
 controls at will the State and national legislatures, which 
 makes and unmakes governors and presidents, is simply 
 absurd. Such people may hurrah for freedom and equality 
 until their throats are sore, and they will still be slaves. 
 
 But whom will the people trust ? The political leaders 
 of the Republican party sold the masses to Grant, as the 
 tool of the bondocracy. Vallandigham, who has made 
 fuss enough for a half-dozen patriots, tried to sell out his 
 party to S. P. Chase, the most bitter, radical and uncom- 
 promising enemy his party ever had. On account of his 
 talents and his thorough proficiency in all the arts of po- 
 litical villainy, no man in the whole country was capable 
 of doing the Democratic party so much harm. The rest 
 of the politicians, with Yoorhees at their head, another 
 boisterous patriot, sold out to Seymour, the only promi- 
 nent man in the party who was thoroughly identified 
 with the bondautocracy. 
 
 There is an instinct in the masses of the people which 
 leads them to look in the right direction in times of great 
 peril, even when they lack the patriotism and courage to 
 follow this great law of truth. The masses of the Demo- 
 cratic party, the laboring millions who swell its ranks, 
 nineteen out of twenty of them, had turned their eyes to 
 George H. Pendleton of Ohio. What attractive power 
 was it which led the masses to him, for thousands and 
 tens of thousands of working men in the Republican party 
 
 * 1868. Andy Johnson. 
 10 
 
110 IIIE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 were ready to support him? What was it that led the 
 people to him ? Why, he has a heart, a soul ; he is honest 
 and upright and noble ; to-day if it was in his power he 
 would sacrifice everything he has in the world, — aye, his 
 very life, — if by doing it the great democracy of America 
 could be free as it once was, and his country'^prosperous 
 and happy as in days of yore. But he was too good for 
 the politicians, and much too good for the bondautocracy, 
 whose tools the politicians are. A politician like Gov- 
 ernor Seymour, drilled in all the arts of political chicanery, 
 suits better than an honest, upright man, a man who has 
 a heart to feel for the people, and a soul to rebel against 
 their wrongs. But on this subject of bondocracy the 
 people can't trust such men even as George H. Pendle- 
 ton ; for whilst he is honest and upright in his personal 
 character and private relations, and in political affairs, 
 according to the highest standard of morality which gov- 
 erns the country, his reasoning is incorrect and his con- 
 clusions unworthy of himself. Indeed, the standard of 
 right and wrong which governs this country, fixed by a 
 hireling priestcraft, is sadly low. With a strange incon- 
 sistency, and with a lack of that clear perception of truth 
 without which no people can be free or happy, Mr. Pen- 
 dleton argues that the people are in honor bound to pay 
 the public debt. 
 
 The Congress of the United States, dictated to by the 
 aristocracy of the North, its great moneyed power, with- 
 out any moral or legal right (according to Pendleton him- 
 self) did make war on a part of the country. Had this 
 Congress been acting as the agents of the people, and in 
 their behalf, there would have been no war; but because 
 it was the agent of the great moneyed power of the 
 North, and was acting in its behalf, it did make the war 
 for its interest and benefit. This moneyed tyrant enters 
 into a conspiracy with the agents of the people, and buys 
 these agents to make war on the people, to destroy their 
 government, their liberties, and their happiness ; and then 
 turns round and asks the people to pay the expenses of 
 the crimes and follies which have wrought this ruin, be- 
 cause the agents of the people were parties to this damn- 
 ing conspiracy. The Congress had power to preserve. 
 
THE SECOND WITAESS. Ill 
 
 and not destroy, the liberties and happiness of the people. 
 The power thej used for this purpose was not a legiti- 
 mate use of power, but a criminal abuse of it. And the 
 financial ganiblers who entered into the conspiracy de- 
 serve not only to lose the money they spent in carrying 
 out their wicked deeds, but they deserve to go to the 
 penitentiary besides. 
 
 But suppose the war was just (and no war of invasion 
 or subjugation was ever just), then are the people bound 
 by all of its acts and consequences ? '* We are bound by 
 all the acts of Congress, because, if we repudiate any of 
 them, somebody will suffer by it." To make the matter 
 plain, Congress by its reconstruction acts has put the 
 power of the Southern States into the hands of the negro. 
 The negroes, trusting in the plighted faith of the United 
 States, as expressed by the public acts of its national 
 legislature, have organized governments. By these gov- 
 ernments they have disfranchised the white people of the 
 South, and made these people their enemies. Now Mr. 
 Pendleton says that it is perfectly honorable and upright, 
 perfectly just, to repudiate this whole reconstruction pol- 
 icy, and thereby violate the plighted faith of the govern- 
 ment to three millions of persons. Will Mr. Pendleton 
 say that these people are only negroes, half-civilized bar- 
 barians, and that therefore we are not bound to keep our 
 promises with them ? Would it be in accordance with 
 high notions of honor for a powerful people to say, We 
 are not bound to keep our promise with these people, be- 
 cause they are weak and ignorant? 
 
 The notions of morality which men seem to entertain 
 are about these : that all obligations in which money is 
 concerned are sacred and must be kept ; but obligations 
 which affect only the lives and liberties of men may be 
 violated with impunity. The object of the w^ar, with all 
 of its consequences, may be repudiated, everything may 
 be undone, except its promises to pay money ; these and 
 these only are inviolable. This is but another strong 
 proof of what I stated before, that mammon is the god 
 whom this people worship. You may promise anything 
 to anybody, and violate that promise ; but any promise 
 to pay money, no matter if the promise has been extorted 
 
112 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 by force, you must keep it. The laboring millions were f 
 promised freedom, happiness, and prosperity such as they 
 had never seen before, if they would go into the war and 
 fight it through. They did so ; and how have these prom- 
 ises been kept? where is the freedom, the happiness, and 
 prosperity ? But they are only men ; persons, and not 
 property. It don't matter if you do break your promise 
 with them. It don't matter if they do have to work 
 harder and live harder. It don't matter if their wives 
 and little ones — maybe the widows and children of sol- 
 diers who fell in the war — do suffer. It don't matter if 
 you did promise to them freedom and prosperity and hap- 
 piness ; you need not keep that promise. Oh, no ; you 
 may give them, instead, the intolerable burdens of debt 
 and taxation, ay, the pinching of poverty and want. 
 They are only men, women and children, — not money ; 
 you need not keep faith with them. 
 
 Beware, worshipers of mammon, beware ! Money may 
 be a mighty lever of power, but the human soul when 
 once waked up — who can measure its power? It is pa- 
 tient and long-suffering and forbearing; but when its 
 anger is once kindled, woe to them who have trifled with 
 its confidence and betrayed its trust. Only the God who ' 
 made it can restrain its power ; and he has never re- 
 strained it from breaking to pieces idol gods, and visiting 
 swift justice upon the evil deeds of their worshipers. 
 
 I repeat it, the aristocratic institutions of this country 
 brought on the late war. I will go further, and say that 
 aristocratic institutions, in some form or other, have been 
 the cause of all the wars which have ever been waged in 
 the world. A small proportion of the people of a state 
 get rich, they use their wealth by consolidating it to get 
 power into their hands, and then they use the power to 
 rob their own people until they have made the masses 
 poor. When they have made the masses of their own 
 people poor and dependent, they buy them up like horses 
 and. use them to rob some other state or nation. The 
 slave power in the Southern States took possession of all 
 the State governments, and used them to keep up its power 
 and extend its empire. As far as they could get possession 
 of the national government, they used it for the same pur- 
 
TIIF SnC(>XD \]ITXi:SS. 113 
 
 pose. In the meantime the commercial thieves and TRnan- 
 cial gamblers of the North, and the owners of big distill- 
 eries and big manufacturing establishments, had got pos- 
 session of all the State governments up there, and had 
 used them to establish their power over the masses of the 
 people. 
 
 To every man who is not the slave of fanaticism and 
 prejudice, it is perfectly apparent that these mone3''ed mo- 
 nopolists had and still have absolute control over not only 
 every political body, but every social and religious organi- 
 zation in that section. It was a struggle between these 
 two great aristocracies to get possession of the national 
 government, and u^e it to extend its power and authority, 
 which led to the late terrible civil war. The irrepressible 
 conflict, as understood by Seward and Greeley, was not 
 whether Americans should be free or slave, but whether 
 the slaves should be black or white. The question was 
 not whether an aristocracy should be the controlling ele- 
 ment of power in the American government, but whether 
 the mud-sill of that aristocracy should be the half-civil- 
 ized African or the " poor white trash." The Northern 
 masters could show by facts and figures that they, by 
 using white slaves, could aiake millions, while the 
 Southern masters by using negro slaves were making 
 thousands. As the chief end of nations as well as of 
 individuals is to make money and get rich, this argument 
 seemed to be conclusive in favor of white slavery. Indeed, 
 that portion of the Southern people who had been indoc- 
 trinated into the belief that the only object of life is to 
 make money, had accepted, in theory at least, the North- 
 ern idea of slavery ; and if the matter had been left alone, 
 this system of slavery would after awhile have been 
 adopted at the South, because money-making men there 
 had been convinced that it would pay better. 
 
 But these aristocratic powers could not wait. Each 
 one had in its own section got possession of the State 
 government, and subsidized to its use every other organ- 
 ized institution, whether it was political or religious. 
 The great struggle then was for the national government. 
 Whichever party could get possession of that, and con- 
 solidate its power in its behalf, would probably succeed 
 
 10* 
 
114 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 in fastening its system of slavery upon the western 
 world. For awhile the advocates of negro slavery suc- 
 ceeded. They got control of the Congress and executive, 
 and the Supreme Court, too, decided in their favor. This 
 party then believed that the power of the national gov- 
 ernment ought to be supreme, and that its laws ought to 
 be executed everywhere. The other party denied the 
 supremacy of the national government, and advocated 
 States' rights ; they did, too, by their personal liberty bills 
 and other antagonistic laws, virtually nullify the laws of 
 the national legislature and prevent their execution. But 
 the situation changed ; and circumstances, you know, alter 
 eases. The advocates of white slavery got possession 
 of the national government. Then the friends of negro 
 slavery denied the supremacy of its power, and set up 
 States' rights as their defense. The other party, who had 
 first in the name of States' rights resisted the authority 
 of the national government and prevented the execution 
 of its laws, claimed for it not only supreme power over 
 the States, but the right to destroy these States by war, 
 and to build on their ruins a military despotism. 
 
 Knowing full well that neither in the Constitution of 
 the United States, nor in the history of American demo- 
 cracy, could even the shadow of a pretext be found to 
 justify this monstrous perversion of the legitimate objects 
 of government, they publicly ignore both that Consti- 
 tution and that history, and set up as excuses to justify 
 their monstrous wrongs those pleas which tyrants and 
 despots have used for six thousand years to justify their 
 robberies and plunderings of mankind. They declare 
 that, by the right of subjugation and conquest, they- have 
 acquired the power to make millions of their fellow-men 
 subserve their own purposes ; that they have thus ac- 
 quired the right to use their lives, their liberties, and their 
 property to serve their interest and their pleasure. 
 
 Could anything be more repugnant to the genius of 
 American liberty than this ? Could anything be more at 
 war with the spirit of Christianity, which was the mother 
 of American liberty? Here is a little community of five 
 persons ; three quarrel with two, and because they have 
 the power they beat them. Now, because we three have 
 
TEE SECOND WITNESS, ' II5 
 
 the power to overcome you two and to beat you, there- 
 fore have we a right to take your property, ay, your very 
 lives; so that hereafter, if you are permitted to have 
 any property or even to live, you will owe it to our grace 
 and favor. These three do first commit a crime against 
 God, and against all right notions of justice, by beating 
 and trampling their fellow-men under their feet ; and then 
 they use this crime as a justification of the other crime 
 of robbing them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness. Such are the notions of government boldly pro- 
 mulgated by that great moneyed power which to-day 
 rules this country. How different are they from those 
 principles which our fathers proclaimed to the world 
 when they founded the American democracy ! 
 
 "Might makes right" is the law which governs this 
 country to-day. To answer the purposes of this mon- 
 strous usurpation, the very forms of American liberty 
 must die; the States must be blotted out, and military 
 satrapies built upon their ruins. The white man must 
 be disinherited of his birthright to life, liberty, and the 
 pursuit of happiness. In tea of the States the negro 
 must be organized into a great political power, governed 
 by the military satraps and carpet-bag spies, the agents 
 of this great usurpation to perpetuate its power. The 
 national debt must be doubled, and interest paid in 
 gold. The annual expenses of the government must 
 be run up to five hundred millions a year (instead of 
 twenty millions as it was in Washington's day), in order 
 that the power of this bondautocracy may be supreme. 
 The millions of working men must w^ork harder and live 
 harder, in order that this upstart aristocracy may live in 
 gilded pomp and in glorious splendor. Ay ! the wives 
 and daughters of the laboring people must shiver in their 
 scanty clothes, in order that the wives and daughters of 
 the bondantocracy may gild their drunken, licentious 
 revelries with silks and jewels and diamonds costing- 
 thousands and tens of thousands of dollars. That the rich 
 may live in princely palaces, the poor must be crammed 
 into garrets and cellars, slaves of filth and crime. 
 
 But this mammon, this money-god, don't know what 
 it is doing ; it don't know what manner of people it is 
 
116 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 trifling with ; it don't know the character of tlje people 
 whom it is wronging, robbing, and insulting ; it don't seem 
 to know that the people it is trying to m.ake slaves of 
 have the power in their own hands ; it don't seem to know 
 that tlie liberties of this country were born of Chris- 
 tianity ; it don't seem to know that its mission, its des- 
 tiny, is, not only to destroy oppression in America, but 
 by the influence of its example to overturn the tyranny 
 of the world ; it don't seem to know that its usurpations 
 and wrongs are waking up that fierce spirit of liberty ; 
 it don't seem to know that that spirit will presently blow 
 over the country and sweep it like a besom of destruction 
 to ruin ; it don't seem to see these dark clouds hanging 
 there, ominous of the coming storm, — a storm which will 
 destroy not only aristocracy, but all those institutions 
 which have been built as bulwarks to defend aristocracy. 
 Priestcraft, which for eighteen hundred years has 
 united with the political power to rob mankind of the 
 rights and liberties and happiness offered to him by Chris- 
 tianity, must perish. Political factions, which have been 
 the tools of great aristocratic powers, to flatter, cajole, 
 humbug and force men to be their slaves, must perish. 
 Banks and big manufacturing establishments, and whisky 
 distilleries, and railroad and canal companies, and indeed 
 every money-monopoly which serves to build up and 
 maintain aristocrac}-, must die. Falsehood, with all her 
 institutions, all her customs, must be driven out of the 
 world, and Truth must live and rule and reign. God, 
 and not mammon, must be our God. The Bible, and not 
 the theologies of the Pharisees, must be our religion. 
 Virtue, and not vice, must be our practice. And then, 
 and not till then, will we reap with glad hearts the 
 harvest of liberty, and peace, and universal prosperity. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. IH 
 
 THE THIRD WITNESS. 
 
 She was a woman ; and her face was pale and care- 
 worn ; it looked as if sorrow had plowed many a deep 
 furrow there. She said her mother was a good woman ; 
 she taught her from her infancy to read the word of God 
 and revere its truths. 
 
 When, said she, I grew up to be a woman, I married. 
 What a bright day was that for me ! A new world burst 
 upon my mind". Henceforth would I be loved and 
 cherished as a wife, revered and honored as a mother ; 
 I would have troubles, too, no doubt ; but what are 
 troubles to the patience, the constancy, and truth of a 
 woman's soul ! What will not that soul do and suffer as 
 long as it is lit up by the smiles of one she loves, cheered 
 by his confidence and sustained by his truth ? To toil is 
 sweet ; to bend over the couch of sickness, to hear and 
 feel its every groan, to guard it with sleepless eyes 
 through the long tedious watches of the night, to antici- 
 pate and minister to its least wants, to alleviate the 
 slightest pain that disturbs its fitful slumbers, all, all these 
 things will she do with pleasure, so long as he to whom 
 she has plighted her vows of love and obedience cherishes 
 that love, and proves himself worthy of it. 
 
 My husband too was a good man, noble and true. 
 How beautiful were the early days of our love ! I 
 thought our happiness was full. But how did it run over 
 in gushing tears of joy, when I presented him with our 
 first little cherub-boy! As he gazed with manly pride 
 upon this little nngel which God had sent to us, to be, as 
 we then fondly believed, a pledge of our perpetual union 
 and unchanging love, a tear stole unconsciously from 
 those bright eyes, albeit they were unused to the weep- 
 ing mood. Oh, what would I give to be able to call back 
 those halcyon days, — but one of those days even, — for 
 it Would be an oasis in the desert of life ! 
 
US THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 But the devil cnme into our little Eden, as be had done 
 into the paradise-of old. But he did not come to woman, 
 as he did before. The devil knew better, and man knows 
 better too, than to put upon our sex the crimes and follies 
 of the present generation. He came, too, in the form of 
 a serpent ; for what can be more like that subtle, cunning 
 reptile, than a canting, hypocritical priest, who has put 
 on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. To make 
 us in any way responsible for the wickedness of the pres- 
 ent age is only a lie, which the devil has put into the 
 mouth of man to excuse his own blame. Mother Eve 
 first sinned, it is true ; but because of that sin God made 
 her the dependent and servant of man. The Creator 
 subjected us to his will and authority, in order that 
 we might not have it in our power even to cause man to 
 sin again. There is not this day in the whole world one 
 single solitary woman who is not subject to the influence 
 and control of some man. It may not be her husband ; 
 for be it said, to man's shame, that many a woman has 
 plighted her love and obedience to a man who is not 
 worthy of either. Ay, many a woman has a husband 
 who is not worthy of her respect even. 
 
 Yes, the preachers who teach us our notions of right 
 and wrong, and whom we believe and trust because they 
 come to us as the prophets of God, the apostles of Chris- 
 tianity, are often the devil's ministers for seducing, cor- 
 rupting, and debauching the world. For hundreds of 
 years they have taught the people their religion ; and as 
 a people's religion is, so will be their moral, social, and 
 political affairs. Anybody who will think for one moment 
 will understand this truth. Had every minister of the 
 gospel, so-called, and every religious newspaper, based 
 all their moral teachings upon this simple, plain com- 
 mandment of our Saviour, — " Love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself," it would 
 have saved us from ninety-nine hundredths of the crimes 
 and follies which this generation has committed. It 
 would have spared us, too, ninety-nine hundredths of the 
 sorrows and sighs which we have endured. 
 
 But, instead of the commandments of God, they have 
 taught us abolitionism, which means in plain English to 
 
HIE llllRD WITNESS. 119 
 
 hate our neij^hbors of the South ; mesmerism and spirit- 
 ualism, which are infidelity ; turning away from the ways 
 of God to hold communion with devils and wicked spirits ; 
 free-loveism and womanism, which are only fine names 
 for adultery and fornication ; Maine liquor laws, temper- 
 ance laws, and whisky-tax bills, which put it in the power 
 of sharpers and swindlers to make whisky and sell it with- 
 out paying any tax on it at all ; the weak and the igno- 
 rant, who make the attempt and are caught, pay the 
 tax for all. These boasted reform-laws have other beauties 
 which ought to be mentioned. They give to the cold- 
 blooded, avaricious creatures who devised them, the 
 privilege of drinking their toddies and juleps behind the 
 door, and thus save them the cost of treating their 
 guests, — a thing which it is pleasant for a warm heart and 
 generous hospitality to do. 
 
 One other merit these modern reform-laws,* so-called, 
 have, which ought in a special manner to recommend them 
 to the masses of the people, that vast majority who make 
 their living by the sweat of their brow. 'Tis true, some 
 abolition member of Congress calls them "poor white 
 trash ;" but even if they are, they ought to be pitied and 
 not robbed ; indeed, they ought to be pitied. Woman as 
 I am, I pity and despise them too. For, whilst they are 
 boasting of their equality and manhood suffrage, their 
 masters at Washington, when they deign to notice tiiem 
 at all (they are so much occupied with the negro that 
 they scarcely ever think of them), call them " poor white 
 trash." At the same time they are placing on their backs 
 burdens to be carried for an upstart aristocracy, which 
 even mules would kir;k against. This fact ought, I say, 
 to recommend these laws to the people at large ; it makes 
 the whisky business a vast smuggling operation, which 
 can only be carried on by men who have money ; it puts 
 it in the power of these moneyed swindlers to sell the 
 poor man his dram at their own prices; ay, it almost 
 puts it out of the power of the honest, sober, and indus- 
 trious laborer to buy whisky enough for medicine in his 
 family, and yet it does not save the drunkard, poor as a 
 beggar though he be, from its curse and its ruin. p]ver 
 since the establishment of governments among men, the 
 
120 ^V/A' GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 world has been cursed bv moneyed despotisms in some 
 shape or other ; but never has aristocracy assumed so 
 hideous a shape, or stooped so low. 
 
 The next religion these preachers taught us was war 
 and plunder, the legitimate fruits of their pious infidelity. 
 Indeed, this was only another form which they gave to 
 "the unknown god" whom they have taught us ignor- 
 antly to worship. One half of our once-happy and 
 prosperous country a heap of ruins ; hundreds of thou- 
 sands of Northern freemen, so-called, bought up for less 
 prices per head than the negroes they went to liberate 
 were selling for, and sent forth to suffer, to bleed and die 
 upon a hundred battle-fields ; a government more des- 
 potic and more expensive than that of Russia ; a public 
 debt which will curse the laboring classes of this country, 
 their children, and their children's children, with poverty 
 and degradation ; to crown all, an aristocracy the mean- 
 est and lowest, the most heartless and unfeeling, the most 
 corrupting and demoralizing, the most wicked and damn- 
 ing, which has ever cursed the world. All other aris- 
 tocracies have had some redeeming traits of character: 
 they had age, which gave them dignity and politeness, 
 wisdom, which gave them virtue and propriety, a histori- 
 cal name, which led them to practice the virtues of their 
 fathers; some idea of a God and some regard for the vir- 
 tues which represent the attributes of his character ; and, 
 among all the aristocracies I have ever heard of or read 
 about, cowardice has been justly held in supreme contempt. 
 
 Turn from this, and take a look at our aristocracy. 
 The priest, the politician, the bondautocrat, our masters, 
 are upstarts, born but yesterday as it were ; they have 
 no parentage, or if they have they are ashamed to own 
 it; many of them creatures who were cast upon the 
 world by chance, and driven by the cold heartlessness of 
 an age utterly devoid of benevolence to steal in their 
 childhood to keep from starving. Their proficiency in 
 these little stealings, adroitly done inside the forms of 
 devilish laws made for their protection, after awhile 
 recommended them to political charlatans, to financial 
 and commercial gamblers, who have had the control of 
 this country for years. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 121 
 
 Through the influence of these sharpers they have 
 been enabled gradually to extend their thieving opera- 
 tions, until they have acquired absolute control over all 
 the affairs of the country. Proficiency in the art of 
 lying pointed them out as eminently fit to do the dirty 
 work of angry political factions. Proficiency in the arts 
 of lying and stealing were the qualifications necessary 
 for them to take the places of those whose financial tricks 
 and commercial frauds had made them merchant-princes 
 of the country. Proficiency in all the arts of hypocrisy 
 make them fit ministers of these^^cclesiastical despot- 
 isms which in the name of God and Christ, like the 
 Pharisees of old, compass heaven and earth to make one 
 proselyte, and when he is made they make him two-fold 
 more the child of the devil than themselves. 
 
 Many are ready to answer me on this wise : These 
 men, whom you are abusing, deserve to be honored. 
 They started poor, and got rich ; they started poor, and 
 got to be successful preachers and politicians. Yes, you 
 have honored them ; you've honored the politician to your 
 country's ruin ; you've honored financial and commercial 
 gamblers until the toiling millions, once the proud demo- 
 cracy of America, have become the serfs of an upstart bond- 
 autocracy ; you have honored a hypocritical priesthood 
 until they have built up a vast ecclesiastical despotism, 
 by which they exact from you tithes of mint, cummin, 
 and anise, whilst the weightier matters of the law, judg- 
 ment and mercy and faith, are utterly forgotten. The 
 people have been in the hands of their masters, the 
 priests and politicians, so long, that they do not seem to 
 think for themselves any more at all ; they have forgot- 
 ten that they have either minds or souls. Some of these 
 days they will wake up : it may be when it is too late ; 
 it may be when the politician has riveted their chains, 
 and when the priest has left them, without a hope, shiver- 
 ing upon the banks of the dark river of death. Will 
 their ignorance break their shackles, or will it bridge that 
 dark river which not even a spirit from heaven, mucii 
 less a spirit from earth, can cross without a bridge ? 
 
 I look around me and see a hundred men whom I 
 saw start out in the world together. Out of these, three 
 F 11 
 
122 TilE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 have been successful : one as a priest, one as a politician, 
 and one as a money-tyrant. I knew them all when they 
 were boys. The first was what is called a good boy, a 
 boy of rather a timid disposition and considerable rever- 
 ence ; his timidity kept him from those little bad mis- 
 chievous things which other boys did; a good deal of 
 pride led him to make good use of his time in stud}^ 
 These qualities recommended him to the church as one 
 who would likely make a good agent; they took him up, 
 and educated him for the ministry. He was not a Chris- 
 tian, but as he was destined to be a Christian minister he 
 had to assume an air of sanctity and observe the cere- 
 monies and sacraments ; hence at the very outset he com- 
 menced a big game of hypocrisy. By the time he got 
 through the theological schools, where all the requisite 
 qualifications are taught, — even the solemn tone of voice, 
 the grave face, and a punctual attendance upon the ex- 
 ternal duties of a churchman, — he was a bigoted Pharisee. 
 
 As he was utterly ignorant of the spirit of Christianity, 
 he at first took up the theology of the church and taught 
 that. Being skilled in logic, rhetoric, and other tricks of 
 popular oratory, he gathered into the church a good many 
 churchmen, but precious few Christians. But religion 
 must be something more than a belief, something more 
 than a simple assent of the mind ; certain acts must be 
 done, to represent its good deeds ; a faith without works 
 is dead. As he had never repented, it could hardly be 
 expected that he, like the Master whom he only professed 
 to serve, would go about doing good, opening the eyes of 
 the blind, unstopping the ears of the deaf, and preaching 
 the gospel to the poor; it could hardly be expected of 
 such a one that he would go out into the highways and 
 hedges to the lame, the halt, and the blind. 
 
 But there are things he can do, even if he is not a Chris- 
 tian. He can preach big sermons, garnish them with words 
 of human wisdom, attract the attention of the rich and 
 great, build a larger and finer church, get up organs, 
 choirs, and other pretty things to entertain and amuse his 
 hearers. He organizes Sunday-schools, Bible societies, 
 theological schools, temperance societies, abolition soci 
 eties, mesmerisms, spiritualisms, and many others, which 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 133 
 
 are all human. iaventions, very well calculated to bniW 
 up and extend the power of the church as a political and 
 social organization. He makes the conditions of mem- 
 bership easy, that is, acceptable to the carnal mind : the 
 member must assent to his notions of theology, attend 
 upon all the observances of the church ; he must pay the 
 priest a good salary ; he must patronize all the auxiliary 
 societies of the church ; in a word, he must pay tithes of 
 mint, cummin, and anise; he must not swear out loud, 
 and must not take a dram nnless it be behind the door. 
 If he will do these things punctually, he has a full and 
 free indulgence to practice all those artifices and frauds 
 which avarice has devised to trap the unwary, to cheat 
 the ignorant, and to trample under foot the weak. 
 
 I have often wondered at their irreconcilable hatred to 
 wine. Is it because it stirs up in the bosom of mankind 
 social feelings, and .excites warm and generous senti- 
 ments ? Is it because it leads men, even those who are 
 not Christians, to spend their money freely ? to pay the 
 laborer better wages, to give to the needy, and to help 
 those who are sinking under the accumulated burdens of 
 misfortune ? But if money were spent for all of these 
 foolish things, where would enough come from to gild 
 with regal splendor the pompous power of these ecclesi- 
 astical despotisms ? Where would enough come from to 
 enable them, in conjunction with political usurpations 
 and social frauds called bondautocracies, to beggar and to 
 enslave the great masses of the people ? Or is it because 
 wine and social parties have a great tendency to make 
 people candid ? Is it because hypocrisy, the great pillar 
 which supports modern phariseeism, miscalled the church, 
 fears anything which makes people frank and outspoken? 
 
 The boy wiio made the politician was a genial sunny- 
 tempered fellow. His perceptions were quick, his speech 
 ready and witty ; he was not a hard student, but picked 
 up a heap of superficial knowledge without much study ; 
 he played truant, but never got whipped, for he always 
 had ready a lie which bore so strong a resemblance to the 
 truth that the master could never make up his mind about 
 his guilt ; so, being bound by law to give him the benefit 
 of a doubt, he always went scot-free. Political factions 
 
'IM THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 were not long taking the cue of this young man. As the 
 party his father belonged to was in the minority in his 
 district, the other faction proffered him an office to recant 
 the political faith in which he had been educated and to 
 come over to them. This was not hard to do, since the 
 public sentiment of the country honors a poor boy who 
 wins money or popularity, without regard to the means 
 he uses. Thus does the moral sense of the country en- 
 courage him to begin life by an act. of treason to his 
 former friends and to his own convictions of right. 
 
 The boy who made the bondautocrat was one of those 
 cold phlegmatic fellows who never play like other boys. 
 When he did join in their sports he was always in 
 earnest. When he played marbles he always played 
 "for keeps;" he studied the game and understood it 
 thoroughly; he could halloo "kicks," " no kicks," "knuckle 
 down," quicker than any other boy; he always took 
 "everies," but never permitted any other boy to do it; 
 he never played with a boy who was a match for him in 
 dexterity ; he always played, too, with boys who were 
 smaller than himself, so that if any dispute arose which 
 could not be settled in a friendly way the odds were 
 always on his side; when he got his pockets full of 
 marbles, he would sell out to some thoughtless, careless, 
 free-hearted boy, who did not have the ready cash, but was 
 willing to give two prices in order to get a short credit. 
 
 As a man, he makes sharp bargains with the ignorant; 
 and when they ojyect because they do not understand 
 them, he calls upon the law, whose fundamental maxim 
 is; that everybody knows all its quillets and quiddets, 
 its ten thousand disingenuous tricks and villainous so- 
 phistries. He sells to a foolish man a piece of land or 
 other real estate at two prices, persuading* him to sell all 
 the little property he has on hand, to make the first pay- 
 ment. When the next payment becomes duf^ he puts it 
 up to be sold for cash, buys it in for half what he sold it at, 
 and sells whatever other little propert}^ the poor man 
 may have, to pay the expenses of the transaction. This 
 bondautocrat is, too, a bigoted churchman, a class-leader, 
 elder, deacon, or something else in the church of the priest 
 just described. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 1,25 
 
 I reraeraber once during harvest-time he stood in the 
 field and counted the hours which were lost by his work- 
 hands on account of little showers from passing clouds; 
 yea, while the Father of mercies was giving drink to the 
 thirsty ground, and cooling the parched and stagnant air 
 with refreshing showers, this phylacteried Pharisee, worse 
 than a heathen, was robbing the poor laborer of his hire, 
 thus converting the healing shower which God had sent 
 to purify the air, sick of stagnant heat, into a curse. I 
 remember one of his laborers was a cripple. It took him 
 longer to get to a sheltering tree out of the shower, and 
 a little longer to get back to his work, than the other 
 hands. These minutes were reckoned in the settlement, 
 although he had hired the cripple for half wages and he 
 was a brother member of the same church. 
 
 Another time he lectured his son sharply for spending 
 a day enjoying the pleasures of a social party. " See," 
 he added, to make the grave lecture more impressive, 
 "see what you have lost by it. While you were frolic- 
 ing and spending money foolishly, John Grabb (a neigh- 
 bor bondautocrat's son) was, like a good boy and dutiful 
 son, attending to business. He bought Joe Careless's 
 cow for sixteen dollars, and she is well worth twenty-six. 
 He bought Simon Simple's horse for sixty-seven dollars, 
 and he is well worth a hundred." These were the last 
 cow and the last horse of two poor neighbors, sold under 
 the hammer to meet the heartless demands of some brother 
 bondautocrat. 
 
 These, however, are only little rustic games played by 
 the unsophisticated money tyrants in the country ; they 
 are mere child's play to the gigantic schemes of plunder 
 and oppression carried on by the manufacturing, finan- 
 cial, and commercial robbers in the cities. These don't 
 have crippled ignorant laborers — Simon Simple and Joe 
 Careless — working for them at half wages, but thou- 
 sands of intelligent mechanics and clerks ; yea, men who 
 in mind and moral character are their superiors, men who 
 are unequal to them only in the arts of lying and stealing, — 
 the pre eminent qualifications for amassing great fortunes. 
 
 These are the poor men who have become rich and 
 great ; these are the men whom the people delight to 
 
 11* 
 
12^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 honor; and their gilded pomp and power, built upon 
 the graves of their honor and upon the ruins of their 
 liberties, are the gods they worship. The preacher has 
 their souls in his keeping, and makes them pay well for 
 preparing them for the devil. The bondautoerat fixes 
 their social position, and makes them pay him hand- 
 somely for making them the mud-sill of society. The 
 politician amuses them as if they were children with 
 such baubles as universal suffrage, while he sells them 
 out a dozen times a year to the lobby agents of the bond- 
 autocracy. The church, with its massive walls of granite, 
 brick, or marble, — its simplicity often marred by the 
 gaudy and out-of-place ornaments which an ignorant and 
 perverted taste has hung about it, awkward and ill-con- 
 structed State-houses, wretched mimicries of regal splen- 
 dor, but like it only in reckless and extravagant cost, for 
 they were built by contractors in partnership with their 
 political masters, — these, with their priestly ceremonies 
 and their political hobbies, are the gods they worship. 
 The palatial residences of the bondautocracy, with a whole 
 train of showy, fashionable fooleries, come in for a full 
 share of their adoration, whilst the God in whose hands 
 their breath is, and whose are all their ways, have they 
 not glorified. When I see millions whose birthright 
 was a pure Christianity with honor and truth, whose heri- 
 tage was liberty, — men whom God created in his own 
 image and called his sons, — serving such masters, and 
 worshiping such gods, I thank my God that I am a 
 woman ; weak and friendless as I am, 1 would not be the 
 servant of such despicable slaves. 
 
 But I said I knew a hundred persons who started out 
 in life together. What has become of the other ninety- 
 seven ? They are the slaves I have been describing.— 
 slaves of these petty upstart aristocracies, — worshipers 
 of idols. Never did heathens worship such idols; for 
 even when they worship gods of wood and stone they 
 3ndowthem with some imaginary virtues. These ecclesi- 
 astical despotisms have become the symbol of hypocrisy, 
 politics the synonym of lying, the bondautocracy a big- 
 cancer upon the body politic; and the whole body must 
 be eaten up to feed this filthy sore. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 12*7 
 
 When I bear these same slaves and idol worshipers 
 prating about freedom and universal suffrage, I don't 
 know whether to laugh at their ignorance or to weep for 
 their crimes. What is their boasted freedom ? A right to 
 vote, a right to serve political factions, a right to change 
 masters, a right to choose as their master a vulgar clown 
 who had won some reputation as a rail-splitter, which 
 recommended him to a mad political faction as a good 
 entering wedge to split the Union with ; the right to 
 choose a drunken tailor, who won some notoriety by 
 deserting his own country and people and by helping a 
 mad faction destroy it. lie has won more of the same 
 kind of notoriety by permitting the same run-mad factions 
 to use him as a tool to destroy the dignity and power 
 of an office once held by a Washington and a Jackson. 
 
 They will have the privilege of changing masters again 
 soon. Will they select one who has a reputation as a 
 butcher of cattle, or one who won fame as a butcher of 
 men ? What a wonderful privilege it is to vote! How 
 long would it take these same men to teach their horses 
 and dogs to vote ? And after the voting was over they 
 could go back, the dog to his kennel, and the horse to 
 his dray, like their masters. How often have they not 
 voted ? Are they any the less the politician's fool and 
 the bondautocrat's slave ? They vote for equality, and 
 they are the mud-sill of a heartless moneyed aristocracy. 
 They vote freedom, and drudge along under burdens of 
 debt and taxation such as an Arab's camel wouldn't bear. 
 Why, they might have all these luxuries without voting. 
 The people of Austria don't vote, and yet they live in 
 the full enjoyment of the privileges which these people 
 seem to be so proud of. Even the semi-barbarous negroes 
 of the South will not thank them for this boon of freedom 
 when they come to find out what it is. To them it will 
 only be the privilege of working harder for harder masters. 
 
 But these tyrants know what they are doing, if their 
 slaves don't. They saw their white slaves growing rest- 
 less under the weight of accumulating burdens. They 
 began to be a little afraid that their patience, though equal 
 to that of a mule, would wear out. For fear that those of 
 them who have a little spirit left would kick against the 
 
128 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 new wrongs which they are about to saddle on them, for 
 fear some of them, retaining some recollection of the an- 
 cient democracy of America, and some veneration for its 
 noble founders who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and 
 their sacred honors to prevent a British king and a British 
 aristocracy from making slaves of them, — for fear, I say, 
 that some, urged by these sacred motives and hallowed 
 memories, would oppose the accursed design, which is 
 now forming, to do what the British king and British 
 aristocracy failed to do, — for fear that some of their white 
 slaves are not yet educated up to the grand purpose of 
 the progress and reform party, to seize the national gov- 
 ernment by means of the army, clothe its chief with regal 
 honors and make a hereditary nobility of the bonded aris- 
 tocracy, — they have provided negroes to vote in their 
 stead. These, no doubt, will be more tractable. No 
 doubt they will be able to make them vote right, through 
 the agency of their military satraps and carpet-bag spies. 
 
 That harlot too, which impudently calls herself the 
 church, is not only ready but impatient for the grand 
 finale. Already is she looking with lascivious eyes upon 
 the state. Already has one assignation been held. Al- 
 ready is conceived, in the womb of that vile whore, the 
 hideous monster which is to destroy the democracy of 
 America and build a despotism on its ruins. Infidelity, 
 in any shape or form, is horrible enough : it means moral, 
 social, political death. But infidelity, springing from the 
 loins of political usurpation and from the womb of phari- 
 seeism, who can describe its monstrous proportions? 
 Whose virtue will be safe from its slimy touch ? Whose 
 innocence will save them from its indiscriminate and 
 bloodthirsty revenge, and whose justice will shield them 
 from its rapacious greed of plunder? This infidel god 
 of modern Pbariseeisra is never done changing : as fast 
 as the people get a little used to one horrible shape, he 
 assumes another. 
 
 This devil (that is its true name), having reduced man, 
 comes to tempt woman. He uses man, or creatures 
 styling themselves men, to accomplish his diabolical de- 
 signs. He goes first to the preacher, a fit tool to do his 
 dirty work; for he is either an infidel, prating hypocriti- 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 129 
 
 cally about religion, or, what is worse, a Pharisee 
 wrapped securely in the mantle of bijjoted sdf-riyhte- 
 ousness. The latter was the kind of sub-devil used to 
 destroy our once happy famil3^ He taught my hus- 
 band to be a negro worshiper first. Then came the 
 grand hifalutiu clap-trap of spiritualism. Gradually ray 
 husband was won over to these new religions and strange 
 gods. 
 
 As a dutiful and faithful wife, I went with him. Ruth 
 was one of the models my parents had taught me to 
 pattern after; 1 determined that beautiful sentiment of 
 Ruth, " Whither thou goest, I will go ; thy people shall 
 be my people, and thy God my God," should regulate my 
 conduct towards my husband. Little did I thnik that he 
 would carry me into the deserts of infidelity, and teach 
 me to worship the simooms as gods. What a difference 
 there is between the infidel gods — those gods which man 
 creates for our worship — and that God who made the 
 heavens and earth, the seas, and fountains of water. The 
 nearer we approach the Almighty the more do we tremble 
 at his power, and bow down to worship his wisdom ; mor- 
 tality dare not gaze upon his unveiled glory, lest it die; 
 even through the created universe, which hangs like a 
 cloud about his throne, we see the I am, the God from ever- 
 lasting to everlasting, the same yesterday, to-day and for- 
 ever; but familiarity with the idols of infidels begets 
 contempt. Hence it was that the heathens had so many 
 gods ; hence it is, modern infidelity has to invent so many 
 new ones. 
 
 The one whose worship proved fatal to our happiness 
 was the hideous monster called woman's rights. Free- 
 dom in its modern sense means the right of every man 
 and every woman to do as he or she pleases ; this at 
 least is the pretty theory. This, I say, is the theory, 
 the philosophy so called. But how will everybody secure 
 this precious privilege to do as he pleases? Why, wise 
 philosophers of progress and reform, so called, have found 
 out that if you will take a little bit of paper and write 
 some rascal's name on it, called politician, and write some 
 fool's name — your own for instance — on the back of it, 
 and put it into a little box called the ballot-box, that ever 
 
130 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 after you will be perfectly free to do just as you please; 
 this is Uae pretty theory, Tiie practice is slightly differ- 
 ent; it fixes a condition which doesn't appear in- the 
 theory. The practice is the same, with this slight and 
 unimportant difference : everybody can do as he pleases, 
 if he has the power. 
 
 Foi"* instance, he can have fine horses and carriages, 
 and go in great style, if he is 7'ich ; he can work when 
 he pleases, and play when he pleases, if he has the means 
 to keep it up ; be can travel over the world, and see its 
 wonders, if he has the money to pay his way ; he can 
 support his wife like a lady, if he can pay the expenses ; 
 he can move in the first circles, so called, and be on terms 
 of equality with the elite of fashionable society, if they 
 will let him; he can make his family comfortable and 
 happy, if he works hard, — if he gets good wages, and if 
 he does not have to pay out a large portion of his wages 
 to bolster up the tyranny of a corrupt and wasteful usurpa- 
 tion, miscalled government ; if he doesn't have to pay 
 out another portion to nourish a greedy, debauched, and 
 licentious bondautocracy, and still another portion to feed 
 a hypocritical hireling priesthood. 
 
 I see men vote, and their task-masters impose on them 
 additional burdens. I see men vote, and their rich lords 
 pass them by with as much contempt as if they were not 
 tit to untie their shoes. I see men vote, and toil year in 
 and year out for wages hardly sufficient to keep soul 
 and body together. I see men vote, and sell themselves 
 to substitute-buyers, to go to shambles of death, — aye, sell 
 themselves for lower prices than the negro slaves were 
 selling for, whom they went to set free. I see men vote, 
 and their wives sent adrift upon the world to shift for 
 themselves. I see men vote, and their children driven by 
 that most inexorable slave-driver, necessity, to steal. I 
 have seen men, who got rich under the forms of devilish 
 laws and wicked customs, send these friendless children 
 of necessity to prison-cells, to expiate their crimes. I see 
 men vote, and their pretty daughters, protected by no 
 law, — for there is no human law to protect them, and 
 divine laws are forgotten, — driven for refuge to those 
 houses of shame around which infamy draws her cur- 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 131 
 
 tains forever. These are the precious privileges now offered 
 to woman in the name of woman's rights. 
 
 Our preacher wheedled my husband, who was a mem- 
 ber of his church, into it. This was not hard to do; he 
 had already led him from the pleasant ways of Cliris- 
 tianity into the dark uncertain ways of unbefief; ah-eady 
 was our little bark adrift upon the black tide of infidelity'; 
 faith in God, the magnet of its course, was gone; already 
 too had he drifted out of sight of those beacon lights 
 which revelation has set upon the rocky shores of doubt. 
 In our extremity we were willing to put into any harbor. 
 My husband took with the thing directly; nor was he 
 long in persuading me to it. Indeed, my husband was a 
 changed man ; his conduct towards me was very differ- 
 ent from what it bad been. I felt indeed that we could 
 not long avoid a collision. 
 
 It was a pleasant thought to me to be placed on terms 
 of equality with him. If quarrels should come, and I 
 knew they would, I would then be able to defend my- 
 self To be equal to my husband, — 'twas a happy thought. 
 Once it was not so. When he was a good man, I was 
 proud to look up to him as my superior. I was most 
 happy then to know that under the protection of his 
 manhood, his truth and his honor, my virtue, my beauty, 
 yea, even my frailties, were secure. But now that he 
 had brcome a bad man, an infidel, I felt that I needed 
 some oilier protection. I did not know then that de- 
 ceitful bait was intended for my bane ; I did not see the 
 poison hid under the sugar on top; but since have I 
 tasted its bitterness, and my soul has been convulsed by 
 its deadly spasms. 
 
 My husband came home one day angry and fretful. I 
 had been educated to patience and obedience, and thought 
 it would be better to wait for some special provocation 
 before asserting my newly-acquired rights ; then would I 
 let him know, once for all, that I was his equal. The 
 desired moment had come. My husband, I discovered, 
 was drunk. I told him he must excuse me for the 
 evening : I could not keep a drunken man's company ; 
 I would occupy another room until he got sober. His 
 eyes glared upon me like the eyes of an angry beast, and 
 
132 TUE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 with an oath he dared me attempt it. Not doubting for 
 a moment the truth of my new religion, I started to exe- 
 cute my purpose. He seized me by the hair, knotted on 
 the back of my head, and jerked me to the floor. 
 
 I sprang- to my feet in a rage, exclaiming as I did so, 
 " I am your equal, sir. I will punish you for this wicked 
 conduct." I flew at him, and scratched his face with my 
 nails. With one blow he felled me to the floor, and 
 dragged me to the door as if I had been a child. He 
 opened the door, and, picking me up as if I had been a 
 chip, dashed me out, saying, as he did so, " Go, hunt com- 
 pany that will suit you." Ah, then I knew, — no, I knew 
 nothing. My brain was a whirlpool of madness, boiling 
 and foaming until I 'was blind. Whither would I go? 
 I thought of an old woman who lived in the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 When my husband first brought me to his home, this 
 old woman was a favorite friend. She often came to 
 our house, and we often visited her. Aunt Dorothy was 
 tt good old woman, kind, open-hearted, and sunny-tem- 
 pered ; her house was small, but neatly kept. I had often 
 consulted her about my housekeeping aff'airs, and she 
 could always give me good advice. After awhile we 
 began to get rich and to go more out into the world. We 
 then sought other associations; we went into the best 
 circles, so called ; Aunt Dorothy's simple old-fashioned 
 ways lost all attraction for me. We attended temperance 
 societies, spiritual rappings, abolition societies, woman's 
 righta' meetings, and so on. 
 
 Aunt Dorothy would not talk about these things ; and 
 when I v^ould force these subjects on her, she would 
 tell me plain out that she did not like them. She said 
 she did not like these new-fashioned religions, she "would 
 not worship these strange gods. She had read the Bible 
 all her life, but had never found any of those new notions 
 in it: it did indeed tell about strange gods, — idols which 
 men would make to worship, instead of the one living 
 and true God ; but it told us about these only to tell us 
 not to worship them. 
 
 She would say, " I am afraid these spirits people are 
 talking with are evil spirits; and then these new kind of 
 
THE THIRD WIT^i:SS. 133 
 
 preachers, abolitionists, try harder to make us hate the 
 white people of the South than to make us love the 
 negro. The Bible doesn't teach us to hate, but to love. 
 These abolitionists, who seem so much concerned for the 
 nej2^ro away off in the South, don't care much for the poor 
 white people here at home. I have always tried to lay 
 up a little out of my small earnings for the poor ; but I 
 never have half as much to spare as they need here at 
 home. I think we ought to make our own poor com- 
 fortable first, and then it will be time enough to attend 
 to other people. Indeed, I see men making a great ado 
 about these things, whose families are not as comfortable 
 as they might be; I see women, too, attending to them, 
 who don't attend to their own children as well as Chris- 
 tian mothers ought. As to the women voting, I think 
 they had better stay at home and attend to their families. 
 I think if they would train up their sons in the nurture 
 and admonition of the Lord, they might trust them to do 
 the voting ; if they would raise up their sons to be honor- 
 able, upright, and noble men, their daughters might trust 
 their rights to their care. I don't see that much good 
 comes of all this voting, anyhow: the men all vote, and 
 I don't see that they are any better off for it. 
 
 "When we started out in the world we were poor. My 
 husband had no vote, and yet we didn't have to work 
 any harder than poor people do nowadays; we lived a 
 heap better, too ; we did not have to pay such high taxes, 
 and then everything you had to buy wasn't so high. As 
 to equality, they talk so much about, there was not so 
 much difference between the rich and the poor then as there 
 is now. Poor people, if they were honest, were as well 
 received at rich people's houses as anybody ; if they were 
 not honest they were not well received anywhere, except 
 at jails and penitentiaries. People were a heap honester 
 then, too ; if anybody told you anything, you could set it 
 down as true; nowadays you can't believe anybody, nor 
 trust anybody ; then a man's word was better than 
 people's bonds are now. Nowadays the rich and poor 
 don't mix at all, society is all divided up into classes; 
 the class you've got to go into, — it doesn't depend upon 
 how much sense you've got, nor how much honor nor 
 
 12 
 
134 TJIK GREAT TIUAL. 
 
 virtue, but upon how much money you've got. In old 
 times the preachers were poor men, and went about doing 
 good; the poor had the gospel preached to them; the 
 poor, too, were comforted and cared for by Christians. 
 Now the preachers get big pay, they live among the rich 
 and preach for them ; the poor lie at the gate, like Lazarus 
 of old, begging for the crumbs which fall from their 
 tables. 
 
 " As the Bible religion doesn't suit men who are so 
 much in love with the riches and honors of this world, 
 the preachers have made these new religions and strange 
 gods to suit their rich paymasters. These strange gods 
 promise them a monopoly of the good things of this world, 
 and the highest happiness of heaven in the next. In the 
 times I speak of, rich men, who were at the top of society, 
 were such as were known to be sensible, honest, and 
 benevolent. Other people patterned after them ; if other 
 rich men wanted to be as much thought of and honored, 
 they had to use their means freely for benevolent pur- 
 poses, they had to be honest and kind. The poor who 
 didn't have the money to use had to imitate their honesty 
 and virtue. Nowadays the man who stands at the top 
 of society is the one who is richest, no matter how he 
 got his riches or how he spends them ; now the rich 
 spend their money, making a gaudy and foolish show, 
 these are the patterns for the people. 
 
 " Hence every bod}^ is in debt, everybody is gambling 
 to get rich, for if you are not rich you are nobody. If 
 these are the fruits of your new religion, I don't want 
 anything to do with them; I don't want to worship 
 strange gods, who send such curses upon the people for 
 blessings. With my religion, the little I have is enough 
 for me, with something to spare for those who are poorer 
 than I am. With these new religions those who have 
 the most are most eager to get more ; they tear down 
 their barns and build greater ; they say to themselves, 
 ' Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; eat, 
 drink, and be merry.' But then the dread summons comes, 
 ' Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.' 
 How hard it is for them to go who have so much to leave 
 behind ; for them who have laid up their treasures in 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 135 
 
 heaven it is easy to go. For he who cannot lie hath 
 said, * In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to 
 prepare a place for you; that where I am there ye may 
 be also.' " 
 
 I used to laugh at these sim})le, old-fashioned notions 
 of Aunt Dorothy ; but in my distress I thought of them. 
 I knew I could find shelter in her house. I found indeed 
 a kind welcome and much sympathy for my misfortune. 
 When I retired that evening I found a Bible lying on my 
 toilette. When I opened it this passage struck my eye : 
 " The way of transgressors is hard." Then did I under- 
 stand the cause of all our troubles. We had followed a 
 Pharisaical priesthood, and the cunningly devised words 
 of men's wisdom, instead of the word of God. The word 
 of God teaches as plainly as anything can that a woman's 
 proper place is to serve and obey man ; the curse was, — 
 Thy desire shall be unto man, and " he shall rule over 
 thee." The apostle's commandment to the Christian wife 
 is, — -Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, for 
 they are your head even as Christ is the head of the 
 church. 
 
 But common sense teaches us that man is physically, 
 intellectually, and morally our superior. This truth is 
 patent, so self-evident that it has never been called in 
 question except by infidelity. For six thousand 3'ears 
 the devil has been busy, trying to destroy the peace and 
 happiness of mankind ; every expedient his diabolical 
 ingenuity could invent has been tried. But, amid all the 
 vicissitudes of fortune which have attended man through 
 these long and" sorrowful years, the devil has never found 
 him so utterly debased and degraded before, as to be able 
 to persuade him to entertain a proposition so clearly and 
 unmistakably at war with his happiness. The most 
 ignorant barbarians with the lowest notions of God and 
 his truth, and the poorest systems of belief, are too wise 
 to be cheated by a fraud so palpable. 
 
 'Tis only in infidelity, wrapped in the mantle of conceit, 
 infidelity, babbling ignorantly about human reason, pro- 
 gress and reform, the nineteenth century, and such other 
 miserable twaddle, — 'tis only in infidelity the devil has 
 found a dupe weak and ignorant enough to accept this 
 
-136 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 bare-faced lie. It imposes on nobody else, not even 
 on children. In their idle gambols and childish sports 
 thej reject it. The little boy, though a year younger 
 than his little sister, asserts and maintains his natural 
 superiority ; where she pauses and trembles in their 
 childish adventures, he moves boldly and steadily on ; 
 they quarrel, he will not come her way. She can't pull 
 him, for he has twice her strength ; she can't bend that 
 masculine will, — it despises her threats, her taunts ; she 
 knows she's right, and yet she can't prevail. She feels 
 her weakness, her voice lowered to its softest key trem- 
 bles it out. And then, strange to tell, tiu'ough the tear 
 which steals to her eye, as if to veil the disgrace of his 
 defeat, she sees him quail, — she sees him bend. She feels 
 the warm grasp of his hand, she triumphs. truth, how 
 wonderful are thy untold mysteries 1 Even thy weakness 
 is strength ; even thy weakness is mightier than the 
 strength of an infidel philosophy. Poor human reason, 
 what pitiable exhibitions dost thou make of thyself! cut 
 loose from the Author of thy being, the bond of faith 
 which binds thee to Heaven broken, what art thou ? 
 
 "A friendless slave, a child without a sire, 
 Whose mortal life and momentary fire 
 Light to the grave his chance-created form, 
 As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm : 
 And when the gun's tremendous flash is o'er, 
 To night and silence sinks forever more." 
 
 Once only in his just anger did the Almighty give thee 
 up to thyself; once only did he take away from thee the 
 ten thousand invisible restraints which Beld thee back, 
 even when thou wast unconscious of them ; once only 
 did he permit thee to take unlimited power, and rule 
 absolutely. And well has the Christian world agreed 
 with one consent to call that brief reign " the Reign of 
 Terror." Invested with supreme command, with all the 
 vigor of youth, with all the power of logic, of eloquence, 
 of learning, of philosophy, to aid thee, thou couldst move 
 only one of the many springs of government, and that 
 was the spring of the guillotine, — to cut oflf the heads of 
 thy enemies first, and of thy friends afterwards. ^ 
 
 Not strong drink, not wine nor brandy, only human 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 137 
 
 blood, can slake the thirst of thy drunken debauch. Truth 
 gone, friendship gone, faith gone, man sees falsehood, 
 fiend, written on the face of his fellow-man; he trembles 
 to take the hand of proffered friendship, and when he 
 turns away a cold chill runs down his back to meet the 
 expected dagger ; every human soul is tortured" on the 
 rack of suspense; a vile strumpet is lifted to the chair of 
 state, and the revellers at reason's bacchanalian dance 
 worship ber as a goddess. But even revenge can drink 
 blood to excess : stupefaction comes on ; neither the cries 
 of their victims, nor the gurgling stream gushing from the 
 headless corpses, excites a pleasurable emotion. Little 
 children are seized and dashed into the river; a hellish 
 grin plays on the face of these brutish fiends, as the 
 drowning cry of their infant victims, mingling wMth the 
 surge of waters, greets their ears. God of the Bible, 
 God of the Christian, God of our fathers, deliver us, 
 deliver our country from the rule of this merciless 
 tyrant ! 
 
 But the people say there is no danger. No danger? 
 For many a people that siren sentence has sung the re- 
 quiem of their liberties. Let the people look around 
 them for one moment, and see what is going on, and then 
 say there is no danger. Let them look at the present 
 condition of their government, and then say there is no 
 danger. The chief executive office, once filled by a 
 Washington and a Jackson, abolished by legislative re- 
 strictions! the drunken tailor who disgraces it having 
 permitted a foul gang of usurpers to strip it of every 
 prerogative with which it was invested to protect the 
 States, to guard the liberties of the people, and to see 
 that no harm befalls the republic. The power of the 
 supreme judiciary paralyzed by the same jacobin con- 
 spirators, and by the servile complacency of its high 
 officers, the chief of whom, in expectation of a high 
 position of place and plunder from the jacobins, has re- 
 fused to publish decisions for fear it would damage his 
 prospects of personal preferment and political aggran- 
 dizement. The popular branch of the national Congress 
 seized and controlled by a trio of political scoundrels, 
 whose social life and moral character is a disgrace, — not 
 
 12* 
 
138 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 to the nineteenth century, for it is nothing but a deceitful 
 glare of infidel philosophy; not to the genius of civiliza- 
 tion, for it is nothing but the pompous show and glitter- 
 ing splendor of the golden gods which men worship, — 
 but to a people who profess the Christian religion, a 
 religion which teaches the highest morality and the 
 purest virtue ever revealed to mankind. 
 
 The chief of this villainous triple copartnership is our 
 modern Cyclops, '' Mon strum horrendum" — a horrid 
 monster, without shape, of huge proportions, and blind 
 in one eye, — one of those creatures whom nature has 
 disowned, and permitted beastliness to be written on his 
 face, — a dastard and a coward, who spent his time as a 
 soldier marauding and plundering, defrauding his gov- 
 ernment of captured property, oppressing and plundering 
 people whom other soldiers had conquered, even to their 
 spoons, and insulting defenseless women. 
 
 Another, a cold-blooded, cold-hearted lawyer, familiar 
 with all the low tricks and petty chicaneries which dis- 
 grace that profession. He stands convicted as the hire- 
 ling murderer of an innocent woman. 
 
 But how shall I speak of the third, the M^orst and 
 strongest of the conspirators? — that hulk of beastliness, 
 that living sore, that personified leprosy, which creeps 
 about the earth, poisoning everything its slime touches. 
 Lechery and licentiousness have taken possession of his 
 body, and a broken gall pours over his perverted mind a 
 black stream of revengeful hate. So debauched has his 
 physical being become th^t only the foul, rank stench of 
 a negro wench can move its passions; so blunted has his 
 mo.ral sense become that he has not hesitated to blas- 
 pheme Heaven by speaking of heaven's Prince — of him 
 who thought it not robbery to be equal with God — " as a 
 single individual." 
 
 Such are the usurpers who rule that body, for the rest 
 of the ruling faction, representatives of the people, so 
 called, do but open their mouths, catch the spittle of these 
 filthy tyrants, and sputter it over a degraded and insulled 
 people. Such are the rulers of that body, which was 
 once ruled by the 'winning eloquence of a Clay, the 
 sublime oratory of a Webster, and the convincing logic 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 139 
 
 of a Calhoun. Such are the masters of a people whose 
 servants those uoble men once were proud to be. Oh, 
 could we but see those times again, when great and good 
 men were proud to be the servants of the great democ- 
 racy of the western world ! the terror of kings and aris- 
 tocracies, who were trampling the rest of the world under 
 their feet, and an asylum for the friendless children of 
 earth ! 
 
 Then it was a matter of pleasure and of pride to attend 
 the meetings of the national Congress; to witness the 
 contest between intellectual giants struggling, not for 
 place, not for factions, not for plunder, but for the preser- 
 vation of the liberty, the religion, the justice, the truth, 
 which they had received from their fathers. There you 
 migiit see the chivalrous knight of Roanoke, proud, cold, 
 intellectual; and yet hiding under that cold exterior an 
 ardent love for his native State, and a love of liberty 
 stronger than his love of life. You might see him come 
 forth to the combat, his quiver hung carelessly about 
 him, filled with the arrows of pointed wit, bitter invective, 
 burning satire, and a scorn which shivered like the thun- 
 derbolt. How the flunkeys, placemen, parvenues, lobby- 
 agents of moneyed monopolies, and dirty spies of politi- 
 cal factions, shrank from the pointed finger of his ridicule, 
 and writhed under the lashings of his patriotic indigna- 
 tion ! There, too, you might see coming forth to meet 
 him, in the fair discussion of the legitimate questions of 
 political reform, the great tribune of the people, the sage 
 of Ashland, equally proud, equally imperious, but more 
 congenial and affable, equally ardent in his love of liberty 
 and in his devotion to the welfare of his country and the 
 happiness of the people. He, too, wields mighty weapons 
 of combat, — the magic arrow" of persuasion, the gleaming 
 sword of eloquence, and the great broadaxe of lofty, im- 
 passioned declamation. 
 
 There, too, you might see the great defender of the 
 Constitution pouring forth a stream of splendid oratory, 
 broad, deep, pure, pellucid. Like a mighty flood, and as 
 grand as the Falls of Niagara, it comes thundering down 
 upon the rock-built logic of the great defender of State 
 rights — that solid column of logic standing amid the 
 
140 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 dashing flood and boiling foam — like an Egyptian pyra- 
 mid in the sweeping surge of a thousand years. How 
 did the eye of its great builder flash with prophetic fire 
 when, kindled by the inspiration of a holy patriotism, it 
 looked down the future to this accursed day, and saw 
 bis native State, which he loved with a father's love, a 
 wretched dependency ruled by the military satraps of a 
 consolidated despotism! 
 
 Patriot sages, are you dead ? or do you still live? Do 
 you, like the genii of good, still hover around your 
 country? Oh, breathe upon your degenerate sons the 
 breath of fire which once kindled in their fathers an un- 
 dying love of truth, of virtue, of liberty, and country I 
 Oh, breathe upon them, that their souls may wake up 
 and break the shackles that bind them 1 
 
 Can it be that such children had such sires? Can the 
 children of such sires become, willingly, the tools of 
 despicable factions, whose only purpose is to plunder ? 
 the dupes of a hireling priesthood, who are willing to 
 cheat men out of heaven for the sake of a lucrative em- 
 ployment ? the slaves of an upstart aristocracy, who riot 
 in licentious excess, while the toiling millions lack the 
 comforts of life? Shades of the mighty dead, if you 
 can yet assume a visible shape, and walk upon the earth, 
 haunt the conspirators who are plotting their country's 
 ruin, and "push them from their stools." 
 
 Experimental philosophy may be a good thing to de- 
 termine the relations which difterent kinds of matter bear 
 to each other; but to use it to determine the relations 
 subsisting between God and man, and between man and 
 man, is a crime for which there can be no excuse and no 
 palliation. It puts to hazard the eternal happiness of 
 the human soul, and that, too, without a particle of 
 necessity for it. Those relations have been so firmly 
 fixed and so clearly defined by revelation, that only the 
 willfully ignorant can misapprehend them. Human 
 wisdom and human philosophy are a falsehood and a 
 cheat, — the miserable nostrums of quacks, which poison 
 thousands and cure nobody. They have never discovered 
 one single fact in morals. Cain tried it when he mur- 
 dered Abel, and the devil has kept innumerable agents at 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 141 
 
 work at it ever since. The result has always been the 
 same. An angry God says always to the guilty perpe- 
 trator of these infamous deeds, "Thy brother's blood 
 cries out to me from the ground," and fixes the mark of 
 his eternal displeasure upon the brow. 
 
 I have tried it, and only the grave can hide my shame. 
 
 Only in the deep, silent sleep of death can I forget mj 
 woe. If a false-hearted man can feel the pangs of re- 
 morse, and if they may be in proportion to his guilt, 
 what spectres of murdered innocence must haunt the 
 guilty conscience of the preacher who deceived me, and 
 the husband who deserted me ? My husband sued for 
 a divorce, which he easily obtained, he being required to 
 pay me a small annuity. Shortly afterwards, he was 
 married to a daughter of the hypocritical Pharisee whose 
 lies had broken the peace of a once happy family and 
 blasted its hope forever. 
 
 Equality and suffrage for women ! Nothing more 
 clearly shows the utter demoralization of the times than 
 this infamous proposition. Such a thing is both blas- 
 phemy against God and an insult to the nobler and 
 better instincts of human nature. Divested of all its 
 sophistry, the idea is revolting to every manly feeling, 
 and to every sentiment of modest propriety in the bosom 
 of woman. Man, made in the image of God ; man, 
 whom the Creator of the universe has called his son ; 
 man, whom the Almighty has invested with power and 
 authority to rule the earth and everything which lives 
 upon it ; man, who, when honest and upright, has been 
 justly styled the noblest work of God ; man, deluded by 
 the devil, cheated by a hireling priesthood, and enslaved 
 by an upstart bondocracy, makes this proposition to 
 woman : " We will make you our equals, we will endow 
 you with all the civil and political privileges which we 
 enjoy, upon these conditions : that you release us from 
 the obligations imposed upon us by nature and nature's 
 God, to shield your beauty, to guard your virtue, and 
 defend your frailty." 
 
 Woman, the creature of passion and emotion ; woman, 
 so strong in passion, so weak in physical strength ; 
 woman, so strong in love, so weak and erratic in judg- 
 
14-2 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 ment ; woman, so trusting, so confiding; woman, wbo 
 twines about man like the ivy, putting fortli a tliousand 
 tendrils of beauty, of gentleness, of patience, of faith, 
 of love, clinging closer to him when the storms of life 
 beat darkly round him, but who, when she has nothing 
 to cling to, falls, and oh, how low ! — beyond the reach of 
 mercy, and out of sight of hope ! woman to take care of 
 herself ! 
 
 And why not children, too? Since man wants to be 
 free from all responsibility to his kind, why not give 
 equality and suflfrage to children too, and let them take 
 care of themselves ? 'Tis true their little minds can 
 hardly yet comprehend a game of marbles ; but let them 
 vote once, and immediately this magical operation would 
 enable them to comprehend the game of life, with all 
 its villainies, its oppressions, its crimes, and its follies. 
 Let them vote, and at once their little hands would 
 grow strong to bear the burdens of debt, of taxation, 
 of oppression, and of wrong which I see men sinking 
 under. 
 
 Woman, so delicate, so frail, and yet so strong in the 
 very frailty of her beauty, to be dragged into the streets 
 to fisticuff' with the rabble rout who follow the heels of 
 political demagogues! Woman, the most beautiful flower 
 which blooms in the garden of life, to be transplanted to 
 the slough of political filth I Why don't you plant your 
 flowers out in the fields instead of in the gardens ? Be- 
 cause they need more careful attention ; they are not so 
 hardy as other plants ; they would be bruised and 
 broken ; they would perish. And yet woman, the pret- 
 tiest of all flowers to an honest, upright man, is to be 
 taken out of the family garden, where she blooms so 
 beautifully, and transplanted into the broad field of the 
 world. 
 
 Our country once had men, — the Washingtons, 
 Adamses, Henrys, Jeffersons, Hamiltons, Franklins, and 
 their noble compatriots, — men who were justly the pride 
 of their country and the admiration of the world ; men 
 who had the talent and heroism to defend their country 
 from the rule of the British aristocracy ; men who had 
 the wisdom, the virtue, and ability to organize, and put 
 
THE 111 nib WITNESS. 143 
 
 into operation, the most liberal and beneficent government 
 the world ever saw. These ^reat and good men never 
 thought of offering so base a proposition to their wives, 
 their mothers, and their daughters. No, no; their strong 
 arms and brave hearts were better security for the rights 
 of woman than this plaything called suffrage. By their 
 fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather figs of thistles, 
 or grapes of thorns ? Family quarrels, so frequent now- 
 adays, were scarcely heard of then. Divorces, which, 
 under this new religion, have become almost as common 
 as marriages, were of the rarest occurrence. Abortions 
 and child-murders, which seem to be a mere pastime with 
 women who live where that damning heresy was born, 
 were unknown then. The cities of the country were not 
 then, as now, licensed whore-houses. The pretty daugh- 
 ters of the poor were not compelled to fly for refuge to 
 those conventicles of hell over whose door is written, 
 "She who enters here leaves hope behind." 
 
 The glory of offering these privileges (so called) to 
 woman belongs exclusively to the would-be philosophers 
 of this generation. Men make us this offer who have 
 lacked the courage to take care of themselves, men who 
 have become the willing dupes of a lying priesthood, 
 the menial tools of political factions and political dema- 
 gogues, and pack-mules to carry the vast burdens of debt 
 and taxation imposed on them by an upstart bondautoc- 
 racy, — men who were brought up like horses, or driven, 
 like the serfs of kings, to the battle-field, to toil, to suffer, 
 to bleed, to die. 
 
 'Tis true this was done in the name of liberty, a great 
 crusade against slavery; but their condition was such 
 that their masters, the bondautocracy, could buy them, 
 and that for less money than the negro slaves were 
 selling for, whom they went to liberate. The war is 
 over. They have come back home, — not all, either. 
 Thousands and tens of thousands died on the battle- 
 fields ; other thousands and tens of thousands died of 
 disease and neglect; tens of thousands died too in prison- 
 pens. Their enemies, whom they had been taught to 
 hate and to curse as slave-dealers and soul-drivers, with 
 higher notions of humanity, did not want to send prisoa- 
 
144 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 ers to those horrid pens to die of lice, of filth, of starva- 
 tion ; but their political' masters, in the name of freedom 
 and humanity, compelled them to go. Those of them 
 who survived all these woes have come back home to 
 toil and sweat, and their children after them, to pay back 
 the raone}' which the bondautocracy lent the government 
 to buy the deaths of their husbands and fathers. 
 
 Oh, brave and magnanimous men of the North! Is 
 this the freedom, are these the privileges, you offer your 
 women? Is it because you are deaf and can't hear the 
 clank of your chains ? Is it because you are blind and 
 can't see your degradation? Is it because use has ren- 
 dered you insensible to the galling yoke of servitude? 
 Or is it because, in the meanness of your souls, rather 
 than strike down, with patriotic hands, your oppressors, 
 you would seek to release yourselves by shifting upon 
 your mothers and sisters, your wives and daughters, a 
 part of your insupportable burdens? 
 
 As a woman, whose bitter wrongs may give power to 
 her speech, whose mournful experience may give pathos 
 to her eloquence, let me beseech you not to do it. Oh, 
 no! Do not try to make men out of your women, for of 
 such men there are already enough. And then too, if 
 men must needs be slaves, they will want a mother's 
 affection, a sister's gentle kindness, and a wife's love and 
 service and patience and fidelity, to bear them up in their 
 hopeless toil. Ay, they will need, too, to soothe the 
 anguish of their souls, tears of sympathy such as only a 
 wife and a mother can weep. 
 
 The laboring people of the country, — its bone and 
 sinew, called by the new political masters "poor white 
 trash," gave their arms, their legs, their eyes, their teeth, 
 their labor, and their lives to the war. Was not that 
 their share? Ought not the rich to have given their 
 money ? They stayed at home eating, drinking, and 
 making merry. Their sons, too, — except such as were 
 quartermasters, commissaries, swindling contractors, and 
 substitute buyers, — stayed at home with their mothers 
 and wives and children, while the sons of the laboring 
 people were suffering all the privations, the perils, and 
 hardships of the battle-field, and their mothers and wives 
 
rilK TUIliD WITXE'SS. 145 
 
 and children were weepiiijir and toiling- and sweatin^f 
 alone. If patriotism required such sacrifices from the 
 laboring peojjle, miu:bt she not demand from the rich, 
 whom it seems she exempted from these painful duties, 
 money enough to pay the expenses? If the laborers 
 srave their service and their blood, ought not the rich, in 
 justice, to have given their money ? 
 
 Oh, no! The bondautocracy only lent their money, — ay, 
 lent to the government shin-plasters, paper money, worth 
 half price, and that must be paid back in gold. cupidity, 
 how insatiable is thy greed I Well did the Saviour say, 
 it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle 
 than for a rich man to go to heaven. So is it easier for 
 a traitor to love his country than a bondholder. 
 
 But if they don't make good patriots, they surely do 
 make good tyrants. They have forced on their country, — 
 once so free and happy, once the refuge of the oppressed, 
 once the fostering mother of labor, giving to the toiling 
 millions the fruit of their industry; once the asylum of 
 the persecuted Christian, where he might worship God 
 under his own vine and fig-tree, and according to the dic- 
 tates of his own conscience ; once the hope of the young 
 man, holding out to him the promise of successful busi- 
 ness and many years of domestic peace and social happi- 
 ness ; once the school of childhood, setting before it the 
 noblest examples of virtue, of Christian benevolence, and 
 devoted patriotism, — I say, this mammon, this money- 
 ETod, has forced on the countr}^ a debt as large as that of 
 Russia, and a system of taxation more galling and op- 
 pressive. It has reduced to miserable dependencies, 
 governed by military satraps, States which were among 
 the oldest, the proudest, and noblest of the federal gov- 
 ernment. Ay, more, it has subjugated these brave and 
 generous people, our brothers and kindred, to the rule of 
 a half-civilized race of barbarians, and these same savages 
 are instigated to every act of oppression and insult by 
 its hireling tools, the carpet-bag spies. 
 
 Xever upon any people has such a stream of filth been 
 poured as these carpet-baggers are. They are the filthy 
 matter which runs from the sores of a leprous political 
 bodv, the puke of pharisaism, sick of the black vomit. 
 "g 13 
 
146 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 What a grateful return is this to children whose fathers 
 helped our fathers to storm the citadel of British aristoc- 
 ratic tyranny, and to plant the flag of freedom on its 
 ruins, to States which gave to liberty the Washingtons, 
 the Jeflfersons, and a host of other illustrious men whose 
 talents contributed so largely in building the great con- 
 stitutional defenses of our freedom I 
 
 This money-god has bought the legislative depart- 
 ments of the government, both State and national, the 
 executive and judicial departments, the political factions, 
 and the churches, with all their vast power for good or 
 evil. In a word, it has taken possession of, either by 
 force or fraud, and subsidized to its vile uses, every lever 
 of political power, every spring in the vast machinery of 
 social life, and every motive of moral suasion. 
 
 On the ruins of the American democracy it has built 
 up a splendid despotism, and denounces as traitor every- 
 body who refuses to subscribe to its usurpations and, 
 crimes. On the ruins of the Bible Christianity, with all 
 of its benevolence and charity and peace and love, it 
 has built a vast and splendid ecclesiastical power to daz- 
 zle the eyes of its insane worshipers. On the ruins of 
 social virtue, so chaste, so pure, so beautiful, when im- 
 bued with the spirit of Cliristianity, it has built splendid 
 whore-houses to seduce the young and thus pollute the 
 very fountain of life. It casts upon the human soul the 
 glitter of its pomp and splendor, and that soul is parched 
 and shriveled. Its false glare falls on the human heart,^ 
 and the fountains of its affections are dried up. Its fitful, 
 flickering flashes dazzle the eyes of men, and they go 
 blundering through the dark, their footsteps trembling 
 with uncertainty. Doubt hangs like a veil over their 
 faces, and dreadful apprehensions of evil, like a flock of 
 ill-omened birds, flap their foul w-ings about their heads. 
 
 Such are the proud triumphs of this mammon, — this 
 money-god and its idol worshipers, the priest, the politi- 
 cian, and the bondautocrat. What a feast for these 
 idolaters, to be sure! How they exult in their success I 
 how they revel in luxury and dissipation ! how they 
 flaunt their gilded trinkets and gaudy Hnery in the faces 
 of their fawning dupes and meuiul tools ! And yet these 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 14t 
 
 servile creatures, their tongues still black with their boot- 
 licking, impudenth" prate about freedom and suffrage. 
 They vote, the}^ choose. Have they indeed chosen all 
 jthese crimes and follies, all this infamy and degradation? 
 Or have they, duped by a canting priesthood and political 
 factions, only been used as tools to work their own ruin? 
 
 What excellent privileges these are, to be sure!. No 
 wonder men appreciate them so highly ; no wonder they 
 are so anxious to extend them to everybody, to those who 
 want them and those who don't. If the men who boast 
 they have destroj'ed aristocracy and slavery in the South 
 had the courage to destroy bondautocracy and slavery 
 in the North, their wives and daughters would have no 
 need of suffrage to protect themselves. Such men would 
 be brave and honorable, and woman is always safe in the 
 care of honorable men. But no wonder woman feels in- 
 secure, when she has to look for protection to men who 
 are the dupes of a hireling priesthood, the tools of po- 
 litical factions, and the pack-mules of an upstart bond- 
 autocracy. 
 
 But do these men who prate so much about freedom 
 and manhood suffrage really vote ? Have they ever voted 
 in their lives ? Before our unfortunate family troubles, I 
 attended political meetings. I found out that manhood 
 suffrage, equality and woman's rights were only play- 
 things invented by politicians and priests to make fools 
 of women and slaves of men. I found out that one or 
 two persons — politicians or priests — controlled the whole 
 thing. These parties, in the name of religion or loyalty, 
 would come with resolutions fixed up for the occasion. 
 They were generally prepared in such a way as to have 
 no particular or detinite meaning. For then everybody 
 could put his own construction on them, and, of course, 
 everybody would be pleased. If they did have any 
 meaning at all, it was generally hid under a rigmarole 
 of big words, in order that nobody might understand them 
 but themselves. These priests and politicians, after writ- 
 ing out the resolutions, would hand them over to their 
 masters the bondautocrats, to be revised and corrected, 
 and then they would submit them to the people to be 
 ratified. 
 
148 THE GREAT TRTAL. \ 
 
 I have often wondered why the people did not hold 
 meetings of their own, especially those classes who have 
 so long borne the heat and burden of the day, the half- 
 paid mechanic, the half-paid clerk, the half-paid tiller of 
 the soil, and indeed the laborer of every class, who have 
 so long seen the fruits of their own toil go to bolster up 
 a vast political tyranny, miscalled government; to sup- 
 port a vast ecclesiastical despotism, miscalled the church ; 
 and to pay for the gaudy show and licentious dissipation 
 of an upstart nobilit}', called the bondautocracy. 
 
 Suppose the young men of all classes, whose souls 
 have not been parched and shriveled by the glare of gold, 
 would meet with them ; suppose when their old task- 
 masters, the preachers and politicians, would come to 
 dictate to them, they would catch them by the neck and 
 heels and cast them into the streets and highways ; sup- 
 pose they would honestly and truthfully inquire into such 
 matters as these : why the free-born people of America 
 should have a governmeut as expensive as that of Russia ? 
 why the United States so called, — pinned together by 
 bayonets- — should have a public debt as large as that hate- 
 ful despotism ? why, in the name of freedom, the political 
 power of this government should be enlarged for the ex- 
 j^ress purpose of giving to politicians a new lease of 
 power, and to the bondautocracy exclusive privileges? 
 why those despotic principles which have destroyed all 
 free governments in every age and country, and which are 
 this day trampling under foot the rights and liberties of 
 millions of European slaves, should be incorporated into 
 our system ? 
 
 Did not our fathers fly from all these wrongs and op- 
 pressions into this country, then a wilderness ? Were 
 they not so anxious to escape them that they lost sight 
 of all the hardships, the toils and privations, which awaited 
 them here? Did they not prefer to take the risk of the 
 Indian tomahawk and scalping-knife rather than stay at 
 home, and be the subjects of kings and the serfs of a 
 nobility ? Did they not establish for the benefit of the 
 people at large a government for themselves ? Was it 
 not so constructed as to secure the liberties and rights of 
 all, and not to extend special privileges to a few classes ? 
 
THE THIED WITNESS. ' ^4J 
 
 Was not this tbe fundamental idea of that government, 
 that its officers should be the servants, and not the mas- 
 ters, of the people? Did they not, in order to secure 
 those privileges, — the liberty and security of all, — build 
 around them great constitutional bulwarks of defense ? 
 Did they not do this because they feared the servants of 
 the people, led on by ambition and love of power, would 
 try to become the people's masters ? Was not this the 
 case with all other governments in the world ? Do not 
 tlie kings and aristocracies of Europe use the great masses 
 of tbe people, even in this wise and enlightened age, so 
 called, as toys to amuse themselves with, or as beasts 
 of burden, to carry their caprices, their follies, and their 
 crimes ? 
 
 Has not the government built by our fathers been radi- 
 cally and essentially changed ? Does it not now claim 
 to be a power to rule the people, instead of a servant to 
 work for them ? Did not that arch-traitor to the genius 
 of American liberty, who has been the brains of two 
 national administrations, boast that he wielded a power 
 more absolute than any tyrant in Europe? Did not this 
 base fraud, this personified lie, this double-dealer, this 
 equivocator, this Satan's premier, who can no more tell 
 a truth without mixing falsehood with it than a drunkard 
 can drink water without mixing whisky with it, boast 
 that he could ring his little bell and have a citizen of the 
 American republic, whether he lived in Chicago or New 
 Orleans, arrested and thrown into a dungeon without 
 atrial? Is this what freedom means in the Christian 
 republic of America ? 
 
 Would not such a boast have cost Caesar his crown, if 
 not his head, in heathen Rome ? Is this the progress of 
 modern philosophy ? Does not the faction which is 
 ruling this countrj^ — to-day a nation of slaves — boast 
 that they are acting outside of the Constitution, and 
 without any regard to its restrictions and limitations 
 upon their power? Have they not multiplied the powers 
 of the government, in order that they may use its whole 
 vast machinery to extend and perpetuate their powder? 
 Have they introduced a single measure or passed a single 
 bill designed to promote the happiness and welfare of the 
 
 13* 
 
J^0 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 people at large ? Has not the whole drift of their legisla- 
 tion been for the exclusive benefit of the bondautoeracy, the 
 financial and commercial gamblers, the rich owners of 
 manufacturing establishments and large whisky distil- 
 t'lleries ? Has it not been decided by the courts of jus- 
 tice, so called, that this privileged class, the bondautoeracy, 
 may legitimately employ men and money to persuade the 
 State and national legislatures to pass laws for their ex- 
 clusive benefit ? Do not the people at large have to pay 
 for these gigantic frauds ? Do they not pay their political 
 masters well for their time, which they spend in distilling 
 the sweat of the laborer into delicious wines, to please 
 fhe fastidious taste of a pampered aristocracy ? 
 
 Has not this faction spent its whole time legislating 
 about the negro ? Can it be presumed that this faction, 
 which has utterly ignored the white man, can have any 
 honest and sincere desire to promote the happiness of the 
 negro ? Is it reasonable to suppose that they will rob 
 the laboring white man, their brother, their own kith and 
 kin, and not rob the negro ? Does not this proposition 
 wear falsehood on its very face ? Is it not perfectly ap- 
 parent to every mind, not blinded by prejudice or per- 
 verted by anger, that this faction has been using every 
 possible means to make a great political power out of the 
 negro for the purpose of making a slave out of the white 
 man ? 
 
 Has not this faction virtually abolished the office of 
 President? Has not its present incumbent'' permitted 
 them to strip it of all the power and authority with which 
 it was invested, — power not to destroy but to protect the 
 rights of the States and the liberties of the people ? Is 
 he anything more than a weather-cock in the hands of 
 the jacobins, to tell which way the popular breeze is 
 blowing? Is he anything more than a drunken babbler? 
 Has he not written as many messages almost as all his 
 predecessors? Did he not tell the rump in his first mes- 
 : age to the present session that they had taken from him 
 learly all the power which belonged to his official posi- 
 tion ? Did he not tell them if anything in the shape of 
 
 * Andrew Johnson. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 151 
 
 ofiBcial power was left, tbey might take that too ? Did he 
 not say that the only instance in which he would oppose 
 their usurpations, would be an attempt- to turn him out 
 of the White House ? 
 
 Has it come to this, that the President of the United 
 States is paid twenty-five thousand dollars a year merely 
 to be a tenant of the White House, merely to occupy it 
 and to air it, and keep it clean ? Need he have stayed 
 on that account alone ? Was not Mrs. Wade ready and 
 waiting to do that very thing? Had she not selected her 
 servants to do the work, and her special company out of 
 the first circles, so called (butchers' wives, I guess), to 
 grace its parlors? Does not this low-flung demagogue 
 and weak-minded politician know that when his office 
 was stripped of the power and authority with which it 
 was invested by the Constitution, it was virtually abol- 
 ished ? Does he not know that these high prerogatives 
 were not his to surrender ? Does he not know that 
 in surrendering them he violated his oath of office and 
 committed treason against the people ? Does he not 
 know that if he had been tried for this offense, he would 
 have been found guilty and condemned ? Did not the 
 jacobins put him on his trial for resisting their usurpa- 
 tions? Did he not prove, even to their satisfaction,, that 
 his obsequious servility was unimpeachable? Did not 
 even his friends blush when they read the Hancock mes- 
 sage ? Have the people ever seen the pictures which a 
 genuine artist painted of that disgraceful affair? I wish 
 I had one to show it. 
 
 A great big man, the chief executive magistrate of 
 the United States of America and the commander-in- 
 chief of its armies and navies, gets frightened at the 
 noise of the rump ; he runs to a dark corner, and hides 
 himself behind a screen, — perhaps the flimsy threat of 
 some former message, or the child's promise to stay hid, 
 if the rump will only let him. He is scared so you can 
 hear his heart beat, you can see the sweat soaking through 
 the screen. In the mean time, a little bit of a fellow comes 
 along, — a lieutenant of this big commander, and ruler of 
 some distant, petty province. The rump orders him 
 to execute one of their late decrees against the people of 
 
152 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 his proviuce. He flatly refuses to do it; his words have 
 the ring of the true metal. He tells them plainly he is 
 an American freeman, a citizen of the great republic, and 
 they must get somebody else to execute their inhuman 
 and bloody decrees. The big man hears these brave 
 words in his hiding-place; his heart quits thumping; he 
 catches his breath, nnd wipes the sweat from his brovf. 
 He lifts his head above the screen quickly, — for this is 
 his first chance, and it may be his last, — puts his thumb 
 on his nose, twirls his fingers at the rump, and bawls 
 out at the top of his voice, " Ah, ha, if I am afraid of 
 you, here is a little fellow that is not. Bully for you, 
 my little man ! Stand up to 'em ; don't be afeard of 'era, 
 if I am." 
 
 Is not this a true picture of one of those poor men 
 whom the people delight to honor, because he has become 
 great, so called? Is he really great? Can you not as 
 easilv make a big man out of a little one by bundling 
 him up in a heap of clothes, as you can make a states- 
 man out of a small politician by wrapping him up in the 
 great robes of a big oflSce ? Is not Andy Johnson the 
 same small politician he always was? Has he not lifted 
 himself by demagogism and chicanery to a position so 
 high. above his merits, that it makes his head swim? Is 
 it the duty of the people to honor men who have got 
 above them, so called, by demagogism or theft, by acci- 
 dent or fraud, aud to give them positions of influence 
 which they are Dot fit for, simply because they were once 
 poor ? 
 
 Is not Andy Johnson the same artful, petty demagogue 
 he was when a cross-road politician in Tennessee? Did 
 he not meet, with a bland smile and flattering words, the 
 delegates from the different working-men's associations? 
 Did he not express great sympathy for them, because he 
 himself was once a mechanic? Did he not speak very 
 favorably of the eight-hour system? Did he not know 
 that this eight-hour system is only another one of those 
 pretty playthings which the political tools of the bondau- 
 tocrats have invented to amuse the laboring classes, while 
 they rob them of their real rights and of the fruits of 
 their toil? Does not he know that the laboring people 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 153 
 
 of "The best government the world ever saw," so called, 
 work twelve hours every day (some of them poor seam- 
 stresses, in the name of humanity and woman's rights, 
 half the night besides) ? Does not he know that they 
 only get paid for nine hours, and that three of the nine 
 are appropriated to that great national blessing, the 
 national debt? Does not he know that if they only 
 worked eight hours, their taskmasters — the preacher, the 
 politician, and the bondautocrat — would only pay them 
 for four? Does not he know that six hours' work is not 
 sufficient to supply their families with the necessaries of 
 life? Does not he know that pay for four hours' work 
 would bring poverty and want to their very doors? Is 
 not the secretary of the treasury in the cabinet of this 
 "people's man," so called, using all his talents and energy 
 to bring back the currency to a gold basis ? Don't this 
 secretary and his master know that reducing the currency 
 to a gold basis means the reduction of the price of labor 
 thirty per cent. ? Don't they know that the bondauto- 
 cracy, who have all the gold in their possession,- are not 
 going to suffer it to come down thirty per cent, until 
 they can buy labor thirty per cent, cheaper ? 
 
 Don't all of these petty upstarts, who are idolized by the 
 people because they were tailors or rail-splitters or wood- 
 haulers, abandon the people as soon as they get a little 
 above them ? Don't they go over to the bondautocracy, 
 and become their most pliant tools and servile agents ? 
 They make the most serviceable agents, because they 
 have once been laborers themselves, and are supposed to 
 have some sympathy for that class. How kindly they 
 talk to the people ! How much sympathy they express 
 for them ! But when they come to act, to carry out cer- 
 tain measures of governmental policy, how certain are 
 these measures to be for the interest of their masters, — 
 the bondautocrac}^ ! 
 
 Have not the people been flattered and cajoled and 
 humbugged long enough ? Ought there not, Ln the name 
 of decency, to be some limit to this thing? Have ihey 
 not been fed on the false promises of political thieves and 
 hireling priests long enough ? Whilst their masters used 
 them to be exhibited at election shows merely for their 
 
154 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 amusement, it might be borne ; but when they prepare 
 to use them to suffer and bleed and die in carrying on 
 bloody wars, and, after the wars are over, to toil and 
 sweat to pay the expenses, is it not too much ? They 
 use them to liberate half-civilized barbarians, and then 
 use these ignorant slaves, whom they have set free, as a 
 political power to make slaves of white men. Ay, more : 
 in order to make their white slaves more obedient and 
 tractable, they propose to infuse a little negro blood into 
 their veins. 
 
 In order to facilitate this work, the children of both 
 races of slaves are to be gathered together in those 
 detestable herd-pens called free schools. Filthy and de- 
 bauched priests, who have become skilled in all the arts 
 of seduction by tampering with the wives and daughters 
 of their dupes, are to superintend this mingling and 
 mixing, — this ringing, streaking, and striping. Free 
 schools I Why, they are institutions gotten up expressly 
 for the people ; they are public blessings. Perhaps they 
 are, in the despotic governments of Europe, whence they 
 were imported ; perhaps it is a special privilege for the 
 serfs of royalty and aristocracy to be permitted to learn 
 to read and write. They who eat their oaten bread and 
 cold potatoes — ay, breathe the very air of heaven by 
 the permission of kingcraft and priestcraft — may accept 
 it as a boon to have the chance to learn the rudiments of 
 their language. But must the freemen of America 
 accept as a privilege the boon which tyrants grant to 
 their serfs? Are they so poor that they consider the 
 crumbs which fall from the tables of kings to their serfs 
 a feast ? 
 
 Nay, if the laboring people of this country were free, 
 as they claim to be, — if they were justly paid for their 
 toil, as they ought to be, — if one-fourth of the fruits of 
 their labor were not extorted from them to pay for an ex- 
 travagant and licentious usurpation, miscalled govern- 
 ment, — and another fourth wheedled out of them by the 
 artful tricks of priestcraft, to be offered as sacrifices upon 
 the altars of gorgeous temples, which pharisaism has 
 built for them to worship, instead of that God who made 
 them, and in whose hands their breath is, — I say, if they 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 155 
 
 were not thus robbed and plundered, they would be able 
 to educate their children respectably; they would not be 
 compelled to send them to miserable herd-pens, to have 
 their minds perverted and their morals debauched by the 
 hireling tools of political factious and the creatures of 
 an infidel pharisaism. 
 
 I repeat it : these free schools may be good institutions 
 in the despotic governments of Europe, where man is 
 considered as belonging to the state, and where the state 
 means the usurper called king and his rich bondauto- 
 cratic accomplices, — miscalled the nobility, — who lord it 
 over their fellow-men. In these countries it is under- 
 stood that the Creator has made the toiling millions for 
 the use and pleasure of kings and nobles. It may be 
 esteemed an act of gracious condescension in these lordly 
 masters to permit their serfs to learn to read and write. 
 
 This system has another beauty, which its advocates 
 in this country have purposely kept out of sight. It 
 enables priestcraft and kingcraft to gather their young 
 cattle together in these herd-pens, and to feed them on 
 such food, physically and mentally, as will tit both their 
 minds and bodies for the uses of servitude. Every trut'i 
 calculated to teach them their inalienable rights to lilr . 
 libertN" and the pursuit of happiness, is sedulously e.^ 
 eluded^; or, if adaiitted at all, it comes in garbled extract - 
 with suitable commentaries by some spiritual or politiciv 
 master, proving satisfactorily to men who are not per 
 mitted to think, the divine right of kings and the duty of 
 "loyalty" on the part of their subjects. Loyally I what 
 a word for a citizen of the Great Republic to utter! Loy- 
 alty ! for thousands of years this word has meant abject 
 submission to usurpers and tyrants. Loyalty ! what a 
 word for the children of the Washingtons and Putnams ! 
 Ah, let them remember that when their fathers heard 
 that word, it brought vividly to their minds the Benedict 
 • Arnolds and the Carolina tories. 
 
 I suppose these free schools will answer the same pur- 
 pose in the hands of political factions and an infidel 
 pharisaism in this country, which kingcraft and priest- 
 craft use them for in Europe. Yellow-back novels, 
 written by addle-pated women of low moral character, 
 
156 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 and speckled-back Sunday-school books, written by 
 whining, canting;, hypocritical preachers, are admirable 
 food to prepare the minds of children to be the slaves of 
 an infidel superstition and beastl}'' lusts. 
 
 How admirably too does this training- fit them to be 
 the slaves of an upstart bondautocracy I And then too, 
 when some truth forces itself on the minds of the people, 
 when truth, stern and inexorable, knocks at the wretched! 
 hovels of the deluded followers of priestcraft and political 
 humbug-gery, and sends gaunt famine to drag forth into 
 the streets these wretched children of want and oppres- 
 sion with their pale faces and tattered garments, some 
 hireling tool of the bondautocracy stands ready to invent 
 some petty excuse, or to frame some lie to palliate these 
 horrid wrongs. 
 
 " Our long, hard winter, not long departed, was sig- 
 nalized by a very general interruption of out-door labor,' 
 especially in building. Thousands had no work for 
 months; many were reduced to subsist on public or pri- 
 vate charity. Never before, not even in the darkest 
 hours of our great struggle, was beggary so common 
 and so importunate. At length we have summer weather 
 and summer work, when building is again suddenly ar- 
 rested by a collision between the bricklayers and their 
 employers — in short, by a 'strike.' " — New York THbune. 
 journal of freedom, humanity, and progress, so called ! 
 Don't you know better than this, Horace Greeley ? Don't 
 you know that this is one of those thousand tricks you 
 have invented since you have been in the service of the 
 boadautocracy to delude and humbug the poor mechanic? 
 Don't you know that this is a willful and deliberate false- 
 hood, such as fill the lying columns of the Tribune from 
 week to week through the whole year. Don't you know 
 that this complaint among the mechanics of New York, 
 this "strike," was not because last winter was a "long 
 and hard winter" ? 
 
 Listen, Horace, to the birds welcoming the opening 
 spring with their merry songs. Look at the rabbit frisk- 
 ing over the lawn Listen to the shrill whistle of the 
 deer, and see it bound joyously away until it is lost in 
 the deep wilds of the forest. See the nimble squirrel, 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 15 1 
 
 leapinj^ gayly from limb to limb, now seating himself 
 contentedly upon yon high bough to feed upon the swell- 
 ing but. See how the green grass is springing up — how 
 the trees are putting forth their leaves and buds to pro- 
 duce a harvest for the inhabitants of the woods and 
 fields. Ah! the wild animals kuow, the birds know, 
 that they will be provided for. Hence their merry song. 
 How sweet is the mingled melody of their music! how 
 like a hymn of praise to the Father of all mercies ! '* Last 
 winter was a long, hard winter," but they lived through 
 it. They were not reduced to subsist upon " public or 
 private charity." 
 
 No ; this privilege was left to man, — to man, whom the 
 Creator made in his own image, and endowed with high 
 aFid noble faculties, ay, to man, whom God called his 
 son. Only man rejoices not in this spring-time of promise. 
 Only man's squeaking, piping voice of dissatisfaction 
 mingles in discord with this hymn of nature's praise. 
 Only man remembers the pinching want and beggary of 
 the "last long, hard winter." Only man remembers — 
 ah ! he will never forget it — his wife and children shiver- 
 ing in their "looped and windowed raggedness." Only 
 he remembers how he eked out to them their short rations 
 till all was gone. Only man remen^bers — and how did 
 that humiliating thought bow down his proud spirit ! — 
 when necessity drove him forth to solicit the cold hand 
 of charity. How did he drain the cup of woe to its 
 bitter dreg;*, when he had to accept the grudged pittance 
 from a heartless and infidel phariseeism, which looked 
 upon him with a scowl on its brow and curses in its 
 heart ! 
 
 Yes, this infidel phariseeism, blasphemously called 
 religion and humanity, had robbed him of his just hire, 
 had defrauded him out of the fruits of his summer's 
 labor; and now it curses him, because he and his little 
 ones can't warm themselves by the north winds and feed 
 upon ice and snow. 
 
 God of the Christian ! is it in thy name that these 
 crimes are done? Is there no thunderbolt to execute 
 swift justice upon these phylacteried Pharisees who in- 
 flict such wrongs upon mankind, and offer such insults to 
 • U 
 
•^^^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Heaven ! Man, " reduced to subsist upon public or pri- 
 vate charity !" Ah, they must have been poor negroes, 
 the slaves of those heartless and cruel slave-owners and 
 soul-drivers of the South ? No, no ; if it had been they, 
 this philanthropic Greeley would not have dismissed the 
 matter so unconcernedly. His Christian soul would have 
 boiled over with holy anger; column after column of the 
 Trihime would have been filled with the most distorted 
 and exaggerated accounts of the thing; the dictionary 
 of Billingsgate would have been exhausted for mean 
 words to express his hatred and scorn of the guilty per- 
 petrators ; ay, each individual case would have been a 
 theme for freedom and humanity, and a dozen deliberate 
 but plausible falsehoods would have been invented to 
 give point and effect to each sermon ; earth and hell 
 would have been moved (these canting Pharisees have 
 nothing to do with heaven) to kindle the wrath of the 
 people. 
 
 No, these poor devils whom abundant and importunate 
 beggary dragged about the streets of our large cities 
 during the "last long, hard winter," were only "poor 
 white trash," enjoying their privileges of freedom and 
 equality. Only " poor white trash," whom Greeley and 
 his freedom-shrieking coadjutors bought up like horses- 
 to fight for the freedom of Sambo and Cuffy. Only 
 "poor white trash," the pack-mules of an upstart bond- 
 autocracy. What does it matter if they do suffer ? What 
 does it matter if their wives and little ones do cry for 
 bread? What does it matter if they do shiver through 
 the " long, hard winter V What does it matter if their 
 father must beg for them ? Is it not enough for him to 
 know that he lives in the land of freedom and equality? 
 Is he not free to beg or starve ? Ay, must it not be a 
 sweet reflection to him to know that he is a voter? 
 When he looks upon his suffering family, must it not be 
 a great consolation to him to know that he, as a voter, 
 has chosen this condition of things for them ? Poor 
 little children, methinks I see them now, drawing their 
 shriveled, skinny little limbs under their scanty covering: 
 want, like a greedy leech, has sucked the marrow out of 
 their little bones, and the blood out of their little veins; 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 159 
 
 methinks I see them turn their wan little faces toward 
 the door; maybe somebody comes with bread. No; it 
 is only a chill blast from the North, breaking the flimsy 
 latch which bars their crazy door. But somebody has 
 come along with that chilling, piercing blast; see how 
 their little eyes are fixed. Ah ! death, wearing the bony 
 face of famine, stands there staring on them with a 
 ghastly grin. Stop there, my rich taskmaster, stop there ; 
 your cupidity can't follow them any farther. The flaming 
 sword of eternal justice waves between you and them. 
 You can never, never pass it. You would like to have 
 kept them here, I know, if it cost nothing to toil and 
 sweat through the long hot summer, and to beg and 
 starve through the long hard winter ; but they have 
 passed beyond your reach. They have gone where you 
 can never go. They have gone to the land of freedom 
 in deed and in truth. They shall hunger no more, neither 
 shall they thirst any more ; for the Lamb in the midst 
 of the throne will feed them, and lead them unto living 
 fountains of water, and Grod shall wipe away all tears 
 from their eyes. 
 
 Was it really because last winter was a long, hard 
 winter, that thousands of laboring men in the large cities 
 of the United States, so called, were reduced to subsist 
 upon public or private charity? Don't you. know better 
 than this, Mr. Greeley! Don't you and the Sumners, 
 Beechers, the Phillipses, the Butlers, the Stevenses, the 
 Lucy Stones, the Anna Dickinsons, and the whole tribe 
 of scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, who boast that 
 all wisdom, and all knowledge, and all virtue, belong to 
 you exclusively, — don't you then know better? Don't 
 you know the real cause of the suffering and privation 
 among the laboring classes of the North, and South, and 
 East, and West? Yes, you do know. Then why do you 
 not tell ? Why do you invent this miserable flimsy ex- 
 cuse ? Have you been so long in the habit of doing this 
 thing, that -you, like the habitual drunkard and liar, do it 
 from mere force of habit ? Or have these dupes of yours 
 been so long humbugged and cheated by you that you 
 think they would not thank you for telling them the 
 truth ? 
 
160 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 I know what the matter is, Mr. Greeley ; and I will 
 tell, whether they thank me or not. I am not a candidate 
 for their suflfrage — either as an office-hunter, or as the 
 editor of a public journal ; and therefore it is not neces- 
 sary that I should flatter their vanity and their pride. 
 Neither have I deceived them in order that I might de- 
 fraud them, and grow rich by the fraud, and therefore am 
 I not afraid for them to find out the true state of the 
 case. I am one of them. I have seen what they have 
 seen, and felt what they have felt — not by choice indeed, 
 but by compulsion. 
 
 I have taken physic, therefore can I feel what wretches 
 feel. And although I have no superflux to shake to 
 them, yet do 1 think that I can tell them how they can 
 escape that pomp and power which is trampling them 
 unfeelingly under its feet. I think I could tell them, too, 
 how to strike so as to hit something. I think I could 
 tell them how to make a strike which would interest 
 even Horace Greeley and the whole band of conspirators 
 and usurpers. 1 think I could tell them how to make a 
 strike which would break the iron grip of that abundant 
 and importunate beggary which seizes them and drags 
 them around during the long hard winters, the pitiable 
 objects of public and private charity. 
 
 When you started out in public life, Mr. Greeley, did 
 you not offer to sell yourself to the slaveocracy of the 
 South ? and whatever evils the aristocracy of negro 
 slavery had (and I confess they were many), bribery 
 and corruption were not one of them. Nay, the Ran- 
 dolphs and the Wises from that section were the dread 
 and terror of these lobby thieves and gamblers who now 
 infest the national capitol like hordes of rats eating up 
 the public granaries, although the labor of the country 
 has been taxed to beggary to fill them up. When these 
 people refused to buy you, Mr. Greeley, did you not offer 
 yourself to the aristocracy of white slaves in the North ? 
 And did they not strike hands with you ? Did you not 
 in revenge swear eternal enmity to the black aristocracy 
 of the South? Did you not, at the same time, swear 
 eternal fealty (loyalty) to the white mud-sill aristocracy 
 of the North / Have you not kept your word, Mr. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 161 
 
 Greeley ? Have you not labored in season and out of 
 season to destroy the one and build up the other? 
 
 Did you not publish not long since, in the lYihune, an 
 article boasting that under the management of the 
 parties to which you belong, New York City, the com- 
 mercial emporium of the land of freedom and humanity, 
 had long since ceased to be a free city ? Don't you knovv, 
 Mr. Greeley, that the government of New York City was 
 turned over to Albany, because the aristocracy of that 
 city were afraid of bread riots ? Don't you know that it 
 was the dread of the muscle of over-worked and unpaid 
 labor which led the aristocracy of New York City to 
 buy the Slate legislature to take the government out of 
 the hands of the people of that city ? Is it not monstrous, 
 Mr. Greeley, for a people to boast of their unfitness for 
 self-government, and at the same time to make war upon 
 another people to teach them self-government ! Ay, 
 does not this fact prove that the war was intended for a 
 different purpose? Is it not monstrous, Mr. Greeley, for 
 you to boast that your own people, born to the heritage 
 of liberty, and educated both theoretically and practi- 
 cally in its principles, are incapable of self-government, 
 and at the same time to claim that the half-civilized 
 negro, born and educated in slavery, is fit for self-gov- 
 ernment? Is not this too much even for your dupes, 
 miserable slaves as they are of a vile political usurpa- 
 tion and of an infidel phariseeism ? Is not this fraud 
 too barefaced even for a people who have been educated 
 by professional liars and thieves? 
 
 Could any man, except one who had commenced his 
 public career by a crinje which ought to damn him in the 
 estimation of every honest man, utter this barefaced 
 falsehood without a blush ? Have not the boudautocracy, 
 the masters of white slaves, paid you well for advocating 
 their system of slavery ? Have you not grown rich by 
 it? Are you not this day one of the aristocracy your- 
 self? Has it not been the policy of the owners of white 
 slaves, and your policy as one of their tools, to keep their 
 eyes turned constantly upon the poor negro slave in 
 order that they might not see their own degradation ? 
 Did not the owners of white slaves, the Northern aristo- 
 
 14* 
 
162 TEE GREAT TRIAL.. 
 
 cracy, buy up these white slaves at lower prices than 
 negro slaves were selling for at the time, in order to create 
 that national blessing (Mr. Greeley's own word), a na- 
 tional debt? Do you still consider it a national blessing, 
 Mr. Greeley ? To you and your rich friends it may be, 
 Mr. Greeley ; it is, perhaps, a great blessing to the rich 
 bondholder who bought it up for forty cents in the dollar, 
 and now gets paid back the whole dollar ; it is perhaps 
 a great blessing to the rich who get from it a big interest, 
 and don't have any tax to pay on it. 
 
 But how is it a national blessing? These bondholders 
 only constitute a small, very smal), portion of the nation. 
 How is it with the laboring millions, who have to toil 
 and sweat to pay this big debt and the big interest on it ? 
 Don't it take their labor without pay ? Don't it take 
 their sweat without bread ? Is it a great national bless- 
 ing for the labor which builds up and sustains the pros* 
 perity of the country to be driven by abundant and ini 
 portunate beggary to subsist upon public and private 
 charity? 'Tis true they are only "poor white trash," 
 but have they not got feeling? do they not as well as the 
 black man feel the pinching of hunger, and thirst, and 
 cold ? But Mr. Greeley says, and calls as a witness to 
 testify to the truth of his assertions that most accom- 
 plished political trickster Governor Seymour, that two 
 hundred and forty thousand laborers are interested in 
 this public debt. 
 
 Now whilst this assertion may be nominally true, it is 
 virtually false. What impression do Mr. Greeley and 
 Governor Seymour want to make by parading their figures 
 before the world ? Why simply this, that a large pro- 
 portion of the national debt is held by the laboring people 
 of the country. Now Mr. Greeley knows, and Governor 
 Seymour knows, that so small is each laborer's share that 
 all of them put together only makes a miserable fraction 
 of the whole debt. Both Greeley and Seymour know 
 (if I remember rightly this trick was invented by Greeley 
 himself) that the laborers were persuaded to invest their 
 mite, their twenty, their fifty, their hundred dollars of 
 spare change in the national debt, in order that they 
 might be interested in paying that debt; or in other 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 163 
 
 words, ia order that they might make more serviceable 
 tools of their Ijondnutocratic taskmasters. But I think I 
 know something which neither Greeley nor Governor 
 Seymour knows. If, from their love of liberty and 
 patriotism, the holders of these bonds will agree to ofi'er 
 them as a sacrifice upon the altar of their country, the 
 laborer will be the first to offer his mite, although it be 
 his all. If they will agree to build a great bondfire, and 
 appoint a certain day to burn up all their paper rags, the 
 working man will be there the first man. 
 
 The laborer cannot leave to his children a fortune. He 
 can teach them how to toil and how to sweat, that's all. 
 How gladh' then would he give his pittance to know that 
 his children, and his children's children, would be left in 
 such a condition that when they toiled they would be 
 paid for it, and when they watered the ground with their 
 sweat it would yield for them an abundant harvest. In 
 this infidel and avaricious age, when every virtue, human 
 and divine, is measured by its weight in gold, I have but 
 little confidence in the virtue and patriotism of the people 
 of this country. But this much I will say, the little that 
 is left is found among the working people. But they 
 have been the slaves of priestcraft and the dupes of 
 political jugglery so long that they are afraid to do any- 
 thing. Indeed, they have been flattered and cajoled, in 
 order that they might be cheated and defrauded, so long, 
 and so completely have they been cheated out of their 
 rights and liberties, that they are afraid to hear the truth. 
 They are ashamed to recognize the fact that an infidel 
 priestcraft and lying political factions have reduced them 
 to a condition of servitude, as degraded as that of the 
 serfs of Europe. They have stopped their ears, and 
 refused to listen to the voice of reason and truth. 
 
 But men who refuse to hear may feel. They are be- 
 ginning to reap the harvest of their folly ; too much sweat, 
 mixed with too little bread, makes that bread bitter. 
 Gaunt famine walks into their hovels, and frightens their 
 little ones by rattling his skeleton bones. Abundant and 
 importunate beggary seizes, not the idle and the thrift- 
 less, but the industrious and intelligent mechanic, and 
 reduces him to the humiliating necessity of subsisting 
 
164 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 upon public and private charity. And millions who bav6 
 not been reduced to this painful extremity are drag-g-ing 
 along under the most insupportable burdens. These 
 burdens, too, are constantly growing heavier, and they 
 know that without some change their turn must come 
 next. So that it is not because he is poor that he is 
 willing to listen to the voice of reason and truth, but be- 
 cause reason and truth are to him the promise of future 
 good. Ay, in his hours of need they come to him as a 
 true and steadfast friend. They stand ready to tear off 
 the oppressive burdens which error and falsehood have 
 fastened on his back. They stand ready to break the 
 chains which bind him and set him free. Truth stands 
 ready to lead them in her ways, which are pleasantness, 
 and in her paths, which are peace. 
 
 It may seem to be a harsh reflection upon mankind, 
 surely it is mortifying to human vanity to say, that they 
 will accept truth only when driven by necessity, but it is 
 so nevertheless. It was the bitter tear of repentance 
 for the errors and follies of my past life which opened 
 my eyes to the truth. I accepted it, not because I loved 
 it, but because no other friend in the wide, wide w^orld 
 could lift me out of the dark waters of affliction and 
 place my feet upon solid ground. For this reason I have 
 confidence in the laboring people of this country. Error 
 and falsehood are dragging them down to poverty and 
 ruin, and therefore will they be willing to make noble 
 sacrifices for their country, for liberty, and for truth. 
 
 But what will the rich bondholders say to this? I do 
 not know what they will say ; but I know what they 
 will do. Once upon a time a prophet came from heaven 
 to earth, — ay, more than a prophet. He was the God- 
 man — the Prince of the house of David — the King 
 Emmanuel, He came to establish judgment and justice in 
 the world ; he came to show poor fallen man the way 
 back to heaven. One came and said unto him. Good 
 Master, what good things shall I do, that I may inherit 
 eternal life? He answered. If thou wilt enter into life, 
 keep the commandments. The young man said unto him, 
 all these have 1 kept from my youth up, what lack I yet? 
 Jesus said unto him, If thou wouldst be perfect, go and 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 165 
 
 sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
 have treasure in heaven. But when the young man 
 heard that saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had 
 great possessions. 
 
 Just so would the rich bondholder go away sorrowful, 
 if this test was applied to his patriotism. How hardly 
 shall a rich man enter intt) the kingdom of heaven ! And 
 how hardly, let us add, shall a bondautocrat enter into 
 the spirit of patriotism ! And why should they love their 
 country ? How do the rich get rich ? Look around you 
 and see. Why is it that two men of equal talent and 
 equal intelligence start out in life, and the one, though 
 frugal and industrious, barely makes a living, and the 
 other makes a fortune ? Is it not because the one has no 
 conscience ? Is it not because he is willing to use means 
 which the other would scorn to use ? Does not the one 
 deal fairly with his fellow-men and pay honorably for all 
 he gets, while the other sets traps for the unsuspecting 
 and overreaches the weak? Does not this money gam- 
 bler take advantage of one man's ignorance and another 
 man's necessities ? Don't he take every advantage which 
 the law allows ? 
 
 And what advantages do the law-s allow? Ask the 
 political tricksters and gamblers, called law-makers, who 
 spend whole legislative sessions selling out the people to 
 the lobby agents of great moneyed monopolies. Ask 
 these professional thieves who spend their time and 
 make their living by making laws to plunder the labor of 
 the country, in order that the coffers of their rich masters 
 may be full. Is it reasonable to suppose that these 
 creatures, who live by thieving and fraud and crime, 
 Avould make laws to punish themselves? And ain't these 
 rich taskmasters of the people, in most cases, canting 
 hypocritical Pharisees ? Don't they make long prayers ? 
 ain't they constantly whining about freedom and humanity? 
 Don't they for a show attend to all the forms and cere- 
 monies of an infidel phariseeism? Don't they contribute 
 a large share of their unrighteous gains tow^ard building 
 costly temples, dedicated to mammon ? Don't they pay 
 a good portion of the gold which they have filched from 
 labor to a hireling priestcraft ? Don't they by their con- 
 
]66 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 tributioiis buy from this hypoeritical priestcraft indulg- 
 ence to rob labor of its just hire, and to plunder the weak 
 and unfortunate, while they are bound by the hard chains 
 of necessity ? 
 
 How could they love their fellow-men, whom they 
 look upon as machines to do their threshing and reaping 
 at a profitable hire ? How couFd they love their country, 
 when they look upon it as a great political organization 
 to be bought and sold as bank-stocks and dry-goods to 
 make them rich ? How could they love the virtue and 
 truth of a genuine Christianity ? Would it not be a 
 bridle in their mouths? Woukl it not be a curb upon 
 their rapacious greed of gain? But why should they 
 not desire a despotic government? Why should they 
 not approve of those usurpations and frauds which lead 
 inevitably to tyranny ? Don't the rich own everything 
 in despotic governments, — lands, houses, horses, swine, 
 cattle, and people too ? 
 
 I repeat what I said before : it is a miracle for a rich 
 man to be either a Christian or a patriot. The expense 
 of our national government, when it was organized, was 
 twenty millions of dollars, and to-day it ought not to be 
 a dollar more. But it has been increased to five hundred* 
 millions; the expense of the State and corporate govern- 
 ments is about as much more ; and a hireling priesthood 
 costs about as much more, making in all about one and a 
 half billion of dollars. Just think of it for one moment I 
 This vast channel — as big as the Mississippi River — has 
 to be filled with the sweat which flows from the brow 
 of labor. When this is full, the drops which are left — 
 too often drops of blood mingled with bitter tears of 
 want and poverty — may go to fertilize the miserable little 
 patch from which labor must gather its scanty harvest. 
 
 Suppose these expenses were reduced to about one- 
 hundredth part of what they are; suppose these idle, 
 mischief-making priests were put to some honest work, 
 like honester and better men ; suppose the gorgeous 
 temples which they are building to mammon, and the 
 thousand and one infidel gods which they have invented 
 for man to worship, instead of their Creator, were con- 
 verted into tenant-houses for the poor; suppose the vast 
 
THE rillUD WITNESS. 16 1 
 
 systems of political and judicial fraud, which, have been 
 built upon the ruins of justice and truth, were swept 
 away; suppose the large armies of office-holders and 
 hangers-on, who are nourished and fed by these vast in- 
 stitutions, were put to work like other men. 
 
 To have legislatures, to make and unmake from year 
 to year thousands and millions of unmeaning and non- 
 sensical laws, is folly. To have them to meet from year 
 to year to make laws for the benefit of favored classes is 
 a crime. To have vast and expensive systems of judica- 
 ture to settle the disputes between men is folly. Two 
 men in any community are more competent to decide any 
 controversy which may arise than all the courts in Chris- 
 tendom. In this case injustice may be done; in the so- 
 called courts of justice injustice is always done; for 
 there, when matters are decided according to right no- 
 tions of justice, it costs the innocent party a large pro- 
 portion of his claim to make it secure; sometimes it 
 costs him half, sometimes the whole, and sometimes 
 double his claim. 
 
 Everybody who knows anything about this matter at 
 all, and whoever is in the habit of thinking for himself, 
 must know that these so-called courts of justice are 
 gambling shops, where men meet to throw high-die, and 
 pay half the stake for the privilege of a throw. Honest 
 and sensible men shun and avoid them as they would 
 places which are held by gangs of robbers and thieves. 
 Before they will go there, they will sacrifice a consider- 
 able part of their claims, although they know them to be 
 honest and just; for they know that it is better to sacri- 
 fice a portion of their claim than thus to have it adjudi- 
 cated, where the cost will be enormous and the risk of 
 losing it all very great. Why then should we keep up 
 these vast and expensive systems of judicature, when 
 they tend not to promote the ends of justice, but to per- 
 vert them? Suppose we export these unjust and expen- 
 sive institutions back to Europe, where we borrowed 
 them. They may suit very well the aristocracies and 
 despotism of that country, but America — which God, in 
 his providence, has appointed to be the land of the free 
 and the home of the brave — don't want them. We want 
 
168 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 justice; we want truth ; we want liberty; and in order 
 to have them we must destroy all these engines of op- 
 pression and power which tyranny has invented to per- 
 vert the truth of the human soul and destroy the liberties 
 of mankind. 
 
 Ever since governments were established in the earth, 
 three classes have conspired to make slaves out of the 
 rest of mankind, — the priest, the politician, and the 
 money-changer. The devil takes the money-chano^er up 
 into a high mountain, and shows him the kingdom of 
 this world, and the glory thereof, and says, " All these 
 will I give you, if you will worship me." The barga.in 
 is struck. The money-changer hands over to the devil 
 his conscience, his heart, with all its holy affections, and 
 his soul with its charity and benevolence. The devil at 
 once instructs him in all the tricks of money-gambling. 
 He soon gets gold in his possession. He goes with his 
 gold and hires the priest to put on the livery of heaven 
 to serve the devil in. 
 
 The priest at once goes to work with the cunningly- 
 devised words of human wisdom (and the devil helps 
 him) to persuade men to worship gods of gold, of wood, 
 and stone. When he succeeds in this the great work is 
 accomplished ; for when once man ceases to worship the 
 God who made him, and in whose hands his breath is, 
 his notions of right reason are gone. 
 
 The money-changer then hires the politician, which in 
 our day at least has become the synonym of liar, and he 
 goes to work by every trick and fraud which, with the 
 devil's aid, he can invent, to persuade man to build up 
 political and social systems which will give to the money- 
 changer peculiar privileges. Thus does the priest get 
 possession of the human soul, and pervert its judgment ; 
 the politician gets possession of the human body, and 
 makes it a beast of burden for the money-changer; and 
 the money-changer a king, a tyrant, or a bondautocracy, 
 in the character of a premier or satrap of the devil, rules 
 the world. He uses the millions of his fellow-men to 
 gratify his pride, his ambition, and sometimes his whims, 
 for fun. Until these powers are overthrown, man can 
 never be free, or prosperous, or happy. 
 
THE '.llllilJ wnwEss. 169 
 
 The first thing to be done is for man to go back to that 
 God who made him, and in whose hands his breath is. 
 Let him, like the prodigal who has been feeding swine, 
 return to his father's house. Will he say he don't know 
 the way? Christ has said, I aiin the way, and no man 
 can go unto the Father but by me. Where will they 
 find Christ in popery, in protestantism, in presbyterianism, 
 in methodism, or in any of the thousand and one systems 
 which the cunningly-devised words of priestcraft have 
 invented to deceive and cheat the human soul? Where 
 shall w^e find Christ in the splendid temples built by 
 human pride and human vanity, and dedicated to 
 mammon ; in splendid temples, furnished with costly 
 adornments and charming hired music for the purpose of 
 attracting large crowds and gathering in many proselytes, 
 so that the hypocritical priests who own this big show — 
 this theatre of phariseeism — may get big pay and live 
 among the first circles, so called ? Not long ago I went 
 to one of the large cities of the country, and attended 
 churches belonging to different denominations of Chris- 
 tians. The glittering splendor pleased the eye ; the 
 music charmed the ear, as did the smooth and polished 
 rhetoric of the priest. But there was no bread and wine 
 of truth for the human soul; it was left to famish and 
 to die. The splendor of earthly pomp and show only 
 dazzles its eyes and leaves it to blunder its way into that 
 gulf whore tlie cries of its torment will ascend up for ever 
 and ever. When returning from the services at the dif- 
 ferent churches, the good people who worshiped there, 
 in every instance, took special pains to tell me that this 
 congregation was the richest in the city; that this orgaa 
 cost the most money; and that their priest received a 
 larger salary than any other in the city, with perhaps 
 one or two exceptions. Such are the characteristic dis- 
 tinctions of modern religion, called progressive. 
 
 What were the characteristics of Christianity as desig- 
 nated by its great Author? And John sent messengers 
 to the Saviour to know if he was the Christ, or if he must 
 look for another. What was the answer? Go and tell 
 John that I am holding vanity fairs, making theatrical 
 exhibitions of music, eloquence, tragedv and comedy, to 
 n 15 
 
170 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 raise money to build fine houses of worship ? No, no. 
 Go and tell John that I am collecting taxes of every- 
 thing, even down to mint, cummin, and anise, to get up a 
 style worthy of the Prince of Heaven ? No, no. Go and 
 tell John I have taken possession of the splendid temple 
 at Jerusalem, and that I have brought from heaven a 
 choir of angels whose heavenly music will charm the ears 
 of the children of men ? Not that. Go and tell John I 
 have brought vaults of gold with me, and that I will pay 
 those who will be my disciples one, two, five or ten thou- 
 sand dollars, according to their learning and talent, and 
 furnish them a fine house to live in, and give them many 
 little presents as extras, besides? Not that, either. Go 
 and tell John the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, 
 the lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached 
 to them. These were the marks of Christ and his 
 religion. 
 
 The contrast between white and black, between day 
 and night, between truth and falsehood, is not greater 
 than the contrast between the religion of Christ and that 
 of our modern Pharisees. But these priests will say, 
 Christ did not live in a philosophic and progressive age 
 like this. Yes, he did visit the earth in just such an age 
 as this. Who were as wise as the scribes and Pharisees, 
 the lawyers and doctors ? who were as philosophical ? 
 who had built as many fine systems? who had as many 
 fine theories of theology? who spent as much time dis- 
 cussing doctrines and creeds? who had so many rules 
 for the people to observe ? who ever enforced rules with 
 such scrupulous precision? who ever so exacting in col- 
 lecting tithes, even down to mint, cummin, and anise ? who 
 had ever been so progressive as they ? who had traveled 
 so far from the religion which God had given to Abraham, 
 to Moses, and to the prophets? who had ever had a 
 temple of such gorgeous splendor? who had ever so 
 converted their temple, devoted to the God of Israel, 
 into a place for vanity fairs, theatrical exhibitions, and 
 merchandise ? Nobody has ever done such things, but 
 popery in the sixteenth century and infidel pharisaism in 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 When did priestcraft wear such long robes, say such 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. lU 
 
 long prayers, make such pretence to purity and virtue? 
 When did they ever so heartily thank God that they 
 v^-ere pure and holy, and not sinners like other men ? 
 But where are the scribes and Pharisees ? Where is their 
 wisdom, their philosophy, and their long prayers ? Where 
 are their splendid temples, wherein was the altar of the 
 living God ? and where is Jerusalem, once the city of the 
 great King ? 
 
 The Pvoman legions are battering down its walls, and 
 on the inside civil wars, disease and famine are feeding 
 upon its vitals. Amidst woes which it chills the human 
 soul to remember, perished the proud and self-righteous 
 Pharisee, the temple which he had desecrated, and the 
 city which he had polluted. And their children, who 
 boasted that Abraham was their father even when they 
 were doing the works of thf devil, who had forgotten 
 the God of their fathers and dishonored his religion, were 
 scattered in his anger to the four winds of heaven. For 
 hundreds of years they were a reproach among the nations 
 of the earth, a hissing and a by-word. 
 
 But still the question comes up, Where will we find 
 Christ ? Ask him and he will tell you. He came to earth 
 to show man the way to heaven. Ask him ; you have 
 his word, it will tell you : he gave it for that purpose. 
 What does he say himself? " Search the Scriptures, for 
 in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they 
 which testify of me." Don't ask priestcraft, which has 
 put on the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. They 
 pervert the simple truths of the Bible, in order to make 
 slaves of the souls and bodies of men, so that they can 5 
 build up great ecclesiastical despotisms, miscalled the 
 church. They will tell you, one that Christianity means 
 popery, one that it means methodism, one that it means 
 presbyterianism, one that it means Congregationalism, 
 and so on through the whole catalogue of theological 
 fooleries. Only in one thing will these priests all agree : 
 they will all with one accord tell you to pay tithes, even 
 down to mint, cummin, and anise, so that your priestly 
 lords may be educated in the wisdom of worldly philos- 
 ophy, in order that they may be able to entertain and 
 amuse their rich masters, and in order that they may be 
 
172 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 enabled to build splendid temples to gratify their vanity 
 and their pride. 
 
 We don't need to go to these self-constituted priests. 
 We have a High-priest, who has made one sufficient 
 offering for us all. He has promised to be not only our 
 high-priest, but our prophet and king. God in his 
 providence intended his word to take the place of priest- 
 craft. Read the prophecies, and you will find it so. 
 Can't anybody see the wisdom of this plan? When we 
 discard priestcraft and take up the word of God, we are 
 bound to believe it, and obey it, or else have no religion 
 at all. 
 
 We will be brought face to face with the great God 
 of the universe. There will be no priest to lead us in 
 the way which leads us to perdition, and make us be- 
 lieve at the same time that we are journeying smoothly 
 to heaven. We can't say then, even when we are doing 
 things which our conscience condemns, that the priest 
 does the same thing, and therefore we may do it. We 
 can't say that this churchman, a bigoted Pharisee, does 
 so and so, and therefore we can do it. Every man is 
 brought face to face before the God who made him ; he 
 hears him talk; he hears his commandments, his prom- 
 ises, and the terrible judgments which he denounces 
 against them who break his law. 
 
 This is the living fountain which has been opened up 
 for all. Every one who is athirst may come and drink, 
 ay, without money and without price. You need not pay 
 any tithes, as you have to do to the priests of this world ; 
 ^you need no splendid temples. The human soul, washed 
 and purified in the fountain of God's eternal love, is the 
 only temple in which Ciu-ist will dwell. You need not 
 wait, as the lame man did at the pool of Bethesda, for the 
 arigel to come and trouble the waters; you need not 
 wait for the priests to get some mental or animal excite- 
 ment. You need not wait for the priest to come along 
 and trouble the waters of this fountain; for he who 
 opened up this fountain says to them who have been 
 lamed and diseased by sin. Take up your bed and walk. 
 
 With the Bible in your hand, you have no need of 
 -priestcraft. They are miserable hirelings anyhow; nine 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 173 
 
 out of fen would quit preaching" if they did not get good 
 pay. As a class they dress finer, and live better, ay, 
 fifty per cent, better, than the vast majority of the people 
 of the country. They have become the miserable tools 
 of the aristocracy ; and instead of teaching the gospel 
 truths, they teach such political principles as are rapidly 
 tending to put all power into the hands of the rich. And 
 why should they not desire a monarchy or aristocracy 
 for a government? Under these forms of government 
 priestcraft becomes the pet of the ruling power, because 
 priestcraft is its most serviceable tool. Priestcraft, pro- 
 fessing to have authority from God, teaches the people 
 that it is their duty to submit to the robbery, the plunder 
 and oppression of their royal masters. In order that the 
 people of this country may be free, they must first free 
 themselves from the domination of priestcraft. 
 
 In doing this, let them not commit the false blunder 
 of running into infidelity. Millions of people in this land 
 of Bibles, by confounding priestcraft with Christianity, 
 have been driven into infidelity. My countrymen, let 
 me beg you not to plunge into this fatal delusion. France 
 tried it once ; read her history and let it fill your soul 
 with horror. God Almighty gave them up to a delusion 
 to believe a lie. Truth perished ; folly, crime, war, — 
 bloody and indiscriminate wau, — ruled the hour. Every- 
 thing was chaos, anarchy, war, blood, murder, and death. 
 They worshiped reason and philosophy ; they found 
 philosophy a lie, and reason madness. Society was bled 
 until it reeled aod staggered from loss of blood. And 
 then poor friendless infidelity had to beg its old task- 
 masters kingcraft and priestcraft to save it from utter 
 ruin. 
 
 Because an infidel pharisaism has perverted Chris- 
 tianity to its own vile uses, do not therefore reject it. It 
 is the truth and the only truth in the wide, wide world. 
 The Bible and only the Bible can teach man his true re- 
 lation to his God and to his fellow-man. Upon the truths 
 of the Bible only can governments be founded which will 
 make a people wise and free and happy. Our fathers 
 were Bible-reading and Bible-believing Christians. Flee- 
 ing from the tvranny of kingcraft and priestcraft, thev 
 
 15* 
 
174 THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 fled with their Bibles in their hands to the New World. 
 Instructed by its truths, and guided by its wisdom, they 
 founded a government which was justly the wonder and 
 admiration of the world. 
 
 Because lying political factions have perverted that 
 government to the vilest of uses ; because they have con- 
 verted it into a despotism to trample upon the rights of 
 the people for whose good it was ordained and established ; 
 '^lecause they use that government which was made for 
 all for the benefit of a few ; because they use that gov- 
 ernment to rob the toiling millions of the fruits of their 
 labor, in order that an upstart bondautocracy may riot in 
 licentious excess and pompous dissipation ; because these 
 corrupt factions use the people, whose fathers were free, 
 as cards to gamble with, and put up the people's money 
 as the stake, so that no matter which faction wins the peo- 
 ple pay the cost ; because, in the name of freedom, the 
 people of this country have been made slaves : shall we 
 therefore hate freedom ? Because, in the name of the 
 \vise and good government which our fathers made, the 
 most infamous despotism is degrading and destroying this 
 country, shall we reject that government? Shall we not 
 rather reject th'ose who have perverted these good things 
 to make slaves of our souls and bodies ? 
 
 Then priestcraft must die ; political factions must die; 
 md the vast army of office-holders and hangers-on must 
 be put to some honest work like better people. If the 
 people will do this they will reduce their expenses to one- 
 hundredth part of what they are. The public debt must 
 die : no people who are in debt can be free ; no individual 
 who is in debt can be free ; he is from necessity the slave 
 of his creditors. The nation which is in debt is neces- 
 sarily the slave of bondautocratic usurers and money 
 gamblers. But then *' the national credit must be pre- 
 served and maintained" ; " the national honor must be 
 he preserved." Such stuff as this comes with a good 
 •xrace, indeed, from bondautocratic thieves and political 
 •amblers. It does well, too, for a hireling priestcraft to 
 respond to this sentiment. 
 
 The priestcraft of this country have been laboring for 
 yenrs to pervert the simple truth of Christianity. For 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. ' 175 
 
 years they have been laboring to alienate the affection of 
 one section of the country from those of the other ; for 
 years they have been using every means in their power 
 to distract and divide the people, to get up discord, 
 enmity, and war. After many years of faithful service 
 in the work of the devil, they succeeded. Tiiey produced 
 strife and division in nearly all of the important ecclesi- 
 astical bodies in the country. 
 
 They were strenuously aided, too, by that other class 
 of tools which has served the aristocracy of this country 
 so faithfully, the politicians. These miserable factions, 
 by every species of deception and fraud, labored to stir 
 up the enmity and hatred of the people. These wicked 
 conspirators at last succeeded in realizing the fruits of 
 their diabolical work. But the people got frightened ; 
 they began when it was too late to see their danger; 
 they began to wake up, but already were they in the 
 power of their political masters. 
 
 Jn that dark hour methinks that there was but one 
 State true to her ancient love of liberty and truth. There 
 was but one State where disinterested patriotism rose up 
 to the full height of the grand occasion. Why should 
 she falter? The oldest of the States, she had never in 
 her lifetime hesitated to lift herself up in all the grandeur 
 of her power against any encroachment upon the free- 
 dom of American institutions and the genius of Ameri- 
 can liberty. 
 
 When a British king and a British aristocracy were 
 plotting the degradation and enslavement of the colonies, 
 she sent forth her Patrick Henry, the greatest of the 
 apostles of liberty, to rouse her sons to noble resistance. 
 When the colonial congress met, it was one of her no- 
 blest sons who drew up the title-deed to our liberties, the 
 Declaration of Independence. When the war came, she 
 furnished the great chief whose wisdom and heroism led 
 it to a successful termination. When the convention met 
 to frame a national government, one of her sons took so 
 large a share in getting up the plan for a national govern- 
 ment that he has been justly styled the father of the 
 Constitution. When this new ship of state was to be 
 launched upon the great ocean of national life, her great 
 
1^^ THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 chief, the " first in war, the first in peace, and the first in 
 the hearts of his countrymen," was put at the helm. 
 With such a one at the helm her voj^age must needs be 
 prosperous ; his wisdom, his humanity, his virtue, his 
 truth, was a sufficient guarantee. 
 
 Some years afterward, when the alien and sedition 
 laws were forced on the country, it was her firm and de- 
 termined resistance which drove out that tyrannical in- 
 truder from the despotisms of Europe. Some years 
 afterward, when the old hero of the Hermitage, who 
 had whipped the British at New Orleans, and hung the 
 carpet-bag spies which Spain had sent into Florida to 
 incite the Indians to enlist and war against the American 
 white man, — I say when this gallant warrior, who had 
 stricken down the other enemies of his country, lifted his 
 strong arm to crush that great money-tyrant, the United 
 States Bank, that mighty lever in the hands of the aris- 
 tocracy to impoverish and degrade labor, this State stood 
 nobly by him. And a ^ew years back, when political and 
 religious proscription, under the hidden guise of know- 
 nothingism, born where all other proscriptive, intolerant, 
 and despotic notions have been born, came sweeping like 
 a flood over the country, its black tide recoiled from the 
 shores of Virginia, as the ocean wave from the rock-built 
 shore of earth. 
 
 Why should she not love the Union ? Why should 
 she not love a government which she had more hand in 
 making than any other State. Why should she not love 
 a government whose infancy she had watched over with 
 a mother's care ? Why should she not love a govern- 
 ment whose integrity in its manhood she had so nobly 
 sustained ? She did love it with all the devotion of her 
 generous heart; and by a majority of sixty thousand she 
 declared her opposition to disunion and civil war. Had 
 one of the great old States, New York or Pennsylvania, 
 come forward and endorsed this noble act, an hundred 
 thousand majority would have responded to that sen- 
 timent of fraternal regard. 
 
 But this was not to be; for with all their idle boasts 
 about freedom and equality and manhood suffrage, these 
 great States had long since ceased to be free, — long since 
 
TTIK THIRD WITNESS. Ift 
 
 had the people of these States passed into the hands of 
 political gamblers. At the head of the national govern- 
 ment, and the brains which was to run that machine, was 
 the most accomplished political trickster of the age. He 
 was chief even among New York politicians, who are all 
 educated to look up trickery as a trump card. Since he 
 lias been a prominent politician, he has never spoken a 
 single sentence which did not have a double meaning. 
 He is the very personification of chicanery and fraud ; 
 his very smile is deceit; it is as utterly impossible for 
 him to be candid as it is for the devil to be a Christian. 
 This cold-blooded, soulless, political gambler, who had 
 taught the irrepressible conflict, must bring it on. He 
 bad studied human nature, and especially its weakness, 
 well; for he had used all kinds of persons to promote the 
 objects of his ambition. He at once determined to pre- 
 cipitate the war by taking advantage of the weakest 
 point in the Southern character, — their rash and hasty 
 temper. He had promised South Carolina to let Fort 
 Sumter stand as it was. He broke that promise, and 
 sent his ships to provision and strengthen the fort. The 
 trick succeeded even beyond his expectations South 
 Carolina struck down the old flag. The North was set 
 on fire. 
 
 But even then a little time for the people to meet and 
 talk the matter over would have prevented the war. 
 But the politicians would not have it so: they must have 
 war. The bondautocracy of Wall Street said, " Make 
 war, and we'll pay the expenses ; fifty millions are ready 
 now." The satraps who governed the Northern prov- 
 inces, miscalled States, said, " Make war; we won't fight 
 ourselves, but each one of us will furnish men and money. 
 Both the people of our provinces and their money belong 
 to us, and we will furnish just as many men and as much 
 money as you want." Thus, when five-sixths of the 
 people — so called — were opposed to disunion, and nine- 
 tenths of them w^ere opposed to civil war, the war was 
 forced on them by political fraud and force. Men who 
 were friends and brothers — men who w^ere born to a 
 common heritage of freedom, and who were devoted to 
 the preservation of the liberties of a common country — 
 
 H* 
 
lYa THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 were driven, by the cunning devices of a lying priest^ 
 craft and the tricks of political thieves and scoundrels, 
 to meet on a hundred battle-fields and slay each other, 
 until tens of thousands — yea, hundreds of thousands — 
 had perished. 
 
 The war is over. The whole land is clad in the liabili- 
 nients of mourning. One half of the country sits in the 
 ashes of their desolated homes and wasted fields, weeping 
 for their perished liberties. When the despots of other 
 ages and other countries overrun and subjugate countries, 
 — the Caesars, the Neroes, and the Caligulas, — it was 
 supposed that military despotism was the harshest form 
 of government which tyranny could devise ; but the 
 freedom-shriekers of our land — the advocates of humanity 
 and progress — have excelled those tyrants in the brutal 
 and atrocious governments which they have forced upon 
 the people of the South. They have insulted the pride 
 of these brave and generous-hearted people by subjecting 
 them to the rule of a half-civilized race of barbarians, 
 once their slaves. Talk about civilization and the nine- 
 teenth century 1 A crime so infamous as this has no 
 parallel, either in the history of heathen or savage 
 nations ; it is a pre-eminence in barbarity which stands' 
 by itself. 
 
 The people of this* country a thousand years hence 
 will blush for this black page in the record of their his- 
 tory ; and if a just God should punish this people — who 
 have been exalted to heaven in point of privilege— for 
 these crimes, as he has punished other nations for similar 
 crimes, how terrible will be that punishment I But, hush I 
 These people don't believe in God ; they believe in priest- 
 craft, and that has taught them to worship mammon and 
 a thousand other strange gods. Ah, shall he cease to be, 
 who made the heaven and earth, the seas and fountains 
 of waters, because the devil and his agents have per- 
 suaded his creatures to believe a lie ? Will his bright- 
 ness cease to flash athwart the heavens because they shut 
 their eyes? Will his deep thunders cease to shake the 
 earth because they stop their ears? Shall he be afraid 
 of the pomp and splendor of their power who made the 
 sun, and moon, and stars, the volcano, and the earth- 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 179 
 
 quake? Shall the golden gods they worship hold back 
 his hand from turning them into hell with the nations 
 which forget him? 
 
 The war is over and who is profited by it ? — the sol- 
 diers? Ask them, and the voice which comes back from 
 the silent graves around a hundred battle-fields will 
 answer you. Ask them, and the earthy mounds, which 
 cover heaps of unknown dead, piled together like the oflfal 
 from butchers' stalls, will answer you. 
 
 Ask them, and their bleaching bones, scattered ever 
 the desolate fields of the South, will answer you. Ask 
 them, and the lame, hobbling about on their crutches, 
 and the blind, sitting on the street-corners begging, will 
 answer you. Ask them, and the thousands and tens of 
 thousands who are working hard at low price, and pay 
 exorbitantly high for all the necessaries of life, will 
 answer you. 
 
 Who has been profited? the farmers and mechanics 
 and all the vast number of working people of the coun- 
 try ? Ask them, and they will tell you that they work 
 hard from one year's end to another, and they can't make 
 ends meet. Ask them, and they will tell you that they 
 have dispensed with the luxuries and pleasures of life 
 which theycould once enjoy, — ay, and many of its neces- 
 saries, — and still they can't make ends meet. Ask the 
 widows and orphans of the soldiers who perished in the 
 war, and of the laboring people of the country huddled 
 together in the cellars and garrets of our large cities, 
 toiling for half pay and living on half rations. Ask the 
 pretty daughters of the poor, whom there is no moral 
 law to protect, for priestcraft has preached that to sleep, 
 but for whom the civil law, in the name of humanity and 
 freedom, has filled the cities of the country with houses 
 of infamy, — those graves of hell in which the soul and 
 body are buried together forever. 
 
 • The war is over, and who has been profited by it? The 
 politicians — ah, what a harvest it has been for them ! 
 They have in the national treasury alone five hundred 
 millions of dollars to disburse every year. How many 
 fat jobs, too, do they have every year by laying taxes for 
 the benefit of big whiskey distilleries and big manufac- 
 
180 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 turing establisliments ! How much, too, have they been 
 paid for putting the money matters of the country en- 
 tirely into the hands of money gamblers! Who has 
 been profited ? — the bo?ulautocracy. A h ! did you ever see 
 so mighty an aristocracy built up in any country in so 
 short a space of time ? AVhilst the poor white trash 
 were doing the drudgery of the war, the government 
 contractors, the cotton-stealing generals, and the substi- 
 tute-buyers were making fortunes. Vast moneyed mo- 
 nopolies have been built up, and by the laws of your 
 government, by its whole policy, canals have been dug to 
 catch the sweat which flows from the brow of labor, and 
 to lead it into these immense reservoirs of wealth. 
 
 Did you ever know any aristocracy in so short a time 
 to build so many princely residences ? Did you ever 
 know any aristocracy to live in such wild and reckless 
 extravagance ? Did you ever see it make so gaudy a 
 show ? Did you ever see before in its train such useless, 
 foolish pomp? Did you ever before see their wives and 
 daughters adorned with so many and so costly trinkets 
 of fashion? The aristocracy of Europe, though hun- 
 dreds of years old, are not half as high in their preten- 
 sions, not half as dazzling in the splendor of their pomp, 
 as these upstart thieves of our own land; nor are the 
 serfs of these aristocracies half as obsequious in iheir 
 servility to their old taskmasters as are the white slaves 
 of this country to these upstart thieves and usurpers. 
 
 And yet the miserable slaves who are afraid to look 
 upon the polished boots of their taskmasters are im- 
 pudently prating about freedom and equality. Equality, 
 poor devils ! thousands of your rich masters would not 
 permit you to come into their kitchens, much less into 
 their parlors. What men are these to oflfer freedom and 
 equality to woman in the hind of Washington ? Boot- 
 blacks and ostlers of an upstart aristocracy, whose bloated 
 carcasses have been swelled into huge proportions hv 
 sucking the lire-l>lood of their country. Who has been 
 profited ? Priestcraft. Were their robes ever so long 
 before? Were their salaries ever so big? Did it ever 
 happen in the world before, that so many splendid temples 
 were built in so short a time to mammon, and the idol 
 
THE THIRD \yjTM:SS. 181 
 
 gods whom they have taught the people to worship? 
 How many political conventions, in the name of religion, 
 have been held in this country since the war? How 
 lO'Mjy of these ecclesiastical despotisms are plotting union 
 with the political tyranny of this country, in order that 
 they may have the exclusive right to collect tithes of mint, 
 cummin, and anise ? 
 
 Was there ever impudence so unblushing as that of this 
 bondautocracy ? It promised at the beginning of the war, 
 that if the working men would do the fighting, that they 
 would pay the expenses ; but now they say that they 
 only lent their money to the government, and that they 
 must have it back. Ay, more, that where they lent forty 
 dollars they must have a hundred. The government 
 promises this, and the promise must be kept. And who 
 constitutes this government? Why, the politicians, the 
 slaves of the bondautocracy who made the war, to please 
 the bondautocracy. Did not the rich promise to pay ex- 
 penses, if the people would do the fighting? Why don't 
 they keep their promise? Suppose the people should de- 
 mand back the blood which they gave to the war. Is 
 there enough in the veins of all the political gamblers 
 and bondautocratic thieves to pay it? 
 
 Let these Shylocks beware ; they have gotten already 
 rivers of blood and iiecatombs of human bodies. And 
 what oceans of tears flowed from the eyes of widows and 
 orphans I And millious and billions of money they have 
 gathered into their coffers. And what have the people 
 got? Wounds and bruises, and death, and mourning in 
 their families. A divided Union, a violated constitu- 
 tion, a political tyranny, and swarms of tax-gatherers 
 filching from labor its hard earnings, to bolster up a cor- 
 rupt and extravagant government, so called, and to feed 
 the filthy bloated carcass of a licentious bondautocracy. 
 W'hat have the people got? abundant and importunate 
 poverty, to drive them to subsist upon public and private 
 charity. 
 
 I repeat it: if the w^ar was just, the bondautocracy and 
 the politicians who were exempt from all its evils, its 
 privations and hardships, ought to pay the expenses. 
 The people furnished the hundreds of thousands of lives, 
 
 16 
 
183 ^^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 the rivers of blood, and the agony of woe, which no m«i 
 tell. Ought not those who were exempt from all thc^e 
 evils to pay the expenses? Jf, on the contrary, the \*ar 
 was unjust, the politicians and bondautocracy, \rho 
 brought the war about, ought to pay for it doubly. 
 
 But instead of doing this they have by legislative fraud 
 doubled the debt, and ask the people to pay this. Mow 
 often does it happen that the greedy, in trying to grasp 
 all, lose all ? For once I think their usual tact has de- 
 serted them. Had the bondautocracy and their political 
 tools estimated the public debt at what it really was, — 
 about one-half of what it now is, — had they made the 
 interest in it about three per cent, and taxed it like all 
 other property, the people, so long used to bearing bur- 
 dens, might have submitted to it, and they might have 
 used it as a great power to build up in the course of time 
 an aristocracy in this country. The way other despot- 
 isms have made slaves out of the people is to put on 
 them a little at a time, and to increase it as they see they 
 are able to bear it. But Providence, who intends this 
 country to be free forever, has, in his ways of inscrutable 
 wisdom, given up our taskmasters to a strong delusion to 
 believe a lie. They believe that, because it is done in the 
 name of freedom and humanity, they can persuade the 
 people of this country to take on their backs at once, and 
 carry burdens such as the monarchies and aristocracies 
 of Europe have been hundreds of years training their 
 serfs to bear. 
 
 Vaulting ambition has overleaped itself, and the very 
 means which man is using to make slaves of his fellow- 
 men, that kind J^rovidence, who has watched over this 
 country from its infancy with the tenderest care, will use 
 to make men free. The slaveocracy of the South, with 
 its monopoly of wealth in the property of four millions 
 of slaves and their political tools who helped bring war 
 on the country, are overthrown ; and never, since the 
 world was created, has man made to the world a higher 
 or nobler exposition of truth than was made by these 
 people immediately after the war. Their military power 
 was broken, their civil governments were destroyed, their 
 wealth, their property, had all perished in the wasting 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 183 
 
 fires of war. Thefr hopes were blasted, and their political 
 principles, which they held dearer than life itself, had 
 perished; confusion was everywhere confounded. Men 
 knew not where to go, or what to do. 
 
 In this dark hour all eyes were turned to their great 
 chief Gloriously had he led them in a hundred hard- 
 foiight battles. His wisdom, his genius, his heroism had 
 baffled, for four long years, the powers of the greatest 
 nation in the world, with its overwhelming numbers and 
 superior military armaments. Amidst the ruins of his 
 country, and the deep humiliations of defeat, he stands 
 grander than he was amidst the greatest achievements 
 of his martial powers and the proudest days of his 
 country's glory. Others have triumphed over the for- 
 tunes of war; but he, and only he, triumphed over the 
 ruins of defeat. His words, though the simplest in the 
 vocabulary of language, were the divinest in the power of 
 their eloquence. What were those magic words so simple, 
 and yet so eloquent? — " Go to work." 
 
 To give emphasis to his words, he adds the influence 
 of his example. He too goes to work. When the people 
 were free and great, and had honors to bestow, they lav- 
 ished them on him. Now that they are poor slaves, he 
 shares their servitude, their poverty, and their toils. 
 Millions of hearts which once admired him as a hero 
 now love him as a father. So effective was this good 
 advice to his countrymen, that in a few months after the 
 war was over no one could have told that war had been 
 there, but for the desolation it had left in its track. For 
 over three years this thing has continued. In the mean 
 time the people have had as many different governments 
 as Mexico, or been without any government, as the con- 
 ceit of a low political demagogue, who imagines himself 
 a Caesar, because accident had made him a President, or 
 as the malice of a fanatical Congress who imagine them- 
 selves the rulers and masters of this country because the 
 commander-in-chief of our armies says so, might dictate. 
 
 In addition to all these things, the governing faction, 
 from motives of hatred, revenge, and ambition, flooded 
 the country with every disturbing element. Priestcraft, 
 with its characteristic cupidities, rushed down there to 
 
184 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 steal, under the license which wars of conquest and sub^ 
 jug-ation usually give to the cowardly and cruel, the 
 church property; and in order to justify this crime, re- 
 pu^rnant not only to the spirit of Christianity which they 
 hypocritically profess, but at war with the magnanimity 
 which heathen nations have practiced, assembled their 
 ecclesiastical bodies all over the country, and put out 
 political pronunciamentos full of abuse, of lies, and foul 
 slander against these people. I say they did this to stir 
 up the angry passions of their own people ; for they knew 
 full well that only the worst passions of human nature, 
 anger and revenge, would justify the robberies which 
 they contemplated. 
 
 Political adventurers, substitute-buyers, and govern- 
 ment spies and contractors, who stayed at home during 
 the war, making money out of the suffering, the priva- 
 tions, ay, even the blood of the hundreds of thousands 
 of their countrymen who were perishing upon the battle- 
 fields of the South, flocked there to get office. 
 
 Cowards in the South who hid themselves whilst brave 
 men were fighting, and policy men who fought for the 
 South until it was evident theirs would be the losing side, 
 and then joined with the carpet-baggers of the North, 
 like a flock of foul buzzards gathered around the battle- 
 fields where brave men had fought and fell, to feed them- 
 selves upon their carcasses. 
 
 The wicked fleeth where no man pursueth. So it was 
 with this dastard crew. Afraid, because their guilty con- 
 sciences told them that their purposes were wicked, they 
 sought to raise a guard for themselves by stirring up the 
 prejudices of the negroes against their former masters. 
 Oh, yes, if there is to be any fighting, we will put the 
 negro and brave white men at it, and we will follow be- 
 hind, and plunder as we did before. The faction in power 
 encouraged these wrongs, because they knew these crea- 
 tures would be serviceable to them in completing that 
 system of usurpations which they have been making 
 under the forms of law to perpetuate their power. 
 
 I have often wondered how brave men in the North, 
 who met brave men in the- South on a hundred battle 
 fields, who stood with them on the same earth, trembling 
 
 / 
 
THE THIRD y^lTNESS. 186 
 
 and quaking beneath the shock of battle, whose blood 
 mingled together on the same field, and who, perhaps, 
 after the battle, wounded and bleeding, liad their famished 
 thirst quenched by water from the canteen of a generous 
 victor, — I say, I have often wondered how they could so 
 far forget that magnanimity which has ever been esteemed 
 the noblest element in the character of a brave soldier, 
 as to turn over the brave soldiers of the South whose 
 heroic courage they had tested for four long years, to be 
 trampled on and insulted by the ignorant, the cowardly, 
 and the cruel. It seems passingly strange to me, that 
 men would not have more respect for brave men, and 
 more confidence in them, who met them honorably on the 
 field and withstood them to the death, than for those 
 miserable craven camp followers, w^ho hid themselves from 
 the thunders of the battle, and then came down to plun- 
 der the wounded and the dying, whether they be friend 
 or foe; for the history of the times shows that men who 
 served in the war as Federal soldiers, now living in the 
 South, are disfranchised because they refuse to vote for 
 these buzzards, and indorse their infamous political theo- 
 ries. 
 
 Thus a Federal soldier, no matter if he has lost an 
 arm or a leg, or both arms and both legs, fighting for the 
 Union, so called, can't vote in the State of Arkansas, so 
 called, unless he will swear that he believes a negro a fit 
 person to marry his own daughter.* This is the test of 
 loyalty in the South. The test of loyalty in the North 
 is, that a man must believe that the "poor white trash" 
 are only fit to be hewers of wood and drawers of water 
 for an upstart bondautocracy. Such are the modern 
 notions of freedom and humanity, of progress and reform. 
 All these wrongs those people have borne patiently and 
 heroically. Is it possible to make slaves of such a people ? 
 Is it noble and magnanimous for those who overcame them 
 to permit them to be thus trampled on ? 
 
 But I have mentioned these things to get another 
 fact. Men from the South, honest and intelligent men, 
 have uniformly testified to this fact, extraordinary as it 
 
 \ 
 
 * 1868. 
 
 16* 
 
186 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 may seem, that for a year after the war, and before the 
 elements of discord which I have described above had 
 gotten fully to work, the people of the South, without 
 any government, — for the military stationed at prominent 
 places were never called on by the people to settle their 
 disputes, — had more peace and quiet and good order than 
 had ever existed in the country before. And this thing 
 happened among a people whose civil administrations 
 were as equitable and whose social life was as undisturbed 
 as anywhere else in the world. 
 
 I repeat it, the catalogue of murders, thefts, and other 
 crimes which disturb the peace and good order of society, 
 was shorter in the Southern States than in any other 
 country in the world, before the war. Was it not strange 
 that when the civil governments of these people were 
 destroyed, and they were virtually left without any gov- 
 ernment, — for they hated the military government and 
 never appealed to it, — that the peace and good order of 
 society was better than it ever had been under their civil 
 governments? The secret of it was, that everybody was 
 poor, and everybody had to go to some honest work. 
 There were no aristocracy, and no gentlemen of leisure ; 
 no commercial and financial gamblers, for there was no 
 money to gamble with ; no political tricksters and busy- 
 bodies to divide and disturb the minds of the people, by 
 schemes of plunder invented to make their own fortunes; 
 scarcely any litigation, for a people who had just ^been 
 plundered by a common enemy felt little inclination to 
 plunder each other by the piserable tricks of fraud and 
 chicanery which disgrace the judiciary of modern times. 
 Men who had been born to fortune, trained by the hard 
 usages of war, dropped the sword and the musket to take 
 hold of the plow. Woman who had been nursed in the 
 lap of fortune, and whose delicate white hands had never 
 been soiled, with that noble pride which is characteristic 
 of her sex, joyfully shared the hard lot of her brave 
 husband, father or brother. 
 
 Obedience to Heaven's laws brings always the fruits 
 of good. Their minds, occupied with their work, had no 
 time to fret over their misfortune ; the labor required to 
 provide their plain fare made it both toothsome and 
 
THE THIRD WITNUSS. 18T 
 
 wholesome to them, even, who had been raised on delica- 
 cies. 
 
 How is it possible to account for this most extraordi- 
 nary condition of things ? Some will say that it was the 
 military stationed there which kept order. But stern and 
 inexorable facts refute this notion entirely. For it is noto- 
 riously true that the only instances of disorder which oc- 
 curred at all happened immediately where the military 
 were stationed. Indeed, every instance of disorder can be 
 traced to the improper interferences of the military, where 
 it occurred. The soldiery was looked upon as the special 
 friends of that class of society which was the least edu- 
 cated in the principles of self-government, and least 
 trained in those habits of individual and personal re- 
 straint which preserve order in society, without the fear 
 of penal laws. Under their influence the negro was some- 
 times led to make aggressions upon the rights of the 
 white man, which the latter would not submit to, although 
 he knew that a sword in the hands of prejudice, partiality, 
 and hatred, hung over his head. And I give him credit 
 for it, for the man who submits to insults and wrongs 
 from a cowardly fear of death is fit only to be a slave. 
 But in the rural districts, far off from military posts, 
 where nature was allowed to take its course and where 
 the superior virtue and intelligence of the white man con- 
 trolled society, there was perfect peace and quiet, perfect 
 good order. 
 
 If these things can be for one year, why not for five, 
 ten, or for all time ? If society can live in peace and 
 happiness without that vast and cumbrous machinery 
 called government, why do we hold on to governments? 
 Don't understand me to say that society can live without 
 law : not at all. But this much I will say, that society 
 can live without that vast complicated political machinery 
 which requires one-half of the mental powers of the 
 country and one-half of the physical powers to keep it 
 in motion. 
 
 Governments ought to be a few simple and well-defined 
 laws (like the ten commandments), to restrain the evil 
 passions of men. Instead of that, kingcraft and priest- 
 craft, and their masters the money-gamblers and thieves, 
 
188 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 have made it a vast power, which they use first to destroy 
 the liberties of mankind, and afterward to hold them in 
 perpetual thraldom. This day, throughout the world, — 
 not even excepting the United States, — ninety-nine men 
 are the slaves of the hundredth. Perhaps in this country 
 each master does not hold quite so many slaves, but even 
 here the principle is just as fixed and as distinctly 
 marked. 
 
 Who does not believe that our country would be infi- 
 nitely better off without those political factions who, 
 when in power, spend their time and the people's money 
 devising schemes of fraud and violence to perpetuate 
 their power; and, when out of power, spend their time 
 fishing up out of the muddy sea of political philosophy, 
 so called, pretty promises of reform, to humbug and cajole 
 the people in order to regain their confidence ? Who does 
 not believe that with the Bible in our hand we could 
 dispense with that ecclesiastical despotism called the 
 church, which robs the people of whatever the politicians 
 may leave them to keep up their usurped dominion over 
 the human soul? Who does not know in his own com- 
 munity three men, who, without being tangled and con- 
 founded by miserable senseless quibbles called law, could 
 decide any dispute which might arise between two men 
 more honestly and fairly, and at one-hundredth part of 
 the cost, than all the lawyers and courts in Christendom ? 
 Who does not believe that mankind can live without 
 those vast moneyed monopolies, the aristocracy, bond- 
 autocracy, or whatever you may choose to call these 
 money-gamblers and thieves, whose tools the priests and 
 politicians are ? 
 
 Who does not know that the political factions which 
 have ruled this country for the last twenty years have 
 not, in that long time, passed hardly a single law which 
 was not intended to give some peculiar privilege to some 
 rising aristocratic power in this country ? Who will not 
 be astonished to find that during that long time every 
 important measure of governmental policy advocated 
 by any political party has looked exclusively to the pro- 
 motion of the interest and welfare either of the slave- 
 ocracy of the South or the commercial and financial 
 
THE TillliD WITNESS. 189 
 
 aristocracy of the North ? Who will not be astonished 
 to find out that during that long time every important 
 measure of public law has been dictated either by the 
 masters of negro slaves in the South, or by the masters 
 of white slaves in the North ? And who, except the 
 bondautocrats and their tools the priests and politicians, 
 does not feel the evil results of this unrighteous legisla- 
 tion ? Who that is not utterly devoid of common sense 
 does not see that the rich are getting richer and fewer in 
 numbers, whilst the poor are getting poorer and greater 
 in numbers? Who that is not a fool or a fanatic can fail 
 to see that priestcraft sells to the money-gambler, what- 
 ever his trade may be, the privilege of robbing labor of 
 its hire? Who can fail to see that the churchman who 
 is a worshiper of mammon can buy from the priest who 
 keeps his soul an indulgence to deceive and cheat and 
 rob anybody he can, provided he pays a good share of his 
 stealings to the church ? 
 
 Who does not know that the millions and millions of 
 dollars which are spent to keep up these more than 
 wicked despotisms are coined out of the drops of sweat 
 which fall from the brow of labor? Wlio does not see 
 with what fearful rapidity these crushing despotisms are 
 growing? Who that labors does not feel their increasing 
 weight ? Who that labors does not recognize the fact 
 that the time will soon come, without some important 
 change, when the w^orking men of this country will be 
 what they are in the Old World, miserable slaves, with- 
 out any of the blessings of freedom for the present, or any 
 hope for the future ? 
 
 But have those masters of the people given the people 
 nothing in this long time? How have they kept them 
 in such a good humor if they have taken all? Oh, yes; 
 they have given the people plenty of proniises. Every 
 new faction, especially, has promised reform; they have 
 invented baubles, too, for them to play with. The most 
 specious and plausible of all these is suffrage. How 
 wonderfully has it tickled the fancy of the people ! Let 
 them choose their own masters, and they will not ask 
 you either the terms or duration of their servitude. 
 
 Even women are being persuaded that if they only had 
 
1 00 THE GR 1:A T TRIAL. 
 
 the privilege of choosing the degradation to which the 
 wickedness and folly of the times have reduced their 
 sex, they could bear it better. It would mitigate the 
 evil of separations from their husbands, which have be- 
 come nowadays as common almost as marriages ; it 
 would reconcile the natural antipathies and discords so 
 commonly found now among married people, because 
 marriages, like everything else in this money-worshiping 
 age, have become matters of bargain and sale. It would 
 soothe the anguish of those poor unfortunates whom the 
 false notions of morals and politics which govern society 
 have forced to shelter themselves in those dens of infamy 
 where all t4ie beauty of virtue dies, and where the light 
 of hope is put out, to be kindled no more forever. So 
 admirably has this device been used to make slaves of 
 the people of this country, w^ho were born free, that the 
 despots of Europe have introduced it into their kingdoms 
 to quiet their people, and avoid, if possible, the terrific 
 storm of liberty which is to-day hanging over that 
 country. 
 
 But suppose the people would make up their minds to 
 put this plaything to a better use. Suppose they would 
 make up their minds to choose to vote for once, at least, 
 some good for themselves; suppose they would go to 
 the polls and vote down political factions; suppose they 
 would vote down an insolent and domineering aris- 
 tocracy, which has arrogated to itself all power, all the 
 privileges and blessings of life ; suppose they would vote 
 down that vast political power, which with its legion of 
 corporate auxiliaries, like so many sea-monsters, eats up 
 half of the fruits of their labor; suppose they would vote 
 for a radical reform of this government ; suppose they 
 would vindicate the truths of that declaration that gov- 
 ernments are instituted among men for the good of all, 
 and not for the good of a few favored classes ; suppose 
 they would choose to rule awhile themselves, and make 
 the government subordinate to the welfare and happiness 
 of all ; suppose they would enact it as a fundamental law 
 that the government should never pass a single measure 
 for the exclusive benefit of any corporation, any class, or 
 any individual; suppose they would decree that that 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 191 
 
 vast army of office-holders, whose slaves thej have been 
 so long, the politicians, the priests, and lawyers, should 
 follow some honest calling- like other and better men ; 
 suppose in this way they would reduce the expenses of 
 government to the one-hundredth part of what it is to- 
 day ; suppose they would thus add to the laboring and 
 producing part of the community all these drones of 
 society who have heretofore lived by their wits. 
 
 These gentlemanly classes, indeed, don't make a very 
 large part of society, and yet it requires nearly half of the 
 products of the laboring classes to support them. For 
 these gentlemanly fellows, who live by their wits, must 
 live in handsome style, so that it requires just about the 
 products of five or ten day-laborers to keep one of thom 
 going. Somebody will say that these principles are 
 radical and revolutionary ; some tool of the boudautocracy 
 will start this objection at once. Is it not a little strange 
 that these creatures shout and hurrah till their throats 
 are sore for radical and revolutionary measures, so long 
 as these measures are for the benefit of themselves and 
 their bondautocratic masters; but once propose some 
 vital truth, which looks to the liberation of the great 
 masses of mankind from slavery and degradation, and all 
 at once they will cry out that radical and revolutionary 
 measures are dangerous and destructive. Were measures 
 so radical and revolutionary ever adopted before, as have 
 been in this country in the last five or six years? 
 
 When I see Virginia, the mother of statesmen, a 
 wretched dependency governed by a military satrap, 
 I almost think I see her Patrick Henry and her John 
 Randolph coming up out of their graves, their eyes 
 gleaming with the lightning of inspiration, and their 
 burning souls pouring upon the usurpers and tyrants 
 who thus insult their memory and their names the hot 
 breath of their scorn. When 1 hear white men, who were 
 born free, using words and phrases taught them by their 
 political masters, such as rebel, loyalty, etc., — words and 
 phrases which kings and princes and aristocracies require 
 their serfs to wear about them as badges of their obse- 
 quious servility, — it makes my cheek tingle with a blusb 
 of shame, not only for my country, but for mankind. 
 
192 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 But this radicalism suits their purpose. The half- 
 civilized negro can be relied on, under the mauagenient 
 of the carpet-baggers, to vote right, and fight rigbt, if the 
 worst comes to the worst. These tyrants are getting 
 afraid of their white slaves ; they have been putting 
 mighty heavy burdens upon them, and they are getting 
 restless; they are getting tired of living on promises; 
 they need something more than the privilege of living 
 in the land of freedom and humanity ; they need food 
 and clothes. These are getting scarce. ** Abundant 
 and importunate beggary" seizes them and leads them 
 around during the long hard wiuters the pitiable objects 
 of public and private charity. These ignorant negroes 
 can't govern the virtuous intelligent white people of the 
 South, and therefore it will be necessary to keep up large 
 standing armies, to bolster up their weakness and igno- 
 rance. These armies, wholly negro, will answer another 
 purpose: they will hush the murmurs of whi'te slaves in 
 the North, as they do this day in every country in 
 Europe. 
 
 O, yes; this kind of radicalism will do very well. 
 These changes, violent and revolutionary as they are, 
 all look exclusively to th.e interest of the ruling classes. 
 But let some one propose to abolish slavery, not in name, 
 but in truth ; to pull down all these social, civil, and 
 political institutions, which privileged classes have built 
 up to defend and perpetuate their power; and at once 
 these very revolutionists will cry out. None of this radical- 
 ism, it is dangerous to the peace of society. But they 
 will say these propositions are extraordinary, unheard 
 of; no people have ever adopted them before. That is 
 true, I confess. And it is equally true that no people 
 have ever been free, nor will any people ever be free, 
 until they destroy those institutions of tyranny which 
 have been successfully used for six thousand years, in 
 every nation, and country, and kindred, and people, to 
 hold the masses of mankind in slavery and degradation. 
 
 I thank God we have what no people ever had in the 
 world before: we have, right from heaven, from the God 
 who made us, a book of wisdom and knowledge and 
 truth. Not only does it tell man to be free, as the wis- 
 
TIIK THIRD iiir^VE^S. 193 
 
 dom of this world does, but it tells him how to be free. 
 Not only does it tell him to be happy, bat it tells him 
 how to be happy ; uud this the wisdom of the world has 
 never done. 
 
 Priestcraft will sneer at this ; for, with all their learned 
 theology, they are as ignorant of the Bible and its prom- 
 ises to mankind as a Patagonian ; and with all their 
 loud-mouthed professions they know less about the spirit 
 of a genuine Christianity than honest heathens. 
 
 Political philosophy, too, will sneer at this, although 
 their utmost wisdom has been at work for six thousand 
 years to ameliorate the condition of mankind, and for six 
 thousand years they have most signally failed. How 
 wonderfully did they seem to succeed in Egypt ages ago. 
 The arts, sciences, and civilization flourished there to a 
 wonderful degree. But where is Egypt, and where is 
 her ancient glory ! Only the pyramids, mighty tomb- 
 stones, remain to mark her grave. And Babylon, where 
 is she? So terrible and swift was the ruin wiiich over- 
 took her that not even her grave can be found. Persia, 
 Cunhage ; where are they ? Greece, classic Greece, and 
 Pvome, proud mistress of the world, where are they ? 
 The Odyssey and ^Eneid of their great poets, prophets 
 inspired by Heaven to teach mankind some knowledge 
 of the Creator, have come down to us upon the waves 
 of time; all else has perished in that angry flood. 
 
 The houses of heathen nations were built upon the 
 sand, and therefore when the rains descended, and the 
 flood came, they fell, and great was the fall thereof. 
 When they fell they rose no more, but went back to their 
 ancient barbarism. But our house, our social fabric, was 
 built upon a rock. The stone which the builders rejected 
 has become the head of the corner. The storms of po- 
 litical madness and folly may beat upon it, the floodgates 
 of infidelity and pharisaical hypocrisy may be opened, 
 and their wild torrents of anger and revengeful persecu- 
 tions poured down upon it ; yet still it will stand. 
 
 The Bible and its truths are the hope of the world. 
 
 Its mission is to redeem man from the curse of sin, to set, 
 
 him free. Inrtnite wisdom has decreed its mission; Ai- 
 
 might}' power has fixed its destiny. The Bible is the 
 
 1 If 
 
194 THE GREAT TRIAL. " 
 
 truth, and the only truth in the world. Liberty is the 
 daughter of truth. We in our madness and folly have 
 exiled truth from our country. Liberty, bound in chains, 
 mourns in sackcloth and ashes. Priestcraft has lulled 
 the human soul to sleep with the opiates of infidelity ; 
 and man, devoid of all notions of right reason, has be- 
 come the dupe of every artifice devised to deceive him, 
 and the tool of every power which chooses to use him, 
 to work his own ruin. 
 
 Our fathers believed in the Bible, and worshiped the 
 God of the Bible, and they had wisdom and virtue, free- 
 dom and prosperity. We believe in the theologies of 
 priestcraft, the cunningly devised word of human wis- 
 dom, and worship gods of gold and silver; and we have 
 civil war, terrible political commotions, crushing burdens 
 of debt, and taxation, usurpation and tyranny, crimes, 
 folly and madness. Financial and commercial gamblers, 
 who by the tricks of their trade have accumulated fabu- 
 lous fortunes in a few years, stand at the top of society 
 and fix its laws and customs. Political liars and thieves, 
 adepts in all the villainous arts of chicanery and fraud, 
 are the leaders of political factions, and direct the whole 
 civil administration of the country. And yet a people 
 who have deliberately cliosen all these evils wonder 
 why they are crushed with debt and taxation, why their 
 liberties have perished, and why dark clouds of ruin 
 hang ominously over their future. Is it not time that 
 the people were waking up? Have they not followed 
 long enough blind guides who lead them into the muddy 
 ditches of poverty, slavery, and degradation. 
 
 'Tis man's privilege to choose good or evil ; but heaven 
 has reserved to itself the right to fix the consequences. 
 When he chooses good, he will be free and happy. When 
 he chooses evil, he will be a miserable tslave ; ay, he will 
 be turned into hell with the nations that forget God. 
 The people can continue to choose these evils, and worse 
 ones if they desire it ; but this they cannot do, they can- 
 not avoid that harvest of woe which the wicked must 
 reap. Eternal Justice has set limits to the angry waves 
 of the ocean, so has He set limits to the nngry waves of 
 human folly. When they reach those barriers, they break. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 195 
 
 roll back on themselves, and are drowned in their owq 
 flood. 
 
 I have no faith in any form of government, — demo- 
 cratic, aristocratic, or monarchical. These are only cdd, 
 dead forms. They have no power to protect themselves, 
 much less can they protect us. If you don't believe 
 what I say, ask Caesar; ask the Bourbons of France; 
 ask the Dantons, Robespierres, and Marats of that coun- 
 try; ask Charles I.; ask Cromwell; ask Abe Lincoln; 
 or ask the empires which flourished in the ages of the 
 past; and the echo of your own voice coming back from 
 their silent ruins will attest the truth of what I say. 
 
 But I have faith in the genius of Christianity; I be- 
 lieve in its promises to redeem poor fallen man, and set 
 him free again ; and because of this faith do I believe 
 whatever stands in its way will fall. The hand of the 
 Almighty will strike it down, haughty as may be the 
 pride of its strength; and bright as may be the blaze of 
 its glory, his fingers will snuff it out like a candle. I 
 love democracy, not because it has au}'^ virtue in itself, 
 but because it is that form which liberty assumes when 
 left free to choose its own form. I love democracy, 
 not because it has any means to secure my freedom, 
 but because it is the shadow of liberty; and I know, 
 when I see that shadow moving about, that liberty still 
 lives. 
 
 Not only is American democracy dead: its very 
 shadow is gone. The tyrants who have destroyed our 
 liberties have been deliberating for three years about the 
 condition of ten enslaved provinces; and the question in 
 that whole time has never come up as to how those 
 provinces might be restored to free States, But who 
 shall determine the condition of their slavery, — the low, 
 narrow-minded, drunken demagogue who disgraces the 
 executive mansion, or a gang of small politicians, thieves, 
 and gamblers, ruled by the insolent and arbitrary dicta- 
 tion of an old debauchee, whose very bones are rotten 
 from his licentious excess of beastly indulgence ? The 
 only question which has been asked about ten subjugated 
 provinces — once free and independent States in the great 
 family of American democracy — is this, Whether Andv 
 
196 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Johnson or Thad. Stevens shall fix the condition of their 
 slavery ? 
 
 JrfUt you say the other States are free. Yes, because 
 they are loyal. So are the serfs of Russia free, whilst 
 they are loyal. Let them continue to obey the decrees 
 of their royal master, and the czar will not disturb them. 
 Why should he ? But let one of these free States pre- 
 suuie to determine any question for itself against the 
 wishes of the usurpers at Washington, — who boast that 
 they are acting outside of the Constitution, — and such a 
 State at once would be crushed as Virginia and South 
 Carolina have been. Suppose the present Congress (so 
 called) should, by a law allowing negroes to vote in all 
 the States (and this thing will be done if there is a 
 jjrobability of the election going against the radicals 
 next fall); suppose the States of Ohio or Pennsylvania 
 would refuse to allow their negroes to vote, as probably 
 would be the case, would not the vote of such State be 
 considered as fraudulent, and thrown out in determining 
 the result of the election ? 
 
 And would Ohio or Pennsylvania have any just ground 
 of complaint ? Would not their mouths be stopped by 
 their own declarations and their own actions? Have 
 they not both sanctioned such a policy in Virginia and 
 South Carolina? But those were rebel States. And so 
 will Ohio and Pennsylvania be rebel States as soon as 
 they refuse to obey the decrees of the national govern- 
 ment, whose power they have helped to make absolute 
 and unconditional. They would not even be permitted 
 to discuss the question as to what constitutes rebellion, 
 for they both have determined by their declarations or 
 their actions that that question belongs absolutely and 
 unconditionally to the national government. 
 
 That the American democracy is dead is no longer a 
 disputable question. The only question which remains 
 t<» be decided is, what form shall the new tyranny assume ? 
 Who will be our masters? Who will be our Caesar? 
 Absolute power admits of no division; it submits to no 
 restraint. If there is a power in the United States (so 
 called) to determine everything to rule absolutely, it 
 must reside somewhere. Where is it? This is the next 
 
THE THIRD W fry ESS. 197 
 
 question which tyranny, in its progress, must determine. 
 The issue has already been made. The national legisla- 
 ture has claimed it. The national executive claims it. 
 Had Andy Johnson been a man of any character, of any 
 nerve, the question would have been settled ; but as this 
 small politician, who has lifted himself into position by 
 the tricks of demagogism, agreed to carry out the 
 decrees of the rump after denouncing them as unconsti- 
 tutional, wicked, destructive, the question was virtually 
 settled without any collision, Andy compromised by 
 agreeing to surrender the substance of his office, if they 
 would permit him to keep the form. He consented for 
 thenj to take the prerogatives of his office, if they would 
 only let him remain a tenant of the White House. * 
 
 It is hardly reasonable to suppose that such an accident 
 will soon happen again. It is a fare thing, indeed, even 
 among the weakest and poorest of mankind, to find one 
 who, when good fortune has made him proprietor, will 
 tamely consent to be a mere tenant. No other age in the 
 history of our country could have possibly produced such 
 a man as Andy Johnson. Nor can this age, vicious and 
 debauched as it is, produce many such. When once ex- 
 pediency becomes the sole rule of action, truth must 
 utterly die ; and when truth is once entirely ignored, 
 society itself must die; chaos and anarchy follow as a 
 matter of course. I tremble for my country when I see 
 its chief executive head the personification of that moral 
 weakness which is ever the last fatal premonition of na- 
 tional death. The cold clammy sweat upon the brow of 
 mortality is not a surer indication of speedy death, than 
 is a time-serving expediency written on the brow of 
 society a sign of its speedy dissolution. But anarchy 
 is a condition of things which is horrible even to minds 
 of devils. 
 
 The politician, the priest, and the bondautocrat have 
 sown to the wind ; they must reap the whirlwind. They 
 have exiled truth, they have chained liberty, they have 
 debauched the morals of the people, they have forced on 
 them intolerable burdens of debt and taxation, they have 
 forced on them civil war with all its horrible calamities 
 of privation, of wounds, of death and misery and tears; 
 
 17* 
 
198 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 they have virtually destroyed our democracy, and pro- 
 fessedly ignored all its constitutional restraints upon their 
 power ; they have insulted the common sense of man- 
 kind, and blasphemed heaven by perpetrating all these 
 crimes in the name of freedom and humanity. How shall 
 they escape that retributive justice which they deserve 
 at the hands of a God whom they blasphemed, and at 
 the hands of a people whom they have outraged and in- 
 sulted ? 
 
 There never has been but one escape for tyrants, and 
 that has been to put themselves, by seizing power, beyond 
 the reach of justice. A people whom they have deeply 
 wronged they must now make slaves of, lest they should 
 punish them for their crimes. They have destroyed the 
 spirit of liberty, the ne«t step will be to get rid of its 
 forms. And since the people have permitted them to 
 destroy the spirit of their liberty and justice which alone 
 could give beauty aud comeliness to their government, 
 why should they not destroy its forms also ? Since the 
 soul has departed, why should not the body too be 
 buried ? Why should it be kept to stink in their nos- 
 trils ? 
 
 Has not a conspiracy already been set on foot to get 
 rid of the whole thing ? Did not the African show ex- 
 hibit it at Chicago? Did not the spotted circus meet 
 there at the same time ? Was there not a convocation 
 called ? was it not agreed that Hiram Sammy should be 
 our Caesar? Was it not agreed that Bishop Simpson, 
 the boss of the spotted circus, should be our pope? Was 
 it not agreed that an inquisition should be established, 
 and that black-hearted and bloody-minded Pharisee, the 
 Rev. Waldro, should be keeper of the inquisition ? Read 
 the following performance of this reverend man-eater of 
 the spotted circus. "Resolved, that all government is 
 ')ased upon the religious ideas of those who carry it on, 
 and that the Northern Methodists have acquired by con- 
 quest the right to control the religion of the South. That 
 it is just as wrong to allow the Southern Methodists to 
 meet and worship in their own way as it would be to 
 allow Lee and Johnson to call together and drill their 
 armies again. 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 199 
 
 Tlipy will soon be prohibited from so doing. The 
 religion of the North is bound to rule this continent, and 
 it proposes to make a proper application of our Bible to 
 all the Southern States and people. A subjugated people 
 have no more right to apply their own peculiar moral 
 ideas than to use their physical implements of war. Rev. 
 Man-eater, did jou not make a slight mistake ? Did you 
 not neglect to attend the last meeting of your brother 
 spiritualists, to consult " devils and damned spirits" 
 about your diabolical purposes against the civil and re- 
 ligious liberties of this country? Will not that old 
 serpent the devil, whose servant you are, be angry with 
 you for exposing the cloven foot too soon ? You are too 
 impatient, Mr. Waldro ; you ought to have waited until 
 Hiram was really Caesar, and the boss of the big spotted 
 circus really pope. 
 
 Have you not made another mistake. Rev. Man-eater? 
 An inquisition for the nineteenth century 1 Don't you 
 belong to the party of progress and reform ? you surely 
 must be progressing very slowly or else you started a 
 long way back. Why, poor old decrepit Spain, which 
 has been the laughing-stock of the world for generations, 
 reached the point you are now at three centuries ago. 
 She had an inquisition three hundred years ago. You 
 surely must be progressing very slowly to be just getting 
 to the inquisition. 
 
 Ah, is that— is that it — some one whispers to me that 
 the Rev. Waldro belongs to the barbarians — that he is a 
 nigger ! Well, well, that accounts for it all ; for a nigger 
 I suppose it is a pretty good idea. These same savages 
 have, I know, hardly reached the fifteenth century. I 
 beg the gentleman's pardon. He has a white skin, and 
 I took him to be a Caucasian. Confound the thing; how 
 people get bothered these times ! I think myself so much 
 above the nigger in point of intelligence and by the im- 
 mutable laws of creation, that I would not have stooped 
 to criticise Mr. WaJdro's opinions had I known he be- 
 longed to that race. When nature had the matter in iier 
 own hands, she gave the nigger a black skin so that he 
 was readily distinguishable from a white man ; but since 
 the jacobins and the big spotted circus have taken the 
 
200 TEE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 thing under their supervision, they often put all the black 
 on the inside, so that jou can hardly tell a negro from a 
 white man. 
 
 However, I might have known this man was a nigger, 
 from the blackness of his thoughts. I ought to have 
 known it too, from the fellow's ignorance. Why, he oifers 
 to the nineteenth century, so called, the same old lie with 
 which the devil cheated the Pharisees eighteen hundred 
 years ago. Because the Priu(«e of Peace, the heavenly 
 Teacher, taught a religion contrary to ** our religion " and 
 inculcated moral ideas contrary to " our peculiar moral 
 ideas," the devil persuaded the Pharisees to put him to 
 death. Saul of Tarsus thought that he was doing God 
 siBrvice by persecuting Christians. And if Saul had read 
 the scriptures, instead of the laws of the scribes and 
 Pharisees, w^ho taught for doctrine the commandments of 
 men (as our Pharisees and hypocrites do to-day), he 
 would have known that it was no new idea even with 
 them, but the same old lie with which the father of lies 
 deceived the children of Adam. Because Abel had a 
 better religion than Cain, the devil persuaded Cain to 
 murder his brother. And what are these peculiar moral 
 ideas of the big spotted circus? mesmerism, spiritualism, 
 free-soilism, divorces, child-murder, mongrelism, adultery, 
 fornication. 
 
 Let us give a specimen of the peculiar moral ideas of 
 the great moral teachers of the progress and reform 
 party, the special guardians of liberty and virtue in 
 the United States, so called: Some years ago, Dan 
 Sickles, a member of Congress from New York, found 
 out that a certain Mr. Key had .won the affections of his 
 wife's heart. The injured husband, driven, not by that 
 holy indignation which would hurry an honest and vir- 
 tuous man to swift and terrible revenge, but by the cry 
 of shame raised by the harlots and whoremasters around 
 him (none of whom could perhaps have thrown the first 
 stone at the guilty party), met Key on the street and shot 
 him. Sickles was tried and acquitted. If there can be 
 a condition of things which justifies a man in taking the 
 life of a fellow-man, it is a case of this kind ; the law 
 which required both adulterer and adulteress to be put to 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 201 
 
 death ought never to have heen abolished. But Sickles 
 followed a different law. Without the forms of law, he 
 killed the adulterer, and took the adulteress back to his 
 bosom. And the teachers of " our religion,'! and our 
 peculiar moral ideas, pulpits and presses (including 
 Horace Greeley), applauded this thing as a wonderful 
 act of charity. They cm lied all the world to witness this 
 wonderful exhibition of Christian charity and virtue. 
 Yes, come everybody, and witness this wonderful tri- 
 umph of charity. Come and see this murderer — his 
 hands yet reeking with the blood of his fellow man — 
 drawing to his bosom a harlot whose garments are still 
 dripping with the pollutions of her adultery. And, ye 
 ^vomen of America, come and learn a new lesson of 
 virtue taught by men who have found out a better re- 
 ligion than that taught by the high and holy One, who 
 inhabiteth eternity. Henceforth it will be your privilege 
 to put on all the airs of enchantment, to practice all the 
 wiles of seduction, to lead whomsoever you can fascin- 
 ate to your husband's bed ; and your husband, in the 
 anger of his soul, will sprinkle the polluted bed with the 
 blood of your victims, and thus wash out its foul stain. 
 
 This is but a fair sample of the peculiar moral ideas 
 of a bigoted and intolerant Phariseeism, which blas- 
 phemes Heaven by perpetrating such crimes in the name 
 of Christianity, and insults the common sense of man- 
 kind by holding them up as models of virtue. 
 
 But how does Mr.Waldro propose to force his peculiar 
 moral ideas on the people of the South ? The thing has 
 often been tried, but never succeeded. It came nearer 
 being a success in Spain, than in any other country in 
 the world. I suppose Mr. Waldro would model his re- 
 ligion after that of Spain. Whilst that wretched mim- 
 icry of popery, English episcopacy, was persecuting 
 Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, and everybody else 
 who refused to accept its " peculiar moral ideas," popery 
 in Spain was forcing its Bible and its religion on those 
 whom the secular power had a right to rule, by the divine 
 right of kings. Horrible prisons were built for the re- 
 ception of those unfortunate wretches who dared to 
 have religion and a Bible different from our religion and 
 I* 
 
202 TIIE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 our Bible. Every species of torture which hatred and 
 revenge could invent was provided. Bigoted and bloody- 
 minded priests, like the man-eater of the spotted circus, 
 were app^^inted to superintend them. 
 
 Often at midnight, the home of some peaceful family 
 was entered, and some member of it, father, mother, 
 sister or brother, dragged forth to those earthly hells. 
 If the victim entertained a belief not in accordance 
 with the peculiar moral ideas of popery, he or she was 
 commanded to recant, and abjure her faith. If the party 
 refused, the torture commenced. The thumb-screw, a 
 powerful vice which clamped the thumb of the victim, 
 and crushed it by the slow turning of a screw; the 
 rack and wheel, where the limbs of the heretic were 
 stretched until* they were torn out of their sockets ; the 
 pendulum, a ponderous semicircular axe, which swung 
 back and forth by means of powerful machinery, de- 
 scending a little lower at each vibration ; under this the 
 heretic was bound fast to a bench ; he was laid on his 
 back, so that he oould see this horrible implement of de- 
 struction moving down with slow speed, but awful ac- 
 curacy, to split him in two. By such means Spain suc- 
 ceeded in hiding if not destroying all opposition to her 
 " peculiar moral ideas ;" she succeeded in crushing out at 
 last all religious freedom. 
 
 When Spain commenced this horrid practice, she was 
 equal in arms, in arts, and literature, to any nation in 
 Europe. Besides this, her peninsular position gave her 
 great maritime advantages. Her soil was as fertile as 
 any in the world, and her climate delightfully mild and 
 salubrious. And yet, notwithstanding all these advan- 
 tages, Spain with the fearful blight of religious intoler- 
 ance upon her, has been slowly sinking into weakness 
 and decay, while the less favored nations of Europe have 
 been rapidly growing' in wisdom, happiness, and pros- 
 perity. 
 
 How long has England been trying to force her pecu- 
 liar moral ideas upon Ireland ? How long have the 
 Irish people been compelled to pay for "our Bible" and 
 " our religion ?" How long have these people been 
 forced by the right of subjugation to pay a hireling 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 203 
 
 priesthood to insult their moral sense, and abuse their 
 relipriou ? How has that beautiful isle of the ocean been 
 blighted by this curse of pharisaical intolerance? How, 
 like a festering sore, has become Irish hatred of England ! 
 But that sore will yet be healed. Eternal justice will 
 yet wash out that dark crime against a brave, generous, 
 and hospitable people, with rivers of English blood. 
 
 Even now do I see a bow of promise to Ireland 
 stretched across her soft and balmy sky. The God of the 
 Bible, the Christian's God, has hung it there; and who 
 shall take it down. Only the impious hands of a phari- 
 saical priesthood will attempt this horrid desecration. 
 Will they prevent the Almighty, and thwart his pur- 
 poses ? Nay : they will only make sure their own de- 
 struction, and seal their own doom. The Bible the hope 
 of the world, not " our Bible," but the Bible of the 
 Creator of the Universe, of the God who made man, and 
 the heavens, and the earth, and the seas, and fountains 
 of waters — not "our Bible," but the Bible of the believ- 
 ing Christian to whatever nation, or tongue, or kindred, 
 or people, he may belong, — the Bible, I say, has been 
 silently, noiselessly, moving upon the hearts and minds 
 of the English people. It is rousing up the human mind 
 to break the shackles of an intidel philoso|)hy. It is 
 rousing up the human soul to break the chains with 
 which a pharisaical priesthood has bound it. 
 
 Already has this spirit of genuine reform extorted from 
 the British aristocracy the right of suffrage for two hun- 
 dred thousand Englishmen, from whom that vast 
 moneyed oligarchy has hitherto withheld it. But is the 
 extension of sutfrage necessarily an evidence of onward 
 progress and healthy reform ? Oh, no ; not by any means. 
 These things have no intrinsic merit in themselves. It 
 is only by the use which is made of them, and by the 
 fruits which they bear, that we can judge. The very 
 livery of heaven is sometimes put on to serve the devil 
 in. Pharisaism itself sometimes puts on a sad counte- 
 nance, uses a sanctimonious whine, wears phylacteried 
 robes, and says long prayers, to cheat the soul out of 
 heaven. They build around them whited sepulchres, to 
 hide the rotten bones and filth within. 
 
204 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Does not this reverend man-eater of the spotted circus 
 propose in the name of Christ, and his reliirion of love, to 
 re-establish the Spanish inquisition in the United States? 
 Does he not propose to force them (the people of the 
 South) by persecution, by torture and by death, to deny 
 the God whom they worship, and to abjure the faiih 
 which they hold ? Is it not clear to any one who has 
 seen the fruits of the charity and benevolence of the 
 Christian religion, that this canting hypocritical priest is 
 possessed of a devil ? 
 
 When I see a man plant his vineyard, and make from 
 its fruits delicious wine, I say it is an evidence of mate- 
 rial progress; when 1 see him use those wines temper- 
 ately and healthfully in his family, I say it is evidence, of 
 moral progress. I pronounce the wine a good thing; it 
 administers to man's pleasure, and promotes health. 
 When I see another man, by the use of these same wines, 
 bring on himself drunkenness and disease, and on his 
 family trouble and sorrow, 1 say it is evidence of retro- 
 gression ; I pronounce the wine an evil thing. The first 
 is Christianity which teaches temperance, and gives to 
 man power to practice it; the other is fanaticism which 
 gets drunk, and revels in excess, because wine is a pleas- 
 ant thing. What is good niedicine in the hands of truth, 
 is poison in the hands of falsehood. Truth gives just 
 enough to promote health ; falsehood doubles the dose 
 until the patient dies. 
 
 So, when I see the elective franchise used in the name 
 of freedom to give license to a half-civilized race of bar- 
 barians and used at the same time to make slaves of the 
 noblest family of the most enlightened race in the w^orld, 
 I say it is evidence not of progress but of a backward 
 movement. I pronounce it a bad thing, just as I do the 
 wine in the. hands of the drunkard. When I see the 
 elective franchise offered to woman in order that man 
 may have an excuse to disregard the duties imposed 
 upon him by nature and nature's God, to love and cher- 
 ish and protect her, I pronounce it a bad thing, just as 
 I do wine in the hands of a drunkard. When I see the 
 elective franchise extended to .ignorant negroes in order 
 that they may be used as tools in the hands of political 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 205 
 
 usurpers, bondautocratic robbers, aud hireling preachers, 
 to destroy the ancient democracy of America, and to 
 make shives of its millions of white men whose birth- 
 right was civil and religious liberty, I pronounce it a bad 
 thing. It is wine in the hands of the drunkard. And 
 just as surely will it bring disease and death upon the 
 government, and trouble and sorrow upon the people. 
 
 How different a spirit animates the reform movement 
 in England ! The white slaves there, instead of going 
 into other countries on a crusade against slavery, demand 
 their own freedom first; and when they secure it they 
 use it not to make slaves of the people of other States; 
 but one of their very first acts is to blot from their stat- 
 ute books a law requiring a sister State to keep up a re- 
 ligious establishment to which they are opposed. Yes, 
 to abolish the church establishment, which has hung for 
 years like a weight of oppression and a badge of dishonor 
 upon that proudest and noblest family of the Caucasian 
 race. To do good to your neighbor, that is one of the 
 evidences of genuine progress and reform ; that is one 
 of the tests of Christian benevolence. 
 
 But the bill has not yet become a law. Why not ? 
 Who is opposed to this act of tardy justice to Ireland? 
 Who is opposed to this wholesome reform, demanded 
 \like by reason, by justice, and Christian truth? Who 
 vould you think ? the devil and his angels. Surely no 
 good and sane man would oppose a measure so just aud 
 so wise in itself. Surely no true friend of liberty and 
 humanity would want to see the Irish people taxed to 
 pay for the support of a religion so mucli opposed to their 
 own. And surely no Christian could desire a thing so 
 repugnant to civil and religious liberty. Yes, the Eug- 
 lish church, so called, English pharisaism, English priest- 
 craft, is moving heaven and earth to prevent it ; yes, the 
 whole pack of pharisaical w^olves, high priests, lawyers, 
 doctors, and scribes have broke loose on it. They are 
 moving heaven and earth to defeat it. Is it not a singular 
 coincidence that just at a time when pharisaism in Eng- 
 land is trying to prevent the government from abolishing 
 a despotic and oppressive institution in Ireland, that at 
 the. same time pharisaism in the United States should be 
 
 18 
 
206 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 seeking from its government the privilege of building a 
 similar institution in the Southern States. The deeds of 
 Christians are the same, no matter how far apart they 
 may be separated. Their deeds are those of charity and 
 love. So are the deeds of Pharisees and hypocrites the 
 same — hatred and cruelty and oppression, no matter if 
 an ocean roll between tham. They all have the same 
 father, and serve the same master, the old serpent the 
 devil. Ye scribes and Pharisees, and hypocrites, how 
 can ye escape the damnation of hell ? 
 
 But will the Irish reform bill be defeated because the 
 English priesthood is opposed to it? Not by any means. 
 The time for priestcraft to rule the world has passed by ; 
 the time for kingcraft to rule the world has passed by. 
 Not because this is the nineteenth century, for it is 
 nothing but the glare of an infidel philosophy ; not be- 
 cause the world has accepted the genius of civilization 
 as its guardian deity, for the genius of civilization, 
 with all her gaudy finery and pinchbeck trinkets, is a 
 filthy whore ; but because every man has in his ovi^n 
 house the Bible, the source of all wisdom and knowledge 
 and virtue, he will refuse to be any longer the dupe of 
 priestcraft and the slave of kingcraft. English pharisa- 
 ism, by identifying itself with oppression, will only make 
 sure its own destruction. If it persuades kingcraft to 
 join it in its unholy purpose to withstand the mighty 
 flood of truth which the Bible is pouring over the world, 
 it will only add the destruction of that power to its own. 
 
 Just so will it be with priestcraft in this country. 
 We'll have no Caesar and no pope, even if the African 
 show and spotted circus have determined on the matter. 
 Bat who is this Hiram Sammy, — this modern Ulysses, 
 this elephant of the African show ? A Caesar would he 
 be if there was a Rubicon to cross and a Rome which 
 needed a 'master, did he with a few veteran legions add 
 by conquest all of Gaul and Germany, and indeed all of 
 western Europe, to the empire of Rome. Is he the classic 
 scholar, the elegant historian, the able debater, the astute 
 politician, and the great master of the art of war, the 
 dread and terror of the enemies of Rome, the conqueror 
 of its liberties, the magnificent despot, the magnanimous 
 tyrant ? 
 
THE THIRD WITNESS. 207 
 
 Did the republic of Rome refuse to surrender her 
 liberties without a desperate struggle to one so great, so 
 grand, so princely, so noble? and shall we, without a 
 struggle, surrender a republic greater than Rome to 
 Hiram Sammy, a military adventurer, witliout birth or 
 education, promoted by political prejudice to the com- 
 mand of large armies at a time when the enemies of the 
 government were worn out and exhausted by many a 
 hard-fought battle with abler generals ? A drunken 
 butcher who staggered his way to victory over innumer- 
 able defeats, and blundered his way to success over vast 
 heaps of his own dead. A general who spent time and 
 money and men uncounted to take fortifications which 
 had no men behind them, who captured the little remnant 
 of the rebel army without men or arms, ammunition or 
 rations. A politician who betrayed his master, and had 
 ii^t sense enough to make his duplicity respectable in an 
 age when chicanery is the trump card in politics, who 
 told a falsehood to hide his knavery, and told it bung- 
 lingly as to be laughed at by the petty liars who do the 
 lobbying at Washington. 
 
 Has he not got a keeper, too, this Elephant of the 
 African show ? Is not his keeper a small politician, with 
 just about mind enough to study grammar and rhetoric, 
 with just about brains enough to superintend a Yankee 
 herd-pen, familiarly called a free-school ? Is not his 
 keeper, too, a servant of the bondautocracy ? Did not 
 the prince of bondautocrats — the most successful com- 
 mercial gamblers — the biggest measurer of calico — what 
 material for nobility 1 — go on to see his servant, the 
 keeper, to know in what condition the Elephant was 
 before the African show met? Did not he report that 
 the Elephant was all right? Did not the African show 
 lead him out with a gold chain fastened to a gold ring in 
 his nose? Did not his keepers pinch his ears? Did not 
 the animal bawl or squeal ? — or what do you call the 
 noise an elephant makes when you pinch his ears ? Did 
 not he say he had no mind of his own ? no conviction of 
 right or wrong ? no purposes ? no plans to interfere with 
 the will of the people? 
 
 Don't the will of the people, in the parlance of the 
 
2(]|§ THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 African show, mean the caprices of the jacobin tools of 
 the bondautocracy, and the decrees of the military satraps 
 of the provinces, and the opinions of the carpet-bag spies 
 who gave Sambo the right ticket? Have not the white 
 men of this country ceased to be a part of the people ? 
 Has not their interest in the government of their fathers 
 been utterly ignored? Will there be any further use for 
 them until another war comes ? Won't another Hiram 
 Sammy (has this one got a brother?) want heaps of 
 them for a stepping-stone to fame? Oh, customs! oh, 
 times I where in the world are we? Is this Rome, and 
 this our Caesar ? 
 
 Weil, I guess if a dead ape will do for one of the 
 saints, a live butcher would do for a king. Oh, wretched 
 infatuation of a people whose fathers- were noble and 
 proud and free ! The Washingtons, the Adamses, the 
 Hamiltons, and Franklins were the servants of your 
 fathers; and you, their children, want Hiram Sammy for 
 a king. Listen what the masters of Hiram Sammy's 
 keeper say, — I mean the yard-stick nobility, — the big 
 measurers of calico. A private circular has been sent 
 out to the people by the prince of the bondautocrats of 
 New York, and some half-dozen others of the yard-stick 
 and goose-quill nobility, in which they ask the people if 
 they do not desire to have Hiram Sammy Grant for their 
 President and ruler. 
 
 Mark this language, — President and ruler ! The Amer- 
 ican democracy want a ruler ! Why, there is no such 
 word in the political dictionary of this country as ruler. 
 The Declaration of Independence, backed up by an eight- 
 years' war, repudiated this thing of a ruler entirely ; our 
 fathers refused to recognize it in the organization of our 
 government; they declared that man was free, — that 
 man himself was a sovereign, and the only one whom 
 they would recognize. A ruler for a people who claim 
 that sovereign power belongs to them ! — who claim that 
 this right is the gift of God, and that it cannot be trans- 
 ferred or alienated ! Why, the down-trodden serfs of 
 Europe have rulers, kings, and princes, better known 
 among our people as usurpers and tyrants. These are 
 rulers. 
 
THE THIRD WLTXEiSS. 209 
 
 No wonder these people talk so much about loyalty. 
 If we are to have a ruler, why we must have loyally too. 
 A ruler has the power to put to death those who are not 
 loyal, no matter how monstrous a tyrant he may be. 
 This thing will do well enough for a few people, perhaps, 
 — the rich few, who become lords, dukes, and princes. 
 Perhaps it would suit the yard-stick and goose-quill 
 gentry, — men whose fame and merit is just equal to their • 
 pile of gold and paper rags. 
 
 And what stuff is this to make a nobility out of, to be 
 sure ! — men whose only talents were a shrewd trick of 
 putting off on their unskilled country customers more 
 bolts of fading calico and damaged cloth than anybody 
 else could sell, — sharp, but narrow-minded money- 
 gamblers, without any soul, or any humanity, or any 
 conscience, who watch for their fellow-men to blunder or 
 fall, and rob them while they are down; and their busi- 
 ness, after they get rich, is, by tricks and lies, to disturb 
 the currency, and keep the prices of marketable products 
 so constantly fluctuating that the whole business of the 
 country becomes one big gambling concern, in which 
 unconscionable and unscrupulous sharpers only can win. 
 Thus is villainous dishonesty ever kept at a higher pre- 
 niiuUi than gold. 
 
 But how is it with the common people, — the millions 
 who have no money to buy a dukedom or a lordship from 
 the ruler? — Americans who were Corn free, and whose 
 fathers were free before them? — Americans whose fathern 
 had the Washingions, Adamses, the Henrys, the Hamil- 
 tons, and Franklins for their servants? Do they want a 
 ruler? And the foreigners, — how is it with them? Do 
 they, who come to this country to be free, want a ruler? 
 Why, did they not leave their homes and friends in 
 Europe to get rid of rulers and the pains and penalties 
 which rulers inflict on their subjects? 
 
 No, no, gentlemen ; you are mistaken. The people of 
 this country do not want a ruler, nor do they want a man 
 for President who wants to be President in order that he 
 may be a. ruler. And 1 can tell you more than that: not 
 only is it true that they do not want a ruler, recognized 
 as such by the forms of law, but it is equal Iv true that 
 
 18* 
 
210 TEE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 they have made up their minds to rid themselves of that 
 hard and unbearable rule which an illegitimate, upstart, 
 moneyed power is exercising over them. 
 
 The slave power of the South wanted to set up for 
 themselves, in order that they might have an aristocracy. 
 The Southern politicians — the tools of its aristocracy — - 
 were wishing, for years, to bring about that condition of 
 things. The result has been the destruction of their 
 power. The Northern politicians — the tools of their 
 moneyed aristocracy — were working for the destruction 
 of negro slavery, because they discovered that white 
 slavery paid better. The masses of the people of the 
 North were opposed to negro slavery, because of the 
 manifest cruelties which it practiced. The politicians 
 who were the tools of the moneyed power of the North 
 opposed negro slavery, because they found out that their 
 masters could work their white slaves to more prolit. 
 But they, like the negro aristocracy of the South, will be. 
 disappointed. Slavery can't live in this country. The 
 people are awake : its death-knell has been sounded ; and 
 not only wdll it die, but all those institutions which have 
 been built up to defend and perpetuate it must perish, — 
 the banking institutions, the manufacturing and commer- 
 cial establishments, the ecclesiastical hierarchies, and that 
 vast system of fraud miscalled law, which has for hun- 
 dreds of years been perfecting its schemes to make the 
 personal liberty and individual rights and happiness of 
 mankind dependent on and subservient to the interest of 
 property, must die. 
 
 The people are going to take this matter in their own 
 hands. They are going to use the ballot which their 
 masters have put into their hand as a plaything to strike 
 down all these evils. This thing has been used to hum- 
 bug and cheat mankind long enough. Let the people 
 hold meetings of their own, especially those classes who 
 have so long borne the heat and burden of the day, — the 
 half-paid mechanic, the half-paid clerk, the half-paid 
 miner and digger of ditches and canals, and the half-paid 
 plow-holder ; in a word, the working men of every class 
 who have seen the fruits of their own toil go year after 
 year to support a vast political tyranny miscalled gov- 
 
THE TUIRD WiTXESS. 211 
 
 ernraent; to feed a huge ecclesiastical despotism mis- 
 called the church, and to pay for the gaudy show and 
 licentious dissipation of a bastard aristocracy called the 
 bondautocracy. Let the young men of every class, 
 whose souls have not been parched and shriveled by the 
 glare of gold, meet with them. Let them, when their 
 old taskmasters, the priests and politicians, come to dic- 
 tate to them what the}- shall do, catch them by the neck 
 and heels, and cast them into the streets. 
 
 Suppose they would inquire into such matters as these; 
 why the free-born people of America should have a 
 government as expensive as that of Russia; why they 
 should have a public debt as large as that of Russia ; 
 why the laboring people of this country should be the 
 slaves of these despicable tyrannies; why politicians 
 whose name has become the synonym of liar should 
 meet and spend six months of the year making laws, and 
 spend six months of the next year repealing those laws 
 and passing others; why these legislative assemblies, 
 both State and national, should sell themselves out, a half 
 dozen times during every session, to moneyed monopo- 
 lies, and make the working people pay the cost, in the 
 shape of new taxation. Is it not a notorious fact that 
 the legislative bodies sell themselves to the lobby agents 
 of whisky distilleries, manufacturing establishments, com- 
 mercial tricksters, and financial gamblers? Is it not a 
 notorious fact that politicians have lost sight of the peo- 
 ple and their welfare entirely ? Is it not a notorious fact 
 that they spend their time perfecting and strengthening 
 their party organization, so that they may keep in their 
 own hands the vast power and patronage of the govern- 
 ment ? These things would serve as a good- joke, while 
 the people could pay tlie expense without serious incon- 
 venience ; but since the evil has got so big that millions 
 of the people have to give up the comforts of life, yea the 
 necessaries of life, in order to keep it up, is it not time 
 that it was put a stop to ? 
 
 What does it matter to the great masses of the people 
 what political faction has control of this mighty engine of 
 oppression and plunder? What is the use of millions of 
 laws, so called, that they make from year to year ? Who 
 
212 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 knows what they are? Wliat are laws, or rather what 
 ought laws to be? Notliiog but a few common-sense 
 rules to govern society', the fewer and simpler the better, 
 for then everybody could know w^hat they are. What is 
 the use of our hundred cart-loads of foolish rules, called 
 laws ? Who knows what they are ? The wise ones 
 who make them ? no. The lawyers who spend their 
 lives studying them? no. The judges who interpret 
 them? no. Then who knows what they are? nobody. 
 They are nothing but a vast labyrinth of sophistry, or 
 an unintelligible, nonsensical jargon, a huge pile of con- 
 tradictions and absurdities, a tower of Babel with such 
 a confusion of tongues, and such a contradiction of opin- 
 ions, as puts everybody out of his right mind. What 
 man of sense will not sacrifice a good portion of his claim, 
 even when he knows his cause is a just one, rather than 
 go to law? 'Tis only a man who has a bad cause that 
 wants to go to law, for it is a game of chance, where the 
 wrong wins as often as the r^ght. 
 
 What are these courts of justice, so called, but gamb- 
 ling shops where men go to throw high die, and pay 
 half the stake for the the privilege of a throw? The 
 very bulwark of oppression and wrong; where murder- 
 ers and thieves go to evade the penalty of their crimes 
 by the contemptible quibbles of technical rules, the refined 
 sophistries of contradictory laws, the artful dodges of 
 learned declamation, and the plausible deduction of moral 
 arithmetic, dubbed logic ; where the strong go to have 
 confirmed the wrongs they have done the weak; where 
 rascals go to have the tricks sanctioned by which they 
 have cheated the innocent and unsuspecting ; where the 
 rich go to have approved their unrighteous oppressions of 
 the poor. 
 
 Suppose the people would ask honestly and fairly, 
 what is the use of paying tithes of mint, cummin, and anise, 
 to keep up a pharisaical priesthood, a huge ecclesiastical 
 despotism ? What do we want with preachers at all ? 
 Has not the Creator in the ways of his providence put 
 his word into the hands of every man ? Ah, but say 
 these priests, the people must have somebody to explain 
 it to them; they can't understand it. And why not? 
 
Till': Till III) WITNESS. 213 
 
 Who made man? who formed and fashioned his mind, his 
 reason, and his faith ? What is the word of God ? A 
 revelation of his will to man. Has God tried to tell his 
 will and purpose to man, and doesn't know how to commune 
 with him? Does not he know how to tell him what he 
 wauts him to do ? The word is a picture of God, painted 
 by the hand of God: must this picture needs be varnished 
 by the sophistries of some bigoted priest before man can 
 recognise it? 
 
 The word is God made flesh and dwelling among us; 
 we have in the word the example which we are to follow. 
 Can the priest show us a better one? The word is a 
 sword, a sharp two-edged sword, going out of the mouth 
 of God ; when both edges are sharp, must it needs be 
 ground by the priest before it will cut? The w^ord is the 
 wisdom of God, and the power of God unto salvation ; 
 must it be made wiser by the cunningly devised word of 
 human wisdom before it can save? Must it be made 
 strong by human logic and human sophistry before it can 
 redeem ? These priests never try to make the word 
 plain ; they try to make it dark ; they try to perplex it 
 soHhat we will have to be dependent on them. God 
 says his way is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a 
 fool, need not err therein. A Presbyterian picks out one 
 text, the Methodist another, the Catholics another, and 
 every other creed one to suit itself, and calls this iso- 
 lated text God's will. On it they build a great political 
 organization, and impudently and blasphemously call it 
 God's church. 
 
 These sects always pick out some mystery which God 
 never intended to reveal, and puzzle their own minds 
 about it, and call this puzzle Christianity. No human 
 mind can understand them, for they are the mysteries of 
 God, the clouds and darkness which are the hal)itation of 
 his throne, the curtains which veil the splendor of his 
 power and the glory of his majesty. You see around 
 you a hundred different sects with as many different 
 creeds. Are these differences immaterial? Then why 
 should there be any difference at all. Do they differ about 
 matters which are essential? Then are ninety-nine out 
 of the hundred wrong. When one looks at the many 
 
214 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 different kiuds of gods which priests have set up for men 
 to worship, he cannot but be amazed at the ignorance 
 and credulity of human nature and its low groveling 
 instincts. 
 
 The pope of Rome sets himself up as the vicegerent 
 of God, and commands men to accept his say-so, instead 
 of that word which was in the beginning with God and 
 which was God. German infidelity sets up poor blind 
 human reason for God, and commands man to follow 
 that dim flickering light, that will-o'-the-wisp of philo- 
 sophical speculation which leads him into the fogs of 
 doubt and the slough of despond. English episcopacy 
 to-day is exerting all its powers, learning, and wealth to 
 prevent the English government from doing an act of 
 tardy justice to the Irish people, when even publicans 
 and harlots are willing to abolish the church establish- 
 ment, a proscriptive and tyrannical measure which has 
 so long oppressed that brave and generous people ; the 
 scribes and Pharisees lift up their voice against it. 
 
 Id the Southern States of this country the different 
 ecclesiastical bodies are urging their people, crushed and 
 impoverished by the desolations of a long and blo^y 
 war, to increase the salaries of their preachers an(J to 
 build new churches. The same parties at the North 
 seem to have given themselves up to a ruthless spirit of 
 hatred and revenge. Nothing but the more charitable 
 spirit of the outside world prevents them from setting 
 up church establishments in the South and compelling 
 their unfortunate brethren of that section to pay tithes 
 of mint, cummin', and anise to listen to their preaching 
 of hate and revenge. The Methodist church, one of the 
 largest and most influential of the Christian denomina- 
 tions in this country, has its agents running over the 
 South, taking possession by the forms of law of meeting- 
 houses which were built by the Southern people and for 
 their own use. These people nmst then absent them- 
 selves from their church or go there to hear themselves 
 abused. To-day in the most populous section of our 
 country this ecclesiastical hierarchy is but the tool of an 
 infidel faction, whose avowed object is political and 
 religious proscription. Such are the fruits of the impu- 
 
THE THIRD ^V^1NESS. 215 
 
 dent attempts of weak and erring mortals to reduce to 
 method and order the moral guvernnient of that God 
 whose universe is the paragon of beauty and the perfec- 
 tion of order. 
 
 Modern humanitarians teach that Christianity consists 
 in hating peo})le who are better than you are, and in 
 trying to drug them down to your own level by subject- 
 ing them to the rule of a half-civilized race of barbarians. 
 A sect of humanitarians teach, for Christianity, vague 
 generalities and contradictory opinions. These unmean- 
 ing absurdities they aim to hide in a fog of big words 
 and highfalutin sentences. Let a man's crazy fancy once 
 lift him up into this fog, and I'll warrant him that while 
 there he will never get a glimpse of either heaven or 
 earth. Such style themselves liberal Christians. 
 . Out of all of them another sect has sprung up, the 
 craziest of all. They teach that the Creator did wrong 
 in making woman unequal to man, and subjecting her to 
 his authority; that the Almighty has imposed upon iier 
 an unequal share of the burdens of life. This order 
 must be changed ; hereafter the woman will take the 
 man's place, and man hers; she will take charge of the 
 government, the courts, the church, and in a word do all 
 those things which have hitherto been considered as per- 
 taining exclusively to man. Man will stay at home and 
 bear the babies, and suckle them. I would call the at- 
 tention of all men who want to make this happy ex- 
 change to Mrs. 's last advertisement: 
 
 The wonder of the age I progress and reform ! Take 
 notice, all men who are humanitarians. None others 
 need apply. Bubbles, wombs, made to order. Any 
 shape you want. One-eyed, lop-eared, buck-kneed, bandy- 
 shanked, hump-backed, gourd-headed, shriveled-bellied, 
 beast or human, as the purchaser may desire. Color to 
 suit : blue, green, tawny, or yellow. Every shade and 
 tint, from the tropical polished black of Africa to the 
 Caucasian blonde. Black is all the rage. Our supply 
 of that color nearly out. 
 
 N. B. — His Majesty Pluto's merchant ship, skepticism, 
 just landed with a new supplv fresh from Erebus. No 
 666 Street, N. Y. 
 
216 THt: GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Let me call Ibeir attention, too, to the advertisement 
 
 of that eminent female surgeon, Dr. « , who 
 
 performs such wonderful operations in moral surgery : 
 
 To the friends of freedom and humanity. The millen- 
 nium. Woman redeemed and disenthralled. Wonderful 
 achievements of modern science. Woman manised and 
 man womaniHed. 
 
 Read the following certificates from distinguished 
 equals : 
 ■ , Professor Moral Surgery, Academy of 
 
 Female Sciences: 
 
 The undersigned certify that we have been the friends 
 of freedom and humanity for many years. That we 
 have always been anxious to give to the world some 
 practical demonstration of the truth of our philosophy. 
 In a word, to prove that modern science is fully compe- 
 tent to change the laws of nature, and annul the decrees 
 of heaven. For this purpose, we submitted ourselves to 
 a surgical operation, performed by that distinguished 
 surgeon . The operation is called trepan- 
 ning. A slight portion of the skull, just over that por- 
 tion of the brain called common sense, was removed, 
 and a small piece of silver put in its place. The silver 
 was so put in as to press slightly on the brain, and sus- 
 pend its operation. Immediately after this operation 
 was performed, we discovered that we're women ; we 
 
 stopped in at Mrs. on our return and purchased 
 
 wombs and bubbles. 
 
 N. B. — As a matter of expediency we selected black 
 wombs, as stronger and better bearers, and white hub- 
 bies as more tempting sucklers. 
 
 From the old who have become scarred and hardened, 
 nothing can be expected. It would be useless to reason 
 with them ; they have fallen in love with Mammon, and 
 on the altar of that god have they sacrificed sentiment, 
 feeling, and affection. Their souls they have turned over 
 to the keeping of a lying priesthood, and they have kept 
 them so well that even the father of lies will find no 
 fault with. But can the young man when he looks upon 
 his sweetheart, and sees those pretty blushes, tints of 
 
rilE TliiRD WITNESS. 311. 
 
 beauty, which only love can paint ; when he feel* his 
 soul dissolved in the tender, melting expression of those 
 eyes, can he forget the instinctive impulse which seizes 
 him to throw round that frail beauty the protection of 
 his brawny arms ? Can he forget how that delicate form 
 bent to shelter itself under his manhood, his virtue and 
 his honor ? Can he get his own consent to transplant 
 that pretty flower out of doors, to be scorched by the 
 world's scorn, to be frozen by its indifference, to be 
 broken and bruised and trampled under foot ? Oh, no ; 
 he cannot. The world has not seen that flower's beauty. 
 His eyes only have seen those blushes. He only has 
 seen those bright eyes veiled in the mists of their love. 
 He only has trembled before the majesty of that beauty's 
 triumph. He only has felt the wild ecstasy of joy which 
 thrilled his bosom when that sweet voice, modulated to 
 its softest key, told him that his eyes, and only his, 
 should feast themselves upon that wondrous beauty. 
 Surely he would be lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, 
 lost to noble sallies of the soul, if he could tell her that 
 he w^ould accept those rich treasures she has offered him, 
 if she will agree to take care of herself. 
 
 19 
 
 
218 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 THE FOURTH WITNESS. 
 
 He said: 
 
 I was in the army, and went through the terrible four 
 years' war. A preacher was appointed to go with us- 
 and look after our spiritual wants ; to take care of us 
 when wounded and sick, and to pray for us when dying. 
 This priest wore a fine uniform, and stayed at headquar- 
 ters. The best of our scanty rations, the choice bits, 
 were always carried to headquarters. When a beef was 
 killed they got a choice bit of steak. If flour was scarce 
 they got it, and we lived on hard tack. Of sugar, coffee, 
 and rice, which were almost always scarce, they got ai 
 regular allowance, and we only an occasional bit. ul> 
 
 The priest stuck close to headquarters, and shared' 
 their good things. They were permitted, too, to have a' 
 sufficient amount of clothing, both for wearing and sleep- 
 ing, to make them comfortable. We had the scanty 
 supply which w^e could carry on our backs. But all 
 those things we were willing to bear for the good of the 
 cause. 
 
 Nor did we complain, for we did not believe in equality 
 as our enemies did. Indeed, I sometimes envied my 
 enemies, for since they, both leaders and followers, 
 officers and privates, held the doctrines of equal'ty, I felt 
 sure that they did not make siich discriminations against 
 the poor privates. How encouraging it must have been 
 to the privates in the ranks of our enemies, to see their 
 officers sharing, not only their dangers, but their hard- 
 ships also ; for be it said to the credit of our officers that 
 they were ever in the front when danger was to be en- 
 countered, except the priest, who on such occasions 
 deserted headquarters and took up his abode with Com- 
 pany Q, the maimed, the halt, and tlie blind. I say the 
 officers of our enemies (believing in the doctrine ot 
 equality) did, I suppose, not only nhnre with their priv- 
 ates their dangers, but their ragged, scanty clothiug, and 
 
THE FOURTn WITNESS. '249 
 
 hard fare besides. Then I su'ppose, too, that this same 
 idea of equality would make their pay equal, and this 
 would make all comfortable alike. But these priests — 
 whom I come here to make complaint ag-ainst — they 
 lived at headquarters, strutted around there in their fine 
 uniform, as unmindful of the private soldier as if he had 
 been a dog. 
 
 It is true that we were often, from necessity, dirty, 
 lousy, and itchy, and hardly fit to associate with a gen- 
 tleman dressed up ; but then we had souls— yes, spirits 
 endowed with infinite capacities and immortality of 
 being; spirits which trembled not when the earth shook 
 beneath them, jarred by the shock of battle, and when 
 the fiery meteors of death, like spirits of devils, went 
 howling and bursting through the air. 
 
 Ah, where were our gentlemanly priests then who on 
 calm, sunshiny days looked down on poor soldiers as 
 beneath their notice ? How do the dread terrors of the 
 battle-field hpmble the pride of man ! How they take 
 the conceit out of the vain, the haughty, and the stuck- 
 up ! How do they cast their pale tremor over the face 
 of the hypocrite, who has been false to God, and his 
 fellow-man ! You could find them at such times — I mean 
 these preachers — away back in the rear, with Company Q. 
 How they would scorn to keep such company at other 
 times! 
 
 There was the cook, who would rather burn wood to 
 make bread than burn powder to make victories; the 
 butcher, too, who would rather kill cattle than the enemy, 
 considering the risk ; and the teanjster, who took more 
 pride in driving commissary wagons than artillery 
 wagons. And there, too, were the commissaries and 
 quartermasters, who had in too many instances wronged 
 the government, the army, and the people. There you 
 might find also the flankers and dodgers, the faint- 
 hearted, who had the will but not the nerve to do what 
 they believed to be righ't. And there likewise were the 
 sick and the wounded, as brave as any, and indeed the 
 ionly leaven to leaven this whole lump. 
 
 Was it not strange that these priests, who on other 
 occasions put on such airs and make such pretensions, 
 
^0 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 were willing even to keep such company? Even here 
 they might have done some good, for nearly this whole 
 field was full of moral delinquencies. But what could a 
 dodger say to a flanker, and how could one in the very 
 act of betraying his own trust lecture quartermasters 
 and commissaries? He took good care not to hint such 
 things, for they would have cast the same back in his 
 teeth ; but now and then we could hear one quarreling 
 with a brave man who was sick or disabled, for not being 
 Q>% the front. This he could do without fear of a retort, 
 because he knew that the brave are always patient and 
 deferential, and always more ready to defend themselves 
 than to attack others. Sometimes, on a pretty bright 
 Sunday, these preachers to keep from going clear to sleep 
 would bring out one of their old sermons and read it to 
 us. The cold rhetoric of the thing itself, and the cold 
 indififerent manner in which it would be delivered, would 
 have chilled the soldiers to sleep had they not been kept 
 awake by the novelty of hearing a sermon. / njui 
 
 Maybe I expected too much of the good map;. -I 
 thought he ought to go round to the tents or camp fires 
 of the common soldiers and get acquainted with them. 
 I. thought he ought to look out the Christians among 
 them, and counsel and advise and comfort them; to 
 strengthen the weak with the promises of Christianity, 
 and to rebuke and restrain the wicked with the threaten- 
 ings of i(ts judgment. They were far away from their 
 friends and home, many of them young, their habits 
 as yet unfixed. They had no father to advise them ; 
 and cut off in part, and in some instances altogether, 
 from a mother's entreaties, that sweetest of all earthly 
 persuasions. -. .■ 
 
 At best the soldier's life is the extreme of earthly 
 hardships. Deprived of all the sweet refining and en- 
 nobling influences of home, home's affections, its loves, 
 and its promises of future good, his bed often the cold 
 earth, his pillow a stone, his-^heart, weary and sad, 
 would fain persuade itself that the shrill and melancholy 
 winds whistling around him were singing for him a lul- 
 laby, did not memory bring to his startled mind the 
 bloody field around which night has just hung her dark 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS 221 
 
 curtains. Ah ! then he knows but too well that mourn- 
 ful sigh of the winds is a dirge for the thousands of dead 
 who lie unburied there. Only the starry eyes of heaven 
 look tenderly on him; will they not too in pity shed their 
 dewy tears upon the unmourned-for dead ? When another 
 day is gone In^ and those stars shall look down again to 
 pount its evil deeds, they may bend their soft beams 
 tenderly once more upon his eyes ; but, alas ! they will 
 meet no more perchance this friendly recognition, for the 
 icy film of death will ere then, it may be, have veiled 
 their sight forever. 
 
 How sweet to the soul was a word of religious com- 
 fort and consolation under such circumstances I How 
 could one commissioned by heaven to tell its glad tidings 
 of great joy to the suffering children of earth fail to do it, 
 at such a time ? Such was the conduct of these men, but 
 not all. Here and there were found noble exceptions to 
 this rule. Men who were not merely preachers byname, 
 but in deed and in truth ; men who were not afraid of 
 the battle-field, but went close enough to be in danger, so 
 as to be able to attend to the wounded and administer 
 comfort to the dying. How beautiful are the feet of 
 those who carry to the bleeding warrior the message of 
 peace : a message not, indeed, from an earthly potentate, 
 but from the Prince of Peace ! Ears which gladly 
 listened but just now to the thunders of battle, for they 
 heard in those harsh sounds liberty and glory, turn 
 eagerly to listen to the glad tidings of great joy. 
 
 How changed is the whole aspect of things I How 
 changed is the warrior's face ! But a little while ago the 
 angry flush of battle was there, and begrimed, with smoke 
 and powder, it was fearful to look upon. But now anger 
 is gone, revenge has melted away ; forgiveness, gentle- 
 ness, and mercy take their place ; a smile of unearthly 
 beauty sweetly blends these heavenly virtues ; the good 
 man has pointed his eye to the glories of the better land. 
 He is no longer the stern warrior, but the gentle loving 
 boy, who once smiled in the joy of a mother's caresses ; 
 and yet hath he one fight more — calmly and joyfully his 
 withered hand, his hand shattered and palsied by the weap- 
 ons of war, grasps the sword of faith, and, following the 
 
 19* 
 
322 THE G,REAT TRIAL. 
 
 Captain of his salvation, the Prince of the house of 
 David, he goes forth to meet his last enemy in tiie dark 
 valley, and to fight his last battle. Here indeed was a 
 shepherd of Israel, for here is one of the lost sheep 
 saved. By their fruits ye shall know them. 
 
 But alas for the hundreds and thousands who had no 
 shepherd, except to shear them, but who were suffered to 
 wander away in a dark and cloudy day, and be lost I 
 Woe to the shepherds who feed the-mselves, and not the 
 flock! The Almighty will require the flock at their 
 hands. 
 
 But the war is over. The last remnant of the broken 
 and shattered array had surrendered. The sword was 
 broken. The cause, so dear to our hearts, seemed lost. 
 With that cause went down all our hopes of earthly good ; 
 henceforth that land which had once been the land of the 
 free and the home of the brave, would be a land of 
 slavery; the descendants of the Washingtons, the 
 Henrys, and Lees, would be serfs. liberty, what 
 crimes are done in thy name 1 A people who pretend 
 to be so much in love with freedom that they are willing 
 to wage a long and bloody war to liberate the half-civ- 
 ilized descendants of Ham, make slaves of the children 
 of the Washingtons, MarshaUs, Masons, and Lees \ 
 men who for intellect, virtue, and truth, stand without 
 models among men. Yes, in the same crusade, they 
 make freemen out of semi-barbarous Africans, and slaves 
 out of the noblest families of the Caucasian race ; men 
 who for intelligence, virtue, honor, courage, genius and 
 talent, by their own admissions, are inferior to no people 
 on earth. And these too their kith and kin. O shame, 
 where is thy blush ! And what was our offense ? Simply 
 this : we had refused to accept their boasted ideas of an 
 enlightened and progressive civilization. 
 
 If these are the fruits which grow on their trees of 
 superior knowledge and wipdom, God forbid that we 
 should eat them. It seems to me, from the effects they 
 produce, to the same. tree which furnished fruit for mother 
 Kve in the garden of Eden, — a fruit which has marred 
 the beauty of the whole human family and filled all the 
 earth with thorns and briars. 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 223 
 
 Wiiat are the effects of their superior wisdom ? One- 
 half of the country is a waste and a grave-yard. What 
 is the condition of the other half? Their legislative 
 bodies are filled with political thieves and gamblers. 
 They used to spend six months out of the year, but now 
 the whole year, laying plans to keep the power in their 
 own hands, and selling themselves outto the lobby agents 
 of great moneyed monopolies. Their temples of justice, 
 which ought to be a bulwark to defend the young and 
 unsu.spectiug, the ignorant, the weak and the innocent, 
 are traps in which all of these are caught by the crafty 
 and the strong. Who that has a just cause will not sac- 
 rifice a large part of it rather than go to a court of 
 justice, so called ? For he knows if he goes there and 
 wins, it will take half to pay the expenses. Their 
 churches are theatres, where people go to show their fine 
 clothes and to see their preacher enact some theatrical 
 tragedy, or comedy, as his humor may be ; mostly 
 tragedy, for their religion consists for the most part in 
 bating the sins of other people. Their cities are filled 
 with licensed houses of infamy, where the pretty 
 daughters of the poor are sold to the lust of men ; those 
 vestibules of hell, where a curtain blacker than the night 
 falls around them forever. No sunlight of hope shall 
 ever enter there. 
 
 Daughters of sorrow, are there none to pity you ? 
 Where are those pious preachers, who in the excess of 
 their benevolence persuaded their people to make war upon 
 other people in the cause of humanity ? Do they never 
 think of you poor unfortunntes, lying upon your couches 
 of infamy after the midnight debaucheries are over? 
 Exhausted by your licentious revelries, you can't sleep, 
 tired and worn-out as you are, the innocent sleep. 
 You would fain weep ; but conscience has kindled in 
 your bosom the fires of remorse, and they have dried up 
 even the fountain of your tears. Brief and fitful will be 
 life's dream to you. Eternity's wakening, what will that 
 be ! If your preachers had taught their own people 
 half as faithfully the divine commandment to love one 
 another as they taught them the cunning words of their 
 own wisdom to hate other people, you would not be left 
 friendless and hopeless. 
 
224 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 But wbere is tbat grand army of brave young meUj 
 wbo out of their love for justice and bumanity endured 
 the privations and hardships of four years' war ? Where 
 are these modern crusaders in the cause of freedom and 
 justice ? Have they wbo had so much feeling for the 
 poor negro, and sacrificed so much for his welfare, have 
 they DO feeling for your welfare, who are their daughters 
 and their sisters ? God has made them strong that they 
 might defend your weakness, and guard your frailty. 
 The sume God has thrown around the frailty of your sex 
 the mystic veil of chastity, to man the most beautiful of 
 all created things, that it might wake in the bosom of 
 man his affections, and call forth all his powers of mind 
 and body to defend that beauty. 
 
 'Tis no wonder our enemies scoff at the sentiment of 
 chivahy, so dear to our hearts, since their cities have 
 become vast whorehouses. No wonder their women are 
 clamoring for suffrage to defend themselves with, since 
 those whom God has made strong to defend them have 
 given them to be the slaves of the lusts of Oien. God 
 help them if their right to vote is their only hope I This 
 has failed to protect men ; how then will it protect 
 women, who are so much weaker? 
 
 It has divided society into two classes. The few, the 
 bondautocrats who bask in the sunshine of prosperity, 
 who revel in the luxuries of weath and licentious indul- 
 gence ; and the many, who toil and sweat to pay for the 
 extravagant indulgences, the licentious pleasures, and 
 wasteful dissipations of the few. Are these the privi- 
 leges of universal suffrage? Why the masses of the 
 people, the " poor white trash," as one of our modern re- 
 formers in Congress called them, cati enjoy these privi- 
 leges in Russia, or Austria, or any other country where 
 they don't vote. What is the use of going to the trouble 
 of voting, when you can enjoy these privileges without 
 voting? 
 
 But these are my enemies I am talking about. It is 
 easy, I know, to see the faults of others. Let them see to 
 it ; if they are satisfied I ought not to complain. I come 
 to make complaint of our own people. I was saying the 
 end of the war left my country a grave-yard, a waste 
 
THE FOUnril WITNESS. 225 
 
 and a desolation. All earthly prood to us had failed. 
 How earnestly I looked to the meeting of our ecclesias- 
 tical bodies — our synods and conferences. I felt more 
 then, than at any other time of my life, the need of re- 
 ligious comfort and consolation. My hopes of earth had 
 perished, and I felt the need of something higher and 
 better to love and live for, something which human 
 power could not destroy. How natural then was it for 
 me to look for advice to those who claimed to be priests, 
 appointed by heaven to instruct us, shepherds to guard 
 and watch over us. 
 
 Well, the first grand council met. Yes, it met just as 
 we were sinking under the awful judgments which 
 Heaven had sent on us: How anxiously I waited for the 
 result of their deliberations. How joyfully I received 
 and read them. I thought they would be full of that 
 pure and beautiful spirit which Christians often exhibit 
 just after they have passed through the fires of aflBiction. 
 How terribly was I disappointed. God grant that my 
 faith may never again be subjected to such a trial. The 
 sum and substance of their advice to us, afflicted and down- 
 cast as we were, was. Don't dance, but pay your preachers 
 good salaries. To brothers standing on the graves of 
 their brothers and on the graves of their liberties, to 
 mothers weeping over the graves of their sons, to 
 widows weeping over the graves of their husbands, and 
 to fathers weeping because their sons, perhaps the staff of 
 old age, had fallen, they said, Don't dance. And to a 
 people who had lost all their money, all their personal 
 property, and whose barns, and houses, and fences were 
 destroyed, and their fields a waste, they said, Pay your 
 preachers good salaries. 
 
 Was ever the human soul so mocked ? Was ever the 
 God of the Christian so blasphemed ? The first impuKse 
 of my distracted mind was to plunge into the dark abyss 
 of infidelity. But for my Bible, where else could I have 
 gone ? I found abundant comfort in the word of God. 
 It was a light to my feet, and a lamp to my pathway. 
 W^isdom to understand, and strength to bear up under 
 my great troubles, I found there. I then asked myself 
 this question: If the word of God, the simple plaiu 
 
 K* 
 
^26 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 word, could give me such wisdom and strength, things 
 which I could not get from a whole assembly of learned 
 priests, why need I ever go to them for information ? I 
 asked them for bread, and they gave me a stone ; I asked 
 them for fish, and they gave me a serpent. 
 
 *' Don't dance " was to me a stone of stumbling over 
 which I came near falling. " Feed the preachers " was 
 a serpent of pharisaical canning. Yes, to administer to 
 the temporal wants of a pampered and tyrannical priest- 
 hood, this they wanted me to accept as my religion. 
 Such a religion may do for days of prosperity, when the 
 sun is shining and everything is peace aud plenty. But 
 it won't do for days of trouble. Those who build on ft 
 will find that when the rains descend, and the floods 
 come, it will fall, and great will be the fall thereof. 
 
 When I remembered that warning taught by him who 
 teaches only truth, "judge not that you be not judged," I 
 was afraid to come to the conclusion which I liave beeti 
 driven to since. I thought at Ifeast that I must wait and 
 see furthef. 1 waited until these learned divines met 
 again in council. When they did meet, I observed this 
 fact, that two-thirds of their time was taken up in de- 
 vising ways and means to increase their own pay. I was 
 struck with the many politic plans which w^ere suggested 
 to extort a liberal pay from a people broken and crushed 
 by the desolations of a ruinous war; But one of theni, 
 whom it seemed to me, both from his manner and the 
 tamper he exhibited, nature or education had fitted for 
 acting tragedy on the stage, asserted boldly, that unless 
 these poor people would pay him a liberal saliary he 
 would quit preaching for them. The speech of this good 
 man, divested of all its sophistry, was to this effect;; 
 *' Hearken unto me, all ye p6or and oppressed people. 
 The Son of God, in his infinite mercy, came to earth, 
 and died to save man from his sins, while on earth he 
 made for man a revela*tion of his will. By his Holy 
 Spirit he has called me and given me commission to de- 
 clare unto you the glad tidings of great joy which that 
 will contains. By his special command I have come 
 unto you, furnished wnth wisdom to break the seals of 
 this testament, and show you its glorious promises, which 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 221 
 
 are fullness of joy and life everlasting. Now if you peo- 
 ple will promise to give me so much gold every year, I 
 will tench you the truth of this book, that you may in- 
 herit its promises of eternal happiness. But unless you 
 make me this promise, the book may remain sealed to 
 you forever, and you may perish in your sins." 
 
 I trembled when I heard this horrid blasphemy, and 
 saw nobody get up to rebuke it. I thanked God that we 
 were no longer the slaves of a pharisaical priethood. The 
 Saviour in the merciful dispensation of his providence 
 has put within the reach of every Christian, in our land 
 at least, a copy of his will. There can we find his prom- 
 ises to us in all their simplicity and truth, so plain that a 
 wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. When 
 I considered these things, I wondered why it was that 
 •we were so concerned to employ these learned lawyers 
 and doctors, these scribes and Pharisees, to confuse with 
 their sophistries, their doctrines of human wisdom, truths 
 which are as plain as infinite wisdom could make them. 
 Why, had we not better go to the fountain of truth itself? 
 How much purer and sweeter and fresher are its waters, 
 than after they have been muddled and poisoned with 
 their theologies. 
 
 This would not suit the preachers, I know, but are we 
 made to serve them ? I find that they are willing to be 
 shepherds as long as the sheep furnish them good fleeces, 
 but when they come into the fold, and find that some- 
 body else has sheared the sheep, then are they ready to 
 go and leave them to wander ofl' in a cloudy and dark 
 day. Yea, they will leave them to the mercy of the cold 
 winds of adversity and want, to shiver and to die. 
 W^hen we were rich, we did not think after these things. 
 
 These ecclesiastical hierarchies suit the rich very well. 
 They let the rich make as much money as they please, 
 without being scrupulous about the means ; they may 
 get rich by overreaching the weak, by trapping the. 
 young and unsuspecting, by cheating the ignorant, by 
 giving the laborer less than his just hire, and by taking 
 advantage of the necessities of their neighbors. All 
 these unrighteous means they may use to make money, 
 and the preachers won't rebuke them for it, provided, 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 they will divide liberally with them their ill-gotten 
 gains. 
 
 Ouce again did I watch the meeting of these preachers. 
 Again did they spend their time discussing plans for 
 better pay ; again did 1 hear their infidel theology 
 preached, and that, too, more boldly and unblushingly 
 than before. I will not attempt to give you the gildied 
 rhetoric and pompous periods of this priestly philosopher. 
 For he, with this whole tribe of modern Pharisees, has 
 studied the maxims of that astute diplomatist who said 
 that words were made to hide our meaning, more de- 
 voutly than the truths of the Bible. But the sermon 
 was substantially this. He said the Bible was an old 
 fogy book. The apostles and prophets did well enough 
 for their times ; but the glory had been reserved for us, 
 to discover in these wise and enlightened times that 
 money is the great power to Christianize the world. 
 This lie too went unrebuked. 
 
 Then came into my mind that awful denunciation of 
 the Saviour. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees and 
 hypocrites, for ye compass sea and land to make one 
 proselyte, and when he is made ye make him twofold 
 more the cldld of hell than yourselves. By means of 
 money the world is not converted to Christ, but the 
 Christian church is sold to the world. How sad it is to 
 think that the church to-day is made up of fine churches, 
 fine music, and learned discourses, polished with the de- 
 ceitful words of human wisdom! The churches have 
 been bought up by the world for the use of a hireling 
 priesthood, to discuss philosophy and politics. Instead 
 of the divine commandment " love one another," they 
 preach hate ; instead of peace, they preach war. 
 
 Well, this kind of Christianity suits the v^^orld, 'tis 
 more palatable to human nature, it requires no change 
 of heart, no change of life, no charity, and no benevo- 
 knce. But will it answer the purpose ? By their fruits 
 ye shall know them. Do men gather tigs of thistles, or 
 grapes of thorns ? War with all its bloody horrors and 
 desolating wastes, vast burdens of debt crushing out the 
 energies of the country, floods of taxation swollen 
 beyond their banks, by the wild and reckless extrava- 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 229 
 
 gance of a corrupt and factious legislation, sweeping 
 away the resources of the country and the fruits of its 
 industry. The toiling millions sweating without just 
 remuneration ; and on the ruins of all I see springing 
 up a vast moneyed aristocracy, that monstrous tyranny 
 whose dark shadow has blighted the liberties and put 
 out the hope of every other nation, and tongue, and 
 kindred, and people under the sun. So sure is it that 
 the wicked are turned into hell, with nations that forget 
 God. 
 
 Since our country has been desolated by the war and 
 our people became poor, churches are being deserted 
 everywhere. The preachers who used to preach for 
 them when they were rich and prosperous, are leaving 
 them. They were willing to share their good things, 
 but not the evil. They are not willing to take the hard 
 fare of a people who are become poor. They are not 
 willing to share with these poor people their hardships 
 and privations. Not they ; these fat, sleek, well-fed 
 priests, who have been in the habit of wearing broadcloth 
 and eating chickens. Be it far from them to wear coarse 
 clothes and eat rough fare. What if human souls are at 
 Hake ? Will they even for so high a consideration as 
 this forego the indolent, easy lives they led, with all their 
 epicurean pleasures ? Not they. But rather will they 
 go off and preach for some other people who are rich and 
 can pay them good salaries. 
 
 These fellows have got their brother priests begging 
 for them all over the country. I heard one of them pre- 
 senting their petition not long ago. I don't ask you for 
 bread, he said, for those poor, starving people, but for 
 money to pay their priests. 'Tis true those poor people 
 in many of those ravaged districts, at least the poor 
 among them, are suffering for want of bread ; but let 
 them suffer, that matter don't concern us. We don't ask 
 you for bread for the starving, but for money to pay their 
 priests. He closed his appeal with the threat that 
 unless money was furnished these preachers they would 
 go and leave these people, who used to provide so kindly 
 and so liberally for them, to die in their sins. This he 
 thought would be an awful thing, to suffer poor people to 
 
 20 
 
2a0 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 perish for the want of the niiiiistration of the gosp€ • 
 He even grew pathetic here and shed tears. 
 
 I wondered if those tears were sincere. Does he 
 really believe that those poor people will lose their 
 souls unless they have somebody to preach for them ? 
 Then why don't he go and preach for them ? His 
 eonunission is not to sit down and preach to some rich 
 conorregation. No, it is go into all the world and preach 
 my gospel to every creature. Go out into the highways 
 and hedges. If this is not his commission, he's got none. 
 For this is the only one ever given. When the great 
 Head of the church was on earth, and the prophet who 
 went before him to prepare the way for him sent mes- 
 sengers to know if he was the Messiah, what was his 
 answer ? Simply this. Go and tell John what I am doing; 
 tell him the blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the 
 lame walk, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 
 
 What is the highest boast of a modern preacher ? I 
 preach to the largest and richest congregation in the city 
 or country, as the place may be. He might indeed add, 
 to heighten the effect, All these proselytes have 1 gathered 
 in by the cunning words of my own wisdom, or by some 
 new-fangled, infidel philosophy which I have substituted 
 for Christianity. 
 
 I have an idea why he did not go. He is getting a 
 good salary. His congregation is rich, and will pay him 
 more after a while. If he would go and preach for these 
 poor people, he would have to become poor, and that is 
 not palatable to the carnal appetites of modern pipnchers. 
 When I considered all these things, I remembered the 
 words of the prophet Jeremiah, about things which 
 would come to pass in the latter days. I have seen in 
 the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing. They com- 
 mit adultery, and walk in lies ; they strengthen the hands 
 of evil-doers, so that none doth return from his wicked- 
 ness ; they are all of them unto me as Sodom and as the 
 inhabitants of Gomorrah. 
 
 Therefore, thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the 
 prophets, behold I will feed them with wormwood and 
 make them drink the waters of gall. Thus saith the 
 Lord of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets 
 
TEE FOURTH WITNESS. 231 
 
 that prophesy unto you. They make you vain, they 
 speak a vision of their own hearts, and not out of the 
 mouth of the Lord. They say still unto them that 
 despise me, the Lord has said, Ye shall have peace, and 
 th(!y say unto every one that walketh after the imagina- 
 tion of his own heart. No evil shall come upon you. I 
 have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I have not 
 spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had 
 stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear 
 my words, then they should have turned them from the 
 evil of their doings. Am I a God at hand, saith the 
 Lord, and not a God afar off. Can any hide himself in 
 secret places, that I shall not see him ? saith the Lord. 
 Do I not fill heaven and earth ? saith the Lord. 
 
 At this time some good people said we ought to gather 
 up our dead and bury them* together. It was fit that 
 those whose grief was common should weep together. It 
 was fit too that those who had loved the same cause, 
 who fought for it and died for it, ay, whose kindred 
 spirits had gone up together in the cloud which arose 
 from the field of their fame, should sleep together. This 
 was a beautiful thought* Sweetly, tenderly, feelingly, 
 was it done. But then pride came along. It said we 
 must build marble monuments to the dead. Methinks 
 if the dead could have been consulted, they would have 
 forbade it. I know them. They were as modest as they 
 were noble and brave. Like the great Irish patriot, 
 Robert Emmett, who.se deathless heroism made his name 
 a talisman of power, which wakes to-day in the bosom 
 of every son of Erin the wildest aspirations for liberty, 
 our dead, like him, would have said, Let our humble graves 
 be unmarked, until another age and other men can do 
 justice to our memory. 
 
 But pride has no reason, no feelings, and no sense; 
 we will build tombstones. They went at the work, but 
 could not finish it. The rich who had brought the war 
 on, who had sent their sons to the battle-field to die, 
 but who had kept their property, and thus starved 
 our armies and murdered the cause, they had no money 
 to give; they had lost a part of their big fortune; and, 
 although they had tens of thousands left, they were the 
 
232 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 poofi?est of all poor people. Every nerve must be strained, 
 every luxury cut off, and every penny saved, to get back 
 the portion of their wealth which the war had destroyed. 
 
 But monuments cost money, and how will we get it ? 
 Among the many tricks which a hireling priesthood has 
 used for many years to serve their rich paymasters at the 
 expense of the common people was a gambling concern, 
 aptly called by John Bunyan Vanity Fairs. The way 
 this thing started in the world was this : an old Pharisee 
 of the priestly order wanted money to buy some fine fixings 
 for his church ; the rich deacons and elders, and other 
 influential members of his church, were not in a humor 
 to give the money. 
 
 "Well," says the old priest, "I have fallen on a .plan 
 to adorn the house of the Lord, and thus honor him, 
 that won't cost us anything. Brother Easy Conscience 
 and Brother Crafty, you must go around and see Brother 
 Avarice and Sister Keep- all, and the rest of our have- 
 plenty and well-to-do brothers and sisters, and get them 
 all to provide some good things to eat and drink. We 
 will then gather it all together at the church, have a feast, 
 and sell it out. Bring your pretty daughters along, and 
 let them be salesmen ; they will be able to sell our goods 
 for many times their value. Ay, let them put their 
 smiles and coquettish airs into the market, and sell them 
 to anybody that comes along. This of itself will bring 
 a heap of money. Let me see, I can tell you the persons 
 who will buy our good things without regard to price. 
 There is Joe Careless, Simon Simple, Peter Good-nature, 
 Jiike Eat, Tom Drink, Jack Spendthrift, and Love-my- 
 daughter (but he can't get her) among the men ; and 
 among the women who will bring there a heap of good 
 things and costly, for sale, are Dolly Charity, Peggy Pride, 
 Sallie Won't-be-outdone, and Betty Brag, and so on." 
 
 This trick of pharisaism to take the advantage of the 
 frailties of their fellows, and to rob them, has been most 
 .unfairly called a fair. And this iniquitous scheme was 
 resorted to by our people under the pretext of doing 
 honor to our dead. Was this not a solemn mockery of the 
 memory of those noble men who had given their lives 
 as a pledge of their honor and their devotion to truth ? 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 233 
 
 Did I say solemn mocker}^? Ah, no I the levity and 
 folly of the thing forbade even the tear which some 
 generous heart, not lost to all sense of propriety, might 
 have let fall upon their sleeping dust. 
 
 When you talk to these people about these sinful 
 practices, which are not only wretched mockeries of the 
 beautiful charity of Christianity, but abhorrent to every 
 sentiment of honor and propriety in man, they will hide 
 themselves in the church ; that great fortress of pharisaism, 
 built not to save men from the blight of sin and its end- 
 less death, but to shelter their guilty consciences from the 
 arrows of truth which fly from every page of God's 
 word. Poor, miserable, deluded children of earth, you 
 may hide your guilty conscience from the searching eyes 
 of truth, but when the great day of his wrath shall 
 come, when the heavens shall be rolled together like a 
 scroll and the earth shall melt with fervent heat, will 
 this flimsy covering shelter your guilty heads ? Why do 
 you trust in priestcraft when the God who made you; 
 and in whose hands your breath is, comes into your own 
 house by his word ready to judge you, to condemn you, 
 to pardon and to save you ? I saw two letters on 
 this subject, which, though written by an uneducated 
 private in our army, pleased me so well, that I must 
 needs give them a place here. 
 
 ''Mr. Editor, — In your last issue you published an 
 article signed 'Indiguata,' which I took to be a hit at 
 myself. The writer was wrong in supposing I wrote the 
 article which she criticfises, equally wrong in thinking 
 that I had forgotten my pledge to the Ladies' Memorial 
 Association. On the contrary, whenever they are ready 
 to use what I promised, it shall be ready for them. I 
 will go still further, and say that as long as I have a 
 dollar, and it shall be needed to do honor to the dead, 
 who gave their lives, the richest of blessings, to save me 
 from the political degradation to which 1 am now sub- 
 jected, it shall be at their service. But I was not willing 
 then, nor am I yet willing, to see the beautiful and sacred 
 service, instituted in honor of the Confederate dead, dese- 
 crated by the levity and folly of a feast. 
 
 " I believed then, and still believe, that the people have 
 20* 
 
234 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 hearts io their bosoms ; hearts that can be touched by the 
 sacred memories that cluster around this institution. I 
 did not believe then, nor do I yet believe, that the people's 
 hearts have all gone down into their bellies, and that the 
 only way to get at them is by cake and ice cream, or 
 some other gluttonous bait. But if this be true, if in- 
 deed we have no hearts to do appropriate honors to the 
 memory of our dead, if so soon we are ready to forget 
 them and their heroic deeds, if the spirit of patriotism 
 which thrilled them and hurried them to the front of a 
 hundred battle-fields, animates us no longer, let us say 
 so. Humiliating as the confession may be, let us make it. 
 
 " But let us not, I conjure you, by their virtue, by their 
 patriotism, and by their love of truth, let us not mock 
 their memory by a hollow and unmeaning ceremony. It 
 were better, infinitely better, that we had left their bones 
 on the battle-lields where they fell. These places at least 
 are sacred. And we think the dumb earth, more gener- 
 ous than we, would have sent forth its green grass and 
 wild flowers to shelter their bones, and hide our shame 
 from the face of heaven. The genius of Liberty, when 
 driven from every other spot of earth, flies for refuge to 
 the graves of her martyrs. Let us not frighten her away 
 by our Vanity Fairs. 
 
 *' We are slaves, 1 admit; but the more is the necessity 
 for keeping some little spot of earth consecrated to free- 
 dom. Let the children growing up around us, when ihey 
 visit that spot, go not as to a feast and a frolic, but teach 
 their little feet to tread lightly that hallowed ground ; 
 teach them to feel that sacred awe and religious venera- 
 tion which rightly belong to the place. Then, indeed, 
 will the spirit of liberty, which still lives there breathe 
 upon them, and kindle in their young hearts the highest 
 and holiest aspirations for freedom. Then, too, will 
 tyrants, under whatever disguise, and for whatever pre- 
 text they may choose to trifle with the liberties of man- 
 kind, do it at their peril. 
 
 " I was a Confederate soldier, and though I did but 
 little, yet was that little done from a general honest 
 thought of common good to all. I know what the feel- 
 ings and wishes of my comrades were, because their feel- 
 
THE FOURTU WITNESS. 239 
 
 JDgs and wishes were my own. Deeply did I feel, when 
 comniittiDg to earth a brother soldier, and when I re- 
 membered how soon his fate would probably be my own. 
 My feelings at the time I wrote out in verse, and rude as 
 my verses are, they express the sentiment of the soldier's 
 heart. His only request was, that he should not be for- 
 gotten. How little to be asked for by those of whom 
 we demanded so much ! Shall that little be denied 
 them ? ' 
 
 . ■ ^ THE FREEMAN'S GRAVE. 
 
 ^',•1'.: . :■ 
 
 Farewell, thou bravest of the brave j 
 
 Patriot soldier, fare thee well. 
 The muskets' salute o'er thy grave 
 
 Alone can break the silent spell; 
 
 Which holds thy weeping friends in arms. 
 
 The friends whom friendship's chains can bind; 
 
 But not the dread of war's alarms 
 Can chain the spirit of their mind. 
 
 For, born like thee in freedom's land, 
 ' . Like thee they'll fill a freeman's grave 
 
 /J ;■ ^-'Before they'll kiss the tyrant's hand 
 Or bow before oppression's wave. 
 
 The freeman's grave, oh, dreiary waste ! 
 
 Whence life and joy and hope hath fled ; ' 
 
 ,-,{:■; No shroud his moveless limbs to grace i!- 
 
 Ho marble marks his sleeping head. 
 
 Not e'en a rough, unpolished board 
 
 Betwixt him and the clammy clay, 
 To shield him from the vermin horde 
 
 Which ere he's cold makes him their prey. 
 
 Instinctively I dread this doom. 
 Yet even thus would dare to die 
 -It) Mi: Would some fond friend come near my tomb, 
 fiilO T' A sigh for me, one long, last sigh. 
 
 Would some kind hand whose rapturous touch 
 Once woke the warm heart's wildest thrill, 
 
 Plant flowers above my sleeping dust 
 To bloom and say, I love thee still. 
 
 Would 'neath afl"ection's shower of tears 
 
 Those flov^ers of memory sweetly bloom. 
 And on the waste of long, long years 
 ' ''' •''"'■ Shed fragrance round my lowly tomb. 
 
 A SOLDIER.*' 
 
236 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 (Second Letter.) 
 
 " Mi\ Editor, — Mj reply to ' Indiguata ' was not written 
 merely for the purpose of controversy, nor was it dictated 
 by a spirit of unkindness toward tbe association or any 
 one of its members. My object was simply to defendthei 
 truth. In what I am about to say, arid in what I may 
 be led to say at any other time, I will be governed by 
 the same motive. If I should be compelled to say 
 things which are harsh, let it be distinctly understood 
 once for all they will have no personal meaning, for I do 
 not know who either of the writers are whose censures 
 of my opinions and conduct have been made public through 
 your paper. Indeed, it would seem, from the pretensions 
 which ' a member ' sets up for herself, that I, and every 
 body else who has anything to do with the association, 
 ought to know who she is. Because I haven't talked to 
 her about the matter, haven't proposed to pay her, haven't 
 asked her how the association is getting along, therefore 
 does it follow as a matter of course that I have neither 
 manifested any interest in its welfare nor expressed a 
 willingness to meet the promise I made to it. 
 
 " I confess I know nothing about the government of 
 the association, but this one-man power has to my mind 
 a strong squinting towards absolutism ? Have they like 
 the rump become Cossack in their opinions and sympa- 
 thies, and followed Russia as a model for their govern- 
 ments ? I can well understand the consistency of the 
 rump, w^hose avowed object is to establish a despotism on 
 the ruins of the liberties and constitution of their country ; 
 but really I can't see the propriet}^ of the thing in a gov- 
 ernment whose professed purpose is to honor the mem- 
 ory of those who fell defending the principles of American 
 republicanism. Nor have I ever heard that they sent a 
 special embassy to congratulate that unlimited despot, 
 the Czar, upon his escape from a blow of righteous justice, 
 aimed by the hand of some serf, driven to desperation by 
 the exaction of tyranny. 
 
 "I don't think I should have answered this article of 
 a 'Member' at all, but would have squared my account 
 and thus removed the cause of her complaint, but for the 
 
TEtJ FOURTH WITJSESS. 237 
 
 fact that she wants to play off on me the same game 
 which 'Iiidignata' has evideutly played on her. She 
 tries to shuttle into my arms that monster which I've had 
 nothing to do with at all but to expose its hideousness. 
 She says, your Vanity Fair. No, madam, not mine. I 
 disclaim it altogether. At the first sight it seemed so 
 frightful to me that I resolved never to touch it. When 
 I first saw it I set it down as one of those many mon- 
 strosities which have been born of Yankee cupidity and 
 Yankee infidelity. I am sure it is a cousin, if not nearer 
 kin, to mesmerism, spiritualism, woman's rights, equality, 
 miscegenation, etc. Why, look at it, where the head 
 ought to be I can see nothing but what phrenologists 
 would call a big bump of cupidity: the rest of the thing 
 is all belly. It looks to me for all the world like one of 
 these big ticks I've seen hanging to the ear of a dog. 
 
 "Madam, don't you begin to think that * Indignata' 
 has played sharp on you ? Why, as soon as she saw the 
 deformity of this creature, she made haste to shift it off 
 of her hands. How on earth did she fool you so ? She 
 must surely have had it dressed up in baby clothes. May- 
 be she showed you a picture of it in * Harper,' that vulgar 
 satire upon literature and taste. But the question now 
 is, not how you got it, but, how will you get rid of it ? 
 This I fear will be hard to answer. I don't think any- 
 body about here will relieve you of your charge. Madam, 
 I pity you from the bottom of my heart, but I can't take 
 it. Why, I'm a bachelor, at best not very popular with 
 the ladies, but if you should send me round carrying this 
 creature in my arms they would run at the very sight 
 of me. But even if I were doomed to be a bachelor for- 
 ever (I don't believe that though) I might, to save myself 
 from the odium of being utterly friendless, be persuaded, 
 in lieu of something better, to pet a snake, a toad, or 
 even a lizard, but not that thing. 
 
 "I am inclined to think, when the other members see 
 you in your present unenviable predicament, they will 
 •hardly be willing to admit that you are the association. 
 •And should you be able to prove that you are, I think at 
 'least many of them will be anxious to prove that they 
 are not. I have not taken the pains to trace the pater- 
 
2-B^ TIIR GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 nity of this monster, but think I could guess it in at l^ast 
 three guesses. I don't think that there are but three brains 
 in the world which could have produced it, and these are 
 Charles Sumner's, Lucy Stone's, and Beast Butler'Sv 
 Madam, I think, if you will write to these parties, and 
 tell them that you have accidentally picked up a stray 
 child which bears a strong resemblance to their other 
 children, they will come after it. Should you write to 
 the Beast, don't forget to tell him that it has had a heap 
 of experience in handling spoons; if you write to Lucy 
 or Charles, it willonly be necessary to state the fact that 
 the creature is getting into bad odor here, and that it 
 will not be able much longer to maintain a position of 
 equality. 
 
 " I will make one other suggestion for your benefit, 
 and then I will be done with the thing. Will it not be 
 the best thing you can do with this monster to lay it 
 quietly in the grave of scorn which I've dug for it, and 
 let silence sprinkle over it the dust of forgetfulness ? 
 
 " I will now turn gladly from this subject to one more 
 congenial to my thoughts and feelings. A ' Member' 
 says her appeal is made for the dead, and not for the 
 living. My appeal is for the living, and not for the dead; 
 I thank God the fame of the dead is not dependent upan 
 Vanity Fairs, memorial associations, or upon the patriot- 
 ism and benevolence of an avaricious and infidel age! An 
 age in which every virtue, human or divine, is measured 
 by its weight in gold. No, the fame of the dead at least 
 is secure. Their battle-fields are their monuments, and 
 their heroic deeds the imperishal)ie records of their fame. 
 Manassah can no more die than that Thermopylse could 
 die. And although ages have elapsed since that mem* 
 orable battle, Leonidas and his Spartan band live as 
 freshly in the memory of man to-day as they did the day 
 after their glorious defense of Greece. A truth was born 
 there, and truth can never die. Greece herself was born 
 at Thermopylffi. She learnt that day the invincibility of 
 patriotic heroism. It was that truth which made her 
 armies invincible, her governments wise and liberal, h6r 
 laws just, their administration equitable, Ler social life 
 mild and genial, her fine arts the highest models of beauty^ 
 
THE FOURTH WITJSUSS. 239 
 
 and her civilizatiou the noblest type of heathen civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 " But when Greece forgot Thermopylae, and the truth 
 which was born at Thermopylae, she soon fell a victim to- 
 intestine broils and fratricidal wars. Yes, when she 
 learned to trust in the glory of her power and the splen- 
 dor of her riches, the light of her glory went out, and 
 her money gods perished. But the truth which madei 
 her glorious and prosperous did not die with Greece. 
 When it ceased to be appreciated where it was born, \v 
 fled to more congenial climes. Leonidas lived again in 
 the Scipios and Bruti of Rome, in the Harapdens of 
 England, and in that nol>lest of all heroes and patriots — 
 George Washington. Thermopylae lived again at Lex- 
 ington ; it lived again at Manassah. Like Thermopylae 
 and Le.xington, Manassah will live forever. And while 
 it lives, the Confederate dead can never die. Your Vanity 
 Fairs will die. Only an age prolific of monsters could 
 produce such a perversion of truth. When truth shall 
 live again, as it most assuredly will, oblivion will draw 
 around them her dark curtain, that man may not always 
 have to blush for his kind. Your memorial associations 
 too will die, unless they are honorably connected with 
 the imperishable fame of the dead. 
 
 ; " This and only this, has been my object: that we 
 might live in the memory of future generations as a 
 people who were worthy of the virtue, the truth, and the 
 heroism of the brave men who made Manassah and the 
 hundred battle-fields of the Confederacy immortal. I 
 was willing, to the utmost of my ability, to contribute to 
 this object ; but I was not willing to see the memory of 
 the dead mocked, and the truth which was born in their 
 death insulted, while the blood-stains of their martyrdom 
 were still fresh upon the battle-fields of their glory. 
 
 "A Soldier." 
 
 But the Creator, in his infinite mercy, determined in 
 the counsels of eternity that man should again be free 
 and happy ; not indeed by force, not by constraint. He 
 desires the love and obedience of his creatures; but he 
 will not force it. He wants nian to serve him, not from 
 
240 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 necessity, but from choice. He puts before him good and 
 evil, and while it is his will for man to choose the good, 
 he leaves him free to choose evil. To secure this end, 
 he has made obedience to his laws the condition of 
 man's happiness and prosperity. Not only his happiness 
 in the future world, but in this world. For six thousand 
 years he has been gathering the proofs of this truth. 
 The history of the world during that long time has been 
 a perpetual demonstration of it. The prosperity and hap- 
 piness of every people who have obeyed the laws re- 
 vealed to them by Heaven is a historical fact, which 
 cannot be disputed. The awful destruction of those 
 nations which disobeyed the commands of- God, and 
 violated the laws of religion and virtue which he had 
 revealed to them, stand as conclusive proof of this truth. 
 
 The history of the Jews is the most striking, because 
 God, in the ways of his providence, did make to them 
 clearer manifestations of himself, and fuller revelations 
 of his will and purposes to mankind. He chose them as 
 a peculiar people, and blessed them with especial and 
 peculiar favors. He sent them leaders and lawgivers 
 whose commissions were sanctioned by the most impress- 
 ive and convincing manifestations of his wisdom, his 
 power, and his glory. 
 
 In the garden of Eden, Adam gazes with wonder and 
 astonishment upon Eve, a created miracle of God. The 
 inhabitants of the ark look out upon the flood of waters, 
 sweeping over the face of the earth, and swallowing up 
 hills and mountains, and tremble at the omnipotence of the 
 Deity, and adore the mercy which preserves them who 
 have not forgotten to honor him. The servant of God 
 stretches his rod of faith over the sea, and it opens like 
 a gate to let his people pass. The enemies of God, trust- 
 ing in their own power and glory, enter the deep chasm, 
 and its watery walls fall on them and crush them beneath 
 its ruins. Where now is the Egyptian host, with all its 
 pomp, its splendor, and its power ? where their proud 
 boasts? The angry wave, as if in mockery, spits out 
 their vaunting breath in frothy bubbles ; the people trem- 
 ble while Sinai thunders forth the ten commandments; 
 the proud king of Babyhia is driven from his throne to 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 241 
 
 live with the beasts of the field, until he learns to obey 
 the king of heaven. Then the Almighty bestows on 
 him power, and wisdom, and happiness. His son forgets 
 these things, and insults the God of Israel by using holy 
 vessels, consecrated to his service, at his impious feast. 
 A mysterious hand writes, in letters of fire, his doom on 
 the wall. 
 
 Where is Babylon, with all her riches and her glory? So 
 deep was she buried beneath the judgments of an angry 
 God, that even her grave can't be found. Where is 
 Jerusalem, the City of the Great King? where is its 
 splendid temple, with its glorious service? " O Jerusa- 
 lem, Jerusalem ! thou that killest the prophets and 
 stonest them that were sent unto thee, how often would 
 I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her brood, but ye would not !" 
 
 The children of Israel the Almighty had chosen to be 
 a peculiar people. He had blessed them above all other 
 people in the world. He had brought them out of their 
 enemies' land with a high band and an outstretched arm. 
 His pillar of cloud guided them by day, and by night 
 his pillar of fire. The sea got out of the way of 
 Jehovah when he went l>efore his people to lead them. 
 He drove out other nations, and gave to his people a land 
 flowing with milk and honey. Under the protecting care 
 of Heaven, these people enjoyed a freedom and happi- 
 ness such as no people in the world could boast of. But 
 the Jews, like the king of Babylon, forgot their Creator 
 and benefactor. The priesthood, to whom was committed 
 the sacred mysteries of the temple, forgot the God whom 
 they pretended still to worship. They indeed continued 
 to observe all the ordinances of religion, to collect tithes 
 of mint, cummin and anise, but the weightier matters of 
 the law, truth, judgment and justice, they forgot. They 
 laid upon men beavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, 
 but they would not touch them with their little finger. 
 
 Such was the wickedness of these people, when Christ 
 came to earth, that when he commanded the one who 
 was without sin to cast the first stone at an adulteress 
 nobody could be found. But the day of judgment came 
 upon the wickecl citv, and it perished. Christ's predictions 
 L ' 21 
 
242 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 were literally fulfilled. " For the day shall oome upon 
 thee that thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee and 
 compass thee around and keep thee on every side, and 
 shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children 
 witliin thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone 
 upon another." 
 
 Not long after this prophecy the Roman army com- 
 menced digging their trenches about the doomed city. 
 For months the terrible siege was kept up. The Jews 
 inside the city, divided into hostile factions, destroyed one 
 another whenever their enemies gave them a little re- 
 spite. Famine crept into their midst, and disease and 
 death in every horrible shape. For months and months 
 did these judgments of Heaven consume this proud and 
 rebellious city. At last the crash of ruin came, and the 
 city was razed to the ground, and its very foundation 
 plowed up. 
 
 Since that time the Jews, despised and friendless, have 
 wandered over the earth a hissing and a by-word among 
 the nations, and unto the Gentiles has been given the 
 inheritance which they were unworthy of. Ay, a richer 
 inheritance than theirs has been committed to us. The 
 gospel of Christ with all its promises of freedom, of hap- 
 piness, and prosperity, has been given to us. A better 
 land than the promised land of the Jews is ours. 
 Stretching from ocean to ocean, its extent is almost limit- 
 less, its innumerable valleys and plains inexhaustibly 
 fertile. 
 
 Hundreds of years ago the persecuted exiles from other 
 nations found an asylum on its shores. They, true to 
 their faith, dedicated it to freedom and Christianity. They 
 accepted the Bible as their religion, and yielding to its 
 influences on their social and political institutions, they 
 presented to the world a government different from all 
 other governments which had ever existed before. It 
 recognized the right of no power in the world to rule. 
 It declared that there was no power in the world which 
 had authority to use man for any purpose, or in any 
 manner, which would violate his personal freedom and 
 individual happiness. 
 
 It declared that man is a child of God, and, as such. 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 243 
 
 entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that 
 no person or power had the right to take his life, his 
 liberty, or his property, without his consent, either by 
 force or fraud ; no kin": to rule by divine right ; no legis- 
 lature to rule by fraud or force ; no president to be our 
 ruler by usurpation ; no bondautocracy to buy the servants 
 of the people to make laws for their special benefit ; no 
 golden gods to make man the slave of cupidity and 
 greedy selfishness, so that he might be thus fitted to be 
 the slave of kings and princes. In a word, it recognized 
 the divine truths taught by the New Testament, that 
 man is the child of God and the brother of his fellow 
 man. 
 
 It was this divine principle which united the colonies 
 in their memorable struggle against European despotism. 
 It was this spirit of truth which united the States in a 
 federal union. It was this spirit of truth which kept 
 those States for years and years bound together in do- 
 mestic peace and tranquillity. Lying politicians and 
 hireling priests tell us it was the spirit of power and 
 despotism which made our union, and that must be kept 
 up to preserve it. Oh, no, that was the kind of union 
 England wanted to make with us; the same kind of 
 union she had with Ireland : a union in which one part 
 commands, another part obeys. 
 
 England wanted our fathers to pay a penny a pound 
 on all the tea they drank. The}^ refused to do it. Why, 
 that was a mighty little thing ! Only a few persons 
 were able to drink tea in those times, and they did not 
 drink much. Our fathers drank tea Sunday morning for 
 breakfast; a penny a pound on that would be a mere 
 matter of form. The people could pay it, and not feel it. 
 But our fathers said God had made man free, and en- 
 dowed him with the right to live and hold property, and 
 to preserve his happiness in his own way ; that he was 
 answerable for his life only at the tribunal of justice ; 
 that no power in the world had a right to take his prop- 
 erty without his consent, by theft or robbery, or that 
 legalized robbery called taxation. Thus, for the sake of 
 right, they went into a war and fought it out to the 
 bitter end. They went to war with the greatest power 
 
244 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 on earth, and, at that time, the best government the world 
 ever saw. 
 
 Mr. Webster, who was good authority in this country 
 years ago, when polities meant virtue and patriotism, 
 and not lying and stealing, as it does to-day, said that 
 our fathers fought eight years against a preamble and 
 resolution. Virginia and South Carolina refused, at the 
 risk of life and property, to have a union with England, 
 whose king they accepted as their rightful sovereign, 
 because England claimed the right, by reason of that 
 union, to make them pay a penny a pound on tea. 
 
 And yet lying politicians, usurpers and tyrants, belie 
 the record of history and insult the common sense of 
 mankind, by declaring to the world, both by their word 
 and actions, that Virginia and Carolina, after fighting 
 eight years with England to break up such a union, did 
 turn right around and form such a union with Massachu- 
 setts and New York. Ay, that they did form a union 
 by which they authorized and empowered those States to 
 overrun their country by invasion, to make it a heap of 
 ruins, to murder their people, reduce them to a degraded 
 slavery, and impose on them the most intolerable des- 
 potism the world ever saw. 
 
 Was ever the world insulted by a more shameless or 
 more barefaced lie I Can anybody be so lost to all sense 
 of reason and justice as to believe it? Or have usurp- 
 ers and tyrants only invented these monstrous falsehoods 
 to excuse not only the wrong which they are doing Vir- 
 ginia and Carolina, but the crimes they are perpetrating 
 against the genius of American liberty and those inalien- 
 able rights of mankind which are the foundation of all 
 liberty and happiness and prosperity? If a people can 
 be so lost to all notions of truth and justice otf to believe 
 falsehoods which have not even the shadow of a proba- 
 bility to sustain them, then indeed has the Almighty, the 
 God of truth, given them up to a strong delusion, to 
 believe a lie, that their destruction maybe sure and their 
 damnation just. 
 
 These are the same people who yesterday cursed Vir- 
 ginia and South Carolina, because they had by a degrad- 
 ing system of slavery reduced the negro to a condition 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS, 245 
 
 of ignorance and barbarism like that of the brute, and 
 to-day swear that tliat same ignorant and imbruted negro 
 is equal to the American white man, the only man who 
 has by his practice ever demonstrated the capacity of 
 man for self-government. These are the people who in 
 the name of freedom and humanity have forced on Vir- 
 ginia and Carolina governments more infamously tyran- 
 nical than heathen nations or even barbarians ever 
 forced on their conquered provinces. Military despotism 
 was considered among heathen nations the worst form 
 of tyranny ; but Yirginia and Carolina have begged 
 these modern crusaders in the cause of freedom and hu- 
 manit}^ for a military despotism, in preference to the in- 
 famous tyranny which they have established over them. 
 
 The time will come when the children of these people 
 will seek to wash out with their tears these foul stains 
 upon their country's history, unless eternal justice in the 
 meantime washes them out with the blood of the 
 tyrants who made them. 
 
 If to oppose such usurpation and crimes as these makes 
 a man a rebel, I thank God I offered my life and my 
 little property to prevent this horrid despotism which 
 has been established on the ruins of my country's liber- 
 ties. Let them call me rebel and traitor. George Wash- 
 ington and John Adams were called traitors and rebels ; 
 Benedict Arnold and the Carolina tories were truly loyal. 
 I did not fight to destroy the union our fathers had made. 
 That union was born of liberty and of love. I fought 
 to keep that union from being changed into one of hate, 
 of power, of despotism. I did not fight for a separation 
 from the old government because I did not love its forms 
 and the spirit of its liberties ; but because I saw an 
 infidel faction who had publicly trampled the Bible under 
 their feet, and denounced the constitution of this country 
 as a league with death and a covenant with hell, get 
 possession of the government and declare to the world 
 that it was their purpose to use all its power, and to 
 usurp all other powers which might be necessary, to de- 
 stroy its freedom and make it a despotism, A faction 
 whose god is mammon, and whose religion i« hatred, 
 war, revenge, power, despotism, divorce, child-murder, 
 
 21* 
 
246 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 adultery, lying, stealing", in a word, every sin which 
 dishonors God, and every crime which disgraces human 
 nature. A faction whose religion and politics have made 
 whore-houses one of the institutions of the country. 
 
 While they are harping on negro slavery, they are 
 
 building up and protecting, by their public laws, prison 
 
 houses of hell, where not only the bodies of the pretty 
 
 daughters of the poor are sold to the lusts and passions 
 
 of men, but where even their souls are buried in the 
 
 grave of despair. A few brief years they revel in 
 
 wantonness, and then, in the anguish of their souls, they 
 
 curse God and die. Ay, a faction whose religion and 
 
 politics have made the big cities themselves licensed 
 
 whore-houses, where fornication, gilded with the dazzling 
 
 gewgaws of wealth, and protected by its illegitimate 
 
 power, flaunts its insolent triumph in the face of day. 
 
 A faction who used the power of the government to 
 
 wage a war of subjugation and conquest against a people 
 
 whose liberties it had been made to protect. A faction 
 
 who have excelled heathens and barbarians in the infamy 
 
 and degradation of the tyranny which they have imposed 
 
 on that people. A faction who, in the name of freedom 
 
 and humanity, have destroyed from the face of the earth 
 
 a million of African slaves, and turned thousands and 
 
 tens of thousands out upon the world penniless, and 
 
 bomeless, and friendless. A faction who, immediately 
 
 ifter they got the power, sent their pious preachers and 
 
 nissionaries to rent cotton farms at half price, and to 
 
 hire negroes at proportionable wages. These pious 
 
 hieves raised their crops and sold them, and then went 
 
 ff leaving the poor negro to beg or starve, as they had 
 
 >een in the habit of doing their poor white trash at home. 
 
 l faction which has boldly and unblushingly declared 
 
 heir purpose to use the negro as a political power to 
 
 nslave the white man. A faction which has used the 
 
 whole power of the government, ay, despotic power, 
 
 which the government never had, to rob labor and reduce 
 
 it to beggary and starvation, in order to support in all 
 
 heir licentious dissipations and drunken extravagance 
 
 an upstart aristocracy. A faction who have permitted a 
 
 half dozen of the yard-stick and goose-quili nobility to 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 247 
 
 force OQ the people, whom they pretend to represent, 
 contrary to their wishes, a drunken butcher for their 
 president and ruler. 
 
 I did not fight for slavery, nor did I ever approve the 
 plots which the slave power of the South were constantly 
 laying to organize a separate government, in which 
 negro slavery would be the mud-sill of their aristocracy. 
 Such schemes they were aided and abetted in by Bea3t 
 Butler and other Northern Democrats with Southern 
 principles. As far as the negro was concerned, slavery 
 as it existed in the South before the war, and more 
 especially as modified in South Carolina, was the best 
 system of slavery in the world; considering tGe good of 
 the slave only, it was better than the slavery of England 
 or France, or the Northern States of this country. The 
 condition of the negro slave of South Carolina was 
 vastly better than the condition of the white slaves of 
 this country is to-day. The negro slave there was sure 
 of comfortable and healthy food and clothing, from child- 
 hood till death. He was sure of good nursing and kind 
 attention during sickness or accidents. He had his odd 
 tinies for recreation, and opportunities to provide for 
 himself the little luxuries of life. 
 
 The white slaves of this country, including the 
 millions of intelligent laborers, mechanics, and all, work 
 hard, and live with a scanty supply of both food and 
 clothing. Political thieves and gamblers, by taxation 
 and a thousand other schemes of legislative robbery, 
 plunder them of their just hire. While they are in good 
 health they can barely supply themselves and their 
 families with the necessaries of life ; when they get sick 
 they are left to take care of themselves, and when they 
 get old and decrepit, their task-masters turn them loose 
 upon the poor, bare-picked commons of public charity. 
 
 Negro slavery in the South had many ugly features, 
 some outrageously wicked practices. These abuses good 
 men in the South deplored as much as anybody, and 
 were anxious to remedy them. But Northern abolition- 
 ists, with a few exceptions infidels, madmen, and fools, 
 prevented us from discussing the matter among our- 
 selves at all. For we knew that if ever we divided, 
 
248 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 these fauatics would force oti us uogro equality, — a crime 
 against nature, which no white man whose soul is uoj 
 depraved and whose mind is not utterly debauched, car. 
 think of without disgust. But if man must be a slave, 
 I say even now, let that slave be the negro, and not th^ 
 white man. 
 
 I am sure that God has made the negro unequal to the 
 white man, and that men and devils can't make him 
 equal. These same men and devils who are trying to 
 make the negro equal to the white man are trying to put 
 the negro above the white man. They know that if you 
 put them on an equal footing, the negro will go to the 
 bottom, where he belongs, and therefore do they want to 
 fasten him on top of the white man by the arbitrary laws 
 of power. These same men and devils are trying to 
 unsex woman and make a man out of her. These same 
 men and devils want to make a mixed race of slaves by 
 crossing the negro with the poor white trash, for the use 
 of that mean, low-born, upstart aristocracy, the bondaut- 
 ocracy. 
 
 Yes, poor white trash ; the men whose garments are 
 often poor and patched, and soiled with tiie sweat of 
 labor. Yes, the millions of plowholders and mechanics, 
 the fruits of whose honest toils are taken by lying, 
 thieving, political factions, to pay for their drunken 
 bacchanalian revelries, and the grand pomposities of 
 their bondautocratic masters. 
 
 But the worst feature of slavery was its aristocracy. 
 By that I mean, more especially, its political power as 
 a monopoly of wealth. As such, it was mean, dishonest, 
 and unpatriotic. It was anxious for the war, and helped 
 to bring it on, because it thought war meant separation, 
 and that in a separate government its relative power 
 would be vastly increased. 
 
 It craved, however, only the privilege of bringing the 
 war on. It was perfectly willing to leave it to otiMjr 
 people to do the fighting and pay the costs. Had the 
 slave power of the South been liberal and patriotic, w^e 
 could never have been defeated. But this power was 
 rich, and the rich can neither be liberal nor patriotic. 
 The rich worship mammon as their god, and those wha^ 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 249 
 
 worship that god have no soul. And on no altar but 
 that of the human soul can the fires of patriotism be 
 kindled. While the negro race is destined to serve tlie 
 white man forever, slavery, as an aristocratic institution, 
 as a political power, is gone forever. 
 
 Mongrelism and miscegenation are only the lascivious 
 dreams of infidel whoremongervS. A thought so filthy is 
 not entertained by any decent mind. The negro, despite 
 all the efforts of usurpers and tyrants, will go back where 
 he belongs, to a condition of inferiority and virtual serv- 
 itude. This will be his condition until he leaves the 
 white man's country. The white man will never meet 
 him on terms of equality. He will never mix with him, 
 never, never, never. When the great working masses of 
 this country shall be fully waked up on this subject ; 
 when they shall realize fully the infernal plot which has 
 been laid to make a race of mules of them, by mixing 
 them with the negro jackass, in order that they may- 
 be fitted for perpetual slavery, I say when these things 
 shall be better understood by the common people, it 
 will be more than a man's head is worth to hint such a 
 thing as mongrelism, even by the fine name of misce- 
 genation. 
 
 Had we succeeded in establishing our independence 
 there would have been a terrible reckoning. Union men 
 in our midst, who never had any faith in man's fitness to 
 govern himself, who had been educated in the political 
 faith of old John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, and 
 always believed in monarchy and aristocracy rather than 
 in democracy, would have escaped. But Union men so 
 called, who went with our enemies from the motives of 
 cowardice or cupidity or from fear of losing their property, 
 secessionists, who were blatant for separation and war 
 nntil war came, and then shirked out of it, contractors, 
 speculators, thieves' and plunderers, who got fat upon the 
 blood of their country, and got rich out of its necessities, 
 — Woe unto them! Upon such men as these we would 
 have saddled the expenses of the war, and made them 
 pay every dollar of it. 
 
 Night after night was this question discussed by the 
 private soldiers, around the camp fires. Nor was ever 
 
 L* 
 
250 THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 any question discussed about which their opinions so 
 well agreed and so firmly fixed. 
 
 Bat the war terminated differently, if it has ended at 
 all. The lying infidel abolition faction, who brought it 
 on the country, don't want it to stop. It has been a 
 fruitful harvest to them. It has put into their hands that 
 great national blessing, the public debt, which puts into 
 their hands the disbursement of five hundred millions of 
 dollars every year, one-half of which is stealings accord- 
 ing to their own count, and according to mine about nine- 
 tenths of it. It keeps in the hands of their masters, the 
 bondholders, the whole political power of the government. 
 It enables them all to get rich by gambling with the 
 great moneyed monopolies, and taking the labor of the 
 country to pay the expenses. 
 
 These greedy extortioners who plundered us during the 
 war, with ihe negro, have possession in the South. They 
 can take any oath or make any professions. They have no 
 god but mammon, no country but their own farms. They 
 would not hesitate to sell their liberties, their country, 
 or even their souls, to the devil for money. These consti- 
 tute our new aristocracy. How much are they like their 
 brother bondholders in the North. They have set up 
 mammon for god, and command everybody to worship him. 
 
 He rules all the political institutions of the country: 
 the legislature, the courts, and the churches. The su- 
 preme court of West Virginia, the creature and tool of this 
 infamous power, have decided recently that the rebels 
 had a right to take the life of loyal men, to kill Union 
 soldiers or home-guards, because as a general thing they 
 were only poor white trash ; but if the rebel army took 
 any property, a horse or cattle from anybody, whether 
 they were Union men or rebels, that the party who lost 
 this property, even if he himself had been a rebel, had a 
 right to sue any private in the rebel army, and make him 
 pay for it, because (and this is their theory all the time) 
 men who own horses and cattle and Other property are 
 rich men. The rights to life and personal security are 
 matters of small moment, and may be violated with im- 
 punity, but the rights of property are sacred and holy, 
 and no condition of things can excuse their violation. A 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 251 
 
 rich rebel, who furnished four substitutes for the rebel 
 army and fifty thousand dollars in money, has a right to 
 sue a poor private in the rebel army for a horse which a 
 rebel general impressed into the rebel service. 
 
 The courts of this bastard State are full of these suits. 
 Ag-ainst myself and other privates in the rebel army 
 there are suits of this class, covering- up all our little pro- 
 perty. We wrote to General Grant, insisting that under 
 the stipulations of our surrender we were entitled to pro- 
 tection from these barefaced robberies. His answer was 
 substantially this, thatr the commander-in-chief of the 
 United States Army was not under any obligation nor 
 did he have any authority to protect those who were 
 wronged and oppressed; that he was not bound to keep 
 promises he m.ade to enemies, who had surrendered upoa 
 the faith of these promises. That on the contrary it was 
 his duty to defend and protect the oppressor, and to com- 
 pel those whom he had put in their power to submit to 
 such wrongs. He added that if we had been generals 
 in the army, or great men, or rich men, he would see 
 that we were not wronged; but he considered it a piece of 
 impudent presumption for poor private soldiers to ask 
 him to stoop to notice them. 
 
 " Why, don't you know," he continued, "that I did not 
 take any account of private soldiers in my own army, 
 except to order my subordinate officers to pile up their 
 dead carcasses heaps on heaps ?" How sadly are the 
 times out cf joint, to be sure ! How are things misplaced ! 
 How are they miscalled ! Am I crazy, or is it the world 
 around me? Am I walking on my head, or is it other 
 people ? Is my judgment perverted, or has the world per- 
 verted the truth until everything is in the wrong place, 
 and everything called by the wrong name? Has the 
 Almighty in his anger given us up to a strong delusion 
 to believe a lie, so that everything which is false looks 
 to us like truth, and every truth like falsehood ? 
 
 Compare for a moment General Grant with General 
 Lee, not in the style of fine panegyric, or sharp criticism, 
 but in that plain common-sense manner which w^ adopt 
 in looking at our common business matters. The one 
 was born low — and by that I don't mean born poor, for 
 
252 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 poverty is the companion of the hig-hest nobility of soul, — 
 but I mean that he was born with low and brutish in- 
 stincts. Fortune, ever capricious and whimsical, seized 
 him, and dragged him through blood and carnage and 
 death, not to greatness or glory, but to power. His 
 small narrow brain is made diizzy by the height to which 
 it has been so suddenly and unexpectedly lifted. 
 Wrapped in the mantle of ignorance and conceit, mis- 
 taking the accidents of fortune for great talent, he already 
 imagines himself a Caesar, Without any heart to feel 
 either for man or beast, he would be a cold, calculating 
 politician if he had mind enough to make calculations. 
 But being without either education or common sense, he 
 has been overreached and duped by that smallest of all 
 the little politicians, Washburne, a man who has edu- 
 cation enough to teach, but not brains enough to manage, 
 a small country school. 
 
 Through Washburne, he was recommended to the 
 master manufacturing monopolies, and through them to 
 the goose-quill and yard-stick nobility, as one who would 
 be a pliant tool in their hands, to consolidate and per- 
 petuate their power. This insolent power, speaking to 
 the people as if they owned them, bids them take this 
 man Grant to be their president and ruler (this is their 
 own language). General Grant in the instincts of his 
 soul is low and vulgar. In his heart he is cold, selfish, 
 aristocratic and cruel. Vain and conceited, he likes to 
 have power, so that he may lord it over his fellow-man. 
 
 In one respect only is he democratic ; in his hollow 
 professions of friendship for the people, and in his use 
 of low demagogue phrases, which the politicians of this 
 country have used so long and so successfully to 
 humbug the people, and make out of them tools to work 
 their own ruin. The friends of freedom and equality 
 have selected this man Grant to build up and consoli- 
 date and make perpetual a great moneyed power in this 
 country. They selected him, too, because they feared 
 the people would vote against them in the coming elec- 
 tions, and because they supposed that Grant at the head 
 of the army could hold on to the power, whether the 
 people wished it or not. 
 
TUE FOURTH WITNESS. 253 
 
 This moneyed power, which this lying political faction 
 are trying to build up in this country iu the name of 
 freedom and equality, is to-day the foundation of every 
 aristocracy in the world, and has been the basis of every 
 monarchy and aristocracy which has ever existed in the 
 world. It has been the cause, too, of all the political 
 and social inequalities which have ever existed in the 
 Avorld. One would suppose that some sense pf shame, 
 and some little regard for the common sense of mankind, 
 would restrain the people from doing the very thing 
 w^hich they have been declaiming against for years and 
 years. In the name of freedom they have made slaves 
 out of the best people iu the South, and in the name of 
 equality they purpose to make a mudsill out of the labor- 
 ing people of the North, and on that mudsill to build a 
 great moneyed aristocracy. 
 
 Grant is the tool of this aristocracy, its representative 
 man. Ay, the very personification of this upstart 
 bondautocracy, for he himself did like a mushroom spring 
 from a dunghill over night, without brains, without 
 heart, without modesty or shame. Those who believe 
 that the American people will accept such a creature as 
 this Caesar, and consent to be the serfs of him and his 
 bondautocratic masters, know nothing about the hopes 
 and aspirations of thirty-five millions of freemen, their 
 mission and their destiny. 
 
 This age, which is one vast lie, one universal perver- 
 sion of truth, calls this upstart aristocrat, with his ignor- 
 ant conceit and arrogant pretensions, the friend of 
 freedom and equality, and calls Robert E. Lee the friend 
 of aristocracy. Like servile Rome, it applauds Anthony 
 the licentious usurper, the libertine tyrant, and makes war 
 on Brutus, the patriot who had survived his country's 
 love of liberty. 
 
 Lee was born noble, — not rich in money, I mean, but 
 with those noble elements of character which make him 
 w^orthy of our respect, our admiration, and our confi- 
 dence. Like his father before him, he is brave, and 
 chivalrous, and talented, and upright and noble. No 
 intemperance of word or deed mars the stainless purity 
 of his private life. And his public career, the most busy, 
 
 22 
 
254 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 stormy, and checkered, has won the admiration even of 
 bis enemies. 
 
 Without men, without military accoutrements, without 
 the munitions of war, he did by his talent, his heroism, 
 and by the ardent patriotism his self-sacrificing example 
 created among his countrymen, baffle for years the over- 
 whelming powers of the greatest military people in the 
 world, encouraged, aided and sustained by the public 
 sentiment of the world, and by its positive aid. A mes- 
 senger brings to Grant news that his line of battle is 
 broken, and unfeelingly and indifferently he answers, 
 " Pile on the men." A messenger comes to Lee, and tells 
 him a breach has been made in our fortifications, and the 
 enemy in overwhelming numbers are rushing through. 
 No cold senseless glare of strong drink, but the spark of 
 genius, kindles in the hero's eye. He orders a tried and 
 trusty brigade of veterans to fill, not with numbers, but 
 with Spartan valor, the fatal breach. 
 
 A few days ago you might have seen him sitting 
 quietly at his tent, so modest and unassuming, so defer- 
 ential and polite to the poorest and meanest man in the 
 world, so plain and unadorned in his manner and dress, 
 that you would not have known, unless some one told 
 you, that it was General Lee. It was not General Lee ; 
 it was a citizen of the great democracy of the western 
 world. 
 
 He vindicates his democracy, not by prating of free- 
 dom and equality, but by treating his fellow-man as a 
 brother, recognizing in him, no matter how liumble or 
 obscure, a child of God. But look at him now, see him 
 now, see him ride along that veteran line of battle : 'tis 
 General Lee, now a war god, Mars himself These men 
 were always brave, but with this Leonidas at their head 
 they are Spartans, they are invincible. They have 
 already caught the deathless inspiration of their hero. 
 A wild shout of heroic confidence answers their general, 
 when he asks them, Can you retake these lost works ? 
 The heroic inspiration, which he himself had started, 
 swollen by the flood of feeling rushing from a thousand 
 brave hearts, comes sweeping back and bears him away 
 on its bosom. 
 
TUE FOURTH WITNESS. 255 
 
 How mighty is the human soul when the shores of 
 mortality are broken down! How like a vast river run- 
 ning over its narrow baniss, and covering the earth with 
 its rushing waves ! The great captain is lost in the 
 heroic grandeur of the hour. " Forward !" falls from the 
 warrior's lip; " Forward, men; I will lead you, and, if 
 need be, die at your head !" Earth has no nobler place 
 for a hero to die. 
 
 But what's the matter ? That line as if by instinct 
 pauses — it halts. Hath sudden fear seized them ? Is the 
 day lost? A moment's surprise, and a voice runs along 
 the line : " General Lee to the rear ! General Lee to the 
 rear ! We belong to our country, to liberty ; we are 
 ready to die for its truths, we are ready to throw our- 
 selves in the fatal breach, and wall it up with our dead 
 bodies. Ten thousand of our brave men will be left 
 behind us, to fill another breach and fight other battles. 
 But only one leader have we, great and gifted and noble. 
 Only one Robert E. Lee ! One only, fit to lead in the 
 long and bloody struggle before us. We are ready to 
 die, "but he must live to fight the battles of his country 
 and liberty ! " 
 
 In these hotirs of highest inspiration, man is divine. 
 When he has made up his mind to die for his home, his 
 wife, his little ones, for truth, for God. and his country, 
 his actions are noble and his words prophetic. Methinks 
 I see that battle line, martyrs to truth, for they are going 
 to oJBFer themselves a sacrifice upon the altar of their 
 country, they are going to pile their dead bodies like a 
 bulwark before the proud wave of invasion, Methinks 
 I see the fires of the human soul burning up the film of 
 futurity which covers the mortal eye, and as the future 
 breaks on their view, they see Robert E. Lee leading 
 his countrymen through the wilderness of defeat, and, 
 like Moses, striking from the solid rock the living re- 
 freshing waters of truth. Two subordinate officers rode 
 up to the general, seized his horse, and led him back to 
 the rear. The hero is conquered at last, subdued by the 
 love and confidence of his fellow-men. A flood of tears 
 gushes from his eyes ; he weeps like a woman. But another 
 breach is made in the rebel lines, a wider one than before. 
 
256 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 The last bulwark has fallen, the last battle line broken, 
 the last scattered fragment of that gallant little array has 
 surrendered. The unobstructed wave of invasion sweeps 
 on, leaving in its wake a barren waste of subjugation 
 and slavery. 
 
 Again the old hero rushes to the front. Thrilled with 
 a higher inspiration, he gives a nobler command, he 
 utters a diviner truth, " Go to work." By his own ex- 
 ample and with his own hands (he never commanded his 
 fellows to go where he was not willing to lead) he vindi- 
 cated the truth his lips had uttered. Labor has at last 
 found a hero and champion. The greatest of living men 
 has bowed at her shrine, and offers daily on h*r altar the 
 sweat of his brow and the works of his hands. With 
 such a hero for her champion, labor will vindicate the 
 dignity of her calling and the majesty of her power. 
 Children of toil, poor and despised as you have ever 
 been, robbed and plundered as you have been for six 
 thousand years by usurpers and tyrants, kings and aris- 
 tocracies, bondautocratic thieves and their hireling tools, 
 the political factions and a hypocritical priesthood, wake 
 up, the tocsin of your liberty has sounded. Her battle 
 flag, "Go to work" written on its folds, has been flung 
 to the breeze by the greatest of living heroes, and the 
 highest type of man ever given to the world. The 
 usurpers who have seized the government, and who are 
 now using, not its legitimate authority, but, instead there- 
 of, their own usurped power to degrade labor to the level 
 of the serfdom of Europe, and to make it like it is in 
 Europe, the basis, the mud-sill of a great moneyed 
 power, these usurpers I say denounce Robert E. Lee as a 
 traitor and rebel. 
 
 And the same upstart tyrants, in the halls of your na- 
 tional legislature, denounced the mechanic, the plow- 
 holder, and the millions of honest working men, whose 
 drops of sweat poured together is the mighty river 
 which bears on its bosom the liberty, the prosperity, the 
 greatness, the power and glory of this country, — they 
 denounced as " poor white trash." These men's only 
 offense is, that because their shirts are stained with the 
 dust and sweat of labor, and because their persons are 
 
THE FOUHTII WJTNESS. 25T 
 
 not adorned with the gaudy pinchbeck trinkets which 
 gild tbe vulgar fashions of a bastard nobility, — 1 say, 
 because these men don't submit willingly to the burdens 
 imposed on them by their taskmasters, they are denounced 
 as "poor white trash." 
 
 This low^ slander, this foul insult to five-sixths of the 
 people of this country, was uttered in the halls of their 
 national legislature, and nobody answered it. 0, deep ' 
 humiliation ! Three millions of half-civilized Africans 
 have, in the popular branch of the American congress, 
 one hundred and fifty representatives, who stand ready 
 at the drop of a hat to rush to the defense of the negro, 
 to defend him from any aspersion, just or unjust; but 
 twenty-five millions of white laborers have not a single 
 representative in that body, not a single solitary friend to 
 defend them against the foul abuse of slander. 
 
 These tyrants are themselves traitors: traitors to truth, 
 to liberty, to God, and their country; traitors to those 
 fundamental rights of man, life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness, which lie at the foundation of all political 
 freedom and social happiness. 
 
 R. E. Lee : how like Washington, for wisdom, for 
 temperance, for moderation, for justice! Like Washing- 
 ton, how evenly balanced! The elements are so mixed 
 in him that nature may stand up and say to all the world, 
 "This is a man." And yet his greatness is of a milder 
 and softer type than that of Washington. Washington 
 was born and reared under monarchical and aristocratic 
 institutions. These had impressed themselves upon his 
 character. There was a baronial cast about him.' He 
 was a republican, and not a democrat. He had more 
 faith in government than he had in the people. He went 
 with Adams and Hamilton, and not with Jefferson. 
 Nature had made him great and noble. He was the 
 nobility of republicanism, its representative man. Lee 
 is a democrat, the nobility of democracy. The nobility 
 of monarchy is power justly and temperately used. The 
 nobility of republicanism is liberty wisely restrained. 
 The nobility of democracy is liberty set free ; it is the 
 triumph of love, the victory of Christianity over the 
 world. It recognizes man as the brother of his fellow- 
 22* 
 
258 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 man, and God as the father of all. The badge of this 
 nobility is the stains of sweat; its title is truth ; its labor 
 love ; its fruits liberty, peace, and prosperity. Christ is 
 its king, and heaven is its home. Earth, too, shall belts 
 home, when man, tired of being cheated and deceived by 
 preachers and politicians, shall accept the truth and 
 obey it. 
 
 The worst enemies of Christianity to-day are its pro- 
 fessed friends, a hypocritical hireling priesthood. The 
 worst enemies of freedom and equality are these political 
 liars and thieves, who use these things as a trick to fool 
 the people, and get into their own hands power and 
 riches. The Greeleys, and Phillipses, and Beechers, and 
 Butlers, who prate so loudly about freedom and equality, 
 are using their utmost efforts to build up a military 
 despotism on the ruins of American democracy, and on 
 the degradation of its labor a moneyed power, the lowest, 
 the meanest, and vilest, that ever robbed any community 
 in the world. A bondautocracy, a bastard aristocracy, 
 begotten by that lecherous devil, war, upon the body of 
 his own daughter, licentiousness. 
 
 Shall this harlot, which, although not yet seven 
 years old, has already committed whoredom with the 
 two great political factions of this country, be permitted 
 to debauch the morals and destroy the liberties of thirty- 
 five millions of freemen ? Can it be that men who mot 
 me on a hundred battle-fields, and fought so nobly, fought 
 for these evils, these follies, these crimes ? I do not, I can 
 not, I dare not believe it. 
 
 The battle-field is an awful place. In the very midst 
 of it is death, eternity, the judgment ; without some cour 
 viction of right men can't go there, can't stand th.efei 
 How then can man be persuaded to do such evil deed?^-, 
 when the harvest he reaps is death and mourning, an4 
 slavery and debt, poverty and degradation ? How is it^ 
 that men born to a common heritage of freedom, meij 
 who ought to have been friends and brothers, should 
 meet on a hundred battle-fields to murder each other, and 
 destroy their common liberty? 
 
 A hireling priesthood and lying political factions in the 
 service of two heartless and unfeeling mone^^ed powers, 
 
TEE FOURTH WITNESS. 259 
 
 the slavery of the South and the aristocracy of manu- 
 facturJDg and commercial monopolies in the North, did 
 for years pervert the truth, and tell lies to us from our 
 very infancy, to make us hate each other. Then, by a 
 trick of political legerdemain, they did divide us into 
 hostile armies, to kill each other, our country and its 
 liberties. The wrath of man shall praise me and the 
 remainder of wrath will I restrain. 
 
 The slave power of the South, w^hich struggled for so 
 many years to bring on a war for selfish and ambitious 
 purposes, succeeded at last. But how terribly it has 
 been. deceived ! It thought the war would give it abso- 
 lute power over half of the country, but instead of that 
 the war destroyed its power entirely. As a political 
 power in this country, it is gone forever. 
 
 The advocates of white slavery at the North, the great 
 aristocracy of bonds and banks, and taritfs, who live 
 solely and exclusively to make money, who worship 
 mammon as their god, have for years been laboring to 
 bring on a war in this country, to destroy the power of 
 negro slavery, because they found out that white slavery 
 paid better. They, too, will be deceived. Their power 
 too, must fall, and their slaves, too, will be free. The' 
 hundreds of thousands of working men of the North, 
 who fought to set the negro free, are not willing to be 
 slaves themselves. If it was wrong for the half-civilized 
 negro, born in servitude, to work for another, how much 
 more so is it for the civilized Caucasian, born to the 
 heritage of freedom, and whose fathers were free. No, 
 no, they can't be persuaded to take these pills of slavery, 
 although they are as nicely covered over with sweet 
 promises of freedom and equality as the doctor's pills are 
 covered with sugar. 
 
 The great rebellion had a significance which has not 
 been rightly interpreted. It had a meaning which has 
 never been understood. There were four distinct powers 
 engaged in that great contest. On the one hand stands 
 the great slaveocracy of the South, disgraced by barbar- 
 ous practices, which gave daily offense to Christian 
 people, not bigoted churchmen, but to men who in their 
 hearts believed in the sermon on the mount, so full of 
 
260 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 wisdom, benevolence, and charity. This power had con- 
 trol of the morals and politics of that section for years 
 and years. A hireling priesthood there, instead of 
 rebuking the manifold sins of this institution, and 
 endeavoring to reform it and modify its evils, so as to 
 make it harmonize with the changed condition of things, 
 attempted to defend all of its abuses. 
 
 They forget that the same treatment which was right 
 and proper for the negro, when he first came from his 
 savage home, debased and degraded, was unjust and 
 cruel toward their children, who had been for four 
 generations educated in the principles and practices- of a 
 people superior to all other people in the Christian virtues; 
 knowledge, and wisdom, and virtue, and freedom. They 
 forget that the negro had been for nearly three hun- 
 dred years under these refining, ennobling, and Chris- 
 tian influences. They ought to have remembered that 
 their slaves w^ere vastly superior to the slaves of their 
 fathers, morally and intellectually (can the advocates of 
 white slavery say as much ?), and ought to have changed 
 their treatment of them to suit their improved condition. 
 But the hand of power is made of iron, and its heart too. 
 It knows no feeling, no relenting. 
 
 The political factions of that section were as subordi- 
 nate to this great power as the priesthood. By trickery 
 and fraud they so shaped the politics of the country as 
 to identify the institutions of slavery, including all its 
 evils, with the rights and liberties of the masses of the 
 people. The political power of the North, for self and 
 ambitious purposes, worked into its hands. For years 
 and years, every political question in the South was 
 decided by its relations to the slave power. At the same 
 time there was a great aristocratic power springing up 
 in the North, the same power in a different shape ; money 
 invested, not in negroes, but in merchandise, manufac- 
 tures, and financial cards, low gambling saloons, called 
 banking houses. This power had its slaves, too; not in 
 name, but in fact: its white slaves, men, women and 
 children, who w^ork for it for half price. It pays half 
 wages to its slaves, and out of the other half it builds 
 up princely fortunes. The greatest of living authors 
 
THE FObllTIl WITNESS. 261 
 
 and thinkers has said that it differs from negro slavery- 
 only in this, that it does not require its masters to take 
 care of their slaves when tbey have worn them out in 
 their service. 
 
 The priesthood in the North was as subservient to 
 this power, as the priesthood in the South was to slave- 
 ocracy. While they were cursing negro slavery, they 
 were teaching false notions of religion and morality, 
 which was making the vast masses of their own people 
 slaves. They taught that power has a right to rule, 
 that power, and not justice, was the thing to believe in 
 and trust in ; and that since money is a universal power 
 in the world, mankind ought to worship mammon as 
 their god. They taught as the first lesson in the cate- 
 chism, that the chief end of man is to get rich ; that 
 for this purpose he has a right to rob the laborer of his 
 hire, to cheat the innocent and unsuspecting, to plunder 
 and oppress the poor, the widow, and the orphan, pro- 
 vided he will give a liberal share of his ill-gotten treasure 
 to themselves. 
 
 Misled by these, heresies in morals, their politicians 
 soon become professional liars and thieves. Skill in 
 trickery and fraud soon became a lever of power, a badge 
 of honor, and a cause of preferment. The political 
 faction of the North, the tools of its great moneyed 
 power, played into the hands of the political faction of 
 the South, the tools of slavery. For years and years they 
 carried on in national politics a great system of log-rolling. 
 Slaveocracy would offer to bondautocracy tariffs and 
 monopolies for fugitive slave laws. 
 
 On the public record of the national legislature is 
 found this disgraceful proposition. The politicians of 
 the North did publicly offer to pledge themselves to the 
 politicians of the South to catch their runaway nt^groes 
 and send them back, if they would in lieu thereof give 
 them protection to their manufactories. B}^ this system 
 of bargain and sale, the Southern States were impover- 
 ished, and their politicians found it an easy matter to 
 persuade the people to hate a government whose policy 
 was, and had been for years and years, to rob them for 
 the benefit of Northern manufacturers. These same 
 
262 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 manufactories were creating by their monopoly of wealth 
 inequalities great and unbearable in their own society. 
 
 The masses of the people were, by degrees and insen- 
 sibly, being reduced to slavery. They began to feel its 
 oppressions. Hence it was an easy matter for northern 
 politicians to excite the hatred of these people against 
 negro slavery. In the North, slavery went in disguise ; 
 men did not see it, although they felt it. In the South, 
 slavery made no concealments. Whatever other faults 
 it had, it was at least candid and manly. In this insti- 
 tution, the open and professed advocates of slavery, the 
 northern people who felt the oppression of slavery with- 
 out understanding exactly how or where, found an 
 unmistakable enemy. Hence this hatred of it. 
 
 The money power of the North, taking advantage of 
 this feeling among their own people, determined to change 
 its tactics. 
 
 They say. We have the power, the numbers, if we can 
 unite our own people we can tax the whole country for 
 our purposes. This slave power has hitherto permitted 
 us to tax the labor of the country to a limited extent, 
 but if we can get the power in our own hands we will 
 tax it just as high as we please. 
 
 The slaveocracy played into the hands of this faction 
 so completely as to secure its success. The slave power, 
 w^hich had control of the politics of the South, said. We 
 will so manage our political matters as to secure the 
 success of the abolitionists or a northern sectional party. 
 Then we will have a confederacy in which cotton will be 
 king, and negro slavery the basis of a great aristocracy. 
 The feeling of the Southern people was this : We don't 
 want disunion, we don't want a separate government. 
 But we can't consent to be ruled by a government 
 whose power is derived solely from one section of the 
 country. New York and Pennsylvania have no right to 
 propose a policy contrary to the wishes, and destructive 
 of the rights of Virginia and South Carolina, and to 
 force that policy on these two latter States simply 
 because they have the power to do it. They have no 
 right to take possession of the national government, 
 which was created to defend and protect all the States,and 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 2G3 
 
 use its vast powers to promote their own prosperity and 
 happiness at the expense of the other States. Tliese 
 were the sentiments of the masses of the Southern people. 
 Virginia announced them by a union majority of sixty 
 thousand votes. 
 
 But when Abe Lincoln, the poorest and weakest of 
 the creatures of earth who ever attempted to mimic 
 power and play the tyrant, commanded Virginia to 
 furnish men and money to subjugate and enslave a part 
 of the people of the United States, and to reduce a 
 number of the States to dependent provinces to be ruled 
 by military satraps, the proud old mother of States and 
 statesmen, ever true to her love of liberty, answered the 
 tyrant in the thunder tones of a hundred thousand ma- 
 jority, Never, never! It may not be in the power of a 
 few little States to prevent being overrun by invasion, 
 but it is not in the power of tyrants to prevent the sons 
 of liberty from washing out the foul foot-prints of inva- 
 sion with their blood. 
 
 Could a vote have been taken in the North at that 
 time, upon the right of the national government to reduce 
 the States of the South to subjugation, could they have 
 been held up to the masses of the Northern people in 
 the condition in which they are now, five out ofsix would 
 have voted against it. Indeed, they did say, such of 
 them at least as had any love for liberty and truth, We 
 are opposed to disunion, but let us rather have that than 
 tyranny and despotism. 
 
 Horace Greeley said — and he had not yet sold out to 
 the bondautocracy ; he had not yet discovered that a vast 
 mcnieyed power, which plunders and impoverishes the 
 labor of a country, was a great national blessing — he 
 said then that disunion was better than a union "pinned 
 together with bayonets." 
 
 But the great moneyed power of the North said, We 
 can't let these people go. We taxed them for years and 
 years, to build up our large cities, our commercial, finan- 
 cial, and manufacturing wealth and power. By means 
 of this wealth we have been enabled to control the 
 political afiairs of the country. We have used it to 
 promote our interests and prosperity exclusively. We 
 
264 1'^i^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 have used it to build up a grander aristocracy than the 
 slave power of the South. Our white slaves are more 
 subservient and more profitable than their negro slaves. 
 We can't give up all this power and these privileges. 
 We will have war first. What if war does mean tyranny 
 and despotism, these things won't hurt us. In despotic 
 governments the rich rule, and we are the rich. Indeed, 
 if by war we can destroy this democracy entirely, we 
 may be, ay, we will be, the nobility of the land. We 
 are the nobility now, in fact, but then we will be in name, 
 too. We will be the lords and dukes and princes. Let 
 us have war. We will pay the expenses — no, we will 
 promise that, until we persuade the poor white trash to 
 do the fighting, and then we will make them pay the 
 expenses, too. Oh, yes, the war will be a good thing. 
 It will give us that great national blessing, a huge public 
 debt. What a blessing it is to England I A few hun- 
 dred thousand of rich people own all the land, and other 
 wealth, of that best government the world ever saw, 
 and thirty millions of poor white trash work for them. 
 They are the lords and dukes and nobility. The masses 
 of the people are not in name — that wouldn't sound well — 
 but in fact, their slaves. 
 
 War too will increase vastly the expenses of the gov- 
 ernment, for it will amplify its power, and thus put into 
 the hands of our servants the politicians hundreds of 
 millions of dollars, to be disbursed every year. We will 
 manage it, for we have for years had these politicians 
 completely in our power, so as to get a large share of the 
 current expenses. We will see to it too that our servants, 
 the politicians, by means of whisky, taxes and tariffs, 
 and laws to exempt bonds from taxation, do pay to us 
 magnificent premiums. 
 
 Thus by direct and indirect means will we filch from 
 labor its hard-earned trash; trash did I call it? oh, 
 no, it was Brutus the old patriot of Rome who called it 
 trash. Had Brutus lived in this wise age of progress 
 and reform, could he have seen how money enables us 
 rich to revel in all the pleasures and glories of life, 
 could he have seen how omnipotent its power is, how it 
 rules every political, religious, and social organization in 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 266 
 
 this land, be surely would not have called it trash. He 
 surely would not thus have insulted our great god mammon, 
 but he. would have bowed down to worship it as we do. 
 Bill Seward, the devil's premier on earth, did by trick- 
 ery, of which he is the grandest master in the world, pre- 
 cipitate the war. As a war of conquest and subjugation 
 means despotism, he did wisely go to work to make 
 slaves out of his own people first. He taught them to 
 honor and applaud that regal power, which has no more 
 to do than to ring a little bell when it wants some per- 
 son obnoxious to itself cast into a dungeon. He taught 
 them at the outset to ignore these notions of our fathers: 
 that man in order to be free must carry about with him 
 rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. War 
 has no time lo be bothered with such foolish things as 
 these. Nor has it any pleasure in them. Its pleasure is 
 to command, and have others to obey. It likes to ring 
 its little bell, and cast men into bastiles, and inquire into 
 their guilt or innocence at its leisure. Northern polit- 
 ical factions, the tools of its moneyed power, was one 
 party to the war. 
 
 The Northern masses, the dupes of political scoundrels, 
 were another party to the war. These were the more 
 readily persuaded into it, because they looked upon 
 slavery as a great political power, a great aristocracy, 
 dangerous to the liberties of the American people. 
 
 Another party to the war was the political factions of 
 the South, the tools of the slaveocracy. 
 
 The fourth and last party was the masses of the 
 Southern people, the dupes of these politicians. 
 
 Thus you see there were four parties to the war. Two 
 sets of politicians to provoke it, to bring it on, and two 
 sets of people to fight its battles, and endure all its pri- 
 vations and hardships, its woes unutterable. And this 
 is the great Democracy of America. This the land of the 
 free and the home of the brave. 'Tis here all men are 
 born free, and entitled to certain inalienable rights of " life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." For years and 
 years a hireling priesthood has perverted the simplest; 
 truths of Christianity, in order to make the people hate 
 each other. For years and years they have taught the 
 M 23 
 
266 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 people to worsbip other gods, not the deified virtues of the 
 human soul, but the lowest and meanest passions and lusrs^ 
 of the human body. Such a people fall a willing prey to 
 political factions, for when once a people lose their religion i 
 
 "The magnet of their cause is gone, or only points in vain 
 The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again." 
 
 When the human soul launches its frail craft upon the 
 dark waters of infidelity it is gone forever. That ocean has 
 no sheltering port, no harbor of safety. The fearful storm 
 of Heaven's anger sweeps over this sea, and drives the 
 reckless adventurer of unbelief upon the rocky shores oi 
 Heaven's judgment which bound the destroying waves. 
 
 Our fathers were wise and virtuous men, they wor- 
 shiped the God of the Bible, and He blessed them with 
 showers of blessings. We their children worship mam- 
 mon, and all those lusts and passions which wealth and 
 licentiousness produce. Mammon, through his agents, 
 the rich moneyed monopolies, the bondautocracy, rules 
 every sect of priestcraft, every political faction, every social 
 organization, even that of matrimony. What a harvest of I 
 woes have we reaped, and what dread evils are ia reserve* 
 for us yet I The politicians and priests, the tools of the 
 slave power of the South and the money gamblers of the 
 North, divided the great masses of the people, w^ho were, 
 or at least ought to have been, friends and brothers,- into 
 two great armies. They set us to killing each other on a 
 hundred battle-fields, to devastating our country. 
 
 Who can measure the evil of that war ? who can count 
 its cost, not in money, for to one who has a heart to 
 feel for others' woes,* money is trash, but the cost in 
 rivers of blood, which flowed from bleeding hearts, and, 
 siiowers of tears, which fell from weeping eyes? Let the 
 thousands and thousands of torn, manj^led, bleeding 
 wretches upon a hundred battle-fields, tell. Let the 
 thousands of armless, blind, and legless men staggeringi 
 limping, crawling over the country, tell. Let the 
 thousands of widows and orphans whose piteous cryy 
 mourning over their buried hopes, is as piercing as thn 
 mournful sigh of winter winds mourning over the deac 
 year, tell. The wrath of man shall praise me, and the re 
 mainder of wrath will I restrain. 
 
THE FOURTH WITNESS. 267 
 
 The slave power of the South said, Cottoii is king, I vviU 
 •ule this continent, and that institution as a political 
 3o\ver is dead forever. The bondautocraey of the North 
 „ave said, Gold is king, and we will rule this continent. 
 The knell of its doom has been sounded, and it will 
 perish forever. And with it will die that vast political 
 power which has made the masses of the people of this 
 country, as it has done in every other, pack-mules of 
 debt and taxation, and that huge ecclesiastical despotism 
 which sits like a nightmare upon the souls of men. Does 
 anybody believe that the democracy of America, 
 which was born fighting against taxation, could be edu- 
 cated (precocious as Americans are) in seven years to 
 bear a public debt and endure a system of taxation as 
 oppressive and unbearable as that of Russia? Does any- 
 body believe that a people born free could be educated in 
 seven years to endure a system of tyranny as prescriptive 
 and intolerant as that of Russia? Does any one who is 
 not a crazy fanatic or an infidel without any belief, believe 
 that American liberty, born of truth, can die ? 
 
 American liberty is the daughter of Christianity ; 
 Christianity is divine, her child, liberty, is immortal, 
 America is her home. Nor shall any power, whether it be 
 priestcraft or political factions, slaveocracy or bondauto- 
 craey, b» able to drive her hence. The Bible is the thun- 
 der of her authority, the human soul the lightning of her 
 power. Already I see its lurid flashes across the sky. I 
 hear in the distance muttering of the coming storm. The 
 earth trembles in apprehension. When the day of ju(Jg- 
 ment comes, what will become of a hireling priesthood, 
 who have preached infidelity and hate instead of faith 
 and charity, and taught the people to worship mammon 
 instead of that God who made them, and in who.se hands 
 their breath is? What will become of political factions, 
 who, in the name of freedom and humanity, have de- 
 stroyed the liberties of the country, and built upon its ruins 
 a tyranny as hateful as that of Russia, who in the name 
 of equality have established an aristocracy, the meanest, 
 the lowest, and most heartless, that ever robbed the 
 labor of any people ? a bondautocraey made up of com- 
 mercial thieves, and financial gamblers, political liars, 
 and tricksters, and preachers, who have prostituted the 
 
268 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 sacred truths of Christianity to the vile uses of securing 
 for themselves riches and power ? 
 
 Woe unto you, politicians and preachers, scribes and 
 Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of 
 heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves nor 
 suffer ye them that are entering to go in ! Woe unto you, 
 scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye devour widows' 
 houses, and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore 
 ye shall receive the greater damnation ! Woe unto ye, 
 scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye compass sea and 
 land to make one proselyte, and when be is made, ye 
 make him twofold more the" child of hell than yourselves I 
 Woe unto ye, blind guides, which say. Whosoever shall 
 swear by the temple, it is nothing ; but whosoever shall 
 swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Or who 
 gay, Whosoever shall neglect the deeds of charity and 
 mercy, it is nothing ; but whosoever shall neglect to make 
 money by robbing and plundering his fellow-men, and to 
 spend it, building splendid temples, and hiring out the 
 pews for one hundred, or five hundred, dollars for the 
 benefit of the church, is a debtor. Ye fools and blind, for 
 whether is greater the gold or the temple which sancti-* 
 fieth the gold, or whether is greater the charity and be- 
 nevolence which makes the Christian poor, or the avarice 
 and cupidity which makes the bigoted churchmen rieh.> 
 Woe unto ye, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye pay 
 tithes of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted 
 the weightier matter of the law, judgment, mercy and 
 faith ; these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the 
 other undone, ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and 
 swallow a camel! Woe unto ye, scribes and Pharisees, 
 hypocrites, for ye make clean the outside of the cup arid 
 of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and' 
 excess ! Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is 
 within the cup and platter, that the outside may be clean 
 also. Woe unto ye, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye 
 are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beau- 
 tiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones 
 and all uncleanliness. Even so ye also outwardly appear 
 righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy 
 and iniquity. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how 
 can ye escape the damnation of hell ? 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 26? 
 
 THE FIFTH WITNESS. 
 
 I SAW another witness. 
 
 He too had been a soldier and wore a blue uniform. 
 And like the other soldier, he had no hands. They had 
 been shot oflf in the war. He said he had been a soldier 
 in the Federal array, a Union soldier. From his child- 
 hood he had been taught to look upon the American 
 union of free States as the great bulwark of human free- 
 dom. Its wisdom, its broad and comprehensive notions 
 of freedom and justice, secured liberty and happiness to 
 its own people, and its power was a sure defense against 
 the tyrannical governments of Europe. 
 
 Without ever having thought about how that Union 
 had been formed, and what was the secret of its glory 
 and power, I worshiped it as the noblest and the best 
 thing in the world. I had been taught to believe that 
 the freedom, happiness, and prosperity of this country, 
 which was indeed the wonder of the age in which we 
 live, all sprung from the union. Washington, Adams, 
 Henry, Webster, Clay, Jackson, and indeed all the great 
 and good men of the republic, had loved the Union, and 
 enjoined it upon us as a last, solemn admonition, to 
 frown down the first dawning of an attempt to separate 
 one portion of the States from another. With these con- 
 victions, I entered the army as a Union soldier, — not an 
 officer for pay, but a private, to fight for my country. To 
 fight for the Union which I thought was necessary to 
 save the liberties of this country, and perpetuate them. 
 I fought for the Union and the Constitution. I fought 
 for the States united in a great federal brotherhood. I 
 fought for Congress, for the President, and for the 
 Supreme Court. 
 
 Where are the Union and Constitution ? broken up and 
 destroyed. Destroyed, not by war, but by peace. Not 
 by their enemies, but by their professed friends. The 
 very States themselves blotted out, so that the Union 
 
 23* 
 
270 '^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 inight be made an utter impossibility. Where is the Su- 
 preme Court? abolished, by legislative restrictions. 
 Where is Congress ? an infidel jacobin band of usurpers 
 and tyrants. Where is the Presidency ? surrendered to 
 the jacobins by the weak-minded blatherskite who dis- 
 graces it. I loved the Twenty-second of February, the 
 Eighth of January, indeed every thing connected with 
 the birth and preservation of my country and its liberties. 
 How ardently and fondly did I love the Fourth of July I 
 I once drank from that silver cup delicious wine, the 
 nectar of freedom. Its drops became wings to my soul. 
 They did carry it away to realms of bliss. But now, 
 though it hath more glare and polish, the stuff it holds is 
 bitter to the taste, and brings on me a heavy sleep, an 
 oppression like the nightmare. May tyrants use this 
 pretty cup, with freedom writ on it, to give to man the 
 bitter bane of slavery ? How pale, how still, how icy 
 cold 1 'tis now but a poor piece of outcast clay. And will 
 it speak to me no more, that voice whose soft sympathetic 
 rones once soothed the anguish of my woe? And those 
 ears, how listless now I 
 
 . "Once, when all others turned coldly from me, I had 
 •eave to tell them the sad story of my wrongs. And 
 hough you heed me not, I must yet whisper to those 
 tumb ears the sorrow of this overwrought heart. Thus 
 fondly do we cling to the form, even when the spirit 
 which once animated it is gone. 
 
 The Fourth of July was once a beaufiful day, because 
 the spirit of liberty and truth animated it. And men do 
 yet fondly cling to it, although the life principle, which 
 once made it beautiful and lovely is gone. 
 
 Over eighteen hundred years ago there came to earth 
 I divine Lawgiver, the Prince of the house of David. He 
 gathered together, from the poor and obscure corners of 
 he world, twelve disciples. One he saw sitting on the 
 eceipt of customs, and he said, Follow me. Another was 
 
 poor fisherman, and so on. He taught as one having 
 
 uthority, and spalie as never man spake before. The 
 
 philosophy of the world taught that the princes should 
 
 hold dominion, and the great should exercise authority. 
 
 But this divine lawgiver taught a new commandment : 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 2*71 
 
 Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your 
 minister, and whosoever would be chief among you, let 
 him be your servant. To make his doctrine impressive, 
 he always added to his teaching the influence of his ex- 
 ample. He girded himself with a towel, and washed 
 his disciples' feet. For over seventeen hundred years 
 this divine truth was cherished and exemplified by re- 
 ligious societies only. Xo one had yet dreamed of intro- 
 ducing it into the civil politics of a country, and making 
 it the basis of a great political organization. But on the 
 fourth day of July, 1776, there met in the New World a 
 body of men who for probity, wisdom, and a firm belief 
 in the truths of Christianity, were superior to any body 
 of men who had ever assembled before, to determine the 
 relatio-Q which subsists between man and his fellow - 
 man. 
 
 These men were the Christian refugees from the re- 
 ligious persecutions of the old world, or the descendants of 
 such. The constituency which they represented were 
 pre-eminently a Christian people. They, too, were in a 
 great measure the refugees from the intolerance of king- 
 craft and priestcraft in the old world. They put forth, 
 for the first tiiue in the history of the world, a declara- 
 tion embodying the wonderful truths.revealed to mankind 
 by the great Prophet, whose mission it was to fulfill the 
 law, and finish that plan of salvation for man which had 
 been decreed in the counsels of eternity. They declared 
 that man was morally accountable to his God alone, and 
 politically amenable to no tribunal but that of justice; 
 that each individual man derived from God, his Creator, 
 and not from kings or aristocracies, or any other power 
 whatever, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness; that each and every man was entitled to the 
 fruits of bis own labor ; and that nobody, whether it be a 
 person or a political organization, had a right to infringe 
 his rights of personal freedom, or to take from him the 
 fruits of his labor, without his consent. They further de- 
 clared, that those men among the people whom heaven 
 had endowed with superior wisdom, and talent, and 
 virtue, owed it to their fellow-men to serve them in 
 whatever capacity the people might elect, for the general 
 
272 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 welfare and common good ; that such public servants 
 should be the only government known among tiie people 
 that they should derive all their power from the people 
 and should be amenable to the people for the proper us€ 
 of such authority. 
 
 For the better defense and security of these great 
 truths, a fundamental law was made, called a Constitu 
 tion, by which certain specified and limited powers were 
 delegated for a time to the public servants of the people, 
 and all other exercise of power, for any purpose what- 
 soever, expressly and pointedly prohibited. 
 
 It was these principles of eternal justice which made 
 the great democracy of America the wonder and admira- 
 tion of the world. It was these divine truths which made 
 it the beacon light to millions of human beings, who 
 were drifting on the broken fragments of empires, upon 
 the dark waves of political speculation. The toiling 
 millions of the old world, who had drudged for centuries 
 in hopeless despair, felt their hearts kindling with glad- 
 ness when they saw this new light, and hailed it joyfully 
 as a harbinger of good. With tears of joy in their eyes 
 and rapture in their hearts, they saw springing up, like 
 magic, a political society in which freedom did not mean 
 license nor government tyranny. But above all did their 
 wonder and admiration know no bounds, when they saw 
 this people, weak in numbers and warlike preparations, 
 held together by no arbitrary power, but by mutual 
 expression of amity and friendship, and by acts of 
 reciprocal justice, withstand for eight years, in the dread 
 shock of battle, the greatest empire in the world. An 
 empire whose armies were invincible in the field, and 
 whose vast naval power had won for her the proud title 
 of mistress of the seas. 
 
 Never before, in any age or among any people, did 
 man enjoy a freedom so large, with such perfect security 
 to life and property. Millions of the oppressed from 
 every other nation, and country, and clime, came to enjoy 
 the blessings of a country where the maxim of justice to 
 all had t-ecured to all safety, peace, and prosperity. 
 
 Another Fourth of July, memorable as the birthday of 
 those truths which have secured to man such unheard-of 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 273 
 
 blessings, has just passed by. What wonderful changes 
 did that day witness, in a country which once justly 
 boasted that it was the land of the free and the home of 
 the brave. It looked upon eight millions of people 
 whose fathers' virtue iiad helped to make that day im- 
 mortal, and whose truth had iiallowed it by offering on 
 its altars their lives and their fortunes, a nation of slaves. 
 Their land desolated by the ravages of war ; their cities 
 pillaged and burnt ; every valley and hill-top a cemetery 
 for their dead ; their mothers widows, and their children 
 orphans. It looked upon old age, who, under the lead of 
 the immortal hero of the hermitage, had met and driven 
 back the proud invaders on the memorable Eighth of 
 January, the last sons of their early manhood, the staff 
 of their old age, stricken down with a groan of despair, 
 blundering into their graves. It looked upon the de- 
 scendants of Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson, 
 stripped of every political privilege, and robbed of every 
 civil right, clanking their chains around the very graves 
 of the greatest apostle of liberty and its ablest advocate. 
 Ashes of the immortal dead, can you sleep, even in your 
 graves, when such foul deeds as these desecrate your 
 resting place ?* I thank God that only the dust of noble 
 men belongs to the grave. Sparks of truth, which their 
 souls cast off in their hours of holy inspiration, are stars in 
 our political heavens, and they, like the fixed stars in the 
 sky above, will — 
 
 "Whilst endless ages roll along. 
 Forever twinkle, twinkle on. 
 
 " Csesar had his Brutus, and Charles the First his 
 Cromwell," still rings like a death-knell in the ears of 
 usurpers and tyrants. And the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence will thrill the human soul as long as its aspirations 
 shall be to be free. The spirit of John Adams and 
 Patrick Henry made Lexington and Bunker's Hill im- 
 mortal. That same spirit hallowed Manassah with its 
 rivers of blood. That man cannot be found, I care not 
 from what section of the country he comes, I care not 
 of what sect of priestcraft he may be the dupe, or of 
 what political faction he may be the tool, — I say, that 
 
 M* 
 
274 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 man cannot be found, who would have the hardihood to 
 stand on tlie hallowed ground of Bunker Hill, and say 
 that he shed his blood at Manassah to make Manassah 
 what it i^ tu-day, — a land of slaves. The insulted shade 
 of Warren would rise up to rebuke him and choke his 
 utterance. 
 
 That Fourth of July witnessed another spectacle^if 
 possible — more startling still. On that day a convention 
 of the great Democratic party — so called — assembled in 
 the city of New York. They met in the name of the 
 people, and for the ostensible purpose of selecting, as a 
 candidate for the presidency, a man who believed in the 
 Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of 
 the United States. In other words, to select a chief 
 servant from among the great men of the nation, to 
 labor for the people and to restore those truths of which 
 liberty itself was born. Long before that convention 
 met, the laboring people of the country, crushed to earth 
 by the insupportable burdens of debt and taxation, had, 
 throug/h the public press and popular meetings, expressed 
 their unqualified disapprobation of that gigantic moneyed 
 power which had destroyed the liberties of the country 
 and converted the government, which our fathers had 
 made a servant to serve the people, into a great engine of 
 oppression and tyranny. Not only did this feeling of 
 dissatisfaction exist among the working n)en who be* 
 longed to this political faction, but it had become wide- 
 spread and universal. For every man who gets his 
 living by the sweat of his brow, no matter what his 
 political prejudices had been, saw the fruits of his labor 
 eaten up by a foul, bloated, drunken, licentious, moneyed 
 aristocracy. 
 
 Long before that convention met, another convention 
 had met in the city of New York. It was composed of 
 the commercial and financial gamblers, the goose-quill and 
 yard-stick nobility, with their hireling tools, the New 
 York politicians. It was determined in this convention 
 that the purpose of the people to restore the great truths' 
 upon which the American Democracy was founded, and 
 with these truths the freedom, prosperity, and happiness 
 of all the people must be thwarted. For this purpose 
 
TIIK FIFTH WITNESS. 21 
 
 a political journal — the New York World — was pur- 
 chased, and men belonging to another political faction 
 hired to conduct it in the interest of this infanKnis con- 
 spiracy. The chief of this damning plot against the 
 people Tvas ex-Governor Seymour, of New York, a 
 politician who, with the exception of William H. 
 Seward, is the most thorough master of all those arts of 
 fraud and chicanery which have made the politics of this 
 country infamous. This new paper was sent out by the 
 conspirators to feel the public sentiment of the country, 
 to find out whether the masses of the people were servile 
 enough to accept its infamous policy. As the people did 
 not believe in the sentiments of this paper, nobody sub- 
 scribed for it, — yes, the money aristocracy in the North, 
 mighty in power but weak in number, took it; and a few 
 chicken-livered original secessionists in the South took it. 
 These latter had advocated secession and war as a matter 
 of policy. They wanted a new government, of which 
 they might be the aristocracy or the political masters. 
 But to the people at large this thing was wholly repug- 
 nant. 
 
 But the public press, which is universally under the 
 immediate control and supervision of the bondautocracy 
 and the politicians, driven by the pressure of political 
 sentiment, exposed this fraud, and held its authors up to 
 the indignation of the country. And Governor Seymour 
 especially — the head of this monster, the brains which 
 produced it and controlled it — was denounced, as he justly 
 deserved to be, in most unmeasured terms. Nettled by 
 th& insolence of their slaves, who had submitted so long 
 and so patiently to their usurpations and oppression, the 
 bondautocracy determined to administer to them a 
 sharp rebuke. They at once invoked the aid of that 
 idol whom they worship, and in whom they believe, — 
 mammon. They knew full well what power that god 
 has over the minds and hearts of a people who believe 
 in Pharisaism and priestcraft. Among idols, mammon 
 is the great god, and among a people who worship idols, 
 mammon alw^ays has supreme power. 
 
 But even mammon had over-estimated his strength. 
 So long and absolutely had he ruled this country, that 
 
2Y6 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 he thought he might dispense with those tricks which he 
 first used to establish his power. He persuaded himself 
 that he was Caesar and had authority to issue decrees. 
 He did issue this decree: To you it is commanded, 0, 
 people of the United States, to worship the golden idol, 
 and whosoever refuses to worship this god, or to obey 
 that power which he has established to rule over this 
 country, the bondautocracy, with their tools, the priests 
 and politicians, shall be destroyed. If any political party 
 shall dare, in the name of the people, my slaves, to dis- 
 obey this decree, they shall be cast into that desert where 
 there is no spoils and plunder — no fat jobs and rich 
 contracts — no public cribs to rob, and no slaves to work 
 for them. The curse shall be on them which is on the 
 people, to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow, 
 and half of that bread even will I take from them as I 
 have taken it from.the masses of the people, and give it to 
 my servants, the bondautocracy, the priests and the poli- 
 ticians. To carry out this decree, niy faithful servants, 
 the New York bondautocracy, have already raised a 
 mighty army — two hundred millions of dollars. Let 
 the people of the North remember that it was this army 
 which crushed the rebellion in the South and made slaves 
 out of their white brothers there, and take warning lest 
 a similar fate overtake them. 
 
 Signed, First imperial decree ever issued in the United 
 States — so called — by 
 
 Mammon, 
 
 For six thousand years the great destroyer of the lib- 
 erties and happiness of mankind. 
 
 The masses of the people, oppressed with unsupport- 
 able burdens of debt and taxation, and many of them 
 pinched by beggary and want, were startled by the im- 
 pudent mandate of this usurper and tyrant. Jn thunder 
 tones of defiance they answered this insolent threat. 
 The flash of their indignation passed on the wall, like the 
 hand- write at the impious feast of JBeishazzar, and the 
 bondautocracy read in it their doom. For a moment they 
 turned pale and trembled. But a little more wine, and 
 the drunken revelry goes on. Hath not this our Babylon, 
 
THE FIFTH UJl'A'FSS. 211 
 
 they say, mighty walls of defense? Hath it not, too, im- 
 preirnable bulwarks at every point? 
 
 There is tiiie great ecclesiastical hierarchy, with its 
 ramparts of superstition guarded by our hireling priests; 
 there, too, are the great political factions with their cita- 
 dels of prejudice, from which our faithful sentinels, the 
 politicians, can hurl at our enemies, the people, the slings 
 and arrows of deceit, trickery, fraud and falsehood. 
 There, too, are the great manufacturing, financial, and 
 commercial corporations, which hold in their hands the 
 bread of millions of slaves, and have power to lash them 
 with the cat-o'-nine-tails of want and beggary, if they 
 dare to revolt. And there, too, is that mighty river 
 Euphrates, — the great national bank, — which the armies 
 of the people cannot cross. We will worship the great 
 g:od, mammon, who hath given us this power. We will 
 use, too, those holy things which have been consecrated 
 to truth and to liberty, the Fourth of July, the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the Constitution of the United 
 States, and even those temples which, with all their holy 
 sacraments, have been dedicated to the God of the uni- 
 verse. We'll drink, we'll revel, we'll sleep. Sleep of 
 the doomed, who shall awake thee ? Hark, the Persians 
 are at thy gates, not to wake thy deep sleep, but to 
 make that sleep perpetual ! 
 
 Had the bondautocracy been wise, they would not 
 have provoked the spirit of resistance which they, saw so 
 clearly manifested. The people won't be driven to sub- 
 scribe to these monstrous usurpations. Then they must 
 be cheated into it. Mammon changes his base of opera- 
 tion and his whole plan of campaign. It won't do to 
 fight it out on that line. In the open field he can't meet 
 truth. He will bushwhack, and lay in ambush. He 
 will even put on the uniform of his enemy. How often 
 is the livery of heaven used to serve the devil in ! Bel- 
 mont, Seymour's tool, takes charge of the New York 
 delegation to the convention. 
 
 As soon as the convention meets, he takes charge of 
 some other delegates, enough with those from New York 
 to defeat, by the two-thirds rule, any other man before the 
 convention. He makes a speech, and talks wiselv. Gov- 
 
 24 
 
^*18 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 ernor Seymour, too, nuikes a speech, and, very much 
 against his personal feelings and real political sentiments, 
 as repeatedly expressed before that time, h^ talks harshly 
 about the robberies and oppressions of the bondautocracy. 
 Governor Seymour, whose birth and education, and whole 
 political life, had been identified with this money-power, 
 now abusing its wrongs I Governor Seymour, the author 
 of the conspiracy to sell out the democratic party to 
 money-gamblers, making a speech against the bondauto- 
 cracy I 
 
 There surely must be something wrong about this. 
 Has he no sinister motive? Is this late conversion so 
 unexpected, honest and sincere ? Does anybody believe 
 him ? Can anybody trust him ? Did not Salmon P. Chase, 
 the vilest of the whole negro-worshiping crew, and the 
 most ultra of the radical conspirators, turn suddenly and 
 unexpectedly against them, just as soon as he found out 
 that he would not be their candidate for the presidency. 
 Is there a sane man in the whole country who believes 
 that Chase was actuated by honest motives in making 
 this change? Is it not patent to every man, not utterly 
 devoid of common sense and common honesty, that this 
 political trickster turned that summerset for the sole pur- 
 pose of getting the nomination of the New York con- 
 vention ? 
 
 Exactly similar was the conduct of Governor Seymour. 
 Well, maybe we judge him harshly, maybe he is an 
 honest man, if it is not a contradiction in terms to call a 
 New York politician an honest man. Honest men have 
 some modesty, some sense of decency and propriety. If 
 he is honest and sincere he will use the'^ew York dele- 
 gation, and others which he and Belmont hold in their 
 hands, to secure the nomination of some prominent man, 
 who was not his preference, and who has been a consist- 
 ent advocate of those political notions which Governor 
 Seymour has opposed all his life up to this very Iwur. 
 He does no such thing. But, on the contrary, he uses 
 his hireling tools to defeat the nomination of any man 
 who would likely honestly entertain these principles, 
 and be acceptable to the rank and file of his party. 
 
 He does worse than this. In order to frighten the 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 219 
 
 convention into a willingness to accept him, the only 
 prominent man in the party who was distinctly and cer- 
 tainly identified with the bondautocracy, he holds over 
 their heads, as a terrorism, the name of S. P. Chase, a 
 maji who did not and does not entertain one single po- 
 litical principle in unison with those professed by the 
 democratic party. A politician so lost to all sense of 
 shame, that he prostituted to the use of a faction of usurp- 
 ers and madmen the highest judgment seat of his 
 country, and thus sullied with dishonor the ermine once 
 worn by John Marshall. 
 
 The trick succeeded, and Seymour was nominated. 
 Had the members of that convention been honest and 
 upright men, actuated by the highest motives of patriot- 
 ism and virtue, as were their fathers who met on the 
 Fourth day of July, 1776, they would have driven from 
 their midst Seymour and Belmont and their hirelings. 
 They would have appealed to the people, and the over- 
 worked and over-taxed millions, without regard to their 
 former party predilections, who have seen the fruits of 
 their industry year after year eaten by a greedy and de- 
 bauched aristocracy, would have responded in tones of 
 thunder, which would have shaken not only the tyranni- 
 cal corporations of this country, but the despotisms of 
 ^he world. But as they were only a baud of political 
 gamblers, whose only idea of patriotism is to get the 
 power in their hands, in order that they may have the 
 plunder, they submitted to the insolent dictation of that 
 moneyed tyrant who rules the country with a rod of 
 iron. 
 
 Thus is the anomalous spectacle exhibited to the world, 
 of a little band of politicians, perhaps not over a hun- 
 dred, and maybe not over a dozen, representing the 
 money power of this country, dictating to thirty-five 
 millions of people, professing to be free, who shall be 
 their president and ruler. Everybody who has kept 
 himself at all familiar with the political sentiments of 
 the country knows that General Grant was not the 
 choice of one man out of ten in the ranks of the republican 
 party ; but that Stewart of New York, the prince of the 
 yard-stick nobility, and three or four lords of the goose- 
 
38p. THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 quill, commanded the republican politicians to take him 
 and force him on their party, and the politicians dared 
 not disobey. 
 
 Equally well does everybody know that Governor 
 Seymour was not the choice of one man out of a hundred 
 among the democratic masses. But Seymour and Bel- 
 mont, the representatives of another branch of the aris- 
 tocratic family, ordered the New York convention to 
 accept Governor Seymour, and that convention dared not 
 disobey the insulting mandate. Thus has it been deter- 
 mined, long before the wretched farce of an election comes 
 on, who is to be the President of the United States. 
 
 Was ever such a spectacle exhibited to the world 
 before? Thirty-five millions of people professing to be 
 free, whose fathers were free, and upright, and noble, 
 reduced to such abject slavery, that they no longer have 
 left even the poor privilege of choosing their ov^^n masters ! 
 The chiefs of the yard-stick and goose-quill nobility, the 
 most successful commercial and financial gamblers of the 
 country, living in the city of New York, who, years ago, 
 out of fear of the beggared and starved masses in their 
 own city, sold out the freedom of that city to Albany 
 politicians, have just purchased from two political con- 
 ventions the rights and liberties of thirty-five millions of 
 people. 
 
 Am I mad, or are my countrymen mad, who suffer 
 such crimes as these to go unpunished ? Some time ago 
 a friend asked me who would be the nominees of the two 
 conventions about to meet. I told him I thought Jefif 
 Davis would be the nominee of the friends of freedom 
 and humanity, and Beast Butler the choice of the friends 
 of constitutional liberty. He expressed some surprise, 
 and asked me what I meant. I answered that the radi- 
 cals, by their unblushing acts of tyranny, had lost the 
 confidence of the people of the North, and would have 
 to depend in a great measure upon the Southern States, 
 so called, and that it would be a wise measure of expe- 
 diency to select a distinguished and popular statesman 
 from that section ; and that inasmuch as the democracy 
 is made up of the masses, who earn their bread by the 
 sweat of their brow, and live hard generally to accom- 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 281 
 
 modate the bondautocracy, they might easily be per- 
 suaded to vote for a man who had it iii his power to furnish 
 each family with a set of silver spoons. It did not 
 occur to me then, that the power of the bondautocracy 
 was so absolute, that they might so entirely disregard the 
 wishes of the people as to refuse to offer them some 
 petty trifle as a token of regard for their menial subserv- 
 iency. Somebody says Seymour stands on the platform. 
 So he does, and he stands on the democratic party, too. 
 He rides it as every man would ride his mule. Shall the 
 mule choose the road, or the man that rides the mule? 
 Has not the man already bridled the mule, and got on 
 its back? Didn't he spur the mule into his road at the 
 very starting point? If there is anybody who has any 
 faith in the platform or promises of political factions 
 nowadays, I must pronounce such an one an incorrig- 
 ible partisan. If there is anybody who could trust the 
 promises of a political convention, which at its first 
 meeting sold out its own honor and the liberties of the 
 people it represented, the authorities ought to know it, 
 and appoint a guardian to take care of him. 
 
 Why, even the Constitution, with its sacred memories 
 and revered truths, the Constitution under whose benign 
 influence we have reaped so many harvests of freedom, 
 of prosperity and happiness, has been openly and pro- 
 fessedly rejected and trampled on by the political faction 
 DOW in power. If a thing made for holy uses, and im- 
 bued with the highest wisdom and truth, is not spared 
 by the sacrilegious hands of these political factions, what 
 would a thing be worth which was made expressly to 
 cheat the people and defraud them of their liberties ? 
 
 There are thousands of good men to-day weeping over 
 the ruins of their country's liberties. They have de- 
 spaired of being free. They have come to the conclusion, 
 against their wishes, it may be, that people are not capa- 
 ble of self-government. They are beginning to believe 
 that we will be forced, as all other democracies have 
 been, to take refuge from anarchy in despotism. The 
 willingness that people have shown to be slaves; the 
 readiness with which they have sanctioned every act of 
 fraud, oppression, and crime perpetrated by the usurpers 
 
 24* 
 
282 ^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 at Washington ; the applause of the people, when the 
 usurpers publicly boasted that they had ignored the Con- 
 stitution and disregarded its restrictions upon their 
 power; all these things, and many others which might 
 be mentioned, have shaken the confidence of many good 
 men in the virtue and honesty of the people, and in their 
 capacity for self-government. 
 
 The political factions, priestcraft, and thebondautocracy, 
 watching these signs of weakness and degradation among 
 the people, are already plotting the overthrow of our 
 democratic form of government, and the establishment 
 of a monarchy and aristocracy on its ruins. But these 
 powers are making false calculations. These hopes are 
 delusive ; their infernal machinations will be defeated ; 
 their infamous purposes to destroy their country's liberty 
 will be thwarted, and they themselves will perish. This 
 country was dedicated to Liberty, and it will be free for- 
 ever I * The genius of Christianity planted it here, she 
 nursed its infancy, she delivered its youth from the power 
 of European tyranny, she guided it to a glorious manhood, 
 — will she desert it now ? never, never 1 She will lead it 
 to nobler triumphs than it has ever yet achieved. Guided 
 by her wisdom and truth, it will go forth to destroy those 
 mimic powers of tyranny which hamper its manhood. 
 
 Political factions which have sold the liberties of the 
 people must die. A hireling priestcraft, which h:is, in 
 the name of Christianity, taught every falsehood the 
 devil could invent to hide the truth, to debauch the 
 public morals, to debase the human soul, and dishonor 
 God, must die. A moneyed aristocracy which has 
 robbed labor of its hire, defrauded the innocent and un- 
 suspecting, trampled the weak under its feet, and starved 
 the poor, must die. The bondautocracy, priestcraft, and 
 politicians have forgotten that there is such a thing as 
 the human soul. They have forgotten that there is such 
 a thing as the Word of God. They have forgotten that 
 when that Word breathes its breath upon the human 
 soul, that soul is set on fire, and burns up all the chaff 
 and stubble in the world. Everything will perish in its 
 flames but the truth. The truth, like refined gold, wil' 
 eome out brighter and purer than ever. 
 
THE FIFTH WITXESS. 283 
 
 The worshipers of mammon, politicians, priests, and 
 bondautocrats, have made the issue, let them abide the 
 'consequences. They have divided society into classes 
 by usurpation and frauds, they have seized the power 
 of government, they have used it for years to promote 
 their own interest and welfare, disresrarding entirely the 
 happiness of the people at large. They have made war 
 upon labor, and robbed it of its hire. They have made 
 wealth the mark of respectability and the measure of merit. 
 By this law three-fourths of the people, whom they have 
 plundered and made poor, are stripped of that influence 
 which they would have in society, if wisdom, and virtue, 
 and truth were the measure of merit instead of money. 
 
 Finally, in order to perpetuate their unrighteous rule, 
 and to make the degradation and slavery of the people 
 eternal, they have made the powers of the government 
 absjlute, and denounced as traitors and rebels every- 
 body who darerf to resist their usurpations and oppose 
 the wrongs and oppressions which they are inflicting on 
 the people. So insolent and domineering have they 
 become, that they have dared, even in the halls of the 
 national legislature, to stigmatize the laboring people 
 of this country as poor white trash. They have come 
 to the conclusion that by means of the half-civilized negro, 
 governed by the carpet-bag spies and military satraps, 
 they can get along without the white man. The common 
 people of this country have so long been the dupes of a 
 hireling priestcraft, and the tools of political scoundrels, 
 that their masters have learned to despise them. Because 
 the people at large are not educated in the trickeries and 
 frauds of a vicious system of politics, falsely called 
 statesmanship ; because they are not learned in the ten 
 thousand quibbles and quiddities, absurd, contradictory 
 and unmeaning arbitrary rules, falsely called law ; 
 because they don't understand (and nobody else does) 
 the thousand devices of priestcraft, cunningly devised 
 words of human wisdom, invented to make the human 
 soul even the slave of human power ; I say, because of 
 this apparent ignorance of the people, their masters 
 have learned to despise them, and treat them with utter 
 contempt. 
 
284 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 But thank God mankind is no longer dependent upon 
 the philosophy of this world, so called, for wisdom. I 
 thank God we have direct from heaven a message de- 
 livered by the Prince of Heaven himself, which is wisdom, 
 and knowledge, and virtue. Not that wisdom which en- 
 ables a few men to make slaves out of their fellow-men, 
 to rob and plunder and oppress them, but that wisdom 
 which gives prosperity, and happiness, and freedom, to 
 all. The Great Lawgiver said, " If I make you free, 
 you will be free indeed." It offers its wisdom not only 
 to the wise, but the simple also, not only to the strong, 
 but to thje w^eak, also, ay, the wayfaring man, though 
 a fool, may read and understand. Its mission is divine, 
 its power is omnipotent. Its promises are the promises 
 of him who cannot lie. His word shall stand when the 
 heavens shall flee away, and the stars will wander, 
 darkling, in the eternal space. It comes with no false 
 theories, no specious promises, no morbid and sickly 
 philanthropy. It does not come to man like the priests 
 and politicians, and tell him that he must believe that 
 all men are equal in order that he may be free. It does not 
 tell him he must believe woman is equal to man, and en- 
 titled to equal authority with him in order he may be free. 
 It does not tell man that he is free simply because he 
 has the nominal privilege of voting, no matter what his 
 condition may be. It does not tell man that he must 
 degrade his own being, and mar the beauty of his own 
 race, by mingling his blood with that of the half civilized 
 and servile negro, in order that he may be free. 
 
 No, no; Christianity has no need of these cunningly 
 devised words of human wisdom. She invents no such 
 pretty lies to deceive man. She tells him stern, hard 
 truths, and by these truths only can man be free and 
 happy. She tells him that the Creator, of his own will 
 aod pleasure, has made all things unequal. The Creator 
 himself is above all, and all things are unequal to him. 
 The angels in heaven are unequal. In the whole world 
 two men cannot be found who are exactly, and in every 
 particular, equal. The moon is unequal to the sun. The 
 stars are of different sizes, of different degrees of bright- 
 ness, and consequently unequal. The different animals 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 285 
 
 are unequal. The trees, the flowers, the groves, the 
 birds, the fishes, are unequal. And yet this barefaced 
 lie, contradicted by everything in nature, contradicted 
 by the reason and common sense of the weakest and 
 most ignorant of mankind, has been accepted by learned, 
 so called, priests and politicians, and incorporated as a 
 fundamental principle in their philosophy. Such is the 
 palpable ignorance of infidelity, even when aided by all 
 the learning and philosophy of this world. It accepts, 
 as truth, falsehoods so glaring that they do not impose 
 upon children or even upon fools. 
 
 Christianity teaches that God made woman to serve 
 and obey man. This is the foundation on which society 
 itself rests. Destroy it, and there is an end to social 
 order. Society itself can't live a day. Destroy this 
 truth, and you at once divide every house in the land ; 
 you throw a fire-brand into every family ; you make two 
 Gilt of those whom God has joined together and made 
 one. Christianity teaches that God has made the differ- 
 ent races of mankind unequal ; common-sense teaches 
 this, as does the history of the world for six thousand 
 years. Not only is it contrary to Christianity, but to all 
 the higher and better instincts of nature itself, for man 
 to mingle his blood with that of an inferior race. 
 
 Look around you and see who commits this crime, and 
 you will see that it is only such as have become brutal- 
 ized and debauched. It is only those whose moral natures 
 are utterly depraved, and who have given themselves up 
 to the lusts of the flesh. Look, too, at the moral, politi- 
 cal, and social degradation of those people who have 
 made this horrible crime a national practice. Look at 
 Mexico, a mongrel muck of whites, negroes and Indians. 
 She has been, and is to-day, a boiling cauldron of revo- 
 lutions. Anarchy instead of law, war instead of peace, 
 desolation and ruin instead of prosperity. Yet, notwith- 
 standing these truths do stare them right in the face, the 
 priests and politicians, the masters of the people, are 
 trying to force on them this crime against nature and 
 God, with all its interminable train of evils. 
 
 It is for the purpose of making man free and happy 
 that these lies are told. Don't these priests and politi- 
 
2gg THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 cians know that they are lying ? Don't they know that, 
 as long" as they can makfe man the slave of lust and 
 passion, that they can be his masters? 0, yes, let them 
 once succeed in making a cross between the poor white 
 trash and the negro, and they will have a race of slaves 
 as tame as they desire. Will they succeed ? Never, 
 never. The time for priests and politicians to rule the 
 world has passed away. Christianity has come into the 
 world, to give light to every man. The cloud of igno- 
 rance which hung over the world for thousands of years, 
 hiding its crimes and follies, has passed away. 
 
 The Bible, with its divine truths, is in the hands of 
 every man. These truths are so simple, that a wayfar- 
 ing .man, though a fool, can understand them. It tells 
 man that God is bis father, and that he must love him 
 with all his heart, mind^ soul and strength ; that his fel- 
 low-man is his brother, and that he must love him as him- 
 self. It forbids man, by all the terrors of eternal punishr 
 ment, to use the superior wisdom and power, which God 
 has given him, to wrong and oppress his fellow-man. It 
 commands the wise and the great not to be the masters 
 of their fellow-men, but their servants. It commands the 
 strong to lift up the weak and protect them. It forbids 
 the laborer to be robbed of his hire. It commands woman 
 to serve and obey her husband. It commands man to 
 love, and cherish, and protect woman; to shield her 
 beauty, to guard her innocence, and defend her virtue; 
 to make her home the abode of comfort and happiness* 
 How richly will he be rewarded. Her smiles will be as 
 beautiful to him as the sunshine, and her words as soft 
 as the dews of heaven. 
 
 The lies which the priests and politicians have taught 
 the people must die, and all the wicked and oppressive 
 institutions which have been built up on these falsehoods 
 must perish. The people have the power in their own 
 hands to destroy them. Let them go to work. Let 
 them use the ballot, which was put into their hands by 
 their masters to amuse them whilst they robbed them, 
 to destroy all these wrongs and oppressions. Let them 
 teach their masters, the priests and politicians, that they 
 can get along without them, and their false systems and 
 
THE FIFTH WinYESS. 28*7 
 
 creeds. Let them strike down, at one blow, all these 
 despotic institutions which have been built upon the ruins 
 of their rights, their liberty, and their happiness. 
 
 The people of this country have got on the wroni^ 
 road. They have been traveling it for a long time. The 
 devil has been traveling along close behind them. He 
 has seized every hill-top, and fortified it. On one hill 
 stands the political factions, with all their power over 
 the prejudices and passions of mankind. Innumerable 
 other points have been seized and fortified by the num- 
 berless sects and creeds of priestcraft. But the great 
 city of his power, Babylon, around which he has built 
 fortifications which seem impregnable, is the vast monied 
 aristocracy. The railroad corporations, the manufactur- 
 ing corponations, the commercial corporations, stand like 
 so many formidable bulwarks around it. And then that 
 mighty river Euphrates, the great national banks, pours 
 its floods of currency like a deep stream around it. 
 
 But notwithstanding all these formidable obstructions 
 in their way, the people must, and will, go back to the 
 road of truth. Only there can they find peace and 
 prosperity ; only there can they find freedom and 
 happiness. They must turn away from those blind 
 guides whom they have been following so long. They 
 must take the matter in their own hands. For years 
 and years the politicians and priests have been promis- 
 ing reform. This political faction and that, this sect of 
 priestcraft and that, has invented from time some specific 
 for their moral •nd political ills. Every ism which the 
 devil could suggest has been tried. Almost as many 
 panaceas to heal the political evils which curse this 
 country have been invented as the quack nostrums to 
 cure its physical maladies. 
 
 The venders of these religious .and political pills have 
 advertised them with the same impudent assurance and 
 unblushing falsehoods with which these quacks have 
 advertised their vegetable and mineral poisons. The 
 people have swallowed both with a surprising credulity. 
 The result has been the same in both cases. The victims 
 of medical quackery have been hurried to their graves, 
 and the victims of the moral and political quacks have 
 
288 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 been hurried to moral degradation and political death. 
 The venders of these poisons only have profited by it. 
 They have got rich, and great, and powerful. Poor, 
 miserable slaves, they have spent all their money, all 
 the fruits of their labor; all these they have given to 
 their doctors, the priests and politicians, to make them 
 free, and prosperous, and happy, but instead of these 
 blessings, their doctors have brought on them the night- 
 mare of debt and taxation, the sharp pangs of tyranny, 
 and fearful apprehensions of the terrible spasms of 
 anarchy. Is there no balm in Gilead ? Is there no 
 physician there ? Temperance and sobriety will cure 
 our bodily ails. Judgment and justice will cure our 
 moral, social, and political ills. Let those who have de- 
 ceived the people, those who have sold their liberties and 
 rights to the moneyed tyrants, and those who have 
 bartered their souls to the devil, be brought to speedy and 
 condign punishment. 
 
 The last Fourth of July witnessed another spectacle 
 equally humiliating and insulting to the masses of the 
 people of this country. There was assembled in New 
 York city, on that day, a convention representing the 
 working people of this country. Such a convention 
 ought to represent five-sixths of the people. It was sup- 
 posed that in this democratic country, so called, that 
 some deference would be paid to the wishes of such a 
 body, and some respects to their wants ; especially was 
 this looked for from a political organization which de- 
 pended almost exclusively upon their vo^fes for success. 
 
 And yet they were taken no more notice of than if they 
 had not been there. They set there like the poor boy at 
 a frolic^ waiting to see if some crumbs might not fall to 
 their share after the politicians and bondautocrats had 
 feasted themselves to their fill. But they waited in vain. 
 The politicians prepared the table, set at the head of it a 
 representative man of the aristocracy, eat up the good 
 things and cleared off the table, without so much as 
 calling in their slaves, the working men, to pick the 
 bones and eat up the crumbs. Did ever the owners of 
 negro slaves in the South so far forget not only right 
 and justice, but all the better feelings of humanity, and 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 289 
 
 even the proprieties of hospitality ? And 3"et that con- 
 vention, representing the great masses of the people, 
 submitted to this indignity without a murmur, and en- 
 dured this wrong, this foul wrong, without protest. Can 
 a people so menial and subservient be surprised to see 
 their masters laying plans to complete their degradation, 
 and to make it perpetual ? 
 
 The Fourth of July is gone, and the millions of people 
 of the United States, so called, of the great American 
 democracy, so called, who looked to it for some bold out- 
 spoken reform which would bring them relief from their 
 intolerable burdens of oppression, are disappointed. The 
 mechanics of every class, the laboring men of every con- 
 dition, the farming portion of the people, constituting in 
 all five-sixths of the people of this country, who work 
 hard all the year round, and live hard to pay their taxes, 
 have been as utterly ignored as if there were no such 
 beings in existence. The politicians met, and, as if they 
 Ijad the absolute right of ownership, sold them out to the 
 money-gamblers. 
 
 The public press too, which the people support at an 
 enormous expense to take care of their rights and liberties, 
 has sanctioned the infamous fraud. Even that portion 
 of the press which had warned the people of this mon- 
 strous conspiracy to perpetuate their slavery, has joined 
 the conspirators, and shouts as lustily for them, as if they 
 were honest men, and patriots. Even the editor of the 
 La Croi>se Democrat, whom the people sustained so nobly 
 when he had the courage to defend them against the 
 bondautocracy, has deserted their cause. Brick Pomeroy, 
 w^ho exposed so ably the plot to sell out the labor of the 
 country to capital, who held up to the scorn of all honest 
 men the plot of the New York money-gamblers to buy 
 the people from the democratic convention; who de- 
 nounced Governor Seymour as the head and brains of 
 this infamous plot, has accepted this accomplished polit- 
 ical gambler as a person fit to be the President of the 
 United States. The people supported Pomeroy, because 
 they believed he wa« honest in his professions of friend- 
 ship for tliem. Their generous support has made him 
 rich, and how hardly can a rich man be a patriot. 
 N 25 
 
290 TUE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 I repeat it, in this money-worshiping age and coun- 
 try, where mammon is everybody's god, and rules every 
 political, social, and religious organization, it is easier 
 for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than 
 it is for a rich man to be a patriot. Pomeroy, who 
 boasts of his hundreds of thousands of subscribers, men' 
 who took his paper because it claimed to be the unflinch- 
 ing advocate of the rights of labor against the oppressions 
 and wrongs of the great moneyed monopolies, and is to- 
 day urging these hundreds of thousands of men to sup- 
 port Governor Seymour, whose great talents, drilled in 
 all the arts of chicanery which characterize the politics 
 of this age, fit him better than any other politician in 
 America, to perpetuate that governmental policy which 
 Ims already reduced nine-tenths of the people to the con- 
 dition of abject slaves to the great money-gamblers. 
 
 Grant, the ^'onfe^sed tool of the yard-stick and goose- 
 quill nobility, is an acknowledged ass, and, led around by 
 small politicians like Washburne, would soon be recog- 
 nized, both by his ears* and his braying. The bondauto- 
 cracy would have absolute control over him, and the 
 whole machinery of the government would be kept at 
 work for the exclusive benefit of his masters. The in- 
 tolerable burdens of debt and taXfation which would in a 
 few years be forced on the people would drive them to 
 open and determined resistance. But Seymour an astute 
 politician, would modify these evils so that the people 
 would not feel them so heavily. He would reduce their 
 burdens, so as to persuade them to bear them. He would 
 sweeten the bitter cup of this servitude with reforms and 
 promises. The reforms would indeed be only specious, 
 only so in appearance, and the promises shallow and false. 
 
 What is the use, for instance, to tax the bonds, when 
 the political faction called the government are the toolsf 
 of the bondautocracy ? The bondautocracy would buy 
 your legislatures, both State and National, as they have 
 done heretofore, to pass laws to rob the laboring people 
 out of more money than the taxes levied on their bonds. 
 And what are promises worth from a man whose actions 
 during his whole life have been opposed to the promises 
 which he now makes ? 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 291 
 
 What are promises worth from a man whose opiuions, 
 expressed onl}^ a few- months ago, werie in direct contra- 
 diction to the promises which he now makes? S. P. 
 Chase, who is heart and soul with the radical faction, 
 including their negro equality and bondautocratic rule, 
 was willing to make promises to the people and accept 
 the Democratic platform. Andy Johnson, Bill Seward's 
 w-eathercock, who hasn't got mind enough to have any 
 policy, was ready to accept any platform, and make any 
 promises, to get a hundred thousand dollars for occupy- 
 ing the White House a3 a tenant for the next four years. 
 And let me ask, is there a man among the prominent 
 politicians of this country, who would hesitate to make 
 any false promises, or to tell any number of lies, in order 
 to get into his hands the great power and patronage 
 which has been of late years exercised by the President, 
 or even for the poor privilege of being what Andy John- 
 son has been, a mere puppet President ? 
 
 I fought too, for the stars and stripes. In twenty-five 
 battles I carried it aloft. When I lost my right arm, I 
 carried it with ray left. That flag, which I loved and 
 honored as the Labarum of liberty, has become the ensign 
 of despotism. On its folds are written, not union and 
 liberty, but conquest, subjugation, empire, power. Not 
 only are the people of the South slaves, but the whole 
 body of working people in this country. A Union soldier 
 carried the old flag, with union and liberty writ on it, 
 through the whole South not along ago. Everywhere 
 among the rebels its authority was recognized and re- 
 spected. But when it reached the national capital, it 
 had to be folded up and laid away. 
 
 Yes, for this flag I fought for four years, gave both of 
 my arms for it, and yet this day there is a power in pos- 
 session of the national capital which forbids it to wave 
 there. The jacobin usurpers who have seized the gov- 
 ernment, and made it a great consolidated despotism, 
 have run up another flag. It bears some resemblance to 
 the old flag, but it is not the same ; some of the stars are 
 black negro stars, instead of the white silver stars which 
 were there before. And instead of union and liberty, 
 consolidation and tyranny are written on its folds. 
 
292 TBE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 A tree is good or bad according to the fruits it bears, 
 and so is everything else. When the starry banner 
 was the symbol of union and liberty, I loved it. Asa 
 proof of that love, look at these scars, look at these 
 stumps of arras without hands. Now that it has become 
 the symbol of despotism, I hate it. Proud banner, since 
 thou hast betrayed the cause of liberty and truth, is it 
 not fit that the tongue which was ever loudest in thy 
 praise, should speak thy curse and tell thy doom. 
 
 THE STARRY BANNER. 
 
 Starry banner, wave on high, 
 
 Victorj brightens every fold; 
 Justice, truth, contemn, defy, 
 
 Like the Roman flag of old. 
 
 Stretch thy folds across the earth, 
 
 Empire let thy motto be. 
 Scorn the the that gave thee birth. 
 
 Magic word 'twas Xaberty. ; ^ - , . ^ ;- .,, . 
 
 Liberty, great central orb, '' Ir* ti l.'>'"7»;') 1 
 i'llii ii*>V<.' Like the heliocentric sun, ,.,[ y,; •';;', Jj i 
 
 ^.,^: 1 Made to light, but not absorb, ,... 'r , | , i ... ?,, 
 
 ' -*' * '* ' Myriad stars that round thee burn. 
 
 Lo ! no marshaled host above, 
 
 Armed with burnished shield and spear; 
 
 But the wondrous power of love. 
 Holds each star within its sphere. 
 
 And whilst e'er that sun shall beam 
 
 Warm with love, with truth so bright, 
 Cheering, with his smiling gleam. 
 
 Travelers through tbe realms of nighty 
 
 Starry voyagers on the deep. 
 
 Distant azure, ether sea. 
 Steady on their course will keep 
 
 On as long as time shall be. 
 
 Once put out thy genial ray. 
 
 Light and life of worlds on high. 
 Darkness, who'll dispute thy sway, 
 
 Monarch of the earth and sky? 
 
 Wild chaotic storms will blow. 
 
 Rolling hideous waves of night; 
 Night on night in endless flow, 
 
 Darkening every gleam of light. 
 
THE FIFTH WITNESS. 293 
 
 Save the flash of a shooting star 
 
 Bursting from its heavenly home; 
 Shaking with convulsive jar 
 
 Empyrean's highest dome. 
 
 Thua proud 'twill be with thee, 
 
 Haughty as thy boast may be. 
 When thy stars no more shall see 
 
 The glorious sun of Liberty. 
 
 Power's splendid dazzling gleam 
 
 Cross thy azure field may throw 
 G-lory's fleeting transient dream ; 
 
 But, proud banner, thou must know 
 
 Brighter glory never shone, 
 
 Dazzling with its splendid glare, 
 Than from Caesar's haughty throne 
 
 Made the trembling nations stare. 
 
 Hark ! d'you hear that wild storm wail,— 
 
 Bursting storm of Gothic ire; 
 Rome, I see thy glory pale 
 
 In its gleams of Vandal fire. 
 
 Whither now's thine empire fled, 
 
 Mistress of a conquered world ? 
 'Neath the rude barbarian's tread. 
 
 In the dust thy banner's furled. 
 
 Glory'f but the lightning's flash 
 
 Gleaming from an angry sky ; 
 Sent to guide the thunder crash, 
 
 To the doomed of earth to die. 
 
 25* 
 
294 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 THE SIXTH WITNESS. 
 
 He, too, was a soldier ; he wore a blue uniform, and, 
 like the other too, bad lost both of his arms. 
 
 He said ; Before the war, I had been an abolitionist. 
 I had never stopped to inquire whether slavery was a 
 paying institution or not. I was not in the habit of 
 estimating things — moral questions at least — by their 
 relations to gold. I could not even admit, in defense of 
 slavery, the fact that the institution had been established 
 by God himself, and that it had existed in every age of 
 the world. Nor was it sufficient, in my estimation, to 
 show (and this nobody could deny) that the Constitution 
 of the United States recognized slavery and protected it. 
 Our fathers were good men, and the government they 
 founded was the best the world ever saw. Taking it as 
 it was, slavery and all, it was better than any existing 
 government, or any government which had ever existed 
 in the world. 
 
 My religion is a belief, not in the perfectibility of hu- 
 man good, but in its progressiveness. The fact that we 
 had organized a better government than anybody else, 
 any other age or nation, was to my mind conclusive 
 proof of this proposition. Before the revolution by which 
 we established our independence of England, we looked 
 upon her government as the model of excellence. But 
 when we made our own government, not only we, but the 
 world, looked upon it as a better one than that of England. 
 At the time of the revolution, the English government 
 was better than it had been one hundred or even fifty 
 years before. Indeed, the governments of Europe for 
 hundreds of years had been gradually improving. In- 
 ternal convulsions, working great moral, social, and 
 political changes, were to all heathen nations signs of 
 decay and death, but in our own age they are milestones 
 to mark the onward march of nations to freedom and 
 happiness. 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 295 
 
 In the empires of Greece and Rome, and other heathen 
 nations, civil wars were the symptoms of that political 
 disease which resulted in iheir death. Modern nations, 
 on the contrary, can all point to these great moral up- 
 heavings as epochs in their history which mark the birth 
 of some magna charta, declaration of independence, or 
 other clear and comprehensive recognition of man's rights 
 to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. AVhence 
 coujes this remarkable difiference between ancient and 
 modern times? What great conservative law is that 
 which preserves the life of a nation when it is jerked and 
 torn to pieces by the spasms of revolution? What 
 mysterious power is that which follows the desolating 
 track of war, sprinkles healing water on it, and bids a 
 new and more beautiful life spring out of the ashes of 
 its ruins? War, the servile minister of revenge and 
 hate, the menial tool of despots and tyrants, to break and 
 destroy, to j)lunder and oppress, what invincible hand 
 has chained thy mad spirit, and makes it serve the ends 
 of justice, of liberty, and enduring peace? 
 
 All the wisdom of worldly philosophy can't answer 
 these questions. But a voice comes from heaven (whence 
 only knowledge and wisdom can come) which says. The 
 wrath of man shall praise me, and the remainder of 
 wrath will I restrain. All things shall work together 
 for good to them who love God. The word of God only 
 can answer these questions. Over eighteen hundred 
 years ago the Messiah's kingdom was established in the 
 earth. The Prince of the house of David was appointed 
 to subdue the earth linto himself, and to reign over it 
 forever. The promise of the Father was (and he cannot 
 lie), I will give thee the heathen for an inheritance, and 
 the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. How- 
 was this kingdom to be established ? First by subduing 
 the hearts of men unto God, and then by destroying all 
 these institutions of oppression and wrong, which the 
 world, the flesh, and the devil have set up. By sin man 
 did fall from the favor of God ; he lost his power to do 
 good ; he lost his freedom of action. Christ came to 
 restore that power, to break the power of the devil, and 
 make man free. He says, himself, If I make you free, 
 
296 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 then will you be free indeed. How will he make man 
 free? By constraint? surely not. Man must choose this 
 freedom. It must be a voluntary act of his own will. 
 How then will Christ subdue, the world unto himself? 
 How will he make man a child of God, and a brother of 
 the Son of God ? How will he make man free and 
 happy without constraining him? By convincing hira 
 of sin, of righteousness, and of a judgment to come. 
 
 The progress of eighteen hundred years has gathered 
 together a mass of facts sufficient to satisfy any honest 
 and candid mind that both our personal freedom and 
 happiness, and our freedom and happiness as a nation, 
 depends entirely upon our knowledge of Christianity 
 and our acceptance of its laws. 
 
 If we will look at the history of nations for eighteen 
 hundred years, you will see that they have been free, and 
 prosperous, and happy, just in proportion to the extent to 
 whicli they accepted the Bible and its truth as their 
 religion. I would further say that the religion of a 
 people, together with their freedom and their happiness, 
 has l)een in inverse proportion to the power and influence 
 of that ecclesiastical despotism called the church. 
 
 I repeat it, wherever the human soul has broken the 
 shackles of priestcraft, there man has been free and 
 happy. And by priestcraft I mean not only popery and 
 protestantism, but every corporate body which claims 
 the right to control the consciences of men. By priest- 
 craft I mean every system of morals which man has 
 built up to cheat and deceive his fellow-man. The Bible 
 is the only true system of religion in the world. And 
 no man, nor body of men, has a right to substitute for 
 the Bible their own commandments. Popery is a trick 
 of the man, and so is Methodism, Presbyterianism, and 
 every other sect and creed in the world. The Bible is in 
 itself, and of itself, the beginning and the end. It is per- 
 fect and complete. Nobody has a right to add to it, to 
 subtract from it, or to substitute anything else for it. 
 Tiie Bible comes to each individual man as the word of 
 God, and speaks directly to him. Man wants no priest; 
 he has a High-Priest, even Christ. He, too, will be his 
 prophet. He wants no king, no ruler, for the Prince of 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 297 
 
 the house of David will be his king, to reign in him and 
 to rule over him ; to subdue all his desires and affections 
 unto himself, When man accepts this truth he will be 
 free. God will be his father, and his fellow-man his 
 brother. Love, and not power, will rule the world. 
 
 This is the promise of Christianity to mankind. This 
 18 her mission in the world. This is her glorious destiny. 
 Whenever mankind shall be convinced of this truth, 
 whenever they shall be willing to accept it, then will all of 
 its precious promises be theirs. Christ can't force it on 
 them. He could have done that eighteen hundred years 
 ago. Know ye not that I could call to my Father and 
 he would presently send me twelve legions of angels ? 
 But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled ? How 
 would the great plan of salvation devised in the counsels 
 of eternity be carried out? God did not create man like 
 a clock, to work by wheels a certain way; he did not, and 
 does not now, want his forced obedience. He could easily 
 have made man like he did the brute creation or the 
 vegetable kingdom, or the celestial world, — to be passive, 
 to act only as he is acted on ; to move only under the im- 
 pulse of some positive force called law. When he made 
 man, he wanted him to be an intelligent being, with power 
 and liberty to choose good or evil. He wanted beings 
 who would serve and honor him from choice, and not 
 from necessity. 
 
 A man don't govern his child like he does a saw-mill. 
 The latter he drives by the power of water or steam, the 
 former be leads by the constraints of love. It is the con- 
 stant effort of the parent to convince the child that 
 obedience is for its own good. How very long does it 
 take parents to accomplish this matter I The customs of 
 society have fixed the time at twenty-one years, and this 
 is more than half the average duration of life. So was 
 it heaven's purpose, in making man, to have a child who 
 would love and obey its Creator, because his ways are 
 pleasantness and his paths are peace. But man sinned, 
 and fell under the curse of heaven. Then the great 
 question in the divine mind, was, how could he be saved? 
 How could the prodigal, who had wasted his substance \x\ 
 riotous living, be brought back to his father's house? 
 N* 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 The Lion of the tribe of Judah prevailed, to break the seal 
 and declare this mystery to the world. 
 
 It is the mission of Christianity to accomplish this 
 wonderful o^ood for mankind; to fulfill this beneficent 
 proniise of heaven. For over eighteen hundred years 
 she has been silently, noiselessly, yet omnipotently, work- 
 ing out this great problem. Just in proportion to the 
 extent to which individuals and nations have accepted 
 the Bible and its truths, they have been happy ; and just 
 in proportion to the extent to which they have rejected 
 the truths of the Bible, they have been miserable. And 
 whenever a nation or people shall accept the Bible as 
 their religion, its commandments as their law, and Christ 
 its author as their king, they will be free and happy. 
 When the time shall come, — and it will come just as sure 
 as God has promised it, — we shall see that beautiful peace 
 described by the prophet thousands of years ago. Then 
 will nations learn wars no more. They will beat their 
 swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning 
 hooks. 
 
 This is that higher law which I have believed in for 
 years and years. A law which overrides all the conven- 
 tional forms, the plans and systems of man. This law 
 is a spirit invisible, but all-pervasive and all-powerful. 
 It is a progressive law, and aggressive too. It fights on 
 the offensive all the time. It attacks everything in its 
 Way, — ay, it goes out of its way to attack the very 
 citadels of evil, which the world, the flesh and the devil 
 have built up. Having a sword but no scabbard, it wages 
 ceaseless and eternal warfare upon the wicked customs, 
 and laws, and institutions of the world. 
 
 Nor will this war cease until every knee shall bow, 
 and every tongue confess, that Christ is God. We must 
 acknowledge Christ not only as the father of our spirits, 
 not only as our high-priest, but as the Prince of the 
 House of David, who has authority to rule and govern 
 everything. Every political power and every social or- 
 ganisation, every religious body which claims the right 
 to rule over man, must be put down. Its authority must 
 be ignored and its power broken. When these powers 
 are all destroyed from the earth, then will that prayer of 
 
THE SJXril WITNESS. 2^ 
 
 the Christian be answered, Let thy kingdom come, and 
 thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. When man- 
 kind shall accept the word of God as the'guide of their 
 life and the rule of their actions; when they shall ac- 
 cept the law^s of the Bible to govern their moral, political 
 and social relations; when they shall throw off the yoke 
 of kingcraft and priestcraft; when they shall refuse to 
 accept any man as their master or their ruler, then, and 
 not till then, will man cease to be the oppressor of his 
 fellovv'-man, and become his brother. 
 
 With these notions I was opposed to African slavery. 
 I looked upon it as a great moral evil. Some of its prac- 
 tices were cruel and barbarous. I was opposed, utterly 
 opposed, to the fugitive slave law. To require me to 
 catch a poor friendless human being, hiding from his 
 ruthless pursuers as a hare would hide from the hounds, 
 to be insulted and browbeat and tortured, was an outrage 
 upon the personal liberty of man which no freeman could 
 submit to. It was, too, an act of violence to my consci- 
 entious convictions of right, and I would have rather 
 died than have submitted to it. It was, moreover, an 
 offense against the spirit of American institutions. I was 
 the firm and constant advocate of those personal liberty 
 bills which were passed by the free States to nullify that 
 iniquitous law. And when the democratic party, so- 
 called, sold out to the slave-power, and attempted to seize 
 the national governmeut to carry out its purposes, I was 
 in for that great uprising of the people of the North to 
 defeat it and its plans. I voted for Lincoln, and rejoiced 
 at his success. 
 
 But just then sprung up a new condition of things. 
 The Southern States, fearing that it was our purpose to 
 attack slavery in the States, and use the power of the 
 government for its destruction, determined to secede. 
 When the slave power had possession of the government, 
 I held that we had the right both to nullify the laws of 
 the government, and also to secede from the government. 
 Therefore would I have been grossly inconsistent to have 
 denied the same right to the States of the South. I was 
 in favor of letting the rebel States go off peacefully. A 
 war to force your own notions on other people, to compel 
 
THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 tbem to accept your opinions about politics or religion, is 
 an outrage upon all just notions of freedom. And to do 
 this thing in tKe nameof Christianity is blasphemy against 
 God. It does not help the matter in the least to say that 
 we were right and they were wrong. 
 
 Indeed this is the very reason why we ought not to 
 have made war on them. For this very reason we could 
 well afford to let them go. Let them go and set up 
 their bad institutions right by the side of our good 
 ones, and the world can see the diflference. Let them 
 both work side by side, and theirs would fail and ours 
 would prosper. Let them live side by side in the broad 
 sunlight of truth, which lights up this edge of the world, 
 and theirs, like a sickly plant, would wilt and die, but ours, 
 like a vigorous healthy plant, would grow and flourish. 
 
 Believing that our institutions were better in every par^ 
 ticular than those of the South, I even was anxious for 
 the separation. I was anxious that the two systems 
 should be set down each on its own bottom, and left un- 
 influenced and uncontrolled by the other to work out its 
 own mission. My motto was to let each one by itself 
 exhibit its own beauty, and, by contrast, the deformity of 
 the other. 
 
 But there were two great parties at the North who 
 entertained different notions. The one call themselves 
 democrats. They believe in the strict construction of the 
 Constitution and States' rights. Their notions of States' 
 rights seems to be this, that the States have a right to 
 do what the general government may allow. That each 
 State has a right to a State organization, and may pass 
 such laws as it chooses, provided it don't choose to pass 
 any law contrary to the wishes of the national govern- 
 ment. In a word each State was free to do whatever 
 it thought would be for its own good, provided the 
 national government would let it. The serfs of Russia 
 have the same kind of freedom, and so had the negro 
 slaves of the South. They were free to do whatever 
 was in accordance with the wishes of their masters. 
 
 There was another political party at the North. These 
 call themselves freesoilers. They hold the old Federal 
 doctrine that the people are not fit for self-government, 
 
TUE SIXTH WITNESS. 301 
 
 and that therefore they ou<,^ht to have a government of' 
 power, a government backed up by standing armies ancf 
 brute force. These are the yard-stick and goose-quill no- 
 bility. These are the financial gamblers and commercial 
 thieves, — the great moneyed monopolists. These are the 
 rich men of the North, who were opposed to negro 
 slavery, because they found white slavery more profitable. 
 These are they who believe that the Almighty made the 
 world for the few, *' the elect." The earth was made for 
 the saints, and the saints are those sniveling hypocrites 
 who wear religion as a cloak to win the confidence of their 
 fellow-men, in order that U)ey may deceive them and rob 
 them, to make themselves rich. 
 
 Between this party and the democratic, which I have 
 just described, there is really no difference. The men who 
 control both these parties are the aristocracies of the 
 North, and aristocracies always believe in arbitrary gov- 
 ernments. Each of those parties has deceived the masses 
 who support them, by some professions of liberal prin- 
 ciples, which they take care never to practice. The 
 democrats, for a blind, preach States' rights, which means 
 in practice (see Yirgiuia and Carolina) dependent prov- 
 inces governed by a consolidated despotism. The free- 
 soilers preach for effect against slavery, but take good 
 care to spend all their wrath upon the negro slavery away 
 down South. They never have a word to say against 
 the white slavery at their own doors. ' These free-soilers 
 say it was a horrible thing to hold three millions of half- 
 civilized barbarians in slavery, although they were born 
 slaves and knew nothing else. Are they honest in their 
 professions, or are they made only to answer some other 
 purpose ? 
 
 If this is wrong, by what law of reason, of justice, or 
 by what teaching of Christianity, do they make slaves 
 of eight millions of freemen, — men who were born free, 
 and who are, in all those qualities of mind and heart 
 which dignify and ennoble human nature, equal to them- 
 selves — men who are their own kith and kin, their own 
 fathers and sons and brothers ? Will they say, in answer 
 to this, that these people won't think right and act right? 
 Why, don't freedom mean this, that men are endowed by 
 
 26 
 
302 TJJE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 their Creator with the inalienable rights to life, liberty 
 and the pursuit of happiness ? that men have, from the 
 God that made them, the right to think and act for them- 
 selves? Will they say that men may not act for them- 
 selves when their acts would be hurtful to others and 
 destroy their liberties, and that because if these people 
 were left free, they would wrong the negro, therefore 
 must they not be permitted to act for themselves? Is it 
 consistent with the American ideas of freedom, to say, 
 we are afraid this man or that man will steal, and there- 
 fore will we take him up, and send him to the peniten- 
 tiary ? .^ 
 
 That would-be philosopher, that wretched old sophist, 
 who swears to one thing to-day and another to-morrow, — 
 Horace Greeley, — will say in answer to this, We caught 
 these people stealing, and are keeping them in bonds for 
 it. This professional old falsifier, who to-day advocates 
 in the name of freedom a military tyranny over ten States, 
 or, what is worse, its pale, blighting shadow, a mongrel, 
 mulatto-bastard tyranny, begotten by military despotism 
 upon the body of a lewd, filthy Democracy, the hired harlot 
 of usurpers, at the beginning of the war, said it would 
 be better to let the States go than to hold them pinned 
 together with bayonets. Punish these people because 
 they once held slaves I Why, you can't punish people, 
 except for the violation of some law ; and what law did 
 they violate in holding slaves? The Constitution of the 
 United States? The laws of Congress? All these 
 laws not only recognized their right to hold slaves, but 
 protected them in it. By what law then would you pun- 
 ish them ? By the law of God, these hypocrites will 
 answer. But what do you mean by the law of God? 
 The law of Moses ? surely not ; for it recognized slavery 
 as a proper institution. Will they say they do it by the 
 law of the New Testament, the law of Christ ? Surely 
 they won't say this ; for the great Author of that system 
 taught, not only by principle, but by example, that we 
 must suffer for others, and not make others suffer for us. 
 
 'Tis true, a bigoted and hypocritical priestcraft has re- 
 versed this rule. 'Tis true, that great ecclesiastical des- 
 potism, called the Church, has for ages, instead of offering 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. H^ 
 
 itself a sacrifice for the good of mankind, as its great 
 Author did, ofiFered men called heretics and dissenters 
 sacrifices upon the altars of its ambition, its pride, and 
 its love of power. 'Tis true, that in the name of Chris- 
 tian charity popery built her inquisition, with its thou- 
 sand implements of torture. It is true that in the name 
 of Christianity, protestantism, the bastard child of popery, 
 did rob and plunder and persecute catholics. 'Tis true, 
 that in the name of Christianity, the Big Spotted Circus 
 did meet the African show at Chicago, and oifered to 
 make Hiram Caesar, if Caesar would make Simpson pope, 
 with power to force "our religion and our Bible" on the 
 country. 
 
 All these perversions of truth have been made in the 
 name of Christianity. But that fact don't save them 
 from being what they really are, falsehoods; nor does it 
 save their authors from being hypocrites and devils. Ac- 
 cording to the ideas of freedom on which our government 
 was founded, we have no control over the people of the 
 South, And even if " 'I' had the right to rule them, it 
 would be our duty to set them free, and punish them if 
 they interfered with the freedom of others, and not to 
 make slaves out of them because we feared they would 
 make slaves out of others. I am and have always been 
 an abolitionist. I have always opposed slavery ; but if 
 slavery must exist, if the three millions of negroes or 
 the eight millions of whites in the South must be slaves, 
 why, let the negroes be slaves. 
 
 If it be true, as the people say, that they can't release 
 the white people of the South from slavery, because that 
 would make slaves out of the negro, I would say let 
 the white man be free. Do you say I have no right to 
 make this difference ? Then why did the God who made 
 man make this difference ? Hear what he says : But if 
 thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be 
 sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve thee 
 as a bondservant. But as a hired servant, and as a 
 sojourner, he shall serve thee until the year of jubilee. 
 Thou shalt not rule over him with rigor, but shalt fear 
 thy God. Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou 
 shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around about 
 
304 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 you. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
 children after you to inherit them for a possession. They 
 shall be your bondmen forever, but over your brethren of 
 the children of Israel ye shall not rule over one another 
 with rigor. 
 
 Here the Bible distinctly recognizes the difference be^ 
 tween different classes of people, and enjoins a different 
 treatment. Here were two different people, between whom 
 God himself had made a distinction. The one he had 
 chosen to be a peculiar people, — *' his own people." To 
 them he had made special manifestations of his wisdom, 
 his power, and his glory. He commanded them in theiir 
 conduct to observe this distinction, and to treat their 
 brothers whom he had blessed with more kindness and 
 regard than the heathen around about them. Has not 
 that same God blessed with special blessings and peculiar 
 privilege the white people of the South as well as the 
 white people of the North. While, in the inscrutable ways 
 of his providence, he left the African to grope his way in 
 the darkness of ignorance and r^jperstition, he gave to 
 the Caucasian, our fathers, and the fathers of our brothers 
 in the South, the Christian religion, the wisest and best 
 system of truth ever revealed to the world. Did he not 
 bring our fathers and their fathers. Christian men, who 
 were persecuted for the truth's sake, to this goodly land ? 
 Did he not give the Northern Staties to our fathers, and 
 the Southern States to their fathers, for an inheritance. 
 Because they loved him and believed in him, did he not 
 give them this land, so broad and beautiful and fertile ? 
 A land richer than the Canaan of the Jews, and more 
 beautiful than the land of promise. For the sake of our 
 fathers and their fathers, did he not drive out before them 
 the red men, as he had done the Amorite and Hittite be- 
 fore Joshua and the children of Israel ? Did he not put 
 into the hands of our fathers and their fathers the heathen 
 from the wild jungles of Africa, to subdue the forest for 
 them, and endure the hardships and exposures of a wil- 
 derness country ? Have not these same barbarians been 
 Christianized and humanized by our brothers of the 
 South? 
 
 When the God who made us and them has made all 
 
TRE SIXTH WITNESS. 306 
 
 these diptinctions in their favor, and blessed them with 
 those special blessings and privileges, shall we make dis- 
 tinctions against them ? Shall we make slaves out of 
 them, whom God had made free and their fathers before 
 them for generations, and set over them to rule over them 
 the heathen whom God had made slaves, and their fathers 
 before them, as far back as the records of history run ? 
 Is this the way we propose to vindicate the great prin- 
 ciples of freedom and humanity? If the right to life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable and 
 God-given right, if there is no power on earth which may 
 take it from man without violating the laws of justice 
 and truth, if it be a crime to take it from a half-civilized 
 race of barbarians, then by what law do we take these 
 privileges from Robert E. Lee and Alexander Stevens, 
 the highest type of men that ever lived in the world? 
 
 Do you answer, By the laws of war, the right of con- 
 quest and subjugation ? Then power, and not justice, 
 rules the affairs of men. Then do we justify that plea of 
 tyrants for murdering, plundering, and oppressing their 
 fellow-men. Then might makes right. Then the millions 
 of human beings in Europe, Asia, and Africa, who to-day 
 are groaning under the oppressions of tyranny, are the 
 enemies of their kind, and the despots, who are goading 
 them with oppression, are the friends of freedom and 
 humanity. Then were these same slaveholders right in 
 robbing and oppressing the negro. Then were Adams, 
 Hancock, Washington, and Henry wrong in teaching 
 mankind that resistance to tyrants is obedience to God. 
 Then is the Declaration of Independence false, and the 
 genius of American liberty a miserable illusion. Ay, 
 these new-fangled philosophers would set down Christi- 
 anity itself as a cheat, and its promises to mankind the 
 idle dream of fanaticism. 
 
 There must be something wrong about this. Honest 
 and conscientious men don't fall into such errors. Who 
 are the men who talk so loudly about freedom and hu- 
 manity, until they get power into their hands, and then 
 do deeds so cruel and barbarous? By their fruits ye 
 shall know them. When I see Saul of Tarsus, in the 
 name of Moses and the prophets, persecuting the follow- 
 
 26* 
 
306 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 * 
 
 ers of the prophets ; when I see him, in the name of the 
 laws and ordinances of his religion, trying to destroy that 
 living Truth of which these laws and ordinances were 
 but the types and shadow ; when I see him, in the name 
 of Israel's God, beating and stoning the servant of the 
 Son of God, — servants whom he had sent forth to es- 
 tablish his kingdom on earth ; I say, when I see all these 
 things, 1 am forced to believe that there is something 
 wrong. Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye 
 have eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me. 
 Had Saul of Tarsus searched the Scriptures? No, no, 
 not he. He had gone to the scribes and Pharisees, the 
 lawyers and doctors, who taught for doctrines the com- 
 mandments of men. They had commissioned others to 
 put the Master to death, and of course they would com- 
 mission Saul to slay his servants. 
 
 When I see men in the name of freedom and humanity 
 making war on their brothers, their sons, and their 
 fathers, not only politically and socially, but by the ties 
 of kindred and blood ; when I see them destroy the young 
 men of the land, making the fathers childless, the mothers 
 widows, and the children orphans ; when I see them make 
 the land — abounding in crops — a desolation and a waste ; 
 when I see them changing the ancient democracy of 
 America into a great consolidated despotism ; when I see 
 them converting free States into dependent provinces, and 
 appointing over them military satraps, with almost un- 
 limited power ; when I see them disfranchising men who 
 were born free, and whose fathers had helped their fathers 
 to secure freedom as a common good; when I see these 
 freedom-shriekers setting up men, who they say had 
 been degraded by a brutal system of slavery, over men 
 of the highest culture, wisdom and virtue; 1 say, wheii 
 I see all these things, I am forced to believe there is 
 something wrong. These deeds — evil deeds — are not the 
 fruits of freedom and humanity, nor are they consistent 
 with that Christian charity which is gentle, and patient, 
 and long-suffering, which teaches us to love our enemies, 
 and to die for their good. 
 
 Let us look into the matter a little, and see how it is. 
 They will say that, although war is a terrible thing, yet 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. SOT 
 
 war may be justifiable when it is undertaken in behalf 
 of freedom and humanity. yes, a war to liberate four 
 millions of slaves from bondage would be a holy crusade. 
 
 Is it true that the war was undertaken to free the 
 negro ? Does not all the history of the times prove 
 that this was not the case ? Did not Mr. Lincoln, in his 
 public and official messages, so declare? Did not the 
 Congress, by resolutions almost unanimously passed, pub- 
 lish it to the world that the war was not intended to in- 
 terfere with slavery, either to alter or abolish it? What, 
 then, was the object of the war ? why was it waged by 
 the friends of freedom and humanity ? Would you like 
 to know ? would the authors of this war like to know ? 
 would those w^hose hands are red with their brothers^ 
 blood like to see the truth ? Ah, no I they would sooner 
 hide from it, for it haunts their guilty consciences like the 
 ghost of murdered innocence. Yet will I tell the truth ; 
 I will tell it in a manner so plain that the fool may read 
 and understand. 
 
 Just before the war commenced, a Southern gentleman 
 of my acquaintance met a market-woman on the street. 
 He held out his hand to her and said, '* Good-b^^e, Mrs. 
 Thompson ; I am going to leave you ; your people have 
 become very angry at our people, and they talk about 
 making war on them. It would certainly be a most cruel 
 and unjust thing, and what their reason for it is I cannot 
 devise." " Yes," she replied, " we will make war on 
 you. We won't let you out of the Union ; we want you 
 to traffic with.^^ 
 
 Ay, though we of the North may well blush to con- 
 fess it, yet this is the stern, naked truth. In the Union, 
 we had for years fixed the termaof trade with the South, 
 and by these terms had we grown rich and the South 
 poor. Let her go out of the Union, and she will propose 
 different terms ; she will insist on conditions which will 
 cut off that stream of wealth which she has been pour- 
 ing into our lap for years and years. No, no; we can't 
 let her go ; we must keep her to traffic with. Yes, wealth 
 and power was the object of that war. Is it a legitimate 
 object of pursuit for a free people ? May they justly 
 follow it, when, to attain it, they have to wade through 
 
308 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 rivers of blood and swim throu«rh oceans of teiirs? 
 Wealth, and power, and glory. May we have these 
 pretty toys, when they cost so much ? 
 
 Think of the hundred battle-fields, with their thousands 
 of bleeding, mangled victims ! Noble youth, who were 
 the props of old men, the pride of fathers, the joy of 
 mothers, the wife's love, the child's protector, the 
 maiden's hope, their country's glory ! Who have been 
 benefited by that wicked and unrighteous war? And 
 will you say it was not a wicked war? 
 
 By their fruits ye shall know them. This is the only 
 rule of justice I know of. What are the fruits of that 
 war? We may pass by the four years' war itself; we 
 may forget for the time the vast armies of men, hun- 
 dreds and thousands exposed to the burning sun of day, 
 the dews of night, the rains, and snows, and piercing 
 winds of winter ; we may forget those horrid prison-pens, 
 North and South, where men were devoured by hunger, 
 disease, filth, and vermin. 
 
 Be it said, to the credit of our enemies, that they pro- 
 posed to do away with those filthy prison-pens by a regu- 
 lar exchange; but the friends of freedom and humanity 
 considered them a good war measure, and refused to ex- 
 change. I say we can safely pass by all the evils imme- 
 diately connected with the war itself, for the men of the 
 South who suffered and died, although the sons of the 
 slave-holding aristocracy, were our enemies, and we need 
 take no account of them ; and the men from the North 
 who composed the rank and file were on]y poor white 
 trash. They were getting too thick to thrive at home, 
 and it was not amiss to take off a few hundred thousand. 
 It would leave more roontl for those who were left. 
 
 Ay, it was well for another reason : The masses of 
 these poor white trash in the northern cities were getting 
 extremely poor and hard pressed. " During our long 
 hard winters abundant and importunate beggary would 
 seize them and drag them around the streets, the pitiable 
 objects of public and private charity." These poor white 
 trash were getting tired of this thing; they did not like 
 to starve. This was stronge, was it not? So their rich 
 taskmasters thought. They began to complain ; their 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 309 
 
 protest was not as a general thing loud and boisterous, 
 but deep and earnest. The more intelligent of them were 
 making strikes; they were organizing trade unions. The 
 same thing happened here which happened everywhere 
 else in the world: Capital, governed as it always has 
 been, not by the law of justice, but by cupidity, was 
 struggling to get power into its hands, so that it might 
 rule everything for its own benefit. 
 
 For instance, they bought for awhile the party leaders 
 in New York city ; but when they run the price up, 
 they found it cheaper to buy the State Government at 
 Albany. So Albany took charge of New York, and New 
 York ceased to be a free city. This was the first success- 
 ful attack made upon democratic institutions in this 
 country. Let every American blush for shame, when he 
 remembers that the great commercial emporium of this 
 country is not a free city, and has not been for many 
 years. It was such acts as these that began to alarn> 
 the working men of the North. 
 
 Recognizing this as an open declaration of war against 
 labor, the working men began to organize associations 
 for their defense. Because they found strikes to be 
 only temporary relief, they organized other institutions. 
 This in its turn gave alarm to capital. It looked with 
 uneasy anxiety at this fierce democracy marshaling its 
 forces for the coming struggle. And by democracy I do 
 not mean that miserable political faction which was for 
 years the hireling agent of the slave power of the South. 
 I mean that spirit of liberty which first announced its 
 ^ternal truths in the Declaration of Independence. I 
 mean that spirit which maintained those truths at Lex- 
 ington and Yorktown. I mean that spirit which organ- 
 ized free governments in America, governments so wise 
 and free and beneficial as to be the wonder and admira- 
 tion of the world. I mean that spirit which always rises 
 up, whenever aristocracy shows its head in this country, 
 to put it down. 
 
 The first e^g that monster laid in this country was the 
 alien act and sedition laws. Mr. Jeflferson sounded the 
 alarm, and the people jumped on it, and smashed it be- 
 fore it was hatched. The next spawn of this sea monster 
 
^i(3 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 aristocracy was the United States Bank. The hero of 
 the Hermitage grappled it with his strong arm and iron 
 will, and choked it to death. But aristocracy learned 
 in this country, what it had learned in other countries, 
 that it could not maintain itself in an open field and fair 
 fight against democracy. 
 
 Hence it determined to change its plan of campaign. 
 It called to its aid that power which it has used success- 
 fully everywhere else in the world. It invoked the inter- 
 position of mammon, that god who has put under the 
 feet of kings and aristocracies the people of every nation 
 and every age. Mammon, when before he had set up hi? 
 power boldly, in the shape of a great National Bank, 
 the people overthrew it. But mammon is the prime 
 minister of the devil, and, like its master, it is most pro- 
 ficient in all the arts of deceit and trickery. It began by 
 attacking the priesthood. It soon subdued them to its 
 rule, and made them worship it as their god. It next 
 sent them among the people to teach them that Christi- 
 anity means not as Christ commanded, to be good and 
 do good, bat to got rich and pay a part of your wealth to 
 the church. To teach the people that religion means, 
 not to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
 neighbor as thyself, but to make money by taking ad- 
 vantage of the necessities of others, or their ignorance, 
 and to spend a part of it in building fine churches and 
 paying the priest good salaries. As soon as mammon 
 became the god of the people, money became the measure 
 of merit. And to-day a man's position and influence in 
 society is determined, not by his talent and virtue, but 
 by the number of his thousands and millions. It was 
 by this law that the whole political power of the South 
 passed into the hands of the slaveocracy, and the politi- 
 cal power of the North into the hands of the great money 
 monopolies of that section. 
 
 These two powers, and not the people, determined on 
 war. The history of the times will show that three- 
 fourths of the people, both North and South, were op- 
 posed to the war. And well they might be, for the people 
 at large had everything to lose by it and nothing to gain. 
 The slaveocracy of the South w^anted war for the pur- 
 
THE SJA'TJI WITNESS. 311 
 
 pose of having an independent government, — an aristoc: 
 racy, of which negro slavery would be the basis, and 
 cotton king. The moneyed aristocracy of the North 
 wanted war, so as to have a government of power, of 
 which the poor ivhite trash would be the mud-sill and 
 money-king. And, as I said before, this moneyed power 
 at the North was getting afraid of the working men. Al- 
 ready this power was greater than theirs in numbers. 
 Labor only needed to marshal and organize its forces to 
 beat them in every fight. It had commenced organizing. 
 To avoid this fight, the aristocracy of the North determ- 
 ined to have another fight, — a fight in which its chances 
 to win would be as three to one. 
 
 In this wise it reasons about the matter: For years 
 w^e have been silently and quietly working ourselves into 
 powder. We have gotten possession of all the political 
 parties. We can go to any legislative body. State or 
 National, and buy any monopoly we want. Indeed our 
 agents, the lobby members, do really constitute the legis- 
 lature, and pass all important laws which are made. The 
 members of these legislatures are only nominally the 
 representatives of the people. They are in fact our rep- 
 resentatives, and they do spend their whole time legis- 
 lating for us. For over twenty years the Congress has 
 passed no important practical measure except at our 
 request, or at least without our consent. The different 
 State legislatures have done most as well. 
 
 We have moreover gotten absolute control over churches 
 of every creed or sect. Men from our ranks are the lead- 
 ing and influential members of all the churches. Indeed, 
 we have changed the very nature of religion itself. Re- 
 ligion once meant love to God and your fellow-man. It 
 meant charity and benevolence. " Go and tell John the 
 blind receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lame walk, 
 and the poor have the gospel preached to them." That is 
 the picture of Christianity drawn by the hand of its great 
 Author. The boast of a modern priest is that I preach 
 to the richest congregation in the city or country, as the 
 place may be, and have the finest church and the best 
 organ. The master said, the widow who gave her mite 
 had given more than all the rest. The priests of this 
 
312 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 day take indeed the widow's mite, and the orphan's bread 
 too, but they give them no credit. But the big gifts of 
 the rich are published from the housetops, and in th^ 
 middle of the streets. The most influential members of 
 the church are those who make the niost money, — no mat- 
 ter how they make it, — and have the most to give to 
 priestcraft. Yes, the influence of a church in any com- 
 munity is just equal to the amount of money which it can 
 command. 
 
 We, too, fix tire position of every man and woman id 
 isociety. No matter what their virtue and intelligence 
 are, they cannot go into the first circles unless they are 
 rich. We don't mean to say that respectable and intelli- 
 gent people would be picked up neck and heels, and cast 
 violently out, if they veritured into the first circles; but 
 we mean this, that they cannot support that style which 
 fashion demands of all who come among us, and that if 
 they come in without it, they would be jeered and ridi- 
 culed out. There might indeed be an exception to this 
 rule. Genius which had acquired fame or talent, which 
 would beyond a perad venture acquire fortune, might be 
 sufi'ered to remain without the regular badge of member- 
 ship, the gilded gewgaws of wealth. But with this ex- 
 ception mankind in general have nothing to do; for only 
 one in a million has genius to win fame, and only one in 
 ten thousand has talent to make a fortune. 
 
 Thus it is plain that we have acquired control over 
 every political, moral and social institution of the country. 
 The great question is, how shall we hold on to this power. 
 The democratic spirit of this country is already growing 
 restless under it. If that spirit was once fully roused up, 
 it would be too strong for us. It would beat us two to 
 one, — ay, more than that, for they outnumber as ten to 
 one. Heretofore we have co-operated with the slave 
 power of the South, but in our dealings with that we have 
 always gotten so much the better of them that they want 
 to go off and set up for themselves. For several reasons 
 we can't permit this to be done. 
 
 In the first place, it was by the help of that slave- 
 ocracy, a great political power, that we have kept control 
 of things here in the North. If we lose their aid, we 
 
THE SLXTJl WITXESS. 313 
 
 will lose our power here at home. While we have used 
 their power, — always strong, because it was always 
 united, — to give ascendancy to aristocratic institutions in 
 the North, we have. at the same time used their open and 
 undisguised slavery to lead the minds of our poor white 
 trash from that slavery, not nominal but real, to which 
 we have been gradually reducing them. If we suffer 
 these slave States to go off, the poor white trash here 
 will begin to look at home, and then they will find out 
 that they are as reall}'^ slaves as the negro. Yes, for 
 many reasons war will be the very thing. It will be to 
 us a gift, — we like to have said from heaven ; but we 
 hardly think such gifts come from heaven. No matter: 
 it will answer our purpose, and accomplish our end better 
 than anything else. In tiie first place our superiority of 
 numbers and resources gives a guarantee of success. We 
 will precipitate the war on the country, and force the 
 people into it. When once we get their prejudices and 
 passions and revenge waked up, we can give the matter 
 any turn we please. The masses of the people are op- 
 posed to it. Indeed, nothing can be found in the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States or in Christianity to justify such 
 a war, and these are the sources from which the American 
 people draw the inspiration that governs their actions. 
 
 After the thing is done, when the people look upon the 
 terrible cost (not in money, that's trash to them), but in 
 the rivers of blood and the oceans of tears, the suffer- 
 ing, the privation, the dread apprehension, the woe untold, 
 — I say, when the people consider all these evils, they 
 will not dare to say that they have been done without 
 the sanction of that great tribunal of human justice, the 
 Constitution and Declaration of Independence, and with- 
 out the sanction of that highest Court of Appeals, that 
 tribunal of eternal justice which Heaven has established 
 on earth, — the Bible. No, no: a people whose hands are 
 reeking with the blood of their fellow-men will not dare 
 to handle these sacred things. But when men have done 
 evil deeds, they must have some excuse to quiet the up- 
 braiding of their own consciences. 
 
 We will furnish them a salve for their wounded con- 
 sciences ; we will tell them the war was one of subjuga- 
 o 27 
 
314 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 tion and conquest. What a thing will this be to tell 
 the American people, — people educated both practically 
 and theoretically in the beautiful notions of democratic 
 freedom ! Tell a people whose fathers taught them that 
 self-government is the inalienable right of man, tliat 
 there is a power to govern people without their consent; 
 a power to rule them by constraint, by force, by vio*- 
 lence ! This, indeed, will be a hard saying for them to 
 receive; but how will they escape it? It won't do for 
 them to say that the war was a crusade against slavery. 
 No, we will not abolish slavery; our President shall 
 make that declaration to the world. We have here a 
 paragraph prepared for Mr. Lincoln's inaugural address: 
 " I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with 
 slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have 
 no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do 
 so.^^ Surely we will not abolish slavery in the Southern 
 States, since our object is to establish it in all the States* 
 So when the war is over, we will have the people in this 
 fix: they will be compelled to admit the right of gov- 
 ernments to rule by force, or else repudiate their own 
 actions in carrying on the war. Once force them to 
 accept this doctrine, that a government has the right to 
 rule by force, and democracy is at an end. You have 
 laid the foundation for monarchy and aristocracy, and 
 we — the rich, the bondautocracy — will be the kings, the 
 princes, the lords, dukes, and nobility. A war, too, will 
 consolidate and enlarge vastly the power of the National 
 Government, and this will help the matter on; it will 
 create a standing army ; it will make an immense national 
 debt, — a great national blessing, considering that we are 
 the nation ; it will make the annual expenses of the gov- 
 ernment six times what it now is, and twenty times, 
 yea, one hundred times, what it ought to be, and those 
 things of themselves will put the whole power of the 
 government into our hands. Mammon will be god, money 
 king, and we the lords of the earth. 
 
 Yes, let the war go on ; it is the very thing we want. 
 Here are fifty millions to begin it with, and that will be a 
 pledge of our continued support. So did the bondauto- 
 cracy reason at the beginning of the war. 
 
THE SIXTH WITA£:SS. 315 
 
 The slave power of the South reasoned about the same 
 way. To it war meant an independent government in 
 which itself, because it was the great aristocracy of wealth, 
 would hold supreme power. To please these great 
 powers, the horrors of a four years' war was inflicted on 
 the country. What the people have suffered in blood, in 
 tears, in apprehension, in want and poverty, who can 
 tell ? But as these sufferings fell on the poor white trashy 
 what does it matter ; who cares for them ? The slave- 
 ocracy lost everything. It aimed at an independent 
 government in which its power would be supreme ; but 
 instead of securing that, it lost its own existence. 
 
 Will the northern aristocracy come out any better in 
 the end ? Its calculations about its success, the destruc- 
 tion of democratic institutions, the consolidation of the 
 national government, the ''great national blessing,^^ — a 
 great national debt, and the vastly-increased national ex- 
 penditures, have come out right. But it did not expect 
 to destroy negro slavery ; it did not expect to utterly 
 destroy the productiveness of the slave States ; they did 
 not expect to impoverish those States so completely that 
 they w^ould be unable to pay any considerable portion of 
 the immense war debt, and the extraordinary current ex- 
 penses which the war has entailed upon the country. 
 They did not expect that the elements, made for the use 
 of men, would catch the evil spirit which was ruling 
 him, and, in mimicry of man's petty revenge, withhold 
 its rains and dewsi so as to cut short the crops, and thus 
 impoverish the people. They did not think that all those 
 causes, working together, would throw at one dash upon 
 the backs of the northern people burdens as big as those 
 which the kings and aristocracies of Europe have been 
 putting on their people little by little for hundreds of 
 years. They did not think that these unbearable burdens 
 of debt and taxation would wake the people up, and open 
 their eyes to the infernal conspiracy to destroy their free 
 institutions and make them slaves. The boudautocracy 
 knows these things now ; the people know them too. 
 They are waking up to a sense of their real condition, 
 and they begin to see the awful evils which hang over 
 their future. 
 
316 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 First, you may see on their faces fear and consterna- 
 tion ; then that sober, earnest, determined expression 
 which says to everybody, tell us the truth, no matter 
 what it is, we must know it. It is the human soul that 
 speaks thus. I see now even, the angry frown gathering 
 on their brow, like the storm-cloud of an angry sky. 
 Presently from that cloud will flash lurid gleams pointed 
 with the thunderbolts of retributive justice. Then well 
 may tremble those guilty wretches, who have within 
 them undivulged crimes unwhipped of justice. Well 
 may tremble those scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who, 
 instead of teaching the laws of God, teach for doctrines 
 the commandments of men. 
 
 Woe unto these scribes and Pharisee hypocrites, who 
 teach, instead of the truth, the virtue and purity of the 
 Christian religion, spiritualism, free-loveism, mormonism, 
 mongrelism, divorce, child-murder, infidelity, lust, be»st- 
 iality, hatred, and diabolism I Woe unto these scribes 
 and Pharisee hypocrites, who have taught the people to 
 worship mammon and his angels, — the glittering baubles 
 of wealth and fashion, instead of that God who made 
 them, and in whose hands their breath is I Woe unto 
 those scribes and Pharisees who, instead of going out 
 into the highways and hedges to the lame, the halt, and 
 the blind, go to rich communities where they can have 
 fitie churches, fine houses to live in, and big salaries, so 
 that they can be gentlemen, and live in the first circles, 
 so called! Woe unto these scribes and Pharisee hypo- 
 crites who, instead of love, preach hate, war instead of 
 peace I Well did the prophet say of these priests, thou- 
 sands of years ago, Woe be to the shepherd of Israel thaf do 
 feed themselves I Should not the shepherd feed the flock? 
 
 Well, too, may these politicians tremble in whom the 
 people trusted and confided as leaders and guides, who 
 in the name of the Union have divided the States ; who 
 in the name of humanity have waged cruel war; who in 
 the name of freedom have changed the condition of the 
 negro slaves of the South, so that, instead of being the 
 slaves of individual masters, they are the dupes and tools 
 of a mad political faction, to be used by their agents, the 
 carpet-baggers and military satraps, to destroy the 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 3l> 
 
 American democracy and build a despotism on its ruins. 
 Woe unto these politicians who in the name of equality 
 are building up an aristocracy the most heartless, greedy, 
 and avaricious that ever preyed upon the labor of any 
 people I Woe unto these politicians who in the name of 
 justice tore the laboring people from their families and 
 their homes, and forced them into the horrors of a four 
 years' war, to endure the privation, the suffering, the 
 wounds, diseases, and death of a hundred battle-fields, 
 and permitted the rich to stay at home and make money 
 by being substitute-buyers and government contractors ! 
 Woe unto these politicitins who in the name of justice 
 and honor have doubled the debt which the war actually 
 cost, and now demand that the working men, who gave 
 their arms, their legs, their eyes, their sufferings and 
 privations which no tongue can tell, their blood and 
 their lives, with all the dread anxiety, the heart-beat- 
 ings, the tears, the neglect, and w^ant of their fathers, 
 their mothers, their sisters, their wives, and their little 
 ones ! Woe, 1 say, unto the politicians who demand that 
 the working men, who gave so much to the war, shall 
 work hard all their lives, and their children after them, 
 to pay the money which that bondautocrat, that money 
 tyrant, made up of commercial thieves, financial gamblers, 
 quartermasters, commissaries, government contractors, 
 substitute-buyers, generals who, instead of fighting, spent 
 their time stealing cotton, pianos, spoons, and insulting 
 innocent women ; and political scoundrels who spent the 
 people's time and money selling themselves to big whisky 
 distilleries, big manufacturies, and owners of railroads 
 and canals ! I say woe unto the politicians who demand 
 that the working men of the country will be slaves them- 
 selves, and make slaves of their children, in order that 
 these thieves and liars may be their masters ! 
 
 Why, look at the enormity of the thing I Whilst the 
 working men were in the army suffering, bleeding and 
 dying, many of their families at home, suffering too, 
 these bondautocrats were at home, eating, drinking 
 and feasting. The war is over; the laboring people are 
 maimed, halt and blind. Their families are clad in the 
 habiliments of mourning. The expenses of living have 
 
 27* 
 
§18 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 become so great, and the taxes so high, that with all their 
 T3rudeDce and industry t(^ey can hardly live. The bond- 
 autocrats, on the other hand, are revelling in every species 
 af excess. They dress finer and live higher than any 
 aristocracy in the world. Is this in accordance with the 
 laws of eternal justice? Does honor demand it? Is it 
 just, is it right, that an event which happens to a nation 
 should be to the many a curse, a mildew, a blight, death, 
 mourning, poverty and slavery ; and that the same event 
 should be to th« few^ a blessing, a god-send, a feast, a; 
 revel, a dance? If from such an event these bondauto- 
 crats have reaped so rich a harvest, won't they want an- 
 other one to happen soon ? Are the people blind, that 
 they cannot see how monstrous this thing is? Because 
 this money-aristocracy did, by bringing a war on the 
 country, bleed labor until rivers of blood flowed from its 
 veins, therefore have they a right to make labor work on, 
 weak as it from loss of blood, and to distil its drops of sweat 
 into delicious wines to cheer their revels and their feasts. 
 
 Oh, my God, is man trliy child for whom thou hast done 
 so much to make him wise and happy, still blindly,' still 
 madly, and foolishly bent on his own ruin ? For eigh- 
 teen hundred years thou hast by special efforts sought to 
 make him free and happy, to make him thy child, with 
 full title to all blessings which are promised to thy chil- 
 dren ; and yet does man foolishly and blindly prefer to 
 be the dupe of hireling priests, the tool of political scoun- 
 drels, and the pack-mule to carry the stolen plunder of 
 bojpdautocratic thieves. Where are the watchmen who 
 were set to guard the citadels of freedom ? Where are 
 the ranting enemies of aristocracy ? Where are the friends 
 of freedom and humanity, who used to invoke the om- 
 nipotent powers of the human soul to break the shackles 
 off the arms of the poor negro. Where are the Greeleys, 
 the Beechers, and Phillipses? Gone over to the bondaut- 
 ocracy all, — all gone. K 
 
 Let Mr. Phillips speak for himself, for he is the greatest 
 man among them, — at least he used to be. He was en-' 
 dowed by nature with a noble intellect which I once al"-'' 
 most idolized. Nature gave him, too, a large soul, which 
 I joved. Alas, poor old man, he ha?s laid his soul under 
 
THE SIXTH WIT JS ESS. 319 
 
 the glaring light of gold, and it has become parched and 
 shriveled. His mighty intellect, guided no longer by 
 that purest of all lights, the insixration of the soul, no 
 longer restrained by its benevolence and charity, like a 
 star cut loose from its orbit rushes grandly, yet madly 
 and blindly, through the realms of space. How poor and 
 barren does the intellect become, when the heart which 
 supplies it with the wine of feeling, that makes its thoughts 
 sparkle, is frozen over with ice of anger and revenge I 
 Mr. Phillips has permitted his love of the slave to degen- 
 erate into a hatred of the master. No intellect can have 
 right perceptions of truth, when the heart which mars it 
 is governed by revenge and hatred. The source of all 
 truth — the great moral cosmos — is God, and God is love. 
 By the law of love each particle of matter is kepi in its 
 place. By it the earth holds to its bosom each speck of 
 dust and every pebble. By the law of love the stars are 
 kept in their place in their ceaseless rounds. And by this 
 law of love the human soul is kepi in its sphere, while 
 it revolves around its great centre, — its source, its God. 
 
 But let Mr. Phillips speak for himself. Here is his own 
 language, taken from a speech delivered before the Anti- 
 Slavery Society at their thirty-fifth anniversary, celebrated 
 in New York; "But, as I said to-day a moment ago, 
 God had placed us this hour in the hands of more inex- 
 orable laws than Congress or the Republican party. We 
 are to-day in the hands of justice. We are to-day in the 
 hands of political economy. The great selfish forces of 
 the nineteenth century have grappled this negro question, 
 and I know that the negro is safe ; that he has a better 
 right than anybodv else to fold his hands in content and 
 serenity, because the lips of Providence proclaim to-day, 
 'Only be just, and you will be strong.' " Is to-day the 
 first time, Mr. Phillips, that the lips of Providence have 
 proclaimed the divine truth, " Only be just, and you will 
 be strong'^ ? 
 
 Did not the lips of Providence proclaim it thousands 
 of years ago that Noah was a just man, and God made 
 him strong to mount up in a deluge of w^aters which was 
 drowning the world, and ride serenely on its waves ? Did 
 not the lips of Providence proclaim it thousands of years 
 
320 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 ago, that Abraham was jnst? that he believed m God, 
 and God made him a great nation, and promised that 
 through him the world should be redeemed and set free ? 
 Did not the lips of Providence proclaim it that Moses 
 was just? and God delivered him and his people, and 
 brought them out of their enemies' laud with a high hand 
 and outstretched arm. Did not the very lips of Provi- 
 dence proclaim it eighteen hundred years ago, Be just, 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself, and thou shalt become the child of God, 
 and the brother of his Son, the Prince of Heaven. Be- 
 lieve in me, and whatsoever you ask the Father in my 
 name, he will give it to you. Be my disciples, and all 
 power on earth shall be given to you, so that whatsoever 
 you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and what- 
 soever you love on earth shall be loved in heaven. Did 
 not the lips of Providence proclaim it through Martin 
 Luther in the sixteenth century, " Only be just, and you 
 will be strong; accept me as your God, and my laws to 
 rule over you, and I will make you individually pure and 
 upright, and as a people I will make you free and prosper- 
 ous and happy? Has not the lips of Providence pro- 
 claimed it constantly in the history of nations since that 
 time, " Only be just, and you will be strong" ? for just in 
 proportion to the extent to which the nations of Europe 
 and America have accepted God as their God, and the 
 Bible as the guide of their lives and the rule of their 
 actions, just to that extent have they been free and happy. 
 For six thousand years the lips of Providence have 
 proclaimed by the history of every nation and generation 
 of mankind, " Only be just, and you will be strong." 
 And by the downfall of kings and by the broken frag- 
 ments of empires floating upon the ocean of time, the 
 lips of Providence have proclaimed it to the world for 
 thousands of years: The wicked shall be turned into 
 hell, and all the nations that forget God. But notwith- 
 standing these proclamations were made by the lips of 
 Providence six thousand years ago, and notwithstanding 
 they have been repeated in the history of every nation 
 which has lived in the world since that time, man does 
 still refuse to heed them, man does still refuse Jo be just. 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 321 
 
 Ay, Mr. Phillips himself, instead of listening to the lips 
 of Providence, which speak to the world in thunder-tones 
 to-day, turns to listen to the false and deceitful promises 
 of human philosophy. 
 
 " We are to-day," he says, *'in the hands of justice; 
 we are to-day in the hands of political economy." Politi- 
 cal economy I — the great selfish forces of the nineteenth 
 century have grappled this negro question, and I know 
 the negro is safe. For six thousand years political econ- 
 omy, or the great selfish forces of the world, have been 
 trying to save mankind. Heaven sent to his chosen people 
 wise men, prophets and apostles to save them, and while 
 they heeded these messengers from Heaven they were 
 safe. But as soon as they turned from them and trusted 
 in political economy, or the great selfish forces of this 
 world, their destruction came. Heaven sent to heathen 
 nations wise men, lawgivers and great poet-prophets to 
 teach them wisdom and virtue, and as long as they were 
 willing "»to be just," to accept these laws from Heaven 
 and practice them, they were safe. But as soon as the 
 devil persuaded them to trust in the great selfish forces 
 of this world, they went speedily to destruction. Hun- 
 dreds of years B.go political economy, or the great selfish 
 forces of the world, went into the jungles of Africa, 
 hunted down the negro like wild beasts, crowded thou- 
 sands of them into holds of ships, transported them to 
 Europe and America, and sold them into perpetual 
 slavery. These selfish forces soon set them free in the 
 northern sections of the United States, and in Europe, 
 because it would not pay. But because it did pay, these 
 same selfish forces held on to slavery in the Southern 
 States of America and in Cuba. 
 
 In 1861 political economy, or the great selfish forces 
 of the nineteenth century, divided the people of the United 
 States into two great armies, and led them into a four 
 years' war to determine, not whether freedom or slavery 
 should be the law of this Western World, but whether 
 negro slavery or white slavery should predominate. The 
 history of the times will show that the great selfif<h 
 forces which brought on that war did not intend to abol- 
 ish the one system of slavery which then existed in the 
 o* 
 
322 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Soutb, but to establish another. The design of the war W€i9 
 not to abolish the individual slavery which existed in the 
 South, but to make slaves out of the Southern States. 
 This is the spirit which dictated the war; we have 
 twenty-five millions of people, and you have only twelve; 
 we have the power, and therefore will we make you 
 obedient to our laws, tributary to our interest. 
 
 Long before the late war the power of the government 
 bad passed out of the hands of the people m\JO the hands 
 of the great moneyed monopolies of the country. So 
 completely did the slaveocracy have control of things in 
 the South that the election of a constable often turned on 
 the relation of the candidates to the question of slavery 
 and their record on that subject. Just so it was in the 
 North. The rich bankers, merchants, and manufacturers 
 controlled the political affairs so absolutely that no man 
 could be elected constable unless his notions were right 
 on questions affecting their interest. In the South the 
 negro ruled everything, and in the North money ruled 
 everything. Here were two great powers set up in the 
 same nation, each one ruling its section as absolutely as 
 the czar of Russia. In its very nature power is ambi- 
 tious and selfish. It wants to rule, not merely for the 
 sake of ruling, but because the right to rule empowers it 
 to use its subjects for its own purposes and pleasure. I 
 like to have power over my horse, not for the purpose of 
 feeding him and currying him, but for the purpose of 
 riding him. I do indeed feed and curry him, but this is 
 only that he may be able to turn more nimbly to the pull 
 of the rein and bound forward with more power and 
 speed at the touch of the spur. 
 
 After these two great powers, " these two great selfish 
 forces of the nineteenth century," got possession, each one 
 of its own section of the country, they did each one want 
 to get possession of the other section ; for power is never 
 satisfied. It wants always to be extending its empire and 
 dominion. It was the determination of these two powers, 
 " these two great selfish forces, ^^ to rule the people of the 
 Vnited States, which brought on the terrible war through 
 which we have just passed. Man proposes, but God dis- 
 poses. 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 32«i 
 
 The history of tlie times will show to the satisfaction 
 of any reasonable and fair-minded man that the poiitica) 
 economy of the North did not design the abolition of 
 slavery when it declared war. Its object was to per-] 
 petuate slavery in this country by consolidating- its power 
 and enlarging its authority. Because it was plain that 
 the object of the war on the part of political economy in 
 the North w^as not to set the negro free, but to make 
 slaves of the white people of the South, the millions of 
 the white freemen in that section opposed it with all their 
 hearts. For the same reason the masses of the people in 
 the North did not enter heartily into the war. They saw 
 it was a war of the aristocracy. The money power of 
 the North, the merchants and bankers and manufacturers, 
 bad not only made the laboring people of their own sec- 
 tion tributary to them, but by a system of tariffs they 
 drew a large revenue from the staple products of the 
 South — cotton more especially. The unmeaning and 
 nonsensical catchwords Union and national life had been 
 worn out by politicians in their buncum speeches. And 
 that other word which falls as gratingly on the ears of a 
 freeman as it does sweetly on the ears of tyrants; that 
 word which only servile lips can speak graciously, that 
 word which is associated in the minds of Americans with 
 the name of Benedict Arnold and the tory enemies of our 
 revolutionary fathers, that word which our fathers ex- 
 punged from our political dictionary, — I say that word 
 Loyalty, which every freeman must spit out of his mouth 
 with scorn, had not yet been popularized in this country. 
 
 How will the children of this generation blush when 
 in reading the history of these times they shall find that 
 word "loyalty," hateful to all but those who are ready to 
 bow the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift may fol- 
 low fawning, as pat in the mouths of the fathers as oaths 
 in the mouth of a swearer and obscenity in the mouth of 
 a blackguard. The cry of the old flag did to kindle the 
 fire of war. but there was not fuel enough in it to keep it 
 burning. The war was about to be a failure. The "great 
 selfish forces" of the North which started it could not 
 carry it on successfully. Tliey, in their extremity, ap- 
 pealed to the anti-slavery element of^that section. They 
 
324 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 appealed to that deep religious element in the bosom of 
 man which loves freedom and hates slavery wherever it 
 is found. There could no longer be any doubt about the 
 result of the war. ''Political economy" had virtually 
 failed, but another power had entered into the contest. 
 The human soul, like a bursting flood of fire, poured down 
 upon the rebel lines. And while we could not but look 
 with wonder and admiration upon the splendid genius and 
 daring heroism which defended those lines to the last, 
 yet behiri'd those living walls of fire we heard the lash 
 of the slave-driver and the piteous cry of the poor slave. 
 
 Ah, yes, it is well enough to call on the human soul, 
 as Wendell Phillips and others did, to go to those awful 
 places and do that fearful work. "Political economy" 
 don't go there. There is a terribleness in the battle-field 
 which nothing can endure but the human soul. Look at 
 that battle-line, and see on every brow a pale tremor. 
 Each mortal eye sees a ghostly messenger holding up 
 before it a summons to the spirit land. It would, turn 
 and flee from the dreadful sight, but some invisible spirit 
 moves it on. Some hope of future good, some promised 
 land which it saw once only dimly and indistinctly, comes 
 out vividly and distinctly before it. This mysterious 
 power, this invisible spirit, is the human soul. " Political 
 economy," the great selfish forces of the nineteenth cent- 
 ury, don't do such things or go to such places. No, no; 
 it is only man who hath within him a living soul, a spark 
 of being which will survive not only the ruin of battle- 
 fields, but the destruction of the universe; it is only man 
 who can do such things. 
 
 I repeat it, when those great things were to be done, 
 so many dangers to be encountered, so much suffering 
 and privation to be endured, Wendell Phillips and the 
 rest of them did not call on " political economy" and the 
 great selfish forces of the nineteenth century, they called 
 on man and the great unselfish' forces planted in the hu- 
 man bosom by the hand of God. They called on man 
 and his lov*e of justice and his love of liberty. " Political 
 economy" stayed at home and made money; it got rich. 
 But now that the war is over, and all the hard work is 
 done, it comes forward, and through those so-called friends 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 325 
 
 of freedom and humanity, the Phillipses, Beechers, and 
 Greeleys, it impudently claims all the credit. After 
 man, by all the suBering of a four years' war, liberates 
 the negro, those friends of freedom and humanity, the 
 Greeleys and the Phillipses, coolly tell him, We have no 
 further use for 3^ou. You indeed did set the negro free, 
 but we are not willing to trust the preservation of his 
 freedom to you. We will commit that matter to political 
 economy, "the great selfish forces of the nineteenth 
 century." 
 
 Are you not ashamed, Mr. Greeley and Mr. Phillips, — 
 you, who were so long and so eloquently advocating the 
 rights of man as a person, a living soul, against the 
 wrongs of corporate tyrannies and political despotisms, — 
 are you not ashamed to desert him now ? Are you not 
 ashamed, after having taught your fellow-men to look to 
 you as the friends of their rights, to trust you as their 
 leaders, to betray that trust? Are you not ashamed to 
 desert man and pay obsequious court to that mighty des- 
 potism which has trampled under its feet the liberties 
 and happiness of man for thousands of years? Political 
 economy, the great selfish forces of the nineteenth century 
 — what are they doing for man wherevei«vthey have 
 power? 
 
 A few years ago the Emperor of China said to the 
 world. We are willing to trade with you, to be friends 
 with you, but you must not sell opium to our people. It 
 makes them drunk; it poisons their minds and bodies ; 
 it makes them, filthy and degraded. The Christian world, 
 so called, disregarded this modest request, — so wise and 
 just and proper in itself. The emperor determined to 
 sacrifice the profits of trade rather than the moral and 
 physical welfare of his people (what Christian power 
 would have done as much?), closed his ports. " Political 
 economy," with its great selfish forces, avarice, gun- 
 powder and steam, demanded of the emperor to open his 
 ports so that they could sell their opium to his people. 
 He refused, and they forced them open, demolishing his 
 defenses, and bombarding his towns until they were 
 buried in ruins. 
 
 Look at Europe to-dav, grappled by the great selfish 
 28 
 
326 THE GREAT TKfAL. 
 
 forces of the nineteenth century. Take the British Em 
 pir6, which boasts about as loudly of freedom and human- 
 ity as Horace Greeley and Wendell Phillips, and what 
 exhibition of justice does political economy make tliere ? 
 Leaving out her distant colonies, her population is about 
 thirty millions. Political economy has put the landed 
 estate of that vast empire into the hands of about fifty 
 thousand persons, and made the millions who work their 
 lands dependents and slaves. A few hundred thousand 
 more own the manufacturing, financial, and commercial 
 wealth, whilst the millions of workingmen and clerks 
 who carry on these establishments are their dependents 
 and slaves. Look at Europe, with its three hundred 
 millions of human beings. *' Political economy" has put 
 all the wealth and power of that vast empire into the 
 hands of a dozen royal families and their aristocratic 
 cousins, the nobility. They dress in purple and fine 
 linen, and feast upon the fat of the land, whilst the toil- 
 ing millions, for whom the Creator made the earth and 
 the fruits thereof, eat the crumbs which fall from their 
 tables. One of the great selfish forces of the nineteenth 
 century which "political economy" has devised, is a 
 standing aj-my of six millions to protect these kings and 
 aristocracies, these robbers and plunderers of mankind. 
 
 Yet, yet degraded men, the expected day 
 That breaks your bitter cup seems far away. 
 Trade, wealth, and passion ask you still to bleed, 
 And holy men give Scripture for the deed. 
 
 And what has political economy done for the negro? 
 It has hurried hundreds of thousands of them to untimely 
 graves. It has turned hundreds and thousands of them 
 out of doors, houseless, homeless and friendless. It has 
 sent its agents, the carpet-bag spies, to set traps and snares 
 for them, baited with false promises and false professions 
 of friendship, and put behind them its military satraps to 
 drive them in whether they will or not. The negro with 
 all his ignorance is finding out this cheat, and turning 
 back to his old taskmasters, who, notwithstanding all the 
 wrongs he imposed on him, never denied him raiment and 
 food, and a shelter from the storms of heaven. Political 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. g2| 
 
 economy, instead of making the negro free, has only 
 
 changed the nature of his servitude. It has taken him 
 
 out of the hands of his old master, who had some heart 
 
 I and some feeling for his wants and necessities, and put 
 
 i in the hands of a great political power, which has no 
 
 heart and no soul. A corporate body, which under the 
 
 false name of national life, national debt, or some other 
 
 j great national blessing, so called, uses the negro and every- 
 
 , thing else it grapples^ to work out its own ambitious pur- 
 
 j poses and selBsh ends. 
 
 And what has political economy done for the white 
 . men of the South, the children of Patrick Henry and 
 I Thomas Jefferson, the children of the great men who 
 shook, by the thunders of the Declaration of Indepen- 
 jdence, the thrones of tyrants throughout the world? 
 I What has political economy done for these people, our 
 ! brothers, to whom Heaven gave the richest and sunni- 
 , est land in the world, driving out before them the wild 
 Indians, the native inhabitants, as it had done the heathen 
 nations before the children of Israel ; these people to 
 whom their fathers had bequeathed the heritage of free- 
 dom purchased at the cost of their blood? Political 
 economy has reduced these people to abject and un- 
 conditional slavery. And as if this was not enough to 
 gratify its malicious hate and malignant revenge, Tt has 
 set over them, to insult them and put them to open shame, 
 the half-savage negro, their former slaves. That Heaven 
 permitted the savages of Africa to be enslaved as the 
 only means of educating them in the principles of religious 
 liberty, I have not a doubt; because for hundreds of 
 years all other efforts to civilize and Christianize them 
 have failed. This effort only has succeeded. But when 
 they were sufficiently educated to be relieved from the 
 harsh restraints of slavery, the slaveholders refused to 
 liberate them. 
 
 For this wickedness, we believe, the Almighty in his 
 anger visited upon them the terrible destruction which 
 has just passed over them. If it was so great a crime to 
 hold the half-civilized negro in bondage after he was fit 
 
 to be free, if these people who held him in slavery, a 
 
 people who were educated from their childhood to believe 
 
ggg THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 that slavery was right—if these people, with so many ex- 
 tenuating circumstances in their favor, were so terribly 
 scourged for not liberating their slaves as soon as they 
 were tit to be free, what is the enormity of our crime, 
 and what will be the measure of our punishment, who 
 have subjected to a worse slavery a people born free, 
 and educated as highly as any people in the world in the 
 principles of civil and religious liberty ? A worse slavery 
 did I say ? Yes, ten-fold worse. Slavery is to be 
 measured both by the nature of the servitude and by the 
 character of the slave. Servitude is easy for the child ; 
 to the full-grown man it is repugnant ; and to the man 
 who has spent years and years in the enjoyment of the 
 privileges of freedom, servitude is intolerable. To the 
 savage negro from the jungles of Africa, slavery was 
 easy ; to the American negro, educated for generations in 
 the principles of Christian liberty, educated to the free- 
 dom of the full-grown man, slavery was repugnant; but 
 to the American white man, who was rocked in the cradle 
 of liberty, who claimed its privileges and immunities in 
 his childish sport, servitude is most intolerable. And 
 yet upon this white man we have imposed slavery. 
 
 Now look for one moment upon the nature of the ser- 
 vitude. It has been customary for tyrants, who have 
 scourged and cursed the world, to put over their con- 
 quered provinces to rule them, military satraps. Follow- 
 ing this rule of heathen and savage nations, we would 
 have left the Southern people under the rule of officers 
 of our own army, who are or ought to be at least gentle- 
 men and Christians ; but we have subjected these people 
 to the shame and ignominy of being ruled by their for- 
 mer slaves, and the filthy scum of our own society, the 
 carpet-baggers. This crime may justly claim pre-emi- 
 nence in barbarity. It has no parallel in the history of 
 human affairs. 
 
 When I remember that an Almighty power rules oven 
 human affairs, and distributes to each individual and 
 each nation even-handed justice, I tremble for my country. 
 When I remember that this crime has been done in the. 
 name of heaven's prince,— when I see this foul blasphemy 
 flaunted against the sky, when I hear the hilarious boast- 
 
THE SIXUI WITNESS. 329 
 
 ings of the tyrants and usurpers, and see them desecrating 
 at their druken revelries holy vessels consecrated to liberty 
 and to truth, — the Declaration of Independence, — the 
 Constitution of the United States, and even the Bible 
 itself, — I say when these horrid blasphemies and foul des- 
 ecrations come before me, I hear in the mutterings of the 
 angry wave which still beats over the ruins of ancient 
 Babylon, Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin. The perpetra- 
 tors of these crimes will laugh at this, so did Belshazzar 
 thousands of years ago, and the revelers at his drunken 
 feast; but the yawning earth swallowed up the city of 
 Babylon, and the overflowing of waters hides its ruins 
 from the face of men. The same Almighty power rules 
 the world to-day. Ay, but a little while ago, that same 
 hand of Omnipotence which none can stay seized the 
 coast of South America, shook it to pieces, and sprinkled 
 it like dust in the deep waters of the ocean. 
 
 And what has political economy, or the great selfish 
 forces of the nineteenth century, done for the white man 
 of the North? It has. destroyed his ancient Democracy, 
 and built on its ruins a consolidated despotism. It has 
 destroyed the partial social equality he once enjoyed, and 
 divided society into two separate and distinct classes. It 
 has made out of labor a mud-sill, and built on it the most 
 avaricious and hateful aristocracy the world ever saw. 
 It has put into the hands of this bloated bondautocrat, 
 this upstart tyrant, every political faction, every religious 
 hierarchy, and every corporate body in the country. It 
 has made mammon god, and commanded everybody to 
 worship him. It has put all the wealth and power 
 into the hands of the few financial thieves, commercial 
 gamblers, their priestly advisers and political tools. It 
 has robbed the millions and made them poor, and right 
 on the heels of this, it has set up money as the measure 
 of merit, and thus made poverty a crime. It has made 
 every legislative body in the country a gambling-house, 
 where millions are spent every year, and filled the country 
 with tax-gatherers to extort from labor money to pay the 
 cost. It has converted the cities into licensed whore- 
 houses. It has stripped from woman the veil of chastity 
 thrown round her by a kind Providence to shield her 
 
 28* 
 
330 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 frailty, and sent her forth an impudent and barefaced thing, 
 repulsive to every pure and virtuous mind. It has 
 dragged her forth from the sacred privacy of domestic 
 life, where, as a wife and mother, her smiles are as genial 
 and as strengthening as the sunshine of spring, and her 
 tears as healing as its gentle showers, and sent her forth 
 into the streets to fisticuff and wrestle with the rabble 
 rout who follow the heels of political demagogues. 
 
 Yes, woman, whom we once loved as a mother, a 
 sweetheart, a wife, boldly proclaims to the world her 
 infamy, and boasts of her degradation. An American 
 woman, speaking for her sex, declares to-day through 
 the public press of this country, " that it is more honor- 
 able for a woman to' be a mistress than a wife." Yes, it 
 is more honorable for a woman to be the slave of every 
 drunken, licentious, lecherous brute who comes along, 
 than the wife of a virtuous man and the mother of his 
 children. Did I say the wife of a virtuous man? Ay, 
 there's the rub. No, it is because the men of this country 
 have ceased to be virtuous, because they have ceased to 
 be noble and upright as God made them, that woman has 
 been permitted to fall so low as to be unconscious of her 
 own shame. These great " selfish forces" have broken 
 the sacred bonds of matrimony, add made divorces al- 
 most as common as marriages. 
 
 It has even thrust its iron hand do\^n into the depths 
 of the human heart, and ruthlessly torn out the most 
 beautiful and s-acred sentiment which Heaven has planted 
 there — parental affection, and made child-murder almost 
 as common a thing as births. 
 
 But my soul sickens at this disgusting detail. Let the 
 great laboring masses of the North, — the many who are 
 working at half-wages for the few, — sit down and think 
 for one hour, and they will know better than I can tell 
 them that political economy, or the great selfish forces 
 of the nineteenth century, has reduced them to a conn 
 dition of slavery more galling and more degrading than 
 that which holds the Southern negro in bondage. 
 
 I must pause just here to notice one other remark of 
 Mr. Phillips, for this is the key to that fallacious system, 
 that vile and corrupt system of public morals, which has 
 
THE SIXTU WITNESS. 331 
 
 poured such a flood of v*ice and crime over this countrr 
 and over the world. Mr. Phillips says, quoting from the 
 philosopher Horace Greeley, " There is corn enough in 
 Alabama to feed the whole South ; but there is not brains 
 enough to move it." Again he says, " There has not been 
 a white man born at the South within thirty years who 
 could manage a large mercantile house. That takes brains, 
 and the South always hired its brains." To move a thou- 
 sand millions bushels of wheat from Chicago, that takes 
 brains. Suppose this thing were true, Mr. Phillips, and 
 suppose, if true, it were dishonorable to the South, would 
 it be amiable, would it be generous, even as heathen na- 
 tions understood generosity, to taunt these people with it 
 in the hour of their misfortune? And oh, how harshly doe^ 
 it fall on the ears of one who has been educated in that 
 divine system of truth whose great lesson is: Love thine 
 enemy. But when we know that it is not true, when we 
 see on the very face of the thing the evidence of wilful 
 and deliberate falsehood, then indeed does it come with a 
 bad grace from one who is professedly a teacher of purer 
 morals and nobler truths than the world has ever yet 
 practiced. " There has not been a white man born at the 
 South within thirty years." Why within thirty years, 
 Mr. Phillips ? Did you not wilfully and deliberately limit 
 the time to thirty years for two reasons ? 
 
 First, because you know that if hundreds of men had 
 been born in the South with massive brains within the 
 last thirty years, that the world would not know it, be- 
 cause it takes more than thirty years, in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred, for great brains to be developed. How 
 very few great intellects are fully ripe at the age of 
 thirty? And after a great mind is fully matured, how 
 long and hard does it have to fight its way up before it 
 reaches fhat high position where the world can see it? 
 In the second place, Mr. Phillips limited the time to thirty 
 years so as to shut out of the count such men as Wash- 
 ington, Jefferson, Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Clay, Cal- 
 houn, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. Were not 
 all these men born and educated in the South ? And 
 were they not all white men ? But Mr. Phillips knew 
 that unless by some disingenuous trick, unworthy of an 
 
332 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 honest man, and much more unwortliy of one who sets 
 himself up as a great moral teacher, he made this false- 
 hood plausible, it would have offended even the credulit}' 
 of the willing dupes into whose gaping mouths he was 
 spitting his filthy slang. But these few short sentences, 
 like all the sugared pills which the tools of bondautocracy 
 fix up for the people, contain another poison more than 
 that which I have already exposed. There has not been 
 a white man born in the South within thirty years who 
 could manage sl first-class mercantile establishment. 
 
 Here we find the measure by which Mr. Phillips meas- 
 ures brains. And what is it? Would you believe it? — 
 a yard-stick. A yard-stick to measure brains with I I 
 wonder if he didn't get this idea from Butler's cranium ? 
 It is flat on top, and about three feet from stem to stern. 
 And then from the way he managed his cotton establish- 
 ments and his spoon establishments in the South (I won- 
 der if any of those brainless Southern people caught the 
 idea while he was operating?), I would suppose that he 
 could manage a first-class calico house in the North. I 
 once thought (but that was before the world got so wise), 
 that Washington, Adams, Marshall, Hamilton, Jefferson, 
 Henry, and, of later times, Webster, Clay, Randolph, 
 Calhoun, and Andrew Jackson had brains. I looked 
 upon the power and skill which those intellectual giants 
 exhibited in their contest on the battle-fields, in the Senate, 
 and in the forum, as proof of brains. But the wise re- 
 formers of our day measure brains by a man's skill in 
 measuring calico. 
 
 Imagine for a moment a large mercantile house in Bos- 
 ton. Mr. Adams runs the machine; John Marshall, 
 Alexander Hamilton, and John Randolph are clerks. 
 Imagine Randolph standing behind the counter dressed 
 according to the latest fashion, his head shampooned, and 
 his moustache twirled in the most approved style. See him 
 not as of yore, binding his brow with the old bandana, — 
 like an athlete at the Grecian games, the dark brow and 
 flashing eyes presaging wrath to his foes, but see him pull- 
 ing from his pocket a white linen kerchief, with a delicate 
 pink border, and as highly perfumed as a " barber's shop.'' 
 See him bowing and scraping in the most obsequious 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 333 
 
 manner to every new-comer, charming him with airs of 
 affected politeness, forced smiles, and picked-up compli- 
 ments unmeaning and undeserved. See him twitching a 
 piece of flimsy calico in the most tasteful manner, and at 
 the same time giving his unskilled country customer the 
 most positive assurance that it will not fade nor wear out. 
 See the expression of doubt and indecision in the face of 
 his customer, who is forced to decide, either that this man 
 is trying to cheat him, or else he himself is blind. See 
 Mr. Randolph seizing the opportune moment, and calling 
 up Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Marshall to confirm every 
 statement he has made about the goods, and thus decide 
 the doubtful question in the mind of his customer. See 
 Mr. Adams standing at the desk, pretending to write, but 
 really chuckling over the smartness of his clerks. Hear 
 Mr. Adams congratulating Mr. Randolph upon his won- 
 derful exhibition of brains, and promoting him to chief 
 clerk of the first-class mercantile establishment, or to the 
 position of silent partner in the concern. 
 
 Look at this picture. See in it Mr. Phillips's ideal of 
 brains, and then laugh at the poor people of the South, 
 because they have got no brains. Managers of first-class 
 mercantile houses, who are they but those who, more 
 skilled thao their fellows in the tricks of the trade, have 
 succeeded in putting off on tb^eir unskilled customers a 
 greater number of bolts of fading calico and damaged 
 cloth ? What have they done to show their brains ? What 
 monument have they built? They have gone to Fifth 
 Avenue, or some other choice spot, piled up a bigger heap 
 of brick and mortar than anybody else, and given it an 
 odder shape. They have filled its rooms with gaudy 
 furniture, covered its floors with Brussels carpeting, hung 
 its ceilings with sparkling chandeliers and its walls with 
 polished mirrors and numerous pictures, which make up 
 by the high price paid for them what they lack to the eye 
 of genius in tasteful selection, correct likeness, and artistic 
 execution. And whilst this modern Shylock is eagerly 
 counting his gains at midnight, the mother of his children, 
 having hired a nurse, is feasting and coquetting at those 
 fashionable revelries where questionable manners and 
 more questianable morals are freely indulged. Ay, by 
 
334:; THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 express agreement, some whiskered pandoor, some musked 
 and powdered poltroon, some Count Deception, or Dandy 
 Jim is carrying around tliis silked and jeweled puppet to 
 show to the world the trophies of a brain which manages 
 a first-class mercantile house. 
 
 Mr, Phillips says ** it takes brains to move a thousand 
 million of wheat from Chicago." Why, Mr. Phillips* 
 would not mules do as well ? would not even oxen do ? 
 Oh, no, says Mr. Phillips, it takes brains ; I once thought 
 George Washington, who piloted our ship of state so suc- 
 cessfully through the storm of war, and who kept it in 
 the true track in its beautiful voyage on the great ocean 
 of peace, had brains. Sir Isaac Newton, who applied the 
 great law of Love which governs the moral world to na- 
 ture, and thus found out many of its hidden mysteries, 
 who upon the wings of faith soared into the azure vaults 
 counted the stars and measured their magnitude and dis- 
 tances, — I thought he had brains. I thought Shakespeare 
 had brains ; he who strung his great harp with the finest 
 chords of the human soul, and with a touch divine struck 
 from it strains of melting melody. And Benjamin Frank- 
 lin, who, guided by the same spirit which gave Wash- 
 ington power, Newton wisdom, and Shakespeare inspira- 
 tion, snatched lightning from heaven and hitched it to 
 the mail car of the world, — these men, I once thought, 
 had brains. But Mr. Greeley and Mr. Phillips had not 
 then enlightened the world with their great moral ideas. 
 The wonderful success of these great men in the higher 
 walks of life I took for evidence of brains. 
 
 But Mr. Phillips thinks diiferently ; he must subject 
 them to the test of his new philosophy. With the as- 
 sistance of Caesar and Pompey — not they of Roman cele- 
 brity I mean, but they of African scent — he takes the 
 four great men to Chicago and hitches them to a big four- 
 horse wagon ; Caesar and Pompey, his men, load the 
 wagon with wheat ; he puts Pompey on the wagon to 
 drive the team and move the wheat away ; Pompey 
 mounts the wagon, draws the line, cracks the whip and 
 shouts at the top of his voice, " Get up dare." But the 
 horses don't git, and the wheat don't move. Pompey 
 springs to the ground, and, with the indignant air of an 
 
IIIK SIXTH WITNESS. .ggg 
 
 offended freednian, declares dis nig-ger ain't gwine to 
 drive dat baulkj team ; it can't pull nuffin no how, 'cais 
 it ain't strong enough. " Pompey," says Mr. Phillips, 
 " you come to the right conclusion, but you reason badly ; 
 it is because they have no brains that they can't move 
 that wheat." "Brains, does you say, Massa Phillips!" 
 answered Pompey, somewhat surprised at this new idea ; 
 " brains, does you say, Massa Phillips ! why, my old massa 
 what libs down Souf is got four mules, and da can move 
 dat wheat from Chicago fasser dan dis nigger can crack 
 a whip ; and does you call dat brains ? yah 1 yah I yah 1" 
 
 Methinks the afflicted people of the South, like the 
 afflicted patriarch of Israel, may well exclaim. Oh that 
 mine enemy would write a book ! Surely they may be 
 proud to hear it s«id of them that they are incapable of 
 putting their intellect, the noblest part of their being, to 
 such vile uses. One word more, and I will leave Mr. 
 Phillips to that retributive justice which never fails to 
 overtake the man who, from the narrow motives of hate 
 and petty revenge, prostitutes a noble intellect to the 
 dirty work of deceiving his fellow-men and leading them 
 into error, folly and crime. 
 
 The reason why the pulpit of to-day is second-rate as 
 compared with one hundred years ago, why colleges are 
 tame, and editorial sanctums are stupid, is because the 
 magnificent industrial interests of the country are so full 
 of brains. What a confession is this for Mr. Phillips to 
 make ! what a sad commentary upon the wnsdom of our 
 new teachers — Mr. Greeley and Mr. Phillips— which to- 
 day govern this country. Ancient philosophers — Lycur- 
 gus, Solon, I^uma, Socrates, Homer, Plato and Virgil, 
 among the heathen nations ; and Moses, Solomon, Davi(l 
 and the prophets among the children of Israel, and the 
 noblest of all philosophers, the heavenly messenger 
 Christ and his apostles ; and in modern times, the Ham- 
 dens, and Burkes, and Miltons, and Shakspeares, and 
 Luthers of Europe; and the Washingtons, Adams, Jef- 
 fersons, and Henrys of America, — I say all these great 
 men, whose memories are revered as the benefactors of 
 their kind, used the great brains which God gave them 
 to instruct their feliow-men in lessons of virtue and truth. 
 
336 ^'^^^'^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 The great effort of all was to lift the mind <^ man from 
 earth to heaven ; to teach men to subdue the animal na- 
 ture, and to cultivate those afifections of the mind and 
 heart which beautify and adorn human nature. The 
 great Master himself taught : Lay not up for yourselves 
 treasures on earth where moth doth corrupt, and thieves 
 break through and steal ; but lay up for yourselves treas- 
 ure in heaven; for where your treasure is there will your 
 heart be also. Ay, he even bade one who would be 
 perfect in the truth, Go and sell that thou hast, and come 
 and follow me. How follow me ? why, go into all the 
 world and preach my gospel to every creature. Go and 
 teach thy fellow-man what his duties are to his brother 
 and to his God. Go and teach him that beautiful truth 
 which will lift him above the accidents of fortune and 
 all the evils of this life. The apostles, martyrs, and other 
 good men sacrificed not only all the good things of the 
 world, but even their own lives, to persuade their fellow- 
 men to believe these beneficent truths. Our patriot 
 fathers pledged their fortunes, their sacred honors, and 
 their lives even, to preserve these truths from the de- 
 stroying hands of kingcraft and priestcraft. 
 
 But the tiew philosophers who are to-day ruling this 
 country, the Beechers, Phillipses and Greeleys, have put 
 the brains of the country to measuring calico and haul- 
 ing wheat. Thomas Jetferson used his great brains to 
 teach his fellow-men those personal and individual rights 
 and privileges which would make communities and na- 
 tions free and happy; he lived poor, and died poor, com- 
 paratively ; his deep, broad brains spread over the world, 
 and were spent in the efi'ort to make all men free and 
 happy ; he left the measuring of calico to the small-brain, 
 narrow-soul, pick-up-penny Shylocks, and the wheat-haul- 
 ing he left to his negroes and his oxen. Had he thought 
 only of himself, and devoted his vast intellect — an intel- 
 lect so busy in invention, so versatile in application — to 
 the tricks of money-gambling or commercial stealing, he 
 might have robbed his fellow-men of money enough to 
 make a fortune as big as that of the Rothschilds. Had 
 he been governed by *' political economy" or the great 
 selfish forces of the eighteenth century, he might easily 
 
TiiK SIXTH wiry-Ess. aat^- 
 
 have bequeathed to his family a fortune of millions, but 
 as he was governed by unselfish forces of love for man- 
 kind, he chose rather to bequeath to the world, as a rich 
 inheritance for all men, The Declaration of Independ- 
 ence, and the Great Democracy of America. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson fills my notion of brains ; Wendell 
 Phillips takes a different stamp of man for his model: 
 Stewart of New York, the prince of the yard-stick no- 
 bility, the biggest measurer of calico, who by the tricks 
 of the trade has amassed a fortune of fifty millions. 
 Fifty millions would buy hundreds of houses and hun- 
 dreds of farms — big enough and good enough for the 
 Father of American Democracy ; but Wendell Phillips's 
 ideal of brains, this greedy, selfish aristocrat, wants it all. 
 How many fine houses can be built I But he can't use 
 them all. Oh, no, his fellow-men who are rich can buy 
 the ^se of them, and the poor, the wretched, the friend- 
 less children of earth, they can be crammed away in the 
 cellars and garrets. To this picture Mr. Phillips points 
 exultingly, and says, Here is brains, here is freedom and 
 humanity, here is liberty and equality! 
 
 But there is another reason why the pulpit, the rostrum, 
 and the forum are so dull and stupid, so barren of good 
 results. These places have become the hireling agencies 
 of the great money-power which rules this country. The 
 pulpit teaches the people to worship mammon as their 
 god, and the colieges, the editorial sanctums, the hust- 
 ings and the Senate teach the people to practice all those 
 immoralities and crimes and follies which avarice and 
 licentiousness beget. The teachers of the people, instead 
 of warming their own hearts and the hearts of the people 
 with the life-kindling fires of love and truth, do dazzle 
 their eyes with the false glare of power and riches. 
 
 I care not how bright the intellect may be, if it has 
 not the genial warmth of love and truth it has no power 
 to give life and beauty to anything. Take away from 
 the sun that genial warmth, — the touch of love which 
 wakes up nature and bids her come forth clad in the 
 beautiful verdure of spring, — and nature would sleep on 
 forever. Ay, the rivers and fountains of waters would 
 freeze up, the ocean would become a solid mass of ice, 
 p 2 'J 
 
338 THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 and the world itself would die. So under the light of 
 the brightest intellects: if they are not warmed by the 
 kindling fires of love and truth, the stream of human 
 aflfections freezes up, and man himself becomes as cold, as 
 barren, and as fruitless as the dead world. And as long 
 as man shall believe that his chief end, his great duty, is 
 not to glorify Grod and honor him forever, not to love his 
 fellow-man and to try to make him good and happy, but 
 to measure calico and haul wheat, he will be the slave of 
 his own low passions, and, as a necessary consequence, 
 the dupe of priestcraft, the tool of politicians, and the 
 pack-mule of a heartless and unfeeling aristocracy. God 
 is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another; . 
 and the nation which turns away from serving him to 
 serve mammon, — the nation that forgets to keep his law, 
 — he will turn into hell, I care not how great may be its 
 power or how dazzling the splendor of its riches. 
 
 The Greeleys and Beechers and Philiipses, who used 
 to be, honestly and sincerely, the friends of man, as 
 against the great corporate bodies and moneyed monopo- 
 lies which have made him a slave all over the world, 
 have deserted him^ They seemed to think that their 
 mission ended with the abolition of negro slavery. In 
 noble minds victory begets magnanimity, but they, in the 
 hour of their triumph, have given themselves up to ma- 
 levolence and revenge; they have ceased to be the friends 
 of freedom and humanity, and have become petty tyrants 
 and despots. After having advocated the rights of man 
 to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until they 
 succeeded in liberating four millions of African slaves, 
 they attempt to show to the world the beauties of that 
 truly divine system of philosophy by subjecting eight 
 millions of freemen to a worse system of slavery than" 
 that from which they have just delivered the negro; and 
 under the light of their great intellects, warmed no 
 longer by the touch of love, the pomp of power and the 
 splendor of riches will shine; but man, an individual 
 being, a person with aflfections and feelings and wants, — 
 man, a living soul, — will freeze in his rags and die of 
 starvation. 
 
 Their souls, contracted by hatred and revenge, have 
 
THE ST J Til WITNESS. 339 
 
 become too narrow to comprehend the divine mission of 
 Truth, and her destiny to triumph over the world. 
 Gloriously they led the army of freedom for years and 
 years, but as soon as they demolished one of the out- 
 posts of slavery, they began to rob the dead, to kill the 
 wounded, and to shackle with the chaius of military rule 
 all who fell into their hands, both friends and foes, — ay, 
 they turned traitor -to the great cause, boldl-y proclaimed 
 their treason to the world, and set about building up 
 again the -bulwark of slavery which they had just de- 
 molished. They have made it a great citadel to defend 
 the usurpations of power as against the individual rights 
 of man, and the peculiar privileges of the few as against 
 the inalienable rights of the many to life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness. They have converted the 
 South into a vast fortress, shackled the white people 
 with the chains of civil disabilities, conscripted the 
 negroes and armed them with a forced vote, and hung 
 out from its high battlements a flag with this inscription : 
 " People derive their privileges from the power that rules 
 over them. Gold for the few and depreciated paper for 
 the many. No taxes for the rich, but more taxes for the 
 poor. Wealth, power, and licentiousness for the bondau- 
 tocracy. Poverty, slavery, and beggary for the people." 
 But shall the marshalled hosts of freedom surrender be- 
 cause their ancient leaders have betrayed and deserted 
 them ? Shall man consent to be a slave because tyrants 
 decree it? Hath not heaven decreed otherwise? 
 
 "Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee 
 To wear eternal chains, and bow the knee?" 
 
 Shall we tamely surrender the liberties bequeathed to 
 us by our fathers? — ay, the inalienable rights given to 
 us by the Creator? Shall the great laboring millions of 
 this country become the pack-mules of an upstart aris- 
 tocracy? Shall men, who would not permit even the 
 half civilized negro to remain in slavery, consent to be- 
 come slaves themselves ? 
 
 " Hark ! the stern captive spurns his heavy load, 
 And asks the image back that Heaven bestowed; 
 Fierce in his eye the fire of valor burns. 
 And »8 the slave departs the man returns." 
 
340 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 Already new leaders are springing up. Boldly are 
 they rushing to the front, and rall^'ing and organizing the 
 veteran legions who were thrown into a momentary eon- 
 fusion by the treason and desertion of their former lead- 
 ers. Among the boldest and most fearless in the army 
 of freedom to-day is the young Democrat from the North- 
 west. He was, indeed, opposed to the late war, and so 
 was every true and sincere lover of freedom in the North. 
 Th^ object of the war was most unholy. It was power 
 and gain. If Heaven, in its providence, has overruled 
 the purposes of man, and destroyed negro slavery, no 
 thanks to man. 
 
 But negro slavery is not yet destroyed. The negro 
 to-day even, according to Mr. Phillips, is in the hands of 
 "the great selfish forces of the world," — a harder task- 
 master than the old slave-driver, — a master which has 
 remanded to slavery the negroes of the South, and sub- 
 jected to slavery the white people of the South and the 
 great masses of the white people of the North. This 
 young champion of liberty is a host in himself. The 
 shafts "of his wit and the bursting shells of his scorn are 
 death and destruction to the enemies of man. To use 
 his own favorite expression, " They are red hot!" No 
 wonder they are " red hot." They are heated in the 
 furnace of the human heart. His arrows are pointed 
 with the steel of truth. They pierce when they strike, 
 and, armed with the grappling barbs of honesty, they 
 hold fast. The Greeleys and Phiilipses and Bennetts 
 and Raymonds wonder at the hardihood of this young 
 champion of freedom, who has dared to attack despotism 
 in the very citadel of its power. They are astonished to 
 hear him ring out, in loud clarion tones, and in the burn- 
 ing fervor of his heart, the old war-cry of liberty and 
 equality for the toiling millions of mankind, — a war-cry 
 which it would seem they used hypocritically to deceive 
 and humbug their fellow-man. They are astonished, too, 
 to see the laboring millions, whom they looked upon as 
 ignocaut dupes, to be bridled and haltered by them to 
 carry the burdens of their masters, — the bondautbcrats, — 
 guided by that intuition which, among the masses, in 
 times of great popular excitement, is like inspiration, 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 341 
 
 turning away from them and rallying around the new- 
 leader, who is with them, not only in name, but heart 
 and soul. 
 
 And yet we have one objection to this fearless defender 
 of the truth. He sees the truth. He admires its beauty, 
 — ay, he loves it with an ardent fondness; but he don't 
 seem to know where it comes from. He traces it to 
 Magna Charta and the Declaration of Independence, and 
 there he stops. Under the Magna Charta the great 
 masses of the English people to-day are slaves; under 
 the Declaration of Independence the great masses of the 
 people of this country to-day are slaves. The great 
 Magna Charta is the Bible. The great Declaration of 
 Independence to mankind is the New Testament. This 
 is the pure, pellucid stream at which our fathers quenched 
 their thirst for liberty. Voltaire and other infidel philoso- 
 phers led their people to the stream of human reason, 
 and they found its waters bitter and poisonous. Those 
 men saw the truth, but did not know whence it came. 
 They saw the fields of liberty, with their teeming har- 
 vests, — their delicious fruits and fragrant flowers, — but 
 they did not know what produced them. 
 
 They remind me of a crazy man. His house stood on 
 a high eminence, and a beautiful landscape spread out 
 before it. In the spring of the year he would light a 
 lamp and hang it out, and persuade himself that it was 
 his lamp that made the grass grow, the flowers bloom, 
 and clothed the trees with foliage. He refused to believe 
 that it was the great sun of heaven which clothed the 
 earth in beauty. So do these philosophers, when they 
 see the beautiful fruits and flowers of liberty which 
 spring up under the genial sunlight of Christian truth, 
 hang out their Magna Charta and Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, and say. These are the sources of liberty and 
 happiness to mankind. It is the mission of Christianity 
 to set man free, and she will accomplish it, because the 
 God who rules in the armies of heaven, and doeth his 
 will among the inhabitants of earth, has commissioned 
 her and sent her forth. 
 
 The slaveocracy of the South was attacked first only 
 because it was one of the weak and isolated outposts of 
 
 29* 
 
^4a THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 despotism. The great citadel of her power is the divine 
 right of priests and kings and ai'istoeracies to make 
 slaves out of the souls and bodies of men who are the 
 children of God, and who owe allegiance only to the 
 Prince of the House of David. The mighty river 
 Euphrates, which is the chief defense of this great 
 Babylon, is the wealth of the world. To-day, like Bel- 
 shazzar and his drunken revelers, the kings and princes 
 and aristocracies and bondautocracies of the world are 
 eating and drinking and feasting in the palaces of this 
 great city. Ay, how many of them are using, at their 
 licentious revelries, the golden vessels and the silver cups 
 and spoons, — the spoils of other nations and people whom 
 they have robbed and plundered? But mighty as her 
 power is she must fall, for strong is the Lord God who 
 judgeth her. "And I will make driink her princes, her 
 wise men, and her captains, and her rulers, and her 
 mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and 
 shall not awake," saith the King, whose name is the Lord 
 of hosts. 
 
 When political economy, or the great selfish forces of 
 the nineteenth century, are ruthlessly trampling under 
 their feet millions of human beings, when millions are 
 being robbed and plundered and murdered, it would seem 
 :^elfish for one to stop to tell his personal wrongs, and yet 
 my evidence would be incomplete without it. After po- 
 litical economy or the selfish purposes of power and gain 
 had plunged this country into civil war, it commenced 
 driving man its slave out to the battle-field, to do its 
 3vil deeds of murders and robbery, and to suffer the awful 
 consequences, privations, — wounds, disease and death. 
 
 These grea/t selfish forces, with one of its iron hands, 
 the draft, seized me, tore me from my family, and sent 
 me to the South to rob white men of rights and privi- 
 leges which I believed the negro even was entitled to. 
 Although I had no worldly possessions, yet was I rich. 
 1 had an excellent wife, who had been the queen of my 
 boyish dreams, whose constancy and truth had lightened 
 my griefs in time of trouble, whose tears of sympathy had 
 fallen on my heart, chilled by the cold wind of doubt and 
 uncertainty, like, the warm showers of spring upon the 
 
TUB SIXTH WITNESS. 343 
 
 frozen ground, — a wife whose smiles had lent an inde- 
 scribable charm to the sunny hours of life, and four beau- 
 tiful children. My oldest daughter of thirteen summers 
 was as beautiful as a mortal may be. Her large soft- 
 blue eyes, her auburn tresses, her quick elastic step, and, 
 above all, her sweet, gentle, confiding spirit, Mary, who 
 will be the guardian of that wondrous beauty, so power- 
 ful and yet so frail, when thy father is gone ? Whose vir- 
 tuous mind will draw around thee the veil of chastity, as 
 the pure sun of heaven draws his misty veil around the 
 tender beauty of his virgin daughter, spring 'i who will 
 keep thee spotless and pure, to be the loving bride of 
 some nobleman, — poor, it may be, like thy father, in 
 money and goods, but rich in his love of the Beautiful 
 and the Good? And yet did " political economy" say of 
 nje, and millions like me, they are only ''poor white 
 trash ;" it don't matter if they do have to go to war and 
 be killed, they have nothing to live for. 
 
 I went to the war; no, I was driven into it by the 
 "great selfish forces of the nineteenth century." I went 
 with a heavy heart, not only because I left so much be- 
 hind that was precious to me, but also because my own 
 conscience told me the war was a cruel wrong. 1 trem- 
 bled when I heard the thunder of battle, for to my guilty 
 conscience it was the trumpet of judgment. I shunned 
 a fight whenever I could; and whenever I was forced 
 into it I did not fire a gun. But after awhile the proc- 
 lamation came out liberating the negro. That changed 
 the whole current of my feeling. 1 thought I saw the 
 hand of Providence in the thing. Before, when I went 
 into a. fight, the wives and little ones of my white brothers 
 in the South would come before me, and plead for the 
 lives of tlieir fathers, for their homes and their firesides, 
 and then I could not, 1 dare not, strike a blow. But after 
 the proclamation, I heard, in the hour of conflict, coming 
 up from behind the stone wall of Southern pride and 
 Southern heroism, the lash of the slave-driver and the 
 piteous cry of the poor slave. 
 
 A new spirit took possession of me and hurried me to 
 the front in every fray. A little while before the war 
 closed, both of my arms were torn off. I was sent to a 
 
344 IliE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 hospital, and remained there till the war was over. I 
 started home with a light heart, for I thought that my 
 country would now indeed be the land of the free and the 
 home of the brave. Not only would all white men be 
 free, but even the negro too. Just then I was willing to 
 shake hands with the Southern people, — forget the past, 
 and give them not false promises, but the substantial good 
 of a hearty peace and sincere friendship. Ay, I would 
 have been proud to meet as friends and brothers men who 
 with mighty odds against them had so long maintained the 
 unequal contest by their heroic daring and splendid genius. 
 
 Little did I think then that I had given my blood, my 
 arms, and so much suflering, to make the negro the slave 
 of " political economy, or the great selfish forces of the nine- 
 teenth century ;" to make the Southern white man the 
 slave of his slaves and their masters, the carpet-baggers, 
 and myself and my children the slaves of a heartless 
 and unfeeling upstart bondautocracy. No, I started home 
 fully persuaded that when the storm of war passed away 
 the sunshine of an enduring peace would find all free and 
 happy. 
 
 When I reached home my family crowded around me, 
 and greeted me with tears of joy. Of joy, did I say ? — 
 ah, no, one bitter recollection made these tears, — tears of 
 burning shame. Where is Mary? No one answered 
 me ; and then the painful truth burst on my mind — 
 she is dead. In my absence death, with his cruel scythe, 
 has visited our little home and cut down its fairest form 
 of sublunary bliss. It happened after I was wounded, 
 and they were afraid to tell me, lest this heart-wound 
 added to my wounded arms would be too much for me to 
 bear. Yes, my Mary is dead. 
 
 As I said this, I turned to ray wife to mingle my tears 
 with hers as I had often done of yore. Alas, poor woman, 
 she will weep no morel Too hard a blow of grief and 
 shame had broken the fountain of her heart, and poured 
 out all its tears. For the sake of her children she had 
 clung to life with more than natural strength until she 
 could hand them over to me. That dreadful hour had 
 come. She let go and fell into the grave. The young 
 man who was drafted when I was, but did not go be- 
 
THE SIXTH WITNESS. 345 
 
 cause he was rich, and could hire a substitute, com- 
 menced visiting our family after I left, under the pre- 
 tence of benevolence. Yes, he would be to them in my 
 absence a husband and a father. His covetous heart, not 
 satisfied with all his wealth, had fixed its greedy eyes on 
 my little lamb. With fascinating airs and false promises 
 he charmed my little lamb from its fold. He devoured 
 her beauty, robbed her virtue, and turned her out an 
 accursed thing upon the world. Ay, he drove her to 
 one of those caverns of hell where the robbers of virtue 
 hide their prey. 
 
 A little while afterward she was bought, — yes, my 
 daughter, — while her father was fighting for liberty and 
 equality, — my daughter was bought for a price in the 
 land of freedom and humanity, with hundreds of other 
 slaves, to be shipped and sold in the New Orleans market. 
 To be the slaves not of Christian men and women, as the 
 negroes were for whose freedom I was fighting, but to 
 be the slaves of the beastly lusts of men, and of those 
 fierce unbridled passions which feed upon the human 
 soul, even in this world, like the worm which dieth not 
 and the fire that is not quenched. Yes, seven hundred 
 of these slaves, the sisters and daughters of men who had 
 just returned from a crusade against slavery in the South, 
 started from New York for the New Orleans market in 
 one steamer. And God Almighty, as if to startle us 
 from the dream in which we have been sleeping, as if to 
 wake us from the fatal delusion that holds us, as if to 
 bring even before our blind eyes the wicked inconsistency 
 between our professions and our practice, parted the 
 waves of the sea and swallowed them up. 
 
 Poor outcast friendless children of earth, when I stand 
 upon the shores of this wicked city in a stormy night, 
 and look out upon the deep waters, methinks I see your 
 unforgiven spirits, shrouded in the foam of the angry wave, 
 and hear them muttering fearful revenge against this 
 modern Babylon. My daughter ! oh, my daughter ! When 
 the soldier uttered these last words, he gave himself up 
 to the powers of grief, and shook like a man with the 
 ague. And I saw a frown dark as an angry cloud gather- 
 ing on the face of the stern judge who sat upon the throne. 
 
846 THE ORE AT TRIAL. 
 
 Presently the soldier lifted up his weeping eyes to 
 heaven, and exclaimed, "God of mercy, give me patieTiee 
 to bear these evils, or thou, eternal justice, give me back 
 my right arm, and \ will strike a blow that will make 
 tyrants tremble and liberty smile again 1" The soldier 
 then turned to the other two soldiers, and addressed them 
 as follows: "Why have we been enemies? Why have 
 we wounded and killed one another? Did we not have 
 a common country and a common heritage of freedom 
 bequeathed to us by our fathers? Was it not my interest 
 and 3^our interest to preserve these rich blessings, instead 
 of destroying tbera ? Is it fit that we should kill one 
 another, destroy our own freedom, and rob our children 
 of the great blessings which our fathers left for us and 
 for them, — ^tbe right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness? In destroying the great democracy of 
 America, hav€ we not robbed mankind — the down- trodden 
 and oppressed of every nation and kindred and tongue — 
 of a refuge and a home? Our fathers read the Bible, 
 and worshiped the God of the Bible, and he gave them 
 this goodly land for an inheritance. 
 
 Some of these good men were called Catholics, some 
 Presbyterians, some Priends, som« Episcopalians, some 
 Baptists, and so on. But no matter by what name they 
 were called, or in what land they lived; they did refuse 
 to worship the gods which kings and priests set up for 
 them to worship. The Catholics of England refused to 
 worship the gods which Bishop Cramner and King 
 Henry had made and set up for all the people of the 
 British Empire to worship, and because they refused to 
 worship these gods, they were proscribed and persecuted ; 
 therefore did they flee to the wilderness of America. 
 The Protestants in the other States of Europe refused to 
 w^orship the gods which the kings of these States and 
 the pope had made and commanded them to worship. 
 Por this cause were they proscribed and persecuted ; 
 therefore did they flee to this country, then a wilderness, 
 inhabited by savage men and wild beasts. Here could 
 tliey worship, unmolested, "the God wiio made man, 
 and in whose hands bis breatih is." These good men, 
 taking the wo^i^d of God for the rule of their conduct and 
 
TUE SIXTH WITNESS. 347 
 
 the guide of their lives, met together and made the best 
 government the world ever saw. The nations of the 
 earth looked upon that government with wonder and 
 admiration. They wondered how it was possible for life 
 and property to be so safe in a country where everybody 
 was free. 
 
 How was it possible for order and peace to flourish in 
 a land where there were no wise kings and virtuous 
 aristocracies to enlighten and lead the vulgar herd (as 
 the common people v/ere called), and no standing array 
 to drive the ignorant masses, by brute force, to be honest 
 and peaceful ? Our fathers reasoned in this wise : We 
 worship the true God, We keep his law. We love our 
 fellow-men, and do not try to rob them. Everybody is 
 left free to work for himself, and free to enjoy the fruits 
 of his industry. Therefore is everybody got enough. 
 Everybody is happy, and why should anybody break the 
 peace ? We have no ambitious kings or gi-eat political 
 powers to make war on neighboring states to gratify 
 their pride, their envy, or their hatred ; to rob and plunder 
 and oppress. W^e have no lords and dukes and princes 
 to quarrel about their titles to honor and preferment, and 
 thus involve their people in civil war. We have no 
 political faction — -the hireling tools of great moneyed 
 monopolies — to gamble six months out of every year for 
 the benefit of their masters, and then to fill the land with 
 swarms of tax-gatherers to rob the laboring millions to 
 pay the cost. How is it that so great a change has come 
 over this country ? How have we brought so many and 
 so great evils on ourselves ? 
 
 In the first place, we forgot the God who blessed our 
 fathers. Instead of listening to his Word, which he 
 revealed to man to make him wise and happy, we lis- 
 tened to priestcraft and their cunningly-devised words of 
 human wisdom. They taught us lies. They lulled us 
 to sleep with the opiates of infidelity. They bewitched 
 us. They mesmerized us, and handed us over in that 
 condition to the politicians. The politicians were the 
 tools of the slaveocracy of the South or the great 
 moneye^ monopolies of the North. In order to please 
 their masters and promote their interest, the politicians 
 
348 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 taught us lies. They taupfht us to hate one another. 
 They dragged us to the battle-field and put us to kiUiug 
 one another. And oh, what a harvest of woe have we 
 reaped! Hundreds of thousands of our brothers per- 
 ished! Tens of thousands hobbling on crutches or 
 swintring their handless arms! The whole land filled 
 with fathers and mothers weeping, like Rachel, for their 
 children, and refusing to be comforted because they are 
 not I Our ancient Democracy destroyed, and a military 
 despotism built up on its ruins! Then free States gov- 
 erned by military satraps ! A cruel, heartless bondauto- 
 cracy rules the land ! It has bought with its gold — the 
 plunderings of an unholy war — every political faction, 
 every priestly hierarchy, and every corporate body in the 
 country. It has made mammon god, and commands 
 everybody to worship him. It offers daily on the altars 
 of this god every affection of the human soul and every 
 virtue of the human mind. Every obligation, every 
 pledge, every vow, is sacrificed here. The obligations 
 of friendship, the pledge of love, the vows of matrimony, 
 and that sweetest and purest and tenderest of all earthly 
 sentiments, parental affection, are daily offerings upon the 
 altar of this accursed idol 
 
 And to feed this greedy idol, this gluttonous Bel, and 
 his servile ministers, — the priest, the politician, and bond- 
 autocrat, — the toiling: millions are robbed and plun- 
 dered to beggary and starvation, — ay, truth itself has 
 been exiled, and liberty weeps in chains. Soldiers, for 
 such vile purposes have we been used as tools by others. 
 
 Let us resolve that it shall be so no longer. Instead 
 of being enemies, let us be friends. Instead of destroying 
 one another to please political economy or the great 
 selfish forces of the world, let us destroy these powers 
 which are the enemies of mankind and the enemies of 
 God. For this purpose let us, like our ftithers, pledge to 
 each other our hearts and hands, our lives, our fortunes, 
 and our sacred honor. 
 
 The other two soldiers came forward and said: "We 
 have no fortunes except the rights of those we love; and 
 we have no hands, but as a pledge of our honor \^e offer 
 these stumps. They once had hands on them; those 
 
THE SIXTH WITXESS. 349 
 
 lands grasped a pledge, and held on to it until they were 
 ,orn ofiF." And I saw the three soldiers touch the stumps 
 )f their arms together, and a holy fire was kindled in 
 heir eyes, and sparks flashed from them, — the sparks of 
 he human soul kindled by the touch of truth. 
 
 And then I heard him who wore the semblance of 
 IVashington say, " When Greek meets Greek on the 
 Dattle-plain, 'tis then the tug of war begins ; but when 
 jrreek meets Greek in the confederacy of friendship, who 
 shall make war on them ? — the priest, the politician, and 
 ;he bondautocrat ? Woe to them, if they do I" 
 
 30 
 
360 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 
 
 A WOMAN clothed with the sun, and the moon under 
 her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. 
 Her name was the Genius of Christianity. She said the 
 Almighty who was King of kings and Lord of lords 
 had sent her to earth thousands of years ago, to bring* ^ 
 back his rebellious children. 
 
 Abraham and Moses and David had accepted her as a 
 messenger from Heaven, and the Great King had blessed 
 them with showers of blessings. He led them out from 
 their enemies' country with a high hand and an out- 
 stretched arm, with signs and wonders and mighty power 
 he delivered them from those who served themselves of 
 them. He gave them a land flowing with milk and honey, 
 a land of oil and wine. For greatness and glory and 
 prosperity, he made them the envy of the world. But 
 when the children of Israel became great and prosperous 
 they forgot me and the God of their fathers who had sent 
 me. Then the Almighty did send their enemies to kill 
 them, to make tiieir country and their great city heaps of 
 ruins, and to carry them away captive into distant lands. 
 When they repented of their sins and turned away from 
 serving idols, gods of silver and gold, and asked the God 
 of their fathers to be their God, the Almighty would break 
 their enemies to pieces, and deliver them out of their ene- 
 mies' hands. But when the fullness of time came, I 
 brought forth a man-child who is to rule all nations with 
 a rod of iron, and his name is the Word of God. 
 
 And because the Jews refused to receive him as the 
 Mess-iah, they persecuted me, and sought to destroy me. 
 1 fled to the Gentiles into the wilderness, where a place 
 was prepared for me. When the great dragon, the old 
 serpent the devil, found me out, he sought to destroy me. 
 He stirred up against me the hatred of his two great 
 ministers, kingcraft and priestcraft, the beast and the 
 false prophet. 
 
THS SEVENTH WITNESS. 351 
 
 r -It wdstbeo I went to an bnrtibleand devout CbriPtian, 
 Christopher Columbus, and held up before his eyes a map 
 of the New World, the promised land, the Canaan of the 
 Gentiles. The philosophers and wise men of the world 
 laughed at him and mocked him as one who had lost bis 
 wits; but he, charmed by the vision of eternal beauty 
 which floated before his mind, heeded tbem not. Fear- 
 lessly he gave himself up to the winds and waves. Fear- 
 lessly he pressed on, triumphing over the storms of the 
 sea and the mutiny of his crew, until the vision was lost 
 in the wondrous reality. Then, too, did I reveal myself 
 to Luther, Melanchthon, and other devout men, and they 
 went forth to prepare the world to receive the Word, as 
 a power from on high to redeem man from the curse of 
 sin and from the power of the devil. But when they 
 preached the truth, it stirred up the anger of the world. 
 The great powers of the world, priestcraft and kingcraft, 
 sought to destroy the truth, because they knew when it 
 should be established in the world their empire would be 
 gone. But the powers of the world were not able to con- 
 tend with the Word: everywhere they were overthrown. 
 
 Then the old serpent the devil came to their aid. What 
 we can't do by force, we will do by cunning, he said. 
 We can't contend against the Word, because bis name is 
 Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting 
 Father, The Prince of Peace. I will whisper to Luther 
 that Christianity means consubstantiation and synodical 
 government. I will tell Calvin that Christianity means 
 election, final perseverance, and a presbyterial form of 
 government. I will t«il Cranmer that the doctrines of 
 Calvin will do with an episcopal form of government; 
 yes, I will persuade these that they must have some visible 
 organization, some corporate body, some human institu- 
 tion to defend themselves. If we can once persuade them 
 to put their trust in human institutions, and in the kings 
 of this world, instead of the Word and that King whose 
 name is the Lord of Hosts, we can overthrow them. 
 
 The devil was right. As soon as he persuaded his ene- 
 mies to drop the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit, 
 and to take up the weapons of human reason and human 
 philosophy, their victories ceased. His friends, kingcraft 
 
352 . THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 and priestcraft, no longer had to fight the Word, but Cran- 
 merisni, Calvinism, Lutherism, and Methodism and so 
 on. When these powers found that they could no longer 
 contend with priestcraft and kingcraft aided by the devil, 
 they too sought the help of the devil, and Protestantism i 
 became a bigoted and pharisaical persecutor. It was then 
 that I fled to the New World, which was then a wilder- 
 dess, into my place. My children who were persecuted 
 for the truth^s sake fled with me. From the seed of the 
 truth which was planted there sprung up the tree 
 of liberty. The people sheltered themselves under its 
 branches, and ate its fruits, which were virtue and happi- 
 ness and peace and prosperity. 
 
 But the people of this country have forgotten the God 
 of their fathers. Instead of trusting in his Word which 
 has power to make them wise and virtuous and happy, 
 they have put their trust in priestcraft and political power. 
 Their fathers believed in the Word, and they were free; 
 but their children believe in priestcraft and political 
 power, and they are miserable slaves. These agents of 
 the devil have set up mammon for them to worship. 
 This idol is their god. He selects their presidents, their 
 governors, and all their rulers for them. He rules over 
 their legislatures, their executive and judicial bodies, all 
 their political organizations, all their religious sects and 
 creeds, and all their social institutions. It has put every 
 man to stealing and robbing, and plundering his fellow- 
 men, because a man is honored and esteemed just in pro- 
 portion to the amount of riches he can take from his 
 fellow-man (no matter by what means) and ofi"er it upon 
 the altar of mammon. The tree of liberty which grew 
 and flourished in this land is become barren and fruitless. 
 
 And yet these people boast that they are free. Yea, 
 they have even set free their former slaves, the negroes I 
 How free ? The negroes who used to sell for a thousand 
 dollars, and up to three thousand, can be bought to-day 
 for a side of pork or a grist of meal. And it is not his 
 body which is bought to do honest work, but his convic- 
 tions of right, — his soul, to do the work of political rob- 
 bers and thieves. Ay, white men are bought as cheap. 
 The rich buy the people to put power into the hands of 
 
^THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 353 
 
 heir tools, the politicians, and then they buy the politi- 
 ;ian to rob the people to make themselves richer. 
 
 The devil thinks by the help of these powers he will 
 h'ive me out of America. I fled from him out of Asia 
 into Europe, and out of Europe into the wilderness of 
 America. But he cannot drive me hence. This is my 
 home, and here I will live forever. The God who rules 
 n the armies of heaven, and doeth his will among the 
 inhabitants of earth, hath decreed it, and who shall annul 
 bis decree? His Son hath established his kingdom here, 
 and he wiil rule forever. It was he who planted the tree 
 of liberty here, and it will bloom and flourish forever. 
 The fullness of time hath come, and he will come and de- 
 stroy the powers of this world and of the devil, and 
 establish his kingdom on earth. His kingdom shall be 
 an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion shall have no 
 end. He comes no longer as the babe of Bethlehem. 
 He conies no longer as the humble and despised Naza- 
 rene. He comes no longer to be spit upon and mocked 
 and scourged and crucified by his enemies. He comes as 
 the Prince of the House of David, the King of kings 
 land Lord of lords. And the earth shall shake at his 
 coming, and the powers of this world shall be thrown 
 down, for the thunder is his, and the lightning and the 
 earthquake and the volcano and the sword of battle. 
 
 And the Judge who sat upon the throne opened the 
 Book and delivered the judgment. The Book was called 
 the Law and the Prophets, — the Scriptures of truth. And 
 this was the judgment he delivered: 
 
 30* 
 
354 THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 THE JUDGMENT DELIYERED FROM THE 
 GREAT THRONE. 
 
 Hear, heavens, and give ear, earth, for the Lord 
 hath spoken. I have nourished and brought up children, 
 and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his 
 owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not 
 know, mj people doth not consider. 
 
 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed 
 of evildoers, children that are corrupters ; they have for- 
 saken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of 
 Israel unto anger ; they are gone away backward. Why 
 should ye be stricken any more ? ye will revolt more and 
 more ; the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is 
 faint : from the sole of the foot even to the head" there is 
 no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises, and putrifying 
 sores ; they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither, 
 mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your 
 cities are burned with fire ; your land, strangers devour* 
 it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown br 
 strangers. And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage 
 in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a 
 besieged city. Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us 
 a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, 
 and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. 
 
 Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom ; give 
 ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah I To 
 what purpose is the multitude of sacrifices unto me ? saith 
 the Lord. I am full of the burnt-ofi'erings of rams and 
 the fat of fed beasts, and deligjat not in the blood of 
 bullocks, or of lambs or of he-goats. When ye come to 
 appear before me who hath required this at your hand to 
 tread my courts. Bring no more vain oblations, incense 
 is an abomination unto me ; the new moons and sabbaths, 
 the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with, it is ini- 
 quity, even the solemn meeting; your new moons and 
 
THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 355 
 
 your appointed feasts my soul hateth, they are a trouble 
 unto me. I am weary to bear them. And when )'e 
 spread forth your hands I will hide raine eyes from you ; 
 yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear, your 
 hands are full of blood. 
 
 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your 
 doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to 
 do well ; seek judgment ; relieve the oppressed ; judge the 
 fatherless ; plead for the widow. Come now, and let us 
 reason together, saith the Lord ; though your sins be as 
 scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be 
 red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing 
 and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land ; but if ye 
 refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the sword, for 
 the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. How is the faith- 
 ful city become an harlot, it was full of judgment — right- 
 eousness lodged in it, but now murderers. Thy silver is 
 become dross, thy wine mixed with water. Thy princes 
 are rebellious and companions of thieves ; every one 
 loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards ; they judge not 
 the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come 
 unto them. 
 
 Therefore, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the 
 mighty one of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine ad- 
 versaries and avenge me of mine enemies. And I will 
 turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy 
 dross, and take away all thy tin. And I will restore thy 
 judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the be- 
 ginning ; afterward thou shalt be called the city of right- 
 eousness — the faithful city ; Zion shall be redeemed with 
 judgment, and her converts with righteousness. And 
 the destruction of the transgressors, and of the sinners,, 
 shall be together, and they that forsake the Lord shall 
 be consumed ; for they shall be ashamed of the oaks 
 which ye have defeired, and ye shall be confounded for 
 the gardens that ye have chosen ; for ye shall be as an 
 oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no 
 water. And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker 
 of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and 
 none shall quench them. 
 
 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is 
 
356 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 there auy end of their treasures ; their land is also full 
 of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. 
 Their land also is full of idols: they worship the work 
 of their own hands, that which their own fingers have 
 made. And the mean boweth down, and the great man 
 humbleth, therefore forgive them not. 
 
 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear 
 of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty. The lofty 
 looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of 
 men shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be 
 exalted in that day; for the day of the Lord of hosts 
 shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon 
 every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low. 
 And upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and 
 lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan ; and upon all 
 the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted 
 up ; and upon every high tower, and upon every fenced 
 wall, and upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all 
 pleasant pictures ; and the loftiness of man shall be bowed 
 down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low, 
 and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day ; and the 
 idols he shall utterly abolish. And they shall go into the 
 holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for fear 
 of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty when he 
 ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man 
 shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold, which 
 they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles 
 and to the bats. To go into the clefts of the rocks, and 
 into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord and 
 for the glory of his majesty when he ariseth to shake ter- 
 ribly the earth. Cease ye from man, whose breath is in 
 his nostrils, for wherein is he to be accounted of. 
 
 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, 
 prophesy, and say unto them, — 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe be 
 to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves ; should 
 not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye 
 clothe you with the wool ; ye kill them that are fed, but 
 ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strength- 
 ened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither 
 have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have yc 
 
THE SEVFiYTJI WITNESS. 357 
 
 brought again that which was driven away, neither that 
 which was lost ; but with force and with cruelty have ye 
 ruled them. And they were scattered because there is no 
 shepherd, and they became meat to all the beasts of the 
 field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered 
 through all the mountains, and upon every high hill ; 
 yea, my flock was scattered upon the face of the earth, 
 and none did search or seek after them. Therefore ye 
 shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, saith 
 the Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey, 
 and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, be- 
 cause there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds 
 search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, 
 and fed not my flock. 
 
 Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. 
 Thus saith the Lord God : Behold I am against the 
 shepherds, and I will require my flock at their hand, and 
 cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall 
 the shepherds feed themselves any more, for I will deliver 
 my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for 
 them. For thus saith the Lord God : Behold I, even I, 
 will both search my sheep and seek them out. As a 
 shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among 
 his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, 
 and will deliver them out of all places where they have 
 been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will 
 bring them out from the people, and gather them from 
 countries and will bring them to their own land, and feed 
 them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in 
 all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them 
 in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel 
 shall their fold be. There shall they lie in a good fold, 
 and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains 
 of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to 
 lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which 
 was lost, and bring again that which was driven away; 
 and will bind up that which was broken, and will 
 strengthen that which was sick ; but I will destroy the 
 fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment. 
 
 And as for you, oh, my flock, thus saith the Lord 
 God : Behold I judge between cattle and cattle, between 
 
358 THE GREAT TRIAL, 
 
 the rams and tbe he-goats. Seemeth it a small thmg 
 uuto 3^ou to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye 
 must tread down with your feet the residue of your pas- 
 tures, and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye 
 must foul the residue with your feet? And as for my 
 flock, they eat that which ye have trodden with your feet, 
 and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. 
 
 Therefore, thus saith the Lord God unto them: Be- 
 hold I, even I, will judge between the lean cattle; be- 
 cause ye have thrust wMth side and with shoulder, and 
 pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have 
 scattered them abroad. Therefore will I save my flock 
 and they shall no more be a prey, and I will judge 
 between cattle and cattle. 
 
 And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he. 
 shall feed them; even my servant David, he shall feed 
 them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, 
 will be their God, and my servant David a prince among 
 them. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will make 
 with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil 
 beasts to cease out of the land; and they shall dwell 
 safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I 
 will make them and the places round about my hill a 
 blessing; and I will cause the shower to comedown in 
 his season. There shall be showers of blessing, and the 
 tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall 
 yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land 
 and shall know that I am the Lord. When 1 have broken 
 the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of tbe 
 hand of those that served themselves of them. 
 
 And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, 
 neither shall the beasts of the land devour them, but 
 they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. 
 And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they 
 shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, 
 neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. Thus 
 shall they know that I am the Lord their God, am with 
 them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my 
 people, saith the Lord God. And ye, my flock, \he flock 
 of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the 
 Lord God. 
 
THE SEVLWTIJ WITNESS. 35^ 
 
 Son of man, set thy face Mount Seir, and prophesy 
 against it. And say unto it, thus saith the Lord God : 
 Behold, O Mount Seir, 1 am against thee, and I will 
 stretch out my hand ag-ainst thee, and I will make thee 
 most desolate. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou 
 shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the 
 Lord; because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, aud 
 hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force 
 of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time 
 that their iniquity had an end. 
 
 Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare 
 thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee, since thou 
 hast not hated blo£)d, even blood shall pursue thee. Thus 
 will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from 
 it him that passeth out and him that r'eturneth. And I 
 will fill his mountains with his slain men in thy hills and 
 in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers shall they fall that 
 are slain^ with the sword. I will make thee perpetual 
 desolations, and thy cities shall not return; and ye shall 
 know that I am the Lord, because thou hast said, These 
 two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and 
 we will possess it, whereas the Lord was there. 
 
 Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will even 
 do according to thine anger, and according to thy envy, 
 which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them ; 
 and I will make myself known among them when I have 
 judged thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord, 
 and that I have heard all thy blasphemies, which thou 
 hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, 
 They are laid desolate; they are given us to consume. 
 Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and 
 have multiplied your words against me. I have heard 
 them. Thus saith the Lord God, When the whole earth 
 rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst re- 
 joice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because 
 it was desolate, so will I do unto thee : thou shalt be 
 desolate. O Mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it, 
 and they shall know that I am the Lord. 
 
 And I saw one go from the throne bearing three flags, ' 
 and he buckled girdles around the soldiers who had no 
 
360 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 arms, and put the staflf of the flags in the girdles. The 
 flags were as white as the sqow, and I looked to see 
 what device was on them. It was not States' Rights, 
 nor Union, nor Universal Suffrage, nor Subjugation, nor 
 Catholicism, nor Protestantism; but across the top of 
 the flag was written, in letters of fire, this word, 
 
 Justice. 
 
 And under that word, and on the right hand side, I saw 
 an open book, and across its pages was written, 
 
 My Word 
 Is Truth. 
 
 And on the left hand side I saw a tree, and across the 
 stem of the tree was this device: 
 
 Liberty. 
 
 And I asked the one who had carried the flag why the 
 tree was so large and thrifty, and why its foliage was so 
 rich and green, and its fruit so large and luscious. And 
 he answered me, " Don't you see heaps of manure around 
 the roots of the tree. That pile there is the political 
 faction, with their armies of office-holders and tax- 
 gatherers, and that huge pile is the big load of debt and 
 taxation taken off of the backs of the people. And that 
 pile there is the ecclesiastical hierarchies, with their 
 costly temples filled with theatrical shows, and vanity 
 fairs, and merchandise, and pharisaical priests. And 
 these ten thousand springs and rivulets which run along 
 the base of the tree, to water its roots, was once the 
 great Euphrates, — that mighty flood of currency which 
 poured from the great banking institutions and huge 
 moneyed monopolies. . 
 
 Once this mighty river was the defense of the great 
 Babylon, — the home of kings and aristocracies ; but the 
 king, whose name is the Lord of hosts, has dried up its 
 channel, and made its waters come forth in springs and 
 rivulets, so that his servants may drink its waters and 
 eat the fruits from the Tree of Liberty, which it fertilizes. 
 And that big pile is the innumerable gambling-shops, 
 miscalled courts of justice, set up all over the country, 
 
THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 361 
 
 where men go to play high-die, and pay half the stake 
 or the privilege of a throw. 
 
 And that huge pile there is the sins of men ; for when 
 men shall turn away from the worship of idols and wor- 
 ship that God who made the heavens and earth, the seas 
 and fountains of waters, and acknowledge the Prince of 
 the House of David as their King, their sins and iniqui- 
 ties shall be taken away, and God will write his law upon 
 their hearts. 
 
 And I saw one go from the judgment-seat with a hot 
 iron, and he branded a name upon the forehead of the 
 Great Prisoner. And this was the name branded on 
 her forehead — Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Mother 
 of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth. And upon 
 her minister called the State he branded this name- 
 Beast, and upon his minister called the Church he 
 branded this name — False Prophet. 
 
 And I saw those that carried the flags, and the mighty 
 army that followed them, thousands and thousands, and 
 the earth trembled beneath their tread. And they led 
 the Great Prisoner and her ministers away to destruc- 
 tion. And one from the judgment-seat cried out with a 
 mighty, strong voice, saying, Babylon the Great is fallen, 
 is fallen, and is become the habitations of devils and the 
 hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and 
 hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of 
 the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth 
 have committed fornication with her, and the merchants 
 of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of 
 her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, 
 saying. Come out of her, my people, that ye be not par- 
 takers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 
 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath re- 
 membered her iniquities. Reward her even as she 
 rewarded you. and double unto her double according to 
 works ; in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. 
 How much she hath glorified herself and lived deliciously, 
 so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in 
 her heart, I sit a Queen, and am no widow, and shall see 
 no sorrow^ 
 
 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and 
 Q 31 
 
aB2. THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned 
 with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. 
 And the kings of the earth who have committed fornica- 
 tion and lived deliciously with her shall bewail her, and 
 lament for her when they shall see the smoke of her burn- i 
 ing, standing afar oif for the fear of her torment, saying, 
 Alas 1 alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city; 
 for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants 
 of the earth shall weep and mourn over her ; for no man 
 buyeth their merchandise any more. The merchandise 
 of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls and 
 fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine 
 wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner 
 vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and 
 marble, and cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and 
 frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, 
 and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, 
 and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted 
 after are departed from thee, and all things which were 
 dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt 
 find them no more at all. The merchants of these things 
 which were made rich by her shall stand afar off for the 
 fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, 
 Alas ! alasl that great city that was clothed in fine linen, 
 and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious: 
 stones, and pearls, for in one hour so great riches is. 
 come to naught. And every shipmaster, and all the com- 
 pany in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea 
 stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her 
 burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city ? 
 
 And they cast dust on their heads and cried, weeping 
 and wailing, saying, Alasl alas ! that great city wherein 
 were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of 
 her costliness ; for in one hour is she made desolate. Re- 
 joice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and 
 prophets; for God hath avenged you on her. And a 
 mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and 
 cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that 
 great city, Babylon, be thrown down, and shall be found 
 no more at all. And the voice of harpers and musicians, 
 and of pipers an4 tr.ump,eters, si^all b^ heard no more at 
 
TEE SEVENTH WITNESS. 363 
 
 all in thee ; and no craftsman of whatever craft he be 
 shall be found any more in thee ; and the sound of a mill- 
 stone shall be heard no more at all in thee ; and the light 
 of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee, and the 
 voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard 
 no more at all in thee, for thy merchants were the great 
 men of thee, for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 
 
 And in h^r was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, 
 and of all that was slain upon the earth : and then I heard 
 voices, and thundering and lightning, and great hail-storm ; 
 so mighty was the storm, and so great the earth shook and 
 trembled, and I fell on my face like one that was dead I 
 
 When I came to my senses and looked about me, the 
 whole country around me was changed; the hills had 
 been shaken to pieces, and the mountains had fallen. The 
 mean man had been cast down, the haughty looks of the 
 proud man was humbled, and the mighty man had fallen. 
 And the great cities with the glory and splendor of their 
 riches were consumed in the fires of Heaven's anger, and 
 the hills they stood upon were melted down in the hot 
 breath of God's wrath. The whole land was like the low 
 valley I saw before, which was called the Yalley of Hu- 
 miliation, or the journeying through the wilderness to the 
 promised land. And the sun shone out upon the valley, 
 as warm and genial as the sunshine of spring, and show- 
 ers of blessings fell from the heavens. The earth was 
 clothed with verdure, and the fields were loaded with 
 abundant harvests. The trees bent under their load of 
 luscious fruit, the flowers bloomed sweeter than before, 
 and the waters murmured their lullaby of peace ; and 
 man was no longer the enemy of man, but every man was 
 the brother of his fellow-man, and God was the father of 
 all. Every man had his own home,— his own vine and 
 fig-tree ; there was none to molest or make him afraid. 
 Oppression had ceased from the earth, for the oppressor 
 was dead. Power was committed to the hands of the 
 merciful, and judgment to the hand of the just. 
 
 I went into the houses of men, and all was happiness 
 and peace and content. Woman was no longer the enemy 
 of man, nor was she striving with him for the mastery. 
 She looked into his face and saw there the kindling of the 
 
864 THE GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 soul, the image of her God ; and she stooped to reverence 
 end obey. And woman was no longer the slave of man; 
 for man saw in her wondrous beauty and devoted lote 
 the companionable virtues which God had given her to 
 bless his life and fill his cup with joy. And children no 
 longer sought to rule their parents ; they had but to fol- 
 low their footsteps to find the ways of pleasantness and 
 the paths of peace. Thy kingdom had come, our Father, 
 and thy will was done on earth. 
 
 And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise 
 our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both 
 small and great. And I heard, as it were, the voice of a 
 great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as 
 the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the 
 Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and re- 
 joice, and give honor to him ; for the marriage of the 
 Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. 
 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in 
 fine linen is the righteousness of saints. Also, than Son 
 of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel and say, 
 Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God: Because the enemy hath 
 said against you, aha, even the ancient high places 
 are ours in possession I Therefore prophesy and say, 
 Thus saith the Lord God : Because they have made you 
 desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye 
 might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, 
 and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an ia- 
 famy of the people; therefore, ye mountains of Israel, 
 hear the word of the Lord God : thus saith the Lord 
 God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and 
 to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities 
 that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to 
 the residue of the heathen that are round about; there^- 
 fore, thus saith the Lord God, Surely in the fire of m^ 
 jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen 
 and against all Iduraea, which have appointed my land 
 into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with 
 despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey. 
 
 Prophesy, therefore, concerning the land of Israel and 
 say unto the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers, 
 
THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 365 
 
 and to the valleys, Thus saitb the Lord God : Behold I 
 have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye 
 have borne the shame of the heathen : Therefore thus 
 saith the Lord God : I have lifted up my hand, surely 
 the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their 
 ahame. But ye, mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot 
 forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of 
 Israel ; for they are at hand to come. For behold I am 
 for you ; and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled 
 and sown. And I will multiply men upon you, all the 
 house of Israel, even all of it; and the cities shall be in- 
 habited, and the wastes shall be builded. And I will 
 multiply upon you man and beasts, and they shall increase 
 and bring fruit. And I will settle you after your old 
 estates, and will do better unto you than at your begin- 
 nings ; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Yea, I 
 will cause men to walk upon you, even my people Israel ; 
 and they shall possess thee, and thou sbalt be their in- 
 heritance, and thou shalt no more henceforth bereave 
 them of men. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God: Because they say unto you, 
 Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy na- 
 tions ; therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither 
 bereave thy nations any more, saith the Lord God. 
 Neither will I cause men to bear in thee the shame of the 
 heathen any more, neither shalt thou bear the reproach 
 of the people any more, neither shalt thou cause thy na- 
 tions to fall any more, saith the Lord God. Moreover 
 the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of Man, 
 when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they 
 defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their 
 way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman. 
 Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that 
 they had shed upon the land, and for their idols where- 
 with they had polluted it: And I scattered them among 
 the heathen, and they were dispersed through the coun- 
 tries : according to their way and according to their 
 doings I judged them. And when they entered unto the 
 heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, 
 when they said to them. Those are the people of the 
 Lord, and are gone forth out of his land. But I had pity 
 
 31* 
 
366 ^^^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 for mine holy name, which the house of Israel had pro- 
 faned among the heathen, whither they went. 
 
 Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the 
 Lord God; I do not this for your sakes, house of 
 Israel, but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have 
 profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. And I 
 will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among 
 the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of 
 them ; and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, 
 saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you 
 before their eyes. For I will take you from among the 
 heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will 
 bring you unto your own land. There will I sprinkle 
 clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean : from all 
 your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. 
 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I 
 put within you : and I will take away the strong heart 
 out of your flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, 
 and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep 
 my judgments, and do them. 
 
 And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your 
 fathers ; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your 
 God. I will also save you from all your uncleanness: 
 and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay 
 no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit 
 of the tree, and the increase of the field, that ye shall 
 receive no more reproach of famine among the heathen. 
 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your 
 doings that were not good, and shUll loathe yourselves in 
 your own sight for your iniquities, and for your abomi- 
 nations. Not for your sakes do I this, saith the Lord 
 God, be it known unto you ; be ashamed and confounded 
 for your own ways, O house of Israel. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God : In the day that I shall have 
 cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will also cause 
 you to dwell in the cities and the wastes shall be builded. 
 And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay.deso- 
 late in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall 
 say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden 
 of Eden: and the waste and desolate and ruined cities 
 are become fenced and are inhabited. Then the heathen 
 that are left round about you shall know that I am the 
 
THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 367 
 
 Lord, build the ruiaed places and plant that was desolate. 
 I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord God, I will jet for this be in- 
 quired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them ; I will 
 increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, 
 as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts ; so shall 
 the waste cities be filled with flocks of men : and they 
 shall know that I am the Lord. 
 
 And I saw the spirit of truth fly on the wings of the 
 lightning across the ocean and kindle a fire in the isles 
 of the sea. I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come 
 out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of 
 the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. 
 And they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, 
 which go forth unto the kings of the earth and the whole 
 world to gather them to the battle of the great day of 
 God Almighty. And the unclean spirit out of the mouth 
 of the dragon, that old serpent the devil, said, All men 
 are created equal, and women are equal to men, and chil- 
 dren are equal to women. All men are naturally good, 
 and nothing but the evil customs and institutions of the 
 world make men do evil. If every man was free to 
 choose, every man would choose good, and therefore is 
 universal suffrage the cure for all the ills that flesh is 
 heir to. The unclean spirit out of the mouth of the beast 
 said, God has made the world for the benefit of the few, — 
 kings and aristocracies. He has appointed these to make 
 slaves out of the millions of their fellow-men, and to use 
 them for their own pleasure. 
 
 And the unclean spirit out of the mouth of the false 
 prophet said, God has appointed priestcraft to make slaves 
 out of the souls and bodies of men, and to rule over them 
 forever. And these did make war with the Lamb, and the 
 Lamb did overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and 
 King of kings, and they that are with him are called and 
 chosen and faithful. 
 
 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; 
 a.nd he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, 
 and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His 
 eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many 
 crowns ; and he had a name written, that no man knew 
 but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture 
 
368 ^J^^ GREAT TRIAL. 
 
 dipped in blood : and his name is called The Word of 
 God. And the armies which were in heaven followed 
 him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and 
 clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that 
 with it he should smite the nations : and he shall rule 
 them with a rod of iron ; and he treadeth the wine-press 
 of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he 
 hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written 
 King of kings and Lord of lords. 
 
 And I saw an angel standing in the sun ; and he cried 
 with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the 
 midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together 
 unto the supper of the great God. That ye may eat the 
 flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of 
 mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit 
 on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, 
 both small and great. And I saw the beasts, and the 
 kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together 
 to make war against him that sat on the horse, and 
 against his army. And the beast was taken, and with 
 him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, 
 which which he deceived them that had received the 
 mark of the beast, and them that worship his image. 
 These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning 
 with brimstone. And the> remnant were slain with the 
 sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword pro- 
 ceeded out of his mouth ; and all the fowls were filled 
 with their flesh. I looked, and the kingdoms of Europe 
 and her empires had passed away. Her kings and aris- 
 tocracies had fallen, and their power was gone. 
 
 And I saw the son of Erin go back from his adopted 
 country to the Green Emerald Isle, — the home of his 
 fathers, and the land of his love. Oppression cursed and 
 blighted that beautiful land no more, for the oppression 
 was dead. Its meadows was greener than before, and 
 the shamrock bloomed and shed a sweeter fragrance, for 
 it too had breathed the air of liberty and truth. And I 
 saw the German go back to the Fatherland, and there 
 too the Sun of Righteousness had arisen with healing in 
 his wings. The mildew and the blight no longer blasted 
 his vine-clad hills. The vintage, loaded with its juicy 
 fruit, *' reeled to earth purple and gushing." 
 
THE SEVENTH WITNESS. 369 
 
 And I saw mighty wave roll from the Western World 
 and sweep over the arid plains of Africa, and her wilder- 
 ness and solitary place were glad and her deserts bloomed 
 and blossomed like the rose. For that wave had borne 
 back to the bosom of Africa millions of her children re- 
 claimed from barbarism and educated in the truths of the 
 Christian civilization. Ay, her children who bad wit- 
 nessed the last judgments of Heaven, — the last great 
 battle of Christianity and her final victory over the world. 
 
 And I saw the children of Israel from every nation and 
 country, and kindred and clime, wending their way back 
 to the land of Canaan, the land which God gave to his 
 servant Jacob to be an inheritance for his children for- 
 ever. And I saw the walls of Jerusalem built up, and 
 they shall fall no more, for Messiah, their Prince, has 
 come to rule and reign forever. The first shall be last, 
 and the last shall be first. 
 
 And I heard a voice from the judgment-throne which 
 said, And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem 
 of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots : and 
 the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of 
 wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and 
 might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the 
 Lord ; and shall make him of quick understanding in the 
 fear of the Lord ; and he shall not judge after the sight 
 of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. 
 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and re- 
 prove with equity for the meek of the earth ; and he 
 shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with 
 the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And 
 righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faith- 
 fulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell 
 with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the 
 kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling to- 
 gether; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow 
 and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie down 
 together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And 
 the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the 
 weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. 
 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain ; 
 for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
 Q* 
 
372 ^^J^- (^lit-^AT TRIAL. 
 
 and bring them into their own land. And I will make 
 them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel ; 
 and one king shall be kin.s* to them all ; and they shall 
 be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into 
 two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile 
 themselves any more with their idols nor with their de- 
 testable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but 
 I will save them out of all their dwelling places, wherein 
 they have sinned, and will cleanse them j so shall they 
 be my people, and I will be their God. 
 
 And David my servant shall be king over them ; and 
 they all shall have one shepherd ; they shall also walk in 
 my judgments, and observe my statutes and do them. 
 
 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given 
 unto Jacob, my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt ; 
 and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, 
 and their children's children forever; and my servant 
 David shall be their prince forever. 
 
 Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with then., 
 it shall be an everlasting covenant with them ; and I will 
 place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary 
 in the midst of them for evermore My tabernacle also 
 shall be with them ; yea, I will be their God, and they 
 shall be my people. 
 
 And the heathen shall know that I, the Lord, do sanc- 
 tify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of 
 them for evermore. 
 
 And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having 
 the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his 
 hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, 
 which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand 
 years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him 
 up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the 
 nations no more till the thousand years should be ful- 
 filled ; and after that he must be loosed a little season. 
 
 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judg- 
 ment was given unto them ; and I saw the souls of them 
 that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the 
 word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, 
 neither his image, neither had received his mark upon 
 their foreheads or in their hands ; and they lived and 
 reigned with Christ a thousand years. 
 
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