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 REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER'S THANKSGIVING SERMON. 
 
 THE HONEY IN THE LION'S CARCASE. 
 
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 WAR AND EMANCIPATION 
 
 A THANKSGIVING SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED TN THE 
 
 
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 J 
 
 PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 ON THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1861. 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 012 026 274 9 
 
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 the lion : and bel^^F^>^S:^'fe^??>^^3i<R^S^(g3^?>^s5^^i(?^ of the lion."- 
 
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 Price 15 cents a copy; 8 copies for $1.00; or $10.00 a hundred. 
 
 

WAR AND EMANCIPATION. 
 
 A THANKSGIVL\G SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
 On Thursday, November 21, 1861. 
 
 IlKV. HENRY WAED BEECHER. 
 
 Text. — "And after a time be returned to take her, and he turned aside to see the carcase of 
 the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcase of the lion." — 
 Judges xiv. 8. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 
 
 No. 306 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
THE HONEY IN THE LION'S CARCASE. 
 
 A THANKSGIVING SERMON, 
 
 WAR AND EMANCIPATION, 
 
 PREACHED BY 
 
 REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER, 
 
 PLYMOUTH CHURCH, BROOKLYN, 
 
 November 21st, 1861. 
 
 Sampson was on an errand of love. He was inter- 
 rupted by a lion, which he slew, for love is stronger 
 than any lion. He gained his suit. Alas ! everything 
 went by contraries. Thereafter, the woman whose 
 love was sweeter to him than honey at first, betrayed 
 him ; she was his Hon ; whereas, on his way home he 
 found that bees had possession of the real Hon's carcase, 
 and had filled it with honey, and so in the end the Uon 
 was better to him than his wife. 
 
 But how fiill of suggestions is this incident ! AVho 
 
would have looked for honey in a lion's caul ? A^Oiile 
 he was yet roaring and striking at Sampson, there 
 seemed very little likelihood of his finding a honeyed 
 meal out of him; but if Uons bravely slain yield such 
 food, then let them become emblems ! 
 
 The bee signifies industry among all nations, and 
 lioney is the very ideal of sweetness. To-day war is 
 iipon us, a Hon is on our path, but being bravely met, 
 in its track shaU industry settle, and we shall yet fetch 
 honey from the carcase of war. You wiU not object 
 then, if to-day I bring you lioney from this hon's body. 
 At first, and to mihopcful souls, it would seem as if 
 no day of thanksgiving ever was so sadly planted. 
 Nor will I undertake to persuade you that there are 
 no c\ils to bemoan. There are many ; but the evils 
 are transient, superficial and vincible,— the benefits are 
 permanent, radical, and multiplying. Not long ago we 
 were a united nation. Our industry was bringing in 
 riches as the tides of the ocean, and no man could 
 imagine the manhood of a continent whose youth was 
 so august. Now, a hue of fire runs through our country 
 from East to West, and more than half a million men 
 confi'ont each other with hostile arms ! ViUages are 
 burned; farms are deserted; neighbors are at\loody 
 variance ; industiy stands stiU through fifteen States, 
 or only forges implements of war; the sky at night is 
 red with camp fires,— by day the ground trembles with 
 the tramp of armies; yet amid many great and undeni- 
 able evils which every Christian patriot must bitterly 
 
lament, there are eminent reasons for thankfulness, 
 several of which I shall point out to you. 
 
 I. Since we must accept this war with all its unde- 
 niable evils, it is a matter for thanksgiving that the 
 citizens and lawfid government of these United States, 
 can appeal to the Judge of the Universe, and to all 
 right minded men to bear witness, that this is not a 
 war waged m the interest of any base passion; but 
 tridy and religiously m the defence of the liighest 
 interests ever committed to a nation's keeping. It is 
 not on our side a war of passion, nor of avarice, — God 
 is judge ! — nor of anger ; nor for revenge ; nor of fear ; 
 nor of jealousy, as if to cripple a dangerous rival. We 
 hold that the territory of these United States is com- 
 mon to all its inhabitants, and is not simply a posses- 
 sion, but a trust, and imless by deliberate decision of 
 the people, lawfully assembled, and constitutionaUy 
 expressed, it can never be abandoned, alienated, nor 
 partitioned. We hold it in trust for the future ! 
 
 Is it the duty of New York to defend its own terri- 
 tory against foes without or evil men mthin, from the 
 Lakes to INIontauk Point 1 Is it the duty of each New 
 England State to defend every foot within its jurisdic- 
 tion 1 In like manner and for the same reasons it is 
 the duty of all the States collectively, to maintain the 
 integrity of the national domain. It is not a question 
 of whether we mil or will not. Until by appointed 
 and proper methods of the constitution it has been 
 taken from our hands, it remains m them ; not subject 
 
6 
 
 to our volition, but binding us by that silent oath that 
 every man swears who comes to years of maturity and 
 citizenship, to maintain in\iolate the territory of these 
 United States. It is the duty of the citizens also, to 
 stand up for their government ; to protect its righteous 
 authority ; to maintain all its attributes, and to see to it 
 that its jurisdiction is not restricted, except by those 
 methods which have been predetermined and agreed 
 upon in that constitution on which it stands. But in 
 our particular case the reasons for maintaining the 
 government in all its ample jurisdiction are intensified 
 beyond all measure, by the fact that the dangers which 
 are threatened it, arise confessedly and undeniably not 
 from the perversion of the principles of the constitution 
 in our hands, or from oppressive administration of tliis 
 government under those principles ; but because a 
 large body of men, gradually infected with new politi- 
 cal doctrines, in their nature irreconcilable with the 
 root principle of our government, have determined to 
 overthrow it, that they may change its fundamental 
 principles! We are not left to infer this. There is 
 this merit in Southern pohticians, that they are frank 
 and open in the declaration of political doctrines. The 
 best head among them is Mr. Stephens, and he declares 
 in the most emphatic manner, that the object of the 
 rebellion is to introduce new principles in the govern- 
 ment instead of the old. I shall read : 
 
 " The new constitution puts at rest forever the 
 agitated question relative to our peculiar institution." 
 
(Mr. Beecher. — We shall see whether it is forever^ 
 " African slavery as it exists among us — the proper 
 status of the negro in our form of civilization. This 
 was the immediate cause of the late rupture and 
 present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had 
 anticipated this as the ' rock upon which the old 
 Union would split.' He was right. What was con- 
 jecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether 
 he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that 
 rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevail- 
 ing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading 
 statesmen at the time of the formation of the old 
 constitution, were, that the enslavement of the African 
 was in violation of the laws of nature, that it was 
 wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically." 
 (Mr. Beecher. — I thank him for that testimony.) " It 
 was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but 
 the general opinion of the men of that day was that, 
 somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the 
 institution would be evanescent and pass away. The 
 idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was 
 the prevailing idea at the time. The constitution, it 
 is true, secured every essential guarantee to the insti- 
 tution while it should last, and hence no argument can 
 be justly used against the constitutional rights thus 
 secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. 
 Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wroHi'. 
 They rested upon the assumption of the equality of 
 races. This was an error. It was a sandv foundation. 
 
8 
 
 and the idea of government built upon it ; but when 
 the ' storm came and the wind blew, it fell.' Our new 
 government is founded upon exactly the opposite 
 ideas." (Mr. Beecher. — I thank him for that acknow- 
 ledgment.) " Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone 
 rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal 
 to the white man;" — (Mr. Beecher. — What an ac- 
 knowledgment for a government) — " that slavery, sub- 
 ordination to the superior race, is his natural and 
 normal condition. Thus, our new government is the 
 first in the history of the world based upon this great 
 physical, philosophical, and moral truth." (Mr. 
 Beecher. — And I will take the liberty so far to 
 interpolate his speech as to say, it will be the last. 
 Farther on, Mr. Stephens says, — it is excellent 
 reading, so that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of 
 reading it to you) — " May we not, therefore, look with 
 confidence upon the ultimate acknowledgment of the 
 principle on which our government rests. It is the 
 first government ever instituted upon principles in 
 strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of 
 Providence, in furnishing the materials of human 
 society. Many governments have been founded on 
 the principle of certain classes ; but the classes thus 
 enslaved, were of the same race, and in violation of 
 the laws of nature. Our system contains no such 
 violation of nature's laws. The negro, by nature and 
 the curse of Canaan, is fitted for that condition which 
 he occupies in our system. The architect, in the 
 
construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the 
 proper materials — the granite, then comes the brick or 
 the marble. The substratum of our society is made of 
 the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience 
 we know that it is the best, not only for the superior, 
 but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, 
 indeed, in conformity with the Creator. It is not for 
 us to inquire into the wisdom of his ordinances, or to 
 question them. For his own purposes he has made 
 one race to differ from another, as he has made 'one 
 star to differ from another in glory.' The great 
 objects of humanity are best attained when conformed 
 to his laws and decrees, in the formation of govern- 
 ments, as well as in all things else. Our confederacy 
 is founded upon principles in strict conformity with 
 these laws. ' This stone which was rejected by the 
 first builders, is become the chief stone of the corner 
 in our new edifice.' " 
 
 These last Avords, you will remember, were spoken 
 by the Lord Jesus Christ, when set at naught and re- 
 jected by the Jews, his countrymen; and the Vice- 
 President of these so-called Confederate States does 
 not hesitate to declare, with infamous effrontery, that 
 slavery, based on no other law than this, that slaves are 
 of a different race : " that slavery stands in our system 
 in the place in which Jesus Christ stands in the Chris- 
 tian scheme :" has become the head of the corner. Dr. 
 Smyth, of Charleston, second to none in influence and 
 learning among them, declares, " What is the difficulty 
 
10 
 
 and what is the remedy 1 Not in the election of Re- 
 publican Presidents. No ! Not in the non-execution 
 of the fugitive slave bill. No ! But it is back of all 
 these. It is found in that atheistic red republican doc- 
 trine of the Declaration of Independence. Until that 
 is trampled under foot there can be no peace." Allow 
 me to say, until that is trampled under foot or its 
 antagotnsf, there can be no peace. Which is to go 
 under, time will sliow. I might multiply testimony. 
 It is needless. The matter, so far from disguise, is the 
 pride and boast of that boastful land. This, then, 
 mark you, is a rebellion not against an oppressive ad- 
 ministration, or against the principle of equal justice, 
 of the fundamental right of liberty in every man who 
 has not forfeited it by crime. That miserable subter- 
 fuge, that we hold, because all men are equal, that all 
 men are therefore of one degree of power! It never 
 has been pretended at all. We hold that men are as 
 children are before a father; not equal in talent, nor 
 wealth, nor opportunity of usefulness in the employ- 
 ment of their various endowments; but this: that 
 every child, strong or weak, has a right to claim the 
 same Z-mcZ of justice, the same kind of chance that the 
 other has ; and we hold that all mankind, born black 
 as night, or white as daylight, have the right to the 
 free and unobstructed use of those powers of body and 
 of mind that God Almighty endowed them with, and 
 in this sense are equal — in their rights equal ; and it is 
 declared without equivocation or discussion, that the 
 
11 
 
 war is brouglit upon us — the revolution and war — be- 
 cause our government contains this false principle. It 
 is a rebellion against this principle of government, and 
 the people of this nation are aroused to defend their 
 Constitution and their Government, not simply because 
 it is assailed, but as if Providence meant to make this 
 conflict illustrious in the annals of the world, because 
 it is assailed in those very respects in which it embo- 
 dies the latest fruit of Christianity, and the last attain- 
 ment of modern civilization. The very things which 
 belong to our own age in distinction from any which 
 ever went before it — these are the very things which 
 have been singled out and made the object of attack. 
 We would defend our Constitution at any rate, but 
 when it is charged with the noblest principles as with 
 a crime, it appeals to every conscience and every heart 
 in this land with a solemnity as of the day of judg- 
 ment for its defence. In view of these facts, that are 
 not hidden at home nor abroad, what are we to say of 
 that amazing charge of Earl Russell, late Lord John 
 llussell, where in an express manner he declares, that 
 this is not a conflict, although originating in slavery, 
 for it or against if? Although it involves, somewhat, 
 commercial interests, yet he declares positively it is not 
 a question of tarifl". It is only, he says, one of those 
 conflicts tliat have been waged so many times before in 
 Europe — a conflict on the one side for empire and on 
 the other side for power. He sees only an ambitious, 
 selfish conflict, waged between two sections with re- 
 
12 
 
 spect to territory and dominion. We repel, with just 
 indignation and with glowing pride, the amazing charge. 
 We are contending not for that part- of our Constitu- 
 tion which Justinian gave us, nor for that which came 
 in any way from Rome, expressing justice as it was 
 developed in that iron-hearted realm ; but that which 
 Christianity gave us, and which has been working out 
 for eighteen hundred years. The principle in the con- 
 flict is the very one which gives unity to history. It 
 is that golden thread which leads us through the dark 
 mazes of nearly two thousand years, and connects us 
 with the immortal Head of the Church, It is the 
 principle of man's right based on the divinity of his 
 origin. It is on that ground that all are brothers, and 
 all alike stand on one great platform of justice and of 
 love. That has been the struggle of eighteen hundred 
 years, and this principle has been embodied in our 
 Constitution, and this, with singular infatuation and 
 clarity, the exponent of Southern views declares to be 
 the very point of offence in our Constitution, and says, 
 in unmistakable language, and with blasphemous illus- 
 tration, that it is against that attribute that they are in 
 arms to-day. Is there no cause for thanksgiving, then, 
 that since we must war, God has called us to battle on 
 ground so high, for ends so noble, in a cause so pure 
 and for results so universal 1 For this is not a battle 
 for us alone. It is so in our times : that every great 
 deed, nobly done, is done for all mankind. The Poto- 
 mac is the river of the earth, and battles there for our 
 
13 
 
 Constitution, because it is a document of liberty, are 
 the world's battles, and we are fighting not for our own 
 liberty, but for those ideas which are the breastworks 
 of liberty throughout the whole world, and tliere is 
 not a man who bears the chain, there is not a man — 
 serf, yeoman, slave, or what not — that has not an inter- 
 est in the conflict, that we are set in God's providence 
 to wage against these momentous doctrines of gigantic 
 iniquity ! There is honey in that lion. 
 
 II. It is a matter of thanksgiving that we have no 
 sought this war, but by a magnanimous course have 
 endured shame and political loss and disturbance the 
 most serious, rather than to peril the Union. Indeed, 
 I am bound to say, that so strong had the national 
 feeling been with us, and so weak with them, that 
 what they trod under their feet with contempt we have 
 made an idol of, and like idolators, had thrown our- 
 selves down at the expense of our very self-respect, at 
 the feet of our idol of the Union. I do not mean that 
 it would have been wrong to have taken the initiative 
 in the cause which employs this conflict ; but if, when 
 the end is right and the cause sacred, it can also 
 be shown that there has been patient and earnest and 
 long-continued eff'ort to seek the right by peaceful 
 methods, by reasoning, by merciful appeal, and that 
 the most desperate of remedies — war, has been forced 
 upon us, not sought, not wished but accepted reluc- 
 tantly, forced upon us by the overt act of rebellion, 
 
14 
 
 and is not either of our wish or procuring, then this 
 patience and forbearance and reluctance to war will 
 give an added lustre to our cause. I make these 
 remarks out of respect to the Christian sentiment of 
 nations. Contiguity is raising up a new element of 
 power on the globe, and we do not hesitate to pay a 
 just respect to the opinions of the Christian church 
 and philantrophic people of other lands, and we stand 
 boldly before earnest peace men, the kind advisers, the 
 yearning mediators, yea, and before the body of Christ, 
 his Church on earth, to declare ; that this war, which 
 we could not avert without giving up all that Christian 
 civilization has set us to guard and to transmit, cannot 
 on the other hand be abandoned without betraying 
 every principle of justice, and of rectitude, and of 
 liberty. 
 
 We do not fear search and trial before the tribunal 
 of earth in the end. Those who should have given 
 sympathy, but have given hatred, chilling advice, and 
 ignorant rebuke, shall yet confess their mistake, and 
 our fealty to God and to Government and to mankind. 
 
 When it would have swelled our sails, there was no 
 breath of applause or sympathy. AVhen the gale is no 
 longer needed, and our victorious voyage is ended, we 
 shall have incense and gales of admiration enough. 
 
 But meanwhile, God has called us to war upon a plan 
 so high as never feet, I think, trod before ; and though 
 we did not want it, and prayed against it, and with 
 long endurance sought to avert it and avoid it, now it 
 
15 
 
 has come it is an infinite satisfaction to know that we 
 can stand acquitted before the Christianity of the globe 
 in such a conflict as this. There is honey in that lion. 
 
 III. It is a matter of thanksgiving that this even 
 promises to solve those difficult problems which have 
 baffled the wisdom of our wisest counsellors. There 
 stands in the Vatican at Rome a marble prophecy of 
 America. A noble and heroic man ; on either side a 
 lovely son ; but all, father and sons, grasped in the 
 coils of a many time's enfolding serpent, whose 
 tightening hold not their utmost strength can resist 
 and with agonized face Laocoon looks up, as if his 
 anguish said, " Only the gods can save me, whose hate 
 I have offended." 
 
 So sat America. Around this Government and 
 around the clustered States, twined the gigantic ser- 
 pent of slavery ; but here let the emblem stop. Let 
 us hope another history awaits us than that of the 
 fabled Greek. There have been secret and open 
 reasons — many, that have made slavery a most un- 
 manageable thing in our national counsel. 
 
 Had it been desired to test to the uttermost the 
 power of republican institutions to sustain good 
 government, no other conceivable trial can be ima- 
 gined that would do it as this has and will. It 
 gathered up in its coils almost every one of those 
 unmanageable elements, each one of which is ac- 
 counted a match for human wisdom in other times. 
 
16 
 
 An inferior race, a foreign race, separated from us by 
 physiological signs and badges of the most marked 
 character ; a people whose nation brought in the 
 element of climate, and whose existence, in the rela- 
 tions of government, fed every one of the fiercer 
 passions, and touched but few of the moral sentiments, 
 and these but feebly ; educating men to idleness, 
 avarice, lust and pride of dominion. Thus these poor 
 African bondmen, in all their helplessness and weak- 
 ness, were cast into this nation's troubles, with diffi- 
 culties of caste, of race, of condition, of climate, 
 difficulties which the strongest and wisest knew 
 not how to endure ! War seems likely to clear up 
 the question which politics could not touch. By our 
 organic law, we were forbidden to meddle with local 
 institutions, and though they were infecting the 
 national veins with their poison, though we saw 
 that from these local institutions general and national 
 influences were going forth, yet our organic instru- 
 ment would not permit us to lay our hand upon 
 them. 
 
 We could not bring to bear the moral forces by 
 which other evils are met. There was no public 
 sentiment that could wrestle with slavery; partly 
 because no public sentiment can ever avail against 
 the blinding passions. There is not in all the broad 
 globe a moral influence that is of direct omnipotence — 
 there is not an influence on the broad globe that can 
 resist ; that can for a moment stand the charge of 
 
17 
 
 the aroused passions of the masses of mankind. The 
 bottom of the head is ten thousand times stronger 
 than the top of the head, in the race and in the world. 
 There was also sectional pride and jealousy which 
 prevented our access to the South by any public 
 sentiment. There was more than that. There was 
 that inevitable ignorance which must come where the 
 few are owners, and the mass are poor and dependent. 
 There were both also political and commercial influ- 
 ences which were dividing us — insidiously dividing 
 good men one from another, and making it impossible 
 to raise any public sentiment, except a tempestuous 
 one, which could do no good. And so we Avere 
 drifting — the North more clear for liberty every year 
 — the South more determined for slavery, and by that 
 very fact each having less and less influence with the 
 other. 
 
 Now it has pleased God by the very infatuation 
 of these people rudely to dash these two sections 
 together. But this conflict can procure emancipation 
 in no such way as England is pleased to propose, as 
 the condition of her sympathy, — by direct politically 
 conferred emancipation. England speaks and says, — 
 not her lion, that I think in these latter days has a 
 touch of doubt, — England speaks and says, " If you 
 will make this a war for a principle, I will be with 
 you. If you will make this a war for emancipation, 
 then we will give not only sympathy and prayer, 
 but all needed succour." 
 
18 
 
 It was not by England's sympathy that we became 
 independent ; it was not by her advice that we became 
 her equal, and we shall perhaps be able to settle our 
 troubles without England's sympathy. For one, I 
 am not so ungenerous as to lay up anything, and I 
 am not so ungenerous as to remark against the race and 
 stock from which I am proud to have come; but 
 when we have such sublime leadings of God's provi- 
 dence, and England, with the voice of her curmudgeon, 
 assumes to proffer sympathy or advice, I do not hesi- 
 tate to say to her, — Remain at home ! We will do 
 our own work, and you shall be spectators. 
 
 But one thing, however, we will have from her. 
 I say it in the face of England before her time, and 
 she cannot help herself — there is one thing we shall 
 have from her yet. In the coming end, when all our 
 troubles are settled, we shall have their admiration 
 and then their sympathy, and then, after a while, 
 we shall live on, just as we have before, only a good 
 deal better; but meanwhile, however much it may 
 hurt us, or alarm us, or grieve us, we are bound to 
 say that w^e are going to trust in God, and get along 
 without England. 
 
 Of all the advice which has been given, while 
 it may seem to those who know not the facts or 
 nature of our institutions, the most direct and 
 rational, and yet of all advice given, there is none 
 which chimes more with Northern popular impulse 
 than this, to make a declaration of emancipation to 
 
19 
 
 settle this difficulty. But neither popular feelings, 
 nor foreign advice can be followed. We must con- 
 duct this war, my friends, hy and through our imtitu- 
 tions^ or else we must declare that our institutions 
 have failed and we have reverted to original prin- 
 ciples — one or the other of these courses. 
 
 The last we cannot and shall not do. We are 
 not going to say to the world that Republican institu- 
 tions have so signally failed, that we have abandoned 
 them, and are going for the war to go back and 
 re-establish other ones. No man will say that. If, 
 then, we are fighting for our Constitution, we must 
 not violate it ourselves. A pretty thing, to make 
 war against them for violating the Constitution, 
 when we are willing to violate it ourselves ! We 
 may not congressionally declare emancipation. I 
 wish we could ! I wish we could ! I wish Adam 
 had not sinned, and his posterity had not been 
 affected; but that does not help the matter, as I 
 can see. I wish our fathers had stood out against 
 what are called the compromises of the Constitution. 
 Better then than now. The serpent just hatched is 
 not half as much to be feared as the full grown 
 serpent, and our troubles have grown with every 
 generation. But what is the use of sighing % That 
 isn't it. We cannot reject the Constitution. We 
 have lived under it — have declared our fealty to it. 
 Can we now break the compact, though we seek 
 
20 
 
 even so magnificent a result as the emancipation 
 of the slave'? 
 
 Shall we rend the crystal instrument — the joy of the 
 world and our pride 1 It is a very easy thing to say, 
 '• It is a state of war, let us declare emancipation." It 
 is n't on our part a revolution. We stand in our insti- 
 tutions. We believe in them. W^e administer the 
 war by them; in consonance with their spirit and 
 their forms ; and we must. W^e cannot, by destroying 
 the Constitution, accomplish these desirable ends. If 
 any ask me whether a law or constitution is superior 
 to original principles of morality or justice, I say no. 
 But plighted faith is in the nature of a moral principle. 
 It is one of the original principles. Our faith is given; 
 we must keep it. When we cannot abide by our 
 promise, then in methods expressly provided, we must 
 withdraw the pledge and agreement, and withdraw 
 constitutionally and stand apart as two separate 
 peoples. 
 
 Are we, then, shut up by these reasonings'? No, we 
 are not. What the pen of legislation cannot do, the 
 sword of war will do. What we could never have 
 liberty to do, they themselves have afforded us the 
 means of doing, and thrust upon themselves; and there 
 never was an instance in which condign punishment 
 has followed the step of trangression more surely than 
 is seen in this, that having made war for the mainte- 
 nance of slavery, they have brought down on their 
 heads its destruction. 
 
21 
 
 Let us see. The Southern strength in this self-im- 
 posed war, is slavery. They have placed their system 
 as a bulwark, and are fighting our Constitution behind 
 that. And now, so it has come to pass, by their own 
 selecting and arrangement, that we are not able to 
 fulfill our sworn compact and duty, and maintain the 
 integrity of this land and Constitution itself, according 
 to its own forms and in consonance with our oath, 
 except by defending them against those who assail 
 them with the shield of slavery on their arms, and in 
 open transgression. We shall strike through their 
 shield. It is not a political act, but a military neces- 
 sity which they have brought upon themselves, and 
 beginning emancipation we will carry it to such a 
 degree, as to make slavery a burden to them, and, at 
 least, we will make them most earnest in the end to 
 put an end to it. But look now at the effect of eman- 
 cipation in war — not in violation of the Constitution, 
 but according to it; for if men rebel against govern- 
 ment, by that crime they forfeit life itself and much 
 more, property and standing; and by revolution they 
 have forfeited their lives and property according to 
 local law, and that property according to the declara- 
 tion Scripture has made, if not wings, yet feet, and run 
 away — much of it. 
 
 The government must take these fugitives in some 
 way into its hands. What do we behold ! Either 
 one of two things ; that men that have been set free 
 by no act of their masters, and by no superior authori- 
 
22 
 
 ty, men now, not in scores but in hundreds and thous- 
 ands, are held by our government ; only six months ago 
 slaves under local law, men, women, and children, 
 now, by a law self-imposed, they have gone out from 
 under local laws. The government noAV holds them. 
 How 1. As men, or captives 1 Where can you find 
 law or constitutional forms that will permit these 
 fugitives to be treated as other than men 1 Where is 
 there any article that will give the right to the Gov- 
 ernment to look upon these as any other than men"? 
 You may call them contrabands, you may invent with 
 dexterity whatever term you choose. The Southern 
 law that called them slaves is broken, and they have 
 now come into possession of the Government of the 
 United States, to be nothing else than men. They 
 are emancipated, and there are to-day thousands upon 
 thousands of emancipated men in the possession of the 
 Government, which is bound to treat them, if not as 
 citizens yet as men ! 
 
 Be pleased to consider what disturbance the system 
 must have ; and as our armies progress, step by step, 
 what swarms will rise up, just as soon as liberty 
 is given them. It is a little puzzling to me, having 
 heard it said by so many good men, that this patriar- 
 chal institution begets such a love between master and 
 slave that they would not take liberty as a gift, to ob- 
 serve the infatuation which seems to have seized, in the 
 disorderly affairs of our nation, these blessed creatures, 
 so that they prefer the bondage of liberty, to the liberty 
 
23 
 
 of bondage. It seems so strange I can hardly account 
 for it unless it be on the supposition that there was 
 some mistake in the premises. I suspect that the Af- 
 rican does after all love liberty ; though I do not doubt 
 that curled hair, black skin, and curved spines make 
 great political differences, yet, I suspect in one thing 
 the African is still like the Anglo-Saxon. They are 
 both of God, and the touch which God left on them 
 and in them is there; not on their face, but invisible; 
 and every creature formed after God's ijnage, how base 
 soever he may be, longs to be free. 
 
 In so vast a system, so loosely compacted, and so 
 subject to fevers and inflammations, the very disturb- 
 ance of it, the disturbance of the occupations of the 
 slaves, turning them away from their regular fields, 
 and the reasons why they are so turned away, which 
 must needs break into their darkened minds, inuring 
 them to work for purposes of manhood, all these are 
 educating them to be free. They are preparing the 
 way. But that is not all. The South has consented 
 to pay a premium of about $200,000,000 on free 
 cotton. There was never such stupendous liberality 
 since the world began. The South has said to the world 
 — " If you would like to outbid us in the market, we 
 have been making our wealth out of cotton, rice, &c., 
 but nevertheless we will agree to tie our hands up for 
 two years ; we will not appear in the markets of the 
 world. Take that premium and raise these products," 
 and meanwhile India and China are raising them, 
 
24 
 
 and all the world to-day is raising tliem. There seems 
 to me a picture of beauty in that justice by which 
 cotton on this shore invited cotton from Africa. 
 Cotton from Africa shall yet strike off the shackles 
 from the bondmen in America, and as cotton made 
 slavery cotton shall cure it. 
 
 "When then, the government progressing by its arms 
 from State to State, shall have accepted slaves of those 
 States that have been in arms, — and this is the true 
 doctrine and the only one which I can. understand, — 
 one which is constitutionally permissible, one which is 
 forced upon us by the act of rebellion, and by the 
 necessities of war, viz., confiscating the property of men 
 in arms against the government, and that will be the 
 property of by far the largest number of slave owners, 
 and the government will soon own more slaves than 
 those that are left. Now, the first duty the govern- 
 ment can have, will be to have a provisional govern- 
 ment adapted to these emancipated slaves. This 
 government is not going, I take it, to put them up at 
 auction. 
 
 Our government has got to do something with them. 
 There is going to be a United States government for 
 freemen in the South. There is going to be a national 
 government over the nation's freemen right by the 
 side of the national government over slave men. 
 There are going to be two antagonistic governments 
 together. How will they work? See what they have 
 done. They have compelled us in defending the Con- 
 
25 
 
 stitution to extend its JEgis over their slaves. They 
 have compelled us to bring down, right into their midst, 
 a new form of provisional government for wants which 
 they themselves have created. Do you suppose the 
 slave system is going to stand on such a firm founda- 
 tion as it has in days past] I fancy that its days are 
 ended, and just as fast as we are able to take care of 
 them, God will put them into our hands. 
 
 Before the African is permitted to swing back the 
 mysterious portal and step into life, God, by means of 
 his own, has provided means of meeting his wants and 
 taking care of his infancy, just as the mother is God's 
 provision for the wants of an infant child. Now God 
 never prepares a future birth of a multitude, any more 
 than of an individual, without having prepared a bosom 
 on which it may lie, and food which it can eat, and 
 provision has been made for this race as it is coming 
 into its new condition. Where there is a want there 
 is a supply already provided. Let me then express 
 again, as a matter of the most profound thanksgiving, 
 that although the steps and appliances by which eman- 
 cipation is to be completed are not apparent, we see 
 the direction in wliich it is travelling, and from which 
 we believe it w^ill come ! 
 
 What we could not do politically, they have given 
 us the liberty of doing by the arm of the military. 
 What is more : when this great struggle is past, it will 
 lay the foundation of a peace firmer than we have had 
 before. 
 
26 
 
 1. Because it must extinguish that pestilent heresy 
 of the sovereignty of individual States. We are not 
 thirty crowned sovereigns sitting in voluntary council 
 together; we are thirty united States, whose general 
 union and local independence are both alike immutable. 
 The government cannot take away the local authority, 
 and States cannot take away the general authority of 
 the government, and one is as immutable as the other. 
 Our political troubles came through this heresy. Slavery 
 is the cause, but State independence was the crevice in 
 which the powder was sifted which would have exploded 
 this goverenment, and it must, therefore, be made 
 burglar-proof, by stopping up those cracks, and when 
 they touch off their powder again, it will be all outside. 
 
 2. It will bring into better acquaintance and respect 
 the North and the South. They have hitherto met 
 chiefly in only two places, and that very little of late. 
 The South have come to Saratoga and Newport and 
 other watering places, and I must beg leave to say, that 
 what they see when they come here is not what we 
 should be willing to present as specimens of the North. 
 Our summer rabble at the great watering places are 
 not a fair index of New England families, nor of the 
 Northern community. The other place where they 
 meet is in the halls of Congress, and heaven forbid that 
 it should be thought that those men represent us! 
 
 But now we have sent a representative which we are 
 quite willing should march through the South to tell 
 them what Northern men are, and what Northern men 
 
27 
 
 mean to do. Since they as a mass cannot read, we 
 must give them vocal instruction. 
 
 Since they would not come to our school, we must 
 send our schoolmasters to them, and revive again here, 
 on a larger sphere, the old peripatetic system, by which 
 philosophers walked, and their disciples went with 
 them. By the time our armies have gone through the 
 Southern States, I think there will be a thorough 
 change of public sentiment of the South in respect to 
 the manhood, courage and power and resources of the 
 North, and 1 tell you without sarcasm and without 
 donhle entendre, it is on this that I expect there will yet 
 stand a peace in times to come, that we never had and 
 never could have had before. They have not respected 
 or they have not understood your civilization ; for such 
 is the inevitable condition into which slavery brings 
 the white man, that they cannot understand the ele- 
 ments belonging to Northern civilization. 
 
 The thing which will at last inoculate them is the 
 mailed fi-^t, and that which you cannot tell them by 
 word of mouth you can by a smite of the hand. There 
 are some things that parents do not tell their children, 
 except in the act of discipline. Moral ideas sometimes 
 come through the skin, and there never was an instance 
 in which the community needed more to be instructed 
 in the language in which they were born and they 
 themselves speak, than the Southern community, and 
 when they find that you are courageous and more than 
 a match for them in arms, from that moment they will 
 
28 
 
 respect you, and when there is a better understanding 
 of each other there will be a better chance for peace, 
 and although just at present there is neither under- 
 standing nor respect, nor any particular evidence of 
 peace, yet I think that the corn is growing that shall 
 yet wave with those kernels in its ear. 
 
 IV. There are likewise causes of rejoicing on account 
 of the Providential benefits which have surrounded and 
 accompanied this struggle thus far. 
 
 1. If this war had broken out before, I know not 
 how we should have been able to maintain it. 
 
 I shudder when I look back at the condition of the 
 North ! If ten years ago this struggle had been forced 
 upon us, our foes w^ould have been those of our own 
 household. But what a change! What a vast im- 
 provement has been made in the Northern States by 
 the enlightening of the Northern conscience, and in 
 the uniting of the people since 1850, and not until we 
 were in some sense prepared did God permit the 
 accomplishment of these events which have brought to 
 pass this crisis, and how it is a matter of profound 
 thanksgiving that we are a united North. I do not 
 mean that there are no reptiles that lurk in their holes 
 and hiss, but I do mean that they no sooner put their 
 heads above the earth than they are scotched. 
 
 I doubt not there are many men who would do 
 mischief if they coidd, but the North stands like the 
 old Apostle, who, while throwing fuel on the fire, a 
 
29 
 
 viper fastened on his hand, and when the spectators 
 looked that he should die, saying, "he is a criminal 
 escaped jfrom justice," behold he shook it off and suf- 
 fered no harm, and they thought he was a God after- 
 ward. 
 
 First they thought he was a culprit, and then a deity, 
 and so the North, standing by this fire and warming 
 itself and casting on fuel, finds on its hands some 
 vipers; yet it shakes them off and suffers no harm. 
 We are a community infrangible, indivisible, and, as 
 sure as the sun rises and sets, victorious! 
 
 2. Nor are we to forget that, as the stars in their 
 courses fought against Sisera, so there have been great 
 natural agencies in this great conflict, that have been 
 co-oporating with us. Who that shuddered at the 
 crisis of '57, knew that God was saying to us : — " Take 
 in your sails, put your ship in order, a hurricane is 
 about to fall on you." Nevertheless, we put the ship 
 in good condition, and now that the storm has come we 
 understand the reason of the warning. There never 
 was a time when the North coidd so well afford as 
 now, to have a storm upon us; for, although indivi- 
 dual men are falling down, the community was never 
 so rich ; never in condition to bear the burden of war 
 so well as now. 
 
 3. Nor is that all : When war had come, it pleased 
 God to say to the winds and the rain, that tra^^el far 
 and near, fulfilling his purpose, " Make the earth teem 
 with plenty, breed grain in the clod. He that made 
 
30 
 
 thie seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine, 
 made two years of superabundance and plenty with us, 
 to take the crown from the head of cotton and put it 
 on the head of grain. 
 
 For whaf? Because this had been their pecidiar 
 boast, "Cotton is King, and by this power we will 
 bring France with her haughty Emperor, and England 
 to our terms, and we will crush the North by the 
 fleecy sceptre of cotton." 
 
 We did not know it. God knew it. I walked 
 through all the cornfields, and heard the leaves rust- 
 ling, and, ignorant soid that I was, I thought it was 
 the wind sweeping through the corn, and did not 
 understand the messages, but it was God speaking 
 to me in the rusthng corn, which now I understand, 
 though before I knew it not, and every field through- 
 out the North hfted up its long sword blades, pre- 
 figuring the victorious swords, and every one that 
 came through said, " Liberty is coming, emancipation 
 is coming. Corn shall dethrone cotton, for now just 
 when mechanical England would have demanded our 
 ports to be opened — what 1 She needs our grain more 
 than she needs Southern cotton. She must feed her 
 men before she gives their hands anything to do, and 
 we come nearer starving them than the South comes 
 nearer clothing them. So the Emperor too has just 
 been obliged to send into his minister the declaration 
 that he has laid aside his material prerogative to open 
 
31 
 
 fresh budgets of expense, that he will restrict liimself, 
 and that the nation may economise. 
 
 In other words, just at the time when we are enjoy- 
 ing boundless prosperity, France is obliged to curtail 
 her army, and to save in every possible matter. We 
 have good guarantees for peace there, and we have 
 good guarantees for peace in England. This thing is 
 going to be fought out by ourselves. We have sealed 
 five thousand miles of coast; we have shut their 
 breatliing holes, and now we are putting the red hot 
 torch of war at the other end, and in a short time 
 victory will be determined, and while we are carrying 
 on tliis war, God is loading up magazines for us. God 
 has poured money into our coffers. But let all nations 
 stand off ! Sweep around the ring and stand off spec- 
 tators, and now let these gigantic forms stand, — Liberty 
 and God — Slavery and the Devil, and no more put 
 hand or foot into that ring until they have done battle 
 unto the death ! Amen. Even so, Lord God Almighty, 
 it is Thy decree ; this Thy purpose ; and when victory 
 shall come ; " not unto us ; not unto us," but in the 
 voices of thrice ten thousand ransomed ones mingled 
 with all Thy children, " unto Thy name shall be the 
 praise and the glory, forever and ever, amen." 
 
THANKSGIVING SERMONS. 
 
 BY REV. CHARLES AV ADS WORTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 THANKSGIVING. A Sermon preached in the Arch 
 Street Presbyterian C'hnrch, on Thursday, November 
 28, 1861, by Rev. Charles Wadsworth. Price 15 
 cents per copy, or $1 50 a dozen, or $10 a liundred. 
 
 II. 
 
 THANKFULNESS. A Sermon preached on Sabbath 
 Morning, November 16, 1856, preceding the Annual 
 Thanksgiving ; and 
 
 CHARACTER. A Sermon preached on Thanksgiving 
 Day, November 20, 1856, by Charles Wadsworth, 
 in the Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 
 Price 25 cents, or five for One Dollar. 
 
 III. 
 
 AMERICA'S MISSION. A Sermon preached in the 
 Arch Street Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, on 
 Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1855. By Charles 
 Wadsworth. Price 25 cents, or five for One Dollar. 
 
 IV. 
 
 POLITICS IN RELIGION. A Thanksgiving Sermon 
 preached in the Arch Street Presbyterian Church, 
 Philadelphia, on Thursday Morning, November 23, 
 1854. By Charles Wadsworth. Price 12| cents, or 
 ten copies for One Dollar. 
 
 The above Sermons are published in a beautiful style, 
 and are for sale, (or copies will be sent free of postage,) 
 at the Cheap Bookselling and Publishing House of 
 
 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 
 
 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 026 274 9 
 
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