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AFTER a few months' absence, Mr. Beecher returned
to America, having finished a more remarkable embassy
than any envoy who has represented us in Europe since
Franklin pleaded the cause of the young Republic at the
Court of Versailles.
"He kissed no royal hand, he talked with no courtly di-
plomatists, he was the guest of no titled legislator, he had
no official existence. But, through the heart of the people,
he reached nobles, ministers, courtiers, the throne itself."
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
S
PREFACE.
The object of this publication is to meet the definite
demand for it which found expression in many ways
during Mr. Beecher's life, but since his death has become
well nigh universal.
Mr. Beecher's speeches in Great Britain on the
American Rebellion were published originally in book
form by an Emancipation Society in Manchester in 1864.
Its circulation was limited and the volume has been long
out of print. Though widely known as to their delivery
and results, they have been to this time, in literary form,
comparatively unknown to American readers.
These speeches are justly deemed the most permanent
in historic interest of any in Mr. Beecher's life. No résumé
of the momentous events of his wonderful career will be
given that will fail to give prominence to this, his greatest
oratorical effort.
It has been said by many, and doubtless with truth,
that by these addresses Mr. Beecher saved this country
from the forcible interference of England in behalf of
the South and against the North.
+ 7
His display of courage in facing the hostile mobs of
Liverpool and Manchester was of as grand a type as that
of any warrior on the field of battle.
With matchless skill in the wording of his matter;
with patient forbearance, yet quick as lightning to seize
an opening; with astonishing readiness of repartee, that
3
4
PREFACE.
turned the guffaw on his interrupters and converted
enemies on the instant into admirers; with soothing
intonations of pathos that would quiet the noisiest until
he could get in some sublime appeal for justice and liberty
-he stood with indomitable courage before those turbu-
lent crowds, fighting, parrying their blows and getting in
on their flanks, springing mines of wit beneath their feet,
blinding their eyes with sudden flashes of eloquence,
forcing attention by some happy historic and ancestral
allusion; revealing himself a tremendous man, determined
never to yield without a fair hearing from men-his
brethren-he finally captured his bitterest foes, and with
such winsome grace that they felt it an honor to surrender
unconditionally to such a hero, and they rent the air with
shouts of admiration.
Where has there been such a scene in modern days?
Who in any age ever displayed nobler qualities of the orator
or achieved a sublimer triumph for a better cause? Henry
Ward Beecher did enough in that campaign, when our
Nation's life hung in the balance, for Union and Liberty,
to endear him forever to all American patriots.
It is perhaps needless to state that the revision of
this work does not extend to the speeches of Mr. Beecher
--such presumption would be unpardonable-but rather
to such report of them as was given in the English publi-
cation.
SPEECH DELIVERED
IN THE FREE TRADI
HALL, MANCHESTER, OCTOBER 9, 1863.
FOR a fortnight previous to the date of this meeting
the city had been placarded with bills containing an
invitation to the citizens to attend in large numbers, an
give their esteemed guest a hostile reception, and
glance at the audience would seem to show that a larg
number of these publicly invited persons had responde
to the call, and were prepared to show the refinement c
their manners by giving to a stranger to them, but
friend to humanity, the novel reception characterized b
themselves as "disgusting."
Arrangements had therefore been made for the promp
suppression of disorder, and notices to that effect wer
posted about the room. The hall was extremely crowde
and there were probably six thousand persons present.
The platform was occupied by a number of distin
guished adherents of the Union cause, mostly membe
of the Union and Emancipation Society. Father Gava
zi was in one of the reserved seats below the platfor
The entrance of Mr. Beecher was the signal for enthu
astic and repeated cheering.
Letters were read from Thomas Bailey Potter, Es
5
6
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
•
president of the Union and Emancipation Society, then in
Scotland; from Mr. William E. Foster, M. P., and from
Mr. John Bright, regretting their inability to be present.
Mr. Bright said: "I am grieved to be away from home
when Mr. Beecher is in the neighborhood." (Loud
cheers.)
Mr. Francis Taylor having taken the chair, delivered
an address of welcome to Mr. Beecher, in the course of
which he combatted the idea that the friends of the North
had restricted the discussion of the American question to
the simple issue of slavery. He said:
"If this were true, the simple issue of slavery is one
well worthy the consideration of Englishmen. But who
limited the question to the simple issue of slavery? Did
not the Southern States in all their Secession ordinances
declare that slavery, and slavery alone, was the ques-
tion at issue? Did not the Hon. Alex. Stephens, the
vice-president of the Confederacy, boast that they were.
seeking to found an empire on the 'corner-stone of
slavery?' The fact is, the South has declared, over and
over again, that slavery is the top, and bottom, and mid-
dle of the whole question. (Applause.) But we do not
limit the discussion of the question to the simple issue of
slavery, and we are here to-night to declare from this
platform to the editor of the Saturday Review, and all
who think with him, that important as that issue may be,
there are others which, in our opinion, are equally im-
portant. The South had held the reins of government in
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
7
its hands for a long series of years, until the election of
Mr. Lincoln on the platform of the limitation of the area
of slavery turned the scale. That election was the free
and unrestricted voice of the people, and against it the
South rebelled. It was therefore a rebellion against con-
stitutional government-an armed resistance to a consti-
tutional ruler; and the issues involved in the struggle are
the safety of constitutional liberty everywhere, the prog-
ress of liberal institutions everywhere, and the develop-
ment of Anglo-Saxon civilization everywhere, and there-
fore it is that we seek to preserve the great Republic
from disruption."
The following address of the Society was then read by
the Secretary, Mr. E. O. Greening, and presented to Mr.
Beecher :
Reverend and dear Sir,-As members of the Union
and Emancipation Society we avail ourselves of this your
first public appearance in England, after a tour under-
taken for the purpose of relaxation, to welcome you, not
only as a citizen of a great and free country, but as one
who, for a long series of years, has been a prominent and
successful pioneer in the cause of human progress.
Though separated from you by the broad Atlantic, we
have been earnest spectators of your fearless and per-
sistent advocacy of the personal rights of the colored
race, amidst many perils and dangers, unmoved alike by
the blandishments of office, or the threats of opponents;
and also of your consistent adherence to the principles of
100
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
political and religious liberty. We deeply deplore the
dreadful calamity which has come upon your native
country; but, believing as we do, that its sole cause is to
be found in that sum of all villainies-human slavery-we
recognize in it the hand of retributive justice working out
the one inevitable punishment of wrong-doing, and over-
taking not only the Southern slave-holder, whose hands
are imbued with guilt, but our own country, from which
you inherited this hideous institution, and the free States
of America which have tolerated its existence. Living
ourselves under a constitutional government, and having
firm faith in representative institutions, we viewed with
alarm the outbreak of a rebellion, which its promoters
avowed to be an attempt to raise an empire on the
"corner-stone of slavery," and which was essentially a
rebellion against free constitutional government, and an
appeal from the ballot-box to the rifle. The success of
such a rebellion would place constitutional liberty in
jeopardy everywhere, and we congratulate you and your
countrymen on the determined stand you have made to
maintain unimpaired the great Republic, which has been
handed down to you by your forefathers, and thus to
present to the world a noble spectacle of self-denying
patriotism. We rejoice that your statesmen, whilst main-
taining that the restoration of the Union is a sacred obli-
gation, have been led, step by step, to the recognition
of the rights of the negro; thus vindicating the con-
sistency of those who have labored in the anti-slavery
IN ENGLAND İN 1863.
cause for a quarter of a century, in the midst of obloquy
and misrepresentation, supported only by their firm faith
in the eternal principles of right and justice; and estab-
lishing for them a claim to the heartfelt gratitude of the
lovers of freedom everywhere. In conclusion, we vent-
ure to hope that your visit may be the means of correct-
ing some of the misrepresentations as to the position of
this country in regard to the American struggle, which
have been assiduously spread by certain portions of the
press, and of cementing the bonds of amity, which ought
forever to bind together in peace the two great represent-
atives of the Anglo-Saxon race-England and America.
The cordial alliance of these two powers may not be con-
sistent with the designs of despotism, or be approved by
the enemies of liberty here or elsewhere; but, being one
in race, language, religion, and love of freedom, they may
thus lead the van of civilization, and bid defiance to the
shocks which jealousy or suspicion might bring upon them.
In the firm hope that such a future may be in store for
your country and ours, we bid you God speed in the enter-
prise in which you have been so long engaged and borne
such a noble part.
Signed, on behalf of the Union and Emancipation Society,
THOS. BAILEY POTTER, President.
Mr. Thomas Bazley, M.P., rose to move the presenta-
tion of the address to Mr. Beecher. He said that not
ten months ago the people of Manchester assembled in
that spacious hall in overwhelming numbers, as on the
10
HENRY WARD BEECHER's speeches
present occasion, to express their deep sympathy with
constitutional government, with the integrity of empire,
and their abhorrence of slavery. Since then the horrors.
of civil war had raged in a country that had, previously to
the breaking out of the present conflict, been only known
as extensively prosperous, as exceedingly peaceful, and
among the nations of the earth pre-eminently successful.
But in the pride of the South-(interruption, and cries of
"Turn him out. The chairman: "Do not put any one
out, please. If our friends would only be quiet there
would be no interruption, as the disorder is all caused by
one man. ")--but in the pride of the South an attempt had
been made to build up a nation on the chief corner-stone
of slavery, and such an attempt had been alike offensive
to the great people of the States of America and to the
intelligence of the people of Europe. The audacity of the
South was only equalled by its unfortunate hypocrisy.
(A voice: "There has been hypocrisy on both sides.")
The South now complained that she could not be let
alone and enjoy her assumed independence. Really
after having struck the first blow, after having initiated
the rebellion which had devastated the country,
it was
more than temperate reason could sustain to suppose that
such a demand could either be maintained by the South
or respected by those to whom the appeal had
been made. The South avowed a deep interest in
the welfare of the negro race. It proclaimed to the
world that the negro was better cared for and better
""
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
I I
7
taught than if left to his own management and to his
native condition in Africa. He knew not that the South
had an abstract right to determine what should be the
state of a people or nation held in subjection. If the
latter were free, then we might compare facts with as-
sumptions. The inconsistency of the South was clearly
shown by its avowing that the negro had equal hope of a
future state with the whites. The truths of our common
faith were said to be orally taught to the negroes. But
see the manifest inconsistency of such doctrine, when the
common rights of civilization and of education were de-
nied to a people whose only doom was incessant labor.
The South having commenced the rebellion, must await
the consequences of reclamation; the North would con-
tend for its territorial right, for the spread of civilization,
of just government, and of equal rights to all; and there-
fore the time might be coming, he hoped-and soon,
too,-when the South, seeing that its attempt had been
abortive, would be glad to see itself taken back into the
Union. (Applause.) We ought never to forget that in
the commencement of the struggle, the South proclaimed
cotton to be King and endeavored to coerce Europe,
that rebellion might be respected and the nation, built
upon the "corner-stone of slavery," might be called into
the midst of the nations of the earth. That had been
happily prevented; nothing could be more honest or
honorable than the conduct of the laboring classes in the
manufacturing districts of England; their comforts had
12
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
been diminished, very important interests had been inter-
fered with, and yet in their suffering they had been patient,
and they desired not to be fed with the results of the
labor of the slave. His duty on the present occasion was
to move that the address which had been read be present-
ed to the distinguished gentleman who was present. He
need not recommend it for adoption, for he felt convinced
that it would be carried by overwhelming acclamation.
The reverend gentleman was received here as the mes-
senger of peace and of good-will (loud cheering and some
hissing) to those Anglo-Saxon peoples that were destined,
on each side of the Atlantic, to spread civilization and
justice throughout the world.
Mr. J. H. Estcourt in seconding the motion made a
very telling address. He said:
As a member of the Union and Emancipation Society,
he, for one, from the commencement of the rebellion till
now, had sympathized with the Federal party in America,
for this reason, that slavery up to that time had only
local sanction; but then it claimed to be national, and
rather than that it should be national in America, they
said: "Thus far shalt thou go and no further;" and be-
cause the South could get no further, the first gun at
Sumter was fired. It would have been discreditable
alike to the President of the Republic, as well as to the
people of that Republic, to have submitted to such an
audacious insult to constitutional government. (Loud
applause.) And he had no hesitation in saying that
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
13
those on the other side of the Atlantic who were now
ting for constitutional government, and free speech,
one personal, civil, social, political and religious free-
1, ought to have the moral support, and he believed
7 had, of every intelligent and well informed English-
1. He could not say how long it would take to con-
and enlighten the unenlightened and uninformed
ion of the community, who in establishing the South-
Slave-holding Association had publicly acknowledged
one of their objects to be to obtain "correct informa-
tion;" but inasmuch as the Union and Emancipation.
Society was established for the very purpose of supply-
ing such information, he promised to all applicants that
which they sought, and hoped they would be diligent in
the acquisition of knowledge, and he sincerely
that before the year was out this class of the co
would be sailing with them in one boat, in an in
English career, in favor of a liberty which was the un-
doubted right of every man.
He had noticed a pecul-
iarity in Manchester lately which was highly suggestive,
at any rate, to intelligent men. A certain party had said
that Mr. Beecher was too American, because, forsooth,
he did not see things exactly as they saw them. But
whereas in 1854 and 1857 that great and noble man,
John Bright-(loud applause)—was blamed for being un-
English with reference to the Crimean war, now the
selfsame party blamed Mr. Beecher for being too Ameri-
can, All good and great men have been misrepresented,
VA
14
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
and thus it was such men were misunderstood. There
were few men in the world who had the moral courage to
act out their convictions, and to dare to express broad
principles, independent of sect or party; such men pos-
sessed an individuality that took them out of the groove
wherein the masses of the people are placed. If Mr.
Beecher, who had been consistent and persistent in his
advocacy of the rights of freedom, had viewed from his
standpoint in America certain things in England that to
him did not appear to bear that friendship which he
thought ought to have been borne, he had a perfect right
to express his opinion in a frank and independent man-
ner. The meeting was not asked to endorse every word
Mr. Beecher had said, but to manifest by its welcome,
that everything he had done in promoting the extension
of the broad principles of liberty, had its hearty approval.
(Applause.) The mode of doing this must be left to
Mr. Beecher himself, and he (Mr. Estcourt) was quite
sure there was not an Englishman in that crowded hall
who did not sympathize and wholly approve of a manly,
moral, good man, wherever he was found, whether he b
an American, an Englishman, or
Englishman, or the citizen of any
other nation. (Applause.) He therefore, believing Mr
Beecher to be such a man, with the greatest pleasur
seconded the adoption of the address.
The chairman then put the resolution, and thousands of
hands were thrust up high above the heads of the dense audi-
ence. After an interval of loud cheers, the chairman put
•
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
15
the contrary, and amidst peals of derisive laughter and
cheers a few hands were held up.
The CHAIRMAN: "I declare the resolution carried
by an overwhelming majority." (Enthusiastic cheering.)
The chairman, in handing the address to Mr. Beecher,
expressed a hope that the reverend gentleman would long
live in health and strength to continue his career.
Mr. BEECHER then turned to the audience to speak,
but for several minutes he was prevented by deafening
cheers, followed by a few hisses, which only provoked a
renewed outburst of applause.
Mr. BEECHER then said: "Mr. Chairman, ladies and
gentlemen, the address which you have kindly presented
me contains matters both personal and national.
(Interruption.) My friends, we will have a whole night
session but we will be heard. (Loud cheers.) I have
not come to England to be surprised that those men
whose cause cannot bear the light are afraid of free
speech. I have had practice of more than twenty-five
years in the presence of tumultuous assemblies opposing
those very men whose representatives now attempt to
forestall free speech. Little by little, I doubt not, I
shall be permitted to speak to-night. Little by little I
have been permitted in my own country to speak, until
at last the day has come there when nothing but the
utterance of speech for freedom is popular. You have
been pleased to speak of me as one connected with the
great cause of civil and religious liberty. I covet no
to
16
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
I
higher honor than to have my name joined to the list of
that great company of noble Englishmen from whom we
derived our doctrines of liberty. For although there is
some opposition to what are here called American ideas,
what are these American ideas? They are simply Eng-
lish ideas bearing fruit in America. We bring back
American sheaves, but the seed-corn we got in England
-and if, on a larger sphere, and under circumstances of
unobstruction, we have reared mightier harvests, every
sheaf contains the grain that has made Old England rich
for a hundred years. (Great cheering.) I am also not a
little gratified that my first appearance to speak on secu-
lar topics in England is in this goodly town of Man-
chester, for I had rather have praise from men who un-
derstand the quality praised, than from those who speak
at hazard and with little knowledge of the thing praised.
And where else, more than in these great central por-
tions of England, and in what town more than Man-
chester have the doctrines of human rights been battled
for, and where else have there been gained for them
nobler victories than here? It is not indiscriminate
praise therefore you know what you talk about. You
have had practice in these doctrines yourselves, and to
be praised by those who are illustrious is praise indeed.
Allusion has been made by one of the gentlemen-a cau-
tionary allusion, a kind of deference evidently paid to
some supposed feeling-an allusion has been made to
words or deeds of mine that might be supposed to be
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
17
offensive to Englishmen. I cannot say how that may be.
I am sure that I have never thought, in the midst of this
mighty struggle at home, which has taxed every power
and energy of our people-I have never stopped to meas-
ure and to think whether my words spoken in truth and
with fidelity to duty would be liked in this shape or in that
shape by one or another person either in England or
America. I have had one simple, honest purpose, which
I have pursued ever since I have been in public life, and
that was with all the strength that God has given to me to
maintain the cause of the poor and of the weak in my own
country. And if, in the height and heat of conflict, some
words have been over sharp, and some positions have been
taken heedlessly, are you the men to call one to account?
What if some exquisite dancing-master, standing on the
edge of a battle, where Richard Cœur de Lion swung his
axe, criticised him by saying that "his gestures and pos-
tures violated the proprieties of polite life?" (Laughter.)
When dandies fight they think how they look, but when
men fight they think only of deeds.' But I am not here
either on trial or on defence. It matters not what I have
said on other occasions and under different circumstances.
Here I am before you, willing to tell you what I
think about England, or any person in it. Let me say
one word, however, in regard to this meeting, and the
peculiar gratification which I feel in it. The same agen
cies which have been at work to misrepresent good mer
in our country to you, have been at work to misrepresen
2
18
HRNRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
to us good men here; and when I say to my friends in
America that I have attended such a meeting as this,
received such an address, and beheld such enthusiasm,
it will be a renewed pledge of amity. I have never
ceased to feel that war or even unkind feelings between
two such great nations, would be one of the most unpar-
donable and atrocious offences that the world ever
beheld, and I have regarded everything therefore, which
needlessly led to those feelings out of which war comes.
as being in itself wicked. The same blood is in us. We
are your children, or the children of your fathers and
ancestors. You and we hold the same substantial doc-
trines. We have the same mission amongst the nations
of the earth. Never were mother and daughter set forth
to do so queenly a thing in the kingdom of God's glory
as England and America. Do you ask why we are so
sensitive, and why have we hewn England with our
tongue as we have? I will tell you why. There is no
inan who can offend you so deeply as the one you love
Men point to France and Napoleon, and say he
has joined England in all that she has done, and why
are the press of America silent against France, and why
do they speak as they do against England? It is be-
cause we love England. I well remember the bitterness
left by the war of our Independence, and the outbreak of
the flame of 1812 from its embers. To hate England
was in my boyhood almost the first lesson of patriotism;
but that result of conflict gradually died away as peace.
mosi.
j
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
19
1
{
brought forth its proper fruits: interests, reciprocal
visits, the interchanges of Christian sympathy, and co-
operative labors in a common cause lessened and finally
removed ill-feelings. In their place began to arise
affection and admiration. For when we searched our
principles, they all ran back to rights wrought out and
established in England; when we looked at those insti-
tutions of which we were most proud, we beheld that the
very foundation stones were taken from the quarry of
your history; when we looked for those men that had
illustrated our own tongue, orators, or eloquent ministers
of the gospel, they were English; we borrowed nothing
from France, but here a fashion and there a gesture or a
custom while what we had to dignify humanity-that
made life worth having-were all brought from Old
England. And do you suppose that under such circum-
stances, with this growing love, with this growing pride,
with this gladness to feel that we were being associated
in the historic glory of England, it was with feelings of
indifference that we beheld in our midst the heir-appar-
ent to the British throne? There is not reigning on the
globe a sovereign who commands our simple, unpreten-
tious, and unaffected respect, as does your own beloved
Queen. (Loud cheers.) I have heard multitudes of men
say that it was their joy and their pleasure to pay respect
to the Prince of Wales, even if he had not won personal
sympathy, that his mother might know that through him
the compliment was meant to her.
It was an unar-
•
20
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
/i
ranged and unexpected spontaneous and universal out-
break of popular enthusiasm; it began in the colonies of
Canada, the fire rolled across the border, all through
New England, all through New York and Ohio, down
through Pennsylvania and the adjacent States; nor was
the element quenched until it came to Richmond., I
said, and many said-the past of enmity and prejudice is
now rolled below the horizon of memory: a new era is
come, and we have set our hand and voices as a sacred
seal to our cordial affection and co-operation with Eng-
land. Now (whether we interpreted it aright or not, is
not the question) when we thought England was seeking
opportunity to go with the South against us of the North,
it hurt us as no other nation's conduct could hurt us on
the face of the globe; and if we spoke some words of
intemperate heat, we spoke them in the mortification of
disappointed affection. It has been supposed that I
have aforetime urged or threatened war with England.
Never. This I have said-and this I repeat now, and
here--that the cause of constitutional government and of
universal liberty as associated with it in our country was
so dear, so sacred, that rather than betray it we would!
give the last child we had-that we would not relinquish
this conflict though other States rose, and entered into a
league with the South-and that, if it were necessary we
would maintain this great doctrine of representative gov-
ernment in America against the armed world-against
England and France. (Great cheering, followed by some
.
督
​İN ENGLAND IN 1863.
21
!
9
disturbance, in reference to which the chairman rose
and cautioned an individual
an individual under the gallery whom
Let
he had observed persisting in interruption.)
me be permitted to say then, that it seems to me the
darker days of embroilment between this country and
America are past. The speech of Earl Russell at Blair-
gowrie, the stopping of those armed ships, and the pres
ent attitude of the British government-will go far
towards satisfying our people.
Understand me; we do
not accept Earl Russell's doctrine of belligerent rights
nor of neutrality, as applied to the action of the British
government and nation at the beginning of our civil war,
as right doctrine, but we accept it as an accomplished
fact. We have drifted so far away from the time when it
was profitable to discuss the questions of neutrality or
belligerency, and circumstances with you and with us are.
so much changed by the progress of the war, that we now
only ask of the government strict neutrality, and of the
liberty-loving people of England moral sympathy. Noth-
ing more! We ask no help, and no hindrance.
If v
you do not send us a man, we do not ask for a man.
If you do not send us another pound of powder,' we are
able to make our own powder. (Laughter.) If you do
not send us another musket nor another cannon, we have
cannon that will carry five miles already. (Laughter.)
We do not ask for material help. We shall be grateful
for moral sympathy, but if you cannot give us moral
sympathy we shall still endeavor to do without it. All
22
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
that we say is let France keep away, let England keep
hands off; if we cannot manage this rebellion by our-
selves, then let it be not managed at all. (Cheers)
We do not allow ourselves to doubt the issue of this
conflict. It is only a question of time. For such
✔inestimable principles as are at stake, of self-
government, of representative government, of any gov-
ernment at all, of free institutions rejected be-
cause they inevitably will bring liberty to slaves un-
less subverted ;-of national honor, and fidelity to sol-
emn national trusts,—for all these war is waged, and if
by war these shall be secured, not one drop of blood
will be wasted, not one life squandered. The suffering
will have purchased a glorious future of inconceivable
peace and happiness! Nor do we deem the result doubt-
ful. The population is in the North and West. The
wealth is there. The popular intelligence of the country
is there. THERE only is there an educated common people.
The right doctrines of civil government are with the
North. (Cheers, and a voice, "Where's the justice?")
It will not be long, before one thing more will be with
the North-Victory. (Loud and enthusiastic rounds of
cheers.) Men on this side are impatient at the long de-
lay; but if we can bear it, can't you? (Laughter.) You
are quite at ease (“not yet "); we are not. You are
not materially affected in any such degree as many parts
of our own land are. But if the day shall come in one
year, in two years, or in ten years hence, when the old
¿
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
23
"
stars and stripes shall float over every State of America,
-(loud cheers, and some disturbance from one or two)—
oh, let him (the chief disturber) have a chance. (Laugh-
ter.) I was saying, when interrupted by that sound from
the other side of the hall, that if the day shall come, in
one or five or ten years, in which the old honored and
historic banner shall float again over every State of the
South; if the day shall come when that which was the ac-
cursed cause of this dire and atrocious war-slavery-shall
be done away; if the day shall have come, when through
all the Gulf States there shall be liberty of speech, as there
never has been; when there shall be liberty of the press,
as there never has been; when men shall have common
schools to send their children to, which they never have
had in the South; if the day shall come when the land
shall not be parcelled into gigantic plantations, in the
hands of a few rich oligarchs, but shall be divided to
honest farmers, every man owning his little; in short, if
the day shall come when the simple ordinances, the frui-
tion and privileges of civil liberty shall prevail in every
it will be worth all the dread-
part of the United States
ful blood, and tears, and woe. (Loud cheers.) You are
✓
impatient; and yet God dwelleth in eternity, and has an
infinite leisure to roll forward the affairs of men, not to
suit the hot impatience of those who are but children of
a day, and cannot wait or linger long, but according to
the infinite circle on which He measures time and events!
He expedites or retards as it pleases him; and yet if He
p
J
24
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
1
heard our cries or prayers, not thrice would the months
revolve but peace would come.
But the strong crying
and prayers of millions have not brought peace, but
only thickening war. We accept the Providence; the
duty is plain. (Cheers and interruption.) I repeat, the
duty is plain. So rooted is this English people in the
faith of liberty, that it were an utterly hopeless task for
any minion or sympathizer of the South to sway the pop-
ular sympathy of England, if this English people be-
lieved that this was none other than a conflict between
liberty and slavery. It is just that. The conflict may be
masked by our institutions. Every people must shape
public action through their laws and institutions. We
often cannot reach an evil directly, but only circuitously,
through the channels of law and custom. It is none the
less a contest for liberty and against slavery, because it
is primarily a conflict for the Union. It is by that Union,
vivid with liberty, that we have to scourge oppression
and establish liberty. Union, in the future, means
justice, liberty, popular rights. Only slavery has hith-
erto prevented Union from bearing such fruit. Slav-
ery was introduced into our country at a time, and in
a manner, when neither England nor America knew well
what were the results of that atrocious system. It
was ignorantly received and propagated on our side;
little by little it spread through all the thirteen States
that then were: for slavery in the beginning was in New
England as really as now it is in the Southern States.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
25
But when the great struggle for our independence came
on, the study of the doctrines of human rights had made.
such progress, that the whole public mind began to think
it was wrong to wage war to defend our rights, while we
were holding men in slavery, depriving them of theirs.
It is an historical fact, that all the great and renowned
men that flourished at the period of our revolution were
abolitionists. Washington was; so was Benjamin Frank-
lin; so was Thomas Jefferson; so was James Monroe;
so were the principal Virginian and Southern statesmen,
and the first abolition society ever founded in America
was founded not in the North, but in the Middle and a
portion of the Southern States. Before the War of In-
dependence slavery was decaying in the North, from
moral and physical causes combined. It ceased in New
England with the adoption of our constitution. It has
been unjustly said that they sold their slaves, and
preached a cheap emancipation to the South. Slavery
ceased in Massachusetts as follows: When suit was
brought for the services of a slave, the Chief Justice laid.
down as law, that our Declaration of Independence,
which pronounced all men "equal," and equally entitled
to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," was it-
self a bill of emancipation, and he refused to yield up
that slave for service. At a later period New York
passed an Emancipation Act. It has been said that she
sold her slaves. No slander was ever greater. The
most careful provision was made against sale. No man
5
26
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
travelling out of the State of New York after the passing
of the Emancipation Act was permitted to have any slave
with him, unless he gave bonds for his re-appearance with
him. As a matter of fact the slaves were emancipated
without compensation on the spot, to take effect gradually
class by class. But after a trial of half a score of years
the people found this gradual emancipation was intolera-
ble. It was like gradual amputation. They therefore
by another act of legislation declared immediate emanci
pation-and that took effect; and so slavery perished in.
the State of New York. Substantially so it was in New
Jersey, and in Pennsylvania; never was there an example
of States that emancipated slaves more purely from moral
conviction of the wrong of slavery. I know that it is
said that Northern capital and Northern ships were
employed in the slave trade. To an extent it was so.
But is there any community that lives, in which there
are not miscreants who violate the public conscience?
Then and since, the man who dared to use his capital
and his ships in this infamous traffic hid himself, and did
by agents what he was ashamed to be known to have
done himself. Any man in the North who notoriously
had part or lot in a trade so detested would have been
branded with the mark of. Cain. It is true that the port
of New York has been employed in this infernal traffic,
but it was because it was under the influence either of
that democratic" party that was then unfortunately in
alliance with the Southern slavery-or because it was
(6
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
27
under the dark political control of the South itself. For
when the South could appoint our marshals,-could,
through the national administration, control the appoint-
ment of every Federal officer, our collectors, and every
custom-house officer,-how could it but be that slavery
flourished in our harbors? For years together New York
has been as much controlled by the South in matters re-
lating to slavery, as Mobile or New Orleans! But, even
so, the slave trade was clandestine. It abhorred the
light it crept in and out of the harbor stealthily, despised
and hated by the whole community. Is New York to be
blamed for demoniac acts done by her limbs while yet
under possession of the devil? she is now clothed, and
in her right mind. There was one Judas; is Christianity
therefore a hoax? There are hissing men in this au-
dience are you not respectable? (Cheers and laugh-
ter.) The folly of the few is that light which God casts
to irradiate the wisdom of the many. And let me say
one word here about the constitution of America. It rec-
ognizes slavery as a fact; but it does not recognize the
doctrine of slavery in any way whatever; it was a fact;
it lay before the ship of state, as a rock lies in the chan-
nel of the ship as she goes into harbor; and because a
ship steers round a rock,'does it follow that that rock is
in the ship? And because the constitution of the United
States made some circuits to steer round that great fact,
does it follow that therefore slavery is recognized in the
constitution as a right or a system? See how carefully
28
HENRY WARd Beecher's SPEECHES
that immortal document worded itself. In the slave
laws the slave is declared to be-what? expressly, and
by the most repetitious phraseology, he is denuded of
all the attributes and characteristics of manhood, and is
pronounced a "chattel." (Shame.) Now, you have just
that same word in your farming language with the left.
out, "cattle." And the difference between cattle and
chattel is the difference between quadruped and biped.
(Laughter.) So far as animate property is concerned,
and so far as inanimate property is concerned, it is just
the difference between locomotive property and sta-
tionary property. The laws in all the slave States
stand on the radical principle that a slave is not
for purposes of law any longer to be ranked in the
category of human beings, but that he is a piece of
property, and is to be treated to all intents and purposes
as a piece of property; and the law did not blush, nor do
the judges blush now-a-days who interpret that law. ´ But
how does the Constitution of the United States, when it
speaks of these same slaves, name them? Does it call
them chattels or slaves? Nay,
Nay, it refused even the softer
words serf and servitude. Conscientiously aware of the
dignity of man, and that service is not opposed to the
grandeur of his nature, it alludes to the slaves barely as,
persons (not chattels) held to service (not servitude). Go
to South Carolina, and ask what she calls slaves, and her
laws reply "they are things:" but the old capitol at
Washington sullenly reverberates, “No, persons!" Go
·
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IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
31
very few years the government ceased to raise taxation
by "poll," and raised it by tariff. Thenceforward, as
representatives had to be chosen in the same way, and as
five slaves counted as three white men, the South has had
the advantage · and it has come to this point, that while
in the North representatives represent men, in the South
the representatives stand for men and property together.
I want to drop a word as an egg for you to brood over.
It will illustrate the policy of the South. The proposition.
to make a government undeniably National, as distinct
from a mere Confederacy, came from Virginia and South
Carolina. The North, having more individuality, was
jealous of yielding up the rights of the separate States;
but the South, with the love of power characteristic of the
Normans, wanted to have a National government in dis-
tinction to a Union of several States. In result, when
the National government was established, the South came
into power; and for fifty years everything that the South
said should be done has been done, and whatever she
said should not be done, has not been done. The institu-
tions of America were shaped by the North; but the
policy of her government, for half a hundred years, by the
South. All the aggression and fillibustering, all the
threats to England and tauntings of Europe, all the
bluster of war which our government has assumed, have
been under the inspiration and under the almost mo-
narchical sway of the Southern oligarchy. And now, since
Britain has been snubbed by the Southerners, and threat-
32
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ened by the Southerners, and domineered over by the
Southerners-("No")-yet now Great Britain has thrown
her arms of love around the Southerners, and turns from the
Northerners. ("No.") She don't? I have only to say
that
she has been caught in very suspicious circumstances.
(Laughter.) I so speak, perhaps as much as anything else,
for this very sake-to bring out from you this expression-
to let you know what we know, that all the hostility felt in
my country towards Great Britain has been sudden, and
from supposing that you sided with the South, and sought
the breaking up of our country; and I want you to say to
me, and through me to my countrymen, that those irrita-
tions against the North, and those likings for the South,
that have been expressed in your papers, are not the feel-
ings of the great mass of your nation. (Great cheering,
the audience rising.) Those cheers already sound in my
ears as the coming acclamations of friendly nations-
those waving handkerchiefs are the white banners that
symbolize peace for all countries. Join with us then,
Britons. From you we learnt the doctrine of what a man
was worth; from you we learnt to detest all oppressions;
from you we learnt that it was the noblest thing a man
could do TO DIE FOR A RIGHT PRINCIPLE. (Cheers.) And
now, when we are set in that very course, and are giving
our best blood for the most sacred principles, let the .
world understand that the common people of Great
Britain support us. You have been pleased to say in this
address that I have been one of the "pioneers." No. I
•
*
S
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
33
am only one of their eldest sons. The Birneys, the Bai-
leys, the Rankins, the Dickeys, the Thoms of the West,
the Garrisons, the Quincys, the Slades, the Welds, the
Stewarts, the Smiths, the Tappans, the Goodalls of the
East, and unnamed hundreds more, these were indeed
pioneers. I unloosed the shoe-latchets of the pioneers,
and that is all: I was but little more than a boy : I bear
witness that the hardest blows, and the most cruel suf-
ferings were endured by men, before I was thrust far
enough into public life to take any particular share; and
I do not consider myself entitled to rank amongst the
pioneers. They were better men than I. Those noble
men did resist this downward tendency of the North.
They were rejected by society. To be called an abo-
litionist excluded a man from respectable society in those
days. To be called an abolitionist blighted any man's
prospects in political life. To be called an abolitionist
marked a man's store,-his very customers avoided him
as if he had the plague. To be called an abolitionist in
those days shut up the doors of confidence from him in
the church; where he was regarded as a disturber of the
peace. Nevertheless, the witnesses for liberty maintained
their testimony. (Loud cheers.) Little by little, they
reached the conscience,-they gained the understanding.
And as, when old Luther spoke, thundering in the ears of
Europe the long buried treasures of the Bible, there were
hosts against him, yet the elect few gathered little by
little, and became no longer few; just so did many a
हैँ
1
3
34
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
Yo
Luther among ourselves thunder forth a long buried truth
from God, the essential right of human liberty; and these
were followed for half a score of years, until they began to
be numerous enough to be an influential party in the State
elections. In 1848, I think it was, that the Buffalo plat-
form was laid. It was the first endeavor in the Northern
States to form a platform that should carry rebuke to the
slave-holding ideas in the North. Before this, however,
I can say that, under God, the South itself had uninten-
tionally done more than we, to bring on this work of
emancipation. First, they began to declare, after the
days of Mr. Calhoun, that they accepted slavery no longer
as a misfortune, but as a divine blessing. Mr. Calhoun
advanced the doctrine, which is now the marrow of seces-
sion, that it was the duty of the general government not
merely to protect the local States from interference but to
make slavery equally national with liberty! In effect,
the government was to see to it that slavery received
equivalents for every loss and disadvantage, which, by
the laws of nature, it must sustain in a race against free
institutions. These monstrous doctrines began to be the
development of future ambitions. The South, having the
control of government, knew from the inherent weakness
of their system, that, if it were confined, it was like huge
herds feeding on small pastures, that soon gnaw the grass
to the roots, and must have other pasture or die. Slavery
is of such a nature, that, if you do not give it continual
change of feeding ground, it perishes. (Cheering.) And
1
IN ENGLAND IN ;.
35
ނ
then came one after another from the South, assertions of
rights never before dreamed of. From them came the
Mexican war for territory; from them came the annexa-
tion of Texas and its entrance as a slave State; from
them came that organized rowdyism in Congress that
brow-beat every Northern man who had not sworn fealty
to slavery; that filled all the courts of Europe with minis-
ters holding slave doctrines; that gave the majority of
the seats on the bench to slave-owning judges; and that
gave, in fact, all our chief offices of trust either to slave-
owners, or to men who licked the feet of slave-owners.
Then çame that ever-memorable period when, for the very
purpose of humbling the North, and making it drink the
bitter cup of humiliation, and showing to its people that
the South was their natural lord, was passed the Fugitive
Slave Bill. (Loud hisses.) There was no need of that.
There was already existing just as good an instrument for
so infernal a purpose as any fiend could have wished.
Against that infamy my soul revolted, and these lips pro-
tested, and I defied the government to its face and told
them "I will execute none of your unrighteous laws;
send to me a fugitive who is fleeing from his master, and
I will step between him and his pursuer." (Loud and
prolonged cheers.) Not once, nor twice, have my doors
been shut between oppression and the oppressed; and
the church itself over which I minister has been the
unknown refuge of many and many a one. (Cheers.)
But whom the devil entices he cheats. Our promised
36
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
"peace" with the South, which was the thirty pieces of
silver paid to us, turned into fire and burnt the hands
that took it. For, how long was it after this promised
peace that the Missouri compromise was abolished in an
infamous disregard of solemn compact? It never ought
to have been made; but having been made, it ought
never to have been broken by the South. And with no
other pretence than the robber's pretence that might
makes right, they did destroy it, that they might carry
slavery far North. That sufficed. That alone was needed.
to arouse the long reluctant patriotism of the North. In
hope that time would curb and destroy slavery, that for-
bearance would lead to like forbearance, the North had
suffered insult, wrong, political treachery, and risk to her
very institutions of liberty. By the abolition of this com-
promise another slave State was immediately to have been
brought into the Union to balance the ever growing free
territories of the North-west. Then arose a majesty of
self-sacrifice that had no parallel before. Instead of
merely protesting, young men and maidens, laboring men,
farmers, mechanics, sped with a sacred desire to rescue
free territory from the toils of slavery; and emigrated in
thousands, not to better their own condition, but in order
that, when this territory should vote, it should yote as a
free State. (Loud cheers.) Never was a worse system
of cheating practised than the perjury, intimidation, and
prostituted use of the United States army, by which the
South sought to force a vile institution upon the men who
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
37
had voted almost unanimously for liberty and against
slavery in Kansas. But at last the day of utter darkness
had passed, and the gray twilight was on the morning
horizon. At length (for the first time, I believe, in the
whole conflict between the South and the North), the
victory went to the North, and Kansas became a free
State. (Cheers.) Now I call you to witness that, in a
period of twenty-five or thirty years of constant conflicts
with the South, at every single step they gained the polit-
ical advantage, with the single exception of Kansas.
What was the conduct of the North? Did it take any
steps for secession? Did it threaten violence?
So sure
were the men of the North of the ultimate triumph of that
which was Right, provided free speech was left to combat
error and Wrong, that they patiently bided their time.
By this time the North was cured alike of love for slavery
and of indifference. By this time a new conscience had
been formed in the North, and a vast majority of all the
Northern men at length stood fair and square on anti-
slavery doctrine. We next had to flounder through the
quicksands of four infamous years under President Bu-
chanan, in which senators, sworn to the constitution, were
plotting to destroy that constitution; in which the mem-
bers of the cabinet, who drew their pay month by month,
used their official position, by breach of public trust and
oath of allegiance, to steal arms, to prepare fortifications,
and make ready disruption and war. The most astound-
ing spectacle that the world ever saw was then witnessed
38
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
-a great people paying men to sit in the places of power
and office to betray them. During all those four years
what did we? We protested and waited, and said: "God.
shall give us the victory. It is God's truth that we wield,
and in his own good time, He will give us the victory."
In all this time we never made an inroad on the rights of
the South. We never asked for retaliatory law. We
never taxed their commerce, or touched it with our little
finger. We envied them none of their manufactures; but
sought to promote them. We did not attempt to abate by
one ounce, their material prosperity; we longed for their
prosperity. Slavery we always hated; the Southern men
never. (Cheers.) They were wrong. And in our con-
flicts with them we have felt as all men in conflict feel.
We were jealous, and so were they. We were in the
right cause; they in the wrong. We were right, or liberty
is a delusion; they were wrong, or slavery is a blessing.
We never envied them their territory; and it was the
faith of the whole North, that, in seeking for the abate-
ment of slavery, and its final abolition, we were confer-
ring upon the South itself the greatest boon which one
nation-or part of a nation-could confer upon another.
That she was to pass through difficulties in her transition
to free labor, I had no doubt; but it was not in our
heart to humble her, but rather to help and sympathize
with her. I defy time and history to point to a more hon-
orable conduct than that of the free North towards the
South during all these days.
In 1860 Mr. Lincoln was
IN ENGLANDȚIN 1863.
39
elected. (Cheers.) I ask you to take notice of the con-
duct of the two sides at this point. For thirty years we
had been experiencing sectional defeats at the hands of
the Southerners. For thirty years and more we had seen
our sons proscribed because loyal to liberty, or worse
than proscribed-suborned and made subservient to sla-
very. We had seen our judges corrupt, our ministers
apostate, our merchants running headlong after gold.
against principle; but we maintained fealty to the law
and to the constitution, and had faith in victory by legiti-
mate means. But when, by the means pointed out in the
constitution, and sanctified by the usage of three-quarters
of a century, Mr. Lincoln, in fair open field, was elected
President of the United States, did the South submit?
(Cries of "No," and cheers.) No offence had been com-
mitted--none threatened; but the allegation was, that
the election of a man known to be pledged against the
extension of slavery was not compatible with the safety of
slavery as it existed. On that ground they took steps for
secession. Every honest mode to prevent it, all patience.
on the part of the North, all pusillanimity on the part of
Mr. Buchanan, were anxiously employed. Before his suc-
cessor came into office he left nothing undone to make
matters worse, did nothing to make things better. The
North was patient then, the South impatient. Soon came.
the issue. The question was put to the South, and with
the exception of South Carolina, every State in the South
gave a popular vote against secession; and yet, such was
40
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
the jugglery of political leaders, that before a few months
had passed, they had precipitated every State into seces-
sion. That never could have occurred had there been in
the Southern States an educated common people. But the
slave power cheats the poor whites of intelligence, in
order to rob the poor blacks. This is important testi-
mony to the nature and tendency of the Union and Gov-
ernment of the United States; and reveals clearly, by the
judgment of the very men who of all others best know,
that to maintain the Union is, in the end, to destroy slav-
ery. It justifies the North against the slanders of those
who declare that she is not fighting for liberty, but only
for the Union--as if that were not the very way to de-
stroy slavery and establish freedom! The government of
the United States is such that, if it be administered equi-
tably, in the long run it will destroy slavery; and it was
the foresight of this which led the South to its precipitate
secession. Against all these facts, it is attempted to
make England believe that slavery has had nothing to do
with this war. You might as well have attempted to per-
suade Noah that the clouds had nothing to do with the
flood; it is the most monstrous absurdity ever born in the
womb of folly. (Cheers.) Nothing to do with slavery?
It had to do with nothing else. Against this withering fact
--against this damning allegation-what is their escape?
They reply the North is just as bad as the South. Now
we are coming to the marrow of it. If the North is as
bad as the South, why did not the South find it out before
IN ENGLAND IN 1861.
41
you did? If the North had been in favor of oppressing
the black man, and just as much in favor of slavery as
the South, how is it that the South has gone to war
against the North because of their belief to the contrary?
Gentlemen, I hold in my hand a published report of the
speech of the amiable, intelligent, and credulous Presi-
dent, I believe, of the Society for Southern Independence.
There are some curiosities in it. (Laughter.) That you
may know that Southerners are not all dead yet, I will
read a paragraph:-
The South had labored hitherto under the imputation,
and it had constantly been thrown in the teeth of all who
supported that struggling nation, that they by their pro-
ceedings were tending to support the existence of slavery.
This was an impression which he thought they ought care-
fully to endeavor to remove (cheers and laughter)—be-
cause it was onę which was injurious to their cause--not
only among those who had the feeling of all Englishmen-
of a horror of slavery-but, also, because strong religious
bodies in this country made a point of it, and felt it very
strongly indeed.
I never like to speak behind a man's back--I like to
speak to men's faces what I have to say--and I could
wish that the happiness had been accorded to me to-night
to have Lord Wharncliffe present, that I might address to
him a few simple Christian inquiries. For there can be
no question that there is a strong impression that the
South has "supported the existence of slavery." Indeed,
on our side of the water there are many persons that
affirm it. (Laughter and cheers.) And, as his lordship
>
42
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
!
thinks that it is the peculiar duty of the new association
to do away with that sad error, I beg to submit to it, that
in the first place it ought to do away with four million.
slaves in the South; for there are uncharitable men liv-
ing who think that a nation that has four million slaves,
has at least some "tendency" to support slavery. And
when his lordship's association has done that, it might be
pertinent to suggest to him, instantly to revise the new
"Montgomery" constitution of the South, which is
changed from the old Federal constitution in only one or
two points. The most essential point is, that it for the
first time introduces an? legalizes slavery as a national insto
tution, and makes it unconstitutional ever to do it away.
Now, I submit, that this wants polishing a little. (Cheers.)
Then I would also respectfully lay at his lordship's feet—
more beautifully embossed, if I could, than is this address.
to me the speech of Vice-President Stephens, in which
he declares that all nations have been mistaken, and that
to trample on the manhood of an inferior race is the only
proper way to maintain the liberty of a superior; in which
he lays down to Calvary a new lesson; in which he gives
the lie to the Saviour himself, who came to teach us, that
by as much as a man is stronger than another, he owes
himself to that other. Not alone are Christ's blood-drops
our salvation, but those word-drops of sacred truth, which
cleanse the heart and conscience by precious principles,
these also are to us salvation; and if there be in the
truths of Christ one more eminent than another, it is,
IN ENGLAND IN 1861.
43
#
"He that would be chief, let him be the servant of all."
But this audacious hierarch of an anti-Christian gospel,
Mr. Stephens,-in the face of God, and to the ears of all
mankind, in this day of all but universal Christian senti-
ment, pronounces that for a nation to have manhood, it
must crush out the liberty of an inferior and weaker race.
And he declares ostentatiously and boastingly that the
foundation of the Southern republic is ON THAT CORNER-
STONE. (Loud cheers, "No, no," and renewed cheers.)
When next Lord Wharncliffe speaks for the edification of
this English people, I beg leave to submit that this
speech of Mr. Stephens's requires more than a little
polishing; in fact, a little scouring, cleansing, and flood-
ing. (Applause.) And if all the other crimson evidences
that the South is upholding slavery are to be washed pure
by the new association, not Hercules in the Augean sta-
ble had such a task before him as they have got. Lord
Wharncliffe may bid farewell to the sweets of domestic
leisure and to the interests of state. All his amusement
hereafter must be derived from the endeavor to purge, the
Southern cause of the universal conviction that, "by their
proceedings, they are tending to support the existence of
slavery." But there is another paragraph that I will
read:
He believed that the strongest supporters of slavery
were the merchants of New York and Boston. He always
understood, and had never seen the statement contra-
dicted, that the whole of the ships fitted out for the trans-
44
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
port of slaves from Africa to Cuba were owned by North-
erners.
His lordship, if he will do me the honor to read my
speech, shall hear it contradicted in the most explicit
terms. There have been enough Northern ships engaged,
but not by any means all, nor the most. Baltimore has
a pre-eminence in that matter; Charleston, and New
Orleans, and Mobile, all of them. And those ships fitted
out in New York were just as much despised, and loathed,
and hissed by the honorable merchants of that great me-
tropolis, as if they had put up the black flag of piracy.
(Loud cheers.) Does it conduce to good feeling between
two nations to utter slanders such as these? His lord-
ship goes on to say,—
That in the Northern States the slave is placed in even
a worse position than in the South. He spoke from ex-
perience, having visited the country twice.
I am most surprised, and yet gratified, to learn that Lord
Wharncliffe speaks of the suffering of the slave from expe-
rience. (Laughter and cheers.) I never was aware that
he had been put in that unhappy situation. Has he toiled
on the sugar plantation? Has he taken the night for hist
friend, avoiding the day? Has he sped through cane
brakes, hunted by hounds, suffering hunger, and heat, and
cold by turns, until he has made his way to the far North-
ern States ? Has he had this experience? It is the word
experience I call attention to. If his lordship says that it
IN ENGLAND IN 1861.
45
is his observation, I will accept the correction. I con-
tinue :-
In railway carriages and hotels the negroes were treated
as pariahs and outcasts, and never looked upon as men
and brothers, but rather as dogs.
In all railway cars where Southerners travel, in all hotels
where Southerners' money was the chief support, this is
true. But I concede most frankly, that there has been
occasion for such a statement: there has been a vicious
prejudice in the North against the negro. It has been a
part of my duty for the last sixteen years to protest
against it. No decently dressed and well-behaved colored
man has ever had molestation or question on entering my
church, and taking any seat he pleases; not because I
had influence with my people to prevent it, but because
God gave me a people whose own good sense and con-
science led them aright without me. But from this van-
tage ground it has been my duty to mark out the unright--
eous prejudice from which the colored people have suf
fered in the North; and it is a part of the great moral
revolution which is going on, that the prejudices have
been in a great measure vanquished, and are now well
nigh trodden down. In the city of New York there is
one street railroad where colored people cannot ride, but
in the others they may, and in all the railroads of New
England there is not one in which a colored man would
be questioned. I believe that the colored man may start
from the line of the British dominions in the North and
46
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
traverse all New England and New York till he touches
the waters of the Western lakes and never be molested or
questioned, passing on as any decent white man would
pass. But let me ask you how came there to be these
prejudices? They did not exist before the War of Inde-
pendence. How did they grow up? As one of the ac-
cursed offshoots of slavery. Where you make a race con-
temptible by oppression, all that belong to that race will
participate in the odium, whether they be free or slave.
The South itself, by maintaining the oppressive institu-
tion, is the guilty cause of whatever insult the free African
has had to endure in the North.
How next did that prejudice grow strong? It was on
account of the multitude of Irishmen who came to the
States. (Cheers and interruption.) I declare my admi-
ration for the Irish people, who have illustrated the page
of history in every department of society. It is part of
the fruit of ignorance, and, as they allege, of the oppres-
sion which they have suffered--that it has made them op-
pressors. I bear witness that there is 'no class of people
in America who are so bitter against the colored people,
and so eager for slavery, as the ignorant, the poor, unin
structed Irishmen. ("Oh," and "hear," and "Three
cheers for old Ireland.") But although there have been
wrongs done to them in the North, the condition of the
free colored people in the North is unspeakably better
than in the South. They own their wives and children.
They have the right to select their place and their kind
IN ENGLAND IN 1861.
1
47
of labor; their rights of property are protected just as
much as ours are. The right of education is accorded to
them. There is in the city of New York more than ten
million dollars of property owned by free colored people.
They have their own schools; they have their own
churches; their own orators, and there is no more gifted
man, and no man whose superb eloquence more deserves
to be listened to than Frederick Douglass. (Loud
cheers.) Further: after the breaking out of this war,
the good conduct of the slaves at the South and of the
free colored people at the North, has increased the kind
feelings of the whites towards them; and since they
have begun to fight for their rights of manhood, a popu-
lar enthusiasm for them is arising. I will venture to say,
that there is no place on the earth where millions of col-
ored people stand in a position so auspicious for the fut-
ure, as the free colored men of the North and the freed
slaves of the South. I meant to have said a good deal
more to you than I have, or than I shall have time to
say. ("Go on.") I have endeavored to place before you
some of the facts which show that slavery was the real
cause of this war, and that if it had to be legally decided
whether North or South were guilty in this matter, there
could be no question before any honorable tribunal, any
jury, any deliberative body, that the South, from begin-
ning to end, for the sake of slavery, has been aggressive,
and the North patient. Since the war broke out the
North has been more and more coming upon the high
48
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ground of moral principle, until at length the government
has decreed emancipation. It has been said very often.
in my hearing, and I have read it oftener since I have
been in England-the last reading I had of it was from
the pen of Lord Brougham-that the North is fighting
for the Union, and not for the emancipation of the Afri-
can. Why are we fighting for the Union, but because
we believe that the Union and its government, adminis-
tered now by Northern men, will work out the emancipa-
tion of every living being on the 'continent of America.)
If it be meant that the North went into this war with the
immediate object of the emancipation of the slaves, I
answer that it never professed to do it; but it went
into war for the Union, with the distinct, and expressed
conviction on both sides, that, if the Union were main-
tained, slavery could not live long.
Do you suppose
that it is wise to separate the interest of the slave from
the interest of the other people on the continent, and
to inaugurate a policy which takes in him alone?
He must stand or fall with all of us, and the only sound
policy for the North is that which shall benefit the North,
the South, the blacks and the whites. We hold that the
maintenance of the Union as expounded in its funda-
mental principles by the declaration of independence and
the constitution, is the very best way to secure to the
African ultimately his rights and his best estate. The
North was like a ship carrying passengers, tempest-
tossed, and while the sailors were laboring, and the cap-
+
таб
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
49
·
1
tain and officers directing, some grumblers came up from
amongst the passengers and said, "You are all the time
working to save the ship, but you don't care to save the
passengers." I should like to know how you would save
the passengers so well as by taking care of the ship?
[At this point the chairman read to the meeting a tele-
gram relative to the seizure of the rams at Liverpool.
The effect was startling. The audience rose to their feet,
while cheer after cheer was given.]
Allow me to say this of the colored people, our citizens
(for in New York colored people vote, as they do also in
Massachusetts and in several other Northern States,
Lord Wharncliffe notwithstanding):-it is a subject of
universal remark, that no men on either side have carried
themselves more gallantly, more bravely, than the colored
regiments that have been fighting for their government
and their liberty. My own youngest brother is colonel of
one of those regiments, and from him I learn many most
interesting facts concerning them. The son of one of the
most estimable and endeared of my friends in my congre-
gation was the colonel of the regiment which scaled the
rampart of Fort Wagner. Colonel Shaw fell at the head
of his men-hundreds fell-and when request was made
for his body, it was reported by the Southern men in
the fort that he had been "buried with his niggers; " and
on his gravestone yet it shall be written: "The man that
dared to lead the poor and the oppressed out of their op-
pression, died with them and for them, and was buried
A
4
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
50
with them." (Cheers.) On the Mississippi the conduct
of the colored regiments is so good, that, although many
of the officers who command them are Southern men,
and until recently had the strongest Southern prej-
udices, those prejudices are almost entirely broken down,
and there is no difficulty whatever in finding officers,
Northern or Southern, to take command of just as many
It is an honorable
of these regiments as can be raised.
testimony to the good conduct and courage of these long-
abused men, whom God is now bringing by the Red Sea
of war out of the land of Egypt and into the land of
promise. I have said that it would give me great pleas-
ure to answer any courteous questions that might be
proposed to me. If I cannot answer them I will do
the next best thing,-tell you so. The length to which
this meeting has been protracted, and the very great
conviction that I seem to have wrought by my remarks
on this Pentecostal occasion in yonder Gentile crowd-
(loud laughter)—admonish me that we had better open
some kind of “meeting of inquiry." (Renewed laughter.)
It will give me great pleasure, as a gentleman, to receive
questions from any gentleman, and to give such reply as
is in my power.
Mr. Beecher remained standing for a few moments, as
if to give the opportunity of interrogation, but no one
rising to question him, he sat down amidst great cheers.
The speech lasted nearly two-and-a-quarter hours.
The chairman then declared the business of the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
SI
meeting to be at an end, and expressed his thanks for
the good order which had been maintained, contrary to
certain ill-natured predictions. (Cheers and laughter.)
The usual vote of thanks was then tendered to the pre-
siding officer, Mr. Taylor; the National Anthem was
played on the organ, and the audience dispersed, several
hundreds previously pressing round Mr. Beecher to shake
hands with him.
52
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
J
SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE CITY HALL,
GLASGOW, OCTOBER 13, 1863.
THE subject chosen for the address at Glasgow was
"The American Crisis," and as at Manchester the build-
ing was filled to overflowing. The report of Mr.
Beecher's speech at Manchester had preceded him, and
there was eager curiosity to see and hear the great Amer-
ican orator. The opposition in Glasgow differed from
that of Manchester in its want of organization, and there
was lacking the disposition to be unreasonable or unjust.
The speaker, however, was not to have all plain sailing as
the following report will show.
A short introductory address was made by Bailie.
Govan, in the course of which he said:
I am quite willing, on this occasion, to leave the ad-
vocacy of the North to our distinguished friend who is
this evening to address us. (Cheers.) I have no doubt
that he has come here to-night fully prepared to plead the
cause of his country with all that eloquence of which he
is the master. He comes among us because of the ad-
miration, and respect, and love that he feels for the
British nation. He has not been an abolitionist only
since South Carolina voted secession; he has not been
{İN ENGLAND IN 1863.
53
an emancipationist only because he felt that emancipation
was necessary to carry to success the objects of the
Union; but ever since he entered into public life his
voice has been raised and his energies have been devoted,
in troublous times as in peaceful times, in times of
danger to himself as well as in times of security and
safety, in behalf of the down-trodden humanity of the
South. I have no doubt that when he rises to address
you he will speak out of the fulness of the love that flows
within his heart towards the British people, and he would
desire to have from you such a reciprocation of that feel-
ing as will make him feel, and make his friends on the
other side of the Atlantic feel, that peace and amity
between Great Britain and the American Republic
must be eternal. (Applause.) I will not longer occupy
your time, but beg to introduce to the meeting the
Rev. Dr. Anderson.
Dr. ANDERSON, who was received with great ap-
plause, said,-There are two things which would be ex-
ceedingly preposterous were I to attempt to perpetrate
them. The first is, were I to attempt to engage your
attention for more than five minutes, if even so many.
The second is, if I were to execute the commission which
friends have, I think very foolishly, entrusted to me, to
introduce Mr. Ward Beecher. Introduce him to you! I
intend to introduce you to him. (Laughter and applause.)
You are all already, to a very great extent, familiar with
him. All that you need, friends, to make you more
54
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
i
familiar with him is that you should see his countenance
and hear his living voice.
Mr. BEECHER, who, after the applause with which
he was greeted when he rose had subsided, said,-Mr.
Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: No one who has
been born and reared in Scotland can know the feeling
with which, for the first time, such a one as I have
visited this land, classic in song and in history. I have
been reared in a country whose history is brief. So vast
is it, that one might travel night and day for all the week,
and yet scarcely touch historic ground. Its history is
yet to be written; it is yet to be acted. But I come to
this land, which, though small, is as full of memories as
the heaven is of stars, and almost as bright. There is
not the most insignificant piece of water that does not
make my heart thrill with some story of heroism, or some
remembered poem; for not only has Scotland had the
good fortune to have had men that knew how to make
heroic history, but she has reared those bards who have
known how to sing her histories. (Applause.) And
every steep and every valley, and almost every single
league on which my feet have trod, have made me feel
as if I was walking in a dream. I never expected to feel
my eyes overflow with tears of gladness, that I had been
permitted in the prime of life to look upon dear old Scot-
land. For your historians have taught us history,
your poets have been the charm of our firesides, your
theologians have enriched our libraries; from your
IN ENGLAND İN 1863.
55
philosophers-Reid, Brown, and Stewart-we have de-
rived the elements of our philosophy; and your scientific
researches have greatly stimulated the study of science
in our land. I come to Scotland, almost as a pilgrim
would go to Jerusalem, to see those scenes whose story
had stirred my imagination from my earliest youth; and
I can pay no higher compliment than to say that,
having seen some part of Scotland I am satisfied, and
permit me to say that if, when you know me, you are a
thousandth part as satisfied with me as I am with you, we
shall get along very well together. And yet, although I
am not of a yielding mood-(a laugh)-nor easily daunted,
I have some embarrassment in speaking to you to-night.
I know very well that there are not a few things which
prevent me doing a good work among you. I differ
greatly from many of you. I respect, although I will not
adopt, your opinions. I can only ask as much from you
for myself. I am aware that a personal prejudice has
been diligently excited against me. There is also the
vastness of the subject on which I am about to speak,
and the dissimilar institutions of the two countries which
stand in my way.
There are also those perplexities
which arise from conflicting statements made to you.
There is also a supposed antagonism between British and
American interests. Now I shall not consider any of
these points to-night except the first. It is not a pleasant
avenue to a speech for a man to walk through himself.
(Laughter.) But since every pains is taken to misrepre-
56
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
sent me, let me once for all deal with that matter. In
my own land I have been the subject of misrepresenta-
tion and abuse so long, that when I did not receive it, I
felt as though something was wanting in the atmosphere.
(Laughter and applause.) I have been the object of
misrepresentation at home, simply and only because I
have been arrayed ever since I had a voice to speak and
a heart to feel-body and soul, I have been arrayed,
without regard to consequences and to my own reputa-
tion or my own ease, against that which I consider the
damning sin of my country and the shame of human
nature-slavery. (Great applause.) I thought I had a
right, when I came to Great Britain, to expect a different
reception; but I found that the insidious correspondence.
of men in America had poisoned the British mind, and
that representations had been made which predisposed
men to receive me with dislike. And, principally, the
representations were that I had indulged in the most
offensive language, and had threatened all sorts of things
against Great Britain. Now allow me to say that, hav-
ing examined that interesting literature, so far as I have
seen it published in British newspapers, I here declare
that ninety-nine out of one hundred parts of those things
that I am charged with saying I never said and never
thought-they are falsehoods wholly, and in particular.
(Great applause.) Allow me next to say that I have
been accustomed freely, and at all times, at home to
speak what I thought to be sober truth both of blame.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
57
A
and of praise of Great Britain, and if you do not want
to hear a man express his honest sentiments fearlessly,
then I do not want to speak to you. If I never spared
my own country, if I never spared the American
church, nor the government, nor my own party, nor my
personal friends, did you expect I would treat you better
than I did those of my own country? (Applause.) For I
have felt from the first that I hold a higher allegiance
than any I owe to man-to God, and to that truth which
is God's ordinance in human affairs, and for the sake of
that higher truth, I have loved my country, but I have
loved truth more than my country. I have heard the
voice of my Master, saying, If any man come unto me
and hate not father and mother, and brother, and
sister, yea, and his own life also, he is not worthy
of me." When therefore the cause of truth and jus-
tice is put in the scale against my own country, I
would disown country for the sake of truth; and
when the cause of truth and justice is put in the
scale against Great Britain, I would disown her rather
than betray what I understood to be the truth.
We are
(6
bound to establish liberty, regulated Christian liberty, as
the law of the American Continent. This is our des-
tiny, this is that towards which the education of
the rising generation has been more and more assid-
uously directed as the peculiar glory of America—
to destroy slavery, and root it out of our land, and to
establish in its place a discreet, intelligent, constitutional
58
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
regulated, Christian liberty.
:
We have accepted this
destiny and this task and if in accomplishing this a part
of our own people opposes us, we shall go right against
our people to that destiny. If France undertakes to
interfere, and to say "You shall not," much as we would
regret to be at war with any nation on the globe, or
with France in particular, who befriended us in our early
struggles and trials; still the cause of liberty is dearer
to us than any foreign alliance, and we shall certainly
say, "Stand off, this is our work, and must not be hin-
dered." If they bring war to us, they shall have war.
For no foreign nation shall meddle with impunity with
our domestic struggle. If Great Britain herself, tied to
us by so many interests, endeared by so many historic
associations, to whom we can never pay the debt of
love we owe her for those men who wrought out, in fire
and blood, those very principles of civil liberty for which
we are now contending,-yet, if even Britain shall openly
or secretly seek the establishment on our national ter-
ritory of an Independent slave-holding empire, we will
denounce her word and deed;—and, terrible and cruel
as will be the necessity, we will, if we must, oppose arms
to arms. If Great Britain is for slavery, I am against
Great Britain. (Cheers.) If Great Britain is true to
her instincts, and the interests of her illustrious history,
and to her own documents, laws, and institutions; if she
is yet in favor of liberty, as she has always been here.
and everywhere in the world, I am for Great Britain;
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
59
and shall be proud of my blood and boast that I have a
share in your ancestral glory. My prayer shall be that
Great Britain and America, joined in religion and in
liberty, may march shoulder to shoulder in the grand
enterprise of bearing the blessings of religion and liberty
around the globe. The Slave States may be divided
into two classes-the Farming States and the Plantation
States. The farming States are. Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and parts of Tennessee
and North Carolina. The lands there are devoted to a
mixed husbandry, such as of corn, or maize, wheat, oats,
grass, tobacco, and the grazing of herds of cattle. The
farms generally are not large. In those States slave
labor is not profitable, and cannot be so. Slave-breeding
is profitable, but not the labor of slaves. The plantation
States are South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas-eight.
These States do not pursue a mixed husbandry. They
raise principally cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco, but
chiefly the two great staples-cotton and sugar. They
buy the principal part of their food, and almost all manu-
factured products. The pails they carry their water in
are made in New England; their broom handles, their
pins, glass, stone, iron, and tinware, and all their house-
hold furniture, are the manufacture of the North. There
are some local exceptions, but what I state is substan
tially true of the slave States of the extreme South.
Now, consider some facts. The labor of slaves in the
·
бо
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
farming States does not pay. Why? Because mixed
farming requires much more skill than slaves have.
Slave labor must always be applied to the production of
rude and raw material. You cannot go much farther
than that. Slave labor is rarely ever skilled labor; that
would require too much brain, and its development is
not consistent with the condition of the slave. More-
over, slaves are too costly. In the farming States they
are better off, and therefore they are more expensive;
for a man is expensive just in proportion as he rises in
the scale of civilization, as I shall show you more at
length in a moment. The object of slavery, therefore,
in the Northern slave States is not the production of
tobacco, or corn, or maize, or wheat, or cattle, or dairy
products;—the whole profit of slavery in the Northern
slave States is in breeding slaves. (Hear, hear, and sen-
sation.) Virginia has raised as much as $24,000,000 a
year for slaves sold South. I will read you the testimony
of a gentleman from the slave States. The editor of the
Virginia Times, in 1836, made a calculation that 120,000
slaves went out of the State during the year, that 80,000
of them went with their owners who removed, leaving
40,000 who were sold, at an average price of $600,
amounting to $24,000,000. You cannot understand any-
thing about slavery until you are admitted into the secrets
of raising slaves as colts and calves are raised for market,
and begin to see the inside of this, the most detestable
and infernal system that the sun ever shone upon. But
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
61
you may say that this is so only in Virginia. I ask your
attention to the words of Henry Clay. In 1829 he said
before the Colonization Society: "It is believed that
nowhere in the farming portions of the United States
would slave labor be generally employed if the proprie-
tors were not tempted to raise slaves by the high prices
of the Southern market." That is Mr. Clay's testimony,
a Kentuckian, a slave-holder, and certainly he ought to
know. Political reasons also help to keep up slavery in
these States, and some personal reasons of which I shall
not speak. These Northern slave States would emanci-
pate their slaves if it were not that the cotton States give
them a market. Gentlemen, you abhor the African slave
trade. Let me tell you that the domestic slave trade
of America is unspeakably worse. Bred amidst churches,
refinements, and comparative civilization, they are capable
of a thousand pangs more of suffering at ruthless separa-
tions than if they were yet but savages. I call your at-
tention to a few propositions then, in reference to slavery
as it exists in the extreme Southern States. And first,
the system of slavery requires ignorance in the slave,
and not alone intellectual but moral and social ignorance.
Anybody who is a slave-holder will find that there are
reasons which will compel him to keep slaves in igno-
rance, if he is going to keep them at all. Not because
intelligence is more difficult to govern; for with an intelli-
gent people government is easier. The more you de-
velop a man's intellect, the more you make him capable
62
henry ward beecher's SPEECHES
of self-government; and the more you keep him in igno-
rance, the more is he the subject of arbitrary government.
Virtue and intelligence compel leniency of government;
but ignorance and vice compel tyranny in government.
These things follow a natural law. The slave would not
be less easily governed, if he were educated. If the slave-
holder taught him to read and write, if he made him to
know what he ought to know as one of God's dear chil-
dren, the South would not be so much endangered
by insurrection as she is now. There is nothing
so terrible as explosive ignorance.
Men without an
idea, striking blindly and passionately, are the men to be
feared. Even if the slaves were educated, they would be
better slaves. What is the reason then that slaves must
be kept in ignorance? The real reason is one of expense.
In order to make slave labor profitable, you must reduce
the cost of the slave; for the difference between the profit
and the loss turns upon the halfpenny per pound. If the
price of slaves goes up, and cotton goes down a shade in
price, in ordinary times the planters lose. The rule is,
therefore, to reduce the cost of the man; and the slave
to be profitable must be simply a working creature.
What does a man cost that is a slave? Just a little meal
and a little pork, a small measure of the coarsest cloth
and leather, that is all he costs. Because that is all he
needs the lowest fare and the scantiest clothing. He is
a man with two hands and two feet, and a belly. That
is all there is of a profitable slave. But every new
K
•
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
63.
1
development within him which religion shall make--the
sense of fatherhood, the wish for a home, the desire to
rear his children well, the wish to honor and comfort his
wife, every taste, every sentiment, every aspiration, will
demand some external thing to satisfy it. His being
augments. He demands more time. He strives to
organize that little kingdom in which every human being'
has a right to be king, in which love is crowned,-the
family! It is this that makes an educated slave too ex-
pensive for profit. Profitable slave-holding requires only
so much intelligence as will work well, and only so much
religion as will make men patient under suffering and
abuse. More than that-more conscience, more am-
bition, more divine ideas of human nature, of men's dig-
nity, of household virtue, of Christian refinement, only
make the slave too costly in his tastes. Not only does
the degradation of the slave pass over to his work, but it
affects all labor, even when performed by free white men.
Throughout the South there is the most marked public
disesteem of honest homely industry. It is true that in
the mountainous portions of the South-west, North Caro-
lina, Northern Georgia, Eastern Tennessee, and Western
Virginia, where slaves are few, and where a hardy people
for the most part perform their own agricultural labors,
there is less discredit attached to homely toil than in the
rich alluvial districts where sugar and cotton culture de-
mand exclusive slave labor. But even in the most favored
1
portions of the South, manual labor is but barely re-
w
64
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
deemed from the taint of being a slave's business, and no-
where is it honored as it is in the great and free North.
Whereas, in the richer and more influential portions of the
South, labor is so degraded that men are ashamed of it. It
is a badge of dishonor. The poor and shiftless whites,
unable to own slaves, unwilling to work themselves, live in
a precarious and wretched manner, but a little removed
from barbarism, relying upon the chase for much of their
subsistence, and affording a melancholy spectacle of the
condition into which the reflex influence of slavery throws.
the neighboring poor whites. Having turned their own
industry over to slaves, and established the province and
duties of a gentleman to consist in indolence and politics,
it is not strange that they hold the people of the North in
great contempt. The North is a vast hive of universal
industry. Idleness there is as disreputable as is labor in
the South. The child's earliest lesson is faithful industry.
The boy works, the man works. Everywhere through all
the North men earn their own living by their own industry
and ingenuity. They scorn to be dependent. They re-
volt at the dishonor of living upon the unrequited labor
of others. Honest labor is that highway along which the
whole body of the Northern people travel towards wealth
and usefulness. From Northern looms the South is
clothed. From their anvils come all Southern imple-
ments of labor. From their lathes all modern ware.
From their lasts Southern shoes. The North is growing
rich by its own industry. The small class of slave-holders
་
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
65
in the South have precarious wealth, but at the expense
of the vast body of poor whites, who live from hand to
mouth all their days. No wonder then, that Southerners
have been wont to deride the free workmen of the North
Governor Hammond only gave expression to the universa
contempt of Southern slave-holders for work and work-
men, when he called the Northern laborer the "mudsill
of society," and stigmatized the artisan, as the "greasy-
mechanic." The North and the South, alike live by
work; the North by their own work, the South by that of
their slaves! Which is the more honorable? I have a
right to demand of the workmen of Glasgow that they
should refuse their sympathy to the South, and should
give their hearty sympathy to those who are, like them-
selves, seeking to make work honorable, and to give to
the workman his true place in society. Disguise it as;
they will, distract your attention from it as they may, it
cannot be concealed, that the American question is the
working man's question, all over the world! the slave mas-
ter's doctrine is that capital should own labor—that the
employers should own the employed. This is Southern.
doctrine and Southern practice. Northern doctrine and
Northern practice is that the laborer should be free, in-
telligent, clothed with full citizen's rights, with a share of
the political duties and honors. The North has from the
beginning crowned labor with honor. Nowhere else on
earth is it so honorable. The free States of the North
and West, in America, are the paradise of laborers. One
5
· 66
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
of the predisposing causes of the present conflict was the
extraordinary contrast of the riches of the North and the
unthriftiness of the South, resulting from their respective
doctrines of labor and the laborer ! It would seem as if
if
Providence had demonstrated the wastefulness and mis-
chiefs of every kind of despotism in church and in state,
save one-despotism of work. For a grand and final
contrast between the sin and guilt of labor-oppression,
and the peace and glory of free-labor, he set apart the
Western continent. That the trial might be above
all suspicion, to the right he gave the meagre soil, the
austere climate, short summers, long and rigorous winters.
To the wrong he gave fair skies, abundant soils, valleys
of the tropics teeming with almost spontaneous abun-
dance. The Christian doctrine of work has made New
England a garden, while Virginia is a wilderness.
The free North is abundantly rich, the South bank-
rupt! Every element of prosperous society abounds.
in the North, and is lacking in the South. There
is more real wealth in the simple little State of Mas-
sachusetts than in any ten Southern States. In the
free States everything flourishes, in the slave States
everything languishes. I point to the North and say,
Behold the testimony of Providence for free labor! I
point to the South, and say, Behold the legitimate results.
of slave labor! Oppression is as accursed in the field as
it is upon the throne. It is as odious before God, under
the slave-driver's hat, as under the prince's crown, or the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
67
priest's mitre. All the world over, slavery is detestable,
and bears the curse of God everywhere! The South has
complained bitterly of this indisputable superiority of the
North in the elements of national wealth and general
prosperity. It has been charged to class-legislation, to
Yankee shrewdness, at the expense of honesty, and to
downright advantage taken by Northern.
by Northern commerce.
The facts are, however, that the legislation of the coun-
try has been controlled for fifty years by Southern influ-
ence. No class-legislation was possible except in her
own favor. The North, so far from cheating the South,
has itself been obliged largely to make up the wastes and
squanderings of the improvident slave system. Southern.
bankruptcies have every ten years carried home to North-
ern creditors the penalty of complicity with slave labor.
Besides this, the South has contributed less, and received
more from the Federal Government, than the North. ·
The peculiar nature of society under such industry and
institutions made the functions of Government oppressive
and expensive. Yet, with every partiality and favor of
Government, and with the North for fifty years almost
submissive to her will in public matters, the statesmen of
the South beheld with dismay the mighty growth of the
free States and the relative weakness of the slave States.
To maintain equipollence, new territory must be acquired,
and new States brought into the Union, that the fatal
weakness resulting from slavery in the older States, might
be compensated by the extent of the South, and by the
68
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ķ
number of votes in the Congress,-controlling legislation
in their interest. Out of this radical conflict of free
labor and slave labor, have sprung naturally the elements.
of this war. In the race, slavery has crippled itself. It
therefore seeks to escape from institutions and influences
that expose its folly, that reveal its degradation and
poverty, and would inevitably, in due time, revolutionize
and destroy it. Not only is it true that the working men
of England have an interest in this conflict, as a political
struggle; but, as a conflict between the two grand sys-
tems-Slave labor and Free labor-it addresses itself to
every laboring man on the globe. If the North succeed
and slavery be crushed, laboring men, all the world over,
will be benefitted. The American conflict is but one form
of that contest which is going on in all nations. Men
that live by the sweat of their brow are aspiring to more
education, to a larger sphere of influence, to some share
of political power, to some joint fruition of that wealth
which they help to create. They ought to know their
fellows. They ought to recognize in every land who are
striving for them and who against. It is monstrous that
British workmen should help Southern slave-holders to
degrade labor. Are there not enough already to crush
the poor and helpless laborers of the world, without
English working men, too, joining the rebel gang of
oppressors? Every word for the South is a blow against
the slave! Every stroke aimed at the slave rebounds up-
on the European laborer! Join the slave-owner in mak-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
69
ing labor compulsory and dishonorable, and the slave-
owner will unite with European extortioners in grinding
the poor operatives here! The North is truly fighting
the battle of the laborer everywhere. The North honors
work. When the laborer is educated, all doors are open
to him, and it depends on his own powers and disposition
whether he shall be a drudge or an honored citizen. It
will be a burning shame, for British workmen to side
against their own friends! Consider now, for a moment,
what were our respective divisions when this war broke
out which has fused all parties into one in the North and
one in the South... We are not to expect parties formed
methodically to suit any philosophical or ethical theory.
Such arrangements never happen in a land so large, so
diverse in population, so free in the operation of opinions,
and swayed by so many motives. Slavery had long ex-
erted a grave influence upon the condition of the country
before it was recognized in politics. Indeed, the first
sign of the entrance of this vexed question into active
politics was seen in the anxious endeavors of all parties
to exclude it. The early anti-slavery men found them-
selves shut out from all parties, from ecclesiastical bod-
ies, from every organization of society. They gathered
adherents outside of all moral and civil institutions. But
nothing could long keep out a topic which was forced, up-
on the North by the unwise and arrogant legislation of
the South. At length the subject took complete possession
of politics, and divided the whole public into parties.
70
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
But I shall consider the division of opinions, rather than
of parties, which are seldom homogeneous. There were
three degrees of opinion. At the close of the war for in- X
dependence the term abolitionist was applied to such men as
Franklin, John Jay, etc., who united in societies for pro-
moting the abolition of slavery. These societies died
out, and the name was almost forgotten, till revived
about 1830, and applied, then and since, exclusively to
Mr. Garrison and his school. They regarded slavery as
so established, and the institutions of the country as so
controlled by its advocates, that all remedy was hopeless,
and they urged an utter separation from the South, as the
only way of freeing the North from the guilt and contam-
ination of slavery. There was no political difference be-
tween Mr. Garrison's disunion and Mr. Davis's secession.
But the moral difference was world wide. The disunion-
ists of the Garrison and Wendell Phillips school were
seeking to promote liberty and to weaken slavery. Mr.
Davis and his followers are seeking to strengthen
slavery and to restrict liberty. But the abolitionists.
though a heroic band, sought a right thing by a wrong
method. Their party was never large, but their direct
and indirect influence was great. Another section was
represented by the great body of moral and intelligent
men in the North who held that slavery should be limited
to its present territory: that, since it existed by State laws
and not by national laws, it should be restricted to those
States in which it was found de facto: that Congress should
*
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
71
leave it where it was, but defend the Territories from its
incursions; that the government should be put into the
hands of men who loved liberty more than slavery; that
our courts should be purged of judges appointed to
serve Southern interests. It was believed, and I was of སྣ
this faith myself, that, were slavery rigorously confined
to existing bounds, and the institutions of the nation
arrayed on the side of liberty, gradually natural laws, with
commercial changes, and the exigencies of political econ-
omy would work out a system of emancipation. These
views were held by the North both in a latent and an
active form, by men who were widely different in politics,
and who sought different and even conflicting methods of
enforcing them. The third section was represented by X
that class of men which exists in every land without moral
convictions in public affairs, who regard politics as a
game, and who look only at interest as the end of parties.
To such were added vast numbers of ignorant emigrants.
With a partial and honorable exception in favor of the
Germans, it must be said that the great body of emigrants
flying from foreign hardships and oppression joined the pro-
slavery party in America, and arranged themselves against
the negro. This has been the peculiar and chief difficulty
of the North in political efforts. We owe to Europe, but
chiefly to Great Britain, those hindrances that so long
paralyzed political effort, and divided the action of the
North. It will be seen by this brief view, that the North-
ern movement proposed no violence nor any precipitate
·
72
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
FAVOR OF SLAVERY.
action. We relied on the inherent superiority of free-
labor to develop our embryo Territories, and hoped that,
with time and patience, moral influences, following the
operation of great natural laws, would waste away slavery,
without violence or revolution, and with benefit to both.
the bond and the free. The key-note of Northern policy
was NO MORE SLAVE STATES-NO MORE LEGISLATION IN
Let it die by its own inherent dis-
eases!(Cheers). Now let me speak of the South.
What have been the divisions of the South? There
have been two tendencies there; a more moderate and
a more extreme party. The former attempted to main-
tain the South on the basis of slavery; by the mul
tiplication of new States; by the acquisition of Terri-
tories, and so directing the Government as to fortify.
slavery till it should stretch across the continent from
ocean to ocean. That has been the object of the earlier
and main party of the South. The second was the South
Carolina party, who date from Mr. Calhoun's time. This
party meant to break off from the Union as soon as they
were strong enough. Just as long as anything was to be
gained by staying, so long they meant to stay; but as
soon as nothing more was to be gained, they meant to go.
They included the former plan, but more also. They
designed, first, separate national existence as the ultimate
aim of the Southern States; and secondly, the inclusion
of the tropics of America in a gigantic cotton-growing
slave empire. They meant, ere long, to seize Mexico and
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
73
Central America; to include the vast central American
tropical Oceanica, and spread slavery over all. The
proudly said-Cotton is king and if we have cotton an
the means of raising it, we can control the destiny of th
globe! They meant also to re-open the African slave
trade for the purpose of cheapening negroes, who are the
most expensive item of labor. In South Carolina this
scheme was unblushingly and openly advocated; and if I
had lived in the South and been a slave-holder, I should
have been of that party. What! an advocate of the
African slave trade? Yes, I should! The day that I
make up my mind to keep slaves, I shall have to keep
them ignorant; and if I live in the cotton States, I am
not likely to pay Virginia, under a home-tariff, a thousand
dollars for a slave that I can import from Africa for three
hundred dollars. The fact is, the law that makes the
foreign slave trade piracy is nothing but a high tariff in
favor of the slave-breeding States: and the States that do
not breed slaves say,-That tariff must be taken off; if
Africa can produce the material cheaper than Virginia,
we must have the advantage of it. I declare, too, that the
inter-State slave trade of America is in many most impor-
tant respects more cruel than the roughest part of the
African slave trade. To bring up men under the gospel;
to bring up women with some of the tender susceptibili-
ties of womanhood, and more than half their blood white
blood, to rear them in your household, and then,-if
bankruptcy threatens, or exigencies press, to call out
I
74
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
your valuable slaves from a Virginian plantation and sell
them to the slave-master, to manacle them,—to drive in
gangs men reared under the sound of the bell of the
Christian Church,-who have acquired something of re-
finement in their masters' families-to carry them down
South in droves of fifties and hundreds, as is done on
every great street and road of the Middle States,-is I
say, more infernal, more wicked, by as much as these
Northern-bred slaves are more tender, susceptible and in-
telligent than the poor half-imbruted African. If God
sends one bolt at the ship that brings slaves from Africa,
double-shotted thunders are aimed at every gang-master
that drives them from the Northern slave States to the
Southern. (Applause.). It was perfectly natural that
South Carolina should include in its project of aggrandize-
ment the opening of the African slave trade; and every
freeman in Great Britain that goes for the South, really
goes for the opening of that trade. When you put a
drunken engineer to drive a train, you may not mean to
come to any harm, but when you are in that train you
cannot help yourselves. It is just the same here. You
do not mean the slave trade, but they do; and all that
they ask of you is "to be blind." (Laughter and
applause.) This Southern plan thus includes the open-
ing of the slave trade for the sake of cheapening negroes,
and the 'secession threw the control of the whole South
into the hands of these extremists. You may not be
aware that when secession was proposed, after the election
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
75
of Lincoln, every State, by its popular vote, went against
secession, except South Carolina. Well, that might have
seemed a fatal obstacle. Not at all. The leaders of this
extreme party immediately began to work upon the legis-
latures either to call conventions, or to act as conventions,
and pass secession acts. The States were carried out of
the Union into secession notwithstanding the vote of the
people not many months before. How was it that Ten-
nessee was carried out?-how was even such a State as
Georgia carried out?-how was Alabama carried out
against such a man as Mr. Stephens, the vice-president
of the Confederacy-a man who, though on the wrong
side, is the best man, I think, in the whole Southern
States of America-(applause)-and-if it were not
for the accursed surrounding of slavery-is as true
and far sighted a statesman as we have ever had in
America. How did they carry out these States by their
legislatures? They said to the members of the legisla-
tures throughout the South, "the North never stood in a
fair stand-up fight. It was always anxious about its mills
and stores and its money. They will rouse up at first,
but whenever it comes to the last, and we threaten fire
and bloodshed, they always knuckle under." Well, I am
ashamed to say there was too much truth in this. Com-
mercial interest on one side, and a desire for peace and
love of the Union on the other, had always led the North
to yield to Southern threats. But that was ended. A
new spirit had arisen. The North now for the first time
76
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
thoroughly believed that the South aimed to nationalize
slavery. The North never had believed that it was worth
while to agitate the controversy, until the outrageous con-
duct of the South in Kansas brought the North to its con-
sciousness. Since then it has been true as steel. Well,
the South said, "the North will not willingly see us go
out of the Union-that is a mere ruse on our part: we
will go out by 'secession,' and say, we will come back if
you give us new guarantees. Even if they will not do
that, there will be no war; for the North will not fight
us." With these arguments the legislatures were won,
and the secession was accomplished in the greater num-
ber of the slave States. The upper classes thought, that
secession was only a political trick, through which they.
were to go back into a reconstructed Union, with guaran-
tees inserted for the nationalization of slavery and for its
extension all over the continent. But at this time there
happened to be more or less of conference between friends
in the North and friends in the South, and it seemed as
if the consummation would be prevented. Virginia had
refused persistently to pass the secession ordinance. The
convention that was by the popular vote elected in Vir-
ginia was known to be immensely in favor of remaining
in the Union. It was necessary that something should be
done to prevent Virginia standing out with the North,
and it was done. The gang of slave drivers in Richmond.
intimidated the members of the convention. When the
history shall be written, the fact will appear, that numbers
·
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
77
•
of convention-men were made afraid for their lives. They
were told almost in so many words, "You shall never
leave Richmond alive, if you fail to vote secession.' It
was voted, but secretly, and it was not known in Virginia
for weeks. I was myself a fellow passenger with one
man, who was making a circuitous journey throughout
the North to get home alive to his farm in the western
part of Virginia, because he had been true, and refused
to vote for secession, even secretly. It was to commit
the South, to fire the wavering, and arouse the sectional
blood, that orders were sent by telegraph from Washing-
ton by the Southern conspirators who were lurking there
'Open your batteries on Fort Sumter."
And they
fired at that glorious old flag, which had carried the honor
of the American name round the globe, in order that they
might take Virginia out of the Union, and compel the
North to submit either to a degrading compromise, or to
the independence of the South. That is the history of
the matter. Now let me speak of the North. Oh how I
wish you could have seen the North! I have stood on
the summit of the noblest mountains in Switzerland: I
have seen whatever that country had to show me of moun-
tain peak, of more than royal mountains of clouds of gla-
ciers I have seen the beauties of Northern Italy: I have
seen the glories of the ocean: I have seen whatever
Nature has to show of her sublimity on land and on sea :
but the grandeur of the uprising of the Northern people,
when the thunder of the first cannon rolled through their
1
78
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
valleys and over their hills, was something beyond all
these; nor do I expect, till the judgment day fills me
with wondering awe, to see such a sight again. There
had been a secret agreement with a portion of the Dem-
ocratic leaders in the North, that they were to side with
the South, and paralyze Northern resistance. But with
stern unanimity the public mutterings denounced complic-
ity with the South as a treason worthy of death. The
astounding outburst of patriotic feeling terrified even such
men as the two Woods, and they made haste to join the
rolling tide. No rainbow was ever so decked with color
as was Broadway with flags. Bunting went up in the
market. High and low, rich and poor, Democratic and
Republican, men that had been for the South, and men
that had been for the North, found themselves in com-
pany. It is said that misery makes one acquainted with
strange bedfellows, but patriotism makes even stranger
transformations. I found men that were ready to mob
me yesterday for my anti-slavery agitations, were ready
to denounce me to-day because I was not anti-slavery
enough. Propelled by this universal feeling, the Govern-
✔ment of the United States began to do what? To de-
fend the laws and the constitution. If they had failed to'
do this, if when the Government and the country was
threatened by this rebellion, they had faltered, not Judas,
not the meanest traitor that has ever been execrated
through all time, would have surpassed them in ignominy.
I have been asked, would it not have been better to nego-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
79
tiate? What! with cannon balls firing right into your
midst! The other side was using powder and balls, and
you propose to us wad and paper! The day for talking ·
was gone by forever. They had talked too much already.
It was then the day for action. Men in England, Scot-
land, or Ireland, ask me, why did you not consent to let
them go, since the whole Southern economy is so opposed
to Northern? Only on the single matter of slavery is
there any antagonism. If that were to be an increasing
and perpetual evil, many men would assent to separation
who now do not. But we believe it to be a removable
evil. The nature of our institutions is against it. The
laws of nature are against it. The conscience of the na-
tion, the public sentiment of Christendom, are against it.
The real and general interest of the South itself is op-
posed to it. Free labor in place of slave labor would be
the greatest boon that could be conferred upon the South-
ern States. Men that profit by slavery are but a handful;
all the rest suffer from its deadly, wasting nature,
If then a limit can be placed to its growth, and
it can be subjected to the unobstructed influences of
natural, moral, and civil laws, it will quickly begin to
decay and give place to a healthier system. Already the
tendency had in many sections been established; and as
it was this fervent hope of a peaceful ending of slavery
that disinclined thousands of conscientious men in the
North to meddle with it, so now it is the same wish to see
slavery ended that leads them to refuse their consent to a
80
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
separation, which not only dismembers the nation, but
gives a new lease of life to slavery, and opens for it a
dark empire full of sorrow and tears and blood within, of
quarrels and wars without, an empire of belligerent mis-
chiefs to all. When I am asked, Why not let the South
go? I return for an answer a question. Be pleased to
tell me what part of the British Islands you are willing to
let go from under the crown when its inhabitants secede
and set up for independence? If you say ten or fifteen.
States, with twelve millions of inhabitants, are not to be
compared to the county of Kent, I say, they are to be
compared to Kent. For that county bears a greater
proportion to the square miles of the British Islands than
the rebellious States do to the whole territory of the
Union. But the right or wrong of such rebellions are
not questions in arithmetic. Numbers do not change
civil obligations. Secession was an appeal from the
ballot to the bullet. It was not a noble minority de-
fying usurpation or despotism in the assertion of funda-
mental rights. It was a despotism, which, when put to
shame by the will of a free people, expressed through the
ballot-box, rushed into rebellion as the means of perpetu-
ating slavery. Northern sentiment, and great natural
laws, were preparing the way for the emancipation of four
million of slaves: thereupon eight million whites broke
allegiance and withdrew from a free government in order
to maintain this slave system; and that is praised, in
Great Britain, as a heroic struggle for independence!
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
81
Whose independence, the white man's or the black
man's? Unreflecting men are deceived by the instances
of colonies in the past, such as the American colonies,
breaking off from the parent Government, and asserting
their independence. A remote colony, an outlying and
separate territory, whose autonomy is already practically
established, and whose connection with the home govern-
ment is not intimate, territorial, adjacent, but only polit-
ical, is not to be compared with home territory, geo-
graphically touching the country along its whole line.
This is not cutting off a foot, or a hand. It is cutting、
across the body right under the heart. The line of frac-
ture proposed by the South, is not a stone's throw from
the national capital. France might consent to let Algiers
go, but would she let a north and south line be run touch-
ing the city of Paris, on the east, and separating all the
territory east from her dominions? Great Britain might
suffer the Canadas to secede from the crown; but would
she suffer an east and west line to be run along the edge
of London, and all the territory south of it, to pass into
hostile hands? Yet this is the very case of America.
Secession accomplished will leave Washington toppling on
the edge of the Southern abyss, in whose lurid future.
loom the elements of quarrel, collision, and terrific war.
In asserting the integrity of our territory under the na-
tional Government, we shut that door, through which
threaten to come just such storms as have for hundreds
of years past deluged Europe with blood. Better a single
6
82
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
gigantic struggle now than a hundred years of intermit-
tent wars, ending in treacherous truces, and breaking out
again at every decade in fierce conflict. I shall now
refer to the astonishing pretence that this war has noth-
ing to do with slavery! Never has the South asserted
this. The interest of slavery was the very ground alleged
for rebellion, and the justification put in for it. Slavery
having been adopted as the central principle of Southern
political economy,-her politics having for thirty years
avowedly and indisputably moved around that centre,-
all her quarrels with the North having been about slavery,
directly or indirectly, the issues of the last Presidential
election having been issues made upon this very question.
of slavery,—all her principal statesmen having made
interferences with slavery wrongs at the hands of the
North-wrongs in the past or feared in the future—the
very reason of rebellion, the whole interior history of
America for seventy years having been wound up on this
Spool, what amazing impudence do they manifest, who,
calculating on the ignorance of the British public, dare to
affirm that slavery has nothing to do with this war!
Slavery has been the very alphabet of the war. Every
letter of its history has been taken from the fount of
slavery. The whole black literature of the war has been
drawn from slavery! To be sure there is a division of
opinion in America, whether the five States of the South,
or the Abolitionists of the North, are most to blame for
making slavery the occasion of the war; but not a sane
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
83
man on our whole continent can be found denying that
slavery is the root of it! You cannot point to a war
either in ancient or modern times, that has turned so
much upon fundamental principles as this one between
the North and the South. There is the South with her
gigantic system of slavery, and there is the North with
her freedom, her free soil, free labor, free speech, and her
free press; and the question is, which of these two shall
govern the American continent? (Applause.) The North
preferred to settle this question by discussion, by moral
influence, by legal and constitutional means; but the
South threw down the gauntlet, refused a convention, and
fired on the old flag; and now her minions are whining
and crying in England because the North will make war!
If they did not like blows, why did they strike them? I
will admit that the South is as gallant a people as ever
lived; I will admit that when they shall come back to the
Union, as they will-(applause, and cries of "never," and
waving of handkerchiefs)-they will come back-(a voice,
never.")-Perhaps you will not, but-(laughter)—they
will. ("Never!" a voice," they are Anglo-Saxon and will
never come back.") Why, if I thought that this thing was
to be fought out here, I would say it over and over again
till daylight broke; but not your breath denying or mine
affirming will alter the issue. The Grants, the Rose-
cranzes, the Bankses must do that. (Hisses.) But
when the South shall come back into the Union-
("never")—we shall honor them more than ever
66
parlando Map
84
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
1
we did for their good management and courage.
(Applause.) There are some things that men may pay too
much to find out; but if the South, by paying the blood of
thrice ten thousand of her sons, finds out that liberty is
better than slavery, she will not have paid a drop too
much. (Applause.) The triumph of the North in this
conflict will be the triumph of free institutions, even if
the Northern people and Government could be proved.
to have been delinquent, in every individual and in every
public officer. Large as is our country, independent in
opinions, and hitherto divided in sentiment about slavery,
never was any people so sincere, so religiously earnest,
as is now the North. But, what if its people were insin-
cere, its president a trickster, his emancipation proclama-
tion a hollow pretence? What if the North were as cruel
to colored people as slavery is? All that would not
change the inevitable fact, that the triumph of the North
carries with it her free institutions all over the continent!
It is a war of Principles and of Institutions. The victory
will be a victory of Principles and of Institutions. This
is avowed by the South as well as by us. If the North
prevails, she carries over the continent her pride of hon-
est work, her free public schools, her homestead law,
which gives to every man who will occupy it a hundred
and sixty acres of land; her free press, her love and
habit of free speech, her untiring industry, her thrift,
frugality, and morality, and above all her democratic
ideas of human rights, and her Old English notions of a
←
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
85
If
commonwealth, transmitted to her from Sydney, Hamp-
den, Vane, Milton; and not least, her free churches with
their vast train of charities and beneficences! These
results do not depend upon the will of individuals. They
go with the society, the civilization, the ineradicable
nature of those Northern democratic institutions which
are in conflict with Southern despotic institutions.
then any one says, I cannot give my sympathy to the
Northern cause, because the people of the North are just
as bad as the people of the South, I first utterly deny the
fact, but next, for the sake of argument, I for a moment
yield it, and reply that the institutions of the North are
not so bad as the institutions of the South, even if the
people are. This is a war of institutions, not simply of
races. It is not necessary to look into the motives of
her individual citizens. Look into the spirit and struct-
ure of Northern society. Look at her history and see
in the vast Western States what is the result of the as-
cendency of her ideas. Look into those great natural
laws which have generated and controlled her civiliza-
tion! But I return to the shameless and impudent
assertion that the North is not sincere in this conflict.
True, the North has her own ways of managing her own
affairs. She is guided by the genius of her own institu-
tions, and not by the whims of unsympathizing critics
three thousand miles off, ignorant of her ideas, history,
institutions, emergencies, and difficulties. But there has
never before, since time began, been a spectacle like
86
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
that in America. A million men have been on foot in
the army and navy, every man a volunteer, the best blood
of the North, her workmen, her farmers and artisans,
her educated sons, lawyers, doctors, ministers of the
gospel, young men of wealth and refinement, side by
side with the modest sons of toil, and every man a volun-
teer! They have come, not like the Goths and Huns
from a wandering life or inclement skies, to seek fairer
skies and richer soil; but from homes of luxury, from
cultivated farms, from busy workshops, from literary
labors, from the bar, the pulpit, and the exchange,
thronging around the old national flag that had symbol-
ized liberty to mankind, all moved by a profound love of
country, and firmly, fiercely determined that the mother-
land shall not be divided, especially not in order that
slavery may scoop out for itself a den of 'refuge from
Northern civilization, and an empire to domineer over 、
all the American tropics! It is this sublime patriotism
which, on every side, I hear stigmatized as the mad rush
of national ambition! Has then the love of country run
so low in Great Britain, that the rising of a nation to
defend its territory, its government, its flag, and all the
institutions over which it has waved, is a theme for cold
aversion in the pulpit, and sneers in the pew? Is gener-
osity dead in England, that she will not admire in her
children those very qualities which have made the chil-
dren proud of the memories of their common English
ancestors? But, it is asked, since the South is so utterly
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
87
discordant with the North, Why not let them go, and have
peace? Go? It is to STAY that they are fighting. If
the white population would but go and leave to us and
to the negroes a peaceful territory, we might be willing.
But it is a rebellious population asking leave to organize
political independence on United States territory, for the
sake of threatening the peace of the whole future! Our
trouble is, that they will stay if we give them leave to go.
(Laughter.) No mountains divide the North from the
South-they run the other way. No cross rivers, divide.
them—they run the other way. No latitudes or climates
divide the one from the other. Don't you know that God
has affianced the torrid and the temperate zones in
America one to the other, and that they are always run-
ning into each other's arms? The Gulf-streams of popu
lation are constantly interchanging in such a continent as
ours. There is no division-line that you can make,
except a merely arbitrary one. There is a line of 1200
miles, east and west, which you propose in your division
to make the fiery line of a slave empire. Do you ask us
to such a bequest of peace as that? A Southern boun-
dary of 1200 miles long, charged with the flames and
thunder of war, ready to explode on any occasion? Well,
may be may be you could lie down on a powder mag-
azine, with a thousand tons of powder in it, and a fire
raging within an inch of it, but I could not! Will so
much as one cause of quarrel be taken out of the way?
Will there be anything that will stop slaves running
•
88
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHIES
across, and the South being irritated because we harbor
them? Of course we should harbor them, as you do in
Canada. No law could stop it then. The only thing
that ever gave to the fugitive-slave law a shadow, a ves-
tige, of power, was that for the sake of peace many in the
North consented, somehow or other, to get rid of their
consciences. I never did. (Applause.) I hated the
law. I trod it under foot; and I. declared, to the face
of the magistrates and the government, that I would
break it in every way I could. And I did. (Cheers.)
Now say, if it were so, when there were motives of patriot-
ism to maintain such an obnoxious law, what would it be
when the sections were rent asunder? If separated, would
the contrast of free labor and slave labor be less exciting?
Would our press be less bold in its proclamation of doc-
trines of liberty? Would not parties in secret league with
Southern parties torment the border States with new
divisions, and make that peace impossible by which we
are to be bribed to cease this war? Cruel as the war is,
yet to stop it until slavery has its death-wound, would be
even more cruel! When the surgeon has cut half the
cancer out, is that man the friend of the patient, who,
seeing the blood and hearing the groans, should persuade.
him to leave the operation half performed, and bind up
the cancered limb? But, you ask, How long shall we
carry violence into the South? I will ask you a question
in reply. If in the purlieus of vice in old Glasgow,
there should be a ward of which a confederation of þurg-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
89
lars and thieves had taken possession, how long would you
invade it with your police? (Laughter.) Would Glasgow
give up to them or would they have to give up to Glas-
gow? We may now understand what Southern rebellion
means. There seems a need of information on this point
in high places. Earl Russell, in replying to Mr. Sum-
ner's arguments upon rebellion, reproached him with
inconsistency in such a horror of rebellion, America
being the child of two rebellions! Were they re-
bellious against liberty to more despotism? or
against oppression to more freedom? The English
rebellion and the American rebellion were both toward
greater freedom of all classes of men. This rebellion is
for the sake of holding four million slaves with greater
security, and less annoyance from free institutions!
And now observe: The South, expressly in order to hold
fast her four million slaves, makes war against what the
Confederate vice-president, Mr. Stephens, in dissuading
secession, pronounced to be "the best, freest, justest,
most lenient Government that the sun ever shone upon."
He declared that the South had no grievances; and
since secession, he has glorified the new Confederation,
as established with " slavery as its corner-stone." On
this is written in lurid letters of infernal light: "The
only foundation of our liberty is to own the laborer and
to oppress the slave." When such a body of insurgents
comes to ask you to recognize its independence, do
you think it just and humane-is it according to the
1
t
90
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
instinct is it according to the conscience of Great
"That nation ought to have an inde-
Britain to say:
pendence? And now let me say one word more;
for I am emboldened by your courtesy. You now
see what it means to give your aid and succor to the
South. Why were you in favor of giving the Hungarians
their liberty? Because they said the yoke of Austria
is heavier than we can bear, and you sympathized with)
them because it was a step towards larger liberty. When
Greece complained, why did the nations interfere? It
was to give her more liberty, not less. When Italy asked
help, why did France-then guided by her better genius.
-give her armies to beat back the Austrians and give
Italy her sway in the northern part of that beautiful
peninsula ? It was because Italy sighed for the sweets
of liberty-that which is the right of every people on the
globe. Why to-day does every man wish that the Czar
may be baffled, that he may be sent back to the frozen
fastnesses of the North, and that Poland may stand erect
in her nationality? Why? It is because Poland is
under a despotism and is struggling for independence
and liberty. (Applause.) You know now what I think.
about sending clothes, arms, powder, ships, and all the
muniments of war, or supplies of any kind, to the South.
I do not stop to discuss whether it is legal or illegal. I do
not discuss this as a question of technical law at all. I
lift it up and put it on the ground of moral law. Be-
tween two parties, one of whom is laboring for the integ-
"}
£
''
¿
}
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
91
1
rity and sanctity of labor, and the other is for robbery,
the degradation of labor, and the integrity of slavery,-I
say that the man that gives his aid to the Slave Power
is allied to it, and is making his money by building up
tyranny. Every man that strikes a blow on the iron that
is put into those ships for the South, is striking a blow
and forging a manacle for the hand of the slave. (Ap-
plause and hisses Every free laborer in old Glasgow
that is laboring to rear up iron ships for the South, is
'laboring to establish on sea and on land the doctrine that
capital has a right to own "labor." You are false to
your own principles, to your own interests, to mankind,
and to the great working classes. You have no right,
for the sake of poor pitiful pelf, to go against the great
toiling multitudes of Europe that are lifting up their
hands for more education and more liberty. You have
no right to betray that cause by allying yourselves with
despots who, in holding slaves, establish the doctrine.
that might makes right, It is not in anger that I speak,
it is not in pettishness or in vehemence. It is the day-of-
judgment view of the matter. O! I would rather than
all the crowns and thrones of earth to have the sweet,
assuring smile of Jesus when he says, "Come, welcome,
inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these ye did unto
me." And I would rather face the thunderbolt than
stand before Him when he says on that terrible day,
"inasmuch as ye did it not unto the least of these, my
little ones, ye did it not unto me." Ye strike God in the
92
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
face when you work for slave-holders.
Your money so
got and quickly earned will be badly kept, and you will
be poor before you can raise your children, and dying
you will leave a memory that will rise against you at the
day of judgment. By the solemnity of that judgment
--by the sanctity of conscience-by the love you bear
to humanity-by your old hereditary love of liberty ;-in
the name of God and of mankind, I charge you to come
out from among them, to have nothing to do with the
unclean and filthy lucre made by pandering to slavery.
One word more. I protest, in the name of all that there
is in kindred blood, against Great Britain putting herself
in such a position that she cannot be in cordial and ever-
during alliance with the free republic in America. I de-
clare to you that it is a monstrous severance of your only
natural alliance, for Great Britain to turn aside from
free America and seek close relations with despotism!
You owe yourselves to us, and we owe ourselves to you.
You ought to live at peace with France-you ought to
study their reciprocal interest and they yours. But after
all, while you should be in Christian peace with France,
I tell you it is unnatural for England to be in closer
alliance with France than America. (Hear and disappro-
bation.) Nevertheless, like it or dislike it, so it is! On
the other hand, it is truly unnatural for America, when she
would go into a foreign alliance to seek her alliance with
Russia. (Hear and applause.) Oh, why don't you hiss
now? (Laughter.) I declare that America should study
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
93
1
the prosperity of Russia, as of every nation of the globe;
but when she gives her heart and hand in alliance, she
owes it to Great Britain. (Applause.) So! you want to
hear that. And when Great Britain turns to find one that
she can lean on-can go to with all her heart-one of her
own-we are her eldest-born, strongest-to us she must
come. (Applause.) A war between England and America
would be like murder in the family-unnatural-mon-
strous beyond words to depict. Now, then, if that be so,
it is our duty to avoid all cause and occasion of offence.
But remember-remember-remember-we are carrying
out our dead. Our sons, brothers' sons, our sisters' chil-
dren they are in this great war of liberty and of princi-
ple. We are taxing all our energies: you are at peace,
and if in the flounderings of this gigantic conflict we ac-
cidentally tread on your feet, are we or you to have most
patience? When the widowed mother sits watching the
shortening breath of her child, hovering between life and
death, it may be that the rent has not been paid,—it
may be that her fuel has not yet been settled for; but
what would you think of that landlord or of that provis-
ion dealer that would send a warrant of distress when the
funeral was going out of the door, and arrest her when
she was walking to the grave with her first-born son.
Even a brute would say, "Wait-wait ! Yet it was in
the hour of our mortal anguish, that when, by an unau-
thorized act, one of the captains of our navy seized a
British ship for which our government instantly offered
})
C
+
94
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
all reparation, that a British army was hurried to Canada.
I do not undertake to teach the law that governs the
question but this I do undertake to say, and I will carry
every generous man in this audience with me, when I
affirm that if between America, bent double with the
anguish of this bloody war, and Great Britain, who sits at
peace, there is to be forbearance on either side, it is on
your side. (Applause.) Here then I rest my cause to-
night, asking every one of you to unite with me in pray-
ing, that God, the arbiter of the fates of nations, would
so guide the issue, that those who struggle for liberty
shall be victorious; and that God, who sways the hearts
of nations, may so sway the hearts of Great Britain and
America, that not to the remotest period of time shall
there be dissension, but golden concord between them,
for their own sakes and for the good of the whole world.
(Great cheering.)
Several questions having been put and answered, the
Rev. Dr. George Jeffrey moved and Councillor Alexander
seconded a resolution expressive of approbation of
Mr. Beecher's able and uncompromising advocacy of the
rights of the slave to freedom, and thanking him for
the very admirable and eloquent address delivered that
evening, which was carried amid great and prolonged
cheering.
•
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
95
SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE FREE CHURCH
ASSEMBLY HALL, EDINBURGH, OCT. 14, 1863.
LONG before the hour fixed for the meeting, all the
entrances to the Hall were besieged by large masses of
people; and the rush for places was so great that a few
minutes after the opening of the doors every available
seat was taken possession of. Crowds of people still
continued to pour into the Hall, and the passages became
crammed. As the time arrived for the entrance of the
chairman and Mr. Beecher, it became a serious question.
how they were to gain admission to the Hall. All doubt
was set at rest on the matter by loud cries arising from
the east doorway that Mr. Beecher could not obtain
an entrance. A great effort was made to gain a
passage for the reverend gentleman, who, after some time,
managed to reach the chair, and was received with loud
and prolonged cheers. Some of the gentlemen for whom
seats had been reserved on the platform also gained ad-
mission-some by the passage, and others by climbing to
the Moderator's gallery and walking along the ledge-
but it was discovered that the chairman, Mr. Duncan
M'Laren was still missing. After the lapse of a few min-
utes, however, Mr. M'Laren and four French gentlemen,
96
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
including M. Garnier Pages, also got in; and the pro-
ceedings of the meeting commenced.
The CHAIRMAN said:-Ladies and Gentlemen,-
May I entreat as a great favor that the utmost quietness
be preserved, because I have often observed that it is
those in a large meeting who, with the best intentions in
the world, cry "Peace," that practically make all the
noise. (Laughter.) Since I have been made chairman,
every one, I have no doubt, will be quite disposed to
give up a little of his personal liberty to my dictation to-
night. You know what the meeting is about. The ad-
vertisement tells you honestly what the object is in call-
ing you together, and therefore there is no person here
present who has any right to take offence at anything that
is said within the four quarters of the hall. ("Oh, oh,”
applause and hisses.) The objects of the meeting are
twofold-the first is to hear the Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher. (Loud and prolonged applause.) That means
that we are to hear him express his own opinions, and
whether or no these opinions may be in unison with your
opinions or with mine, that is a matter of which the
meeting has, I apprehend, no right to complain. We are
greatly indebted to him, I think, for responding to the
call. He has been toiling night and day, I may say, in
Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, and other towns; and
he has come here on a very short notice, and your anxiety
to hear him has been such that you almost excluded him.
The Rev. Dr. Candlish has sent an apology for not
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.'
97
being here. There is less cause for regret, because he
was the author of the beautiful answer that recently ap-
peared in the newspapers from the ministers of Scotland
to the address of the ministers of the United States. As
the document met with such universal acceptance, the
committee who had charge of making the arrangements.
for this meeting thought that, in place of originating any
resolution of their own, they would just extract a small
portion from that admirable paper, convert it into a reso-
lution, and ask you to condemn slavery in the terms in
which it is condemned in the address prepared by Dr.
Candlish and other distinguished men. That will be the
only resolution which will be submitted to you, except the
usual formal votes which take place at all meetings. The
document to which I have referred has already received
the signatures of about a thousand ministers, and they
are coming in by scores every day, expressing the opinion
of all parts of Scotland. So much for the origin and na-
ture of the meeting. I feel that in this question, which
has been so keenly contested in this country, there may
be great difference of opinion on the part of the persons
who are here present. I entreat that whatever difference
of opinion may exist, every one may be heard fairly and
courteously, and if the resolution which is proposed to
the meeting be disapproved of, and any gentleman comes
forward to the platform to move an amendment, I will do
as much to give him a hearing for his specch, if within
the scope of the resolution, as I would do to any other
7
98
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
gentleman. I am most anxious that everything should
be done in such a straightforward manner as will com-
mend itself to all lovers of fair play. I may just state, in
addition, this one fact, that from other circumstances we
have been honored in this city with the presence of many
distinguished foreigners, and among these three or four
gentlemen who were to have gone by the six o'clock train
to-night in order to get to Paris to-morrow morning.
They kindly agreed to testify their detestation of slavery
by attending at this meeting, in order to say a few words
in unison with what I have no doubt will be said by Mr.
Beecher. These are M. Garnier Pages-(loud cheers)—
M. Desmarest, and M. Henri Martyn, the distinguished
historian of France. (Applause.) Mr. M’Laren con
cluded by introducing Mr. Beecher to the meeting.
Mr. BEECHER, on coming forward, was received
with loud and prolonged cheers and some hissing. When
silence had been restored, he said :--I should regret to
have my associations of this, the most picturesque city of
the world, disturbed as they would be, if I thought that
you needed so much preparatory pleading to persuade
you to hear me. I have lived in a very stormy time in
my own land, where men who did not believe in my senti-
ments had pecuniary and political interests in disturbing
meetings, but neither in East, nor West, nor in all the
Middle States, have I thought it necessary to ask an au-
dience to hear me-not even in America, the country, as
we have lately been informed, of mobs! (Loud cheers and
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
99
laughter.) I am not to-night a partisan seeking for pros-
elytes. I have no other interests to serve but those which
are common to all good men-the interests of truth, of
justice, of liberty, and of good morals. If I differ with
you in the way in which they are to be promoted, what
then? Cannot you hear opinions that you do not be-
lieve? I am so firm in my convictions that I can bear
to hear their opposites. It is not then so much to
persuade you to my views, though I should be glad to
do that, as it is to give a full and frank expression
of them, supposing that there are many here that
would be interested in a statement of affairs, as they
are now proceeding on the continent of America,
if, for no other reason-at least for the philosophic
interest there must be in this passing phenomena. It
may be to you but a simple question of national psy-
chology; it may be to some of you a matter of sympathy;
but whether it be philosophic interest or whether it be
humanitarian and moral interest, it shall be my business
to speak, for the most part, of what I know, and so to
speak that you shall be in no doubt whatever of my convic-
tions. (Loud cheers and laughter.) America has been
going through an extraordinary revolution unconsciously
and interiorly, which began when her present national
form was assumed, which is now developing itself, but
which existed and was in progress just as much before as
now that it is seen. The earlier problem was how to
establish an absolute independence in States from all ex-
Jorm
100
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
•
L
ternal control. Next (and this is the peculiar interest
of the period which formed our Constitution), how, out
of independent States to form a Nation, yet without de-
stroying local sovereignty? The period of germination
and growth of the Union of the separate colonies is
threefold. The first colonies that planted the American
shores were separate, and jealous of their separateness.
Sent from the mother country with a strong hatred of
oppression, they went with an intense individualism, and
sought to set up, each party, its little colony, where they
would be free to follow their convictions and the dictates.
of conscience. And nothing is more characteristic of the
earlier politics of the colonists than their jealous isola-
tion, for fear that even contact would contaminate. Two
or three efforts were made within the first twenty or
twenty-five years of their existence to bring them together
in Union. Delegates met and parted, met again and
parted. Indian wars drove them together. It became
by external dangers necessary that there should be a
Union of those early colonies, but there was a fear that
in going into Union they would lose something of the
sovereignty that belonged to them as colonial States.
The first real Union that took place was that of 1643,
between the colonists of what is now New England. It
is a little remarkable, I may say in passing, that the
fugitive slave clause of our Constitution is founded
almost in so many words on the first Articles of Federa-
tion that were made in 1643. between these little New
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
ΙΟΙ
*
England colonies. This earliest Union was the type and
model of later ones. With various alterations of fortune
the country grew, but maintained a kind of irregular
Union as exigencies pressed upon it. It was not until
1777, a year and a half after the Declaration of Indepen-
dence, and while the colonies were at full war with the
mother country, that what is called the Articles of Feder-
ation were adopted; and this was the second period of
Union, when the Southern States, the Middle States,
and the states of New England came together in Federa-
tion, which was declared, in the preamble, to be perpet-
ual. But about ten years after these articles were
framed, they were found to be utterly inadequate
for the exigencies of the times; and in 1787 the present
Constitution of the United States was adopted by con-
vention, and, at different dates thereafter, ratified by the
thirteen States that first constituted the present Union.
Now, during all this period of the first Union of 1643,
the second Union of 1777, and the third or final Union—
the present one-of 1787, there is one thing to be re-
marked, and that is, the jealousy of State independence.
The States were feeling their way towards nationality;
and the rule and measure of the wisdom of every step
was, how to maintain individuality with nationality.
That was their problem. It never had been found out
for them. They had some analogies, but these were
only analogies. In that wilderness, for the first time,
the problem was about to be solved-How can there be
102
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
1
:
absolute independence in local government with perfect
nationality? Slavery was only incidental during all this
long period; but in reading from contemporaneous doc-
uments and debates that took place in conventions both
for Confederation and for final Union, it is remarkable
that the difficulties which arose were difficulties of repre-
sentation, difficulties of taxation, difficulties of tariff and
revenue and, so far as we can find, neither North nor
South anticipated in the future any of those dangers
which have overspread the continent from the black
cloud of slavery. The dangers they most feared, they
have suffered least from the dangers they have suffered
most from, they did not at all anticipate, or but little.
But the Union was formed. The Constitution, defining
the national power conferred by the States on the Fed-
eral Government, was adopted. Thenceforward, for fifty
years and more, the nation developed itself in wealth
and political power, until, from a condition of feeble
States exhausted by war, it rose to the dignity of a first-
class nation. We now turn our attention to the gradual
and unconscious, development within this American nation
, of two systems of policy, antagonistic and irreconcilable.
Let us look at the South first. She was undergoing
unconscious transmutation. She did not know it. She
did not know what ailed her. She felt ill-(laughter)—
put her hand on her heart sometimes; on her head some-
times; but had no doctor to tell her what it was, until
too late; and when told she would not believe. (Laugh-
1
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1
ter and cheers.) For it is a fact, that when the colonies
combined in their final Union, slavery was waning not.
only in the Middle and Northern States but also in the
South itself. When therefore they went into this Union,
slavery was perishing, partly by climate in the North,
and still more by the convictions of the people, and by
the unproductive character of farm-slavery. Slavery is
profitable only by breeding and on plantations. In the
North it never was very profitable, though somewhat con-
venient as a household matter; for if you can get a
good chambermaid and a good cook, it is worth while to
keep them. . (Laughter.) There was for the most part in
New England only the shadow of slavery—household
slavery. The first period of the South was the wane and
weakness of slavery. Nevertheless it existed. The sec-
ond period is the increase of slavery, and its apolo-
getic defence; for, with the invention of the cotton gin,
an extraordinary demand for cotton sprang up. Slave
labor began to be more and more in demand, and the
price of slaves rose; but still there was a number of
years within my remembrance-and I am not a patriarch
-in which men said: ،،
Slavery is among us; we don't
know how to get rid of it; we accept it as an evil; we
wish we had a better system, but it is a misfortune and
not a fault." I remember the apologetic period. Then
came the next period, one of revolution of opinion as to
the inferior races of the South, a total and entire change.
in the doctrines of the South on the question of human
*
104
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
X
rights and human nature. It dates from Mr. Calhoun.
From the hour that Mr. Calhoun began to teach, there com-
menced a silent process of moral deterioration. I call it a
retrogression in morals-an apostasy. Men no longer
apologized for slavery; they learned to defend it; to teach
that it was the normal condition of an inferior race; that
the seeds and history of it were in the Word of God; that
the only condition in which a Republic can be prosperous,
is where an aristocracy owns the labor of the community.
That was the doctrine of the South, and with that doctrine
there began to be ambitious designs, not only for the
maintenance but for the propagation of slavery. This
era of propagation and aggression constitutes the fourth
and last period of the revolution of the South. They had
passed through a whole cycle of changes. These changes
followed certain great laws. No sooner was the new
philosophy set on foot, than the South recognized its le-
gitimacy and accepted it with all its inférences and inevi
table tendencies. They gave up wavering and misgivings,
adopted the institution-praised it, loved it, defended it,
sought to maintain it, burned to spread it. During the
last fifteen years, I believe you cannot find a voice, printed
or uttered, in the cotton States of the South, which de-
plored slavery. All believed in and praised it, and found
authority for it in God's Word. Politicians admired it,
merchants appreciated it, the whole South sang paans to
the new-found truth, that man was born to be owned by
This change of doctrine made it certain, that the
man.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
105
South would be annoyed and irritated by a Constitution
which, with all its faults, still carried the God-given prin-
ciple of human rights, which were not to be taken by
man except in punishment for crime. That Constitution,
and the policy which went with it at first, began to gnaw
at, and irritate, and fret the South, when they had
adopted slavery as a doctrine. How could they live in
peace under a Constitution that all the time declared
the manhood of men and the dignity of freedom?
It became necessary that they should do one of two things,
either give up slavery, or appropriate the government to
themselves, in some way or other drain out of the Consti-
tution this venom of liberty, and infuse a policy more in
harmony with Southern ideas. They took the latter
course. They contrived to possess themselves of the
government; and for the last fifty years the policy of the
country has been Southern. Was a tariff wanted? It
was made a Southern tariff. Was a tariff oppressive?
The Southerners overthrew it. Was a tariff wanted
again? The Southern policy declared it to be
necessary, and it was passed. Was more territory
wanted? The South must have its way. Was any man
to obtain a place? If the South opposed it, he had no
chance whatever. For fifty years most of the men who
became judges, who sat in the Presidential chair and in
the Courts, had to base their opinions on slavery or on
Southern views. All the filibustering, all the intimida-
tions of foreign Powers, all the so-called snubbing of
108 HENRY Ward beecHER'S SPEECHES
د.
to take such steps as more and more brought the North
into a rightful frame of mind. The first conflict that
arose between the South and the North was in regard to
the admission of the new State of Missouri in 1818.
The North contended that there should be no more
slave States-the doctrine that is now being revived
as the Republican doctrine. It was the original doctrine
and conviction, that slavery might be tolerated where it
was, but that no more States should be admitted. When
Missouri knocked at the door, there were those who op-
posed its admission as a slave State, but by Southern
management and intimidation Henry Clay persuaded the
North to a compromise. Now, when there is no differ-
ence in principle, but only conflicting interests, a com-
promise is honorable and right, but when antagonistic
principles are in question, I believe compromises to be
bargains with the devil, who is never cheated. (Loud
laughter, and cheers.) The North gave up her principles
and admitted the Missouri State with slavery as an ex-
ception, and by the compromise obtained a line of latitude
that should limit slavery. Above the latitude of 36° 30'
all States, except Missouri, were to be free; south of
that line there might be slave States. By this concession
they gave up the whole principle, as such compromises
always must. Then came the next conflict. The policy of
the North and the policy of the South again jarred against
each other. The North was striving, according to the spirit
of the Constitution and the convictions of the fathers of the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
109
country, the founders of the Union, to carry out the doc-
trines of liberty. The South became ambitious, and hav-
ing possession of the Government, aimed to enforce their
ideas of slavery upon the whole continent. Hence ad-
mission of Texas and the war with Mexico for the sake
of territory. Next were seized the regions of New Mexico
and California. These were added to the Union not by
the North, but by the South. Then came the compromise
measures of 1850, and the Fugitive Slave Bill, which the
North accepted finally, as children take medicine, when
the silver spoon is forced into their teeth, and they are
almost choked to make them take it. (Laughter.) Then
came the only abolition that I ever heard the South were
in favor of the abolition of the Missouri compromise.
What that was, I have just been telling you. But now.
the South suddenly found out, that the compromise was
unconstitutional and void. They claimed to abolish the
compromise and have slave States north of the line 36.0
30'. The North, incensed and indignant, yet held back,
from love for the Union of the States, and gave up their
own convictions and their proper line of duty. After
the abolition of the Missouri Compromise it was declared
by the South, that the doctrine of Popular sovereignty
should be established-a doctrine to the effect that when
the admission of a State was determined on, it should
come in a slave State or a free State, according to the
vote of the population. The South carried this measure,
and the moment they carried it they attempted to get
ΙΟ
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ゆ
​Kansas introduced as a slave State; but the Northern
men were too quick for them-(laughter and applause)
for they sent such a superabundant population into
Kansas, that they soon lifted the white banner without a
black star upon it. (Cheers.) The instant this was done,
the South turned round and said, "Popular sovereignty is
not constitutional or expedient. (Laughter and applause.)
The States applying for admission shall not have the
liberty of saying whether they will come in free or slave."
This was the work of Mr. Sliddell—(hisses)—now minis-
ter for the Southern States in Paris. (Hisses and slight
applause). I wish he were in this hall to hear you hiss-
ing. By this time the North was thoroughly roused and
indignant. They had at length opened their eyes, and
reluctantly began to see that the South meant nothing
short of forcing slavery over the whole continent. The
North thereupon grew firmer, and in 1856 nominated
Fremont, for the purpose of showing that they were no
longer to be browbeaten by slavery. He failed; but
failed in the noblest way, by the cheats of his opponents.
The State that gave us Buchanan to be a burden for four
years, was the State in which the cheating took place.
Then came the last act of this revolution of feeling in the
North-the election of Mr. Lincoln. (Loud and pro-
tracted cheering.) The principle that was laid down as
a distinct feature of the platform on which Mr. Lincoln
was elected, was, that there should be no more slave ter-
ritories-in other words, the breathing hole was stopped
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
III
%
،،
up, and slavery had no air; it was only a question of
time how long it would last before it would be suffocated.
(Laughter and cheers.) The North respected the doc-
trine of State rights, when Georgia said, that slavery was
municipal and local, and that the government of the
United States had no right to touch slavery in Georgia.
The North accepted the doctrine. It was true, that they
could not touch slavery in the States: yet the North had
a right, in connection with the Middle States, to say,
Although in certain States slavery exists beyond our
political reach, yet the territory that is free and is not
beyond our jurisdiction shall not be touched by the foot
of a slave.” That was the spark which exploded and this
is the war that followed; for the South knew perfectly
well, and there is no place where logic is better under-
stood than in the South,-that if limits were set to the
Slave States, if the territory could be no further extended,
the prosperity of the slave-holders was at an end. They
determined that that doctrine should be broken up, and
they went into the Secession-war for that very pur-
pose. All these were conflicts between the North and
the South, about the growth of slavery, and in all but one
of them the South had its own way. The States had
been charging each other with guilt, and with infidelity to
obligations, but it was now collision. It was the attrac-
tion of great underlying influences that moved both South
and North. The principle which had been operating in
the North for many years was the principle of free labor,
II2
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
while the principle which had impregnated all Southern
minds was the principle of slave-labor. The result is
this. The South is exhausting the whole life of the
States in defence of slavery. This is historical now. The
great cause of the conflict-the centre of necessity, round
which the cannons roar and the bayonets gleam,—is the
preservation of slavery. Beyond slavery, there is no
difference between North and South. Their interests
are identical, with the exception of WORK. The North
is for free work-the South is for slave work; and the
whole war in the South, though it is for independence,
is, nevertheless, expressly in order to have slavery more.
firmly established by that independence. On the other
hand, the whole policy of the North, now at last regen-
erated, and made consistent with their documents, their
history, and real belief-the whole policy of the North, as
well as the whole work of the North, rejoicing at length
to be set free from antagonism, bribes, and intimidations,
-is for liberty; liberty for every man in the world. I
wish you to consider for a moment what is the result of
this state of things in the North. There never was so
united a purpose as there is to-day to crush the rebellion.
We have had nearly three years of turmoil and disturb.
ance, and it not only has not taken away that determina-
tion, but it has increased it. In the beginning of this con-
flict we were peculiarly English. What do I mean by
that? Well, if I have observed aright, England goes
into wars to make blunders at first, always, but
Y
you must
•
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
113
·
be aware, that in the end it is not England that has blun-
dered. I have noticed, in the course of my study of the
Peninsula war under Wellington, that the first whole.
year was a series of blunders and fraudulent squandering;
but, if I recollect aright, at last the same Wellington
drove his foes out of the Peninsula. (Cheers.) And so
it is with us. We have so much English blood in our
veins, that when we began this war we blundered and
blundered; but we are doing better and better every step.
There has been time enough for mere enthusiasm to have
cooled in the North. That has passed away. Enthusi-
asm is like the vapor, just enough condensed to let the
sun striking upon it fill it with gorgeous colors; but when
still further it condenses, and falls in drops for the thirsty
man to drink, or carries the river to the cataract, then it
has become useful and substantial. Enthusiasm at first
is that airy cloud; but when it has become a principle in
the hearts of the people, then it becomes substantial;
and such is the case in the North. Enthusiasm has
changed its form, and is now based on substantial moral
principle. The loss of our sons in battle has been griev-
ous; but we accept it as God's will, and we are deter
mined that every martyred son shall have a representa-
tive in one hundred liberated slaves. Never was such a
unity of Christian men in the North as there is to-day. I
have in my possession some two hundred resolutions,
passed by different Christian churches and denominations
in America, saving the Roman Catholics. In every form
8
114 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
of language they express themselves alike resolute for the
maintenance of the government and the crushing of the
rebellion. I may say that there is no seam in the gar-
ment that binds us together. We are one. The Peace-
Democrats have tried three times to put a stop to the
war, and every time they tried it, it became evident that
the only platform in America, on which this subject can
be discussed, is this-that the war must be carried on till
the Union is re-established. The Americans are a prac-
tical people. They, know their own business. No one
so well able as they are, to judge what they want: and
when they have deliberately arrived at a firm resolve, they
surely are to be regarded, at least with respect, if not
with sympathy. This much we expect, that when a peo-
ple twenty millions strong, intelligent, moral, and, as you
know, thrifty-when people of this sort, after three years
of deliberation, are fixed on one purpose, they at least
demand courtesy, if not respect. We are told that we
are breaking our constitutional obligations by the meas-
ures we have taken; but we were forced to adopt those
measures, and the reasons are abundant and plain. How?
When a fire first breaks out, the engineer goes down
and plays upon the fire, thinking that he will be able to
save the furniture and the neighboring houses; but, as
the devouring element increases, and threatens destruc-
tion to all around, the engineer says "Bring me powder,"
and he blows up the neighboring house, then the next,
and then the next, until a sufficient gap is made to pre-
•
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
115
vent the spread of the conflagration. When he began,
he did not think that he would require to sacrifice so
much and so it is with us.
:
When this rebellion com-
menced, we thought to put it down, and to maintain, at
the same time, the rights of the States; but, when the
war assumed such proportions as seemed to threaten the
destruction of the nation and its constitutional Govern.
ment, it became a question whether the President should
put in practice the powers he possessed of saving the
Union at all hazards. Long he paused, I know; for I
assisted in bombarding him. (Laughter and cheers.)
For months, and months, and months, I both pleaded and
inveighed against the dilatory policy at Washington, and
at last the President issued a proclamation, declaring that
the rebellion had assumed such proportions, that for the
sake of saving the country, he intended to exercise the
power he possessed, and to confiscate the total "prop-
erty" of the South, the whole of the slaves being in-
cluded, for the sake of saving the Union and the Consti-
tution. But some men speak to me, and say, "Oh, I am
tired of waiting; when is this little quarrel of yours on
the other side to be settled?" (Laughter.) A little quar-
rel-(laughter) with 1200 miles of a base line-a little.
quarrel that commenced only seventy-five years ago.
You ask how? The smouldering fire that by some means
or other has caught a rafter between the ceilings is not
known of at first; but after two or three days it bursts
out, and the whole building is consumed. The fire did
•
1
116 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
not begin when it became visible to the eyes; it began
some time before. In the same way this war did not be-
gin three years ago. It began when this constitution was
adopted—a constitution for liberty with a policy for slav-
ery, and it is as impossible to tell when it will come to a
termination as it is to foretell the conclusion of any great
matter affecting the welfare of thirty millions of people,
contingent partly on great laws and partly on interfering
politicians. It might close next year; it might close in
three years; it might close in five. We have lost many
sons, we have spilled much blood. This is the opera-
tion by which the cancer is to be severed from our
system; the operation is now far advanced, and woe
be to the man who interferes with it before the last
bit of the virus is removed. But, let me say, even a
servant who will bear a blow, cannot bear to be
beaten and preached at both together. If you insist
on groaning over the tediousness of the war, you must
not aid to prolong it. Either do not ask us when it will
end, or else do not send ships and guns to the rebels in
the South. If you want to sympathize with us, do so;
and if you must assist the rebels, do so; but do not at-
tempt both things at once. I thank Earl Russell for his
speech at Blairgowrie. It is a speech that has brought
comfort and gladness to the hearts of our American
friends. A friend of mine in New York has written to
me, stating that the whole feeling there has been changed
since the intelligence of Earl Russell's speech. We do
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
117
า
not want to quarrel; we do not want animosity between
Great Britain and America. No man has spoken of
Great Britain words of praise and blame with more honest
heart than I have. (Cheers and some hisses.) That
man is not your friend who dares not speak of your faults
to your face. The man that is your friend tells
friend tells you when
he thinks you are wrong; and whether I am right or
wrong, I assert, that in giving moral sympathy largely to
the South, and above all, in allowing the infamous traffic
of your ports with the rebels, thus strengthening the
hands of the slave-holders, and that without public re-
buke,—you have done wrong. I have said this, because,
dear as your country is to us, precious as were the lega-
cies given to us of learning and religion, and proud as we
have been for years past to think of our ancestry and
common relationship to you-yet so much dearer to us
than kindred is the cause of God, that, if Great Britain
sets herself against us, we shall not hesitate one moment
on her account, but shall fulfil our mission!. Earl Russell
was, however, pleased to say that this was a conflict for
territory on the one part, and for independence on the other.
You know just as well as I, that the North has been ad-
verse to the acquisition of territory. It was the South
that brought in Texas, that brought in the whole of the
Louisiana tract by purchase; it was the South that went
to war with Mexico, and added New Mexico, and the
whole of California; and it was the South that sent
Walker, the filibusterer, to Cuba. The South would have
118 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
territory. It is not the North that has been avaricious of
land, but the South that needed the land for the exten-
sion of their slave system. Now, we are striving for
the territory that belongs to the Union. Let me see
that man who dares to say here that he believes in the
kind of patriotism that would let every citizen´sit still
while their territory was dismembered, and never raise
a hand or lift a sword? If that is your idea of patriot-
ism, it is not mine. I have taught my people, and I
have practised the doctrine myself as far as necessary,
that it was the duty of every Christian to defend his
house, and if any robber broke into his house, that he
was bound to resist, and recover any goods that might
have been carried off. Now, that which is true of the
householder, I declare to be true of the nation. The
love of country means this, to defend every part and par-
ticle of the country from unjust alienation. It amounts
then to just this, that we are trying to get back our own;
though Lord John Russell-I beg his pardon,. Earl Rus-
sell-(laughter)-says that we were ambitious of territory!
Well, here come two men before a Justice of the Peace,
the one with the other by the coat. The one says: "I
found this man in my house carrying off my wife's silks,
finery, and jewels." Suppose the Justice to remonstrate
with the complainant, and reprimand him for avarice,
and blandlý let the thief go without a word! What
would become of a community in which the victim of
robbery was scolded and the robber set free? Now
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
119
the territory in question was paid for by the money of the
Union, and we swore by as solemn an oath as people can
swear, to hold it for the good of the nation. Because we
are striving to keep our oath, I do not see how that can
make us ambitious of territory. On the other side, Earl
Russell says the South are contending for independence.
Yes they are, and I would to God that so much gallantry
had a better cause. It needs but that, to be illustrious
to the end of time. (Cheers.) Ladies and gentlemen, I
am proud to say, that we have not in that Western Conti-
nent degenerated from your British blood. There is high
spirit yet in America just as much as there is here. Yet,
Southern independence, what is it? When they seceded
and went to Montgomery to frame a Constitution, what
did they do? They made one or two little alterations in
the Constitution. They lengthened the term of the Presi-
dency, and made a few alterations in the forms of proced-
ures in the Congress; but substantially they took the
same Constitution as they had just escaped from. The
only material clause added was the one that made SLAY-
ERY PERPETUAL, and declared it to be illegal to undertake.
to abolish it. What then is Southern independence? It
is the meteor around the dark body of slavery. King
Bomba of Naples wanted to be independent, and his idea
of independence was, that he should be let alone whilst
he was oppressing his subjects. This very idea of inde-
pendence has been the same, since the days when Nim-
rod hunted men. (Laughter and cheers.) This is the
1
I 20
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
only independence the South is fighting for. But it is
said that the North is just as bad as the South in its
hatred for the negro. At one time I admit that there
was a prejudice against the black man, arising out of the
political condition of things: but I can bear witness that
this prejudice has almost entirely passed away, in so far
as the native population is concerned. I shall not say
who are the bitterest enemies of the black men because
you would hiss me if I did so. (Loud cries of "Speak
out," and a voice, "The Irishmen "—another voice, "The
Irish Roman Catholics.") There is no doubt that the
Irish have a strong prejudice against the negroes, but it
arises simply from this, that they have been led to believe
by the enemies of the North, that, were the slaves freed,
they would dispute the field of labor with them; whereas
everybody who knew anything of their disposition could
tell, that, were they freed, the Northern negroes would
flock to the South, leaving the North for Northern labor-
ers. The statement has been made that the Americans
are seeking to destroy the Anglo-Saxons for the sake of a
few millions of negroes. I contend, that, although the
freedom of the negroes will no doubt result from this war,
yet we are fighting for the good of all mankind-black,
white, and yellow-(laughter)—for men of all nations—to
save representative government and universal liberty. It
is also said that the proclamation by the President was not
sincere that he had issued it merely as an official, and that
it did not express his personal convictions. All I need to
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
121
reply, is, that the President, whatever his own feelings, is
bound to act as an official and discharge the duties of
his office. He is bound to administer the Constitution of
the country. It was the President and not the man who
spoke; and it was the country, and not the President,
that was responsible for the proclamation. At the same
time I affirm, that the manner in which all these procla-
mations have been carried out is a sufficient test of their
sincerity. The President was very loath to take the steps
he did; but, though slow, Abraham Lincoln was sure. A
thousand men could not make him plant his foot before
he was ready; ten thousand could not move it after he
had put it down. (Cheers). This national crisis in my
own country is a spectacle worthy of the admiration of
the world, and I can only hope that when next the Social
Science Congress assembles, this great conflict. will have
gone so far towards an issue, that it may be found con-
sistent with duty to inaugurate its meeting without sneer-
ing at a neighboring nation. I have a closing word to
speak. It is our duty in America, by every means in our
power, to avoid all cause of irritation with every foreign
nation, and with the English nation most especially. On
your side it is your duty to avoid all irritating interference,
and all speech that tends to irritate. Brothers should be
brothers all the world over, and you are of our blood, and
we are of your lineage. May that day be far distant when
Great Britain and America shall turn their backs on each
other, and seek an alliance with other nations. (Loud
}
122
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
A
cries of "Russia.") The day is coming when the founda-
tions of the earth will be lifted out of their places; and
there are two nations that ought to be found shoulder to
shoulder and hand in hand for the sake of Christianity
and universal liberty, and these nations are Great Britain
and America. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)
Dr. ALEXANDER, who was received with loud ap-
plause, said,—ladies and gentlemen, the resolution which
I have had put into my hands is the following:-"That
this meeting most earnestly and emphatically protests.
against American slavery in all its ramifications, as a
system which treats immortal and redeemed human be-
ings as goods and chattels, which denies them the rights
of marriage and of home, which consigns them to igno-
rance of the first rudiments of education, and exposes
them to the outrages of lust and passion; and that this
meeting is therefore of opinion that it should be totally
abolished, and, further, that this meeting, rejoicing in the
progress which has already been made in America towards
this end, desires to encourage, with their cordial sympa-
thy, the earnest abolitionists in that country in the noble
efforts they are making." I do not think that it is neces-
sary that I should offer any observations in support of
this resolution. After the magnificent oration to which
we have just listened, I do not feel myself inclined at all
to intrude in the way of speaking upon this question, and
I presume the meeting is not all inclined to hear anything
I might be disposed to say. I do not think the motion
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
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·
which has been put into my hands requires very much to
be said in support of it. I think it is exceedingly mod-
erate, rather more moderate than perhaps I should have
expressed it, had it been in my own words. (Applause.)
I think it pledges us to nothing but what we may heartily
agree to―(loud applause)—from our abhorrence of slav-
ery, our desire to see that feeling acknowledged, and our
sympathy with those who are trying to abolish it in Amer-
ica. Some may perhaps think that in the resolution we
might directly sympathize with the Federals in their strug-
gle, but that might probably lead to a division in the
meeting. I would venture to suggest that our esteemed
friend has gone very far to show that the Northerners, as
such, are abolitionists. Those who think that he has
made out that point might interpret the latter part of this
resolution to mean the whole of the Federals as a body;
and those who do not think that might restrict it in their
own minds to suit their views. (Laughter.)
Dr. GEORGE JOHNSTON then came forward amid
loud cheers, and said: It is not necessary that I should
say one word in seconding the motion. I am quite satis-
fied that this meeting is perfectly unanimous in accepting
the sentiments expressed in the motion, and why, there-
fore, should I occupy more time. Just let me say this one
word, that I apprehend that the magnificent speech of our
friend Mr. Beecher Stowe (loud laughter)-I mean Mr.
Ward Beecher-has removed some prejudices-has given
some information which, if rightly used, will guide us to
K
Į
124
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
the same conclusion to which I long ago came-viz., that
the North is banded together to maintain the liberties of
mankind. (Loud applause.)
A show of hands was then taken, when only three were
held up against the resolution, which was carried amidst
loud and prolonged cheering.
The Rev. DUNCAN OGILVIE said: The motion I
have to make is one which will recommend itself to every
one, in consequence of what has been manifested as Mr.
Beecher has gone on. It has been to every one an im-
mense treat to hear such a speech. (Loud applause.) I
felt myself warmed exceedingly by it. (Laughter.) I am
quite sure that the sympathies of this large meeting go
with Mr. Beecher in a large measure, and that you are.
ready to say Amen to every word almost, if not entirely.
I am ready to say Amen to what Dr. Johnston stated, and
I think the meeting is ready to do the same. What I
now propose is that we give a hearty vote of thanks to
Mr. Beecher for coming, at very much inconvenience, as
I know he has done, to address us this evening. (Loud
and prolonged applause.)
>
:
Mr. NELSON, publisher, rose to 'second the motion.
He said I have been requested to second this motion of
a vote of thanks to Mr. Beecher, and I rise to do it with
great diffidence, but at the same time with great pleasure.
It is unnecessary, and it would be unbecoming in me, to
pay any personal compliment to Henry Ward Beecher.
The truth is that, in listening to his address to-night,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
125
I forgot Mr. Beecher altogether in the cause of which
he is the representative; and I dare say he will
think that the best compliment I can pay to his
eloquence. In thanking him, perhaps you will allow
me, in
a single sentence, to bear my humble but
willing testimony to what I have seen of the growth of
a healthy public opinion in America on the subject of
slavery. Ten years ago I happened to visit the United
States; and everywhere, from New York to Missouri, I
had, like others from the old country, to defend myself as
I best could against the defenders of slavery. Conversa-
tion on general topics was sure at last to drift into this
one great subject; but all is changed now. A few
months ago I paid a second visit to the United States,
and, except among the Copperheads, I can bear witness.
that the old hostility to English sentiment against slavery
is gone.
In the city of New York there is a large and
influential association, known as the American Tract
Society. This society has for many years been one of
the battle-grounds on which the cause of freedom has
been fought. Its mutilation of the works of English
authors, and its rigid exclusion from its publications of
everything against slavery, resulted a few years ago in
the formation of a new society pledged to the cause of
freedom. When I state that proposals have been made
for a re-union of the two societies, because all feel free
now to speak out on the subject of slavery, you may
receive it as pretty strong evidence that a vast change
126 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
has taken place. Yes, Mr. Chairman, the tide of public
opinion has turned, and you might as well attempt to
chain the sea as arrest its progress. In this country we
are accustomed to talk of North and South, as if in these
two words we expressed the nature of this terrible civil
war; but, Mr. Chairman, I beg leave to say that these
two words express only one-half the truth. There are
two Norths and two Souths. There is that North which
all along has yielded to the South, and strengthened
the hands of the slave power. There is that other North
who, for the first time, have the reins of power in their
hands, and, amidst tremendous difficulties, are fighting the
battle of freedom. It is that party, represented by such
men as Mr. Beecher, Charles Sumner, and others, who
have a right to appeal to this country for sympathy, and
who, I think, are entitled to get it. With the destruction
of slavery there will be no South. A distinguished noble-
man in this country some time ago set afloat the neat but
delusive phrase that this is a war on one side for empire,
on the other for independence. Yes, Mr. Chairman, and
so it was. The Southern leaders, at the beginning of the
struggle, boasted that they would soon have their flag
floating over the Capitol at Washington, and at New York
and Boston. Was not that a struggle for empire? On
the other side, was it not a struggle for independence.
when for the first time we saw the North rising up against
the domination of the South? Last December, I hap-
pened to land in New York soon after the first battle of
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
127
Fredericksburg, the darkest hour the North has known in
this great war; but, Mr. Chairman, allow me to say that
though the terrible battle of Fredricksburg was a defeat
to the North, it was the greatest victory they ever gained.
It broke the Democratic party into two-peace Democrats
and war Democrats. The government was stronger after
the battle of Fredericksburg than before it; and so has it
been with all the other defeats of the North. I believe
that among native Americans there is every desire to
cultivate the friendship of this country, and that the
present bitterness of feeling, having no root in itself, will
soon wither away. Mr. Chairman, we must not forget
that there are also two Souths. There are blacks as well
as whites. Why should we always speak as if the whites
alone formed the South? But I feel that I have already
detained you too long. Before I sit down I beg to ex-
press the belief that, with the destruction of slavery, there
will be no South. It is slavery alone that has formed the
South. The din and smoke of battle will, ere long,
clear away.
I believe that the present bitter feelings
between North and South will also pass away, and we
will see a united country, with the fair form of liberty
wielding the sceptre over a free people.
The motion was carried amid loud applause.
The Rev. Mr. CULLEN moved a cordial vote of thanks
to the Chairman; and
The Rev. Dr. THOMSON concluded the proceedings
with prayer.
128 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE PHILHARMONIC
HALL, LIVERPOOL, OCTOBER 16, 1863.
THE Hall was crowded in every part by an audience
drawn together by the announcement that the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, the celebrated American preacher
and philanthropist, brother of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, would
lecture on the American War and Emancipation. Im-
mediately the doors were opened the hall was filled, and
the aspect of the audience showed that the proceedings
were anticipated with no little eagerness.
On the entrance of Mr. Beecher, preceded by the chair-
man, a vast shout of mingled welcome and disapprobation
was immediately raised. As is already known to our
readers, placards had been posted throughout the town.
inciting the people of Liverpool to give the reverend
lecturer a hostile reception; and it soon became evident
that a small but determined minority of the meeting were
present with that intention. The extent to which their
exertions, which were sedulously continued throughout,
interfered with the proceedings, will be perceived by the
report.
CHARLES ROBERTSON, Esq., on rising to intro-
duce the lecturer, was received with loud cheers and
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
129
1
hisses. After obtaining silence he said: Ladies and
gentlemen, we are met here to-night to hear an address
from the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. (Cheers and
hisses.) I hope gentlemen, this is an assembly of
Englishmen, and that everybody will be heard th
calmness and impartiality. Well, gentlemen, we are met
together this evening to receive such information from
Mr. Beecher as he has it in his power to communicate to
us respecting the present state of the contest now going
on in the United States of America, and its bearing on
that most important question which has so powerfully
stirred the hearts of Englishmen, the question of the
emancipation of the negro race. I need not say to you,
gentlemen, it is that aspect of the question which has
induced many of us to take a part in this meeting. It is
because we believe that this is a contest which has a most
important bearing on the emancipation of the negro race,
and the introduction, to a larger portion of the population
of the Southern States, of those rights and liberties which,
as men, they ought to possess, that we have taken a
deep interest in this struggle, believing that the success
of the Northern States will lead to the emancipation of
the slave. ("No, no," hisses and cheers.) The question
of emancipation possesses such an immense interest and
importance, that we are prepared to give a free expres-
sion of our sympathy and support to this movement.
We, in common with all our fellow-countrymen, deplore
and deprecate the bloodshed and miseries which this war

9
130
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
15
j
ZI
has occasioned. I think there is no man among us who
can view with other than feelings of the deepest regret the
suffering and the loss which it has occasioned both in the
country where the war is being waged and among the
European communities. But, while admitting this to the
fullest extent, I say, that to establish the great principle
of liberty, the sacrifice of all else we hold dear purchases
that liberty cheaply. Therefore, while we do regret the
misery produced, we do not regret the great issue which
we believe will be obtained through that misery. But,
gentlemen, we take this side not only in sympathy for the
North, but in sympathy for the South. The great work
of negro emancipation is to benefit the inhabitants of
these Southern States more even than it will benefit the
North. With the North it is a question of humanity;
with the South it is a question of progress, liberty, and of
all that can contribute to elevate and promote the pros-
perity of a state. It is with no unfriendly feelings to the
South that I say these things. They are our own kins-
men as well as the people of the North. We have ad-
mired their courage and unflinching devotedness to what
they believe a right cause. (Applause.) But we are
equally convinced that their cause is wrong. (Loud cries
of "No, no.") If there is a righteous God in Heaven we
believe that cause cannot prosper. (Renewed interrup-
tion.) The chairman concluded by asking the respectful
attention of the audience to Mr. Beccher's address,
adding that that gentleman was perfectly prepared to

:
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
131
answe
after
the na..
(the chairman).
The Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER then rose,
and, advancing to the front of the platform, was greeted
with mingled cheers, hisses, and groans. A considerable
proportion of the audience stood up, waving hats and
handkerchiefs, and cheering. A man in the gallery called
for "Three cheers for the Southern States," which created
much laughter and some uproar. Mr. Beecher proceeded
to say "Ladies and gentlemen," when the uproar again.
commenced, and efforts were made to eject one noisy in-
dividual from the body of the hall.
The CHAIRMAN said: A fair opportunity will be
afforded to express approval or dissent at the close of the
lecture, but if any one interrupts the meeting by dis-
orderly conduct, I shall be obliged to call in the aid of
the police. (Cheers.)
S
**
estions that might be addressed to him.
ure, provided they were put in writing, with
the writer attached, and handed up to him
The Rev. Mr. BEECHER then said: For more than
twenty-five years I have been made perfectly familiar with
popular assemblies in all parts of my country except the
extreme South. There has not for the whole of that time
been a single day of my life when it would have been safe
for me to go south of Mason's and Dixon's line in my
own country, and all for one reason; my solemn, earnest,
persister
ony against that which I consider to be
ous thing under the sun-the system of
the mos
Uor M
}
A
132 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEEC) MS
American slavery in a great free republic. Cheers. I
have passed through that early period, when right of
speech was denied to me. Again and again I have
attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime
than that of free speech, visited me with all manner of
contumelious epithets; and now since I have been in Eng-
land, although I have met with greater kindness and
courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the
other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence pre-
vails to some extent in England. It is my old acquaint-
ance.; I understand it perfectly-(laughter)-and I have
always held it to be an unfailing truth that where a man
had a cause that would bear examination he was perfectly
willing to have it spoken about. (Applause.) And when
in Manchester I saw those huge placards, "Who is Henry
Ward Beecher?"-(laughter, cries of "Quite right," and
applause)—and when in Liverpool I was told that there
were those blood-red placards, purporting to say what
Henry Ward Beecher had said, and calling on English-
men to suppress free speech-I tell you what I thought.
I thought simply this--"I am glad of it." (Laughter.)
Why? Because if they had felt perfectly secure, that you
are the 'minions of the South and the slaves of slavery,
they would have been perfectly still. And, therefore,
when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, if I were
permitted to speak-when I found they were afraid to
have ine speak-(hisses, laughter, and "No, no ")—when
me
I found that they considered my speaking damaging to
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
133
their cause-(applause)—when I found that they appealed
from facts and reasonings to mob law, I said: no man
need tell me what the heart and secret counsel of these
men are. They tremble and are afraid. (Applause,
laughter, hisses, "No, no," and a voice: New York
mob.") Now, personally, it is a matter of very little con-
sequence to me whether I speak here to-night or not.
(Laughter and cheers.) But, one thing is very certain
if you
do permit me to speak here to-night you will hear
very plain talking. (Applause and hisses.) You will not
find a man--(interruption)—you will not find me to be a
man that dared to speak about Great Britain 3000 miles
off, and then is afraid to speak to Great Britain when
he stands on her shores. (Immense applause and hisses.)
And if I do not mistake the tone and the temper of
Englishmen, they had rather have a man who opposes
them in a manly way-(applause from all parts of the
hall)-than a sneak that agrees with them in an unmanly
way. (Applause and "Bravo.") Now, if I can carry you
with me by sound convictions, I shall be immensely glad ;
but if I cannot carry you with me by facts and sound
arguments, I do not wish you to go with me at all; and
all that I ask is simply FAIR PLAY. (Applause, and a
voice: "You shall have it, too.") Those of you who are
kind enough to wish to favor my speaking-and you will
observe that my voice is slightly husky; from having
spoken almost every night in succession for some time
past-those who wish to hear me will do me the kindness.
•
134
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
simply to sit still, and to keep still; and I and my friends.
the Secessionists will make all the noise. (Laughter.)
There are two dominant races in modern history-the
Germanic and the Romanic races.
The Germanic races
tend to personal liberty, to a sturdy individualism, to civil
and to political liberty. The Romanic race tends to abso-
lutism in Government; it is clannish; it loves chieftains, it
develops a people that crave strong and showy govern-
ments to support and plan for them. The Anglo-Saxon
race belongs to the great German family, and is a fair ex-
ponent of its peculiarities. The Anglo-Saxon carries self-
(
government and self-development with him wherever he
goes. He has popular GOVERNMENT and popular INDUS-
>
TRY; for the effects of a generous civil liberty are not
scen a whit more plain in the good order, in the intelli-
gence, and in the virtue of a self-governing people,
than in their amazing enterprise and the scope and
power of their creative industry. The power to create
riches is just as much a part of the Anglo-Saxon
virtues as the power to create good order and social
safety. The things required for prosperous labor,
prosperous manufactures, and prosperous commerce
are three: First-liberty; second, liberty; third, liberty.)
Though these are not merely the same liberty as I
shall show you. First, there must be liberty to follow
those laws of business, which experience has developed,
without imposts or restrictions, or governmental intrusions.
Business simply wants to be let alone. Then, secondly,
IN ENGLAND İN 1863.
135
"
2,
there must be liberty to distribute and exchange products
of industry in any market without burdensome tariffs,
without imposts, and without vexatious regulations.
There must be these two liberties-liberty to create
wealth, as the makers of it think best according to the
light and experience which business has given them;
and then liberty to distribute what they have created
without unnecessary vexatious burdens. The compre-
hensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the world
is free manufacture and free-trade. (A Voice: "The
Morrill tariff." Another voice: (6
'Monroe.") I have
said there were three elements of liberty. The third is
the necessity of an intelligent and free race of customers.
There must be freedom among producers; there must be
freedom among the distributors; there must be freedom
among the customers. It may not have occurred to you
that it makes any difference what one's customers are,
but it does in all regular and prolonged business. The
condition of the customer determines how much he will
buy, "determines of what sort he will buy. Poor and
ignorant people buy little and that of the poorest kind.
The richest and the intelligent, having the more means to
buy, buy the most, and always buy the best. Here, then,
are the three liberties-liberty of the producer liberty of
the distributor; and liberty of the consumer. The first
two need no discussion, they have been long thoroughly
and brilliantly illustrated by the political economists of
Great Britain, and by her eminent statesmen; but it
17
"
3.
136 HENRY WARD BEÈCHER'S SPEECHES
seems to me that enough attention has not been directed
to the third; and, with your patience, I will dwell on
that for a moment, before proceeding to other topics.
It is a necessity of every manufacturing and commercial
people that their customers should be very wealthy and
intelligent. Let us put the subject before you in the
familiar light of your own local experience. To whom
do the tradesmen of Liverpool sell the most goods at the
highest profit? To the ignorant and poor, or to the ed-
ucated and prosperous? (A voice: "To the Southern-
ers." Laughter.) The poor man buys simply for his
body; he buys food, he buys clothing, he buys fuel, he
buys lodging. His rule is to buy the least and the
cheapest that he can. He goes to the store as seldom as
he can, he brings away as little as he can,-and he buys
for the least he can. (Much laughter.) Poverty is not a
misfortune to the poor only, who suffer it, but it is more
or less a misfortune to all with whom he deals. On the
other hand, a man well off,-how is it with him? He
buys in far greater quantity. He can afford to do it; he
has the money to pay for it. He buys in far greater va-
riety, because he seeks to gratify not merely physical
wants, but also mental wants. He buys for the satisfac-
tion of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense.
He buys
silk, wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals-iron, silver,
gold, platinum; in short he buys for all necessities and of
all substances.
quality of goods.
M
But that is not all.
But that is not all. He buys a better
He buys richer silks, finer cottons,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
137
higher grained wools. Now, a rich silk means so much
skill and care of somebody's that has been expended
upon it to make it finer and richer; and so of cotton, and
so of wool. That is, the price of the finer goods runs
back to the very beginning, and remunerates the work-
man as well as the merchant. Now, the whole laboring
community is as much interested and profited as the mere
merchant, in this buying and selling of the higher grades.
in the greater varieties and quantities. The law of. price
is the skill; and the amount of skill expended in the work.
is as much for the market as are the goods.
A man
comes to market and says, "I have a pair of hands," and
he obtains the lowest wages. Another man comes and
says, "I have something more than a pair of hands; I
have truth and fidelity; " he gets a higher price. Another
man comes and says, "I have something more; I have
hands, and strength, and fidelity, and skill." He gets
more than either of the others. The next man comes
and says, "I have got hands, and strength, and skill, and
fidelity; but my hands work more than that. They
know how to create things for the fancy, for the affec-
tions, for the moral sentiments; and he gets more than
either of the others. The last man comes and says, "I
have all these qualities, and have them so highly that it
is a peculiar genius;" and genius carries the whole
market and gets the highest price. So that both the
workman and the merchant are profited by having pur-
chasers that demand quality, variety, and quantity.
95
The
138
HENRY WARD BEËCHER'S SPEECHES
Now, if this be so in the town or the city, it can only be
so because it is a law. This is the specific development
of a general or universal law, and therefore we should
expect to find it as true of a nation as of a city like Liver-
pool. I know it is so, and you know that it is true of all
the world; and it is just as important to have customers.
educated, intelligent, moral, and rich out of Liverpool as
it is in Liverpool. They are able to buy; they want
variety, they want the very best; and those are the cus-
tomers you want. That nation is the best customer that
is freest, because freedom works prosperity, industry and
wealth.
Great Britain, then, aside from moral considerations,
has a direct commercial and pecuniary interest in the
liberty, civilization, and wealth of every people and
every nation on the globe. You have also an interest in
this, because you are a moral and a religious people.
You desire it from the highest motives; and godliness is
profitable in all things, having the promise of the life
that is, as well as of that which is to come; but if there
were no hereafter, and if man had no progress in this
life, and if there were no question of civilization at all,
it would be worth your while to protect civilization and
liberty, merely as a commercial speculation. To evan-
gelize has more than a moral and religious import-it
comes back to temporal relations. Wherever a nation
that is crushed, cramped, degraded under despotism is
struggling to be free, you, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
139
1.
P
They have
Your chief
You have
Paisley, all have an interest that that nation should be
free. When depressed and backward people demand
that they may have a chance to rise-Hungary, Italy,
Poland—it is a duty for humanity's sake, it is a duty for
the highest moral motives, to sympathize with them; but
beside all these there is a material and an interested rea-
son why you should sympathize with them. Pounds and
pence join with conscience and with honor in this design.
Now, Great Britain's chief want is what?
said that your chief want is cotton. I deny it.
want is consumers. (Applause and hisses.)
got skill, you have got capital, and you have got machin-
ery enough to manufacture goods for the whole popula-
tion of the globe. You could turn out fourfold as much
as you do, if you only had the market to sell in. It is.
not so much the want, therefore, of fabric, though there.
may be a temporary obstruction of it; but the principal
and increasing want-increasing from year to year—is,
where shall we find men to buy what we can manufact-
ure so fast? (Interruption, and a voice, “The Morrill
tariff," and applause.) Before the American war broke
out, your warehouses were loaded with goods that you
could not sell. You had over-manufactured; what is the
meaning of over-manufacturing but this, that you had
skill, capital, machinery, to create faster than you had
customers to take goods off your hands?
And you
know, that, rich as Great Britain is, vast as are her manu-
factures, if she could have fourfold the present demand,
140
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
she could make fourfold riches to-morrow; and every
political economist will tell you that your want is not
cotton primarily, but customers. Therefore, the doctrine,
how to make customers, is a great deal more important
to Great Britain than the doctrine how to raise cotton.
It is to that doctrine I ask from you, business men,
practical men, men of fact, sagacious Englishmen—to
that point I ask a moment's attention. (Shouts of "Oh,
oh,” hisses, and applause.) There are no more conti-
nents to be discovered. The market of the future must
be found-how? There is very little hope of any more
demand being created by new fields. If you are to have
a better market there must be some kind of process in-
vented to make the old fields better. (A voice, “Tell us
something new," shouts of "Order," and interruption.)
Let us look at it, then. You must civilize the world in
order to make a better class of purchasers. If you were
to press Italy down again under the feet of despotism,
Italy, discouraged, could draw but very few supplies
from you.
But give her liberty, kindle schools through-
out her valleys, spur her industry, make treaties with her
by which she can exchange her wine, and her oil, and
her silk for your manufactured goods; and for every
effort that you make in that direction there will come
back profit to you by increased traffic with her. If Hun-
gary asks to be an unshackled nation-if by freedom she
will rise in virtue and intelligence, then by freedom she
will acquire a more multifarious industry, which she will
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
141
Her
nate against
be willing to exchange for your manufactures.
liberty is to be found-where? You will find it in the
Word of God, you will find it in the code of history; but
you will also find it in the Price Current; and every free
nation, every civilized people-every people that rises.
from barbarism to industry and intelligence, becomes a
better customer. A savage is a man of one story, and
that one story a cellar. When the man begins to be
civilized, he raises another story. When you Christian-
ize and civilize the man, you put story upon story, for
you develop faculty after faculty; and you have to supply
every story with your productions. The savage is a man
one story deep; the civilized man is thirty stories deep.
Now, if you go to a lodging-house, where there are three
or four men, your sales to them may, no doubt, be worth
something; but if you go to a lodging-house like some of
those which I saw in Edinburgh, which seemed to con-
tain about twenty stories-(" oh, oh," and interruption)-
every story of which is full, and all who occupy buy of
you-which is the best customer,-the man who is drawn
out, or the man who is pinched up? (Laughter.) Now,
there is in this a great and sound principle of political
economy. (“Yah! yah!" from the passage outside the
hall, and loud laughter.) If the South should be rendered
independent-(at this juncture mingled cheering and
hisses became immense; half the audience rose to their
feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and in every part.
of the hall there was the greatest commotion and uproar).
"
142 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
امية
شهيرة،
له
You have had your turn now; now let me have mine
again. (Loud applause and laughter.) It is a little incon-
venient to talk against the wind; but, after all, if you
will just keep good-natured-I am not going to lose my
temper; will you watch yours? Besides all that,-it rests
me, and gives me a chance, you know, to get my breath.
(Applause and hisses.) And I think that the bark of
those men is worse than their bite. They do not mean
any harm-they don't know any better. (Loud laughter,
applause, hisses, and continued uproar.) I was saying,
when these responses broke in, that it was worth our
while to consider both alternatives. What will be the
result if this present struggle shall eventuate in the
separation of America, and making the South-(loud ap-
plause, hisses, hooting, and cries of "Bravo!")-a slave
territory exclusively,-(cries of "No, no," and laughter)
-and the North a free territory, what will be the first
result? You will lay the foundation for carrying the
slave population clear through to the Pacific Ocean.
That is the first step. There is not a man that has been
a leader of the South any time within these twenty
years, that has not had this for a plan. It was for this
that Texas was invaded, first by colonists, next by marau-
ders, until it was wrested from Mexico. It was for this
that they engaged in the Mexican war itself, by which
the vast territory reaching to the Pacific was added to
the Union. Never have they for a moment given up the
plan of spreading the American institutions, as they call
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
143
them, straight through towards the West, until the slave,
who has washed his feet in the Atlantic, shall be carried
to wash them in the Pacific. (Cries of "Question," and
uproar.) There ! I have got that statement out, and
you cannot put it back. (Laughter and applause.) Now,
let us consider the prospect. If the South becomes a
slave empire, what relation will it have to you as a custo-
mer? (A Voice: "Or any other man." Laughter.) It
would be an empire of 12,000,000 of people. Now, of
these, 8,000,000 are white and 4,000,000 black.
(A
Voice: "How many have you got?"-applause and
laughter. Another Voice: "Free your own slaves.")
Consider that one-third of the whole are the miserably
poor, unbuying blacks. (Cries of "No, no," "Yes, yes,"
and interruption.). You do not manufacture much for
them. (Hisses, "Oh!" "No.") You have not got
machinery coarse enough. (Laughter, and "No.") Your
labor is too skilled by far to manufacture bagging and
linsey-woolsey. (A Southerner: "We are going to free
them every one.") Then you and I agree exactly.
(Laughter.) One other third consists of a poor, unskilled,
degraded white population; and the remaining one-third,
which is a large allowance, we will say, intelligent and
rich. Now here are twelve million of people, and only
one-third of them are customers that can afford to buy the
kind of goods that you bring to market. (Interruptic
and uproar.) My friends, I saw a man once, who was
little late at a railway station, chase an express train
•
144
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
VILLA
He did not catch it. (Laughter.) If you are going to
stop this meeting, you have got to stop it before I speak;
for after I have got the things out, you may chase as long
as you please—you would not catch them. (Laughter and
interruption.) But there is luck in leisure; I'm going to
take it easy. (Laughter.) · Two-thirds of the population
of the Southern States to-day are non-purchasers of Eng-
lish goods. (A Voice: "No, they are not," "No, no," and
uproar.) Now you must recollect another fact-namely,
that this is going on clear through to the Pacific Ocean;
and if by sympathy or help you establish a slave empire,
you sagacious Britons-("Oh, oh," and hooting)—if you
like it better, then, I will leave the adjective out-(laugh-
ter, hear, and applause)-are busy in favoring the estab-
lishment of an empire from ocean to ocean that should
have fewest customers and the largest non-buying popu-
lation. (Applause, " No, no." A Voice: "I think it was
the happy people that populated fastest.") Now, for in-
stance, just look at this, the difference between free labor
and slave labor to produce cultivated land. The State of
Virginia has 15,000 more square miles of land than the
State of New York; but Virginia has only 15,000 square
miles improved, while New York has 20,000 square miles
improved. Of unimproved land Virginia has about 23,-
ooo square miles, and New York only about 10,000 square
miles. Now, these facts speak volumes as to the capacity
46
of
of the territory to bear population. The smaller is
the quantity of soil uncultivated, the greater is the den-

IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
sity of the population-and upon that, their
tomers depends. Let us take the States of
Massachusetts. Maryland has 2000 more
of land than Massachusetts; but Maryla
4000 square miles of land improved, Mas
3200 square miles. Maryland has 2800
square miles of land, while Massachusetts h
square miles unimproved. But these two
States, let us take greater States. Pennsylv
Georgia. The State of Georgia has 12,000
square miles of land than Pennsylvania.
has only about 9800 square miles of improve
Pennsylvania has 13,400 square miles of im
land, or about 2,300,000 acres more than G
Georgia has about 25,600 square miles of unimp
land, and Pennsylvania has only 10,400 square
about 10,000,000 acres less of unimproved la
Georgia. The one is a Slave State and the oth
Free State. I do not want you to forget such stati:
those, having once heard them. (Laughter.) Now
can England make for the poor white population o
a future empire, and for her slave population?
carpets, what linens, what cottons can you sell to t
What machines, what looking-glasses, what combs,
leather, what books, what pictures, what engravings?
Voice: "We'll sell them ships.") You may sell ship
a few, but what ships can you sell to two-thirds of the
ulation of poor whites and blacks? A little bagging
10

Y WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
woolsey, a few whips and manacles, are all
sell for the slave. (Great applause, and
s very day, in the Slave States of America
at millions out of twelve millions that are
ot be your customers from the very laws of
Voice: "Then how are they clothed?" and
..
L
HAIRMAN: If gentlemen will only sit down,
o are making the disturbance will be tired out.
BEECHER resumed: There are some apparent
cks that may suggest themselves. The first is that
erests of England consist in drawing from any
y its raw material. (A voice: "We have got over
! There is an interest, but it is not the interest of
and. The interest of England is not merely where
her cotton, her ores, her wool, her linens, and her
When she has put her brains into the cotton, and
e linen and flax, and it becomes the product of her
a far more important question is, "What can be
with it?" England does not want merely to pay.
s for that which brute labor produces, but to get a
for that which brain labor produces. Your interest.
beyond all peradventure; therefore, if you should
ng ever so much cotton from the slave empire, you can-
sell back again to the slave empire. (A voice: "Go
with your subject; we know all about England.")
use me, sir, I am the speaker, not you; and it is for
to determine what to say. Do you suppose I am
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
147
going to speak about America except to convince English-
men? I am here to talk to you for the sake of ultimately
carrying you with me in judgment and in thinking—and,
as to this logic of cat-calls, it is slavery logic,-I am used
to it. (Applause, hisses, and cheers.) Now, it is said
that if the South should be allowed to be separate there
will be no tariff, and England can trade with her; but if
the South remain in the United States, it will be bound
by a tariff, and English goods will be excluded from it.
Now, I am not going to shirk any question of that kind.
In the first place, let me tell you that the first tariff ever
proposed in America was not only supported by Southern
interests and votes, but was originated by the peculiar
structure of Southern society. The first and chief diffi-
culty-after the Union was formed under our present con-
stitution--the first difficulty that met our fathers was, how
to raise taxes to support the government; and the ques-
tion of representation and taxes went together; and the
difficulty was, whether we should tax the North and South
alike, man for man per caput, counting the slaves with
whites. The North having fewer slaves in comparison
with the number of its whites; the South, which had a
larger number of blacks, said, "We shall be over-taxed
if this system be adopted." They therefore proposed
that taxes and representation should be on the
basis of five black men counting as three white men.
In a short time it was found impossible to raise
these taxes in the South, and then they cast about for a
148 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
better way, and the tariff scheme was submitted. The
object was to raise the revenue from the ports instead of
from the people. The tariff therefore had its origin in
Southern weaknesses and necessities, and not in the
Northern cities. Daniel Webster's first speech was
against it; but after that was carried by Southern votes
(which for more than fifty years determined the law of
the country), New England accepted it, and saying, "It
is the law of the land," conformed her industry to it;
and when she had got her capital embarked in mills and
machinery, she became in favor of it. But the South,
beginning to feel, as she grew stronger, that it was
against her interest to continue the system, sought to
have the tariff modified, and brought it down; though
Henry Clay, a Southern man himself, was the immortal
champion of the tariff. All his lifetime he was for
a high tariff, till such a tariff could no longer stand; and
then he was for moderating the tariffs. And there has
not been for the whole of the fifty years a single hour
when any tariff could be passed without them. The
opinion of the whole of America was, tariff, high tariff.
I do not mean that there were none that dissented from
that opinion, but it was the popular and prevalent cry. I
have lived to see the time when, just before the war broke
out, it might be said that the thinking men of America
were ready for free-trade. There has been a steady prog-
ress throughout America for free-trade ideas. How came
this Morrill tariff? The Democratic administration,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
149
}
i
inspired by Southern counsels, left millions of millions of
unpaid debt to cramp the incoming of Lincoln; and the
Government, betrayed to the Southern States, found it-
self unable to pay those debts, unable to build a single
ship, unable to raise an army; and it was the exigency,
the necessity, that forced them to adopt the Morrill tariff,
in order to raise the money which they required. It was
the South that obliged the North to put the tariff on
S
Just as soon as we begin to have peace again, and can
get our national debt into a proper shape as you have
got yours-(laughter)-the same cause that worked be-
fore will begin to work again; and there is nothing more
certain in the future than that the American is bound to
join with Great Britain in the world-wide doctrine of free-
trade. (Applause and interruption.) Here then, so far
as this argument is concerned, I rest my case, saying
that it seems to me that in an argument addressed to a
commercial people it was perfectly fair to represent that
their commercial and manufacturing interests tallied with
their moral sentiments; and as by birth, by blood, by
history, by moral feeling, and by everything, Great
Britain is connected with the liberty of the world, God
has joined interest and conscience, head and heart; so
that you ought to be in favor of liberty everywhere.
There! I have got quite a speech out already, if I do
not get any more. (Hisses and applause.) Now then,
leaving this for a time, let me turn to some other nearly
connected topics. It is said that the South is fighting for
ܪܛܒܐ
150
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
just that independence of which I have been speaking.
The South is divided on that subject. ("No, no.")
There are twelve millions in the South. Four millions of
them are asking for their liberty. ("No, no," hisses,
"Yes," applause, and interruption.) Four millions are
asking for their liberty. (Continued interruption, and
renewed applause.) Eight millions are banded together
to prevent it. ("No, no," hisses, and applause.) That
is what they asked the world to recognize as a strike for
independence. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Eight
million white men fighting to prevent the liberty of four
million black men, challenging the world. (Uproar,
hisses, applause, and continued interruption.) You can-
not get over the fact. There it is; like iron, you cannot
stir it. (Uproar.) They went out of the Union because
There were two
slave property was not recognized in it.
ways of reaching slave property in the Union: the one
by exerting the direct Federal authority: but they could
not do that, for they conceived it to be forbidden. The
second was by indirect influence. If you put a candle
under a bowl it will burn so long as the fresh air lasts,
but it will go out as soon as the oxygen is exhausted;
and so,
if you put slavery into a State where it cannot get
more States, it is only a question of time how long it will
live. By limiting slave territory you lay the foundation
for the final extinction of slavery. Gardeners say that
the reason why crops will not grow in the same ground
for a long time together, is that the roots excrete poisoned
ÎN ENGLAND IN 1863.
151
matter which the plants cannot use, and thus poison
the grain. Whether this is true of crops or not, it is
certainly true of slavery, for slavery poisons the land on
which it grows. Look at the old slave States, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and even at
the newer State of Missouri. What is the condition of
slavery in those States? It is not worth one cent except
to breed. It is not worth one cent so far as productive
energy goes. They cannot make money by their slaves
in those States. The first reason with them for main-
taining slavery is, because it gives political power; and
the second, because they breed for the Southern market.
I do not stand on my own testimony alone. The editor
of the Virginia Times, in the year 1836, made a calcula-
tion that 120,000 slaves were sent out of the State during
that year; 80,000 of which went with their owners, and
40,000 were sold at the average price of 600 dollars,
amounting to 24,000,000 dollars in one year out of the
State of Virginia. Now, what does Henry Clay, himself
a slave-owner, say about Kentucky? In a speech before
the Colonization Society, he said: "It is believed that
nowhere in the farming portion of the United States
would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprie-
tary were not compelled to raise slaves by the high price.
of the Southern market," and the only profit of slave
property in Northern farming slave States is the value
they bring. (A voice: "Then if the Northerners breed
to supply the South, what's the difference?") So that
A
152
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
i
if you were to limit slavery, and to say, it shall go
so far and no further, it would be only a question of
time when it should die of its own intrinsic weakness
and disease. Now, this
Now, this was the Northern feeling.
The North was
true to the doctrine of constitu-
tional rights. The North refused, by any, Federal
action within the States, to violate the compacts of the
constitution, and left local compacts unimpaired; but
the North, feeling herself unbound with regard to what
we call the territories,-free land which has not yet State
rights, said there should be no more territory cursed
with slavery. With unerring instinct the South said, "The
Government administered by Northern men on the princi-
ple that there shall be no more slave territory, is a Gov-
'ernment fatal to slavery," and it was on that account that
they seceded--("No, no," "Yes, yes," applause, hisses,
and uproar) and the first step which they took when they
assembled at Montgomery, was, to adopt a constitution.
What constitution did they adopt? The same form of con-
stitution which they had just abandoned. What changes
did they introduce? A trifling change about the Presi-
dential term, making it two years longer; a slight change
about some doctrine of legislation, involving no principle.
whatever, but merely a question of policy. But by the
constitution of Montgomery they legalized slavery; and
made it the organic law of the land. The very constitu-
tion which they said they could not live under when they
left the Union they took again immediately afterwards,
V
Kadang
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
153
B
only altering it in one point, and that was, making the
fundamental law of the land to be slavery. Let no man
undertake to say in the face of intelligence-let no man
undertake to delude an honest community, by saying that
slavery had nothing to do with the Secession. Slavery is
the framework of the South; it is the root and the branch
of this conflict with the South. Take away slavery from
the South, and she would not differ from us in any re-
spect. There is not a single antagonistic interest. There
is no difference of race, no difference of language, no
difference of law, no difference of constitution; the only
difference between us is, that free labor is in the North,
and slave labor is in the South. (Loud applause.) But I
know that you say, you cannot help sympathizing with a
gallant people. They are the weaker people, the minor-
ity; and you cannot help going with the minority who
are struggling for their rights against the majority. Noth-
ing could be more generous, when a weak party stands
for its own legitimate rights against imperious pride and
power, than to sympathize with the weak. But who
ever yet sympathized with a weak thief, because three
constables had got hold of him? And yet the one thief
in three policemen's hands is the weaker party. I sup-
pose you would sympathize with him. (Laughter, and
applause.) Why, when that infamous king of Naples-
Bomba, was driven into Gaeta by Garibaldi with his im-
mortal band of patriots, and Cavour sent against him the
army of Northern Italy, who was the weaker party then?
154
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
1.
!
心
​The tyrant and his minions; and the majority was with
the noble Italian patriots, struggling for liberty. I never
heard that Old England sent deputations to King Bomba,
and yet his troops resisted bravely there. (Laughter and
interruption.) To-day the majority of the people of
Rome is with Italy. Nothing but French bayonets keeps
her from going back to the kingdom of Italy, to which
she belongs. Do you sympathize with the minority in
Rome or the majority in Italy? (A voice: "With
Italy.") To-day the South is the minority in America,
and they are fighting for independence! For what?
(Uproar. A voice: "Three cheers for independence,"
and hisses.) I could wish so much bravery had had a
better cause, and that so much self-denial had been less
deluded; that that poisonous and venomous doctrine of
State rights might have been kept aloof; that so many
gallant spirits, such as Jackson, might still have lived.
(Great applause and loud cheers, again and again re-
newed.) The force of these facts, historical and incon-
trovertible, cannot be broken, except by diverting atten-
tion by an attack upon the North. It is said that the
North is fighting for union, and not for emancipation.
The North is fighting for union, for that insures manci-
pation. A great many men say to ministers of the Gos-
pel-"You pretend to be preaching and working for the
love of the people. Why, you are all the time preaching
for the sake of the church." What does the minister say?
"It is by means of the church that we help the people,"
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
155
and when men say that we are fighting for the Union, I
too say we are fighting for the Union. But the motive
determines the value; and why are we fighting for the
Union? Because we never shall forget the testimony of
our enemies. They have gone off declaring that the
Union in the hands of the North was fatal to slavery.
There is testimony in court for you. (A voice: "See
that," and laughter.) We are fighting for the Union, be-
cause we believe that preamble which explains the very
reason for which the Union was constituted. I will read
it. "We"-not the States-"WE, the people of the
United States, in order to form a more perfect NATION”-
(uproar)-I don't wonder you don't want to hear it-
(laughter)" in order to form a more perfect NATION,
establish justice, assure domestic tranquillity-(uproar)
-provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of LIBERTY—(“ oh, oh")
-to ourselves and our posterity, ordain and establish
this constitution of the United States of America."
(A voice: "How many States?") It is for the sake of
that justice, that common welfare, and that liberty for
which the National Union was established, that we fight
for the Union. (Interruption.) Because the South be-
lieved that the Union was against slavery, they left it.
(Renewed interruption.) Yes. (Applause, and "No,
no.") To-day, however, if the North believed that
the Union was against liberty, they would leave it.
("Oh, oh," and great disturbance.) Gentlemen, I have
''
h
156 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
L
نا
travelled in the West ten or twelve hours at a time in the
mud knee-deep. It was hard toiling my way, but I
always got through my journey. I feel to-night as though I
were travelling over a very muddy road; but I think I shall
get through. (Cheers.) Well, next it is said, that the North
treats the negro race worse than the South. (Applause,
cries of "Bravo!" and uproar.) Now, you see I don't
fear any of these disagreeable arguments. I am going to
face every one of them. In the first place I am ashamed
to confess that such was the thoughtlessness-(interrup-
tion)-such was the stupor of the North-(renewed in-
terruption)—you will get a word at a time; to-morrow will
let folks see what it is you don't want to hear-that for a
period of twenty-five years she went to sleep, and per-
mitted herself to be drugged and poisoned with the
Southern prejudice against black men. The evil was
made worse, because, when any object whatever has
caused anger between political parties, a political
animosity arises against that object, no matter how inno-
cent in itself; no matter what were the original influences
which excited the quarrel. Thus the colored man has
been the football between the two parties in the North,
and has suffered accordingly. I confess it to my shame.
But I am speaking now on my own ground, for I began
twenty-five years ago, with a small party, to combat the
unjust dislike of the colored man. (Loud applause, dis-
sension, and uproar. The interruption at this point
became so violent that the friends of Mr. Beecher through-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
157
EVENTS THAN THEN WHEN HE WIL
5
out the hall rose to their feet, waving hats and hand-
kerchiefs, and renewing their shouts of applause. The
interruption lasted some minutes.) Well, I have lived
to see a total revolution in the Northern feeling-I stand
here to bear solemn witness of that. It is not my opinion;
it is my knowledge. (Great uproar.) Those men who
undertook to stand up for the rights of all men-black
as well as white-have increased in number; and now
what party in the North represents those men that resist
the evil prejudices of past years? The Republicans are
that party. (Loud applause.) And who are those men
in the North that have oppressed the negro? They are
the Peace Democrats; and the prejudice for which in Eng-
land you are attempting to punish me, is a prejudice raised
by the men who have opposed me all my life. These pro-
slavery democrats abused the negro.
I defended him,
and they mobbed me for doing it. Oh, justice! (Loud
laughter, applause, and hisses.) This is as if a man
should commit an assault, maim and wound a neighbor,
and a surgeon being called in should begin to dress his
wounds, and by-and-by a policeman should come and
collar the surgeon and haul him off to prison on ac-
count of the wounds which he was healing. Now, I told
you I would not flinch from anything. I am going to
read you some questions that were sent after me from
Glasgow, purporting to be from a working man. (Great
interruption.) If those pro-slavery interrupters think
they will tire me out, they will do more than eight
158
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
terruption.)
millions in America could. (Applause and renewed in-
I was reading a question on your side, too·
"Is it not a fact that in most of the Northern States
laws exist precluding negroes from equal civil and politi-
cal rights with the whites? That in the State of New
York the negro has to be the possessor of at least two
hundred and fifty dollars' worth of property to entitle him.
to the privileges of a white citizen? That in some of
the Northern States the colored man, whether bond or
free, is by law excluded altogether, and not suffered to
enter the State limits, under severe penalties; and is not
Mr. Lincoln's own State one of them; and in view of
the fact that the $20,000,000 compensation which was
promised to Missouri in aid of emancipation was defeated
in the last Congress (the strongest Republican Congress
that ever assembled), what has the North done towards
emancipation?" Now then, there's a dose for you. (A
voice: "Answer it.") And I will address myself to the
answering of it. And first, the bill for emancipation in
Missouri, to which this money was denied, was
a bill
which was drawn by what we call "log rollers," who in-
serted in it an enormously disproportioned price for the
slaves. The Republicans offered to give them $10,000,-
ooo for the slaves in Missouri, and they outvoted it be-
cause they could not get $12,000,000. Already half the
slave population had been "run" down South, and yet
they came up to Congress to get $12,000,000 for what was
not worth ten millions, nor even eight millions. Now as
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
159
to those States that had passed "black" laws, as we call
them; they are filled with Southern emigrants. The
southern parts of Ohio, the southern part of Indiana,
where I myself lived for years, and which I knew like a
book, the southern part of Illinois where Mr. Lincoln lives
(great uproar)-these parts are largely settled by emi-
grants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and
North Carolina, and it was their vote, or the Northern
votes pandering for political reasons to theirs, that passed
in those States the infamous "black" laws; and the Re-
publicans in these States have a record, clean and white,
as having opposed these laws in every instance as "in-
famous." Now as to the State of New York, it is asked
whether a negro is not obliged to have a certain freehold
property, or a certain amount of property, before he can
vote. It is so still in North Carolina and Rhode Island
for white folks-it is so in New York State. (Mr.
Beecher's voice slightly failed him here, and he was inter-
rupted by a person who tried to imitate him; cries of
"Shame" and "Turn him out.") I am not undertaking.
to say that these faults of the North, which were brought
upon them by the bad example and influence of the South,
are all cured; but I do say that they are in a process of
cure which promises, if unimpeded by foreign influence,
to make all such odious distinctions vanish.
“Is it not a
fact that in most of the Northern States laws exist pre-
cluding negroes from equal civil and political rights with
the whites?" I will tell you. Let us compare the con-
160 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
dition of the negro in the North and the South, and that
will tell the story. By express law the South takes away
from the slave all attributes of manhood, and calls him
"chattel," which is another word for "cattle." (Hear,
hear, and hisses.) No law in any Northern State calls
him anything else but a person. The South denies the
right of legal permanent marriage to the slave. There is
not a State of the North where the marriage of the slave
is not as sacred as that of any free white man. (Im-
mense cheering.) Throughout the South, since the slave.
is not permitted to live in anything but in concubinage,
his wife, so-called, is taken from him at the will of his
master, and there is neither public sentiment nor law
that can hinder most dreadful and cruel separations every
year in every county and town. There is not a State,
county, or town, or school district in the North where,
if any man dare to violate the family of the poorest black
man, there would not be an indignation that would over-
whelm him. (Loud applause. A voice: "How about
the riots?") Irishmen made that entirely. In the South
by statutory law it is a penitentiary offence to teach
a black man to read and write. In the North not
only are hundreds and thousands of dollars expended
of State money in teaching colored people, but they have
their own schools, their own academies, their own
churches, their own ministers, their own lawyers. In the
South, black men are bred, exactly as cattle are bred in
the North, for the market and for sale. Such dealing is
•
/
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
161
2
considered horrible beyond expression in the North. In
the South the slave can own nothing by law, but in the
single city of New York there are ten million dollars of
money belonging to free colored people. (Loud ap-
plause.) In the South no colored man can determine-
(uproar)-no colored man can determine in the South
where he will work, nor at what he will work; but in the
North,-except in the great cities, where we are crowded
by foreigners, in any country part the black man may
choose his trade and work at it, and is just as much pro-
tected by the laws as any white man in the land. I speak
with authority on this point. (Cries of "No.") When I
was twelve years old, my father hired Charles Smith, a
man as black as lampblack, to work on his farm. I slept
with him in the same room. (“Oh, oh.") Ah, that don't
suit you. (Uproar.) Now, you see, the South comes
out. (Loud laughter.) I ate with him at the same ta-
ble; I sang with him out of the same hymn-book—
("Good");—I cried, when he prayed over me at night;
and if I had serious impressions of religion early in life,
they were due to the fidelity and example of that poor
humble farm-labore", black Charles Smith. (Tremen-
dous uproar and cheers.) In the South, no matter what
injury a colored man may receive, he is not allowed to
appear in court nor to testify against a white man.
(A
voice: "That's fact.") In every single court of the
North a respectable colored man is as good a witness, as
if his face were white as an angel's robe. (Applause and
II
162 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
A
man
laughter.) I ask any truthful and considerate
whether, in this contrast, it does not appear that, though
faults may yet linger in the North uneradicated, the state
of the negro in the North is not immeasurably better than
anywhere in the South? And now, for the first time in
the history of America-(great interruption),-for the
first time in the history of the United States a colored
man has received a commission under the broad seal and
signature of the President of the United States. This
day (renewed interruption)-this day, Frederick Doug-
las, of whom you all have heard here, is an officer of the
United States-(loud applause)-a commissioner sent
down to organize colored regiments on Jefferson Davis's
farm in Mississippi. (Uproar and applause, and a Voice,
"You put them in the front of the battle too.") There is
another fact that I wish to allude to-not for the sake of
reproach or blame, but by way of claiming your more len-
ient consideration-and that is, that slavery was entailed
upon us by your action. Against the earnest protests of
the colonists the then Government of Great Britain-
I will concede not knowing what were the mischiefs-
ignorantly, but in point of fact, forced slave traffic on the
unwilling colonists. (Great uproar, in the midst of
which one individual was lifted up and carried out of the
room amidst cheers and hisses.)
|
K
The CHAIRMAN: If you would only sit down no
disturbance would take place.
The disturbance having subsided,-
ÎN ENGLAND IN 1863:
163
}
Mr. BEECHER said: I was going to ask you, suppose
a child is born with hereditary disease; suppose this dis-
ease was entailed upon him by parents who had con-
tracted it by their own misconduct, would it be fair that
those parents, that had brought into the world the dis-
eased child, should rail at that child because it was
diseased. ("No, no.") Would not the child have a right
to turn round and say, "Father, it was your fault that I
had it, and you ought to be pleased to be patient with
my deficiencies."
(Applause and hisses, and cries of
"order;
great interruption and great disturbance here
took place on the right of the platform; and the chair-
man said that if the persons around the unfortunate in-
dividual who had caused the disturbance would allow him
to speak alone, but not assist him in making the disturb-
ance, it might soon be put an end to. The interruption.
was continued until another person was carried out of the
hall.) Mr. Beecher continued: I do not ask that you
should justify slavery in us, because it was wrong in you
two hundred years ago; but having ignorantly been the
means of fixing it upon us, now that we are struggling
with mortal struggles to free ourselves from it, we have a
right to your tolerance, your patience, and charitable con-
struction. I am every day asked when this war will end.
I wish I could tell you; but remember slavery is the
cause of the war. Slavery has been working for more
than 100 years, and a chronic evil cannot be suddenly
cured; and as war is the remedy, you must be patient to
?
164
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
have the conflict long enough to cure the inveterate hered-
itary sore. (Hisses, loud applause, and a voice: "We'll
stop it.") But of one thing I think I may give you as-
surance-this war won't end until the cancer of slavery
is cut out by the roots. (Loud applause, hisses, and tre-
mendous uproar.) I will read you a word from President
Lincoln. (Renewed uproar.) It will be printed whether
you hear it or hear it not. (Hear, and cries of "Read,
read.") Yes, I will read. "A talk with President Lincoln
revealed to me a great growth of wisdom. For instance,
he said he was not going to press the colonization idea any
longer, nor the gradual scheme of emancipation, express-
ing himself sorry that the Missourians had postponed
emancipation for seven years. He said, 'Tell your anti-
slavery friends that I am coming out all right.' He is
desirous that the border States shall form free constitu-
tions, recognizing the proclamation, and thinks this will
be made feasible by calling on loyal men." (A voice:
"What date is that letter?" and interruption.) Ladies
and gentlemen, I have finished the exposition of this
troubled subject. (Renewed and continued interruption.)
No man can unveil the future: no man can tell what rev-
olutions are about to break upon the world; no man
can tell what destiny belongs to France, nor to any
of the European powers; but one thing is certain,
that in the exigencies of the future there will be
combinations and re-combinations, and.that those nations
that are of the same faith, the same blood, and the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
165
same substantial interests, ought not to be alienated from
each other, but ought to stand together. I do not say
that you ought not to be in the most friendly alliance
with France or with Germany; but I do say that your own
children, the offspring of England, ought to be nearer to
you than any people of strange tongue. (A voice: "De-
generate sons," applause and hisses; another voice:
"What about the Trent?") If there had been any feel-
ings of bitterness in America, let me tell you they had
been excited, rightly or wrongly, under the impression
that Great Britian was going to intervene between us and
our own lawful struggle. (A voice: "No," and applause.)
With the evidence that there is no such intention all bitter
feelings will pass away. We do not agree with the re-
cent doctrine of neutrality as a question of law. But it
is past, and we are not disposed to raise that question.
We accept it now as a fact, and we say that the utterance
of Lord Russell at Blairgowrie-(Applause, hisses, and a
Voice: "What about Lord Brougham?")-together with
the declaration of the government in stopping war-steam-
ers here (great uproar, and applause)—has gone far
towards quieting every fear and removing every appre-
hension from our minds. (Uproar and shouts of applause.)
And now in the future it is the work of every good man
and patriot not to create divisions, but to do the things
that will make for peace. On our part it shall be done.
(Applause and hisses, and "No, no.") On your part it.
ought to be done; and when in any of the convulsions
166 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
that come upon the world, Great Britain finds herself
struggling single-handed against the gigantic powers that
spread oppression and darkness-(applause, hisses, and
uproar)-there ought to be such cordiality that she can
turn and say to her first-born and most illustrious child,
"Come!" (Hear, hear, applause, tremendous cheers,
and uproar.) I will not say that England cannot again,
as hitherto, single-handed manage any power-(applause
and uproar)-but I will say that England and America to-
gether for religion and liberty-(A voice ; "Soap, soap,"
uproar, and great applause)-are a match for the world
(Applause; a voice: "They don't want any more soft
soap.") Now, gentlemen and ladies,-(A voice: "Sam
Slick " and another voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, if'
you please "when I came I was asked whether I would
answer questions, and I very readily consented to do so,
as I had in other places; but I will tell you it was be-
cause I expected to have the opportunity of speaking with
some sort of ease and quiet. (A voice: "So you have.")
I have for an hour and a half spoken against a storm,
and you yourselves are witnesses that, by the interruption,
I have been obliged to strive with my voice, so that I
no longer have the power to control this assembly.
(Applause.) And although I am in spirit perfectly
willing to answer any question, and more than glad of
the chance, yet I am by this very unnecessary opposition
to-night incapacitated physically from doing it. (A voice:
"Why did Lincoln delay the proclamation of slavery so
2
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
167
1
1
;
long.-Another voice: "Habeas Corpus." A piece of
paper was here handed up to Mr. Beecher.) I am asked
a question. I will answer this one. "At the auction of
sittings in your church, can the negroes bid on equal
terms with the whites?" (Cries of "No, no.") Perhaps
you know better than I do. But I declare that they can.
(Hear, hear, and applause.) I declare that, at no time
for ten years past-without any rule passed by the
trustees, and without even a request from me-no decent
man or woman has ever found molestation or trouble in
walking into my church and sitting where he or she pleased.
("Are any of the office-bearers in your church negroes?")
No, not to my knowledge. Such has been the practi
cal doctrine of amalgamation in the South that it is very dif-
ficult now-a-days to tell who is a negro. Whenever a ma-
jority of my people want a negro to be an officer, he will
be one; and I am free to say that there are a great many
men that I know, who are abundantly capable of honoring
any office of trust in the gift of our church. But while.
there are none in my church there is in Columbia county
a little church where a negro man, being the ablest busi-
ness man, and the wealthiest man in that town, is not only
a ruler and elder of the church, but also contributes about
two-thirds of all the expenses of it. (Voice: "That is the
exception, not the rule.") I am answering these questions,
you see, out of gratuitous mercy: I am not bound to do
It is asked whether Pennsylvania was not carried
for Mr. Lincoln on account of his advocacy of the Morrill
so.
•
168
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
, and whether the tariff was not one of the planks of
the Chicago platform, on which Mr. Lincoln was elected.
I had a great deal to do with that election; but I tell you
that whatever local-(Here the interruptions became.
so noisy, that it was found impossible to proceed. The
Chairman asked how they could expect Mr. Beecher to
answer questions amid such a disturbance. When order
had been restored, the lecturer proceeded :)---I am not
afraid to leave the treatment I have received at this meet-
ing to the impartial judgment of every fair-playing
Englishman. When I am asked questions, gentlemanly
courtesy requires that I should be permitted to answer
them. (A voice from the father end of the room shouted
something about the inhabitants of Liverpool.) I know
that it was in the placards requested to give Mr. Beecher a
reception that should make him understand what the opin-
ion of Liverpool was about him. ("No, no; and Yes,
yes.") There are two sides to every question, and Mr.
Beecher's opinion about the treatment of Liverpool's citi-
zens is just as much as your opinion about the treatment
of Mr. Beecher. Let me say, that if you wish me to answer
questions you must be still; for if I am interrupted,
that is the end of the matter. (Hear, hear, and
"Bravo."). I have this to say, that I have no doubt the
Morrill tariff, or that which is now called so, did
exercise a great deal of influence, not alone in Pennsyl-
vania, but in many other parts of the country, because
there are many sections of our country-those especially
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
169
where the manufacture of iron or wool are the
predominating industries-that are yet very much in
favor of protective tariffs; but the thinking men and
the influential men of both parties are becoming
more and more in favor of free-trade.
“Can a
negro ride in a public vehicle in New York with a white
man?" I reply that there are times when politicians stir.
up the passions of the lower classes of men and the for-
eigners, and there are times just on the eve of an election.
when the prejudice against the colored man is stirred up
and excited, in which they will be disturbed in any part of
the city; but taking the period of the year throughout,
one year after another, there are but one or two of the
city horse-railroads in which a respectable colored man
will be molested in riding through the city. It is only on
one railroad that this happened, and it is one which I
have in the pulpit and the press always held up to severe
reproof. At the Fulton Ferry there are two lines of omni-
buses, one white and the other blue. I had been accus-
tomed to go in them indifferently; but one day I saw a
little paper stuck upon one of them, saying "Colored
people not allowed to ride in this omnibus." I instantly
got out. There are men who stand at the door of these
two omnibus lines, urging passengers into one or the other.
I am very well known to all of them, and the next day,
when I came to the place, the gentleman serving asked
"Won't you ride, sir?" "No," I said, "I am too much
of a negro to ride in that omnibus." (Laughter.) I do
170
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
not know whether this had any influence, but I do know,
that after a fortnight's time I had occasion to look in, and
the placard was gone.
I called the attention of every one
I met to that fact, and said to them, "Don't ride in that
omnibus, which violates your principles, and my princi-
ples, and common decency at the same time." I say still
further, that in all New England there is not a railway
where a colored man cannot ride as freely as a white man.
In the whole city of New York, a colored man taking a
stage or railway will never be inconvenienced or suffer
any discourtesy. Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you good
evening.—Mr. Beecher's resuming his seat was the signal
for another outburst of loud and prolonged cheers, hisses,
groans, cat-calls, and every conceivable species of expres-
sion of approbation and disapprobation. Three cheers
were proposed for the lecturer from the galleries, and en-
thusiastically given.
The Rev. C. M. BIRRELL then came forward and
said it would have been very unlike the fairness of Eng-
lishmen if that assembly had not given to a distinguished
stranger a fair and impartial hearing; and it would have
been as unlike a free American to demand of Englishment
that they should accept his opinions merely because they
were his. But, since Mr. Beecher had given to them,
under circumstances of great difficulty, and with marvel-
lous courtesy and patience, an elaborate, temperate, and
most eloquent lecture, he called upon them to render him
a cordial vote of thanks. (Hear, hear, and hisses.) He
:
171
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
expected that that vote would be joined in by all the rep-
resentatives of the American slave-holders in that assem-
bly, considering that they had had more instruction that
night than they had apparently received during all the
previous part of their lives. ("Oh, oh," cheers and laugh-
ter.)
Mr. W. CROSSFIELD, in seconding the resolution,
said, as an inhabitant of Liverpool, he had been ashamed
at the conduct of that meeting-an assembly of gentle-
men, or those who professed to be gentlemen. For him-
self he most cordially thanked Mr. Beecher for the very
interesting lecture they had had.
The vote was cared with loud and prolonged cheering
and the waving of hats.
The CHAIRMAN said he was sure Mr. Beecher would
be quite satisfied with that unanimous expression of feel-
ing, and the disturbance which had been created was not
the expression of the feeling of the meeting, but the work
of a few persons in the room who had come for the pur-
pose of opposition. The Chairman then put the negative
of the proposition, but the meeting was in a state of con-
fusion. Of those who understood the proceeding there
were none to be seen who stood up to negative the vote,
172
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
SPEECH
ار ..
DELIVERED IN EXETER HALL,
LONDON, OCTOBER 20, 1863.
THE public interest excited by the reports of Mr. Beech-
er's speeches delivered in Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh
and Liverpool left no room for doubt that his London
audience would only be limited by the capacity of the
building. In the first instance it was proposed that only
a portion of the hall should be set apart for reserved seats,
and that the remaining space should be occupied with.
free seats; but the demand for tickets far exceeded any
possible supply, and long before the day of meeting it be-
came evident that thousands would be disappointed. It
is of course quite unnecessary to say that long before the
hour of meeting the great hall was densely packed by as
many human beings as could find sitting or standing room
in any part of the edifice, however inconvenient or peril-
ous the position. They were both patient and good-
humored while waiting for the appearance of Mr. Beecher,
who found great difficulty in forcing a way through the
enormous mass of people, which, in the Strand and Exeter-
street, literally beleaguered the place of meeting. On
presenting himself to the audience, accompanied by many
of the leading supporters of the Emancipation movement,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
173
he was welcomed by long and reiterated plaudits, which
w re again and again repeated, the audience rising en
masse. The entire scene brought vividly to mind the
great meeting held in the same building ten months ago,
although, if possible, the enthusiasm and unanimity were
still greater than on that memorable occasion. The
friends of Secession had endeavored to stir up some per-
sonal feeling against the lecturer by inflammatory pla-
cards, which covered every wall in the metropolis; but
the result only exhibited their own weakness and the total
absence of any popular sympathy with their cause. There
was a small group of Southern sympathizers here and
there, but so small as to be utterly unable to do more
than give vent to a few hisses, which were always drowned
by a torrent of applause. The cheers were now and then
relieved by stentorian groans for the Times, Mr. Mason,
and other unpopular organs of the press and individual
Secessionists; and we may remark that this species of
honor was very fairly divided between Printing-house-
square and the notorious author of the Fugitive Slave
Law. The name of President Lincoln was received, as it
always is in an open English audience, with a tempest of
applause; and when Mr. Beecher alluded to the retention
of the rains, and said that when he returned to America
he should have "a different story" to tell of the state of
English public opinion from that which had previously
obtained credence there, the assembly testified their
approbation by a demonstration which has never been
174
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
}
surpassed and rarely equalled in the palmiest days of agi-
tation. Dark complexions were not wanting in that vast
multitude of upturned faces; and conspicuous in the body
of the hall was a venerable negro, who excited some
amusement by the vigor with which he acted as fugleman
throughout Mr. Beecher's speech. The courage of the
malcontents sensibly diminished as the proceedings.
advanced, and ultimately only three hands were held up
against the resolution moved by Professor Newman.
Every now and then the cheers of "the outsiders," who
extemporized a meeting of their own, echoed through the
hall, and helped to swell the plaudits of those who had
been fortunate enough to obtain admission. Scarcely
any one left before the meeting was brought to a close, and
we venture to say that not one of the assembled thousands
will ever forget Mr. Beecher's last public address in Eng-
land, or the popular enthusiasm which it evoked in his
honor and in sympathy with the cause which he repre-
}
13 taken by Benjamin Scott, Esq., Cham-
…………, v London, and the following were among the gen-
tlemen present: Sir Charles Fox, Prof. Newman, Prof.
Newth, Dr. Halley, Rev. Newman Hall, John Howard
Hinton, Geo. Thompson Esq., and Washington Wilks
Esq.
The CHAIRMAN said: Ladies and
Ladies and gentlemen,
allow me to inform
you that the crowd out-
side the building is so dense that Mr. Beecher has
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
175
not been able to force his way punctually. It has
been with the greatest difficulty that I and some
other members of the committee have found our way
here. You will, therefore, I am
sure, make all
allowance for Mr. Beecher if he should yet be a few min-
utes behind time. I will proceed to address a few words
pending the arrival of Mr. Beecher. Appearing before
you to preside this evening, I regret to say in place of
Mr. Bright, whom we had hoped to be present, I must in-
form you that it is not our object to discuss the great
American struggle. There will be and there are present-
ed to us, from day to day, abundant opportunities of dis-
cussing that momentous question. Our object to-night is
to afford an opportunity to a distinguished stranger to ad-
dress us on that absorbing topic-a gentleman who is en-
titled, whatever opinions we may hold, to our profound
respect. (Great cheering.) Whether we regard Henry
Ward Beecher as the son of the celebrated Dr. Beecher,
or as the brother of Mrs. Beecher Stowe, or a stranger
visiting our shores, whether we regard him as a gentle-
man or a Christian minister, and as the uncompromising
advocate of human rights, he is entitled to our respectful
and courteous attention. I am quite sure that this as-
sembly of Englishmen and English women will support
me in securing for him a respectful hearing. It becomes
the more incumbent upon us to do so since he states that
the rapid and fragmentary reports of speeches delivered
in America which were flashed across the Atlantic by the
176 HENRY WARD beechER'S SPEECHES
ju
X
elegraph have been so brief and hurried that they have
not conveyed to us his full meaning and sense. He has
been very often misunderstood, and, I fear, misrepresent-
ed; and, as a stranger about to depart from our shores in
a few days, he asks for this opportunity of putting himself
right with the London public upon this question. You
will hear him and judge of his statements, and I am sure
you will accord him a fair hearing. I shall myself ab-
stain advisedly from entering upon the subject of to-
night's address. I wish merely to take this opportunity
of saying how much I esteem the man personally, and be-
cause he has been the uncompromising advocate, for
twenty-five years, in times of peace and before the war, of
the emancipation of the enslaved and oppressed. He
was one of the few thinking men who were the noble pio-
neers of freedom on the American continent. He was so
when it was neither fashionable nor profitable to be so.
He took his stand, not on the shifting sands of expedi-
ency, but on the immovable rock of principle. He had
put his hand to the plough, and would never turn back.
Some people had allowed their ears to be stuffed with
cotton (laughter and cheers)-some were blinded by
gold dust, and some had allowed the gag of expediency
to be put in their mouths to quiet them. But Henry
Ward Beecher stood before the world of America, and for
some time stood almost alone, and called things by their
right names. He had no mealy-mouthed expressions
about peculiar institutions, patriarchal institutions, and
I
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
177
paternal institutions-(" hear, hear," and laughter)-but
he called slavery by the old English name of slavery.
(Loud cheers.) And he charged to the account of that
crime cruelty, lust, murder, rapine, piracy. (Loud cheers.)
He minced not his terms or his phrases. He looked
right ahead to the course of duty which he had selected;
and, regardless of the threats of man or the wrath of man,
although the tar-pot was ready for him and the feathers
were prepared--although the noose and the halter were
ready and almost about his neck-he went straight on-
ward to the object; and now he has converted—as every
man who stands alone for the truth and right will event-
ually convert-a large majority of those who were origi-
nally opposed to him. What the humble draper's assist
ant, Granville Sharpe, did in this country, Henry Ward
Beecher and two or three like-minded men have done on
the continent of America. When he heard Christian min.
isters--God save the mark!-standing in their pulpits
with the Book of Truth before them, and stating that the
institution of slavery was Christian, he did not mince the
matter--he affirmed that it was bred in the bottomless
pit. (Loud cheers.) I honor and respect him for his
manliness. He is every inch a man. He is a standard
by which humanity may well measure itself. Would to
God we had a hundred such men. (Cheers.)
(Cheers.) I will now
call upon Mr. Beecher-(great cheering)--but allow me
to say that we shall only prolong our meeting in this
12
178 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
|
heated atmosphere by not affording the speakers a fair
opportunity of addressing you.
Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER then advanced to
the front of the platform amidst the most enthusiastic
demonstrations of applause. The whole audience stood
up: hats and handkerchiefs were waved, and for some
minutes the most exciting manifestations of hearty Eng-
lish good feeling were extended to the American advo-
cate of freedom. As the uproarious greeting subsided, a
few hisses rose up from the middle of the room, as if a
body of serpents had somehow or other found their way
into the assembly, and were adding their prolonged trib-
ute to the general display. Mr. Beecher then addressed
the audience as follows, speaking distinctly and deliber-
ately: Ladies and gentlemen,--The very kind intro-
duction that I have received requires but a single word
from me. I should be guilty if I could take all the credit
which has been generously ascribed to me, for I am not
old enough to have been a pioneer. And when I think
of such names as Weld, Alvin Stewart, Geritt Smith,
Joshua Levitt, William Goodell, Arthur and Lewis Tap-
pan, William Lloyd Garrison-(loud applause)-and that
most accomplished speaker of the world, Wendell Phillips
-(renewed applause)-when I think of multitudes of
that peculiar class of Christians called Friends-when I
think of the number of men, obscure, without name or
fame, who labored in the earliest days at the foundation
of this reformation-and when I remember that I came
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
179
¡
in afterwards to build on their foundation-I cannot per-
mit in this fair country the honors to be put upon me and
wrested from those men that deserve them far more than
I do. All I can say is this, that when I began my public
life I fell into the ranks under the appropriate captains,
and fought as well as I knew how in the ranks or in com-
mand. (Loud cheers.) As this is my last public address-
upon the American question in England, I may be per-
mitted to glance briefly at my course here. At Manches-
ter I attempted to give a history of the external political
movement for fifty years past, so far as it was necessary to
illustrate the fact that the present American war was only
an overt and warlike form of a contest between liberty and
slavery that had been going on politically for half a cent-
ury. At Glasgow I undertook to show the condition of
work or labor necessitated by any profitable system of
slavery, demonstrating that it brought labor into con-
tempt, affixing to it the badge of degradation, and that a
struggle to extend servile labor across the American con-
tinent interests every free working man on the globe. For
my sincere belief is that the Southern cause is the natural
enemy of free labor and the free laborer all the world
over. In Edinburgh I endeavored to sketch how, out of
separate colonies and States intensely jealous of their
individual sovereignty, there grew up and was finally
established a NATION, and how in that nation of United
States two distinct and antagonistic systems were de-
veloped and strove for the guidance of the national policy,
·
180 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
which struggle at length passed and the North gained the
control. Thereupon the South abandoned the Union
simply and solely because the Government was in future
to be administered by men who would give their whole
influence to freedom. In Liverpool I labored, under
difficulties,―(laughter and cheers)-to show that slavery
in the long run was as hostile to commerce and to manu-
factures all the world over as it was to free interests in
human society, that a slave nation must be a poor cus-
tomer, buying the fewest and poorest goods, and the least
profitable to the producers; that it was the interest of
every manufacturing country to promote freedom, intelli-
gence, and wealth amongst all nations; that this attempt
to cover the fairest portions of the earth with a slave
population that buys nothing, and a degraded white popu-
lation that buys next to nothing, should array against it
every true political economist and every thoughtful and
far-seeing manufacturer, as tending to strike at the vital
want of commerce-which is not cotton, but rich cus-
tomers. have endeavored to enlist against this flagi-
tious wickedness, and the great civil war which it has
kindled, the judgment, conscience, and interests of the
British people. I am aware that a popular address
before an excited audience, more or less affected by party
sympathies, is not the most favorable method of doing
justice to these momentous topics; and there have been
1 some other circumstances which made it yet more difficult
to present a careful or evenly balanced statement; but I
1
i
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
181
レ
​shall do the best I can to leave no vestige of doubt, that
slavery was the cause-the only cause, the whole cause
-of this gigantic and cruel war. I have tried to show
that sympathy for the South, however covered by excuses
or softened by sophistry, is simply sympathy with an
audacious attempt to build up a slave empire pure and
simple. I have tried to show that in this contest the
North were contending for the preservation of their Gov-
ernment and their own territory, and those popular insti-
tutions on which the well-being of the nation depended.
So far, I have spoken to the English from an English point
of view. To-night I ask you to look to this struggle from
an American point of view, and in its moral aspects.
That is, I wish you to take our stand-point for a little
while, and to look at our actions and motives, not from
what the enemy says, but from what we say. When two
men have disagreed, you seldom promote peace between
them by attempting to prove that either of them is all
right or either of them is all wrong. Now there has been
some disagreement of feeling between America and
Great Britain. I don't want to argue the question to-
night which is right and which is wrong, but if some
kind neighbor will persuade two people that are at dis-
agreement to consider each other's position and circum-
stances, it may not lead either to adopting the other's
judgment, but it may lead them to say of each other, "I
think he is honest and means well, even if he be mis-
taken." You may not thus get a settlement of the diffi-
182 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
culty, but you will get a settlement of the quarrel. I
merely ask you to put yourselves in our track for one
hour, and look at the objects as we look at them; after
that, form your judgment as you please. The first and
earliest form in which the conflict took place between
North and South was purely moral. It was a conflict
simply of opinion and of truths by argument; and by
appeal to the moral sense it was sought to persuade the
slave-holder to adopt some plan of emancipation. When
this seemed to the Southern sensitiveness unjust and in-
sulting, it led many in the North to silence, especially as
the South seemed to apologize for slavery rather than
defend it against argument. It was said, "The evil is
upon us; we cannot help it. We are sullied, but it is a
misfortune rather than a fault. It is not right for the
North to meddle with that which is made worse by being
meddled with, even by argument or appeal." That was
the earlier portion of the conflict. A great many men.
were deceived by it. I never myself yielded to the fal-
lacy. As a minister of the gospel preaching to sinful
men, I thought it my duty not to give in to this doctrine;
their sins were on them, and I thought it my duty not
to soothe them, but rather to expose them. The next stage.
of the conflict was purely political. The South was at-
tempting to extend their slave system into the Territories,
and to prevent free States from covering the continent,
by bringing into the Union a slave State for every free
State. It was also the design and endeavor of the South
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
183
not simply to hold and employ the enormous power and
influence of the Central Executive, but also to engraft
into the whole Federal Government a slave State policy.
They meant to fill all offices at home and abroad with
men loyal to slavery-to shut up the road to political pre-
ferment against men who had aspirations for freedom,
and to corrupt the young and ambitious by obliging them
to swear fealty to slavery as the condition of success. I
am saying what I know. I have seen the progressive
corruption of men naturally noble, educated in the doc-
trine of liberty, who being bribed by political offices, at
last bowed the knee to Moloch. The South pursued a
uniform system of bribing and corrupting ambitious
men of Northern consciences. A far mor Jangerous
part of its policy was to change the Constitution, not
overtly, not by external aggression-worse, to fill
the courts with Southern judges—(shame)—until first,
by laws of Congress passed through Southern
influence, and secondly, by the construction and
adjudication of the courts, the Constitution having be-
come more and more tied up to Southern principles, the
North would have to submit to slavery, or else to oppose
it by violating the law and constitution as construed by
servile judges. They were, in short, little by little, in-
jecting the laws, constitution and policy of the country
with the poison and blood of slavery. I will not let this
stand on my own testimony. I am going to read the un-
conscious corroboration of this by Mr. Stephens, the Vice-
184 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
President of the present Confederacy-one, to his credit.
be it said, who at one time was a most sincere and ear-
nest opponent of Secession. It is as follows:-
This step (of Secession) once taken, can never be re-
called; and all the baleful and withering consequences
that must follow will rest on the convention for all coming
time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely
South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of
yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green
fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down by the
murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over
our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the
horrors and desolation of war upon us; who but this
convention will be held responsible for it? and who but
him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-
timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be
held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present
generation, and probably cursed and execrated by poster-
ity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin.
that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to
perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a
moment what reasons you can give that will even satisfy
yourselves in calmer moments-what reasons you can
give to your fellow-sufferers in the calamity that it will
bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations
of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and de-
liberate judges in the case; and what cause or one overt
act can you name or point on which to rest the plea of
justification? What right has the North assailed? What
interest of the South has been invaded? What justice
has been denied? and what claim founded in justice and
right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name
one governmental act of wrong, deliberately and pur-
posely done by the Government of Washington, of which
the South has a right to complain? I challenge the. an-
swer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts
(and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
185
t
F
the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend and
lover of the South and her institutions, and for this rea-
son I speak thus plainly and faithfully, for yours, mine,
and every other man's interest, the words of truth and
soberness), of which I wish you to judge, and I will only
state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which
now stand as records authentic in the history of our coun-
try. When we of the South demanded the slave trade,
or the importation of Africans for the cultivation of our
lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years?
When we asked a three-fifths representation in Congress
for our slaves was it not granted? When we asked and
demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the
recovery of those persons owing labor or allegiance, was
it not incorporated in the Constitution, and again ratified
and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850?
But do you reply that in many instances they have violated
this compact and have not been faithful to their engage-
ments? As individual and local communities they may
have done so ; but not by the sanction of Government;
for that has always been true to Southern interests.
Again, gentlemen, look at another fact, when we have
asked that more tèrritory should be added, that we might
spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to
our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas,
out of which four States have been carved, and ample
territory for four more may be added in due time if you
by this unwise and impolitic act, do not destroy this hope,
and perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave
wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South Amer-
ica and Mexico were, or by the vindictive decree of a
universal emancipation, which may reasonably be ex-
pected to follow. But, again, gentlemen, what have we
to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the
general Government? We have always had the control
of it, and can yet, if we remain in it and are as united as
we have been. We have had a majority of the Presidents
chosen from the South, as well as the control and man-
agement of most of those chosen from the North. We
*
186
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
have had sixty years of Southern Presidents to their
twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department.
So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had
eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North;
although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has
arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the court has
always been from the South. This we have required so
as to guard against any interpretation of the Constitution
unfavorable to us. In like manner we have been equally
watchful to guard our interest in the legislative branch of
Government. In choosing the presiding Presidents (pro
tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their
eleven. Speakers of the house, we have had twenty-three,
and they twelve. While the majority of the representa-
tives, from their greater population, have always been
from the North, yet we have so generally secured the
speaker, because he, to a greater extent, shapes and con-
trols the legislation of the country. Nor have we had
less control in every other department of the general
Government. Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen,
while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we
have had eighty-six and they but fifty-four. While three-
fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents
abroad is clearly from the Free States, from their greater
commercial interests, yet we have had the principal em-
bassies, so as to secure the world's markets for our cotton,
tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have
had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and
navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors
were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, audi-
tors, and comptrollers filling the executive department, the
records show for the last fifty years that of the three
thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-
thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the
white population of the Republic. Again, look at another
item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and
vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of support-
ing Government. From official documents we learn that
a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for
2
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
187
the support of Government has uniformly been raised
from the North. Pause now, while you can, gentlemen,
and contemplate carefully and candidly these important
items. Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless
millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the
North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers
slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar
of your ambition-and for what? we ask again. Is it for
the overthrow of the American Government, established
by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their
sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of
right, justice, and humanity? And, as such, I must de-
clare here, as I have often done before, and which has
been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and
patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and free-
est Government-the most equal in its rights, the most just
in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most
inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the
sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt
to overthrow such a Government as this, under which we
have lived for more than three-quarters of a century-in
which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a na-
tion, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are
around us, with peace and tranquillity accompanied with
unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed-is the height
of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which 1 can neither
lend my sanction nor my vote.
P
Was there ever such an indictment unconsciously laid
against any people? Here Mr. Stephens, talking to peo-
plè in Georgia, quite unconscious that his speech would
be reported, that it would appear in the Northern press,
and be read in Exeter Hall to an English audience-tells
you what has been the plan and what have been the ef
fects of Southern domination on the national policy, on
the Government, and on the courts during the last fifty
188
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
HER'S
years. The object of Southern policy early commenced
and steadily pursued, was to control the Government and
to establish a slave influence throughout North America.
Now, take notice first, that the North, hating slavery, hav-
ing rid itself of it at its own cost, and longing for its ex-
tinction throughout America, was unable until this war to
touch slavery directly. The North could only contend
against slave policy-not directly against slavery. Why?
Because slavery was not the creature of national law, and
therefore not subject to national jurisdiction, but of State
law, and subject only to State jurisdiction. A direct act
on the part of the North to abolish slavery would have
been revolutionary. (A voice: "We do not understand
you.") You will understand me before I have done with
you to-night. (Cheers.) Such an attack would have been
a violation of a fundamental principle of State indepen-
dence. This peculiar structure of our Government is not
so unintelligible to Englishmen as you may think. It is
only taking an English idea on a larger scale. We have
borrowed it from you. A great many do not understand
how it is that there should be State independence under
a national Government. Now I am not closely ac-
quainted with your affairs, but the Chamberlain can tell
you if I am wrong, when I say, that there belong to the
old city of London certain private rights that Parliament
cannot meddle with. Yet there are elements in which
Parliament-that is, the will of the nation-is as supreme
over London as over any town or, city of the realm,
1
IN ENGLÅND IN 1863.
189
+
I
Now, if there are some things which London has kept for
her own judgment and will, and yet others which she has
given up to the national will, you have herein the princi-
ple of the American Government-by which certain local
matters belong exclusively to the local jurisdiction, and
certain general matters to the national Government.
will give you another illustration that will bring it home
to you. There is not a street in London, but, as soon as
a man is inside his house, he may say, his house is his
castle. There is no law in the realm which can lay down
to that man how many members, shall compose his family
-how he shall dress his children-when they shall get
up and when they shall go to bed-how many meals he
shall have a day, and of what those meals shall be con-
stituted. The interior economy of the house belongs to
the members of the house, yet there are many`respects in
which every householder is held in check by common
rights. They have their own interior and domestic econ-
omy, yet they share in other things which are national
and governmental. It may be very wrong to give chil
dren opium, but all the doctors in London cannot say to
a man that he shall not drug his child. It is his business,
and if it is wrong it cannot be interfered with. I will
give you another illustration. Five men form a partner-
ship of business. Now, that partnership represents the
national Government of the United States; but it has re-
lation only to certain great commercial interests common
to them all. But each of these five men has another
190
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
KA PLAT
sphere-his family-and in that sphere the man may be a
drunkard, a gambler, a lecherous and indecent man, but
the firm cannot meddle with his morals. It cannot touch
anything but business interests that belong to the firm.
Now, our States came together on this doctrine-that
each State, in respect to those rights and institutions that
were local and peculiar to it, was to have undivided sov-
ereignty over its own affairs; but that all those powers,
such as taxes, wars, treaties of peace, which belong to
one State, and which are common to all States, went into
the general Government. The general Government never
had the power-the power was never delegated to it-to
meddle with the interior and domestic economy of the
States, and it never could be done. You will ask what
are we doing it for now. I will tell you in due time.
Have I made that point plain? It was only that part of
slavery which escaped from the State jurisdiction, and
which entered into the national sphere, which formed the
subject of controversy. We could not justly touch the
Constitution of the States, but only the policy of the na-
tional Government, that came out beyond the State and
appeared in Congress and in the territories. We are
bound to abide by our fundamental law. Honor, fidelity,
integrity, as well as patriotism, required us to abide by
that law. The great conflict between the South and
North, until this war began, was, which should control the
Federal or Central Government and what we call the Ter-
ritories; that is, lands which are the property of the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
191
Union, and have not yet received State rights. That was
the conflict. It was not "Emancipation" or
or "No Eman-
cipation; " Government had no business with that ques-
tion. Before the war, the only thing on which politically
the free people of the North and South took their respec-
tive sides was, "Shall the National policy be free or
slave?" And I call you to witness that forbearance,
though not a showy virtue-fidelity, though not a shining
quality-are fundamental to manly integrity. During a
period of eighty years, the North, whose wrongs I have
just read out to you, not from her own lips, but from the
lips of her enemy, has stood faithfully to her word.
With scrupulous honor she has respected legal rights,
even when they were nierely civil and not moral rights.
The fidelity of the North to the great doctrine of State
rights, which was born of her-her forbearance under
wrong, insult, and provocation-her conscientious and
honorable refusal to meddle with the evil which she
hated, and which she saw to be aiming at the life of Gov-
ernment, and at her own life-her determination to hold
fast pact and constitution, and to gain her victories by
giving the people a new National policy-will yet be
deemed worthy of something better than a contemptuous
sncer, or the allegation of an "enormous national vanity.”
The Northern forbearance is one of those themes of
which we may be justly proud-a product of virtue, a
fruit of liberty, an inspiration of that Christian faith,
which is the mother at once of truth and of liberty. I am
192
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S PEFES
proud to think that there is such a record of national
fidelity as that which the North has written for herself by
the pen of her worst enemies. Now that is the reason
why the North did not at first go to war to enforce eman-
cipation. She went to war to save the National institu-
tions; to save the Territories; to sustain those laws,
which would first circumscribe, then suffocate, and finally
destroy slavery. That is the reason why that most true,
honest, just, and conscientious magistrate, Mr. Lincoln-
(The announcement of Mr. Lincoln's name was received
with loud and continued cheering. The whole audience
rose and cheered for some time, and it was a few minutes
before Mr. Beecher could proceed.) From having
spoken much at tumultuous assemblies I had at times a
fear that when I came here this evening my voice would
fail from too much speaking.
But that fear is now
changed to one that your voices will fail from too much
cheering. (Laughter.)
How then did the North pass from a conflict with the
South and a slave policy, to a direct attach. upon the
institutions of slavery itself? Because, according to the
foreshadowing of that wisest man of the South, Mr.
Stephens, they beleaguered the national Government
and the national life with the institution of slavery-
obliged a sworn President, who was put under oath not
to invade that institution, to take his choice between the
safety and life of the Government itself, or the slavery
by which it was beleaguered. If any man lays an ob-

+
I
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
193
struction on the street, and blocks up the street, it is not
the fault of the people if they walk over it. As the fun-
damental right of individual self-defence cannot be with-
drawn without immorality-so the first element of na-
tional life is to defend life. As no man attacked on the
highway violates law, but obeys the law of self-defence-
a law inside of the laws-by knocking down his assailant,
so, when a nation is assaulted, it is a right and duty, in
the exercise of self-defence, to destroy the enemy, by
which otherwise it will be destroyed. As long as the
South allowed it to be a moral and political conflict of
policy, we were content to meet the issue as one of policy.
But when they threw down the gauntlet of war, and said
that by it slavery was to be adjudicated, we could do
nothing else than take up the challenge. (Loud cheers.)
The police have no right to enter your house as long as
you keep within the law, but when you defy the laws and
endanger the peace and safety of the neighborhood they
have a right to enter. So in constitutional governments;
it has no power to touch slavery while it remains a State
institution. But when it lifts itself up out of its State hu-
mility and become: banded to attack the nation, it becomes
a national enemy, and has no longer exemption. But it
is said, The President issued his proclamation after all
for political effect, not for humanity." Of course the
right of issuing a proclamation of emancipation was polit-
ical, but the disposition to do it was personal. (Loud
cheers.) Mr. Lincoln is an officer of the State, and in
13
****
4
194
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
the Presidential chair has no more right than your judge
on the bench to follow his private feelings. He is bound
to ask "What is the law?"-not "What is my sympa-
thy?" (Hear, hear.) And when a judge sees that a
rigid execution or interpretation of the law goes along
with primitive justice, with humanity, and with pity, he
is all the more glad because his private feelings go
with his public office. Perhaps in the next house to a
kind and benevolent surgeon is a boy who fills the night
with groans, because he has a cancerous and diseased leg.
The surgeon would fain go in and amputate that limb
and save that life; but he is not called in, and therefore
he has no business to go in, though he ever so much
wish it. But at last the father says to him, "In the name
of God, come in and save my child," and he goes in
professionally and cuts off his leg and saves his life, to
the infinite disgust of a neighbor over the way, that says,
"Oh, he would not go in from neighborly feeling and cut.
his leg off." (Loud applause.) I should like to know
how any man has a right to cut your leg or mine off ex-
cept professionally-(laughter and cheers)-and so a man
must often wait for official leave to perform the noblest
offices of justice and humanity. Here then is the great
stone of stumbling. At first the President could not
touch slavery, because in time of peace it was a legal
institution. How then can he do it now? Because in
time of war it has stepped beyond its former sphere, and
is no longer a local institution, but a national and public
|
T
↓
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
195
Now I promised to make that
("Hear, hear," and applause.)
"Since they
It is said, "Why not let the South go?"
won't be at peace with you, why do you not let them
separate from you?" Because they would be still less
peaceable when separated. Oh, if the Southerners only
would go! (Laughter.) They are determined to stay—
that is the trouble. We would furnish free passage to
ail of them if they would go. (Laughter.) But we say,
"The land is ours." Let them go, and leave to the na-
tion its land, and they will have our unanimous consent.
But I wish to discuss this more carefully. It is the very
marrow of the matter. I ask you to stand in our place
for a little time, and see this question as we see
it, afterwards make up your judgment. And first, this
war began by the act of the South-firing at the old flag
that had covered both sections with glory and protection.
The attack made upon us was under circumstances which
inflicted immediate severe humiliation and threatened us
with final subjugation. The Southerners held all the
keys of the country. They had robbed our arsenals.
They had made our treasury bankrupt. They had pos-
session of the most important offices in the army and
navy. They had the vantage of having long anticipated
and prepared for the conflict. We knew not whom to
trust. One man failed, and another man failed. Men,
pensioned by the Government, lived on the salary of the
Government only to have better opportunity to stab and
ênemy. (Applause.)
clear have I done it?
196 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
betray it. There was not merely one Judas, there were
a thousand in our country. ("Hear, hear," and hisses.)
And for the North to have lain down like a spaniel-to
have given up the land that every child in America is
taught, as every child in Britain is taught, to regard as
his sacred right and his trust-to have given up the
mouths of our own rivers and our mountain citadel with-
out a blow, would have marked the North in all future
history as craven and mean. (Loud cheers and some
hisses.) Secondly, the honor and safety of that grand ex-
periment, self-government by free institutions, demanded
that so flagitious a violation of the first principles of
legality should not carry off impunity and reward, there-
after enabling the minority in every party conflict to turn
and say to the majority, "If you don't give us our way
'we will make war." Oh, Englishmen, would you let a
minority dictate in such a way to you? (Loud cries.
of "No, no, never!" and cheers.) Three thousand
miles o'. don't make any difference, then? ("No. no.")
The principle thus introduced would literally have no
end-would carry the nation back to its original elements.
of isolated States. Nor is there any reason why it should
stop with States.
If every treaty may be overthrown by
which States have been settled into a Nation, what form
of political union may not on like grounds be severed?
There is the same force in the doctrine of Secession in
the application to counties as in the application to States.
and if it be right for a State or a county to secede, it is
傻
​Į
IN ENGLAND IN 1863..
197
equally right for a town and a city. This doctrine of
Secession is a huge revolving millstone that ginds the
national life to powder. It is anarchy in velvet, and
national destruction clothed in soft phrases and peri-
phrastic expressions. But we have fought with that devil
Slavery," and understand him better than you
(Loud cheers.) No people with patriotism and hone
will give up territory without a struggle for it. Wou!
you give it up? (Loud cries of "No.") It is said that
the States are owners of their territory! It is theirs to
use, not theirs to run away with. We have equal right
with them to enter it. Let me inform you when those
States first sat in convention to form a Union, a resolu-
tion was introduced by the delegates from South Caro-
lina and Virginia, "That we now proceed to form a
National Government." The delegate from Connecticut
objected. The New Englanders were State-right men,
and the South, in the first instance, seemed altogether
for a National Government. Connecticut obcted, and
a debate took place whether it should be a Constitution
for a mere Confederacy of States, or for a nation formed
out of those States. (A Voice: "When was that?")
It was in the Convention of 1787. He wants to help me.
(Laughter.) I like such interruptions. I am here a
friend amongst friends. Nothing will please me better
than any question asked in courtesy and in earnest to
elucidate this subject. I am not afraid of being inter-
rupted by questions which are to the point. At this con-
66
198 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
"
vention the resolution of the New England delegates
that they should form a Confederacy instead of a Nation
was voted down, and never came up again. The first
draft of the preamble contained these words: "We, the
people of the United States, for the purpose of forming a
Nation; but as there was a good deal of feeling
amongst the North and South on the subject, when the
draft came to the committee for revision, and they had
simply to put in the proper phraseology, they put it "for
the purpose of forming a Union." But when the ques-
tion whether the States were to hold their autocracy
came up in South Carolina-which was called the Caro-
lina heresy-it was put down, and never lifted its head
up again until this Secession, when it was galvanized
to justify that which has no other pretence to justice.
I would like to ask those English gentlemen who
hold that it is right for a State to secede when it
pleases, how they would like it, if the county of Kent
would try the experiment. The men who cry out for
Secession of the Southern States in America would say,
"Kent seceding? Ah, circumstances alter cases."
(Cheers and laughter.) The Mississippi, which is our
Southern door and hall to come in and to go out, runs
right through the territory which they tried to rend from
us. The South magnanimously offered to let us use it;
but what would you say if, on going home, you found a
squad of gypsies seated in your hall, who refused to be
ejected, saying: "But look here, we will let you go in and
"1
"
IN ENGLAND ÍN 1863.
199
out on equitable and easy terms." (Cheers and laugh-
ter.) But there was another question involved-the
question of national honor. If you take up and look at
the map that delineates the mountainous features of that
continent, you will find the peculiar structure of the Alle-
ghany ridge, beginning in New Hampshire, running
across the New England States, through Pennsylvania
and West Virginia, stopping in the northern part of
Georgia. Now, all the world over, men that live in
mountainous regions have been men for liberty-and from
the first hour to this hour the majority of the population
of Western Virginia, which is in this mountainous region,
the majority of the population of Eastern Tennessee, of
Western Carolina, and of North Georgia, have been true
to the Union, and were urgent not to go out. They
called to the National Government, "We claim that, in
fulfilment of the compact of the constitution, you defend
our rights, and retain us in the Union." We would not
suffer a line of fire to be established one thousand five
hundred miles along our Southern border out of which,
in a coming hour, there might shoot out wars and disturb-
、ances, with such a people as the South, that never kept
faith in the Union, and would never keep faith out of it.
They have disturbed the land as old Ahab of accursed
memory did-(cheers and hisses)-and when Elijah
found this Ahab in the way, Ahab said, "It is Elijah that
has disturbed Israel." (A laugh.) Now we know the
nature of this people. We know that if we entered into
200
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
✓
a truce with them they would renew their plots and vio-
lences, and take possession of the continent in the name
of THE DEVIL AND SLAVERY. One more reason why we
will not let this people go is because we do not want to
become a military people. A great many say America
is becoming too strong; she is dangerous to the peace of
the world. But if you permit or favor this division, the
South becomes a military nation, and the North is com-
pelled to become a military nation. Along a line of
1500 miles she must have forts and men to garrison
them. These 250,000 soldiers will constitute the na-
tional standing army of the North. Now any nation that
has a large standing army is in great danger of losing its
liberties. Before this war the legal size of the national
ariny was 25,000. That was all; the actual number was
18,000, and those were all the soldiers we wanted. 1 The
Tribune and other papers repeatedly said that these men
were useless in our nation. But if the country were
divided, then we should have two great military nations.
taking its place, and instead of a paltry 18,000 soldiers,
there would be 250,000 on one side and 100,000 or
200,000 on the other. And if America, by this ill-ad-
vised disruption, is forced to have a standing army, like a
boy with a knife she will always want to whittle with it.
(Laughter and cheers.) It is the interest, then, of the
world, that the nation should be united, and that it
should be under the control of that part of America that
has always been for peace-(cheers, and cries of "No,
?
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
201
#
no")-that it should be wrested from the control and pol-
icy of that part of the nation that has always been for more
territory, for filibustering, for insulting foreign nations. But
that is not all. The religious-minded among our people
feel that in the territory committed to us there is a high
and solemn trust-a national trust. We are taught that in
some sense the world itself is a field, and every Chris-
tian nation acknowledges a certain responsibility for the
moral condition of the globe. But how much nearer
does it come when it is one's own country! And the
Church of America is coming to feel more and more that
God gave us this country, not merely for material
aggrandizement, but for a glorious triumph of the Church
of Christ. Therefore we undertook to rid the territory
of slavery. Since slavery has divested itself of its mu-
nicipal protection, and has become a declared public
enemy, it is our duty to strike down the slavery which
would blight this far Western territory. When I stand
and look out upon that immense territory as a man, as
a citizen, as a Christian minister, I feel myself asked:
"Will you permit that vast country to be over-clouded by
this curse? Will you permit the cries of bondmen to
issue from that fair territory, and do nothing for their
liberty?" What are we doing? Sending our ships
round the globe, carrying missionaries to the Sandwich
Islands, to the islands of the Pacific, to Asia, to all
Africa. And yet, when this work of redeeming our con-
tinent from the heathendom of slavery lies before us,
202
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
there are men who counsel us to give it up to the devil,
and not try to do anything with it. Ah! independent of
pounds and pence, independent of national honor, inde-
pendent of all merely material considerations, there is
pressing on every conscientious Northerner's mind this
highest of all considerations-our duty to God to save
that continent from the blast and blight of slavery. Yet
how many are there who up, down, and over all England
are saying, "Let slavery go; let slavery go!" It is
recorded, I think, in the biography of one of the most
noble of your own countrymen, Sir T. Fowell Buxton-
(cheers) that on one occasion a huge favorite dog was
seized with hydrophobia. With wonderful courage he
seized the creature by the neck and collar, and against
the animal's mightiest efforts, dashing hither and thither
against wall and fence, held him until help could be got.
If there had been Englishmen there of the stripe of the
Times, they would have said to Fowell Buxton : "Let him
go; " but is there one here who does not feel the moral
nobleness of that man, who rather than let the mad
animal go down the street biting children and women
and men, risked his life and prevented the dog from do-
ing evil?
Shall we allow that hell-hound of slavery,
mad, mad as it is, to go biting millions in the future?
(Cheers.) We will peril life and limb and all we have
first. These truths are not exaggerated-they are dimin-
ished rather than magnified in my statement; and you
cannot tell how powerfully they are influencing us unless
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
203
Į
1
you were standing in our midst in America; you cannot
understand how firm that national feeling is which God
has bred in the North on this subject. It is deeper than
the sea; it is firmer than the hills; it is serene as the
sky over our head, where God dwells. But it is said,
"What a ruthless business this war of extermination is !"
I have heard it stated that a fellow from America, pur-
porting to be a minister of the gospel of peace, had come
over to England, and that that fellow had said he was in
favor of a war of extermination. Well, if he said so he
will stick to it; but not in the way in which enemies
put these words. Listen to the way in which I put them,
for if I am to bear the responsibility it is only fair that I
should state them in my own way. We believe that the
war is a test of our institutions; that it is a life-and-death
struggle between the two principles of liberty and slavery,
that it is the cause of the common people all the world
over. We believe that every struggling nationality on
the globe will be stronger if we conquer this odious oli-
garchy of slavery, and that every oppressed people in the
world will be weaker if we fail. (Cheers.) The sober
American regards the war as part of that awful yet glo-
rious struggle which has been going on for hundreds of
years in every nation between right and wrong, between
virtue and vice, between liberty and despotism, between
freedom and bondage. It carries with it the whole future
condition of our vast continent-its laws, its policy, its
fate. And standing in view of these tremendous realities.
(
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
A
we have consecrated all that we have-our children, our
wealth, our national strength-and we lay them all on the
altar and say: "It is better that they should all perish
than that the North should falter and betray this trust of
God, this hope of the oppressed, this Western civiliza-
tion." If we say this of ourselves, shall we say less of
the slave-holders? If we are willing to do these things,
shall we say "Stop the war for their sakes!" If we say
this of ourselves, shall we have more pity for the rebel-
lious, for slavery seeking to blacken a continent with its
awful evil, desecrating the social phrase "National Inde-
pendence" by seeking only an independence that shall
enable them to treat four millions of human beings as
chattels ? Shall we be tenderer over them than over our-
selves? Standing by my cradle, standing by my hearth,
standing by the altar of the church, standing by all the
places that mark the name and memory of heroic men,
who poured out their blood and lives for principle, I de-
clare that in ten or twenty years of war we will sacrifice
everything we have for principle. (Cheers.) If the love
of popular liberty is dead in Great Britain you will not
understand us; but if the love of liberty lives as it once
lived, and has worthy successors of those renowned men
that were our ancestors as much as yours, and whose
example and principles we inherit as so much seed corn
in a new and fertile land-then you will understand our
firm, invincible determination--to fight this war through
at all hazards and at every cost. (Immense cheering,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
205
K
accompanied with a few hisses.) I am obliged for this
little diversion; it rests me. Against this statement of
facts and principles no public man and no party could
stand up for one moment in England if it were permitted.
to rest upon its own merits. It is therefore sought to
darken the light of these truths and to falsify facts. I
will hot mention names, but I will say this, that there have
been important organs in Great Britain that have delib-
erately and knowingly spoken what is not the truth. (Ap-
plause, and loud cries of "The Times !?
"Three groans
for The Times!") It is declared that the North has no
sincerity. It is declared that the North treats the blacks
worse than the South does. A monstrous lie from begin-
ning to end.
It is declared that emancipation is a mere
political trick-not a moral sentiment. It is declared
that this is the cruel unphilanthropic squabble of men
gone mad with national vanity. Oh, what a pity that a
man should “fall nine times the space that measures day
and night" to make an apostasy which dishonors his clos-
ing days, and to wipe out the testimony for liberty that
he gave in his youth! But even if all this monstrous lie
about the North--this needless slander-were true, still
it would not alter the fact that Northern success will carry
liberty-Southern success, slavery. For when society
dashes against society, the results are not what the indi-
vidual motives of the members of society would make
them the results are what the institutions of society
make them. When your army stood at Waterloo, they
}
206
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
}
did not know what were the vast moral consec
that depended on that battle. It was not what th
vidual soldiers meant or thought, but what the
empire the national life behind, and the genius
renowned kingdom which sent that army to vic
meant and thought. And even if the President were
false--if every Northern man were a juggling hypocrite-
that does not change the Constitution; and it does not
change the fact that if the North prevails, she carries
Northern ideas and Northern institutions with her. But
7
I hear a loud protest against war. Ladies and gentlemen,
Mr. Chairman-there is a small band in our country and
in yours-I wish their number were quadrupled-who have
borne a solemn and painful testimony against all wars,
under all circumstances; and although I differ with them.
on the subject of defensive warfare, yet when men that re-
buked their own land, and all lands, now rebuke us, though
I cannot accept their judgment, I bow with profound re-
spect to their consistency. But excepting them, I regard
this British horror of the American war as something won-
derful. (Renewed cheers and laughter.) Why, it is a
phenomenon in itself! On what shore has not the prow
of your ships dashed? What land is there with a name
and a people, where your banner has not led your sol-
diers? And when the great resurrection réveille shall
sound, it will muster British soldiers from every clime and
people under the whole heaven. (Cheers.) Ah! but it
is said, this is a war against your own blood. How long
Aja
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
207
is it since you poured soldiers into Canada, and let all
your yards work night and day to avenge the taking of
two men out of the Trent? (Loud applause.) Old Eng-
land shocked at a war principle! She gained her glories
in such wars. (Cheers.) Old England ashamed of a war
of principle! Her national ensign symbolizes her history
-the cross in a field of blood. (Cheers.) And will you
tell us who inherit your blood, your ideas, and your
high spirits--that we must not fight? (Cheers.) The
child must heed the parents, until the parents get old and
tell the child not to do the thing that in early life they
whipped him for not doing. And then the child says,
"Father and mother are getting too old," they had better
be taken away from their present home and come to live
with us.
Perhaps you think that the old island will do a
little longer. Perhaps you think there is coal enough.
Perhaps you think the stock is not quite run out yet;
but whenever England comes to that state that she does
not go to war for principle, she had better emigrate and
we will give her room. (Laughter.) I have been very
much perplexed what to think about the attitude of Great
Britain in respect to the South. I must, I suppose, look
to the opinion of the majority of the English people. I
don't believe in the Tims. (Groans for the Times;
groans for the Telegraph.) You cut my poor sentence in
two, and all the blood runs out of it. (Laughter.) I was
just going to say that like most of you I don't believe in
the Times, but I always read it. (Laughter.) Every
←
208 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
Englishman tells me that the Times is no exponent of Eng-
lish opinion, and yet I have taken notice that when they
talk of men, somehow or other their last argument is the
last thing that was in the Times. (Laughter.) I think it
was the Times or Post that said, that America was sore, be-
cause she had not the moral sympathy of Great Britain,
and that the moral sympathy of Great Britain had gone
for the South. ("No, no.") Well, let me tell you, that
those who are represented in the newspapers as favorable
to the South are like men who have arrows and bows
strong enough to send the shafts 3000 miles; and those
who feel sympathy for the North are like men who have
shafts, but have no bows that could shoot them far
enough. The English sentiment that has made itself felt
on our shores is the part that slandered the North and
took part with the South; and if you think we are unduly
sensitive, you must take into account that the part of
English sentiment carried over is the part that gives its
aid to slavery and against liberty. I shall have a differ-
ent story to tell when I get back. (The assembly rose,
and for a few moments hats and handkerchiefs were
waved enthusiastically amidst loud cheering. A voice:
"What about the Russians?") A gentleman asks me to
say a word about the Russians in New York harbor. As
this is a little private confidential meeting--(laughter)-
I will tell you the fact about them. (Laughter.) The
fact is this-it is a little piece of coquetry. (Laughter.)
Don't
you
know that when a woman thinks her suitor is
wer to put the photo
mޔب.ث.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
209
not quite attentive enough, she takes another beau, and
flirts with him in the face of the old one? (Laughter.)
New York is flirting with Russia, but she has got her eye
on England. (Cheers.) Well, I hear men say this is a
piece of national folly that is not becoming on the part
of people reputed wise, and in such solemn and im-
portant circumstances. It is said that when Russia is
now engaged in suppressing the liberty of Poland it is an
indecent thing for America to flirt with her. I think so
too. (Loud cheers.) Now you know what we felt when
you were flirting with Mr. Mason at your Lord Mayor's
banquet. (Cheers.) Ladies and gentlemen, it did not
do us any hurt to have you Englishmen tell us our faults.
I hope it doesn't do you Britishers any hurt to have us tell
you some of yours. (A laugh.) Let me tell you my
honest sentiments. England, because she is a Christian
nation, because she has the guardianship of the dearest
principles of civil and religious liberty, ought to be
friendly with every nation and with every tongue. But
when England looks out for an ally she ought to seek for
her own blood, her own language, her own children.
And I stand here to declare that America is the proper
and natural ally of Great Britain. (Cheers.) I declare
that all sorts of alliances with Continental nations as
against America monstrous, and that all flirtations of
America with pandered and whiskered foreigners are
monstrous, and that in the great conflicts of the future,
when civilization is to be extended, when commerce is to
14
210
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
be free round the globe, and to carry with it religion and
civilization, then two flags should be flying from every
man-of-war and every ship, and they should be the flag
with the cross of St. George and the flag with the stars.
of promise and of hope. Now, ladies and gentlemen,
when anybody tells you that Mr. Beecher is in favor of
war you may ask, "In what way is he in favor of war?"
And if any man says he seeks to sow discord between
father and son and mother and daughter you will be able
to say, "Show us how he is sowing discord." If I had
anything grievous to say of England I would sooner say
it before her face than behind her back. I would
denounce Englishmen, if they were maintainers of the
monstrous policy of the South. However, since I have
come over to this country you have told me the truth, and
I shall be able to bear back an assurance to our people
of the enthusiasm you feel for the cause of the North.
And then there is the very significant act of your govern-
ment-the seizure of the rams in Liverpool. (Loud
cheers.) Then there are the weighty words spoken by
Lord Russell at Glasgow, and the words spoken by the
Attorney-General. These acts and declarations of policy,
coupled with all that I have seen, and the feeling of en-
thusiasm of this English people, will warm the heart of
the Americans in the North. If we are one in civiliza-
tion, one in religion, one substantially in faith, let us be
one in national policy, one in every enterprise for the fur-
therance of the gospel and for the happiness of mankind,
My Ph
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
211
..
I thank you for your long patience with me. ("Go on!")
Ah! when I was a boy they used to tell me never to eat
enough, but always to get up being yet a little hungry. I
would rather you go away wishing I had spoken longer
than go away saying, "What a tedious fellow he was!"
(A laugh.) And therefore if you will not permit me to
close and go, I beg you to recollect that this is the fifth
speech of more than two hours' length that I have spoken,
on some occasions under difficulties, within seven or eight
days, and I am so exhausted that I ask you to permit me
to stop. (Great cheering.)
Professor NEWMAN then rose and moved the follow-
ing resolution: "Resolved,-That this meeting presents
its most cordial thanks to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
for the admirable address which he has delivered this
evening, and expresses its hearty sympathy with his
reprobation of the slave-holders' rebellion, his vindication
of the rights of a free Government, and his aspirations
for peace and friendship between the English people and
their American brethren; and as this meeting recognizes
in Mr. Beecher one of the early pioneers of negro eman-
cipation, as well as one of the most eloquent and success-
ful of the champions of that great cause, it rejoices in
this opportunity of congratulating him on the triumph
with which the labors of himself and his associates have
been crowned in the anti-slavery policy of President
Lincoln and his cabinet." (Cheers.) He said that in
the present state of this controversy it was necessary that
212
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPeeca,
the English people should see whether their sentiments
on slavery were still the same. The people he remem-
bered in his boyhood were in great majority anti-slavery ;
and it was but recently that half a million British ladies
of all classes sent addresses to the women of America
deploring this terrible curse. America wanted to see
whether they were changed since then. It was but lately
that Lord Brougham publicly insulted the American am-
bassador, Mr. Dallas, from his excessive zeal against the
Southern domestic institution: the wonderful contrast
of that noble lord's recent conduct led many people, and
pre-eminently their Northern brethren, to suppose that
there had been a great change among them. The writ-
ings of such men as Mr. Carlyle, the articles in the
Times and of a large portion of the metropolitan press,
had tended to induce the same feeling; but it was for
them to show that they still adhered to their old anti-
slavery views. The only way to do that was never to
read those papers; or at any rate never to pay for read-
ing them. (Cheers.)
Rev. NEWMAN HALL seconded the resolution. He
said: Last evening I was visited by a fugitive slave.
Her intelligent countenance, her modest demeanor, her
clear, calm, refined voice at once interested me.
I soon
learnt her history. Her owner, as I at once guessed, was
both her father and her master. (Shame.) While she
was yet a child she so felt the cruelties of slavery that
she escaped. She was pursued, tracked by bloodhounds,
ÎN ENGLAND İN 1863.
213
j
brought back, and subjected to the fearful torments
which are generally inflicted upon a captured slave. She
was made to marry early, and became a mother. Then
she was employed as wet nurse to her father's children-
that is, she suckled her own brothers and sisters. (Sensa-
tion.) But the grief that she felt most was the selling of
her own little girl at the age of ten years. Then, as
child after child was born, she wished that child after
child might die rather than endure the cruelties which
she had suffered. With all the tender instincts of a
mother she yet rejoiced to see her babe in the cradle of
death. She had been taught to believe at first that her
owner was her God, and for a time she did believe that
her master was God Almighty. But when she afterwards
learned that there was a God in heaven she looked to
Him for help, and resolved at any risk to get away. She
fled to the woods, and was soon pursued, and her master
was so near her at one time that she heard him, when
hiding in the hollow of a tree, saying that if he caught
her she would never put a step on the ground again.
"Surely," I said, "he would not have maimed you?"
"No," she said, "he would have tarred, feathered, and
burnt me alive "- -a fate which many a captured
fugitive has undergone as an example to others. For
ten days she wandered in the woods, feeding, or rather
starving, upon roots and leaves, till she was found
under a hedge, exhausted, by a good Samaritan, a
minister of the Gospel, who assisted her, and got her
S
214
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
shipped in a vessel that was going to New York, and
thence to Calcutta, from whence she has come to Eng-
land.
On her right ankle there is the mark of the red-
hot branding-iron put there by her father, and on her left
shoulder is the mark of the red-hot branding-iron put
there also by her father! (Shame.) On her wrists you
will see the scars made by the links of the chains by
which she was bound by her father, and where the iron.
gnawed into her flesh! (Sensation.) She bears the
mark of a terrible blow struck by her father with a heavy
iron on her side, which has made her crooked and inca-
pacitated her for hard work. It is for the purpose of
maintaining and extending the liberty to exercise such
abominations as these over four millions of their fellow-
creatures that the Southerners are in arms. (Cheers.)
It is for the purpose of maintaining a Government and
the carrying out of laws which will put a stop to these
abominations-it is now actually and avowedly, whatever
it may have once been, for the purpose of sweeping the
American continent of such atrocities as these that the
North is fighting. Can there be a moment's hesitation
on which side-if there is to be a quarrel-the sympa-
thies of Christian and free England shall be placed?
(Cries of "No.") There may be and there are differences.
of political opinions among us, but there is no difference
worth mentioning with reference to the abomination of
the slave system. There are many of our countrymen--I
would have Mr. Beecher take note of it-and there may
ག
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
215
be some in this meeting, who think that it would have
been as well that the South should have been let go at
first, or that the war having commenced and gone on so
long it should now cease. I give them credit for being
as ardent haters of slavery as I am. There are on the
other hand those who consider that if the war were now
to be brought to a premature close the cause of emanci-
pation would be lost, and that more bloodshed and war
would ensue than if now the battle were fought out. And
if I give those other gentlemen credit for being haters of
slavery, I demand that on our part we shall have credit
for being haters of war. But whatever differences of
political opinion there may be amongst us, there is not
difference worthy of mentioning with reference to our
abhorrence of the system of slavery; there is no differ-
ence of opinion in this hall as to the honor we would pay
to one of the noblest and boldest champions of freedom
in the world. (Loud applause.) And though we are not
bound by our principles to agree with every word and
sentiment uttered to-night, we do all agree in heartily
thanking the lecturer for his eloquent oration and the
assistance he has thus given us to understand this great
question. (Renewed applause.) We may also say that
we agree in wishing him hearty farewell as a true friend
to Great Britain. We may have misunderstood America
-we shall henceforth understand her better. Mr.
Beecher may have misunderstood us-he will understand
us better. He is going back to his country to bear this
216 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ן
testimony, that whatever difference of political opinions
there may be here, the heart of Old England beats true
to freedom-that in spite of caricatures and leading ar-
ticles, the heart of Great Britain beats true to America.
He will go back to his own country to do there what we
pledge ourselves to do here-everything that will pro-
mote harmony between the two great nations. (Loud
applause.) He will go home to do what we pledge our-.
selves to do-discourage every word and act calculated
to excite international irritation and discord. He will
go to teach his countrymen, as we teach ours, that the
true alliances for the free to make are with free peoples,
and not with despotic emperors or czars. (Renewed
cheering.) We will both of us-they on that side and we
on this-do all we can to promote true and brotherly love
between these two great peoples-do all we can to dis-
courage every act or word that may tend to beget disunion
between two nations that are, as we have heard, one in
blood, one in speech, one in literature, one in freedom,
one in faith-two nations over whose disunion I could
fancy hell from beneath would be moved with exultation,
while all the tyrannies on the earth would clap their
hands—(loud and prolonged cheering)—two nations over
whose indissoluble alliance the heaven-born spirits of
freedom, civilization, and religion will sing rapturous an-
thems of praise to God, beckoning us onwards, as sworn
brothers in the van of human progress, to share together
the toil and to reap together the divine honor of the final
IN ENGLAND IN 1.
217
C
victory of truth, righteousness, and love.
applause.)
ladies and
my words shall be ex-
G. THOMPSON, Esq.: Mr. Chairman,
gentlemen, I promise you that
"new men
ceedingly few. Two
have set you and me
the example of brevity, and I, an old man, will not violate
the example they have furnished. I may, however, be
permitted to say that it is with more than ordinary in-
terest I attend such a meeting as this, when I recollect
that more than nine-and-twenty years ago I was laboring
with a handful of faithful men and women in the city of
Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, amid much obloquy
and frequent danger, in disseminating those very truths
which are now convulsing and converting America-re-
generating and establishing America-and which will
through many future ages, and I trust centuries, cement
together the several parts of America, and in no long
period from this moment exhibit to the world a continent
in which there neither domineers a tyrant nor crawls a
slave. (Loud cheers.) I can, from the study and ob-
servation of thirty years, during which I have paid two
visits to America, and held familiar intercourse with
many of the wisest-certainly of the best-in that coun-
try, and have enjoyed uninterrupted intercourse with
them by correspondence and the reception of newspapers
through the whole time,-I can bear my humble testi-
mony to the truth of all that, in substance at least, Mr.
Beecher has said to-night. Let Mr. Beecher know that
در
(Immense
218 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
?
the heart of England would have beaten in all its pulses
but for whatever may have been the motives-the per-
versities of the truth which have been steadily kept before
the public. Let Mr. Beecher know that the men through-
out this country who have manifested a decided leaning
towards the South are men who belong to two classes,
and two classes only-either the unteachable, and there-
fore the ignorant, or the informed, and therefore the wilful.
I have heard in this meeting occasional cries of "No."
Now I have had an opportunity, in almost every part of
England, of taking the amount of information possessed
by those who at public meetings like this shout, "No,
no." If the provincial papers had not to a great extent
followed the example of some members of the London
press, Mr. Beecher need not have come to this country
to know what the opinions of the honest and uncorrupted.
millions of Englishmen on this subject have ever been.
Had the North been disposed to pay the price which the
South has paid, the venal pens that have slandered the North
would have been as ready to magnify and exalt the North.
It comes within my knowledge that in the city of Man-
chester, where there is a feeble imitator of a great public
instructor of this metropolis-(A Voice: The Manchester
Guardian)—in that city many public meetings have been
held, in all of which, by immense majorities, and fre-
quently with perfect unanimity, resolutions have been
passed in favor of the North, and approving and support-
ing the anti-slavery policy of President Lincoln, and in
IN ENGLAND IN 1863. ·
219
all the great surrounding towns similar meetings have
been held and resolutions passed, and yet that newspaper
has given no publicity whatever to the occurrence of such
meetings (shame)-while it has blazoned forth every
little and insignificant meeting held by little knots of
Secessionists, whose names until recently we could not
by all diligence obtain. Let Mr. Beecher see that while
this hall has been crowded, and while thousands have
been gathered in the hall below, and in the Strand and
neighboring streets, and while in all the various districts.
of London and its suburbs there have been multitudinous
meetings, always with the same results, and almost unani-
mous in their support of the North, only two meetings
have been held in London-or, at least, meetings only in
two places-in support of the South; one a meeting
called to hear a lecture from some redoubtable Colonel
Fuller, who volunteered to tell us all about the question,
and the other a meeting held up a pair of stairs in Devon-
shire-street, Portland-place. (Laughter and cheers.) And
yet the Times and the Manchester Guardian ignore the
occurrence of meetings like this! But what for? It
serves their masters for the time; it pleases their patrons
for the time; and it manages the market for the time.
But it will come to pass on this question, as it came to
pass with regard to other questions discussed on this plat-
form, that the "brayings" of Exeter Hall will become the
utterance of the feelings of the English people. (Cheers.)
You are asked to commend the address of Mr. Beecher
220 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
because in it he has rightly reprobated the slave-holders'
rebellion. There are a few Copperheads in this assembly.
(Laughter.) I don't know whether you all are aware
what they are, and Mr. Beecher could tell you better than
I can.
South Carolina is called the Palmetto State, but
beside having the palmetto for its ensign it has also the
rattlesnake. The rattlesnake loses its skin every year
and gets a new one-and I hope that South Carolina
will also lose its skin and get a new one-but while the
process is going on the rattlesnake becomes blind, and
the copperhead snake brings it the food it requires.
Therefore the people in the North who sympathize with
the South have got the name of Copperheads. (Laugh-
ter.) Now if, on leaving this hall, you should hear any
gentleman finding fault with Mr. Beecher, I do not say
call him a Copperhead-(laughter)—but you may at any
rate suspect that he is very nearly one. (Great laughter.)
Mr. Beecher has said this is a slave-holders' rebellion.
Slave-holders conceived it, and developed, and formed all
that is vital and influential in the Southern Confederacy.
Their President is a slave-holder, and if not he was one
until the advance of the Federal troops set his slaves at
liberty. The simple object of the South is to raise an
empire by the subjugation of a weaker race. But I be-
lieve that the South will not succeed in her criminal de-
signs, and that notwithstanding temporary checks and
reverses, the Federals, who have been compelled to draw
the sword, will in the end achieve the victory. And I
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
221
earnestly pray that when the smoke of battle shall have
passed away, and the tears have been wiped from the
eye of every mourner, and when the grass has begun to
grow upon the graves of those who have fallen, universal
liberty will prevail, and the whole of America be made
hallowed ground. (Protracted applause.)
The motion was then carried amidst loud cheers, only
three hands being held up against it.
The Rev. H. W. BEECHER briefly acknowledged the
vote of thanks.
The Rev. W. M. BUNTING moved, and Sir
CHARLES FOX seconded, a vote of thanks to the
Chairman, which was unanimously passed, and the pro-
ceedings then terminated.
OUTSIDE THE HALL.
The scene outside Exeter Hall last evening was one of
a most extraordinary description. The lecture of the
Rev. Mr. Beecher had been advertised to commence at
seven o'clock, and it was announced that the hall doors
would be opened at half-past six. The crowd, however,
began to assemble as early as five o'clock, and before six
o'clock it became so dense and numerous as completely
to block up, not only the footway, but the carriage way
of the Strand; and the committee of management wisely
determined at once to throw open the doors. The rush
that took place was of the most tremendous character,
and the hall, in every available part, became filled to
f
222
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
overflowing in a few minutes. No perceptible diminu-
tion, however, was made in the crowd, and at half-past
six there were literally thousands of well-dressed persons
struggling to gain admission, despite of the placards ex-
hibited announcing the hall to be "quite full." The
policemen and hall-keepers were powerless to contend.
against this immense crowd, who ultimately filled the spa-
cious corridors and staircases leading to the hall, still
leaving an immense crowd both in the Strand and Bur-
leigh street. At ten minutes before seven o'clock Mr B.
Scott, the City Chamberlain, and the chairman of the
meeting, accompanied by a large body of the committee
of the Emancipation Society, arrived, but were unable to
make their way through the crowd, and a messenger was
despatched to the Bow-street Police-station for an extra
body of police. About thirty of the reserve men were
immediately sent, and those, aided by the men already on
duty, at last succeeded in forcing a passage for the chair-
man and his friends. Mr. Beecher at this time arrived,
but was himself unable to gain admittance to the hall un-
til a quarter of an hour after the time appointed for the
commencement of his address. The reverend gentleman
bore his detention in the crowd with great good humor,
and was rewarded with a perfect ovation, the crowd pres-
sing foward in all directions to shake hands with him.
He was at last fairly carried into the hall on the shoulders
of the policemen, and the doors of the hall were at once
closed, and guarded by a body of police, who distinctly
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
223
announced that no more persons would be admitted
whether holding tickets or not. This had the effect of
thinning, to some extent, the crowd outside; but some two
thousand or more people still remained, eager to seize on
any chance of admission that might arise. At a quarter-
past seven a tremendous burst of cheers from within the
building announced that Mr. Beecher had made his ap-
pearance on the platform. The cheering was taken up
by the outsiders, and re-echoed again and again. The
bulk of the crowd had now congregated in Burleigh-street,
which was completely filled, and loud cries were raised for
some member of the Emancipation Committee to address
them. The call was not, however, responded to. Sev-
eral impromptu speakers, however, mounted upon the
shoulders of some working-men, addressed the people in
favor of the policy of the North, and their remarks were
received with loud cheering from the large majority of
those present. One or two speakers raised their voices
in sympathy with the South, but these were speedily dis-
lodged from their positions by the crowd, whose Northern
sympathies were thus unmistakably exhibited. Every
burst of cheers that resounded from within the hall was
taken up and as heartily responded to by those outside.
Indeed, they could not have been more enthusiastic had
they been listening to the eloquent lecturer himself. This
scene continued without intermission until the close of
the meeting. When Mr. Beecher and his friends issued
from the building they were again received with loud
224
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
1"
cheers. A call for a cheer for Abraham Lincoln was re-
sponded to in a manner that only an English crowd can
exhibit. A strong body of police were stationed in the
Strand and Burleigh street, but no breach of the peace
occurred calling for their interference. During the even-
ing a large number of placards, denouncing in strong
language the President, the North and its advocates were
posted in the neighborhood of the hall.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
225
LONDON FAREWELL MEETING, OCTO-
BER 23, 1863.
THE first of the series of farewell breakfasts tendered
to Mr. Beecher in the different English cities in which his
addresses on the American Rebellion had been delivered,
was held at Radley's Hotel, London, on the morning of
October 23, there being present at this initial gathering
about three hundred gentlemen. The chair was occupied
by the Hon. and Rev. Baptist W. Noel, who in opening
the meeting said that they were met to express their
sympathy with the country of which their guest was
a citizen, with the Government which he upheld, and
with the great movement of which he was an ardent sup-
porter. Mr. Beecher had been for many years a brave
advocate of the oppressed, a manly patriot, and he had
shown during his stay in England a boldness not easily
daunted, and a good temper that no provocation could
disturb. (Applause.)
Dr. F. TOMKINS, the secretary of the Committee of
Correspondence, read several letters from gentlemen who
were unable to be present, but who wished to express
their sympathy with the objects of the meeting.
15
226 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
The Rev. Dr. WADDINGTON read the following ad-
dress:
To the Christian Church under the pastoral care of the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher :
DEAR BRETHREN—At a very numerous assembly of
ministers and other Christian gentlemen, held this morn-
ing, to bid your beloved pastor an affectionate farewell, it
was desired by an unanimous vote of the meeting that we
should forward to you the subjoined copy of an address
given on the occasion.
We willingly comply with this request, and in doing so
congratulate you most sincerely on the honor God has
put on your faithful minister in his absence from you by
strengthening him to bear the testimony which we are
well assured will produce the best effects in this country.
Your prayers have been answered on his behalf, and not
many days hence we trust you will see him once more in
Plymouth Church, and hear from himself how many mer-
cies have been multiplied to him during his temporary
sojourn in Europe. Continue your prayers for him, and
you will yet see greater things. The following is the
address adopted at the meeting:
"SIR,-I am requested by the Committee of Correspon-
dence on American Affairs, to give a brief but full ex-
pression of the sentiments of fraternal regard we cherish
toward our distinguished guest, the Rev. Henry Ward Bee-
cher, and to the deep sympathy we feel for his country-
men, now suffering the innumerable calamities of civil war.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
227
"In our opinion, it would have been a matter for the
most profound and lasting humiliation, if Mr. Beecher
had been denied fair and fitting opportunity to state, from
observation and experience, the facts so important for all
to understand and to weigh at this momentous crisis, as
well as to give the freest utterance of his own strong con-
victions. Partisans in any sense we are not—we desire
for all parties a candid and impartial hearing; but as
between truth and error, right and wrong, liberty and
slavery, Christ and Belial, we affect no neutrality, the very
thought of it is to our minds perfectly abhorred.
"With the history before us of the great moral conflict
which has continued in various forms from the days of the
Stuarts, we cannot look on with indifference at the Amer-
ican conflict.
"We have welcomed our beloved and honored brother
to our shores-to the land of Milton, of Hampden, of
Sydney, of Cromwell, and of Russell, and we are glad
that he has not found in Old England a mere asylum for
the dumb.
"It will ever be a source of satisfaction to us, that in
London Mr. Beecher met an audience worthy of the occa-
sion, and of the speaker, and that the cordial and un-
bought sympathies of the people awakened in his own
breast sympathies that will thrill the hearts of millions on
both sides of the Atlantic; there can be no doubt but
that the people are in this struggle on the side of the
North.
تم

228 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
"For the past thirty years we have not had a public
meeting so united and so earnest in the manifestations of
the spirit of freedom.
"We tender to Mr. Beecher our warmest acknowledg-
ments for the service he has rendered to the cause of
truth of right and of liberty by his manliness, high moral
courage, admirable temper, clear intelligence, sound argu-
ment, and, above all, by the kindliness of his spirit.
"It is known to us that even those who are opposed to
war under all circumstances, frankly acknowledge that
the tendency of Mr. Beecher's public speeches in Man-
chester, in Glasgow, in Edinburgh, in Liverpool, and pre-
eminently in London, has been to produce in the highest
degree international good-will.
"He has sought not to irritate but to convince. He
has administered rebuke with mingled fidelity and affec-
tion. He has been courteous without servility. He has
met passion with patience, prejudice with reason, and
blind hostility with glowing charity. He has cast the
seed of truth amidst the howling tempest with a clear eye
and a steady hand-the effect will, we doubt not, be seen
after many days.
"We respond most sincerely to the sentiment so elo-
quently enforced by Mr. Beecher, that every human being
on the face of the globe has an interest in the speedy
abolition of slavery in America, and that the establish-
ment of a slave empire would send its withering blight
through all nations.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
229
"Our sympathies are with the four millions of American
sable bondsmen, but our interest in this momentous strug-
gle arises, to a great extent, from the desire we cherish
for the advancement of the sacred cause of freedom in
England.
"The precious heritage left to us by our common
ancestry, we hold in trust for all mankind. We are
placed, therefore, under the most solemn obligation to
stand firmly by all right-hearted men who contend for the
full and practical recognition of the rights of humanity,
irrespective of color, clime, or social condition.
"In this cause we recognize in Mr. Beecher a faithful
witness and a true soldier. From the time that he stood
up as a youth to plead in Indianapolis for the liberation
of those who are in worse than Egyptian bondage, until
he confronted his opponents in Liverpool, he has evinced
the sternest fidelity, the most unfaltering courage, with
the most consummate skill. Our estimate of the services
he has rendered, is enhanced by the remembrance of his
forbearance and moderation at many a critical juncture.
He urged the claim of the negro years ago against the
selfishness of those who would exclude him from the
labor market in New York-and no man has spoken in
more conciliatory terms of the misguided men of the
South, so long as the attempt at reconciliation, without
the sacrifice of principle, seemed to be possible. If the
energy of Mr. Beecher is terrible in the hour of conflict,
230
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
no one knows better than himself that "calmness hath
great advantage."
"In the openness of the rebukes uttered by Mr. Beecher
in this country, we have the guarantee that he will at
home stand to his testimony as to what is sound in the
heart of Old England.
"We part with our friend with sincere regret—for we
find on better mutual acquaintance, we cherish for him
deeper and stronger affection. But we are willing that he
should now go speedily to tell his countrymen, that we
are not indifferent, as some have supposed, to their long
national agony. We pray that by the interposition of the
unseen arm of Omnipotence, the conflict may cease with
the removal of the only cause of alienation and hostility.
We trust the day will soon come when the multitudinous
armies of the North and South can be safely disbanded—
and the march of Christian civilization will be continued
without interruption from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
"For Mr. Beecher we desire every personal, domestic,
and ministerial blessing-a safe and prosperous voyage,
and that when his family and his church sing 'Home
again from a foreign shore,' he will not think dear Old
England quite so foreign as some other lands. We know
that when the telegraph signals his arrival in American
waters thousands will go out to bid him welcome, and in
their joyful salutations they will not regard our testimony
as impertinent when we say, that no man could have
served the cause we love better, and that he has said
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
231
nothing we could wish him to retract. We adopt in con-
clusion his own words on the memorable 20th of October:
'Let there be one alliance-if not in form-yet of
heart, sympathy, and love between parent and child-for
civil liberty-for Christian civilization-for the welfare of
the world which yet groans and travails in pain, but whose
redemption draweth nigh.'
"With sentiments of fraternal sympathy and the most
affectionate Christian regard,
"We are, dear Brethren, faithfully yours,
"In the name and on behalf of the Meeting,
“BAPTIST W. NOEL, M.A., Chairman.
"BENJAMIN SCOTT, F.R.A.S., Chamberlain of
London, Treasurer.
"FREDK. TOMKINS, M.A., D.C.L., Secretary,
"JOHN WADDINGTON, D.D., Mover of the
S
Address.
"Radley's Hotel, London, Oct. 23, 1863."
The address was carried by acclamation, the company
standing.
The Rev. H. WARD BEECHER, whose rising was
the signal for protracted and enthusiastic cheering, replied
to the address as follows: Mr. Chairman and gentlemen,
-I propose this morning to say a good many things on a
good many subjects, and I am influenced in the direction
in which I shall begin by the request of the esteemed
brother who has been pleased to honor me this morning,
and to confer a favor upon me which I shall never forget.
232
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
In conversation with our chairman I made some state-
ments which he said would have weight with you, and I
therefore consented to make them again. That, gentle-
men, is my introduction. (Cheers.) Now I wish it to be
understood as a matter of fact that this Secession is re-
bellion, even judged according to the principles and pro-
fessions of the South hitherto. Let me then go back and
state generally that the South as a whole never has be-
lieved in Secession. On the contrary, it has been con-
demned again and again in all the Southern States but
one, and has been only held by a small section through-
out the country. Until this rebellion, in fact, it has never
been held that the Constitution gives the right to a State
to secede. When the Convention of 1787 came together
to amend the Articles of the Constitution, the first thing
they had to do was to ascertain what their own power
was, and what was the province of their action, and the
question arose whether they could proceed to institute a
National Government. That, I believe, was almost the
first question brought before them. After a good deal of
debate it was determined, almost unanimously, that they
should proceed to make a national Government as distin-
guished from a perpetual Confederation. And what is
remarkable is this, that the proposition for a National as
distinguished from a Confederated Government was made.
by the delegates from Virginia and South Carolina, and
it was opposed by Connecticut and some others-I forget
which of the Northern States. It was debated thor-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
233
oughly, and the Northern proposition that we should con-
tinue a mere Confederation in perpetuity was voted
down by an immense majority, and it was voted in ex-
press terms-though it does not appear so verbally in our
Constitution-that they should proceed to form a National
Government in distinction to a Confederated Government.
After the resolution was passed it was put-like all the
other resolutions-into the hands of what was called the
revising committee, and they, as a kind of verbal com-
promise, introduced the present phraseology, putting the
words "Union" and "United States" in the place of
"Nation." The change was unfortunate, but it was
purely the work of the committee of revision, whereas the
Convention themselves had voted for the word "Nation."
And there never was any change in that until Mr. Cal-
houn's day; but Mr. Calhoun's doctrine was repudiated
in Virginia and Georgia, and, if I do not mistake, in every
one of the South-western States it was in a minority. It
was also repudiated by our courts, and by the national
Government themselves it was judged that nullification
was itself a nullity. Therefore, the South in going into
rebellion has not been following out a doctrine held by it
from the first, but has suddenly reversed its own princi-
ples, gone against the records of its own parties, and
dragged in this alleged right of a State to secede, as a
mere excuse, against its own records and creeds, and
against the spirit of the Constitution of the United States.
I have a right therefore to say to you as ministers of the
234
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
Gospel, as men who believe in the powers that be, and in
the legitimacy of unoppressive governments, that this is
nothing more or less than a rebellion. So much for that.
(Cheers.) And now, my Christian brethren, I feel I have
freedom here. There are some things, you know, that
one can say in a lecture-room that one cannot say in the
pulpit, and there are things which a man can say in a so-
cial festival meeting of this kind that he cannot say on a
platform before a mingled audience, where he is liable to
have a sentiment cut in two by a hoot or a hiss. (Laugh-
ter.) Now I want to introduce some matters here that
would not well suit a public meeting. I wish to acknowl-
edge the many kind providences which have attended me
at every step since I have been in England. I go home,
not for the first time believing in a special Providence,
but to be once more a witness to my people to the
preciousness and truth of the doctrine "God present with
us." In ways unexpected, and as if the very voice of
God had sounded in my ears, I have been frequently
assisted during my sojourn in this country. When I re-
turned from the continent I had not spoken in public dur-
ing the previous twenty weeks. I began my course by
addressing about 6000 people in Manchester. I then
went to Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Liverpool. The recep-
tion I met with at the latter town was very different from
the "Welcomes" of the other centres of commerce.
did not feel the slightest animosity towards the people of
Liverpool. I saw that those who opposed me were merely
I
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
235
partisans. (Cheers.) I knew that the people of Liver-
pool were on the right side. I remember that in the
midst of the wild uproar at the Liverpool meeting I felt
almost as if a door had been thrown open, and a wind
had swept by me. I never prayed more heartily in my
life than I prayed for my opponents in the midst of that
hurricane of interruption. But it so affected my voice.
that a reaction came upon me on Saturday and Sunday,
and I was almost speechless on Monday. I felt all day
on Monday that I was coming to London to speak to a
public audience, but my voice was gone; and I felt as
though about to be made a derision to my enemies-to
stand up before a multitude, and be unable to say a word.
It would have been a mortification to anybody's natural
pride. I asked God to restore me my voice, as a chiid
would ask its father to grant it a favor. But I hoped
that God would grant me His grace, to enable me, if it
were necessary for the cause that I should be put to open
shame, to stand up as a fool before the audience. When
I got up on Tuesday morning, I spoke to myself to try
whether I could speak and my voice was quite clear.
Many might say this was because I slept in a wet jacket,
but I prefer to feel that I had a direct interposition in my
favor. (Cheers.) Last night I was saying to myself, "I
am going among Christian ministers, and I should wish to
represent to them the state of things in New York," when
my servant brought to me a letter from America, from the
superintendent of my Sabbath-school-my dear friend
236 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
Mr. Bell, of Scotland, by-the-by, but he is a good man not-
withstanding. (Laughter.) He said, "It may be that you
will have occasion to refer to the report of the committee
who inquired into the case of the colored people who
suffered from the riots," and so he forwarded their report
to me. A gentleman who has been my opponent for the last
sixteen years-a gentleman who, because he thought I
was opposed to the best interests of America, hated me
with Christian fervor-(laughter)-was appointed on the
committee. The testimony that he gave to the committee
as to that riot was that, with the exception of a few
leaders, it was the work of Irishmen. The papers for
prudential reasons, did not put that forward in New York.
It was no more an American riot than if it had taken
pláce in Cork or Dublin. Therefore, when misinformed
persons in England say this riot is a specimen of what
Americans can do, I say it is a specimen of what can be
done by foreigners, and by ignorance and misrepresenta-
tion. Some of the most eminent names in New York
are on the committee-many of them devoted Democrats
strongly opposed to the Republican movement. They col-
lected upwards of $47,000 for the immediate relief of these
poor blacks. The men, women, and children who were
relieved amounted to some 12,000. A committee was
appointed at once among the lawyers of New York, who
gratuitously offered their services to make out the claims
of all property of the blacks that was destroyed. There
were 2000 claimants who appeared, and their case was
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
237
put into legal train without any expense to themselves.
(Cheers.) The aggregate of their claims in the city of
New York was 145,000 dollars. The committee's report
contains the following account of the martyrdom of a
poor black child during the riots :—
Early in the month of May a boy of some seven sum-
mers presented himself for admission to the Sunday-
school of the Church of the Mediator in this city. From
the first Sunday he was the object of special interest on
the part of both his pastor and teacher. Always punctual
in his attendance, tidy in appearance, and eager to learn,
he soon won the affection of all his fellows in the infant-
class to which he belonged. But though comely, he was
black. The prejudice which his color excited amongst
those of meaner mould he quickly disarmed by his quiet,
respectful, Christian manner. He was a child-Christian.
What more lovely is there on earth! What more highly
esteemed is there in heaven! Little did those who thus
casually met him from Sunday to Sunday imagine the
witness of suffering God had purposed to perfect in him!
At the time of the late riot he was living with an aged
grandmother and widowed mother at No.- East 28th
Street. On Wednesday morning of that fearful week a
crowd of ruffians gathered in the neighborhood deter-
mined on a work of plunder and death. They stole
everything they could carry with them, and, after threat-
ening and affrighting the inmates, set fire to the house.
The colored people, who had the sole occupancy of the
building, were forced in confusion into the midst of the
gathering crowd. And then the child was separated from
his guardians. He was alone among lions. But ordinary
humanity, common decency, had exempted a child so
young anywhere from brutality. But no. No sooner did
they see his unprotected, defenceless condition than a
company of fiendish men surrounded him. They seized.
him in their fury, and beat him with sticks, and bruised
him with heavy cobble-stones. But one, tenfold more the
238
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
servant of Satan than the rest, rushed at the child, and
with the stock of a pistol struck him on the temple and
felled him to the ground. A noble young fireman-God
bless the firemen for their manly deeds-a noble young
fireman by the name of M'Govern instantly came to the
rescue, and single-handed held the crowd at bay. Tak-
ing the wounded and unconscious boy in his arms, he
went to the house of an American citizen close by and
asked to have him received. But on her knees the
woman begged him not to leave the dying sufferer with
her, "lest the mob should tear her to pieces." It was a
suffering Saviour in the person of His humblest child.
Naked and wounded, and a stranger, they took him not
in. But a kind-hearted German woman made him a
sharer of her poverty. With more than a mother's care
did she nurse the forsaken one. A physician was called
and both night and day she faithfully watched over the
bed of him outcast from his brethren. Our hearts bless
her for her goodness to our child. By name she is as yet.
unknown, but by her deeds well known and well beloved.
His distracted mother found her cherished boy in these
kind hands. And when she saw him, in the earnest sim-
plicity of her spirit she kneeled in prayer to thank God
for the fulfilment of His promise. "God hath taken him
up." The lad lingered until Thursday evening, when the
Saviour released him from his sufferings; and "the child
was caught up to God and the throne." This is the pas-
tor's memorial to little Joseph Reed, a martyr by the
brutality and inhumanity of men to the cause of law, and
order, and right. A tablet to his memory shall be placed
on the walls of the Sunday-school room to which he loved
to come. Those who were kind to him we count as bene-
factors to us. May the God of all grace richly reward
them with the blessings of His love. Buried on earth
without prayer, but with praises welcomed in Heaven,
the chosen loved child of the family "Joseph is not."
The colored people sent in their thanks to the com-
mittee. There are blacks who can write as beautiful
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
239
English as the white people of America, and amongst
the blacks there are men as high-minded as any to be
found among white men. Some people have said that
blacks are the connecting link between monkeys and
white men. Well, if monkeys have endowments such as
I have seen in black men, all I can say is, that it is time
to begin preaching the Gospel to monkeys. (Laughter.)
Take as an example of their intelligence the following
address:
Gentlemen,-We have learned that you have decided
this day to bring to a close the general distribution
of the funds so liberally contributed by the mer-
chants of New York and others for the relief of the
colored sufferers of the late riots, which have recently
disgraced our city. We cannot in justice to our feelings
permit your benevolent labors to terminate, even partially,
without offering some expression of our sincere gratitude.
to the Universal Father for inspiring your hearts with
that spirit of kindness of which we have been the recip-
ients during the severe trials and persecutions through
which we have passed. When in the pursuit of our
peaceful and humble occupations we had fallen among
thieves, who stripped us of our raiment and had wounded
us, leaving many of us half dead, you had compassion on
us. You bound up our wounds, and poured in the oil
and wine of Christian kindness, and took care of us.
You hastened to express your sympathy for those whose
fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers had been tortured
and murdered. You also comforted the aching hearts of
our widowed sisters, and soothed the sorrows of orphan
children. We were hungry and you fed us.
We were
thirsty and you gave us drink. We were made as strang-
ers in our own homes and you kindly took us in. We
were naked and you clothed us. We were sick and you
visited us. We were in prison and you came unto us.
240
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES -
Gentlemen, this generation of our people will not, can-
not forget the dreadful scenes to which we allude, nor
will they forget the noble and spontaneous exhibition of
charity which they excited. The former will be referred
to as one of the dark chapters of our history in the Em-
pire State, and the latter will be remembered as a bright
and glorious page in the records of the past. In the light
of public opinion we feel ourselves to be among the least
in this our native land, and we therefore earnestly pray
that in the last great day the King may say to you and to
all who have befriended us, "Inasmuch as you have done
it to one of the least of these my brethren you have done
it unto me; come ye, blessed of my father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world." But as great as have been the benefits that we
have received from your friendly and unlooked-for charity,
they yet form but the smaller portion of the ground of
our gratitude and pleasure. We have learned by your
treatment of us in these days of our mental and
physical affliction that you cherished for us a kindly
and humane feeling of which we have no knowedge.
You did not hesitate to come forward to our
relief amid the threatened destruction of your own
lives and property. You obeyed the noblest dictates of
the human heart, and by your generous moral courage
you rolled back the tide of violence that had well-nigh
swept us away. This ever memorable and magnanimous
exhibition of heroism has had the effect to enlarge in our
bosoms the sentiment of undying regard and esteem for
you and yours. In time of war or peace, in prosperity or
in adversity, you and our great State and our beloved
country may count us among your faithful friends, and the
proffer of our labors and our lives shall be our pleasure
and our pride. If in your temporary labors of Christian
philanthropy, you have been induced to look forward to
our future destiny in this our native land, and to ask what
is the best thing we can do for the colored people-this
is our answer. Protect us in our endeavors to obtain an
honest living.
Suffer no one to hinder us in any depart-
J
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
241
ment of well-directed industry, give us a fair and open
field, and let us work out our own destiny, and we ask no
more. We cannot conclude without expressing our grati-
fication at the manner in which the arduous and perplex-
ing duties of your office have been conducted; we shall
never forget the Christian and gentlemanly bearing of
your esteemed secretary, Mr. Vincent Colyer, who on all
occasions impressed even the humblest with the belief
that he knew and felt he was dealing with a crushed and
heart-broken people. We also acknowledge the uniform
kindness and courtesy that has characterized the conduct
of all the gentlemen in the office in the discharge of their
duties. We desire likewise to acknowledge the valuable
services contributed by the gentlemen of the legal profes-
sion, who have daily been in attendance at the office to
make out the claims of the sufferers free of charge. In
the name of the people we return thanks to all. In con-
clusion, permit us to assure you that we will never cease
to pray to God for your prosperity, and that of every
donor to the Relief Fund. Also for the permanent peace
of our country, based upon liberty, and the enjoyment of
man's inalienable rights, for the preservation of the
American Union, and for the reign of that righteousness
in the hearts of the people that saves from reproach and
exalteth the nation.
Let this document be an answer to the harsh things that
some people have said of the colored people in New
York. I regard my reception of this document last night
as Providential, because it reached me just in time to
read to this meeting. I should have wished, had the
time permitted, to make a statement respecting what is
doing for colored people in South Carolina, and in and
about Norfolk. I have a son in the army, who has had
an opportunity of seeing something in that respect. In
16
242 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
schools, attended by thousands of colored people, adult
and young, education is given without fee or reward by
highly educated and pious men and women. My son
has narrated to me many beautiful testimonies of the piety
of the old colored people who attend these schools, and
the great interest they take in the education of the young
colored people. One old colored saint with white hair
made some remarks to him which struck me very much.
He said, "We shall never get any good by this education,
massa; we expect to suffer as long as we live; but our
children will get the benefit of this education." Now,
think of this old saint having passed his life in slavery,
and being in a position in which, had his master lived, he
would have had a refuge for his old age. Think of him
now thrown out in his old age, in a state of liberty, it is
true, but with powers ill qualified to use it, saying, “We
have been praying for this all our lives, and now our
children are going to get it." (Cheers.) I cannot go
into details respecting the state of the freedmen along
the valley of the Mississippi; but I may say this compre-
hensively, that the churches of the North are taking up
their burden and awakening to their duty. They under-
stand what is required of them, and are determined not.
to let the men come out of slavery and feel that they are
worse off than when they were in it. I don't pretend to
say that our people have not made mistakes and blun-
ders; but, judging by the ordinary manner in which per-
sons in difficult circumstances conduct themselves, I do
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
243
x4
say that the Christian churches in America of all denomi-
nations are stirred up by the spirit of their Master to do
their duty to the colored men of the North and South. I
now proceed to another topic that is very pleasant to me.
I want you to see how American Christians and ministers
have felt during the whole of this war. I have here an
immense amount of matter-(spreading out a number of
printed sheets and cuttings from newspapers on the ta-
ble)—and if you don't believe me, I will read it all to you.
(Laughter.) I shall first read extracts from the reports
of various ecclesiastical bodies in America in 1861, the
first year of the war. I have not packed or garbled them
—indeed, they have not been put together by me, but by
a friend in Manchester. I may read perhaps those which
are least to the point; but I want you to see what has
been the feeling of our Christian churches. I also want
to show you another thing. Many of you are opposed to
Now I must say that for any Englishman to be op-
posed on principle to war is a greater mark of sincerity
and frankness than anything I know of. (Laughter.)
You Englishmen are always fighting. Why, you have two
wars on hand now, and I hardly know the time when you
have not had one. The testimony therefore of those of
you who are opposed to war is worthy of double atten-
tion. ("Hear," and laughter.) But really you talk to us
in America about war as though it were about as pleasant
to us as a campaign by the sea-side; as though it were
nothing to us to have our sons killed, or brought home
war.
244
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
wounded or maimed, or to have a widow coming home to
her father's house with her helpless children.
Some peo-
ple seem to think that the North is in such a savage fury,
that nothing tickles them more than to hear of the
slaughter of 3000 or 4000 men. Oh, gentlemen, war is
more terrible by far than anything which comes home to
you.
You who send your armies.to China to fight, or to
the Continent, do not see what war is. Let war ravage
your own island,-let it come upon London, and pene-
trate into your own homes, while the wounded and maimed
are lying around you on every side, or brought into your
houses, then you will realize what war is.
Do you sup-
pose, brethren, that we love the war for itself? Do you
suppose that anything but the very strongest principle
could lead us to submit to it? I do not wish you to ac-
cept these statements on my testimony, but will read to
you a few extracts which will show you how these matters.
were talked about in 1861. The following is from the re-
port adopted by Ripley Presbytery :-
MA
More than two hundred years have passed away since
the buying and selling of human beings as property com-
menced in this country, and the slave trade was allowed
to be continued twenty years after the formation of the
National Constitution. What a system of murder!
What multitudes have been murdered in procuring slaves
in Africa! How vast the number that died in the pas-
sage to this country! How much death has been occa-
sioned by change of climate, by excessive labor, by
starvation, and by direct violence and cruel scourging!
Have not millions of human beings suffered death in the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
245
most horrible forms, under the operation of the system of
slavery in this country during the last 200 years? Does
not the blood of millions lie upon this nation?
The report goes on to make an attack on the Fugitive
Slave Law, and to enunciate the OBLIGATION of the Gov-
ernment TO PROTECT the four millions or more of colored
people, and to SECURE THEIR RIGHTS in accordance with
the spirit of the Constitution. It then says:—
We now enter our solemn protest against all compro-
mises with the monstrous system of oppression existing in the
slave-holding States, and the enforcement of the barbarous
Fugitive Slave Law, and the giving of aid in any form to
the system of slavery.
The following is from the report of the Maine Conference
in May, 1861 (after Mr. Lincoln's call for armed sup-
port) :-
Resolved, that we will not cease to pray that Divine
wisdom may guide our rulers-that the Lord God of Sab-
baoth may give success to our arms and establish the
right-that our sons and brothers who have so nobly re-
sponded to the call of their country in this hour of peril,
may be under His peculiar care-that we will supplicate
God to interpose, to overrule, that these trying events
may speedily result in permanent peace-the liberation of
the enslaved, and the "opening of the prison to them that
are bound."
M
I turn now to the session of the General Association held
in Indianapolis, my old home. I will give only one reso-
lution :-
Resolved, That as Christian men, having a living faith.
in the superintending providence of Almighty God, we
246 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
recommend the churches to be more instant in prayer for
the maintenance of the Government, the integrity of the
Union, the perpetuity of those principles of liberty upon
which it is founded, not forgetting those in bonds as
bound with them, and especially for the preservation and
spiritual welfare of those who have volunteered in defence
of their country.
Now I turn to the General Association of Congregational
churches of Illinois:-
Resolved,―That as the war is but the ripe and bitter
fruit of slavery, we trust the American people will demand
that it shall result in relieving our country entirely and
forever of that sin and curse, that the future of our na-
tion may never again be darkened by a similar night of
treason.
Then follows a resolution urging the churches to attend
to the spiritual wants of the army. Here is a resolution
from the Welsh Congregational churches:-
Resolved,-That we hope and pray that God in His
wise and beneficent providence may overrule the present
disturbances in our country to hasten the overthrow of
slavery, which disgraces our land and threatens the exist-
ence of our Government.
One from Pennsylvania :-
Resolved, That we regard the war in which our coun-
try is now engaged as a conflict between freedom and
slavery, and the advocates of slavery have tendered the
issue, and it is the duty of the friends of liberty both in
the Church and in the State, to accept the issue directly,
and give it the prominence before God and the world
that rightfully belongs to it.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
247
These resolutions, you will mark, were all passed before
the proclamation of emancipation. The following is from
the General Association of Congregational churches in
New York:-
Whereas, the immediate occasion of this rebellion and its
fomenting spirit was the determination of its leaders to se-
cure and perpetuate the system of slavery; and, whereas,
there can be no guarantee of peace and prosperity. in
the Union while slavery exists, therefore, Resolved,
That we rejoice in every act and declaration of the Gov-
ernment that brings freedom to any of the enslaved, and
earnestly hope for some definite and reliable measure for
the abolition of slavery as the conclusion of this great con-
flict for the support of the Government and the Union.
Whereas in His good providence God has opened the way
for the emancipation of the enslaved in this land, either
by the instructions of the Government to military com-
manders to enfranchise all slaves within their several dis-
tricts, or by general proclamation of the President, or by
Act of Congress under the state of war-therefore,—Re-
solved, That it is our duty as Christian patriots in all
proper ways to urge this measure upon the attention of
the Government, and to pray for its consummation, lest
the condemnation of those who knew their duty to the
poor and oppressed, and did it not, should be visited upon
the nation.
I read that to show you that while, on the one hand, they
were conscious of their obligations to the Government
and nation, they had also their convictions of humanity
towards the oppressed. In 1862 these deliverances be-
came stronger and clearer throughout the length and
breadth of the land. Then we come to 1863, and first I
will refer to the report of the Dutch Reformed Church-
248
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
the most immovable church in the world. They come
out, however, in a most unmistakable manner. The
Methodist Church has covered itself with perpetual honor
-thanks be to God for their fidelity. Page after page of
their reports is made up of resolutions on the subject full
of clear instructions as to Christian duty. Here is the
testimony of the American Baptist Missionary Union :-
Resolved, That the developments of the year since
elapsed, in connection with this attempt to destroy the
best government on earth, have tended only to deepen
our conviction of the truth of the sentiments which we
then expressed, and which we now and here solemnly
reiterate and re-affirm.
M
Resolved,-That the authors, aiders, and abettors, of this
slave-holder's rebellion, in their desperate efforts to nation-
alize the institution of slavery, and to extend its despotic
sway throughout the land, have themselves inflicted on
that institution a series of most terrible and fatal and
suicidal blows, from which, we believe, it can never re-
cover, and they have themselves thus fixed its destiny
and hastened its doom, and that, for thus overruling
what appeared at first to be a terrible national calamity,
to the production of results so unexpected and glorious,
our gratitude and adoration are due to that wonder-work
ing God, who still "maketh the wrath of man to praise
him, while the remainder of that wrath he restrains."-
Psalm lxxvi., 10.
And there is much more to the same purpose. Then I
have one from Vermont and one from Maine, which is
scarcely cold yet. It is a most honorable utterance,
drawn up I think by Dr. Dwight, of Portland, a descend-
ant of the honored and well-known Dr. Dwight. But I
will not read all these documents, which are, however,
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
249
quite at your service, if you wish to inspect them. I have
not counted them, but it seems to me that there are two
hundred of them, and if you read them all you would say
there were a thousand. (Laughter and cheers.) I seek
by this not so much to make an argument as, what is
better a great deal, to produce in you the moral convic-
tion that the American churches, under great difficulties,
having been long involved in a trying crisis, have come to
the conclusion, through their representatives, that this
rebellion ought to be crushed, and that slavery should
be destroyed with the rebellion. I have not seen Dr.
Massie, but I know that now he has been to America,
and seen there things with his own eyes, he is prepared to
come to the same conclusion. I know that he is an
honest man, and I am sure that an honest man could
come to no other. And now it is not a question with us
whether this war should stop. We are not going to stop
this war whatever you do. You have not-let me say—
stood up for us so strongly for the last two or three years
that you can influence us now to stop the war. ("Hear,"
and laughter.) I don't pretend to say that, considering
your own difficulties, you have not taken the right path.
I see a great many things in your internal affairs here in
England that I was not aware of before. We thought
that you were all well-informed on this question, and that
you sat in your ease and arrogance-allow me to say
what I would say in the States-and that having thus
settled your principles you refused to make an applica-
250
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
tion of them to the States which needed them more than
any other country in the world. Now, I find that you
are far from well-informed, and it is a great comfort to
me to know that your conduct has not all arisen from de-
pravity. I shall go back and say: "You must not think
that England simply refused to bear witness to her own
principles. She is yet in the battle herself about this
question, not as to slavery, but as to her own institutions,
and if she had borne witness, as some of her people
would have done, it would have created a party move-
ment." I shall not discuss whether there was not higher
ground to take than this, and whether England should
not have risen in the providence of God and occupied it,
but you are men, and we are men, and we are glad to
find a reason for not being angry with you. This has
been our feeling in the past and it has been unlike a
common national feeling. Generally speaking, the uned-
ucated and passionate men have their prejudices and
bitternesses, while the intelligent classes have their
better opinions and judgments. But it has been the re-
verse with us. Those that have felt the most grief and
indignation with England have been just the educated
and Christian public, who have felt, with scarcely an ex-
ception, that England has been selfishly cold and cruel.
I don't intend to say whether that has been your state or
not. I am not here to make a case against you.
Christian amongst Christians. I am for doing what will
unite us, if we have not been united before, and what
I am a
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
251
will keep our countries together in Christian fellowship.
But somebody ought to tell you this—a great many would
think it, and would not have grace to say it plainly to
you. (Hear.) But God has strengthened me to speak
my mind to you, dear Christian brethren, and to tell you,
that, so far as your influence has gone hitherto, it has all
been against liberty and for slavery. I do not mean that
that is what you meant, but I do say that was the effect
of your conduct in America. From one cause or ancther,
unfortunately, the moral influence of Christians in Eng-
land, with individual exceptions which I live to remember,
has been on the side of slavery and against those who
were struggling to put it down. Now I know that in
such an hour as this, and in the presence of Christ, who
is in our midst, you will receive such a statement from
me in the same spirit as I make it. (Cheers.) I know
that you will give this subject your consideration,—that
you will revise your opinions, if needs be, and not allow
yourselves to be influenced by a commercial bias, nor by
unscrupulous papers. I wish you to understand how
much harm has been done on our side, too, by "the cop-
persmith." I beg of you to examine this question of
duty to God's people-of duty to God. Yea, I will hum-
ble myself for Christ's sake, and for the fellowship of the
body of Christ, and beg of you for your sakes to examine
this fairly. We wish not to be separated from the Eng-
lish people. We want to see the old links rubbed
brighter. (Cheers.) Let me tell you, however, we cannot
252
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
stop this war-not if you were to line our shores with
fleets, which I know you will not do; not if you were to
fill Canada with your armies, which I know you will not;
not if you remain still indifferent or adverse. That would
make no difference; but is there not to be unity between.
the Christians of England and America? You say that
we have retorted upon you, and said bitter things. Do
you recollect that wonderful passage in Scott's "Anti-
quary," where a certain hero had lost his son and was
next morning found by the Antiquary engaged in a work
on which, having met with insuperable difficulties, he
vented his grief and rage, although it, of course, was in
no respect to blame? ("Hear," and laughter.) How
natural a thing it is to vent our impatience and grief
upon our own property or upon our own friend. And
when we had seen our children slaughtered-oh! what
noble children have fallen in this war-what tears have
fallen from us day and night,-and when we found treach-
ery in the Government and on every side, we did hope to
have received some sympathy; but instead of that, the
wind that came from England was as cold as Greenland;
and if, when we were disappointed, we said bitter things
of England, because we loved her and expected her to
support freedom, may God forgive us. (Cheers.) You
will ask me what can be done. Well, in the first place,
let me say, dear Christian brethren, that I thank you
very much for the kind things you have said and done
for me.
But I certainly would feel it to be a thousand
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
253
times better, if every Christian minister and Christian
brother would consent, as the result of my importunity,
to open this matter on his knees before God. I have
great faith in the guiding spirit of God. I do not be-
lieve he will allow his dear people of England to go
wrong on this question. Well, next I ask you to remem-
ber us in your prayers. I do not mean in those circuitous
ubiquities that take in everybody and everything. But I
ask you to pray for the North as for those that you be-
lieve to be doing a great work for God. Pray for the
North as you would have prayed for the Covenanters, for
the old Nonconformists, for the old Puritans, for Chris-
tians in any age whose duty it became to resist unright-
eousness, corruption, and wrong. Pray for them as for
men in that dark trouble in which God frequently leaves.
His people before the daylight comes and the glory of vic-
tory is showered down upon them. But when the trum-
pet sounds for peace, and what are left of us are gathered
together, and there are to be congratulations, and, as it
were, divisions of God's spoils, I do not want that you
should be left out. I desire that whatever may have
been the misinformation regarding this conflict 3000
miles off, for the future there may be no possible mistake
—that there will be eye to eye, heart to heart, and hand
to hand. We of the North represent your civilization.
In the South, now seeking to become independent, there
is not a point of sympathy that can attach her to England.
If the North prevail in this conflict, and the Union be
254
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
restored, there is not one single point of religion and civ-
ilization in the whole cyclopædia of English attainments,
honorable, noteworthy, and world-renowned, which would
not find something corresponding thereto among us.
This train of remark might be indefinitely continued, but
it is unnecessary. I shall go home certainly with a much
lighter heart than if I had not spoken to England, and
had not through my labor here-too brief for my own
comfort-been permitted to see so much of the interior
and better feeling of so many Christians in England.
Before I sit down let me say that I would name all those
honorable names-John Stuart Mill, Professors Cairnes,
Goldwin Smith and Newman, Baptist Noel, Newman
Hall, and other well-known and honored names-I would
name them all, but that there are so many whom I would
wish to thank, whose names I either do not know or have
forgotten, that if I were to try and enumerate those who
have done us good and Christian service, I should do in-
justice to many. And for the same reason I will not
mention the papers and magazines that have been towers
of strength to us. Yet we will remember them; and
the day will arrive, I trust, when those who have labored
for us in adversity will come to our shores, and we will
treat them so well that you never shall see them back
again. (Loud and prolonged applause.)
The Rev. C. STOVEL said he felt that Mr. Beecher
and his friends in the United States had just grounds for
complaint respecting the coldness of the sympathy which
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
255
they had received from this country. He was quite cer-
tain, however, that since 1833 there had been a very de-
cided feeling in England in reference to the advance-
ment of emancipation in America. There was ample
proof that the moral influence of the British churches
upon American Christians, in consequence of their re-
peated addresses on the subject of slavery, had been by
no means small. There was no lesson arising out of
this struggle so important as that which taught the moral
power of the followers of Christ over the affairs of the
earth. The important question to be studied was how
the moral power of England and America could be best
united, and he would suggest to Mr. Beecher the possi-
bility of from time to time communicating to church or-
ganizations in England the best mode of making their
words and actions take effect in the United States. A
confiding and free communication between the churches
in England of all classes and of America through some
distinct organization would, he was sure, lead to results.
of great importance. If the Christian Church would but
act with all its energies concentrated on one point it
would be strong enough to carry any great moral question.
He thanked Mr. Beecher from the bottom of his heart
for his labors in the cause of freedom.
Mr. BEECHER said that a question in writing had
been handed up to him from a highly esteemed minister
to this effect-" What is to be the end of this-is it to be
a war of extermination?' Now (said Mr. Beecher), I
>>
256 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
am glad of this question. So long as there is a fraction
of hope on the part of the South that the core cannot be
reached, it will form a centre of cohesion; but as soon
as the conviction enters their mind that slavery must
come to an end, they will dissolve in that very hour.
We have to go on fighting until this conviction is pro-
duced. You talk of extermination! Well, the South
has lost 250,000 out of a population of 5,000,000 of white
men. You might as well say that a father is killing his
son when he strikes him one or two blows as a punish-
ment. The North is not trying to carry moral convic-
tion by force, but it is trying to uphold the Government
and to put down a wild attempt to destroy it. We are
trying by legitimate warfare to produce an impression
that the struggle on behalf of slavery is hopeless; and
let me say, that when men here cry "Stop the war,"
when such cry reaches America, it means "Let the
South have its own way." Another written question,
the purport of which was whether the tariff was no
ground of Secession, was handed to Mr. Beecher, who
replied " Certainly not; if any man in America were to
say that the tariff had anything to do with this Secession
we should put him in a lunatic asylum." (Cheers and
laughter.)
Mr. WASHINGTON WILKS said that he had
listened with great emotion to the speech they had heard
from their honored guest. He wished Mr. Beecher to
understand how deeply those who were present felt the
K
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
257
rebuke he had administered to this country for her cold-
ness in the hour of America's trial, and how bitter it was
to them to have it supposed that they were so indifferent
as they had been represented. He had had opportunities.
of hearing and reading as much about English feeling in
reference to the American question as most men, and he
declared his solemn conviction that with all England's
faults and shortcomings it was not true that as a nation
she had been indifferent. (Cheers.) He knew well that
many men had been misinformed and had gone wrong on
the subject. He knew well that many churches, even
churches that were descended from the Puritans, had gone
wrong from the same cause, and that many pastors, who
would have been faithful, had had their mouths stopped
by rich men. But he had turned for consolation from
the churches to the people, and had found it. (Loud
applause.) He complained also that the American news-
papers had been quick at taking hold of information
calculated to produce bitter feelings, and had given
very little heed to those who were the just exponents of
English sentiment. The leaders of the English people--
our Cobdens, Brights, and all the chiefs in every liberal
movement-were all on the side of the North and of free-
dom. He could not recall the name of one person with
any pretensions to be called a leader of the people who
was on the other side. (A Voice: "Brougham.") Lord
Brougham had ceased for twenty years to be a public
leader. (Loud cheers.) When the negroes in the West
17
258 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
Indies were emancipated Brougham's glory culminated;
and happy would it have been for him if he had known
then how to gather his garments of greatness about him,
and sink down into dignified repose. Since when, in
1848, he raised his voice against the struggling liberties.
in Europe, he had been no mouthpeice of liberal princi-
ples, but simply the echo of his old renown.
The na-
tion had spoken out strongly in public meetings, not sim-
ply in the last month or two, but through the whole
course of the struggle; and he was sorry that the New
York papers, instead of giving prominence to such meet-
ings, had preferred to reprint little paltry expressions of
opinion against America, which were not entitled to a
grain of weight. He wished Mr. Beecher to understand
that the feeling expressed towards him in this country
was not only genuine, but permanent. He had called
forth, but not created it. (Loud cheers.) He would
have found it if he had come a year ago. He would have
found it if he had come in the stormy days of the Trent
business; for even then the heart of Old England beat
soundly for peace, friendship, and freedom. He would
say further, that had the question of slavery nothing to do
with this contest--if it had been possible for civil war to
have broken out in America on any other issue, the Eng-
lish people would have been found on the side of the
American Union, as a great embodiment of free insti-
tutions, and a great instrument of human progress. Mr.
Beecher would go back, he hoped, to America, all the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
259
E
happier for knowing that while he had greatly aided them
in their great work of calling forth an expression of public
opinion, and bringing it to bear upon the Government
and the press, he had also good reason to know that Eng-
land had always been right, and would continue to be
right, on the great question at issue in America. He
would only add that he rejoiced at the opportunity thus
afforded to Mr. Beecher of addressing so large a number
of representative Christian men. He deplored above all
things the partial defection of Nonconformist ministers in
this matter, for if they had been but as faithful as the
poor weavers of Lancashire, no statesman, no journalist
would have dared to slander England by saying that she
was not faithful to America in her hour of conflict and
agony. (Loud applause.)
Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON moved the following res-
olution :-
"That this meeting of Christian ministers and
Christian laymen, assembled to testify their respect, ad-
miration, and esteem for the character and anti-slavery
labor of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, having listened
with the deepest interest to his important statements, and
wise and weighty counsel, desire to tender to him their
warmest thanks for the faithfulness, affection, and fervor
with which he has addressed them. They would testify
to the importance and timeliness of his recent public
speeches, and while regretting that he cannot remain to
render additional service to the cause of truth and free-
dom in this country, would wish him God-speed on his re-
260 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
turn to his native land, and would assure him that they in
future will cherish an affectionate remembrance of his
short but truly friendly and most useful visit." He felt
peculiar pleasure in submitting that resolution. He had
been permitted on three occasions to listen to their guest,
and he had each time learned something with regard to
the merits of the question which he did not know before.
He was, perhaps more than any living Englishman, an
American; and though he had had, in years past, to say
some faithful things there, and had suffered personally in
consequence, when the hour of her trial came he felt to-
wards her only as a faithful friend. He regretted that
those whose duty it was to lead public opinion in this
country did not in all respects do their duty, but he could
confirm the statements of his friend Mr. Wilks, that every
Englishman who really understood America had given a
sound and true utterance upon this great question. The
only exception was Lord Brougham, who had indeed blot-
ted his fair escutcheon by the inexplicable course which
he had taken on the subject. There was a goodly array
of public men who had spoken out on the side of the
North, and if some to whom they were accustomed to
look as leaders had not done so, they had at least had the
discretion to keep silent. He had attended hundreds of
public meetings on this question, and had invariably car-
ried the people with him. With regard to once slave-
trading Liverpool, it must be remembered that it had
strong commercial interests which tended to identify it
ไ
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
261
with the Southern side, but he still believed that at heart
the feeling of the people even there was in favor of the
North. With regard to America, it must gladden the
hearts of all to notice the wonderful change that had
come over the country on the slavery question during the
last three years.
For one thing especially he begged to
thank Mr. Beecher-that whether in his own pulpit or on
an English platform, he had always generously, nobly,
justly labored in the field so bravely occupied by his
father before him, bearing his testimony on behalf of
truth and liberty. (Loud applause.)
The Rev. J.GRAHAM seconded the motion, which
was carried by acclamation, the company standing.
Mr. BEECHER begged to specially acknowledge the
address to him through his church at Brooklyn. That
church had sent him abroad, and had generously supplied
his pulpit in his absence; and he had no doubt they
would appreciate that mark of courtesy and kindly feel-
ing. (Cheers.)
The CHAIRMAN then offered prayer, and the pro-
ceedings were brought to a close.
262 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
MANCHESTER FAREWELL MEETING,
OCTOBER 24, 1863.
ON invitation of the Union and Emancipation Society,
a large number of the adherents of the Union Cause,
gathered together on the above named date to entertain
Mr. Beecher at a public breakfast, and to bid him fare-
well.
The Chair was occupied by Mr. Geo. L. Ashworth,
Mayor of Rochdale, and among the many present were
noticed Professor Newman, Rev. Dr. Joseph Parker,
Messrs. Francis Taylor, J. H. Estcourt, Samuel Watts,
Jun., and John Patterson of Liverpool.
A large number of letters were read from those finding
themselves unable to attend, and extracts from some of
these letters are appended:
THE PRESIDENT, T. B. POTTER, ESQ.
I deeply regret my inability to be present at the Break-
fast. Pray present my kind regard to Mr. Beecher, and
tell him how sorry I am not to have met him again.
JOHN BRIGHT, ESQ., M.P., BIRMINGHAM.
I cannot be in Manchester on Saturday next, and
therefore cannot have the pleasure of meeting Mr.
Beecher.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
263
I am sorry for this, but you will have a good meeting,
I do not doubt, and Mr. Beecher will warm the zeal and
strengthen the faith of those who are on the right side in
this great American conflict.
W. E. FORSTER, M.P., BRadford.
I am sorry that I am so engaged on Saturday next that
it will be quite impossible for me to accept your invitation
to meet Mr. Beecher at breakfast that morning.
Will you be good enough to express to him my regret
that I am unable to take leave of him, and to wish him
well in his voyage and in his earnest struggles for his
country and for liberty.
PROFESSOR ALFRED NEWTH, LANCASHIRE INDEPENDENT
COLLEGE.
I am much obliged to you for the invitation to the
breakfast to the Rev. H. W. Beecher, but regret that my
engagements will not allow me to be present. I regret
this the more as I was away when he unexpectedly hon-
ored the college with a visit.
PROFESSOR HENRY D. ROGERS, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY.
It stirs my heart with emotions of profound joy and
gratitude to see the awakened earnestness of the more
enlightened true men of England in supporting the North
in its struggle to maintain the Union and to resist all rec-
ognition of the slave-holding confederacy.
CHARLES ROBERTSON, ESQ., LIVERPOOL.
I hope that Mr. Beecher's visit among us, as well as
his frank and noble addresses, will form an additional
link in the chain that ought to bind Englishmen and
Americans, and that the manner of his reception, not-
withstanding the hostile opposition awakened in some
264
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
quarters (and I refer especially to this town), has satisfied
him that the sympathies and good wishes of a large and,
I trust, a growing portion of the English people are en-
listed on the side of the Federal Government, identifying
it, as they do, with the establishment of free institutions,
free speech, and free manhood.
The CHAIRMAN said they were met together not so
much to make speeches as to show by their presence
their sympathy for the distinguished gentleman who had
honored them with his company. They were met to-
gether to give the lie to that which had for some time
been current in the country, namely, that the people of
England had no sympathy with the principles and cause
which their guest had so long and so manfully espoused,
and which they were now met to show they were pre-
pared to defend and maintain. He deemed it a mat-
ter of the deepest humiliation that there was in this
country even a small section of our countrymen who
were prepared publicly to avow the slightest amount.
of sympathy with that atrocious and wicked system of
slavery; and whatever faults we might have to find with
the Government of this country-and I am one who thinks
it is far from perfection-still on the question of main-
taining a strict neutrality with America, on the whole it
deserved our warmest support and sympathy. It would
have been impossible for Mr. Beecher to have selected
a time more appropriate and opportune for visiting this
country than the present juncture, in order to render,
throughout the length and breadth of the land, an oppor
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
265
PORN
tunity to Englishmen—at least a vast majority of them--
of expressing their honest sympathy with the cause of
the North. The speeches which Mr. Beecher had de-
livered in the more important cities of this great country.
had gone a long way towards enlightening us on many
points on which great ignorance prevailed. These
speeches had dispelled much that had deceived and misled
us, and he (the mayor) believed, in the language of one of
the letters just read, that there would be a rapidly in-
creasing number of people in England who would rally
round the standard of liberty, and show to the northern
portion of the States that they have our sympathies, and
that slavery to-day was with us just what it had been in
times past, a thing we viewed with the utmost abhorrence.
We could not look upon that struggle now going on in
America with feelings other than those of the strongest
sorrow. We could not contemplate the vast sacrifices of
life and blood without feeling the deepest commiseration.
But if, in this mighty and gigantic struggle, the result was
what he hoped and believed it would be-the entire and
permanent abolition of slavery, then terrible and vast as
the sacrifices had been, that result would compensate for
all. Let there be no mistake on this subject.
Let us
render all the moral support we can to the Federal Gov-
ernment, and show them by our prayers, sympathies, and
kindly expressions of affection that we feel for them in
their present fearful conflict, and let us uphold the hands.
266 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
of our Government in maintaining a strict and impartial
neutrality. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. FRANCIS TAYLOR said he had been requested
to move a resolution which was a speeth in itself, and
which would render it quite unnecessary that he should
detain them with any lengthened remarks. The resolu-
tion was "That we tender our thanks to the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, for the able, eloquent, and
manly addresses he has delivered to thousands of our
fellow-countrymen, on the present national crisis in the
United States of America; and express our belief that
the majority of the intelligent men in this kingdom un-
mistakably sympathize with the friends of freedom in
America, and approve of every effort made to maintain
free and constitutional government.
We further express
our desire that he may be spared to reach his native
land in health and strength; and we assure him he will
take with him the friendship of many on this side the
Atlantic, who will honor his name and remember him
with affection." (Cheers.)
This resolution certainly required no words of his
to recommend it to the hearty approval of the com-
pany, and he was equally sure that Mr. Beecher, the
gentleman referred to in the resolution, needed no
compliment either from the mover of the reso-
lution or from any other person. Certainly, had
not Mr. Beecher established for himself a reputation
which would endure for all time, before he visited our
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
267
shores, the addresses he had delivered to crowded
audiences since his arrival would have secured for him
our most hearty approval, and have entitled him to every
expression which the resolution contained. There was
one point in the resolution to which for a moment he
(Mr. Taylor) wished to refer. It stated that "the major-
ity of the intelligent people of this country unmistakably
sympathized with the friends of freedom in America, and
approved of every effort made to maintain free and con-
stitutional government." Since Mr. Beecher addressed
the audience in our Free-trade Hall, and in various other
places in the kingdom, comments had been made on these
meetings by various newspapers throughout the country.
It was asserted by the Times, and by its humble follower
in Manchester-(laughter)—that notwithstanding all the
enthusiasm expressed at these meetings, they really
meant nothing at all; that Mr. Beecher would make a
great mistake if he assumed that in consequence of large
attendances at these meetings, public' opinion in this
country sympathized with his friends on the other side of
the Atlantic. All he (Mr. Taylor) had to say was this:-
Let Mr. James Spence, in the advocacy of the Southern
cause in England, try the experiment; let him go round
to the large cities in this country and call public meetings,
at which all who chose might attend; and let him thus test
public opinion and see whether it went with the South.
(Loud cheers, and a voice: "Let him take Liverpool
first." When he (Mr. Taylor) presided at the meeting in
268
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
(6
the Free-trade Hall, he stated before Mr. Beecher addressed
the assembly that if any person wished to ask Mr. Beecher
any questions after the proceedings had terminated that per-
son would be at perfect liberty to do so, and Mr. Beecher
would be ready to answer the questions so put to him.
Mr. Beecher himself made a similar offer in the course of
his speech but not one person presented himself to ask
any question. It appeared however that some gentleman.
calling himself a traveller "-whether he was at the
meeting or not was not known-if he were, probably he was
one of the bellowing bulls that disturbed the back settle-
ments of the hall. Well, this person instead of availing
himself of the opportunity of putting his questions in per-
son, sneaked off to the columns of a sympathizing news-
paper in Manchester and said "it was impossible to get a
straightforward answer from Mr. Beecher respecting the
treatment of colored people in the North." Now, if this
gentleman had appeared on the platform at the Free-trade
Hall to put these questions, he would have found no diffi-
culty in getting a straightforward answer, and no doubt
Mr. Beecher would so far notice this question as to give.
during the remarks he was about to make an answer that
would satisfy every one. He had much pleasure in mov-
ing the resolution he had read.
Mr. JOHN PATTERSON, of Liverpool, said that man
must be very ill infórmed indeed upon an important sub-
ject if he had not heard of the life labors as well as
"Life
Thoughts" of Mr. Henry Ward Beecher. (Applause.)
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
269
Among the glorious chapters which adorned the page.
of humanity was a chapter which recorded the life
and labors of the "fanatical abolitionists" of America.
He for one gladly embraced the opportunity now afforded
to him in this assembly of "fanatical abolitionists.
(laughter)—to tender his thanks to Mr. Beecher not only
for what that gentleman had done in England, but for
what he and his friends had done in America during the
past twenty-five years. During the few weeks of the
past summer which he spent in America he had the pleas-
ure of being introduced to Mr. Beecher at his own
church, and of telling him that the people in England be-
lieved that America was much indebted to him and men
like him for having the courage to stand up before the
world and rebuke the intentions and presumptions of one
of the basest and foulest Confederacies that ever dis-
graced humanity. (Loud cheers.) It was important that
we in England should speak out unmistakably, as well as
be spoken to by the eloquent mouth-piece of American
abolitionists. There was a great mistake existing as re-
garded the subject of anti-slavery in this country which
sometimes men fell into. He himself was but a child
when the abolition of slavery was carried. It was just at
that stage that it had hardly passed enough into history
to be familiarized as a historical question, and when we
were likely to lose accurate statements in the mist of tra-
dition. What was the position of England with regard to
this slavery question? He maintained that there was an
""
270 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
excitement and contest like our own free-trade agitation;
like that which abolished "Tests and Corporation Acts";
like that which gave to our Roman Catholic countrymen
their civil privileges. When men stood up to say in
England, "We are all anti-slavery, and always were;
it was either an intentional falsehood, or an ignorant mis-
statement. For England was never entirely anti-slavery.
When he met men on the Liverpool Exchange who said to
him, “
'You are a great fool to talk about slavery; we are
as much opposed to slavery as you, and we want to put
an end to it." He asked-Why? And the answer was,
"It deprives us of cotton." He had the misfortune to
differ from many as to cotton grown by slaves. The
cheapest way in which a man could get things was to
steal them, if no one would give them to him. And on
that principle the cotton grower could grow cotton
cheaper with the stolen labor of the slave. Men in this
age were wiser in their generation than the children of
light as they always were, and hence they found that
cotton could be grown cheaper by slave labor than by
free. But the Ruler of this Universe was a moral gov-
ernor, who ordained that terrible retribution should
follow evil-doing, and it had now fallen upon the
United States in the devastation which had overtaken
them and which would have the effect of bring-
ing up the price of slave-grown to free-grown
cotton. In England we were now pretty much as we
always were the minority only possessed of power and
در
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
271
privilege. But education was being now more generally
diffused, although many men had it forced down their
throats. Some only desired that the people should be so
much educated as to make them subservient to selfish
purposes, while the men who represented the really
educated intelligence of the country desired that the
people of England should not be merely what Beresford
Hope wished, a "well-fed, well-clothed church peasantry
-(loud laughter)--but rather a free, intelligent, indus-
trious, and self-elevating people. (Cheers.) We owed
great thanks and obligations to the men who came to us
with not only "40-parson " but 500-parson power across
the Atlantic and who spoke words of truth, soberness,
and logical demonstration, although opposed by the
Times, Telegraph, and Manchester Guardian. (Laughter
and hisses.) Many persons would say that the opposition.
given to Mr. Ward Beecher demonstrated the futility of
his endeavoring to speak to the men of England. It
showed rather the force with which he has spoken to
them, and he (Mr. Patterson) stood there, a Liverpool
man, to say that the reception Mr. Beecher met with in
Liverpool, exhibiting as it did all the vileness that still
clung around them-all the miserable tradition of an
intolerant Toryism that pervaded a portion of the com-
munity; yet it showed still further how high the intelli-
gence of Liverpool had risen-how amazingly its middle
class had risen, and how, if Liverpool men were true, to
themselves, they could trample under foot that ancient
??
"
272
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
and rotten tradition. (Loud cheers.) That meeting in
Liverpool was open as the day. It had been stated that
it was packed. It was untrue. Every opportunity was
given to any man to attend; and pains were taken by
their opponents to enlist men to come there for the pur-
pose of opposition. But a lamentable failure the opposi-
tion was.
Not one-seventh of that audience held up
their hands in opposition to the vote. Whilst he thor-
oughly sympathized with Mr. Beecher, and felt annoyed
that a gentleman in his position and from such a distance
should be obliged to contend with the wild beasts at
Ephesus,-(loud laughter)-yet he rejoiced for the
sake of liberty that the meeting was held. Many meet-
ings had been held, but the people of Liverpool had pro-
nounced by tremendous majorities in favor of the North.
(Loud cheers.) There was another reason why he de-
sired they should very unmistakably pronounce their
thanks to Mr. Beecher, and that was that the opposition
to him had not only come from our hereditary enemies,
but also from some of our false friends. He was not
unmindful of past services rendered to the causes of
liberty by one illustrious man before he became a lord.
He had read with great enjoyment words which that man.
had spoken for all time, and which would never die; but
he read them now as he read the words of Balaam.
And deeply did he regret that Henry Brougham, once
the man who claimed to be the very prince of aboli-
tionists, should recently have stood up to pronounce
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
273
words of unparalleled baseness on this question. (Loud
cheers.) The justification Lord Brougham gave of this
truculence was that he himself was the great leader of
the anti-slavery party, and that he himself did more in
this question, not only than any other man-for to say
that might be excuse to him—but that he did more twice
over than all the other advocates of emancipation put.
together. Was Lord Brougham forgetful of all the
Clarksons, Wilberforces, Fowell Buxtons, Macaulays, and
Jefferys--(cheers)-and was it not enough to rob the
sepulchres of the dead, but he must endeavor to deprive
the living of the glory that belong to them? (Loud ap-
plause.) Was Lord Derby such an unconsidered trifle
that he could lay claim to no part in negro emancipation.
-(cheers)—and Lord Russell such a unit that he could
be appropriately snuffed out by Lord Brougham at an
Edinburgh banquet? (Cheers.) It was a shame to see
such a hecatomb offered to the vanity of one poor,
spoiled old man. He cordially seconded the resolution.
The resolution was supported by Mr. W. B. Whitehead,
Mr. Alderman Kell (Bradford), Mr. Alderman Harvey
(Salford), and passed with acclamation.
The Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER rose to return
thanks, and was enthusiastically cheered. He said: Mr.
Chairman and gentlemen-I wish I could say ladies and
gentlemen. But I begin again-Mr. Chairman and gen-
tlemen. (A voice: The ladies are represented by the
gentlemen.) No man can ever represent a woman.
18
274
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
(Boisterous laughter and cheers.) It gives me great
pleasure this morning to avow myself in some sense a
convert. While I have seen and still see in England,
even more perhaps than you will admit, of prejudice and
misconception, I have been made aware of some preju-
dices and much misconception in myself, and in other
honest men whom I may fairly be said to represent; and
and it is not the smallest triumph of this short course of
two weeks during which I have been permitted to remain
in England, that I have gained the victory over my own
past impressions and am prepared to admit some things
that I have stoutly denied to Englishmen of my own con-
gregation, who used to say to me, grieved but not angered
at the things I said about England, "You do not know
Old England." I used as sturdily to say, "I do." But
now I shall say to them, very humbly, "I did not."
(Cheers.) I have been called to speak on a question
which is very broad, very intricate, and multitudinous in
its contents, because the question of America is simply
the total question of human society. It begins at the
top and goes to the bottom, and back again from the
bottom to the top: from the circumference to the centre,
and from the centre to the circumference; for there is
nothing in political economy, philosophy, human right,
or whatever can spring out of this wonderful being-man
-in society, that is not involved directly or indirectly in
this great American struggle. And in speaking upon a
question so broad, it was quite impossible to speak ex-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
275
haustively the only thing that I have exhausted has been
myself. (Laughter.) It has been quite impossible un-
der the circumstances, a stranger in a strange com-
munity, not altogether cognizant of the prejudice or the
wants or shades of thought in a community, to speak
upon this large question so as always to meet the
requisitions of my audience.
I shall not dwell upon
the interruption which I have taken very kindly-
which even in its worst form at Liverpool, I do
them the justice to say, was rather an exhibition of party
feeling than of personal malignity;—and although it made
my work very hard, God is my witness it did not excite in
my mind the slightest animosity towards them, still less
towards that very noble community which they misrep-
resented on that occasion. There is another matter I
wished to speak of; and that is, that the reports of my
speeches are not authoritative, nor can they be so, until
they have passed under my revision. And I wish to say
that no man here is so much indebted to a class of men
much abused and very little understood, but to whom I
owe lasting obligations-I mean reporters for newspapers.
They are young men who are generally sent out into
meetings of all kinds, where men are divided and where
questions are discussed with warmth and excitement at un-
timely hours; and when usually crammed into the most
inconvenient situations, are obliged to take down either
the whole or a part of what is spoken upon arguments
upon which they have not been thoroughly read, exercis-
276
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
1
ing at the same time an immediate judgment as to what
should be omitted, or what the wants of every newspaper
oblige them to produce. Then they are hurried back in
the midnight hour to write out that which is so lately
taken, and often because it is not presented next morn-
ing as some would wish, men blame them, and impute ill
motives. (Loud laughter and cheers.) Now, I am a
newspaper man myself, and have been made familiar with
the life and difficulties which beset the corps of reporters.
I have followed the reports of my speeches in England,
but have never in a single speech seen that which led me
to believe that any reporter had intentionally misrepre-
sented what I had said. I have, however, seen the edi-
torial column, where I know the editor, thinking he was.
supporting a certain party, misrepresented both my facts
and principles. And, if there are reporters present, I
desire to express through them my sense of the obligation
under which I lie to their kindness and fidelity in this
visit. Yet, for reasons I have stated, my speeches gen-
erally occupying more than two hours, and passing gener-
ally very rapidly over many great topics, and all having
naturally to appear next morning, when the paper could
not afford to put in a verbatim report, the reports, while
presenting the general tenor of my speeches, have had such
inevitable imperfections as to make them not exactly the
things upon which to base an attack upon me. I wish,
now, in the opening remarks which I shall make, to ex-
plain to you precisely the thing which I have attempted
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
277
to do in England. I have attempted-it is the key-note—
the inward key-note of my whole progress here--I have
attempted to use my information, and the position which
you have been kind enough to secure for me, to promote
a better understanding and a lasting peace between these.
two great nations. (Loud cheers.) There have been
therefore a great many things I might have said, and feel-
ings I might have expressed, which I have not. But I
have endeavored to bring all things to the bar of a manly
judgment, and to say those things which would draw
closer the bonds of amity. Even in the cases where I
have brought up matters on which your judgment and
mine have differed, and still differ, it was not so much to
go back and argue them upon the merits of the question
as it was to put you in possession of the American stand-
point, that you might see, if we did err, what was the
reason of our erring. I wish, for instance, to illustrate it
by one single case, and that was the Trent difficulty. I
think it was in Manchester I mentioned the strong feel-
ing that existed in America upon this point. And the
London Daily News-a paper to which I should be glad
to express the great obligations of American citizens, if
I were not afraid it might be employed against it to
diminish its influence with Britons-("No, no ")-I say
that paper in a friendly spirit criticised my utterances,
and said that it would damage my testimony with English
people to be so far wrong and mistaken in facts about
that question; and that it would damage my testimony
278 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
amongst English people on questions with which I was
better informed. They did not specify however, what
was my mistake, Now, I want just to specify to you how
we Americans looked at that transaction, not for the pur-
pose of putting ourselves right and you wrong, but to ask
you as I shall, when I have made my statement, if you
had been in our situation, and things looked to you as
they did to us, would you not have felt as we did? Is
not that fair? (Cheers.) You will recollect, then, that
an.American naval vessel by accident-if there be such
things as accidents-overhauled an English mail steamer,
and took from it two men who represented themselves as
ambassadors from the so-called Confederate Government
to the courts of England and France respectively. I
remember very well, when the ship came from Europe,-
and the tidings spread across America as quick as light-
ning could flash,--that for a day or two the universal
feeling was, "Here's a stupendous joke." Everybody
laughed. It struck the comical feeling of the nation that
these two men should have started off to represent the
Confederates at St. James's, and in Paris, and instead,
had found themselves in Fort Lafayette (Laughter.)
And there was a feeling of immense good nature, and
even jollity. Then, after two or three days, some lawyer-
men began to inquire in the papers, “What
"What is the law on
this subject? It may be a very good joke, but what says
the law?" We began to draw down our faces and say,
"Sure enough there is an England, and she will have a
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
279
word to say. What then is the law?" Then began to
be quoted what the English doctrine was; our papers be-
gan to be filled with English precedents and English con-
duct, and there was a universal feeling that we had acted
according to English precedent. That conviction is yet
unchanged, and never will be changed, because it was the fact.
(Cheers.) But I had the opportunity of knowing from
my position, both as preacher, lecturer, and editor, that
the feeling of the people was, "We are going to do what
is right now, whatever it is. If we are in the wrong,
we shall concede this matter; but if we are in the
right, we will not budge an inch, neither by bully-
ing nor intimidation.” And the moment the infor-
mation came to our shores of these facts, Mr. Sew-
ard addressed a confidential communication to Mr.
Adains, instructing him to read the same to Earl Rus-
sell, the purport of which was, that this had been done
without the privity or assent of the American Government,
who were prepared, on the statement of England's wishes,
to settle this matter amicably. Mr. Adams read that to
Earl Russell, and it lay nine or ten days quiet. The letter
being confidential, Mr. Adams scrupulously avoided speak-
ing of it; but it leaked out nevertheless that there had
been a communication from the American Government to
the English, and everybody was asking what was its
nature. This communication having been read, I think,
on the 19th of December, it would be about the 29th that
your Morning Post-which is supposed to be a semi-offi-
280
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
cial organ-declared that there had been a communica-
tion from the American Government, but that it had
nothing to do with the Trent affair. And, whereas it was
a communication expressly on that and nothing else, to
this hour that paper has never explained nor retracted
that malicious and deliberate falsehood. From that point,
I believe, complication began. But there was something
before that. Even before that message came from Wash-
ington, and before the British Government had heard
what we had to say, orders had issued that British troops
should repair to Canada, and the navy and dockyards
were put on double labor. England has never shown
want of promptness and spirit; but I believe you can
find no other case in English history in which a misunder-
standing between ships of two nations has been treated
with similar precipitancy not waiting to hear explanations,
but preparing war, or threatening war, before you could
possibly have the real facts. As to what took place on
the other side, I am alleged to have been all wrong when
I said the American Government showed instant disposi-
tion to make reparation; because, on the other hand we
heaped honors on Captain Wilkes all through the nation.
When we thought we were right we did; but after we
found out by the declaration of our own Government that
we were wrong, point me to one instance, in which even
the slightest popular assembly undertook to traverse the
decision of our Government, by showing attention to
Captain Wilkes? As to whether we did not use all possible
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
281
speed, let us see what were the facts. Mr. Seward wrote
to the English Government saying, we were prepared to
settle the matter satisfactorily to them, and awaited their
demands. Many say: we ought not to have waited their
demands, but given up the men instantly. But there were
conflicting doctrines as to the rights of Governments over
contraband of war in neutral vessels. There was the
British doctrine and there was the American doctrine.
From 1807 certainly to 1813, and I know not how much
longer, the British doctrine was that you had a right to
condemn a neutral vessel without bringing her into a prize
court. That was the British doctrine and practice down
to within a few years. I think the last recognized case-
I won't undertake to say it is the last case—is that in
which England acted upon the American doctrine, when
they took a Bremen vessel and condemned her in an Eng-
lish court because she was bringing the crew of a wrecked
Russian vessel from Japan home. She was condemned
by a prize court, and that is the first instance I know of
the American doctrine being acted on by the English
Government or navy. Now, when Mr. Seward wrote to
Mr. Adams he said thus :-Here is the old British doc-
trine, which they have never given up technically, and
here is the American. Which of the two is the British
Government going to take with respect to Mr. Mason and
Mr. Slidell? If their own, we have committed no offence,
and there is nothing more to be said. If our doctrine,
evidently we must wait for them to make their own elec-
י
282 HENRY WARD BEEcher's spEECHES
tion-I ask you then, was that not a courteous and just
reason for waiting till the overture should come from the
English Government instead of from ours, as to what
should be done in the case of these men? Now, all these
facts are perfectly known to our people, and I ask you not
to renew this old subject. It is past for good, I hope,
and it rests in peace. But then, I want you so far to re-
view these facts as when men say "The Americans have
shown an arrogant and intemperate spirit towards Great
Britain, and without reason in that Trent affair,”—I want
you then to say, "Every man, and I for one if I had been
an American, should have felt just as they felt." And I
want to say one thing more, and it is this, that we were
all very much surprised when Mr. Seward issued his deci-
sion. But so it was and so it stands. I make these ex-
planations in the furtherance of a better understanding
between us, so that there may be no unpleasant memory,
and no coal that has not gone out in the embers and
ashes of this old question. Also I wish to revert to a cer-
tain topic, because I am informed that I have been de-
stroyed by several papers, body and soul, honor and repu-
tation, because of gross and intentional misstatements
made in Edinburgh. I cannot tell the paper that has
originated it, nor would I if I could. I am informed that
my statements made respecting the circulation of money
were totally at variance with the fact. Now all I can say
is, if these statements were not correct, I certainly should
be guilty of ignorance, though not intentionally. Let me
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
283
then state to you, availing myself of this opportunity, what
I understand about the condition of the North fiscally,
and of material prosperity in this time of war. My ven-
erable and excellent friend, Dr. Massie, is present-
(cheers) and I speak as before one who knows the truth,
and although I have never till this morning seen him—
may I see him a thousand times hereafter-though I, of
course, know nothing of his opinions, yet I know he is an
honest man, and know what an honest man must say in
respect of certain points in our American affairs. I say
he will not rebuke me for saying there never was a time of
such material or moral prosperity as in the North at this
time. Burdened as we are with war, there never was a
time when husbandry was carried on with more alacrity or
success, when every conceivable form of productive indus-
try, and of manufacturing through its whole range, was
more pressed by demand. It is not as it was in Man-
chester just before this war, when you had manufactured
far beyond the consumption of your customers. It is not
speculative. There never was a time when monetary af-
fairs were so easy, and I think so healthy, notwithstanding
the contrary opinion of the editor of the Times' money
articles. You say, we shall come to a crash. It may be
we shall, though we are going to it by a very pleasant
way. (Laughter.) But are we doing this upon an inflat-
ed paper currency, without a proper basis and proper
security? Paper must represent convertible property.
Is there more paper in circulation in the North than
284
HENRY Ward BEECHER'S SPEECHES
there is actual and available property in the North which
it represents? On that subject I declare it makes no
difference whether paper is issued by State banks, or in-
dividual brokers, or the National Government; if there
is never more paper than is needed, all then is safe, for
there is no more paper than they have means to convert.
Again, you may always issue more paper than you can
convert in any one day. Three bills to one pound of
bullion is a safe measure. The exact state of affairs in
the North was, that this uprising so deranged business.
that it compelled a universal settlement. I don't know
how it is in England; but in America we need a financial
judgment day once in ten years, and we get it. These
crashes, although in one way of looking at them they are
unfavorable, in another are always beneficial.
A new
country must have credit. As countries grow old and
rich, they can contract it more and more, but a new
country, that has its resources to develop, requires credit,
and with it you must have the attendant evils of intense
stimulation of hopeful and sanguine natures. Once in
ten years you work out, so that the thing comes clear
round. There is a kind of miscellaneous crash, in which
every man picks up his own. The bubble is broken-the
paper is gone; and the property remains. The man that
yesterday said: this is my house, does not say so to-
morrow, but the community is not hurt; the property is
there the difference is that the owners have shifted.
(Laughter.) Now, what of these commercial reverses?
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
285
It is said they are unhealthy, but it is not of that kind of
unhealthiness that many political economists have be-
lieved; and these periodical settlements are always salu-
tary. We had a settlement in 1857, and there was the
less at the beginning of this war to be settled. But what
there was, we swept out of the way. And since the day
when the infant colony of Plymouth Bay had to pay 50
per cent. for money loaned to her in England, I do not
believe there has ever been so sound a state of business
in the North as to-day. And your business men in Man-
chester will see that these reasons work that way. One
thing more the thing does not stop there. As there is
more or less of uncertainty in the commercial world, men
will no longer go on the credit system as before. They
are buying for cash; then going home and selling for
cash. Some of you in Manchester can say, whether it is
not the case here to an extent never before known, that
American merchants are buying for cash. The business
is taking that direction; certainly it is in America. Not
that there may not be facts the other way, but this is in
the main true. Suppose there come bye-and-bye further
financial difficulties, how are you going to bankrupt a
nation which has no foreign debts? You recollect the
story of the Frenchman in Boston.
He had got money
enough and goods enough, but thought a man ought to
fail when he could not collect his debts. We may fail
so, but I don't see any other form of bankruptcy awaiting
Our Government are issuing bonds largely that are
us.
286 HENRY WARD BEEcher's sPEECHES
To
becoming the basis of the whole banking system in her
North. The Government bonds become the securities of
our State banks. They issue Government notes as their
circulation, and although there is an immense amount of
Government notes in circulation they are taking the
place of the individual State bank-notes we have been
driving in. I do not profess to be fully informed, but my
impression is, there is no more paper money in circula-
tion now than there has been at many periods in Ameri-
can history, only, it is not a circulation of individual
banks, nor of States; it is a circulation of the total Unit-
ed States; and whereas before these bills had the secu-
rity of what was in the vault of the individual bank or of
the State, now the guarantee of these bills with the same
circulation is the guarantee of the credit and total prop-
erty of the United States. Neither can I state (as I
should have done if I had supposed I was to be called on
for these facts) exactly how much has been invested;
but probably four or five hundred millions of the capital.
of the North, not invested already in business, has been
invested in what are called Government securities, which
are just your Consols over again. Our people feel two
things-first, that our Government must stand; and,
secondly, that it will stand, and it is safe to invest in it.
Our savings banks, insurance companies, trust-fund com-
missioners, and men who have in charge the money of
widows and orphans-old men who wish to secure them-
selves against contingencies and bankruptcies, men who
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
287
have sums in hand and are looking about for investment,
are showing that of all securities none seems to them so
sound as the faith and credit of the Government of the
United States. (Loud cheers.) And hundreds of mill-
ions of dollars have been invested in that way; so that I
may say the Government of the United States has a lien
upon all the inoperative capital of the North and West,
and it has become the interest of every business man and
every moneyed man in the whole Northern States, to main-
tain the Government as the way to maintain himself.
Now then if it be said that I have stated that the Govern-
ment paper had been issued as only three to one of
bullion, I never made any statement on that question at
all; but that since the Central Government issued this
paper-since it represents not only what has been paid.
in for these bonds as invested, but represents also the
total available property of the Federation itself, it is a
better circulation than that of local banks, which issue
three papers to one pound of bullion-that is what I
meant to say at Edinburgh, whether I said it or not.
And it is what I say in this great capital of business
in England. I cannot, of course, speak authoritatively in
this matter. I am not a financier, I am not a banker,
but a clergyman and a patriot only. If you were to
get hold of a man who knew a great deal more, he
would state the matter still more strongly. If there
is anything I have inadvertently omitted to notice.
on this fiscal question, I shall be ready to attend to
288 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
any question that may be put to me now. (Mr. Beecher
paused, and then resumed.) I may presume, then, that
you are satisfied. (Applause.) Now there is some art
in speaking so as to relieve one subject against another,
and, having given you a few words upon currency, and a
sound state of business in the North, I will turn to that
letter in one of your local papers, to which my friend Mr.
Taylor referred, containing those three questions, which
the writer says have never received straightforward
answers. I will endeavor to show you what a straight-
forward answer is. The first question is, "Do colored
persons ever attend your church in Brooklyn? Yes, by
scores and hundreds. (Cheers.) Second, "If so, where
do they sit?" Wherever they can get a seat. (Cheers
and laughter.) Allow me to say our church will hold
but 3000, and it is extremely difficult for any one to
get a seat. I have said humorously, in expostulating
with our people, that they are sometimes impatient of
having so little use of their own pews, for which they
pay an inordinate rent. "Gentlemen, you know very
well when you rent pews here what it means; you pay
300 dollars for a pew for the sake of sitting in the aisle,
and you knew it when you bought your pew." It is ex-
pressly stipulated that if a man is not in his pew to de-
fend it within a certain number of minutes after the ser-
vice begins, he forfeits his right to sit there. It is in his
article of sale. We have from 16 to 2
We have from 16 to 25 active and en-
terprising men whose sole business is to seat people in
""
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
289
our church; and sometimes, when there is a public ques-
tion involving great interests, the entrances to the church.
are thronged for hours before the doors are open. Well;
when our own pew-holders have to bustle for their own
seats, because strangers may come an hour beforehand;
when this has been going on for sixteen continuous years
-if you ask me whether we take colored people by
platoons, and walk them up and seat them on a
platform-why, we don't treat them any better than white
folks. (Loud laughter, and cheers.) We treat them
just as we do white folks. Now, let me say this, I have
never exerted any direct influence on this subject; it has
only been the Christian feeling and good sense of my
own parishioners that have led them to determine their
line of action towards colored people within the body of
the church. And what does it mean? I have never yet
known an instance in which a colored man was refused a
seat, if he were properly dressed, well behaved, and mod-
estly asked for a seat. I have myself invited Frederick
Douglass and other men to sit in my own pew. Some-
times a man says to me," I would come, but I am
afraid." But I give him a note to one of my friends and
then he finds no trouble. To make so much of it, would
seem as if I was boasting of the liberality of our people.
It is just a matter of course, of Christian common sense.
If my answer is not straightforward, it is because I had
to go round to get all this. (Cheers and laughter.)
Third, "Have you ever seen any (that is, colored people)
19
290
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
amongst your congregation; and would they be allowed
to sit in any pew of your church, or intermingle with your
white hearers?" If my people were like the man who
wrote this letter, they would not be permitted to sit a
moment there. (Cheers.) That is not a mere jibe. I
will tell you why I make that remark in a moment. But
I have seen them, not once or twice, or fifty, but hun-
dreds of times. I tell you the truth, gentlemen, though
we are not better than hundreds of other churches. We
have been led by acquiescence in those great truths
preached in Plymouth church; that man is not what he is.
on account of title, education, or wealth, but because
God made him and loves him, and God will redeem him
to immortality and glory. (Cheers.) And that broad
ground has led us to feel insensibly, more and more,
that a man in the house of God is to be treated as we
would treat that man on the threshold of the judgment
day. And now, these words will go back to America,
and I shall have them set down to me there, and shall
stand to every word I have said on America. The close
of the letter, containing these queries, is as follows :—“ I
could multiply instances to almost any extent of brutality
towards the colored people in the North, and of kindness
and indulgence towards them in the South, which I wit-
nessed during a long and protracted tour through the
States. Though my original antipathy to slavery was
never eradicated, I came to this conclusion, that a
slave in the South was a far gayer and happier creature
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
291
than a free black in the North." There you have it.
Ah! there never was a serpent yet that was taught to
speak in human language that first or last the sibilation
did not come out. Whenever I find a man undertake to
tell me, that any human creature, considered in the
totality that makes up a man, in his body and soul-in
his loves, independence, and purities-in his relations to
time and eternity-is a better man in slavery than he is
out of it, I say, "Thou son of the devil, get thee behind
me." (Loud cheering.) On the other side, let me say
pointedly, that the treatment in the North of the blacks
was bad-that we imbibed prejudice from the South-
that the poison of slavery in every fibre of our body,
wrought out bad laws and usages ;-nevertheless, the party
now predominant throughout the North, though once a small
minority, has fought up against that prejudice and wrong,
until at last it is in ascendancy: and Englishmen are asked
now to strike us, who have been martyrs for freedom, be-
cause of the prejudices which came from the men who are
now in rebellion. (Great cheering.) And I avow, there
is a good deal of work yet to be done. We do not ap-
pear before you as a saint-like people; we are, just like
you, in the midst of struggles where all sorts of influences
are in combination. We have fought so far with com-
plete success-thanks to God; but it is not done yet.
There are many things we need to change, and are trying
to change. All we ask is, that when our faces are as it
were turned towards Jerusalem, you will not stop us.
M
292
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
(Loud cheers.) And I say still further, that in respect to
that riot which took place in New York, and so much
used adversely to us, I here, and accountable for what
I say, declare my conviction that that riot was nothing
in the world but the sore made by a foreign blister put
on our body. The rioters were as a body unquestionably
Irishmen. Now, you must not think I am saying this
in any ill-will to them. These Irish laborers come
to us poor and uneducated creatures, easily led by
more intelligent men, men who work through their pas-
sions. By corrupt Americans, I am ashamed to say,
they have been assiduously taught that the emancipa-
tion of the slave would take away from them the market
of labor, and that emancipation would bring the whole
South northward; which is just the opposite to the truth,
that it is likely to take the whole colored North south-
ward. But they have been stuffed with falsehood in the
most offensive forms, for the purpose of making them
mischievous; hence with the sting of the draft just about
to be put on them, there was a wild furious uprising of
the Irish immigrants. It was very cruel and wicked, but
so cruel and wicked a thing was never done with so much
excuse for the wicked actors as this. They were blind,
ignorant, misled creatures, who thought they were fighting
not so much against the blacks as for themselves. I
make these excuses for them, therefore, and I say this riot
was an Irish riot, just as much as if it had occurred in
Dublin or Cork, instead of New York. When Archbishop
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
293
Hughes was called upon to address them and stop it, the
street before the Archiepiscopal residence was alive with
the crowded thousands; his speech was reported, and he
never intimated that he thought anybody else was en-
gaged but Irishmen. He took it for granted it was they;
he never excused them in any way by the oppression that
they had suffered in Old Ireland. From beginning to
end it is taken for granted it was the work of Catholic
Irish, and he was blaming them in his very maternal and
gentle way for doing such naughty things. (Laughter.)
But what was the conduct of the city of New York? Be-
tween 40,000 and 50,000 dollars were subscribed to re-
lieve the wants of these people in a few days. A large
committee was appointed from the most respectable mer.
chants, men of the highest business integrity, and of the
utmost honor and purity in private life.
I marked every
one of them as the men who have been my opponents.
from the beginning of this agitation for sixteen years-
men who are intensely conservative, or as we call them,
"Old Hunkers." (Laughter and cheers.) But these
men had their eyes so opened by this riot, that they fol-
lowed their noble and generous instincts, so as not only
to give their money, but to avow as plainly as words can
say: "It has come to this. If the colored people are
thus violently treated, we will put ourselves between them
and their assailants, and they shall, as long as we live,
have the right to labor in freedom. (Loud cheers.) "A
body of lawyers volunteered to receive and put into legal
J
294
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
form the complaints of every colored man who had lost
property-according to our law, the municipality is re-
sponsible for every cent of property damaged in the riot;
—and there have been 145,000 to 150,000 dollars in-
volved in the complaints already made, or making; and
legal proceedings have cost the colored people not a cent.
(Cheers.) The letter they wrote of thanks, which I be-
lieve will appear in the papers, is a composition of the
most poetical English, and consummate Christian kind-
ness, showing what the grace of God can make appear in
the hearts of outcast men. Read that letter in the report
of the Committee which has just reached this country, and
the reply of Mr. McKenzie, and see how an Old Hunker
can speak. When I get back, I mean, the first thing, to
go to Mr. McKenzie's store and ask him to honor me by
shaking hands Are there any other questions about
these blacks? [Mr. Haughton, of Dublin: "Are we to
understand that the practice in your own church is the
universal practice in America; that the black man is as
respected in other churches as in yours?"] No, sir.
Many of our churches are filled with men who are the
first merchants of New York, or are politicians. The
position of the black man is regulated mainly by the fact
that he is the football bandied between side and side;
to treat him with public attention has been to abandon
your political party, and seem to show confidence in the
other side. In many churches of New York-I cannot
speak positively, but my impression is-they would not
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
295
be received except in a particular pew, but a tendency
has now been established, and is every week increasing,
to receive them when they come in the churches. It is
a process begun. Dr. Massie confirms my statement.
I do not want to make out our case any better than it is.
We do not move in perfection as the saints in glory do;
all we can ask of men is, Are they in the right direction
and making progress? I want now to add a word or two
with respect to some questions proposed to me last week.
A Mr. David M'Crae, I think, of Glasgow, proposed a
question as to the Constitution which I did not then quite
understand. The gist of it, as far as I remember, is this:
-speaking of the fugitive slave clause of the Constitution
-his question was, Are you fighting for the Constitution
with that clause in it? If you are, how do you pretend
that you are fighting for liberty? Secondly, if you are
fighting for Emancipation, you are fighting against that
Constitution, and how do you condemn the seceded
States?" I will answer by a statement of facts, and leave
you to settle the logic. In the first place, What is the re-
lation of our Constitution to slavery?-First, it contains
the fugitive slave clause; the other is the three-fifths rep-
resentation clause. I will take the last first. That clause
does not legalize slavery. It merely says (as if the found-
ers of the Constitution recognized it as a fact, but not a
doctrine or principle), "five men other than free whites
shall count for three votes." Now what is the origin of
that? When we first formed our present Constitution,
296 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
having had ten years trial of what was called Articles of
Confederation, the difficulty that struck the Government,
as it strikes every Government, first was,
"How can you
raise funds to carry on the Government?" First, taxes
were laid on the lands in all the country. But it was
found impossible to obtain the statistics which were re.
quisite for levying the tax justly, and therefore they must.
change their system. It was then proposed they should
tax the people per capita. Then came the question:
As the vast majority are white and free in the North,
and as an immense proportion in the South are slaves,
if you should tax according to the free whites, the North
would pay nineteen-twentieths of the taxes, and the
South only one-twentieth part, having the monopoly of
wealth. Therefore the North said, in assessing the taxes.
you must call every able-bodied black, as well as white
man, one. The South said, “No, we are willing to count
four as one." That is the extreme on that side, and you
see just how it was. It was on a question of raising
money, whether the tax should be raised on the whole
black population or not, or whether it should be raised on
a white voting population, excluding Indians and slaves.
And it was Mr. Madison who proposed a middle term as
the compromise. He said, "Five shall count three in-
stead of one counting one, or four counting one." So it
was settled that, in laying taxes on the South, there shall
be three men taxed where there are five black men in the
South. But in settling the basis for taxation, they set-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
297
tled at the same time the basis for representation. A
few years afterwards we ceased to raise our revenue by
taxation at all, and the very thing on which this compro-
mise had been made ceased to exist. Then came in the
unexpected operation of this clause on representation,
which was a shadowy sequence scarcely understood to be
of much importance, but had become of prime importance
when the North was represented in Congress by a repre-
sentation of men alone, while the South was represented
both in the number of men and the amount of property.
The South is represented both in property and in men;
the North simply in men, and [not in property. This
clause became, by an unforeseen accident, of strength to
the South. To-morrow, if slavery totally ceased, that
Constitution would not have to be changed in a single
letter in that regard. There is nothing that guarantees
or perpetuates it, or carries the consequence along with
it as inevitable. The other clause in the Constitution,
concerning rendition of fugitives, appeared in our history
first when New England, which was just as much slave-
owning as the South, formed the first rudimental Union.
So jealous were the States of their individual sovereignty,
that nothing but external wars and difficulties drove them
together, and they passed the substance of this fugitive
slave clause. It did not appear in the Articles of Confed-
eration in 1777, but in 1787 the present Constitution took
away from each State the right to pass laws in contraven-
tion of laws existing in other States; that is to say, no
298 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
man held to service in one State shall be discharged
therefrom by another State into which he may go. It is
a law for the peace of the whole Union, taking away the
power of one State to nullify the laws of another State.
Congress and the Federal power are not even alluded to
in the clause. Then it went on to provide that such per-
sons shall, upon proper proof, be rendered up again to
their claimants, on whom the proof was purposely left.
But that is the fugitive slave clause. In the convention
where it was adopted, it was attempted to include this
clause in the one that in our present Constitution pre-
cedes it, namely, in Section 2 of Article 4:"A person
charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime,
who shall flee from justice and be found in another
State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the
State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed
to the State having jurisdiction of the crime." The execu
tive can only have conference with the executive of another
State, so where there were crimes and felonies, the Arti-
cle requires that the executive of one State shall demand
of the executive of another to deliver the criminal up.
And it was attempted to introduce into this the words,
"and persons held to servitude;" but it was unanimously
voted down, on the ground that there was no more reason
to constrain the Government to return any slave, than
to ask them to return any ox or ass, and they would not
push the States to that indignity. Then the next clause
is the following :-"No person held to service or labor
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
299
in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into
another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation
therein be discharged from such service or labor, but
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such
service or labor may be due." When it was first intro-
duced, the terms were any person held to servitude, or
in servitude." The first attempt was to reject that.
Why? Because it was declared the Constitution of the
United States should not recognize slavery. Mr. Madison
has left his impartial and unquestionable authority on the
subject, that the day was anticipated when slavery should
cease; and the builders of the Constitution so framed it,
that while it knew how to steer round slavery while it
existed, it should be whole and perfect when slavery
ceased. The Northern view, in reference to the opera-
tion of this, was, that if a slave escaped from Maryland
into Pennsylvania, and the master found his slave there,
and brought proof before magistrate and jury that it was
his beast of burden, he should take it back if he could.
Thus it left the man to manage his own property without
being hindered or obstructed. What, then, is the objec-
tion we take to the fugitive slave law of 1850? That to
please the South it was laid down to be a duty of the whole
United States to hunt the slave down WITHOUT PROOF, and
at the mere summons of the claimant, to deliver up the person
claimed and saddle the costs on the population of the United
States. I answer then, in respect to this whole subject,
that if to-morrow slavery should cease by the force of
↓
((
300
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
arms, the Constitution is not touched, nor is a right that
is guaranteed by this Constitution impaired; for as long
as slavery exists there is an Article which gives a man
the right to go and find his slave and take him back with-
out molestation, and that is bad enough; but if to-mor-
row slavery ceases to exist, what change is there to be
made? For our courts have construed that the term
"persons held to service," includes all apprentices under
indenture, and that a slave is included in that, not as a
slave, but by virtue of the fact that he is held to service.
Are we then, by maintaining the Constitution, maintain-
ing slavery? No, not at all-slavery does not exist in
the Constitution, nor by virtue of it. It has been settled
a hundred times by the lawyers of every slave State that
slavery is a local institution, and can exist only by special
local statutes. Nay, the very conflict between the South,
under Mr. Douglas, and the nascent republican party,
was whether slavery should be local and municipal, or
national. They tried to make it national; that is
the last form of the political conflict between North
and South-they seeking to show that the Constitution
did endorse slavery, and we saying the Constitution.
never did, and never shall. I don't know whether
Mr. M'Crae will think I have answered his ques-
tion, but I am sure I have tried to give you grounds and
facts on which every man can answer it for himself.—
[Mr. Haughton asked-"Is it not the case that William
Lloyd Garrison and his party have invariably maintained
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
301
that the Constitution is in favor of slavery; have not the
judges of your land so interpreted the Constitution, and
has not your Supreme Court decided, that the black man
has no rights which the white man is bound to respect."]
-No questions could be more pertinent. We all admit
that slavery existed as a fact when the present Constitu-
tion was adopted; that two clauses were introduced to
meet certain practical difficulties arising out of local slav-
ery in its relation to general government. The framers
of the Constitution undertook to recognize the bare politi-
cal fact of slave property then existing in some States.
They undertook to form a Constitution which should in
the widest scope represent liberty, yet should not abruptly
destroy slavery, but should neither encourage nor help it.
Now in every slave State that has given a definition of slav-
ery, it is declared to be the condition in which a man ceases
to be a man and becomes a chattel-a thing, not a being
-a person. With this definition before them, when the
Constitution was in formation, they after debate and full
explanation of what they meant, declared they would not.
put into the Constitution a description or allusion to slav-
ery that should characterize it by its technical term, but
only by terms that brought it out of "chattelhood" into
"subordination." Therefore in our Constitution
slaves are called "persons," always. This was no acci-
dent-no indiscriminate use of words. It was done by
men who said among themselves "Not many years can
pass before slavery will cease;" and what they tried to
mere
302 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
do was to have a Constitution that could hold together
and keep us afloat for the moment, but yet should not
give countenance to slave doctrines. When a man under-
takes to steer a ship he does not necessarily include in
his ideas of successful shipbuilding all the shoals and
sandbanks that may impede its voyage; and when the
Constitution of the United States was formed, the formers
merely made two provisions in order that local State.
rights might be divested of their power of mischief.
Now, as to public sentiment. There has been recently a
small body of men who held that our Constitution did not
recognize slavery as doctrine or fact. I differ with them
-it does recognize it as fact but not as doctrine. Other
people say, "No matter whether the Constitution does or
does not; courts that bind us have declared that it does;
therefore let us break the Union in two to clear ourselves."
That is the party of Mr. Garrison, and Mr. Wendell
Phillips. The great middle-class have said this:-"Slav-
ery is dying, bound to die; free men made a Constitution
for liberty, and made it so that while slavery was dying,
the Constitution need not be wrecked by running on it."
As to the decision of the judges, allow me to say that our
Federal courts have been packed by Southerners; while
the North has had either to accomplish this change by
revolutionary process, or to do it by peaceable methods,
such as are organized in the Constitution itself. We
knew perfectly well it was part of the plan of the South,
by packing the courts, and by process of construction to
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
303
transmute liberty into slavery in our laws, and in the
fundamental law of the land. That was what we believed
and prophesied. We warned the nation, and they would
not be warned. That declaration was construed into
slander of the courts and of men in authority, when I
made it up and down through the land, and said, "The
South are taking away your Constitution by dry-rot," but
give us time, and we will by popular discussions reverse
this policy, and fill Congress and the courts with different
men, and then we will reconstrue it back again, and we
will find yet the voice of liberty that shall stand by the
Constitution, and say unto the bondsman, "Come forth,
and he shall come forth, and stand among living men, a
man again." (Cheers.) This was my doctrine as dis-
tinguished from that of Mr. Phil.ps and Mr. Garrison. I
have said, "Give us time, there are in our Constitution
and in our nation those elements which will bring back to
us liberty in the Constitution itself." The South knew it
just as well as the North. But they lay in wait and
watched, and the moment that discussion had produced a
majority for us and Mr. Lincoln was elected, they re-
belled. Whatever you may say about Southern men, it
must be said that they are as sagacious as children of
darkness. (Cheers.) And we said-so long as our couris
are corrupted and construe the Constitution adverse to
liberty, we cannot help ourselves. Wherever they do
wrong to us, we will bear the wrong; but when they com-
mand us to do wrong to others, we will not; we will take
K
304
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
{
a remedy; it is only a question of time when we put this
thing right. We said, "Wait-there is liberty in pa-
tience;" they said, "There is safety only in rebellion;"
so they rebelled.-[In reply to another inquiry addressed
to Mr. Beecher as to the Dred Scott decision.]—He said,
the friends of the judge have thought it convenient to
deny that he ever used the words imputed to him, that
the black man has no rights which whites are bound to
respect; but whether he did or not, it is universally
conceded by our lawyers that it was not the point before
the court, but an extra-judicial opinion. He was a Mary-
land slave-holding judge: the very instrument by which
the South meant to transmute our institutions. But what
he said was his own opinion, not a legal decision.—
[Another questioner asked if the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850 was still part of the Constitution.]-It never was
part of the Constitution. In England your Constitution
is what your Parliament determines to be law; in
, America our Constitution is what was originally written.
There is a marked distinction between law founded
on written principles, and those written principles that
we call the Constitution; so that if your Parliament
had passed a Fugitive Slave Law, it would have be-
come part and parcel of the British Constitution,
but with us the State Constitution and the National
Constitution stand unchanged by legislation. If the
Constitution is contravened by laws based on other
than the principles it enunciates, the courts set them
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
305
aside. The Fugitive Slave Law is simply a law, not a
part of the Constitution, which we hold to be an outrage
yet inoperative, as having no power beyond the year in
which it was passed. It is just as dead now, and has
been the last eight or nine years, as the snake's skin that
was sloughed ten years ago. It is said we ought to have
abolished it. When Congress came together they passed
so many reformatory laws that it was thought seriously
they should abolish this; but they said-we are charged
with coming together for revolutionary purposes, and to
destroy the local municipal power of the States, and we
must not do anything in our national legislation that shall
countenance the doctrine that we are revolutionizing
State sovereignty. [A gentleman asked how the great
religious associations in America regarded the anti-
slavery question?] There are two parties-one is very
small and able, and is called Abolitionist; the other com-
prises all the rest of the North, and is called Anti-slavery.
The distinction is not one of doctrine, but of method.
Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips said the North must save
itself by disunion; the great body of those who hated
slavery said, we cannot consent to that.
I was one
among the latter, from first to last, and that paragraph in
the newspapers which says I once said "there could be
no getting rid of slavery under the Constitution" is a
total and absolute falsehood. I would not burn a barn
in order to get rid of the rats. (Great laughter.) We
have always said, the thing is bad enough, but not so bad
20
306
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
but we can cure it by moral means. I have avowed
over and over again to Southern slave-holders :—
"You
shall not go off. We will hold you in the bosom of lib-
erty until your slavery is dead." (Cheers.) This is the
point which you English are liable to misunderstand.
A great many good men seem to you to have paltered
and connived, but you should recollect it belongs to the
nature of free discussion and moral suasion to take time
and patience. You cannot convert a whole nation as you
may one man, by sitting down and talking to him. Prej-
udices melt slowly, but we have always had such faith in
the ultimate victory of Liberty over Slavery that we have
said, “With God on our side we can fight and shall win.”
(Cheers.) Those men who were opposed to any decisive
and summary remedy as too dangerous, were called Anti-
slavery men; those who were in favor of immediate dis-
ruption, as the summary and necessary remedy, were
called Abolitionists, that was the distinction. But now
there is no distinction at all. Mr. Garrison and Mr.
Phillips are both of them my personal friends. I would
not for all the world, say a word in England that should
carry back pain to their hearts: and although I have dif-
fered from them all my life long, I have never failed to
see that men more heroic in asserting a great principle,
never existed in the world. Mr. Garrison has said at a
public meeting, that when he declared that the Con-
stitution involved slavery, he never expected to see the
Emancipation-proclamation of the President of the United
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
307
States. (Cheers.) I can tell you there is no more wel-
come speaker in any part of the United States, than that
man of genuine senatorial nature, of polished scholarship,
of exquisite gentlemanly manners, of most truly Christian
feelings and sentiments, even if sometimes over excited,
-Mr. Wendell Phillips. But we are all one to-day.
There are now but two parties in the North. An over-
whelming majority say: "Since they have taken the
sword, let slavery perish by the sword." (Cheers.)
True! there is a small party that lives in crevices and
cracks,—a small malignant party called "Peace Demo-
crats," with that thrice-retton Catiline Wood at the head
of it, whom the Times newspaper is accustomed to hold
up as the exponent of American peace doctrine. Him I
have heard praised by the lips of Christian men, who, if
they could know his crimes, vices, and Satanic wicked-
ness, would blow him from their parlors, as you do
Sepoys from the mouths of your cannon. (Great cheer-
ing.) [Mr. Robertson asked Mr. Beecher's attention to
two clauses in the Constitution, frequently quoted to
demonstrate that it was pro-slavery,-the clause where
Congress legalized the slave trade until 1808, and the
clause requiring the executive to lend assistance to any
State Government in case of domestic insurrection. A
third argument was the New England States repealing
the Personal Liberty Bill, and recognizing the Fugitive
Slave Law.]-If you ask me whether I think what was then
done was ineffably wicked, I say yes, but that it has no
308 HENRY WARd beecher'S SPEECHES
force now, everybody admits. When this Constitution.
was made, the question was, how much each separate
State would give up, in order to endue the central Fed-
eral Government with authority-how much the Federal
Government should receive of sovereignty from the States
that had thus far held the whole sovereignty. They pro-
posed to give the Government in Congress the power to
abolish the slave trade, but they would not let them have
that power till 1808. It was then not a question of the
Constitution at all, but of the convention of these sov-
ereign States, and they refused to put into the hands of the
Federal Government until such a date the power which
after that date the Government was to have. In all these
stages, it was the opinion of every man who founded the
Constitution, that slavery was dying, and they did not
feel as you and I would have felt, but said: "Ease it off
in every way." Slavery was like some brigand brought
into an Alpine convent, where he was given a room and
a place to prepare to die in decently. On the contrary,
the old brigand did not die, but called in his confederates,
and domineered over the very hospital where he was
being nursed for Christian burial. As to the prevention
of rebellion in any State, the National Government is of
course bound to exert its whole power to save any State
from the intestine mischiefs of insurrection. If this cov-
ers slavery as much as liberty, yet because it is a principle
born of liberty, slavery gets the benefit of it. Every
nation must undertake this duty; the hand to which you
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
309
give the national sword, must defend every part of the
nation from internal disorder. The repealing of the
Liberty Bill only took place in one or two States. I wish
to say that I feel convinced, when Dr. Massie issues his
report of his visit, he will be able to say he found the
educated, intelligent, and religious-minded people of the
North, wherever he went, settled down to the conclusion
as final and irremovable, that this war must be supported
till rebellion shall be crushed, and that rebellion cannot
be crushed till slavery has been destroyed. I do not
mean merely what you mean here by the "intelligent
classes." The phrase with us includes farmers, mechan-
ics, the very bulk of our people. For it is the legitimate.
effect of democratic instruction, that no line can be drawn
between the college-educated man at the top, and the
common-school educated man at the bottom. A thor-
oughly educated common people, with collegiate men to
be their leaders and mouth-pieces, in sympathy with them
-all moving together-is better than any society where
the bottom is ignorant, and the top is educated. (Cheers.)
With some further remarks Mr. Beecher concluded, hav-
ing spoken nearly two hours.
The Rev. Dr. MASSIE said that from what he himself
had heard while in America, he was convinced the people
in that country would place the greatest confidence and
faith in the honesty of Mr. Beecher's reports. He could
fully confirm that gentleman's reference to the opinion of
the intelligent classes of America, who were resolved to
310
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
maintain the Government in its war against rebellion,
and that the rebellion, with its twin sister slavery, should
be buried in one tomb. (Loud applause.)
Mr. J. C. Dyer having taken the chair,—
Mr. ESTCOURT moved, "That the thanks of the
meeting be accorded to the Mayor of Rochdale for pre-
siding in so able and courteous a manner; and ex-
pressed a hope that the Queen of England would ever be
found by the side of the President of a free and intelli-
gent Republic, and never have her pure and womanly
feelings outraged by the residence at her court of the
representative of any empire whose "corner-stone" was
that of human bondage.
The motion was seconded by Mr. Greening, and passed
unanimously.
With a kind and complimentary message to Mrs.
Beecher Stowe, the talented sister of the honored guest,
three cheers for the Queen, President Lincoln, and Mr.
Beecher, the morning's proceedings terminated.
""
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
311
LIVERPOOL FAREWELL MEETING,
OCTOBER 30, 1863.
A PUBLIC breakfast was tendered to Mr. Beecher by
the Liverpool Emancipation Society at St. James Hall on
the morning of October 30.
The Chair was taken by Mr. Charles Wilson, president
of the society, and about two hundred ladies and gentle-
men sat down to the repast,-which being fully discussed,
prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Graham, and the chair-
man said: It gives me great pleasure to preside, as I
have no doubt it also gives you great pleasure to be pres-
ent on this, which may be the last occasion on which Mr.
Beecher will ever address an English audience; and I
feel that I may thank him in your name, in my own, and
in the name of the friends of Emancipation and of Union
generally, for the ability, the power, the kindly good-will
with which he has advocated the cause of liberty during his
stay in England. He has stated publicly that his desire
is to draw closer the bonds of amity and good fellowship
between his country and ours, and if I have one wish
above another, it is to do what little I can to promote kind
and generous feeling "between the two great nations
which speak the English language, and which are alike
312
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
entitled to the English name." I have lived in both
countries, and I can never forget the kindness and the
hospitality which I and my family experienced when in
America; and I bear this testimony, that there is more
kindly feeling in the Americans towards England and the
English than there is here towards America and the
Americans. It is not unnatural that it should be so. They
have ties and affections towards the land of their fore-
fathers which we cannot have towards any new country.
This island contains the ashes of their ancestors. She is
the place from whence they sprung. To them she is ever
their mother country-their dear Old England. They
claim her as well as we. Every American who comes to
England makes, as it were, a pilgrimage to the old home.
of his family. I remember a connection of my own who
visited this country some years ago. He was so blind he
could not see across the street; but he related with the
rapture of a school-boy a visit he had paid to some remote
part of Yorkshire where his family once lived; how he
had met with an old lady who had taken him to the
leaded roof of her house to show him the country round;
the joy, the delight with which he stood there, looking in
every direction, and in imagination seeing the same fields,
breathing the same Yorkshire air-in fact, living again
the life so familiar to generations of his family. He is
now a chaplain in the Federal army; but wherever he
may go, there is fastened in that spot a cord, invisible,
reaching to his heart, which neither time nor space shall
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
313
sever. Some months ago I had a letter from a loved rel-
ative of mine, a lady residing in Philadelphia, whose hus-
band lies buried in the town of Warwick, in the very
centre of England. Think you there are no heartstrings
there! She mourns in plaintive accents the more than
want of sympathy of dear Old England, and thinks it
strange that in their hour of trial a mother should so for-
get her child. But she concludes with this line, uttered
from the very depths of her heart. "England, with all
thy faults, I love thee still." Not long ago I met with
Mr. Whiting, the eminent lawyer, who has lately been
over from the American Government. He also spoke
with pride of his English ancestry, and related with the
freshness of yesterday a former visit to the home of his
family in Lincolnshire-how he found the old escutcheon
hanging on the wall-how he had examined the family
registers, in the old Church, and the tombstone beneath
which his people lay in the quiet graveyard. No spot
on earth seemed fraught to him with such dear recollec-
tions. These are the heartstrings which bind Ameri-
cans to England. As Earl Russell said the other day,
they have our language, our literature, our laws; our
early history is also theirs. These appeal to the under-
standing and the intellect; but those quiet spots, the
homes and the graves of their kindred, bind their very
hearts to England. O, let us cherish, and seek to return
the love that ever flows towards us with the Atlantic
wave. Now, let me congratulate you, Mr. Beecher, on
314
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
the
success which has attended your recent afforts. In
the capital of Scotland you had the opportunity of ad-
dressing perhaps the most learned, the most scientific,
the most critical, and, at that particular juncture, the
most philanthropic assembly which could be got together
in this kingdom. I understand that there was not one
dissentient voice. In the capital of England no room
could be found large enough, to contain one-half of those
who flocked to hear and support you. You have had
large and influential meetings in other great towns and
cities; and, sir, you have fought with beasts at Ephesus-
but, even here, the closing scenes must have convinced
you how impotent were the bellowings and howlings, the
occasional bleatings and cacklings of the Southern hire-
lings to stifle the voice of Liverpool for freedom. (Ap-
plause.) You will relate these things when you go home.
You may also tell them of the great meetings of the Con-
federate cause-how they are held in caves and holes of
the earth, and the first thing publicly known of them is
from the newspaper report next morning, when you learn
that they have had the same thing over again-a few
dozen people to partake of some cock-a-doodle-doo
for the chief dish, and the correspondent "S." for gar-
nish. (Laughter and cheers.) You may also tell your
people that it is not from any want of employing the
most subtle and devoted agents, and conducting their
cause with the most consummate skill, that the whole
British nation has not been prostituted to the Southern
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
315
|
cause.
Mr. James Spence was their agent here. He is
an elegant writer, a fascinating speaker, a man so skilled
in rhetoric and sophistry that he can hide the protruding
hoof, and represent the devil of the South as an angel of
light. His courage is equal to his accomplishments, for I
have heard him in effect, say, before an audience of Eng-
lishmen that if any one wanted to know who had the
courage" to defend slavery from the Bible, he was the
man. I never heard a man so hissed in the whole course
of my life. They have had Mr. Laird for their ship-
builder-they might have sought England through and
not found such another; not only has he built them ships
which cannot be surpassed, but he has sacrificed for them
his Parliamentary reputation, making unverified state-
ments which have been repudiated with scorn. If Mr.
Laird had any hankerings after a Northern contract, he
certainly did not seek the front door. The next time he
makes a pretended statement of facts in Parliament he
will be reminded of these anonymous letters, and will not
find it so easy to ride off on a piece of empty clap-trap
about Mr. Bright setting class against class. These
shores do not contain a nobler or purer patriot than John.
Bright. Mr. Laird may say that he would rather be
known as the builder of the Alabama than as he; but I
venture to predict that the name of John Bright will be
honored, and cherished (cheers) and loved by the Eng-
lish nation when the name of the builder of the Alabama,
if remembered at all, will be as that of a man who, to fill
፡፡
316
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
his own pockets with gold, not only violated the procla-
mation of his Sovereign, but did his utmost to bring two
kindred nations into collision, to cover sea and land with
fire and blood, and to involve the whole British race in
all the horrors and calamities of war.
The Chairman concluded by briefly congratulating Mr.
Beecher on the success which had attended his labors in
this country.
Mr. C. E. RAWLINS, jun., said: Mr. Chairman, and
ladies and gentlemen,—I shall content myself on this oc-
casion, by simply reading the address presented to the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and ask for your approval of
it. He then read the following address :-
To the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York, U. S.:
After a brief sojourn in Europe-a short respite from
ceaseless labors of philanthropy-you are retiring to your
ountry to resume those labors with renewed health and
strength, and we trust a yet firmer faith in their ultimate
success.
Standing, as it were, on the very shores of the "old coun-
try," and in a town which is the last-and, perhaps,
through its commerce, the strongest-link in that chain
which individually unites the interests of England and
the United States, let us regard you as the representative
of your countrymen, and take counsel together ere we bid
you farewell.
There is no feeling more common on both sides of the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
317
Atlantic than pride in our common descent. Hardly a
century has elapsed since you had no separate history
from our own. Until then we were fellow-countrymen-
united under the same crown, and claiming protection.
from the same Constitution. The same page recorded for
us both all the glorious associations of the past-the
same battles for national independence, and the same
national struggles for civil and religious liberty. To
this day we are sharing the inheritance of political free-
dom purchased by the blood of our ancestors. Better
than all, we worship at the same altar and reverence
the same heroes of art, literature, and science.
With such recollections crowding upon us, let us this
day pledge each other, not only by the memories of the
past, but our still more glorious hopes of the future, that,
so far as in us lies, there shall be perpetual peace be-
tween England and the United States.
p
Now, there are common principles which mark the
genius-nay, which must be essential to the life and civ
ilization of both nations alike, and which are not ma-
terially affected by our differing forms of Government.
The latter are, in fact, but mere accidents of our national
existence. On the one side we have an hereditary mon-
archy and an hereditary House of Lords, around which
entwines a loyalty to the crown of centuries. On the other
hand, in a country where no feudal aristocracy had ever
existed and no King ever reigned, you were obliged to
make both your President and higher chamber elective.
}
316
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
his own pockets with gold, not only violated the procla-
mation of his Sovereign, but did his utmost to bring two
kindred nations into collision, to cover sea and land with
fire and blood, and to involve the whole British race in
all the horrors and calamities of war.
The Chairman concluded by briefly congratulating Mr.
Beecher on the success which had attended his labors in
this country.
Mr. C. E. RAWLINS, jun., said: Mr. Chairman, and
ladies and gentlemen,—I shall content myself on this oc-
casion, by simply reading the address presented to the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and ask for your approval of
it. He then read the following address :-
To the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, of New York, U. S.:
After a brief sojourn in Europe-a short respite from
ceaseless labors of philanthropy-you are retiring to your
Country to resume those labors with renewed health and
strength, and we trust a yet firmer faith in their ultimate
success.
Standing, as it were, on the very shores of the "old coun-
try," and in a town which is the last-and, perhaps,
through its commerce, the strongest-link in that chain
which individually unites the interests of England and
the United States, let us regard you as the representative
of your countrymen, and take counsel together ere we bid
you farewell.
There is no feeling more common on both sides of the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
317
Atlantic than pride in our common descent. Hardly a
century has elapsed since you had no separate history
from our own. Until then we were fellow-countrymen-
united under the same crown, and claiming protection.
from the same Constitution. The same page recorded for
us both all the glorious associations of the past-the
same battles for national independence, and the same
national struggles for civil and religious liberty. To
this day we are sharing the inheritance of political free-
dom purchased by the blood of our ancestors. Better
than all, we worship at the same altar and reverence
the same heroes of art, literature, and science.
With such recollections crowding upon us, let us this
day pledge each other, not only by the memories of the
past, but our still more glorious hopes of the future, that,
so far as in us lies, there shall be perpetual peace be-
tween England and the United States.
Now, there are common principles which mark the
genius-nay, which must be essential to the life and civ
ilization of both nations alike, and which are not ma-
terially affected by our differing forms of Government.
The latter are, in fact, but mere accidents of our national
existence. On the one side we have an hereditary mon-
archy and an hereditary House of Lords, around which
entwines a loyalty to the crown of centuries. On the other
hand, in a country where no feudal aristocracy had ever
existed and no King ever reigned, you were obliged to
make both your President and higher chamber elective.
318
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
All our other political and municipal institutions are the
same.
What, then, so closely assimilates the two nations in
the hopes and fears, the present condition and future
prospects of their civilization? What but the love of
freedom-freedom personal and national--which has al-
ways distinguished the Anglo-Saxon race above all
others? Subject to this higher law, both Englishmen
and Americans hold all their institutions.
We do not this morning trace the origin and progress
of the institution which has been so sad an exception to
the history of both nations. England some years ago wiped
out the foul blot from her own constitution, and it is now
her proud boast that the foot of a slave can never press.
her soil.
The peculiarities which distinguish a Federal Union of
States previously independent have presented the same
course with you. Slavery was found to be a State, not a
national institution. All action thereon by the Federal
power was excluded.
But when the slave-holding States
claimed to extend this institution not only to the territo-
ries but throughout the Union, the free spirit of the North
was aroused, and in the Senate, in the House of Repre-
sentatives, in the courts of justice, in the still higher
courts of public opinion, but everywhere and on all oc-
casions in a constitutional manner, they resisted the
claim. They fought the battle of freedom against slavery
in Missouri, in Texas, and in the Supreme Court of the
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
319
United States, and at length they succeeded in placing
in the Presidential chair a man who was equally pledged
to the constitutional obligation not to interfere with.
slavery within the States themselves, and to his personal
obligation to prevent its further extension.
We clearly recognize the fact that the Secession of the
Southern slave-holding States was declared by themselves
to be because they had lost this power of extension; that
it was to maintain this unconstitutional Secession that
the national flag was violated at Fort Sumter; that the
war which has resulted has been carried on by the Federal
Government for the suppression of a rebellion and the
maintenance of the national interests. But while deeply
regretting the miseries thus occasioned, we rejoice with
you that treason placed within the power of that Govern-
ment what peace and order had denied to it; and it is
with reverential ack owledgement of that great Provi-
dence which still educes good from evil that we sympa-
thize with you in those acts of the Legislature upon
which is founded the glorious proclamation of freedom to
slaves of rebellious States. We trust you may not fail in
the self-sacrifice which may yet be needful ere that proc-
lamation is realized.
There is yet one other point on which we could speak
with a candor which no one can appreciate better than
yourself.
If the friendly relations of the two countries are to be
maintained unbroken in the future, it must be on the basis
320
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
of mutual interests. A free interchange of commodities
between them will soon annihilate the prejudices which
still unworthily linger on both sides of the Atlantic.
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) As in the past we have
noticed that the gradual relaxation of your protective
tariff was breaking down the barriers between the two
nations, so we attribute no small portion of the bitterness.
of our Southern sympathizers to those disturbances in
our commerce which have resulted from your return to
vicious principles of taxation. That this is a violation of
the rights of the consumer, and opposed to the established
laws of political economy, you have yourself acknowl
edged.
Freedom of commerce with other nations is but an ex-
tension of freedom of production and interchange within
our own. To prohibit it by high duties for the sake of
protecting particular manufactures by high prices is a
robbery of the consumer. England has set a noble ex-
ample of universal free-trade. She offers no exclusive
privileges; she asks no previous conditions. You have
'but to follow in her footsteps. You have not shrunk
from the mighty task of organizing the industry of
4,000,000 colored laborers and 5,000,000 of whites. With
equal courage, attempt the far easier task of reorganizing
your system of taxation on the same basis of freedom.
(Hear, hear.) Your immediate and primary duty is the
suppression of a foul rebellion and the emancipation of
the slave; but we are convinced that no single act could
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
321
be more effective in securing and maintaining friendly re-
lations between our two nations than a thorough revision
of your fiscal policy. Hundreds of thousands of our sur-
plus population are every year emigrating to the United
States. In future they will feel that every State, from
Maine to Texas, and every rood of soil between the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, may be a home for the free.
When the electric chain shall again, as once it did, unite
us, the first message that shall flash with lightning speed.
along its wires will be "Glory to God in the highest,
peace and freedom to man on earth, without distinction
of creed, or class, or color, to the end of time." (Im-
mense cheering.)
The Rev. Mr. JONES seconded the adoption of the ad-
dress, and the motion was unanimously adopted with a
display of enthusiastic feeling.
The Rev. H. W. BEECHER, on rising to respond to
the addresses, was received with enthusiastic cheers, which
continued for some minutes. He said :-Mr. Chairman,
ladies and gentlemen,-Although this is a festive scene
it is rather with feelings of sadness and solemnity that I
stand in your midst; for the hours are numbered that I
am to be with you, and the ship is now waiting that I
trust will bear me safely to my native land. If already I
have to the full those sentiments of reverence and even
romantic attachment to the memories, to the names, to the
truths, and to the very legends of Old England which
have been so beautifully alluded to by the Chairman.
21
322
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
on this occasion-if I had already that
already that prepara-
tion, how much, working on that predisposition,
do you suppose has been the kindness, the good cheer,
the helpfulness which I have received from more noble
English hands and hearts than I can name or even now
remember. I have to thank them for almost everything,
and I have almost nothing to regret in my personal in-
tercourse with the English people; for I am too old a
navigator to think it a misfortune to have steered my bark
in a floe or even a storm, and what few waves have
dashed over the bows and wetted the deck did not send
me below whining and crying. (Hear, hear, and laugh-
ter.) It was a matter of course. I accepted it with
good nature at the time. I look back on it, on the whole,
with pleasure now; for storms, when they are past, give
us on their back the rainbow, and now even in those dis-
cordant notes I find some music. I had a thousand
times rather that England should be so sensitive as to
quarrel with me than that she should have been
so torpid and dead as not to have responded at a
stroke. I go back to my native land; but be sure, sir,
and be sure, ladies and gentlemen, that have kindly
presented to me this address, that though I needed no
such spur I shall accept the incitement of it to labor
there for a better understanding and for an abiding peace.
between these two great nations. I do not know that my
hardest labor is accomplished on this side. I know not
what is before me-what criticisms may be made upon my
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
323
course. I think it likely that many papers that never
have been ardent admirers of mine will find great fault
with my statements, will controvert my facts, will traverse
my reasonings. I do not know but that men will say
that I have conceded too much; and that, melting under
the influence of England, I have not been as sturdy here
in my blows as I was in my own land. (Laughter.) One-
thing is very certain that, while, before I came here, I
always attempted to speak the words of truth, even if
they were not of soberness-(laughter)—so here I have
endeavored to know only that which made for truth first—
love and peace next. Of course I have not said every-
thing that I knew. So to do, would have been to jabber
in season and out of season, and fail to promote the sub-
limest ends that a Christian man or a patriot can contem-
plate the welfare of two great allied nations. I should
have been foolish if I had left the things which made for
peace and dug up the things that would have made of
fence. Yet, that course was not inconsistent with frank-
ness, with fidelity, and with a due statement of that blame
which we have felt attached to the course of England in
this conflict. I shall go back to represent to my own
countrymen on fitting occasions what I have discovered
of the reasons for the recent antagonism of England to
America. And I shall have to say primarily that the
mouth and the tongue of England have been to a very
great extent as were the mouth and the tongue of old of
those poor wretches that were possessed of the devil,—
324
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
not in their own control. (Laughter and applause.) The
institutions of England-for England is pre-eminently a
nation of institutions-the institutions of England have
been very largely controlled by a limited class of men;
and, as a general thing, the organs of expression have
gone with the dominant institutions of the land. Now,
it takes time for a great unorganized, and to a certain ex-
tent unvoting, public opinion, underneath institutions, to
create that grand swell that lifts the whole ark up; and
so it will be my province to interpret to them that there
may have been abundant, and various, and wide-spread
utterances antagonistic to us, and yet that they might not
have been the voices that represented, after all, the great
heart of England. But there is more than that. Rising
higher than party feeling, endeavoring to stand upon some
ground where men may be both Christians and philos-
ophers, and looking upon the two nations from this higher
point of view, one may see that it must needs have been
as it has been, for it so happens that England herself,
or Great Britain I should say I mean Great Britain
when I say England always-Great Britain is her-
self undergoing a process of gradual internal change.
All living nations are undergoing such changes. No na-
tion abides fixed in policy and fixed in institutions until
it abides in death; for death only is immovable in this
life, and life is a perpetual process of supply. Assimila-
tion, excretion, change, and sensitiveness to the causes of
change, are the marks of life. And England is undergo-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
325
ing a change, and must do so so long as she is vital; and
when you shall have put that round about England which
prevents further change, you will have put her shroud
around her. Now, changes cannot be brought to pass
amongst a free, thinking people, as you can bring about
changes in agriculture or in mechanics, or upon dead
matter by the operation of natural laws. Changes that
are wrought by the will of consenting men imply hesita-
tion, doubt, difference, debate, antagonisms; and change
is the final stage before which always has been the great
conflict, which conflict itself, with all its mischiefs, is also
a great benefit, since it is a quickener and a life-giver;
for there is nothing so hateful in life as death; and
among a people nothing so terrible as dead men that
walk about and do not know they are dead. (Laughter
and cheers.) It therefore comes to pass that in the
normal process of a change such as is taking place in
England, there will be parties, there will be divided
circles, and cliques, and all those aspects and phenomena
which belong to healthy national progress and change
for progress. Now, it so came to pass that America too
was undergoing a change more pronounced; and since,
contrary to our hope and expectation, it was a change
that went on under the form of revolution, and war in its
latter period, it at first addressed England only by her
senses; for when the rebellion broke out and the tidings
rolled across the ocean, everybody has said “ England
was for you" at first. I believe so; because before men
1
326
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
h
had time to weigh in the balances the causes that were at
work on our side; before the patrician had had time to
study: "What might be the influence of this upon my
class?" and the churchman,-"What will be the influ-
ence of these principles on my position?"-and the
various parties in Great Britain-" What will be the in-
fluence of these American ideas, if they are in the ascend-
ancy, on my side and on my position?"-before men
had time to analyze and to ponder; they were for the North
and against the South; because, although your anti-slavery
feeling is hereditary and legendary, there was enough vi-
tality in it, however feeble, to bring you on to the side of
the North in the first instance. Much more would it
have done, had it been a really living and quickening
principle. It is said that up to the time of the trouble of
the Trent, England was with us, but from that time she
went rapidly over the other way. Now that was merely
the occasion, but not the cause. I understand it to have
been this-that there were a great many men and classes
of men in England that feared the reactionary influences
of American ideas upon the internal conflicts of England
herself; and a great deal of the offence has arisen, not so
much from any direct antagonism between Englishmen
and Americans, as from the feeling of Englishmen that
the way to defend themselves at home was to fight their
battle in America, and that therefore there has been this
strange, this anomalous and ordinarily unexplained cause
of the offence and of the difficulties. Let us look a little
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
327
at it. I will not omit to state, in passing, that there has
been a great deal of ignorance and a great deal of mis-
conception. But that was to be expected. We are not
to suppose it would be supreme egotism for an Ameri-
can to suppose that the great mass of the English peo-
ple should study American institutions and American pol-
icy and American history as they do their own; and
when to that natural unknowingness by one nation of the
affairs of another are added the unscrupulous and won-
derfully active exertions of Southern emissaries here,
who found men ready to be inoculated, and who com-
passed sea and land to make proselytes and then made
them tenfold more the children of the devil than them-
selves; when these men began to propagate one-sided
facts, suppressing-and suppression has been as vast a
lie in England as falsification-perpetually presenting
every rumor, every telegram, and every despatch from the
wrong point of view, and forgetting to correct it when the
rest came, finding, I say, these emissaries and these easy
converts, the South has propagated an immense amount
of false information throughout England, we are to take.
this into account. But, next consider the antagonisms
which there are supposed to be between the commercial
interests of North America and of England. We are two
great rivals. Rivalry, gentlemen, is simply in the nature
of a pair of scissors or shears; you cannot cut with one
blade, but if you are going to cut well you must have one
rubbing against the other. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
328 HENRY WARD BEEcher's sPEECHES
$
One bookstore cannot do as much business in a town as
two, because the rivalry creates demand. Everywhere,
the great want of men is people to buy, and the end of
all commerce should be to raise up people enough to take
the supplies of commerce. Now, where in any street you
collect one, five, ten, twenty booksellers or dry goods.
dealers, you attract customers to that point, and so far
from being adverse to each other's welfare, men cluster-
ing together in rivalry, in the long run and comprehen-
sively considered they are beneficial to each other. There
are many men who always reason from their lower facul-
ties, and refuse to see any questions except selfishly, en-
viously, jealously. It is so on both sides the sea. Such
men will attempt always to foster rivalry and make it ran-
corous. They need to be rebuked by the honorable men
of the commercial world on both sides of the ocean,
and put in their right place under foot. (Applause.)
Against all mean jealousies, I say, there is to be a com-
merce yet on this globe, compared with which all we have.
ever had will be but as the size of the hand compared
with the cloud that belts the hemisphere. There is to be
a resurrection of nations; there is to be a civilization
that shall bring up even that vast populous continent of
Asia into new forms of life, with new demands. There is
to be a time when liberty shall bless the nations of the
earth and expand their minds in their own homes; when
men shall want more and shall buy more. There is to be
a supply required, that may tax every loom and every
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
329
spindle and every ship that England has or shall have
when they are multiplied fourfold. Instead therefore of
wasting energy, peace, and manhood in miserable petty
jealousies, trans-Atlantic or cis-Atlantic, the business of
England, as of America, should be, to strike those key-
notes of liberty, to sound those deep chords of human
rights, that shall raise the nations of the earth and make
them better customers because they are broader men.
(Great cheering.) It has also been supposed that Ameri-
can ideas reacting will have a powerful tendency to dis-
satisfy men with their form of government in Great Brit-
ain. This is the sincere conviction of many. Ladies
and gentlemen, England is not perfect. England has not
yet the best political instruments any more than we have;
but of one thing you may be certain, that in a nation.
which is so conservative, which does not trust itself to the
natural conservatism of self-governing men, but even for-
tifies itself with conservatism by the most potent insti-
tutions, and gives those institutions mainly into the hands
of a conservative class, ordained to hold back the impetu-
osity of the people-do you think that any change can
ever take place in England until it has gone through such
a controversy, such a living fight, as that it shall have
proved itself worthy to be received? And will any man
tell me, that when a principle or a truth has been proved
worthy, England will refuse to receive it, to give it house
room, and to make any changes that may be required for
it? If voting vivá voce is best, fifty years hence you will
330 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
be found voting in that manner. If voting by the ballot
is best, fifty years hence you will have here what we have
in America, the silent fall of those flakes of paper which
come as snow comes, soundless, but which gather, as
snow gathers on the tops of the mountains, to roll with
the thunder of the avalanche, and crush all beneath it.
(Loud applause.) But it is supposed that it may extend
still further. It is supposed that the spectacle of a great
nation that governs itself so cheaply will react in favor of
those men in Europe, who demand that monarchical gov-
ernment shall be conducted cheaply. For men say, look
at the civil list-look at the millions of pounds required
to conduct our Government, and see 30,000,000 of men
governed on that vast Continent at not one-tenth part of
the expense.
Well, I must say, that if this report comes
across the sea, and is true, and these facts do excite such
thoughts, I do not see how it can be helped. I do not
say that our American example will react to the essential
re-construction of any principles in your edifice. I have
not in my own mind the belief that it will do more than
re-adapt your economy to a greater facility and to more
beneficence in its application; but that it will ever take
the crown from the king's head, or change the organiza-
tion of your aristocracy, I have not a thought. It is no
matter what my own private opinion on the subject is.
Did I live or had I been born and bred in England, I
have no question that I should feel just as you feel, for
this I will say that in no other land that I know of under
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
331
the sun are a monarchy and an aristocracy holding power
under it, standing around as the bulwark of the throne-
in not another land are there so many popular benefits
accruing under the Government; and if you must have
an aristocracy, where in any other land can you point to
so many men, noble politically, but more noble by disposi
tion, by culture, by manliness, and true Christian piety?
(Loud and reiterated cheering.) I say this neither as the
advocate nor as the adversary of this particular form of
Government, but I say it simply because there is a latent
feeling that American ideas are in natural antagonism
with aristocracy. They are not. American ideas are
merely these that the end of government is the benefit
of the governed. If that idea is inconsistent with your
form of Government, how can that form expect to stand?
And if it only requires some slight readjustment from
generation to generation, and if that idea is consistent
with monarchy and aristocracy, why should you fear any
change? I believe that monarchy and aristocracy, as
they are practically developed in England, are abundantly
consistent with the great doctrine, that Government is for
the benefit of the governed. There has also been a feel-
ing that the free church of America, while it might per-
haps do in a rough-and-tumble enterprise in the wilder-
ness, is not the proper form of church for Great Britain.
Well, you are the judges, gentlemen, about that, not
we; and if it is not the proper form for Great Britain
you need not fear that Great Britain will take it.
332
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
If it is, then it is only a question of time; you will
have to take it. For I hold, sturdy as you are, strong
as your will is, persistent as you may be for whatever
seems to you to be truth, you will have, first or last,
to submit to God's truth. When I look into the interior
of English thoughts, and feelings, and society, and see
how in the first stage of our conflict with your old anti-
slavery sympathies you went for the North; how there
came a second stage, when you began to fear, lest this
American struggle should react upon your own parties.
I think I see my way to the third stage, in which you will
say—“ This American struggle will not affect our interior
interests and economy more than we choose to allow;
and our duty is to follow our own real original opinions.
and manly sentiments. I know of but one or two things
that are necessary to expedite this final judgment of Eng-
land, and that is, one or two conclusive Federal victories.
(Applause.) If I am not greatly mistaken, the convic-
tions and opinions of England are like iron wedges; but
success is the sledge-hammer which drives in the wedge
and splits the log. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Nowhere
in the world are people so apt to succeed in what they put
their hand to as in England, and therefore nowhere in the
world more than in England is success honored: and the
crowning thing for the North, in order to complete that
returning sympathy and cordial good-will is to obtain a
thorough victory over the South. There is nothing in the
way of that but the thing itself. (Laughter and cheers.)
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
333
Allow me to say, therefore, just at this point and in that
regard, that, whilst looking at it sentimentally, the pro-
longation of this war seems mischievous; it is more in
seeming than reality, for the North was itself being edu-
cated by this war. This North was like men sent to sea
on a ship that was but half built as yet; just enough
built to keep the water out of the hull: but they had both
to sail on their voyage and to build up their ship as they
went. We were precipitated at a civil crisis in which.
there were all manner of complications at all stages of
progress in the right direction of this war, and the process
of education has had to go on in battle-fields, in the drill
camps, and at home amongst the people, while they were
discussing, and taxing their energies for the maintenance.
of the war. And there never was so good a school-master
as war has been in America. Terrible was the light of
his eye, fearful the stroke of his hand; but he is turning
out as good a set of pupils as ever came from any school
in this world. Now, every single month from this time
forward that this struggle is delayed unitizes the North-
brings the North on to that ground which so many have
struggled to avoid :-" Union and peace require the utter
destruction of slavery." There is an old proverb,
"There's luck in leisure." Let me transmute the prov-
erb, and say, "There is emancipation in delay." (Loud
cheers.) And every humane heart, yea every commercial
man that takes any comprehensive and long-sighted in-
stead of a narrow view of the question-will say, "Let
334
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
the war thus linger until it has burnt slavery to the very
root." (Renewed cheers.) While it is, however, a great
evil and a terrible one-I will not disguise it,-for war is
dreadful to every Christian heart,-yet, blessed be God,
we are not called to an unmixed evil. There are many
collateral advantages. While war is as great, or even a
greater evil than many of you have been taught to think,
it is wrong to suppose that it is evil only, and that God
cannot, even by such servants as war, work out a great
moral result. The spirit of patriotism diffused throughout
the North has been almost like the resurrection of man-
hood. You never can understand what emasculation has
been caused by the indirect influence of slavery. I have
mourned all my mature life to see men growing up
who were obliged to suppress all true conviction and
sentiment, because it was necessary to compromise.
between the great antagonisms of North and South.
There were the few pronounced anti-slavery men of the
North, and the few pronounced slavery men of the South,
and the Union lovers (as they were called during the lat-
ter period) attempting to hold the two together, not by a
mild and consistent adherence to truth plainly spoken,
but by suppressing truth and conviction, and saying
"Everything for the Union." Now during this period I
took this ground, that if "Union" meant nothing but
this-a resignation of the national power to be made a
tool for the maintenance of slavery-Union was a lie and
a degradation. (Great cheering.) All over New Eng-
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
335
land, and all over the State of New York, and through
Pennsylvania, to the very banks of the Ohio, I, in the
presence of hisses and execrations, held this doctrine.
from 1850 to 1860-namely, "Union is good if it is
Union for justice and liberty; but if it is Union for
slavery, then it is thrice accursed." (Loud cheering.)
For they were attempting to lasso anti-slavery men by
this word "Union," and to draw them over to pro-slavery
sympathies and the party of the South, by saying,
Slavery may be wrong and all that, but we must not
give up the Union," and it became necessary for the
friends of liberty to say: "Union for the sake of liberty,
not Union for the sake of slavery." Now we have passed
out of that period, and it is astonishing to see how men
have come to their tongues in the North-(laughter)—
and how men of the highest accomplishments now say
they do not believe in slavery. If Mr. Everett could
have pronounced in 1850 the oration which he pro-
nounced in 1860, then might miracles have flourished
again. Not until the sirocco came, not until that great
convulsion that threw men as with a backward movement
of the arm of Omnipotence from the clutches of the
South and from her sorcerer's breath—not until then was
it, that with their hundreds and thousands the men of the
North stood on their feet and were men again. More
than warehouses, more than ships, more than all harvests
and every material form of wealth is the treasure of a
nation in the manhood of her men. (Great applause.)
336
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
We could have afforded to have had our stores of wheat
burnt there is wheat to plant again. We could have
afforded to have had our farms burnt-our farms can
spring again from beneath the ashes. If we had sunk
our ships-there is timber to build new ones.
Had we
burnt every house-there is stone and brick left for skill
again to construct them. Perish every material element
of wealth, but give me the citizen intact; give me the
man that fears God and therefore loves men, and the
destruction of the mere outside fabric is nothing-noth-
ing;-(cheers)--but give me apartments of gold, and
build me palaces along the streets as thick as the shops
of London; give me rich harvests and ships and all the
elements of wealth, but corrupt the citizen, and I am
poor. (Immense cheering, during which the audience.
rose and enthusiastically reiterated the applause.) I will
not insist upon the other elements. I will not dwell upon
the moral power stored in the names of those young
heroes that have fallen in this struggle
[Here the
speaker manifested considerable emotion.] I cannot
think of it, but my eyes run over. They were dear to me,
many of them, as if they had carried in their veins my
own blood. How many families do I know, in which
once was the voice of gladness, in which now father and
mother sit childless! How many heirs of wealth, how
many noble scions of old families, well cultured, the
heirs to every apparent prosperity in time to come, flung
themselves into their country's cause, and died bravely
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
337
fighting for it. And every such name has become a name
of power, and whoever hears it hereafter shall feel a thrill
in his heart--self-devotion, heroic patriotism, love of his
kind, love of liberty, love of God. I cannot stop to
speak of these things; I will turn myself from the past
of England and of America to the future. It is not a
cunningly-devised trick of oratory, that has led me to
pray God and his people that the future of England and
America shall be an undivided future, and a cordially
united one. I know my friend Punch thinks, I have
been serving out "soothing syrup" to the British Lion.
(Laughter.) Very properly the picture represents me as
putting a spoon into the lion's ear instead of his mouth
and I don't wonder that the great brute turns away so
sternly from that plan of feeding. (Laughter.) If it be
an offence to have sought to enter your mind by your
nobler sentiments and nobler faculties, then I am guilty.
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) I have sought to appeal to
your reason and to your moral convictions. I have, of
course, sought to come in on that side in which you were
most good-natured. I knew it, and so did you, and I
knew that you knew it; and I think that any man with
common sense would have attempted the same thing. I
have sacrificed nothing, however, for the sake of your
favor, and if you have permitted me to have any influ
ence with you, it was because I stood apparently a man
of strong convictions, but with generous impulses as well.
It was because you believed that I was honest in my be-
22
338
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
*
the
lief, and because I was kind in my feelings towards you.
And now when I go back home I shall be just as faithful
with our (C
young folks" as I have been with the "old
folks" in England, I shall tell them the same things that
I have said to their ancestors on this side. I shall plead
for union, for confidence. For the sake of civilization;
for the sake of those glories of the Christian Church on
earth which are dearer to me than all that I know; for
the sake of Him whose blood I bear about, a perpetual
cleansing, a perpetual wine of strength and stimulation ;
for the sake of time and for the glories of eternity, I shall
plead that mother and daughter-England and America—
be found one in heart and one in purpose, following the
bright banner of salvation, as streaming abroad in the
light of the morning, it goes round and round the earth,
carrying the prophecy and the fulfilment together, that
"The earth shall be the Lord's, and that his glory shall
fill it as the waters fill the sea." (Loud and prolonged
cheering.) And now my hours are moments, but I lin-
ger because it is pleasant. You have made yourselves so
kind to me that my heart clings to you. I leave not
strangers any longer-I leave friends behind. (Loud
cheers.) I shall probably never at my time of life—I am
now fifty years of age, and at that time men seldom make
great changes-I shall probably see England no more.;
but I shall never cease to see her. I shall never speak
any more here, but I shall never cease to be heard in
England as long as I live. (Cheers.) Three thousand
- наданих
A 찹
​IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
339
miles is not as wide now as your hand. The air is one
great sounding gallery. What you whisper in your closet.
is heard in the infinite depths of heaven. God has given
to the moral power of his church something like his own
power. What you do in your pulpits in England, we hear
in America; and what we do in our pulpits, you hear and
feel here; and so it shall be more and more. Across the
sea, that is, as it were, but a rivulet, we shall stretch out
hands of greeting to you, and speak words of peace and
fraternal love. Let us not fail to hear " Amen," and the
responsive greeting, whenever we call to you in fraternal
love for liberty--for religion-for the Church of God.
Farewell !—(The reverend gentlemen resumed his seat
amidst enthusiastic applause.)
The Rev. H. REES rose and read an address from
Welsh ministers. The original is in Welsh, and is accom-
panied by the translation appended.
To the Rev. H. Ward Beecher :
REVEREND SIR-We, the undersigned ministers of the
Welsh Congregational Churches in the town of Liverpool
and Birkenhead, desire to embrace the opportunity on
your departure from this country to express our high
esteem of your fame and character as a Christian minister
and an enlightened philanthropist.
More especially would we express our profound admi-
ration of your uncompromising self-sacrificing labors on
behalf of the oppressed African race, and your efforts to
wipe out the foul blot of slavery from the otherwise fair
340
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
escutcheon of your great and noble country: efforts which
in common with those of others of your family have made
the name of Beecher dear to the broken hearts of down-
trodden slaves, and illustrious in the eyes of all the true
friends of justice, freedom, and humanity throughout the
world.
*N
We beg to assure you, and through you our countrymen
in America, that we deeply sympathize with your Execu-
tive in its endeavors to put down the rebellion in the
Southern States, and to establish the Federal Union on a
basis of equality of rights between the white and black
races.
A rebellion whose declared object was the extension
and perpetuation of negro slavery must, we think, be re-
garded by every enlightened and sober mind as the gross-
est insult, alike to God in heaven and to man on earth.
The infamous avowal of a determination to found a gov-
ernment whose "corner-stone was to be the irredeem-
able subjugation of the black man-the assumption that
such a theory is in accordance with the will of God as
revealed in nature and in his word, we believe to be the
climax of human presumption and effrontery, which must
ever remain a black scandal in the annals of the 19th
century, and consign the memory of its abettors to the
just execration of mankind to the last ages of the world.
We rejoice to have it to say that we believe there is not
a solitary minister of our denomination in the Principality
who would not have gladly subscribed to these sentiments
""
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
341
had an opportunity of doing so been afforded; and to the
best of our knowledge the entire body of Nonconformists
in Wales, of every denomination, entertain similar opin-
ions; indeed, our whole nation, with comparatively but
very few exceptions, are wholly of the same mind.
The warm and hearty demonstrations of welcome with
which you have been received in the great cities and
towns of our kingdom will have sufficiently proved to you
that after all the heart of Old England is in its right
place.
Honored sir, we congratulate you on the results of your
visit. You will leave our shores with the pleasing con-
viction that your labors among us have not been in vain.
Many minds have been interested in and enlightened on
the issues now pending in America-waverers have been
confirmed-misapprehensions have been corrected-per-
sonal prejudices against yourself have been removed-
and the amount of moral sympathy with your Government
has been greatly augmented through your instrumentality.
The scurrilous attacks upon you in a portion of the daily
and weekly press are the highest tribute which could have
been paid to the influence of your name and the power of
your eloquence,
Dear sir, tens of thousands of the best men in England
will long cherish fond recollections of your visit; and
their best wishes will accompany you to your home. We
doubt not similar recollections will be cherished on your
own part; and when you shall have proclaimed to your
342
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
countrymen what you have witnessed and experienced
during your visit to this country, it cannot fail to prove
the means of strengthening and cementing peace and love
between our two powerful nations. May the amiable re-
lations between England and America be never inter-
rupted. May it please God to put a speedy termination
to the lamentable strife now raging in your beloved
country, and to overrule the issues of the struggle to the
relief of the oppressed, and the hastening on of that King-
dom in which there is no difference between Jew or Gen-
tile, bond or free. And if it pleases Him, may it termi-
nate in the restoration of the Federal Union and the
speedy liberation of the slave.
To your country we say again-"Peace be within thy
walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For our breth-
ren and companions' sakes, we will now say, peace be
within thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God,
we will seek thy good." And to you, sir, we say, Go in
peace. May the good hand of your God be upon you
to lead you back safely to the bosom of your family and
friends; and may your valuable life be yet spared many
years to "serve your generation according to the will of
God."
WILLIAM REES,
JOHN THOMAS,
NOEL STEPHENS,
WILLIAM ROBERTS,
H. C. THOMAS.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
343
The Rev. Professor GRIFFITH, seconded the adop
tion of the address, and the motion was cordially carried.
The Rev. H. W. BEECHER, in receiving the address,
remarked that he could not recognize one single word in
the original except his own name, which stood in English.
Although this was the case, he was more than pleased to
say that he owed no inconsiderable part of himself to the
Welsh blood which he had in his veins. Mary Roberts
was his great great grandmother, and she was as fully
blooded a Welsh woman as ever lived. (Cheers.)
Mr. J. H. ESTCOURT, Chairman of the Executive
Committee of the Union and Emancipation Society, Man-
chester, was received with cheering. He said he appeared.
there in an official and in a private capacity in the latter
as a participator, with the friends present, in the last fare-
well to their friend, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher;
in the former, as one of a deputation appointed to present
to the reverend gentleman an album, duly inscribed, con-
taining about 200 carte de visite portraits of the President,
Vice-Presidents, Executive, and General Council of the
Union and Emancipation Society, of Manchester (each
carte de visite being inscribed with the autograph of the
person represented) as a token of the esteem and affection
entertained towards Mr. Beecher personally; and also of
their admiration of his manly and eloquent advocacy of
the claims of the bondsmen in his own country, to free-
dom and to manhood. These portraits comprised the
leading Liberal members of the House of Commons,
344
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ministers of the Gospel, eminent men in literature and
scholastic position, and honest-hearted intelligent rep-
resentative men of the nation. Many of the best
citizens of the kingdom were represented in that
album-those whose sympathies were true to liberty
under all circumstances, and whose moral support
was ever given to maintain constitutional Govern-
ment. He trusted that to Mr. Beecher might be
vouchsafed physical and mental vigor, so that his future
may be as nobly used as had been his past. He believed
that the time would come, and at no distant day, when
the "sum of all villanies" would no more infest the earth
with its presence, when it would have gone into the great
past; and the oppressed would be free. When from the
Saxon language would be banished all words derivable
from or appertaining to slavery, and our noblest song
should be, “All men are free." He anticipated that time
with much joy and hope. If the friends, who now are
gathered around their guest, a man honored with success
and the blessing of God as well as with the love of his
fellowmen; if they with him should be living then, and
see the grand triumph of freedom over bondage, of good-
will over hatred, of peace and right over crimson war and
and chronic wrong,-what a jubilate would be sung by
them in company with all the great and good men of all
the nations of the earth. May we all do our duty in our
own time, earnestly and with courage, and the fruits would
certainly be seen, though perchance after many days or
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
345
,}
even years. (Applause.) In concluding he expressed his
belief that the memorial he had the honor to present to
Mr. Beecher, would be the medium of "sunny memories,
and that some of the pleasant hours which he had spent
in Old England with some warm-hearted and loving
friends, would be revived on the other side of the Atlantic,
across which he prayed for the reverend gentleman a safe
voyage. (Applause.)
The Rev. Mr. BEECHER, in acknowledgment of the
gift, said on his voyage home he should feel that multi-
tudes accompanied him, and as he lay alone in his berth
he should feel himself to be a noun of multitude.
The
friends of Emancipation should remember that there was
room enough on his side of the Atlantic for them. As
this country had sent hundreds and thousands of men
who had hindered Emancipation-the ignorant emigrants,
suborned to the pro-slavery cause-so he thought it only
right and fair that we should send them a few from the
other extreme to help the great cause of human liberty;
and if so, he would accept this volume, literally, as the
shadow of great things to come.
))
The close of the meeting being announced by the chair-
man, it was proposed that they should bid Mr. Beecher
good-by in the good old English style, with three cheers.
This suggestion was immediately adopted, and three
ringing hurrahs were given. Many of Mr. Beecher's ad-
mirers afterward flocked round him and shook him by
the hands.
346
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ADDRESS DELIVERED AT LANCASHIRE
INDEPENDENT COLLEGE
ON Saturday afternoon, October 10th, 1863, the stu-
dents of the Lancashire Independent College, Withington,
seized the opportunity of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher's
short visit to this neighborhood to invite him to the Col-
lege, to receive from them an address. The presentation.
took place in the library. Mr. Beecher, who was accom-
panied by Mr. J. H. Estcourt, met with an enthusiastic
reception.
The following is a copy of the address, which was read
and presented by Mr. Atkinson, the senior student :-
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR: We, the students of the
Lancashire Independent College, heartily welcome you
amongst us to-day. We rejoice to see you in our college.
Though we have not had the opportunity of becoming
personally acquainted with you till now, we have long
known you through your writings, and through the fame
you have acquired in your own country and the world as a
Christian minister and a philanthropist. We have heard
much of your public career. And it is with a special ad-
miration that we call to mind the firm and persistent op-
position which you presented to the compromise which
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
347
issued in the Fugitive Slave Law-the protection which,
in defiance of that law, you have undauntedly afforded to
the negro runaway-the manly stand you have taken in
society in opposition to an unworthy and unchristian prej-
udice against men of color-and the efforts you have
made against overwhelming odds to obtain liberty and
free speech for black men and white men alike. But
while we hail you as the friend of the negro and the
champion of the oppressed, we, as students for the Chris-
tian ministry, are still more deeply interested in your ca-
reer as a minister of the gospel; and we take this oppor-
tunity of assuring you that the noble example you have
set us, in earnest, self-denying, and practical work for
Christ, has inspired us with the warmest sympathy and
regard. We wish you, reverend and dear sir, health and
long life; and our prayer shall be that you may be en-
abled, by God's blessing, still further to promote the in-
terests of pure religion in your country, and to place the
top-stone on that edifice of social and religious freedom
which you have so nobly labored to raise.
THE LANCASHIRE INDEPENDENT COLLEGE,
10th October 1863.
Mr. BEECHER, on rising to reply, was loudly applaud-
ed. He said: Although I am pressed for time, I could
not deprive myself of the pleasure of meeting you, for I
feel a most lively interest in all young men who are pre-
paring themselves for that which I esteem to be the mos-
honorable and by far the happiest work in life-the
348 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
Christian ministry. My father, you know, was a clergy-
man before me, and it pleased God to give him eight sons.
Every one of them is a minister of the gospel, and their
children are not all, but in numbers, also becoming cler-
gymen. I can say that I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
(Laughter and applause.) My own ministration has ex-
tended over a period of from twenty-five to thirty years.
Having been born and educated in New England, I was
called, immediately after my graduation at college, to
leave for the West, where I labored for fifteen years as a
settled pastor in the Presbyterian Church. In our coun-
try, Presbyterians take Congregational Churches, and
Congregationalists Presbyterian, indifferently; and I was
called to minister in the Presbyterian Church in the
West, studying and preaching in the midst of communi-
ties where, from recent settlement and spareness of pop-
ulation, there was much missionary work to be done.
My study was my saddle for years of my life. After
that I was removed to the great metropolis of our country
-Brooklyn being really part of the city of New York,
separated only by a river. There I have pursued my
ministry from that day to this, in a time of agitation un-
paralleled in the history of our country. I have stated.
these facts because I wish to bear witness that after this
experience, and with the knowledge that I now have, if
any office of State, or any office in society of any descrip-
tion whatever were proffered me as an honor, or as a
place of joy and comfort, I should, without any hesitation,
1
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
349
reject them each and all, as being less than the gospel
ministry. (Applause.) To a young man who looks out
with some proper diffidence of his own powers; who is
uncertain whether he shall succeed or not; who has, if
he be a cautious man by nature, some provident fears as
to support and as to relative position in society, it ought to
be something encouraging to hear one as old as I am, and
after so many years of ministration, say that there is no-
where else in the world where the promise of the Saviour is
so sure to be fulfilled, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God.
and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added
unto you." Young gentlemen,-if you seek a settlement
for the purpose of forestalling God's providence and mak-
ing your own arrangements; if it is an ambitious settle-
ment, if it is a profitable settlement, you put that promise.
away from you. You make men your almoners and treas-
urers, not God.
But I had rather settle in poverty with
God for my treasurer than take the most ambitious position
in life with only man to lean upon. He never betrays his
promises, and although I have seen days of poverty, days
also of abundance, under both circumstances I have the
most simple, unfeigned, and child-like faith in this, that if
a man will without reserve give himself to the work of God,
God will put about him the everlasting arms of his sup-
port, and he never, not for an hour, not for a moment,
whatever the seeming may be, will be betrayed or for-
saken. You may trust God, and you may give yourselves,
without a thought for external matters, to the work of the
350
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
ministration of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But this leads me
to say that for this work you must love Christ. There
are a great many religious people in the world, but I am
afraid not many Christians. There are many whose re-
ligion is duty; whose religion is worship, or submission,
or holy fear and reverence; which are all indispensable
auxiliaries. But no man is a Christian who does not love.
And it is love, as a very torrid zone in the heart, and
love to Christ as distinguished from the Father or the
Spirit that makes a man a Christian. And where one has
that heroic inspiration; where more than father, more
than mother, more than wife, more than child, more than
friends, more than self, he, loving the Lord Jesus Christ,
has the witness of it day by day in his own soul, so that
all these other relationships derive their odor, their flavor,
their light, and their beauty from the reflection of the higher
love in him to the Lord Jesus Christ; where it is his life,
so that he can say with the apostle, "The life which I
live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God"—then
it will become easy to do it: otherwise hard. I beseech
of you never to neglect a duty; never to cease to culti-
vate conscience; but I beseech of you do not go into the
ministry to be merely duty-performing ministers. Let
me say, without offensive personality, that I do not
preach because it is my duty, I do not work because it is
my duty. I both preach and I labor, because I don't
know anything on earth that is so pleasant to me. I love
it. Every year it pleases my people to give me some four
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
351
Sabbaths of rest, and the weeks on either side make it a
rest of about six secular weeks. I am always glad to go
away and rest, for I am very tired when the hot month of
August comes; but I can bear witness that I go back a
great deal more glad to my work than ever I went away
from it. (Applause and laughter.) I have to say again
and again, "After all, vacation is the heaviest month in
the year to me.” And yet that season is happy, it is
floral, it is full of God in nature; but to stand among my
my people, to look among those faces that I shall see
yet glorified,—to know that I bear my Master's heart in
my hand, and that I am laboring for Christ, and am to
present spotless before the throne of eternal glory those
whom He has committed to my charge; to see the evolu-
tions of God's grace in the hearts of men; to trace, to
follow, to aid-I know of nothing under the sun that is
such fruition and such joy, and such continual peace as
that. If you consulted but selfish joy, if that were a pos-
sible thing, you had better be a minister of Christ's gos-
pel--not a fearing minister, not an anxious minister, not
a minister that is always talking and thinking about his
"awful responsibilities." (Laughter) That is the way a
slave should talk, but that is not the way, as a Son of
God, you should talk. You are children!—not servants
--who have been taken into the bosom and confidence of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and what have you to talk about
"awful responsibilities." Love and trust are the victori-
ous mottoes of every Christian minister.
No evil can
G
352
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
befall you; nothing can harm you, if ye be followers of
Christ. To go cheerfully, and hoping, and loving, and
courageous, and undaunted, always sure that there is a
Providence in which you are moving-this is indeed, to
be a free man. And there is nothing that takes away
the fear of man and the fear of human society, and noth-
ing which takes away that fear which is the most trouble-
some of all, the fear that works through conscience,
so much as love. "Love casts out fear," and it is not
perfected till it does. And is there no fear in Christian
experience? Yes. Just like the sub-bass in the organ:
while both hands are carrying the full harmony and
the melodies above, there is far down, but as a mere
lower foundation, the rolling sub-bass. Down there let
conscience and fear thunder, but high above let all the
harmonies and melodies of heaven sound out more full,
clear, and more cutting, and lead the rest. (Applause.)
I do not know how it is with you in England-I am not
competent to speak to you of your duties in parishes here
-things are different. I shall not venture a single word
in that regard. In our country ministers are more free.
I take, and we take, a larger scope than you do here.
Everything of that kind must depend on your own good
sense, which must judge of the institutions, manners,
customs, and opinions that are round about you, and that
will take on a different form in different periods and
different nations. With us, because all public questions.
are settled by the common people's vote, we are obliged,
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
353
A
wherever that public question carries moral influence with
it, to regard the moral side of all public questions. And
that gives a latitude to the minister of the gospel. I
don't know but you take it here; but I have an impres-
sion that you do not to any such extent as we do. Just
now, the ministry of our own country are called, in a
signal and extraordinary manner, into public affairs. I
shall not trouble you with any general remarks in respect
to the struggle in America, but only to say this, that
never before or since the founding of the colonies, were
all the churches of America so nearly unified as they are
to-day. I have with me elsewhere the resolutions of
Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians; of every
shade of Congregationalists; of Episcopalians, and all
and every denomination save the Catholic, running
through three years, from North, South, Middle States,
East and West-the most Conservative hitherto-all of
them with one testimony and one feeling, in respect to
the condition of things in our country. It is sometimes
said that the North deserves no sympathy, because there
is no sincerity, no heartiness in its movements in this
subject. The man that says that in England is but igno-
rant; the man that says that in America is a knave.
No sincerity! There is nothing else in the Christian
community-ministers and people-that is so inwrought
into the very feeling and fulness of their life as never was
any external and secular aspect of affairs before since
America was discovered. Why, it is a portion of their
23
1
354 HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
emancipation of the
religion, just as much as the
Israelities was a part of Moses' religion. We feel called
in the matter of God by a Providence which speaks
as loud, to our ears, as ever the top of Sinai spoke to
Moses', or to the Hebrews' ears. And it is the business
of the Gospel to produce the manhood of four millions
of the human race, denuded of manhood-we feel that
it is the peculiar work of the Gospel in America in this
age. The whole air is full of sincerity and of religious
conviction, and there is almost no division of opinion on
that subject. There never was a more sublime moral
spectacle than that singular and unsought unison which it
has pleased God, by the pressure of external circumstances,
to bring to pass in the American Church at this time.
And now I ask--not that you should commit yourselves
one way or another, but you are men of prayer, or why
are you here preparing for sacred avocations?—I ask
that you will not forget to pray for America. And I ask
that you will pray such prayers that angels can with self-
respect carry them up to God, for I have heard prayers
that I did not believe an angel would touch. (Laughter.)
Not then, those prayers so cautiously circuitous as to
touch everything without touching anything-(laughter)
-not prayers that shall give you an appearance of do-
ing your duty, without committing yourself one way or
another; not prayers, so far South as not to commit you
with the North, and so far North as not to commit you
with the South. (Applause.) Pray for something, and
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
355
mean it. And if you believe that liberty is a part of the
Gospel work; if you believe that God is preparing the
way for the emancipation of, four million men and I
know it, I feel it in my soul as if it were an inspiration
and a revelation-then pray that the hand of those men
in the North-the whole Christian brotherhood—that
are now being lifted up to support the hands of our
President may be strengthened. For while his hands are
up Israel prevails, and when they fall, Amalek prevails.
Pray that his hands may be held up, and that the church.
of Christ may not in America backslide from her witness
and her fidelity to this great cause of God among men.
Should any of you come to our shores-it is not improba-
ble-come early. After men are forty years old it is not
wise to emigrate as a rule; men should emigrate while
yet young, if they are ever to do it. Then, they change.
circumstances easily. Their roots are not grown into the
soil; they are adaptable to new times, new circumstances,
new relations. I suppose you are wanted in England.
I do not know how much; but I do know that there
never were fairer fields, nobler opportunities for useful-
ness for men that in the ministry sought not themselves
but the Lord Jesus Christ than in the ample and ever
new opening States of our Western country. I have la-
bored there. I know the privations; but I know the
joys. It is a supreme gladness to labor at the founda-
tion. Other men shall come and build finer structures,
but the tears that missionaries shed, the prayers that men
356
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
f
offer under the trees where they labor in the woods; the
sacrifices men make, and are glad that they make them'
and quite laugh at them; there is nothing more precious
in human experience, than the joys of Christ's mission-
ary, with hope and faith very far surpassing the joys
from secular sources. The nearer you live to God, the
more you give yourselves up to him, the higher and
happier you will be, and the stronger. And while I would
not ask you to dismiss the gifts of understanding, or to
seek less than the most perfect education your time and
means allow, for you will have need of all of it; yet the
foundation of all education, the very prime motive power
by which it should be all directed, is love-love to God,
and love to man. May that God, by whom we both live
and hope, bless you; and may our respective spheres of
labor bring us to meet together in the unchanging clime
of Heaven. (Applause.)
On the proposition of Mr. Handley, seconded by Mr.
Robinson, a vote of thanks was given to Mr. Beecher for
his visit and address.
Mr. Beecher was then conducted over the college, and
departed, the students cheering him from the steps till
the cab in which he rode away was out of sight.
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
357
ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS OF THE NON-
CONFORMIST COLLEGE.
ON Thursday evening, October 22, 1863, the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher was entertained at a soirée, and
presented with an address by the students of five of the
Nonconformist Colleges in and about London—namely,
the Independent Colleges of St. John's Wood and Hack-
ney, the Countess of Huntingdon's College at Cheshunt,
the Baptist College, Regent's Park, and the Presbyterian
Theological Hall, Queen's Square. The place of meeting
was the Institution, at St. John's Wood, and the number.
of students that assembled was about 250. When tea
and coffee had been served, the company repaired to the
spacious library, and on Mr. Beecher's entrance accom-
panied by Dr. Halley, Dr. Spence, Dr. Tomkins, Rev. T.
Binney, Rev. A. Raleigh, Rev. James Stratten, Professors
Newth and Nenner, the Rev. Kilsby Jones, and some
other gentlemen, he was greeted with loud and prolonged
applause.
The Rev. ROBERT HALLEY, D.D., president of the
college, took the chair, and a hymn having been first
sung, he said he was sure he might say that it afforded all
present the highest gratification and delight to receive in.
358
HENRY WARD BEECHER'S SPEECHES
their midst from the other side of the Atlantic such a
man as the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher-(loud cheers)-
not only as the son of Dr. Beecher, whose writings were
well known in this country and greatly valued, or as the
brother of Mrs. Stowe, the talented author of that remark-
able book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but also, and chiefly
as a man who was himself both well known and esteemed
in Great Britain as a writer, a preacher, and a platform
orator, and one who had rendered most important service
to the cause of human freedom in America long before
the existing war broke out. They could not have such a
gentleman among them without feelings of pleasure, and
would rejoice to receive any of those honored men whose
names Mr. Beecher had mentioned on Tuesday evening,
who had done and suffered so much for what they be-
lieved, and what the Christian people of England be-
lieved, to be the cause of liberty, of truth, and of Chris-
tianity in America. (Cheers.) This being a students'
meeting, he would say no more, but call upon Mr. Jones,
the senior student of New College, to read the address.
Mr. JONES accordingly stood forward and read the
following document :-
M
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR, We, the students of the In-
dependent, Baptist, and Presbyterian Colleges are glad to
welcome you among us this evening. We do this in no
spirit of cold formality, but in the sincerity of our hearts,
assured that you are a man called of God to a great and
good work. We esteem it an honor, knowing that your
لله
ÎN ENGLAND IN 1863.
359
*
time is so limited and so fully occupied, to receive a visit
from so distinguished a stranger and so eminent a minis-
ter. We recognize in you one who has devoted his best
energies and the rare abilities with which God has en-
dowed you to the cause of civil and religious freedom,
and the moral and social elevation of the degraded and
oppressed. During the whole course of your public life
you have ever indignantly condemned the monstrous sin
and curse of slavery, and maintained with all your elo-
quence and at much cost the common rights and heritage
of humanity. And our earnest hope is that you may soon
see the reward of your labor in the abolition of the social
distinctions of color, and in the renewed prosperity of the
American Republic. Not only do we honor you as a
social reformer, and one to whom the best interests of
your country are dear, but we especially welcome you to
this college as a Christian minister. While thankful that
in the past God has so eminently blessed you as a
preacher of the Gospel, we pray that He will graciously
bestow upon you health, strength, and long life, that you
may be still more useful in your important labors in the
Christian ministry, and that you may be increasingly able
by your advocacy in the pulpit, on the platform, and
through the press to hasten the time when God's will shall
be done on earth as it is in heaven." (Loud cheers.)
The address was signed representatively by the senior
students of each college.
Mr. BEECHER on rising to respond was again warmly
•
360 HENRY WARD beecher'S SPEECHES
cheered. He felt deeply grateful, he said, for the kindly
greeting that had been given him. It was much pleas-
anter to his mind and heart than the tumultuous welcome
of larger and more promiscuous assemblies; and he was
particularly pleased with that part of the address in which
he was recognized as a Christian minister. Love towards
Christ was a bond which united them so closely as to
make them blood relations, and caused them to be dear
to each other on earth, and filled them with the hope of
sweeter friendship and nobler joys. He disclaimed the
idea of having suffered losses on account of his exertions
in the cause of human freedom, because he had never
looked for the rewards of position and public favor on
account of anything he had done, and because he had
always felt it to be an unspeakable honor and reward to
be permitted to engage in the work of Christ, and to do
anything for Him. Even sufferings for the Master's sake
was a blessed thing. In accepting the invitation to meet
the brethren now present he had no thought of speaking
to them on American affairs, and would confine his re-
marks to matters relating to Christian work. Accord-
ingly, he proceeded to advise the young men regarding
their studies while at college, and touched upon various
points appertaining to the propagation of the Gospel in
their after days. He set out by strongly urging due at-
tention to the laws of bodily health, as often fundamental
to success. Morbid ideas of religion, and many of the
heresies of the Church had sprung from bad digestions—
IN ENGLAND IN 1863.
361
(laughter and cheers)-for depend upon it a very close
connection subsisted between the brain' and the stomach.
The New Testament commanded men to consecrate their
bodies as much as their souls to God. He earnestly ex-
horted the students to acquire as much knowledge as pós-
sible before the time came for them to enter upon the
active duties of their profession, assured that they would
find their work vastly easier by so doing; and cautioned
them against supposing that any sort of degree of mental
attainments would make up for the want of personal
piety. By this, he said, he did not mean merely the ec-
clesiastical idea of piety, the relation of the soul towards
God, but its relations also towards man-the Divine
awakening of the entire faculties, powers, and affections,
and their employment for the good of humanity as well
as for the glory of the Most High. Religion did not con-
sist only in prayer and meditation, but in genial sympa-
thy and brotherly love, showing itself in acts of benevo-
lence. As ministers, they were not to seek their own
ease, of for high social position, but to forget themselves
in their work, endeavoring only to be useful, and then a
blessed reward would never fail to be obtained. Mr.
Beecher discoursed at some length, and in eloquent words.
upon the necessity of fervency of feeling in order to
rouse the indifferent and to be generally successful in the
preaching of the Gospel. Good sense was also an indis-
pensable qualification, and this would regulate the warmth
and zeal which should never be allowed to run wild; let
362 HENRY WARD BEÈCHER'S SPEECHÈS.
them be disciplined, but never lost. The minister of the
Gospel, moreover, must have a firm faith in the truths he
taught, believe in them as undoubtingly as men did in
material things, and resolve to stand by his convictions at
all costs, ever keeping before the mind the shortness of
time and the eternity that is to follow. Mr. Beecher con-
cluded by offering prayer.
A vote of thanks for the address, moved and seconded
by the senior students of Regent's Park and Cheshunt.
Colleges, was carried unanimously, and with the utmost
enthusiasm.
Dr. HALLEY spoke with much earnestness and feel-
ing upon the essential unity subsisting between the peo-
ples of England and of America, and uttered a fervent
hope that before a great while, by the intervention of
Divine Providence, the horrors of war might cease, and
liberty for all ranks and races prevail over the broad and
glorious continent of America, and, united in sympathy
and in effort with England, set an example to the world,
and diffuse Christian civilization over every region of the
earth. (Loud cheers.)
The benediction having been pronounced, the proceed-
ings terminated.
|
INDEX.
Speech at Manchester..
Speech at Glasgow..
Speech at Edinburgh
Speech at Liverpool.
Speech at London...
Farewell Meeting at London.
· •
Farewell Meeting at Manchester.
Farewell Meeting at Liverpool..
Address at Lancashire Independent College.
Address to Students of Nonconformist Colleges...
•
C
172-224
225-261
.262-310
·
•
·· •
···
5-51
52-94
95-127
128-171
•
311-345
346-356
357-362
Abolitionist Party-difference between it and the Anti-Slavery
Party, 305.
Abolitionists Early-treatment of the, 33, 106.
279.
Abolition Society-first in America, was founded in a portion of
the Southern States, 25.
Adams, Charles Francis-his correspondence with Mr. Seward,
Address-presented to Mr. Beecher at Manchester, 7; at London,
226; at Liverpool, 316; by the Welsh Ministry at Liverpool,
339; by the Lancashire Independent College, 346; by Non-
conformist College Students, 358; of colored people of New
York in acknowledgment of Riot Relief fund, 239.
African Slave Trade-less cruel than the Interstate Slave Trade, 73.
Alexander, Dr.-his address at Edinburgh meeting, 122.
America-her relations with England and France, 18, 58.
American Tract Society-exclusion from its publications of every-
thing against slavery, 125.
American Soldier-Mr. Beecher's tribute to the, 337.
304
INDEX.
American War-magnitude of its interests, and how much involved
in it, 274; a source of education to the North, 333.
Anderson, Rev. Dr.-his address at Glasgow meeting, 53.
Anti-Slavery Party-as distinguished from the Abolitionist Party,
305.
Anti-Slavery resolutions of various ecclesiastical bodies in Amer-
ica, 244, 353.
Ashworth, George L., Esq.-his address at Manchester Farewell
Meeting, 264.
Bazley, Thomas, M. P.-his address at Manchester meeting, 9.
Beecher, Henry Ward-his work in England, commended by Oli-
ver Wendell Holmes, 1; on the relations of Great Britain
and America, 18; his praise of Queen Victoria, 19 his trib-
ute to the early abolitionists, 33, 106; on Mr. Calhoun's doc-
tr.ne, 34 on the Fugitive Slave bill, 35: on the Missouri
Comprom se, 36, 108, on the perfidy of the Buchanan ad-
ministration, 37; on Secession, 39, 198; in reply to Lord
Wharncliffe, 41; on the treatment of colored people in the
North, 45; on Frederick Douglass, 47; on the death of Col.
Shaw at Fort Wagner, 49; his praise of Scotland, 54; on
labor in the North and South 63; on slave-breeding, 60,
151 on the atrocities of the slave trade, 74; personal tribute
to Alexander H. Stephens, 75; describes the uprising of the
North, 77, answers the question: "Why not let the South
go?' 80 8,; admits the gallantry of the Southern people,
83, 119 on the comp sit on of the Union army, 86; his
open defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law, 88; on the tak-
ing of Mason and Slidell from the British steamer Trent,
93, his recital of arly colonial history, 100; on the suc-
cessive periods of Union, Io1; on the mutations of slav-
ery, 104; on Wm. Lloyd Garrison, 107; his account of
how Kansas was made a free State, 110; on Earl Rus-
sell's speech at Blairgowrie, 116; his eulogy of Abraham
Lincoln, 121, 192; on the tariff question, 148; on the
privileges of colored people in Plymouth Church, 167,
288; on the Morril tariff, 168: on the danger of large stand-
ing armies, 200; on England's assumed horror of war,
206, 243; on the New York riots, 236, 292; he answers
the question: "Is this to be a war of extermination?" 255;
his tribute to newspaper reporters, 275; his explanation of
the "Trent" difficulty, 277; on the financial condition of the
North, 283; his tribute to Wendell Phillips, 307; on the
English and American systems of government, 330; carica-
tured by London Punch, 337.
"
INDEX.
365
Beecher, Lvman, D.D.-English appreciation of his writings, 358.
Bell, Geo. A., Esq.-letter from, to Mr. Beecher, 236.
Birrell, Rev. C M.-his address at Liverpool meeting, 170.
Bright, John, M. P.-letter from, 6, 262; tribute to, 315.
Brougham, Lord-his attitude of hostility to the Union cause,
260, 273.
Buchanan, James-his administration criticized, 37.
Buxton, Sir T. Fowell-his adventure with a mad dog, 202.
Calhoun, John Chis doctrines defined, 34, 104.
Clay, Henry-on the profits of slave breeding, 61; his relations
to the Missouri compromise, 108; the champion of a high
tar ff, 148.
Colored People-their treatment in the North, 45, 47, 156; at
Plymouth Church, 167, 288; their gallantry in the field, 49.
Constitution, The-recognizes slavery as a fact, but not as doc-
trine, 302
Declaration of Independence-declared in law, a bill of emanci-
pation, 25.
Derby, Lord his part in negro emancipation, 273.
Sp
Douglass, Fred.-Mr. Beecher's tribute to his eloquence, 47.
Dred Scott Decision-Mr. Beecher's reply to an inquiry concern-
ing the, 304.
Emancipation Proclamation, 84, 194, 319; Mr. Lincoln's delay in
issuing it, 115.
England-the natural ally of America, 92; her horror of war
not borne ou by her history, 206, 243; her relations with
the North defined and criticized by Mr. Beecher, 326; her
s.stem of government contrasted with that of America, 329.
Estcourt, J. H., Esq.-his address a Manchester meeting, 12; at
Liverpool farewell meeting, 343.
Federal Taxes-how apportioned, 30, 296.
Foster, Wm. E., M.P-Letter from, 6, 262.
Fremont, John C.-cheated out of the Presidency, 110.
Fugitive Slave Law-35, 109, 298; Mr. Beecher's reply to an
inquiry concerning the, 304.
Fulton Frry Omnibuses-colored people not allowed to ride in,
169.
Garrison, Wm. Lloyd- his treatment by the Boston Mob, 107;
tribute to, 306.
Gavazzi, Father-present at the Manchester meeting, 5.
German Emigrants-their attitude against slavery, 71.
Govan, Bailie-his address at Glasgow meeting, 52.
Hall, Rev, Newman-his address at London meeting, 212.
Sara Ka
366
INDEX.
Halley, Robert, D. D.-his address at reception by Noncon-
formist College Students, 357.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell-extract from "Our Minister Plenipo-
tentiary," in Atlantic Monthly, January, 1864, page 1.
Hughes, Archbishop-his address to the New York rioters, 293.
Inter-State Slave Trade-more cruel than the African slave
trade, 73.
Irish People-Mr. Beecher's admiration for the-, 46.
Jonnston, Dr. George-his address at Edinburgh meeting, 123.
Kansas-made a free State by Northern emigration, 36, 110.
Labor in the North and South contrasted, 64.
Laird, John-the builder of the Alabama, 315.
Lincoln, Abraham-his election to the Presidency, 38, 110; his
firmness commended, 121; Mr. Beecher's eulogy of, 192.
London Punch-its caricature of Mr. Beecher, 337.
London Times-its antagonistic attitude to the Union cause, 267.
Martin, Henri-present at Edinburgh meeting, 98.
Mason, James M.-his presence at the Lord Mayor's banquet, 209;
his seizure on the "Trent," 278
Massachusetts-how slavery ceased in, 25.
Massie, Rev. Dr.-his remarks at Manchester farewell meeting,
309.
1
Missouri Compromise-its inception and object, 36, 108; its
abolition, 109.
M'Laren, Duncan-his address at Edinburgh meeting, 96.
Montgomery Constitution-how differing from the Federal Con-
stitution, 42, 119, 152.
Morrill Tariff-its origin and purpose, 149.
Nationality of Government-its proposal, an emanation from the
South, 31.
Nelson, Thomas-his address at Edinburgh meeting, 124.
** Newman, Prof.-his address at London meeting, 211.
Newspaper Reporters-Mr. Beecher's tribute to, 275.
Newth, Prof. Alfred-letter from, 263.
New York Riots, 236; by whom caused, 292.
New York State Emancipation Act—its provisions and workings,
25.
Noel, Rev. and Hon. Baptist W., 225.
North, The-financial condition of, 283; labor in, 64; uprising of,
77.
North and South-boundary line of, 87; compared as to cultivation
of land, 144.
Ogilvie, Rev. Duncan-his address at Edinburgh meeting, 124.
Pages, Garnier-present at Edinburgh meeting, 98.
INDEX.
367
1
1
Patterson, John, Esq.-his address at Manchester farewell meet-
ing, 268.
Peace Democrats-their efforts to stop the war, 114; oppressors of
the negro, 157.
Phillips, Wendell-Mr. Beecher's eulogy of, 178, 307.
Placards Posted—at Manchester, 5; at Liverpool, 128, 132, 168; at
London, 173, 224.
Plymouth Church-its treatment of colored people, 167, 288; the
recipient of an address from the London meeting, 226; Mr.
Beecher's acknowledgment of its generosity in sending him
abroad, 261; Mr. Beecher's description of its workings, 288.
Popular Sovereignty-established and abrogated, 109, 110.
Potter, Thos. Bayley, Esq.-letter from, 5, 262.
Prince of Wales-his reception in America, 19.
Queen Victoria-American regard for, 19.
Robertson, Charles, Esq.-his address at Liverpool meeting, 128;
letter from, 263.
Rogers, Prof. Henry D., of Glasgow University-letter from, 263.
Russell, Earl-his speech at Blairgowrie, 116; his course com-
mended, 273.
Russian men-of-war in New York harbor, 208.
Scotland-Mr. Beecher's praise of, 54.
Scott, Benjamin, Chamberlain of London-his address at London
meeting, 174.
Secession-how the Southern States were won to it, 75; the right
of, 196.
Seizure of Rams at Liverpool, 49, 210.
Seward, Wm. H.-his correspondence with Earl Russell regarding
the seizure of the "Trent," 279.
Sharpe, Granville-177.
Shaw, Col.-his death at the storming of Fort Wagner, 49.
Slaves-necessity of keeping them ignorant, 61.
Slave States-division of the, 59.
Slave Empire-its founding, the openly avowed purpose of a party
in the South, 72, 142.
Slave Breeding-profits of, 60, 151; Henry Clay on, 61.
Slavery Mr. Beecher's portraiture of, 74; its relations to the war,
82, 153; the blight of, 201; how it ceased in Massachusetts
and New York, 25; a local institution, but the South aiming
to make it national, 300; as defined by the Slave States, 301;
recognized in the Constitution as fact, but not as doctrine,
302.
Slidell, John-Confederate Minister to France, 110; his seizure on
the English steamer Trent," 278.
44
368
INDEX.
South, The-her control of New York officials, 27; party divisions
in, 72; a gallant people, 83, 130; “Why not let them go?"
87, 195, how she controlled the policy of the country for
fifty years, 105; to receive more benefit from negro emanci-
pation than the North, 130.
Southern Independence Association-Mr. Beecher's reply to it's
published report, 41.
South Carolina-the only State originally voting for secession, 39
75; its ensign, 220.
Standing Army-dangerous to the liberty of a people, if great i
number, 200.
State Rights-Mr. Beecher's definition of, 188, 308.
Stephens, Alex H.-Mr. Beecher's criticisms on his speech, 42;
personal tribute to him, 75; extract from speech by, 134.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher-358; message scnt to her from Manches-
ter meeting, 310.
Sumner, Charles-126.
Sumpter, Fort-Batteries opened on, 77.
Tariff Ques ion-discussed by Mr. Beecher, 147; not a ground of
secession, 256.
Taylor, Francis, Esq —his address at Manchester meeting, 6; at
Manchester farewell meeting, 266.
Thompson, George-his address at London meeting, 217; at
London farewell meeting, 259; his definition of a copper-
head, 220.
"
'Trent," Steamer-seizure of the, 93, 277; according to English.
precedent, 279; British and American doctrines at variance
on this question, 281; how regarded by the American peo-
ple, 288; Mr. Seward's correspondence with Earl Russell
regarding it, 279.
Union Army-its composition, 86.
Wellington-in the Peninsular wars, 113.
Wharnclifie, Lord-questions put to him by Mr. Beecher, 41.
Wilks, Washington, Esq.-his address at London farewell meet-
ing, 256.
Wilson, Charles, Esq.-his address at Liverpool farewell meet-
ing, 311.
MM
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