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THE AMERICAN PARTY. -
SPEECHES. - PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION, 1855. - CONTEST. - SPEECH AT
SPRINGFIELD.
THE favorable attitude
toward slavery which the National American party assumed in the council
assembled at Cincinnati in November, 1854, led Mr. Wilson to fear that
the Southern element might soon obtain entire control of it; and his
experience at Washington during the ensuing spring served to convince
him that his fear was far from being groundless.
Indeed, strong efforts
were made by leading men immediately on his arrival as senator in that
city to secure his aid and influence in the organization of a great
American party which should ignore the slavery issue, and sanction the
assumptions of the South. His honest heart rebelled against such
recreancy to principle; and he unhesitatingly avowed his determination
to maintain the stand he had already made for freedom during his entire
political career.
Speaking of this Southern
influence in a speech before the State Council at Springfield, Mass., he
said, -
"On my arrival at
Washington, I saw at a glance that the politicians of the South, men who
had deserted their Northern associates upon the Nebraska issue, were
resolved to impose upon the American party, by the aid of dough-faces
from New York and Pennsylvania, as the test of nationality, fidelity to
the slave-power. Flattering words from veteran statesmen were poured
into my ears; flattering appeals were made to me to aid in the work of
nationalizing the party whose victories in the South were to be as
brilliant as they had been in the North. But I resolved that upon my
soul the sin and shame of silence or submission should never rest. I
returned home, and determined to battle, if I could, the meditated
treason to freedom and to the North."
Again, in a noble reply
to a letter from a friend, he most frankly speaks of his course at
Washington, and prophetically announces the character of the coming
session of Congress -
NATICK, July 23, 1855.
DEAR SIR, On my return
from a trip to the West, I found your very kind note; and I need not
tell you that I read it with grateful emotions. Your approbation - the
approbation of men like yourself, whose lives are devoted to the rights
of human nature - cannot but be clear to rue. I only regret that I have
been able to perform so little for the advancement of the cause our
hearts love and our judgments approve; that I have not ability to do all
that my heart prompts. I hope, however, my dear sir, to be able to do my
duty in every position I may be in, if not with the ability the occasion
demands, at least with an honest heart that shrinks not from any danger.
Sometimes I read over the
letter you were so kind as to send to me when I first took my seat in
the Senate. You dealt frankly with me in that letter, and I thank you
for it and I hope to be the better and wiser for it. I shall endeavor
while in the Senate to act up to my convictions of duty,—to do what I
feel to be right. If I can so labor as to advance the cause of universal
and impartial liberty in the country, I shall be content, whether my
action meets the approbation of the politicians or not. I never have
sacrificed, and I never will sacrifice, that cause to secure the
interests of any party or body of men on earth. The applause of
political friends is grateful to the feelings of any man in public life,
especially if he is bitterly assailed by political enemies; but the
approbation of our own consciences is far dearer to us.
Last year, after the
attempt was made to repeal the prohibition of slavery in Kansas and
Nebraska, the people of the North began to move; and, from March to
November, the friends of freedom won a series of victories. The moment
the elections were over in the North, I saw that an effort was to be
made to assist the antislavery movement by the American movement. When I
arrived at Washington, I was courted and flattered by the politicians
even told that I might look to any position if I would aid in forming a
national party. I saw that men who had been elected to Congress by the
friends of freedom were ready to go into such a movement. I was alarmed.
I saw that one of three things must happen, - that the antislavery men
must ignore their principles to make a national party; Or they, must
fight for the supremacy of their principles, and impose them upon the
organization, which would drive off the Southern men; or they must break
up the party. I came home with the resolution to carry the convention if
I could; to have it take a moderate but positive antislavery position:
if not, I determined that it should be broken at the June council, so
that the friends of freedom might have time to rally the people. Since
my return in March, 1 have travelled more than nine thousand miles,
written hundreds of letters, and done all I could to bring about what
has taken place. But the work is hardly begun. Our antislavery friends
have a mighty conflict on hand for the next sixteen months. It will
demand unwavering resolution, dauntless courage, and ceaseless labor,
joined with kindness, moderation, and patience. The next Congress will
be the most violent one in our history: it will try our firmness. I hope
our friends will meet the issues bravely; and, if violence and bloodshed
come, let us not falter, but do our duty, even if we fall on the floors
of Congress. At Philadelphia, for eight days, I met the armed delegates
of the black power without shrinking; and I hope to do so at the next
session of Congress if it is necessary to do so. We must let the South
understand that threats of dissolving the Union, of civil war, and
personal violence, will not deter us from doing our whole duty. Yours
truly,
H. WILSON.
In in address before a
large audience in the Metropolitan Theatre, New York, delivered on the
8th of May, 1855, and repeated in many towns and cities in New England,
he traced the growth of the antislavery sentiment in America for the
last twenty years, and warned his hearers that any party ignoring this
rising power would be overthrown by an indignant people.
''He owed it to truth,"
he said, "to speak what he knew, that the antislavery cause was in
extreme peril that a demand was made upon us of the North to ignore the
slavery-question, to keep quiet, and to go into power in 1856. If there
were men in the free States who hoped to triumph in 1856 by ignoring the
slavery-issues now forced upon the nation by the slave propagandists, he
would say to them that the antislavery men cannot be reduced or driven
into the organization of a party that ignores the question of slavery in
Christian and republican America. Let such men read and ponder the
history or the republic. Let them contrast antislavery in 1835 and
antislavery in 1855. Those periods are the grand epochs in the
antislavery movement; and the contrast between them cannot fail to give
us some faint conception of the mighty changes that twenty years of
antislavery agitation have wrought in America. Antislavery in 1835 was
in the nadir of its weakness: antislavery in 1855 is in the zenith of
its power. Then a few unknown, nameless men were its apostles and
leaders: now the most profound and accomplished intellects of America
are its chiefs and champions. Then a few proscribed and humble followers
rallied around its banner: now it has laid its grasp upon the conscience
of the people, and hundreds of thousands rally under the folds of its
flag. Then not a single statesman in all America accepted its doctrines
or defended its measures: now it has a decisive majority in the National
House of Representatives, and is rapidly changing the complexion of the
American Senate. Then every State in the Union was arrayed against it:
now it controls fifteen sovereign States by more than three hundred
thousand popular majority. Then the public press covered it with
ridicule and contempt: now the most powerful journals in America are its
instruments. There the benevolent, religious, and literary institutions
of the land repulsed its advances, rebuked its doctrines, and perscented
its advocates: now it shapes, moulds, and fashions them at its pleasure,
compelling the most powerful benevolent organizations of the Western
World, upon whose mission-stations the sun never sets, to execute its
decrees, and the oldest literary institution in America to cast from its
bosom a professor who had surrendered a man to the slave-hunters. Then
the political organizations trampled disdainfully upon it: now it looks
down with the pride of conscious power upon the wrecked political
fragments that float at its feet. Then it was impotent and powerless:
now it holds every political organization in the hollow of its right
hand. Then the public voice sneered at and defied it: now it is the
master of America, and has only to be true to itself' to grasp the helm
and guide the ship of state hereafter in her course.
"This brief contrast,"
continued he, "would show the men who hoped to win power by ignoring the
transcendent issue of our age in America how impotent would be the
efforts of any class of' men to withdraw the mighty questions involved
in the existence and expansion of slavery on this continent from the
consideration of the people.
"Now, gentlemen, I say to
you frankly, I am the last man to object to going into power (laughter),
and especially to going into power over the present dynasty that is
fastened upon the country. But I am the last man that will consent to go
into power by ignoring or sacrificing the slavery question. If my voice
could be heard by the whole country to-night, by the antislavery men of
the country to-night of all parties, I would say to them, Resolve it,
write it over your door-posts, engrave it on the lids of your Bibles,
proclaim it at the rising of the sun and the going-down of the same, and
in the broad light of noon, that any party in America, be that party
Whig, Democratic, or American, that lifts its finger to arrest the
antislavery movement, to repress the antislavery sentiment, or proscribe
the antislavery men, it surely shall begin to die (loud applause); it
would deserve to die; it will die; and, by the blessing of God, I shall
do what little I can to make it die."
In an address on
"Position and Duty of the American Party," delivered at Brattleborough,
Vt., on the 16th of the same month, he still points out in stirring
words the only course by which it can escape destruction.
"He had" he said, ''no
sympathy with that narrow, bigoted, intolerant spirit that would make
war upon a race of men because they happen to be born in other lands, a
dastardly spirit that would repel from our shores the men who sought
homes here under our free institutions. Such a spirit was anti-American,
devilish: he loathed it from the bottom of his heart. He knew there were
men who called themselves Americans who would abolish the naturalization
laws altogether, who would forever deny the right of suffrage to men for
the fault of being born out of America. He had no sympathy with that
class of men whose opinions were at war with the spirit of American
institutions and the laws of humanity. Such anti-American sentiments had
brought dishonor upon the American movement; and, unless they received
the rebuke of the American party, they would defeat the real reforms
contemplated, and cover, the movement with dishonor.
He regretted to say that
there were some members of the American party in favour of excluding by
constitutional amendments all adopted citizens from office. He deeply
deplored the action of the legislature of Massachusetts in proposing an
amendment to the Constitution embodying this doctrine. He hoped the
gentlemen who had given their votes for this proposition - a proposition
that would not permit Prof. Agassiz, one of the first living scientific
men of the age, to fill, under State appointment, an office even of a
scientific character—would see their error, and retreat at once from a
position which justice, reason, and religion condemned. What little
influence he possessed would be given with a hearty good-will to defeat
the proposition. He had no sympathy whatever with the spirit that would
send out of the country the sons and daughters of misfortune, who, by
the storms of life, were thrown upon us for support. Whenever the
authorities of the Old World sent their poor here to be relieved
themselves of their support, lie would promptly redress the imposition;
such an abuse ought to be immediately corrected: but when a poor man
upon our soil, and by the misfortunes of life is thrown upon the public
charity for support, he would as soon send a poor fleeing bondman back
to the land
'Where the cant of
democracy dwells on the lips
Of the forgers of fetters, and wielders of whips,'
as to banish such a man
from the land he has sought. There is a kind of native Americanism far
more alien to America than are the adopted sons of the Old World it
would degrade into servile races. True genuine Americanism rebukes
bigotry, intolerance, and proscription; reforms abuses; adopts a wise,
humane, and Christian policy towards all men, - a policy consistent with
the idea that all men are created equal.
"If the American party is
to achieve any thing for good, it must adopt a wise and humane policy
consistent with our democratic ideas, - a policy which will reform
existing abuses, and guard against future ones; which shall combine in
one harmonious organization moderate and patriotic men who love freedom
and hate oppression.
"Upon the grand and
overshadowing question of American slavery the American party must take
its position. If it wishes a speedy death and a dishonored grave, let it
adopt the policy of neutrality upon that question, or the policy of
ignoring that question. If that party wishes to live, and to impress its
policy upon the nation, it must repudiate the sectional policy of
slavery, and stand boldly upon the broad and national basis of freedom.
It must accept the position that 'freedom is national, and slavery is
sectional.' It must stand upon the national idea embodied in the
Declaration of Independence, that 'all men are created equal, and have
an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' It
must accept these words as embracing the great central national idea of
America, fidelity to which is national in New England and in South
Carolina. It must recognize the doctrine that the Constitution of the
United States was made 'to secure the blessing of liberty;' that
Congress has no right to make a slave or allow slavery to exist outside
of the slave States; and that the Federal Government must be relieved
from all connection with and responsibility for slavery.
In their own good time
the Americans of Massachusetts have spoken for themselves. They have
placed that old Commonwealth face to face to the slave oligarchy and its
allies. Upon their banner they have written in letters of living light
the words, 'No exclusion from the public schools on account of race or
color;' 'No slave commissioners on the judicial bench;' 'No slave States
to be carved out of Kansas and Nebraska;' 'The repeal of the
unconstitutional Fugitive-slave Act of 1850;' 'An Act to protect
Personal Liberty.' The men who have inscribed these glowing words upon
their banner will go into the conflicts of the future like the Zouaves
at Inkermann, 'with the light of battle on their faces;' and, if defeat
comes, they will fall with their 'backs to the field, and their feet to
the foe.' "
When Mr. Wilson saw the
national American party hopelessly committed to slavery, he abandoned
it. In the American National Council, assembled in June, 1855, he
manfully held his ground, and nobly repelled the assaults upon freedom
and the State he represented. "When Massachusetts," said he in reply to
an attack, ''pleads to any, arraignment before the nation, she will
demand that her accusers are competent to draw the bill."
An attempt was made, for
sentiments he had expressed, to deprive him of a seat in council; but
the delegation from his State stood firmly by him, and he was admitted.
In the exciting debates of that council, which sat for many days, he
came to the front as the unterrifled champion of the Friends of freedom,
and defiantly repelled the charges made against them. To a delegate from
Virginia, who, approach him with a pistol, denounced him as the leader
of the antislavery party, he replied, that his threats had no terrors
for freemen; that he was then and there ready to meet argument with
argument, scorn with scorn, and, if need be, blow with blow; for God had
given him an arm ready and able to protect his head. It was time that
champions of slavery in the South should realize the fact, that the past
was theirs, the future ours."
Here was the fire of the
dauntless Mirabeau in the French National Assembly when he said, "Go
tell your king we are here by the will of the people; and nothing but
the point of the bayonet shall expel us."
His speech on the 12th of
June is characterized by masculine vigor. In regard to the proslavery
platform he defiantly declared, "The adoption of this platform commits
the American party unconditionally to the policy of slavery, to the iron
dominion of the black power. I tell you, sir, I tell this convention,
that we cannot stand upon this platform in a single free State in the
North. The people of the North will repudiate it, spurn it, spit upon
it. For myself, sir, I here and now tell you to your faces, that I will
trample with disdain on your platform. I will not support it. I will
support no man that stands upon it. Adopt that platform, and you carry
against you every thing that is pure and holy, every thing that has the
elements of permanency in it, the noblest pulsations of the human heart,
the holiest convictions of the human soul, the profoundest ideas of the
human intellect, and the attributes of Almighty God. Your party will be
withered and consumed by the blasting breath of the people's wrath.
There is an old Spanish proverb which says that 'the feet of time
avenging deities are shod with wool.' Softly and silently these avenging
deities are advancing upon you. You will find that 'the mills of God
grind slowly;' but they grind to powder.
When I united with the
American organization in March, 1854, in its hour of weakness, I told
the men with whom I acted that my antislavery opinions were the matured
convictions of years, and that I would not modify or qualify my
opinions, or suppress my sentiments, for any consideration on earth.
From that hour to this, in public and in private, I have freely uttered
my antislavery sentiments, and labored to promote the antislavery cause
and I tell you now that I will continue to do so. You shall not
proscribe antislavery principles, measures, or men, without receiving
from me the most determined and unrelenting hostility. It is a painful
thing to differ from our associates and friends; but, when duty - a
stern sense of duty - demands it, I shall do so. Reject this majority
platform, adopt the proposition to restore freedom to Kansas and
Nebraska, and to protect the actual settlers from violence and outrage,
simplify your rules, make an open organization, banish all bigotry and
intolerance from your ranks, place your movement in harmony with the
humane, progressive spirit of the age, and you may win and retain power,
and elevate and improve the political character of the country; adopt
this majority platform, commit the American movement to the slave
perpetualists and the slave propagandists, and you will go down before
the burning indignation and withering scorn of American freemen." These
words had the flaming spirit of James Otis and of Patrick Henry. They
were the death-knell of the American party. On adoption of the platform,
Mr. Wilson and his associates uttered their protest against the
proceedings of the council, and formally withdrew from the American
organization.
One of Mr. Wilson's early
political opponents thus addresses him on the manly stand he took in the
convention -
N. BROOKFIELD, June 22,
1858.
DEAR Sir, - I have just
read your speech at Philadelphia. You had a splendid opportunity to
annihilate the Northern dough-faces and hurl defiance at the Southern
slave propagandists, and you availed yourself of it fully and
handsomely. I thank you for what you have done so bravely and well. You
met the crisis nobly, and have placed yourself at the head of the
political antislavery movement: that is a settled matter. I am glad you
had health and strength and courage to do the work which so many
Northern men have shrunk from in times past.
You have nothing to do
now but to go ahead. The North looks to you. A great responsibility
rests on your shoulders; but I have the utmost confidence that you will
meet it, and call you that every true man all parties in the free States
will rally around the standard of freedom.
I have no advice to give:
you need none. My only object is to thank you for what you have done,
and assure you of my confidence in the future.
Ever and truly yours,
AMASA WALKER.
Hon. HENRY WILSON, U. S.
senator, Natick, Mass.
Referring to Mr. Wilson's
bold and independent course, "The New-York Tribune" truly said, "The
antecedents of Mr. Wilson naturally made him the particular object of
hostility to the slave-drivers in the convention; and one of the
earliest displays after the body was organized was a grossly personal
attack upon him by a delegate from Virginia. But the assailants had now
met with an antagonist who was not to be cowed or silenced; and the
response they received was of a character to induce them not to repeat
their experiment. We have the unanimous testimony of many Northern
members to the signal gallantry and effect of Mr. Wilson's bearing, and
to the bold, virile, and telling eloquence of his speeches. While all
have done so well in bringing about results so gratifying, it may be
invidious to particularize; but a few names among the Northern members,
who were devoted from the start to the work of creating a unity and a
strength of Northern backbone, should justly be exposed to the public
appreciation and honor that they deserve. First stands Henry Wilson of
Massachusetts, pre-eminent as the leader in the whole movement. He was
handsomely sustained by all his associates; and the numerous insidious
efforts of the enemy to separate them from him only attached them the
more closely to his side. He has the highest honor in this contest,
exhibited the greatest political ability, and broke down many strong
prejudices against him, both among Massachusetts men who were witnesses
to his conduct, and among the delegates of the other States North and
South. No man went into that council with more elements of distrust and
opposition combined against him, no one goes out of it with such an
enviable fame, or such an aggregation to his honor, he is worthy of
Massachusetts, and worthy to lead the new movement of the people of that
State which the result here so fitly inaugurates."
Returning home from this
council, Mr. Wilson spent the summer and autumn in strenuous efforts to
effect a fusion of the parties into one grand organization, which might
bear the standard of progress and freedom, and control the councils of
the nation. He travelled thousands of miles, visited thirteen different
States, conversed with many leading men, and addressed immense audiences
in towns and cities East and West.
On 7th of August he made
a strong speech in the State Council of the American party, at
Springfield, "On the Necessity of the Fusion of Parties," in which he
urged the members to unite with other organizations in forming a great
Republican party, with strength to meet the important issues of the day.
"The gathering hosts of
Northern freemen of every party," said he, "are banding together to
resist the aggressive policy of the black power. Freedom, patriotism,
and humanity demand the union of the freemen of the republic for the
sake of liberty now periled. Religion sanctions and blesses it. How and
where stands Massachusetts? Shall she range herself in the line, front
to the black power, with her sister States? or shall she maintain the
fatal position of isolation? here and now, we, the chosen
representatives of the American party of this Commonwealth, are to meet
that issue, to solve that problem.
The American party of
Massachusetts, dashing other organizations into powerless fragments, had
grasped the reins of power, placed an unbrokon delegation in Congress,
pledged to the policy of freedom, ranged this ancient Commonwealth front
to front with the slave-power, and written with the iron pen of history
upon her statutes declarations of principles, and pledges of acts,
hostile to the aggressive policy of the slaveholding power. When the
black power of the imperious South, aided by the servile power of the
faltering North, imposed upon the national American organization its
principles, measures, and policy, the representatives of the American
party of this Commonwealth spurned the unhallowed decrees, and turned
their backs forever upon that prostituted organization; and their action
received the approving sanction of this State Council by a vote
approaching unanimity. The American party, as a national organization,
is broken, and shivered to atoms. By its own act the American party of
Massachusetts has severed itself from all connection with that product
of Southern domination and Northern submission.
"The American party of
Massachusetts has, during its brief existence, uttered true words and
performed noble deeds for freedom. The past, at least, is secure.
Whatever may have been its errors of omission or commission, the slave
and the slave's friends will never reproach it, holding as it does the
reins of power, it has now a glorious opportunity to give to the country
the magnanimous example of a great and dominant party in the full
possession of consummated power, freely yielding up that power for the
holy cause of freedom to the equal possession of other parties who are
willing to co-operate with it upon a common platform. Here and now, we,
its representatives, are to show by our acts whether we can rise above
the demands of partisan policy to the full comprehension of the
condition of public affairs, to the full realization of the obligations
which fidelity to freedom now imposes upon us.
"If the representatives
of the American party reject this proposition for fusion, I shall go
home once more with a sad heart. But I shall not go home to sulk in my
tent; to rail and fret at the folly of men I shall go home, sir, with a
resolved spirit and iron will, determined to hope on and to struggle on
until I see the lovers of universal and impartial freedom banded
together in one organization, moved by one impulse. For seven years I
have labored to break up old organizations and to make new combinations,
all tending to the organization of that great party of the future which
is to relieve the government from the iron dominion of the black power.
"Sir, gentlemen may
defeat this proposed fusion hero to-day; but they cannot control the
action of the people. A fusion movement will be made, under the lead of
gentlemen of the Whig, Democratic, and Free-soil parties, of talents and
character. The movement will be in harmony with the people's movements
in the North. Sir, such a movement will put a majority of the men who
voted with you last autumn in a false position before the country, or
drive them from your ranks. I cannot speak for others: but I tell you
frankly that I cannot be placed in a false position; I cannot, even for
one moment, consent to stand arrayed against the hosts of freedom now
preparing for the contest of 1856. I tell you frankly, that, whenever I
see a formation in position to strike effective blows for freedom, I
shall be with it in the conflict; whenever I see an organization in
position antagonistic to freedom, my arm shall aid in smiting it down."
On the proposed amendment
of the Constitution, requiring foreigners to reside here twenty-one
years before being allowed to vote, he said, -
"Sir, the American
movement is not based upon bigotry, intolerance, or proscription. If
there is any thing of bigotry, intolerance, or proscription, in the
American movement, if there is any disposition to oppress or degrade the
Briton, the Scot, the Celt, the German, or any one of another clime or
race, or to deny to them the fullest protection of just and equal laws,
it is time such criminal fanaticism was sternly rebuked by the
intelligent patriotism of the state and country. I deeply deplore, sir,
the adoption of the twenty-one-years amendment. It will weaken the
American movement at home and in other States, especially in the West,
and tend to defeat any modification whatever of the naturalization laws.
I warn gentlemen who desire the correction of the evils growing out of
the abuses of the naturalization laws against the adoption of extreme
opinions. I tell you, gentlemen of the council, that this intense
nativism kills yes, sir, it kills, and is killing, us; and, unless it is
speedily abandoned, will defeat all the needed reforms the movement was
inaugurated to secure, and overwhelm us all in dishonor. Every attempt,
by whomsoever made, to interpolate with the American movement any thing
inconsistent with the theory of our democratic institutions, any thing
inconsistent with the idea that 'all men are created equal,' any thing
contrary to the command of God's holy Word, that 'the stranger that
dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou
shalt love him as thyself,' is doing that which will baffle the wise
policy which strives to reform existing evils and to guard against
future abuses."
With such strong,
liberal, and statesman-like views, ever holding the question of slavery
paramount, he labored to enlighten public sentiment, and prepare it for
the day of universal freedom. Towards the foreigner he entertained
fraternal feelings; and his only aim in going into the American party
was to turn its power to the extinction of a system which was coming
rapidly to undermine the liberties of the Northern people.
"I loathe," said he in a
speech at Indianapolis in July, 1855, "the idea of opposition to
foreigners as foreigners;" and in a letter on the two-years amendment,
written to Mr. Gillette in 1859, he says,—
"I have ever declared
that I would support no measure, even to reform these abuses, which
would in the slightest degrade any man, or class of men; that I would
give to every human being equal rights, - the same equality I would
claim for myself or my own son.
"No power on earth could
force me to vote for any proposition which fair-minded and intelligent
men felt to be unequal or personally degrading. Never have I supported
any measure inconsistent with the equal rights of man; but, if I had
ever unintentionally made such a mistake, I have nothing of that pride
of consistency in regard to mere measures which would induce me to
continue in the wrong because I had been wrong once. Better be right in
the lights of to-day than be consistent with the errors of yesterday."
The following
characteristic letter clearly states his position on this question: -
NATICK, MASS., July 29,
1872.
J. O. CULVER, Esq., State
Journal, Madison, Wisconsin.
My dear Sir, - The mail
has just brought me your note, and extracts clipped from newspapers,
purporting to be speeches made by me. In answer to your queries, I have
to say, that they, and all thoughts and words of like character which
have appeared in the papers, are pure inventions, wicked forgeries, and
absolute falsehoods. Never have I thought, spoken, or written those
words, nor any thing resembling those words, nor any thing that the most
malignant sophistry could torture into those words. I could not have
done so; for they are abhorrent to every conviction of my judgment,
every throb of my heart, every aspiration of my soul. Born in extreme
poverty, having endured the hard lot the Sons of poverty are too often
forced to endure, I came to manhood passionately devoted to the creed of
human equality. All my life I have cherished as a bright hope, and
avowed as a living faith, the doctrine, that all men, without
distinction of color, race, or nationality, should have complete liberty
and exact equality, - all the rights I asked for myself. My thoughts, my
words, my pen, my votes, have been consecrated for more than thirty-six
years to human rights. In the Constitutional Convention of
Massachusetts, in eight years' service in her legislature, in more than
seventeen years' service in the Senate of the United States, in thirteen
hundred public addresses, in the press, in speeches and writings that
would fill many columns and make thousands of pages, I have iterated and
reiterated the doctrines of equal rights for all conditions of men. Is
it not, my dear sir, passing strange, then, that partisanship should so
blind men to a sense of truth, justice, and fair play, that they will
forge and print abhorrent sentiments insulting to God and man, and
charge them upon one whose life has been given to the cause of equal
rights at home, and whose profound sympathies were ever given to the
friends of liberty of all races and nationalities abroad?
Yours truly,
HENRY WILSON. |
