lative things theologians have been such furious logicians,
have picked up their premises, and rushed with them with
race-horse speed to such remote conclusions, that in the region
of ideas our logical minds have become accustomed to draw results
as remote as the very eternities from any premises given. My
difficulty on the other hand, has been that in practical matters,
owing to the existence of this great mephitic swamp of slavery,
men have been utterly unwilling to draw conclusions at all; and
that the most familiar principles of political economy or
politics have been enunciated, and then always docked off short.
Men would not allow them to go to their natural results, in the
class of questions in society. We have had raised up before us
the necessity of maintaining the Union by denying conclusions.
The most dear and sacred and animating principles of religion
have been restrained, because they would have such a bearing upon
slavery, and men felt bound to hold their peace. Our most
profound and broadly acknowledged principles of liberty have been
enunciated and passed over, without carrying them out and
applying them to society, because it would interrupt the peace of
the nation. That time is passed away; and as the result of it has
come in a joy and a perfect appetite on the part of the public.

I have been a careful observer for more than thirty-five years,
for I came into public life, I believe, about the same time with
the lady who has just sat down (Mrs. Foster), although I am not
so much worn by my labors as she seems to have been. For
thirty-five years I have observed in society its impetus checked,
and a kind of lethargy and deadness in practical ethics, arising
from fear of this prejudicial effect upon public economy. I have
noticed that in the last five years there has been a revolution
as perfect as if it had been God's resurrection in the graveyard.
The dead men are living, and the live men are thrice alive. I can
scarcely express my sense of the leap the public mind and the
public moral sense have taken within this time. The barrier is
out of the way. That which made the American mind untrue
logically to itself is smitten down by the hand of God; and there
is just at this time an immense tendency in the public mind to
carry ou