o to work for the results thus indicated, in the
spirit and with the confidence of the old-time leaders. The Society
should be revived and re-established, not for a single campaign only,
or for the rectification of such oppressions as are now in sight, but
for all time. It ought to be made a permanent institution. It should
be so arranged that the sons would step into the ranks as the fathers
dropped out and that new recruits would be constantly enlisted. Thus
reorganized the grand old institution would be an invaluable watchman
on the walls of Freedom's stronghold. The exhortation to which it
should listen, is that of the poet Bryant when he says:

"Oh not yet
Mayst thou unloose thy corslet, nor lay by
Thy sword, nor yet, O Freedom, close thy lids
In slumber, for thine enemy never sleeps."

CHAPTER XI

ANTI-SLAVERY ORATORS

George William Curtis, in one of his essays, says that "three speeches
have made the places where they were delivered illustrious in our
history--three, and there is no fourth." He refers to the speech of
Patrick Henry in Williamsburg, Virginia, of Lincoln in Gettysburg, and
the first address of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall.

If it was the purpose of Mr. Curtis to offer the three notable
deliverances above mentioned as the best and foremost examples of
American oratory, the author cannot agree with him. In his opinion we
shall have but little difficulty in picking out the three entitled to
that distinction, provided we go to the discussion of the slavery
question to find them. That furnished the greatest occasion, being
with its ramifications and developments, by far the greatest issue
with which Americans have had to deal.

The three speeches to which the writer refers were the more notable
because they were altogether impromptu. They were what we call "off
hand." They were delivered in the face of mobs or other bitterly
hostile audiences--a circumstance that probably contributed not a
little to their effectiveness.

John Quincy Adams, who was unquestionably one of the greatest of
American orators, made several speeches in Congress that will always
command our highest admiration; but the one to which a somewhat
extended reference is made in another chapter, when an attempt was
made by the slaveholders to expel him from that body, easily ranks
among the first three exhibitions of American eloquence.

I quite agree with Mr. Curtis i