rown down by
the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable
ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people.

"'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when
we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the
midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive
required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us
mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we
sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O
Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not
remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.'

"Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the
mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous
yesterday, are to-day rendered more intolerable by the jubilant
shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully
remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, 'may my
right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth!' To forget them, to pass lightly over their
wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason
most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before
God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN
SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics
from the slave's point of view. Standing there, identified with
the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate
to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of
this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of
July. Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the
professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems
equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past,
false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to
the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave
on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is
outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name
of the Constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and
trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all
the emphasis I can command, every thing that serves to perpetuate
slavery--the great sin and shame