ity,' nor with the 'solemnity of
judicial proceedings!' It is not merely whether slavery
shall be extended or not. By and by there will be a
political party with a wider basis than the free soil party,
who will declare that the nation itself must put an end to
slavery in the nation; and if the Constitution of the United
States will not allow it, there is another Constitution that
will. Then the title, Defender and expounder of the
Constitution of the United States, will give way to
this,--'Defender and expounder of the Constitution of the
Universe,' and we shall reaffirm the ordinance of nature,
and reenact the will of God. You may not live to see it, Mr.
President, nor I live to see it; but it is written on the
iron leaf that it must come; come, too, before long. Then
the speech of Mr. Webster, and the defence thereof by Mr.
Stuart, the letter of the retainers and the letters of the
retained, will be a curiosity; the conduct of the whigs and
democrats an amazement, and the peculiar institution a
proverb amongst all the nations of the earth. In the turmoil
of party politics, and of personal controversy, let us not
forget continually to move the previous question, whether
Freedom or Slavery is to prevail in America. There is no
attribute of God which is not on our side; because, in this
matter, we are on the side of God."[209]

[Footnote 209: Ibid., 207, 208.]

After the death of General Taylor on the 14th of July, I lifted up my
voice in a funeral sermon thus:--

"If he could speak to us from his present position, methinks
he would say: Countrymen and friends! You see how little it
availed you to agitate the land and put a little man in a
great place. It is not the hurrah of parties that will 'save
the Union,' it is not 'great men.' It is only Justice.
Remember that Atheism is not the first principle of a
Republic; remember there is a law of God, the higher law of
the universe, the Everlasting Right: I thought so once, and
now I know it. Remember that you are accountable to God for
all things; that you owe justice to all men, the black not
less than the white; that God will demand it of you, proud,
wicked nation, careful only of your gold, forgetful of God's
high law! Before long each of you shall also come up before
the Eternal. Th