more nor less than
this: that we endanger the right they claim to treat human
beings as beasts of burden. And they maintain this monstrous
claim by measures inhuman and barbarous, listening not to the
voice of reason or humanity, but treating every man who goes
amongst them, suspected of not favoring their cause, or of the
remotest connection with others who do not favor it, with a most
savage and fiendish cruelty. It is the conflict between
barbarism and civilization, between liberty and the most
horrible despotism that ever cursed this earth, in which we are
called to take part.

And all that is great and noble in the past, all the patriots
and martyrs that have suffered in man's behalf, all the sacred
instincts and hopes of the human soul are on our side, and the
welfare of untold generations of men. Oh, if God, in his
infinite bounty, grants us the grace to appreciate the
transcendent worth of the cause which is now at stake, there is
no trouble that can befall us, no, not the loss of property, of
idolized parents or children, or life itself, that we shall not
count a blessed privilege. To serve this dear cause of peace and
liberty and love, we have no need to grasp the sword or any
instrument of violence and death. But we must be ready without
flinching, to confront the utmost that men can do, and amidst
all the uproar and violence of human passions, still calmly to
assert and to exercise our sacred and inalienable liberties, let
who will frown and forbid, assured that no just and
law-of-God-abiding people, will ever do otherwise than give us
their sympathy and their aid.

Death is the worst that can befall us, if so be that we are
faithful to the right. It is a solemn and a fearful thing to
die, and mortality shrinks from facing that last great mystery.
But we must all die, my friends, and the dying hour is not far
distant from the youngest of us. To most of us it is very near.
To many, only a few brief years remain. And for the sake of
these few and uncertain years, shall we push off this present
trouble upon our children, who have to stay here a little
longer? There is nothing that can so sweeten the bitter cup of
mortality when we shall be called to drink it, nothing that can
so cheer us in the prospect of parting from all we love, nothing
that can send