ntented to
receive them with that private cordiality and hospitality with
which, I trust, we shall always receive strangers who visit our
shores. The people of this country are not pre-eminently an
emotional people; they are not naturally fond of public
demonstrations; and it is only upon rare occasions that we give,
or can give, such a reception as that we see here this day.
There must be something peculiar in the cause which a man has
served, in the service which he has rendered, and in our own
relations with the people whom he represents, to justify or to
account for such a reception. (Hear, hear.) As regards the
cause, it is not too much to say that the cause of negro
emancipation in the United States of America has been the
greatest cause which, in ancient or in modern times, has been
pleaded at the bar of the moral judgment of mankind. (Cheers.) I
know that to some this will sound as the language of exaggerated
feeling; but I can only say that I have expressed myself in
language which I believe conveys the literal truth. (Hear,
hear.)

I have, indeed, often heard it said in deprecation of the amount
of interest which was bestowed in this country on the cause of
negro emancipation in America, that we are apt to forget the
forms of suffering which are immediately at our own doors, over
which we have some control, and to express exaggerated feeling
as to the forms of suffering with which we have nothing to do,
and for which we are not responsible. I have never objected to
that language in so far as it might tend to recall us to the
duties which lie immediately around us, and in so far as it
might tend to make us feel the forgetfulness of which we are
sometimes guilty, of the misery and poverty in our own country;
but, on the other hand, I will never admit, for I think it would
be confounding great moral distinctions, that the miseries which
arise by way of natural consequence out of the poverty and the
vices of mankind, are to be compared with those miseries which
are the direct result of positive law and of a positive
institution, giving to man property in man. (Loud cheers.) It is
true, also, that there have been forms of servitude, meaning
thereby compulsory labor, against which we do not entertain the
same feelings of hostility and horror with which we have