ons to Freedom."

Never were grander utterances delivered by man in all the ages; never
was there exhibited a more sublime faith; never a truer spirit of
prophecy; never a more heroic spirit.

He was then on his way to Washington; on his way to perform the last
acts in the drama of his own career--on his way to death. He knew the
time had come, of which, ten years before, he had prophetically spoken
in the House of Representatives, when he said: "I have only to say that,
if the time should come when Disunion rules the hour, and discord is to
reign supreme, I shall again be ready to give the best blood in my veins
to my Country's Cause. I shall be prepared to meet all antagonists with
lance in rest, to do battle in every land, in defense of the
Constitution of the Country which I have sworn to support, to the last
extremity, against Disunionists, and all its Enemies, whether of the
South or North; to meet them everywhere, at all times, with speech or
hand, with word or blow, until thought and being shall be no longer
mine." And right nobly did he fulfil in all respects his promise; so
that at the end--as was afterward well said of him by Mr. Colfax--he had
mounted so high, that, "doubly crowned, as statesman, and as warrior--

'From the top of Fame's ladder he stepped to the Sky!'"

[This orator and hero was a naturalized Englishman, and commanded
an American regiment in the Mexican War.]

CHAPTER XV.

FREEDOM'S EARLY DAWN.

On the day following Baker's great reply to Breckinridge, another
notable speech was made, in the House of Representatives--notable,
especially, in that it foreshadowed Emancipation, and, coming so soon
after Bull Run, seemed to accentuate a new departure in political
thought as an outgrowth of that Military reverse. It was upon the
Confiscation Act, and it was Thaddeus Stevens who made it. Said he:

"If we are justified in taking property from the Enemy in War, when you
have rescued an oppressed People from the oppression of that Enemy, by
what principle of the Law of Nations, by what principle of philanthropy,
can you return them to the bondage from which you have delivered them,
and again rivet the chains you have once broken? It is a disgrace to
the Party which advocates it. It is against the principle of the Law of
Nations. It is against every principle of philanthropy. I for one,
shall never shrink from