e nation have bowed with reverence to the
Divine edict, and laid the axe at the root of the tree, and thus saved
succeeding generations from the guilt of oppression, and from the wrath
of God.

Statesmen, jurists, and philosophers, most renowned for learning, and
most profound in every department of science and literature, have
testified against slavery; while oratory has brought its costliest,
golden treasures, and laid them on the altar of God and of freedom, it
has aimed its fiercest lightning and loudest thunder at the strongholds
of tyranny, injustice, and despotism.

From the days of Balak to those of Isaiah and Jeremiah, up to the times
of Paul, and through every age of the Christian Church, the sons of
thunder have denounced the abominable thing. The heroes who stood in the
shining ranks of the hosts of the friends of human progress, from Cicero
to Chatham, and Burke, Sharp, Wilberforce, and Thomas Clarkson, and
Curran, assaulted the citadel of despotism. The orators and statesmen of
our own land, whether they belong to the past, or to the present age,
will live and shine in the annals of history, in proportion as they have
dedicated their genius and talents to the defence of Justice and man's
God-given rights.

All the poets who live in sacred and profane history have charmed the
world with their most enchanting strains, when they have tuned their
lyres to the praise of Liberty. When the muses can no longer decorate
her altars with their garlands, then they hang their harps upon the
willows and weep.

From Moses to Terence and Homer, from thence to Milton and Cowper,
Thomson and Thomas Campbell, and on to the days of our own bards, our
Bryants, Longfellows, Whittiers, Morrises, and Bokers, all have
presented their best gifts to the interests and rights of man.

Every good principle, and every great and noble power, have been made
the subjects of the inspired verse, and the songs of poets. But who of
them has attempted to immortalize slavery? You will search in vain the
annals of the world to find an instance. Should any attempt the
sacrilegious work, his genius would fall to the earth as if smitten by
the lightning of heaven. Should he lift his hand to write a line in its
praise, or defence, the ink would freeze on the point of his pen.

Could we array in one line, representatives of all the families of men,
beginning with those lowest in the scale of being, and should we put to
them the question, Is it