on whose necks
the British yoke never sat easily, never were quenched after that
massacre, until the invader had been driven from the land and
independence had been achieved. The sight of the blood of their comrades
in King Street quickened their impulses, and hastened the day for a
more general outbreak, which we now call the Revolutionary War." This
was no mob, as some have been disposed to call it. They had not the low
and groveling spirit which usually incites mobs. This was resistance to
tyranny; this was striking for homes and firesides; this was the noblest
work which a patriot can ever perform. As well call Lexington a mob and
Bunker Hill a mob. I prefer to call this skirmish in King Street on the
5th of March, 1770, as Anson Burlingame called it, "The dawn of the
Revolution."

About that time the American people set out to found a government to be
dedicated to Freedom, which was to remain an asylum to the oppressed of
all lands forever. The central idea of this government was to be
Liberty, and a declaration was made by them to the world that all men
are created free and equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. This was the government to be established in the
land which had been fought for and won in the sacrifice of the blood of
both black and white men. Did they do it? Did they intend to do it? Did
they believe in and intend to carry out this magnificent declaration of
principles--a declaration which startled the crowned heads of Europe and
sent a thrill of delight to the hearts of the lovers of liberty through
Christendom? No, they did not do it, neither did they intend to do it!
This manifesto of July 4, 1776, was a fraud and a deception; it was the
boldest falsification known to history; it was a sham and a lie. Instead
of establishing freedom, they built, fostered and perpetuated slavery;
instead of equality, they gave us inequality; instead of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, they gave us death, bondage, and misery;
instead of rearing on these shores a beautiful temple to Liberty, they
made a foul den for slavery; and this country, which should have been
the garden-spot of the world, covered with a prosperous and happy
population of freemen, was, under the guidance of traitors to Liberty,
made the prison-house of slaves, and betrayed in the house of her
friends. The Goddess of Liberty, for nearly one hundred years after the
establishment of our Government, sat