DAVID PAUL BROWN'S ORATION. I AM here to redeem my pledge-a pledge as freely given, as it shall be fearlessly redeemed. Here in the very centre of fifteen millions of chartered freemen; here in Pennsylvania, the brightest star in the republican constellation; here, where, in seventeen hundred and seventy-six Freedom was proclaimed, and in seventeen hundred and eighty Slavery was abolished, as priest of this day's sacrifices, I solemnly dedicate this temple to Liberty. Upon such an occasion, what can more obviously furnish the subject for a discourse than the divine attributes of that tutelar divinity, to whom we thus profess our devotion. Liberty, then, my fellow citizens, is the theme upon which I design to dwell,‚—a theme to every American heart "Far, far more precious, dear, than life." The Liberalia were certain festivals or games of Rome, wherein slaves were permitted to speak with freedom; and all men temporarily assumed, at least, the appearance of independence. This, therefore, may be considered the Liberalia of a country that promises to rival Rome in her most palmy state. Among the hundreds of thousands of the heathen deities none were worshipped with more unqualified devotion than Liberty, by the renowned nations of antiquity; and none assuredly present stronger claims to preside over the destinies of a virtuous republic. Liberty is like life, to be enjoyed, not to be defined; and it is improved in proportion as it is diffused,-in other words, the more general it is, the more perfect. This idea, is aptly illustrated by contrasting the freedom of a monarchy or a despotism, with that of a republic. The monarch or the despot enjoys entire freedom, subject not even to the restraint of the laws; but the very excess of his immunities is the result of a diminution of the rights and just privileges of his subjects. An overgrown power in individuals is like a resistless determination of the blood to the brain, or to the heart, or to any other great vital organ of the human frame-it always puts in jeopardy, and often destroys, the entire physical system. Whereas, when the blood is equally diffused, a healthy tone and perfect equilibrium are secured, which impart energy and life to all the functions and faculties of both body and mind. Liberty is not matter of indulgence; the moment it is, it ceases to possess its essential qualities. Freedom loses its character, when it is dependent upon the will, either of the few, or the many. In order to its existence it must be independent of all contingent influence; it is in vain that the trumpet sounds; in vain that we applaud the bright eyed goddess to the very echo that doth applaud again, if the voice of sorrow, and the clanking of chains are heard in the very heart of our rejoicings. History, in her numerous examples, abundantly shows that, in proportion as vice and corruption encumber the earth, Liberty sinks in the esteem of the people, until, at length, she is either voluntarily relinquished, or so vitiated in principle, as to lose her divine attributes, and become only another and more specious name for licentiousness and crime. Without Liberty, and her attendant blessings, life itself is a burden and the world a waste: "For what is life? 'Tis not to walk about, and draw fresh air Life grows insipid, and has lost its relish." It was, my fellow citizens, for liberty thus characterized and understood, that the Hamdens struggled, and the Sidneys died; it was for such liberty, that the richest blood of all this land flowed freely, during the doubtful periods of our Revolution; it was for such liberty, that your Washington unfurled the star-spangled banner of his country, and redeemed the outraged rights of suffering millions from the very throat of death. That liberty has been bequeathed to you as an inestimable legacy, "O! let it never perish in your hands, But piously transmit it to your children." Having, as becomes the time, hastily glanced at the nature of liberty, let us refer to the character of slavery, in order that by the depth of its shadow we may brighten the lights of our favorite picture. What, then, is slavery ?" Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, still art thou a bitter draught. And although thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.' Such was the sentiment of one of the most distinguished of the literati of the last century; and like all sentiments that have their foundation in nature, it continues to be as applicable to the present age, as to the past. Absolutely, it is most true; yet it is, nevertheless, in its relative bearing and effects, liable to be modified, and extended, according to the various conditions of men. Even abject slavery, among those who at best enjoy but a qualified freedom, is less irksome, less repugnant to the heart of man, than qualified slavery, when suffered by those who are surrounded by all the delights and indulgences of rational liberty. This is like adding the torments of Tantalus to those of Ixion. The enjoyments of human life, are almost always comparative. Where there are no sovereigns, there are no subjects,-where there are no despots, there should be no slaves,-and where there are no slaves, there can be no despots. If this doctrine be sound, most melancholy, indeed, must be the condition of the bondman with us; as wherever he turns his dejected eye, he is referred to the true measure and majesty of man. He beholds around and about him, thousands of chartered monarchs, hailing with loud acclaim at each return the anniversary of their liberty, and affording the best assurance of its perpetuity by their love and gratitude for its origin. Thus surrounded, what is there to endear life to a slave, or render death appalling? He has no consolations in himself, or in his relatives. His wife, his parents, his children, all partake of his condition, all serve to render the weight of his burden more intolerable. Even hope, itself, the very pride and stay of the human heart,—the last sad solace of affliction,is denied to HIM. And ambition, without which man is but a kneaded clod, either never glances into his benighted mind, or, if it should, it is like the lightning in the midnight storm, serving only to make the gloom more terrific, the darkness more intense. Moral or intellectual improvement, without ulterior views to freedom, instead of being blessings as they were designed to be, are but superadded curses and afflictions. In justice, however, we must say, that these are penalties that slaves are rarely condemned to endure. Whatever tends to improve the heart or the mind of man, while it certainly increases his sources of gratification, so long as he walks freely and erectly in the likeness of his Creator, serves only to aggravate his sufferings, when reduced below his natural level and condemned to a state of vassalage or bondage. In his wife, he sees a joint sharer in his shame; in his children, he contemplates the inheritors of his disgrace, and thus sympathetically suffers even beyond the grave; in his parents, he beholds the involuntary authors of all his misery,-and, while he groans and sweats under a weary life, at times, even rebels against the too partial decrees of high Heaven itself. Still, if this lamentable condition of the slave contribute to the melioration or rational enjoyment of the free, although, certainly, there can be no justification for it, the account of good and evil may, when politically adjusted, stand nearly balanced, and in the equipoise, the great interest of the nation may remain essentially unimpaired and unaffected. Are, then, the free benefited by the existence of slavery among them? This is a grave question, and must be gravely considered. An illustrious statesman and orator of the British House of Commons has declared, that the people of the South are much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those of the North; as in such a people the haughtiness of domination, combined with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it and renders it invincible. Time has lamentably shown, that the most distinguished individuals have, from that very distinction, often given currency to sentiments of the most corrupt and pernicious tendency. In the foppery and vanity of chosen expression, in the fervor of poetical fancy, in the ardor of animated debate, when selfishness and success were the prime objects, the rights of thousands have been often sacrificed to swell the triumph of a well turned period. I agree that the flame of liberty burns more brightly in the region of slaves, as the moon beams more brightly through a thunder-cloud; not that she repletes her waning face from the storms and tempests by which she is surrounded, but because her charms are presented in bolder and in prouder relief, than when she silently "wheels her pale course" through the mild cerulean, while every planet participates in her majesty and glory. Certainly there is no greater devotion to liberty, than among the inhabitants of the South; but it is peculiar and exclusive liberty; the liberty that they themselves enjoy, and which is enhanced, upon the principles adverted to, by the very destitution, the deplorable condition of those whom they daily contemplate. Like the green spots of the arid desert, liberty, with them, looks more lively and more lovely, from the barren and desolate scenes by which it is encompassed. There is a vast difference between a professed devotion to liberty, and the establishment of those just, fundamental principles, upon which alone liberty can be secured. Slavery is not simply to be deplored as respects the slave, nor as regards the odium which it necessarily attaches to the character of a free government, but from its obvious and natural tendency to imbue the minds of the holders of slaves, unconsciously, if you please, with lofty and aristocratical notions. From having been accustomed to place the foot upon the necks of slaves, they may next audaciously attempt to trample upon the sacred and invaluable rights of freemen. The cruelty of Nero was first exercised upon a fly; it was matured in the wanton slaughter of his fellow men. Pride and luxury are always dangerous to a republic; but no pride is so dangerous as that which arises from lording it over our own species; it matters not how limited may be the scale,-the moment we rise above our fellow creatures, we swell beyond our natural and legitimate proportions, and in the unjust extension of our own rights, unjustly limit and restrain the rights of others. Each successive generation, cradled under the influence of accumulated prejudice, and inhaling the tainted gale of tyranny in every breath, at last seems to claim a share in the divine right of kings, to fetter and destroy, and wields the iron sceptre with a truly legal, though unlineal hand. Can this be said to be consistent with a republican principle?-with liberty and equality?—with the boasted charter of our rights?-with the happiness or welfare of the government?-with our duties to this world, or our responsibilities to the next? But this is not all. While they profess to stand above the unhappy slave, in superiority of political rights, the influence of slavery exercises an immense moral power over them. They see about them a herd of unenlightened blacks, with none of the restraints of morality, religion, or education,—none of the rewards of virtue to hope for,-none of the punishments of crime to fear; giving reins to the most unrestrained animal propensities, and reducing the immortal character of man below the level of mere brutish instinct. What will be the effect of habitual intercourse or community with a society of this grade? I mean the effect upon the whites? The obvious result is that for the overweening pride and power which slavery imparts to the master, it deprives him of most of those valuable qualities which alone can render pride excusable or power tolerable. But why should we dwell any longer upon this branch of our subject! That slavery is an evil, all nature cries aloud. It is written as a curse in the very consciences of men. And really it is a matter of mingled horror and amazement, notwithstanding this, to find some reverend and learned gentlemen,— fathers of the church, professed followers of the meek and lowly Saviour, avowed preachers of peace and good will to men,-attempting to justify it by references to the Bible. They have, it is true, succeeded in showing that there were slaves in the earliest ages, and that the Deity endured this outrage upon his own image. Why, they could claim a prescriptive right for all other sins, upon exactly the same ingenious plea, because they, also, have existed from the period of the first fall. What reflecting man dare speak of the sacred Scriptures, and sanction slavery at the same time? It is blasphemous. The fastest friends of slavery should shrink from the Bible, as from a sentence of condemnation; and yet, wonderful to relate, some of the very advocates for freedom, by way of sugaring the bitter pill of emancipation, and adapting it to the palate of the South, must, forsooth, be peering and prying into the mysteries of the Old Testament, for the very laudable purpose of excusing this most flagitious offence in the eyes of God and man. Others of our friends, and well-meaning friends, too, deem it necessary, strange as it may seem, to resort to the same oracular source, to show that man, whatever might be his complexion, was never designed by the Deity to be converted into a beast, however his crimes and his sinful appetites may have degraded him, at times, to a level with the irrational creation. What arguments can be required on such a subject? Why ask if you are by nature free? Why attempt to prove it? Is not your charter written upon your hearts with the very finger of the Deity? Why ask whether you alone are prescriptive and anointed freemen? Your boasted Declaration, or Bill of Rights, handed down to you by your great political apostles, and forming your political creed, if higher authority were wanting, declares all men equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, were her accusa They moral heason, but they were morally rug kito of beque frews among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The question, then plainly resolves itself in this, Are slaves men, or not? Slavery, we say, is an unquestionable evil. How, then, shall that evil be removed? That involves the great difficulty. By restoring the slaves to freedom. This is my broad position, and I am neither to be driven, nor seduced from it. The manner is a secondary consideration. If the bondage be unlawful or unjust, then should it not be continued. The slaveholders say that the slaves can never be admitted to an equality of political rights, and they further say, they will free them in their own time. We answer, restore them to their natural rights, and name your time; but let it be in time, and not in eternity. The colonizationists, our sometime cousins, seem to join in the notion of natural inferiority on the part of the blacks, and the impolicy of their liberation at home; but advocate their right to freedom, provided they will consent to deportation; and justify this apparent inconsistency, by alleging it is only in this way that the North and the South can be brought to unite in the liberation of slaves. The Abolition Society, though wholly devoted to the melioration of the condition of the blacks, manifests its power rather in its accumulated moral influence, than by any direct and urgent application of political means calculated directly to release them from their thraldom; the Anti-Slavery Society boldly denounces slavery as a national curse, adopts means for its immediate emancipation,-denies that freedom should depend upon expatriation, and pronounces colonization, in this respect, to be actually conducive to slavery. They are zealous, it is true, but what great work was ever accomplished without zeal? Yet with all their zeal,-founded, as it is, in the purest and least questionable philanthropy, how preposterous it is to charge them with moral treason against the Constitution, with cruel and bitter hatred and malignity,—a design to foment a servile war in the South,-to break up the Union, and to shed their brother's blood. Yet of all this, and much more, do they stand accused. And here publicly, in their behalf, as patriots and as Christians, that charge' is indignantly denied and repelled. Moral treason! for what? for the purpose of suppressing immorality? Admirable philosophy! Then your temperance societies,-your Bible societies,-your missionary societies,ay, your sacred temples of worship, consecrated to an All-Wise and Almighty Being, according to this doctrine, are all founded in moral treason! for the object of all these is the suppression of vice, and the promotion of the temporal and eternal happiness of man. If this be treason, treason is a virtue. But it is said, that the professors of this doctrine, are new men, forsooth! and, like the disciples and apostles, that they are unknown to fame; while the only dispute, among their assailants seems to be which is the most of a patriot or a patriarch. Suppose we concede both to them; why, then, certainly, they can rely upon their own intrinsic merit, without conjuring up these red rags, these bloody phantoms, and all the horrors of civil or servile war, to fright the land from its propriety. Our motto is, "Our country,-our whole country,- -one and inseparable,now and for ever." And I trust I speak the sentiment of every one who hears me, when I say, that, notwithstanding the abhorrence in which slavery is, and ever ought to be held by the free states, still, if-as has been industriously suggested-the only choice were between that evil and a total dismemberment of the Union, we should undoubtedly and promptly prefer the former; yet, in so doing, it is possible we should be governed rather by a tender regard for ourselves and brethren, than by a respect for posterity. Nevertheless, it becomes us to enlist and to exert all lawful means to avoid |