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that that stream sometimes becomes a dangerous torrent, and destroys towns and cities upon its bank. But I am here to say that, without it, civilization, humanity, government, all that makes society itself, would disappear, and the world would return to its ancient barbarism. Sir, if that were possible, though but for a moment, civilization would roll the wheels of its car backward for two thousand years, and the fine conception of the poet would be realized: "As one by one, in dread Medea's train,

Star after star fades off the ethereal plain,
Thus at her fell approach and secret might
Art after art goes out, and all is night.
Philosophy, that leaned on heaven before,
Sinks to her second cause, and 'is no more.
Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires,
And, unawares, morality expires."

Sir, we will not risk these consequences, even for slavery; we will not risk these consequences even, for union; we will not risk these consequences to avoid that civil war with which you threaten us; that war which you announce as deadly, and which you declare to be inevitable.

XXVII.

THE DRED SCOTT DECISION.

BEN. WADE-1860.

I believe this is the only nation on God's earth that ever placed any mortal man, or anybody bearing the human form, on so low a level, or any court on so high a one as that. But let this go. Dred Scott brought his suit. The plea in abatement was demurred to; the question arose upon that demurrer, and a majority of the court decided that Dred Scott, being a negro, a descendant of an African, and his ancestors having been slaves, he could not maintain a suit in that court, because he was not a citizen under the law. Now, sir, I ask every lawyer here, was not there an end of the case? In the

name of Heaven, Judge Taney, what did you retain it for any longer? You said Dred Scott could not sue; he could not obtain his liberty; he was out of court; and what further had you to do with all the questions that you say were involved in that suit? Upon every principle of adjudication, you ought not to have gone further. No court has ever held more solemnly than the Federal courts that they will not go on to decide any more than is before the court; and every lawyer knows that if they do, all they say more is mere talk, and though said by judges in a court house, has just as much operation and effect as if it had been said by a horse-dealer in a bar-room, and no more. And yet we are told that we must follow the dicta of these packed judges-for they were packed, a majority of them interested too, in the very question to be decided. I do not want to go back to see what Jefferson and others said about it. I know the nature of man. I know, as they know, that to arm this judiciary with the power not only to decide questions between private individuals, but to affect the legislation of the nation, to affect the action of your President, to affect the co-ordinate branches of this Government, is a fatal heresy, that, if persisted in by a majority of the people, cannot result in any other than a consolidated despotism; and I am amazed that men who have had their eyes open, and who have held to other doctrines in better days, should, for any temporary purpose, heave overboard, and bury in the deep sea, the sheet-anchor of the liberties of the nation.

XXVIII.

SLAVERY MUST DIE.

OWEN LOVEJOY,

You must sacrifice slavery for the good of your country. Do this, and you will have the sympathy, the prayers, and co-operation of the entire nation.

Refuse or neglect this—refuse to proclaim liberty through all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof—and the exodus of the slaves will

be through the Red Sea. It is a well known physiological, as well as psychological fact, that ancestral characteristics reappear after a long interval of years, and even of generations, as streams disappear and gush out at a distant point. It is also well known that the Saxon blood is being infiltrated into the veins of the enslaved. By and by some Marion will be found, calling his guerilla troops from the swamps and everglades of South Carolina; and Patrick Henry will reappear in the Old Dominion, shouting, as of old, “Give me liberty, or give me death!" Then will transpire those scenes which troubled the prophetic vision of Jefferson, and made him tremble for his country, when he remembered that God was just, and that his justice would not sleep forever, and that every divine attribute would be arrayed upon the side of the struggling bondmen. And he justified the uprising by saying, the little finger of American slavery was thicker than the loins of British despotism.

Sir, Virginia cannot afford, the country cannot afford, to continue a practice fraught with so much peril. It is better to remove the magazine than to be kept evermore in dread of a lighted match. The future glory and usefulness of this nation cannot be sacrificed to this system of crime. The nations of the earth are to be taught by our example. The American Republic must repose queen among the nations of the earth. Slavery must die.

XXIX.

BETHEL.

We mustered at midnight,—in darkness we formed,—
And the whisper went round of a fort to be stormed;
But no drum-beat had called us, no trumpet we heard,
And no voice of command, but our Colonel's low word,-
"Column! Forward!"

And out through the mist and the murk of the morn,
From the beaches of Hampton our barges were borne;

And we heard not a sound, save the sweep of the oar, Till the word of our Colonel came up from the shore,"Column! Forward!"

With hearts bounding bravely, and eyes all alight,

As ye dance to soft music, so trod we that night;
Through the aisles of the greenwood, with vines overarched,
Tossing dew-drops, like gems, from our feet, as we marched.
"Column! Forward!"

As ye dance with the damsels, to viol and flute,

So we skipped from the shadows, and mocked their pursuit;
But the soft zephyrs chased us, with scents of the morn,
As we passed through the hay-fields and green waving corn,
"Column! Forward!"

For the leaves were all laden with fragrance of June,
And the flowers and the foliage with sweets were in tune;
And the air was so calm, and the forest so dumb,
That we heard our own heart-beats, like taps of a drum
"Column! Forward!"

Till the lull of the lowlands was stirred by a breeze,
And the buskins of Morn brushed the tops of the trees,
And the glintings of glory that slid from her track,
By the sheen of our rifles were gaily flung back,-
"Column! Forward!"

And the woodlands grew purple with sunshiny mist,

And the blue-crested hill-tops with rose-light were kissed,
And the earth gave her prayers to the sun in perfumes,

Till we marched as through gardens, and trampled on blooms,-"Column! Forward!"

Ay! trampled on blossoms, and seared the sweet breath
Of the greenwood with low-brooding vapors of death;
O'er the flowers and the corn we were borne like a blast,
And away to the fore-front of battle we passed,—
"Column! Forward!"

For the cannon's hoarse thunder roared out from the glades,
And the sun was like lightening on banners and blades,

When the long line of chanting Zouaves, like a flood,
From the green of the woodland rolled, crimson as blood,-
"Column! Forward!"

While the sound of their song, like the surge of the seas,
With the "Star Spangled Banner" swelled over the leas;
And the sword of Duryea, like a torch, led the way,
Bearing down on the batteries of Bethel, that day,
"Column! Forward!"

Through green-tasseled cornfields our columns were thrown,
And like corn by the red scythe of fire we were mown;
While the cannon's fierce plowings new furrowed the plain,
That our blood might be planted for Liberty's grain-
"Column! Forward!"

O! the fields of fair June have no lack of sweet flowers,
But the rarest and best breathed no fragrance like ours;
And the sunshine of June sprinkling gold on the corn,
Hath no harvest that ripeneth like Bethel's red morn,-
"Column! Forward!"

When our heroes like bridegrooms, with lips and with breath,
Drank the first kiss of Danger, and clasped her in death;
And the heart of brave Winthrop grew mute with his lyre,
When the plumes of his genius lay moulting in fire,-
"Column! Forward!"

Where he fell shall be sunshine as bright as his name,
And the grass where he slept shall be green as his fame;
For the gold of the Pen and the steel of the Sword
Write his deeds—in his blood-on the land he adored,-
"Column! Forward!"

And the soul of our comrade shall sweeten the air,
And the flowers and the grass-blades his memory upbear;
While the breath of his genius, like music in leaves,
With the corn-tassels whispers, and sing in the sheaves,―
"Column! Forward!"

*The march on Bethel was begun in high spirits at midnight, but it was near noon when the Zouaves in their crimson garments, led by Colonel Duryea, charged the batteries, after singing the" Star Spangled Banner" in chorus. Major Winthrop fell in the storming of the enemy's defences, and was left on the battle-field. Lieut. Greble, the only other officer killed, was shot at his gun soon after. This fatal contest inaugurated the "war of posts," which afterwards raged in y ia.-Atlantic Monthly.

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