"How can I?" it said. "This is a Negro, a _Negro_! Besides,
he is PROPERTY!" And so America looked up, determined to ignore
the kneeling form. With pious blasphemy it said, "He is here
providentially; God in His own good time will dispose of him"; as
if God's hour for a good effect were not the earliest hour at
which courage and labor can bring it about, not the latest to which
indolence and infidelity can postpone it. Then it looked away across
oceans to other continents, and began again the chant, "Man is man;
natural right is sacred forever; and of politics the sole basis is
universal justice." Joyfully it sang for a while, but soon there began
to come up the clank of chains mingling with its chant, and the groans
of oppressed men and violated women, and prayers to Heaven for another
justice than this; and then the words of its chant grew bitter in the
mouth of our nation, and a sickness came in its heart, and an evil
blush mounted and stood on its brow; and at length a devil spoke in
its bosom and said, "The negro has no rights that a white man is bound
to respect"; and ere the words were fairly uttered, their meaning, as
was indeed inevitable, changed to this,--"A Northern 'mudsill' has no
rights that a Southern gentleman is bound to respect"; and soon guns
were heard booming about Sumter, and a new chapter in our history and
in the world's history began.
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