(1863)
Born in 1813, died in 1887; Pastor of churches in Indiana in 1837-47, and of
Plymouth Church in Brooklyn in 1847-87; Founder and Editor of The Christian
Union in 1870-81; one of the most prominent of antislavery orators; made
notable speeches in England during the American Civil War.
FOR1 more than twenty-five
years I have been made perfectly familiar with popular assemblies in all parts
of my country except the extreme south. There has not for the whole of that
time been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me to go
south of Mason and Dixon’s line in my own country, and all for one
reason: my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony against that which I consider
to be the most atrocious thing under the sun—the system of American
slavery in a great, free republic. [Cheers.] I have passed through that early
period when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have
attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime than that of free
speech, visited me with all manner of contumelious epithets; and now since I
have been in England, altho I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on
the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive that the
Southern influence prevails to some extent in England. [Applause and uproar.]
It is my old acquaintance; I understand it perfectly—[laughter]—and
I have always held it to be an unfailing truth that where a man had a cause
that would bear examination he was perfectly willing to have it spoken about.
[Applause.] Therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, if I were
permitted to speak—[hisses and applause]—when I found they were
afraid to have me speak—[hisses, laughter, and “No,
no!”]—when I found that they considered my speaking damaging to
their cause—[applause]—when I found that they appealed from facts
and reasonings to mob law—[applause and uproar]—I said. No man need
tell me what the heart and secret counsel of these men are. They tremble and
are afraid. [Applause, laughter, hisses, “No, no!” and a voice,
“
Now, personally, it is a matter of very little consequence to me whether I
speak here to-night or not. [Laughter and cheers.] But one thing is very
certain—if you do permit me to speak here to-night you will hear very
plain talking. [Applause and hisses.] You will not find a man,—you will
not find me to be a man that dared to speak about
There are two dominant races in modern
history: the Germanic and the Romanic races. The Germanic races tend to
personal liberty, to a sturdy individualism, to civil and to political liberty.
The Romanic race tends to absolutism in government; it is clannish; it loves
chieftains; it develops a people that crave strong and showy governments to
support and plan for them. The Anglo-Saxon race belongs to the great German
family, and is a fair exponent of its peculiarities. The Anglo-Saxon carries
self-government and self-development with him wherever he goes. He has popular
GOVERNMENT and popular INDUSTRY; for the effects of a generous civil liberty
are not seen a whit more plainly in the good order, in the intelligence, and in
the virtue of a self-governing people, than in their amazing enterprise and the
scope and power of their creative industry. The power to create riches is just
as much a part of the Anglo-Saxon virtues as the power to create good order and
social safety. The things required for prosperous labor, prosperous
manufactures, and prosperous commerce are three: first, liberty; secondly, liberty;
thirdly, liberty—but these are not merely the same liberty, as I shall
show you.
First, there must be liberty to follow
those laws of business which experience has developed, without imposts or
restrictions, or governmental intrusions. Business simply wants to be let
alone. [“Hear, hear!”]
Then, secondly, there must be liberty to
distribute and exchange products of industry in any market without burdensome
tariffs, without imposts, and without vexatious regulations. There must be
these two liberties—liberty to create wealth, as the makers of it think
best according to the light and experience which business has given them; and
then liberty to distribute what they have created without unnecessary vexatious
burdens. The comprehensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the world
is free manufacture and free trade. [“Hear, hear!” A voice,
“The Murrill tariff.”]
I have said there were three elements of
liberty. The third is the necessity of an intelligent and free race of
customers. There must be freedom among producers; there must be freedom among
the distributers; there must be freedom among the customers. It may not have
occurred to you that it makes any difference what one’s customers are;
but it does, in all regular and prolonged business. The condition of the
customer determine show much he will buy, determines of what sort he will buy.
Poor and ignorant people buy little and that of the poorest kind. The richest
and the intelligent, having the more means to buy, buy the most, and always buy
the best.
Here, then, are the three liberties:
liberty of the producer, liberty of the distributor, and liberty of the
consumer. The first two need no discussion—they have been long,
thoroughly, and brilliantly illustrated by the political economists of Great
Britain, and by her eminent statesmen; but it seems to me that enough attention
has not been directed to the third, and, with your patience, I will dwell on
that for a moment, before proceeding to other topics.
It is a necessity of every manufacturing
and commercial people that their customers should be very wealthy and
intelligent. Let us put the subject before you in the familiar light of your
own local experience. To whom do the tradesmen of
On the other hand, a man well
off—how is it with him? He buys in far greater quantity. He can afford to
do it; he has the money to pay for it. He buys in far greater variety, because he
seeks to gratify not merely physical wants, but also mental wants. He buys for
the satisfaction of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense. He buys silk,
wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals—iron, silver, gold, platinum; in
short he buys for all necessities and of all substances. But that is not all.
He buys a better quality of goods. He buys richer silks, finer cottons, higher
grained wools. Now, a rich silk means so much skill and care of
somebody’s that has been expended upon it to make it finer and richer;
and so of cotton, and so of wool. That is, the price of the finer goods runs
back to the very beginning, and remunerates the workman as well as the
merchant. Indeed, the whole laboring community is as much interested and
profited as the mere merchant, in this buying and selling of the higher grades
in the greater varieties and quantities.
The law of price is the skill; and the
amount of skill expended in the work is as much for the market as are the
goods. A man comes to the market and says, “I have a pair of
hands”; and he obtains the lowest wages. Another man comes and says,
“I have something more than a pair of hands—I have truth and
fidelity”; he gets a higher price. Another man comes and says, “I
have something more; I have hands and strength, and fidelity, and skill.”
He gets more than either of the others. The next man comes and says, “I
have got hands and strength, and skill, and fidelity; but my hands work more
than that. They know how to create things for the fancy, for the affections, for
the moral sentiments”; and he gets more than any of the others. The last
man comes and says, “I have all these qualities, and have them so highly
that it is a peculiar genius”; and genius carries the whole market and
gets the highest price. [Loud applause.] So that both the workman and the
merchant are profited by having purchasers that demand quality, variety, and
quantity.
Now, if this be so in the town or the
city, it can only be so because it is a law. This is the specific development
of a general or universal law, and therefore we should expect to find it as
true of a nation as of a city like
You have also an interest in this, because
you are a moral and a religious people. [“Oh, oh!” Laughter and
applause.] You desire it from the highest motives, and godliness is profitable
in all things, having the promise of the life that is, as well as of that which
is to come; but if there were no hereafter, and if man had no progress in this
life, and if there were no question of moral growth at all, it would be worth
your while to protect civilization and liberty, merely as a commercial
speculation. To evangelize has more than a moral and religious import—it
comes back to temporal relations. Wherever a nation that is crushed, cramped,
degraded under despotism, is struggling to be free, you, Leeds, Sheffield,
Now,
There is in this a great and sound
principle of political economy. If the South should be rendered
independent—— 2
Well, you have had your turn; now let me have mine again.[Loud applause and
laughter.] It is a little inconvenient to talk against the wind; but, after
all, if you will just keep good-natured—I am not going to lose my temper;
will you watch yours? Besides all that, it rests me, and gives me a chance, you
know, to get my breath. [Applause and hisses.]And I think that the bark of
those men is worse than their bite. They do not mean any harm; they do not know
any better. [Loud applause, hisses and continued uproar.]
What will be the result if this present
struggle shall eventuate in the separation of
Now, let us consider the prospect. If
the South become a slave empire, what relation will it have to you as a
customer? [A voice, “Or any other man.” Laughter.] It would be an
empire of twelve millions of people. Of these, eight millions are white and
four millions black.[A voice, “How many have you got?”] Consider
that one-third of the whole are the miserably poor, unbuying blacks. You do not
manufacture much for them. You have not got machinery coarse enough. [Laughter
and “No.”] Your labor is too skilled by far to manufacture bagging
and linsey-woolsey.[A Southerner, “We are going to free them every
one.”] Then you and I agree exactly. One other third consists of a poor,
unskilled, degraded white population; and the remainder one-third, which is a
large allowance, we will say, intelligent and rich. Now here are twelve
millions of people, and only one-third of them are customers that can afford to
buy the kind of goods that you bring to market. [Interruption and uproar.]
My friends, I saw a man once, who was a
little late at a railway station, chase an express train. He did not catch it.
If you are going to stop this meeting, you have got to stop it before I speak;
for after I have got the things out, you may chase as long as you please—you
will not catch them. But there is luck in leisure; I’m going to take it
easy. Two-thirds of the population of the Southern States to-day are
non-purchasers of English goods. You must recollect another fact—namely,
that this is going on clear through to the Pacific Ocean; and if by sympathy or
help you establish a slave empire, you sagacious Britons—if you like it
better, then, I will leave the adjective out—are busy in favoring the
establishment of an empire from ocean to ocean that should have fewest customers
and the largest non-buying population. [“No, no!” A voice, “I
thought it was a happy people that population parted.”]
Now, for instance, just look at
this—the difference between free labor and slave labor to produce
cultivated land. The State of
Now, what can
Do you sympathize with the minority in
A great many men say to ministers of the
Gospel: “You pretend to be preaching and working for the love of the
people. Why, you are all the time preaching for the sake of the Church.”
What does the minister say? “It is by means of the Church that we help
the people,” and when men say that we are fighting for the Union, I, too,
say that we are fighting for the
In the first place I am ashamed to
confess that such was the thoughtlessness—[interruption]—such was
the stupor of the North—[renewed interruption]—you will get a word
at a time; to-morrow will let folks see what it is you do not want to
hear—that for a period of twenty-five years she went to sleep, and
permitted herself to be drugged and poisoned with the Southern prejudice
against black men. [Applause and uproar.]
Now as to those States that had passed
“black” laws, as we call them; they are filled with Southern
emigrants. The southern parts of Ohio, the southern part of Indiana, where I
myself lived for years, and which I knew like a book, the southern part of
Illinois, where Mr. Lincoln lives—[great uproar]—these parts are
largely settled by emigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and
North Carolina, and it was their vote, or the Northern votes pandering for
political reasons to theirs, that passed in those States the infamous
“black” laws; and the Republicans in these States have a record,
clean and white, as having opposed these laws in every instance as
“infamous.” Now as to the State of
No man can unveil the future; no man can
tell what revolutions are about to break upon the world; no man can tell what
destiny belongs to France, nor to any of the European powers; but one thing is
certain, that in the exigencies of the future there will be combinations and recombinations,
and that those nations that are of the same faith, the same blood, and the same
substantial interests, ought not to be alienated from each other, but ought to
stand together. [Immense cheering and hisses.] I do not say that you ought not
to be in the most friendly alliance with
We do not agree with the recent doctrine
of neutrality as a question of law. But it is past, and we are not disposed to
raise that question. We accept it now as a fact, and we say that the utterance
of Lord Russell at Blairgowrie—[applause, hisses, and a voice,
“What about Lord Brougham?”]—together with the declaration of
the government in stopping war-steamers here—[great uproar and applause]—have
gone far toward quieting every fear and removing every apprehension from our
minds. [Uproar and shouts of applause.] And now in the future it is the work of
every good man and patriot not to create divisions, but to do the things that
will make for peace. [“Oh, oh!” and laughter.] On our part it shall
be done.[Applause and hisses, and “No, no!”]
On your part it ought to be done; and
when in any of the convulsions that come upon the world, Great Britain finds
herself struggling single-handed against the gigantic powers that spread
oppression and darkness—[applause, hisses, and uproar]—there ought
to be such cordiality that she can turn and say to her first-born and most
illustrious child, “Come!” [“Hear, hear!” Applause,
tremendous cheers, and uproar.] I will not say that
I have for an hour and a half spoken
against a storm—[“Hear, hear!”]—and you yourselves are
witnesses that, by the interruption, I have been obliged to strive with my
voice, so that I no longer have the power to control this assembly. [Applause.]
And altho I am in spirit perfectly willing to answer any question, and more
than glad of the chance, yet I am by this very unnecessary opposition to-night
incapacitated physically from doing it. Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you good
evening. 3
Note 1. Delivered in
Note 2. At this point mingled cheering and hisses interrupted the speaker until
“half the audience rose to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs, and
in every part of the hall there was the greatest commotion and uproar.”
Mr. Beecher “quietly and smilingly waited until quiet was restored, and
then proceeded.”
Note 3. When
from "The World's Great
Orations" ed. by William Jennings Bryan, 1906, published in full by
bartelsby.com