As he stood Amidst the surging tide Of calumny and misconception, Bearing up Against the pressure of the waves of "caste." His solemn words echoing through the senate: "_By the supreme law Which commands me to do justice; By the comprehensive And conscientious law Of brotherhood; By the constitution I have sworn to support, I am bound to disobey this act! And never, In any circumstance, can I render voluntary aid to it! Pains and penalties I will endure! This great wrong I will not do. Better be the victim, Than the instrument of wrong!_"
Fired! With Athenian eloquence, Towering aloft in his noble manhood! Bearing the grand proud form Of a Cret'an hero! Hurling! The thunder of heaven Upon the guilty heads Of your inhuman and infamous oppressors, Who would enslave The very freedom of his speech! And hang The fetters of party strife Upon his independent thoughts! But he rose up in his giant strength, Raising the prostrate column Of your rights, Manfully fighting for it, block by block, Every inch of the ground Contested!
What wonder That common minds, Lacking the moral vertebræ (backbone) Of a grand and noble humanity, should deem him Passionate! Yet, "what is life Without passionate feeling To false sentiment? It is, indeed, a dangerous auxiliary; But no true sentiment is complete Without it." And truer sentiments Never lit the fires of eloquence in a purer breast Than Sumner's! A breast that heaved with indignation For your bitter wrongs, And the piteous spectacle of human nature That Taney's mandate presented To the eyes of the world!
That, "_The black man_ _Has no rights the white man is bound to respect._" O! omnipotent And omnipresent God! Who made us in thine own image, Breathing Thine own pure breath Into our dust-created bodies! Giving of thine own life A semblance So great in all its purity so grand in all its fulness, That our humanity can scarce contain it! So, whether our faces be black, or whether They be white, If we but retain thy semblance, And keep _within_
The sacred Cloister of our souls The lamp that thou didst consecrate And gave Into our most solemn keeping To illuminate the fair pages of our lives, And shed Its holy light upon the path That lies along the shimmering moon-beams of the sky, Upon whose silver stair Expectant angels wait; Whose luminous wings enfold us round about, Bearing our happy souls Beyond the sapphire gates To the home From whence we came _We are as one to thee!_ _And all the thinking, reasoning nations Of the earth!_