Here is a great change, worthy of notice and memory, for it attests the first stage of victory. Slavery, in all its many-sided wrong, still continues; but here in this metropolis--ay, Sir, and throughout the whole North--freedom of discussion is at length secured. And this, I say, is the first stage of victory,--herald of the transcendent future.
“Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers: Prepare the way! a God, a God appears! A God! a God! the vocal hills reply: The rocks proclaim the approaching Deity.”
Nor is there anything peculiar in the trials to which our cause has been exposed. Thus in all ages is Truth encountered. At first persecuted, gagged, silenced, crucified, she cries out from the prison, the rack, the stake, the cross, until at last her voice is heard. And when that voice is really heard, whether in martyr cries, or in earthquake tones of civil convulsion, or in the calmness of ordinary speech, such as I now employ, or in that still, small utterance inaudible to the common ear, then is the beginning of victory! “Give me where to stand and I will move the world,” said Archimedes; and Truth asks no more than did the master of geometry.
Viewed in this aspect, the present occasion rises above any ordinary course of lectures or series of political meetings. It is the inauguration of Freedom. From this time forward, her voice of warning and command cannot be silenced. The sensitive sympathies of property, in this commercial mart, may yet again recognize property in man; the watchful press itself may falter or fail; but the vantage-ground of free discussion now achieved cannot be lost. On this I take my stand, and, as from the Mount of Vision, behold the whole field of our great controversy spread before me. There is no point, topic, fact, matter, reason, or argument, touching the question between Slavery and Freedom, which is not now open. From these I might aptly select some one, and confine myself to its development. But I should not in this way best satisfy the seeming requirement of the occasion. According to the invitation of your Committee, I was to make an address introductory to the present course of lectures, but was prevented by ill-health. And now, at the close of the course, I am to say what I failed to say at its beginning. Not as Caucus or as Congress can I address you; nor am I moved to undertake a political harangue or constitutional argument. Out of the occasion let me speak, and, discarding any individual topic, aim to exhibit the entire field, in its divisions and subdivisions, with metes and bounds.