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DEDICATION. this new edition To the Young Men op the United States, I dedicate in token of heartfelt Slavery, of Barbarism the on Speech of a RENDERED IN GRATITUDE TO THEM FOR BRAVE AND PATRIOTIC SERVICE
WAR
THE PRESENT
FOR CIVILIZATION
than three years since I deemed it my duty to expose, in This phrase, though common now, of Slavery. Barbarism the Senate, the the assumpwas new then. The speech was a strict and logical reply to " " ennobling asserting the " divine origin" of Slavery, its It is
now more
tions of Senators, character,
and that
it
was the "black marble keystone"
of our national
recurrence, I Listening to these assumptions, which were of daily arch. And, considering their effrontery, it felt that they ought to be answered.
seemed
to
me
by exhibitthat they should be answered frankly .and openly careful that I should "nothing is, without reserve
ing Slavery as it really
This I did. pending in the Trial by In that debate the issue was joined which is still ripened in Rebelnaturally Slavery for The inordinate assumptions Battle. its Slavery were, in reality, all that it was said to be by
down aught
extenuate, nor set
lion
and War.
in malice."
If
representatives, they
Not
must have
failed in
duty
if
they did not vindicate and "divine" and so "enno-
easily could they see a thing so
advance of our national archbling "—constituting the "black marble keystone" to sacrifice. doomed yet not if even vote, popular a by discredited it.
The
election of
Mr. Lincoln was a judgment against Slavery, and
its
representatives were aroused. constitutional Meanwhile, for more than a generation, an assumption of side with Slavery, by side rooted become had outrageous, less law, hardly It was assumed together. so that the two had shot up in rank luxuriance time, in the any at Constitution, the under privileged, was any State that
exercise of
its
own
discretion, to
withdraw from the Union.
This absurdity
even among the representatives of Slavery. To But custom irrational. say that two and two make five could not be more until, at last, all impression, an produced gradually repetition and constant
found little favor at
first,
who were maddest
for Slavery
were equally
mad
for this disorganizing
ally.
the was under the shadow of this constitutional assumption that Mr. when last, that, at so vigor, virulent into grew assumption for Slavery declared Lincoln was elected, it broke forth in open war but the war was in the name of State Rights. It
