was done in Faneuil Hall;[1] under the eyes of the three Adamses, Hancock, and Washington; and the howl rung round the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take counsel against the Lord and say, "Let us break his bands asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.'" Then I could not but remember that it was written, "He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers before him." Howl down the law of God at a magistrate's command! Do this in Boston! Let us remember this—but with charity.
Men say there is danger of disunion, of our losing fealty for the Constitution. I do not believe it yet! Suppose it be so. The Constitution is the machinery of the national mill; and suppose we agree to take it out and put in new; we might get worse, very true, but we might get better. There have been some modern improvements ; we might introduce them to the State as well as the mill. But I do not believe there is this danger. I do not believe the people of Massachusetts think so. I think they are strongly attached to the Union yet, and if they thought "the Union was in peril—this day," and everything the nation prizes was likely to be destroyed, we should not have had a meeting of a few thousands in Faneuil Hall, but the people would have filled up the city of Worcester with a hundred thousand men, if need be ; and they would have come with the cartridge-box at their side, and the firelock on their shoulder. That is the way the people of Massachusetts would assemble if they thought there was real danger.
I do not believe the South will withdraw from the Union, with five million free men, and three million slaves. I think Massachusetts would be no loser, I think the North would be no loser ; but I doubt if the North will yet allow them to go, if so disposed. Do you think the South is so mad as to wish it?
But I think I know of one cause which may dissolve the
- ↑ At the "Union meeting," two days before the delivery of this sermon.
