Chapter II: Part 2

All laws defining and punishing blasphemy--making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men.

70. Government Secular

Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal. He should be allowed to settle such things for himself.

71. 1876! (1776?)

In 1876, our forefathers retired God from politics. They said all power comes from the people. They kept God out of the Constitution, and allowed each State to settle the question for itself.

72. Candidates Made Hypocrites

Candidates are forced to pretend that they are Catholics with Protestant proclivities, or Christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own thinking.

73. The Church and the Throne

So our fathers said: "We shall form a secular government, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to worship God as he thinks best." They said: "Religion is an individual thing between each man and his Creator, and he can worship as he pleases and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. They had read of and seen the thumbscrews, the racks and the dungeons of the inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of the olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were robbers. They also knew that if they gave to any church power, it would corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power must not reside in a church, nor in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is--in the great body of the people. And the officers and servants of the people must be responsible. And so I say again, as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profoundest, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man.

74. The Old Idea

What was the old idea? The old idea was that no political power came from, nor in any manner belonged to, the people. The old idea was that the political power came from the clouds; that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea. The nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights; the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pretended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then, of political power was from above. The people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were responsible to God, not to the people. The kings were responsible to the clouds, not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered.

75. Liberty for Politicians

I would like also to liberate the politician. At present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. There are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career.

76. Tax all Church Property

I am in favor of the taxation of all church property. If that property belongs to God, he is able to pay the tax. If we exempt anything, let us exempt the home of the widow and orphan. The church has to-day $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 of property in this country. It must cost $2,000,000 a week, that is to say $500 a minute to run these churches. You give me this money and if I don't do more good with it than four times as many churches I'll resign. Let them make the churches attractive and they'll get more hearers. They will have less empty pews if they have less empty heads in the pulpit. The time will come when the preacher will become a teacher.

77. The Source of Power

The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods.

78. The Best Blood of the Old Word come to the New

The kings of the old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there were too many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country--who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The king's favorites stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land; and the consequences was that our country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their own, and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new.

79. No State Church

Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who hated the Episcopalians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics, and the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in contempt. There they were of every sort, and color, and kind, and how was it that they came together? They had a common aspiration. They wanted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated Great Britain; and they pledged each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of all.

80. The Enthusiasts of 1776

These grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has only been raised by enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the builders and framers of this great and splendid government; and they were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory, that will finally cover this world. They knew, they felt, they believed they would give a new constellation to the political heavens--that they would make the Americans a grand people--grand as the continent upon which they lived.

81. The Church Must Have no Sword

Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more. In other words our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral influence.

82. We are All of Us Kings! I want the power where some one can use it. As long as a man is responsible to the people there is no fear of despotism. There's no reigning family in this country. We are all of us Kings. We are the reigning family. And when any man talks about despotism, you may be sure he wants to steal or be up to devilment. If we have any sense, we have got to have localization of brain. If we have any power, we must have centralization. We want centralization of the right kind. The man we choose for our head wants the army in one hand, the navy in the other; and to execute the supreme will of the supreme people.

83. Honesty Tells!

In the long run the nation that is honest, the people that are industrious, will pass the people that are dishonest, the people that are idle; no matter what grand ancestry they might have had.

84. Working for Others.

To work for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In the realm of speculation, every success has at least one victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail. The same is true of all producers--of all laborers.

85. State Sovereignty

I despise the doctrine of State sovereignty. I believe in the rights of the States, but not in the sovereignty of the States. States are political conveniences. Rising above States as the Alps above valleys are the rights of man. Rising above the rights of the government even in this Nation are the sublime rights of the people. Governments are good only so long as they protect human rights. But the rights of a man never should be sacrificed upon the altar of the State or upon the altar of the Nation.

86. The King of America

I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an absolutely honest ballot. There is one king in this country; there is one emperor; there is one supreme czar; and that is the legally expressed will of the majority of the people. The man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, poisons the spring of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this land. I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is given away the more you have. There is room in this world for us all; there is room enough for all of our thoughts; out upon the intellectual sea there is room for every sail, and in the intellectual air there is space for every wing. A man that exercises a right that he will not give to others is a barbarian. A State that does not allow free speech is uncivilized, and is a disgrace to the American Union.

87. Years Without Seeing a Dollar!

I have been told that during the war we had plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a dollar. I saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. And the greenback, unless you have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I want it issued by the government, and I want behind every one of these dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer liveth."

88. The Wail of Dead Nations

A government founded upon anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities, and all the nations that have passed away--all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From the sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble wilderness of Athens, and from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty Rome, comes a wail, as it were, the cry that no nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand.

89. What the Republican Party Did

I am a Republican. I will tell you why: This is the only free government in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took the chains from 4,000,000 of people. The Republican party, with the wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a school-house; The Republican party put down the rebellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be exterpated from the face of the continent.

90. Doings of Democrats

I am opposed to the Democratic party, and I will tell you why. Every State that seceded from the United States was a Democratic State. Every ordinance of secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. Every man that endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches was a Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy the nation was a Democrat. Every enemy this great republic has had for twenty years has been a Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat. Every man that starved Union soldiers and refused them in the extremity of death, a crust, was a Democrat. Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The man that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that sympathized with the assassin--every man glad that the noblest President ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat.

91. Photograph of a Democrat.

Every man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man that raised blood-hounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man that impaired the credit of the United States, every man that swore we would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his country's credit, every calumniator of his country's honor, was a Democrat. Every man that resisted the draft, every man that hid in the bushes and shot at Union men simply because they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their country, was a Democrat. Every man that wept over the corpse of slavery was a Democrat.

92. I am a Republican, I Tell You!

The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. The government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. I am a Republican because the Republican party says, "We will protect the rights of American citizens at home, and if necessary we will march an army into any State to protect the rights of the humblest American citizen in that State." I am a Republican because that party allows me to be free--allows me to do my own thinking in my own way. I am a Republican because it is a party grand enough and splendid enough and sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of mankind. It invites the Methodist; it invites the Catholic; it invites the Presbyterian and every kind of sectarian; it invites the free-thinker; it invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself. I am a Republican, I tell you.

93. Recollect!

Recollect it! Every man that tried to spread smallpox and yellow fever in the North, as the instrumentalities of civilized war, was a Democrat. Soldiers, every scar you have got on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, every scar is a souvenir of a Democrat. I want you to recollect it. Every man that was the enemy of human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes upon the lips--every one was a Democrat.

94. Give Every Man a Chance

Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people, and thousands of the Northern Democrats, are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in the race for life. And, Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend to your business. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you always. You have got to be industrious, honest, to cultivate a justice. If you don't the colored race will pass you, as sure as you live. I am for giving every man a chance. Anybody that can pass me is welcome.

95. Who Shall Rule the Country?

Shall the people that saved this country rule it? Shall the men who saved the old flag hold it? Shall the men who saved the ship of state sail it? or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and sink it? That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united South, united by assassination and murder, a South solidified by the shot-gun; shall a united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall they control this great and splendid country? Well, then, the North must wake up. We are right back where we were in 1861. This is simply a prolongation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the other was the war of the musket. The other was the war of cannon, this is the war of thought, and we have got to beat them in this war of thought, recollect that. The question is, Shall the men who endeavored to destroy this country rule it? Shall the men that said, This is not a nation, have charge of the nation?

96. The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of the people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom. I say physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of America, looking after defenseless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America were in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man.

97. The World Grows Brighter.

I have a dream that this world is growing better and better every day and every year; that there is more charity, more justice, more love every day. I have a dream that prisons will not always curse the earth; that the shadow of the gallows will not always fall on the land; that the withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislature, justice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and that finally the world will be controlled by liberty and love, by justice and charity. That is my dream, and if it does not come true, it shall not be my fault.

98. The Column of July

I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, where stood the Bastile, where now stands the column of July, surmounted by the figure of Liberty. In its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a hammer; upon its shining forehead a glittering star--and as I looked upon it I said, such is the Republican party of my country.

99. A Nation of Rascals

Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be President. But I denounce him as a calumniator of my country; a maligner of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphan, the wounded soldiers. Thieves and rascals don't build such things. In the cities of the Atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty streets of New York city, where the Democratic party is the strongest--took these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at sea, and let the breezes of ocean kiss the rose of health back to their pallid cheeks. Rascals and thieves do not do so. When Chicago burned, railroads were blocked with the charity of the American people. Thieves and rascals did not do so.

100. We are a Great People

We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty--thirteen states to thirty-eight. We have better homes, and more of the conveniences of life than any other people upon the face of the globe. The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago--and they have twice as much sense and heart. Liberty and labor have given us all. Remember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part--who loves his friends the best--is most willing to help others--truest to the obligation--who has the best heart--the most feeling--the deepest sympathies--and who freely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself, is the best man. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air, and have given one country to mankind.

101. Mule Equality

Suppose there was a great horse-race here to-day, free to every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs, and all the donkeys. At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a net of life had been cast around him--with his thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks--what does he care how many mules and donkeys run on the track? But the Democratic scrub, with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cockle-burs, jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his cockle-bur tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and says, "I am down on mule equality." My friends, the Republican party is the blooded horse in this race.

102. Room for Every Wing.

There is room in the Republican air for every wing; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism says to every man: "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself."

103. The Republican Platform.

I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a party that had a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself; a party that says no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.

104. Our Government the best on Earth

We all want a good government. If we do not we should have none. We all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be citizens of a government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our government is the best upon this earth.

105. Will the Second Century of America be as good as the First?

Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as good as the first? I believe it will because we are growing more and more humane; I believe there is more human kind-ness and a greater desire to help one another in America, than in all the world besides. We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam engine--the telegraph--these are but the toys with which science has been amusing herself. There will be grander things. There will be higher and wider culture. A grander standard of character, of literature and art. We have now half as many millions of people as we have years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are writing and reading more books. We are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life--trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction. We are investigating, thinking, working! The second century will be grander than the first.

SCIENCE

106. The Glory of Science.

Science found agriculture plowing with a stick--reaping with a sickle--commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds--a world without books--without schools--man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. It found the land filled with malicious monks--with persecuting Protestants, and the burners of men. The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul--breaking the mental manacles--getting the brain out of bondage--giving courage to thought--filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.

107. The Tables Turned

For the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that God told Moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of Des Cartes, La Place, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the Bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. A few years ago, science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the Bible. The tables have been turned, and now, religion is endeavoring to prove that the Bible is not inconsistent with science. The standard has been changed.

108. Science Better than a Creed

It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost.

109. The Religion of Science

Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,--Wesley, toward John Stuart Mill. To really reform the church is to destroy it. Every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time.

110. Science not Sectarian

The sciences are not sectarian. People do not persecute each other on account of disagreements in mathematics. Families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. It is what people do not know, that they persecute each other about. Science will bring, not a sword, but peace.

111. The Epitaph of all Religions

Science has written over the high altar its mene, mene, tekel, UPHARSIN--the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all religions?

112. The Real Priest

When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men.

113. Science is Power

From a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things--by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.

114. Science Supreme

The element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the disciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. Science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the Mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease pretending any reverence for the Jewish scriptures. The moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory--lasting and universal.

115. Science Opening the Gates of Thought

We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. We are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought.

116. Stars and Grains of Sand

We do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all in all of truth. We know of no end to the development of man. We cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. The history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of sand, as all the stars.

117. The Trinity of Science

Reason, Observation and Experience--the Holy Trinity of Science--have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us all stand nobly erect.

118. The Old and the New Old ideas perished in the retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their places. One by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. A new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored, and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without.

119. The Triumphs of Science

I do not know what inventions are in the brain of the future; I do not know what garments of glory may be woven for the world in the loom of years to be; we are just on the edge of the great ocean of discovery. I do not know what is to be discovered; I do not know what science will do for us. I do know that science did just take a handful of sand and make the telescope, and with it read all the starry leaves of heaven; I know that science took the thunderbolts from the hands of Jupiter, and now the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, flashes under the waves of the sea; I know that science stole a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless arms the countless wheels of toil; I know that science broke the chains from human limbs and gave us instead the forces of nature for our slaves; I know that we have made the attraction of gravitation work for us; we have made the lightnings our messengers; we have taken advantage of fire and flames and wind and sea; these slaves have no backs to be whipped; they have no hearts to be lacerated; they have no children to be stolen, no cradles to be violated. I know that science has given us better houses; I know it has given us better pictures and better books; I know it has given us better wives and better husbands, and more beautiful children. I know it has enriched a thousand-fold our life; and therefore I am in favor of perfect intellectual liberty.

120. What Science Found!

It found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world.

121. Science the only Lever

Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law. For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science--the only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. To obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. Ignorance worships mystery; Reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars.

SLAVERY

122. The Colonel Short of Words!!!

I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of which I might construct sentences like snakes, out of which I might construct sentences with mouths fanged, that had forked tongues, out of which I might construct sentences that writhed and and hissed; then I could give my opinion of the rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of this nation.

123. Slavery in the Name of Religion

Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they call themselves, defending the institution of slavery. When I was a little boy I used to see steamers go down the Mississippi river with hundreds of men and women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men standing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in their pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the name of religion! I used to hear them preach to these slaves in the South and the only text they ever took was "Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was the salutation of the most merciful God to a man whose back was bleeding that was the salutation of the most merciful God to the slave-mother bending over an empty cradle, to the woman from whose breast a child had been stolen--"Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was what they said to a man running for his life and for his liberty through tangled swamps and listening to the baying of blood-hounds, and when he listened for them the voice came from heaven:--"Servants be obedient unto your masters." That is civilization. Think what slaves we have been! Think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth even! How they used to cringe in old times before a man who was rich--there are so many of them gone into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear.

124. The Patrons of Slavery

It is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of slavery. It has left no possible wrong uncommitted, no possible crime un-perpetrated. It has been practiced and defended by all nations in some form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended by nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade, churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery has been blessed by bishop, by cardinal and by pope. It has received the sanction of statesmen, of kings, of queens. Monarchs have shared in the profits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoil, reciting passages of scripture in its defense, and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity and law.

125. A Colored Man in Congress

The world has changed! I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man--once a slave--sitting in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States. When I saw that sight, my eyes were filled with tears. I felt that we had carried out the Declaration of Independence, that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into every word. I felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children--standing straight in the sun--just the same as though he were white and worth a million!

126. The Zig-zag Strip

I have some excuses to offer for the race to which I belong. My first excuse is that this is not a very good world to raise folks in anyway. It is not very well adapted to raising magnificent people. There's only a quarter of it land to start with. It is three times better for raising fish than folks; and in that one-quarter of land there is not a tenth part fit to raise people on. You can't raise people without a good climate. You have got to have the right kind of climate, and you have got to have certain elements in the soil or you can't raise good people. Do you know that there is only a little zig-zag strip around the world within which have been produced all men of genius?

127. Black People have Suffered Enough

In my judgment the black people have suffered enough. They have been slaves for two hundred years. They have been owned two hundred years, and, more than all, they have been compelled to keep the company of those who owned them. Think of being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing from you. Think of being compelled to live with a man that stole your child from the cradle before your very eyes. Think of being compelled to live with a thief all your life, to spend your days with a white loafer, and to be under his control.

128. The History of Civilization

The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a monarchy, the father being the monarch. The mother and children were the veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had the power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the condition of the wife and mother and children even tolerable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong nation robbed, plundered and took captive the weaker ones.

129. Does God Uphold Slavery?

Is there, in the civilized world, to-day, a clergyman who believes in the divinity of slavery? Does the Bible teach man to enslave his brother? If it does, is it not blasphemous to say that it is inspired of God? If you find the institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been written by God, what would you expect to find in a book inspired by the devil? Would you expect to find that book in favor of liberty? Modern Christians, ashamed of the God of the Old Testament, endeavor now to show that slavery was neither commanded nor opposed by Jehovah.

130. Solemn Defiance

For my part, I never will, I never can, worship a God who upholds the institution of slavery. Such a God I hate and defy. I neither want his heaven, nor fear his hell.

THE WAR

131. The Soldiers of the Republic

The soldiers of the Republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the blessings of liberty and that their children might have peace. They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time.

132. Honor to the Brave!

All honor, to the Brave! They blotted from the statute books laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that infamous clause that made men the catchers of their fellow men. They made it possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be human, and for politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of martyrs, and from the Northern brain. They kept our country on the map of the world and our flag in heaven.

133. What Were We Fighting For?

Seven long years of war--fighting for what? For the principle that all men were created equal--a truth that nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel; nobody in the entire history of this world. No man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply that in America every man should have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. It has been denied by kings--they were thieves. It has been denied by statesmen--they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by popes--they were hypocrites. What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. They make all the money; do all the work. They plow the land; cut down the forests; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer?

134. The Revolution Consummated

The soldiers of the Republic finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They relighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light.

135. Fighting Done!--Work Begun!

The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved--they went back to the fields, the shops and mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining hand of friendship--a girdle of clasped and happy hands--around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold.

136. Manhood worth more than Gold

We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is not worth preserving. I appeal to every laboring man, and I ask him, "Is there another country on this globe where you can have your equal rights with others?" Now, then, in every country, no matter how good it is, and no matter how bad it is--in every country there is something worth preserving, and there is something that ought to be destroyed. Now recollect that every voter is in his own right a king; every voter in this country wears a crown; every voter in this country has in his hands the scepter of authority; and every voter, poor and rich, wears the purple of authority alike. Recollect it; and the man that will sell his vote is the man that abdicates the American throne.

137. Grander than Greek or Roman.

Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as taintless as the air, battled for the rights of others; for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes; that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a Nation, sovereign, great and free. Blood was water; money, leaves, and life was common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave.

138. Let us Drink to the Living and the Dead

The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcano lips. And now let us drink to the volunteers, to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left--of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want--to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue, to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives--to all the living and all the dead--to Sherman, to Sheridan and to Grant, the foremost soldiers of the world; and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.

139. Will the Wounds of the War be Healed?

There is still another question: "Will all the wounds of the war be healed?" I answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit, not to the dictation of the North, but to the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes.

140. Saviours of the Nation

They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels clad in shining garments--nationality and liberty. The soldiers were the Saviours of the Nation. They were the liberators of men. In writing the proclamation of emancipation, Lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air,--when reapers sing 'mid gathered sheaves,--copied with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords.

141. General Grant

When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our century, the question, "Will the great republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. The North, filled with intelligence and wealth, products of liberty, marshalled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised, and calm; stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the nation's first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that moment the end was known. That utterance was the real declaration of real war and in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the final sword of the rebellion. The soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vulgar glory; they were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the homestead of liberty.

MONEY THAT IS MONEY

142. Paper is not Money

Some people tell me that the government can impress its sovereignty on a piece of paper, and that is money. Well, if it is, what's the use of wasting it making one dollar bills? It takes no more ink and no more paper--why not make $1000 bills? Why not make $100,000,000 and all be billionaires? If the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes for you and me for? Why don't it make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the government issued $1,000,000,000 to-morrow, how would you get any of it?

143. The Debt will be paid

It will be paid. The holders of the debt have got a mortgage on a continent. They have a mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record. Every blade of grass that grows upon this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; all the coal put away in the ground, millions of years ago by the old miser, the sun; is a guarantee that every dollar of that debt will be paid; all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains, every one of them is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; every pine standing in the sombre forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; all the gold and silver hid in the Sierra Nevadas, waiting for the miner's pick, is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every locomotive, with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, every dimpled child in the cradle, every good man and every good woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket, is a guarantee that the debt will be paid.

144. 1873 to 1879!

No man can imagine, all the languages of the world cannot express, what the people of the United States suffered from 1873 to 1879. Men who considered themselves millionaires found that they were beggars; men living in palaces, supposing they had enough to give sunshine to the winter of their age, supposing they had enough to have all they loved in affluence and comfort, suddenly found that they were mendicants with bonds, stocks, mortgages, all turned to ashes in their aged, trembling hands.

The chimneys grew cold, the fires in furnaces went out, the poor families were turned adrift, and the highways of the United States were crowded with tramps. Into the home of the poor crept the serpent of temptation, and whispered in the ear of poverty the terrible word "repudiation."

145. A Voter because a Man