III. His third towering landmark was THE RIGHT OF ALL MEN TO
FREEDOM. And here with his practical sense and acute vision he rose
to a higher, and I think a healthier, elevation than that of many
heroic antislavery leaders. They _were_ anti-slavery. Their lives
were spent in attack. They sought to destroy a system; they told its
wrongs and categoried its iniquities.

He knew that light, let in, will cast out darkness, and that kindled
warmth will drive out cold. He knew that freedom was better than
slavery, and that when men see that it is so, they will decree
freedom instead of slavery. He therefore entered the lists FOR
FREEDOM. He spoke of its inestimable blessings, and then unrolling
the immortal Declaration of Independence claimed that, with all its
dignity and all its endowments, liberty is the birthright of ALL MEN.
He taught the American people that the inalienable right of all men
to liberty was the first utterance of the young Republic, and that
her voice must be stifled so long as slavery lives. In his Ottawa
speech he said: "Henry Clay--my beau-ideal of a statesman--the man
for whom I fought all my humble life, once said of a class of men who
would repress all tendencies to liberty and ultimate emancipation,
that they must, if they would do this, go back to the era of our
independence and muzzle the cannon which thunders its annual joyous
return; they must blow out the moral lights around us, they must
penetrate the human soul and eradicate there the love of liberty, and
then, and not till then, could they perpetuate slavery in this
country."

He laid his spear in rest and went forth with armor on, the champion
of freedom. He claimed she should walk the world everywhere,