The Great Conspiracy, Volume 6 by John Alexander Logan
page 20 of 100 (20%)
page 20 of 100 (20%)
|
Emancipation given to his native land. But such are the ways of
Providence. Moses was not permitted to enter the Promised Land with those he had led out of Bondage; he beheld it from afar off, and slept with his fathers." "The deceased," he impressively added, "needs no perishable monuments of brass or marble to perpetuate his name. So long as the English language shall be spoken or deciphered, so long as Liberty shall have a worshipper, his name will be known!" What influence the death of Owen Lovejoy may have had on the subsequent proceedings touching Emancipation interrupted as we have seen by his demise--cannot be known; but among all the eloquent tributes to his memory called forth by the mournful incident, perhaps none, could he have heard it, would have better pleased him than those two opening sentences of Charles Summer's oration in the Senate--where he said of Owen Lovejoy: "Could his wishes prevail, he would prefer much that Senators should continue in their seats and help to enact into Law some one of the several Measures now pending to secure the obliteration of Slavery. Such an Act would be more acceptable to him than any personal tribute,--" unless it might be these other words, which followed from the same lips: "How his enfranchised Soul would be elevated even in those Abodes to which he has been removed, to know that his voice was still heard on Earth encouraging, exhorting, insisting that there should be no hesitation anywhere in striking at Slavery; that this unpardonable wrong, from which alone the Rebellion draws its wicked life, must be blasted by Presidential proclamation, blasted by Act of Congress, blasted by Constitutional prohibition, blasted in every possible way, by every available agency, and at every occurring opportunity, so that no trace of the outrage may continue in the institutions of the Land, and especially that its accursed foot-prints may no longer defile the National Statute-book. Sir, it will be in vain that you pass |
|