my object has been to arouse _you_, as the wives and mothers, the
daughters and sisters, of the South, to a sense of your duty as
_women_, and as Christian women, on that great subject, which has
already shaken our country, from the St. Lawrence and the lakes, to
the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Mississippi to the shores of the
Atlantic; _and will continue mightily to shake it_, until the polluted
temple of slavery fall and crumble into ruin. I would say unto each
one of you, "what meanest thou, O sleeper! arise and call upon thy
God, if so be that God will think upon us that we perish not."
Perceive you not that dark cloud of vengeance which hangs over our
boasting Republic? Saw you not the lightnings of Heaven's wrath, in
the flame which leaped from the Indian's torch to the roof of yonder
dwelling, and lighted with its horrid glare the darkness of midnight?
Heard you not the thunders of Divine anger, as the distant roar of the
cannon came rolling onward, from the Texian country, where Protestant
American Rebels are fighting with Mexican Republicans--for what? For
the re-establishment of _slavery_; yes! of American slavery in the
bosom of a Catholic Republic, where that system of robbery, violence,
and wrong, had been legally abolished for twelve years. Yes! citizens
of the United States, after plundering Mexico of her land, are now
engaged in deadly conflict, for the privilege of fastening chains, and
collars, and manacles--upon whom? upon the subjects of some foreign
prince? No! upon native born American Republican citizens, although
the fathers of these very men declared to the whole world, while
struggling to free themselves the three penny taxes of an English
king, that they believed it to be a _self-evident_ truth that _all
men_ were created equal, and had an _unalienable right to liberty_.

Well may the poet exclaim in bitter sarcasm,