[20]

May God grant, that we may betake ourselves to greater wisdom and frugality. I know that the oppressed above all other people need holidays, and pastimes, but in no case should we bid adieu to our common sense. Let all be careful, lest in this age of ribbon, velvet and gold lace revival, that we do not fall into fanaticism. Fanatics sometimes have strange visions, and it would be strange, “passing strange,” should any considerable portion of a whole race imagine themselves in a world of ribbons, painted sticks, and vanity without measure.

We ought to have our monster meetings, but we should assemble with the same spirit, that animated the Irish people, when they were led by that giant of freedom Daniel O’Connell, which should be, to use his own words, to “agitate, and agitate, and agitate until the chains of the three millions are broken.” A half penny’s worth of green ribbon and a sprig of shamrock signified to the Irishman more than all the gaudy trappings of a Grand Master, or a Prince of Jerusalem. These little things represented a grand principle to the minds of the unconquerable sons of Erin. The principles of progress in the ways of truth, and resistence to tyranny should be the[21] bases of all our public demonstrations, and numerical representations.

[21]

We should have likewise, days of bitter bread, and tabernacle in the wilderness, in which to remember our grief-worn brothers and sisters. They are now pleading with million tongues against those who have dispoiled them. They cry from gory fields—from pestilential rice swamps—from cane breaks, and forests—from plantations of cotton and tabacco—from the dark holds of slave ships, and from countless acres where the sugar cane nods to the sighing winds. They lift up their voices from all the land over which the flag of our country floats. From the banks of our silver streams, and broad rivers, from our valleys and sloping hills, and mountain tops!

The silence that reigns in the region where the pale nations of the earth slumber, is solemn, and awful. But what think ye, when you are told that every rood of land in this Union is the grave of a murdered man, and their epitaphs are written upon the monuments of the nation’s wealth. Ye destroyers of my people draw near, and read the mournful inscription; aye! read it, until it is daguerotyped on your souls. “You have slain us all the day long—you have had no mercy.” Legions of haggard ghosts stalk through the land. Behold! see, they come: Oh what myriads! Hark hear their broken bones as they clatter together! With deep unearthly voices 

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