The attempt to abridge it would be so infatuated that the most dignified Court that ever sat in Boston would become an object of universal merriment and ridicule, that should presume to arrest and cause to be indicted any man for free speaking in old Faneuil Hall.
Beecher emphasizes the absurdity of limiting free speech in a historically significant location for American democracy.
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And aroused by that spirit, there shall spring up the yet unaroused hosts of men that have not bowed the knee to Baal--and we will war it to the knife, and knife to the hilt.
If the North gives to the Nation her radical principles of human rights and democratic Governments, there will be the peace of an immeasurable prosperity.
And if by an insane blindness you shall contrive to put off the issue, and send this unsettled dispute down to your children, it will go down, gathering volume and strength at every step, to waste and desolate their heritage.
These are symptoms only, not the disease; the effects, not the causes.