Strong in essential truth, it awaits the day, surely at hand, when all will flock to its support.

As the rights of man are at last recognized, the scoffers, now so heartless, will forget to scoff.

And now, Sir, I present to you the Antislavery Enterprise vindicated, in Necessity, Practicability, and Dignity, against all objection.

President, it is not uncommon to hear persons among us at the North confess the wrong of Slavery, and then, folding the hands in absolute listlessness, ejaculate, “What can we do about it?” Such we encounter daily.

Others there are, especially among the youthful and enthusiastic, who vainly sigh because they were not born in the age of Chivalry, or at least in the days of the Revolution, not thinking that in this Enterprise there is opportunity for…

Others there are who freely bestow means and time upon distant, inaccessible heathen of another hemisphere, in islands of the sea; and yet they can do nothing to mitigate our graver heathenism here at home.

While confessing that it ought to disappear from the earth, they forego, renounce, and abandon all effort to this end.

I would not discountenance any activity by which Human Freedom, even in a single case, may be secured; but I desire to say that such an act--too often accompanied by pharisaical pretension, in contrast with the petty performance--cannot be…

Not in this way can impression be made on an evil so vast as Slavery,--so widely scattered, and so exhaustless in its unnatural supply.

And just so will these occasions of charity, though encountered by the largest private means, be constantly renewed; for they communicate with the whole Black Sea of Slavery behind, out of which they are perpetually supplied, and which…

Charity is limited and local; the evils of Slavery are infinite and everywhere.

Besides, a wrong organized and upheld by law can be removed only through change of the law.

Not, then, by occasional contribution to ransom a slave can your duty be done in this great cause, but only by earnest, constant, valiant effort against the institution, against the law, which makes slaves.

But these things can furnish no motive or apology for indifference, or any folding of the hands.

Surely the wrong is not less wrong because gigantic; the evil is not less evil because immeasurable; nor can the duty of perpetual warfare with wrong and evil be in this instance suspended.

Nay, because Slavery is powerful, because the Enterprise is difficult, therefore is the duty of all more exigent.

The well-tempered soul does not yield to difficulties, but presses onward forever with increased resolution.

But the question recurs, so often pressed in argument, or in taunt, What have we at the North to do with Slavery?

To dislodge Slavery from these usurped footholds, and thus at once relieve ourselves from grievous responsibility, and begin the great work of Emancipation, were an object worthy an exalted ambition.

The National Government itself must be emancipated, so that it shall no longer wear the yoke of servitude; and Slavery in all its pretensions must be dislodged from a usurped foothold in the Free States themselves, thus relieving ourselves…

Emancipation, even within the national jurisdiction, can be achieved only through emancipation of the Free States, accompanied by complete emancipation of the National Government.

Ay, Sir, emancipation at the South can be reached only through emancipation of the North.

But the answer may be made yet more irresistible, while, with mingled sorrow and shame, I portray the tyrannical power which holds us in thraldom.

Notwithstanding all its excess of numbers, wealth, and intelligence, the North is now the vassal of an OLIGARCHY, whose single inspiration comes from Slavery.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.