Henry Ward Beecher: “Among us, and from the beginning, Work has been honorable.”

The questions which have provoked discussion among us for fifty years past have not been questions of fundamental principles, but of the application of principles already ascertained.

I am quite aware that the subject of Slavery has been regarded, by many, as sectional; and the agitation of it in the North needless, and injurious to our peace and the country's welfare.

In this respect, there would be a marked contrast between the subjects which occupy us, and the grander life-themes that dignify European thought, were it not for one subject--Slavery.

And so great are the achievements of labor that everybody honors it.