. . . It cannot be said with truth that the Harper's Ferry case
will not be repeated, or is not in danger of repetition. It
is only
necessary to inquire into the causes which produced the Harper's
Ferry outrage, and ascertain whether those causes are yet in
active
operation, and then you can determine whether there is any ground
for apprehension that that invasion will be repeated. Sir, what
were
the causes which produced the Harper's Ferry outrage? Without
stopping to adduce evidence in detail, I have no hesitation
in expressing my firm and deliberate conviction that the Harper's
Ferry crime was the natural, logical, inevitable result of the
doctrines and teachings of the Republican arty, as explained
and enforced in their platform, their partisan presses, their
pamphlets and books,
and especially in the speeches of their leaders in and out of
Congress. (Applause in the galleries.) . . .
.
. . I am not making this statement for the purpose of crimination
or partisan effect. I desire to call the attention of the members
of that party to a reconsideration of the doctrines that they
are in the habit of enforcing, with a view to a fair judgement
whether they do not lead directly to those consequences on the
part of those deluded persons who think that all they say is
meant in real earnest and ought to be carried out. The great
principle that underlies the organization of the Republican
party is violent, irreconcilable, eternal warfare upon the institution
of American slavery, with the view of its ultimate extinction
throughout the land; sectional war is to be waged until the
cotton fields of the South shall be cultivated by free labor,
or the rye fields of New York and Massachusetts shall be cultivated
by slave labor. In furtherance of this article of their creed,
you find their political organization not only sectional in
its location, but one whose vitality consists in appeals to
northern passion, northern prejudice, northern ambition against
southern States, southern institutions, and southern people
. . . .
Can
any man say to us that although this outrage has been perpetrated
at Harper's Ferry, there is no danger of its recurrence? Sir,
is not the Republican party still embodied, organized, confident
of success and defiant in its pretensions? Does it not now hold
and proclaim the same creed that it did before this invasion?
It is true that most of its representatives here disavow the
acts of John Brown at Harper's Ferry. I am glad that they do
so; I am rejoiced that they have gone thus far; but I must be
permitted to say to them that it is not sufficient that they
disavow the act, unless they also repudiate and denounces the
doctrines and teachings which produced the act. Those doctrines
remain the same; those teachings are being poured into the minds
of men throughout the country by means of speeches and pamphlets
and books and through partisan presses. The causes that produced
the Harper's Ferry invasion are now in active operation . .
.
