No living man,
Sir, has greater interest in its welfare; and it is because I am
opposed to carrying out wicked and ungodly laws, and love the freedom
of my country, that I stand before you to-day.
Again, Sir, I ought not to be sentenced because, as has been argued by
the prosecution, I am an Abolitionist. I have no apologies to make for
being an Abolitionist. When I came to this country, like the mass from
beyond the sea, I was a Democrat; there was a charm in the name. But,
Sir, I soon found that I had to go beyond the name of a party in this
country, in order to know any thing of its principles or practice. I
soon found that however much the great parties of my adopted country
differed upon banks, tariffs and land questions, in one thing they
agreed, in trying which could stoop the lowest to gain the favor of
the most cursed system of slavery that ever swayed an iron rod over
any nation, the Moloch which they had set up, to which they offered as
human sacrifice millions of the children of toil. As a man who had
fled from the crushing aristocracy of my native land, how could I
support a worse aristocracy in this land? I was compelled to give my
humble name and influence to a party who proposed, at least, to
embrace in its sympathies all classes of men, from all quarters of the
globe.
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