"Take down, I say, from your halls and churches those wretched tatters of silk which you designate as national colours! Bring hither, from all parts of the earth, the butt of the gun and the shaft of the spear, and all combustible implements of destruction--your fascines, your scaling-ladders, and your terrible pontoons, that have made so many mothers childless! Heap them into one enormous pile--yea, heap them to the very stars--and on that blazing altar let there be thrown the Union Jack of Britain, the tricolor of France, the eagles of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, the American stripes and stars, and every other banner and emblem of that accursed nationality, through which alone mankind is defrauded of his birthright. Then let all men join hands together, and as they dance around the reeking pile, let them in one common speech chaunt a simultaneous hymn in honour of their universal deliverance, and in commemoration of their cosmopolitan triumph! "O my brothers, O my brothers! what shall I say further? Ha! I will not address myself to you whose hearts are already kindled within you by the purest of spiritual flames. I will uplift my voice, and in words of thunder exhort the debased minions of tyranny to arouse themselves ere it be too late, and to shake off those fetters which they wear for the purpose of enslaving others. Hear me, then, ye soldiers!--hear me, ye degraded serfs!--hear me, ye monsters of iniquity! Oh, if the earth could speak, what a voice would arise out of its desolate battle-fields, to testify against you and yours! Tell us not that you have fought for freedom. Was freedom ever won by the sword? Tell us not that you have defended your country's rights, for in the eye of the true philosopher there is no country save one, and that is the universal earth, to which all have an equal claim. Shelter not yourselves, night-prowling hyenas as you are, under such miserable pretexts as these! Hie ye to the charnel-houses, ye bats, ye vampires, ye ravens, ye birds of the foulest omen! Strive, if you can, in their dark recesses, to hide yourselves from the glare of that light which is now permeating the world. O the dawn! O the glory! O the universal illumination! See, my brothers, how they shrink, how they flee from its cheering influence! Tremble, minions of despotism! Your race is run, your very empires are tottering around you. See--with one grasp I crush them all, as I crush this flimsy scroll!"