“It is the necessary result of barbarism, in all its phases, to furnish historic parallels by reproducing itself in viler forms. Not a century elapsed, and a similar atrocity is enacted in the Senate Chamber of the United States. The ruffians were actuated by as deadly a hate, their malice was as foul and murderous, their defiance of law was as manifest, their victim was also the friend and advocate of universal freedom, and as much distinguished and feared, and he also fell beneath the blows of assassins in heart and conduct. “But here the parallel ends. This outrage did not impair the intellect which it sought to destroy; that survived the trial, enlarged, strengthened, purified, to set forward in a new and more glorious career in the cause of Freedom and Humanity. Instead of the lightning’s flash to remove it to heaven, a divine influence, equal in potency, has emanated thence, inspiring it with a larger love of freedom, more zeal in the cause of the oppressed, and a more earnest conviction that human slavery produces only evil, and that it should be forever eradicated. [_Enthusiastic applause._] “Happy, then, for us, and for our country, has been the suffering of these martyrs in the cause of Freedom. The name of James Otis has descended to posterity on the brightest pages of our history, associated with those of Hancock, and Adams, and Jay, and Jefferson, and Henry, and Rutledge, and there it will remain forever. “The name of that other martyr in the cause of Truth and Justice will find equal distinction, in future ages, on the roll of philanthropists, with those of Howard and Clarkson and Wilberforce, and others of that glorious company, ‘of whom the world was not worthy.’ “But history has also its retributions. The infamous actors in these tragedies passed away under the scorn and contempt of mankind, their names only searched for and remembered among the persecutors and slayers of their race. They who countenanced and approved the last, by a fitting gradation, became the betrayers and assassins of their country, and two of these, the highest in station and basest in conduct, are now awaiting the punishment due to their crimes in a prison within the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, [_applause_,] which indignantly frowns upon them from base to summit.