But Slavery must be seen not only in what it does for the Rebellion, of which it is indisputable head, fountain, and life, but also in what it inflicts upon us. There is not a community, not a family, not an individual, man, woman, or child, that does not feel its heavy, bloody hand. Why these mustering armies? Why this drum-beat in your peaceful streets? Why these gathering means of war? Why these swelling taxes? Why these unprecedented loans? Why this derangement of business? Why among us _Habeas Corpus_ suspended, and all safeguards of Freedom prostrate? Why this constant solicitude visible in your faces? The answer is clear. Slavery is author, agent, cause. The anxious hours that you pass are darkened by Slavery. _Habeas Corpus_ and the safeguards of Freedom which you deplore are ravished by Slavery. The business you have lost is filched by Slavery. The millions now amassed by patriotic offerings are all snatched by Slavery. The taxes now wrung out of diminished means are all consumed by Slavery. And all these multiplying means of war, this drum-call in your peaceful streets and these gathering armies, are on account of Slavery, and that alone. Are the poor constrained to forego their customary tea, or coffee, or sugar, now burdened by intolerable taxation? Let them vow themselves anew against the criminal giant tax-gatherer. Does any community mourn gallant men, who, going forth joyous and proud beneath their country’s flag, have been brought home cold and stiff, with its folds wrapped about them for a shroud? Let all mourning the patriot dead be aroused against Slavery. Does a mother drop tears for her son in the beautiful morning of his days cut down upon the distant battle-field, which he moistens with his youthful, generous blood? Let her feel that Slavery dealt the deadly blow which took at once his life and her peace. [_Sensation._] * * * * * I hear a strange, discordant voice saying that all this proceeds not from Slavery,--oh, no!--but from Antislavery,--that the Republicans, who hate Slavery, that the Abolitionists, are authors of this terrible calamity. You must suspect the sense or loyalty of him who puts forth this irrational and utterly wicked imputation. As well say that the early Christians were authors of the heathen enormities against which they bore martyr testimony, and that the cross, the axe, the gridiron, and the boiling oil, by which they suffered, were part of the Christian dispensation. But the early Christians were misrepresented and falsely charged with crime, even as you are. The tyrant Nero, after burning Rome and dancing at the conflagration, denounced Christians as the guilty authors. Here are authentic words by the historian Tacitus.