But this is not enough. No mere text of Constitution or Law is sufficient. Behind these must be a prevailing Public Opinion and a sympathetic Administration. Both are needed. The Administration must reinforce Public Opinion, and Public Opinion must reinforce the Administration. Such is all experience. Without these the strongest text and most cunning in its requirements is only a phantom, it may be of terror, as was the case with the Fugitive Slave Bill,--but not a living letter. It is not practically obeyed; sometimes it is evaded, sometimes openly set at nought. And now it is my duty to warn you that the national freedman still needs your care. His ancient master is already in the field conspiring against him. That traditional experience, that infinite audacity, that insensibility to Human Rights, which so long upheld Slavery, are aroused anew. No longer able to hold him as slave, the ancient master means to hold him as dependant, and to keep him in his service, personal and political,--thus substituting a new bondage for the old. Unhappily, he finds at the North a political party which the Rebellion has not weaned from that unnatural Southern breast whence it drew its primitive nutriment; and this political party now fraternizes in the dismal work by which peace is postponed: for until the national freedman is safe in Equal Rights there can be no peace. You may call it peace, but I tell you it is not peace. It is peace only in name. Who does not feel that he treads still on smothered fires? Who does not feel his feet burn as he moves over the treacherous ashes? If I wished any new motive for opposition to the Democracy, I should find it in this hostile alliance. Because I am for peace so that this whole people may be at work, because I desire tranquillity so that all may be happy, because I seek reconciliation so that there shall be completest harmony, therefore I oppose the Democracy and now denounce it as Disturber of the National Peace.