For three years before the breaking out of the slavery rebellion I saw and heard with my spiritual senses the marching of armies, the rattle of musketry, and the roar of cannon; and I already hear and see the approach of this more terrible contest. I know it is coming. There is but one way in which it can be averted. There was one way by which the slave war could have been avoided—the abolition of slavery. But the slave oligarchy would not listen to our Garrisons, Sumners, Tiltons and Douglases. They tried the arbitration of war, but they lost their slaves at last. Now, will not these later oligarchies—the land, the railroad, the money aristocracies—learn a lesson from their terrible fate? Will they not listen to the abolitionists—to the Garrisons, the Sumners, the Tiltons and the Douglases—of to-day? Will they try the arbitration of war, which will result as did the last, in the loss of that for which they fight? I would that they should learn wisdom by experience. The slaveholders could have obtained compensation for their negroes. They refused it and lost all. Ponder that lesson well, and do not neglect to give it its true application. You can compromise now, and the same general end be arrived at without the baptism of blood. It shall not be my fault if that baptism comes. Nevertheless, equality and justice are on the march, and they cannot be hindered. They must and will attain their journey’s end. The people shall be delivered. I have several times referred to the methods by which these things may be accomplished. They are impossible under our present Constitution. It is too restricted, too narrow, to admit even an idea of a common humanity. True, its text is complete, but its framework does not carry out the original design. Even George Washington, himself, was accused of treachery for countenancing so great a departure as was made; and the late war justified the grounds upon which that accusation was founded. The text of the Constitution held these truths to be self-evident, “That all men (and women) are born equal and entitled to certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The Constitution should have been erected in harmony with those declarations. It was not. There is no such thing as equality provided for. Life and liberty have not been held inalienable under it; the pursuit of happiness has been outrageously interfered with, and the government has been made to exist without the consent of the governed; and exists to-day against the protests of a large number of its subjects.