Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845Webster, Daniel
General
Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845
Webster, Daniel
Speeches, addresses, etc., American
I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who
minister at her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary
severity of the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they
proclaim its denunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions
to the authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent whenever or
wherever there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the
hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I call on the
fair merchant, who has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist
in scourging from those seas the worst pirates that ever infested them.
That ocean, which seems to wave with a gentle magnificence to waft the
burden of an honest commerce, and to roll along its treasures with a
conscious pride,--that ocean, which hardy industry regards, even when
the winds have ruffled its surface, as a field of grateful toil,--what
is it to the victim of this oppression, when he is brought to its
shores, and looks forth upon it, for the first time, loaded with
chains, and bleeding with stripes? What is it to him but a wide-spread
prospect of suffering, anguish, and death? Nor do the skies smile
longer, nor is the air longer fragrant to him. The sun is cast down
from heaven. An inhuman and accursed traffic has cut him off in his
manhood, or in his youth, from every enjoyment belonging to his being,
and every blessing which his Creator intended for him.
The Christian communities send forth their emissaries of religion and
letters, who stop, here and there, along the coast of the vast
continent of Africa, and with painful and tedious efforts make some
almost imperceptible progress in the communication of knowledge, and in
the general improvement of the natives who are immediately about them.
Not thus slow and imperceptible is the transmission of the vices and
bad passions which the subjects of Christian states carry to the land.
The slave-trade having touched the coast, its influence and its evils
spread, like a pestilence, over the whole continent, making savage wars
more savage and more frequent, and adding new and fierce passions to
the contests of barbarians.
I pursue this topic no further, except again to say, that all
Christendom, being now blessed with peace, is bound by everything which
belongs to its character, and to the character of the present age, to
put a stop to this inhuman and disgraceful traffic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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