Pro-slavery orators sometimes grow florid, sentimental, and idyllic in their praises and glorification of slavery. But gaseous speeches emanate not from vigorous or healthy minds. Gas generally arises from substances in process of decomposition. Posterity venerates only the names of the orators who stand up for a sacred cause or a grand idea, who act under generous impulses, who defend human rights and liberties, and who brand with infamy every kind of oppression. Every day freedom gets a firmer and more enduring foothold in Europe. Every nation of the old continent enjoys greater liberty to-day than it did on the birthday of the American Republic. The disorders which are the accumulation of almost countless centuries, slowly, but nevertheless uninterruptedly, melt away before the breath of the ever-vigorous spirit of humanity. After a protracted experience of sufferings, old Europe, centuries ago, got rid of domestic slavery. But what civilization and humanity assert to be their greatest afflictions are upheld as blessings in this New World by the Young Republic. Sadness and even despair fill the mind when witnessing the loftiest and best social structure ever erected by man sapped to its foundations by the sacrilegious champions of human bondage! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 21: What in common politics is called a "party," "an expedient," never had even the slightest influence upon my convictions or action--events having furnished me more than one occasion to sacrifice to principle some leaves of my existence. I now use my right of American citizenship in voting the "Republican" ticket, the tendencies and actions of that organization satisfying my convictions. But excepting some few personal friends, the leaders of the party, whether in this city, the State, or the Union, are scarcely known to me even by name.] THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Slavery in History, by Adam Gurowski