Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1Bright, John
History
Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1
Bright, John
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
I should hope that this question is now so plain that most Englishmen
must understand it; and least of all do I expect that the six millions
of men in the United Kingdom who are not enfranchised can have any doubt
upon it. Their instincts are always right in the main, and if they get
the facts and information, I can rely on their influence being thrown
into the right scale. I wish I could state what would be as satisfactory
to myself with regard to some others. There may be men outside, there
are men sitting amongst your legislators, who will build and equip
corsair ships to prey upon the commerce of a friendly power,--who will
disregard the laws and the honour of their country,--who will trample on
the Proclamation of their sovereign,--and who, for the sake of the
glittering profit which sometimes waits on crime, are content to cover
themselves with everlasting infamy. There may be men, too--rich men--in
this city of London, who will buy in the slaveowners' loan, and who, for
the chance of more gain than honest dealing will afford them, will help
a conspiracy whose fundamental institution, whose corner-stone, is
declared to be felony, and infamous by the statutes of their country.
I speak not to these men--I leave them to their conscience in that hour
which comes to all of us, when conscience speaks and the soul is no
longer deaf to her voice. I speak rather to you, the working men of
London, the representatives, as you are here to-night, of the feelings
and the interests of the millions who cannot hear my voice. I wish you
to be true to yourselves. Dynasties may fall, aristocracies may perish,
privilege will vanish into the dim past; but you, your children, and
your children's children, will remain, and from you the English people
will be continued to succeeding generations.
You wish the freedom of your country. You wish it for yourselves. You
strive for it in many ways. Do not then give the hand of fellowship to
the worst foes of freedom that the world has ever seen, and do not, I
beseech you, bring down a curse upon your cause which no after-penitence
can ever lift from it. You will not do this. I have faith in you.
Impartial history will tell that, when your statesmen were hostile or
coldly neutral, when many of your rich men were corrupt, when your
press--which ought to have instructed and defended--was mainly written
to betray, the fate of a continent and of its vast population being in
peril, you clung to freedom with an unfaltering trust that God in His
infinite mercy will yet make it the heritage of all His children.
* * * * *
AMERICA.
V.
LONDON, JUNE 16, 1863.
[On June 16, 1863, a public meeting was held at the London Tavern, at
the instance of the Union and Emancipation Society, in order to hear an
address from Mr. M. D. Conway, of Eastern Virginia. Mr. Bright was in
the Chair.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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