Religion and reform, 1825–1850

“Intemperance is the sin of our land, and with our boundless prosperity, is coming in upon us like a flood; and if any thing shall defeat the hopes of the world, which hang upon our experiment of civil liberty, it is that river of fire, which is rolling through the land, destroying the vital air, and extending around an atmosphere of death. . . .

“Our Fathers could enforce morality by law; but the times are changed, and unless we can regulate public sentiment, and secure morality in some other way, we are undone.”

[Intemperance: heavy drinking of alcohol.]

“Assenting to the ‘self-evident truth’ maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, ‘that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. In Park-Street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, in an address on slavery, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this opportunity to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice, and absurdity. . . .

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. . . . I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

[Enfranchisement: here, freeing from slavery. Recantation: taking back something one said.]

“Resistance to the Temperance Reformation will put a stop to revivals in a church. . . . [N]o church member or minister can be innocent and stand neutral in the cause. They must speak out and take sides. . . . The man's hands are RED WITH BLOOD, who stands aloof from the temperance cause. . . .

“Revivals are hindered when ministers and churches take wrong ground in regard to any question involving human rights. Take the subject of SLAVERY for instance. . . . [T]he silence of Christians upon the subject is virtually saying that they do not consider slavery as a sin. The truth is, it is a subject upon which they cannot be silent without guilt.”

[Revival: a period of intense religious conversion in a church or town.]

“In this arrangement of the duties of life, Heaven has appointed to one sex the superior, and to the other the subordinate station, and this without any reference to the character or conduct of either. . . . It is Christianity that has given to woman her true place in society. . . .

“A man may act on society by the collision of intellect, in public debate; he may urge his measures by a sense of shame, by fear and by personal interest . . . . But all the power, and all the conquests that are lawful to woman, are those only which appeal to the kindly, generous, peaceful and benevolent principles. . . . But this is to be all accomplished in the domestic and social circle.”

“I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane . . . men and women; of beings, sunk to a condition from which the most unconcerned would start with real horror . . . .

“I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience!”

“[N]othing but universal education can counterwork this tendency to the domination of capital and the servility of labor. . . .

“Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance-wheel of the social machinery. . . . It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility towards the rich: it prevents being poor.”

[Counterwork: work against. Servility: being forced to obey others.]

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . .

“He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. . . .

“He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God.”

[“He” refers to man; “her” to woman. Elective franchise: the right to vote. Jehovah: God.]