Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 1.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[270] disposition to believe any such doctrine as that let me tell you, “lay not the flattering unction to your soul.” No, I don't believe that Britons will rejoice to see the day when the Great Republic shall be no more. (Tremendous cheering.) But, if they shall, let me tell you the day of their rejoicing is very far away. (Cheers.) What sort of a prophet would that have been who, just at the beginning of the conflict of the American Revolution, when Great Britain was going to fight her rebellious colonies, should have said Great Britain was no more.

What would have been thought of the man who would have said, after you had given up the American colonies — a far bigger territory than any you had left at that time — what would have been thought of the newspaper that should have said, at that moment, “The great power of the British Crown is no more, the British empire is defunct?” He would have been a splendid prophet, would he not? Suppose, too, that we in New York, editing papers (and I have tried my hand at that business myself, in a religious sort of way) at the time of your rebellion in the East Indies, should have made use of such an expression as that — I am not afraid of talking about the Times, because I am not an Englishman — and if we had printed for two or three days that Great Britain was no more, and the diadem was about to fall from the head of Victoria, because there was a rebellion in India, it would have been quite a parallel case.

* * * Now, whatever the Times tells you, don't you say that the republic is drowned. (Hear, hear.) Now, I just want to cut another point out of the countryman's speech; and that is the hit about the slave. I do not think there was a single thing in that great speech of Mr. Smith's that took with this audience more than the part about the slave. Now, let me say to you, Mr. President, and this vast audience of Wesleyan ministers, and good, sensible, intelligent people, do not let your political newspapers, or your politicians, debauch your intellects or morals upon the present exciting American question. For the first time in the whole history of the human race, a people to the extent of twenty millions have risen up to say: “We will forfeit our prestige before the world; we will jeopard our name even as a great republic; we will run the risk even of a terrible civil war, such as the world has never seen; we will do all this sooner than we will suffer that human slavery shall be extended one inch.” (Tremendous cheering.) I am in earnest about that point, and I do not want you to forget it, and if you read the Times you will need to remember it.

When I took up the Times at breakfast this morning, and read the first fifteen or twenty lines, it stopped my appetite for breakfast — I could not get on — I had to vent myself in a few angry words to my wife before I could get my appetite back again. (Laughter.) I had a paper put into my hands called the Telegraph, which they tell me has a larger circulation than the Times now; it seemed a capitally written paper, though I did not like the doctrines of it. What did I read in that one article on American affairs? This sentence: “Are the Americans going to cut each other's throats about a miserable question of the liberty of blackamoors? ” That in the city of London — not in any proslavery paper in New York or Charleston, but in the city of London, in a newspaper that is said to be read by more people than the Times. Now, if you read either of these papers, I hope you will read between the lines hereafter. (Laughter.)

So far at least as this congregation is concerned, I hope you will not be debauched. We used to think, years ago, we heard voices coming across the great Atlantic, such voices as this man, Gervase Smith's, telling us to be brave for the slaves; and three or four years ago, when I was here, I was abused in newspapers printed in the city of London because I was a pro-slavery man; it was said — not enough of an abolitionist; and we thought that Britain was in earnest in this. And yet, if we were to believe these newspapers, all these professions have been a sham and a humbug, and all your anti-slavery feeling has been simply fanaticism! God preserve us, for I am sure the newspapers never will. (Loud cheers.)