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166 with darkness. As far back as we can trace the first rudiments of improvement, they came from the very head-waters of the Nile, far in the interior of Africa; and there are yet to be found, in shapeless ruins, the monuments of this primeval civilization. To come down to a much later period, while the west and north of Europe were yet barbarous, the Mediterranean coast of Africa was filled with cities, academies, museums, churches, and a highly civilized population. What has raised the Gaul, the Belgium, the Germany, the Scandinavia, the Britain, of ancient geography, to their present improved and improving condition? Africa is not much lower than most of those countries were eighteen centuries ago; and the engines of social influence are increased a thousand-fold in numbers and efficacy. It is not eighteen hundred years since Scotland, whose metropolis has been called the Athens of modern Europe, the country of Hume, of Smith, of Chalmers, of Scott, of Brougham, was a wilderness, infested by painted savages. It is not a thousand years since the north of Germany, now filled with beautiful cities, learned universities, and the best-educated population in the world, was a dreary, pathless forest."&mdash;.

"Granted that we are chiefly interested in ascertaining what is relatively right, it still follows that we must first consider what is absolutely right; since the one conception presupposes the other."&mdash;.

"The mystic cord of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth-stone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."&mdash;.

"This is our only revenge, that you join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine like stars forever and ever, the immortal principles of truth and justice, that all men, white or black, shall be free and stand equal before the law."&mdash;.

"The difference between equality and privilege, between civil rights and capricious favors, between freedom of conscience and persecution for conscience' sake, were not matters of moot debate or abstract conviction with our countrymen."&mdash;.

"She views him, not simply as man, but as the image of the God whom she adores. She feels for every one of the race a holy respect, which imparts to him, in her eyes, a venerable character, as redeemed by an infinite price, to be made the temple of the living God."&mdash;.

"Equal protection by 'due process of law,' or by the 'law of the land,' should become a pledge of the protection of equal law for indestructible 'vested rights' created by that indestructible charter, that 'every citizen