Page:Proceedings at the second anniversary meeting of the Loyal publication society, February 11, 1865.djvu/10

 strife;  always before our eyes in the happy legend of our Society; our country! sanctified and hallowed by the blood of friends and kinsmen! What labor could we begrudge her? what toil avoid that would make the noble mother happier or stronger. Nor is this the only triumph in which this Society may claim a share. It has played an active and important part in the great struggle of ideas. From its birth it has never wavered in its convictions on the great question of the freedom of man; and now, just as it closes this the second year of its existence, the Liberty which stands upon the Capitol has sounded the glorious trump of universal freedom, and the continent shakes beneath the shouts of glad tidings, and the reverberating peals which ocean flings back to ocean, and granite hill to silver mountain, as State after State ratifies, amid the applause of a people, the blessings of a race, the approbation of mankind, and beneath the approving smiles of a righteous and benignant God, the just decree. It would seem that the work for which the Society was organized was here well nigh accomplished, but this would be an unwise, nay, more, an unsafe conclusion. Great social changes are not made by decrees, be they ever so wise or just. The written law may inaugurate, but cannot effect the change. All political and social changes are gradual. Even those which seem the most sudden are the result of remote and long acting causes. The master and the slave have changed not only their relations to each other, and their own conditions; their natures must also undergo some change, to suit their new condition.

Here again the Society finds a fitting field for labor. It may do much to reunite these discordant elements; to make that easy which now seems so hard and difficult. It may point out, in some measure, the advantages which will accrue to each by the change, and drawing from the lessons of national history and national experience what is suited to their special case, may aid in the reorganization of society on a new and mutually profitable basis. Nor should the Society forget the eloquent appeal of the French liberals, through the pen of Gasparin, to the nobler