Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/45

 BEECHER

��enemies. They have gone off declaring that the Union in the hands of the North was fatal to slavery. [Loud applause.] There is testimony in court for you. [A voice, "See that!" and laughter.]

In the first place I am ashamed to confess that such was the thoughtlessness — [interruption] — such was the stupor of the North — [renewed in- terruption] — you will get a word at a time; to- morrow will let folks see what it is you do not want to hear — that for a period of twenty-five years she went to sleep, and permitted herself to be drugged and poisoned with the Southern prejudice against black men. [Applause and uproar.]

Now as to those States that had passed "black" laws, as we call them; they are filled with Southern emigrants. The southern parts of Ohio, the southern part of Indiana, where I myself lived for years, and which I knew like a book, the southern part of Illinois, where Mr. Lincoln lives — [great uproar] — these parts are largely settled by emigrants from Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and North Caro- lina, and it was their vote, or the Northern votes pandering for political reasons to theirs, that passed in those States the infamous "black" laws; and the Republicans in these States have a record, clean and white, as having opposed these laws in every instance as "infamous." Now as to the State of New York; it is asked whether a negro is not obliged to have a certain

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