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 a century ago the idea of one great democratic republic had first sprung up, whence the first declaration of the Rights of Man was issued, and the first impulse given to the European revolution of the eighteenth century, when on that very spot the counter-revolution cynically proclaimed property in man to be "the corner-stone of the new edifice"—then the working classes of Europe understood at once that the slaveholders' rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy war of property against labor; and that for the men of labor, with their hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic.

Boston Hymn

(American essayist, philosopher and poet. The two stanzas following, which may be said to sum up the revolutionary view of the subject of "confiscation," are taken from a poem read in Boston on Emancipation day, January 1, 1863)

Today unbind the captive, So only are ye unbound; Lift up a people from the dust, Trump of their rescue, sound!

Pay ransom to the owner And fill the bag to the brim. Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And ever was. Pay him.