Passage 1 We love, we dearly love our country, and it is due to your honorable bodies, as well as to us, to make known why we think the country is ours, and why we wish to remain in peace where we are. The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time im- memorial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. We have already said, that, when the white man came to the shore of America, our ancestors were found in peaceable possession of this very land. They bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept it, as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right of inheri- tance we have never ceded, nor ever forfeited. Permit us to ask, what better right can the people have to a country, than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable possession? We know it is said of late by the State of Georgia, and the Executive of the United States, that we have forfeited this right—but we think this is said gratu- itously. At what time have we made the forfeit? What great crime have we committed, whereby we must forever be divested of our country and rights? Passage 2 When centuries hence, (as it must, in my opinion, be centuries hence before the life of these States, or of Democracy, can be really written and illustrated) the leading historians and dramatists seek for some personage, some special event, incisive enough to mark with deepest cut, and mnemonize, this turbulent nineteenth century of ours, (not only these States, but all over the political and social world)—something, perhaps, to close that gorgeous procession of European feudalism, with all its pomp and caste prejudices, (of whose long train we in America are yet so inextricably the heirs)—something to identify with terrible identification, by far the greatest revolutionary step in the history of the United States, (perhaps the greatest of the world, our century)—the absolute extirpation and erasure of slavery from the States—those historians will seek in vain for any point to serve more thoroughly their purpose, than Abraham Lincoln’s death.
Passage 1
We love, we dearly love our country, and it is due to your honorable bodies, as well as to us, to make known why we think the country is ours, and why we wish to remain in peace where we are.
The land on which we stand we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time im- memorial, as a gift from our common Father in Heaven. We have already said, that, when the white man came to the shore of America, our ancestors were found in peaceable possession of this very land. They bequeathed it to us as their children, and we have sacredly kept it, as containing the remains of our beloved men. This right of inheri- tance we have never ceded, nor ever forfeited. Permit us to ask, what better right can the people have to a country, than the right of inheritance and immemorial peaceable possession? We know it is said of late by the State of
Georgia, and the Executive of the United States, that we have forfeited this right—but we think this is said gratu- itously. At what time have we made the forfeit? What great crime have we committed, whereby we must forever be divested of our country and rights?
Passage 2 When centuries hence, (as it must, in my opinion, be centuries hence before the life of these States, or of
Democracy, can be really written and illustrated) the leading historians and dramatists seek for some personage, some special event, incisive enough to mark with deepest cut, and mnemonize, this turbulent nineteenth century of ours, (not only these States, but all over the political and social world)—something, perhaps, to close that gorgeous procession of European feudalism, with all its pomp and caste prejudices, (of whose long train we in America are yet so inextricably the heirs)—something to identify with terrible identification, by far the greatest revolutionary step in the history of the United States, (perhaps the greatest of the world, our century)—the absolute extirpation and erasure of slavery from the States—those historians will seek in vain for any point to serve more thoroughly their purpose, than Abraham Lincoln’s death.
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