176 POLITICAL LIFE-YIII 



In the presence of this assembly, in this hall where dis- 

 union really had its birth, where secession first shone out 

 in all its glory, a former slave ordered a former master 

 to sit down, and was obeyed. 



In Charleston the same state of things was to be seen, 

 and for the first time I began to feel sympathy for 

 the South. This feeling was deepened by what I saw in 

 Georgia and Florida ; and yet, below it all I seemed to see 

 the hand of God in history, and in the midst of it all I 

 seemed to hear a deep voice from the dead. To me, seeing 

 these things, there came, reverberating out of the last cen- 

 tury, that prediction of Thomas Jefferson, himself a 

 slaveholder, who, after depicting the offenses of slavery, 

 ended with these words, worthy of Isaiah, divinely in- 

 spired if any ever were: "I tremble when I remember 

 that God is just." 



