772 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



fumed heads upon the block; bless the axe as it falls the 

 axe sharpened for the poor man's neck. 



"Such is the message of the declaration of man to 

 the kings of the world. And shall we falter now? And 

 shall we start back appalled, when our feet press the very 

 Threshold of Freedom? Do you see quailing faces around 

 you, when our wives have been butchered when the 

 hearthstones of our lands are red with the blood of little 

 children. What ! Are there shrinking hearts or faltering 

 voices here, when the very dead of our battlefields arise 

 and call upon us to sign that parchment, or be accursed. 



4 'Sign! if the next moment the gibbet's rope is 

 around your neck. Sign ! if the next moment this hall 

 rings with the echo of the falling axe. Sign ! by all your 

 hopes in life or death as husbands, fathers as MEN, 

 sign your names to the parchment, or be accursed forever ! 



u Sign! not for yourselves, but for all ages; for that 

 parchment will be the text-book of freedom the Bible 

 of the rights of man forever. 



"Sign, for the declaration will go forth to American 

 hearts forever, and speak to those hearts like the voice of 

 God. And its work will not be done until throughout this 

 wide continent not a single inch of ground owns the sway 

 of privilege or power. 



u Nay, do not start and whisper with surprise. It is 

 a truth. Your hearts witness it; God proclaims it. This 

 continent is the property of a free people, and their prop- 

 erty alone. God, I say, proclaims it. Look at this strange 

 history of a band of exiles and outcasts suddenly trans- 

 formed into a people. Look at this wonderful exodus of 

 the Old World into the New, where they came, weak in 

 arms but mighty in Godlike faith. Nay, look at the his- 

 tory of your Bunker Hill, your Lexington, where a band 

 of plain farmers mocked, trampled down the panopoly of 



