and they will nearly always win against such difficulties as Beecher encountered at Liverpool. FOR SPEECH AT LIVERPOOL (OCTOBER 16, 1863) OR more than twenty-five years I have been made perfectly familiar with popular assemblies in all parts of my country except the extreme South. There has not for the whole of that time been a single day of my life when it would have been safe for me to go south of Mason and Dixon's line in my own country, and all for one reason: my solemn, earnest, persistent testimony against that which I consider to be the most atrocious thing under the sun the system of American slavery in a great free republic. I have passed through that early period when right of free speech was denied to me. Again and again I have attempted to address audiences that, for no other crime than that of free speech, visited me with all manner of contumelious epithets; and now since I have been in England, although I have met with greater kindness and courtesy on the part of most than I deserved, yet, on the other hand, I perceive that the Southern influence prevails to some extent in England. It is my old acquaintance; I understand it perfectly, and I have always held it to be an unfailing truth that where a man had a cause that would bear examination he was perfectly willing to have it spoken about. And when in Manchester I saw those huge placards, "Who is Henry Ward Beecher?" and when in Liverpool I was told that there were those blood-red placards, purporting to say what Henry Ward Beecher had said, and calling upon Englishmen to suppress free speech, I tell you what I thought. I thought simply this -"I am glad of it." Why? Because if they had felt perfectly secure that you are the minions of the South and the slaves of slavery, they would have been perfectly still. And therefore, when I saw so much nervous apprehension that, if I were permitted to speak, when I found they were afraid to have me speak, when I found that they considered my speaking damaging to their cause, - when I found that they appealed from facts and reasonings to mob law, I said: No man need tell me what the heart and secret counsel of these men are. They tremble and are afraid. Now, personally, it is a matter of very little consequence to me whether I speak here to-night or not. But one thing is very certain if you do permit me to speak here to-night you will hear very plain talking. You will not find a man, - you will not find me to be a man that dared to speak about Great Britain three thousand miles off, and then is afraid to speak to Great Britain when he stands on her shores. And if I do not mistake the tone and the temper of Englishmen, they had rather have a man who opposes them in a manly way than a sneak that agrees with them in an unmanly way. If I can carry you with me by sound convictions, I shall be immensely glad; but if I cannot carry you with me by facts and sound arguments, I do not wish you to go with me at all; and all that I ask is simply fair play. Those of you who are kind - enough to wish to favour my speaking- and you will observe that my voice is slightly husky, from having spoken almost every night in succession for some time past those who wish to hear me will do me the kindness simply to sit still and to keep still; and I and my friends the Secessionists will make all the noise. There are two dominant races in modern history. The Germanic and the Romanic races. The Germanic races tend to personal liberty, to a sturdy individualism, to civil and to political liberty. The Romanic race tends to absolutism in government'; it is clannish; it loves chieftains; it develops a people that crave strong and showy governments to support and plan for them. The Anglo-Saxon race belongs to the great German family, and is a fair exponent of its peculiarities. The Anglo-Saxon carries self-government and self-development with him wherever he goes. He has popular GOVERNMENT and popular INDUSTRY; for the effects of a generous civil liberty are not seen a whit more plainly in the good order, in the intelligence, and in the virtue of a self-governing people, than in their amazing enterprise and the scope and power of their creative industry. The power to create riches is just as much a part of the Anglo-Saxon virtues as the power to create good order and social safety. The things required for prosperous labour, prosperous manufactures, and prosperous commerce are three: first, liberty; second, liberty; third, liberty; -though these are not merely the same liberty, as I shall show you. First, there must be liberty to follow those laws of business which experience has developed, with out imposts or restrictions, or governmental intrusions. Business simply wants to be let alone. Then, secondly, there must be liberty to distribute and exchange products of industry in any market without burdensome tariffs, without imposts, and without vexatious regulations. There must be these two liberties liberty to create wealth, as the makers of it think best according to the light and experience which business has given them; and then liberty to distribute what they have created without unnecessary vexatious burdens. The comprehensive law of the ideal industrial condition of the world is free manufacture and free trade. I have said there were three elements of liberty. The third is the necessity of an intelligent and free race of customers. There must be freedom among producers; there must be freedom among the distributers; there must be freedom among the customers. It may not have occurred to you that it makes any difference what one's customers are; but it does, in all regular and prolonged business. The condition of the customer determines how much he will buy, determines of what sort he will buy. Poor and ignorant people buy little and that of the poorest kind. The richest and the intelligent, having the more means to buy, buy the most, and always buy the best. Here, then, are the three liberties liberty of the producer; liberty of the distributer; and liberty of the consumer. The first two need no discussion, they have been long thoroughly and brilliantly illustrated by the political economists of Great Britain, and by her eminent statesmen; but it seems to me that enough attention has not been directed to the third; and, with your patience, I will dwell on that for a moment, before proceeding to other topics. - It is a necessity of every manufacturing and commercial people that their customers should be very wealthy and intelligent. Let us put the subject before you in the familiar light of your own local experience. To whom do the tradesmen of Liverpool sell the most goods at the highest profit? To the ignorant and poor, or to the educated and prosperous? The poor man buys simply for his body;. he buys food, he buys clothing, he buys fuel, he buys lodging. His rule is to buy the least and the cheapest that he can. He goes to the store as seldom as he can, and - he brings away as little as he can, he buys for the least he can. Poverty is not a misfortune to the poor only who suffer it, but it is more or less a misfortune to all with whom they deal. On the other hand, a man well off, - how is it with him? He buys in far greater quantity. He can afford to do it; he has the money to pay for it. He buys in far greater variety, because he seeks to gratify not merely physical wants, but also mental wants. He buys for the satisfaction of sentiment and taste, as well as of sense. He buys silk, wool, flax, cotton; he buys all metals - iron, silver, gold, platinum; in short he buys for all necessities and of all substances. But that is not all. He buys a better quality of goods. He buys richer silks, finer cottons, higher grained wools. Now, a rich silk means so much skill and care of somebody's that has been expended upon it to make it finer and richer; and so of cotton, and so of wool. That is, the price of the finer goods runs back to the very beginning, and remunerates the workman as well |