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Where first, for the wronged and the weak of their kind,
The Christian and Statesman their efforts combined:
Will that land of the free and the good wear a chain?
Will the call to the rescue of Freedom be vain?
No, Ritner!—her 'Friends,' at thy warnin stand
Erect for the truth, like their ancestral band;
Forgetting the feuds and the strife of past time,
Counting coldness injustice, and silence a crime;
Turning back from the cavil of creeds, to unite
Once again for the poor in defence of the right;
Breasting calmly, but firmly, the full tide of wrong,
Overwhelmed, but not borne on its surges along;
Unappalled by the danger, the shame, and the pain,
And counting each trial for truth as their gain!
And that bold-hearted yeomanry, honest and true,
Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due;
Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert with thine,
On the banks of Swetara, the songs of the Rhine—
The pure German pilgrims, who first dared to brave
The scorn of the proud in the cause of the slave:[1]—
Will the sons of such men yield the lords of the South
One brow for the brand—for the padlock one mouth?
- ↑ It is a remarkable fact, that the first testimony of a religious body against negro slavery, was that of a Society of German 'Friends' in Pennsylvania.
