Convention. "The aspiration of this century will be the code of the next," was one of his utterances on this subject. In 1863, when a Woman's Journal was proposed to be published in Boston, he wrote for it a short essay defining his position on this subject. The journal was not started, and the essay remained unprinted until it appeared in "The Woman's Journal" of March 26th, 1881. In 1856 he published" English Traits," a record of his impressions of England, already referred to, p. 16.

In January, 1855, he gave one of a course of anti-slavery lectures at Tremont Temple, Boston. "It was a strong and forcible address, full of fire, alive with magnetic power, plain and simple in style, and was listened to throughout with breathless interest. He charged the prevalent indifference to the wrongs of the slave to scepticism concerning great human duties and concerns." In the same year he delivered an address before the AntiSlavery Society of New York, in which he declared that "an immoral law is void." Under the title of "Echoes of Harper's Ferry," he published in 1860 three speeches concerning John Brown, which he had delivered at Boston in 1859, at Concord later in the same year, and at Salem in 1860. In 1856, when Charles Sumner was assaulted by Brooks, a

meeting of sympathy was held in Concord, and Emerson spoke with warm appreciation of the services of that senator.

At no time was he a leader in the actual battle against slavery, but as time went on and the struggle increased in intensity, his spoken word and pen became more and more conspicuous and powerful. In January, 1861, he made a speech at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston. The speakers were often disturbed by a mob, and it was with great difficulty they could be heard. Emerson was frequently interrupted by hisses and other demonstrations of disapproval. He said that "slavery is based on a crime of that fatal character that it decomposes men. The barbarism which has lately appeared wherever that question has been touched, and in the action of the States where it prevails, seems to stupefy the moral sense. The moral injury of slavery is infinitely greater than its pecuniary and political injury. I really do not think the pecuniary mischief of slavery, which is always shown by statistics, worthy to be named in comparison with this power to subvert the reason of men; so that those who speak of it, who defend it, who act in its behalf, seem to have lost the moral sense." In speaking of the threatened seces

sion, he used these emphatic words, appropriate for the hour and occasion :—

In the great action now pending, all the forbearance, all the discretion possible, and yet all the firmness will be used by the representatives of the North, and by the people at home. No man of patriotism, no man of natural sentiment, can undervalue the sacred Union which we possess; but if it is sundered, it will be because it had already ceased to have a vital tension. The action of to-day is only the ultimatum of what had already occurred. The bonds had ceased to exist, because of this vital defect of slavery at the South, actually separating them in sympathy, in thought, in character, from the people of the North; and then, if the separation had gone thus far, what is the use of a pretended tie? As to concessions, we have none to make. The monstrous concession made at the formation of the Constitution is all that ever can be asked; it has blocked the civilisation and humanity of the times to this day. He received an invitation to give an anti-slavery lecture at Washington. This he delivered in February, 1862, to a very large audience. President Lincoln, his cabinet, and the leading officials in the capital were present. Next day Seward introduced Lincoln to Emerson, and they had a long conference on slavery. The lecture had deeply impressed the President. The effect produced by the lecturer on his audience was described as most powerful, and it was listened to with unbounded enthusiasm. Those who had often heard Emerson considered it as one of his greatest and best efforts, and that he seemed inspired throughout its delivery. The lecture was printed in the "Atlantic

The

Monthly," April, 1862. A meeting was held in Boston immediately after the President's proclamation came out, on September 22nd, 1862, at which Emerson spoke of Lincoln's difficulties, and the wisdom which characterised his action. speech was given in the "Atlantic Monthly," November, 1862. Mr. Cooke thus speaks of it :— "It was a clear, strong, earnest address, full of sympathy for the blacks, and grandly true to the highest moral convictions. There were no conceits of language in it, but a plain directness and a simple power that were full of charm. It is well to recall these addresses, that we may so much the more clearly understand how practical and human is Emerson's genius. On these occasions he came directly to the subject in hand, uttered not a word but of the highest wisdom, and proclaimed in majestic words that moral law which is written in the nature of things." After the proclamation had been carried into effect, and emancipation became a fact, a great meeting of rejoicing was held in Boston. At this meeting Emerson read his "Boston Hymn." Not long after he published his "Voluntaries," celebrating the victories of Liberty. In April, 1865, a meeting took place at Concord, to express the universal grief felt on account of Lincoln's death. On this occasion he

delivered an address, giving full expression to his thoughts about the war, the victory of the North, and his love of Lincoln. This fine oration is given in extenso at p. 152 of Mr. Cooke's book.

In 1859 he lectured on Morals, Conversation, Culture, Domestic Life, Natural Religion, The Law of Success, Originality, Criticism, Clubs, and Manners. In a publication called “The Dial, a Monthly Magazine for Literature, Philosophy, and Religion," started in 1860 by his young friend, M. D. Conway, in Cincinnati, Ohio, were first printed The Sacred Dance from the Persian, Twelve Quatrains, and the Essay on Domestic Life, previously delivered as a lecture, and which subsequently took its place as one of the essays in the volume entitled "Society and Solitude;" and by his permission was printed in the same periodical the Address on West Indian Emancipation, delivered in Concord in 1844.

In 1860, he lost his friend Theodore Parker, and in 1862, H. D. Thoreau. To the former he paid a noble tribute at a public meeting, closing with these words:-"His sudden and singular eminence, the importance of his name and influence, are the verdict of his country to his virtues. We have few such men to lose; amiable and blameless at home; feared abroad as the standard-bearer of