[132] the work of emancipation. As citizens of the United States we know our rights and dare maintain them. We have committed no crime, but are expending our health, comfort, and means for the salvation of our country, and for the interests and security of infatuated slaveholders, as well as for the relief of the poor slaves.
Archimedes with his lever had moved the world. Archimedes “in a small chamber, unfurnitured and mean,” had set a world of pro-slavery passions and prejudices spinning away into space:
Such earnest natures are the fiery pith,
The compact nucleus, 'round which systems grow;
Mass after mass becomes inspired therewith,
And whirls impregnate with the central glow.
