Excerpt from Speeches Before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society: January, 1852 This view is one that Mr. Webster ridiculed in the depots of New York. The time has come when he is obliged to change his tone when he is obliged to retrace his steps to acknowledge the nature and the character of the age in which he lives. Kossurn comes to this country - penniless, and an exile; conquered on his own soil; flung out as a weed upon the waters; nothing but his voice left - and the Secretary of State must meet him. Now, let us see what he says of his rub-a-dub Agitation, which consists of the voice only of the tongue, which our friend pillsbury has described. This is that tongue which the impudent statesman declared, from the drunken steps of the Revere House, ought to be silenced - this tongue, which was a rub-a-dub Agitation to be despised, when he spoke to the farmers of New York. He says We are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral influence. Who is? Nobody but a Revere House statesman. We are too much inclined to underrate the power of moral influence, and the influ ence of public Opinion, and the influence of the principles to which great men - the lights of the world and of the present age - have given their sanction. W110 doubts, that in our struggle for liberty and independence, the majestic eloquence of chatham, the profound reasoning of burke, the burning satire and irony of Col. Barre, had influences upon our fortunes here in America? They had influences both ways. They tended, in the first place, somewhat to diminish the confidence of the British ministry in their hopes of success, in attempting to subjugate an injured people. They had influence another way, because all along the coasts of the country and all our people in that day lived upon the coast - there was not a reading man who did not feel stronger, bolder, and more determined in the assertion of his rights, when these exhilarating accents from the two Houses of Par liament reached him from beyond the seas. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.