Why I love my neighborhood

We had a huge snowstorm here this past weekend. It was so bad that even the plows couldn't and (as of this writing) still can't get through to clear the roads and alleys.

On my block, our alley luckily exits onto a snow emergency route that has no parking allowed, ever, so that street was on of the few that actually got plowed.

Early Sunday morning, the Metrodome roof caved in from the weight of the snow.

Since the game was cancelled and nobody could drive anywhere, most people on my block were out clearing snow from their sidewalks. One of my neighbors, decided he use his snow blower to clear a path down the alley for walking. I had talked to him when I was out clearing my driveway. When I was done, I went inside to warm up.

I glanced out the window and saw that his effort snowballed (sorry I couldn't resist) and all the menfolk (I hate to be gender specific but it was true) were now clearing the alley! A couple of snow blowers and a bunch of shovels now replaced the Vikings game!

Speaking as one of the oldest people on the block, I'd like to say a public thank you!

These guys are angels and I am blessed to live on their block!!

Before:

After:

2010 The Year of the Boycott

I didn't mean for 2010 to be the year of the boycott, I really didn't.

I started out with an intent to try and spend my money locally by purchasing my fresh meat and vegetables from the Minneapolis Farmers Market and wherever else I shopped, doing my best to buy American made products whenever possible.

Also on my loose list of criteria was shopping at places that were good to their employees. I decided that unless I wanted to check the employment practices of every business I frequent, this would have to be reflected to my perception by the actions of the employees while I was in their place of employment. I don't know about you, but I can usually tell when an employee is not invested in their workplace beyond collecting a paycheck. We've all been somewhere where we've been made to feel like we, the customer are interrupting something (usually totally unrelated to the job at hand). But I digress....

In the spring I started visiting the Minneapolis Farmers Market. I have to say that all the fruits and vegetables I got there be it something I had eaten before or some weird looking thing that I had to ask what it was and how to prepare it were delicious! Don't even get me started on the fresh meat,eggs and cheese. Until I actually started doing the majority of my shopping from the following farmer/vendors:

http://www.bluegentianfarm.com/index.html

http://www.localfoods.umn.edu/bar5poultry

and so many others, I labored under the delusion that eating this way was more expensive. I was wrong. But again, I've digressed....

To keep myself on track, maybe I just need to list the places I began boycotting in 2010.

In April, I decided that Arizona was not a place that I would be visiting anytime soon because of the new immigration laws they had implemented. I understood the reasoning behind it but for the life of me, I could not justify spending any money in a state that was going to punish an entire group of people for the actions of a few, especially when the implementation of the law was based on the color of a person's skin. Not to mention the part played by immigration in Arizona.

In May, I began boycotting BP, not unexpected if you've read any of my previous posts about the oil spill in the gulf.

In June, I added Rainbow Foods to my boycotting efforts because they decided to keep their Fuel Perks affiliation with BP.

In June, I also decided to boycott Whole Foods because of an op-ed piece that the CEO wrote for the Wall Street Journal. I didn't expect to remain true to this boycott very long, but that op-ed piece made me want to learn more about the company and with a little further research, it became apparent to me that I wouldn't be going back anytime soon.

(If you are curious, this site has a nice round-up of some things I found quite troubling about Whole Foods: http://michaelbluejay.com/misc/wholefoods.html )

In July after seeing that Target and Best Buy decided to take advantage of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision and make some serious corporate campaign contributions, I added them to my boycott list. For the record, I would have done this with no regard to what party they chose to give to (in this case it was the Republicans). If I want to contribute to a campaign, I will. I don't think corporations who accept money from everyone, have any business giving to one political ideology or another unless they are guaranteed that the contribution reflects all their customers and employees. But that's just my opinion.

In September, 3M decided to jump into the political fray with a $100,000 donation so I rounded up every 3M product I had. I couldn't bring myself to toss it out so I donated it to a women's shelter and added 3M to my list. I think this will be my first holiday season without Scotch Tape. So far so good.

A week ago, I actually had a passing thought that I hadn't been pissed off enough to swear never to shop somewhere specific or not buy something for a while. I allowed myself the luxury of thinking that maybe things had calmed down. But no-such luck.

I saw an interview with the CEO of Heinz who said that Heinz will not be hiring Americans because of the ‘uncertainty’ produced by the ‘inability’ of the U.S government to resolve tax rate issues. In the same interview, he stated that Heinz will be opening plants and hiring workers in China and other countries.

I am now boycotting all Heinz products forever.

On December 3rd, President Obama announced the U.S-Korea Trade Agreement. Uh-oh...If that wasn't bad enough to my NAFTA hating soul, it had the full support of Thomas Donohue the U.S. Chamber of Commerce... and much to the relief of the Heinz CEO it also has the full support of Sen. John Kerry.

Good luck America.

My Response to Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington went on CNN yesterday and compared the media coverage of the Reverend Terry Jones and his planned burning of the Quran to the "balloon boy" incident earlier this year.

"It's a little bit like watching events unfold in an alternate universe that has nothing to do with what is really happening in this country, with the plight of the jobless, the people losing their homes," she said, comparing the situation to "balloon boy" Falcon Heene."

You can see the video here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-tv/arianna-quran-burning-coverage-balloon-boy_b_711413.html

Unlike a lot of the commenter's over there at the Huffington Post who agree with her position on this, I'd like to take issue with it.

The Reverend Terry Jones wanting to burn the Quran is nothing like the balloon boy story and here's why.

When I first heard about the "Balloon Boy" it was while reading the Huffington Post. I believe it was at the top of your web page Arianna. I quickly ditched the computer and turned on the television where I sat glued to my seat, flipping between the news channels to watch the coverage.

I remember while watching, that it was ironically enough, Shepard Smith on FOX (FOX!!!) who raised the possibility that there was no child in that soaring contraption and he speculated that maybe the kid released the tethers that were keeping that thing tied to the earth and the kid was now hiding as kids have been known to do when they know they are going to be in big trouble.

As the story played out, Mr Smith came pretty close to the truth (it was the parents who it turned out that had played us all not Falcon Heene).

I choose to believe that we were all relieved that Falcon was not on board when that thing came crashing back to earth. but the story changed in record time. It became more of a story about the victimization of the media and how the media had been duped.

That would include you Arianna. A young child, as you proved with your comment on CNN became a grudge for you to hold. Well okay, maybe not a grudge but perhaps a standard that you now measure other stories against in an effort not to get sucked into over the top reporting of something that has no basis in reality.

I get that. I really do. As a news and politics junkie, I actually appreciate it. A loud mouth like myself has learned over time a little self filtering can be a good thing.

The balloon boys story came about because his eccentric father wanted a reality show (not unexpected given that your own Huffington Post and other media outlets have redefined success by giving so many narcissistic people who are willing to be famous anything and will do whatever it takes for themselves to remain that way).

Reverend Terry Jones is a completely different kettle of fish that should get media coverage. When you say his story has, "nothing to do with what is really happening in this country, with the plight of the jobless, the people losing their homes", I say baloney.

It has everything to do with it.

People are not getting jobs and losing their homes and all the other ills of our society is because the hatred in this country is rampant. The battle has become more important than whatever the goal was.

The haves hate the have not's. Politics, while always rough and tumble has become a blood sport turning neighbor against neighbor as the right hates the left. The employed hate the unemployed. Everybody it seems, hates the government and Wall Street overlooking that in our society both a necessary. I could go on and on but you get the idea.

The Reverend Terry Jones want to burn the Quaran for God's sake. The holiest of text to millions of people. Disgusting.

Reverend Jones stands for nothing more than pure hatred and he needs to have the media glare on him, exposing him as the skittering cockroach he is as he changes directions in an effort to avoid the light. Will he or won't he seems to be the question today.

More importantly, for our standing in the world, the media's light needs to be shone on all of us who don't agree with him. That he does not represent America.

That's the story that needs to be told over and over again if for no other reason than positive reinforcement for the masses.

But that probably wouldn't pay the bills would it Arianna?

Hilarious! You can't make this stuff up!

I think the copy writer who wrote these headlines on the StarTribune website tonight has a political debate going on within their own head. Check out the headline under "Latest News" on the Pawlenty story. Then, check out the headline linked to the same article under "Most Viewed" on the right.

I know that screen grab is a little hard to see without clicking on it so to simplify for you:

Under "Latest News":

Pawlenty to 'Obamacare:' Drop dead

Under "Most Viewed":

Pawlenty orders state agencies to decline "discretionary" federal health care cash

Another Wake Up Call- Will Anyone Answer?

Well the Martin Luther King, Jr memorial on the mall in Washington D.C. will be completed next year. http://www.mlkmemorial.org/

This has been a long time coming. I am proud to count myself among the many very early contributors to this project.

I remember when many talented people from around the world competed to have their design chosen. In 2000, ROMA Design Group of San Francisco was declared the winner.

Being a big proponent of "Buy American", I was happy at the time, that an American company was chosen from all the competitors to honor a truly great American. I made another donation and put the memorial on the a running list I keep simmering on the back burners in my mind of places I'm going to visit someday.

In 2006 a very talented master sculptor from China, Lei Yixin was named the "Sculptor of Record". There was a little bit of a flap at the time that an American was not the "Sculptor of Record" for a monument to a true American hero but this was nothing more than a blip on the radar as far as news goes.

Even a "Buy American" proponent like myself, reasoned that while not ideal, it was okay if a Chinese master sculptor was coming here to do this. In fact, in my mental image, I could envision Martin Luther King supporting this decision given his love and hopes for his fellow man.

Early this morning, I found out that there was a big flaw in my thinking back in
2006.

A big huge stinking flaw.

Lei Yixin, did not come here to create his masterpiece.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/17/AR2010081705340.html

The Martin Luther King, Jr monument was sculpted in China, from granite from China that then was shipped here in pieces to be erected.

That's right, we outsourced not just the challenge of sculpting this masterpiece but this memorial wasn't even made from America's own granite.

Let me be even more blunt. The corporate greed that is running/devouring this country can't even take a day off to let the hardworking (probably unemployed, since they don't live in China to collect crappy wages) American men and women of this country proudly create their own monuments, from American granite, to an American hero anymore.

While I can't be sure, I'm thinking that even Martin Luther King, Jr. himself, would be incredibly disappointed in what we've let ourselves become.

Tom Emmer Smacked Down By Mark Dayton

Republican Tom Emmer was smacked down by Democrat Mark Dayton when both appeared at Game Fair a huge show for hunters here after he asked about Dayton's previous F rating from the NRA.

Moderator Ron Schara had asked if anyone had any questions for the candidates, Tom Emmer responded, "I do! I do!" Well.. take a listen to what happened next. (I'll put the transcript below)



Tom Emmer: I do. I do. Ah, Senator Dayton you talk about deathbed conversions. Ive explained why I do the things I do. Ah, if you could just explain to me and everybody else here in the state of Minnesota, how is it that you can have an F rating from the NRA and you can sit up here and tell us that you’re gonna defend sportsmen’s rights, you’re gonna defend my right and my children’s right to hunt and fish in this state when you got an F from the NRA? Have you had one of your own ah, deathbed conversions? Well, we wont call it deathbed, but one of your own conversions that you’re sharing with us today?

Mark Dayton: Well, I had a D rating from the NRA in 1982 when I ran for the Senate. I had a two- an A rating in 2000. There were two principal votes you can look em up ah, when I was a Senator. One was ah, banning Cop Killer bullets. And, ah, one reason that I have the endorsement of the Minneapolis Police and Peace Officers Association, Representative, is because I respect the law enforcement men and women. I was on a ride-along last week to, as Ive been several times with a police officer in St. Paul. And those guys wear bulletproof vests every time they go out there. Men and women. And anybody who wants to go out there and see them put their lives on the line to protect us.

And when the police chiefs and the police officers of this state and this nation send to us and say, Those bullets are made to kill us, then yeah, Ill vote to ban em. Does that prevent a law-abiding hunter or fisher, a hunter in this state from, from going out and hunting and fishing? Absolutely not.

How many of you, how many of you own Cop Killer bullets and use em against police officers? Raise your hand. How many ever fire a Cop Killer bullet against a police officer in this state? Raise your hand. Nobody’s, Representative Emmer, nobody. Nobody. And they shouldn't ever happen.

Now I'm going to a, a service, I'm sure you are too sir, next week for a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, in this state, who gave his life, a Maplewood police officer who gave his life. Men and women who die. And their children and their wives suffer for the rest of their lives And if I can prevent one police officer in this state from dying through a Cop Killer bullet I will do so as governor of this state. And I will at the same time support the right of every law-abiding Minnesotan to bear arms, to possess firearms as I do, use those for lawful purposes. And to insinuate otherwise is just, just untrue.

As always, many thanks to The Uptake for their invaluable coverage of Minnesota politics!

Shrimp Basil - It's what's for dinner tonight!

I found some Thai basil at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market this morning and here's what I did with it.

Shrimp Basil

1 lb medium tiger shrimp
4 cloves of garlic minced
1 stalk lemon grass sliced fine and chopped very fine (tender part only)
1 inch grated ginger
2 tbsp fish sauce
3 Serrano chilies
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp water
1 ½ Tsp sugar
1 medium white onion – sliced really, really thin
1 cup Thai basil– chopped
2 tbsp oil

Mix the soy sauce,water,fish sauce,lemon grass and sugar in a medium bowl.

Add shrimp and let marinate for 10 minutes.

Heat oil in wok, add the onion and stir fry 2 minutes.

Add ginger,garlic and peppers- fry 30 seconds

Using a slotted spoon, remove the shrimp from the marinade and place in the wok stir fry 3 minutes.

Add remaining marinade and cook another 30 seconds

Remove from the wok and stir in the basil.

Serve over Jasmine rice.

Enjoy!!!

*** This dish is spicy. If you want less heat use fewer or milder chilies ***

Weird Connections Just Happen Sometimes

A friend of mine has a hour long radio show called The Matt McNeil Show on http://www.am950ktnf.com/ the local progressive radio station, every evening, covering topics of both local and national interest. Here is a link to his archived shows if you are interested : http://tinyurl.com/34bodw3

Tonight, my friend was on fire.

He gave a passionate, rousing, oration about the seriousness of the worsening global warming and the effect it is having on the earth.

He made the point that one of the greatest causes of global warming is the greed of oil, coal and other corporations. These corporations are determined to make as much money as they can right now because they know that in the near future, the damage will be so extensive that their current practices will be outlawed. They will be forced to change how they do business, and by extension, global warming deniers will be forced see the truth of the harm we have all done.

Now usually, when I'm listening in real time, because it's radio, I'm usually doing something else at the same time. Sometimes it making supper and other times it can be a simple as perusing the morning newspaper to unwind from whatever kept me from reading it in the morning to begin with.

Tonight I was working the "cryptoquip" which is printed on one of the comic pages in the paper.

As I was listening to the show, I found myself getting more riled up with each point he ticked off.

As what little concentration I had slipped away, I realized that today the "cryptoquip" was going to remain unfinished.

I began skimming the funnies, not really feeling like laughing but just trying to balance out the sadness and anger that is always simmering below my surface but tonight was starting to boil as I thought about how fast and easily America has become a corpocracy, instead of the democracy that I believe our founders intended.

Looking at the comics was a mistake. A big one. I really wasn't expecting to feel worse.

But then I saw this:

Seriously?

Hitler has become a punchline on the funny pages?

What the HELL is wrong with us that not only are we willing to destroy our planet but we find humor in one of the worst atrocities ever committed against mankind?

What have we let ourselves become?

We should be ashamed of ourselves....

and then we better wake the fuck (excuse my language) up.

Quick or it really will be too late.

Spider Takes Down Web

On one hand, spiders really creep me out, no doubt the result of one too many horror movies when I was a kid. Wherever there were spiders and spiderwebs, you just knew there was a mad scientist or monster nearby.

On the other hand, spiderwebs fascinate me because they are so intricate and it's impressive that a single spider can spin a web of such beauty so quickly.

This morning, like every other morning, I got up before the sunrise to see my husband off to work. This morning unlike every other morning, when I waved to him out the window, and instead of looking at his handsome face, my eyes were drawn to this...



Any remnants of sleepiness were driven out by irrational fear.

That was a big spider! Much bigger than it looks in that picture and it was sitting on a web that seemed to be just hanging in midair.

What's a big hot mess who just got up to do?

I grabbed my camera and headed outside, where I found a good size web that had clearly been good to this spider last night as far as trapping food flying by goes...



At this moment, the sun was an orange ball just cracking the horizon so I decided that if I waited a few minutes, I could get a couple of nice shots of some drops of sunshine glistening off the web.

Seemed like a good plan except the spider had other ideas. She started to dismantle the web in lightning fast time. (I apologize for the quality of the first picture, it literally took this spider about 10 seconds to take the web down)...





and off into the tree she went....



It will be interesting to see if she rebuilds in the same spot later today.

My Springer Spaniel Actually Caught a Bunny Rabbit Today

After taking this picture, I went in to get some chicken in the hopes that it would be more enticing.

When I came out the bunny was gone.

I'm not 100% positive, and won't be until after a couple days of poop checking, but I believe the bunny rabbit lived to feast in my garden for the rest of the summer, since there was not a trace of fur or anything else in the grass. Unless of course, my springer spaniel just swallowed it whole....

She sure looks pleased with herself doesn't she?

****Update****

I'm happy to report the baby bunny is doing fine!

After posting this on Thursday, I didn't see the bunny for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, when I put the dog out in the yard, much to my surprise, the little bunny hopped out to greet her. After picking her up (again, like a kitten) the dog and the little bunny laid down in the grass together.

While they were laying there, a crow flew in and perched on the garage. The dog, sensing that the crow might be considering making a meal of her new friend, roughly picked up the bunny and ran and stood with her in the hostas, keeping a very watchful eye on the crow until it flew away about 5 minutes later.



It would appear we have a little "Are you my Mawwwwwwmm", Babe action going on here.

Rest in Peace Bobby Hebb

Yeppers, that will stop traffic alright....

I find it hard to believe that the same person who might be wanting to see what Chelsea Clinton's wedding dress looked like, would just happen to be in the market to buy Disposable Traffic Cones being advertised like this.

I admit that I laughed out loud at how out of place this ad was and I had to take a screen shot because even I would not have believed it if someone had told me about it.

Why I'm Not A Fan Of Michele Bachmann

The person who wrote the following comment under this article

( http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/99691794.html )

spelled it out so much better than I ever could

Bachmann and her supporters are anti American.

Let's be honest, here is a congress person that rails against government paid health care but accepts it and uses it.

She rails against government spending but accepts the $170,000+ per year in taxpayer funded salary and millions more for staff.This lunatic would actually have some credibility if she paid for her own healthcare and gave $120,000 of her wages back to the taxpayer.

Bachmann has spent her entire life receiving taxpayer money to exist.

First it was huge sums of money she received in using the foster care system for her kid farm, the kids were nothing more than slave labor for the farm, and she got hundreds of thousands of dollars from the government to do it.

She also has accepted over $250,000 in farm crop subsidy payments on her farm from the government.

Bachmann Spent five years as a lawyer for the U.S. Dept of revenue taking taxpaying citizens to court and prosecuting them for the IRS.

Bachmann then sucked up state money as a state legislature for six years and now, now she is in the big money in another taxpayer funded job as a congressman where aside from her salary she gets millions in office support.

Saying Bachmann is against big government is like saying Colonel Sanders is against chicken. She is a career politician and waster of taxpayer money. Just another big government spender.

posted by maxga on Jul. 31, 10 at 5:56 PM

A Dragonfly Thought

When I went out to collect the mail today, I found that I had a guest.

It's pretty amazing when you stop and and really think about it.

Dragonflies have been around since dinosaurs roamed the earth and the only thing that's changed about this prehistoric looking insect is its size. As the giant trees got smaller, so did they.

The mail can wait.

When thunderstorms collide with the sunset

You get a sky that looks like this:

These pictures were shot near downtown Minneapolis last night, from inside a darkened living room, looking towards the west, over a 5 minute period,with no flash.

The sky's color only became richer and deeper as the sun went below the horizon.

Enjoy!

Boycotting Businesses For Political Reasons

It's rather simple really.

If a person wants to make a donation to a political campaign, I don't have any issues with it, even though I may disagree with their politics.

Recently, the Supreme Court deemed that corporations are essentially people, even though the way they can influence elections isn't by voting, but by handing out lots of pieces of paper with pictures of dead presidents on them.

Sadly, politics will now have to affect my shopping because I am not interested in spending any of my hard-earned money with a corporation that is going to use it to support candidates with whom I have fundamental differences with.

These corporations who respond to concerned customers by saying as Target did, "Target supports causes and candidates based strictly on issues that affect our retail and business interests." are doing nothing but alienating some of their most ardent shoppers.

I was an early boycotter of BP when the disaster in the Gulf first happened. Part of my own boycott of BP was to no longer do business here with a major grocery chain that had their "Fuel Perks" program tied to BP.

What I discovered since my little boycott started, is that I have not only been able to buy gas elsewhere, I am much more conscious of the gas I use and as a byproduct, I have changed how I drive (combining trips etc.) and exploring other grocery opportunities (farmer's markets, co-ops, other chains and bakeries) I've actually not only saved money in the long term, I've really gotten a much better return on the money I do spend.

To me, that's the problem these corporations are going to face as they throw their cash into the money pit that is American politics. There will always be someone else who will keep their political beliefs to themselves who are willing to sell me my widget.

I expect that while my not going to Target again (and now Best Buy can be added to my list) won't make or break their bottom line, it certainly allows me to sleep well at night, knowing I remained true to myself and the things I stand for.

Good luck out there, we are all going to need it.

Here's a quick, tasty refreshing recipe for a really hot summer's day

Nothing beats an ice cold cucumber to naturally cool one down quickly on a sweltering summer's day.

Here's a very simple recipe born of having too many fresh cucumbers from my visit to the Minneapolis Farmers Market last weekend....

Quarter 5 cold cucumbers and gently scrape as many of the seeds out as possible. seeded.

(Not so fun fact: Did you know that when you buy cucumbers from a conventional grocery store instead of directly from a farmer// grower, the cucumbers are coated with an edible wax to protect them from moisture loss and bruising during shipping?)

After scraping the seeds out, chop the cucumber quarters into small chunks and put in a small bowl.

Add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream and fresh cut dill and chives to taste.

Yummy!

**** It is my personal preference not to add any salt to anything, but in the case of cucumbers, be forewarned that if you add salt to this mixture it will leech the water out of the cucumbers and pool in the bottom of the bowl, which to me, just isn't very appealing!

I want a 'Keep Corporate Funds Out of Politics' Caucus.

Living in Minnesota, one of the current news stories is about Michele Bachmann's new Tea Party Caucus. That got me wondering just how many individual caucuses there are in the house.

After looking at the list below, I noticed that some of these caucuses could probably be merged together to form a larger, much stronger caucus.

I'm also wondering if caucuses are really relevant or is it just a shingle for our representatives to hang their name on?

(more commentary below this list)

African Great Lakes Caucus

Afterschool Caucus

Algae Energy Caucus

American Engagement Caucus

Americans Abroad Caucus

Anti-Value Added Tax Caucus (Anti-VAT Caucus)

Bicameral Congressional Caucus on Parkinson's Disease

Biomedical Research Caucus

Bi‐Partisan Coalition for Combating Anti‐Semitism

Bi‐Partisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus

Bi‐Partisan Privacy Caucus

Bipartisan Congressional Refugee Caucus

Bipartisan, Bicameral Congressional Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease

Bipartisan Disabilities Caucus (BDC)

Blue Dog Coalition

Building a Better America Caucus (BABAC)

California Democratic Congressional Delegation

Caucus for Congressional World Bank Dialogue

Caucus on International Religious Freedom

Children's Environmental Health Caucus

Coalition on Autism Research and Education (CARE)

Community College Caucus

Congressional 21st Century Health Care Caucus

Congressional Academic Medicine Caucus

Congressional African Partnership for Economic Growth CaucusDate

Congressional Algerian Caucus

Congressional Animal Protection Caucus

Congressional Anti-Terrorism Caucus

Congressional Apparel Manufacturing and Fashion Business Caucus

Congressional Arts Caucus

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC)

Congressional Automotive Caucus

Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus

Congressional Baby Caucus

Congressional Bike Caucus

Congressional Black Caucus

Congressional Boating Caucus

Congressional Border Caucus

Congressional Bourbon Caucus

Congressional Brain Injury Task Force

Congressional Buy American Caucus

Congressional Caribbean Caucus

Congressional Caucus for Freedom of the Press

Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues

Congressional Caucus of the Netherlands

Congressional Caucus on Addiction, Recovery and Treatment

Congressional Caucus on Albanian Issues

Congressional Caucus on Bosnia

Congressional Caucus on Brazil

Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria

Congressional Caucus on California High-Speed Rail

Congressional Caucus on Central and Eastern Europe

Congressional Caucus on Central Asia (CCCA)

Congressional Caucus on Coal

Congressional Caucus on Colombia

Congressional Caucus on Cote d' Ivoire

Congressional Caucus on Distracted Driving Awareness

Congressional Caucus on Drug Policy

Congressional Caucus on Global Road Safety

Congressional Caucus on Green Jobs

Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues

Congressional Caucus on Homelessness

Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking

Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans

Congressional Caucus on Indonesia

Congressional Caucus on Infant Health and Safety

Congressional Caucus on Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention

Congressional Caucus on Korea

Congressional Caucus on Literacy

Congressional Caucus on Long Range Strike

Congressional Caucus on Missing, Exploited and Runaway Children

Congressional Caucus on Poland

Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse

Congressional Caucus on Qatari-American Economic Strategic Defense, Cultural and Educational Partnership

Congressional Caucus on Refugees

Congressional Caucus on Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy

Congressional Caucus on the European Union

Congressional Caucus on the Judicial Branch

Congressional Caucus on the Mississippi River

Congressional Caucus on Tibet

Congressional Caucus on Taiwan

Congressional Caucus on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Congressional Caucus on US-Turkey Relations and Turkish Americans

Congressional Caucus on Vietnam

Congressional Caucus on Youth Drug Prevention

Congressional Caucus on Youth Sports

Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control Methamphetamine

Congressional Caucus to Pass HJ RES 1

Congressional Children's Caucus

Congressional Children's Health Care Caucus

Congressional China Caucus

Congressional Coast Guard Caucus

Congressional Community Pharmacy Coalition

Congressional Composites Caucus

Congressional Contaminated Drywall Caucus (CCDC)

Congressional Correctional Officers Caucus

Congressional Courthouse Caucus

Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus

Congressional Cystic Fibrosis Caucus

Congressional Dairy Farmers Caucus

Congressional Diabetes Caucus

Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus

Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus

Congressional Entertainment Industries Caucus

Congressional Ethiopian American Caucus

Congressional Everglades Caucus

Congressional Farmer Cooperative Caucus

Congressional Financial Markets Caucus

Congressional Fire Services Caucus

Congressional Fitness Caucus

Congressional Former Mayors Caucus

Congressional French Caucus

Congressional Friends of Canada Caucus

Congressional Friends of Denmark

Congressional Friends of Jordan Caucus

Congressional Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus

Congressional Friends of Panama Caucus

Congressional Friends of Spain Caucus

Congressional Friends of Thailand Caucus

Congressional Gaming Caucus

Congressional Gateway Communities Caucus

Congressional General Aviation Caucus

Congressional Georgia Caucus

Congressional Glaucoma Caucus

Congressional Global Health Caucus

Congressional Hazards Caucus (CHC)

Congressional Health Care Reform Caucus

Congressional Healthy Forest Caucus

Congressional Heart and Stroke Coalition

Congressional High Technology Caucus

Congressional High-Performance Buildings Caucus

Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Congressional Hispanic Conference

Congressional Hockey Caucus

Congressional Horse Caucus

Congressional House Aerospace Caucus

Congressional HUBZone Caucus

Congressional Humanities Caucus

Congressional Humvee Caucus

Congressional Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Caucus

Congressional Hydropower Caucus

Congressional I‐73/74 Corridor Caucus

Congressional Integrative Medicine Caucus

Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus

Congressional Internet Caucus

Congressional Invisible Wounds Caucus

Congressional Israel Allies Caucus

Congressional JOBS NOW! Caucus

Congressional Labor and Working Families Caucus

Congressional Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Equality Caucus

Congressional Levee Caucus

Congressional Library of Congress Caucus

Congressional Long Island Sound Caucus

Congressional Media Fairness Caucus

Congressional Medical Technology Caucus

Congressional Men's Health Caucus

Congressional Mental Health Caucus

Congressional Military Families Caucus

Congressional Military Industrial Facilities Caucus

Congressional Modeling and Simulation Caucus

Congressional Motorcycle Caucus

Congressional Multiple Sclerosis Caucus

Congressional Musicians Caucus

Congressional Nanotechnology Caucus

Congressional Native American Caucus

Congressional Natural Gas Caucus

Congressional Navy and Marine Corps Caucus

Congressional Neuroscience Caucus

Congressional Nuclear Security Caucus

Congressional Olympic and Paralympic Caucus

Congressional Oral Health Caucus

Congressional Osteoporosis Caucus

Congressional Pakistan Caucus

Congressional Pilot's Caucus

Congressional Pollinator Protection Caucus

Congressional Port Security Caucus

Congressional Postal Caucus

Congressional Prayer Caucus

Congressional Prevention Caucus

Congressional Pro-Sports Caucus

Congressional Pro-Trade Caucus

Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC)

Congressional Public Service Caucus

Congressional Real Estate Caucus

Congressional Research and Development Caucus

Congressional Romania Caucus

Congressional Rural Caucus

Congressional Rural Housing Caucus

Congressional Savings and Ownership Caucus

Congressional School Health and Safety Caucus

Congressional Scouting Caucus (CSC)

Congressional Serbian Caucus

Congressional Services Caucus

Congressional Shellfish Caucus

Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus

Congressional Singapore Caucus

Congressional Slovak Caucus

Congressional Soccer Caucus

Congressional Soils Caucus

Congressional Songwriters Caucus

Congressional Sovereignty Caucus

Congressional Sportsmen's Caucus

Congressional Steel Caucus

Congressional Stop DUI Caucus

Congressional Study Group on Public Health

Congressional Submarine Caucus (Sub Caucus)

Congressional Timber Caucus

Congressional Trails Caucus

Congressional Transparency Caucus

Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus

Congressional TRIO Caucus

Congressional Tunisia Caucus

Congressional Ukrainian Caucus

Congressional United Kingdom Caucus

Congressional Urban Caucus

Congressional Victims' Rights Caucus

Congressional Vision Caucus

Congressional Western Caucus

Congressional Wildlife Refuge Caucus

Congressional Wireless Caucus

Congressional Zoo and Aquarium Caucus

Constitutional Caucus

Democratic Israel Working Group

Diversity and Innovation Caucus

E‐911 Caucus

Electronic Warfare Working Group (EWWG)

Financial and Economic Literacy Caucus

Fragile X Caucus

Friends of Job Corps Congressional Caucus

Friends of Kazakhstan Caucus

Friends of New Zealand Caucus

Friends of Paraguay Caucus

Friends of Scotland Caucus

Friends of Switzerland Caucus

Future of American Media (FAM) Caucus

Global Internet Freedom Caucus

Goods Movement Caucus

GOP Doctors Caucus

Green Schools Caucus

Hearing Health Caucus

Historic Preservation Caucus

Home Health Caucus

House Air Force Caucus

House Army Caucus

House Baltic Caucus

House Bangladesh Caucus

House Cancer Caucus

House Caucus for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

House Hunger Caucus

House Impact Aid Coalition

House International Conservation Caucus

House Long-Term Care Coalition (LTCC)

House Manufacturing Caucus

House Naval Mine Warfare Caucus

House Mentoring Caucus

House Missile Defense Caucus

House National Service Caucus

House Nursing Caucus

House Oceans Caucus

House Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus

House Rural Education Caucus

House Rural Health Care Coalition (RHCC)

House Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Caucus

House Small Brewers Caucus

House Special Operations Forces Caucus

House Trade Working Groups

Hungarian American Caucus

Immigration Reform Caucus

Intelligent Transportation Systems Caucus

International Workers Rights Caucus

Interstate 49 Caucus

Interstate 69 Congressional Caucus

Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus

Iran Working Group

Iraqi Women's Caucus

Land Conservation CaucusDate Approved: 2/5/2009

Law Enforcement Caucus

Lyme Disease Caucus

Midwest High Speed Rail Congressional Caucus

Military Veterans Caucus

National Guard and Reserve Components Caucus

National Landscape Conservation System Caucus

National Parks Caucus

New Democrat Coalition

Northeast Midwest (NEMW) Congressional Coalition

Northwest Energy Caucus

Nuclear Issues Working Group

Ohio River Basin Congressional Caucus

Oil and National Security (ONS) Caucus

Organization of American States (OAS) Caucus

Out of Afghanistan Caucus

Passenger Rail Caucus

Pediatric Cancer Caucus

Populist Caucus

Pro-Life Women's Caucus

Property Rights Action Caucus (PRAC)

Public Broadcasting Caucus

Quality Care Coalition

Rare and Neglected Disease Caucus

Reclaim American Jobs Caucus

Recording Arts and Sciences Congressional Caucus (RASCC)

Religious Minorities in the Middle East Caucus

Republican Study Committee (RSC)

Rural Veterans Caucus

Russia Caucus

Second Amendment Task Force

Smart Contracting Caucus

SOS Group

Spina Bifida Caucus

Sudan Caucus

Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition

Task Force on Terrorism & Proliferation Financing

Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare

Textile Caucus

The Generic Drug Equity Caucus

U.S.-Afghan Caucus

U.S.-China Working Group

U.S. Mongolia Friendship Caucus

U.S.-Phillipines Friendship Caucus

Unexploded Ordinance (UXO) Caucus

Upper Mississippi River Basin Congressional Task Force

US-Mexico Friendship Caucus

USO Congressional Caucus

Victory in Iraq Congressional Caucus

Water Caucus

World Economic Forum Caucus


A couple of immediate thoughts and impressions:

Funny how there is a "prayer caucus" when you most government offices won't allow any expression of faith at all...

The name of this caucus cracked me up: Congressional Submarine Caucus (Sub Caucus)

Congressional Transparency Caucus- some serious productivity issues withing this caucus if you ask me.....

Do GOP Doctors really need their own caucus?

A "House Mentoring Caucus"? Perhaps they need to mentor each other?

"Is the 'Republican Study Committee' made up of Democrats?," she wondered with a smirk on her face....

I see there is a "Second Amendment Task Force" and find myself wondering if they slept through the same history classes I did.

Hmmmm... the "SOS Group" as in "SOS! The country seems to be moving backwards through history!?"

I have no idea what the "Unexploded Ordinance (UXO) Caucus" does, but it might be something we all ought to know more about....

The "Fragile X Caucus" and any caucus with an acronym as part of its name, reminds me that Google is my friend.

If you would like to know more about these caucuses, like who chairs them and contact points, that information is available here:

http://cha.house.gov/member_orgs111th.aspx

"May God Have Mercy On Your Souls"

New Apple iPhone TV Ad

This commercial has run ad nauseum here tonight and maybe it's me, but if my partner and I "had been working on that thing for a while now", unless I'm stationed on a different continent, I'd prefer to be told (or tell) in person.

One of the slogans from this ad campaign:

"With FaceTime, the iPhone 4 is perfect for those conversations youʼll remember for a lifetime"

So you can torment you child in years to come at every holiday having this conversation:

Mom: Remember when I called you on the old iPhone phone and I could see you were alone but I asked you if you were alone anyways? Do you remember what I said?

Kid #2- I don't know how you could have ever talked on that thing.

Dad: Yeah, you updated me on that little project we worked so hard on.

Mom: No silly, I called to tell you that you were going to be a Daddy...

Sheesh Apple. Sometimes FaceTime really needs to be face to face.

Seriously.

Sheesh.

What is Shelfari? A Bibliophiles New Best Friend!!

Over on the right side you might have noticed I added a link to a website called Shelfari.

This is a really neat website for anyone who likes to read.

I heard about it from a friend a few weeks ago when I was griping that I had bought a book that I had read about 10 years ago because it was reissued this summer by the publisher.

I didn't realize until I started reading that this story was a wee bit familiar to me.

(Note to book publishers- When you don't mark these reissued books plainly, on the cover, especially paperbacks, so that I not only buy the book twice, but probably at twice the price I paid the first time, well that's just plain dirty, double dog, low!! Grrrrrrrr...)

Anyway, my friend told me about this free website, where I could not only keep track of the books I read, but I could, if I chose to, get into discussions with other book lovers about individual books, authors and exploring the site, find other books that would interest me that I might never have heard of.

Well, I set up my account and have found the site to be very user friendly and would like to encourage anyone who likes to read to check it out at shelfari

I've only been there a couple days but I certainly can see the value.

Another friend called it a Facebook for bibliophiles and I have to agree.

Should you sign up and want to "friend" me, just click here:

kimbers

I hope to see you there and happy reading!

A Plea For a Dying Mall.

Southdale circa 1956

Southdale is a local mall here and as a matter of historical relevance, when it opened on October 8th,1956 it was the first enclosed indoor mall in the United States, the beginning of what was to become a major change in the shopping habits everywhere.

This is what was written in Southdale's 1956 press release:

"Southdale shopping center could be called in psychological terms 'an introvert center.' On the outside it presents a quiet and dignified appearance, inviting the shopper to enter through one of ten huge all-glass entrances into the interior. . . . Here he finds himself in an atmosphere of unparalleled liveliness, colorfulness, and beauty. Between shopping activities there is an opportunity for rest in the sidewalk café and on the many rest benches. Here is a chance to amble and promenade, to window shop, to chat with friends, and a large array of features arouses interest and invites contemplation. Trees, tropical plants, flowers, a bird cage, sculptures, and other work of important artists, a pond, a fountain, a juice bar, a cigar and newsstand are some of them."

This afternoon I saw the following tweet by the host of one of the best true to radio, radio shows in the Twin Cities (feel free to follow him on Twitter).

"MattMcNeilAM950 I was at Southdale today. I think that mall is dying. No one in California Pizza Kitchen and a lot of empty retail space. Scary."

I absolutely agree with his assessment of Southdale. The last time I was there and that was a while ago, it felt like a ghost town. On a day like today, when it is unbearably hot outside, Southdale used to be where you'd go to cool off, have a bite to eat and inevidably window shop until you came across something you couldn't live without. Now frankly, it's hardly worth the effort.

Now it's easy to blame today's economy for the condition that Southdale finds itself in. Times are very tough. Chain and franchise stores have to really look at their bottom line and pull out of the markets around the country where frankly, it just isn't worth it to them to stay around. This is especially true with the explosion of internet shopping, especially those internet sites that are run by the same corporations who occupy the malls.

Some people think the time for malls like Southdale has come and gone.

I say baloney! What Southdale, the first of it's kind in the past needs to do is reinvent what a mall is and become relevant again.

Here is my suggestion to the mall Gods.

Southdale should become an exclusive "buy local" and "American made" mall. Break the gigantic anchor store spaces into much smaller units (with minor remodeling- not a big expensive total remake of the mall)and considerably lower the cost to lease space (to be made up by the number of small businesses who lease there)and let the small businesses have at it.

Not only that, but imagine if you will, a gigantic food market where the only rule is that the food must have been grown in the USA. Southdale could take the entire ground floor and turn it into a gigantic year round farmer's market, selling not only fresh fruits and vegetables in the spring and summer, but Christmas trees in the winter. A Penzeys at Southdale? Say it's so!!

And the food court? Locally owned, operated and freshly made food only. Entice some local eateries to open a kind of "sample us" version of their larger restaurants to entice diners to come to their larger restaurant.

How about using some of the food court space for cooking and nutrition classes to teach people that it's not as hard as they think it is to prepare good food and eat well?

Get rid of the fast food outlets!

Southdale already has more than enough parking, they already have various delivery options set up for vendors, public transportation from every point in the city cand get shoppers there...

Geez, I'm getting worked up!

Think how good this would be for the local economy!

Southdale! What are you waiting for??
It's time for another first!!

Filed under things I never thought I'd say in my life...

"This rice cake is yummy!!"


A Brown Rice Organic Rice Cake, made by Lundberg Family Farms ( http://www.lundberg.com/ ) with a little Krema ( http://www.krema.com/ ) crunchy natural peanut butter on it is a simply delicious mid-afternoon pick-me-up!

And to those of you reading this who know me, I assure you I haven't started drinking again!

(If you're in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and are willing to try to be possibly seriously wowed by a rice cake, I got the rice cakes at Trader Joe's and the Krema at Kowalski's)

BP: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

so, the latest fix is delayed and the oil keeps flowing.....

1) "This will work we just know it"
2) The media sings BP's praises for a few days
3) People get excited
4) Fix # XXX doesn't go as planned
5) Lies followed by more lies, excuse after excuse and plans get changed
6) Suddenly the media stops reporting results of fix # XXX
7) Lather, rinse, repeat

The 4th of July Through the Eyes of Frederick Douglass 1852

Found this speech given by Frederick Douglass on July 5th, 1852 at:

http://teachingamericanhistory.org

It bears repeating so we don't let history repeat itself:


Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say. I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot�s heart might be sadder, and the reformer�s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men�s souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it.

Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor.

These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians.

Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it.

On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. "Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved."

Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation�s history - the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny.

Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation�s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day - cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight.

The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness.

The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime.

The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed.

Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too�great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests.

They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was "settled" that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were "final;" not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times.

How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them!

Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.

Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interests nation�s jubilee.

Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence.

I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait - perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands.

I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine!

THE PRESENT.

My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now.


"Trust no future, however pleasant,
Let the dead past bury its dead;
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within, and God overhead."
We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child�s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have "Abraham to our father," when they had long lost Abraham�s faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham�s great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout - "We have Washington to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.


"The evil that men do, lives after them,
The good is oft� interred with their bones."
"What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?"

Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation�s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation�s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord�s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave�s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, their will I argue with you that the slave is a man!

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian�s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation�s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.

Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) "the internal slave trade." It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and America religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream, that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! that gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell�s Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming "hand-bills," headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed.

In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.

Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight.


"Is this the land your Fathers loved,
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?"
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented.

By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason & Dixon�s line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the Star-Spangled Banner and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman�s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment�s warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man�s liberty, hear only his accusers!

In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it.

At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the "mint, anise and cummin" �abridge the fight to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem "the Fugitive Slave Law" as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as "scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith."

THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE.

But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of die slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines. who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity.

For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! welcome atheism! welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that "pure and undefiled religion" which is from above, and which is "first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy." But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation - a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, "Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow."

The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that "There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it."

Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive.

In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared-men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The LORDS of Buffalo, the SPRINGS of New York, the LATHROPS of Auburn, the COXES and SPENCERS of Brooklyn, the GANNETS and SHARPS of Boston, the DEWEYS of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land, have, in utter denial of the authority of Him, by whom the professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example or the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach "that we ought to obey man�s law before the law of God."

My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the "standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ," is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave�s redemption from his chains.

RELIGION IN ENGLAND AND RELIGION IN AMERICA.

One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high[ly] religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead or a hostile position towards that movement. Americans! your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation - a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe "that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth," and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you "hotel these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose," a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country.

Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretence, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! be warned! be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation�s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever!

THE CONSTITUTION.

But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic.

Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped "To palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart."

And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length - nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour.

"[L]et me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it."

Fellow-citizens! there is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a track of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a fight to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this fight, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tell us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery.

I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion.

"Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country."

Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. "The arm of the Lord is not shortened," and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, "Let there be Light," has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. "Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God." In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it:


God speed the year of jubilee
The wide world o�er
When from their galling chains set free,
Th� oppress�d shall vilely bend the knee,
And wear the yoke of tyranny
Like brutes no more.
That year will come, and freedom�s reign,
To man his plundered fights again
Restore.
God speed the day when human blood
Shall cease to flow!
In every clime be understood,
The claims of human brotherhood,
And each return for evil, good,
Not blow for blow;
That day will come all feuds to end.
And change into a faithful friend
Each foe.

God speed the hour, the glorious hour,
When none on earth
Shall exercise a lordly power,
Nor in a tyrant�s presence cower;
But all to manhood�s stature tower,
By equal birth!
THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all,
And from his prison-house, the thrall
Go forth.

Until that year, day, hour, arrive,
With head, and heart, and hand I�ll strive,
To break the rod, and rend the gyve,
The spoiler of his prey deprive-
So witness Heaven!
And never from my chosen post,
Whate�er the peril or the cost,
Be driven.