FOURTH OF JULY
Let us have no vain, hypocritical show on this coming anniversary. Instead of decking our halls with beautiful flowers, flying colors, and pleasant apostrophies to liberty, let us clothe them in sable habiliments. Instead of listening to the eloquence of the orator, as he praises our free institutions, and rejoices over our freedom, let our churches be opened to pray for 2,000,000 of human beings, who on that day will be groaning beneath the hand of oppression. Is it not mockery in the ear of high Heaven, to rejoice on this day — when at the same moment the cries of lacerated mothers and orphan children, and the groans of dying captives are borne on a thousand breezes? — Journal of Reform
(Liberator, July 2, 1836, pg 3)
