Already you have banished Slavery from this Commonwealth. I call upon you now to obliterate the last of its footprints, and to banish the last of the hateful spirits in its train. The law interfering to prohibit marriage between blacks and whites has been abolished by the Legislature. Railroads, which, imitating the Boston schools, placed colored people apart by themselves, are compelled, under the influence of an awakened public sentiment, to abandon this regulation, and to allow them the privileges of other travellers. Only recently I have read that his Excellency, our present Governor,[50] took his seat in a train by the side of a negro. In the Caste Schools of Boston the prejudice of color seeks its final refuge. It is for you to drive it forth. You do well, when you rebuke and correct individual offences; but it is a higher office to rebuke and correct a vicious institution. Each individual is limited in influence; but an institution has the influence of numbers organized by law. The charity of one man may counteract or remedy the uncharitableness of another; but no individual can counteract or remedy the uncharitableness of an organized injury. Against it private benevolence is powerless. It is a monster to be hunted down by the public and the constituted authorities. And such is the institution of Caste in the Common Schools of Boston, which now awaits a just condemnation from a just Court.
One of the most remarkable expositions of Slavery is from the pen of Condorcet, in a note to the "Thoughts" of Pascal. Voltaire, in his later commentary on the same text, speaks of this "terrible" note, and adopts its conclusion. In the course of this arraignment, the philosopher, painting the character of the slave-master, says, "Such is the excess of his stupid contempt for this wretched race, that, returning to Europe, he is indignant to see them clothed as men and _placed by his side_."[51] Thus the repugnance of the slave-master to see the wretched race _placed by his side_ is adduced as crowning evidence of the inhumanity of Slavery. But this very repugnance has practical sanction among us, and you are to determine whether it shall be longer permitted. Slavery, in one of its enormities, is now before you for judgment. Hesitate not, I pray you, to strike it down. Let the blow fall which shall end its domination here in Massachusetts.