Voice from Scotland., February 4, 1863

Voice from Scotland.

To his excellency Abraham Lincoln, President of the United Sates of America:

Sir: We who offer to you this address are citizens of Glasgow, in public meeting assembled; and, through our chairman, now approach you with all the respect due to your position as constitutional chief of a great nation, linked to ourselves by innumerable ties of lineage, of language, of social and material interests, and of religious faith.

We have been long accustomed to regard with veneration and gratitude the founders of that great republic, of which you are now the legitimate head. Throughout the past career of the United States we have followed, with feelings of genuine friendship, every step by which the liberties of our race have been widened, education has been advanced, and the various elements of a noble public prosperity have been developed by the free action of a self-governing people.

One thing alone has restricted our sympathies, namely, the continued enslavement and consequent degradation of certain children of that God who “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.”

Since, however, through the disruption initiated by the slave power itself, a way is being opened up to the entire enfranchisement of every slave in America, and decisive steps are being taken towards extending to ALL the rights of citizenship, independently of any distinctions of color, our heartiest sympathies have been with you, your government, and your people.

By the distinct adoption of an anti-slavery policy your administration will seal the doom of “the sum of all villanies,” and command the respect of all who desire that “the bonds of wickedness should be unloosed and the oppressed set free.”

We regard the proposition and attempt, now made for the first time in the history of the world, to establish a nation upon the basis of slavery as infamous in itself and an unparalleled outrage upon humanity at large. Do not, we entreat you, give heed to those who, covertly seeking their own ends, regardless of consequences or principles, would sow the seeds of discord between our country and your own. The great heart of the British people beats, we assure you, true to freedom. Freemen ourselves, our hearts go forth to freemen. We recognize as the plain issue of the contest, now tasking the heroism and self-sacrifice of America, the question whether the slave power shall master a continent for itself or be overthrown as a curse unto the earth. As men, owning one brotherhood with the great human family, and worshipping one God, even the Father of all, we can do no other than hold slavery accursed, and rejoice at every blow that deprives it of authority and strength. We feel assured that those who would divide our nation’s sympathies from you in this terrible struggle are chiefly those who oppose liberty at home, and who are ever ready to distract our people by foreign excitements. They are becoming more and more powerless as your government develops more and more fully an anti-slavery policy, and they will entirely lose all power to foment quarrels between America and Britain from the very day in which your country is established, without any sectional exception, as the “home of the free,” and when America practically exemplifies its entire belief in the words of its great founders, “All men are created free and equal.”

Within the brief period of your excellency’s presidency more has been done for the glorious work of emancipation than during the whole preceding period of the existence of the United States. We honor you, and we congratulate you. The world has learned during your presidency that America cannot stop short of the complete, absolute, and final uprooting of the iniquity of slavery; and as freemen we rejoice in every measure tending to hasten this great consummation.

That the day may soon dawn when no slave shall tread American soil from north to south, and the United States become in deed and of a truth the United States of freemen; that, from year to year, the ties binding our beloved country and your own may be strengthened, and our citizens be united with each other in bonds of amity and peace; and that you, sir, when your term of office expires, may be known as the President who saved his country by doing righteously, and unloosing the heavy burdens of an oppressed race, is our sincere and earnest hope and prayer.

In name and by appointment of the meeting—