FREEDOM’S first champion in our fettered land! <br />Nor politician nor base citizen <br />Could gibbet thee, nor silence, nor withstand. <br />Thy trenchant and emancipating pen <br />The patriot Lincoln snatched with steady hand, <br />Writing his name and thine on parchment white, <br />’Midst war’s resistless and ensanguined flood; <br />Then held that proclamation high in sight <br />Before his fratricidal country men,— <br />“Freedom henceforth throughout the land for all,”— <br />And sealed the instrument with his own blood, <br />Bowing his mighty strength for slavery’s fall; <br />Whilst thou, stanch friend of largest liberty, <br />Survived,—its ruin and our peace to see.<br /><br />Amos Bronson Alcott<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/garrison/
