The Freedom Ring

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher Date: April 13, 1862 Exactly one year after the Civil War broke out, the famous minister and abolitionist, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, gave a powerful sermon on the definition and success of America's democracy. It was rapidly printed and distributed throughout the nation as an effort to embolden and sustain the righteousness of the American commonwealth. America was in the middle of a Civil War and the nation leaned on Beecher to guide their moral senses. Abraham Lincoln was grateful to have the support of Beecher, his famous family, and his millions of devout followers. Lincoln referred to the reverend's older sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe , as "...the little lady who started this big war" due to the wild success of her book,  "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Lincoln's nickname for Henry, her younger brother, was simply, "the most influential man in America." Rev. Henry Ward Beecher was one of America's first mega preacher...

  Rev. Henry Ward Beecher in Liverpool WHEN the secession movement first assumed serious proportions in the South,  the sympathy of England was with the secessionists . There were many reasons for this. The political control of England was in the hands of the English aristocracy. Feudal England had always looked with both suspicion and aversion on her democratic daughter. The strongest argument against feudalism was the unparalleled growth of democratic America. Commercial England saw in the republic across the sea a rival who would soon contest with the mother country her claim to commercial supremacy, and she was not unwilling to see that rival dismembered, and her own commercial supremacy thus secured to her.  For more than a quarter of a century England had seen the South aggressive and successful, the North timid and retreating. It was not strange that she believed the South brave, the North timid; and England admires pluck and despises cowardice. During the four mon...