Refused the use of churches and lecture-rooms, and denied the privilege of hiring halls for their meetings, the abolitionists of Philadelphia, with other friends of free discussion, formed an association, and built, at an expense of forty thousand dollars, a beautiful hall, to be used for free speech on any and every subject not of an immoral character.  Daniel Neall was the president of this association, and William Dorsey the secretary.  The hall, one of the finest buildings in the city, was situated at the southwest corner of Delaware, Sixth, and Harris streets, between Cherry and Sassafras streets.

It was opened for the first time on Angelina Grimke’s wedding-day, and was filled with one of the largest audiences ever assembled in Philadelphia.

As soon as the president of the association had taken his seat, the secretary arose and explained the uses and purposes the hall was expected to serve.  He said:—­

“A number of individuals of all sects, and those of no sect, of all parties, and those of no party, being desirous that the citizens of Philadelphia should possess a room wherein the principles of liberty and equality of civil rights could be freely discussed, and the evils of slavery fearlessly portrayed, have erected this building, which we are now about to dedicate to liberty and the rights of man....  A majority of the stockholders are mechanics or working-men, and (as is the case in almost every other good work) a number are women.”

The secretary then proceeded to read letters from John Quincy Adams, Thaddeus Stevens, Gerrit Smith, Theodore Weld, and others, who had been invited to deliver addresses, but who, from various causes, were obliged to decline.  That from Weld was characteristic of the earnestness of the man.  After stating that for a year and a half he had been prevented from speaking in public on account of an affection of the throat, and must therefore decline the invitation of the committee, he adds:—­

“I exult in the erection of your ‘temple of freedom,’ and the more, as it is the first and only one, in a republic of fifteen millions, consecrated to free discussion and equal rights.”

“For years they have been banished from our halls of legislation and of justice, from our churches and our pulpits.  It is befitting that the city of Benezet and of Franklin should be the first to open an asylum where the hunted exiles may find a home.  God grant that your Pennsylvania Hall may be free, indeed!”

“The empty name is everywhere,—­free government, free men, free speech, free people, free schools, and free churches.  Hollow counterfeits all! Free! It is the climax of irony, and its million echoes are hisses and jeers, even from the earth’s ends. Free!  Blot it out.  Words are the signs of things.  The substance has gone!  Let fools and madmen clutch at shadows.  The husk must rustle the more