449 
 
 Wilson 
 
 A Discourse on Slavery
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 "A 'N 'esnjoug
 
 r 
 
 DISCOURSE ON SLAVERY 
 
 DEUVEUED BEPOR1 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY IN LITTLETON, N. H., 
 
 FEBRUARY 22, 1839, 
 
 BY W. D. WILSON. 
 
 'UBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 PRINTED BY ASA McFARLAND 
 
 Opposite the State House, 
 
 1839.

 
 DISCOURSE ON SLAVERY 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY IN LITTLETON, N. H., 
 
 FEBRUARY 22, 1839, 
 
 BY W. D. WILSON. 
 
 " He whom God moves to speak, expresses himself openly and freely, careless whether he 
 alone or has others on his side." Martin Luther. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 PRINTED BY ASA McFARLAND, 
 
 Opposite the State House. 
 
 1839.
 
 PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 I have not thought it best to encumber the pages of this discourse with references to 
 authorities, either in the text or in marginal notes. The principal authorities, beside the few 
 references in the page where the quotation occurs are, the Bible, Jahn's Archaeology, Eschen- 
 burg's Manual of Classical Literature, Bancroft's United States, Kent's Commentaries, and 
 Jay's Inquiry. W. D. \V.
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen : 
 
 I accept with pleasure the invitation you have been pleased to give 
 me, to come up here and speak to you at this time on the subject of 
 human slavery. The birth-day of Washington brings with it, to every 
 lover of freedom, and especially to every freeman of America, associa- 
 tions calculated to awaken in his bosom the noblest and holiest emo- 
 tions. The recollections of a man great, almost beyond human weak- 
 ness, a nation's father and idol, who had been their pillar of fire by 
 night and of cloud by day, to guide them during their long and peril- 
 ous struggle for liberty, and who, when that struggle was ended, 
 planned and reared a form of government to which all eyes are turned 
 in admiration, and on which the trembling hopes of the world yet hang, 
 till they may see if it be not too like heaven to be long realized here 
 on earth, seem to call us forth from the homely routine of every day 
 thought and feeling, to set apart this hour to the entertainment of holier 
 and nobler emotions. When we think of him whose life and energies 
 were spent in the cause of human freedom, without a taint of selfish- 
 ness, avarice or ambition, but who even refused the emoluments and 
 power that the fond idolatry of the people he had served would gladly 
 have given him, we seem to shut our eyes upon the avarice, corruption 
 and oppression that is around us, and for a while persuade ourselves 
 that it is not so. It cannot be that a nation, before whose eyes has 
 been displayed so much greatness, such purity, such devotion to the 
 cause of man, should still rob three millions of their fellow-men of 
 their dearest rights. It cannot be that men made of the same clay, 
 and in the same image with Washington, can be so unlike him as to 
 hear calmly the chains of the slave clank upon their native soil, and 
 in their own dwellings ; the bread of a soil watered by the tears and 
 blood of slaves cannot be sweet to their mouths ; the shrieks and groans 
 of the chain-galled African cannot be music to their ears. But, alas ! 
 it is so ; it is no dream. Oh ! that it were. 
 
 It does seem that the mention of human slavery in connection with 
 the name of Washington would be enough to make any man an abo- 
 litionist. It does seem that the thought of three millions of slaves in 
 our own country, occurring amidst the thoughts and feelings inspired 
 by this day and occasion, would be enough to call every heart and hand 
 to the assistance of the oppressed. It does seem that every apology 
 for slavery, and every plea or excuse for its continuance, must shrink 
 
 869827
 
 with shame from that mind where the thought of Washington is. 
 " What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness ? What 
 communion hath light with darkness ? And what concord hath Christ 
 with Belial," or Washington with Slavery ? No ; that mind through 
 which recollections of Washington are passing is too much purified by 
 their sacred presence to harbor a thought of continuing slavery. 
 
 Let us then seize this auspicious moment to examine the subject of 
 human slavery. Let us direct the thoughts suggested by the recur- 
 rence of an anniversary so dear to freedom to the cause of those who pine 
 in bondage and servitude. It will be well to bring the subject of sla- 
 very into our minds at this time, and look at it as it lies beneath the 
 blaze of glory shining there from Washington's life and character. It 
 will be well for us to look at it from a point of view so elevated as that 
 to which the recollections of Washington can carry us, and with minds 
 purified and ennobled by their sanctifying influence. 
 
 I ought to say in the outset, that I do not come here as the organ of 
 the Anti-Slavery Society. I have not stretched my views upon the 
 Procrustes-bed of any society, or any man. I have scanned my lan- 
 guage by no measure but that of my own thoughts and feelings. It is 
 but justice to myself and to the abolitionists to say, that they are not 
 responsible for any thing I may say, nor am I for any of their doctrines 
 or measures. I expect, as a matter of course, that the views I am 
 about to offer will coincide with theirs. But I have not sought such a 
 coincidence. My only aim has been to be the mouth-piece of Truth 
 and Justice. Truth is one ; and all who seek it will agree if they seek 
 aright. The dictates of justice are identical,and the same to all men who 
 will hear with reverence ; therefore it is that my views coincide with 
 the views of the abolitionists, in the main ; and I do not see how any 
 man can hold up his head in this enlightened, liberty-loving country, 
 and dissent from them. That man must be awfully depraved, and 
 awfully unconscious of his depravity, who can in this age apologize for 
 slavery. How much worse is the case of him who objects to having 
 the subject thought of and discussed in public ! What but unright- 
 eousness shuns the light ? Who are they that love darkness rather 
 than light r and why ? 
 
 There is a numerous and daily increasing party, who have professed 
 to take the part of the slave ; and while I can see nothing to dissent 
 from in their principles, and while I believe their cause to be the cause 
 of justice and truth, I dare not withhold my assistance. There may 
 be something in their measures to disapprove of: there may be some- 
 thing uncharitable, undignified and unchristian, and unworthy so noble 
 a cause. But they are men and not angels. They have a nobleness 
 of principle at bottom that gives them unwavering confidence. It gives 
 them a boldness that leads to those very measures that call forth disap- 
 probation. It will make them irresistible and triumphant over all the 
 opposition they may meet with. They plant themselves upon the 
 eternal principles of Truth and Justice ; and though they may sometimes 
 fight with unlawful weapons, still the cause of humanity, which they 
 have espoused, will give them a mouth and wisdom that all their ad-
 
 versaries shall not be able to gainsay or resist. They appeal to the 
 hearts and consciences of men, and their words go to the hearts and 
 consciences, and stir the depths of the soul ; while those who oppose 
 them address the cupidity and fears of men, by portraying the evils 
 which they /ear may come from emancipation. 
 
 There is no case, perhaps, in which the superiority of the heart over 
 calculation, of conscience and principle over cupidity and seeming 
 expediency, is so manifest as in the case of the abolitionists. Let an 
 apologist for slavery get up and portray all the profits of slavery, all the 
 difficulties and hindrances in the way of emancipation, and the evils of 
 it when it shall have come, in all the eloquence his subject can com- 
 mand, and it will be sufficient to do away the effect of all that he can 
 say, to have a person whose heart swells with humanity and love, ad- 
 dress the higher sentiments and appeal to the consciences of men in 
 favor of the oppressed. He will arouse them from the slumber into 
 which the apologist for slavery would rock their consciences, that so 
 the lower nature may rule the man. He will raise them above all 
 the fears, and cupidity, and love of ease, which the slave-holder would 
 address in pleading for the continuance of slavery. All that is or can 
 be said against emancipation is like fuel to the fire. It reveals more of 
 those very evils that called forth the abolition eriterprize. The motives 
 which are urged for the continuance of slavery, and the considerations 
 by which the appeals of the abolitionists are met, are like stone walls 
 to stop the birds. An abolitionist will arise, and by appealing to the 
 higher nature, he will raise them at once above all the considerations 
 of avarice. He is able, by the eloquence with which his subject 
 inspires him, to soar with them above all that the opponent of freedom 
 can present, and carry them over all the mountain difficulties that make 
 the foot path to the desired land of liberty impassable. It is only 
 when one is tired, or lazy, or drunk, that he hits his foot against the ine- 
 qualities of the road and falls ; but let there come over his heart some 
 all-engrossing enterprize, and he moves on unimpeded by those very 
 banks against which he was just before stumbling. Let a man be ani- 
 mated by some ennobling sentiment, and the difficulties in the way of 
 attaining his object disappear, or even become advantages. It is the 
 slothful man only, or the self-interested, that sees a lion in the way. 
 The cause of humanity does thus engross and animate. It is the glory 
 and the recommendation of the abolition principles that they can and 
 do raise men above the stumbling stones in the way of the stupid and 
 thoughtless ; that they can and do raise men above avarice, conserva- 
 tism and an indolent fear of consequences. I know that this fact is 
 regarded by many as a proof of fanaticism in the abolitionists. I do 
 not know what men mean to insinuate by calling the abolitionists fa- 
 natics ; I simply know that it is the nature of truth and justice to make 
 what the sober, calculating, ease-loving votaries of ' Expediency' call 
 fanatics, especially if they are opposed. The river that runs quietly 
 and noiselessly when undisturbed, becomes the thundering cataract only 
 when it is provoked by the rocks and dams that obstruct its course. 
 
 This state of the case and these considerations prove to him who
 
 can read the signs of the times, and discern what the spirit meaneth, 
 two most important things in regard to the subject : 
 
 1. It proves the righteousness of the cause of the abolitionists ; inas- 
 much as it succeeds by appealing to the conscience and the higher senti- 
 ments, while those who oppose it appeal to something much lower, as 
 conservatism, avarice, or a selfish fear of consequences. 
 
 2. It proves also that it must and will succeed. Those who oppose 
 it succeed only so long as they can belittle people, chill them and keep 
 them in the dark. But the abolitionists ennoble and warm men, by 
 calling out the magnanimous .sentiments of love and justice. They 
 spread abroad a light that reveals the dark recesses of cruelty, crime 
 and pollution. They make men feel that there is something more im- 
 portant than money, personal gratification, or safety even, when bought 
 at the cost of innocence and righteousness. 
 
 With these prefatory remarks upon the nature and prospects of the 
 abolition enterprize, I enter upon the great subject. 
 
 I. When we consider what man is, and his relation to the universe 
 in which he lives, it does not seem wonderful that slavery should have 
 originated early, and have extended to all countries. There is, however, 
 one exception, according to Bancroft, to the universal prevalence of 
 human slavery. Slavery and the slave trade have not been known in 
 Australasia. Slavery grew out of man's indisposition to work. 
 
 Here is man, a being that must be clothed and fed. But the earth 
 will not bring forth its products spontaneously. Man must toil and 
 cultivate it before it will satisfy all of his demands. But man is indis- 
 posed to labor, especially in southern latitudes, where the human race 
 began its career. Those who had cunning enough to persuade their 
 neighbors to work for them, and let them be idle, would do so. When 
 men congregated into tribes it was found necessary to have some one 
 for a leader and lawgiver, or judge, as he was usually called. He and 
 a few of his friends, whom he would naturally associate with him in 
 his authority and privileges, would naturally and almost necessarily be 
 exempted from all the drudgery of manual labor. His successors would 
 feel disposed to enjoy and increase, if they could, the privileges and im- 
 munities of their ancestors. Feelings of equality have given place to 
 those of aristocracy. Gradually the laborers or servants come to feel 
 almost as a part of the master's property. Foreign danger helped to 
 tighten the bonds that bound the servant to his master. The servant 
 would feel that he owed his protection to his master, and therefore he 
 must be obedient and faithful. Here is the patriarchal institution. 
 
 But the servants did not like to work any better than the masters. 
 Enmity would naturally arise between the different tribes, as they came 
 in contact with one another. The tribes would go to war with one 
 another. They would naturally feel that they had as good right to 
 kill their fellow men who injured them as they had to kill wild beasts 
 of which they knew and cared about as much as they did of the men 
 of another tribe. If, then, it was right to kill them, they would naturally 
 suppose that if they saved them alive they were the rightful property 
 of their captors. The captor might put him to do his work and let
 
 him enjoy his ease, or he might sell him or do what he pleased. The 
 captive was his property. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that powerful tribes would encourage war, and 
 perhaps enter into it expressly for the sake of making slaves, either for 
 their own use or as an article of merchandize, after they had begun to 
 have commercial relations with one another. Here is the origin of 
 slavery, properly so called. 
 
 By slavery I mean involuntary servitude. Slavery does not consist 
 in laboring without pay, or in being confined and subjected to anoth- 
 er's will merely. Neither does it consist in the cruelties of the situa- 
 tion. But it consists in servitude to which one is subjected without 
 consent or crime ; which is consent when the known penalty is im- 
 prisonment and servitude. Hence there may be many whose condition 
 is as bad as slavery who are yet no slaves. It will be well to keep 
 this definition of slavery in view. 
 
 Let us now take a short historical survey of slavery, as it existed in 
 the principal nations of antiquity. We must never lose sight of the 
 fact that the slaves of ancient times were the captives taken in war. 
 A nation made slaves of its equals and sometimes superiors. Sla- 
 very was the event of what was considered honorable and lawful 
 war. There was no man-stealing, no kidnapping one race under the pre- 
 tence that they were made inferiors for the purpose of being slaves to 
 their superior. This doctrine is of comparatively modern invention. 
 
 Among the Hebrews, Moses was obliged to permit many things that 
 were not so from the beginning, in consequence of the hardness of their 
 hearts, and which he no doubt disapproved of. The Jews were a stiff- 
 necked people, and by no means plastic and submissive in the hands of 
 their legislator. He found it more than he could do to secure obedi- 
 ence to a system of religion and a form of government so much better 
 than that of any people around them, without aiming at perfection. He 
 must suffer them in many things, in consequence of the hardness of 
 their hearts. 
 
 There were two kinds of servants among the Hebrews. 
 
 1. The first class of servants, or slaves, (for the same word is used in 
 the Hebrew language for both, as they stand in our Bible,) were He- 
 brews who had by some means or other reduced themselves to bond- 
 age. A Hebrew might fall into slavery in various ways: (a) If 
 reduced to extreme poverty he might sell himself: (6) A father might 
 sell his children for slaves : (c) Insolvent debtors might be delivered 
 to their creditors as slaves : (d) Thieves who were not able to make 
 the required restitution for their thefts, were sold into slavery. 
 
 It is extremely difficult to ascertain in many cases whether a law 
 was intended for Hebrew servants, or for those who were captives. 
 There was, however, this one distinction. At the end of seven years 
 the Hebrew servants might go free. If, however, one chose to remain 
 with his master, he might declare this choice in the presence of the 
 judges, and the master would bore a hole through his ears, and he must 
 remain with him forever. But this forever was probably only until 
 the year of jubilee, which might not be more than one year, and could 
 not be more than forty-three.
 
 2. The second class of servants, or slaves, were those who had been 
 taken in war. Their condition was probably worse than that of the 
 former class. These, and their children after them, were slaves until 
 death. The master was obliged to circumcise them and teach them 
 his religion. If the master injured the slave in eye or tooth, or any 
 member whatsoever, the servant, in consequence of such injury, was 
 entitled to his freedom. Any slave who had run away from another 
 nation and sought refuge among them, was not to be given up, but must 
 be treated kindly. 
 
 Says Stevens, (Travels in Egypt, Arabia Petrea and the Holy Land, 
 vol. 1, p. 77 :) " In the east slavery exists now precisely as it did in 
 the days of the patriarchs. The slave is received into the family of a 
 Turk in a relation more confidential and respectable than that of an 
 ordinary domestic, and when liberated, which very often happens, 
 stands upon the same footing with a freeman. The curse does not 
 rest upon him forever ; he may sit at the same board, dip his hand in 
 the same dish, and if there are no other impediments, may marry his 
 master's daughter." 
 
 Such was the slavery that Moses was obliged to permit to the He- 
 brews. How different from the slavery on our southern plantations ! 
 The slave there has no protection that the horse and ox have not, except 
 when a murder can be proved by white men's testimony. No black 
 man can be heard, and the blacks are usually the only witnesses of the 
 cruelty. If the slave escape from bondage in one state, the citizens 
 among whom he has sought refuge have bound themselves to return 
 him if he be claimed by his master. But among the Jews the law was, 
 " Thou shall not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped 
 from his master unto thee : he shall dwell among thee, even among you 
 in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh 
 him best: thou shall not oppress him." (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.) The 
 Jewish servanl whose masler had maimed him could receive his free- 
 dom for his wrong. Bui here he musl drag oul a miserable life, unless 
 the masler, more from consideralionsof profil lhan of mercy, end his life 
 al once. The slave can gel no redress, no comforl. The slave of Ihe 
 Turk, Ihe follower of Mahomet ' the Impostor,' (?) can sit at the same 
 board, dip his hand in the same dish with his master' ' he can marry 
 his master's daughter,' and become as son instead of a servant, but the 
 slaves of the Americans, the citizens of Ihis chrislian democralic repub- 
 lic, " shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed and adjudged, in law, to 
 be challels personal, in Ihe hands of Iheir owners and possessors, exec- 
 ulors, administralors and assigns, lo all intents, constructions and pur- 
 poses whatsoever." (S. Carolina Laws.) "He can do nolhing, pos- 
 sess nothing, nor acquire anylhing bul whal must belong lo his mas- 
 ter." (Louisiana Laws.) The Jewish slave musl be laughl Ihe Jew- 
 ish religion ; but Ihe slaves in Ihis chrislian counlry are, in Ihe lan- 
 guage of Ihe slaveholders Ihemselves, ' a nalion of healhen in our very 
 midsl, wilhoul God and without hope in the world,' and Ihis too in 
 consequence of the laws of the land. 
 
 Among the Greeks the character of slavery became still worse. Their
 
 slaves were prisoners of war. They were seldom allowed to marry, so 
 that very few were born into slavery. They carried on the whole 
 business of the Athenians. They were their merchants and mechanics 
 as well as cultivators of the soil. Many were skilful in the fine arts 
 of sculpture and painting, and even well versed in letters. Some of 
 the greatest names that have come down to us are the names of slaves, 
 or freedmen, such as Epictetus and jEsop. Slaves often obtained their 
 freedom. The courts were open to them. They could bring actions 
 against their masters, and were allowed to testify against them in their 
 courts. When they were oppressed, they could always flee to the Tem- 
 ple of Theseus, where they were free from the master's cruelty and 
 tyranny. Have the slaves on our American plantations stich privileges 
 as these ? Can they sue their masters at law ? and testify in court 
 against them ? Are they ever allowed to be skilled in letters and the 
 arts ? Is there any refuge from the master's fury ? No ; none of these 
 things in Christian America. Yet the slave of the heathen Athens 
 had them all. 
 
 In Rome, the condition of the slaves was similar to that at Athens. 
 Wherever the army went, there they made slaves. Slave merchants 
 were always found attached to the army. 
 
 " Slaves in Rome occupied every conceivable station, from the dele- 
 gate superintending the rich man's villa, to the meanest office of me- 
 nial labor or obsequious vice ; from the foster-mother to the rich man's 
 child, to the lowest degradation to which woman can be reduced. The 
 public slaves handled the oar in the galleys, or labored on the public 
 works. Some were lictors, some were jailors. Executioners were 
 slaves. Slaves were watchmen, watermen, scavengers. Slaves regu- 
 lated the rich palace in the city ; they performed all the drudgery of 
 the farm. They were frequently taught to read and write, and the 
 arts. Virgil made one of his a poet. Horace was the son of a slave. 
 The physician and the surgeon were often slaves so too the preceptor 
 and the pedagogue : the reader and the stage player : the clerk and the 
 amanuensis : the architect and the smith. The armigeri, or esquires, 
 were slaves. You cannot name an occupation connected with agricul- 
 ture, manufactures, or public amusement, that was not the patrimony 
 of slaves. Slaves engaged in commerce ; slaves were wholesale mer- 
 chants ; the slaves were retailers. Slaves shaved notes, and the mana- 
 gers of banks were slaves." 
 
 All of this was a natural consequence of their system. They took their 
 equals, and often superiors, in war. They did not go and steal a help- 
 less race and degrade them even below what they were by nature, and 
 then consider that very degradation which they themselves had made 
 as a proof that they were intended for slaves. It was the common 
 understanding among nations, that if they went to war they exposed 
 all of their men to slavery who might happen to be taken prisoners. 
 The whole army of Valerian were taken prisoners by Sapor, king of 
 Persia. They did not complain of this as unjust, for it was according 
 to the laws of war. It was doing to them what they would have done 
 to their enemies, had fortune been in their favor.
 
 10 
 
 While slavery thus spread over all of the east, we find nothing like 
 modern negro slavery. We find no case where the slave laws and 
 treatment were so hard as in our southern states. The slaves were the 
 result of conquest rather than avarice ; and when they had fallen into 
 the master's hands, they received milder treatment, and had more 
 means of enjoyment, and had far greater hopes of liberty, than in our 
 own country. This kind of slavery, which is certainly less unright- 
 eous, less shocking to humanity, than African slavery, did not receive 
 the approval of conscientious heathen, even. Aristotle opposed it as 
 unjust. Justinian, while he acknowledged it agreeable to the laws and 
 the practices of nations, still condemned it as unjust and inhuman. The 
 whole sect of the Essenes, as they were called, in Asia, and Therapeutae, 
 as they were called in Greece and Egypt, a very numerous sect, re- 
 garded slavery as a great injustice and sin. 
 
 II. The appearance of Jesus of Nazareth, the authorized teacher of 
 the world, was the greatest event in the world's history. He intro- 
 duced a religion destined to become universal. We profess to be be- 
 lievers in that religion. We profess to look to Jesus as the author and 
 finisher of our faith, and to receive his doctrines as our guide and rule of 
 conduct. This all Christians do. It is, therefore, important to examine 
 the position that Jesus and the Christian religion assumed towards slavery. 
 I admit that there is no passage condemning slavery, in express terms. 
 I admit that Paul exhorted servants, or slaves, to be obedient to their 
 masters. But then it is a historical fact, that slaves were equal to 
 their masters so far as the blessings and privileges of Christian institu- 
 tions were concerned, in the early ages of Christianity. 
 
 1. In the first place, Christ never claimed to give a system of posi- 
 tive laws. He did not condemn such a law, or institution, as bad 
 in itself. He condemned the principle upon which it is founded. He did 
 not seek to make men better, by outward constraint, but by changing 
 the inner man. He did not seek to bind and compel men's hands, but 
 to give them willing hearts. He dealt with principles, and not directly 
 with positive institutions, which are the outward manifestation of prin- 
 ciples. We should not, therefore, expect any express prohibition of sla- 
 very. Christ did not wish to forbid it, until he had brought men to 
 see the wickedness and injustice of it. This he sought to do, by giv- 
 ing them such principles and views of their fellow men as to make 
 them regard slavery as the most daring outrage against the laws of 
 God that man could commit. 
 
 2. Christianity makes no distinction between the races of men. ' God 
 hath made of one blood,' that is to say, equal, ' all nations of men to 
 dwell on the face of the earth.' Here the fundamental principle of 
 negro slavery is directly contradicted by Christianity. The Africans are 
 not, as the slaveholder says, a race, inferior to ours, and made so to be 
 slaves. 
 
 3. The fundamental principle of Christianity is declared to be, " Thou 
 shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and mind, and strength, 
 and thy neighbor as thyself '." Now, in the eye of the gospel, every 
 one is your neighbor who is within the reach of your benevolence. 
 Is slavery a manifestation of this brotherly love ?
 
 n 
 
 4. " Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 unto you, do ye even so to them." 
 
 Can the slave-holder pretend that he does this to his slave ? If so, 
 he will be willing to give the only convincing proof of his sincerity, 
 by changing condition with his slaves for a while. If there must be 
 slaves, as he pretends, let him alternate with the black man ; one be 
 slave one year, and the other the next. I'll engage that the black man 
 will consent. 
 
 Here, then, is as much opposition to slavery, as there could, from 
 the nature of the case, be. Bat Christianity will riot have done its per- 
 fect work, in this respect, when slavery is abolished. There are other 
 violations of this principle of love, justice and equality, that must melt 
 away. Abolition will not have done its work till it hath destroyed the 
 distinction between the kitchen and the parlor. The day is not far dis- 
 tant when this last evil will be regarded as quite as unjustifiable and 
 as inconsistent with Christianity as slavery now is. God speed the 
 happy day. 
 
 After Constantino, when Christianity became the religion of the em- 
 pire, Christian captives were not made slaves. The slave-market must 
 be supplied from the captives of heathen nations and tribes. 
 
 The nothern tribes had practiced the same policy, of making slaves 
 of their captives, long before they were known to the Roman conque- 
 rors, as Greece and Rome had done. 
 
 The clergy, during the period from this time to the Reformation, 
 never ceased to inveigh against the evils and hardships of slavery, and 
 to labor for its abolition. We find them urging, stoutly, that no mas- 
 ter should have power to punish or correct his slave, without regular 
 process in the courts of justice. Pope Alexander III. declared that 
 " Nature having made no slaves, all men have an equal right to liberty." 
 The clergy broke open the slave-markets of Bristol, Hamburgh, Lyons 
 and Rome, to set the slaves free. LeoX. declared that " not the Chris- 
 tian religion only, but nature herself, cries out against slavery," and 
 Paul III. imprecated curses, in two separate briefs, on those who should 
 enslave Indians, or any other class of men. 
 
 After Christianity was fairly established in its connection with the 
 state, then was presented another feature of slavery. The Christians 
 seemed to feel, that in consequence of the peculiar relation which they 
 supposed they sustained to God, they had a right to enslave all who 
 were not believers in Christ. In the wars in which the Christians were 
 engaged with the Mahometans especially, the Christians seemed to have 
 no doubt that it was right to make the followers of the Impostor, as 
 they called him, slaves. They pretty generally regarded it as a duty 
 to carry on war against the unbelievers. In the wars of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, against the Moors of Grenada, it was considered a matter of 
 public and religious rejoicing when they had succeeded in killing, and 
 especially in making slaves, of the followers of Mahomet. 
 
 III. We have now arrived at a new and most important era in the 
 history of slavery. Hence, afterward, the character of slavery among 
 European nations, and their descendants, is materially and essentially
 
 different from what it was before. I wish to call your attention particu- 
 larly to this fact, as it deserves the most serious consideration, and is 
 most significant, in meaning, to the friend of the slave. We have ar- 
 rived at the origin of negro slavery ; and that species of slavery rests 
 upon a foundation entirely different from that of any other species. 
 
 Before this time, slaves were taken in war. They were a part of the 
 lawful conquest. After this time, they were kidnapped in time of peace. 
 Before this time, nations took their equals in fair and lawful combat, on 
 the battle field. Their motive was not so much avarice as glory. Slaves 
 were the trophies of war. A man kept them, not so much for the sake 
 of enriching himself, as for insignia of his nobility and consequence. But 
 after this period the case was very different. The innocent and helpless 
 natives of Africa were hunted and kidnapped, as one hunts the deer of 
 the mountain. They were carried to serve the avarice of masters too 
 lazy to work for themselves. It now became man-stealing. The motive 
 that actuated those who enslaved their fellow-men now became very 
 much lower than it had been before. It was that base, unprincipled avarice, 
 that sacrifices every thing to self. They engaged in reducing men to 
 slavery for the sake of the profits of slavery. They bought and sold hu- 
 man flesh for gain. A motive so grovelling as this had not actuated 
 the enslavers of the human race before. The difference between any of 
 the kinds of slavery that existed before, and negro slavery, is the same 
 as the difference between war and secret murder, in times of peace ; it 
 is the same as that between a duel, where the parties consent to risk their 
 lives in equal combat, and midnight robbery, where the foot-pad mur- 
 ders the traveller for his money ; it is the same as the difference between 
 winning one's money at the gaming table, and stealing it in some secret 
 and well laid plan of thievery. 
 
 It was now field that Africans were an inferior race, made so by their 
 Creator, for the purpose of being slaves to us, their superiors. 
 
 We must expect that after this the character of slavery will be differ- 
 ent, and much worse than before. Man, moved by avarice, in what he 
 has persuaded himself is right, or rather has determined to do, whether 
 right or wrong, is deaf to the calls of mercy and humanity. He 
 will hardly hesitate before any extreme of suffering and cruelty. The 
 thorny recollections of past injustice and wrong will embitter his hate 
 for his victim, and, drunkard-like, he will drown the past in the greater 
 cruelties of the present. O, what an epoch in the world's history was 
 this ! One portion of the great family of man, the most civilized, the 
 most enlightened, the most highly favored of God, their common Father, 
 the followers of his only begotten and dearly beloved Son, the profes- 
 sors of the only true religion, to whose care God had committed the 
 reformation and salvation of the world, deliberately and coolly doomed 
 their unfortunate brethren, for whose benefit they had been entrusted 
 with so many blessings by their heavenly Father, to slavery ; to drag out 
 a miserable life, in toil, and groans, and all the unmitigated horrors of 
 bondage. What mercy can we hope for the poor, defenceless African, 
 now? Who shall deliver him from the cruelties of a master more dread- 
 ful than the wild beasts of his native forest? for into such hands he must 
 sometimes fall. O ye thunders of Almighty God, why do ye sleep ! 
 Ye rocks, hills and mountains, why do ye stand in silence and see the
 
 13 
 
 chains fastened upon the innocent, defenceless sons of God, your Creator 
 and theirs ! Ye surrounding deserts, why do ye not overwhelm the 
 enslaving demons with your drifting sands ! Old Ocean, how can you 
 keep quiet ! why not open and let down the slavers as they sail over your 
 tranquil bosom ! Man will not defend his brother man, and why, ye ele- 
 ments, why will not you ? O Africa ' why did not you sink at once 
 to a watery grave, where the weary are at rest, and the wicked cease 
 from troubling ? 
 
 This change in the character of slavery is enough to convince me 
 that it has arrived at its last stage. The darkest hour is the last before 
 the day dawns. The men into whose hands slavery has now fallen, with 
 their views and motives, will carry it to such extremes as to call forth an 
 opposition that will exterminate the evil. It is a doctrine of reason, and 
 confirmed by the experience of all history, that when any institution or 
 practice, which is not founded on the principles of truth and justice, has 
 fallen into the hands of low, avaricious men, they always carry it so far 
 as to shock and rouse the slumbering moral sentiment of the more vir- 
 tuous and well-principled, till they commence an opposition to the evil 
 which ends in its extinction. 
 
 I will give but two illustrations out of the hundreds that history affords. 
 The sale of indulgences by the Pope of Rome, which was first introduced 
 as a mere matter of convenience, was at last seized upon by the cupidity 
 of Leo X. as a means of raising money to defray the expense of the 
 extensive building in which he was engaged. His avaricious motives 
 carried the evil so far, as to call forth Luther and the Reformation. The 
 only other case I shall cite is that of England in taxing the Colonies. 
 She had practiced upon the unjust principle of taxation without repre- 
 sentation, until her avarice carried it so far as to arouse the inhabitants 
 of the Colonies, as one man, to throw off the yoke which they had long 
 worn, but had now become more heavy and galling. 
 
 This is now most obviously the case with slavery. It has fallen into 
 the hands of avaricious men. The tendency of public opinion is towards 
 liberty and equality, true democracy. Here slavery stands in this age, in 
 the sunny days of liberty, intelligence and religion ; having sailed down 
 the current of time, like some ice-berg that has floated from the frozen 
 regions of its northern home, into the tropics, where every thing around 
 is opposed to it, and it to every thing. Those who are interested in re- 
 taining it still longer, draw tighter and tighter the bands of slavery, 
 lest its diminished form slip out; not considering that the bands are so 
 tight already as to be bursting and falling off. 
 
 The tribes of Africa have been accustomed to make slaves of the cap- 
 tives taken in war, from the earliest times of which we have any informa- 
 tion. Slavery existed among the tribes of Africa, just as it had done 
 among the tribes of Europe. Equals enslaved equals. But African 
 slaves were not introduced into Europe until A. D. 1440. 
 
 Soon after the Portuguese conquests in the Barbary states, the love of 
 gain and hatred for the infidels induced the Portuguese to visit western 
 Africa. They sailed so far south as Cape Blanco. Antony Gonzalez, the 
 leader of the expedition, took some of the natives and brought them 
 home. They were not, however, treated as slaves, but rather as strangers, 
 who were required to give information of their native country. They
 
 14 
 
 were finally carried back, and their fellow-countrymen gave the Portu- 
 guese gold and African slaves in exchange. This was the first introduc- 
 tion of negro slavery into Europe ; " and mercantile cupidity," says Ban- 
 croft, " immediately observed that negroes might become an object of 
 lucrative commerce. New ships were despatched without delay." Spain 
 also engaged in the traffic, and even claimed the honor of having first 
 introduced it. 
 
 In 1492, Columbus discovered America, and carried back with him to 
 Spain five hundred native Indians, for slaves. But these Indians were 
 liberated by the humanity of Isabella. The same cupidity, however, that 
 had so eagerly engaged in the African slave-trade, immediately com- 
 menced to take the natives of America for its victims. But they were 
 not good slaves ; they were too shy to be easily caught, so the project 
 was finally abandoned. But the discovery of the new world opened an 
 extensive slave-market. Thither the slavers directed their course, and 
 by this means Europe has been saved being overrun by a slave popula- 
 tion, as we are. The different nations engaged in the profitable traffic. 
 This they seemed to do remorselessly. Nations have no conscience. 
 
 The cultivation of sugar was now successfully begun in Hispaniola. 
 It was found that one negro could do as much work as four Indians, and 
 the mild and tender-hearted Las Casas returned from Hispaniola to plead 
 with the Spanish court to relieve the Indians ; and since he saw that they 
 would have some slaves, he proposed that the more hardy Africans, who 
 he had seen were better able to bear the burden, should be substituted 
 for the Indians. This was in 1517, and the emperor, Charles V. granted 
 a patent to certain persons to supply the Spanish islands with slaves. 
 But even now there were some who opposed the slave-trade as unjust 
 and iniquitous. Among them was Soto, the confessor of Charles V. 
 Cardinal Ximines, whatever he might have thought of the justice of 
 slavery, opposed the introducing of negroes into the Spanish islands, as 
 impolitic. His predictions proved true,.' Hayti, the first spot to receive 
 African slaves, was the first spot of successful resistance to the whites ; 
 and the first to establish a government of free blacks in the western 
 world. 
 
 In 1562, Sir John Hawkins fraudulently carried a cargo of slaves to 
 Hispaniola. This was the first of Englishmen's engaging in the traffic. 
 The profits of such commerce attracted the attention of Queen Elizabeth. 
 The English, ever bent upon gain, encouraged the business. 
 
 In 1645. Thomas Keyser and James Smith, the latter a member of the 
 church in Boston, sent out a ship to Guinea, ' to trade for negroes.' This, 
 I believe, was the first instance of any of the inhabitants of the Colonies 
 engaging in this nefarious traffic. But Massachusetts could not approve 
 of such injustice. The cry was raised against Keyser and Smith, as mal- 
 efactors and murderers. After advice with the elders, the representatives 
 ordered the negroes to be restored to their native country at the public 
 charge. 
 
 In ( Virginia, there had from the first existed a species of servitude, 
 brought over from England. The servant stood to his master in the rela- 
 tion of a debtor, bound to discharge the costs of his emigration, by the 
 employment of his powers for the benefit of the creditor. This soon 
 gave rise to oppression and cruelty. Persons in England decoyed the
 
 15 
 
 unwary into coming over here, and then sold them for four, five and six 
 times the cost of emigration. The condition of these apprenticed ser- 
 vants was limited to a certain time, and the laws favored their early 
 enfranchisement. 
 
 In August, 1620, a Dutch man-of-war entered James river, and landed 
 twenty negroes. This is the epoch of the introduction of African slavery 
 among the English Colonies. The increase was at first slow. But the 
 increasing demand for laborers, and the superiority in point of profit of 
 the negro slaves over any other kind of laborers, tended to increase the 
 number of slaves. 
 
 From that period negro slavery extended itself to nearly or quite 
 all of the states. Massachusetts was the first to abolish it. That was 
 the only state, in 1788, when the constitution was adopted, whose laws 
 did not tolerate slavery. The northern states have, however, gradually 
 abolished it, so that now it does not exist north of Maryland, Virginia, 
 and Kentucky. It was declared, by an ordinance of congress, on the 13th 
 of July, 1787, recommended by Thomas Jefferson, that "there should be 
 neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the territory north of the 
 Ohio river, after that time, except as a punishment for crimes." 
 
 Negro slavery still exists in this republic in the District of Columbia, 
 all the southern states and territories ; and to that we will direct our atten- 
 tion. 
 
 I now proceed to speak of the political relation between slavery and 
 our country ; and consider the position that the constitution assumed 
 towards that institution. 
 
 When the convention assembled at Philadelphia, in May, 1787, the laws 
 of every state except Massachusetts tolerated slavery. In this state of 
 things it could not well be that the constitution proposed by such an 
 assembly should not recognize slavery in some form or another. Yet 
 nothing is clearer than that the heroes and patriots who had just been 
 so much engaged in the struggle for their own liberties, expected that 
 negro slavery would soon cease, and be out-rooted from our republic. 
 During this struggle they had " remembered those in bonds as bound 
 with them." They could not well raise their hands and hearts to pray 
 God to assist them, without resolving, as soon as they should have suc- 
 ceeded in their cause, to commence a course of measures that should 
 result in freedom for every man in the country, whether black or white. 
 Persecuted sects always preach toleration ; and so the oppressed preach 
 universal freedom. 
 
 Accordingly the delegates, in framing the constitution which they hoped 
 and expected would be perpetual, and remain as the bond of union 
 between the different states long after slavery should be abolished, care- 
 fully avoided using the word "slave" as though they would blot out every 
 thing that could tell to future generations that a nation of freemen, who 
 had declared that " all men are born free and equal," and who had 
 "pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor" to maintain that doc- 
 trine, had still continued to contradict that doctrine by their most solemn 
 declarations, and still held their fellow-men in a bond age far more galling 
 and degrading than that which they had shed so much blood to free 
 themselves from. The great men of that day had been roused, by the 
 exciting scenes in which they had been engaged, above that stupidity,
 
 16 
 
 that heartless calculation, that indifference to all but self, that could think 
 of holding any one in slavery, on any consideration, whatever might be 
 his color, or however degraded he might be. We seem to be quite igno- 
 rant how much the great men of that time opposed slavery. It is a fact 
 which we seem to overlook, that all the great men of that time were 
 abolitionists. They all held the same, or nearly the same, views of slavery 
 that modern abolitionists do. 
 
 What position then did the constitution proposed by such men assume 
 towards slavery ? I have already said that the word ' slave,' or ' slavery,' 
 does not occur in that instrument. I now say, that there is not a word 
 there that would not have an appropriate meaning, if there had been no 
 slaves in the land. There are but three passages that have any direct 
 bearing upon slavery ; and no one who did not know that there were 
 slaves in the country when the constitution was adopted, would ever 
 infer from the instrument itself that there were any. This studious 
 omission of the word ' slave,' and of any exclusive reference to the slaves, 
 is to my mind most significant of the views and expectations of the frarners 
 of the constitution. 
 
 The first passage that can have any reference to slaves, is in art. 1, 
 sec. 2, clause 3d : where it is said, that representatives and direct taxes 
 shall be apportioned to the number of the inhabitants of the states, which 
 shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, in- 
 cluding those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding the 
 Indians, "three fifths of all other persons." These six words, 'three 
 fifths of all other persons,' refer doubtless to the slaves. But if one did 
 not know that we had slaves, from another source, he could not infer 
 from this language that we had any. 
 
 The next clause is in art. 1, sec. 9, first clause: where it is declared 
 that congress shall not have the power to prohibit the importation of 
 "such persons as the states now think proper to admit," before 1808. 
 
 The next reference to slaves is in art. 4, sec. 2, third clause : which 
 provides for the sending back " all persons held to service or labor" in 
 one state who may have escaped into another. 
 
 I cannot forbear remarking again upon the delicacy with which the 
 framers of the constitution treated the subject of slavery. Those noble 
 men could not speak the word ' slave' without a blush at the thought of 
 their inconsistency, so long as slavery continued in our country. They 
 very delicately avoided offending the freemen of our country, by using 
 the word ' slave,' as though there were any slaves in this land of liberty, 
 in the bond of union between the states. 
 
 They had not the shame-faced impudence to ask the people to con- 
 sign one part of their inhabitants to hopeless slavery, by that very instru- 
 ment by which they secured their own freedom and the protection of the 
 laws. They wished to do no such thing. Yet it is said that the consti- 
 stitution guarantees the perpetuation of slavery, that the men who 
 fought, and bled, and prayed to God for their own freedom, consigned 
 other men to slavery. Had such a proposition been made to the veterans 
 of '76 they would have remonstrated with a vehemence that would have 
 made our rock-ribbed mountains ring with their reverberations. 
 
 Yet the constitution did recognize slavery. This is an astonishing 
 fact, and calls for an explanation. 1 offer the following :
 
 17 
 
 When the convention met at Philadelphia, to frame a constitution, the 
 necessity of something of the kind, by which the federal government 
 could be more consolidated and efficient than it was under the old con- 
 federacy, was most pressing. Slavery existed, and the south felt that 
 they could not emancipate all of their slaves immediately. Therefore it 
 was necessary, if they would have any constitution, to adopt one that 
 should tolerate slavery, for a while at least. The patriots of that age 
 thought that by so modifying the constitution as to tolerate slavery, they 
 should by no means perpetuate it, or retard its entire abolition, while 
 they should secure the adoption of a federal constitution. A constitu- 
 tion that required immediate ^mancipation would not be received, and 
 they could do nothing, by recommending such an one, to hasten the abo- 
 lition of slavery. Under these circumstances they did the best they 
 could, as they thought, and recommended the constitution that was 
 adopted, and under which we live. 
 
 But there is evidence sufficient to prove to my mind that there was an 
 implied promise on the part of the southern states, that, if we would 
 adopt a constitution tolerating slavery, they would immediately take ' 
 measures which should result in the emancipation of every slave, "at a 
 period not remote." I give an outline of the testimony. I have already 
 referred to the general expectation among the framers of the constitu- 
 tion, and all the distinguished men of that day, that the happy event 
 would soon come. I quote from the discussions in the conventions of 
 the different states, held about that time, and partly for the purpose of dis- 
 cussing and adopting the constitution that had been recommended to 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Iredell, of N. Carolina, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court 
 of the U. S. said, " When the entire abolition of slavery takes place, it 
 will be an event pleasing to every generous mind and every friend of 
 human nature." Here it is clearly shown that he expected that slavery 
 would be entirely abolished. Judge Wilson, of Pennsylvania, one of 
 the framers of the constitution, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court 
 of the U. S. said, that he "considered the clause relating to the slave 
 trade as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this coun- 
 try. Yet the lapse of a few years and congress will have the power 
 to exterminate slavery within our borders." 
 
 Mr. Tyler, of Virginia, when opposing that clause which forbids 
 congress to prohibit the foreign slave trade before 1SOS, said, " My 
 earnest desire is that it shall be handed down to posterity that I opposed 
 this wicked clause." Mr. Johnson said, " The principle of emancipation 
 has begun since the revolution. Let us do what we will, it will come 
 round." Judge Dawes, of Mass, said, " Slavery has received a mortal 
 wound." General Heath said, " Slavery was confined to the states 
 now existing ; it could not be extended. By their ordinance congress 
 has declared that the new states should be republican states and hold 
 no slaves." 
 
 These are quotations from the discussions in the conventions of the 
 states, and show clearly what ws the expectation. We have seen 
 that this expectation was not confined to the northern states. It pre- 
 vailed at the south. I give one more quotation still more explicit. In 
 c
 
 the Virginia convention of 1787, Mr. Mason, author of the Yirginia 
 constitution, said, " The augmentation of the slaves weakens the states, 
 and such a trade is diabolical in itself and disgraceful to mankind. As 
 much as I value a union of all the states, I would not admit the south- 
 ern states" (S. Carolina and Georgia) " into the union unless they agree 
 to a discontinuance of this disgraceful trade ;" and 'a discontinuance of 
 this disgraceful trade' was regarded as a ' mortal wound to slavery.' the 
 beginning of a course of measures to result in. the " banishing slavery 
 out of this country." 
 
 If, then, the south encouraged such an expectation for the purpose of 
 securing the adoption of the constitution as it now is, does it not amount 
 to an implied promise that they would take measures to bring about 
 the expected emancipation ? Yet they have done directly the contra- 
 ry to this. Now they have the impudence to come forward and say, 
 that it is a breach of faith to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- 
 bia and the Territories. It is infringing upon their rights for us to 
 talk about emanci ration. We have no right to interfere. Shall we 
 be duped by such things? 
 
 But let us look a little more minutely at the relation which the con- 
 stitution sustains to the slave. I profess no great skill in the legal 
 science, but I will undertake to prove before any impartial court, that 
 the slave laws in the southern states are unconstitutional, and that the 
 slave has by the constitution a right to his freedom. " In the language 
 of the supreme court, ' There are acts which the general or state leg- 
 islatures cannot do, without exceeding their authorities. There are 
 certain vital principles in our free republican government which will 
 determine and over-rule an apparent and flagrant abuse of legislative 
 power ; as, to authorize manifest injustice by positive lav/, to 
 take away that security for personal liberty or private property for the 
 protection whereof the government was established. An act of the 
 legislature contrary to the great first principles of the social compact 
 cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority.' " 
 Ely Moore's speech in the House of Representatives, Feb. 4, 1839. 
 
 Here, I ask, are not the supreme court obliged, by this decision of 
 theirs, to set aside, -as unconstitutional, any law which upholds human 
 slavery ? or is human slavery no ' manifest injustice ?' and does it not 
 take away the ' security for personal liberty ?' According to this decis- 
 ion, is not any law that acknowledges, or is founded upon the right of 
 property in human beings, unconstitutional ? 
 
 It is declared in the preamble to the constitution, that it was adopted 
 "to establish justice," "to ensure domestic tranquility," "to promote 
 the general welfare/' "and to secure the blessings of liberty." But 
 every law which has been enacted against the slave has done directly 
 contrary to this. The laws of the southern states have made the con- 
 dition of the slave a great deal worse, while they have done nothing 
 to benefit his condition since this declaration. 
 
 Instead of ' establishing justice,' the slave laws have established 
 injustice and oppression. Instead of ' ensuring domestic tranquility,' 
 they have increased ten fold the fear of servile insurrection, and the
 
 peril of living in the slave holding states. Instead of ' promoting the 
 general welfare,' they have ground the black man into the dust, and 
 subjected him to merciless cruelty. How has the constitution secured 
 the blessings of liberty to one fifth of the people, who are now in 
 chains? How has it secured the right of petition, and the freedom of 
 discussion ? How does it secure the blessings of liberty to any one 
 who goes to the south, believing slavery to be a sin ? Let those who 
 have suffered by the Lynch law answer. 
 
 But if the constitution recognizes slaves at all, it recognizes them 
 as persons, as men. Yes ; if the constitution recognizes slaves at all, 
 then it recognizes them as persons, and stands upon the ground, that 
 all men or persons are born free and equal, and that they have certain 
 inherent rights, which no legislation can deprive them of, such as life, 
 liberty and property. If, then, the constitution recognizes slaves as 
 persons, it does thereby secure to them all the rights of persons, 
 among which are a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; 
 and every law that makes the case of the slave worse than that of a 
 town pauper, or an apprentice bound out by indenture, is unconstitu- 
 tional. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the constitution does not recognize the slavery 
 of a portion of the inhabitants of the country, then by the constitution 
 and by natural right, they may demand their freedom, and we must 
 grant it. 
 
 The constitution recognizes slaves as persons, but the southern slave 
 laws deny that the slave is a person, and moke him a thing, a chattel per- 
 sonal, in direct contradiction of the words of the constitution. Slavery, 
 as it exists now, is a different thing from what it was in 1788. The 
 southern people have changed its character, and thereby forfeited all 
 the right to its protection, which they could once have claimed under 
 the constitution. If, then, the constitution protected the slavery of 1788, 
 it certainly does not that of 1838. 
 
 But there is a stronger argument yet. The Constitution, art. 1, 
 sect. 9, clause 2, says, " The privilege of the writ habeas corpus shall 
 not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the 
 public safety may require it." The constitution does not define what 
 is the habeas corpus, and in all such cases the rule is to adopt the defi- 
 nition of the English common law. I give it as stated by Chancellor 
 Kent, one of the best authorities upon the subject. Let us then look 
 at the case and see what is the writ habeas corpus. " Every restraint 
 upon a man's liberty is, in the eye of the law, imprisonment." Kent, 
 vol. 2, p. 26. Therefore the slave, in the eye of the law, is held in 
 imprisonment by his master. " All persons" and the constitution calls 
 slaves persons " restrained of their liberty under any pretence what- 
 ever are entitled to prosecute the writ" habeas corpus, " unless they 
 be detained, (1) by process from any court, or judge of the United 
 States, having exclusive jurisdiction in the case ; (2) or by final judg- 
 ment, or decree, or execution thereon, of any competent tribunal of 
 civil or criminal jurisdiction, other than in the case of a commitment 
 for an alleged contempt." Kent, vol. 2, p. 29. Here, then, it is
 
 20 
 
 declared by the constitution, that any person, black or white, who is 
 restrained of his liberty, unless he be kept in prison awaiting a trial, 
 or kept for the execution of the sentence of the court, has a right to 
 the privilege of the habeas corpus writ. Hence any person^ who is a 
 friend to the slave may apply to any court, having authority to issue 
 this writ, and the court must issue it against the slave-holder, to come 
 into court and show by what right he holds his slave. The slave-holder 
 will say he holds him by the law of the state in which he lives. It 
 will then be shown to the court that these very slave laws are a sus- 
 pension of the privilege of the habeas corpus writ, which the consti- 
 tution says shall not be suspended. A person who has sued out the 
 writ habeas corpus " is to be remanded to imprisonment if he was de- 
 tained ; (1) by process of any court of the United States having 
 exclusive jurisdiction ; (2) by virtue of a final decree, or judgment, or 
 process thereon ; (3) or for contempt specially and plainly charged;" 
 otherwise he is to be set free. The slave is not detained by any court 
 waiting his trial ; he is not held for the execution of any sentence of 
 a competent court of civil or criminal jurisdiction; nor for any con- 
 tempt specially and plainly charged ; therefore, by the privilege of the 
 habeas corpus, he must be set free. It will be shown, further, that in 
 the English courts, slaves can and actually have claimed the privilege 
 of the habeas corpus writ, and it has been decided that they are entitled 
 to their freedom by the privilege of that writ. Here, then, the Amer- 
 ican constitution has established a law by which slaves have actually 
 claimed and received their liberty in England. It is not very probable, 
 however, that any American court would grant the writ to the slave, 
 or decide in his favor, especially in a slave-holding district. 
 
 I admit that I do not suppose that the framers of the constitution 
 intended to secure the privilege of the habeas corpus to the slaves. 
 The fact is, they did not think of making any constitutional provis- 
 ion for them in any way. It did not occur to them that any could be 
 needed. There was such a universal expectation that the moral sen- 
 timent would induce all men to do what they could to hasten the 
 emancipation of the slaves, that no one entertained a doubt that it would 
 soon come. The framers of the constitution therefore avoided, so far 
 as possible, any reference to the foul stain upon the nation's character, 
 and so deeply did they feel the evil of slavery themselves, that they 
 did not suppose any provision in the constitution could be necessary to 
 bind men, much less to give them leave to secure the blessings of lib- 
 erty to all. So, when we speak of congress having the power to abol- 
 ish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the Territories, and to pro- 
 hibit the internal slave trade, we do not suppose that the framers of the 
 constitution thought, or intended to give congress the special power to 
 do these things. They did not give that power intentionally, for the 
 best of reasons. They supposed that slavery would be abolished by 
 other means, so that there never could be an occasion for the exercise 
 of such a power, if it were given. 
 
 But their expectation has failed. Slavery is not abolished. Shall 
 not congress have every power and the slave every privilege, that the
 
 21 
 
 most liberal construction of the language of the constitution will allow ? 
 I know that it is a rule of interpretation, in law, that the intention of 
 the law maker shall be met, and that be law, whatever language he 
 may have used to express that intention. But it is also a rule of interpre- 
 tation, and paramount to all others, that the language of the law maker 
 shall be so construed as to make the law as consistent with right and 
 justice as possible. By this rule the constitution must be so interpreted 
 as to allow the slave the privilege of the habeas corpus writ. 
 
 Farther, all traffic in human beings appears unconstitutional when 
 considered from another point of view. Not merely the internal slave- 
 trade, but any bargain by which a man is sold, is unconstitutional. 
 The internal slave-trade, and every bargain by which man is sold, goes 
 upon the ground that he is property. But this is not the doctrine of 
 the constitution. 
 
 By the constitution, no man can be owned, or bought and sold. It 
 speaks of persons ' bound to service,' but never of persons that are 
 ' owned.' It calls slaves, persons ; and to consider a person, a man, as 
 property, an article of commerce, is such an anomaly, so inconsistent 
 with the whole tenor of our institutions, that it is not to be done with- 
 out the most positive proof that the framers of the constitution 
 intended it. 
 
 But there is positive and conclusive proof that the framers of the 
 constitution did not consider the slaves as property. They allow three 
 fifths of them to be added to the number of the free citizens, in making 
 out the apportionment for the number .of representatives in congress 
 and electors for president and vice-president. Now in a government 
 like ours, founded upon the polls and not upon the property of the 
 citizens, and where all men are recognized as free and equal, and where 
 the poor and the rich are to have an equal influence in making the laws 
 and choosing the rulers and officers of government, it is certain that 
 the south could not be allowed an extra number of representatives in 
 congress on account of their slaves, if the slaves were considered as 
 property. It is as inconsistent to allow the south an extra number of 
 representatives on account of their having slaves, if their slaves are 
 property, as it would be to allow the north to have an extra number in 
 consequence of their sheep and cattle, their bank stock, their manu- 
 facturing capital, or property of any kind. The founders of our gov- 
 ernment would never have allowed the principle, that people were to 
 be represented in proportion to their property, or for their property in 
 any form. Yet this they did do, if they considered slaves as property. 
 
 But further; "in all our intercourse with foreign nations, in all our 
 treaties in which the words, 'goods,' ' effects,' &c., are used, slaves 
 have never been considered as included. In all cases in which slaves 
 are the subject matter of controversy, they are specially named by the 
 word 'slaves,' and if I remember rightly," and he appealed to the 
 senate to correct him if he were wrong, "it has been decided in con- 
 gress, that slaves are not property, for which compensation shall be 
 made when taken for public use (or rather slaves cannot be considered 
 as taken for public use) or as property by the enemy when they are in
 
 the service of the United States." Senator Morris (of Ohio.) Speech 
 in senate, February 9, 1S39. 
 
 If, then, the constitution does not consider slaves as property, it con- 
 siders them persons, and secures to them personal rights ; and the first 
 right, and the foundation of all other rights, is one's right to himself. 
 If one has a right to himself, no one else can have a right to him to 
 convey by sale therefore he cannot be sold. 
 
 V. Let us now see what efforts have been made to get rid of slavery 
 and do justice to the oppressed. These efforts are of two kinds: 1. 
 Legislative action ; and 2. Societies. 
 
 1.- All the northern states have abolished slavery. It is worthy of 
 remark, in this connexion, that the states of New-Hampshire and 
 Vermont considered that slavery was abolished by their constitutions ; 
 and yet their constitutions contained nothing more from which such 
 an inference could be drawn, than the constitution of Virginia or that 
 of the United States does. This shows very clearly how different 
 constructions can be put upon the same language, according to the 
 interests and inclinations of people. 
 
 Let us now see what the national legislature has done with regard 
 to slavery. 
 
 Before 1808, congress did all that it could to put a stop to the foreign 
 slave-trade. By acts of March 22, 1794, and May 10, 1800, citizens 
 of the United States were forbidden to carry slaves from the United 
 States to any other country, or from one foreign country to another. 
 In March 2, 1807, an act was passed prohibiting, under severe penalties, 
 any person's importing slaves into the United States after the first day 
 of January, 1808. Congress was forbidden by the constitution to have 
 done this before. 
 
 At first sight this seems to speak well of the intentions of our 
 country. But when we look a little closer it appears rather different. 
 When we look at the condition of the slave population at that time, 
 we see that the time had come when the slave-holders could dispense 
 with the foreign slave-trade with very little, if any, sacrifice to the slave- 
 holding interests ; the time had come when we could raise our own 
 slaves, so as not to need to import them. Then, forsooth, congress 
 was ready to put a stop to the monstrous iniquity of bringing slaves 
 into the country. Slaves that were raised here were acquainted with 
 work, understood our language, and had been trained from infancy to 
 the condition to which they were doomed for life ; and could be raised, 
 if the masters would take a little pains to encourage it, about as fast as 
 they were wanted, and nearly or quite as cheap as they could be imported 
 from Africa, considering the risk of a slaving expedition. 
 
 But notwithstanding we could raise our own slaves, foreign slaves 
 continued to be smuggled into the country. In 1819, Mr. Middleton, 
 of South-Carolina, estimated the number smuggled into the country 
 annually at 13,000. Mr. Wright, of Virginia, thought that the number 
 was as large as 15,000. Middleton and Wright were, I believe, both 
 members of the House of Representatives at that time, and made the 
 above statements on the floor of the house.
 
 23 
 
 In April, 1818, congress went still further, and increased the penalties 
 of being engaged in the foreign slave-trade, and forbid any citizen 
 being engaged in the slave-trade on board any foreign vessel. The 
 next year, 1819, congress sent out armed vessels to the coast of Africa, 
 to stop the slave-trade. In 1820, congress passed an act declaring the 
 slave-trade piracy. Yes ; it is piracy by the laws of our land for a 
 man to buy a slave on the coast of Africa and bring him here or carry 
 him to any other country, but it is no crime, it is perfectly right, to buy 
 a slave in one state and carry him to another. What makes such a 
 mighty difference between the waters of the ocean and the soil of our 
 own country, that what is right on one is a crime on the other ? 
 Wherein consists such a difference between the shores of Africa and 
 the capital of this free republic, that what is there the highest crime 
 that human laws recognize is here innocent and protected by the laws ? 
 'Tis right to hold slaves upon our land, and within sight of our shores, 
 but beyond them it is a crime of deepest dye. 'Tis right and proper 
 to buy negro slaves at Washington, where the freest people on earth 
 hold their national councils but 'tis piracy to buy them in Guinea. 
 Is this " to establish justice ?" Is it not rather utter contempt for it ? 
 Is the moral sentiment clean gone from man, that he can discern right 
 from wrong no better than this ? Had the sable sons of Africa ever 
 made such a mistake as this, there would be some ground for the 
 opinion that they were not men, but a connecting link between man 
 and brute. Slavery would not then be the sin that it now is, for no 
 moral nature, no image of God, would have been marred and lost by it. 
 
 This act of 1820 is the last act Congress has passed. Thus far 
 they have done as near right and justice as they could afford to. The 
 next step would interfere with the interests of the country ; it would 
 require a sacrifice of gain and luxury that they could not afford 
 the generosity and respect for the rights of others to make. Accord- 
 ingly they have done nothing since but 'gag' the people, and declare 
 that they would do nothing more. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that the American vessels sent out in 1819 
 to put a stop to the slave trade, have not taken a single slaver. Why 
 is this? While the English vessels have been constantly taking sla- 
 vers, the Americans have taken none. Have they leagued with the 
 pirates, and winked at their wrong doing ? 
 
 2. Societies have been formed from time to time for the purpose of 
 bettering the condition of the slave, or of "securing" to him "the 
 blessings of liberty." 
 
 In 1785 there was an Abolition Society formed in New- York. The 
 Hon. John Jay, afterwards Judge of the Supreme Court, was presi- 
 dent. The object of the society was to " promote the manumission 
 of slaves, and to protect such of them as have been or may be libe- 
 rated." 
 
 A similar society was formed in Philadelphia in 1787. Dr. Frank- 
 lin was president, and Benjamin Rush secretary. Two years after, 
 one was formed in Maryland. Societies were also formed about the 
 same time in Virginia, Delaware and Connecticut.
 
 24 
 
 The principles entertained by these early societies were so nearly 
 the same as those entertained and upheld by the modern abolitionists, 
 that I need not here enter into a specification of them. 
 
 In December, 1816, the slave-holding state of Virginia, feeling that 
 the presence of the free blacks was a nuisance, and made their slaves 
 uneasy, increased the danger of insurrection, and decreased very much 
 the value of slave property, requested their governor to correspond 
 with the President of the United States, "for the purpose of obtaining 
 a territory on the coast of Africa, or some other place not within the 
 States, to serve as an asylum for such persons as are now free, or may 
 become so." 
 
 About the same time a meeting was held at Washington, to take the 
 same subject into consideration. Judge Washington was President. 
 The result of the meeting was the formation of the American Coloni- 
 zation Society. The President and the twelve Managers of this So- 
 ciety were, it is believed, slave-holders. Their constitution declared 
 that " the object to which the attention of this Society shall be exclu- 
 sively directed, is to promote and execute a plan for colonizing the 
 free people of color now residing in our country." 
 
 There was not a word said about the evil, moral and political, of 
 slavery. There was not even any design to benefit the slave ; for the 
 efforts of the Society were to be directed exclusively to the free blacks. 
 Of these free blacks there are in the United States 319,467; and 
 2,122 have been carried to Liberia in the last eighteen years. This 
 Society provides no means for emancipating a single slave, and in its 
 constitution it does not even profess to aim at the emancipation of any. 
 They would take all the slaves that were freely given them ; and they 
 actually did, in 19 years, carry EIGHT HUNDRED AND NINE manumitted 
 slaves to Africa JUST AS MANY AS WERE BORN IN FIVE DAYS AND 
 A HALF on an average. They Had, moreover, ceased operation, so 
 that in 1834 they did not carry one single manumitted slave to Liberia. 
 Judge Washington, the first president of the society, instead of freeing 
 his slaves, sold them, fifty-four in number, to a slave-dealer for the 
 New-Orleans market. 
 
 I cannot spend any more time upon the Colonization Society than 
 to show that it cannot and does not aim to free the slaves, but rather 
 to benefit the slave-holder's property in his slaves. This, I think, I 
 have abundantly done. 
 
 *VI. We have thus far examined slavery as it was. We have 
 looked at is origin, and traced its history to the present time. It now 
 remains to consider the present number and condition of the slaves : 
 the influence of slavery upon us at the north : our right and duty to 
 do something : what we can do and how to doit : the abolition enter- 
 prise : the objections to that enterprise : the principles and measures of 
 the abolitionists : and finally notice the objections that are brought 
 against immediate emancipation. This, with what has been already 
 said, will cover the whole ground. 
 
 * When this Discourse was delivered it was found too long for one evening, and what 
 follows was delivered on the evening of Sunday, February 24.
 
 25 
 
 When the constitution of the United States was adopted, there were 
 something more than six hundred thousand slaves in the southern 
 states, and about forty thousand in the northern states. Since that 
 time all of the northern states have emancipated their slaves. But the 
 slaves have increased so fast at the south that notwithstanding the de- 
 crease at the north, where the whites have been fast increasing, the 
 increase of the slave population in our country has just about equalled 
 the increase of the white population. Hence the slaves must increase 
 much faster than the whites at the south. This is one of the most 
 alarming features of slavery, in a political point of view. Soon the 
 south will be full and overrun with the slaves, and what can they do 
 with them ? At present t^ e property is working into the hands of a 
 few, and the white population retiring before the blacks and in a few 
 years, we at the north may have to raise and pay a standing army to 
 keep down the insurrections of the slaves. 
 
 The daily increase of the slave population is about ONE HUNDRED 
 AND SEVENTY-FIVE. Yes, there are one hundred and seventy-jive hu- 
 man beings born into slavery in this land of liberty every day more 
 than go from slavery in this world to freedom in the next. 
 
 In the northern slave-holding states, Virginia for instance, there is 
 not so much demand for slave labor as in the more southern states. 
 And so they raise slaves for the southern markets, just as we do sheep 
 and cattle for our markets, and with about as little regard to chastity 
 and the marriage contract among their slaves as we have among our 
 cattle. The number of slaves annually transported from the northern 
 slave-holding states to the southern, is about THIRTY THOUSAND. This 
 annual traffic in thirty thousand human beings exists by our sufferance ; 
 is carried on by the sanction of laws that we at the north have helped 
 to make, and mostly in the capital of our country, over which we at 
 the north have joint control with the south. Our own government 
 licenses man to sell his brother man within sight of thecapitol of this 
 free and Christian republic ! 
 
 Let us look at the condition of the slave. I do not wish to speak of 
 individual cases of cruelty. These you must have heard to your heart's 
 content, already. Beside, I do not wish to rest any argument upon such 
 cases. 
 
 (1.) For the last fifty years the condition of the slave has been 
 growing worse. Each state has continually been passing laws more 
 and more severe, and in no case, so far as I know, have they relaxed 
 their laws in the least. 
 
 (2.) The laws of the slave-holding states give the slave no protec- 
 tion against any white person whatsoever, any more than the Jaws of 
 our state do our horses and oxep. ; To this there is one exception ; if 
 it can be proved that a master has wilfully, deliberately and mali- 
 ciously killed his slave, he is punishable for murder as though his vic- 
 tim had been white, or free. But then, no black man can testify 
 against a white man. Hence a man may murder slaves to any extent 
 with impunity, if he only be out of sight of a white man. He may 
 go on to his plantation and mow them down as he would weeds : the
 
 
 26 
 
 blacks that escape cannot be heard, and if there is no white man 
 present to prove the master's guilt, he may go unpunished. It is 
 often said that the interest of the master would prevent his cruelty to 
 his slaves. But we see that the interest of the northern farmer does 
 not prevent his cruelty to his cattle ; does not prevent his starving them, 
 and whipping them to death in his passions, and killing them when 
 they are unfit for service ; no more will it prevent the southern slave- 
 master from these things. The interest of the owner does not in fact 
 so much protect the slave as it does the cattle : for the slave feels his 
 wrong and oppression, and this unavoidably leads him to provoke the 
 rage of his jealous master far more frequently than he otherwise would. 
 Were the slaves as insensible to their wrongs as brutes would be, they 
 would be so submissive as to call forth no more cruelty than the brutes. 
 But the master sees in the eye of every slave an expression of his 
 sense of his wrongs, and we may well imagine the effect this must 
 have upon the master's feelings. The drunkard must get drunk again 
 to drown the shame of his former beastliness. The master who has 
 been cruel and made his slaves feel their wrong, must continue to be 
 cruel to blot out the recollections of former sufferings by pains of the 
 present and the fears of the future. It is only by adding wrong to 
 wrong, cruelty to cruelty, that he can keep his own mind from realiz- 
 ing how cruel he has been and prevent the slaves from plotting any scheme 
 of revenge or release. 
 
 (3.) I give here an outline of the slave laws. 
 
 (a) Slaves are the property of the master to all intents and purposes ; 
 just as the horses, oxen and sheep of the northern farmer are the 
 farmer's property. He, or she, is subject to the will, caprice and lust 
 of the master. They can have no property. In many states there are 
 laws expressly forbidding the slave to have property, and thereby making 
 it impossible for them to buy their liberty, and that is usually the]only 
 way they can get it. 
 
 (6) The slaves are not only subjected to their own masters, but to 
 other men. A man may whip or abuse another's slave with impunity, 
 unless he unfit him for labor ; and then his master can recover damages 
 for loss of services. The slave gets nothing. In Louisiana, if a man 
 by his cruelty forever unfits a slave for labor, he must pay his master 
 the value of the slave ; but the unfortunate slave, crippled and 
 maimed, and suffering to the end of his miserable life, can get no com- 
 pensation whatever. 
 
 (c) The laws inflict the severest penalties for what in the white man 
 is no crime. \ In Georgia, any person may give a slave twenty lashes, 
 (which would kill many a white man,) for being found off the planta- 
 tion to which he belongs, for any purpose whatever, without a license. 
 In South-Carolina, any person finding more than seven slaves together 
 in the highway, without a white man with them, may give each slave 
 twenty lashes. In North Carolina, a slave travelling without a pass, 
 or being found in another person's negro quarters, or kitchen, may be 
 whipped forty lashes, and every slave in whose company he may be 
 found, twenty lashes. In Louisiana, a slave for being found on horse-
 
 27 
 
 back, without written permission, incurs twenty-five lashes. These are 
 but a few, but 1 have time for no more. 
 
 (d) The laws forbid mental and religious education. In 
 South Carolina, any slaves that may be found assembled in a 
 confined or secret place, for the purpose of mental instruc- 
 tion, -even though in presence of white persons, may be whipped with 
 twenty lashes. Another law imposes a fine of 100 upon any person 
 who may teach a slave to write. The Virginia laws declare that any 
 school for the instruction of slaves, is an unlawful assembly, and any 
 justice may inflict twenty lashes upon any slave found in such a school. 
 In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or write, or to give him any 
 book (the Bible not excepted) is punishable with thirty-nine lashes, if the 
 offender be a free black, but if a white, with a fine of $200. The rea- 
 son given for this law is, that teaching slaves to read and write tends to 
 excite dissatisfaction, and to produce insurrection and rebellion. In 
 Georgia, if a white man teach a free negro even, to read or write, he is 
 fined $500. In Louisiana, the punishment for teaching a slave to read 
 or write, is one year's imprisonment. In Georgia, any justice of the 
 peace may, at his discretion, break up any religious assembly of the slaves, 
 and order each slave present to receive twenty-five stripes of a whip, 
 switch, or cow-skin, on his bare back. In South Carolina, slaves may 
 not meet for religious worship before sunrise or after sunset, unless a 
 majority of the meeting be white, without incurring the penalty of twenty 
 lashes, well laid on. In Virginia, all evening meetings for slaves, at any 
 meeting house, are forbidden. In Mississippi, a master may permit a 
 slave to attend the preaelrng of a luhite man. In South Carolina, the 
 law forbids the funster's compelling the slave to work more than fifteen 
 hours a day. The necessity for such a law does not speak very much 
 for the humanity of the masters, or of his interest being a sufficient pro- 
 tection to the slave. In Tennessee and Arkansas, the constitution forbids 
 the legislatures to emancipate the slaves. In some of the states, Ten- 
 nessee for example, a man cannot free his own slaves if Tie would, with- 
 out permission of the legislature. 
 
 Now does not the existence of such laws forbid us to believe that 
 the slaves are treated kindly as a general thing ? If ' they are treated with 
 kindness,' and ' are contented with their condition,' and ' as well off as 
 the poor laborers of the north,' why are there such laws? In a commu- 
 nity where such laws are demanded and upheld by public opinion, the 
 slaves cannot be universally well treated. Those men who have been to 
 the south, and say that the slaves are not cruelly treated, must be listened 
 to with caution. It may be that they do not consider such treatment 
 cruelty. But their testimony in any case can only prove that they have 
 never seen the cruel treatment of the slave. It cannot prove there is no 
 such treatment. They do not see all that there is. The testimony of 
 one credible witness who has seen a thing is worth more than that of a 
 thousand who merely have not seen it ; especially if we can easily account 
 for their not having seen it. The house servants are the best, and they 
 receive the best treatment ; and these it is for the most part that travellers 
 and sojourners at the south see. Hence they see the best treatment of 
 the best part of the slaves ; and this they report as a fair representation 
 of the condition of the slave ! Contrast their account with the account
 
 28 
 
 of those who give the worst treatment of the worst part of the slaves, 
 and a medium will probably be about a fair estimate. 
 
 But I do not wish to rest any argument upon individual cases of cruelty. 
 I wish merely to give you an outline of the system. This I have done 
 by quoting from the slave laws public documents that cannot be ques- 
 tioned. From these you may infer what the condition of the slave must 
 be. It is enough that he is a slave, even in the mildest form of slavery. 
 We need not appeal to individual cases of cruelty, to show us that he 
 ought to be free. 
 
 It was from a view of this state of things three millions of their fellow 
 beings, about one-fifth of the population of the country, in a condition 
 like what I have described, and the number increasing at the rate of one 
 hundred and seventy-five every day, and with no one doing any thing to 
 alleviate the condition of the oppressed, or save the country from the 
 precipice over which it seemed to be rushing, it was, I say, from a view 
 of this state of things that some benevolent, justice-loving persons at the 
 north raised their voices against this monstrous evil. 
 
 I wish to call particular attention to this state of things ; for it is some 
 times said that the abolitionists have retarded the emancipation of the 
 slaves ; that there were means in operation that would have abolished 
 slavery sooner than it can now be done, if the abolitionists had been 
 silent. This is entirely false. There were no means in operation that 
 even looked towards emancipation. The whole tendency of all the leg- 
 islative proceedings of the slav^-holding states had been for twenty years 
 Jast past, before the abolition enterprise, to make the condition of the 
 slave more abject, more wretched, and to increase the difficulties of 
 emancipation. The constitution of Arkansas was s'o formed as to with- 
 hold the power to emancipate the slave by legislative action. The con- 
 stitution of Tennessee was altered so as to take the power of emancipa- 
 tion from ihe state legislature. Louisiana once had a law prohibiting 
 slave-merchants bringing slaves into the state with a view to selling them. 
 But this law was repealed. Turn over the statute books of the south as 
 you will, and you will find it universally the case that the most diabolical 
 laws were the latest ones that were passed, & every year the laws that were 
 passed become more and more so. Thus there was nothing by way of 
 legislative action that afforded the least hope, or encouragement to a hope, 
 that slavery would be abolished in the southern states by a regular course 
 of legislative actions. Every thing tended the other way. 
 
 Neither was there any more encouragement from societies or individuals 
 using moral means. Immediately after the Revolution, the people felt so 
 much gratitude for their own success that they determined to do some- 
 thing for the slaves, and secure eventually their freedom. But their 
 gratitude soon grew cold, and there seemed to be, year by year, less incli- 
 nation to do any thing to hasten the freedom of the slaves. No ; it was 
 because nothing was being done that the abolition enterprise was set on 
 foot ; and whether that enterprise hasten the emancipation of the slaves 
 or not, it certainly cannot retard it. 
 
 After it was determined that something ought to be done, the question 
 arose, Can we at the north do any thing ? Does slavery injure us so as 
 to give us reason to do anything ? These questions need to be answered 
 to the people now as much as they did then. 
 
 VII. What then are some of the evils that we suffer from slavery ?
 
 The slave-holding states have twenty-five representatives, and twenty- 
 five electoral votes in choosing the president and vice-president, to which 
 they have no right on the ground that slaves are property. According 
 to the present apportionment, 47,700 inhabitants constitute the represen- 
 tative number, and each state may send a representative to congress for 
 every 47,700 inhabitants it may have. Now in making out this appor- 
 tionment, three-fifths of the slaves are added to the free population ; 
 and by this arrangement the slave-holding states have twenty-five repre- 
 sentatives more than they would have if three-fifths of the number of 
 the slaves were not added in making out the apportionment. Now if 
 slaves are property, as the slave laws declare, the slave-holders have no 
 right to these twenty-five representatives on account of their slaves, any 
 more than we at the north have to representatives on account of our 
 sheep, cattle, bank stock, or any other property. The expenses for pay- 
 ing these representatives is at least 30,000 dollars each year, and this 
 sum we help to pay. But our proportion of this sum is but a small part 
 of the evil. 
 
 We thereby submit ourselves to the influence of southern legislation. 
 We allow the slave-holding states to have the influence of TWO HUN- 
 DRED THOUSAND legal voters, (and the number is constantly increasing,) 
 which they have not got, in the choice of the president and vice-presi- 
 dent ; and of course in every executive measure and appointment, and in 
 every law, resolution or measure of congress. This influence, I say, we 
 allow the south to have which they have no just right to if their slaves 
 are property as they consider them. Consider further the character of 
 this influence. Gov. M'Duffie, in a message to the legislature of South 
 Carolina, said : " No community ever existed without domestic servitude, 
 and we may confidently assert that none ever will. In the very nature 
 of things, there must be classes of persons to discharge all the diffe.ent 
 offices of society from the highest to the lowest. Some of these offices 
 are regarded as degrading, though they must and will be performed. 
 When these offices are performed by members of the political com- 
 munity a dangerous element is obviously introduced into the body politic." 
 We, my hearers, we farmers and mechanics, who labor with our hands, 
 are ' a dangerous element in the body politic' ! It is dangerous to allow 
 us to vote, and therefore we ought to be slaves and let our rich neigh- 
 bors vote for us. This is 'democracy' ! But let us follow the Governor 
 a little further. " It will be fortunate [?] for the non-slaveholding states 
 if they are not, in less than a quarter of a century, driven to the adoption 
 of a similar institution," [to slavery] " or to take refuge from robbery and 
 anarchy under a military despotism. * * * In a word, the institution 
 of domestic slavery supersedes the order of nobility" by creating the 
 slave-holders themselves a nobility and the laborers the slaves, or serfs, I 
 suppose must be added, to make the sense clear. Mr. Leigh, of Vir- 
 ginia, said, in 1829, " I ask gentlemen to say whether they believe that 
 those who depend on their daily subsistence can, or do ever, enter into 
 our political affairs? They never do, never will, never can." "How 
 can he get wisdom, that holdeth the plough, that driveth oxen, and is 
 occupied in the labors, and whose talk is of bullocks ?" asks Professor 
 Dew, of William and Mary's College, Virginia. 
 
 Are these our principles, or have we so much sympathy with and love 
 for them, that we wish to have those whose exalted notions may aspire
 
 30 
 
 to and adopt such principles and feelings, make laws for us ? Are we 
 submitting to southern legislation already ? Are we resigning 
 the legislative power into their hands from a conviction of their 
 superior wisdom and patriotism ? We give them twenty-five represen- 
 tatives, the influence of two hundred thousand legal voters, as a consid- 
 eration for such views, for such superior political wisdom, for such 
 elevated, humane democracy ! 
 
 The Hon. Charles Shepard, member of congress from North-Carolina, 
 in a letter to his constituents, December 20, 1838, says, if the slave-hold- 
 ing states will be true to themselves " they can give laws to the govern- 
 ment." Yes, brethren of New-England, whose fathers fought and bled 
 ior our liberties in the Revolution, the aristocratic slave-holding south, who 
 hold that all labor is disreputable, and that every laborer, every farmer 
 and mechanic, are, or should be slaves, subject to the will of the monied 
 few, boast that they ' can give laws to the government.' Such men boast 
 that they can make laws for us. Good God ! shall it be so ? Are we will- 
 ing to wear the yoke and the chain ? Will you dance to the cracking of 
 the master's whip? Are we prepared to see our wives and daughters 
 prostituted before our eyes as the wives and daughters of the Africans 
 now are at the south ? Parents and children, husbands and wives, 
 brothers and sisters, will you consent to be torn from one another, and 
 be subjected to the avarice, the cruelty, and the lust of a merciless owner ? 
 This is what the Africans now suffer, and this is what the southerners 
 think ought to be our condition, and boast that they can make our laws. 
 It is no wonder that they call us ' dough-faced northerners' while we are 
 insensible to such threats. They turn to us, and say, 'Don't stir; if you 
 do we'll dissolve the Union': they then turn to the south and say, ' Come 
 on my boys, we'll chain every one of the northern dough-faces ; we'll 
 give laws to the government ; we'll be lords and they shall work for us. 
 
 Again, we are bound by the constitution, to go ourselves to-morrow or 
 any day when we may be called for, to uphold slavery by force. Southern 
 men have boasted that we are obliged to go and put down their slaves 
 if they should rebel. Herein, they confess, is their only hope of safety. 
 They cannot take care of themselves without us. It is strange that our 
 fathers, while they were yet smarting from the wounds of the Revolution, 
 should have bound themselves to assume a more unjust position to the 
 Africans than England had assumed to us and that they should have 
 bound themselves to go and butcher the Africans for acting the very same 
 part against oppression which they themselves had won so much glory in 
 acting. 
 
 Slavery interferes with our representatives in congress. It exposes 
 them to assassination and duels for discharging their official duties. The 
 Hon. John Q,. Adams said, in the house of representatives, that he had 
 received threats of assassination and challenges to a duel, as often as 
 once a day for a number of weeks, and this too for discharging his duty 
 as a representative. Say, New-Hampshire, does slavery do you no harm, 
 when it has made one of your representatives, one of the men you had 
 trusted with your honor and your rights, condescend to an act that will 
 make the name of Atherton stink till 'tis forgotten ? Ask the wife and 
 children of the murdered Lovejoy if we suffer nothing from slavery ? 
 Ask the many who have been mobbed and whipped, tarred and feathered,
 
 31 
 
 and murdered even, for being, or being suspected of being, abolitionists 
 ask them the question. Do we suffer nothing from the existence of 
 slavery at the south ? 
 
 The very fact that persons at the north dare not, or cannot with 
 safety, speak their opinions, proves that we do suffer more evils from 
 slavery than we who are in the midst of them can specify. Did we surfer 
 nothing from slavery there would be no opposition to a free discussion of 
 the subject. It is the wounded bird that flutters. So great is the oppo- 
 sition to a discussion of the subject, that one may not breathe the word 
 'LIBERTY' to the north wind even, lest it whistle tones of freedom on the 
 southern plantations. The fact that congress dares not, or will not, per- 
 mit among themselves the discussion of a question of the most vital im- 
 portance to our government, nor allow the people to petition them upon 
 it, is the most alarming thing to every good citizen that could well be 
 presented. 
 
 1 will not undertake to specify the evils we suffer from the existence 
 of slavery in our country. It would be like counting the sands of Sahara 
 to prove that they are numerous. 
 
 It is no uncommon thing that the free black citizens of the north are 
 taken, under false pretences, and sold into slavery. Every black citizen 
 that may go on board a vessel, in any capacity whatever, is imprisoned, 
 fined, sold into slavery, one or more of them, whenever the vessel touches 
 upon the coast of a slave holding state. The pretence for these Jaws is, that 
 the presence of free blacks makes the slaves discontented (what, the ' hap- 
 py,' ' contented' slave discontented !) and exposes the southerners to an 
 insurrection of the slaves. We have in our free states many black mer- 
 chants who own merchant vessels, manned completely by free blacks. 
 Now, one of these vessels cannot trade with any southern port. If one 
 of them should be driven into a slave holding port by storm, or from any 
 necessity whatever, every man on board would be sold into slavery. 
 
 Any one must be very ignorant of the political history of this country 
 not to see the influence of the domineering spirit of the south. When 
 they cannot carry their measures by fair and reasonable means, they will 
 resort to any means to carry their point. Take an illustration. In the 
 house of representatives, on the 21st of Dec. 1837, when Mr. Slade of 
 Vt. was speaking upon slavery, and dissecting it before the eyes of the 
 house, the southern members determined to put him down through the 
 instrumentality of the speaker, and after, resorting to every means to put 
 him down with a show of order and respect for the rules of the house, 
 and failing in that, several southern members demanded the south- 
 ern delegations to retire from the hall. The speaker was driven to sus- 
 pend the rules of the house, and the discussion was stopped by a mob of 
 the southern members of the house of representatives. On the next 
 morning was presented and carried Patton's resolution against ' reading, 
 referring, printing or acting upon petitions' concerning slavery. 
 
 Thus when the southern delegations in the house could carry their 
 point by no other means, they would resort to a mob. Some of our 
 northern men, wishing to have the south lie quiet as a stepping stone for 
 them to ascend upon to office, have mortgaged themselves to the south 
 and to slavery. Others are too quiet, too much lovers of order and the 
 Union, to make any resistance. The south are united upon the subject
 
 of slavery, and are determined to sacrifice everything that will not with 
 itself involve them in ruin, to slavery. It is not so much an idol that 
 they worship as a mistress that they keep, and by whose charms they are 
 bound and made willing to do any desperate acts, to sacrifice principle, 
 humanity and all, whatsoever she may demand. We, rather than have 
 any 'fuss' about it, while we are the majority, consent to a political non- 
 existence, or exist only to subserve them. The child rules the tame sub- 
 missive father. 
 
 It is sometimes said that the agitation of the subject of slavery will 
 be dangerous to our country. It may be. It is sometimes the case 
 that the amputation of a limb kills the patient. But then he could not 
 have lived long without the operation, and in that was his only hope. 
 But so far from considering the agitation of this subject dangerous to 
 the country, am I, that I believe it will be one of the most effectual 
 means of saving it. It will be as salt to the corrupt and corrupting mass 
 of public sentiment. I do verily believe that the amount of moral sen- 
 timent that will be called out and nurtured into being by the abolition 
 enterprize will be a prop, and so far as I can see, almost the only prop 
 to our tottering republic. Great subjects call forth great men and all the 
 greatness of little men. If there be not something set on foot to call out 
 and exalt the moral sentiment of the nation and raise us above political 
 intrigue, selfish grasping, and the gambling speculations so rife in this 
 country, it is as sure as fate that the doom of our country is sealed. Who 
 has witnessed the progress of affairs for the last few years without being 
 sick at heart from seeing so much deadness of the moral and religious 
 sentiment? We have confidence in the honesty and integrity of men no 
 farther than it is for their interest to be honest and upright ; and there 
 are hardly any men in whom it would be safe to put any further confi- 
 dence. Unless something can be done to arrest this downward onrush 
 of the people, the days of our republic are numbered. Unless something 
 can be done to purify the moral atmosphere and restore integrity and 
 patriotism, we may prepare the dirge of our institutions, for it must soon 
 be sung. 
 
 Now there is no subject before the American people that reaches down 
 so deep into principle and righteousness, and will interest so deeply so 
 many people as abolition. I hope and trust this subject, will take such 
 hold upon their hearts that it will raise them above selfishness, above 
 avarice, above grasping at the spoils of political victory, and the bribery 
 and corruption that is everywhere practiced upon the franchise of this 
 people, to something near the virtues of the fathers of the Revolution. 
 If this or something else does not raise us, as a people, our fate is certain. 
 As sure as day follows night, and the revolving earth brings round the 
 hasty years, so sure scenes of dissolution, anarchy and bloodshed from 
 which the sickened imagination turns gasping for breath, must come up- 
 on us, unless something be done to exalt & purify the moral & religious sen- 
 timent of the people. A nd if these scenes do come, woe to those who must 
 witness them. Extremes meet, and we shall go to despotism more abso- 
 lute and galling than the sun now shines upon. All the noble and vir- 
 tuous in the land will prefer liberty in heaven to slavery on earth, and will 
 rejoice in an occasion to fall honorably beneath the destroying sword, 
 while the more timid and weaknerved will have their lips sealed and their
 
 33 
 
 hands bound till the fires of resentment smoulder their hearts to cinders, 
 and their souls are freed by death. Oh ! that 1 had a voice that could 
 be heard the length and breadth of the country, I would not cease day 
 nor night to sound the alarm. Every word should be a dagger-thrust at 
 the heart of the monster slavery, that has tapped our veins and is sucking 
 the life-blood of our country. Yet, notwithstanding all these evils that 
 we now suffer, and all that the lowering prospect threatens, we hug the 
 porcupine slavery to our bosoms while the blood is streaming from an hun- 
 dred wounds. Said the Greek poet, '-'whom the gods intend to ruin 
 they first make insane" and is not the insanity of our nation upon this 
 subject but the prelude to coming ruin ? When I look at this state of 
 things, I rejoice to know that Washington, Franklin, Jay, Pinckney, Hen- 
 ry and Jefferson are in their graves. 1 rejoice to feel sure that they have 
 finished their voyage of life in safety ; that they are beyond the danger 
 of corruption ; that their sainted names cannot be tainted by the mean- 
 ness and corruption of our age. But my joy has somewhat of sadness ; 
 for it does seem that if those noble spirits were with us, corruption would 
 blush and flee their presence. It does seem that they might again breathe 
 life and energy into our sick and shattered institutions. It does seem 
 that they might raise us from wallowing in corruption. But well for 
 them the grave will not give up its dead. Their bodies must sleep in 
 silence and peace ; and if one ever wishes that the dead should not know 
 what the living do, it is now. When I contemplate the statue of Wash- 
 ington, as it stands in simple majesty, witnessing these things that are now 
 witnessed in our country, I seem to see a bloody sweat roll down that 
 pallid face I pause and wonder that the very marble does not break 
 silence and shake the Capitol with the thunder of its rebuke. 
 
 I do not wish to be a prophet of evil. I do not wish to disturb the 
 silence and quiet that hangs over the unknown future ; else I could draw 
 a picture, which should want nothing of probability, that would make 
 your blood curdle in your veins. But the future is all uncertain. We 
 commit it to God. It will be, under his providence, what we make it. 
 Now is ever the pivot upon which the whole future turns at our will. It 
 is for us to decide whether we will have the south a slaughter-house for 
 our friends and neighbors. It is for us to decide whether the south must 
 be drenched with blood, and its fair fields become a pool of bloody mire, 
 stagnating in voiceless desolation. 
 
 Now, will any one say that we must suffer all these things see all 
 this crime and cruelty, and can do nothing ? Will any one say that we, 
 citizens of this free country we who make the laws, must suffer such 
 things by the laws, and can have no redress, we free men ? Are we then 
 free, or the subjects of despotism ? It matters not whether it be a man 
 called ' Despol,' or a piece of parchment called 'Constitution,' or an insti- 
 tution called ' Slavery,' that binds us, if so be we are bound. But the 
 case is not so bad as that. We can do something. We have both po- 
 litical and moral rights to exercise in the case. 
 
 And have justice and humanity no claims upon us, that we wait to be 
 moved by considerations of self interest to take the part of the oppressed 
 and do him justice ? Are we absolved from the obligation to " remem- 
 ber those that are in bonds as bound with them; and those who
 
 34 
 
 suffer adversity as being ourselves yet in the flesh," and therefore capa- 
 ble of a fellow-feeling for their sufferings ? 
 
 VIII. It is the common understanding, that the slaves are, by the 
 constitution of the United States, recognized as rightful property, and 
 that the slave laws are agreeable to that instrument. I hardly hope 
 to carry my audience with me, in the attempt that I have made to 
 prove that the slave laws are unconstitutional. It seemed too much 
 for me to believe at first myself. But I could see no defect in the ar- 
 gument, and was obliged to yield my assent. But this is not the com- 
 mon opinion. I will therefore waive that consideration for a few mo- 
 ments, and take the subject upon the common understanding of the 
 matter, and ask the question, What can we do for the emancipation of 
 the slaves ? 
 
 We are slave-holders ourselves, and we can free those we hold. We 
 hold twenty-six thousand slaves ourselves, by the laws that we make, 
 in the District of Columbia, and in the United States' territories. 
 These twenty-six thousand slaves, I say, we hold in bondage ourselves 
 by the laws we have made and can repeal. They are held by the laws 
 of congress. Now majorities always rule, and the free states have and 
 have always had a majority in congress therefore they could have 
 prevented or enacted any law upon which they should be united in 
 their action. Thus it is that the free states and every voter of the 
 free states are individually responsible for holding these slaves ; there- 
 fore it is that every citizen of us is a slave-holder. Now the free states 
 have a majority in congress, and congress can abolish slavery in the 
 District of Columbia and the Territories, and the internal slave trade, 
 and therefore the free states are responsible for the sin of holding these 
 twenty-six thousand slaves, and for the traffic in thirty thousands of 
 our own inhabitants every year.* 
 
 We can abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. The constitu- 
 tion says that congress shall "have exclusive power to legislate in all 
 cases whatsoever" over the District of Columbia. If now the aboli- 
 tion of slavery be within the sphere of legislative action, the. power to 
 abolish it is here granted to congress. Now to prove that the abolition 
 of slavery is within the sphere of legislative action, we have the au- 
 thority derived from all the northern states, the South American re- 
 publics, and the kingdoms of Europe. If congress cannot abolish 
 slavery in the District of Columbia and the territories, then no legis- 
 lative body can it cannot be done and here we have the anomaly of 
 the people, where the people are sovereign, suffering an evil which they, 
 the sovereign authority, cannot remove and are not allowed to act 
 upon. 
 
 It is sometimes said, that Maryland and Virginia may have made 
 
 * If a bill should be passed abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia and the United 
 States' territories, and the internal slave trade, the president would have the power of veto 
 upon it, and that would probably defeat the bill if he should exercise it, since the bill could 
 not be carried by a majority of two-thirds of both houses. I take no notice, however, of presi- 
 dent Van Buren's pledge to oppose any such bill, as he would doubtless change his mind 
 when he saw a majority of the voters in the nation were in favor of the bill. He is a demo- 
 crat, and has too much respect for the opinion of the people ever to oppose it.
 
 35 
 
 some reservation of the control over slavery in this territory when they 
 ceded it to the general government. But they made no such reserva- 
 tion. They could not ; for congress had no right to allow it. It would 
 have been a violation of the express language of the constitution to 
 have allowed any reservation of legislative authority whatever, or to 
 have consented to any condition by which the authority of congress 
 should be in any way abridged. . 
 
 It is further said, that it would be a breach of faith to abolish slave- 
 ry in the District of Columbia, while Maryland and Virginia are slave- 
 holding states. But there certainly is no breach of faith in the exer- 
 cise of power given knowingly, and with the expectation that it would 
 be exercised if there should be occasion. When Maryland and Yir- 
 ginia resigned into the hands of congress all legislative authority over 
 the District of Columbia, they knew that they were giving them au- 
 thority to abolish slavery in that District, if congress should see fit to 
 do it ; and it certainly can be no breach of faith to exercise that au- 
 thority. 
 
 2. Again, congress has the authority to abolish the internal slave-trade. 
 The constitution says that " congress shall have power to regulate 
 commerce between the states." Now while slaves are considered as prop- 
 erty, they are articles of commerce. It is said that congress may 
 regulate commerce, but not abolish it. True. But then to abolish or 
 prohibit the traffic in one article and slaves are but one article is not 
 to abolish commerce itself, but to regulate it. Had the language of 
 the constitution been such as to give congress the power to regulate 
 the slave trade between the states, there might have been some room 
 to say that congress might regulate, but could not abolish, the slave 
 trade. But while the slave trade is only a part of the commerce be- 
 tween the states, which congress has power to regulate, congress may 
 regulate the whole by abolishing or cutting off a part. 
 
 Congress has precisely the same power it is given in the same lan- 
 guage and in the same clause of the constitution to abolish the inter- 
 nal slave trade that it had to abolish the foreign slave trade. The na- 
 tion promised that congress should not abolish the foreign slave trade 
 before 1808. But by this very promise they declared that congress 
 would have had the power to have done it, if there had been no such 
 promise. When the promise was out, they did exercise their power and 
 forbid the importation of slaves. Here congress have virtually declared 
 by their own act, that they understand that they have the power to 
 abolish the internal slave trade. 
 
 Here, then, in these- two ways, we, every citizen of us, have the un- 
 questionable political right to do something for the abolition of slavery. 
 I know that men are exceedingly fond of insisting upon our national 
 legislature's being one of ' limited powers' when the subject of slavery 
 is brought before them. But they may deceive themselves, or the 
 people, to their own infamy, so long as they please. The light is 
 streaming abroad over the country, and we trust that ' the sober second 
 thought of the people will be right and efficient.' Time will bring 
 the matter straight, and well is it for him who is beforehand with time 
 in this matter.
 
 36 
 
 But I do not feel content it will not be doing justice to my own 
 conviction, to leave the matter here to leave our sphere of political 
 action thus circumscribed within such narrow bounds. I will not go 
 about to prove that congress has the power to abolish slavery in the 
 states ; for that would be granting that slavery is constitutional. I 
 will enter into no argument to prove that it is right for the national 
 legislature that it has the power to do justice to give the inhabit- 
 ants their dues. If the slave-laws and slave trade are unconstitutional, 
 as I believe and think I have clearly shown above, then we through 
 congress not only have the power to abolish slavery in the states, but 
 it is our duty so to do. If the masters oppress the slaves unconstitu- 
 tionally if they have taken away their constitutional rights and priv- 
 ileges then we are bound as citizens to take the part of the slave, and 
 see that that justice which the constitution guarantees to him be done 
 him. No one will deny but what we are bound to go and suppress 
 an insurrection of the slaves, if there should be one. No one will deny 
 but what we are bound to go and protect the master against the slave, 
 and are we not as much bound (I speak politically) to protect the slave 
 against the master, and see that the master does not take away his 
 rights ? How exceedingly fond people are of speaking of their lim- 
 ited powers and means when they are indisposed to use them ! I do 
 most sincerely believe, that we, as citizens, are bound, by a fair inter- 
 pretation of our political duties and the engagements made by the con- 
 federative constitution, to go and demand that the slaves should have 
 every right and privilege secured to them, either expressly or impliedly, 
 by a fair construction of the language and principles of the constitu- 
 tion, and that until we do this the sin of slave-holding in all its mag- 
 nitude is chargeable upon us. 
 
 We are just as much bound to protect the inhabitants of our coun- 
 try from illegal oppression within the borders of our own country, as 
 we should be if they were thus oppressed in a foreign country. When 
 some three score of our citizens were enslaved in Algiers, we waged 
 war against that power to protect our citizens ; but now, while three 
 millions are enslaved in our own country, we are not ready to do any 
 thing, and are told that we can do nothing. But be not deceived, God 
 will not judge according to men's judgment. 
 
 But for those who are not prepared, as yet, to go the length of the 
 above statement, I would say that we have an undoubted moral right 
 to think and speak and exert our moral influence. We have an unde- 
 niable right to convince the southern slave-holders that they are com- 
 mitting a sin in holding their fellow beings in bondage. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson wrote in August, 1785, to Dr. Price, of England, 
 to have him interpose and exert all the moral influence he could. 
 "Could you," says he, " trouble yourself with our welfare, no man is 
 more able to give aid than yourself." "Be not discouraged. North- 
 ward of the Chesapeake you may find here and there an opponent to 
 abolition, as you may find here and there a robber and a murderer, but 
 in no great numbers." He calls the abolition cause " an interesting 
 spectacle of justice in conflict with avarice and oppression." I take
 
 37 
 
 pleasure in quoting an authority justly held in so high an estimation. 
 If, then, it was right for a foreigner to interfere and exert a moral in- 
 fluence, it certainly must be so for our own citizens. 
 
 If we have no political right or duty to interfere with slavery in the 
 southern states, AVC certainly have a moral and religious right. We 
 have the same right that Jesus had to cleanse the temple, which the 
 Jews had made a den of thieves. We have the same right that Paul 
 had to preach against the fornication of the Corinthians and the idola- 
 try of Ephesus and Athens. 
 
 It would be much better for us to go to the south and preach our 
 doctrines there. But they will not hear us. They will not allow a 
 word to be said in public against their favorite institution. 
 
 Senators White and Grundy, from Tennessee, declared in the senate 
 chamber that they would encourage the Lynch laws being executed 
 upon every abolitionist found in their state. White defended the 
 whipping, with twenty lashes, one Amos Dresser, without any law to 
 justify it, and without trial by jury, merely for being an abolitionist, 
 when it was not proved and could not be proved that he had said, or 
 that he intended to say, a word upon the subject in the state. Senator 
 Lumpkin, from Georgia, said that if abolitionists went to Georgia " they 
 would get caught." Preston, of South-Carolina, said that " if an abo- 
 litionist came within their borders, they would hang him, notwithstand- 
 ing the opposition of the United States and all the governments on 
 earth." If, then, we cannot apply our remedy to the diseased part, it 
 must be taken into the system by the mouth, and we must trust to the 
 general circulation to carry it to the diseased part. But we are by no 
 means free from the disease ourselves. There is no such thing as the 
 hand or the foot being completely decayed and the man suffer no harm. 
 All the members sympathize with the diseased part. 
 
 But although the south will not allow one to preach against slavery 
 there, there are a great many abolitionists at the south. Their number 
 is increasing fast. Some of the most zealous and effective abolitionists 
 were once southern slave-holders, men and women of the highest 
 standing among their citizens. Among them are James G. Birney, 
 formerly Solicitor General of Alabama; A. E.,and S. Grimke, whose 
 brother, the Hon. Thomas S. Grimke, was one of the most prominent 
 men of South-Carolina. There are hundreds of others at the south. 
 Their names are not given to the public, for that would expose them in 
 their lives and property. No, it is not safe for one to think as he pleases, 
 on some subjects, in this free country. 
 
 IX. Perceiving these spheres of influence open to them, some friends 
 of liberty, justice and humanity, commenced the abolition enterprise ; 
 and although it seems, to the impatient hopes of the zealous, to be a 
 slow movement, yet its rapidity and success are hardly equalled by the 
 rapidity with which any other cause of any thing near its importance 
 has progressed, in the world's history. I am not able to fix upon any 
 date or event which I could regard as the commencement of the enter- 
 prise whether to consider the imprisonment of Garrison, at Baltimore, 
 or the establishment of the Liberator, in Boston, in the winter of 1831,
 
 38 
 
 or something else, as the commencement of the abolition enterprise, I 
 know not. But it is of very little consequence. The enterprise com- 
 menced about that time. 
 
 In 1832, the New-England Anti-Slavery Society was formed at 
 Boston. It consisted then, I believe, of only about a dozen young 
 men, who were termed, by way of scorn and reproach, 'ardent young 
 men' ' incendiaries'' fanatics'' hot-headed zealots'' disorganize^,' 
 &c., &c. 
 
 In December, 1833, a convention of about sixty delegates, from 
 various parts of the country, met at Philadelphia and formed the 
 American Anti-Slavery Society. There are now auxiliary societies in 
 most of the northern states, and also one in the slave-holding state of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 I have not time or material here from which to give you a full history 
 of the progress of the abolition cause. I will only notice a few things. 
 In the winter of 1834 and '35, the prejudice was so strong against the 
 abolitionists in Boston, that they could hardly get a place to hold a 
 meeting through fear of a mob. They have since gradually won their 
 way, until they have now about fifteen hundred societies, and probably 
 not less than two hundred thousand persons who have, or are ready to 
 subscribe to their principles, and join with them in their measures. 
 
 The cause was never increasing faster. Such success in what Jef- 
 ferson called " the interesting spectacle of justice in conflict with 
 avarice and oppression" is most encouraging to its friends, and should 
 warn all who are not its friends to "refrain from opposing these men, 
 lest haply ye be found to even fight against God. If this counsel, or 
 this work, be of men, it will come to nought of itself; but if it be of 
 God, ye cannot overthrow them." 
 
 The discussion of slavery and the determined perseverance of the 
 abolitionists soon called forth a good deal of bitter and angry opposition. 
 The evils which appeared to be necessarily consequent upon an agita- 
 tion of the subject were so great as to intimidate many. I will notice 
 some of these objections to the abolitionists, and to agitating the subject 
 in any form at the north. I have already considered our right to do 
 something : but many who would assent to the right would still ques- 
 tion the ' expediency 7 of exercising it. Do they " remember those in 
 bonds as bound with them" ? Others doubt if the course the aboli- 
 tionists are taking will produce any beneficial effects to the slave or to 
 the country. 
 
 It is said that a discussion of the subject of slavery may dissolve 
 the Union. The south threaten it. It is neither certain nor probable 
 that a discussion of the subject will dissolve the Union. The south 
 dare not dissolve the Union, and if we would retort the threat they 
 would stop their mouths and tremble. The south, knowing our attach- 
 ment to the Union, and our timid, submissive tempers, would make use 
 of these things to promote their own ends. But among themselves 
 they turn pale, and the lip quivers at the thought. Men threaten others 
 with what they most dread themselves. Had I time, I could bring an 
 overwhelming amount of proof to show that the southerners, when out
 
 39 
 
 of the hearing of northern ears, confess that they dare not dissolve the 
 Union. The editor of the ' Maryville (Tenn.) Intelligencer,' in his paper 
 October, 1835, says of the slaves at the south, " their condition is 
 second only to that of the WRETCHED CREATURES IN HELL." In a sub- 
 sequent number, he says, " We of the south are surrounded by a dan- 
 gerous class of beings, who, if they could but once entertain the idea 
 that immediate death would not be their portion, would re-act the St. 
 Domingo tragedy. But a consciousness that a ten-fold force would 
 gather from the FOUR CORNERS OF THE UNITED STATES and slaughter 
 them, keeps them in subjection. BUT TO THE NON-SLAVE-HOLDING 
 
 STATES WE ARE INDEBTED FOR A PERMANENT SAFE-GUARD AGAINST 
 
 INSURRECTION. Without their assistance the white population of the 
 southern states would be TOO WEAK to quiet that innate desire for 
 liberty which is ever ready to act itself out." Yet these are the slaves 
 of whom the Reverend J. C. Postell, of South-Carolina, said : " Contrast- 
 ing the condition of white slaves in New-England with our slaves in 
 the south, is like comparing Egyptian bondage under Pharaoh's task- 
 masters with millenial glory Mild slavery at the south is heaven on 
 earth to the tyranny of the spindle at the north." A southern member 
 of congress was over-heard to say, immediately after the house ad- 
 journed on the ever memorable 21st of December, 1837, when Mr. 
 Slade, of Vermont, was put down whilst speaking against slavery, 
 " We have seen our weakness, we have seen * * * the unconquerable 
 attachment of all the south, except one or two men in South-Carolina, 
 to the Union. Let slavery be abolished in the District of Columbia, 
 let the capital be given up to free negroes, the District of Columbia 
 sunk, and I shall never give up the Union but with my life." These 
 are the men these who look to us for ' a ten-fold force to slaughter 
 the slaves' if they should rise against their oppressors, as our fathers 
 arose against Great Britain these men who have an ' unconquerable 
 attachment to the Union' these men who ' will not give up the Union 
 but with their lives,' are they, who threaten us with a dissolution of 
 the Union. These men, who have every thing to lose and nothing 
 to gain by the act, threaten us, who have nothing to lose but much to 
 gain, with a dissolution of the Union ! and we are scared into silence 
 by the threat ! 
 
 " Be stirring as the times ; be fire with fire, 
 Threaten the threatener, and out-face the brow 
 Of bragging horror." 
 
 But, then, if it come to the worst, we are not bound to dissolve the 
 Union, or any thing else, rather than do injustice ? Are we not bound 
 to ' leave all,' if need be, for righteousness' sake ? They'll dissolve the 
 Union, they say : would it not be better to dissolve the earth itself into 
 misty vapor, than to disobey God ? It would be better to have the 
 whole south sink, and the huge monsters of the briny deep gambol 
 over their cotton fields ; yea, it were better that the earth itself should 
 fly from its orbit into the wintry regions of everlasting night, than that 
 its inhabitants should continue to insult the God of heaven by enslav- 
 ing his children.
 
 40 
 
 But are the abolitionists responsible for the evils of agitating the 
 question, be they what they may ? Is it not rather he that has done 
 the wrong who is responsible for its consequences, than he who dis- 
 covers and reproves it ? 
 
 It is frequently said that we at the north do not know anything 
 about slavery ; we have never seen it, and know nothing about it ex- 
 cept by report. The people of the south, who live there in its midst 
 and have the best opportunity of knowing its character, do not regard 
 it as a great evil. Northern men when they go there become slave- 
 holders themselves, and lose all their prejudice against the institution 
 when they become acquainted with it. 
 
 It is true that northern men do frequently lose their abhorrence of 
 slavery and become slave-holders themselves, when they go to the 
 south. It is true that many of the southerners regard, or pretend to 
 regard, slavery as no evil, but a blessing, "the corner-stone of our 
 republican edifice ;" but they do not all so regard it. The opinion of 
 the southerners is so different in different individuals, and at different 
 times, to suit the occasion and purpose that the speaker or writer may 
 have in view, that we can hardly say what it is. It is one thing or 
 another, just as you may happen to quote from one man or another, or 
 from opinions expressed on one occasion or another, by the same man 
 even. But suppose it to be true, as it is assumed in the above state- 
 ment, that the south do not regard slavery as an evil, moral or polit- 
 ical that they do not regard it as injustice and cruelty that they do 
 not regard it as sin against the most High God : what follows ? what 
 inference will you draw ? Who are of this opinion ? What part of 
 the population of the south have you consulted, to receive this opinion 
 from them ; those who reap all the benefits of slavery, or those who 
 drink the cup of its bitterness ? When in the world's history has it 
 been known that tyrants have preached liberty and democracy ? When 
 has the oppressor thought oppression an evil ? Ask the oppressed and 
 enslaved if slavery be no evil. Let their voice be heard in a thing 
 that so nearly concerns them ; and if they confess, as you may find now 
 and then a case when one will confess that slavery is no evil, we must 
 feel that we have imbruted them beyond having a sense of their wrong ; 
 we have clean quenched the candle which the Lord lighted up in their 
 souls at their creation. We shall then see how much greater is the sin 
 of slavery than it otherwise would be, and how much more urgent the 
 necessity for doing something. But the case is not so bad as that, as 
 is proved by the fact that hundreds risk life and suffer the extremes of 
 hunger and fatigue every year, to cross the free states to Canada, where 
 oppression cannot reclaim them. 
 
 But what inference do ygu draw from the fact that northern men 
 become slave-holders? Do we not know that vice is a monster which 
 
 " seen too oft and familiar with its face 
 We first pity, then endure, then embrace" ? 
 
 Have not many of us, who have not been to the south, grown so 
 ' familiar with its face' that we not only endure, but pity, and are
 
 41 
 
 almost ready to embrace ? It is this very deadness of the moral senti- 
 ment, not only at the south, but also at the north, that is the greatest 
 discouragement to the friends of the slave, and the strong hold of hope 
 for the slave holder. 
 
 The violent opposition that the subject meets with from the people 
 of the north is, in the estimation of many, a further objection to agi- 
 tating the subject here. It verily seems to me a reason why we should 
 agitate the subject, and shake off the oppression that would stop free 
 discussion, and dam up the channels of intelligence. It is time that 
 the right to free discussion were established beyond fear of mobs. It 
 is time that people should be convinced that brute force cannot put 
 down the truth, or shut its light from shining in upon the dark scenes 
 of their guilt and shame. Every citizen should come forward to sus- 
 tain the right to free discussion, which is threatened and assailed, even 
 if he do not care anything for the subject discussed. It is time that 
 force and the animal passions should give place to argument and con- 
 science, upon the world-arena, where the great questions of right and 
 duty are decided for society. Therefore it is that every thoughtful 
 and reasonable man should favor the agitation of this question ; at least 
 so far as defending free discussion from the violence of mobs is 
 concerned. Meanwhile this violence does not, after all, appear to the 
 abolitionists as the most discouraging symptom that could be. It shows 
 that we are deeply interested in slavery. It shows that we are doing 
 wrong in upholding it, and that we are determined to do wrong so long 
 as we can profit by it. It shows that we suffer from slavery, other- 
 wise there would be no opposition to discussing the subject. But this 
 very violence, like the sick man's pain, is a favorable symptom. It 
 shows that there is life yet in him. We must expect that the patient 
 will be worse while the medicine is operating than he appeared before 
 he took it. 
 
 I will now state the principles of the abolitionists, and the measures 
 by which they propose to accomplish their object entire emancipa- 
 tion. 
 
 The fundamental principle of the abolitionists is, that slavery is a 
 sin ; it is contrary to humanity and justice, and therefore contrary to 
 the laws of God. It is making slaves of God's freemen. It is there- 
 fore rebellion against his almighty sovereignty. Our slaves are chil- 
 dren of the same heavenly Father with ourselves. We have taken 
 them from the work God gave them to do, and put them to do ours, to 
 bear our burden, that we may be idle and enjoy the luxuries that their 
 labor can procure. We have robbed the slave of his divine patrimony ; 
 we have taken from him the portion of the good things of this life, 
 which God gives to all his rational creatures, and given him, instead 
 thereof, bonds, stripes and unrequited toil. We take, so far as we can, 
 all the joy from his cup of life, and give him instead thereof, all the 
 bitterness of ours. We spoil our brethren that we may enrich our- 
 selves with their goods. Some of the abolitionists hold that the Afri- 
 cans are by nature equal to ourselves ; and are now inferior only through 
 the influence of education and circumstances. But it is not on that
 
 42 
 
 ground that they claim for the slave that freedom which God gave 
 him, and we have robbed him of. They demand his freedom, not be- 
 cause he is our equal, but because he is a MAN a being whom God 
 made free, capable of knowing good from evil, and so a moral, respon- 
 sible and immortal being, capable of progress in everything that is good 
 and holy, and because that by enslaving him we take away the 
 means of that progress, and thereby prevent him from accomplishing 
 the purpose of his being here on earth : we defeat, so far as we can, 
 God's plan in creating him. 
 
 This is the fundamental principle of the abolitionists, and from this 
 all the rest is derived. 
 
 Their aim is the emancipation of the slaves, and they hold to imme- 
 diate emancipation, not only because they believe it safe and expedi- 
 ent, and that it would be better for both master and slave ; but because 
 it is RIGHT ; it is a dictate of that moral sentiment, which to disobey 
 is to disobey God. Believing in the perfection and entireness of the 
 retributions of God, they feel assured that no evil so great can result 
 from doing right, and when it is right, as must result from continuing 
 to sin, and insult the Majesty of heaven by stealing his freemen and 
 impressing them into our service. They tremble when they think of 
 this high-handed rebellion against the King of heaven. They raise 
 their voices and cry aloud lest the almighty Justice, whose retributions 
 slumber not, sweep them and their fellow-countrymen with the besom 
 of destruction. 
 
 The measures of the abolitionists are such as the nature of the case 
 dictates. The slaves are held by law ; therefore the abolitionists seek 
 to produce such a change in public opinion, and elect such men to 
 office, as will effect such a change in the laws by which slaves are now 
 held, as that they shall be no longer held by law. Here is their chief 
 measure ; and so far as this measure is concerned, abolition is a polit- 
 ical thing, and no farther. There is no design to advance the inter- 
 ests of one or another of the present political parties. In so far as emanci- 
 pation is to be effected only by a modification of the laws to that effect, 
 abolitionists must carry their principles to the ballot-box. This is one 
 of their legitimate and necessary means of effecting their object. And 
 we northerners, who have consented, and even helped to fasten the 
 chains upon the slave, are in duty bound to help unloose his bands and 
 let him go free. 
 
 Hence the great work the abolitionists have to do is to change pub- 
 lic opinion upon the subject of slavery. This they seek to do by 
 lectures, pamphlets, papers, societies, reports, and all the ordinary 
 means used to effect the public mind. When this is done, and as fast 
 as it is done, they will change the views and policy of legislative 
 bodies, so that they will act upon the subject and enact such laws and 
 adopt such measures as may be most conducive to the freedom of the 
 lave. 
 
 Believing that congress has authority over slavery in the District of 
 Columbia and the United States territories, and over the internal slave- 
 trade, they aim to take every fair and lawful means to get abolitionists
 
 43 
 
 into congress, and to use every fair and lawful means to influence them, 
 and the body generally, after they get there. 
 
 Beyond the District of Columbia, and the territories, and the internal 
 slave trade, they do not, I believe, generally claim any political right to 
 act. Their only measure then is, to operate upon public opinion in the 
 southern states, so far as they can, and thus bring them to do, themselves, 
 what the northern abolitionists claim no political right to do. 
 
 It is one of the uniform principles of the abolitionists, to urge the slave 
 to bear his slavery with patience and meekness until the day of his de- 
 liverance come. While they have no doubt that if the slaves should 
 rise, and some one place himself at their head and gain their freedom by 
 force of arms, he would thereby earn for his name a place beside our 
 own immortal Washington's on the rolls of fame, still they discourage 
 insurrection, and mostly because they believe with the Quakers, that a 
 resort to physical force, even in self defence, is unjustifiable. It is some- 
 times said that the abolitionists seek to provoke the slaves to insurrec- 
 tion. Nothing is more false and calumnious. The abolitionists are 
 mostly ' peace men,' as they are called, and regard war, even defensive 
 war, as contrary to the command, ' resist not evil.' No; they seek the 
 peaceful emancipation of the slaves, and that only. 
 
 It is frequently said that the professed abolitionists carry things too 
 far that they are fanatical. But do not people perceive that this is in 
 consequence of the opposition they meet with? If the river be obstructed 
 it must rise till it can carry all before it. It is unavoidable that men who 
 feel an undoubting confidence in the justice and righteousness of their 
 cause, should be provoked to extremes by violent opposition. This is 
 always the case. The people always think that the reformers of their 
 age carry things to extremes. Yet it is almost always the case that fu- 
 ture ages reverse this decision. The influence of opposition and per- 
 secution is irresistible; and while we have men, and not angels or gods, 
 to preach up our reformations, they will be driven by these influences to 
 do and say many things that they otherwise might not have said. The 
 persecutions that the abolitionists have suffered for opinion's sake, are 
 beyond what you would believe, if I should relate them to you. They 
 will form one of the darkest and most disgraceful pages in our country's 
 history. They have been cast out of society, insulted in the streets, 
 slandered and maligned in public prints, denied all places of assembling 
 for their meetings, had their meetings disturbed by mobs and the houses 
 in which they were held burnt down ; they have been whipped, tarred 
 and feathered, dragged through the streets by mobs they have had their 
 dwellings forcibly entered, torn down and burnt with all their furniture 
 before their eyes, and finally they have been murdered in the streets, and 
 all this for doing what the law allows every man to do, and has engaged 
 to defend him in doing it. The abolitionists have never provoked this law- 
 less violence by first transgressing the laws themselves. No instance of 
 this can be found. 
 
 When we consider that the abolitionists have persevered, in the face of 
 all this opposition and lawless persecution, does it not prove to us that 
 they are no hypocrites, no self-interested partizans, but are honest and 
 in earnest ? Does it not prove that they are moved by an irresistible 
 spirit ? Can we wonder that they have sometimes gone to extremes and
 
 44 
 
 taken violent measures, when such extremes of violence have been used 
 against them? But, be it remembered that the abolitionists did not re- 
 sort to violent and uncharitable measures and epithets first ; they did 
 not resort to such things until they were driven to it. It is no part of 
 their plan. Their plan was to enlighten the public mind concerning the 
 great sin they were committing, and appeal to the consciences of men 
 and set public opinion against slavery. 
 
 The most sharp-sighted southerners saw their aim. They complained 
 that "the moral sentiment of the world has been armed against them." 
 John C. Calhoun says, " Do they (the south) expect the abolitionists will 
 resort to arms, will commence a crusade to liberate the slaves by force? 
 
 * * * Let me tell our friends of the south who differ from us, that 
 the war which the abolitionists wage against us is of a very different char- 
 acter and FAR MORE EFFECTIVE ; it is waged, not against our lives, but our 
 CHARACTERS." Governor Hamilton, in his report to the legislature of 
 South Carolina asks, " Are we to wait until our enemies have built up * 
 
 * * a body of PUBLIC OPINION against us WHICH IT WOULD BE ALMOST 
 
 IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST WITHOUT SEPARATING OURSELVES FROM THE SO- 
 CIAL SYSTEM OF THE REST OF THE WORLD?" Duff Green, editor of the 
 
 United States' Telegraph, printed at Washington, said in that paper, in 
 November, 1835, "We are of those who believe the south has nothing 
 to fear from servile war. We do not believe that the abolitionists intend, 
 or could if they would, excite our slaves to insurrection. The danger of 
 this is small. W T e believe that WE HAVE MOST TO FEAR FROM THE OR- 
 GANIZED ACTION UPON THE CONSCIENCES and fears of the slave-holders 
 themselves, from the insinuations of their DANGEROUS HERESIES (!) into 
 our schools, our PULPITS and our domestic circles. It is only by alarm- 
 ing the CONSCIENCES of the weak and diffusing among our people a MOR- 
 BID SENSIBILITY 07 the question of slavery, that the abolitionists can ac- 
 complish their object. Preparatory to this, they are laboring to saturate 
 the non-slaveholding states with the belief that slavery is a sin against God. 
 We must meet the question in all its bearings. We must satisfy the con- 
 sciences, we must allay the fears of our people. We must satisfy them 
 
 that SLAVERY IS OF ITSELF RIGHT ; that IT IS NOT A SIN AGAINST GoD J that 
 
 it is not an evil, moral or political." In another paper the same editor 
 says, " We hold that our sole reliance is on ourselves ; that we have most 
 to fear from the gradual operation on public opinion among ourselves, 
 and that those are the most insidious and dangerous invaders of our RIGHTS 
 and interests, who, coming to us in the guise of friendship, endeavor to 
 persuade us THAT SLAVERY is A SIN, a curse, an evil. It is not true that 
 the south sleep upon a volcano, that we are afraid to go to bed at night, 
 that we are fearful of murder and pillage. OUR GREATEST CAUSE OF 
 
 APPREHENSION IS FROM THE OPERATION OF THE MORBID SENSIBILITY WHICH 
 
 APPEALS TO THE CONSCIENCES OF OUR PEOPLE, and would make them the 
 voluntary instruments of their own ruin." What confessions are these ! 
 The south knowingly arrays itself in opposition and hostility to men 
 who they acknowledge appeal to the consciences of men. The south, 
 by their own confession, array themselves against the moral sentiment of 
 the world ; against the consciences of men, and against God ! Oh ! who 
 does not tremble for them, and cry, God be merciful and spare them 
 canst thou forgive them ? they know what they do.
 
 45 
 
 It is sometimes asked if the course the abolitionists are now taking, is 
 the best, and is a going to effect any thing. I confess, not only that I 
 can see no better course than the one they are taking, but that I can see 
 no other possible course. There are many who object to this course, but 
 I have never seen one who could point out a better, or even another, 
 course. And making due allowances for the extravagances and improper 
 things of all kinds that unavoidably accompany such movements against 
 public opinion, I think there will be nothing in the course of the aboli- 
 tionists that even the most fastidious can object to, unless he be really in 
 favor of slave-holding, either for itself or its subserviency to some of his 
 selfish aims. 
 
 The success and effects thus far, of the enterprize, have been what 
 were foreseen. It is sometimes asked, What have they gained ? Much ; 
 very much. Two hundred thousand complete abolitionists, and two or 
 three times that number thawed and tamed down so as to be considered 
 more than half converted. They have got the public ready to hear with- 
 out mobbing them. They have gained access to meeting-houses, and 
 other places of public meeting. They have, in fine, got things into suc- 
 cessful operation at the north, the only spot that will receive the leaven 
 that is to leaven the whole lump. 
 
 The effect upon the south has been what might have been expected. 
 Slave-holding is founded upon the lower, animal nature it receives no 
 countenance from reason and conscience. That person who determines 
 to hold a slave must be under the influence of his lower nature ; hence 
 when you oppose slavery you call forth all the fury and foam of the bois- 
 terous animal nature. When the slave-holders see that the abolitionists 
 are by no means intimidated by their rage, but receive all as a matter of 
 course, things that they had foreseen and provided for, they will think 
 more seriously of the matter and change their position. Their animal 
 nature is overcome by the undisturbed self-possession of the abolitionists, 
 as the wild beast of the forest, or the scarcely less animal highwayman, is 
 completely disarmed and overcome by the calm, self-possessed dignity of 
 the higher moral nature. The south, seeing that the north are not to be 
 scared by ' sound and fury, signifying nothing,' will take another course. 
 When all else has failed, and the abolitionists are pressing upon them 
 with constantly increasing numbers, the slave-holders will be obliged to 
 discuss the subject upon moral grounds, and in the light of conscience. 
 When they do that, slavery falls at once, and the object of the aboli- 
 tionists, emancipation, is attained. They may disband their forces, and 
 repose upon their laurels. 
 
 At present, the southerners do not, generally, understand and appre- 
 ciate the motives of the abolitionists. They cannot see what we are 
 going to gain by emancipation. They flatter, beseech, threaten, just 
 according to the mood they happen to be in ; or the mode they think 
 will be most successful. They hear certain strange, fanatical things 
 spoken of by the abolitionists, called justice, humanity, and conscience ; 
 but they cannot see why they should value these so much more highly 
 than the advantages, conveniences and luxuries of unpaid, permanent, 
 hereditary ' help' ; who are, withal, so very submissive and obedient, as 
 to seldom attempt to have a will or an opinion of their own. 
 
 X. I will tax your patience no farther at present than to notice a few
 
 46 
 
 objections to the object that the abolitionists have in view. These ob- 
 jections arise from a consideration of the evils that it is feared may come 
 from immediate emancipation. 
 
 We expect that evils will result from emancipation. It is not to be 
 expected that two hundred and twenty years of injustice, cruelty and sin, 
 can be atoned for without suffering. But, then, of what kind are the 
 evils that will result from immediate emancipation ? Are they sins, or 
 merely inconveniences ? They are merely the evils the inconveniences 
 brought upon us by our passed sins. They are no sins, to be followed 
 by the unslumbering retributions of justice. We commit no sin by free- 
 ing the slave. Is it not, therefore, better to suffer all the evils of imme- 
 diate emancipation, be they what they may, than to continue to sin by 
 continuing slavery ? Every day that we delay emancipation, the difficul- 
 ties in the way of it, and the evils of it when it shall have come, increase. 
 The evils attending the abolition of slavery are great ; but we have brought 
 them upon ourselves. The Africans did not come here of themselves, 
 and inflict themselves upon us. No, we brought them here against their 
 wills. They have done us no wrong. We have brought the evil upon 
 ourselves. Shall we then delay to do justice because it will be attended 
 by deserved punishment, and yet pretend to be lovers of righteousness ? 
 
 Slavery is not merely an evil that we must remedy some time ; but it 
 is an evil that we are guilty of increasing every day until we do remedy 
 it. While we delay, we are not like the band of robbers who have 
 repented of their course and said, We will cease to do evil and restore to 
 every man what we have taken from him, by and by, as it may suit our 
 convenience ; but we are like the band who resolve to go on to rob and 
 plunder until they have enough, and can spare enough to make restitu- 
 tion. For, even now, while we are deliberating, we are adding to the 
 evil. There is no standing upon neutral ground ; no, not so much as 
 long enough to decide what to do. We not only hold those in slavery 
 who are now enslaved, but we reduce eight or nine freemen to slavery every 
 hour in the day. Every day, we part husbands and wives ; parents and 
 children ; brothers and sisters. Do not say that the Africans do not feel 
 this evil, for they are remarkable for the strength of their personal attach- 
 ments. The husband sees his wife, the parent his children, taken and 
 carried, they know not where and sold, they know not to whom. They 
 only know that bonds, and stripes, and servitude await them till death 
 comes to their relief. So deeply do they feel this separation, that they 
 often commit suicide rather than endure it. Yet, probably not less than 
 an hundred such separations occur every day ; and that too by laws which 
 every one of us, my hearers, have a voice in making or repealing ? 
 
 But we admit that there will be evils attending the emancipation of the 
 slaves. They may come before emancipation takes place. Do we not 
 see them around us now ? What else are the sufferings and blood of the 
 martyrs to the cause of emancipation ? the mobs and riots that disturb 
 and disgrace our country ? the dangers to which our public officers are 
 exposed for a conscientious discharge of their duty ? What are these 
 but the evils attendant upon emancipation ? There may also be evils 
 consequent upon emancipation. It is hardly to be hoped that there will 
 not be. But there have been none of the evils that were expected to follow 
 the abolition of slavery, in Antigua, where the experiment has had its
 
 
 fairest trial. I refer to Antigua, in particular, because we have more 
 definite information concerning that island than any other of the West 
 Indies, where slavery has been abolished. 
 
 Two of our own citizens went to Antigua to examine into the success 
 of the abolition experiment there. I extract the following statements 
 from their work. I do not know that its credibility or accuracy has ever 
 been questioned. 
 
 On the first day of August, 1834, there were thirty thousand slaves 
 emancipated. It was an experiment of immediate emancipation. There 
 had been no ' gradual preparation,' which we are sometimes told must 
 precede emancipation. They were all set free at once. They received 
 the boon with religious rejoicing and devout thanksgiving. I give the 
 following particulars concerning the experiment in Antigua. 
 
 1. The liberated slaves have been perfectly peaceable, and manifested 
 no disposition to revenge their former wrongs. 
 
 2. They have been more industrious than they were before they were 
 free ; so much so, that it is found that they will do so much more work 
 and do it so much better, that it is more profitable to hire them and pay 
 them wages when they are free, than to own them and merely feed and 
 clothe them. 
 
 3. They are obedient to the laws and are easily governed by them ; 
 and thereby they show, not only that it is safe to set them free, but that 
 they are capable of governing themselves. 
 
 4. There are schools for the freed slaves, (established on purpose for 
 them, 1 believe,) and they manifest a disposition to learn, and improve 
 their moral and intellectual character. 
 
 5. They are far more moral than they were before they were free. 
 They seem to take a pride in having neat dwellings, and quiet, comforta- 
 ble homes. 
 
 6. And finally, the planters who opposed abolition, just as we do, and 
 on precisely the same ground, now confess their error, and recommend 
 abolition as safe, expedient and profitable. 
 
 The value of property has greatly increased. Men who dared not 
 sleep, while they had slaves, without their doors barred and bolted, and 
 arms by the side of their beds, now feel no necessity for these things. 
 The negroes are as peaceable, industrious, and moral, as any citizens. 
 They have mostly gone to work on the same plantations where they were 
 held as slaves. In a very few cases, where the master had been very 
 cruel, they refused to work for him and have gone to work somewhere 
 else. 
 
 Now there is no reason why emancipation should not succeed as well 
 here as it did in Antigua. Many men, who certainly know, have said 
 that there are some things here more favorable to a successful experi- 
 ment of abolition than in the West Indies, and nothing that is less favor- 
 able than it was there. 
 
 But we admit that there will be evilsinconveniences attending the 
 abolition of slavery. We dare not hope for the contrary. But it seems 
 to me that every objection to immediate emancipation, arising from a 
 consideration of its attendant inconveniences, betrays a great want of 
 faith in God, certainly much greater than we should expect to find in any 
 Christian country. It betrays a great distrust of'God's overruling Prov-
 
 48 
 
 idence, or a very low and inefficient sense of justice in people, to choose 
 sin rather than righteousness through a fear of the consequences of do- 
 ing right. 
 
 Is it not a fundamental axiom in justice that the punishment of crime 
 shall be greater than the profits of crime and the evils attendant upon 
 doing right ? If the punishment for horse-stealing were only a fortnight's 
 imprisonment to hard labor, horse-stealing would be a pretty good busi- 
 ness. One could hardly make money so fast in any other way. But then 
 the law that assigned such a punishment to such a crime would be un- 
 wise and unjust. It is the object of punishment to prevent crime ; there- 
 fore the punishment must be greater than all the inducements to crime ; 
 otherwise they are of none effect. They will not prevent crime and 
 restore justice. Human minds may not presume to fathom the depths 
 of divine justice ; but then we may be assured, that, if there be a God of 
 justice in the heavens, the punishment for continuing slavery must be 
 greater than to counterbalance the profits of slavery, and the evils of im- 
 mediate emancipation. This I should consider a sufficient answer to every 
 objection that can be brought against immediate emancipation. Were 
 the moral sentiment of the people so high as to enable them to under- 
 stand clearly the principles of justice and right, and consequently to make 
 them feel willing to obey its dictates, even when they could not see, from 
 a calculation of the consequences, that it would be safe and profitable so 
 to do, there could be no objection to immediate emancipation, arising 
 from a consideration of its evils, sufficient to clog the mind for one mo- 
 ment in corning to a decision as to what course to take. But the moral 
 sentiment the sense of justice in the majority is not high enough to 
 give them this faith. I will therefore speak of a few of the objections to 
 immediate emancipation. 
 
 1. It is said that emancipation would be infringing upon the slave- 
 holder's right to property, one of man's most sacred rights. According 
 to the slave laws, the slave is the property of the master. This is a legal 
 question and should be met upon legal grounds. How then stands the 
 slave-holder's right to property in the slave. The man who has made a 
 slave of a freeman has just the same right to property in the slave that 
 the thief has in the horse he has stolen, and no more. The master has 
 stolen the freeman and made him a slave. Freedom is every man's birth- 
 right, therefore every slave is stolen property ; and because the thieves, 
 the man-stealers, say that what they have stolen is their property, is it 
 therefore their property ? The laws decide not. The man who has 
 bought a slave or received him as a present or inherited him, has no more 
 right to property in that slave than the man who has bought the stolen 
 horse of the thief has in the horse. The thief did not own the horse and 
 therefore could not sell him, and the buyer could obtain no right to prop- 
 erty in him by the bargain. Again, we have seen that the constitution of 
 the United States does not consider slaves as property, and therefore the 
 statute laws of the slave-holding states are unconstitutional. It is of no 
 consequence that they declare the slaves property ; a greater than they 
 says, slaves are not property. 
 
 Here, then, the slave-holder has no legal right to property in the slave. 
 Much less can he have a moral right. There is probably no slave-holder 
 whose slaves have not earned him more than they cost him. They have
 
 49 
 
 more than earnt their freedom. But supposing they had not ; supposing 
 that emancipation would be taking away the master's property, had not 
 men better be poor, than be rich when they must be rich by sin and ra- 
 pacity ? Shall men steal and rob and enslave, rather than be poor ? Is 
 God dead that ye will go on to rob and plunder and enslave ? Is the arm 
 of almighty justice withered that ye will dare its vengeance ? 
 
 Man cannot be owned. You may claim the sun, moon and stars, if 
 you will ; but do not pretend to own your fellow-man. The sun, moon 
 and stars shine but for him. They shall one day sink to everlasting night 
 and be no more ; but the man thou claimest for thine, shall be a son of 
 God, an angel to shine like a star in the firmament when earth and crea- 
 ted things shall have sunk back to nothingness, from whence they came. 
 Yes ; the man you claim and whip and tread upon, shall one day be an 
 angel of light, and serve the Most High through the endless ages of eter- 
 nity ; and think, O slave-holder ! how wilt thou feel to stand by his side 
 in the presence of thy God and his God, thy Father and his Father, and 
 see him, it may be, more honored than thou thyself! 
 
 2. It is said that the slave, if freed, will be immoral and vicious ; that 
 they are not capable of taking care .of themselves. The success of the 
 West India experiment is a sufficient answer to this. The slaves there, 
 instead of becoming more immoral, have become more moral and vir- 
 tuous. They have also shown that they can take care of themselves ; 
 that they are capable of being governed by the laws. The plea that it is 
 better for the slaves to remain as they are, in any of its forms, is false. 
 It is suggested by no desire for the slaves' good. What would a parent 
 say if one of his children, to whom he had given no authority over the 
 rest, should beat and bind them, and compel them to leave the work 
 that the parent had set them about and do his ? and then should offer as 
 an excuse that it was better for them, he had done it for their good ? 
 Would this be considered a good excuse ? Would any parent receive it 
 as a sufficient excuse ? Will God ? 
 
 3. Again, it is said that if the slaves are freed, we shall be overrun 
 with them here at the north. But suppose we are; had we not rather be 
 overrun with negroes, than with the judgments of almighty God ? Had 
 we not better do right and commit ourselves in our innocence into the 
 hands of him who loveth righteousness, than to dare his vengeance by 
 continuing to insult and rebel against his overruling majesty ? 
 
 But the fear of being overrun with slaves is a groundless fear. At 
 least there is no more, nor in fact so much, ground, to fear being over- 
 run with them if they are emancipated as there is if they are not. The 
 slave-holding territory must sometime become full of slaves. What will 
 the masters then do ? They cannot export them ; they will send the 
 old, the infirm, the indolent and the vicious, to us in the free states, 
 and we must receive them. In that case we shall have the worst part, 
 the very offscouring of the slave population ; but if they are freed we 
 stand an even chance to get the best of them. 
 
 There are many and weighty reasons for believing that the negroes 
 when freed will remain at the south. They are there, and their attach- 
 ment to their native soil is uncommonly strong. The climate suits 
 them far better than the colder climates of the northern states. The
 
 50 
 
 masters, who now own them as slaves, will need to employ them as 
 laborers to do the same work that they now do. When we consider 
 all these things we see but very little reason to fear that the north will 
 be overrun with negroes, if they should be freed. But if there were 
 ever so much reason to fear that the blacks would flock to the northern 
 states, as thick as bees to the hive, would it not be better to have it so 
 than to keep them in bondage ? Will you shut a man up in a prison, 
 because his appearance, the appearance that God has given him, is not 
 grateful to your eyes ? Will you murder a man, to get him out of 
 your way ? You had better do so than to keep him in hopeless slavery. 
 No, we had better have them so thick around us that the day should 
 be dark with their sable visages, than to keep them as they are. 
 
 But I will enumerate no more objections. It is not worth our while 
 to stop pleading with- every man we may find by the way, especially 
 if we see, as we but too often do see, that his opinions are disposed of. 
 He can no more convey himself to our ranks, than the slave on the 
 southern plantations. His opinions are sold, or mortgaged, to party, to 
 avarice, or something else, so that he has but a show of possessing 
 them. This, I say, is the case with many ; am I uncharitable when 
 I say, with all, who urge objections like those I have now been con- 
 sidering ? But the day of emancipation hastens on. It comes moved 
 by an almighty hand. Do not oppose the abolitionists, if you will 
 not help them. Do not charge them with the evils of emancipation, 
 be they what they may. They are but an instrument in the hand of 
 God. The evils attendant upon their course are to be charged upon 
 the sin against which they preach, the disease they would cure. You 
 may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace for the wicked. You may 
 say peace, be still, to the abolitionists, but if they should hold their 
 peace the very stones would cry out, for God will be heard. You may 
 say peace, peace, but there is no peace for the heart-broken, chain- 
 galled sons of God, whom you hold in bondage. You may cry peace, 
 to the volcano, to the whirlwind and the hurricane ; you may command 
 silence to the muttering thunder, the rumbling earthquake, and the fury 
 of foaming ocean's rage, but O! do not presume to say 'peace,' be 
 still, to the God of heaven, for the retributions of almighty justice will 
 not keep peace while man doth wrong. 
 
 I have thus accomplished the work I proposed. I have endeavored 
 to give an account of the origin, history and changes of human slavery, 
 and to state especially the number and condition of the slaves in this 
 country, and the means we may use for their release. We have seen 
 that here, in this country, where the citizens are the freest of any qn 
 earth, the slaves are in the worst and most hopeless slavery. " Among 
 the ancient nations their great rights of property and personal im- 
 munity, were with greater or less fullness recognized and protected. 
 Our own slave-holders totally deny them. The Athenians and Romans 
 oppressed with an iron heel ; they insulted and wronged humanity, but 
 that great and notable principle which annihilates it, and pronounces 
 the slave a thing only, is altogether the discovery of men of a Christian 
 and democratic country." This is carrying things farther than hu-
 
 51 
 
 manity will bear long, and affords a good ground to hope that slavery 
 will soon be among the things that are passed. 
 
 I have also endeavored to point out the ways in which we may exert 
 an influence upon the subject. Slavery is a political evil. It is sapping 
 the very foundations of our republic. It is a practical contradiction of 
 our fundamental axiom, that all men are born FREE and EQUAL. 
 Therefore, as citizens, we are called upon to do away this great na- 
 tional evil. By our love of our country and its free institutions, we are 
 called upon to free it from this corrupting gangrene, before which .- 
 every thing pure, liberal and democratic, writhes and dies out ; we are 
 called upon to cut off this diseased limb, lest the disease infect the 
 whole system, and the hopes of the world be blasted in our expiring 
 republic. Slavery is an injustice, a sin against the laws of God.^" 
 Therefore, as Christians and preachers of righteousness, we are called 
 upon to raise our voice against this daring outrage of our Maker's laws. 
 As we believe in a God who will reward the righteous and punish the 
 wicked, we must exert an influence to save our country from that sin 
 that is a reproach to any people, and which most assuredly will call 
 down upon us severe judgments. As believers in the immortality of 
 the human soul, we are called upon to secure to those to whom the 
 ' lamp of life' is denied, the means of preparing for that immortality, -f- 
 The sufferers are our fellow men, our brethren; and therefore, as 
 philanthropists, we are called upon to bind up their broken hearts, to 
 alleviate their woes, and pour the balm of consolation into their wounds. 
 In whatever light we regard it, there seems to come a long, loud cry 
 for help. God, in his providence, seems to say, ' son, go work to-day 
 in this my vineyard ; dig up the noxious weed of human slavery.' Let 
 us not be disobedient to the call. Let us be up and a doing, for the 
 night of death comes, in which no man can work. Put away your 
 hesitating doubts. Rise to action. Take the first step, and the second 
 will then become plain. Rise, and let action convert your doubts into 
 belief or certainty. The work is arduous. The struggle will be long. 
 It will call forth all your best thoughts and energies but it will thereby 
 make you wiser, better and holier beings. By doing righteously, we 
 grow in righteousness and earn our place in that mansion which Jesus 
 has gone before us to prepare. 
 
 I
 
 WE^f&SNlX 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 ANGELAS