ime against God and man. Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this.
They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible. When they
have blinded the eyes of your mind--when they have embittered the
sweet waters of life--when they have shut out the light which shines
from the word of God--then, and not till then has American slavery
done its perfect work.

TO SUCH DEGRADATION IT IS SINFUL IN THE EXTREME FOR YOU TO MAKE
VOLUNTARY SUBMISSION. The divine commandments, you are in duty
bound to reverence, and obey. If you do not obey them you will surely
meet with the displeasure of the Almighty. He requires you to love him
supremely, and your neighbor as yourself--to keep the Sabbath day
holy--to search the Scriptures--and bring up your children with
respect for his laws, and to worship no other God but him. But slavery
sets all these at naught and hurls defiance in the face of Jehovah.
The forlorn condition in which you are placed does not destroy your
moral obligation to God. You are not certain of Heaven, because you
suffer yourselves to remain in a state of slavery, where you cannot
obey the commandments of the Sovereign of the universe. If the
ignorance of slavery is a passport to heaven, then it is a blessing,
and no curse, and you should rather desire its perpetuity than its
abolition. God will not receive slavery, nor ignorance, nor any other
state of mind, for love, and obedience to him. Your condition does not
absolve you from your moral obligation. The diabolical injustice by
which your liberties are cloven down, NEITHER GOD, NOR ANGELS, OR
JUST MEN, COMMAND YOU TO SUFFER FOR A SINGLE MOMENT. THEREFORE IT IS
YOUR SOLEMN AND IMPERATIVE DUTY TO USE EVERY MEANS, BOTH MORAL,
INTELLECTUAL, AND PHYSICAL, THAT PROMISE SUCCESS. If a band of
heathen men should attempt to enslave a race of Christians, and to
place their children under the influence of some false religion,
surely, heaven would frown upon the men who would not resist such
aggression, even to death. If, on the other hand, a band of Christians
should attempt to enslave a race of heathen men and to entail slavery
upon them, and to keep them in heathenism in the midst of
Christianity, the God of heaven would smile upon every effort which
the injured might make to disenthral themselves.

Brethren, it is as wrong for your lordly oppressors to keep you in
slavery, as it was for the man thief to steal our ancestors from the
coast of Africa. You should therefore