ess on the one hand and passion on the other. Such
difficulties and obstacles we are far enough from overlooking. But
where are they to be found? Are imbecility and wickedness, bad
hearts and bad heads, confined to the bottom of society? Alas, the
weakest of the weak, and the desperately wicked, often occupy the
high places of the earth, reducing every thing within their reach to
subserviency to the foulest purposes. Nay, the very power they have
usurped, has often been the chief instrument of turning their heads,
inflaming their passions, corrupting their hearts. All the world
knows, that the possession of arbitrary power has a strong tendency
to make men shamelessly wicked and insufferably mischievous. And
this, whether the vassals over whom they domineer, be few or many.
If you cannot trust man with himself, will you put his fellows
under his control?--and flee from the inconveniences incident to
self-government, to the horrors of despotism?

"THOU THAT PREACHEST A MAN SHOULD NOT STEAL, DOST THOU STEAL."

Is the slaveholder, the most absolute and shameless of all despots,
to be entrusted with the discipline of the injured men who he
himself has reduced to cattle?--with the discipline with which they
are to be prepared to wield the powers and enjoy the privileges of
freemen? Alas, of such discipline as _he_ can furnish, in the
relation of owner to property, they have had enough. From this
sprang the very ignorance and vice, which in the view of many, lie
in the way of their immediate enfranchisement. He it is, who has
darkened their eyes and crippled their powers. And are they to look
to him for illumination and renewed vigor!--and expect "grapes from
thorns and figs from thistles!" Heaven forbid! When, according to
arrangements which had usurped the sacred name of law, he consented
to receive and use them as property, he forfeited all claims to the
esteem and confidence, not only of the helpless sufferers themselves,
but also of every philanthropist. In becoming a slaveholder, he
became the enemy of mankind. The very act was a declaration of war
upon human nature. What less can be made of the process of turning
men to cattle? It is rank absurdity--it is the height of madness, to
propose to employ _him_ to train, for the places of freemen, those
whom he has wantonly robbed of every right--whom he has stolen from
themselves. Sooner place Burke, who used to murder for the sake of
selling bodies to the dissector, at