the head of a hospital. Why,
what have our slaveholders been about these two hundred years? Have
they not been constantly and earnestly engaged in the work of
education?--training up their human cattle? And how? Thomas
Jefferson shall answer. "The whole commerce between master and slave,
is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most
unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on
the other." Is this the way to fit the unprepared for the duties and
privileges of American citizens? Will the evils of the dreadful
process be diminished by adding to its length? What, in 1818, was
the unanimous testimony of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian
Church? Why, after describing a variety of influences growing out of
slavery, most fatal to mental and moral improvement, the General
Assembly assure us, that such "consequences are not imaginary, but
connect themselves WITH THE VERY EXISTENCE[15] of slavery. The evils to
which the slave is _always_ exposed, _often_ take place in fact, and
IN THEIR VERY WORST DEGREE AND FORM; and where all of them do not
take place," "still the slave is deprived of his natural right,
degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger of passing into
the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships and
injuries which inhumanity and avarice may suggest." Is this the
condition in which our ecclesiastics would keep the slave, at least
a little longer, to fit him to be restored to himself?

[Footnote 15: The words here marked as emphatic, were so distinguished
by ourselves.]

"AND THEY STOPPED THEIR EARS."

The methods of discipline under which, as slaveholders; the Southrons
now place their human cattle, they with one consent and in great
wrath, forbid us to examine. The statesman and the priest unite in
the assurance, that these methods are none of our business. Nay, they
give us distinctly to understand, that if we come among them to take
observations, and make inquiries, and discuss questions, they will
dispose of us as outlaws. Nothing will avail to protect us from
speedy and deadly violence! What inference does all this warrant?
Surely, not that the methods which they employ are happy and worthy
of universal application. If so, why do they not take the praise,
and give us the benefit of their wisdom, enterprise, and success? Who,
that has nothing to hide, practices concealment? "He that doeth
truth cometh to the ligh