w
nothing of the history of Africa or of the condition of our slaves.
But such ignorance is not possible. On the other hand, we find it
equally impossible tobelieve that so many men and women--the very lights
of abolitionism--could knowingly utter so palpable a falsehood. Thus we
are forced to the conclusion, that the authors of this charge are so
completely carried away by a blind hatred of slavery, that they do not
care to keep their words within the sacred bounds of eternal truth. This
seems to be the simple, melancholy fact. The great question with them
seems to be, not what is true or what is false, but what will most
speedily effect the destruction of Southern slavery. Any thing that
seems to answer this purpose is blindly and furiously wielded by them.
The Edinburgh Review, in a high-wrought eulogy on an American authoress,
says that she assails slavery with arrows "poisoned by truth." Her
words, it is true, are dipped in flaming poison; but _that_ poison is
not truth. The truth is never poison.

The native African could not be degraded. Of the fifty millions of
inhabitants of the continent of Africa, it is estimated that forty
millions were slaves. The master had the power of life and death over
the slave; and, in fact, his slaves were often fed, and killed, and
eaten, just as we do with oxen and sheep in this country. Nay, the hind
and fore-quarters of men, women, and children, might there be seen hung
on the shambles and exposed for sale! Their women were beasts of burden;
and, when young, they were regarded as a great delicacy by the palate of
their pampered masters. A warrior would sometimes take a score of young
females along with him, in order to enrich his feasts and regale his
appetite. He delighted in such delicacies. As to his religion, it was
even worse than his morals; or rather, his religion was a mass of the
most disgusting immoralities. His notion of a God, and the obscene acts
by which that notion was worshiped, are too shocking to be mentioned.
The vilest slave that ever breathed the air of a Christian land could
not begin to conceive the horrid iniquities of such a life. And yet, in
the face of all this, we are told--yea, we are perseveringly and
eternally told--that "the African has been degraded into a brute" by
American slavery! Indeed, if such creatures ever reach the level of
simple brutality at all, is it not evident they must be elevated, and
not degraded, to it?

The very persons who