o control Parliament and secure its
abolition. The success of the English abolitionists, in the employment
of moral force, had a powerful influence in modifying the policy of
American anti-slavery men. Failing to discern the difference in the
condition of the two countries, they attempted to create a public
sentiment throughout the United States adverse to slavery, in the
confident expectation of speedily overthrowing the institution. The
issue taken, that slavery is _malum in se_--a sin in itself--was
prosecuted with all the zeal and eloquence they could command. Churches
adopting the _sin per se_ doctrine, inquired of their converts, not
whether they supported slavery by the use of its products, but whether
they believed the institution itself sinful. Could public sentiment be
brought to assume the proper ground; could the slaveholder be convinced
that the world denounced him as equally criminal with the robber and
murderer; then, it was believed, he would abandon the system. Political
parties, subsequently organized, taught, that to vote for a slaveholder,
or a pro-slavery man, was sinful, and could not be done without violence
to conscience; while, at the same time, they made no scruples of using
the products of slave labor--the exorbitant demand for which was the
great bulwark of the institution. This was a radical error. It laid all
who adopted it open to the charge of practical inconsistency, and left
them without any moral power over the consciences of others. As long as
all used their products, so long the slaveholders found the _per se_
doctrine working them no harm; as long as no provision was made for
supplying the demand for tropical products by free labor, so long there
was no risk in extending the field of operations. Thus, the very things
necessary to the overthrow of American slavery, were left undone, while
those essential to its prosperity, were continued in the most active
operation; so that, now, after more than a thirty years' war, we may
say, emphatically, COTTON IS KING, and his enemies are vanquished.

Under these circumstances, it is due to the age--to the friends of
humanity--to the cause of liberty--to the safety of the Union--that we
should review the movements made in behalf of the African race, in our
country; so that errors of principle may be abandoned; mistakes in
policy corrected; the free colored people taught their true relations to
the industrial interests of the world; the rights of