g the grievances which produced the Revolution, that the King of
England had steadily resisted the efforts of the colonists to prevent
the introduction of slaves. Soon after the Revolution, several of the
States took measures to free themselves from slavery. In 1787, Congress
adopted an Act, by which it was provided, that slavery should never be
permitted in any of the States to be formed in the immense territory
north-west of the Ohio; in which territory, the great States of Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois, have since been formed. There are now thirteen
out of the twenty-four States, in which slavery may be said to be
extinct. Maryland is taking measures to free herself from slavery.
Kentucky and Virginia will, it is believed, follow the example. We state
these facts to show, that the republic did not originate slavery here;
and that she has done much to remove it altogether from her bosom. She
took measures earlier than any other country for the suppression of the
slave trade, and she is now zealously labouring to accomplish the entire
extinction of that abominable traffic.

Since then, from the character of our political institutions, the
emancipation of the slaves is impossible, except with the free
consent of the masters; it is necessary to approach them with calm and
affectionate argument. They claim to be better acquainted with the real
condition and the true interests of the negro, than other persons can
be. Multitudes among them freely acknowledge and lament the evils of
slavery, and earnestly desire their removal, in some way consistent with
the welfare of the slave himself, and with the safety of the whites.
Some persons among them, it is true, are not convinced that slavery is
wrong in principle; just as many good men in England, half a century
since, believed the slave-trade to be just and right. Such individuals
must be _convinced_, before they will act.

In the next place, the number and character of the slaves form an
appalling difficulty. It is not believed by many of the sincere friends
of the slaves, that their immediate emancipation would be conducive to
their own real welfare, or consistent with the safety of the whites. To
let them loose, without any provision for the young, the feeble, and the
aged, would be inhuman cruelty. Slaves, who have regarded labour as an
irksome task, can have little idea of liberty, except as an exemption
from toil. To liberate them, without some arrangement for their
subsi