their
descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched
sons of Africa. The genial light of liberty, which hath here shone with
unrivalled lustre on the former, hath yielded no comfort to the latter,
but to them hath proved a pillar of darkness, whilst it hath conducted
the former to the most enviable state of human existence. Whilst we were
offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty, and sacrificing hecatombs
upon her altars; whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her
enemies, and hurled defiance in their faces; whilst we adjured the God
of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free, or die, and imprecated
curses on their heads who refused to unite with us in establishing the
empire of freedom; we were imposing upon our fellow men, who differ in
complexion from us, a _slavery_, ten thousand times more cruel than the
utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we
complained. Such are the inconsistencies of human nature; such the
blindness of those who pluck not the beam out of their own eyes, whilst
they can espy a moat, in the eyes of their brother; such that partial
system of morality which confines rights and injuries, to particular
complexions; such the effect of that self-love which justifies, or
condemns, not according to principle, but to the agent. Had we turned
our eyes inwardly when we supplicated the Father of Mercies to aid the
injured and oppressed; when we invoked the Author of Righteousness to
attest the purity of our motives, and the justice of our cause;[2] and
implored the God of Battles to aid our exertions in its defence, should
we not have stood more self convicted than the contrite publican! Should
we not have left our gift upon the altar, that we might be first
reconciled to our brethren whom we held in bondage? Should we not have
loosed their chains, and broken their fetters? Or if the difficulties
and dangers of such an experiment prohibited the attempt during the
convulsions of a revolution, is it not our duty to embrace the first
moment of constitutional health and vigour, to effectuate so desirable
an object, and to remove from us a stigma, with which our enemies will
never fail to upbraid us, nor our consciences to reproach us? To form a
just estimate of this obligation, to demonstrate the incompatibility of
a state of slavery with the principles of our government, and of that
revolution upon which it is founded, and to elucidate the practicabilit