ern sun reflecting her noble form upon the sparkling waters,
attracting the gaze of the multitude, my first impulse was of pride, to
think myself an American; but when I thought that the first time that
gallant ship would gird on her gorgeous apparel, and wake from beneath
her sides her dormant thunders, it would be in defense of the African
slave trade, I blushed in utter _shame_ for my country."

Let me say again, _slavery is alike the sin and the shame of the
American people;_ it is a blot upon the American name, and the only
national reproach which need make an American hang his head in shame, in
the presence of monarchical governments.

With this gigantic evil in the land, we are constantly told to look
_at home;_ if we say ought against crowned heads, we are pointed to our
enslaved millions; if we talk of sending missionaries and bibles
abroad, we are pointed to three millions now lying in worse than heathen
darkness; if we express a word of sympathy for Kossuth and his Hungarian
fugitive brethren, we are pointed to that horrible and hell-black
enactment, "the fugitive slave bill."

Slavery blunts the edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad--the
criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule,
contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word
to a{347} mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as
slavery continues to pollute our soil.

We have heard much of late of the virtue of patriotism, the love of
country, &c., and this sentiment, so natural and so strong, has been
impiously appealed to, by all the powers of human selfishness, to
cherish the viper which is stinging our national life away. In its name,
we have been called upon to deepen our infamy before the world, to
rivet the fetter more firmly on the limbs of the enslaved, and to become
utterly insensible to the voice of human woe that is wafted to us on
every southern gale. We have been called upon, in its name, to desecrate
our whole land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even to engage
ourselves in the horrible business of kidnapping.

I, too, would invoke the spirit of patriotism; not in a narrow and
restricted sense, but, I trust, with a broad and manly signification;
not to cover up our national sins, but to inspire us with sincere
repentance; not to hide our shame from the the(sic) world's gaze, but
utterly to abolish the cause of that shame; not to explain away our
gross inconsist