ncipation. But the abolition of Slavery
in the West Indies, was a blow struck in the right direction, at that
most inhuman of all traffics, the slave trade--a trade which would never
cease so long as slavery existed, for where there was a market there
would be merchandise; where there was demand there would be a supply;
where there were carcases there would be vultures; and they might as
well attempt to turn the water, and make it run up the Niagara river, as
to change this law. It was often said by the Americans that England was
responsible for the existence of slavery there, because it was
introduced into that country while the colonies were under the British
Crown. If that were the case, they must come to the conclusion that, as
England abolished Slavery in the West Indies, she would have done the
same for the American States if she had had the power to do it; and if
that was so, they might safely say that the separation of the United
States from the mother country was (to say the least) a great misfortune
to one-sixth of the population of that land. England had set a noble
example to America, and he would to heaven his countrymen would follow
the example. The Americans boasted of their superior knowledge, but they
needed not to boast of their superior guilt, for that was set upon a
hill top, and that too, so high, that it required not the lantern of
Diogenes to find it out. Every breeze from the western world brought
upon its wings the groans and cries of the victims of this guilt. Nearly
all countries had fixed the seal of disapprobation on slavery, and when,
at some future age, this stain on the page of history shall be pointed
at, posterity will blush at the discrepancy between American profession
and American practice. What was to be thought of a people boasting of
their liberty, their humanity, their Christianity, their love of
justice, and at the same time keeping in slavery nearly four millions of
God's children, and shutting out from them the light of the Gospel, by
denying the Bible to the slave! (Hear, hear.) No education, no marriage,
everything done to keep the mind of the slave in darkness. There was a
wish on the part of the people of the northern States to shield
themselves from the charge of slave-holding, but as they shared in the
guilt, he was not satisfied with letting them off without their share in
the odium. And now a word about the Fugitive Slave Bill. That measure
was in every respect an uncons