by individuals, who wished
to justify the wrong and profit by it. We ought never to have recognised
a claim, which cannot exist according to the laws of God; it is our duty
to atone for the error; and the sooner we make a beginning, the better
will it be for us all. Must our arguments be based upon justice and
mercy to the slaveholders _only_? Have the negroes no right to ask
compensation for their years and years of unrewarded toil? It is true
that they have food and clothing, of such kind, and in such quantities,
as their masters think proper. But it is evident that this is not the
worth of their labor; for the proprietors can give from one hundred
to five and six hundred dollars for a slave, beside the expense of
supporting those who are too old or too young to labor. They could not
_afford_ to do this, if the slave did not earn more than he receives
in food and clothing. If the laws allowed the slave to redeem himself
progressively, the owner would receive his money back again; and the
negro's years of uncompensated toil would be more than lawful interest.

The southerners are much in the habit of saying they really wish for
emancipation, if it could be effected in safety; but I search in vain
for any proof that these assertions are sincere. (When I say this I
speak collectively; there are, no doubt, individual exceptions.)

Instead of profiting by the experience of other nations, the
slave-owners, as a body, have resolutely shut their eyes against the
light, because they preferred darkness. Every change in the laws has
riveted the chain closer and closer upon their victims; every attempt to
make the voice of reason and benevolence heard has been overpowered with
threatening and abuse. A cautious vigilance against improvement, a
keen-eyed jealousy of all freedom of opinion, has characterized
their movements. There _can_ be no doubt that the _majority_ wish to
perpetuate slavery. They support it with loud bravado, or insidious
sophistry, or pretended regret; but they never abandon the point. Their
great desire is to keep the public mind turned in another direction.
They are well aware that the ugly edifice is built of rotten timbers,
and stands on slippery sands--if the loud voice of public opinion could
be made to reverberate through its dreary chambers, the unsightly frame
would fall, never to rise again.

Since so many of their own citizens admit that the policy of this system
is unsound, and its effects injuri