d what may be
done--I say it is our sacred duty to do it. To enlighten public opinion
is the best way that has yet been discovered for the removal of national
evils; and slavery is certainly a _national_ evil.

The Southern States, according to their own evidence, are impoverished
by it; a great amount of wretchedness and crime inevitably follows in
its train; the prosperity of the North is continually checked by it;
it promotes feelings of rivalry between the States; it separates our
interests; makes our councils discordant; threatens the destruction of
our government; and disgraces us in the eyes of the world. I have often
heard Americans who have been abroad, declare that nothing embarrassed
them so much as being questioned about our slaves; and that nothing was
so mortifying as to have the pictures of runaway negroes pointed at in
the newspapers of this republic. La Fayette, with all his admiration for
our institutions, can never speak of the subject without regret and
shame.

Now a common evil certainly implies a common right to remedy; and where
is the remedy to be found, if the South in all their speeches and
writings repeat that slavery _must_ exist--if the Colonization Society
re-echo, in all their Addresses and Reports, that there is no help for
the evil, and it is very wicked to hint that there is--and if public
opinion here brands every body as a fanatic and madman, who wishes to
_inquire_ what can be done? The supineness of New-England on this
subject, reminds me of the man who being asked to work at the pump,
because the vessel was going down, answered, "I am only a passenger."

An error often and urgently repeated is apt to receive the sanction of
truth; and so it is in this case. The public take it for granted that
slavery is a "lamentable _necessity_." Nevertheless there _is_ a way to
effect its cure, if we all join sincerely, earnestly, and kindly in the
work; but if we expend our energies in palliating the evil, or mourning
over its hopelessness, or quarrelling about who is the most to blame for
it, the vessel,--crew, passengers, and all,--will go down together.

I object to the Colonization Society, because it tends to put public
opinion asleep, on a subject where it needs to be wide awake.

The address above alluded to, does indeed inform us of one thing which
we are at liberty to do: "We must _go_ to the master and _adjure_
him, by all the sacred rights of humanity, by all the laws of natural