the Aborigines of
America, the wrong and outrage heaped on them from the days of
Montezuma and Guatimozin, to the present period, while they excite
sympathy for their sufferings, should extenuate, if not justify the
bloody deeds, which revenge prompted the untutored savages to
commit. Driven as they were from the lands of which they were the
rightful proprietors--Yielding to encroachment after encroachment
'till forced to apprehend their utter annihilation--Witnessing the
destruction of their villages, the prostration of their towns and the
sacking of cities adorned with splendid magnificence, who can feel
surprised at any attempt which they might make to rid the country
of its invaders. Who, but must applaud the spirit which prompted
them, when they beheld their prince a captive, the blood of their
nobles staining the earth with its crimson dye, and the Gods of
their adoration scoffed and derided, to aim at the destruction of
their oppressors.--When Mexico, "with her tiara of proud towers,"
became the theatre in which foreigners were to revel in rapine and in
murder, who can be astonished that the valley of Otumba resounded
with the cry of "Victory or Death?" And yet, resistance on their part,
served but as a pretext for a war of extermination; waged too, with a
ferocity, from the recollection of which the human mind involuntarily
revolts, and with a success which has forever blotted from the book
of national existence, once powerful and happy tribes.

But they did not suffer alone. As if to fill the cup of oppression to
the brim, another portion of the human family were reduced to abject
bondage, and made the unwilling cultivators of those lands, of which
the Indians had been dispossessed. Soon after the settlement of North
America was commenced, the negroes of Africa became an article of
commerce, and from subsequent importations and natural [10] increase
have become so numerous as to excite the liveliest apprehensions in
the bosom of every friend to this country. Heretofore they have had
considerable influence on the affairs of our government; and recently
the diversity of interest, occasioned in Virginia, by the possession
of large numbers of them in the country east of the blue ridge of
mountains, seemed for a while to threaten the integrity of the
state.--Happily this is now passing away, but how far they may effect
the future destines of America, the most prophetic ken cannot foresee.
Yet, although the philant