ered in sorrow; for the committee
deeply deplore the flagrant inconsistency, so glaringly
displayed between the lofty principles embodied in the
great charter of your liberties, and the evil practices
which have been permitted to grow up under it, to mar
its beauty and impair its strength. But it is not on
these grounds alone, or chiefly, that they deplore the
existence of slavery in the United States. Manifold as
are the evils which flow from it--dehumanizing as are
its tendencies--fearful as its reaction confessedly is
on its supporters,--the reproach of its existence does
not terminate on the institutions which gave it birth:
the sublime principles and benign spirit of Christianity
are dishonored by it. In the light of Divine Truth it
stands revealed, in all its hideous deformity, a crime
against God,--a daring usurpation of the prerogative and
authority of the Most High! It is as a violation of His
righteous laws, an outrage on His glorious attributes, a
renunciation of the claims of His blessed gospel, that
they especially deplore the countenance and support it
receives among you; and, in the spirit of Christian love
and fraternal solicitude, would counsel its immediate
and complete overthrow, as a solemn and imperative duty,
the performance of which no sordid reasons should be
permitted to retard--no political considerations
prevent. Slavery is a sin against God, and ought,
therefore, to be abolished.

"'The utter extinction of slavery, and its sister
abomination, the internal slave-trade of the United
States, second only in horror and extent to the African,
and in some of its features even more revolting, can
only be argued, by the philanthropy of this country, on
the abstract principles of moral and religious duty; and
to those principles the people of your great republic
are pledged on the side of freedom beyond every nation
in the world!

"'The negro, by nature our equal, made like ourselves in
the image of his Creator, gifted by the same
intelligence, impelled by the same passions and
affections, and redeemed by the same Savior, is reduced
by cupidity and oppression below the level of the b