of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the
institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in
any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I
surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to
do myself. If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to
do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all
the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But a
moment's reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I
think there is) there may be in this in the long run, its sudden
execution is impossible. If they were all landed there in a day, they
would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus
shipping and surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten
days. What then? Free them all, and keep them among us as underlings? Is
it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not
hold one in slavery at any rate, yet the point is not clear enough for
me to denounce people upon. What next? Free them, and make them
politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of
this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of
whites will not. Whether this feeling accords with justice and sound
judgment is not the sole question, if indeed it is any part of it. A
universal feeling, whether well or ill founded, cannot be safely
disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted, but for their
tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the
South.

Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the
extension of slavery to new countries. That is to say, that inasmuch as
you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not
object to your taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is perfectly
logical, if there is no difference between hogs and slaves. But while
you thus require me to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask
whether you of the South, yourselves, have ever been willing to do as
much? It is kindly provided that of all those who come into the world,
only a small percentage are natural tyrants. That percentage is no
larger in the slave States than in the free. The great majority, South
as well as North, have human sympathies, of which they can no more
divest themselves