e ruined victim of its lusts,
and pride, and avarice, and hatred, is reduced so low that with tearful
eyes and feeble voice he faintly cries, "I am happy and contented--I
love this condition."

"Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began,
A mighty hunter he; his prey was man."

The caged lion may cease to roar, and try no longer the strength of the
bars of his prison, and lie with his head between his mighty paws and
snuff the polluted air as though he heeded not. But is he contented?
Does he not instinctively long for the freedom of the forest and the
plain? Yes, he is a lion still. Our poor and forlorn brother whom thou
hast labelled "slave," is also a man. He may be unfortunate, weak,
helpless, and despised, and hated, nevertheless he is a man. His God and
thine has stamped on his forehead his title to his inalienable rights in
characters that can be read by every intelligent being. Pitiless storms
of outrage may have beaten upon his defenseless head and he may have
descended through ages of oppression, yet he is a man. God made him
such, and his brother cannot unmake him. Woe, woe to him who attempts to
commit the accursed crime.

Slavery commenced its dreadful work in kidnapping unoffending men in a
foreign and distant land, and in piracy on the seas. The plunderers were
not the followers of Mahomet, nor the devotees of Hindooism, nor
benighted pagans, nor idolaters, but people called Christians, and thus
the ruthless traders in the souls and bodies of men fastened upon
Christianity a crime and stain at the sight of which it shudders and
shrieks.

It is guilty of the most heinous iniquities ever perpetrated upon
helpless women and innocent children. Go to the shores of the land of my
forefathers, poor bleeding Africa, which, although she has been
bereaved, and robbed for centuries, is nevertheless beloved by all her
worthy descendants wherever dispersed. Behold a single scene that there
meets your eyes. Turn not away neither from shame, pity, nor
indifference, but look and see the beginning of this cherished and
petted institution. Behold a hundred youthful mothers seated on the
ground, dropping their tears upon the hot sands, and filling the air
with their lamentations.

Why do they weep? Ah, Lord God, thou knowest! Their babes have been
torn from their bosoms and cast upon the plains to die of hunger, or to
be devoured by hyenas or jackals. The little innocents would die on the
"Middle Passage," or