at they are
in process of cure which promises, if unimpeded by foreign influence, to
make all such odious distinctions vanish.

There is another fact that I wish to allude to--not for the sake
of reproach or blame, but by way of claiming your more lenient
consideration--and that is, that slavery was entailed upon us by your
action. [Hear, hear!] Against the earnest protests of the colonists the
then government of Great Britain--I will concede not knowing what were
the mischiefs--ignorantly, but in point of fact, forced slave traffic
on the unwilling colonists. [Great uproar, in the midst of which one
individual was lifted up and carried out of the room amidst cheers and
hisses.]

The CHAIRMAN: If you would only sit down no disturbance would take
place.

The disturbance having subsided,

MR. BEECHER said: I was going to ask you, suppose a child is born with
hereditary disease; suppose this disease was entailed upon him by
parents who had contracted it by their own misconduct, would it be fair
that those parents that had brought into the world the diseased child,
should rail at that child because it was diseased. ["No, no!"] Would not
the child have a right to turn round and say: "Father, it was your
fault that I had it, and you ought to be pleased to be patient with
my deficiencies." [Applause and hisses, and cries of "Order!" Great
interruption and great disturbance here took place on the right of
the platform; and the chairman said that if the persons around the
unfortunate individual who had caused the disturbance would allow him to
speak alone, but not assist him in making the disturbance, it might soon
be put an end to. The interruption continued until another person was
carried out of the hall.] Mr. Beecher continued: I do not ask that you
should justify slavery in us, because it was wrong in you two hundred
years ago; but having ignorantly been the means of fixing it upon us,
now that we are struggling with mortal struggles to free ourselves from
it, we have a right to your tolerance, your patience, and charitable
constructions.

No man can unveil the future; no man can tell what revolutions are about
to break upon the world; no man can tell what destiny belongs to France,
nor to any of the European powers; but one thing is certain, that in the
exigencies of the future there will be combinations and recombinations,
and that those nations that are of the same faith, the same blood, and
the same substantial i