so does keep men in
slavery who would otherwise be free. This result we do not feel like
favoring, and we are under no legal obligation to suppress our feelings in
this respect.

Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the
extension of slavery to new countries. That is to say, 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 negroes. 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 than they can of
their sensibility to physical pain. These sympathies in the bosoms of
the Southern people manifest, in many ways, their sense of the wrong of
slavery, and their consciousness that, after all, there is humanity in the
negro. If they deny this, let me address them a few plain questions. In
1820 you (the South) joined the North, almost unanimously, in declaring
the African slave trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punishment of
death. Why did you do this? If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did
you join in providing that men should be hung for it? The practice was no
more than bringing wild negroes from Africa to such as would buy them.
But you never thought of hanging men for catching and selling wild horses,
wild buffaloes, or wild bears.

Again, you have among you a sneaking individual of the class of native
tyrants known as the "slavedealer." He watches your necessities, and
crawls up to buy your slave, at a speculating price. If you cannot help
it, you sell to him; but if you can help it, you drive him from your door.
You despise him utterly. You do not recognize him as a friend, or even
as an honest man. Your children must not play with his; they may rollick
freely with the little negroes, but not with the slave-dealer's children.
If you are obliged to deal with him, you try to get through the job
without so much as touching him. It is common with you to join hands
with the men you meet, but with the slave-dealer you avoid the
ceremony--instincti