investigation of truth, however unpopular, nor conceal it whatever the
profession of it may cost,"[2] a concise sketch will be presented, of
the facts and incidents which have prompted this address. The peculiar
connexion with which some of these occurrences succeeded each other, was
certainly extraordinary, and to those who are not incredulous, may seem
astonishing.

14. The first opportunity that ever occurred to me, of viewing a slave
plantation, was furnished by a journey during the summer of 1815, from
Pittsburg to the city of Washington. In the course of my route I
travelled through part of Virginia, west of the Blue Ridge, by way of
Winchester, and through part of Maryland by way of Fredericktown, on the
east side.

15. My first contemplation of the magnificent edifice,[3] towering over
the surrounding clusters of huts, and the extensive fields, impressed an
idea of their similarity to the castles of European princes, dukes,
lords, barons, &c. with the cottages of their tenants. But a closer
consideration led me to this unavoidable conclusion: that these splendid
fabrics are virtually the palaces of hereditary absolute monarchs;--that
the labourers and people over whom they reign, are their lawful subjects
or vassals--constituting _kingdoms in miniature_;--with this difference
from eastern monarchies, that the king here, instead of receiving merely
a revenue from his subjects, has _legitimate_ power (if he is disposed
to avail himself of it) to exercise the most unlimited and tyrannical
despotism[4] over their persons, and to extort the _whole_ of the
products of their industry, except what may be indispensable to prevent
starvation.

16. It is not my intention by any means, to intimate that every
possessor of slaves must necessarily be a Nero, but that, if he chooses
to be one, there exists no earthly political power to prevent him.
Excess of power, like other unnatural stimulants, exerts a deleterious
and an intoxicating influence upon the human mind, which but few possess
the capacity and firmness to withstand. In tracing the endless
catalogues of kings, presented in history, how seldom is the eye dazzled
with transport at the name of an Alfred! There are, undoubtedly,
Alfreds, among these numerous _states_; but as long as the diffusion of
the humanizing principles of pure religion, and the auxiliary lights of
natural, moral, and political philosophy, continues to be limited to its
present boundaries, it