be
a free man, able to acquire wealth, unrestricted in his movements, from
whom none may wrest his wife or children, and who can find redress for
any outrage upon his person or property!

'Policy, and even _humanity_,' cries another, 'forbid the progress of
manumission'! Indeed! But is it right to hold our fellow creatures as
chattels, and to perpetuate their ignorance and servitude? O no! this is
_wrong_, but it would be a greater wrong to emancipate them! Is this
folly or villany? To oppress our brother is wrong, but to cease from
oppressing him would not be right!

'I would be a slaveholder to-day without scruple,' says another
advocate.

'Many owners of slaves,' another declares, 'hold them in strict
accordance with the principles of humanity and justice'!!! Yes, to
deprive men of their inalienable rights is to do unto them as we would
have them do unto us!

Finally, another boldly declares that the slaves are treated _too
indulgently_!--The laws which regard them as beasts, but punish them for
the commission of crime as severely as if they possessed the knowledge
of angels, he must suppose are too lenient. Their allowance of corn is
too liberal; they ought not to wear any raiment; to sleep in their
wretched huts is calculated to make them effeminate--the open field is a
more suitable place for cattle; no religious instruction should be
granted even orally to them! The slaves, as a body, too kindly treated!
The Lord have compassion upon any of their number who shall come under
the control of him who holds this opinion!

Sentiments, like these, act upon the consciences of slave owners like
opiates upon the body, lulling them into a slumber as profound and fatal
as death. It were almost as hopeless a task to attempt to arouse, alarm
and animate them, so long as they repose under the stupefying effects of
this poison, as to raise the dead. This must not be. Slaveholders are
the enemies of God and man; their garments are red with the blood of
souls; their guilt is aggravated beyond the power of language to
describe; and they must be made to see and realise their awful
condition. Truth must send its arrows into their consciences, and Terror
rouse them to exertion, and Conviction bring them upon their knees, and
Repentance propitiate the anger of Heaven, or they perish by the sword.
The slaves must be free; and He who is no respecter of person is now
holding out to us this alternative--either to wait until they bur