s proposed by his mission to America, were now before his
opponent. He called upon him to throw aside his quibbles on legal
technicalities, and point out, if he were able, anything in the
documents he had read, or the sentiments he had advanced,
inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, or the genius of
rational freedom. It had been said that abolitionism was "quackery,"
only four years old. He would give them a little of the quackery of
Benjamin Franklin, in the year 1790. He held in his hand a petition
drawn up by that celebrated man, and adopted by the "_Pennsylvania
Society for the Abolition of Slavery_," the preamble of which
recognizes the doctrines which are maintained by American
Abolitionists at the present day, and expresses the (_now incendiary_)
desire of diffusing them "_wherever the evils of Slavery exist_." Of
this Society, Dr. Franklin was elected President, and Dr. Rush the
Secretary. In 1790, this Society presented to the first Congress a
petition, from which the following is an extract:--

"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the
portion, and is still the birth-right of all men, and
influenced by the strong ties of humanity, and the principles
of their institutions, your memorialists conceive themselves
bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of
slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of
freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your
serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you may be
pleased to countenance the restoration to liberty of those
unhappy men, who, alone in a land of freedom, are degraded
into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of
surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that
you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from
the character of the American people; that you will promote
mercy and justice towards this oppressed race, and that you
will step to the very verge of the power vested in you, for
discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our
fellow-men."
(Signed) BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
President.
_Philadelphia, February 2, 1790._"

Besides the venerable Franklin in 1790, he might refer to the truly
able speech of the Rev. David Rice, in the Convention held at
Danville, Kentucky, before