y all his printed speeches, the case of a certain colored man,
who had been thrown into prison at Washington city, and sold into
eternal slavery to discharge the fees which had accrued by reason of
his oppression. Now he (Mr. B.) took leave to say that this story was
false, in toto. It was customary in some parts of America to sell
vagabonds, in order to make up their jail fees; but they were bound
for no longer a period than was necessary to do this. The system was
this--they were taken up as vagrants. If they were able and willing to
show that they had some regular and honest means of livelihood, they
were of course acquitted and discharged; but when they were unable to
do this, they were sold for as much as would pay the fees of
detention, trial, &c. That any person, black or white, once recognized
by the law as free, was ever sold into everlasting slavery, he
positively denied, and demanded proof. In Louisiana, however, it being
illegal to manumit a slave, those whom the abolitionists would set
free, would not be considered free in the eye of the law. They might
be harrassed, imprisoned as vagabonds, sold to pay expenses, as
vagabonds, and so soon as set free again imprisoned. He admitted that
such proceedings would be inexcusable; but what was a benevolent man,
who had the welfare of his slave really at heart, to do with an eye to
them? To act upon the abolitionist principle, would be to consign the
slave to incalculable misery, for they had but one lesson to
teach--turn loose the slaves, and leave consequences to God! The
colonizationists, however, are provided with a better remedy. If
Louisiana would not countenance manumission, nor suffer manumitted
slaves to remain within her bounds, with the usual privileges of
freemen, let them be taken to some other State, where such laws did
not exist; or if this should not on the whole be desirable, let them
be taken to Liberia. No, repeats Mr. Thompson; discharge your slaves
at once, and leave the consequences to God. If, by the wicked laws of
Louisiana, they are left to starve, or driven to desperation, or sold
again into slavery, the responsibility is theirs; do you your duty in
setting them immediately at liberty. It would require, however, that a
humane individual should be very strongly impressed with the truth of
this principle before he could persuade himself to do that which was
evidently so cruel in its immediate effects, and so likely to be
ruinous in those that