f knowledge
and religion--never subjected to the lash of brutal task
masters.

But those, for whose emancipation we are striving,
constituting at the present, at least one-sixth part of our
countrymen,--are recognised by the laws, and treated by their
fellow-beings as marketable commodities--as goods and
chattels--as brute beasts; are plundered daily of the fruits
of their toil, without redress;--really enjoy no
constitutional or legal protection from licentious and
murderous outrages upon their persons--are ruthlessly torn
asunder--the tender babe from the arms of its frantic
mother--the heart-broken wife from her weeping husband--at
the caprice or pleasure of irresponsible tyrants;--for the
crime of having a dark complexion--they suffer the pangs of
hunger, the infliction of stripes, and the ignominy of brutal
servitude. They are kept in heathenish darkness by laws
expressly enacted to make their instruction a criminal
offence.

These are the prominent circumstances in the condition of
more than two millions of our people, the proof of which may
be found in thousands of indisputable facts, and in the laws
of the slaveholding states.

Hence we maintain:--

That in the view of the civil and religious privileges of
this nation, the guilt of its oppression is unequalled by
any other on the face of the earth--and, therefore,

That it is bound to repent instantly, to undo the heavy
burden, to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.

We further maintain:--

That no man has a right to enslave or imbrute his brother--to
hold or acknowledge him, for one moment, as a piece of
merchandise--to keep back his hire by fraud--or to brutalize
his mind by denying him the means of intellectual, social,
and moral improvement.

The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. To invade it is to
usurp the prerogative of Jehovah. Every man has a right to
his own body--to the products of his own labor--to the
protection of law--and to the common advantages of society.
It is piracy to buy or steal a native African, and subject
him to servitude. Surely the sin is as great to enslave an
American as an African.

Therefore, we believe and affirm:--

That there is no difference _in principle_, between the
African slave-trade and American slavery.

Tha