undred and sixty-five thousand slaves in the five
original slave states. The exertions of the American nation to put an
end to slavery were treated with ridicule, but he would have them to
bear in mind, that there were in the United States four hundred
thousand free people of color, all of whom, or their progenitors, had
been set free by the people of America, and not one of these, so far
as he knew, had been liberated by an abolitionist. In addition to
these, there were not less than four thousand more in Africa, many of
whom had been freed from fetters and sent to that country. He would
ask if all this was to be counted as nothing. If they were to consider
for a moment the enormous sum which it would take to ransom so many
slaves, they would perceive the value of the sacrifice. They might say
that they had given $150,000,000 towards the abolition of slavery. It
might seem selfish to talk of it thus; but if the conduct of Great
Britain, rich and powerful as she was, was not reckoned worthy of
praise for having done an act of justice, in granting emancipation to
the West India slaves, at the cost of $100,000,000, or L20,000,000,
how much more might be said of L30,000,000, being paid by a few
comparatively poor and scattered communities, and individual men. They
had been told some fine stories of a mahogany table, to which the
people of America had tied themselves, and they were left to infer
that it was quite easy, that it merely required the exertion of will,
for them to set their slaves free. Now, on this head, he would only
ask, had he the power of fixing the place of his birth? No. Nor had he
any hand in making the laws of the place where he was born, nor the
power of altering them. They might, indeed, be altered and he ought to
add, they would have been altered already, but for the passionate and
intemperate zeal of the abolitionists; but for the conduct of those
who tell the slaveholders of the Southern states, that they must at
once give freedom to the slaves, at whatever cost or whatever hazard,
and unless they do so, they will be denounced on the house-tops, by
all the vilest names which language can furnish, or the imagination of
man can conceive. And what was the answer the planters gave to these
disturbers of the public peace? First, coolly, 'there's the door;'
and next, 'if you try to tell these things to those, who, when they
learn them, will at once turn round and cut our throats, we must take
measures to