l--nay, _is_ essential
to political preferment and ecclesiastical advancement. Nothing is so
unpopular as impartial liberty. The two great parties which absorb
nearly the whole voting strength of the Republic are pledged to be
deaf, dumb and blind to whatever outrages the Slave Power may attempt
to perpetrate. Cotton is in their ears--blinds are over their
eyes--padlocks are upon their lips. They are as clay in the hands of
the potter, and already moulded into vessels of dishonour, to be used
for the vilest purposes. The tremendous power of the Government is
actively wielded to "crush out" the little Anti-Slavery life that
remains in individual hearts, and to open new and boundless domains
for the expansion of the Slave system. No man known or suspected to be
hostile to "the Compromise Measures, including the Fugitive Slave
Law," is allowed to hope for any office under the present
Administration. The ship of State is labouring in the trough of the
sea--her engine powerless, her bulwarks swept away, her masts gone,
her lifeboats destroyed, her pumps choked, and the leak gaining
rapidly upon her; and as wave after wave dashes over her, all that
might otherwise serve to keep her afloat is swallowed by the
remorseless deep. God of heaven! if the ship is destined to go down
"full many a fathom deep," is every soul on board to perish? Ho! a
sail! a sail! The weather-beaten, but staunch ship Abolition,
commanded by the Genius of Liberty, is bearing toward the wreck, with
the cheering motto, inscribed in legible capitals, "WE WILL NOT
FORSAKE YOU!" Let us hope, even against hope, that rescue is not
wholly impossible.

To drop what is figurative for the actual. I have expressed the belief
that, so lost to all self-respect and all ideas of justice have we
become by the corrupting presence of Slavery, in no European nation is
personal liberty held at such discount, as a matter of principle, as
in our own. See how clearly this is demonstrated. The reasons adduced
among us in justification of slaveholding, and therefore against
personal liberty, are multitudinous. I will enumerate only a dozen of
these: 1. "The victims are black." 2. "The slaves belong to an
inferior race." 3. "Many of them have been fairly purchased." 4.
"Others have been honestly inherited." 5. "Their emancipation would
impoverish their owners." 6. "They are better off as slaves then they
would be as freemen." 7. "They could not take care of themselves if
set fr