fetters, the land must have
no rest. Whatever sanctions his doom must be pronounced accursed. The
law that makes him a chattel is to be trampled under foot; the compact
that is formed at his expense, and cemented with his blood, is null
and void; the church that consents to his enslavement is horribly
atheistical; the religion that receives to its communion the enslaver
is the embodiment of all criminality. Such, at least, is the verdict
of my own soul, on the supposition that I am to be the slave; that my
wife is to be sold from me for the vilest purposes; that my children
are to be torn from my arms, and disposed of to the highest bidder,
like sheep in the market. And who am I but a man? What right have I
to be free, that another man cannot prove himself to possess by
nature? Who or what are my wife and children, that they should not be
herded with four-footed beasts, as well as others thus sacredly
related? If I am white, and another is black, complexionally, what
follows?

"Does, then, th' immortal principle within
Change with the casual colour of the skin?
Does matter govern spirit? or is mind
Degraded by the form to which 'tis joined?"

What if I am rich, and another is poor--strong, and he is
weak--intelligent, and he is benighted--elevated, and he is depraved?
"Have we not one Father? Hath not one God created us?"

"How rich, how poor, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain,
Midway from nothing to the Deity!
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt;
Though sullied and dishonoured, still divine!"

Such is man, in every clime--above all compacts, greater than all
institutions, sacred against every outrage, priceless, immortal!

By this sure test, every institution, every party, every form of
government, every kind of religion, is to be tried. God never made a
human being either for destruction or degradation. It is plain,
therefore, that whatever cannot flourish except at the sacrifice of
that being, ought not to exist. Show me the party that can obtain
supremacy only by trampling upon human individuality and personal
sovereignty, and you will thereby pronounce sentence of death upon it.
Show me the government which can be maintained only by destroying the
rights of a portion of the people; and you will indicate the duty of
openly revolting against it. Show me the religion which sanctions the
ownership o