spirit quenched within us,
Stoops the proud manhood of our souls so low,
That Passion's wile or Party's lure can win us
To silence now?"

Whatever may be the guilt of the South, the North is still more
responsible for the existence, growth and extension of Slavery. In her
hand has been the destiny of the Republic from the beginning. She
could have emancipated every slave, long ere this, had she been
upright in heart and free in spirit. She has given respectability,
security, and the means of sustenance and attack to her deadliest foe.
She has educated the whole country, and particularly the Southern
portion of it, secularly, theologically religiously; and the result
is, three millions and a half of slaves, increasing at the appalling
rate of one hundred thousand a year, three hundred a day, and one
every five minutes--the utter corruption of public sentiment, and
general skepticism as to the rights of man--the inauguration of Mammon
in the place of the living God--the loss of all self-respect, all
manhood, all sense of shame, all regard for justice--the Book styled
holy, and claimed to be divinely inspired, everywhere expounded and
enforced in extenuation or defence of slaveholding, and against the
Anti-Slavery movement--colour-phobia infecting the life-blood of the
people--political profligacy unparalleled--the religious and the
secular press generally hostile to Abolitionism as either infidel or
anarchical in its spirit and purpose--the great mass of the churches
with as little vitality as a grave-yard--the pulpits, with rare
exceptions, filled with men as careful to consult the popular will as
though there were no higher law--synods, presbyteries, general
conferences, general assemblies, buttressing the slave power--the
Government openly pro-slavery, and the National District the
head-quarters of slave speculators--fifteen Slave States--and now, the
repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the consecration of five
hundred thousand square miles of free territory forever to the service
of the Slave Power!

And what does all this demonstrate? That the sin of this nation is not
geographical--is not specially Southern--but deep-seated and
universal. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." We
are "full of wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores." It proves,
too, the folly of all plasters and palliatives. Some men are still
talking of preventing the spread of the cancer, but leaving it