For myself, my childish aspirations, in the very dawn of my life, were all in favor of universal freedom. I have never changed them; I never can. In childhood I read with thrilling delight the lines of that heaven-born bard, who, in singing the Sofa, rose speedily to higher themes. I cannot refrain from quoting some of his thoughts:

Then after speaking of war and bloodshed for the purposes of ambition and avarice, he thus proceeds:

How many

Thus feel and think, also, the New Englanders. thousand times have I repeated these lines, and dwelt on the heavenborn spirit which they breathe! And yet, I have seen and conversed with many a kind-hearted, well-instructed, moral, highminded Southerner, who wore the appearance of never having once had such sentiments pass through his mind; and to whom such a passage in Cowper would be quite revolting. What a difference do our early training, habits, and circumstances make in our views! I could, however, look on these friends with a feeling of sincere friendship and attachment, on account of the virtues which they possessed and exhibited. I looked on their state as, in very many cases, not a voluntary one, but the result of circumstances over which they had had little or no control.

At present, such is the excitement at the South, roused up by the

violence of Abolitionists at the North, that I can hardly expect a calm and patient listening to my short discourse on Slavery. By and by, when the tempest is past, they may perhaps consent to listen patiently for a few minutes, if nothing more. I do not wonder that they are excited. To be called men-stealers, murderers, tyrants, villains, and every other reproachful name which the rich vocabulary of Abolitionism affords, is enough to awake the dead to life. I view the Abolition proceedings just in the light that I should the following case, which I put for the sake of illustration: I see some fault in my neighbor, who, by the way, has also a great many excellencies of character. But my mind begins to wax warm about his faults, and my conscience greatly presses me to take some measures with him. Well, I hasten to him and say: Neighbor, I wish to have a serious conference with you, on a matter of great importance. When will you hear me? This evening, he says, at 7 o'clock. I go accordingly, and after the usual salutations are past, I say to him: Sir, I have come on a grave errand, that presses my conscience very much. What is it? says he, speak out. Why, say I, it is, that in the first place I expect to prove to you that you are a fool; and in the second place, that you are a rascal. And when I speak this last word, I lay a strong emphasis upon it, and shake my fist in his face. How many ears, now, will this neighbor open, to listen to my rebuke? If he does me common justice, instead of listening to me, he will open his door and say: Sir, please to walk out! When you come to me with proper respect and in a good temper of mind, I will patiently hear you; but never until then.

Is my neighbor now altogether a bad man because he is indignant at such treatment? I trow not. Yet this is the very method in which Abolitionists have assailed the South; and they would be more or less than men, if they were not indignant.

Yet Mr. Webster has been more or less maligned, because he has found fault with such conduct on the part of Northerners. I have not a doubt, that the sentence of his, (in which he expressed his opinion, that Abolitionists had helped to rivet the chains of the slave, and make his bondage the more severe and certain), has roused up more ire in that class of men than all the rest of his Speech. Such men cannot bear to be told the truth, to be told that all this noise and confusion and perpetual vituperation and contumely, are much ado about nothing. With them it is the great,

the only, the all-important business. And all this is it in conformity with Paul, in my motto? Not quite not quite, gentle

men.

To me nothing is more palpable than the truth of Mr. Webster's remarks on this topic. I cannot have a doubt, that the liberation of the slaves is put back at least half a century, by this ill-timed, violent, and most injudicious movement. I am aware that I shall of course incur their displeasure. I cannot help it. I think it to be a call of duty, calmly and fearlessly to tell them what I fully believe is the simple truth.

As to Mr. Webster, I imagine he will still continue his repose under his Oak, notwithstanding all the buzzing around him. If he has nothing more serious than this to disturb his repose, I conjecture that he may enjoy quite a tolerable requiem. At any rate, I hope this will be the case.

It is time to hasten to a close, although a multitude of questions press upon my mind, in which I feel a deep interest. But it is not for me to discuss everything, and above all the intricate questions that Jurists and Civilians may raise. But I should be doing injustice to my own views of duty, if I did not say a few words on two or three very important topics.

I first address the Northerners, and specially my fellow citizens of Massachusetts. In looking back on the history of slavery in our country, whence do we find it to have originated? From Great Britain; and from her alone. All the Colonies fought pitched battles against it; but the king and Parliament of Great Britain defeated them. North and South were united on this question united before the Declaration of Independence, and united for a long time after it. I can have room to produce but one specimen of protest; and this is from the pen of Mr. Jefferson, who originally inserted it in our Declaration of Independence which he drew up. It was omitted afterwards merely from delicacy of feeling toward some gentlemen of the South (S. Carolina and Georgia), and also, as Mr. Jefferson intimates (3 Madison Papers), from the same feeling toward some of the delegates from the North, who were engaged in the Guinea trade. Here it is as it came from the hand of Mr. Jefferson. He is speaking of the king of England:

“He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended

him; capturing and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel Powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."

The like to this was expressed by most of the Southern States, in one form and another. The general feeling on the subject of slavery at that time, is fully disclosed in the Declaration of Independence at the outset; see p. 57 above. This Declaration has the broad basis of loving our neighbor as ourselves, and of doing as we would be done by a truly Christian and gospel principle. It is the unquestionable index of all but universal American feeling in 1776.

The Hon. Mr. Chase, in a historical development of slavery in the early part of the United States' career, has exhibited, in his recent, courteous, valuable, and able speech, documents which show that there never was a vote by any Southern State, in favor of slavery, until after the famous Territorial Ordinance of 1787. Indeed, I have repeatedly heard it from the lips of some of the Framers and Signers of the Constitution of the United States, that it was then universally understood among all the States who formed it, that slavery was to be got rid of, just as soon as it could be done peaceably and with safety. All the public documents of that period do in fact testify to this. What has made the astounding change? I do not feel myself to be sufficiently cognizant of facts and occurrences at the South, to decide this question; but one thing, I believe may be safely said, viz. that no enlightened Christian people would ever admit or foster slavery, unless they were tempted to it by great prospects of gain. There could be no other efficient induce

ment.

.

But there slavery now is, spread over almost one half of the States in number, àlthough not in point of population. THREE MILLIONS OF SLAVES! Who are accountable for this? On whom does the guilt fall? for in the sight of God there must be guilt somewhere, if the declarations or commands of the New Test. are to be our rule of moral appreciation and judgment.

Do not we of the North, often speak on the subject of Southern slavery, just as if the present owners of slaves there, were impli

cated in the guilt of bringing them there, and placing them in their present condition? Nothing is more common than such declarations. But are they just? Surely they are not. Few indeed in those States have been concerned in foreign importation; and what has been done in that way by smuggling slaves in, has been done more by New England Vessels than by any other. So it was in the Colonial times. Several towns in New England were built up, as every one knows, by the Guinea trade. I doubt not, that there are vessels now employed in carrying slaves to Brazil and to Cuba, whose real owners are New England men. A sham sale and a foreign flag protects them.

In the South only a few have been directly concerned in that iniquitous traffic. What then has the South of the present day done, to increase the number of their Slaves? Nothing, if we speak of the mass, nothing but omitting to free them, and of course they have multiplied by natural increase. If we then of the North are to tax them with sin, as to this matter, we ought, in all fairness, to place the matter on its true basis. Thousands of slave-owners have never trafficked in them; and I apprehend, that the mass of respectable men in the South regard this traffic with abhorrence. Most of the Southern States have prohibited by law the introduction of slaves from other States, although such laws are often evaded. If we tax our Southern brethren with sin, (and I think we have good reason for so doing, provided we speak to them kindly and respectfully), it must be on this specific point, viz. that they have neglected to carry out the design of the framers of our Constitution; neglected to fulfil their implied pledges to the North, in regard to this subject; and neglected to make any provision for the future abolition of slavery. Nay many of their statesmen have recently declared that slavery is an important, if not a necessary, ingredient in the Constitution and prosperity of a republic. Of course, everything remains in statu quo, excepting that the State laws of late have become far more rigorous than before.

May I, with all due kindness and respect, speak a word here in their hearing? Are not the principles of the Gospel, in regard to loving our neighbor as ourselves, and doing as we would be done by, of high and sacred obligation, universal, irrepealable? I believe every impartial Christian on earth must think and say so. Will it be a satisfactory plea, in the High Court of Equity in heaven,