devoid of shame, unawed by the dignity of virtue, had no sense of honour or decency to restrain their brutal rage; and with this difference, that those who assailed the Fathers of Rome fought for their country, its honour, and institutions; but the assailants of the Utica Convention fought against their country, its laws, and institutions. Who were the dastards?

But it is said that the abolitionists are guilty of an act of unexampled temerity, in persisting in their opinions, when "public opinion" is strong against them. Why not silence their tongues by some argument which will convince them of their error? God himself, who is greater than "public opinion," did not make man free, and then exert, or even claim the right to exert, an arbitrary control over the exercise of his reason.

Our country did not confirm to us this freedom, which God has given us, and then give to "public opinion" the right to take it away.

He who is afraid to maintain his opinions against THE WORLD, is unworthy of the honour of an American citizen, is unworthy of the dignity of a man. Is this temerity? Let this temerity for ever be the boast of freemen! It is the temerity which makes despots tremble; which destroys the little less odious tyranny of party domination, maintains the sovereignty of the people, and despoils the political intriguer of his hopes.

The violations of law which have been mentioned, have been considered with the utmost plainness and simplicity. It was necessary the subject should be

thus treated; no personal animosity has dictated a syllable. The author has been actuated by a deep consciousness of duty to his country. His tongue and his pen are yet unshackled. He claims the right to use them by virtue of a grant from the Author of his being, sanctioned and confirmed by the government under which he has the happiness to live. He is ready to give up his property and his life whenever the good of his country shall require that sacrifice. But the right to the legitimate exercise of his reason he will never surrender. The first lesson he was taught in childhood, was to venerate the constitution and laws, with which our country is pre-eminently blessed. Who could have imagined that it would be necessary so soon to defend them against so formidable an attack as that with which they are now assailed.

IV.

BEFORE we proceed further, it may be well to introduce Jefferson's sentiments on the subject of slavery, not for the purpose of showing the doctrines of the abolitionists to be correct, but for the purpose of showing, that if he was yet living, he would not consider it patriotism to deprive them of the right to discuss the subject. "The whole commerce," says he, "between master and slave, is a

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perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children. see this and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning what he sees others do. If a parent had no other motive, either in his own philanthropy or his self love, for restraining the intemperance of his passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally, it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his manners and morals under such circumstances. And with what execrations would the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half of the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms them into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriæ of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other than that in which he is born to live and labour for another, in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends upon his individual endeavours to the evanishment of the human race, or ema "tail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of

the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself that can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves, a very small portion indeed are ever seen to labour.... and can the liberties of a nation be ever thought secure, when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are the gift of God? that they are not to be violated, but with his wrath; indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep for ever; that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest..... But it is impossible to be temperate, and to pursue this subject through the various considerations of policy, of morals, of history, natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust; his condition mollifying; the way I hope preparing under the auspices of Heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed in the order of events, to be with the consent of their masters, rather than by their extirpation."*

*Notes on Virginia, 298.

The first public movement of Mr. Jefferson, and "the one in all probability," says an able biographer, "whose spirit and object were most congenial to his heart," was the introduction of a bill in the Virginia Legislature "for the permission of the emancipation of slaves." "The moral intrepidity," continues his historian, "that could prompt him, a new member, and one of the youngest in the house, to rise from his seat with the composure of a martyr and propose" this measure "amidst a body of inexorable planters, gave an earnest of his future career too unequivocal to be misunderstood. It was an act of self-immolation worthy the best model of Sparta or Rome. He was himself a slaveholder, and from the immense inheritance to which he had succeeded, probably one of the largest in the house. He knew too that it was a measure of public odium, running counter to the strongest interests and most intractable prejudices of the ruling population; that it would draw upon him the keenest resentment of the wealthy and the great, who alone hold the keys of honour and preferment at home, besides banishing for ever all hope of favourable consideration with the government. In return for this array of sacrifices, he saw nothing await him but the satisfaction of an approving conscience and the distant commendation of an impartial posterity. He could have no possible motive but the honour of his country and the gratification of a warm and comprehensive benevolence. The bare announcement of the proposition gave a shock to the aristocracy of the house, which aroused their inmost alarms. It touched their sensibilities at a