Already has it disturbed the limpid streams of liberty, it has polluted the minds of your youth, sown the seeds of despotism, and without a speedy check to her ravages, will sink you into a pit of infamy, where you shall be robbed of all the honours you have before acquired.
Let it viewed either morally or politically, and no one argument can be adduced in its favour.
The savage mind may perhaps be reconciled to it, but the heart of the Christian must recoil at the idea.—He sees it forbidden in Holy Writ, and his conscience dictates to him, that it is wrong.
"He that stealeth a man," says Exodus, "and selleth him, of if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death."
Oh my countrymen! are there any of you who can con over this elegant passage of Scripture, without trembling; or can you stand before the great Author of your existence, with an arm uplifted to subject his creatures to slavery, without dreading an execution of this divine threat.
"The nation, to whom they shall be in bondage, will I judge, said God"—and what that judgment may be, is beyond the suggestion of mortals. We may be hurled amidst the elements of woe to expiate the guilt, for he who holdeth men in slavery liveth in sin.
In a civilized country, where religion is tolerated in all its purity, it must be the fault of ignorance, stubborn indifference to Christianity, to rebel against divine sentiments; and considering slavery in a political view, it must appear equally as destructive to our terrestrial happiness, as it endangers our enjoyment of heavenly bliss.
For who is there, unless innured to savage cruelties, that hear of the inhuman punishments daily afflicted upon the unfortunate Blacks, without feeling for their situations?
Can a man who calls himself a Christian, coolly and deliberately tie up, thumb screw, torture with pincers, and beat unmercifully a poor slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of duty? Or can any one be an eye witness to such enormities, without at the same time being deeply persuaded of its guilt?
I fear these questions may be answered in the affirmative, but I hope by none of this respectable audience; for such men must be monsters, not of the regular order of nature, and equally prone to murder, or to less cruelties.