AN 
 
 DDEESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 DELIVERED IN DANVERS, MASS., 
 
 DANIEL FOSTER, 
 
 PASTOR OP THE FREE EVANGELICAL CHURCH OP NORTH DANVERS, 
 
 COMPLIANCE WITH THE REQUEST OF THE VOTERS OF DANVERS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BELA MARSH, 25 CORNHILL. 
 
 1849. 
 
ABNER FORBES, PRINTER, 
 
 NO. 37 CORNHILL. 
 
^ O i 
 
 3ZC. ?7 
 ~T' J/JIa- 
 
 Boston, Sept. 29, 1849, 
 
 At a meeting of the Wesleyan Church in this city, held on the 
 evening of the 27th September, the following Resolutions were in- 
 troduced by the Pastor, Rev. Mr. Stockman ; discussed by Wil- 
 liam Blakemore, William Holmes, Dr. Fininley, and others, and 
 unanimously adopted. 
 
 Resolved, That the unfeigned and earnest thanks of this Church 
 are due to the Rev. Mr. Foster, for the elaborate, eloquent and just 
 Discourse delivered by him to this Church and Society, last Sabbath 
 evening, on the subject of American Slavery* 
 
 Resolved, That Rev. Mr. Foster be respectfully and earnestly 
 requested to publish the above named Discourse. 
 
 
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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 https://archive.org/details/addressonslaveryOOfost 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Fellow-Memhers of our Common Brotherhood : 
 
 I COME before you on this occasion, to perform a 
 most important duty, in answer to your own request. 
 In common courtesy, therefore, you will feel bound 
 to give me an attentive hearing. But there is no 
 occasion, at this day and in this town, for an earnest 
 and a loving brother to ask your courtesy^ when 
 addressing you upon the momentous theme on which 
 you seek a word of counsel from me. You feel an 
 absorbing interest in the subject of American Slavery. 
 You know that in the question of its extinction or 
 continuance, as a social institution in our country, are 
 involved this nation’s salvation or ruin ; — our future 
 destiny of steady and glorious advancement in the 
 Social Brotherhood of mankind, moving ever on in 
 the van of human improvement, and of human hap- 
 piness ; or of retrograde and swift descent from our 
 exalted social position, down the broad path of 
 national injustice, into the burning retribution which 
 assuredly awaits the nation that persists in wrong 
 ^doing, and into which so many disobedient, proud, 
 and oppressive empires and kingdoms of the past 
 have gone down to rise no more. 
 
 We are enlisted and engaged in a momentous, 
 far-reaching controversy — the great warfare of this 
 age — wide as the world in its range, lasting as 
 eternity in its destined results. The great question 
 
6 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY, 
 
 now at issue is, shall the principles of the Gospel 
 of Christ, i. e., Universal Liberty, Fraternity, and 
 Equality ; liberty of conscience, will, and judgment 
 in serving God : liberty of choice in the duties of the 
 social state ; fraternity of feeling towards all men ; 
 the practical and unfailing acknowledgment of the 
 Brotherhood of mankind in Jesus Christ, and equality 
 in all the social privileges of this brotherhood, — shall 
 these glorious and heavenly principles of redeeming 
 love become the universal law of men, or shall the 
 abhorrent principle of despotism secure the control of 
 the world, and crush beneath its iron heel the bleed- 
 ing heart of ruined humanity ? 
 
 Ages of preparation for this momentous struggle 
 have passed, and we^ the living actors of the present 
 hour, are enlisted on the right or on the wrong side. 
 There is no neutral ground for us. We are enrolled 
 on the side of human progress ; and, under the banner 
 of heavenly love, dyed in the blood of the Captain 
 of our salvation, we are contending for the world’s 
 redemption and salvation; or in the ranks of the 
 enemy of man, we are aiding to bind upon the 
 soul the chains of ignorance and degradation, and to 
 fetter the toiling millions of earth in the bondage of 
 want and unrequited toil. 
 
 Society is in a transforming state. Each day 
 brings forth wonderful, startling change. The past 
 two years are crowded with revolutions and upris- 
 ings of the oppressed sons and daughters of toil, 
 which would have marked centuries of the past with 
 an enduring interest. It is but yesterday, as it were, 
 since the ablest and most selfish of European mon- 
 archs sat on the throne of France, secure, as he 
 thought, through eighteen years of undisturbed pos- 
 session of his place of power, and guarded by one 
 hundred thousand bayonets. He fancied himself in- 
 vincible in resources of wisdom and power, and in 
 the mistaken consciousness of resistless might, the 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 7 
 
 old despot threw himself in the way of the on-roll- 
 ing car of human progress. Louis Philippe lost 
 throne, home and birthright, in the vain attempt to 
 chain Humanity. He is now a poor exile from home 
 — powerless and forgotten. May God in like manner 
 confound all the oppressors of mankind ! 
 
 As in France, aspiring freedom and social love 
 strive against grinding tyranny and social hatred, so 
 in the world at large, the day of decisive issue is 
 dawning between Hate and Love, Right and Wrong, 
 Freedom and Bondage. The decision of this con- 
 troversy is at hand, and will mark the age that shall 
 witness it with an interest — an importance — unparal- 
 leled in the ages of the past. But, my friends, in no 
 other country can so much and so speedily be done, 
 for the universal triumph of Truth and Right, as in 
 our own beloved land. And no where else can so 
 much be done to shroud the earth in mourning, at the 
 downfall of Truth and Right, as here and now. We 
 exert an inevitable and most important influence m 
 the decision of the one transcendent question, on the 
 right and speedy settlement of which depends, more 
 or less intimately, the well-being of all men. That 
 question is, Shall slavery be extended and perpe- 
 tuated in our land, giving over society to the desola- 
 tion of unrestrained selfishness ? Or shall slavery be 
 walled in and extirpated, root and branch, and society 
 be brought under the saving power of righteousness, 
 love and universal good will ?” 
 
 In the mind of the true patriot, philanthropist and 
 Christian, this question must take precedence in this 
 country of all other questions. In the settlement of 
 the great principle now at issue between American 
 slavery and American justice, is involved every con- 
 ceivable interest of country, humanity, and Chris- 
 tianity. Let the slave-power triumph and make our 
 land the permanent home of its whips, and chains, 
 and branding-irons, and to love such a country, or 
 
8 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 pray for her prosperity, would be a deadly sin. True 
 patriotism would die in our midst. Philanthropy 
 could only weep and Avail in heart-breaking Avoe, over 
 a crushed and hopeless Humanity. Christianity could 
 no more survive the blighting influence of slavery, 
 were it to become the controlling power of our coun- 
 try, than you could live in the sea of fire which 
 surges in the bowels of Etna. But let simple justice 
 and right be done, let the heavenly principle of the 
 Gospel of Christ, — to mete out to others the measure 
 we desire for ourselves, — prevail with a controlling in- 
 fluence. Under this blessed influence, let slavery be 
 peaceably abolished, and all oppression give way to 
 Christian liberty, fraternity and equality, and then 
 a bright day of national honor, peace, prosperity, 
 and progress, of philanthropic love and good will, — of 
 true practical, holy and heavenly Christianity, Avould 
 dawn upon our land. Yea, more ; in the light of that 
 glorious day of love, should all the nations of the 
 earth be made glad, and the sons of God, the seraphs 
 of heaven, the holy servants of the Most High, join- 
 ing with the sons of men, should fill the universe 
 with the olden song — 
 
 “ Glory to God on High, 
 
 Peace and good will to man below. 
 
 I know not how any one can fail to perceive that 
 this question involves issues far more momentous 
 than any other question, which now lays hold upon 
 an awakened public mind. The good man must 
 show by his conduct in this matter, the holy princi- 
 ple by which he is governed and impelled to take 
 his fortune, not on the sid# of the oppressor, the 
 slaveholder, but on the side of the victim, the slave, 
 and with his fettered brother. 
 
 In the present most important crisis, the patriot 
 must stake all, in the great endeavor to deliver his 
 home and country from the inevitable and fearful 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 9 
 
 desolation which will surely come upon our land, if 
 the accursed system of human bondage be not speed- 
 ily and utterly overthrown. If your watch and your 
 toil be not against the slaveholder and for the slave, 
 then verily you are the enemy and the betrayer, not 
 the friend and savior of your country. 
 
 The Christian’s first and most sacred duty in the 
 vineyard of his Lord, now^ is to succor and save his 
 bleeding brother in bonds, to put the ban of deep ab- 
 horrence and reprobation upon the sin of slavehold- 
 ing and slaveholding support, and to provide a secure 
 asylum, where safety and hope shall cheer the crush- 
 ed and the chained. 
 
 If you feel no sympathy of soul, no yearnings of 
 heart, no community of wrongs and woes, for and 
 with the slave ; if your indignation slumbers at the 
 recital of the cruel sin of the slaveholder ; if you 
 have any fellowship in the privileges of the church 
 or of society, with those who make merchandise of 
 God’s children ; if your religion does not impel you 
 to labor zealously and constantly, in the world and 
 in the sanctuary, on the Sabbath and on other days, 
 for the immediate overthrow of American Slavery, 
 and for the immediate elevation to all the rights and 
 enjoyments of the great Christian brotherhood, of the 
 three millions of outraged and desolated slaves in our 
 land, then I pray you to fell me what your religion 
 is worth to your own soul, to God, or to dying man ? 
 
 Beware ! You may hear the awful words of con- 
 demnation, inasmuch as ye gave no ministration of 
 love and mercy to these outraged and perishing breth- 
 ren, ye despised and neglected me. Depart, ye 
 workers of iniquity !” 
 
 Permit me now to call your attention to the two 
 resolutions which were passed by the town of Dan- 
 vers at our last annual meeting : 
 
 “ Resolved, By the voters of Danvers, in Town-Meeting assem^ 
 bled, ‘ That we deeply deplore the sin of our nation, in holding 
 1 # 
 
10 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 slaves ; and we feel it our duty to use all means in accordance with 
 Christianity, to hasten the overthrow of the system of American 
 Slavery.’ 
 
 “ Resolved, That we believe in the righteousness, safety, and 
 expediency of immediate emancipation ; and we believe it our duly 
 
 to do all we can to secure this result.” 
 
 # 
 
 I pray God, that the just sentiments of these re- 
 solves may firmly seize upon the public conscience, 
 and control the nation’s conduct. Then^ but never 
 otherwise, would this be that happy people, whose 
 God is the Lord ; and our country would be exalted 
 by a saving righteousness, a redeeming love, a divine 
 justice. 
 
 At the formation of our present federative govern- 
 ment, the number of slaves was about one fifth the 
 number now in bondage. The slave territory was 
 then less than one fourth the area now blighted by the 
 presence, on the soil, of human servitude. And yet, 
 slavery has been abolished in several of the States of 
 the Union, now free, since the adoption of our Con- 
 stitution. Here let me state an important fact. It 
 was the general expectation and desire, sixty years 
 ago, that slavery would be extended in this country 
 no further. The Fathers of our Union, though they 
 saw not the atrocious evil of slavery as we now see 
 it, did nevertheless, see and acknowledge its evil and 
 ruinous nature. In their day, it was universally ac- 
 knowledged, that slavery was an alarming evil, and 
 it was the general expectation and desire, that mea- 
 sures would be adopted by the States, for its removal. . 
 Washington declared that his suffrage and influence 
 should never be wanting for the abolition of slavery, 
 by legislative enactment, in Virginia. Jefierson ex- 
 pressed trembling fears of national ruin, in view of 
 God’s justice, through our atrocious system of human 
 bondage, one hour’s endurance of which he declared to 
 be worse than the oppression of England, by which 
 our fathers were driven to revolt. Lafayette, who 
 nobly aided our fathers in their darkest hour, on his 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 11 
 
 last visit to this country, at a public dinner in Salem, 
 emphatically said, that he never would have spent a dol- 
 lar nor struck a blow for our independence, had he not 
 been assured that we honestly meant to secure the 
 freedom of the slave, by gaining our own. No fact 
 can be clearer than the intention of our fathers to 
 localize and discourage slavery, or than their general 
 hope to see it soon abolished by State action. And 
 yet, we see slavery extended, in sixty years, to a new 
 and then unoccupied territory, of greater magnitude, 
 and of wider natural resources, than the original thir- 
 teen States. This fact opens to our view an alarm- 
 ing national departure from justice and right, of fear- 
 ful import against us. 
 
 It is of unspeakable importance that we, one and 
 all^ should now understand the evil influence by 
 which this work of ruin has been accomplished. 
 Equally important, too, that the freemen of this na- 
 tion should rise up as one man, at once and for ever 
 to destroy this unholy influence. Do you ask, what 
 is that power which has seared the nation’s conscience, 
 blinded her understanding, debased her judgment, and 
 consecrated her vast resources to the infernal scheme 
 of extending and perpetuating the bondage of man ?” 
 Nothing but the slave-power could undertake such a 
 mission. 
 
 Unprincipled slave-breeders and traders, uniting with 
 unprincipled and ambitious politicians from all sec- 
 tions of the Union, have accomplished this horrible 
 work. They are now guiding the ship of state on 
 to the sharp rocks and into the boiling surge. When 
 the constitution was formed, slavery was permitted 
 to exist for a little period, that it might prepare itself 
 to die. Whoever studies the sentiment of that day, 
 will see that men no more intended the perpetuation 
 of slavery in this republic, than again to place the 
 yoke which they had broken upon their own necks. 
 Mark the contrast. One of the first acts of legisla- 
 
12 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 tion then^ was to prohibit slavery in all that territory 
 which had not been formed into States. In a later 
 time^ we admit States that prohibit the abolition of 
 slavery for ever. Then^ all the territories belonging 
 to the country were declared to be free. Now^ we 
 receive new regions, far wider than mighty empires, 
 in which we sanction human bondage. Then, slav- 
 ery, as upon its bended knees, pleaded for a brief de- 
 lay in the execution of the sentence of death which 
 seemed to be issued against it, in the fundamental 
 principles of the republic, and the living spirit of the 
 nation. In a later generation^ slavery has assumed 
 the dominion, and Liberty herself has been dumb in 
 its presence.’’ 
 
 We will now briefly refer to some of the enormities 
 of the slave-power. By the slave-power, you will 
 understand the influence of that combination of men 
 who act together for the extension, permanence and 
 supremacy of slavery in our country. First, the 
 Texas swindle. 
 
 The neighboring state of Mexico, having achieved 
 her own independence, published, September 15, 
 1829, a decree for the entire abolition of slavery, in 
 which we find these remarkable words : Being de- 
 .sirous to signalize the anniversary of independence, by 
 an act of national justice and beneficence, which may 
 redound to the advantage and support of so inestima- 
 ble a good, which may tend to the aggrandizement of 
 the republic, and which may reinstate an unfortunate 
 portion of its inhabitants in the sacred rights which 
 nature gave them, whom the nation should protect 
 by wise and wholesome laws, — I [the President] 
 have resolved to decree, that slavery is and shall re- 
 main abolished in this republic.” 
 
 When this righteous decree became the universal 
 law of the Mexican States, the inexorable sentence 
 against an inoffensive neighbor, just entering upon the 
 experiment of self-government, went forth from the 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 13 
 
 slave-power of our country: Thy heritage shall he 
 torn from thee^ and thy portion divided amonst thy 
 spoilers.^^ In accordance with this unholy purpose, 
 slaveholders and their allies poured into a province of 
 Mexico, and establishing slavery therein, in open vio- 
 lation of the fundamental law of the land, they rais- 
 ed the standard of revolt. While that robber war 
 was fiercely waged, regiments were openly raised and 
 equipped in our country, to aid the desperadoes of 
 Texas, in wresting that vast province from a sister 
 republic, that it might be dedicated as a prison-house 
 for the slave. So far was our government from inter- 
 fering to arrest this high-handed crime, that the Pres- 
 ident, himself a large slaveholder, sent a division of 
 the United States’ Army, under Gen. Gaines, to give 
 covert aid to the infernal enterprise. It was just as 
 impossible for the infant republic of Mexico to with- 
 stand the might of the wicked and powerful combi- 
 nation against her, as for the noble Hungarians to 
 roll back the desperate hordes of Russia and Austria. 
 Both were doomed to fall, because unprotected inno- 
 cence was pitted against the organized powers of des- 
 perate and determined tyranny. The dark design of 
 the slave-power was accomplished, and human bond- 
 age was established on one hundred and ninety-two 
 rnillions of acres of free soil ! 
 
 Then came the effort to introduce Texas into the 
 Union. The slave-power planned and toiled to effect 
 this purpose, while the nation slumbered on in besot- 
 ted carelessness. By the vigilance of a few far-see- 
 ing, true-hearted and unyielding men, the slave- 
 power was compelled to defer the accomplishment of 
 this darling plan. But the genius of oppression never 
 for one moment relaxed its toil, till success crowned 
 its efforts, and Texas entered the sisterhood of States, 
 with a constitution dooming her soil to the blighting 
 curse of perpetual bondage ! 
 
 But this triumph gave no rest to the plotting, bane- 
 
14 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 fill slave-power. This act of dark injustice and na- 
 tional debasement was only one of a long series of 
 contemplated crimes, all in due time to follow, for 
 the further extension of slavery. 
 
 The next act of outrageous crime was consummated 
 under the Presidency of James K. Polk, through the 
 unhesitating assistance of the two great political 
 parties of this country. The national honor is trailed 
 in the dust, the nation’s integrity is destroyed, and the 
 nation’s account of wrong-doing, calling aloud for 
 sweeping retribution, is fearfully augmented, by a 
 national prosecution of a pro-slavery war of conquest 
 and dismemberment, against a defenceless neighbor, 
 in order to add a vast area of virgin soil to the land of 
 Avhips, and chains, and branding-irons ! A slave- 
 holding President, the infamous tool of the slave- 
 power, and the Congress of the United States, Whigs 
 and Democrats, with the exception of fourteen noble 
 men, bowed the knee to the bloody Moloch of Slav- 
 ery, and joined wicked hands in the prosecution of 
 this nefarious war against Humanity. They raised 
 and sent against Mexico seventy-five thousand men, 
 under the command of the two great robbers of this 
 land, to bombard the cities, and to desolate the fields 
 of an unfortunate neighbor. All this was undertaken 
 ‘ and carried out by our Government, at the behest'^of 
 tthe slave-power, to enlarge the area of human bond- 
 age ! 
 
 In the prosecution of this heaven-daring crime, 
 two hundred millions of dollars were wasted, and 
 stagnation in business, with deep, lasting commer- 
 cial distress, was recklessly brought down upon the 
 country by this terrible waste. The present genera- 
 tion and generations yet unborn, were burdened with 
 an enormous debt. One hundred thousand members 
 of the human brotherhood were immolated on the 
 bloody altar of war. The fiendish passions of the 
 damned were let loose to spread moral havoc and 
 desolation through our land. 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 15 
 
 We are beginning to reap the fruits of such wretch- 
 ed national husbandry. In our own beloved Massa- 
 chusetts, intemperance, gambling and licentiousness 
 prevail to an alarming and unprecedented degree. 
 Witness the open and high-handed violation of law 
 by hundreds of desperate men, banded together, and 
 plying in open day their work of death at all public 
 gatherings, at Neponset, at Concord, at Danvers. See 
 the gamblers resisting and defeating all the etforts of 
 the officers of the law to arrest their wickedness. 
 Crime never before walked abroad in our cities and 
 large towns, in such proud defiance of law as it now 
 does. The nation is pressing on to fearful retribu- 
 tion, under the control of the slave-power. Surely 
 then we speak the words of soberness and truth, when 
 we appeal to all true hearts, in the words of our reso- 
 lutions, earnestly saying unto them : “ Brothers and 
 sisters, we must deeply deplore the sin of our nation 
 in holding slaves. We 7iiust feel it to be our duty to 
 use all means in accordance with Christianity, to has- 
 ten the overthrow of the system of American slavery. 
 We believe it to be our imperative duty to do all we 
 can to secure immediate emancipation^ as the only 
 righteous, safe and expedient remedy for this evil.’’ 
 
 Let us look once more into the dark record of 
 crime wrought out by the slave-power. 
 
 The Cherokee and Choctaw Indians trusted in the ^ 
 nation’s honor and faith, which were plighted to them 
 in solemn, specific and binding treaties, to protect 
 them in the undisturbed possession and enjoyment 
 of the small remnant of the land of their fathers, on 
 which they then dwelt. They were learning the 
 arts and surrounding themselves with the comforts of 
 civilized life. They lived peaceably at home, confid- 
 ing in the plighted word of a great people, generously 
 given to them in their weakness. But their rich and 
 valuable lands, their beautiful homes, were situated 
 in the midst of the slave States. The slave-power 
 
16 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 coveted its weak neighbor’s vineyard, and finding 
 that the precious homes of this defenceless people 
 could not be fairly purchased, the meanest fraud was 
 resorted to in order to put forth a claim to their pos- 
 sessions, and then the national force was employed 
 to drive the heart-broken Indian away from his dear 
 old home, into the wilderness wilds beyond the 
 Mississippi. The slave-power polluted our national 
 character by this falsehood and fraud ; and then, with 
 a triumphant jubilee, consecrated the fair inheritance, 
 which this nation had wrested from the trusting and 
 the defenceless, to the cruelties and woes of human 
 bondage. 
 
 A feeble band of Seminoles, the remnant of a great 
 tribe, lived upon the land of their fathers, among 
 the everglades of Florida. The slave-power coveted 
 their beautiful land, and demanded our assistance to 
 drive into returnless exilement, the doomed victims 
 of a merciless avarice. We met this atrocious de- 
 mand by expending forty millions of dollars, by 
 sacrificing ten thousand lives, pouring in upon the 
 fastnesses and homes of the poor Indians, a horde of 
 house-burners, women-violators, children-stealers and 
 men-slayers, led on by the bloodhound warrior, who 
 now executes our laws ! Before this sweeping tide 
 of cruelty, rapine and death, the courage of the brave 
 Indian gave way to despair. A train of weeping 
 mourners is led away to dig their graves in the far- 
 distant West. The Indiaids home hi the land of 
 flowers is now the land of chahis. 
 
 All these crimes of robbery and murder, the slave- 
 power instigated and the nation executed. Crime of 
 such unmitigated meanness, of such damning atrocity, 
 as our nation is guilty of, in robbing the Irfdians and 
 Mexicans of their inheritance, in order to plant 
 slavery thereon, can hardly be found in the annals of 
 any other people. And so sure as a just God reigns, 
 dispensing righteous judgments to the children of 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 17 
 
 men, such high-handed and heaven-daring national 
 crime is working the downfall of this people. Let 
 repentance be delayed, let restitution be refused, and 
 let the same course of cruel injustice be persisted in, 
 and national retribution, wide, sweeping and thor- 
 ough, must be our doom. And when that hour 
 comes, and this nation is overthrown, all th^ people 
 of the earth shall shout a glad amen, at the fall of 
 this Babylon of oppression, rapine and deception. 
 How clear, therefore, to every one whose eye is sin- 
 gle, our imperative duty to deplore with deepest feel- 
 ing, the sin of our nation, and our sin in holding 
 slaves, and to use all fair and honorable means for 
 the immediate overthrow of the slave-power, which 
 is working out for us such speedy and fearful ruin. 
 
 See now how the slave-power involves the nation 
 in the sin of hypocrisy. We profess before the world 
 to respect the right of free thought and of free dis- 
 cussion. How does the reality compare with such 
 professions ? Why, it is notorious, that wherever the 
 slave-power controls the public mind, there is no 
 freedom of thought or of discussion. The tyranny 
 of the Spanish Inquisition, in its darkest days of 
 greatest cruelty, can hardly be said to exceed the 
 tyranny of the slave-power, in shackling the free 
 thoughts of men, and in chaining down all free discus- 
 sion. In proof of this statement, I will present to 
 you three extracts from three of the leading journals 
 of the South, upon the subject of free discussion. 
 The New Orleans True American says : We can 
 assure the Bostonians, one and all, who have embark- 
 ed in the nefarious scheme of abolishing slavery at 
 the South, that lashes will hereafter be spared the 
 backs of their emissaries. Let them send out their men 
 to Louisiana, — they will never return to tell their suf- 
 ferings^ but they shall expiate the crime of interfering 
 in our domestic institutions, by being burned at the 
 
 STAKE.’’ 
 
18 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 Says the Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle : The cry 
 of the whole South should be death — instant death 
 to the Abolitionist y wherever he is caught, 
 
 Says the Columbia (South Carolina) Telescope : 
 
 Let us declare, through the public journals of our 
 country, that the question of slavery is not and shall 
 not be open for discussion ; that the system is too deep- 
 rooted among us, and must remain for ever ; that the 
 very moment any private individual attempts to lec- 
 ture us upon its evils and immoralities, and the 
 necessity of putting means in operation to secure our- 
 selves from them, in the same moment his tongue 
 
 SHALL BE CUT OUT AND CAST UPON THE DUNGHILL.” 
 
 So speaks the slave-power. Its actions come up to 
 the full atrocity of its denunciations. Was the Span- 
 ish Inquisition ever worse than this ? 
 
 Hangman Foote, of Mississippi, a senator in Con- 
 gress, deliberately and openly declared, in the Senate 
 Chamber, that he and his neighbors would hang up 
 by the neck, on some tall tree, a brother senator 
 from New Hampshire, if he would only afford them 
 the pleasant opportunity, by coming among them, 
 and giving utterance to his convictions of the evil and 
 crime of slavery. There is no doubt it would be 
 done with bonfires and public rejoicings, by the 
 slaveholders of that State. Joh7i P. Hale would be 
 7nurdered in open day, if he should visit Mississippi, 
 and talk there as he does at home. 
 
 You can see how the slave-power degrades the 
 minds of our statesmen, who succumb to its influence 
 in this disgraceful fact, viz. : when that threat of as- 
 sassination was made in our Senate Chamber, no 
 senator from the Free States rebuked the fell assassin ! 
 Where then was the burning eloquence of Ohio’s 
 favorite son ? Where the unequalled power of with- 
 ering rebuke belonging to the gifted son of Massa- 
 chusetts’ adoption ? All were dumb, cowed by the 
 braying of the ass, on which rode the embodied 
 spirit of the slave-power ! 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 19 
 
 South Carolina takes the free citizens of Massachu- 
 setts from our vessels, when they arrive in her ports, 
 and confines them in her pestilential jails, for no crime 
 but the color of their skin ! Our Commonwealth 
 sends one of her most venerable men to try the con- 
 stitutionality of the law which authorizes these out- 
 rages. The slave-power fears the light of free discus- 
 sion, and so Samuel Hoar is ignominiously driven 
 from the South, and the will of a sister State, as well 
 as the rights of Humanity, are trampled in the dust 
 by the inexorable slave-power ! Shame on Massa- 
 chusetts, that she cannot find a man who will stand 
 firm in that post of duty, unawed by the threats of 
 slavery, and unmoved by the danger of a martyr’s 
 death ! A true man would have died then rather 
 than flee, 
 
 A Wesleyan minister is now awaiting his trial in 
 Virginia, charged with circulating ‘^Rev. E. Smith’s 
 Bible Argument on Slavery,” and with loaning 
 
 Frederick Douglass’s Narrative.” These two charg- 
 es subject him to an imprisonment in the State Peni- 
 tentiary, of not less than two years, nor more than 
 ten years. All can judge, from the past conduct of 
 the slave-power in such cases, what the measure of 
 cruelty meted out to him will probably be. 
 
 Barrett, a citizen of Ohio, passing through South 
 Carolina, is arrested on the bare suspicion of being 
 an abolitionist, and of being engaged in circulating a 
 pamphlet through that State, in which is exposed the 
 unjust representative system, fixed upon the State by 
 the slave-power. The United States mail is rifled 
 to get evidence against him, and our Postmaster- 
 General, though cradled and nurtured into manhood 
 among the free hills of Vermont, bows down in 
 craven fear, to this outrage upon the constitution, by 
 the slave-power ! Was Arnold a baser traitor 1 
 
 Mr. Jane way, of Loudon County, Virginia, has 
 been presented by the grand jury for writing articles 
 
20 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 against slavery, for the National Era, a paper printea 
 in the District of Columbia, out of the jurisdiction 
 of Virginia. What the punishment will be, which 
 such an oflence may be thought to deserve in the 
 native State of Washington and Jefferson, we cannot 
 tell. But judging by the past, it cannot be a light 
 one. Such facts might be multiplied to any extent. 
 How false and hypocritical, then, our nation’s boasted 
 freedom of thought and of discussion ! Freedom 
 and Truth inevitably perish wherever slavery exists. 
 
 But it is time, in our enumeration of the atrocious 
 crimes of the slave-power, to consider the ruined 
 slave. 
 
 Since the formation of our government, nine mil- 
 lions of human beings, according to a careful estimate, 
 have lived, toiled and died, slaves in our land. Nine 
 millions now in the world of eternal and just award,^ 
 swift and fearful witnesses against this people ! Three 
 millions are now slaves, fettered and degraded, in 
 this land of boasted liberty ! 
 
 It is not my purpose in this address to say a word 
 of the whips, and chains, and branding-irons of slav- 
 ery. These are but a drop in the ocean of unavoid- 
 able cruelties and woes of the accursed system. It 
 is not the body so much as it is the heart, the soul 
 of the slave, which is marked with the indelible scars 
 of remorseless tyranny. 
 
 These numberless fellow-beings, one and all, have 
 the same intuitive and irrepressible longings after 
 happiness that you and I have. The same thrilling 
 love for home, and for the dear members of the fa- 
 mily circle, as brightly burns in their souls as in ours. 
 The same yearnings of heart for improvement in so- 
 cial and intellectual condition, lay hold upon them as 
 upon us. But all these sacred feelings of the living 
 and immortal mind are disregarded and desecrated by 
 the ruthless slave-power in the case of untold millions 
 of members of the human brotherhood, doomed by 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 21 
 
 that power to wear away life in mental darkness and 
 in chains ! 
 
 I entreat of you a patient hearing, while I now en- 
 deavor to aid you in remembering the slave, according 
 to God^s command^ as bound with him. Brother ! put 
 yourself in the place of the slave-husband. Sister ! 
 put yourself in the place of the slave-wife. You 
 have gained the affections of one to whom you have 
 given the priceless treasure of your love. The hap- 
 piness of this relationship, and the sweet communion 
 of fond hearts, are daily embittered and darkened by 
 the fear of a cruel separation. It is not death that 
 you fear as the agent appointed to separate you, and 
 the cause of despairing woe. O no ! His your mas- 
 ter— your brother. He owns you and your wife. 
 He can sunder the ties which join you in holy 
 affection, and which make of two one heart. He 
 can send away your husband, never to return to your 
 embrace, leaving you in a hopeless, joyless widow- 
 hood, and your children in an unprotected state, 
 worse than orphanage. He can sell your Avife, tear 
 her from your embrace, and send her away to return- 
 less exilement, leaving you to mourn without hope. 
 Your master can sell you or your wife just as he can 
 sell his ox or his horse, and no earthly power can save 
 or aid you. 
 
 Listen to an extract from the thrilling narrative of 
 Henry Box Brown. 
 
 Henry was a slave in Virginia. He had a wife 
 and three children, for whom he was paying one 
 hundred and twenty dollars a year. One morning 
 he went to work as usual, but on returning at noon, 
 found that his wife and children had been seized and 
 sold upon the auction-block, to the slave-traders, 
 and were to be transported out of the State the next 
 day, in a slave-gang, which had just been filled by 
 the purchase of his wife and children. Henry says: 
 
 The n \.i day I stationed myself by the side of the 
 
22 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 road, over which the slaves, three hundred and fifty- 
 three, were to pass. There was a large company of 
 us waiting to take a last farewell of the dear ones 
 of our homes. A moan of sorrow could be heard on 
 all sides as we waited for the sad procession. Soon 
 five waggons came along, loaded with the children 
 too small to walk. My little girl saw me, and point- 
 ing to me with her hand' out of the waggon, cried 
 out, ^ There^s my father ; I knew he would come 
 to say good-bye.’ I was choked with sorrow, and 
 could not reply a word. When the slave-gang came 
 up, I got hold of the hand of my wife, and walked 
 weeping by her side for several miles. We could 
 not talk ; our sorrow was too great ; and we parted 
 without speaking the word, farewell. 
 
 Henry remarked, with the deepest pathos, that 
 after his wife and children were stolen, his heart was 
 broken. He had learned to sing, to lighten the 
 tedium of his labor, and for the gratification of his 
 fellow-captives, but now he could not sing. His 
 thoughts were far away in the rice-swamps of Caro- 
 lina. His wife was not and his children were not, 
 and he refused to be comforted. When the master, 
 noticing his despondency, told him he could get 
 another wife (Southern morality). Brown shook his 
 head, — ^the wife of his affections and the children of 
 his love or none at all.” 
 
 Brothers, will you remember the sorrows of Henry 
 Box Brown ? Sisters, will you think upon the situ- 
 ation of that heart-broken wife ? 
 
 Fathers and mothers ! put yourselves in the place 
 of the slave-father and the slav e-mother ^ and see if 
 you could endure their cruel woes. You love your 
 children with a parent’s fond, enduring affection. 
 Your intense desire is to promote your children’s 
 well-being, to secure their happiness. But alas ! 
 you have no control over the destiny of your off- 
 spring. You are not permitted to send your dear 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 23 
 
 little boys and girls to school. No one is allowed 
 to impart knowledge to their eager minds. Ignorant 
 and degraded you usher them into the world, ig- 
 norant and degraded they must live and die. Your 
 children are slaves. They belong to your master. 
 He may do with them as seCmeth proper to him, and 
 you have no remedy, however unjustly or cruelly your 
 beloved child is treated. If you have a beautiful, 
 graceful daughter, that beauty and grace will fetch 
 their price. Your daughter may be exposed for un- 
 restrained examination and sale upon the auction- 
 block, in the presence of insensate fiends, burning 
 with hellish lust. Avarice, overpowered by the fires 
 of unholy passion, which her beauty and grace will 
 awaken in lecherous villians, will pay down the 
 price, and your lovely child is carried off to the harem 
 of death-dealing lust. 
 
 Sorrowfully I speak of these things. With indes- 
 cribable sympathy, I think of the thousands and 
 tens of thousands of our defenceless and wretched 
 sisters in the polluted land of slavery. Who else on 
 earth so completely in the hands of unprincipled 
 tyrants as they ? Whose condition demands such 
 fervent commiseration as theirs ? 
 
 “ SALE OF A WHITE GIRL. 
 
 A correspondent of the Saturday Visiter, formerly a resident of a 
 slave State, but now living in Pittsburg, furnishes the following 
 case of the sale of a white girl, which came under his notice: 
 
 One day I noticed the slave-market rather more crowded than usual 
 (it was directly opposite the store in which I was engaged.) Curi- 
 osity led me to swell the number of the audience ; and, O God ! I 
 shall never forget the scene which presented itself to my view. A 
 beautiful girl, about 18 years of age, as white as the fairest belle 
 in Pittsburg, stood drowned in tears and wofully dejected, beside 
 the devil incarnate whose business it was to dispose of her body and 
 soul, to the highest bidder ; he spoke long, loud and lasciviously of 
 her charms, but could not entirely quench the latent spark of human 
 feeling — some few cried ‘ shame !’ Pie could not excite the bestial 
 passions of the lustful, to entrench upon their pockets to the extent 
 he wished. Not even were the brutal traders in female purity from 
 
24 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 New Orleans satisfied with his exordiums of her excellence. They 
 should know more. An aged gentleman bid $600, and there it 
 stopped. The old man’s eye glistened, and he drew up his attenu- 
 ated form to its full height ; he thought the prize was his, and that 
 before to-morrow’s sun had sunk in the west, the fair flower that 
 bloomed before him would be blighted and blasted forever. But 
 not so. 
 
 The skilful auctioneer jDf God’s image saw that he had raised as 
 much as he could with the poor girl’s present appearance, as she 
 had clothed herself as neatly as they would allow. He crying, 
 ‘ Gentlemen, you know not what a prize you let slip,’ pulled off the 
 turban which she wore, and a magnificent head of long hair fell down 
 about her shoulders, dark as night, and wavy as the sea when fan- 
 ned by a gentle breeze. The Southern rascal bid $650, the old 
 one $700, and again all was fair for the hopes of the Septuagen- 
 arian, when with dastard hand, the ruffian salesman lore asunder 
 the dress which covered her bosom, and exposed to the libertine 
 gaze around him, a bust in beauty and purity never surpassed 
 by painter or sculptor. I turned away, and went home sick at heart. 
 Forgive me, O God, if I almost doubted thy justice. 1 was inform- 
 ed a few hours after, that the poor girl swooned, and while in a 
 state of insensibility, was examined, bid for, and at last bought by 
 one of the Southern traders. May God have pity on her ! 
 
 On inquiry, I found that she had been raised and educated by 
 an old lady, whose property she was, and who died suddenly intes- 
 tate. For the purpose of division among her heirs, her real estate 
 and slaves were all sold by auction, under an order from some 
 court of law. I had lived for many years in a country where law and 
 not justice ruled ; had seen much of the iniquity of the system, but 
 never was so thoroughly disgusted as in this instance. 1 remained 
 but a few weeks in Tennessee, and without the slightest feeling of 
 regret, although 1 left many dear relations behind, came here a com- 
 parative stranger to all around me, but have now^ made many dear 
 friends, all of whom have as great repugnance to the horrible traf- 
 fic as myself.” 
 
 O, how heart-rending the condition of the slave in 
 the sweet relation of family and home ! The Rev. 
 R. J. Breckenridge of Kentucky, thus speaks on this 
 point, of the family and home relations of the slave. 
 He characterized it as ^^the most atrocious of all hu- 
 man institutions,^’ as a system which denies to a 
 whole class of human beings the sacredness of mar- 
 riage and of home, compelling them to live in a 
 state of concubinage, for in the eye of the law no 
 colored slave-man is the husband of any wife in par- 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 25 
 
 ticular, nor any slave-woman the wife of any hus- 
 band in particular, and no slave-child is the child of 
 any parent in particular.” 
 
 Are you a slave ? You are then in degrading mis- 
 ery yourself, and your children must be in the same 
 condition. In the social and civil state you are 
 possessed of no rights. Cruel injustice may be per- 
 petrated upon you in the presence of your family, 
 but you have no remedy. You can’t enter an action 
 against the wrong-doer. Your family can’t bear wit- 
 ness in your behalf, in a court of justice. You are 
 not recognised as an intelligent moral agent. The 
 law makes you a chattel^ a things — the irresponsible 
 property of your master. The highest, holiest of all 
 rights, a man’s right to himself, is wholly denied to 
 you. You can find no sanctuary in the church. The 
 church dares receive you only on the consent of your 
 master. If taken into her bosom, you have no real privi- 
 lege there. If you possess a meek, gentle, Christian 
 spirit, this too is so much merchandise in your mas- 
 ter’s hands. Your piety enhances your value upon 
 the auction-block. Imperious tyranny compels you 
 to toil and wear away life for the profit of your 
 master. At his command and for his profit, you may 
 at any time be parted from all you hold dear, and be 
 driven in the slave-cofiie to a returnless exilement, 
 and to an early grave. You have no right to culti- 
 vate the powers of your mind, to search out the hid- 
 den mysteries of nature, to study the character of 
 God, and to seek to know the relations which bind 
 you to the Eternal. The darkness of hopeless igno- 
 rance is brought down upon your mind, to extinguish 
 the immortal spark which God has there kindled. 
 
 I was witness not long ago to a scene, which filled 
 my heart with deepest sadness. A noble-looking 
 brother, about -thirty years old, just from the prison- 
 house of humsCn bondage, was engaged with deter- 
 mined purpose in learning to read and write in one 
 2 
 
26 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 of the free evening schools of Salem. A fine lad of 
 twelve years, who had enjoyed the blessed privileges 
 of our free schools, was patiently and lovingly im- 
 parting knowledge to the eager mind of this poor 
 brother, who had been shut up in the dark prison of 
 slavery during thirty years of his life. 
 
 The cruelty, the damning sin of thus shutting up 
 millions of immortal and eager minds from the light 
 and ennobling joys of knowledge, cannot be portrayed 
 by mortal pen or pencil. How appalling the picture 
 of human depravity which is presented to the mind, 
 as we look upon the ignorance and degradation, 
 the mental darkness and inaction, in which the slave 
 is kept by unrelenting coercion ! 
 
 And now brother, sister, in all soberness, I ask the 
 question, could you endure such desolating wrongs 
 as crush life, and hope, and energy in the soul of the 
 slave ? Who wonders that slaves sometimes resist 
 even unto death ! Oh, how wonderful their patience 
 and their power of forgiveness ! Who can wonder 
 that slaves run away by thousands, braving hunger 
 and thirst, heat and cold, and all the perils of a long 
 and toilsome journey through a hostile land, in order 
 to escape the insupportable horrors of slavery ? 
 
 In the very capital of this nation, under the laws 
 which OU7' representatives enact, seventy human 
 beings, for no crime but attempting to gain their 
 liberty, were last year sold to the fiendish slave- 
 traders, chained in the slave-gang, and marched to 
 fields of toil and death, in the extreme South. I will 
 lay before you a letter to the Albany Evening Jour- 
 nal, written by Slingerland, the representative from 
 that district in our last Congress. The letter is 
 headed, the ‘^Horrors of Slavery.’’ It is worthy of 
 implicit credit, for it comes from no fanatic, but from 
 a cool, cautious and able Whig, who voted last No- 
 vember for our slaveholding and warrior President. 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 2r 
 
 HORRORS OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Correspondence of the Evening Journal. 
 
 Washington, April 22, 1B48. 
 
 Friend Weed — Last evening, in passing the railroad depot I 
 saw quite a large number of colored persons gathered round one of 
 the cars, and from manifestations of grief among some of them, I 
 was induced to draw near and ascertain the cause. I found in the 
 car towards which they were so eagerly gazing^/^y colored persons^ 
 some of whom were nearly as white as myself. A large majority 
 of the number were those who attempted to gain their liberty last 
 week, in the schooner Pearl. About half of them were females, a 
 few of whom had but a slight tinge of African blood in their veins — 
 they were finely formed and beautiful. The men were ironed 
 together, and the whole group looked sad and dejected. At each 
 end of the car stood a ruffian-looking guard, with large canes in their 
 hands. In the middle of the car stood the notorious slave-dealer of 
 Baltimore. He had purchased the men and women around him, 
 and was taking his departure for Georgia. While observing this 
 old grey-headed dealer in the bodies and souls of men, the Chap- 
 lain of the Senate entered the car, and took his brother by the 
 hand, chatted with him for a short time, and seemed to view the 
 heart-rending scene before him with as little concern as we v/ould 
 look upon cattle ! I know not whether he came with a view to 
 sanctify the act, or pronounce the parting blessing ; but this I do 
 know, that he justifies slavery 1 A Presbyterian minister, who owned 
 one of the fugitives, was the first to strike a bargain with the slave- 
 dealer, and make merchandise of God’s image. Some of the color- 
 ed people outside, as well as in the car, were weeping most bitterly. 
 I learned that many families were separated. Wives were there to 
 take leave of their husbands, and husbands of their wives ; children 
 of their parents, and parents of their children. Friends parting with 
 friends, and the tenderest ties of humanity severed at a single bid of 
 the inhuman slave-broker before them. A husband, in the meridian 
 of life, bogged to see the partner of his bosom. He protested that 
 she was free — that she had free papers, and was torn away from 
 him, and shut up in the jail. He clambered up to one of the win- 
 dows of the car to see his wife, and, as she w^as reaching forward 
 her hand to him, the black-hearted slave-dealer ordered him down. 
 He did not obey. The husband and wife, with tears streaming 
 down their cheeks, besought him to let them speak to each other. 
 But no ; he was knocked down from the car, and ordered away ! 
 The bystanders could hardly restiain themselves from laying violent 
 hands upon the brute. This is but a faint description of the scene 
 which took place within a few rods of the Capitol, and under enact- 
 ments recognised by Congress. Oh, what a revolting scene to a 
 feeling heart, and what a retribution awaits the actors ! Will not 
 their wailings of anguish reach the ears of the Most High 1 ‘ Ven- 
 
 geance is mine — I will repay, saith the Lord.’ ” 
 
28 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 In view of such enormities, I ask you, does not this 
 people tower above the nations of the earth in crime, 
 as much as we rise above them in privileges and 
 opportunities ? Can there be a doubt in any intelli- 
 gent mind of our imperative duty to pray and to 
 strive, with unceasing exertion, for the immediate 
 and unconditional overthrow of American Slavery ? 
 Can the Christian forget the slave in his prayers ? 
 Can the Christian minister be silent in the sacred 
 desk respecting his brother in bonds? Can any 
 doctrine or preaching, not imbued, warmed up, and 
 alive with the great spirit of Christian humanity, 
 glorify God or save man ? Can the good man pass 
 by, with unconcern, the wounded, stripped, and 
 bleeding slave ? Can he join in the fellowship of 
 approving love, with the robbers who strip their help- 
 less victims of their all, and then leave them to perish 
 by the wayside ? Can he, in any case, under any 
 circumstances, in any emergency, recognise as true 
 Christians, the priest and the Levite, who see these 
 millions of pleading, dying bondmen around them, 
 but put forth no eaxnest, manly effort to aid th,em ? 
 
 These are solemn, searching questions. To con- 
 science and to God I have answered them ; and be 
 the consequences what they may, I take^you to wit- 
 ness this day my vow. As far as possible, I will put 
 myself in the place of the slave. No time and no 
 place shall be witness to my silence in regard to the 
 atrocious sin of slaveholding. My honest rebuke 
 shall never be wanting towards those who commit 
 the crime of supporting, by vote or Christian recogni- 
 tion, or by criminal silence, the slaveholder. With 
 all the earnestness of my heart I will plead the cause 
 of the three million members of the human brothier- 
 hood, now chained in the great Southern prison of 
 cruelty and woe. I will plead their cause upon the 
 Sabbath and in the sanctuary^ in the world and in 
 the social circle. I entreat you to 'ponder upon your 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 29 
 
 duty. Let the light of eternal truth shine upon your 
 path. With a sublime trust in God, move onward 
 and upward in the path of holy, self-denying love. 
 
 Let us now dwell a moment, in thought, upon the 
 advancement which the slave-power has made m its 
 system of 'morality^ during sixty years of remarkable 
 human progress. Washington and Jefferson unhesi- 
 tatingly spoke of slavery as an unmitigated and fear- 
 ful evil. They publicly expressed an earnest desire 
 to see the whole system overthrown. But now^ while 
 the world is con^lsed with the rousing energies of 
 oppressed millions struggling for freedom, in the noon- 
 time of the nineteenth century, the inhuman position 
 is taken and tenaciously maintained, by nearly all the 
 leading men of the entire South, that slavery is a 
 blessing — the corner-stone of democracy — the di- 
 vinely-appointed relation between the laborer and the 
 employer. How appalling the demonstration which 
 this fact affords of the degrading influence which 
 slavery exerts upon the public mind ! 
 
 The slave-poAver is now operating with all its old 
 energy and unanimity, to inflict the curse of human 
 bondage upon New Mexico and California. Slaves 
 are already bought, and sold, and tasked in these ter- 
 ritories. It is estimated by a strong-minded slave- 
 holder and an earnest slavery propagandist, that ten 
 thousand slaves will be introduced into California 
 the present year. Thousands of slaveholders are on 
 their way to the land of golden promise, with the 
 strong determination to plant slavery there. I know 
 that many true-hearted anti-slavery men have like- 
 wise gone from the Free States to California, who 
 will exert a manly and a faithful influence against the 
 establishment of slavery there. I thank God they 
 are to be on the ground. I wish a hundred thousand 
 faithful abolitionists were this day congregated on the 
 shores of the Pacific Sea and in the valleys of Cali- 
 fornia. I know it is said by many able men, that 
 2 * 
 
30 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 there is no danger of the establishment of slavery in 
 these territories. But I cannot agree with them in 
 this view. The warning record of our nation’s history 
 tells me that there is and must be imminent danger, 
 without the specific and unflinching prohibition of 
 slavery in all our territories by Congress.- Nothing 
 but the most unwearied vigilance, untiring effort, and 
 united heartiness, on the part of the true friends of 
 man, can prevent the triumph of the slave-power in 
 its present atrocious scheme for planting this desolat- 
 ing curse upon the soil of a vast jCPnsettled empire, 
 which is now free by law. 
 
 Well, let slavery triumph in this enterprise, and 
 you prepare the way for the annexation of the re- 
 maining Mexican States, Guatimala and the West 
 India Islands, to our Union as slave States. And 
 what then ? Why then the slave-power would con- 
 trol this country. Then nothing but the sword and 
 the fagot could finish our drama of national crime 
 and retribution. No intelligent man, at all acquainted 
 with the history of this country for the last twenty 
 years, doubts the earnestness or tenacity of the slave- 
 power’s purpose to make slavery the overshadowing 
 influence in our national councils, by its extension to 
 the Isthmus and to the Islands of the Great Gulf, and 
 by the introduction of all this vast territory, as inde- 
 pendent States, into our Federal Union. Nor can 
 any sane mind, cognizant of the past and awake to 
 the present, doubt the imminence of our danger from 
 these infernal schemes of the slave-power. 
 
 The slave-power demands not the negro alone as 
 its victim. Complexion has nothing to do with the 
 enslavement of human beings. Hundreds and thous- 
 ands of slaves at the South are as white as you or I. 
 The slave-power demands the enslavement of the 
 laborer^ And this is by no means an idle demand. 
 Let slavery continue another sixty years, steadily 
 extending its dominion ; let the slave-power control 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 31 
 
 the destinies of this people during these coming years ; 
 and as surely as a just God reigneth, the prospective 
 atrocities of the slave-power will be accomplished. 
 And then the universal relation of laborer to employ- 
 er, in this Western world, will be that of slave to 
 master. Capital will own the soil, and the tillers 
 thereof; the work-shop and the toiling artisan, the 
 implements of labor, and the millions who use them. 
 This whole land will then be a land of whips and 
 chains, and branding-irons — a land of heartless 
 tyrants and cringing slaves ! ! How true then the 
 sentiments of our Resolutions. It is the duty of every 
 man, woman, and child, both North and South of the 
 dividing line, to do all that can be done to secure the 
 immediate emancipation of our brethren in bonds ; 
 to labor, in and out of season, for the instant and 
 entire overthrow of American Slavery. This is the 
 pressing present issue before us, vital both to our well- 
 being and to the well-being of our children after us. 
 Neglect this, and you neglect the great, the momen- 
 tous duty of our day. Neglect this, and I care not 
 what else you do perform, you are faithless stewards 
 in the household of your Lord. 
 
 When I forget the slave, and cease to labor for his 
 emancipation from bondage, and for his introduction 
 to the glorious privileges of the equal and universal 
 brotherhood which Jesus came to establish, Then 
 let my right hand forget her cunnings and my 
 tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. 
 
 Let us now briefly consider the agency by which 
 the slave-power acts and rules. The slaveholders, 
 acting alone, could never have wrought out a tithe of 
 the vast and atrocious enterprise which has been 
 accomplished by the slave-power. Union and 
 energy would never avail five hundred thousand men 
 in an earnest encounter with fifteen millions. One 
 nian, in the most unrighteous cause that ever enlisted 
 the abandoned and the reprobate, could not stand 
 
32 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 his ground a moment against thirty men, enrolled 
 under the banner of Humanity. But the slave- 
 power has ruled the country and extended wide the 
 curse of human bondage, by securing the neutrality, 
 or the open support of the men of Avealth, of com- 
 manding influence, and of great learning through our 
 whole land. The great majority of our whole peo- 
 ple, while at heart loving liberty and hating oppres- 
 sion, yet, actuated too much by the blind spirit of 
 party bigotry, and led on by these compromisers in 
 their party action, have acquiesced in this unholy 
 alliance with the slave-power. Hoav many honest, 
 well-sustained efforts against the aggressions of the 
 slave-power can you find in the public life of the 
 giant mind of this State, during the thirty years that 
 he has acted an important part in the councils of this 
 nation? Alas for Humanity ‘that it should be so! 
 Hardly one. But on the other hand, you can find 
 numberless cases of shameful concession to, and 
 cowardly compromise with, the dark spirit of slavery, 
 in the public life of Massachusetts’ most honored 
 son ! And what is said of him may be said also of 
 nearly every influential statesman acting in our 
 government for the past thirty years. Without doubt, 
 the people in their stupid clamor about banks and 
 tariffs, forgetting entirely the down-trodden slave, 
 and mobbing the few who dared to plead the cause of 
 the despised bondman, are partly accountable for this 
 wicked subserviency on the part of their public ser- 
 vants to the slave-power. And so also, still more, 
 has the shameful subserviency of our leading states- 
 men exerted a potent influence upon the people, to 
 make them the besotted allies of their deadliest 
 enemy. Thank God ! a change is working in the 
 public mind. The seal is broken,” and true men 
 are leading to the encounter the mustering hosts of 
 Humanity. 
 
 The slave-power has been aided in the execution 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 33 
 
 of its nefarious schemes by a venal and time-serving 
 press. And here is now one of its most potent sup- 
 porters. I speak not now of papers which are merely 
 partisan and political in their character, for such 
 papers must betray and crucify Humanity. Their 
 aim is mean, cruel, and unholy, and their influence 
 is necessarily devilish. Such papers are found one 
 day arrayed against a universal and unmitigated 
 wrong, as the democratic journals of New England 
 were in 1842 and 1843, against the annexation of 
 Texas to our Union ; and the next day you shall And 
 them all joining with corrupt political leaders in 
 shouting for this great crime as a leading party issue ! 
 You cannot say that they violate conscience, or sell 
 principle, for they are manifestly destitute of both. 
 It is their trade to lie, and to pander to the worst pas- 
 sions of men, and they glory iniheir shame. We 
 leave them to the contempt of virtuous intelligence. 
 We expect no aid from them in the cause of the 
 human brotherhood. And we only say of them, that 
 true men will give them no support or countenance; 
 but leave them to sink by the weight of their inherent 
 baseness. 
 
 But I would speak an earnest word of remonstrance 
 against the course pursued by papers, which, profess- 
 ing to seek truth and duty, and the promotion of the 
 well-being of man, do yet give efficient aid to the 
 slave-power. The New York Tribune, professing to 
 understand the high duties of our social brotherhood, 
 g,nd often discoursing most eloquently upon the rights 
 of down-trodden man, pollutes its columns with ful- 
 some adulation of our President as a peace man ; as 
 an honest man ; as a humane man ! A peace man ? 
 engaged in war from his youth, as the trade of his 
 life, and not only so, but the leader in the two most 
 infamous wars which the present century has wit- 
 nessed! An honest man ? daily robbing hundreds of 
 fellow-members of the human family of their hard 
 
34 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 earnings, and building up a large estate by legalized 
 piracy ! A humane man ? the enslaver of men, wo- 
 men, and children ! the butcher of thousands in wars 
 of atrocious injustice ! Alas, how utterly perverted 
 a great mind becomes by the sacrifice of principle to 
 party, or to an imaginary self-interest ! 
 
 Turn now to our religious papers. Do the fervent 
 appeals of a suffering brotherhood meet a true and 
 loving response from these professed oracles of ihe 
 blessed Jesus ? Alas, how far from true devotion to 
 God and a suffering world they stand ! We will not 
 say a word of the Observers ’’ and Puritan Re- 
 corders,’’ since their place and influence are obviously 
 partisan, sectarian, and inhuman ; but we would and 
 we must protest against the compromising course 
 pursued on this vital question by such papers as the 
 ‘‘ Congregationalist*” and the ^^Independent.” These 
 papers were recently established with the explicit 
 promise that they should be thoroughly anti-slavery. 
 Thousands of earnest abolitionists, trusting in their 
 professions, take and read them. It is our right to 
 demand of the editors of these papers, that they take, 
 and unflinchingly maintain, high ground of opposition 
 to, and war against American Slavery. It is the duty 
 of every sincere man and woman, who loves the 
 ruined slave, to withhold from them all support, if 
 they fail to plant themselves on this ground. Where 
 are the editors of the Congregationalist ? All of them 
 keepers of our late National Past, without one word 
 of rebuke for the evident hypocrisy of that act. All 
 of them commenders of the death-bed repentance and 
 sprinkling of our late most wicked President, and that 
 without one word of the last fearful crime of his dying 
 hour, in leaving his outraged slaves to toil on in 
 hopeless despair, and to die in chains. One of the 
 three responsible editors of that paper, famous years 
 ago for his organic ” folly at the meeting of the 
 American Board in Brooklyn, has just voted against 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 35 
 
 the petition of the colored citizens of Boston, for the 
 free enjoyment of their precious rights to the public 
 schools of Boston, because, as he says, in justifying 
 his vote, public opinion is not ready for the right- 
 eous measure.’’ The three editors of this paper, and 
 the three men at the head of the Independent, justify 
 and applaud the course which the American Board 
 has just taken in their annual meeting at Pittsfield, 
 upon the subject of slavery in the Mission Churches. 
 And one of their number, the leading minister of New 
 Haven, is the author of a recent report, accepted by 
 a large body of Ininisters, in which it is openly 
 stated, that the relation of the master to the slave, is 
 not jt;er se sinful ! Let who can, hope for good from 
 such a religious press. / caiinot. God grant that 
 true men and true women may leave these compro- 
 mising papers to die, and their memory to rot. When 
 shall we see this sin of compromise with wrong, of 
 which our public men are so generally, so deeply 
 guilty, placed as it should be at the head of all con- 
 ceivable unworthiness ? 
 
 Of how many of our papers professing to be anti- * 
 slavery, we are compelled in sadness to say, there is 
 no independence, no manliness, no reliable principle, 
 no clear light of truth, no abiding devotedness tOv 
 right, to be found in them. Witness the unworthy 
 and pro-slavery defence of Friar Mathew, for his cra- 
 ven submission to slavery, in the Chronotype. A 
 stronger ally the slave-power never had than the 
 editor of that paper, in his attempted exculpation of 
 the Irish priest and compromiser, for his ignoring in 
 this country the unpopular cause of the slave, which 
 at home^ a popular cause^ he had embraced, and join- 
 ed O’Connell and others in aiding along ! Merciful 
 God ! give to the hosts of humanity, as leaders in the 
 crisis of this great day, men of the uncompromising 
 spirit and true devotion to right, which shone out so 
 steadfastly and brightly in our Great Captain!” 
 
36 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 Jesus freely, lovingly gave His life to ransom and 
 save us. Oh, may we be ready to die for that pre- 
 cious brotherhood which He has established, if the 
 path of duty should lead us to the Cross ! 
 
 Again, the slave-power has used, and is now using, 
 a false religion and a faithless ministry to extend and 
 perpetuate the worst diabolism the sun ever shone 
 upon — -American Slavery. Albert Barnes, one of 
 the ablest Presbyterian ministers of this country, de- 
 clares : — Most sincerely do we believe, that, if all 
 Christians in these States were to ‘ do with their 
 might ’ what they can find to be done, — the love of 
 Christ constraining them ; — if they would detach 
 themselves from all personal connection with the 
 system of slavery, so that their influence should not 
 ‘ throw the sacred shield of religion over so great an 
 evil, there is no public sentiment in this land — there 
 could be none created, that would resist the power of 
 such testimony. There is no power out of the 
 church, that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were 
 not sustained in it. Not a blow need be struck. Not 
 an unkind word need be uttered. No man^s motive 
 need be impugned ; no man’s proper rights invaded. 
 All that is needful is, for each Christian man, and for 
 every Christian church, to stand up in the sacred ma- 
 jesty of such a solemn testimony ; to free themselves 
 from all connection with the evil, and utter a calm 
 and deliberate voice to the world, and the work 
 
 WILL BE DONE. ’ ” 
 
 Strange that one, who can give utterance to such 
 true and noble sentiments as these, should still con- 
 sent to be connected, in ecclesiastical fellowship, with 
 a slaveholding church, as the Presbyterian Church 
 South is. 
 
 Another of our ablest writers says : But for the 
 countenance of the Northern Church, the Southern 
 conscience would long since have awakeiied to a 
 sense of its guilt, and the impious sight of a church 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 37 
 
 made up of slaveholders, and called the church of 
 Christ, would have been scouted from the world.’’ 
 
 This is strong language ; but no man who under- 
 stands the tremendous influence which the church 
 exerts, can, for a moment, doubt its correctness. The 
 stern and sorrowful truth is, the American Church is 
 the slaveholder’s strong hiding-place. John C. Cal- 
 houn is a ruling elder in a Presbyterian church. The 
 religion of the South — which is wholly a thing of 
 forms, psalm-singing, praying, preaching, Sabbath- 
 keeping, and such like, but which has no vital power, 
 as the connection of the Southern Church with 
 slavery proves — is referred - to every day, to prove 
 that slaveholders maybe good, pious men ! It is true, 
 a man wishes to be blinded who is deceived by these 
 things. 
 
 But I will let facts speak for themselves, in re- 
 spect to the connection of the Northern Church with 
 slavery. The A. B. C. F. M. have just closed their 
 annual meeting at Pittsfield. What have they done 
 upon the slavery question ? In a spirit of unholy 
 compromise, they have ignored the whole question. 
 Their influence is now on the side of Southern 
 Slavery. Their feet are on the necks of the slaves ! 
 Every dollar now given to sustain them, is given 
 against Humanity ! Do you ask, what signifies the 
 fact that the American Board of Foreign Missions, is 
 a pro-slavery body ? It signifies just this : the Con- 
 gregational and Presbyterian Churches of the Free 
 States, which sustain that society^ are pro-slavery, and ' 
 in league with the slave-power. A very significant 
 fact for Christians in these churches to consider. 
 Again, the Methodist Episcopal Church North, is 
 in league and full fellowship with slaveho],ding 
 churches. Hope Slatter, the notorious slave-trader, 
 is one of the liberal supporters of this church. 
 Hence, the irifluence of all these churches is neces- 
 sarily against Jesus and Humanity. The same may 
 3 
 
38 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 be said and proved of nearly all the denominational 
 bodies of professed Christians in all the Free States. 
 There are Independent churches, which are fully and 
 gloriously anti-slavery. May God increase them 
 till our land is dotted, from ocean to ocean, with true 
 Christian churches, obedient to the principles of 
 Liberty, Equality, a.nd Fraternity, which shine out 
 so clearly on every page of the Gospel of Jesus, and 
 in every act of His true life. 
 
 The Wesleyan Church is the only denomination 
 of which I have any knowledge in New England, 
 that professes to take uncompromising anti-slavery 
 ground. And even in this church, a leading man 
 openly occupied last autumn, and without open re- 
 buke,, a pro-slavery position, by voting and election- 
 eering for our present slaveholding President. But 
 I would not be so unjust as to class the Wesleyan 
 Church with the other denominations of New Eng- 
 land, as being connected in ecclesiastical relations 
 with slaveholders. I believe it to be not only free 
 from all such wicked relations, but also earnestly de- 
 sirous of doing a faithful part in the, great work of 
 Sanctified Humanity, which is now calling upon all 
 men for instant aid. In this work, may God speed 
 the Wesleyan Church. In mercy, may it be freed 
 from the baneful presence of all pro-slavery men, by 
 their conversion to the truth, or if that be impos- 
 sible, by their expulsion from her communion. 
 
 In speaking of other denominations, truth compels 
 me to say, that they are found fearfully recreant, 
 judged by the unerring rule of Christ: ‘‘By their 
 fruits ye shall know them.’’ Look at their fruits. 
 In the momentous crisis of last year, doctors of 
 divinity and ministers of great influence, by hundreds 
 and thousands, voted for the bloody leader of our 
 armies in their unholy crusade against Humanity. 
 I think I may safely say, in ninety-nine chuches out 
 of every hundred of these denominations in New 
 
• ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 39 
 
 England, professed followers of the uncompromising 
 Jesus, voted for the warrior slaveholder, who keeps 
 in bondage hundreds of his fellow-men. By their 
 votes did they aid to elevate him to the Presidency, 
 reeking in the blood of the slaughtered Indians and 
 Mexicans, and made rich by the unrighteous gains of 
 unpaid toil. It is a significant fact, too, that a large 
 majority of the ministers, having charge of these 
 churches, preached no earnest, truthful, and timely 
 discourse, during the last year’s canvas, respecting 
 the atrocious sin of voting for a slaveholder. And 
 now^ American Slavery is the last topic of Sabbath 
 discourse, on which an earnest word is heard from 
 their pulpits. American Slavery is the subject on 
 which the least is now said, by these ministers, of all 
 subjects which interest the public mind. Now bear 
 in mind that this is no secondary question, but, in 
 stern reality, the leading, most pressing, and most 
 vital Christian reform of our day, and then decide 
 yourselves, in view of the spirit of silence and compro- 
 mise manifested thereon ; if it be not true, that a false 
 religion and a faithless ministry aid and support the 
 abhorrent slave-power. 
 
 The American Church is deeply dyed in guilt, in 
 respect to the enslavement and ruin of the millions of 
 our brethren, who are held in fetters to a fearful 
 extent, by her alliance with the slave-power. Min- 
 isters and people^ of every county in every State of 
 this Union ^ go from the sanctuary to the ballot-box, 
 and vote^ for a noted murderer and man-stealer, help- 
 ing to elevate to the highest office within the gift of 
 this people, a man whose whole life is stained 
 with undisguised and unspeakable crimes. Are they 
 dealt with for this atrocious sin ? Not one of them. 
 Their character as Christians is unaffected and un- 
 stained, in the view of the Church, by this open league 
 with hell. The American Church, as a hody^ oppose 
 and brand as come-outers and infidels, every one who 
 
40 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 is faithful in the remembrance of the slave, as the 
 gospel commands^ as bound xoith him. The Ameri- 
 can Church, as a hody^ attempt to throw the Bible 
 and the Sabbath down upon, to crush the dying 
 slave ! 
 
 I can point to churches which were formed as anti- 
 slavery churches, in which a faithful anti-slavery 
 sermon is not preached during one of the fifty-two 
 Sabbaths of the year. I recently attended the exer- 
 cises, ordaining and installing a minister over such a 
 church. Three hours were consumed in pointing out 
 the duties of pastor and people ; but not one minute 
 was given in prayer or speaking to the millions of 
 slaves, who plead in vain of that church for a remem- 
 brance of sympathy, of love, and of ceaseless toil, such 
 as God commands. Such churches are as truly and 
 as fearfully pro-slavery as the church to which the 
 slaveholder, Henry Clay, belongs, or the one in whose 
 communion Thomas Hart Benton is found, or that 
 of which John C. Calhoun is a ruling elder. What 
 kind of a Christian church would that be, in which 
 no sermon about Christ should be preached, from 
 one end of the year to the other ? Such an organi- 
 zation might be a Jewish or a Mahomedan church, 
 but to call it a Christian church would be a naked 
 fraud. 
 
 It is with unfeigned sorrow that I speak of such 
 facts, for my heart longs, yea, it faints to see such a 
 church in our world, as Jesus Christ established, Avith 
 power to reform the Avorld, by the establishment of 
 Righteousness, Peace, and a Brotherhood of Love, 
 throughout the length and breath of the earth. 
 
 But I would not let any feelings or sympathies 
 blind me to the truth. Neither would I for any con- 
 sideration of selfish interest or short-sighted expedi- 
 ency, suppress one jot or tittle of my honest convic- 
 tion of what is the truth. Hence it. is, that I feel 
 compelled to say, that the American Church, as a 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 41 
 
 hody^ occupies to-day, a false, faithless and destruc- 
 tive position, in regard to the most atrocious and de- 
 basing sin of our world, American Slavery ! 
 
 But let us not forget to look to ourselves, in 
 searching out the Avicked agency, by which the 
 slave-power has secured obedience to its abhorrent 
 commands. But feAV of us can say, that we are in- 
 nocent of having harbored in our hearts a wicked 
 prejudice towards the negro. Few, if any of us, 
 who have not been guilty of indifference towards the 
 pleading, wretched slave. All such prejudice is of 
 the devil, and all such indifference is direct and 
 potent support of the slave-power. Few of us have 
 remembered the slave as bound Avith him ; and;^ failing 
 to do all this, we forget to minister to the Lord of all, 
 Avho is chained and lacerated in the bondage and 
 sufferings of the least of his brethren, languishing 
 and dying in the great Southern prison land! Re- 
 pentance is therefore our duty. The strongest obli- 
 gation lays hold upon us, deeply to deplore the sin 
 of-our nation’’ and our sin in holding slaves,” and 
 to do all we can to secure the immediate emanci- 
 pation of all in bondage,” and their immediate intro- 
 duction to a full participation in the glorious privi- 
 leges of the Great Christian Brotherhood. The 
 negro is not to be sent to Africa, nor driven across the 
 line of Western civilization. This land is his native 
 home^ as truly as it is ours. He has the same in- 
 alienable right to enjoy fully and unmolested the civil, 
 social and moral privileges of this country, that we have. 
 God is his father as truly as he is ours. The same glo- 
 rious and immortal endowments are bestowed upon 
 him that Ave possess. We are brethren of the same fa- 
 mily, and our destiny must unite and run on together. 
 We cannot permit the negro to remain in bondage, 
 for in so doing we are forging chains for our children. 
 And if we falter and fail in the encounter to which 
 we are noAv called against the desolating inroads 
 of the slave-power, our children’s children will there- 
 
42 
 
 ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 by reap a harvest of sufferings and woe. Here then we 
 take an immovable stand. We can do no otherwise. 
 May God help us. for this is Jehovah’s cause. 
 
 In conclusion, allow me to say a word to the 
 young. Young men and young women ! I would 
 that I possessed the power to set before you, with a 
 divine eloquence, the glory and the greatness of the 
 mission to which you are called. No generation 
 ever came upon the stage of active life with such 
 vast opportunities for doing good with such mo- 
 mentous responsibilities for the improvement of life, 
 as you, who are now coming up into your fathers’ 
 and mothers’ places in society. Those who have 
 gone before you, leading you along in your early 
 ways, have passed the summit, and are now descending 
 the hill of life. Their habits of thought and modes 
 of action, were long ago fixed and settled. Their 
 political prejudices long ago became strong, through 
 the potent influence of years of party controversy. 
 The great work of Humanity, which we are now 
 called to undertake and accomplish, imperatively de- 
 mands of us, to lay aside all prejudice, both party 
 and sectarian animosities. Forgetting the paltry ob- 
 jects of past party divisions, we must awake to the 
 noble ambition, to the fixed purpose of soul, to live, 
 pray, love and toil, for the world’s redemption and 
 salvation, in Jesus Christ. We must press on and 
 ever onward in this only true and worthy life, till 
 we arrive at our glorious home, and come to perfec- 
 tion of knowledge, holiness, love and joy, in the 
 presence of our Lord. 
 
 This work of reform <^annot be accomplished, nor 
 really advanced, by minds controlled by sectarian or 
 party prejudice. Perhaps we ought not to expect, 
 that a majority of those who have passed the meri- 
 dian of life, will lay aside all prejudice, and at 
 once come heartily and freshly into this work. Men 
 sometimes do this, I know. Some noble men there 
 
ADDRESS ON SLAVERY. 
 
 43 
 
 are, Avho are always young, with the freshness of 
 heart and the tenderness of conscience of opening 
 life unimpaired. Would to God there were more 
 such ! But this is not the general result of a long 
 life and a fierce struggle in our selfish world. The 
 heart grows old and tough too often, with the in- 
 crease of years ; and the prejifdices of education, be- 
 ing long cherished, become a habit of the mind, 
 from which few can break away. Fondest welcome, 
 reverence and love, then, be given to the aged and 
 the wise, who are now faithfully employed in this 
 great work of universal Christian Humanity. So 
 also to all in the maturity or advance of life, who 
 will come boldly up to the help of the Lord’s plead- 
 ing children, against the terrible slave-power. 
 
 But whoever else may engage in this sublime en- 
 terprise, it is, after all, most emphatically committed 
 to the young, the affectionate, the generous, the ar- 
 dent, to those yet uncontaminated by close and long 
 contact with a heartless world. Behold, then, my 
 dear young friends, the glorious mission to which 
 God calls you. Listen to the heavenly summons. 
 Gird on the Divine panoply of truth, faith and love, 
 and enter upon the arduous work of a sanctified and 
 universal Humanity. Swell the ranks of liberty by 
 your presence. Let your glad tones ring out in the 
 front ranks of God’s fast marshalling host. Help on 
 the regeneration of the world. Lay not up your 
 treasures upon the earth. Secure enduring treasures 
 of love in the hearts of your brother men, for then 
 shall you have priceless and eternal treasure in the 
 Kingdom of God. Be not controlled by a selfish, 
 paltry ambition. Be good, and then you will be great. 
 Love, and strive to promote the highest well-being of 
 man, and then you shall be loved in return, and you 
 shall be truly and for ever blessed. Three millions 
 of slaves, your own brothers, your own sisters, though 
 branded, chained and despised, turn upon yon their 
 
44 ADDRESS ON S 
 
 3 0112 0724011 
 
 weeping eyes, stretch out to you their manacled hand 
 and lift up unto tjou their pleading voices for delivei 
 ance from their insupportable sorrows. Oh ! turn y 
 upon those beseeching eyes the bright beams of brotl 
 erly love, — grasp those manacled hands with the stron 
 earnestness of deep sympathy, of fond affection, - 
 respond to those entreating tones of pleading sorrov 
 in the divine words of our Prince and deliverer, “ L 
 I come to do thy will, O God, to set these wailin 
 captives free, to bind up these broken hearts, to opej 
 the iron door of bondage for the deliverance of thes 
 dear imprisoned brethren, to pour the light of lovj 
 and truth into these immortal minds, shrouded i| 
 thick darkness through the rapacity and injustice d 
 their brother man, to sound aloud through the world 
 again and again, the glad heavenly song, j 
 
 “ Glory to God in tlie Heavens ; _ i 
 
 Peace and good will to man on earth ” ! 
 
 Come ! for all things are now ready. Let God’i 
 Spirit in this propitious hour, witness, approve anj 
 seal your inward purpose, your holy vow, from th 
 moment to consecrate your opening energies, yo 
 matured powers, your last mental aspirations on th 
 shores of time, to the heavenly enterprise of givin 
 to all mankind a peaceful, happy place in the Chn 
 tian Brotherhood of Fraternity, Liberty, and Equa 
 ity. Enter yourself into the family of Jesus. Lea 
 others with you into the blessed circle of love, an 
 peace, and joy in God. Oh ! that the young me 
 and young women of our day, would awake to a tru 
 sense of their responsibilities, and, girded with an i 
 movable faith in God and a divine love for nm 
 would enter upon a life of true holy beneficence. F 
 then, slavery and all wrong-doing would soon be bar 
 ished from the earth, and our world would become 
 paradise of love, piety and happiness. ■*