suppose that slavery is, in principle, a clearer moral wrong, than polygamy or no marriage would be. What then, I would seriously ask the people of the South, are we to do with these convictions? Would they have us tread them under foot? It is as if they asked us to falsify our conscience or our word. We cannot do it. No people can be so false to itself. A Government may belie the sentiment of the people; but no people can be so false to itself.

In fine, if I could speak to the people of the South, I would say to them; I have faithfully endeavoured to understand your view of this great question; for thirty years I have availed myself of all proper opportunities for conversing with those of you with whom I have been acquainted; I have listened to them with all possible consideration, and may I say, candour; and I entertain now none of that rancour against you, for which you are accustomed to look at the North. I have no doubt that the body of you sincerely believe that for the present, and indeed for the future, while the African man continues to be what he is now, the relation of servitude is the best both for you and him, You believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that he is better off and is happier as he is, than he would be if he were immediately set free. You profess kindness for him. You say, that among you cruelty to him is held in the worst repute. You say that the condition of things among you generally is not that of grinding tyranny on the one hand and of reluctant and weeping submission on the other. You say that the African is a weak and childish being, unfit to take care of himself and that you must hold him, and ought to hold him in your care and keeping.

Then I say, in the first place-for heaven's sake and for humanity's sake, treat him as a child. Pity his

degradation; that noble sentiment can do you no harm. Raise him from his degradation as you would any poor and ignorant creature; do not, that is to say, crush and keep him down, or neglect him and leave him prostrate, because he is a slave. How can any

one live, how can he pass his whole life in the presence of one or two hundred beings, capable of the noblest elevation, capable at least of something far better than they ever reach, and yet leave them in perpetual ignorance, and almost brutish stupidity! If the very dog at our feet, could be raised to the bliss of humanity, what noble mind would not be filled with enthusiasm to achieve it! Is it said, that would not be safe; then, I reply, there must be something wrong in the relation. It cannot possibly be right so to hold down and bind to the earth the faculties of an immortal creature! *

In the next place, I would earnestly ask those who sustain this relation, if they have well and duly considered what a tremendous element they hold in their charge. The awfulness of this human nature !—the whole world has yet to wake up to it. But is there not a sentiment of contempt towards the slave man, that fearfully overlooks what he is. Amidst all the pro

*It was about twenty years ago, that an aged gentleman was living in the city of London, in wealth and luxury derived from the produce of his estates in the Island of Barbadoes. Some facts came to his knowledge that led him to suspect that his slaves were cruelly treated. At the age of eighty, he left his luxurious home, and crossed the ocean to examine for himself. He dwelt among his people for ten years. He took a fatherly care of them; he improved their condition and character; he prepared them for freedom, and dying at the age of ninety, he left them with a copy-hold of his estates. Well might the Edinburgh Review say, we take shame to ourselves, that while we have been occupied with the deeds of kings and conquerors, we have never heard till now the name of Joshua Steele.

fessions of kindness and protection towards him, I think I see that in a very marked degree. The great human claim which we assert for him, is met with a smile of incredulity and indifference, if not of contempt.

This, it seems to me, is the dividing point in the whole controversy. In the Southern mind, as far as I have studied it, there appears to be no proper recognition of the common humanity in the African man. That the slave man is a man, with a man's feelings, with a man's rights, with a man's capabilities-this is precisely what is not felt. I would solicit the attention of my Southern brethren to this point. It seems to me that the long habit of using these beings as mere cattle, and disposing of them as mere chattels, has worn off from them, in the eyes of their masters, the venerable and solemn impress of humanity itself. I once put the question in conversation- "Suppose that this were a race of apes or ourang-outangs which you held in bondage, but that you believed, according to some modern theories, that they were capable of being cultivated up to humanity; would you not feel a greater moral interest in such a race, than you now do in the slave-race? Would you not be inspired with the most enthusiastic desire to bring about such a consummation? And is it not some strange habit of mind that prevents an equal interest about the improvements of human beings?

The comparison may be repelled; but is not the allegation mainly true? Is the human claim of this unhappy race felt? They say, at the South, that we do not understand the case-how inferior these people are we reply, Do you understand the case? how human they are. You say that you feel kindly towards them. So you do towards your dog or your

horse. Is that enough? Does that satisfy the sacred relation of man with man? Is, we repeat, the awfulness of the human claim regarded? And will the God who has made man in his own image, permit that sacred claim to be so disregarded?

Far be it from me to invoke his displeasure; but I say in the third place that there is peril in that dread element which we have taken into our charge. The times of ignorance God winked at: but these later Christian ages cannot pass over a race oppressed, dwarfed, kept down and chained to the earth, without making terrible inquisition for it. Heaven demands, "where is thy brother ?"-and earth echoes, "where is he?" It is in vain to resist that universal sentiment that is rising all over the world in behalf of this oppressed race. That universal sentiment will educate the slave; and it will educate him to wrath and resistance, if we do not educate him to intelligence, love and freedom.

If I were to propose a plan to meet the duties and perils of this tremendous emergency that presses upon us, I would engage the whole power of this nation, the willing co-operation of the North and the South, if it were possible, to prepare this people for freedom; and then I would give them a country beyond the mountains-say the Californias--where they might be a nation by themselves. Ah! if the millions upon millions spent upon a Mexican war could be devoted to this purpose; if all the energies of this country could be employed for such an end; what a noble. spectacle were it for all the world to behold, of help and redemption to an enslaved people! What a purifying and ennobling ministration for ourselves!

XIX.

PUBLIC CALAMITIES.*

I KNOW, O LORD, THAT THY JUDGMENTS ARE RIGHT, AND THAT THOU IN FAITHFULNESS HAST AFFLICTED ME-Psalm cxix. 75.

AN event has occurred in our waters within the last week, that has so occupied my mind, that I could not well have prepared to speak to you this morning on any other subject. I feel, too, that I shall probably best consult the state of your minds, by making it the subject of your reflections; in a place too, where such reflections most naturally come for guidance and relief the house of God. The house of God also mourns with many private dwellings of the land; the groan that arises by their desolate hearths, is echoed from the altar. The Church of God mourns the loss of one of its holiest, dearest and most devoted servants. Dr. Follen-alas! that I must say it, and dismiss all further hope is among the victims of that dreadful catastrophe. That name, whose utterance now fills us with grief-I know not how it was-strangely almost it seemed, stranger as he was-had mingled itself with the home sympathies of many hearts, and of many of the best minds among us. Yet why should I say that I know not how it was-when the beauty and purity of his life, the unfeigned sincerity and affectionateness of his disposition, the enlarged

* A Discourse delivered on the occasion of the loss of the steamer Lexington, in Long Island Sound, January 13, 1840.