ions for to dwell on _all_ the
face of the earth," that when the dying slaveholder, under the lashes
of a guilty conscience, would give to his slaves unqualified freedom,
it wickedly interposes, and persuades him that "to do justly and love
mercy" would be to inflict an irreparable injury upon the community,
and that to do his duty to God and his fellow-creatures, under the
circumstances, he should bequeath to his surviving slaves the cruel
alternative of _either expatriation to a far-off, pestilential clime,
with the prospect of a premature death, or perpetual slavery, with its
untold horrors, in his native land_. Against this most iniquitous
system of persecution and proscription of an inoffensive people, for
no other reason than that we wear the physical exterior given us in
infinite wisdom and benevolence, I would record, nay _engrave_ with
the pen of a diamond, my most emphatic and solemn protest; more
especially would I do so, as the system, under animadversion, is most
inconsistently fostered, and shamelessly lauded, by ministers of the
gospel in the nineteenth century, as a scheme of Christian
philanthropy! "O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their
assembly, mine honor, be not thou united."

[Illustration: (signature) Wm. Watkins]

TORONTO, C. W., Oct. 31st.

[Illustration: William H. Seward. (Engraved by J. C. Buttre)]

The Basis of the American Constitution

"Happy," (said Washington, when announcing the treaty of peace to the
army,) "thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who shall
have contributed anything, who shall have performed the meanest office
in erecting this stupendous fabric of freedom and empire on the broad
basis of independency, who shall have assisted in protecting the
Rights of Human Nature, and establishing an asylum for the poor and
oppressed of all nations and religions."

You remember well that the Revolutionary Congress in the declaration
of independence placed the momentous controversy between the Colonies
and Great Britain on the absolute and inherent equality of all men. It
is not, however, so well understood that that body closed its
existence on the adoption of the Federal Constitution with this solemn
injunction, addressed to the people of the United States: "Let it be
remembered that it has ever been the pride and boast of America, that
the Rights for which she contended were the Rights of Human Nature."

No one will contend that our Father