For, while all that the speakers had uttered with regard to
Slavery was true enough, it was most manifest that, whatever effect the
course of action they urged might have in America, it could have no
other than a baneful influence on the cause of Political Reform in this
country. True, it did not always say in so many words that the Social
and Political institutions of Great Britain are perfect, but it never
intimated the contrary, while it generally implied and often distinctly
affirmed this. The effect, therefore, of such inculcations, is not only
to stimulate and aggravate the Phariseeism to which all men are
naturally addicted, but actually to impede and arrest the progress of
Reform in this Country by implying that nothing here needs reforming.
And as this doctrine of "Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou,"
was of course received with general applause by a British audience, the
vices of speaker and hearer reaected on each other; and, judging from the
specimens I had that evening, I must regard American, and especially
Afric-American lecturers against Slavery in this country as among the
most effective upholders of all the enormous Political abuses and wrongs
which are here so prevalent.

When the stand was accorded me, therefore, I proceeded, not by any means
to apologize for American Slavery, not to suggest the natural obstacles
to its extinction, but to point out, as freely as the audience would
bear, some modes of effective hostility to it in addition to those
already commended. Premising the fact that Slavery in America now
justifies itself mainly on the grounds that the class who live by rude
manual toil always are and must be degraded and ill-requited--that there
is more debasement and wretchedness on their part in the Free States and
in Great Britain itself than there is in the Slave States--and that,
moreover, Free laborers will not work in tropical climates, so that
these must be cultivated by slaves or not at all--I suggested and
briefly urged on British Abolitionists the following course of action:

1. Energetic and systematic exertions to increase the reward of Labor
and the comfort and consideration of the depressed Laboring Class here
at home; and to diffuse and cherish respect for Man as Man, without
regard to class, color or vocation.

2. Determined efforts for the eradication of those Social evils and
miseries _here_ which are appealed to and relied on by slaveholders and
their champions ev