ch have been adopted by the government at an early day, and at
different times since, for the suppression of this traffic; and I would
call on all the true sons of New England to co-operate with the laws of
man, and the justice of Heaven. If there be, within the extent of our
knowledge or influence, any participation in this traffic, let us
pledge ourselves here, upon the rock of Plymouth, to extirpate and
destroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear the
shame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of the
furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. I
see the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in this
work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of such
instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let it
cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set aside
from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human
sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have no
communion with it.

I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who minister
at her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary severity of
the law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its
denunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions to the
authority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent whenever or wherever
there may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its
voice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I call on the fair merchant,
who has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist in scourging
from those seas the worst pirates that ever infested them. That ocean,
which seems to wave with a gentle magnificence to waft the burden of an
honest commerce, and to roll along its treasures with a conscious
pride,--that ocean, which hardy industry regards, even when the winds
have ruffled its surface, as a field of grateful toil,--what is it to
the victim of this oppression, when he is brought to its shores, and
looks forth upon it, for the first time, loaded with chains, and
bleeding with stripes? What is it to him but a wide-spread prospect of
suffering, anguish, and death? Nor do the skies smile longer, nor is the
air longer fragrant to him. The sun is cast down from heaven. An inhuman
and accursed traffic has cut him off in his manhood, or in his youth,
from every enjoyment belonging to his being, and every blessing which