ry less, and glide
Ungroaning to the tomb--

I shall not have written in vain; my conscience will be satisfied. Far
be it from me to cast new bitters in the gall and wormwood waters of
sectional prejudice. No, I desire peace--the peace of universal love--of
catholic sympathy--the peace of common interest--a common feeling--a
common humanity. But so long as slavery is tolerated, no such peace can
exist. Liberty and slavery cannot dwell in harmony together. There will
be a perpetual war in the members of the political _Mezentius_--between
the living and the dead. God and man have placed between them an
everlasting barrier--an eternal separation. No matter under what law
or compact their union is attempted, the ordination of Providence has
forbidden it--and it cannot stand. Peace! there can be no peace between
justice and oppression--between robbery and righteousness--truth and
falsehood--freedom and slavery. The slaveholding States are not free.
The name of Liberty is there, but the spirit is wanting. They do not
partake of its invaluable blessings.

"Wherever slavery exists to any considerable extent, with the exception
of some recently settled portions of the country, and which have not
yet felt, in a great degree, the baneful and deteriorating influence of
slave labor--we hear, at this moment, the cry of suffering. We are told
of grass-grown streets--of crumbling mansions--of beggared planters, and
barren plantations--of fear from without--of terror within. The once
fertile fields are wasted and tenantless: for the curse of slavery--the
improvidence of that laborer whose hire has been kept back by fraud--has
been there, poisoning the very earth, beyond the reviving influence of
the early and the latter rain. A moral mildew mingles with, and blasts
the economy of nature. It is as if the finger of the everlasting God had
written upon the soil of the slaveholder the language of his displeasure.

"Let then the slaveholding States consult their present interest by
beginning, without delay, the work of emancipation. If they fear not,
and mock at the fiery indignation of Him to whom vengeance belongeth,
let temporal interest persuade them. They know, they must know, that
the present state of things cannot long continue. Mind is the same
every where, no matter what may be the complexion of the frame which
it animates; there is a love of liberty which the scourge cannot
eradicate. A hatred of oppression which centuries of d