ica boasts of being a land of freedom, and an asylum for the
oppressed of Europe, she should at the same time foster an abominable
nursery for slaves, to check the shoots of her growing liberty?

Deaf to the clamours of criticism, she feels no remorse, and blindly
pursues the object of her destruction; she encourages the propagation
of vice, and suffers her youth to be reared in the habits of cruelty.

Not even the sobs and groans of injured innocence, which _reek_ from
every State, can excite her pity, nor human misery bend her heart to
sympathy.

Cruel and oppressive she wantonly abuses the _Rights of Man_, and
willingly sacrifices her liberty at the altar of slavery: What an
opportunity is here given for triumph among her enemies? Will they not
exclaim, that upon this very day, while the Americans the anniversary
of Freedom and Independence, abject slavery exists tn all her States
but one.[37]

How degenerately base to merit the rebuke. Fellow-countrymen, let the
heart of humanity awake and direct your counsels; reflect that
slavery gains root among you; look back upon the curses which it has
heaped upon your ancestors, and unanimously combine to drive the
_fiend Monster_ from your territories; it is inconsistent with the
principles of your government, with the education of your youth, and
highly derogatory to the true spirit of Christianity.

In despotic governments, says Montesque, where they are already in a
state of political slavery, civil slavery is more tolerable than in
other governments; for there the minds of masters and servants are
equally degenerate and act in unison.--But in America, this cannot be
the case; here the pure forms of Republicanism are established, and
hold forth to the world the enjoyment of Freedom and Independence.

Her citizens have thrown off the load of oppression, under which they
formerly laboured; and elated with their signal victories, have become
oppressors in their turn.

They have slaves, over whom they carry the iron rod of subjection, and
fail not to exercise it with cruelty, hence their situations become
insupportable, misery inhabits their cabins, and persecution pursues
them in the field.

I would wish to be partial to my country, and carry a hand of lenity;
it is more pleasing to celebrate than to detract, but whoever takes a
view of the situation of its slaves, will find it even worse than this
description.

Naked and starved, they often fall victims to the in