skill to secure quiet to the
nation. A system of measures to promote this object was adopted a few
months ago in congress. The result of those measures is known. Instead
of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought
us war; and so it must ever be.

While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of
innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and
lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of
the affairs of men. There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery
continues in the land. It will be condemned; and while it is condemned
there will be agitation. Nature must cease to be nature; men must
become monsters; humanity must be transformed; Christianity must be
exterminated; all ideas of justice and the laws of eternal goodness must
be utterly blotted out from the human soul--ere a system so foul and
infernal can escape condemnation, or this guilty republic can have a
sound, enduring peace.

INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. Extract from A Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,
December 8, 1850

The relation of master and slave has been called patriarchal, and only
second in benignity and tenderness to that of the parent and child. This
representation is doubtless believed by many northern people; and this
may account, in part, for the lack of interest which we find among
persons whom we are bound to believe to be honest and humane. What,
then, are the facts? Here I will not quote my own experience in slavery;
for this you might call one-sided testimony. I will not cite
the declarations of abolitionists; for these you might pronounce
exaggerations. I will not rely upon advertisements cut from newspapers;
for these you might call isolated cases. But I will refer you to the
laws adopted by the legislatures of the slave states. I give you such
evidence, because it cannot be invalidated nor denied. I hold in my hand
sundry extracts from the slave codes of our country, from which I will
quote. * * *

Now, if the foregoing be an indication of kindness, _what is cruelty_?
If this be parental affection, _what is bitter malignity_? A more
atrocious and blood-thirsty string of laws could not well be conceived
of. And yet I am bound to say that they fall short of indicating the
horrible cruelties constantly practiced in the slave states.

I admit that there are individual slaveholders less cruel and barbarous
than is allowed by law; but these fo