the horrible character of slavery
toward the slave, in hunting him down in a free state, and tearing
him away from wife and children, thus setting its claims higher
than marriage or parental claims. It has revealed the arrogant and
overbearing spirit of the slave states toward the free states; despising
their principles--shocking their feelings of humanity, not only by
bringing before them the abominations of slavery, but by attempting to
make them parties to the crime. It has called into exercise among the
colored people, the hunted ones, a spirit of manly resistance well
calculated to surround them with a bulwark of sympathy and respect
hitherto unknown. For men are always disposed to respect and defend
rights, when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves.

There is another element of power added to the anti-slavery movement, of
great importance; it is the conviction, becoming every day more general
and universal, that slavery must be abolished at the south, or it will
demoralize and destroy liberty at the north. It is the nature of
slavery to beget a state of things all around it favorable to its
own continuance. This fact, connected with the system of bondage, is
beginning to be more fully realized. The slave-holder is not satisfied
to associate with men in the church or in the state, unless he can
thereby stain them with the blood of his slaves. To be a slave-holder
is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by
keeping down the under-growth morality which nature supplies. Every
new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal presence, to make war
on slavery. The heart of pity, which would melt in due time over
the brutal chastisements it sees inflicted on the helpless, must be
hardened. And this work goes on every day in the year, and every hour in
the day.

What is done at home is being done also abroad here in the north. And
even now the question may be asked, have we at this moment a single
free state in the Union? The alarm at this point will become more
general.{370} The slave power must go on in its career of exactions.
Give, give, will be its cry, till the timidity which concedes shall give
place to courage, which shall resist. Such is the voice of experience,
such has been the past, such is the present, and such will be that
future, which, so sure as man is man, will come. Here I leave
the subject; and I leave off where I began, consoling myself
and congratulati