en already mentioned,
says, "But now, thank God, the human mind having progressed with gradual
march in the path of science and political philosophy, &c. the
principles, 'that all men are by nature equally free and independent,'
&c. have gained and are daily gaining more extensive currency." This
declaration, which probably alludes to Europe, is conspicuously true,
with respect to our own country. In several or all of the slave states,
there are many benevolent respectable individuals, who are dissatisfied
with the practice of retaining their _innocent African brethren_ in
bondage, and have signified their desire to release them.[10] And
although these votaries to humanity are prevented by the existing laws
of their respective districts, from accomplishing the full extent of
their wishes, it is hoped they will not fail to recognize the high
privilege, which still remains in their hands, of exercising reciprocal
justice to their sable _prisoners_, (no longer slaves,) and of educating
and qualifying them for their eventual freedom and reception into an
asylum, which, it may be confidently anticipated, will, ere long, be
prepared for them. In fact, I do not hesitate to predict, that whenever
slaves shall become qualified by intelligence and moral cultivation, for
the rational enjoyment of liberty, and the performance of the various
relative social virtues and duties of life, the enlightened American
legislators and depositories of the rights of man, will listen to the
voice of reason and justice, and the spirit of our social organization,
and _permit_ the release of

"------the poor fetter'd slave on bended knee,
From [Columbia's] sons imploring to be free;"

without banishing him, as a traitor, from his native land, where his
services as an industrious, though free laborer, may be indispensable to
its cultivation. But under present circumstances, I am not disposed to
question the policy or propriety of suitable laws, for regulating the
manumission of slaves, with a view to their own welfare and subsistence
as well as the preservation of the public peace. Many benevolent
gentlemen have exercised a sort of morbid or mistaken humanity, in
manumitting, or _turning out of doors_, slaves who had devoted the
greater part of the common period of man's life to their service, and
who, being morally and physically disqualified for securing an _honest_
maintenance, have finished their days in misery and woe. A very
benevolent p