interests that are involved in the measure reconciled and
satisfied;--to say this, is to trample on the demands of moral
obligation, and to disregard the voice which speaks to as from
heaven. The path of duty is plain before us; and we have nothing
to do but to enter it at once, and to walk in it without turning
to the right hand or to the left. Our concern is not with the
result that may follow our obedience to the divine will. Our
great and primary concern is to obey that will. God reigns over
his universe in the exercise of infinite perfection: he commands
us to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke; and
submitting, without procrastination, and without any attempts at
compromise, to that command, we may be assured that he will take
care of all the effects that can be produced by compliance with
his authority, and give demonstration to the truth that
obedience to his behests is our grand and only security for a
prosperous lot.

'We are by no means indifferent to the expediency of the case.
On the contrary, we think ourselves prepared to prove, by fair
reasoning and by ascertained fact, that the expediency of the
thing is all on our side; that immediate abolition is the only
secure and proper way of attaining the object which we all
profess to have in view; that to defer the measure to a distant
period, and to admit the propriety of getting at it by a course
of mitigation, is the surest mode of frustrating every hope we
might otherwise entertain, and giving over the slaves to
interminable bondage.' * * *

'I do not deny, Sir, that the evils of practical slavery may be
lessened. By parliamentary enactments, by colonial arrangements,
by appeals to the judgment and feelings of planters, and by
various other means, a certain degree of melioration _may_ be
secured. But I say, in the first place, that, with all that you
can accomplish, or reasonably expect, of mitigation, you cannot
alter the nature of slavery itself. With every improvement you
have superinduced upon it, you have not made it less debasing,
less cruel, less destructive, in its essential character. The
black man is still the _property_ of the white man. And that one
circumstance not only implies in it the transgression of
inalienable right and everlasting justice, but is the fruitful
and nece