way than ever from your
object. It is not to the Government or the Parliament at home
that you are to look--neither is it to the legislatures and
planters abroad that you are to look--for accomplishing the
abolition of negro slavery. Sad experience shows that, if left
to themselves, they will do nothing efficient in this great
cause. It is to the sentiments of the people at large that you
are to look, to the spread of intellectual light, to the
prevalence of moral feeling, to the progress, in short, of
public opinion, which, when resting on right principles and
moving in a right direction, must in this free and Christian
country prove irresistible. But observe, Sir, the public mind
will not be sufficiently affected by the statement of abstract
truths, however just, or by reasonings on the tendencies of a
system, however accurate. It must be more or less influenced by
what is visible, or by what is easily known and understood of
the actual atrocities which accompany slavery, wherever it is
left to its own proper operation. Let it be seen in its native
vileness and cruelty, as exhibited when not interfered with by
the hand of authority, and it excites universal and unqualified
detestation. But let its harsher asperities be rubbed off; take
away the more prominent parts of its iniquity; see that it look
somewhat smoother and milder than it did before; make such
regulations as ought, if faithfully executed, to check its
grosser acts of injustice and oppression; give it the appearance
of its being put under the humanizing sway of religious
education and instruction; do all this, and you produce one
effect at least,--you modify the indignation of a great number
of the community; you render slavery much less obnoxious; you
enable its advocates and supporters to say in reply to your
denunciations of its wickedness, "O, the slaves are now
comfortable and happy; they do not suffer what they did; they
are protected and well treated," and in proof of all this, they
point to what are called "mitigations." But mark me, Sir; under
these mitigations, slavery still exists, ready at every
convenient season to break forth in all its countless forms of
inhumanity; meanwhile the public feeling in a great measure
subsides; and when the public feeling--such an important and
indispensable elem