isguised, _excessive_
FEAR? Language is altogether inadequate to express my indignation and
contempt, in view of such a heartless and cowardly exhibition of
sentiment. There is a deep sense of guilt, an awful dread of
retribution, manifested in the foregoing extracts; but we perceive no
evidence of contrition for past or present injustice, on the part of
those terror-stricken plotters. Instead of returning to those, whom
they have so deeply injured, 'with repenting and undissembling love;'
instead of seeking to conciliate and remunerate the victims of their
prejudice and oppression; instead of resolving to break the yoke of
servitude and let the oppressed go free; it seems to be their only
anxiety and aim to outwit the vengeance of Heaven, and strengthen the
bulwarks of tyranny, by expelling the free people of color from our
shores, and effecting such a diminution of the number of slaves as shall
give the white population a triumphant and irresistible superiority!
'_Check the increase!_' is their cry--'let us retain in everlasting
bondage as many as we can, _safely_; but the proportion must be at least
ten millions of ourselves to two millions of our vassals, else we shall
live in jeopardy! To do justly is not our intention; we only mean to
remove the surplus of our present stock; we think we shall be able, by
this prudent device, to oppress and rob with impunity. Our present
wailing is not for our heinous crimes, but only because our avarice and
cruelty have carried us beyond our ability to protect ourselves: we
lament, not because we hold so large a number in fetters of iron, but
because we cannot safely hold more!'

Ye crafty calculators! ye hard-hearted, incorrigible sinners! ye greedy
and relentless robbers! ye contemners of justice and mercy! ye
trembling, pitiful, pale-faced usurpers! my soul spurns you with
unspeakable disgust. Know ye not that the reward of your hands shall be
given you? 'Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write
grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from
judgment, and to take away the right from the poor, that widows may be
their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! And what will ye do in
the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far?
to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your
glory?'--'What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the
face of the poor? saith the Lord God of hosts.'--'Beho