to his
table--produced the letter, and read the passage entire without the
omission or interpolation of a letter or a comma. He, therefore,
emphatically denied the charge of garbling. Mr. Breckinridge did
himself, immediately afterwards, read the passage, and read it
precisely as he (Mr. Thompson) had read it. The imputation, therefore,
was equally unfounded and unfair. He (Mr. T.) was thankful that his
argument needed not such help. It would be as absurd as it would be
wicked for him to attempt to support his cause by any garbled
statement.

He begged also that it might be distinctly understood that he had by
no means exhausted the evidence in his possession on the subject of
Colonization. He could adduce a thousand times as much as that which
had been already brought forward. He had much to say of the colony at
Liberia; the means taken to establish it, the nature of the climate,
the character of the emigrants, the mortality amongst the settlers,
how much it had done towards the suppression of the slave trade, &c.
In fact, he was prepared with overwhelming evidence upon every branch
of the subject, and was willing to return to it at any moment,
confident that the arguments he could produce, and the facts by which
he could support them, would, in the estimation of the public, destroy
forever the claim of the Colonization Society to be considered a pure,
peaceful, or benevolent institution. I now, (said Mr. T.) come to the
topic immediately before us.

It is my solemn and responsible duty to bring before you to-night the
_principles_ and _measures_ of a large, respectable, and powerful body
in the United States, known by the name of IMMEDIATE ABOLITIONISTS. A
body of individuals embracing not fewer than fifteen hundred ministers
of the gospel, and men of the highest station and largest attainments.
A body of persons that have been charged upon this platform with being
a handful, "so small that they could not obtain their object, and so
erroneous (_despicable_ was, I believe, the word used) as not to
deserve success,"--charged with being the enemies of the
slave-holder--taking him by the throat, and saying "you great
thieving, man-stealing villain, unless you instantly give your slaves
liberty, I will pitch you out of this third-story window,"--charged
with carrying in their track a pestilence like a storm of fire and
brimstone from hell; forcing ministers of religion to seek peaceful
villages not yet blasted by it,--