e cattle
kind, to sustain life, outlaws him,) _or to any slave in the act of
resistance to his lawful owner or master or to any slave_ DYING UNDER
MODERATE CORRECTION"--thus by the very law which prohibits, giving the
master express license to kill as many, and as often as he pleases,
provided he will only take care to do it, first, when no white men are
present who will inform or testify against him, or secondly, when the
slave is an outlaw; or, thirdly, when he lifts his hand in opposition
to his master, no matter how cruel the punishment or how base the
design upon his or her person; or, fourthly, by "moderate correction."
Let him only see to it, that it is done in one or all of these ways,
and under one or all these circumstances, and if reckless enough to do
so, he may kill ad libitum, and nobody to say why do ye so. Witness
the fact, trumpeted through all the papers within five years, that a
Southern man seeing another passing across his grounds in the evening,
and supposing that he was a runaway slave, _shot him dead_, because,
although he hailed him, he did not stop--when lo! it appeared that he
had shot a white neighbor, and that, the wind being high, he did not
hear, and therefore did not stop at the summons!--a striking
illustration of the carelessness and perfect impunity with which, as
a matter of fact, black men are and may be shot when attempting an
escape from their thraldom. And, once more, witness the fact, that the
way to emancipation is hedged up in this country so as it is in no
other "country under heaven," and then say what but "ignorance, or a
purpose to mislead," could lead to such statements?'

'Perhaps the great reason against the exercise of that power' [to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia,] was, that it would
_inevitably_ produce a dissolution of the Union. Put 'this and that
together.' 'There is not a sane man in the free states, but wishes the
world rid of slavery;' the free states contain 'seven millions out of
the eleven millions of the white population of the Union;' (see page
7,) 'a large minority in the slaveholding states, in some nearly one
half of the population,' (see page 13,) 'are _zealously_ engaged in
furthering the abolition of slavery,' and yet the exercise by Congress
of its constitutional power to abolish slavery in the national
district would '_inevitably_ dissolve the Union.' Verily, the old
proverb hath well said that a certain class of persons should have a