that "a
progressive system of improvement will be introduced, that will
ultimately revolutionize our civil institutions," they admit, that the
prohibition of "intelligence" to the slaves is the settled and necessary
policy of slavery, and not, as you would have us believe, a temporary
expedient occasioned by the present "agitation of this subject of
abolition." 5th. Slavery--the system, which forbids marriage and the
reading of the Bible--does of necessity turn its subjects into heathens.
A Report of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, made five years
ago, says: "Who could credit it, that in these years of revival and
benevolent effort--that, in this Christian Republic, there are over two
millions of human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some
respects in a worse condition? They may be justly considered the heathen
of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any
country in the world." I will finish what I have to say on this point of
"moral preparation" for freedom, with the remark, that the history of
slavery in no country warrants your implication, that slaves acquire
such "moral preparation." The British Parliament substituted an
apprenticeship for slavery with the express design, that it should
afford a "moral preparation" for freedom. And yet, if you will read the
reports of late visitors to the British West Indies, you will find, that
the planters admit, that they made no use of the advantages of the
apprenticeship to prepare their servants for liberty. Their own
gain--not the slaves'--was their ruling motive, during the term of the
apprenticeship, as well as preceding it.

Another of your charges is, _that the abolitionists "have increased the
rigors of legislation against slaves in most if not all the
slave States_."

And suppose, that our principles and measures have occasioned this
evil--are they therefore wrong?--and are we, therefore, involved in sin?
The principles and measures of Moses and Aaron were the occasion of a
similar evil. Does it follow, that those principles and measures were
wrong, and that Moses and Aaron were responsible for the sin of
Pharaoh's increased oppressiveness? The truth, which Jesus Christ
preached on the earth, is emphatically peace: but its power on the
depravity of the human heart made it the occasion of division and
violence. That depravity was the guilty cause of the division and
violence. The truth was but the innocent occasion of the