ists for the exercise of their most
unquestionable rights, while abolitionists condemn that only which the
Senator himself will acknowledge to be wrong at all times and under
all circumstances. Because he admits that if it was an original
question whether slaves should be introduced among us, but few
citizens would be found to agree to it, and none more opposed to it
than himself. The argument is, that the evil of slavery is incurable;
that the attempt to eradicate it would commence a struggle which would
exterminate one race or the other. What a lamentable picture of our
government, so often pronounced the best upon earth! The seeds of
disease, which were interwoven into its first existence, have now
become so incorporated into its frame, that they cannot be extracted
without dissolving the whole fabric; that we must endure the evil
without hope and without complaint. Our very natures must be changed
before we can be brought tamely to submit to this doctrine. The evil
will be remedied: and to use the language of Jefferson again, "this
people will yet be free." The Senator finds consolation, however in
the midst of this existing evil, in color and caste. The black race
(says he) is the strong ground of slavery in our country. Yes, it is
_color_, not right and justice, that is to continue forever slavery in
our country. It is prejudice against color, which is the strong ground
of the slaveholder's hope. Is that prejudice founded in nature, or is
it the effect of base and sordid interest? Let the mixed race which we
see here, from black to almost perfect white, springing from white
fathers, answer the question. Slavery has no just foundation in color:
it rests exclusively upon usurpation, tyranny, oppressive fraud, and
force. These were its parents in every age and country of the world.

The Senator says, the next or greatest difficulty to emancipation is,
the amount of property it would take from the owners. All ideas of
right and wrong are confounded in these words: emancipate property,
emancipate a horse, or an ox, would not only be unmeaning, but a
ludicrous expression. To emancipate is to set free from slavery. To
emancipate, is to set free a man, not property. The Senator estimates
the number of slaves--_men_ now held in bondage--at three millions in
the United States. Is this statement made here by the same voice which
was heard in this Capitol in favor of the liberties of Greece, and for
the emancipation of our So