herished for
ourselves. Consistently with such obligations, can _slavery,
as a_ RELATION, be maintained? Is it then a _labor of love_--such
love as we cherish for ourselves--to strip a child of Adam of all the
prerogatives and privileges which are his inalienable birthright? To
obscure his reason, crush his will, and trample on his
immortality?--To strike home to the inmost of his being, and break the
heart of his heart?--To thrust him out of the human family, and
dispose of him as a chattel--as a thing in the hands of an owner, a
beast under the lash of a driver? All this, apart from every thing
incidental and extraordinary, belongs to the RELATION, in which
slavery, as such, consists. All this--well fed or ill fed,
underwrought or overwrought, clothed or naked, caressed or kicked,
whether idle songs break from his thoughtless tongue or "tears be his
meat night and day," fondly cherished or cruelly murdered;--_all this_
ENTERS VITALLY INTO THE RELATION ITSELF, _by which every slave_, AS A
SLAVE, _is set apart from the rest of the human family_. Is it an
exercise of love, to place our "neighbor" under the crushing
weight, the killing power, of such a relation?--to apply the
murderous steel to the very vitals of his humanity?

"YE THEREFORE APPLAUD AND DELIGHT IN THE DEEDS OF YOUR FATHERS;
FOR THEY KILLED THEM, AND YE BUILD THEIR SEPULCHRES."[19]

The slaveholder may eagerly and loudly deny, that any such thing is
chargeable upon him. He may confidently and earnestly allege, that
he is not responsible for the state of society in which he is placed.
Slavery was established before he began to breathe. It was his
inheritance. His slaves are his property by birth or testament. But
why will he thus deceive himself? Why will he permit the cunning and
rapacious spiders, which in the very sanctuary of ethics and
religion are laboriously weaving webs from their own bowels, to
catch him with their wretched sophistries?--and devour him, body,
soul, and substance? Let him know, as he must one day with shame and
terror own, that whoever holds slaves is himself responsible for
_the relation_, into which, whether reluctantly or willingly, he
thus enters. _The relation cannot be forced upon him_. What though
Elizabeth countenanced John Hawkins in stealing the natives of
Africa?--what though James, and Charles, and George, opened a market
for them in the English colonies?--what though modern Dracos have
"framed mischief by law," i