lare, that it was
their opinion that they ought to poison all their patients, and they had
determined to do it, and then all the community should be thrown into
terror and excitement, it would be no justification for them to say,
that all they intended by that language was, that they should administer
as medicines, articles which are usually called poisons.

Now Abolitionists are before the community, and declare that all slavery
is sin, which ought to be immediately forsaken; and that it is their
object and intention to promote the _immediate emancipation_ of all the
slaves in this nation.

Now what is it that makes a man cease to be a slave and become free? It
is not kind treatment from a master; it is not paying wages to the
slave; it is not the intention to bestow freedom at a future time; it is
not treating a slave as if he were free; it is not feeling toward a
slave as if he were free. No instance can be found of any dictionary, or
any standard writer, nor any case in common discourse, where any of
these significations are attached to the word as constituting its
peculiar and appropriate meaning. It always signifies _that legal_ act,
which, by the laws of the land, changes a slave to a freeman.

What then is the _proper_ meaning of the language used by Abolitionists,
when they say that all slavery is a sin which ought to be immediately
abandoned, and that it is their object to secure the immediate
emancipation of all slaves?

The true and only proper meaning of such language is, that it is the
duty of every slave-holder in this nation, to go immediately and make
out the legal instruments, that, by the laws of the land, change all his
slaves to freemen. If their maxim is true, no exception can be made for
those who live in States where the act of emancipation, by a master,
makes a slave the property of the State, to be sold for the benefit of
the State; and no exception can be made for those, who, by the will of
testators, and by the law of the land, have no power to perform the
legal act, which alone can emancipate their slaves.

To meet this difficulty, Abolitionists affirm, that, in such cases, men
are physically unable to emancipate their slaves, and of course are not
bound to do it; and to save their great maxim, maintain that, in such
cases, the slaves are not slaves, and the slave-holders are not
slave-holders, although all their legal relations remain unchanged.

The meaning which the Abolitionist att