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Show 14 fiRST DAY-!'t!ORNIN'G SESSION. another and more specious name for licentiousness and crime. \Vithout Liberty, and her attendant blessings, life itself is a burden and the world a waste: --" Fot· what is life? 'Tis not to WH\k ui.Joul, nnd dt·aw ft•csh nit• Ft-om time to time, n111l gaze upon the sun. 'Tis to be ft·ce. When liUct·ly is gone Life gmws insitti<l, nnd has lost ils t·clish." It was, my fellow citizens, for liberty thus characterized and understood, tlmt the Hamdens struggled, and the Sidncys died; iL was for such liberty, that the rich est blood of all this land Jlowed freely, during the doubtful periods of our Revolution; it was for such liberty, that your \Vashington unfurled the star-spangled banner of his country, aud redeemed the outraged rights of suffering millions from the very throat of death. That liberty has been bequeathed to you as an inestimable legacy, "0! let it ne'fel' perish in your hnnds, But piously tnmsmil it to you1· children." Having, as becomes the time, hastily glanced at the nature of liberty, let us refer to the character of slavery, in order that by the depth of its shadow we may brighten the lights of our favorite picture. \Vhat, then, is slavery?-" Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, still art thou a bitter draught. And although thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account." Such was the sentiment of one of the most distinguished of the literati of the last century; and like all sentiments that have their foundation in nature, it continues to be as applicable to the preser.t age, as to the past. Absolutely, it is most true; yet it is, nevertheless, in its relative bearing and effects, liable to be modifier!, and extended, accQnling to the various conditions of men. Even abject slavery, among those who at best enjoy but a qualified freedom, is less irksome, less repugnant to the heart of man, than qualified slavery, when suffered by those who are surrounded by all the delights and indulgences of rational liberty. This is like adding the torments of Tantalus to those of lxion. The enjoyments of human life, arc almost always comparative. VVhere then!: are no sovereigns, there are no~subjects,-where there are no despots, there should be no slaves,-and where there are no slaves, there can be no despots. If this doctrine be sound, most melancholy, indeed, must be the -condition of the bondman with us; as wherever he turns his dejected eye, he is referred to the true measure and majesty of man. He beholds around and about him, thousands of chartered monarchs, hailing with loud acclaim at each return the anniversary of their liberty, and allOnling the best assurance of its perpetuity by their love and gratitude for its origin. Thus surrounded, what is there to endear life to a slave, or render death appalling? He has no consolations in himself, or in his relatives. His wife, his parents, his children, all partake of his condition, all serve to render ~he weight of his burden more intolerable. Even hope, itself, the very pr~de and stay of the human heart,-thc last sad solace of ailliction,is denied to HIM. And ambition, without which man is but a kneaded clod, either never glances into his benighted mind, or, if it should, it is like the ligh.tning in the midnight s.torm, serving only to make the gloom more te~nfic, the ~ark~ess more mtense. Moral or intellectual improvement, Wlt~out ulter~or v1ews to freedom, instead of being blessings as they were des1gned to be, arc but superadded curses and afflictions. DA.\'10 l'AUL llROWN 1S ORATION. 15 In justice, however, we must say, that these are penahics that slaves are rarely condemned to endure. \Vhatever tends to improve the heart or the mind of man, while it certainly increases his sources of gratification, so long as he walks freely and erectly in the likeness of his Creator, serves only to aggravate his sufferings, when reduced below his natural level and condemned to a state of vassalage or bondage. In his wife, he sees a joint sharer in his shame; in his children, he contemplates the inheritors of his disgrace. and thus sympathetically sufl'ers even beyond the grave; in his parents, he beholds the involuntary authors of all his misery,-and, while he groans and sweats under a weary life, at times, even rebels against the too partial decrees of high Heaven itself. Still, if this lamentable condition of the slave contribute to the melioration or rational enjoyment of the free, ahhough, certainly, there can be no justification for it, the account of good and evil may, when politically aUjustcd, stand nearly balanced, and in the equipoise, the great interest of the nation may remain essentially unim~ paired and unaflCcted. Are, then, the free benefited by the existence of slavery among them? This is a grave question, and must be gravely considered. An illustrious statesman and orator of the British House of Commons has declared, that the people of the South are much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, atlached to liberty than those of the North i as in such a people the haughtiness of domination, combined with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it and renders it invincible. Time has lamentably shown, that the most distinguished individuals have, from that very distinction, often given currency to sentiments of the most corrupt and pernicious tendency. In the foppery and vanity of chosen expression, in the fervor of poNical fancy, in the ardor of animated debate, when selfishness and success were the prime objects, the rights of thousands have been often sacrificed to swell the triumph of a well turned period. I agree that the flame of liberty burns more brightly in the region of slaves, as the moon beams more brightly through a thunder-cloud; not that she repletes her waning face from the storms and tempests by which she is surrounded, but because her charms are presented in bolder and in prouder relief, than when she silently " wheels her pale course" through the mild cerulean, while every planet participntes in her majesty and glory. Certainly there is no greater devotion to liberty, than among the inhabitants of the South; but it is peculiar and exclusive liberty; the liberty that they themselves enjoy, and which is enhanced, upon the principles adverted to, by the very destitution, the deplorable condition of those whom they daily contemplate. Like the green spots of the arid desert, liberty, with them, looks more lively and more lovely, from the barren and desolate scenes by which it is encompassed. There is a vast difference between u professed devotion to liberty, and the establishment of those just, fundamental principles, upon which alone liberty can be secured. Slavery is not simply to be deplored as respects the slave, nor as regards the odium which it necessarily attaches to the character of a free government, but from its obvious and natural tendency to imbue the minds of the holders of slaves, unconsciously, if you please, with lofty and aristocratical notions. From having been accustomed to place the foot upon the necks of slaves, they may next audaciously auempt to trample upon the sacred and invaluable right..':i of freemen. The cruelty of Nero was first exercised upon a fly; it was matured in the wanton sbughter of his fellow men. Pride and luxury are always dangerous to a republic; but no pride is so dangerous as that which arises from lording it over our |