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Show 54 palsied spirit of the oppressed to terrible retribution for their wrongs. But very little is to be feared m ordmary times. Were the slave more dangerous, I should feel less for his yoke. Were a greater portion of the spirit of a man left him I should not think him so wronged. But what is to be, feared from a man, who stands by and sees wife and child lacerated without cause, and is driven by no impulse to interpose for their defence. The st~ong~st sensibilities of nature cannot sting him, to do for hts child what the hen does for her chicken, or the trembling hare for her young. The slave as far as I have known him, is not a being to be feared. The iron has eaten into his soul, and this is worse than eating into the flesh. The tidings, that there are people here who would set him free, will do little harm. He withstands a far greater temptation than this ; I mean, the presence of the free negro. One would think, that the sight of his own race enjoying liberty, would, if any thing, stir him up to the assertion of his rights; but it fails. Liberty is a word, not indeed to be heard without awakening desire ; but it rouses no resistance. The colonizationist holds out to the slaves an elysium, where they are to be free, and rich, and happy, and a great people ; thus teaching them, that there is nothing in their nature, which forbids them the enjoyment of all human rights ; and the master, so r.~r from dreading the doctrines of this society, will become its President. No. Slavery has done its work; has broken the spirit. So little is the slave inclined to violence, that it is affirmed, and I presume truly, that there are fewer murders by their hands, than by an equal number of white men at the North. We hear, indeed, of atrocious deeds, assassinations, bloody combats at the South. But these are the deeds of white men. Pistols and Bowie knives are not worn by the colored race. Slavery produces horrible, multiplied murders at the South, 55 not by infusing rage, revenge into the man who bears the yoke, but by nursing proud, unforgiving, bloodthirsty propensities in the master. Undoubtedly there are exposures to massacre in s!ave countries, as there are to mobs, partial insurrections in all countries. But outbreaks at the South will be found, perhaps always, to have their cause in local circumstances, not in influences from abroad. I do not say, that there is no danger in slavery. Systems founded in wronu want stability, and are every day growing more and rn~re insecure, with the progress of intelligence and moral sentiment in the world. Unexpected explosions may take place at the South. Secret causes may be at work on the spirit of the slave. Foreign invasion would be a death-blow to the system. I mean only to say, that there is no danger from the discussion of slavery at the North, or only that indirect , distant danger, which we are always encountering, and which no man thinks of flying from, in human affairs. The stormiest day of abolitionism has passed, and yet not a symptom of insurrection has appeared at the South. It is morally impossible, that there should be danger in the calmer da:ys which are to follow. I now proceed to the second objection to the agitation of slavery at the North. We are told, that the Union will be thus endangered. "Danger to the Union " is so old a cry, that it ceases to startle you or myself; and yet so much sensitiveness to it remains, that the topic ought not to be lightly dismissed. And I begin with saying, that ~ere the Unwn. as weak as these clamors suppose, were 11 capable of bemg dissolved by any of the hundred causes which are said to threaten it, then it would not be worth the keeping. The bonds, which hold a nation together ~f not exceedingly strong, are of no use. They will sna; m the hour of need. But our Union is not so weak, as our alarmists imagine. It has stood many storms, and will |