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Show 110 THIRD DAV-Al'Ti':RNOON ::i~SSION. might well inquire what is the cost of this refusal by Southern men to acknowledae our definition of man. And ,;hat would be the answer? The derision and collected scorn of an insulted world-the loss of liberty of speech, and the freedo1!l of the press, and of conscience---too cowardly to discuss slavery, and afraid of the truth, a loss of character for braverv and moral courage-loss of the benefit of the personal industry of the whi'tes, that being considered dishonorable; while to rob, steal, commit adultery, and covet, are virtues-the Sout~l by slavery, making their wives, the white women, mi~erabl~-the_slave losmg ~h~ benefit of the Bible-the whites, by amalgamatiOn w1th the1r slaves,obta1nmg the privilege of selling their own chilllren, brotl~ers. and sist~rs of se~ling their own brothers and sisters-the fear of assass~nat10n and msurrectlon-large sections of exhausted slave-lands, with a curse of perpetual sterility upon them-a universal brutifying of the colored man's mind-universal concubinage- reducing two and a half millions of equals to beasts and chattr.lsferocity, murder, duelling, called" chivalry"-the countless murders committed by slavery during the lapse of two hundred years, yet unatoned for and unavengeU-the white masters living under the standing charge that all their wealth, their daily gains, the livings and subsistence of Congress men, judges, governors, church-members,. men and wom.cn, are . mad.e up and obtained by daily robberies and larcemes, stamped with the mfimte meanness of inftictina assaults anrl batteries on the slaves, their natural equals, to compel them to0 gi.ve their mast~r~ an oppor.tunity o~ ste~l}ng the fruits of another's industry-thuteen states l1vmg by pet1t larcemes. 1 he acme of human glory, in relation to man's elevation, and the lowest depth of his guilty debasement, manifested in the same country! In the old world men inherited, as property, the three great departments of power, to wit the Legislative, Judicial and Executive; while in the sla,•e states of the new world two hundred and fifty thousand irresponsible dea· pots inherit and own, not tmly all the political power of two million five . hundred thousand slaves, but inherit and own their bodies-the fearful and wonderful workmanship of God-immortal chattels, celestial merchandise. The slaveholder's practice tells God He made an undue share of immortal mind, and it is his (the slaveholder's) business to re-adjust I-I is highest work, by increasing the brute creation, in diminishing the immortal. The slave~ holder, therefore, un-mans, and reduces to things, beings a little lower lhan angels. The same slaveholder would have laid his wicked hands on angels, and impressed them into his service, if he could. . . Behold thirteen states of the American Republic, legi!Slating for the d!VI- 6ion of stolen goods, enacting that stealing is a patriarchal institution, and adultery sanctioned by the Bible-passing the most formidable laws against any person who shall call them stealers of men, of womea and of children. The brute force system surrounds and protects their awful larcenies upon mankind. I will present another rather unamiable view of slavery. A South Carolina slaveholder has a son by his slave, in his own likeness. That son must be deprived of the Bible. The father employs the brutal lash upon his son's body, to make him work harder and earn more, that hie father may steal those earnings, and with them send a missionary across the diameter of the globe, to tell the heathen, if they do not repent, they will be lost. We will suppose a heathen in India repents, and out of gratttude becomes a missionary himself to South Carolina to warn the people of their sins, heathenism and slavery. But oh ! the Indian missionary would be murdered, by Lynch Law, for teaching the slave and master the samr. SPI-:ECll 01' ALVAN STEWART. Ill doctrines, on their own soil, which the master at the expense of making his son a slave and a heathen at home, scourged and imbrutecl, had obtained means, to send to this very heathen in the old world. 'Vhat would East India Christians think of South Carolina ethics, morality, or religion 1 But the adversaries of the great truth of man's equality at birth, have made new discoveries in behalf of falsehood and against liberty, viz., that slavery is too powerful and sensitive to be assailed with the tongue or the pen of free discussion. There are two divisions of the no-tongue, no-pen, no-discussion men. One party admits slavery an evil, but its constitutional en~ trenchments are so deep and wide, and it is so awfully dangerous to speak or write against the insti tution of slavery, that they are willing to make an assignment of the liberty of speech, the right of petition, the power of the pen, the liberty pf conscience, to the slaveholders, as a stand ing tribute, to be paid by the men of the North division of the confederacy, (or the privi~ lege of not being made field slaves for the present; for the privilege of looking on the same sun at the same time; of beholding the same waxing and waning moon; although the fruit of this dreadful assignment has been wet with the blood of ten thousand annual murders, or twenty-seven daily ones, for each of the sixty years gone by, from malignant passion, by vio~ lence and over-working and under~feeding. The other division contends it is a Bible institution, a State institution, and a corner stone of the Federal Union; and further, that no man, woman or child, shall deny these propositions, but with the penalty of death, with or without law. This last division of men arc the head men :mtl master builders in the Bastile of slavery, while those of the first division are the mere HOD-CAR· RIERS OF SLAVERY,-thc docile creatures at the North, who are willing to forego their humanity, their intellectual liberty in themselves; and if they, as Northern men, are willing to forego so much, they can see no reason why the slaves, for the benefit of our blessed Union, ought not, as good re· publicans, to be willing to forego life, liberty, wife, children, and endure stripes, hunger, nakedness, ignominy, and reproach, from generation to generation. Ay, these good patriots of the Norlh ran see no reason, why two million five hundred thousand slaves ought not to be content to be stript of all things, and lashed over every mile of the journey of life, to furnish the cement, made of sweat, tears, and blood, which binds the North and South together? To combat such weather-beaten heresies and time-honored preeumptions of slavery, and rebuke the craven spirit of its apologists, is the reason we have come together to dedicate this temple to J .. iberty. In the thirtyeighth year of the nineteenth centmy. we finJ it necessary in America, the home of the oppressed~ in both senses of the word, to erect a temple of Free Discusssion, where the philanthropists of this generation may meet for high and holy communion with the God of Freedom, and beseech His aid in the em3ncipation of the slave ! Yes, in a land on whose door-posts and gates liberty is inscribed, and among a people in whose mouths liberty and equality find so permanent an abode-in such a land th is cd itice is necessary, in order to welcome humanity and liberty to a home they muy call their oWn. \Vhat will the slaveholder think as he passe!' this temple built for the deliverance of his despised slaves, for whom he never built a school house, nor scarce a church? What an array of accusations shall throng the slanholder's guilty m6- mory as he looks upon this building, every brick of which is a bttter reproach to him ? The mortar of the wall cries like an unappeased ghost |