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Show 50 ment from the citizens of our republic. It is not easy to speak in measured terms of this enormity. For men bom and brought up amidst slavery many apologies may be made. But men, born beyond the sound of the lash, brought up where human rights are held sacred, who, in face of all the light thrown now on slavery, can still deal in human flesh, can become customers of the " felon" who tears the African from his native shore, and can with open eyes inflict this deepest wrong for gain and gain alonesuch" have no cloak for their sin." Men so hard of heart, so steeled against the reproofs of conscience, so intent on thriving though it be by the most cruel wrongs, m·e not to be touched by human expostulation and rebuke. But if any should tremble before Almighty justice, ought not they 1 There is another reason for dwelling on this topIC. It teaches us the little reliance to be placed on the impressions respecting slavery brought home by superficial observers. We have seen what slavery is in Cuba; and yet men of high character from this country, who have visited that island, have returned to tell us of the mildness of the system. Men, who would cut off their right hand, sooner than withdraw the sympathy of others from human suffering, have virtually done so, by their representation of ithe kindly working of slavery on the very spot \vhere it exists with peculiar horrors. They have \ ' ' 51 visited some favored plantation, been treated with hospitality, seen no tortures, heard no shrieks, and then come home to reprove those who set forth indignantly the wrongs of the slave. And what is true with regard to the visitors of the West Indies applies to those who visit our southern states. Hav~ ing witnessed slavery in the families of some of the most enlightened and refined inhabitants, they return to speak of it as no very fearful thing. Had they inquired about the state of society through the whole country, and learned that more than one fourth of the inhabitants cannot write their own names, they would have forborne to make a few selected families the representative of the community, and might have believed in the possibility of some of the horrid details recorded in " Slavery as i't is." For myself, I do not think it worth my while to inquire into the merits of slavery in this or that region. It is enough for me to know, that one human being holds other human beings as his property, subject to his arbitrary and irresponsible will, and compels them to toil for his luxury and ease. I know enough of men, to know what the workings of such a system on a large scale must be ; and I hold my understanding insulted when men talk to me of its humanity. If there be one truth of history taught more plainly than any other, it is the tendency of human nature to abuse power. To protect our- |