good men, North and South, have looked forward to the time when the nation would be relieved of this burden. But the revival of the foreign traffic will perpetuate and extend the system, and blast the hopes that have been entertained of its speedy removal. It will embarrass every measure for the elevation and improvement of those in bondage, tighten the chains of the oppressed, and discourage all effort at even gradual emancipation.
The establishment of the American slave trade would also be a source of irritation between the North and South. Already the ill feeling produced by the encroachments of slavery is sundering fraternal relations, impeding the progress of trade, and exasperating one portion of the community against another. And let this additional firebrand be thrown in, and the flames of animosity would be kindled over the whole country.
On the one side would be this evil, with its cruelties, its violation of all the principles of justice and humanity; and on the other the intelligence, moral rectitude, and Christian virtue of millions of freemen. And to suppose that these elements can lie quietly side by side, is to suppose an utter impossibility. Our system of education must be corrupted to the very core; our literature must be poisoned by the sentiments of the dark ages; all traces of right and justice must be obliterated from our statute books, and our religion must become a dead form, before such a result can be anticipated. Oil
