suppressed, by its guilty vigils. American citizens are steeped up to their very mouths, (I scarcely use too bold a figure,) in this stream of iniquity. They throng the coasts of Africa, under the stained flags of Spain and Portugal, sometimes selling abroad 'their cargoes of despair,' and sometimes bringing them into some of our southern ports, and there, under the forms of the law, defeating the purposes of the law itself, and legalizing their inhuman but profitable adventures. I wish I could say that New England, and New England men, were free from this deep pollution. But there is some reason to believe that they who drive a loathsome traffic, 'and buy the muscles and the bones of men,' are to be found here also. It is to be hoped the number is small; but our cheeks may well burn with shame while a solitary case is permitted to go unpunished.
"And, gentlemen, how can we justify ourselves, or apologize for an indifference to this subject? Our constitutions of government have declared that all men are born free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are the right of enjoying their lives, liberties, and property, and of seeking and obtaining their own safety and happiness. May not the miserable African ask, 'Am I not a man, and a brother?' We boast of our noble struggle against the encroachments of tyranny, but do we forget that it assumed the mildest form in which authority ever assailed the rights of its subjects, and yet that there are men among us who think it no wrong to condemn the shivering negro to perpetual slavery?
"We believe in the Christian religion. It commands us to have good will to all men; to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do unto all men as we would they should do unto us. It declares our accountability to the Supreme God for all our actions, and holds out to us a state of future