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rewards and punishments, as the sanction by which our conduct is to be regulated. And yet there are men calling themselves Christians, who degrade the negro by ignorance to a level with the brutes, and deprive him of all the consolations of religion. He alone, of all the rational creation, they seem to think, is to be at once accountable for his actions, and yet his actions are not to be at his own disposal, but his mind, his body, and his feelings, are to be sold to perpetual bondage. To me it appears perfectly clear, that the slave trade is equally repugnant to the dictates of reason and religion, and is an offense equally against the laws of God and man.

We shall not undertake the arduous task of fixing the precise amount of guilt that belongs to our nation, for the failure of the efforts to destroy this traffic. The amount of that guilt can not be estimated, — can not be put into language. The indifference that has been manifested towards the evils of the traffic; the toleration of the domestic slave trade, by which the public conscience has been rendered callous; the extension of slave territory, in spite of the solemn remonstrances of the enlightened and patriotic portion of the people; and the refusal of the government to coöperate with the nations of Europe in their humane efforts, have tended to sustain the traffic, and place us in an anomalous position before the world.

After the refusal of the United States, in 1833, to join with England and France for the suppression of the traffic, what encouragement has there been