7



When the measure of their tears shall be full-
when their tears shall have involved Heaven
itself in darkness-doubtless a God of justice
will awaken to their distress, and by diffusing a
light and liberality among their oppressors, or
at length by his exterminating thunder manifest
his attention to things of this world, and that
they are not left to the guidance of blind
fatality.
  "I am very sensible of the honor you propose
to me, of becomming a member of the society
for the abolition of the slave trade. You know
that nobody wishes more ardently to see an abo-
lition, not only of the trade but of thecondition
of slavery; and certainly nobody will be more
willing to encounter every sacrifice for that ob-
ject. But the influence and information of the
friends to this proposition in France will be far
above the need of my association."
  That immortal orator and great and good
man, Patrick Henry, in a letter to Rob't Pleas-
ants, referring to slavery, says:
  "I believe a time will come, when an opportu-
nity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.
Everything we can do is to improve it, if it
happens in our day; if not, let us transmit to
our descendants, together with our slaves, a pity
for their unhappy lot, and our abhorrence for
slavery. If we cannot reduce this wished for
reformation to practice, let us treat the unhappy
victims with lenity. It is the furthermost ad-
vance we can make towards justice, it is a debt
we owe to the purity of our religion, to show
that it is at variance with that law which war-
rants slavery. 1 know not where to stop. I
could say many things on the subject; a serious
view of which gives a gloomy perspective to
future times!"
  Again, in the debates in the Virginia Con-
vention, he declared:
  "I repeat it again, that it would rejoice my
very soul that every one of my fellow beings
was emancipated. As we ought with gratitude
to admire that decree of Heaven, which has
numbered us among the free, we ought to
lamentand deplore the necessity of holding our
fellow-men in bondage."
  The late ex-President Monroe, in a speech in
the Virginia Convention, said:
  "We have found that this evil has preyed
upon the very vitals of the Union; and has
been prejudicial to all the States in which it has
existed."
  If we make a more general comparison of the
slave and free States, we still find the facts
against slavery. For example-it appears from
the last census that the number of white per-
sons who cannot read and write compared with
the whole white population is, in the New Eng-
land States, one to every five hundred and eighty-
five; in the State of New York one to fifty-six,
and in Pennsylvania one to fifty, whereas the



enteen,and, in the State of Virginia one to every
twelve and a half, of the white inhabitants. In
addition to this, when we take into considera-
tion that nearly the whole of the colored popu-
lation in the slave States are without the priv-
ilege of education-what a mass of ignorance
do we find within their borders!
  The evils complained of are not confined to
any one State-they extend to all sections of
our country where a large proportion of the
population is composed of slaves. In proof of
this, we cite the language of the eloquent
ex-Senator Preston, of South Carolina. In a
speech delivered some years since at Columbia
in reference to a proposed railroad, he says:
  "No Southern man can journey (as he had
lately done) through the Northern States, and
witness the prosperity, the industry, the spirit
which they exhibit, the sedulous cultivation of
all those arts by which life is rendered comfor-
table and respectable, without feelings of deep
sadness and shame, as he remembers his own
neglected and desolate home. There no dwel-
ling is to be seen abandoned, not a farm uncul-
tivated. Every person and everything performs
a part toward the grand result; and the whole
land is covered with fertile fields, with manu-
factories and canals, and railroads and edifices
and towns and cities. We of the South are mis-
taken in the character of these people, when we
think of them only as pedlars in horn flints and
bark nutmegs. Their energy and enterprise are
directed to all objects great and small within
their reach. Their numerous railroads and other
modes of expeditious intercommunication knit
the whole country into a closely compacted
mass, through which the productions of corn-
mere and of the press, the comforts of life and
the means of knowledge are universally diffused,
while the close intercourse of business and of
travel makes all neighbors, and promotes a
common interest and common sympathy."
  "How different the condition of these things
in the South! Here the face of the country
wears the aspect of premature old age and decay,
No improvement is seen going on, nothing is
done for posterity. No man thinks of anything
beyond the present moment."
  This picture, drawn by the hand of a master,
is unhappily too true! Its fidelity cannot be
questioned, and it is in vain for interested poli-
ticians to attribute it to any other cause than
that of slavery. And how can it be otherwise,
in a land where one half the population is re-
duced almost to the condition of beasts of bur-
den-intentionally and systematically shut out
from every means of improvement, and when a
large portion of the other half is nurtured from
infancy in habits of idleness and extravigance
  It is in vain to tell us that railroads and canals



number in the slave States averages one to sev- [will secure our prosperity, for they cannot