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peal to your thunder." And permit me to say, that every appeal, whether to the Duel, the bludgeon, or the revolver — every menace of personal violence, and every outrage of language, besides disclosing a hideous Barbarism, also discloses the fevered nervousness of a cause already humbled in debate.
(4.) Much as has been said to exhibit the Character of Slave-masters, the work would be incomplete if I failed to point out that unconsciousness of the fatal influence of Slavery, which completes the evidence of the Barbarism under which they live. Nor am I at liberty to decline this topic; but I shall be brief.
That Senators should openly declare Slavery "ennobling," at least to the master, and also "the black marble keystone of our national arch," would excite wonder if it were not explained by the examples of history. There are men who, in the spirit of paradox, make themselves the partisans of a bad cause, as Jerome Cardan wrote an Encomium on Nero, But where there is no disposition to paradox, it is natural that a cherished practice should blind those who are under its influence; nor is there any end to these exaggerations. According to Thucydides, piracy in the early ages of Greece was alike widespread and honorable; so much so, that Telemachus and Mentor, on landing at Pylos, were asked by Nestor if they were "pirates" — precisely as a stranger in South-Carolina might be asked if he were a Slave-master. Kidnapping, too, which was a kindred indulgence, was openly avowed, and I doubt not held to be "ennobling." Next to the unconsciousness which is noticed in childhood, is the unconsciousness of Barbarism. The real Barbarian is as unconscious as an infant; and the Slave-master shows much of the same character. No New-Zealander exults in his tattoo, no savage of the North-west coast exults in his flat head, more than the Slave-master in these latter days — and always, of course, with honorable exceptions — exults in his unfortunate condition. The Slave-master hugs his disgusting practice as the Carib of the Gulf hugged Cannibalism, and as Brigham Young now hugs Polygamy. The delusion of the "Goitre" is repeated. This prodigious swelling of the neck, constituting "a hideous wallet of flesh" pendulous upon the breast, is common to the population on the slopes of the Alps; but, accustomed to this deformity, the sufferer comes to regard
