9
To
the
its
influences,
Barbarism of Slavery, in all whether high or low, as Satan is Satan still, whether towering in the sky or squatting in the toad. To the second I oppose the unanswerable, irresistible truth, that the Constitution of the United States nowhere recognizes property These two assumptions naturally go together. They in man. " are " twins " suckled by the same wolf. They are the " couple And the latter can not be answered in the present slave-hunt. without exposing the former. It is only when Slavery is exhibited in its truly hateful character, that we can fully apprefirst
I oppose the essential
ciate the absurdity of the assumption, which, in defiance of the
express letter of the Constitution, and without a single sentence, phrase, or word, upholding
human
bondage, yet
blameless text the barbarous idea that in
man
foists into this
can hold property
man.
On tally
former occasions, I have discussed Slavery only incidenas, in unfolding the principle that Slavery is Sectional
and Freedom National
in exposing the unconstitutionality of
the Fugitive Slave Bill
in vindicating the Prohibition of Slav-
ery in the Missouri Territory in exhibiting the imbecility throughout the Eevolution of the Slave States, and especially of
South-Carolina
Kansas.
and
On all
I have said too
lastly, in
these occasions,
little
unmasking the Crime against where I have spoken at length,
of the character of Slavery, partly because
other topics were presented, and partly from a disinclination
which I have always whom I knew to have
God be praised,
this
felt to all
press the argument against those
the sensitiveness of a sick man.
time has passed, and the debate
is
But,
now lifted
from details to principles. Grander debate has not occurred in our history, rarely in any history nor can this debate close or subside except with the triumph of Freedom.
First Assumption. of
—Of course I begin with the assumption
fact.
It
well
was the often-quoted remark of John Wesley, who knew
how to
use words, as also
how to
touch hearts, that Slavery
was " the sum of all villainies." The phrase is pungent but it would be rash in any of us to criticise the testimony of that illustrious founder of Methodism, whose ample experience of Slavery in Georgia and the Carolinas seems to have been all
