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ever habit and custom may have rendered familiar the degrading and ignominious distinctions which are made between people with a black skin and ourselves, I am not ashamed to confess myself an advocate for the rights of that highly injured and abused people; and were I master of all the restless persuasion of Tully and Demosthenes, could not employ it better, than in vindicating their rights as men, and forcing a blush upon every American slave-holder, who has complained of the treatment we have received of Britain, which is no more to be equalled with our negroes, than a barley corn is to the globe we inhabit. Must not every generous foreigner feel a secret indignation rise in his breast when he hears the language of Americans upon any of their own rights, as freemen, being in the least infringed, and reflects, that these people are holding thousands and tens of thousands of their innocent fellow-men in the most debasing and abject slavery, deprived of every right of freemen, except light and air. How similar to an atrocious pirate, sitting in all the solemn pomp of a judge, passing sentence of death on a petty thief!" As for my part, sir, I cannot speak with moderation of this detestable practice of keeping negroes in slavery. It is a flagrant and portentous wickedness. It comprehends or it leads to every other crime. It makes us passionate, revengeful, unjust, inhuman. It may not improperly be called the essence of iniquity. It is an insult to the understanding for any one to practice or to defend it, and to pretend to the character of a Christian or of an honest man.---Must not the heart of every man who keeps a slave and who justifies his resistance to British tyranny, tell him (if he will calmly attend to the dictates of his heart) that he is acting a villainous part? Does he not feel something within him, which tells him that it is inconsistent, false and wicked to say, that he may be permitted to tyrannize over others, while he was willing that his country should be deluged with blood, before it should yield to the domination of Britain? I cannot forbear from quoting the preamble of the act which was made in this state "for the gradual abolition of slavery." It expresses in admirable language the most generous and noble sentiments. "When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to reduce us; when we look back on the variety of dangers which we
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we have been exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many instances have been supplied, and our deliverances wrought, when even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the conflict; we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. Impressed with these ideas, we conceive that it is our duty, and we rejoice that it is in our power to extend a portion of that freedom to others which hath been extended to us; and a release from the state of thraldom to which we ourselves were tyrannically doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being delivered. It is not for us to enquire why in the creation of mankind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth were distinguished by a difference in feature of complexion. It is sufficient to know that all are the work of an Almighty hand. We find in the distribution of the human species that the most fertile as well as the most barren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of complexions different from ours and from each other; from whence we may reasonably, as well as religiously, infer, that He who placed them in their various situations, hath extended equally his care and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract His mercies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us that we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civilization, by removing, as much as possible, the sorrows of those who have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed authority of the kings of Great Britain, no effectual, legal relief could be obtained. Weaned by a long course of experience from those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men of all conditions and nations; and we conceive ourselves at this particular period extraordinarily called upon, by the blessings which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our possessions, and to give a substantial proof of our gratitude.
"And whereas the condition of those persons who have heretofore been denominated negro and mulattoslaves, has been attended with circumstances which not only deprived them of the common blessings that they were by nature intitled to, but has cast them into the deepest affliction, by an unnatural separation and sale of husband