may be clear of any participation in the guilt of the system, and be thus morally strengthened in their condemnation of it.’  At the close of the revolutionary war, all the states of America were slaveholding states.  In Massachusetts, some benevolent white man caused a slave to try an action for wages in a court of justice.  He succeeded, and the consequence was, that slavery fell in Massachusetts.  It was then universally acknowledged that slavery was a sin and shame, and ought to be abolished, and it was expected that it would be soon abolished in every state of the Union.  Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Benjamin Franklin would not allow the word ‘slave’ to occur in the constitution, and Mr. Edwards, from the pulpit, clearly and broadly denounced slavery.  And when he (Professor Stowe) was a boy, in Massachusetts the negro children were admitted to the same schools with the whites.  Although there was some prejudice of color then, yet it was not so strong as at present.  In 1818, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church in the United States passed, resolutions against slavery far stronger than those passed at the meeting this evening, and every man, north and south, voted for them.  What had caused the change?  It was the profitableness of the cotton trade.  It was that which had spread the chains of slavery over the Union, and silenced the church upon the subject.  He had been asked, what right had Great Britain to interfere?  Why, Great Britain took four fifths of the cotton of America, and therefore sustained four fifths of the slavery.  That gave them a right to interfere. [Hear, hear!] He admitted that our participation in the guilt was not direct, but without the cotton, trade of Great Britain slavery would have been abolished long ago, for the American manufacturers consumed but one fifth of all the cotton grown in the country.  The conscience of the cotton growers was talked of; but had the cotton consumer no conscience? [Cheers.] It seemed to him that the British public had more direct access to the consumer than to the grower of cotton.”  Professor Stowe then read an extract from a paper published in Charleston, South Carolina, showing the influence of the American cotton trade on the slavery question.  “The price of cotton regulated the price of slaves, who were now worth an average of two hundred pounds.  A cotton plantation required in some cases two hundred, and in others four hundred slaves.  This would give an idea of the capital needed.  With free labor there was none of this outlay—­there was none of those losses by the cholera, and the ‘underground railroad,’ to which the slave owners were subjected. [Hear, hear!] The Chinese had come over in large numbers, and could be hired for small wages, on which they managed to live well in their way.  If people would encourage free-grown cotton, that would be the strongest appeal they could make to the slaveholder.  There were three ways of abolishing slavery.  First, by a bloody revolution, which few would approve. [Hear,