Nearly three millions of your fellow citizens, are prohibited by law, and public opinion, (which in this country is stronger than law), from reading the Book of Life.  Your intellect has been destroyed as much as possible, and every ray of light they have attempted to shut out from your minds.  The oppressors themselves have become involved in the ruin.  They have become weak, sensual, and rapacious.  They have cursed you—­they have cursed themselves—­they have cursed the earth which they have trod.  In the language of a Southern statesman, we can truly say, “even the wolf, driven back long since by the approach of man, now returns after the lapse of a hundred years, and howls amid the desolations of slavery.”

The colonists threw the blame upon England.  They said that the mother country entailed the evil upon them, and that they would rid themselves of it if they could.  The world thought they were sincere, and the philanthropic pitied them.  But time soon tested their sincerity.  In a few years, the colonists grew strong and severed themselves from the British Government.  Their Independence was declared, and they took their station among the sovereign powers of the earth.  The declaration was a glorious document.  Sages admired it, and the patriotic of every nation reverenced the Godlike sentiments which it contained.  When the power of Government returned to their hands, did they emancipate the slaves?  No; they rather added new links to our chains.  Were they ignorant of the principles of Liberty?  Certainly they were not.  The sentiments of their revolutionary orators fell in burning eloquence upon their hearts, and with one voice they cried, LIBERTY OR DEATH.  O, what a sentence was that!  It ran from soul to soul like electric fire, and nerved the arm of thousands to fight in the holy cause of Freedom.  Among the diversity of opinions that are entertained in regard to physical resistance, there are but a few found to gainsay that stern declaration.  We are among those who do not.

SLAVERY!  How much misery is comprehended in that single word.  What mind is there that does not shrink from its direful effects?  Unless the image of God is obliterated from the soul, all men cherish the love of Liberty.  The nice discerning political economist does not regard the sacred right, more than the untutored African who roams in the wilds of Congo.  Nor has the one more right to the full enjoyment of his freedom than the other.  In every man’s mind the good seeds of liberty are planted, and he who brings his fellow down so low, as to make him contented with a condition of slavery, commits the highest crime against God and man.  Brethren, your oppressors aim to do this.  They endeavor to make you as much like brutes as possible.  When they have blinded the eyes of your mind—­when they have embittered the sweet waters of life—­when they have shut out the light which shines from the word of God—­then, and not till then has American slavery done its perfect work.