You will not be compelled to spend much time in order to become inured to hardships.  From the first moment that you breathed the air of heaven, you have been accustomed to nothing else but hardships.  The heroes of the American Revolution were never put upon harder fare, than a peck of corn, and a few herrings per week.  You have not become enervated by the luxuries of life.  Your sternest energies have been beaten out upon the anvil of severe trial.  Slavery has done this, to make you subservient to its own purposes; but it has done more than this, it has prepared you for any emergency.  If you receive good treatment, it is what you could hardly expect; if you meet with pain, sorrow, and even death, these are the common lot of the slaves.

Fellow-men! patient sufferers! behold your dearest rights crushed to the earth!  See your sons murdered, and your wives, mothers, and sisters, doomed to prostitution!  In the name of the merciful God! and by all that life is worth, let it no longer be a debateable question, whether it is better to choose LIBERTY or DEATH!

In 1822, Denmark Veazie, of South Carolina, formed a plan for the liberation of his fellow men.  In the whole history of human efforts to overthrow slavery, a more complicated and tremendous plan was never formed.  He was betrayed by the treachery of his own people, and died a martyr to freedom.  Many a brave hero fell, but History, faithful to her high trust, will transcribe his name on the same monument with Moses, Hampden, Tell, Bruce, and Wallace, Touissaint L’Overteur, Lafayette and Washington.  That tremendous movement shook the whole empire of slavery.  The guilty soul thieves were overwhelmed with fear.  It is a matter of fact, that at that time, and in consequence of the threatened revolution, the slave states talked strongly of emancipation.  But they blew but one blast of the trumpet of freedom, and then laid it aside.  As these men became quiet, the slaveholders ceased to talk about emancipation:  and now, behold your condition to-day!  Angels sigh over it, and humanity has long since exhausted her tears in weeping on your account!

The patriotic Nathaniel Turner followed Denmark Veazie.  He was goaded to desperation by wrong and injustice.  By Despotism, his name has been recorded on the list of infamy, but future generations will number him among the noble and brave.

Next arose the immortal Joseph Cinque, the hero of the Amistad.  He was a native African, and by the help of God he emancipated a whole ship-load of his fellow men on the high seas.  And he now sings of liberty on the sunny hills of Africa, and beneath his native palm trees, where he hears the lion roar, and feels himself as free as that king of the forest.  Next arose Madison Washington, that bright star of freedom, and took his station in the constellation of freedom.  He was a slave on board the brig Creole, of Richmond, bound to New Orleans, that great slave mart, with a hundred and four others.  Nineteen struck for liberty or death.  But one life was taken, and the whole were emancipated, and the vessel was carried into Nassau, New Providence.  Noble men!  Those who have fallen in freedom’s conflict, their memories will be cherished by the true hearted, and the God-fearing, in all future generations; those who are living, their names are surrounded by a halo of glory.