Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, and dull as all men are from slavery, must they not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that very nation which has sold them to their present masters?—­from that nation, one of whose causes of quarrel [Footnote:  37] with those masters is their refusal to deal any more in that inhuman traffic?  An offer of freedom from England would come rather oddly, shipped to them in an African vessel which is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or Carolina with a cargo of three hundred Angola negroes.  It would be curious to see the Guinea captain attempting at the same instant to publish his proclamation of liberty, and to advertise his sale of slaves.

But let us suppose all these moral difficulties got over.  The ocean remains.  You cannot pump this dry; and as long as it continues in its present bed, so long all the causes which weaken authority by distance will continue.

     “Ye gods, annihilate but space and time,
     And make two lovers happy!”

was a pious and passionate prayer; but just as reasonable as many of the serious wishes of grave and solemn politicians.

If then, Sir, it seems almost desperate to think of any alterative course for changing the moral causes, and not quite easy to remove the natural, which produce prejudices irreconcilable to the late exercise of our authority—­but that the spirit infallibly will continue, and, continuing, will produce such effects as now embarrass us—­the second mode under consideration is to prosecute that spirit in its overt acts as criminal.

At this proposition I must pause a moment.  The thing seems a great deal too big for my ideas of jurisprudence.  It should seem to my way of conceiving such matters that there is a very wide difference, in reason and policy, between the mode of proceeding on the irregular conduct of scattered individuals, or even of bands of men who disturb order within the state, and the civil dissensions which may, from time to time, on great questions, agitate the several communities which compose a great empire.  It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest.  I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.  I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fellow-creatures as Sir Edward Coke insulted one excellent individual (Sir Walter Raleigh) at the bar.  I hope I am not ripe to pass sentence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with magistracies of great authority and dignity, and charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, upon the very same title that I am.  I really think that, for wise men, this is not judicious; for sober men, not decent; for minds tinctured with humanity, not mild and merciful.