will prove to her adversary, and to ours, that such boasting shall not be for his honor, 'for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.' [Hear, hear! and loud cheers.] Now, I ask you this: Is there one of you who believes that the statements of that marvellous book to which we have alluded present an exaggerated picture?—[Tremendous cries of 'No, no.'] Do they not know, say what they will, that the truth is not fully stated? [Hear, hear!] The reality is worse than the fiction. [Hear, hear!] But, apart from this, there is our solemn declaration that the vileness of the principle is at once exhibited in the mere notion of slavery, and the atrocities of it are the natural and almost inevitable consequences of the profession and exercise of absolute and irresponsible power. [Hear, hear!] But do you doubt the fact? Look to the document. I will quote to you from this book. I have never read any thing more strikingly illustrative or condemnatory of the system we are here to denounce. Here is the judgment pronounced by one of the judges in North Carolina. It is impossible to read this judgment, however terrible the conclusion, without feeling convinced that the man who pronounced it was a man of a great mind, and, in spite of the law he was bound to administer, a man of a great heart. [Hear, hear!] Hear what he says. The case was this: It was a 'case of appeal,' in which the defendant had hired a slave woman for a year. During this time she committed some slight offence, for which the defendant undertook to chastise her. After doing so he shot at her as she was running away. The question then arose, was he justified in using that amount of coercion? and whether the privilege of shooting was not confined to the actual proprietor? The case was argued at some length, and the court, in pronouncing judgment, began by deploring that any judge should ever be called upon to decide such a case, but he had to administer the law, and not to make it. The judge said, 'With whatever reluctance, therefore, the court is bound to express the opinion, that the dominion over a slave in Carolina has not, as it has been argued, any analogy with the authority of a tutor over a pupil, of a master over an apprentice, or of a parent over a child. The court does not recognize these applications. There is no likeness between them. They are in opposition to each other, and there is an impassable gulf between them. The difference is that which exists between freedom and slavery—[Hear, hear!]—and a greater difference cannot be imagined. In the one case, the end in view is the happiness of the youth, born to equal rights with the tutor, whose duty it is to train the young to usefulness by moral and intellectual instruction. If they will not suffice, a moderate chastisement maybe administered. But with slavery it is far otherwise.' Mark these words, for they contain the whole thing. But with slavery it is far otherwise. The end is the profit of the master, and the poor object is one doomed, in his own person, and in his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without capacity to attain any thing which he may call his own. He has only to labor, that another may reap the fruits.' [Hear, hear!] Mark! this is from the sacred bench of justice, pronounced by one of the first intellects in America! 'There is nothing else which can operate to produce the effect; the power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect. [Hear, hear!] It is inherent in the relation of master and slave;' and then he adds those never-to-be-forgotten words, 'We cannot allow the right of the master to come under discussion in the courts of justice. The slave must be made sensible that there is no appeal from his master, and that his master's power is in no instance usurped; that these rights are conferred by the laws of man, at least, if not by the law of God.' [Loud cries of 'Shame, shame!'] This is the mode in which we are to regard these two classes of beings, both created by the same God, and both redeemed by the same Savior as ourselves, and destined to the same immortality! The judgment, on appeal, was reversed; but, God be praised; there is another appeal, and that appeal we make to the highest of all imaginable courts, where God is the judge, where mercy is the advocate, and where unerring truth will pronounce the decision![Protracted cheering.] There are some who are pleased to tell us that there is an inferiority in the race! That is untrue. [Cheers.] But we are not here to inquire whether our black brethren will become Shakspeares or Herschels. [Hear, hear!] I ask, are they immortal beings? [Great applause.] Do our adversaries, say no? I ask them, then, to show me one word in the handwriting of God which has thus levelled them with the brute beasts. [Hear, hear!] Let us bear in mind those words of our blessed Savior—'Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones who believe in me, it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were cast into the depths of the sea.' [Loud cheers.] Now, then, what is our duty? Is it to stand still? Yes! when we receive the command from the same authority that said to the sun, Stand over Gibeon! [Loud cheers.] Then, and not till then, will we stand still. [Renewed cheers.] Are we to listen to the craven and miserable talk about 'doing more harm than good'? [Hear, hear!] This was an argument which would have checked every noble enterprise which has been undertaken since the world began. It would have strangled Wilberforce, and checked the very Exodus itself from the house of bondage in Egypt. [Hear, hear!] Out on all such craven talk! [Cheers.] Slavery is a mystery, and so is all sin, and we must fight against it; and, by the blessing of God, we will. [Loud cheers.] We must pray to Almighty God, that we and our American brethren—who seem now to be the sole depositories of the Protestant truth, and of civil and religious liberty, may be as one. [Cheers.] We are feeble, if hostile; but, if united, we are the arbiters of the world. [Cheers.] Let us join together for the temporal and spiritual good of our race."
Professor Stowe then came forward, and was received with unbounded demonstrations of applause. When the cheering had subsided, he said "he felt utterly exhausted by the heat and excitement of the meeting, and should therefore be glad to be excused from saying a single word; however, he would utter a few thoughts. The following was the resolution which he had to submit to the meeting: 'That with a view to the correction of public sentiment on this subject in slaveholding communities, it is of the first importance that those who are earnest in condemnation of slavery should observe consistency; and, therefore, that it is their duty to encourage the development of the natural resources of countries where slavery does not exist, and the soil of which is adapted to the growth of products—especially of cotton—now partially or chiefly raised by slave labor; and though the extinction of slavery is less to be expected from a diminished demand for slave produce than from the moral effects of a steadfast abhorrence of slavery itself, and from an unwavering and consistent opposition to it, this meeting would earnestly recommend, that in all cases where it is practicable, a decided preference should be given to the products of free labor, by all who enter their protest against slavery, so that at least they themselves 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
