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 thirty-three are Free States; in these, slavery has either been abolished or has never existed: the other fifteen are Slave-holding States. Moreover, as appears by the census of 1850, — in the Free States the population is thirteen millions and upwards, whereas the white population in the Slave States is but little more than six millions. Thus it appears that less than one-third of American citizens are slave-owners, or even dwellers in the States where slavery exists. Is it right, then, to stigmatize the whole nation for the doings or for the condition of a small minority? — to cast upon all Americans a reproach which, at worst, belongs to less than one-third of their number, and which even with those, as already shown, may be justly considered rather their misfortune than their fault, since it was imposed upon them by others?

But, to the citizens of the Free States, not only is the negative credit due, of being free from the