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 they would not submit to it. Abuse certainly never had the effect of softening men's hearts, nor was it ever an aid, with men of independence and self-respect, in the accomplishment of any good purpose. To give respectable individuals the appellations of "robbers" and "man-stealers" because they happened to be born in a part of the country where slavery existed, and upon plantations on which their fathers had dwelt before them, and amidst a condition of things which, though bad in itself, they had no share in producing, and saw no means at once of remedying — such language could have no possible effect but to excite feelings of indignation, and to close the ears of citizens of the South against every allusion to the subject.

Such has been the disastrous effect of this most unwise course. And not only this, — but it has operated injuriously on the condition of the slaves themselves, by increasing the severity of the masters, — compelling them to take extraordinary precautions against insurrection, and thus depriving the negroes of many privileges they had formerly enjoyed. Thus do violence and fanaticism ever defeat their own ends: