Page:Notices of Negro slavery as connected with Pennsylvania.djvu/10

374 system, for the American slave trade, and for the extension of slavery to new and uncontaminated soils, for the toted deprivation of the negroes by law of literary, moral, and religious instruction, and that the State governments are bound to take some prospective measures, however slow in effect and remote in final execution., to clear our land from so foul a stain on the national character. We frequently hear from those engaged in slavery strong expressions of abhorrence of the practice, and great desires for the abolition of the evil. It is believed that in many instances these professions are true and sincere, and we rejoice in the existence of such feelings; but we think we may be allowed to question their general verity, when we see, even in those States where there is least excuse for the permanent continuance of the evil, an anxious desire to defile with slavery new portions of our territories, and a steady adherence to their former cruel and degrading policy, without one solitary prospective glance at melioration, or one act which has the most remote bearing upon its abolition, but rather an increasing disposition to quench inquiry and discussion upon the subject. We shall not, however, at present, say more on these points, but proceed to our narrative. In order to give a clear idea of the relative period at which slavery was first opposed in Pennsylvania, it may perhaps be proper to take a cursory review of the origin of the African slave trade, and of the opposition it encountered up to the year 1688. The infamy of being the first who brought the miserable sons of Africa as slaves from their native soil