SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 305 



with or touch slavery, without the legitimate consent of 

 the States. 



"I am the avowed and uncompromising enemy of slav- 

 ery, and shall never cease to use all constitutional and 

 honorable and just means, to cause its extinction in Ken- 

 tucky, and its reduction to its constitutional limits in the 

 United States. 



"Born a Kentuckian and a slaveholder, I have no prej- 

 udices nor enmities to gratify; but, impelled by a sense 

 of self-respect, love and justice, and the highest expedi- 

 ency, I shall ever maintain that liberty is our only safety. 



"Then let us, having no regard to the clamors of the 

 ultras of the North or the South, move on unshaken in 

 our purpose, to the glorious end. Shall sensible men be 

 for ever deluded by the silly cry of 'abolitionists?' — is 

 this not becoming not only ridiculous, but contemptible? 

 Can you not see that many base demagogues have been 

 crying out wolf, whilst they were playing the traitors to 

 their party and the country for personal elevation? Is 

 it not time that some sense of returning justice should 

 revive in your bosoms, and that you should cease to de- 

 nounce those who in defeat do not forget their integrity, 

 and who, though fallen, do not despair of the Republic?" 



Another Kentucky writer says, that the free blacks of 

 Kentucky are such a set of miserable, degraded, thievish 

 beings, that he believes the people of Kentucky never will 

 consent to the manumission of slaves unless they are sent 

 out of the country. He also says of the abolitionists: 

 "They should let lis alone. They don't know how to light 

 this battle, and I fear they don't care whom they strike 

 in their blind thrusts. On the other hand, the advocates 

 of perpetual slavery, are full of unnecessary fear, as all 

 the efforts of the abolitionists are in their favor." 



As I have heretofore premised, that however beneficial 

 and advantageous the system of slavery was to the slaves 

 themselves, it was a curse to the whites; I wish to call 

 a few witnesses upon this point. First, however, I wish 

 to give a few statistical facts. 



