GENERAL OPINION OF NEW YORK STATE. 273 



among us. We see, and occasionally read, noble speeches 

 such as those of Mr Seward and Mr Mann, delivered 

 in the last Congress expressive of the opinion of indi 

 viduals on this side of the question and we know that 

 large meetings are now and then held, in which the 

 sympathy of numbers is expressed in behalf of the 

 coloured man : but such things happen daily among 

 ourselves, in reference to many public questions, without 

 at all indicating the general bent of the national mind. 

 But a well-considered opinion, repeated year after year, 

 on the part of the Legislature of a State, may fairly be 

 assumed as a representation of the general opinion of 

 the people of that State ; especially when the members 

 of Assembly hold their office only for a single year. 



I would pass lightly over a mode of viewing the 

 slavery question, in its relations to Great Britain, which 

 is taken up in this Report, and which is occasionally 

 thrown in the face of the British traveller in the United 

 States, if he venture to express an honest opinion on the 

 question of slavery. &quot; We owe the evil to Great Bri 

 tain. She introduced it into the American Continent. 

 It was a legacy she left us. We may curse you for 

 sending it to us j but you have no right to blame us, 

 because you find it among us.&quot; 



Of course, there is much unreasoning anger and con 

 sciousness of guilt and blame in such an answer as this ; 

 and yet there often appears an evident labouring even 

 where silence would better become the dignity of the occa 

 sion to magnify and accumulate proofs of the great guilt 

 of England in reference to slavery and the slave-trade in 

 America. It is plainly a source of gratification to many 

 to darken her conduct, as if the shade of their own guilt 

 became paler as her blackness became more intense. 



The Legislative Report, from which I have made the 

 above admirable extracts, commences after this fashion, 

 as if, after spueing a little filth upon us, it were thought 



VOL. II. S 



