HIS VIEWS ON SLAVERY. 239 



the entire physical system ; " and that we should say 

 to Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas, that slav 

 ery, " although it is eminently your curse, is also a 

 great national evil." " Slavery," he affirmed, "is 

 now generally acknowledged, in this country, to be 

 an enormous evil." Alluding to the legislative de 

 bates which followed the then recent slave insurrec 

 tions in the South, he said : " The statesmen of Vir 

 ginia and Maryland fully proved that slavery is an 

 intolerable evil : bitter to the slave ; costly to the 

 proprietor ; dangerous to the morals of the youth ; 

 as a reliance for national wealth, unprofitable and 

 wasteful ; as a means of public defence, worse than 

 useless ; a blot on our national honor ; a reproach to 

 our moral character ; a source of increasing do 

 mestic danger ; an insult to the purity of our relig 

 ion ; and an outrage on the Majesty of Heaven!" 

 " Having long and anxiously contemplated this sub 

 ject, I have looked earnestly for the time which 

 seems now at hand when the national conscience 

 should be thoroughly awakened to the sin of slav 

 ery." He lived to see the enlightened views of *those 

 Virginia statesmen repudiated by their children, and 

 slavery defended both as a divine institution and the 

 surest bulwark of Christian civilization ! The re 

 mainder of his address is mostly devoted to the ad 

 vocacy of colonization, and of efforts for the intel 

 lectual and moral improvement of the emigrant 

 blacks. But it became obvious to all discerning 

 men that African colonization would never remove 

 slavery, or even stay its progress, under the power 

 ful motive afforded by the increased facilities for the 

 culture of cotton, and the great demand for that 



