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SECTION VI.
SLAVERY IN AMERICA — ITS ORIGIN — AND THE PROBABLE MANNER OF ITS REMOVAL
The subject of slavery in the United States has been too often spoken of in the language of mere feeling — nay, it may be said, of passion. Writers and speakers, uninformed, many of them, alike as to its origin and its real present condition, have indulged themselves in violent denunciations, such as could possibly serve no good purpose, but which rather tended to exasperate the master, and consequently to rivet more firmly the shackles of the slave. Zeal without knowledge, feeling without understanding, ever defeat their own ends. Mere passion is blind; and dashing recklessly forwards, it more commonly rushes to its own destruction, than accomplishes that of its adversary. What is our purpose? Is it to pour forth declamation? or is it to effect a useful end, — to do real and practical good? It is easy enough to denounce any evil: the light of absolute truth held up to evil shows clearly its deformity; and when we have ourselves no part in it, it is very easy and very natural to get up an excitement of feeling, and a ready outcry against it. But is it strictly just, it may be, asked, to look at any evils of
