"American Slavery," said the celebrated John Wesley, "is the _vilest_ beneath the sun!" Of the truth of this emphatic remark, no other proof is required, than an examination of the statute books of the American slave states.

Tested by its own laws, in all that facilitates and protects the hateful process of converting a man into a "_chattel personal_;" in all that stamps the law-maker, and law-upholder with meanness and hypocrisy, it certainly has no present rival of its "bad eminence," and we may search in vain the history of a world's despotism for a parallel.

The civil code of Justinian never acknowledged, with that of our democratic despotisms, the essential equality of man.

The dreamer in the gardens of Epicurus recognized neither in himself, nor in the slave who ministered to his luxury, the immortality of the spiritual nature.

Neither Solon nor Lycurgus taught the inalienability of human rights.