Nay, the very power they have usurped, has often been the chief instrument of turning their heads, inflaming their passions, corrupting their hearts.
All the world knows, that the possession of arbitrary power has a strong tendency to make men shamelessly wicked and insufferably mischievous.
And this, whether the vassals over whom they domineer, be few or many.
If you can not trust man with himself, will you put his fellows under his control ?--and flee from the inconveniences incident to self-government, to the horrors of despotism?
"THOU THAT PREACHEST A MAN SHOULD NOT STEAL, DOST THOU STEAL." Is the slaveholder, the most absolute and shameless of all despots, to be intrusted with the discipline of the injured men whom he himself has reduced to cattle ?--with the discipline by which they are to be prepared to wield the powers and enjoy the privileges of freemen?
Alas, of such discipline as he can furnish, in the relation of owner to property, they have had enough.

From this sprang the vary ignorance and vice, which in the view of many lie in the way of their immediate enfranchisement.

He it is, who has darkened their eyes and crippled their powers.

And are they to look to him for illumination and renewed vigor!--and expect "grapes from thorns and figs from thistles!" Heaven forbid! When, according to arrangements which had usurped the sacred name of law, he consented to receive and use them as property, he forfeited all claims to the esteem and confidence, not only of the helpless sufferers themselves, but also of every philanthropist.

In becoming a slaveholder, he became the enemy of mankind.