Is it an exercise of love, to place our "neighbor" under the crushing weight, the killing power, of such a relation ?--to apply the murderous steel to the very vitals of his humanity?
"YE THEREFORE APPLAUD AND DELIGHT IN THE DEEDS OF YOUR FATHERS; FOR THEY KILLED THEM, AND YE BUILD THEIR SEPULCHRES."[A] The slaveholder may eagerly and loudly deny, that any such thing is chargeable upon him.

He may confidently and earnestly alledge, that he is not responsible for the state of society in which he is placed.
Slavery was established before he began to breathe.

It was his inheritance.

His slaves are his property by birth or testament.

But why will he thus deceive himself?
Why will he permit the cunning and rapacious spiders, which in the very sanctuary of ethics and religion are laboriously weaving webs from their own bowels, to catch him with their wretched sophistries ?--and devour him, body, soul, and substance?
Let him know, as he must one day with shame and terror own, that whoever holds slaves is himself responsible for _the relation_, into which, whether reluctantly or willingly, he thus enters.