Let the House now contrast the two cases.

Let them ask themselves which of the two exhibited the greater barbarity; and whether they could possibly vote for the continuance of the Slave-trade, upon the principle, that the Africans had shown themselves to be a race of incorrigible barbarians?
Something like an opposite argument, but with a like view, had been maintained by others on this subject.

It had been said, in justification of the trade, that the Africans had derived some little civilization from their intercourse with us.

Yes: we had given them just enough of the forms of justice to enable them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other modes of perpetrating the most atrocious crimes.

We had given them just enough of European improvements, to enable them the more effectually to turn Africa into a ravaged wilderness.