This claim has since received the fullest
investigation from Mr. Lysander Spooner, who has urged it with all his
unrivalled ingenuity, laborious research, and close logic. He writes
as a lawyer, and has no wish, I believe, to be ranked with any class of
anti-slavery men.
The influence of slavery on our Government has received the profoundest
philosophical investigation from the pen of Richard Hildreth, in his
invaluable essay on _Despotism in America_,--a work which deserves a
place by the side of the ablest political disquisitions of any age.
Even the vigorous mind of Rantoul, the ablest man, without doubt, of
the Democratic party, and perhaps the ripest politician in New England,
added little or nothing to the store-house of antislavery argument. *
* * His speeches on our question, too short and too few, are remarkable
for their compact statement, iron logic, bold denunciation, and the
wonderful light thrown back upon our history. Yet how little do they
present which was not familiar for years in our anti-slavery
meetings! Look, too, at the last great effort of the idol of so many
thousands,--Mr.
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