When, by a happy providence, a vessel was
driven, the last year, to a West India island, and the chains of the
poor slaves with which it was filled fell from around them, under
freedom's magic power, the exasperated South was ready to go to war with
Great Britain. _Then_, the law against delivering up foreign servants to
their masters was not relished by you. The given case comes most
strikingly within the supposed policy of this law. The Gentile was to be
permitted to remain in the land to which he had fled, and where he would
have advantages for becoming acquainted with the God of the Bible. Such
advantages are they enjoying who escaped from the confessed heathenism
of Southern slavery to the island in question. They are now taught to
read that "Book of life," which before, they were forbidden to read. But
again, suppose a slave were to escape from a West India island into the
Southern States--would you, with your "domestic institutions," of which
you are so jealous, render obedience to this Divine law? No; you would
subject him _for ever_ to a servitude more severe than that, from which
he had escaped.
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