Slavery is a sin against God, and ought,
therefore, to be abolished.
"'The utter extinction of slavery, and its sister
abomination, the internal slave-trade of the United
States, second only in horror and extent to the African,
and in some of its features even more revolting, can
only be argued, by the philanthropy of this country, on
the abstract principles of moral and religious duty; and
to those principles the people of your great republic
are pledged on the side of freedom beyond every nation
in the world!
"'The negro, by nature our equal, made like ourselves in
the image of his Creator, gifted by the same
intelligence, impelled by the same passions and
affections, and redeemed by the same Savior, is reduced
by cupidity and oppression below the level of the brute,
spoiled of his humanity, plundered of his rights, and
often hurried to a premature grave, the miserable victim
of avarice and heedless tyranny! Men have presumptuously
dared to wrest from their fellows the most precious of
their rights--to intercept as far as they may the bounty
and grace of the Almighty--to close the door to their
intellectual progress--to shut every avenue to their
moral and religious improvement, to stand between them
and their Maker! It is against this crime the committee
protest as men and as Christians, and earnestly but
respectfully call upon you, Sir, to use the influence
with which you are invested, to bring it to a peaceful
and speedy close; and, may you in closing your public
career, in the latest hours of your existence on earth,
be consoled with the reflection that you have not
despised the afflictions of the afflicted, but that
faithful to the trust of your high stewardship, you have
been "just, ruling in the fear of the Lord," that you
have executed judgment for the oppressed, and have aided
in the deliverance of your country from its greatest
crime, and its chiefest reproach.
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