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[211] and unwisdom of using harsh or intemperate language in discussing so delicate a subject as slavery. It was evident that the latter's communications would no longer be welcomed to the Transcript's columns, and this letter—in which, as ‘a New-England mechanic who is not ashamed of his trade,’ he asked the Charleston ‘scribbler’ whether it was a ‘decent, honest employment’ to ‘reduce the creatures of God to a level with brutes, to lacerate and brand their bodies with more than savage cruelty, and to keep their souls in thick, impenetrable darkness’—was his last word. ‘When,’ he fervently declared,—
‘When I shall become so mean and dastardly, so lost to every1 feeling of humanity, every principle of justice, every conviction of conscience, as to fetter and sell my own countrymen or others, may I receive (as I ought to receive, if capital punishment be lawful,) a just reward for my conduct at the gallows, like any other pirate; may my memory be accursed to the end of time; and may the lightnings of heaven consume my body to ashes. I join with the eloquent and indignant Brougham— “Tell me not of rights—talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right—I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. While men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy that man can hold property in man.” ’

During the first fortnight after his arrival in Boston, Mr. Garrison vainly endeavored to procure, without cost, a place in which to deliver his lectures; and he finally sent this advertisement to the Courier:2

Wanted—For three evenings, a Hall or Meeting-house (the latter would be preferred), in which to vindicate the rights of two millions of American citizens who are now groaning in servile chains in this boasted land of liberty; and also to propose just, benevolent, and constitutional measures for their relief. As the addresses will be gratuitous, and as the cause is of public benefit, I cannot consent to remunerate any society


1 Transcript, Nov. 8, 1830.

2 Oct. 12, 1830.

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