Victims.

But you will probably ask, if Anti-Slavery societies are not
insurrectionary, why do Northerners tell us they are? Why, I would ask
you in return, did Northern senators and Northern representatives give
their votes, at the last sitting of congress, to the admission of
Arkansas Territory as a state? Take those men, one by one, and ask them
in their parlours, do you _approve of slavery?_ ask them on _Northern_
ground, where they will speak the truth, and I doubt not _every man_ of
them will tell you, _no!_ Why then, I ask, did _they_ give their votes
to enlarge the mouth of that grave which has already destroyed its tens
of thousands? All our enemies tell _us_ they are as much anti-slavery as
we are. Yes, my friends, thousands who are helping you to bind the
fetters of slavery on the negro, despise you in their hearts for doing
it; they rejoice that such an institution has not been entailed upon
them. Why then, I would ask, do _they_ lend you their help? I will tell
you, "they love _the praise of men more_ than the praise of God." The
Abolition cause has not yet become so popular as to induce them to
believe, that by advocating it in congress, they shall sit still more
securely in their seats there, and like the _chief rulers_ in the days
of our Saviour, though many believed on him, yet they did _not_ confess
him, lest they should _be put out of the synagogue_; John xii, 42, 43.
Or perhaps like Pilate, thinking they could prevail nothing, and fearing
a tumult, they determined to release Barabbas and surrender the just
man, the poor innocent slave to be stripped of his rights and scourged.
In vain will such men try to wash their hands, and say, with the Roman
governor, "I am innocent of the blood of this just person." Northern
American statesmen are no more innocent of the crime of slavery, than
Pilate was of the murder of Jesus, or Saul of that of Stephen. These are
high charges, but I appeal to _their hearts_; I appeal to public opinion