conscience of the people is against the system--the conscience of the
people, even in the slaveholding states; and if we can but get at the
conscience without exciting prejudice, it will tend greatly towards the
desired effect. But this appeal to the conscience must be
unintermittent, constant. Your hands must not be weary, your prayers
must not be discontinued; but every day and every hour should we be
doing something towards the object. It is sometimes said, Americans who
resist slavery are traitors to their country. No; those who would
support freedom are the only true friends of their country. Our fathers
never intended slavery to be identified with the government of the
United States; but in the temptations of commerce the evil was
overlooked; and how changed for the worse has become the public
sentiment even within the last thirty or forty years! The enormous
increase in the consumption of cotton has raised enormously the market
value of slaves, and arrayed both avarice and political ambition in
defence of slavery. Instruct the conscience, and produce free cotton,
and this will be like Cromwell's exhortation to his soldiers, '_Trust
in God, and keep your powder dry_.'" [Continued cheers.]

THE REV. DR. R. LEE then said: "I am quite sure that every individual
here responds cordially to those sentiments of respect and gratitude
towards our honored guest which have been so well expressed by the Lord
Provost and the other gentlemen who have addressed us. We think that
this lady has not only laid us under a great obligation by giving us one
of the most delightful books in the English language, but that she has
improved us as men and as Christians, that she has taught us the value
of our privileges, and made us more sensible than we were before of the
obligation which lies upon us to promote every good work. I have been
requested to say a few words on the degradation of American slavery; but
I feel, in the presence of the gentleman who last addressed you, and of