disregarded. We cannot then make them equals. It does seem to me that
systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted, but for their
tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the
South.

Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to consent to the
extension of slavery to new countries. That is to say, that inasmuch as
you do not object to my taking my hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not
object to your taking your slave. Now, I admit that this is perfectly
logical, if there is no difference between hogs and slaves. But while
you thus require me to deny the humanity of the negro, I wish to ask
whether you of the South, yourselves, have ever been willing to do as
much? It is kindly provided that of all those who come into the world,
only a small percentage are natural tyrants. That percentage is no
larger in the slave States than in the free. The great majority, South
as well as North, have human sympathies, of which they can no more
divest themselves than they can of their sensibility to physical pain.
These sympathies in the bosoms of the Southern people manifest in many
ways their sense of the wrong of slavery, and their consciousness that,
after all, there is humanity in the negro. If they deny this let me
address them a few plain questions.

In 1820 you joined the North almost unanimously in declaring the African
slave-trade piracy, and in annexing to it the punishment of death. Why
did you do this? If you did not feel that it was wrong, why did you join
in providing that men should be hung for it? The practice was no more
than bringing wild negroes from Africa to such as would buy them. But
you never thought of hanging men for catching and selling wild horses,
wild buffaloes, or wild bears.