that had passed "black" laws, as we call them; they are filled with
Southern emigrants. The southern parts of Ohio, the southern part of
Indiana, where I myself lived for years, and which I knew like a
book, the southern part of Illinois, where Mr. Lincoln lives--[great
uproar]--these parts are largely settled by emigrants from Kentucky,
Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and North Carolina, and it was their vote,
or the Northern votes pandering for political reasons to theirs, that
passed in those States the infamous "black" laws; and the Republicans
in these States have a record, clean and white, as having opposed these
laws in every instance as "infamous." Now as to the State of New York;
it is asked whether a negro is not obliged to have a certain freehold
property, or a certain amount of property, before he can vote. It is so
still in North Carolina and Rhode Island for white folks--it is so in
New York State. [Mr. Beecher's voice slightly failed him here, and
he was interrupted by a person who tried to imitate him. Cries of
"Shame!" and "Turn him out!"] I am not undertaking to say that these
faults of the North, which were brought upon them by the bad example
and influence of the South, are all cured; but I do say that they are
in process of cure which promises, if unimpeded by foreign influence, to
make all such odious distinctions vanish.

There is another fact that I wish to allude to--not for the sake
of reproach or blame, but by way of claiming your more lenient
consideration--and that is, that slavery was entailed upon us by your
action. [Hear, hear!] Against the earnest protests of the colonists the
then government of Great Britain--I will concede not knowing what were
the mischiefs--ignorantly, but in point of fact, forced slave traffic
on the unwilling colonists. [Great uproar, in the midst of which one
individual was lifted up and carried out of the room amidst cheers and
hisses.]