already done so much to save and bless!--fortunate for a large circle of
friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly
secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by his virtuous traits of
character, by his ever-abiding remembrance of those who are in bonds, as
being bound with them!--fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts
of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of
slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to
virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the enslavers of
men!--fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field
of public usefulness, "gave the world assurance of a MAN," quickened the
slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work
of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!

I shall never forget his first speech at the convention--the
extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind--the powerful impression
it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise--the
applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous
remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment;
certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by
it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more
clear than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature
commanding and exact--in intellect richly endowed--in natural eloquence
a prodigy--in soul manifestly "created but a little lower than the
angels"--yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,--trembling for his safety,
hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white
person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the
love of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an intellectual
and moral being--needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of
cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his
race--by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms