for two hundred years. Nothing but the direst necessity will bring
it about. It will never be given voluntarily up; the whole force
of human nature is against it relinquishment. As well might the
nobility of England be expected to throw up their titles and their
coronets on persuasion. Here is a case where argument has no power.
You may exhaust it, you may prove slavery to be wrong morally, wrong
socially, wrong politically, you may prove it to a demonstration
that it is an economic blunder of the most gigantic proportions, you
may make it clear as sunlight that it is demoralizing and ruinous,
but you have done absolutely nothing toward its abolishment. Here
and there a truly conscientious man or woman, under the great
pressure of duty, will consent to the liberation of their slaves;
but the public conscience is so ethereal a thing that it can be
touched by no appeals of duty or obligation, and will never force
a community up to any great work, least of all to such a work as
this.

The effect of emancipating one's slaves upon the social position
of the master, has been seen over and over again; the hour when
the bonds are broken and freedom is given is the hour when all the
former associations are given up; expatriation and banishment are
the inevitable results. The generous, or the conscientious emancipator
at once becomes an exile; he has sunk at once out of an aristocracy
whose titular power he gave up the moment he ceased to be a slave-holder,
and he cannot comfortably abide in even his old home. Here is the
explanation of the vast and unexpected power put forth by this
rebellion, of the unconquered will, of the enormous sacrifices
endured; here is the explanation of the seeming insanity of the
struggle, of the unwarrantableness of its acts, of the demoniac
fierceness of its rage, and the diabolical malignity and cruelty