The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-09-28

r their produce-that we ask no questions when W
II buy-that the price we give will support them i
e administering system of forced labor, and the
therefore adopt and follow the trade of planters
i cotton, and brokers in blood. (Cheers.) Scourge
4 and letters, and bolts and thumb-screws, men
: steaers and drivers, are but the instruments the
a use to accomplish grand end, which is the reap
ing OF gain by the supply of our unceasing de
: nands. And yet we are an anti-slavery nation
5 and yet we paid twenty millions to get rid of tn,
abomlnation of negro bondadge in our own colo
nies-and yet we have societies for the conversion
of other nations to abolition principles! Is there
no inconsistency here! Are not our professions
fjusty liable to reproach, and to be branded as in
sincere and hypocrcal? While we are assem-
bed here, to point our appeals across the Allan.
tic, that they may reach, if possible, the conscience
of the American, might not voice of thunder
speak from every warehouse in this city, gorged
with the produce of the slave-from every spin
ming jenny and loom employed in the service Of
slavery Woe unto you, Scribes, Pharisees and
! Hypocrites, for you send memorials and Mission
aries and remonstrannes, over sea and land, to de-
nounce the crime Of holding men in bondage,
while you yourselves stay at home to raise the
wages OF unrighteousness-the price of blood
and feed to fairness the cupdty of those who are
willing TO sell Themselves to you in the service of
sin. All this we should desire if India were not
ours-or if the country were botted from the map
of the world. How much more, while India is
in existence-while India is an integral portion of
our own dominions? Why prefer New Orleans
to Calcutta-Mobile to Bombay-Cuba to Ma
dras? Why leave freemen furnishing by mill
ions on the banks of the Ganges and Jumna, that
you may steal men from the banks of the Gambia
and the st. Mary's, and lash them to their hated
task or the banks of the Mississippi and the Po-
tomac Great cheering.) But enough; you see,
you feel the crime of despisng that spledid coun-
try and that interesting race, on whose behalf so
eloquent an appeal has been made, in the honest,
fearless, admirable speech of my gallant friend
Major-Genera Briggs. (Cheers.) You are not
called upon to cease your remonstrances against
slavery; you are not required to forego any of
the comorsts or luxuries of life, or to circumscrbe
your trading operations, or 10 go to war with pi-
ratical nations, to levy discriminating duties or
to enforce forgotten treaties or to call together
congresses of nations but quietly, consistently,
and energetically, to improve your own territory
to employ your own husbandmen--to reap your
own soil-in word, to put into operation prin-
ciple of political economy, which would as surely
work the destruction of slavery and thesslave
trade as the produce of the labor of fifty millions
of freemen, procured at the rate of twopence per
day for eachs man, must drive out of every market
where fair competition is permitted, the produce
o. six millions of slaves, whose support averages
from eighteen 10 thirty pence per day. (Cheers.)
How truly unexceptionable how simple, how
patriotic, how certain is the course thus pointed
out.
Let me, Sir specify, in the fewest possible
words, the principal grounds on which deem it
the duty of this nation, and Of such meeting as
this in particular, to take up the cause of India.
India, in itself considered, is worthy OF our regard
1t is the largest richest, and most available por-
ton Of our territory. The people, eighty or
hundred million in number, are civilized, ingenu-
Gus, docile acute and industrious-they are be-
Sides in need of an nterposition to them from
an oppressive system which is breeding discon-
tent, and occasional disease, and famine and death
Their Intellectual condition requires our consider
alton and aid. Various kinds of slavery exist
which have to be inquired into and abolished, i'll
within the legitimate sphere Of our authority in
that country. The inhabitants of India, if raised
the best and largest consumers ofthe surplus man.
ufactures of our own country. The political con-
dtion of India must be affected bene6cially by ev-
cry philanthropic effort, inasmuch as our tenure
of dominion is the attachment ofthe people to our
sway. Look then at India by itself. Half a mil
lion of square miles of territory. Ought not its
to be explored? One hundred millions
of inhabitants. Ought not their wants to be con-
sidered9 They are poor, they must be fed-they
are naked, they must be cothed-they are disaf-
fected, they must be conciliated-they are indus
lrious, they must be employed. Our humanity,
our patriotism, our justice, are appealed to in be-
half of British India. But my next ground is the
aspect of the question see the bat
lie of freedom for the degraded slave must be
fought on the plains India. see that we every
are guilty of great inconsistency, if not
crime, while we neglect India, and support the
slave systems of America. Isee that in the cir
of India, we have inexhaustible mate
rails for anti-savery appeals to this country ;-ap-
peals to every class of motives by which men are
moved to pity or mpeled to action. Isee that we
possess, as nation, the power of Immediately di-
and ultimately destroying the slave
rade and slavery, by improving the condition of
he natives and developing the physical resources
IF India. | see that are placed in circumstan-
,es of fearful responsibility, and that we cannot
Justify our profession before men, or clear our con-
sciences before God, unless we use the means that
ire placed in our hands. see, finally. that by
calling attention to India, and exhibiting our pa
,i6c, yet powerful principles of action, we secure