a particular favor, at some convenient early day, to preach a sermon on the sin and folly of duelling.”[88] The other was Mr. Rhett, who, on this floor, openly declared, as his reason for declining the Duel, “that he feared God more than man.”[89] Generous words, for which many errors will be pardoned. But these voices condemn the social system of which the Duel is a natural product. Looking at the broad surface of society where Slavery exists, we find its spirit actively manifest against all freedom of speech and the press, especially with regard to this wrong. Nobody in the Slave States can speak or print plainly about Slavery, except at peril of life or liberty; and a curious instance shows how this same spirit is carried by our Slave-Masters into foreign lands. As early as 1789, and in Paris, a poor play,[90] where Slavery was painted truthfully, excited the hostility of what Baron Grimm, who reports the incident, calls “an American cabal,” so that its failure was attributed by some to this influence, being the early prototype of that so strong among us. St. Paul could call upon the people of Athens to give up the worship of unknown gods; he could live in his own hired house at Rome, and preach Christianity in this Heathen metropolis; but no man can be heard against Slavery in Charleston or Mobile. We condemn the Inquisition, which subjects all within its influence to censorship and secret judgment; but this tyranny is repeated in American Slave-Masters. Truths as simple as the great discovery of Galileo are openly denied, and all who declare them are driven to recant. We condemn the “Index Expurgatorius” of the Roman Church; but American Slave-Masters have an Index where are inscribed all the generous books of the age. One book, the marvel of recent literature, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” is treated thus by the Church as by Slave-Masters, being honored by the same suppression at the Vatican as at Charleston. Not to dwell on these instances, there is one which has a most instructive ridiculousness. A religious discourse of the late Dr. Channing on West India Emancipation--the last effort of his beautiful life--was offered for sale by a book agent at Charleston. A prosecution by the South Carolina Association ensued, and the agent was held to bail in the sum of one thousand dollars. Shortly afterward, the same agent received for sale a work by Dickens, “American Notes,” freshly published; but, determined not to expose himself again to the tyrannical Inquisition, he gave notice through the newspapers that the book would “be submitted to highly intelligent members of the South Carolina Association for _inspection_, and _if_ the sale is approved by them, it will be for sale,--if not, not.”[91] Listen also to another recent instance, as recounted in the “Montgomery Mail,” a newspaper of Alabama.