any country under Heaven. Nothing but the most profound ignorance
could lead any one to assert the contrary. Mr. Thompson had a
colleague in his recent exhibitions in London, who seemed to have
taken interludes in all Mr. T's speeches. In one of these, that
colleague had said, he knew of his own knowledge a case, in which a
man had given $500 for a slave, in order to burn him alive! Mr.
Thompson, no doubt knew, that even on the supposition that such a
monster was to be found, he was liable in every part of the United
States, to be hanged as any other murderer. Slavery was bad enough
anywhere; but to say that it was more unmitigated in America than in
the West Indies, where emigration had always been necessary to keep up
the numbers, while in America, the slave population increased faster
than any part of the human race, was a gross exaggeration, or a proof
of the profoundest ignorance. To say that the slavery of the District
of Columbia was the most horrid that ever existed, when it, along with
the whole of the slavery on that continent, was so hedged about by
human laws, that in every one of the states cruelty to the slave was
punished as an offence against the state; the killing of a slave was
punished every where with death; while in all ages, and nearly in all
countries where slavery has existed besides, the master was not only
the exclusive judge of the treatment of his slave, but the absolute
disposer of his life, which he could take away at will; these
statements can proceed only from unpardonable ignorance, or a purpose
to mislead. As to the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia, there might, at first sight, appear to be some grounds of
accusation; but yet, when the subject was considered in all its
bearings, so many pregnant, if not conclusive, reasons presented
themselves against interference, that though much attention had been
bestowed upon it for many years, the result had been that nothing was
done. It was to be recollected that the whole District of Columbia was
only ten miles square; and that it was surrounded by states in which
slavery was still legalized. It was thus clear, that though slavery
were abolished in Columbia, not an individual of the six thousand
slaves now within its bounds, would necessarily be relieved of his
fetters. Were an abolition bill to pass the House of Representatives
to-day, the whole six thousand could be removed to a neighboring slave
state before it could be taken up in the Senate to-morrow. It was,
therefore, worse than idle to say so much on what could never be a
practical question. Again; the District of Columbia had been ceded to
the General Government by Maryland and Virginia, both slaveholding
states, for national purposes; but this would never have been done had
it been contemplated that Congress would abolish slavery within its
bounds, and thus establish a nucleus of anti-slavery agitation in the
heart of their territory. The exercise of such a power, therefore, on
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