brother or sister into bondage, as I would return a fugitive slave. Before God, and Christ, and all Christian men, they are my brothers and sisters. As our laws make it piracy to kidnap slaves in Africa, or to ship them thence, so it shall be a felony, punishable with death, for any southern master to kidnap a colored man, in a free state, or transport him from it, on the ground of alleged ownership. You are fond of quoting Scripture to us, in justification of slavery. We will retort the Scripture, that “he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or _if he be found in his hand_, he shall surely be put to death.” Here, then, is a free land frontier of about two thousand miles, and a free ocean frontier of about twenty-five hundred miles; and more than one half of all your slaves are within two days’ run of it. More than one quarter of them are within one night’s run of it. Thousands and tens of thousands can escape, even while you are dining. Canada, now so distant, is brought five hundred miles nearer. The under-ground railroad will be abandoned, and its stock so invested as to yield quicker returns. What facilities for escape, too, will the ocean present. Fleets of vessels are constantly passing and repassing within a few hours’ sail of the coast. The day for the power and the triumph of those whom you hate as abolitionists will have arrived. Steamboats could lie out of sight of land in the day time, run in at night, and be out of sight again before the rising of the sun. To guard twenty-five hundred miles of coast is impossible. If you declare war in order to avenge your losses, then that war makes your coast lawfully accessible both by day and by night, and multiplies a hundred fold the opportunities and facilities for this self-recovery of stolen goods.