He would have the heavy yoke that crushes them broken without delay. Surely, he would have the _foundation_ of the plan for the removal of slavery laid _immediately_. He would not, could not counsel the slaveholder to postpone a day, nor an hour, the recognition of the right of his slave to be treated as a fellow-man. There is a remarkable resemblance between what Dr. Channing here says ought to be done _in the first place_, and what the Abolitionists had from the beginning insisted ought to be done _immediately_. One of the Doctor’s objections to our chosen phrase was that it was liable to be misunderstood. But, as we said at the time, “if _immediate emancipation_ expresses our leading doctrine exactly, it ought to be used and explanations of it be patiently given until the true doctrine has come to be generally understood, received, and obeyed.” Now, _immediate emancipation_ was the comprehensive phrase that did best express the right of the slave and the duty of the master. In whatever sense we used the word _immediate_, whether in regard to time or order, the word expressed just what we Abolitionists meant. We insisted upon it in opposition to those who were teaching slaveholders to defer to another generation, or to some future time an act of common humanity that was due to their fellow-men _at once_; and would be due every minute until it should be done. We insisted upon it in opposition to the popular but deceptive, impracticable, and cruel scheme which proposed to liberate the slaves on condition of their removal to Africa. Dr. Channing further objected that “the use of the phrase _immediate emancipation_ had contributed much to spread far and wide the belief, that the Abolitionists wished immediately to free the slave from _all_ his restraints.” But ought we to have been held responsible for such a senseless, wanton misconstruction of words that had been explained a thousand times by our appointed lecturers, in our tracts, and in the “Declaration of the Sentiments, Purposes, and Plans of the American Antislavery Society,” which was published three years before Dr. Channing’s book appeared? Freemen,--Republican freemen were, are, and ever ought to be subject to the restraints of civil government, equal and righteous laws. From the commencement of our enterprise, our only demand for our enslaved countrymen has been that they should forthwith be admitted to all the rights and privileges of freemen upon the same conditions as others, after they shall have acquired (those of them who do not now possess) the qualifications demanded of others.