I trust at length the time has come, when Parliament will no longer bear to be told, that slave-owners are the best lawgivers on slavery; no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights,--talk not of the property of the planter in his slave. I deny his rights,--I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature, rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding or to the heart, the sentence is the same, that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a claim! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes,--the same throughout the world,--the same in all times; such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the source of power, wealth, and knowledge,--to the others all unutterable woes, such is it at this day; it is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and be that law, unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and hate blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain ye appeal to treaties,--to covenants between nations. The covenants of the Almighty, whether the old covenant or the new, denounce such unholy pretensions. To these laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for, by one shameful compact, you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, in despite of law and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profit to the winds. Now, then, let the planters beware,--let their assemblies beware,--let the government at home beware,--let the Parliament beware! The same country is once more awake,--awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave-trade; and if it shall descend again, they, on whom its crash may fall, will not be destroyed before I have warned them; but I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God! Lord Brougham. LXX. THE TEACHERS OF MANKIND.