"Even the earth itself, which teems with profusion under the cultivating hand of the free born laborer, shrinks into barrenness from the contaminating sweat of a slave." LOUIS X. issued the following edict:-- "As all men are by nature free born, and as this Kingdom is called the Kingdom of Franks, (freemen) it shall be so in reality. It is therefore decreed that enfranchisement shall be granted throughout the whole Kingdom upon just and reasonable terms." BUFFON says:-- "It is apparent that the unfortunate negroes are endowed with excellent hearts, and possess the seeds of every human virtue. I cannot write their history without lamenting their miserable condition." "Humanity revolts at those odious oppressions that result from avarice." ROUSSEAU says:-- "The terms _slavery_ and _right_, contradict and exclude each other." BRISSOT says:-- "Slavery, in all its forms, in all its degrees, is a violation of divine law, and a degradation of human nature." THE VOICE OF GERMANY. GROTIUS says:-- "Those are men-stealers who abduct, keep, sell or buy slaves or free men. To steal a man is the highest kind of theft." GOETHE SAYS:-- Such busy multitudes I fain would see Stand upon free soil with a people free." LUTHER SAYS:-- "Unjust violence is, by no means, the ordinance of God, and therefore can bind no one in conscience and right, to obey, whether the command comes from pope, emperor, king or master." An able German writer of the present day, says, in a recent letter to his friends in this country:-- "Consider that the cause of American liberty is the cause of universal liberty; its failure, a triumph of despotism everywhere. Remember that while American liberty is the great argument of European Democracy, American slavery is the greater argument of its despotism. Remember that all our actions should be governed by the golden rule, whether individual, social, or political; and no government, and, above all, no republican government, is safe in the hands of men that practically deny that rule. Will you support by your vote a system that recognizes property of man in man? A system which sanctions the sale of the child by its own father, regardless of the purpose of the buyer? What need is there to present to you the unmitigated wrong of slavery? It is the shame of our age that argument is needed against slavery. "Liberty is no exclusive property; it is the property of mankind of all ages. She is immortal, though crushed, can never die; though banished, she will return; though fettered, she will yet be free." THE VOICE OF ITALY. CICERO SAYS:-- "By the grand laws of nature, all men are born free, and this law is universally binding upon all men." Again, he says:-- "Eternal justice is the basis of all human laws." Again:--