Christian voter, when you approach the ballot box, think of the three millions of bondmen who are holding up their hands "all manacled and bleeding," pleading to you for deliverance! CHAPTER XV. Abolition of Slavery. IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. "Long has thy night of sorrow been, Without a star to cheer the scene. Nay; there was One that watched and wept, When thou didst think all mercy slept; That eye which beams with love divine Where all celestial glories shine. Justice shall soon the sceptre take; The scourge shall fall, the tyrant quake. Hark! 'tis the voice of One from heaven; The word, the high command is given, 'Break every yoke, loose every chain, To usher in the Savior's reign.'" Many persons, who appear to be sensible of the evils of slavery, seem utterly at a loss for some feasible method of abolishing it. "It is here in our midst," say they, "and how are we to get rid of it?" To this question we have a plain scriptural answer. "LOOSE THE BANDS OF WICKEDNESS,"--"UNDO THE HEAVY BURDENS,"--"LET THE OPPRESSED GO FREE,"--"BREAK EVERY YOKE,"--"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND, UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF." Immediate, unconditional, universal emancipation is the only just, the only reasonable and the only possible method of adjusting the slavery question. To this measure the people of the United States _must_ come. A general Jubilee is inevitable. Slavery is an unmitigated wrong. Every element of it is at variance with the happiness of man and the law of God. It is without a single redeeming principle, and hence its destruction--its total annihilation is necessary. Since the gigantic wrongs of slavery have been so generally made known as somewhat to arouse the public conscience from its long sleep, some writers, anxious to preserve the system, have proposed to _reform_ it. They say, "Slavery, of itself, is a very innocent relation, but its evils are horrible. Let us correct the evils and preserve the system." But slavery cannot be reformed, so as to make it a tolerable institution because its essential feature--viz, _property in a human being_, is, wherever imposed, an outrageous, an insufferable wrong. Who would think of reforming robbery--of making laws to regulate robbers in their trade--and to prevent brutal men from engaging in it? What if it should be enacted by grave senators that none but gentlemen should rob, and that they must do it genteelly--using no _unnecessary_ cruelty or coercion? All the world would laugh such senators to scorn. But slavery is from beginning to end a system of robbery, which it is as impossible to reform, so as to take away its "evils," as it is to so reform piracy as to destroy its evils, and make it a humane, just and christian trade.