Many slaveholders are giving up their slaves from conscientious motives; they cannot, they dare not longer keep them in servitude; they believe that the law of God has a higher claim upon their obedience than the laws of their native State. Now suppose all the owners of slaves in our land should be suddenly and simultaneously convicted of sin, and moved to repentance in a similar manner, and should say to their slaves, 'God forbid that we should longer call you our property, or place you on a level with our cattle, or defraud you of your just dues, or sell you or your wives or children to others, or deny you the means of instruction, or lacerate your bodies! henceforth you are free--but you want employment, and we need laborers--go and work as freemen, and be paid as freemen!'--suppose, I say, a case like this should happen, and a troop of _gradualists_ should surround these penitent oppressors, and cry, 'Were the very spirit of angelic charity to pervade and fill your hearts, it would by no means require that all your slaves should be instantaneously liberated--your throats will be cut, your houses pillaged, and desolation will stalk through the land, if you carry your mad purpose into effect--emancipate by a slow, imperceptible process!'--how would this advice sound? What should be their reply? Clearly this: 'Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto men more than unto God, judge ye.' Here would be presented a strange spectacle indeed--one party confessing and resolving to forsake their sins, and another urging them to disregard the admonitions of conscience, and to leave off sinning by degrees! To be sure, a few, a very few, would be _generously_ allowed to reform _instanter_! Those who prophesy evil, and only evil, concerning immediate abolition, absolutely disregard the nature and constitution of man, as also his inalienable rights, and annihilate or reverse the causes and effects of human action. They are continually fearful lest the slaves, in consequence of their grievous wrongs and intolerable sufferings, should attempt to gain their freedom by revolution; and yet they affect to be equally fearful lest a general emancipation should produce the same disastrous consequences. How absurd! They _know_ that oppression must cause rebellion; and yet they pretend that a removal of the cause will produce a bloody effect! This is to suppose an effect without a cause, and, of course, is a contradiction in terms. Bestow upon the slaves personal freedom, and all motives for insurrection are destroyed. Treat them like rational beings, and you may surely expect rational treatment in return: treat them like beasts, and they will behave in a beastly manner.