' Another section of the same statute, he said, was
preceded by the following words:--'And whereas sound policy requires
that the abolition of slavery should be effected, as soon as may be
consistent with the rights of individuals, and the public safety and
welfare, Be it enacted,' etc. Then follows the provision that all black
and mulatto children, born in slavery, in that state, after the first of
March, 1784, shall be free at twenty-five years of age. Selling slaves,
to be carried out of the state, was not prohibited before May, 1792;
thus allowing more than eight years to the owners of slaves in
Connecticut to sell their slaves to Southern purchasers! 'There seems to
me,' he said, 'no evidence of superior humanity in this; nor was it
repentance for slavery as a sin.' He thought that if we feel compelled,
by our superior conscientiousness, to require any duty of the South, all
that decency will allow us to demand is, that she tread in our steps.
"'I think,' said a planter, 'that if pity is due from one to the other,
the South owes the larger debt to the North. There needs to be a great
reformation, namely, The Gradual Emancipation of the Northern Mind from
"Anti-slavery" Error.
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