No slave-hunt in our borders! no pirate on our strand!

No fetters in the Bay State! no slave upon our land!

The good citizen will imitate the good farmer; nor will he impotently attempt to set up any statute of man against the ordinances of God, which determine good and evil, right and wrong, justice and injustice.

The Good Farmer and the Good Citizen: Acting in conformity with the laws of God, rather than the statutes of man, they know that in this way only can true prosperity be obtained.

That atrocious enactment has no sanction in the Constitution of the United States or in the law of God.

The good citizen, at all personal hazard, will refuse to obey it.

Extolling that conscience which sustained Granville Sharp in his career, he vindicated all among us who would not bow before injustice.

I would show the principle by which we are to be guided in making the account current between the mercantile profession and Humanity, and, might I so aspire, hold up the Looking-Glass of the Good Merchant.

It restricts within the narrow circle of a profession obligations which are broad and universal as humanity.

It was the barons of Runnymede--there was no merchant there--who extorted from King John that Magna Charta which laid the corner-stone of English and American liberty.

But for a long time the merchant was of a despised caste, only next above the slave who was sold as a chattel.

If a Jew, he was often compelled, under direful torture, to surrender his gains; if a foreigner, he earned toleration by inordinate contribution to the public revenue; if a native, he was treated as caitiff too mean for society, and only…

But in the grand mutations of society the merchant throve.

In America feudalism never prevailed, and our Revolution severed the only cord by which we were connected with this ancient system.

Yes, Sir! say what you will, this is the day of the merchant.

War, which was once the universal business, is now confined to a few; once a daily terror, it is now the accident of an age.

Not for adventures of the sword, but for trade, do men descend upon the sea in ships, and traverse broad continents on iron pathways.

Not for protection against violence, but for trade, do men come together in cities, and rear the marvellous superstructure of social order.

If they go abroad, or if they stay at home, it is trade that controls them, without distinction of persons.

In our country every man is trader: the physician trades his benevolent care; the lawyer trades his ingenious tongue; the clergyman trades his prayers.

As the feudal chief allocated to himself and his followers that soil which was the prize of his strong arm, so now the merchant, with grasp more subtle and reaching, allocates to himself and his followers, ranging through multitudinous…

I would not press this parallel too far; but at this moment, especially in our country, the merchant, more than any other character, stands in the very boots of the feudal chief.

Of all pursuits or relations, his is now the most extensive and formidable, making all others its tributaries, and bending at times even the lawyer and the clergyman to be its dependent stipendiaries.

Such, in our social system, is the merchant; and on this precise and incontrovertible statement I found his duties.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.