It is proposed to create a race of men, to whom all the lights of experience shall be extinguished; whose hundredth generation shall be as ignorant and as barbarous as its first.

Knowledge is essential to all rational enjoyment; it is essential to the full and adequate performance of every duty.

Add to your virtue knowledge, says the apostle; but here the command is, Be-cloud and be-little by ignorance whatever virtue you may possess.

Last year, the voters of Massachusetts, in their respective towns, voluntarily taxed themselves about a million of dollars for the support of Common Schools.

And Doctor Howe, the noble-hearted director of the Institution for the Blind, lately uttered the deepest sentiments of our citizens, when, in speaking of our duties to the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the idiotic, he said, “The sight of…

There floats not upon the stream of life a wreck of humanity so utterly shattered and crippled, but that its signals of distress should challenge attention and command assistance.

Imagine, then, my strong revulsion of feeling, when the first set, elaborate speech which I heard, was that of the gentleman from Virginia, proposing to extend ignorance to the uttermost bounds of this republic,--to legalize it, to enforce…

To-day, in this boasted land of light and liberty, there are three million Caspar Hausers; and, as if this were not enough, it is proposed to multiply their number tenfold, and to fill up all the western world with these proofs of human…

The slave child must be allowed to use his limbs, or how could he drudge out his life in the service of his master?

The slave infant must be taught to walk, or how, under the shadow of this thrice-glorious Capitol, could he join a coffle for New Orleans?

Would to God that this could ever be said of his fellow-victims in America!

For another reason slavery is an unspeakable wrong.

The slave is debarred from testifying against a white man.

But all these sacred protections are denied to the slave.

While subjected to the law of force, he is shut out from the law of right.

To suffer injury is his, but never to obtain redress.

For personal cruelties, for stripes that shiver his flesh, and blows that break his bones, for robbery or for murder, neither he nor his friends can have preventive, remedy, or recompense.

The father, who is a slave, may see son or daughter scored, mangled, mutilated, or ravished before his eyes, and he must be dumb as a sheep before its shearers.

The wife may be dishonored in the presence of the husband, and, if he remonstrates or rebels, the miscreant who could burn with the lust will burn not less fiercely with a vengeance to be glutted upon his foiler.

Suppose, suddenly, by some disastrous change in the order of nature, an entire kingdom or community were to be enveloped in total darkness,--to have no day, no dawn, but midnight evermore!

Into what infinite forms of violence and wrong would the depraved passions of the human heart spring up, when no longer restrained by the light of day, and the dangers of exposure!

A hundred of his fellows may stand around him and witness the wrongs he suffers, but not one of them can appeal to jury, magistrate, or judge, for punishment or redress.

There is not one of the fell passions that rages in his bosom which he cannot indulge with wantonness and to satiety, and the court has no ears to hear the complaint of the victim.

How dearly does every honorable man prize character!

So far from facilitating the increase of individual or national wealth, slavery retards both.