Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 63=70.= Responsibility for Slavery
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For my own part, I would willingly draw the veil of oblivion over this disgusting scene of iniquity, but that the present abject state of those who are descended from these kidnapped sufferers, perpetually brings it forward to the memory.
But wherefore should we confine the edge of censure to our ancestors, or those from whom they purchased? Are not we equally guilty? They strewed around the seeds of slavery; we cherish and sustain the growth. They introduce the system; we enlarge, invigorate, and confirm it. Yes, let it be handed down to posterity, that the people of Maryland, who could fly to arms with the promptitude of Roman citizens, when the hand of oppression was lifted up against themselves; who could behold their country desolated and their citizens slaughtered; who could brave with unshaken firmness every calamity of war before they would submit to the smallest infringement of their rights—that this very people could yet see thousands of their fellow-creatures, within the limits of their territory, bending beneath an unnatural yoke, and, instead of being assiduous to destroy their shackles, be anxious to immortalize their duration, so that a nation of slaves might forever exist in a country whose freedom is its boast.
[Footnote 21: Highly distinguished as a lawyer, orator, and diplomatist; a native of Maryland.]
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From "Speech in the Nereide Case."