Before the New York Court of Appeals, on the "Lemmon
Slave Case."

"I submit most respectfully that the only desire I have manifested here or elsewhere, in reference to the question, has been to draw the mind of the court and the intelligent mind of the American people, to the true question which underlies the whole conflict, and that is the question to which my friend (W. W. Evarts, Esq.) has addressed the best, and, in my judgment, the finest part of his very able argument. * * * My friend denounces the institution of slavery as a monstrous injustice, as a sin, as a violation of the law of God and of the law of man, of natural law or natural justice; and in his argument in another place, he called your attention to the enormity of the result claimed in this case, that these eight persons—and not only they, but their posterity to the remotest time—were, by your Honors' judgment, to be consigned to this shocking condition of abject bondage and slavery. Why, how very small and minute was that presentation of the subject! My friend must certainly have used the microscope or reversed the telescope, when, in seeking to present this question in a striking manner to your Honors' minds, he called your attention to these few persons and their posterity. Why, if your Honors please, our territory embraces at the least estimate three millions of these human beings, who, by our laws and institutions, as now existing in these states, * * * are not only consigned to hopeless bondage throughout their whole lives, but to a like condition is their posterity consigned to the remotest times. * * * It is a question of the mightiest magnitude. But the reason why I call your Honors' attention to its magnitude is this: that you may contemplate it in the connection in which my learned friend has presented it; that it is a sin—a violation of natural justice and the law of God; that it is a monstrous scheme of iniquity for defrauding the laborer of his wages—one of those sins that crieth aloud to heaven for vengeance; that it is a course of unbridled rapine, fraud, and plunder, by which three millions and their posterity are to be oppressed throughout all time. Now, is it a sin? Is this an outrage against divine law and natural justice? If it be such an outrage, then I say it is a sin of the greatest magnitude, of the most enormous and flagitious character that was ever presented to the human mind. The man who does not shrink from it with horror is utterly unworthy the name of a man. It is no trivial offence, that may be tolerated with limitations and qualifications; that we can excuse ourselves for supporting because we have made some kind of a bargain to support it. The tongue of no human being is capable of depicting its enormity; it is not in the power of the human heart to form a just conception of its wickedness and cruelty. And what, I ask, is the rational and necessary consequence, if we regard it to be thus sinful, thus unjust, thus outrageous?"

Dr. Hopkins, of Newport, being much engaged in urging the sinfulness of slavery, called one day at the house of Dr. Bellamy in Bethlem, Connecticut, and while there pressed upon him the duty of liberating his only slave. Dr. B., who was an acute and ingenious reasoner, defended slaveholding by a variety of arguments, to which Dr. H. as ably replied. At length Dr. Hopkins proposed to Dr. Bellamy practical obedience to the golden rule. "Will you give your slave his freedom if he desires it?" Dr. B. replied that the slave was faithful, judicious, trusted with every thing, and would not accept freedom if offered. "Will you free him if he desires it?" repeated Dr. H. "Yes," answered Dr. Bellamy, "I will." "Call him then." The man appeared. "Have you a good, kind master?" asked Dr. Hopkins. "Oh! yes, very, very good." "And are you happy?" "Yes, master, very happy." "Would you be more happy if you were free?" His face brightened. "Oh! yes, master, a great deal more happy." "From this moment," said Dr. Bellamy, "you are free."