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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. THE ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT. Inspired, as Dr. Channing was, with the life of universal humanity, which was quickening the age, with reverence for man, the idea of equal rights, and longing for fraternal relations between all classes of society, he could not be insensible to the crimes and outrages inevitably incident to the system of American slavery. Personal acquaintance, even from early years, with the coloured race, had shown him the sensibility, affectionateness, capacity of rapid improvement, energy, both intellectual and practical, and, above all, the strong religious tendencies of the millions of his countrymen, so long kept down by cruel injustice and mean prejudice. He saw that an inhuman institution, originated by the oppressions of the warrior class in the rudest ages, and needlessly perpetuated by the selfish sloth of civilised men, was a wasting disease in the very vitals of this nation, corrupting at once its policy, industry, manners, conscience, and religion. He well knew, too, how steadily this cancer, tampered with by palliatives when it should have beefct cut out, had grown, and how deeply it had interwoven its roots through the whole texture of the character and conduct of our people. He watched, therefore, with much anxiety the progress of the antislavery feeling in Great Britain, with the hope that the development of a more humane policy in that leading commercial nation would react powerfully upon the United States. In 1828, he thus expressed his desires and apprehensions to his friend Miss Eoscoe. " I rejoice in the zeal with which the cause of the Africans is espoused among you. On this subject I have had one fear, that too great stress had been laid on the physical sufferings of the slaves. I apprehend...