1821 July 20 Omitted 9 April 1822

Rid

Relinquishment honorable

Slave Trade

Well then: in this result you see another advantage - (and if there be any moral

feeling in you a prodigious one you will see it is) from the proposed relinquishment.

While you retain the dominion, or any claim upon it, this foul stain /that moral

leprosy/ cleaves to you: rid yourselves of the incumbrance, and you rid yourselves of

the leprosy along with it. Think not that upon any other terms, even were /supposing

it/ you were so desirous it would be in your power then to purify yourselves. Among

these your /these many/ former dependencies there are some who are to such a degree

tainted with it, that as surely as they saw in you a disposition to put an end to

that enormity, so surely, howsoever disposed to cleave to you, they would break

loose. Then indeed /Thereupon/ would come the excuse derived from /comprised out of

one /the/ abuse of the word necessity. it is necessary to keep on foot this practice:

for otherwise these subjects of ours would no longer be so. This we must not endure,

so long as by any thing we can do we can retain them under our subjection; this would

be an infraction of our Constitution: of that Constitution which every body has sworn

to observe.