Note 13 — AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE.

Would it be superstitious to presume, that the sovereign Father of all nations, permitted the perpetration of this apparently execrable transaction, as a fiery, though salutary signal of his displeasure at the conduct of his Columbian children, in erecting and idolizing this splendid fabric as the temple of freedom, and at the same time oppressing with the yoke of captivity and toilsome bondage, twelve or fifteen hundred thousand of their African brethren (by logical induction,) making merchandize of their blood, and dragging their bodies with iron chains, even under its towering walls? Yet is it a fact, that slaves are employed in rebuilding this sanctuary of liberty.