are dishonored by it.  In the light of Divine Truth it stands revealed, in all its hideous deformity, a crime against God,—­a daring usurpation of the prerogative and authority of the Most High!  It is as a violation of His righteous laws, an outrage on His glorious attributes, a renunciation of the claims of His blessed gospel, that they especially deplore the countenance and support it receives among you; and, in the spirit of Christian love and fraternal solicitude, would counsel its immediate and complete overthrow, as a solemn and imperative duty, the performance of which no sordid reasons should be permitted to retard—­no political considerations prevent.  Slavery is a sin against God, and ought, therefore, to be abolished.

“’The utter extinction of slavery, and its sister abomination, the internal slave-trade of the United States, second only in horror and extent to the African, and in some of its features even more revolting, can only be argued, by the philanthropy of this country, on the abstract principles of moral and religious duty; and to those principles the people of your great republic are pledged on the side of freedom beyond every nation in the world!

“’The negro, by nature our equal, made like ourselves in the image of his Creator, gifted by the same intelligence, impelled by the same passions and affections, and redeemed by the same Savior, is reduced by cupidity and oppression below the level of the brute, spoiled of his humanity, plundered of his rights, and often hurried to a premature grave, the miserable victim of avarice and heedless tyranny!  Men have presumptuously dared to wrest from their fellows the most precious of their rights—­to intercept as far as they may the bounty and grace of the Almighty—­to close the door to their intellectual progress—­to shut every avenue to their moral and religious improvement, to stand between them and their Maker!  It is against this crime the committee protest as men and as Christians, and earnestly but respectfully call upon you, Sir, to use the influence with which you are invested, to bring it to a peaceful and speedy close; and, may you in closing your public career, in the latest hours of your existence on earth, be consoled with the reflection that you have not despised the afflictions of the afflicted, but that faithful to the trust of your high stewardship, you have been “just, ruling in the fear of the Lord,” that you have executed judgment for the oppressed, and have aided in the deliverance of your country from its greatest crime, and its chiefest reproach.

        “’On behalf of the Committee,

        “’THOMAS CLARKSON.

        “’British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, for the
        Abolition of Slavery and the Slave-trade throughout the
        world.

        “‘27, New Broad Street, London, March 5th, 1841.’