Any portion of the underground rhizome when broken off is capable of producing a new plant; hence the difficulty of eradicating them when once established.
Although at various times he had helped to strengthen the law for the recovery of fugitive slaves, declining as secretary of state to aid Great Britain in the further suppression of the slave trade, and demanding the return of fugitives from Canada, yet he heartily supported the colonizing of the slaves in Africa, because slavery was the "deepest stain upon the character of the country," opposition to which could not be repressed except by "blowing out the moral lights around," and "eradicating from the human soul the light of reason and the law of liberty."
