Abolitionist

“ The mind of the whole nation has been directed now for one year, with great steadiness to the contemplation of slavery from an entirely new stand-point, and divested of the cloud of prejudice which has for nearly a century, been thrown over it. The word abolitionist has lost its secret potency. ”

“ What a changing of grounds—what a veiling of purposes—and what a winding and counterwinding of designs—and, in order to allay the fears and vigilance of the south, what a shrinking from, and a denial of, the sentiments of their doctrine; so that no man in their ranks, who is in office or desires one, will avow himself an abolitionist. And as some men—their agents and lecturers, are handsomely paid, for their incendiary labors, they may, and do—no uncommon mistake—“suppose that gain is godliness.” ”

“ Where didst thou get thy statement of what Abolitionists mean by immediate emancipation? I assure thee, it is a novelty. I never heard any abolitionist say that slaveholders ‘were physically unable to emancipate their slaves, and of course are not bound to do it,’ because in some States there are laws which forbid emancipation. This is truly what our opponents affirm; but we say that all the laws which sustain the system of slavery are unjust and oppressive—contrary to the fundamental principles of morality, and, therefore, null and void. ”

“ The North is not yet 'abolitionized,' but every volley fired at liberty by the Slave Power these last three years, has killed [Pg 491] a lover of slavery, and made an Abolitionist; as the juggler fires his pistol at your old black hat, and, when the smoke clears up, a white dove flutters in its place. If the Slave Power shoots at us long enough, we shall all become Abolitionists, and all learn to love our fellow man and protect him in the enjoyment of every right given him by God! ”

“ We say prejudice for in this thing, as in all history has been the case, a name has become a well nigh boundless power. The interest of slavery has for a long course of years, and by a persistent endeavor, created a term of terrible significance, and has wielded it with prodigious force,—we mean the word "Abolitionist." ”

“ Believe me, my brother, the abolitionists are as hateful to the dignified statesmen at the North, as they are, or ever can be, to those at the South. In all my journeyings at the North, and in all my arguments with Northern men, I have never met a single gentleman, who would own himself an abolitionist. ”

“ This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in the Bible was stealing and selling a man; i.e. seizing and forcibly carrying away, from country or State, a human being--man, woman, or child--contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder in another sense:--namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical attribute,--his unalienable right to liberty! ”

“ Instead of lessening the evils of slavery, they will increase them. The [91] more they are goaded by a sense of aggressive wrong without, or by fears of dangers within, the more they will restrain their slaves, and diminish their liberty, and increase their disabilities. They will make laws so unjust and oppressive, not only to slaves, but to their Abolitionist advocates, that by degrees such men will withdraw from their bounds. ”

“ Every time the abolitionist speaks of justice, the anti-abolitionist assents-says, Yes, I wish the world were filled with the disposition to render to every man what is rightfully due bin. I should then get what is due me. ”

“ And the whole discussion of duty rests on these probabilities. But where do the laws of mind and experience oppose the terrific tendencies of Abolitionism that have been portrayed? Are not the minds of men thrown into a ferment, and excited by those passions which blind the reason, and warp the moral sense? Is not the South in a state of high exasperation against Abolitionists? Does she not regard them as enemies, as reckless madmen, as impertinent intermeddlers? Will the increase of their numbers tend to allay this exasperation? ”

“ Yet, in truth, there was not in the North an Abolitionist who thought worse of the institution of slavery than did the man who had repeatedly declared it to be "a moral, a social, and a political 101evil." ”

“ If a slave had made good his escape from slavery, it was generally alleged that he had been persuaded and assisted to do so by the abolitionists. If a slave killed his master, or struck down his overseer, or set fire to his master’s dwelling, or committed any violence or crime, out of the common way, it was certain to be said that such a crime was the legitimate fruits of the abolition movement. Hearing such charges often repeated, I, naturally enough, received the impression that abolition—whatever else it might be—was not unfriendly to the slave, nor very friendly to the slaveholder. ”

“ There will nevertheless remain some stubborn Abolitionists, even all who "hate prudence, caution, and judiciousness," who will still exclaim "the slaves are now fit for instantaneous and unconditional emancipation!" ”

“ I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any Abolitionist,—I have been an old-line Whig,—I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska bill began. ”

“ Abolitionists may affect as much sanctity and philanthropy, as they please, and pile their maledictions and execrations on the heads of slave holders mountain high! They can call them murderers, thieves and robbers to their hearts content! They can anathematize better men than themselves; and denounce slavery as a curse, an evil, a hardship! ”

“ Who cavilled more at Anti-Slavery measures, and who more ready now to acknowledge his former blindness? Real Abolitionists know full well, that the slave never has been, and never can be, a whit the better for mere abstractions, floating in the head of any man; and they also know, that principles, fixed in the heart, are things of another sort. ”

“ The bold and seeming audacity with which they attacked slavery in every corner where the monster had taken refuge, even in the face of lynchings, riots, and murders, carried with it a charm which wrung applause from the sympathizing heart throughout the world, and showed that the American Abolitionists possessed a persistency and a courage which had never found a parallel in the annals of progress and reform. ”

“ They were earnest, clear-headed, and uncompromising in denouncing slavery as a great moral evil, indeed as a sin, disgraceful to a free people, and hostile alike to morality and civilization. But in the general apathy as to an institution with which the Constitution did not meddle, and the general government could not interfere, except in districts and territories under its exclusive control, the Abolitionists were generally regarded as fanatical and mischievous. They had but few friends and supporters among the upper classes and none among politicians. ”

“ And do not Abolitionists found their hopes of success in their project, on the success which crowned the efforts of British philanthropists in the case of slavery, and on the success that has attended efforts to banish intemperance? And do not these two cases differ entirely from the Abolition movement in this main point, that one is an effort to convince men of their own sins, and the other is an effort to convince men of the sins of other persons? ”

“ God has put it into the hearts of abolitionists to prevent half a million of free negroes from going to Liberia; and thereby the abolitionists have made them consumers of slave-products to the extension of the slave-power. And, by thus keeping them in America, the abolitionists have so increased their degradation as to prove all the more the utter folly of emancipation in the United States. ”

“ A. The abolitionists never desired to have them turned loose. They wish to have them governed by salutary laws, so regulated as effectually to protect both master and slave. They merely wish to have the power of punishment transferred from individuals to magistrates; to have the sale of human beings cease; and to have the stimulus of wages applied, instead of the stimulus of the whip. ”

“ The Abolitionists endeavored to prove that slavery was unlawful, disadvantageous, and cruel, that it depraved men, and so on. But the defenders of slavery in their turn proved the untimeliness and danger of emancipation, and the evil results liable to follow it. ”

“ It will, no doubt, add hundreds, perhaps thousands, to the present large and rapidly increasing army of abolitionists. The injury is great to us who are the immediate sufferers by your verdict; but I believe the verdicts you have given against us within the last few days will have a powerful effect in bringing about the abolition of slavery in this country, this land of boasted freedom, where not only the slave is fettered at the South by his lordly master, but the white man at the North is bound as in chains to do the bidding of his Southern masters. ”

“ The English abolitionists have labored long and arduously. Every inch of the ground has been contested.—After obtaining the decision that negroes brought into England were freemen, it took them thirtyfive years to obtain the abolition of the slave trade. But their progress, though slow and difficult, has been certain. They are now on the very eve of entire, unqualified emancipation in all their colonies. I take very little interest in politics, unless they bear upon the subject of slavery;—and then I throw my whole soul into them. ”

“ Thou sayest, ‘that this evil (Slavery,) is at no distant period to come to an end, is the unanimous opinion of all who either notice the tendencies of the age, or believe in the prophecies of the Bible.’ But how can this be true, if Abolitionists have indeed rolled back the car of Emancipation? ”

“ Abolitionists have not only taken this course, but in many cases, have seemed to act on the principle, that the abolition of Slavery, in the particular mode in which they were aiming to accomplish it, was of such paramount importance, that every thing must be overthrown that stood in the way. ”

“ But you have gone down before the enemy so that they have put their foot upon your neck; you will go lower and lower still, unless you change front and change your tactics. When I was a schoolboy in the Northern States, abolitionists were pelted with rotten eggs. But now this band of abolitionists has spread and grown into three bands—the black Republican, the Free-soilers, and squatter sovereignty men—all representing the common sentiment that slavery is wrong. ”

“ The most consistent abolitionists, affirming the sin of slavery, on the maxim of created equality and unalienable right, after torturing the Bible for a while, to make it give the same testimony, felt they could get nothing from the book. ”

“ The abolitionists think it a duty to maintain at all times, and in all places, that slavery ought to be abolished, and that it can be abolished. When error is so often repeated it becomes very important to repeat the truth; especially as good men are apt to be quiet, and selfish men are prone to be active. They propose no plan—they leave that to the wisdom of Legislatures.—But they never swerve from the principle that slavery is both wicked and unnecessary. Their object is to turn the public voice against this evil, by a plain exposition of facts. ”

“ Most of the prominent statesmen, and all the political demagogues of both parties, took the ground that the great question as to the enslavement of the colored population of the South was settled by the framers of the Constitution; that it was a matter to be left exclusively to the States in which slavery existed; that to meddle with it was to violate the provisions of the fundamental law of the land and loosen the bands of the Union. Therefore the Abolitionists were to be regarded as disturbers of the public peace, incendiaries, enemies of their country, traitors. ”

“ The intellect of the civilized world is convinced as to the enormity of the system we are attacking. A new and unique mode of defence is beginning to obtain in some quarters. The sins and sufferings of Slavery are conceded, but Abolitionists are urged to patience—​by what consideration, think you? ”

“ So much has this been the character of Abolition movements, that many have supposed it to be a deliberate and systematized plan of the leaders to do nothing but what was strictly a right guaranteed by law, and yet, in such a manner, as to provoke men to anger, so that unjust and illegal acts might ensue, knowing, that as a consequence, the opposers of Abolition would be thrown into the wrong, and sympathy be aroused for Abolitionists as injured and persecuted men. ”

“ Another of your charges against abolitionists is, that, although "utterly destitute of Constitutional or other rightful power--living in totally distinct communities--as alien to the communities in which the subject on which they would operate resides, so far as concerns political power over that subject, as if they lived in Africa or Asia; they nevertheless promulgate to the world their purpose to be, to manumit forthwith, and without compensation, and without moral preparation, three millions of negro slaves, under jurisdictions altogether separated from those under which they live." ”

“ Their unchristian spirit shocked the nerves of good pious people far more than the tearing up of slave families, or the wholesale injustice of slavery. "The abolitionists do things in such bad taste," said good society, "that it really makes it impossible for us to touch the subject at all, lest we should become mixed up with them, and responsible for their proceedings." ”

“ If even the free persons of colour, turned out good and worthy citizens to the utmost wish of every benevolent man, it would not, as I have just stated, prove any thing in favour of Abolition; but so far from this being the case—so far, notwithstanding all the advantages of gradual emancipation, and a preparatory course of instruction, from the result substantiating the opinion of Abolitionists, viz. "that the slaves may, with safety to themselves, and to others, be instantaneously emancipated;" ”