CHAPTER II.

PROPOSED OBJECTS AND MEASURES OF THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY-CENSURE OF ABOLITIONISTS.

THE next great principle maintained by the Society is, that slavery being sinful, it ought immediately to cease. Admitting the premises, the conclusion seems irresistible. Sin is opposition to the will of our Creator and Supreme Lawgiver. His wisdom and goodness are alike infinite, and if slavery be inconsistent with his will, it must necessarily be inconsistent with the welfare of his creatures. Reason and revelation, moreover, assure us that God will punish sin; and therefore to contend that it is necessary or expedient to continue in sin, is to impeach every attribute of the Deity, and to brave the vengeance of omnipotence.

These principles lead the Society to aim at effecting the following objects, viz:

1st. The immediate abolition of slavery throughout the United States.

2d. As a necessary consequence, the suppression of the American slave trade.

3d. The ultimate elevation of the black population to an equality with the white, in civil and religious privileges.

But principles may be sound and objects may be good, and yet the measures adopted to enforce those principles, and to attain those objects, may be unlawful. Let us then inquire what are the measures contemplated by the Society.

Slavery exists under the authority of the State Legislatures, in the several states; and under the authority of Congress in the District of Columbia, and in the United States' territories.

The members of the Society are all represented in Congress, and the Constitution guaranties to them the right of petition. They will therefore petition Congress to exercise the power it possesses, to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and the Territories. But the Society is not represented in the State Legislatures, and therefore petitions to them might be deemed officious, and would not probably lead to any advatageous re

sult. The Society will therefore use the right possessed every member of the community, the right of speech and of the press. They will address arguments to the understandings and the consciences of their fellow citizens, and endeavor to convince them of the duty and policy of immediate emancipation. Legislatures are with us, but the mere creatures of the people, and when the people of the slave States demand the abolition of slavery, their Legislatures will give effect to their will, by passing the necessary laws.

The means by which the Society will endeavor to secure to the blacks an equality of civil and religious privileges, are frankly avowed to be the encouragement of their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and the removal of existing prejudices against them. To prevent any misapprehensions of the real design of the Society, The Constitution expressly declares that the Society will never “in any way countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights, by resorting to physical force."

Such are the principles and designs of those who are now designated as Abolitionists, and never since the settlement of the country, has any body of citizens been subjected in an equal degree, to unmerited, and unmeasured reproach.

We have seen with what kind of temper Colonizationists speak of free negroes, and we may well question, when we call to mind the obloquy they have heaped upon Abolitionists, whether the latter are not in their opinion the greater nuisances. Much as the free negroes have suffered from the charges of the Society, still there have been limits to the invectives hurled against them. No chancellor has adjudged them to be "reckless incendiaries."* No counsellor, learned in the law, has charged them with being guilty of "a palpable nullification of that Constitution which they had sworn to support."† No honorable Senator has denounced them as fanatics, increasing injury and sealing oppression." The chairman of the Executive Committee of the New-York Colonization Society never asserted that their DESIGN was "beyond a doubt to foment a servile war in the South." Nor did even the New

*Speech of Chancellor Walworth of New-York.

+ Speech of D. B. Ogden, Esq. of New-York.

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Hon. Mr. Frelinghuysen, of the Senate of the United States. § Commercial Advertiser, 9th June, 1834.

York Courier and Enquirer ever propose, that the city authorities should inform them, that they must prosecute "their trea sonable and BEASTLY plans at their own peril;" in other words, that they should not be protected from mobs.* Nor, finally, has any city corporation accused them of holding sentiments, demoralizing in themselves, and little short of treason towards the government of our country."†

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But Abolitionists are neither astonished nor dismayed at the torrent of insult and calumny that has been poured upon them, as though some strange thing had happened unto them. They remember that Wilberforce and his companions experienced similar treatment, while laboring for the abolition of the slave trade; and they remember also the glorious triumphs they achieved, and the full though tardy justice that has been done to their motives. A few brief reminiscences may be both interesting and useful.

In 1776, the British House of Commons rejected a resol tion, that the slave trade "was contrary to the laws of God and the rights of man." Yet that trade is now piracy by act of Parliament.

In 1788, on a bill being introduced into the House of Lords, to mitigate the horrors of the trade, Lord Chancellor Thurlow ridiculed 'the sudden fit of philanthropy that had given it birth," and Lord Chandos predicted "the insurrection of the slaves, and the massacre of their masters, from the agitation of the subject."

In 1789, on a motion of Mr. Wilberforce, that the house would take the trade into consideration, a member pronounced the attempt to abolish it "hypocritical, fanatic, and methodistical," and contended that Abolition must lead to "insurrections, massacre and ruin."

In 1791, Col. Tarleton, in the House of Commons, speaking

*Courier and Enquirer, 11th July, 1834. The same paper of the 27th Dec. 1834, contains the following.-"We do say, and say in all the earnestness of conviction, that no meeting of Abolitionists should ever be suffered to go on with its proceedings in the United States. Whenever these wretched disturbers of the public peace, and plotters of MURDER, RAPINE, AND A DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, have the impudence to hold a meeting, it is the duty of the rational citizens-always a vast majority in every place to go to that meeting, and there, by exercising the right of every American citizen, make the expression of their disapprobation and disgust, loud enough, and emphatic enough, to render it impossible for treason to go on with its machinations. Let sedition be driven from its den, as often as its minions congregate."

+ Resolutions of the Corporation of the City of Utica.

of the proposed abolition of the slave trade, declared that "the measure was fit only for the bigotry and superstition of the twelfth century." Lord John Russell asserted that Abolition was" visionary and delusive, a feeble attempt without the power to serve the cause of humanity."

Lord Sheffield could "trace in the arguments for Abolition nothing like reason, but on the contrary, downright phrensy."

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In 1792, the Abolitionists were denounced in Parliament, as a junto of sectaries, sophists, enthusiasts, and fanatics." In 1793, the Duke of Clarence, now William the IV., in his place in the House of Lords, declared the Abolitionists to be fanatics, and hypocrites," and so far violated parliamentary decorum, as to apply these epithets to Mr. Wilberforce by name. Yet has he lived to crown the labors and fulfil the hopes of Wilberforce, by giving his assent to the bill abolishing slavery throughout the British dominions.

In 1804, Lord Temple declared in Parliament, that to abolish the slave trade, would be "the death-warrant of every white inhabitant in the islands."

Ten times did Mr. Wilberforce bring the subject of the abolition of the traffick before Parliament, and ten times was he doomed to witness the failure of his efforts; nor was this detestable commerce suppressed, till thirty years after the first motion against it had been made in the House of Commons. Now, it is prohibited by the whole Christian world.

When the Abolitionists of the present day, think of these facts, and recollect the reproaches heaped on Wilberforce and his colleagues, by a Chancellor and dignified Senators, well may they thank God and take courage. And who are these men, we would ask, whom colonizationists are honoring with epithets similar to those which the advocates of the slave trade so liberally applied to the philanthropists who opposed it? We will suffer an authority justly respected by the religious community to answer the question.

Abbott's Religious Magazine, in an article on the mobs against the New-York Abolitionists, says,

"The men against whom their fury was directed, were in general ministers of the Gospel, and other distinguished members of Christian churches. The more prominent ones, were the very persons who have been most honored in times past,

on account of their personal- exertions and pecuniary contributions for every benevolent purpose. Let the whole land be searched, and we believe that no men will be found to have done so much for the promotion of temperance, purity, and every benevolent and religious object."

CHAPTER III.

FANATICISM OF ABOLITIONISTS.

ONE of the most usual terms by which Abolitionists are designated by their opponents is, "the fanatics." It seems they are fanatics, because they believe slavery to be sinful. The grounds for this belief, have been already stated. But is the sinfulness of slavery a new doctrine; or has it been held only by weak and misguided men? Is Wilberforce to be denounced as a wretched fanatic," because he declared, "slavery is the full measure of pure unsophisticated wickedness, and scorning all competition or comparison, it stands alone without a rival, in the secure, undisputed possession of its detestable pre-eminence.'

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Was Jonathan Edwards a poor "misguided" man, for thus addressing slaveholders. "While you hold your negroes in slavery, you do wrong, exceedingly wrong-you do not, as you would men should do to you; you commit sin in the sight of God; you daily violate the plain rights of mankind, and that in a higher degree than if you committed theft or robbery." Were Porteus, Horseley, Fox, Johnson, Burke, Jefferson, and Bolivar, "miserable enthusiasts ?" Yet hear their testimonies.

"The Christian religion is opposed to slavery, in its spirit and in its principles; it classes men-stealers among murderers of fathers and of mothers, and the most profane criminals upon earth."-Porteus.

Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can extenuate."-Horseley.

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"Personal freedom is the right of every human being. It is a right of which he who deprives a fellow creature, was absolutely criminal in so depriving him; and which he who withheld, was no less criminal in withholding."-Fox.