The other document to which he had referred, was an "Address" adopted at "A meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, duly held in Boston, on Monday, August 17, A. D., 1835," signed by W. L. Garrison, and twenty-seven highly respectable citizens of Boston, on behalf of the Massachusetts Society, and others concurring generally in its principles. He (Mr. T.) would only quote a few brief passages.
"We are charged with violating, or wishing to violate, the Constitution of the United States. What have we done, what have we said to warrant this charge? We have held public meetings, and taken other usual means of convincing our countrymen that slave-holding is sin, and, like all sin, ought to be, and can be, immediately abandoned. We have said, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, that "ALL MEN are created equal," and that liberty is an inalienable gift of God to every man. We know of no clause in the Constitution which forbids our saying this. We appeal to the calm judgment of the community, to decide, in view of recent events, whether the measures of the friends, or those of the opposers of abolition, are more justly chargeable with the violation of the Constitution and laws."
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"The foolish tale, that we would encourage amalgamation by intermarriage between the whites and blacks, though often refuted, as often re-appears. We shall content ourselves with a simple denial of this charge. We challenge our opponents to point to one of our publications in which such intermarriages are recommended. One of our objects is to prevent the amalgamation now going on, so far as can be done, by placing one million of the females of this country under the protection of law."
"We are accused of interfering in the domestic concerns of the southern States. We would ask those, who charge this, to explain precisely what they mean by "interference." If, by interference be meant any attempt to legislate for the southern States, or to compel them, by force or intimidation, to emancipate their slaves, we at once deny any such pretension. We are utterly opposed to any force on the subject, but that of conscience and reason, which are "mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds." We fully acknowledge that no change in the slave-laws of the southern States can be made, unless by the southern Legislatures. Neither Congress nor the Legislatures of the free States have authority to change the condition of a single slave in the slave States. But, if by "interference" be intended the exercise of the right of freely discussing this subject, and, by speech, and through the press, creating a public sentiment, which will reach the conscience, and blend with the convictions of the slave-holder, and thus ultimately work the complete extinction of slavery, this is a species of interference which we can never consent to relinquish."
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"We respectfully ask our fellow-citizens, whether we are to be deprived of these sacred privileges, – and, if so, whether the sacrifice of our rights will not involve consequences dangerous to all mental and even personal freedom. We have violated, we mean to violate, no law. We have acted, we shall continue to act, under the sanction of the Constitution of the United States. Nothing that we propose to do can be prevented by our opposers, without violating the Charter of our rights. To the Law and to the Constitution we appeal."
Such were the sentiments of the abolitionists of the United States of America.
He (Mr. T.) would embrace the present opportunity of saying a few words respecting his own mission to the United States. It had been much denounced as an impertinent foreign interference; but he thought the charge had neither grace nor honesty when it came from those who were engaged, and, as he believed, most conscientiously and praiseworthily, in seeking, by their missionaries and agents, to overturn the institutions, social, political, and religious, of every other quarter of the globe. Mr. Breckinridge had said that it would be as just on his part to inveigh against England on account of Roman Catholicism in the west of Ireland, or Idolatry in India, as it was on his (Mr. T's.) to condemn America for the slavery existing in that country. The cases were not quite parallel. Before they could be compared, Mr. B. must prove that the population of Ireland were constrained to worship the Virgin Mary – that in India, men were forced by British Law to worship idols. No British subject was compelled by any law of this country, or any other country to which British sway extended, to be either a Papist or an Idolator. But in America, men were converted into beasts, "according to law," and their souls and bodies crushed and degraded by a system most vigorously enforced by the strong arm of the State. His opponent had said, however, that slavery was not a national sin. He (Mr. T.) had to thank a friend for suggesting an illustration of the knotty problem. Suppose a number of Agriculturists and Merchants and Highway Robbers were to meet together to form a Union, and the Highway Robbers were to say – come, let us unite for the purpose of common security, and common prosperity: we will defend each other, and trade with each other, but we will not "interfere" in each other's internal affairs. You, gentlemen, Agriculturists and Merchants, shall promise that you will take no notice of my felonious and cut-throat proceedings, and I, on my part, will pledge my honor not to intermeddle in the affairs of your farms or counting-houses: and suppose they were to shake hands, complete the bargain, and ratify an indissoluble union of Agriculturists, Merchants, and Highway Robbers! would the world hold the farmer or the merchant guiltless? Mr. B. had said much of the purity and emancipation principles of Massachusetts, and New-Hampshire and Maine. How came it to pass, then, that they were in terms of such close and cordial fellowship with South Carolina, and Georgia, and Louisiana, and so ready to mob, stone, and outlaw those who deemed it their duty to cry aloud on behalf of the oppressed? To return to his own mission. He would never condescend to apologize for speaking the truth. He had a commission direct from the skies, to rebuke sin and compassionate suffering wherever on the face of the earth they existed. This world belonged to God; and all men were His subjects and his (Mr. Thompson's) brethren. Men might be naturally divided by rivers, and oceans, and mountains; they might be politically divided by different forms of government, and specified lines of demarkation; but he (Mr. T.) took the Bible in his hand and deemed himself at liberty to address every human being on the face of the earth in reference to those eternal principles of justice and truth, which are alike in all countries and in all ages, and which the subjects of God's moral government are everywhere bound to respect. He would say to America and to England, silence your cry of foreign interference, or call home your Missionaries from India, and China, and Constantinople. To shew that the object of his mission was in accordance with the spirit of the gospel, he would read an extract from an article in the first number of the "Abolitionist," the organ of "The British and Foreign Society for the Universal Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade" – a Society with which he was connected when he went to America, and whose Agent he still was. The objects of his mission were thus set forth:
"1. To lecture in the principal cities and towns of the free States, upon the character, guilt, and tendency of slavery, and the duty, necessity, and advantages of immediate and entire abolition. These addresses will be founded upon those great principles of humanity and religion, which have been so fully enunciated in this country, and will consequently be wholly unconnected with particular and local politics. This work will be carried on under the advice and with the co-operation of the Anti-Slavery Societies at present in existence in the United States.
2. To aim, by every Christian means, at the overthrow of that prejudice against the colored classes, which now so lamentably prevails through all the States of America; and to regard as a principal mean to obtain this desirable object, their elevation in intellect and moral worth.
3. To suggest to the friends of negro freedom in the United States the adoption and prosecution of such measures as were found conducive to the cause of abolition in this country, and may be found applicable to existing circumstances in that.
4. To seek access to influential persons of various religious denominations, and especially to ministers of the gospel, for the purpose of explanatory conversation on the subjects of slavery and prejudice.
5. To endeavor to effect a junction between the abolitionists of the United States of America and great Britain, with a view to the abolition of slavery and the slave trade throughout the world."
The principles of the American Societies, his own principles, and the objects proposed by his mission to America, were now before his opponent. He called upon him to throw aside his quibbles on legal technicalities, and point out, if he were able, anything in the documents he had read, or the sentiments he had advanced, inconsistent with the spirit of Christianity, or the genius of rational freedom. It had been said that abolitionism was "quackery," only four years old. He would give them a little of the quackery of Benjamin Franklin, in the year 1790. He held in his hand a petition drawn up by that celebrated man, and adopted by the "Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery," the preamble of which recognizes the doctrines which are maintained by American Abolitionists at the present day, and expresses the (now incendiary) desire of diffusing them "wherever the evils of Slavery exist." Of this Society, Dr. Franklin was elected President, and Dr. Rush the Secretary. In 1790, this Society presented to the first Congress a petition, from which the following is an extract: —
"From a persuasion that equal liberty was originally the portion, and is still the birth-right of all men, and influenced by the strong ties of humanity, and the principles of their institutions, your memorialists conceive themselves bound to use all justifiable endeavors to loosen the bands of slavery, and promote a general enjoyment of the blessings of freedom. Under these impressions, they earnestly entreat your serious attention to the subject of slavery; that you may be pleased to countenance the restoration to liberty of those unhappy men, who, alone in a land of freedom, are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen, are groaning in servile subjection; that you will devise means for removing this inconsistency from the character of the American people; that you will promote mercy and justice towards this oppressed race, and that you will step to the very verge of the power vested in you, for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow-men."
(Signed) Benjamin Franklin,President.
Philadelphia, February 2, 1790."
Besides the venerable Franklin in 1790, he might refer to the truly able speech of the Rev. David Rice, in the Convention held at Danville, Kentucky, before, or soon after the petition just read – to the sermon of Jonathan Edwards, the younger, in the year 1791 – and to a most excellent sermon by Alexander M'Leod, through whose zeal and labors chiefly, the Reformed Presbyterians were brought to the determination to rid their church of slavery, an object they accomplished in the year 1802. It was a painful fact that the American community had retrograded in feeling and sentiment upon the subject of slavery. The anti-slavery feeling of 1820 was neither so pure nor so strong as in 1800, or 1790; and in 1830 the feeling had become still weaker, and the views of the community still more corrupted. This was owing to the formation of the colonization society, which, like a great sponge, gathered up and absorbed the anti-slavery feeling of the country, and by proposing the removal of the colored population, and constantly preaching such doctrines as were calculated to advance that object, drew public attention away from the duty of immediate emancipation on the soil, and caused the Christian community to rest in a scheme based upon expediency, and fully in unison with their prejudice against color. To those who compared the various sentiments contained in the writings and speeches of the colonizationists, with the pure and uncompromising principles advocated towards the close of the last, and the beginning of the present century, nothing was more obvious than the fact he had just stated, namely, that there had been a gradual giving up of sound views and principles, for others accommodated to the prejudices and interests and fears of the different portions of the community. For instance, nothing was more common in the records of the Colonization Society than the recognition of a right of property in man; to find the advocates of the Society, when speaking of the slaveholder and his slaves, saying, "we hold their slaves, as we hold their other property, sacred." Mr. Breckinridge might say "these are not my opinions;" – but he must know they were the published opinions of the managers and chief advocates of the Society, and it was for him to explain how he could lend a Society his countenance and aid, which promulgated and upheld so impious a doctrine as the right of property in God's rational, accountable, and immortal creatures. He (Mr. T.) knew, however, that the Society could assume all colors, and preach all kinds of doctrines. At one time it was promoting emancipation, and at another, increasing the value of slaves, and securing the master in the possession of them. It had one face for the north, and another for the south – a very Proteus enacting every sort of character; having no fixed principles – never consistent with itself in anything but its determination by all means to get rid, if possible, of the colored man. If there was any one thing which, more than another, was calculated to demonstrate the true character and tendency of the Society, it was the opinions everywhere entertained respecting it by the colored population. It was a fact that they loathed and abhorred the Society. No man advocating it could be popular amongst them. Even Mr. Breckinridge, with all his virtues and benevolence, was considered by the colored people as practically their enemy, by helping to sustain a Society which they regarded as the most effective engine of oppression ever invented. Surely they were qualified to form a judgment upon the subject. They had looked into its workings – they had narrowly watched its movements, and had satisfied themselves that it was full of all unrighteousness. If, on the other hand, the abolitionists were, by their measures, doing vast injury to the cause of the free colored people, how came it to pass, that they had the love and confidence of that entire class of the population? How was it that even the arch fiend of abolition, George Thompson, was by them caressed and beloved, and that they would hang for hours upon the accents of his lips – and that the tear of gratitude would start into their eyes wherever he met them? The secret was soon told. He (Mr. T.) spoke to them and of them, as men. He compromised none of their rights – he exhibited no prejudice against their complexion. He did not recommend exile as their only way of escape from their present and dreaded ills. He preached justice, and kindness, and repentance to their persecutors, and maintained the right of the bleeding captive to full and unconditional liberty, with all the privileges and honors of humanity. Therefore they loved him – therefore they would lay down their lives for him. He would read a list of places, in all of which the colored people had held meetings, and denounced the plans of the Colonization Society, viz, —
Philadelphia, New-York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington; Brooklyn and Rochester, in the State of New-York; Hartford, Middletown, New-Haven, and Lime in the State of Connecticut; Columbia, Pittsburg, Lewistown, and Harrisburg, in the State of Pennsylvania; Providence, in the State of Rhode-Island; Trenton, in the State of New-Jersey; Wilmington, in the State of Delaware; New-Bedford, in the State of Massachusetts; Nantucket; in the National Convention of free colored persons, held in Philadelphia, in 1831 – by the same Convention in 1832, and, he believed, in very subsequent Conventions.
To return to the Anti-Slavery Societies of the United States. He (Mr. T.) knew them to be composed of the finest and purest elements in the country. They were numerous and powerful. It would soon be proved that, with the blessing of God, they were omnipotent. Knowing the piety, intelligence, wealth, and energy of the abolitionists of America, it required some effort to be calm when Mr. Breckinridge stood before a British audience and compared them to Falstaff's ragged regiment. The Society of Kentucky might be small in regard to numbers. He believed, however, they were highly respectable. He referred to Mr. J. G. Birney on this point. Mr. Breckinridge might represent on the present occasion, if it pleased him, the abolitionists of his (Mr. B's) country as beggarly, odious, and despicable: but if he lived to revisit England (and he hoped he might) he believed he would then have to find some other illustration of their character, numbers and appearance, than the ragged regiment of Shakspeare's Falstaff.
Having stated the principles of the Anti-Slavery Societies in America, he would exhibit, in the words of the Philadelphia declaration of sentiments, their mode of operations. The National Society, formed during the convention, thus made known to the world its intended course of action: —
We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town and village in our land.
We shall send forth Agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty and rebuke.
We shall circulate, unsparingly, and extensively, anti-slavery tracts and periodicals.
We shall enlist the "Pulpit" and the "Press" in the cause of the suffering and the dumb.
We shall aim at a purification of the churches from all participation in the guilt of slavery.
We shall encourage the labor of freemen rather than that of the slaves, by giving a preference to their productions: and
We shall spare no exertions nor means to bring the whole nation to speedy repentance.
Our trust for victory is solely in GOD. We may be personally defeated, but our principles never. Truth, Justice, Reason, Humanity, must and will gloriously triumph. Already a host is coming up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, and the prospect before us is full of encouragement.
Submitting this declaration to the candid examination of the people of this country, and of the friends of liberty throughout the world, we hereby affix our signatures to it; pledging ourselves that, under the guidance and by the help of Almighty God, we will do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the most execrable system of slavery that has ever been witnessed upon earth; to deliver our land from its deadliest curse; to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our national escutcheon; and to secure to the colored population of the United States all the rights and privileges which belong to them as men and as Americans – come what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputations – whether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty, Justice, and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in this great, benevolent and holy cause.
Signed in the Adelphi Hall, in the City of Philadelphia,
on the 6th day of December, A. D. 1833.
True to the pledges given in this declaration, the abolitionists had printed, preached, and prayed without ceasing. As a proof of what they were doing in one department of their work, he would exhibit a number of newspapers, tracts, pamphlets, and other periodicals, which were in circulation throughout the country. Mr. Thompson then produced copies of the "Slaves Friend," "Anti-Slavery Records," "Anti-Slavery Anecdotes," "Human Rights," "Emancipator," "Liberator," "New-York Evangelist," "Zion's Herald," "Zion's Watchman," "Philadelphia Independent Weekly Press," "Herald of Freedom," "Lynn Record," "New England Spectator," &c., and an "Anti-Slavery Quarterly," edited by Professor Wright, the Secretary of the National Society, and distinguished by considerable literary talent. These were amongst the means pursued by the Abolitionists. They were peaceful and honorable means, and under God, would prove effectual to bring the blood-cemented fabric of Slavery to the ground. Other than moral and constitutional means, the abolitionists sought not to employ. Their's would not be the glory reaped upon the crimson field amidst the carnage and the din of war. Their victory would not be a victory achieved by the use of carnal weapons, effecting the freedom of one man by the destruction of another. Their victory would be a victory won by the potency of principles drawn from the Gospel of the Prince of Peace – their glory the glory of those who had obtained a bloodless conquest over the consciences and hearts of men. In the full conviction that the principles he (Mr. Thompson) had that night maintained, were the principles of the word of God, he would still prosecute the work to which he had for some years devoted himself. He called upon those around him to be true to those principles, and to continue zealously to advocate them, and leave the consequences in the hands of God. Let the friends of human rights again rally under the banner which had aforetime led them to battle – under which they had together fought and together triumphed – and to remember that the motto inscribed upon its ample folds – a motto which, though oft abused, had oft sustained them in the hour of conflict – was, Fiat Justicia ruat Cœlum.
Mr. Breckinridge rose. Having taken a good many notes of what Mr. Thompson had said in the speech now delivered, he was prepared for replying, if an opportunity were presented after he should have finished saying what seemed to him more pertinent to the subject in hand. In the meantime, he would introduce what he had now to say by reading another version of the events which had been represented as one of Mr. Thompson's triumphs at Boston.
Mr. May introduced a resolution denouncing the Colonization Society as unworthy of patronage, because it disseminates opinions unfavorable to the interest of the colored people.
Mr. Gurley replied. He finished the consideration of Mr. May's objections, went into an exposition of the advantages of the Colonization Society, and contrasted its claims with those of the Anti-Slavery Society. In doing this, he exhibited a handbill, having a large cut of a negro in chains, with some inflammatory sentences under it. Here he was interrupted by hisses, which were answered by clapping. Mr. George Thompson rose and attempted to address the meeting. This increased the confusion, Cries of "sit down – shame – be silent – let Mr. May answer if he can – no foreign interference," &c., from all parts of the hall. Mr. Thompson persevered as few men would have done, but at last yielded to the evident determination of the audience, and took his seat. The hall then became still, and Mr. Gurley proceeded.
We do not know that any Anti-Colonizationist was convinced by these discussions; except men who are committed against the Society, we believe the very general opinion is, that their overthrow on the field of argument was as complete as any could desire. It is evident that the cause of the Colonization Society is gaining a hold on the convictions and affections of the people of New-England stronger than it ever had before. We say this in view of facts which are coming to our knowledge from various parts. The storm of abuse and misrepresentation with which it has been assailed, is beginning already to contribute to its strength.
Now he begged to remark that the paper from which he had read the foregoing extract, the New-York Observer, together with the one from which it was originally taken, the Boston Recorder, printed more matter weekly than all the avowed abolition newspapers, in America, put together, did in half a year. He would notice farther, in relation to the great display of abolition publications which had been made by Mr. Thompson on the platform, that one of the papers lying there on the table, had advocated his principles and cause when he was in Boston, and likely to be mobbed at the instigation, as he believed, of Mr. Garrison. Some of the remainder of the publications were, he believed, long ago dead; some could hardly be said ever to have lived; some were purely occasional; the greater part as limited in circulation as they were contemptible in point of merit. Not above two or three of the dozen or fifteen that had been produced before them – and the names of which he (Mr. B.) required to be recorded – were in fact, worthy to be called respectable and avowed abolition newspapers. But to come to the point immediately in hand. He would on the present occasion attempt to show that abolition was not worthy to supplant the colonization scheme in the affections of Americans or Britons, or of any other thinking people. He acknowledged that there were many respectable men in the ranks of the abolitionists; but these, almost without exception, had been at one time colonizationists; and had he time he might show that many of them had deserted the colonization society on some peculiar or personal grounds, not involving the principles of the cause. He was prepared to show, however, that by whomsoever supported, the principles of the abolitionists were essentially wrong, and that their practice was still worse. He had not access to the voluminous documents brought forward by Mr. Thompson. Mr. Thompson had, indeed, that evening, on this platform, publicly offered him access to them. Had that offer been made at the beginning of the discussion, instead of the end of it, or during the four or five days we spent in Glasgow before it commenced, it might have been turned to some advantage. But as it was, the audience would know how to appreciate it; and he must rely solely upon memory, when he stated the principles promulgated by abolitionists; though at the same time he pledged himself that his statements not only were intended to be, but were, substantially correct and entirely candid. The abolitionists held, then, in the first place, as a fundamental truth, that every human being had an instant right to be free, irrespective of consequences to himself and others; consequently that it was the duty of masters to set free their slaves instantly, and irrespective of all consequences; and of course, sinful to exercise the powers of a master for one moment, or for any purpose. This was, in substance, the great principle on which the abolitionists acted – a principle which he was now prepared to question. He had, on a former occasion, shown that there were only two parties responsible for the existence of slavery, namely, individual slave-holders, and slave-holding communities. He would now attempt to prove, that, as applied to either of these, this principle was not only false, but that it was a mere figment, and calculated to produce tremendous evil. Let them first attend to what the abolitionists say to the individual slave-holder. Perhaps the person addressed was an inhabitant of Louisiana; where, if it is not directly contrary to law, to manumit a slave – the law refuses to recognize the act. Was he to be told then that he should turn off his slaves, the young and helpless along with the old and the infirm, with the certain knowledge that so soon as they left his plantation, they would commence a career of trouble and sorrow most likely to end in their being seized, imprisoned, fined, and again enslaved. Mr. Thompson had mentioned, in nearly all his printed speeches, the case of a certain colored man, who had been thrown into prison at Washington city, and sold into eternal slavery to discharge the fees which had accrued by reason of his oppression. Now he (Mr. B.) took leave to say that this story was false, in toto. It was customary in some parts of America to sell vagabonds, in order to make up their jail fees; but they were bound for no longer a period than was necessary to do this. The system was this – they were taken up as vagrants. If they were able and willing to show that they had some regular and honest means of livelihood, they were of course acquitted and discharged; but when they were unable to do this, they were sold for as much as would pay the fees of detention, trial, &c. That any person, black or white, once recognized by the law as free, was ever sold into everlasting slavery, he positively denied, and demanded proof. In Louisiana, however, it being illegal to manumit a slave, those whom the abolitionists would set free, would not be considered free in the eye of the law. They might be harrassed, imprisoned as vagabonds, sold to pay expenses, as vagabonds, and so soon as set free again imprisoned. He admitted that such proceedings would be inexcusable; but what was a benevolent man, who had the welfare of his slave really at heart, to do with an eye to them? To act upon the abolitionist principle, would be to consign the slave to incalculable misery, for they had but one lesson to teach – turn loose the slaves, and leave consequences to God! The colonizationists, however, are provided with a better remedy. If Louisiana would not countenance manumission, nor suffer manumitted slaves to remain within her bounds, with the usual privileges of freemen, let them be taken to some other State, where such laws did not exist; or if this should not on the whole be desirable, let them be taken to Liberia. No, repeats Mr. Thompson; discharge your slaves at once, and leave the consequences to God. If, by the wicked laws of Louisiana, they are left to starve, or driven to desperation, or sold again into slavery, the responsibility is theirs; do you your duty in setting them immediately at liberty. It would require, however, that a humane individual should be very strongly impressed with the truth of this principle before he could persuade himself to do that which was evidently so cruel in its immediate effects, and so likely to be ruinous in those that are more remote. Yet that principle was, to say the least, extremely doubtful, and ought not at every hazard to be crammed down the throats of an entire nation. If the laws of the community were bad, as he admitted it to be the case, he supposed it was the duty of enlightened citizens to seek a change of that law by proper means, but not in the meantime to do that which would be totally insubordinate to the State – and injurious to all parties. Whether, moreover, it was either fair or candid to denounce, as had been done, the free States as being participators in slavery, because, though they did not themselves hold a property in slaves, they did not choose to swallow such nostrums even without chewing, could not be a question. If it was so doubtful whether duty to the slaves themselves rendered the immediate breaking up of all relations between them and their masters a proper or even a permitted thing, it was still more questionable whether our duties to the State may not imperiously forbid what our duties to the slave have already warned us against. I have omitted all considerations of a personal or selfish kind – all rules of conduct drawn from what is due to one's self, one's family, or one's condition, or engagements. Common benevolence forbids, as we have seen, and common loyalty prohibits, as we shall see – what a man must do, or lie under the curse of abolitionism. For though it be our duty to seek the amendment of bad laws, because they are bad, it is equally our duty to obey laws because they are laws, unless it is clear that greater ill will follow from obedience than from disobedience. Now all our slave States are perfectly willing that their citizens should emancipate their slaves; only many of them insist on their doing it elsewhere, than within their borders. As long as other lands exist, ready to receive the manumitted slave, and certain to be benefitted by his reception, it is to preach treason, as well as cruelty, and folly as well as either, to assert the bounden duty of the individual slave-holder, at all hazards, to attempt an impossibility on the instant, rather than accomplish a better result by foresight, preparation, and suitable delay. It may therefore be boldly said that instant surrender of the authority of the master, irrespective of all other considerations, must, in many cases, be a great crime in the individual slave-holder. He would now speak of this abolition principle to which he had adverted as a rule of conduct for slave-holding communities. In this respect, also, he considered that it was at best extremely questionable. Let us illustrate the principle by the oft-repeated case of the District of Columbia. Abolitionism asserts that it is the clear duty of Congress to abolish slavery instantly in that District, without regard to what may occur afterwards in consequence of that act. Let us admit that the dissolution of the Federal Union is a consequence not worthy of regard – even when distinctly foreseen; and that all the evils attendant on such a result, to human society, and to all the great interests of man throughout the earth, are as nothing, compared with the establishment of a doubtful definition, having an antiquity of at least four years, and a paternity disputed between Mr. Garrison and Mr. Thompson. As a principle concerning no other creature but the slaves of the District, and no interest but theirs, it can be shown to be false. If Congress were instantly to abolish slavery there, with a tolerable certainty that every slave in the District would be removed and continued with their issue in perpetual slavery; when by an arrangement with the owners, they might so prospectively abolish it as to secure the freedom of every slave in five or ten years, and of their issue as they successively arrived at twenty or twenty-five years of age; if Congress could do the latter, and were in preference to do the former, they would deserve the execrations of the world. The first plea is Mr. Thompson and abolitionism; the second express my principles and those of the despised gradualists. At all events, the truth of the principle involved in the former supposition was not so manifest as to justify Mr. Thompson in denouncing, as he had done, those who did not see proper to follow it. A wise man would hesitate – he would weigh well the resulting circumstances as one of the best tests of the truth and utility of his principles before he propagated, as indisputably and exclusively true, and that in despite of all results, such principles, with the violence which had been manifested – principles which, he repeated, were but four years old, and which he was still convinced, were but arrant quackery. There was another aspect of the subject. Reference had been made to the representation of the black population in the National Government. He would remark on this subject that it was the duty of every State to see that power was committed only to the hands of those qualified to exercise it properly, wisely, and beneficially. What would be said in this country, were Mr. Thompson to propose that the elective franchise should be made universal, and that the age at which it might be exercised should be fixed at fifteen years? He would venture to say that the ministry who would introduce such a scheme to Parliament, would not exist for three days. The proposal, as Mr. T. no doubt knew, would be considered altogether revolutionary and shocking. Yet it must be admitted that the average of the boys of Britain who are fifteen years old, are fully as well qualified for the exercise of the elected franchise, as the average of the slaves in the various parts of the United States are at the age of twenty-one years. But with us, as with you, twenty-one years is the age at which electors vote. As I have shown, in most of our States the elective franchise is extended to every white man, who has attained that age; while the qualifications of a property kind, anywhere required, are so extremely moderate, that in all our communities nine-tenths at least of the adult white males are entitled to vote. Now let it be borne in mind, that abolitionism requires not only instant freedom for the slave, but also instant treatment of him, in every civil and political, as well as every social and religious respect, as if he were white, that is, in plain terms – if we should follow the dogmas you sent Mr. T. to teach us, and in which we have been held up to the scorn of all good men, for declining to receive, a revolution far more terrible and revolting would immediately follow throughout all our slave States, than would follow in Britain by enfranchising in a day, every boy in it fifteen years old – even if your house of lords were substituted by an elective senate, and your parliaments made annual! And it is in the light of such results, that America has received with horror the enunciation of principles which lead directly to them, while their advocates declare "all consequences" indifferent as it regards their conduct! And can it be the duty of any commonwealth to bring upon itself "instantly," – or at all – such a condition as this? The abolitionists themselves had evidently felt that their scheme was absurd; for they had never ventured to propose it to a slave State. Their papers were published and their efforts all made, and their organized agitation carried on, and a tremendous uproar raised in States where there existed no power whatever to put an end to slavery; but hardly a syllable had been uttered where, if anywhere, some effect might have been produced beneficial to the slaves, had abolition principles been practicable anywhere. The conduct of the abolitionists had been of a piece with what would have taken place in this country, had an agitation been got up for the direct abolition of idolatry in China, or of popery in Spain. Their principles had never yet been advocated in the South, but by means of the post-office, the effects of which, in the tearing up of mail bags, &c., Mr. Thompson well knew, and had declared. But the fact was, that such metaphysical propositions as those propounded by the abolitionists – even admitting them to be true – were altogether uncalled for. Thousands of slaves had been emancipated before the abolition principles were heard of, and all that was needed, was, that those who were engaged in the good work should have been let alone or aided on their own principles. What was the use of blazoning forth a doctrine which was in all likelihood false and ruinous, but which, were it true, could do no good? For if you could persuade a man that his duty required him to give freedom to his slaves, and he became suitably impressed with a sense thereof – he would do it just as certainly and effectually as though you had begun by saying to him – now as soon as I convince you, you must set them free immediately! He could indeed characterize such a mode of proceeding by no other term than that of gratuitous folly.