A FRIEND has banded me a late number of your paper, containing a brief
notice of a pamphlet, which I have recently published on the subject of
slavery.
From an occasional perusal of your paper, I have formed a favorable
opinion of your talent and independence. Compelled to dissent from some
of your political sentiments, I still give you full credit for the lofty
tone of sincerity and manliness with which these sentiments are avowed
and defended.
I perceive that since the adjustment of the tariff question a new subject
of discontent and agitation seems to engross your attention.
The "accursed tariff" has no sooner ceased to be the stone of stumbling
and the rock of offence, than the "abolition doctrines of the Northern
enthusiasts," as you are pleased to term the doctrines of your own
Jefferson, furnish, in your opinion, a sufficient reason for poising the
"Ancient Dominion" on its sovereignty, and rousing every slaveowner to
military preparations, until the entire South, from the Potomac to the
Gulf, shall bristle with bayonets, "like quills upon the fretful
porcupine."
In proof of a conspiracy against your "vested rights," you have commenced
publishing copious extracts from the pamphlets and periodicals of the
abolitionists of New England and New York. An extract from my own
pamphlet you have headed "The Fanatics," and in introducing it to your
readers you inform them that "it exhibits, in strong colors, the morbid
spirit of that false and fanatical philanthropy, which is at work in the
Northern states, and, to some extent, in the South."
Gentlemen, so far as I am personally concerned in the matter, I feel no
disposition to take exceptions to any epithets which you may see fit to
apply to me or my writings. A humble son of New England--a tiller of her
rugged soil, and a companion of her unostentatious yeomanry--it matters
little, in any personal consideration of the subject, whether the voice
of praise or opprobrium reaches me from beyond the narrow limits of my
immediate neighborhood.
But when I find my opinions quoted as the sentiment of New England, and
then denounced as dangerous, "false and fanatical;" and especially when I
see them made the occasion of earnest appeals to the prejudices and
sectional jealousies of the South, it becomes me to endeavor to establish
their truths, and defend them from illegitimate influences and unjust
suspicions.
In the first place, then, let me say, that if it be criminal to publicly
express a belief that it is in the power of the slave states to
emancipate their slaves, with profit and safety to themselves, and that
such is their immediate duty, a majority of the people of New England are
wholly guiltless. Of course, all are nominally opposed to slavery; but
upon the little band of abolitionists should the anathemas of the slave-
holder be directed, for they are the agitators of whom you complain, men
who are acting under a solemn conviction of duty, and who are bending
every energy of their minds to the accomplishment of their object.
And that object is the overthrow of slavery in the United States, by such
means only as are sanctioned by law, humanity, and religion.
I shall endeavor, gentlemen, as briefly as may be, to give you some of
our reasons for opposing slavery and seeking its abolition; and,
secondly, to explain our mode of operation; to disclose our plan of
emancipation, fully and entirely. We wish to do nothing darkly; frank
republicans, we acknowledge no double-dealing. At this busy season of
the year, I cannot but regret that I have not leisure for such a
deliberate examination of the subject as even my poor ability might
warrant. My remarks, penned in the intervals of labor, must necessarily
be brief, and wanting in coherence.