SOCIAL AND POLITICAL EFFECTS OF ABOLITIONISM.
First, its _social_ effects. It has produced a very unhappy state of
feeling in the North. Just in proportion to a man’s unreasonableness,
if he happens to be in the wrong, will be his zeal to maintain his
cause; and the effect of his zeal on all concerned may generally be
measured by the same rule. The Abolitionists are believed to be in the
wrong; and the extreme zeal and infatuation, not to say madness, with
which they urge their cause, would seem to prove them so. Why should
men, conscious of the rectitude of their principles and conduct, be
violent? Even if they were in the heat of battle, dignity and self
possession, and even generosity towards their foes, would be more
becoming. That they are the aggressors, is certain. Who else began it?
Like as a man, who slanders his neighbour, will take all possible
pains to prove it is not slander, and by-and-by believe his own story,
because he has told it so often, and is determined to have it so; so
the Abolitionists, becoming fervid in their cause, persuade themselves
that they are right. But they appear to the rest of the community so
unreasonable, and so manifestly wrong, that the effect of their zeal
on the public mind is very unhappy--more especially so, as the
interests of the country, which are dear to all good citizens, are put
in great peril by their movement. Hence families, neighbourhoods,
towns, cities, and the whole community, are divided, and driven to
acrimonious controversy on this subject. We scarcely recollect any
occasion of public excitement in this country, that has given birth to
greater violence of language, to more uncharitableness, or greater
bitterness of feeling, than this. That this bad temper has been all on
one side, it would be unjust to say; but that the Abolitionists have
had a good share of it, we think it no libel to suggest; nor are we
prepared to say, that they have endured opposition in the most
Christian-like way. We hesitate not to say, that their literary
publications are of a very inflammatory character. Even the grave and
solemn document of their last Annual Report--or which ought to have
been grave and solemn--is so rude, violent, and denunciatory--so much
like a tear-all-down--that the nerves of a well composed person, as we
will venture to say, will be not a little _dis_-composed in the
reading thereof. One is shocked to think, that we have come to such
revolutionary times, as that production would seem to indicate--that a
grand political organization, wielding such a tremendous sway of
influence, as the American Anti-Slavery Society, should take upon
itself to declare the Constitutional law of the land null and void,
and no longer binding; and by one stroke of the pen to abrogate the
authority of the Senate of the Nation, and proclaim their decisions as
worthy only of contempt. What next? But we forbear; for we seem to
feel, that we are getting into the same strain, inasmuch as the record
of the simple facts of their history is too exciting to be set in
their true light. No wonder then, that the people of this country
have felt themselves injured and outraged by such bold assaults on
that social edifice, under the shadow, and within the precincts of
which, they have and hold all their most valuable privileges. It is a
pity, indeed, that fellow citizens and christian brethren should be
driven so far asunder, and be filled with so much animosity, by such
an unnatural broil. On whom does this responsibility rest? In our
judgment, on those who have instigated the quarrel, on the aggressors,
and not on those who act merely on the defensive, in vindication and
support of the Government of the country. The question, now, is not
the rights of the slave; that is entirely set aside by another, which
this controversy has forced into its place--the peace of the country,
and the integrity of the Union.
But the social effects between the North and the South are much more
unhappy, than between the Abolitionists and Anti-Abolitionists of the
North. Time was when a northern man could go to the South without
suspicion, and be received in all good faith. But it is no longer so.
The very name of a Northerner is odious at the South, till his
personal qualities shall happen to make him agreeable. Time was, when
a Southern man could enjoy himself in visiting the North, and be
honored; but now he feels, that every second man he meets with may be
an Abolitionist, to him a name of horror, because he loves his wife
and his children, and thinks of the terrible scenes which the
doctrines and measures of the Abolitionists expose them to. In the
social intercourse of the North with the South, there has been raised
a barrier of a very formidable character, and every month and every
day it is getting worse and worse. It is impossible it should be
otherwise, so long as the end of this sad controversy cannot be
foreseen.
The violence of language used by the Abolitionists against the slave
States and slave holders, is most uncharitable and unwarrantable, and
its social effects pernicious. The people of the South are _men_, and
remarkable for their courtesy and hospitality to strangers. They have
been educated to think and to feel, that slavery is justifiable in the
circumstances under which it has come down to them. They do not view
the subject as we Northerners do. And admitting that they are wrong,
the worst that could be said of them is, that they are unenlightened
in this particular. They are found to be gentlemen, amiable and kind,
and many of them Christians--yes, Christians. Philemon, of Bible
notoriety, was a Christian, and a slaveholder. And yet the
Abolitionists do not hesitate to call them MONSTERS in human shape!
But the _political_ effects are still worse, in so far as they are
more important and more momentous. Abolition is a fire brand on the
floor of Congress, which we have reason to fear is gratifying to the
movers of this sedition. But the worst of all is, the South is
evidently anticipating and preparing for a dissolution of the Union;
and no spirit of prophecy, now the gift of mortals, can foretell the
consequences of such an event. If it shall be forced by this
agitation, one of the first measures of the South will be to visit
with tremendous vengeance all disturbers of their peace in this
particular concern; and who of us, in like circumstances, could blame
them for it? And the misfortune will be, that the innocent will not
always escape, as every Northern man will of course be suspected.
Would it not be difficult to maintain peace between two such
Republics? Evidently, nothing is more to be deprecated in a political
horoscope, than a dissolution of this Union. The South is essential to
the North, and the North to the South, on the terms of the Federal
compact; but put them asunder, by such a cause, and the chances are,
that they will be implacable enemies. To all these evils are we
exposed by the Abolition movement, besides what have already come.