A HYPOTHETICAL VIEW OF ABOLITIONISM.
We think it must strike every intelligent observer--every one
certainly that lays claims to any knowledge in the workings of
society--that _immediate_ Abolition, whenever acquired by the measures
now in operation--admitting it can be effected without a civil war,
though we do not believe it can--must find the two conflicting
parties in the worst possible humour in relation to each other. On the
one side would be arrayed the Abolitionists with their protégés; and
on the other the party defeated after a long and violent struggle. In
the mean time all the colored people, now free or in bondage, will
have been filled with the most violent hatred and animosity towards
the opponents of their claims. The feeling already produced in that
class of colored people, that has come under the influence of
Abolitionists, may serve as an illustration; and the well known
principles of human nature may fill out the complement of the lesson.
It would be seen by the people of this country, in the progress of
events, long before this object shall have been attained, that an
immediate emancipation at any time, brought about by such means, will
place the country in a most undesirable and perilous condition. These
anticipations and apprehensions must necessarily, as we think, mount
to an insuperable barrier.--Self-preservation is the first law of
nature; and when that comes to be the question, either with
individuals or with society, people are not wont to suspend action to
discuss casuistry or right.--The drowning man seizes the plank within
his reach, even though he should hear the voice of a remonstrant,
giving some very subtle reasons why he ought not to do so. So society,
finding itself in peril, from within or from without, will save
itself, if it can. We are inclined to believe, that the harder
Abolition is pushed in its present shape, and under its present avowed
principles, so much greater will be the apprehensions of the people,
as to the consequences of its success. We think they will never
consent, that three millions of the colored race should be raised by
one step, from the condition in which they now are, to a full equality
of privilege with all other citizens, backed by such a party as the
Abolitionists, and actuated by their principles. The dangers would be
too obvious and too imminent to admit of parley. They must first be
made to believe in _perfectionism_, before they would venture on such
an experiment. Every stage of the progress of Abolitionism hitherto,
instead of allaying those apprehensions, has only served to augment
them. If the peace of the country can hardly be maintained now, and is
more and more disturbed at every successive stage of the movement,
under its present organization, who can answer for it a little while
to come?--Much more, who could answer for it in the hottest of the
conflict? The Abolitionists insist on principles, apart from
emancipation, which rouse popular indignation, and occasionally blow
it into flame, even while the people know that the power is in their
own hands. But when once they shall be obliged to see, that these
principles are actually going into practice by force, throughout the
length and breadth of the land, it requires no prophet to foretell how
they will feel, and how they will act. Honestly, we do not think it
among the possible events of the future, that Abolition principles, as
they now stand forth before the public, can be forced upon the people
of this country; but on the contrary, that, foreseeing the evil, they
will take care to prevent it.
The Abolitionists cannot appeal to the effects of emancipation in the
British West Indies, even on the ground of their own showing, to allay
these apprehensions; for there is no parallel between the two cases.
Every circumstance and every attribute of the question, as it exists
here, in its essential influences, are at variance with that example.
But so long as our political fabric remains such as it is, it would
seem to be folly to discuss this subject on this hypothetical basis.
We have only taken this license for a moment, for the sake of showing,
that, if this political structure of our society were all out of the
way, and if the slave-holders had no interest or voice in the
question, the avowed principles of the Abolitionists, apart from the
difficulty of political rights, would erect an insuperable barrier in
the public mind to the accomplishment of their designs.