LETTER TO A REPUBLICAN MEETING AT THE DEDICATION OF THE REPUBLICAN
WIGWAM IN NEW YORK, AUGUST 6, 1860.
BOSTON, August 6, 1860.
GENTLEMEN,--Accept my thanks for the invitation with which you
have honored me. Knowing by recent experience something of the
generous Republicans of New York, it is with reluctance that I
renounce the opportunity you give me of mingling with them on an
interesting occasion.
As citizens of a great metropolis, they have duties of peculiar
difficulty. It is in these centres that the Proslavery sentiment
of the North shows itself with violence often kindred to
that of the plantation, so as almost to justify the language
of Jefferson, who called great cities “sores” of the body
politic.[166] Even this expression does not seem too strong, when
we recognize the infection of Slavery breaking out sometimes in
the violence of mobs, and constantly manifest in the press, in
public speech, and in a corrupt public sentiment. It belongs to
the Republican party, by gentle, healing influences, guided by a
firm hand, to inaugurate the work of _cure_, that health may be
substituted for disease.
Meanwhile the wretched disease must be understood, and I venture
to call attention to a work just published in New York, where
it is exposed with consummate ability: I refer to “Slavery in
History,” by Adam Gurowski. The learned author, who vindicates
his new title as American citizen by noble effort for the good
of his adopted country, exhibits Slavery, from the beginning of
time, in all nations and places, as nothing more nor less than a
monstrosity, disturbing, corrupting, and debasing the government
under which it exists, and all the individuals who are parties to
it, directly or indirectly: for no man can sustain Slavery, or in
any way apologize for it, without suffering in moral, if not also
in intellectual nature. Such a work, founded on careful studies,
and executed in the spirit of science, will naturally take a
place in libraries; but I am sure that all inquirers into the
character of Slavery, and especially all practical Republicans,
engaged in efforts to stay the spread of this barbarous disease,
ought to welcome it as an ally. No good citizen who makes himself
acquainted with Slavery can hesitate to join against it.
Accept my best wishes for the success of your festival, and also
the assurance of the respect with which