The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-07-06
DIRECTIONS.

| OBJECTIONS.
But the slaves, If emancipated," it is said, twill
cut the Threats of their masters! They will not
work Tor wages They cannot take care of them
selves They will be no better off than before
They can never be elevated! The land will lie
untitled! The country will go to ruin" They
must first be prepared for freedom. They must
be emancpated gradually. They must be sent
out OF the country !"
So say the opposers ofimmediate emancipation.
But they have never been able to give any good
reasons why they hold these opinions. They have
never explained to US the philosophy which war;
rants such conclusions. They have never pro-
duced the historical facts which indicate their
correctness. They have never told us aphen, nor
pcAere an emancipated slave ever cut the throat of
his master-nor why they supposed he would do
so.
wlcKEDNEss OF THESE OBJECTIONS.
If slaveholding be sin, then they are objections
against ceasing TO sin If they are good reasons
against emancipation to-day, they will be good
reasons tomorrow, and next year, and next CEN
fury, and forever! They are urged now, just as
they were, twenty, fifty, and an hundred years ago
10 defer torsaking this sin, must be as dangerous
and as rebelious as to defer forsakng any other
SIM All genuine repentance for sin, is present,
an instantaneous, an unconditional repentance.
II is never gradual or future, or contingent. Il is
an abSurdity, and an insult to high heaven, to say
that The scronged, must first be prepared, or be re-
moved away from the wrong Door, before he will
cease to do wrong! If these objections are good,
then they will justify the holding of white men in
slavery, as well as coored men, They make the
wrong doer, the judge in his own case, they au-
thorize him TO make his own conditions, and set
him to decide whether or no he will ever cease
doing his neighbor wrong. If slavery be sin,
then the present generation of Sinners they cling
10 these decisions of the devil, will 60 down to the
grave in their sins, as their fathers have done be-
fore them and the nation will go on in sin, until
it is botted out by divine judgments. 1t has been
by just such fallacous and wicked excuses, that
one nation after another has strengthened itself
against God and against-truth, till the measure of
their inquites has been filled up and they have
been rpened for destruction. Nations as such,
exist only in the present life, and all history proves
that in the present life they punished for their
sins. But the objections imply a fear that God
would punish them for doing right Whenever
repentance and amendment have averted divine
judgments from people, it has been done by cast
ing all such impious and insane objections to the
wind. There is reason to think that the people
of this nation who have hardened themselves by
these same objections, and excuses for procrastna-
ton, for nearly two hundred years, are already on
the verge of destruction. Fifty years ago, Jeffer-
son, in view of this sin said, 81 tremple for my
country, when l reflect that God is just, and that
his justice cannot sleep forever" Is it a time for
Christians to pallate national sins, and urge the
danger of too hasty repentance, half century
after skeptical statesmen had trembled in view of
them g GoodeWs Lecturer.
Southern writers already concede to us this point
They admit that if slavery wrong then the immediate abb
oonsts right. But they claim that slavery is BIZ
Bile institution