Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1844-12-06

10 THE CHRISTIANS AND wELL-DIsposED CtrI-
zENs OF THE NORTHERN STATES OF AMERICA:
DEAR FRIENDs:- Though live across the At
lanic, from you, believe my name is not un-
known to you. have heard with almost hides
crlbahle delight Of the great progress which the
Anti-sayery cause has made in your part of the
world. Permit, then, an old man, almost worn
out by sixty years hard labor in that sacred cause
to express his Joy to you on this OCCASION and to
take advantage of this new and favorable turn of
things, to give his opinion to what ought to
be your present aim, or as to what you ought al
ways to keep in view, in your attempts to promote
the extinction Of slavery.
Slavery is the greatest evil which has ever af-
hctcd your country 1t has heaped incalculabe
sufierings upon the heads of people who have
never given you any cause of offence; and you
have done this without any right to do it but your
own will and the law of force. 1t has corrupted
the morals of your population to a frghtful extent
by familiarzmg them with cruelty and injustice by
hardening their hearts, and by giving birth to erro-
neous opinions, which lead to nfdety; and,
moreover, it has injured your national character
in the eyes of the world. These, then, are
some ofthe evils of slavery. But we can apply
no remedy to them till we find out their source
1t has been great misfortune to America, that the
people of the south should have ever attempted to
obtain a political preponderance over the people
of the north;-and still more strange that they
SHOULD nave succeeded IN their attempt. repeat,
still more strange; for it is strange indeed, that
people like those of the south, people of no rep
utatlon but for their tyranny and vices, and peo-
pie despicabe in the eyes CT all good men, should
have obtained lordShp over the yirtuous people of
the north-a people known to have been of reli-
gious character from the time of their first settle
ment in America, and to have kept up the same
character Gill slavery made inroad upon their
moras) to the present day. And whydid the peo-
pie of the South make this attempt? 1t was thar
they might rule over the whole lard, both North
and South; that they might become, in fact the
legislators or makers Of the laws, and thus pro.
tect and establish slavery forever, as an institution
of the United States. This preponderance, then,
there can be no doubt, is the source of the evils
mentioned.
| will now ask you, my friends of the North
what you have profted by the preponderance, or
ascendency? will tell you. You have got a
slavehodng President, slaveholding Senate,
lslaveholding Congress, andi saveholding Cabi-
net Y gu have got the very sort Of men in these
high offices, the most detrimental to your inter
ests
But perhaps the men filing these offices may
have been more servicable to you than you are
aware of, Legislators. will ask you, then, what
good they have done. In the common routine of
business in congress they may have done, perhaps,
as well as any other men could have done; bur
whenever slavery has been brought befnre them "a
matter of business, the most malignant of vba,
we call demons, could not have done worse Thn
| laws against their slaves stand on record rs he
most bloody of the most savage nations upon earth,
so shocking as to produce horror and indignation