Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-01-23
COMMUNICATIONS
Friends Editors.

Friends Editors.
In my last l omitted some
comments on the answers of J. BIrnaby to
my interrogatories. | wish to refer 10 a few
of them hastily. By my third and fourth
questions | designed to learn whether my
friend did not perceive that the formation Of
a religious society, or a society for the ad-
vdncement Of general truth, and the d~estruc-
ton of erery eriL, was as inperatively the du-
~ of the christian or philanthropist, as is that
of establishing temperance and anti-slaycry
societies. This conclusion he Gems to ad-
nit, and his good sense would forbid that he
should deny it. He refers the reader to a
small" society formed some months since
in Salem with which he is connected, as one
which, taking his answer in connection with
the queries, he regards as occupying the place
Of a religious or general reform society. IL
either does or does not profess to occupy that
ground. Ii it does net, then does ]. b. con-
tent himself TO act contrary to what he adj
mits in his answer to the first question to
be right and best. And if it does profess
to be such, it may be safely said to be moro
delinquent than the society Of Friends in pat
ting forth the necessary means for promoting
its several objects. My friend does not APP
pear to excuse a meeting of Friends on ac-
count of its smallness, for emitting to inc.
moTiaIize Congress and the State Legislature.
and addressing the pubic, on the subjects of
slavery, Wal, &c. &c. Yet the world ap-
pears, as yet, to be in ignorance as to any
thing which that association has ever done
in this, or any other way. What may have
transpired at its meetings sin the quiet i,
not perhaps known by one fourth of the peo-
pie OF the village in which it exists. Won
der it has not been disowned by all its men,
beers for failing to carry out its principles.-
Nevertheless | am favorable to a society ev-.
en- s'riring to live up to its professions and |
doubt not this one is doing so.
J. BIS. answer to the latter part Of my 4th
question shows, that he, like most of the rest
Of the members (of whom he complains) have
not, in time past, done their duty in endelv-
oring to bring the body to some action upon
important questions. No society, whose men,
bers do no more than he did while a men,
Der of Friends to promote the reforms, will
take a single step in such a work.
His answer TO my 9th interrogation is in
effect an admission that the O. A. A. S. So
ciety, holds in good fellowship the man who
riots upon the fruits Of the unpaid toll of the
slave, who performs that part of the slave
holding operation which is most essential to
its existence. He may purchase ten slaves
and hire a man in Mississippi 10 whip them
for him, and if the title, Legally considered,
be vested in the Mississippi planter, he may
have all the profts-may be "the power be-
hind the throne greater than the throne ITSELF"
yet he will be recognized by that society as
a consistent member-an anti-slavery man.
To fellowship such men does not, in the es-
timation of my friend, make the society pro-
slavery. Now it is said by S. S. Foster and
other A.. s. men that we may properly recog-
nize men as co-workers in any reform If they
be sound on the point. If it does not render a
person unsound upon the anti-sIavery ques-.
ton, to be doing their full share to sustain its
main prop, when no process of reasoning
scarcely, is necessary to make the fact OBJ
vious, and if a society which disclaims saHi
connection" with slavery ~justiies such things,
if such a society be strictly anti-slavery, how
much pro-slavery should pertain to a society
which ~tolerates a member who votes for a
STAKEHOLDER believing that he would be meas,
.urably responsible for a worse state of things
which his reason teaches him would be the
result of the success Of the opposing candi-
datel Friend Barnaby would have that man