Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-09-03

other anti slavery ~people-the Friends-the
Wing and Democratic aboli,ionisls, &c. could
unite. None, that ] am aware of, deny the
efficacy Of this measure. Those Disunion-
lists even, who justify their own use of slave
labor goods, deny the rightfulness of others
10 use them. Why can they not he enlisted
also! They say other persons "%cannot in
nocently" use any other than free labor goods.
Why then cannot they assist in bringing the
free article within the reach Of such whom
they say are guilty for using the otherl 1t
is true they would, by recommending the sub
ject to the attention of others, be preaching
one doctrine and practising another, but his
they do nOup, and their inconsistency would
not therefore be increased, while they would
be aiding a cause which they acknowledge
to be just and righteous. To say the anti
aboli,ionist cannot innocenlly use slave grown
products, is TO say he is bound to use the free.
1t is attaching guilt to non-abstinence, so far
as relates to the common people at least, and
consequent importance to the subject, as a
Just and righteous cause. They are bound
then, by their own avowed principles, and
those of the parent Society, 10 aid in this
work.
To a question like this, where pecuniary
interest is to be overcome, it seems to me
there are objections urged which the object
or would never think Of applying to other ca
ses to which they would be equally applica-
BILE.
In a discourse upon general principles of
moral and religious duty, delivered by S. S.
Foster in Salem a year or two since, among
other positions which he laid down, was
this; that no appropriation to a righteous
purpose, of property obtained through unjust
means, could be made without crime. He
supposed for an illustration, that a clerk in
the employ of John Jacob Astor, should,
without the knowledge of the owner or the
possibility of his missing the property, EN-
bezzle few thousand dollars-thath he should
appropriate the whole of it TO the relief of the
starving poor, thus accomplishing much good
without infiicting any perceptible injury up
on any. This, Foster said, would be as GER
tainly a crime as any other act of theft, be-
cause it was predicated upon a wrong.
Now what anti-slavery man or woman will
dissent from this principle
Yet S. S. Foster, and w. l.. Garrison
have distinctly declared, and l believe all
a%nti-free Observation-Disclosures undertake 10 de-
fend the doctrine, that it is wrong for any
person to purchase the products of the un-
paid toll of the slave unless they make good
use of it! They must be used to clothe and
feed good a~bolitionists, otherwise those who
purchase or use them are guilty - That
which they declare to be basely wicked, is
changed to a laudable virtue, or at least an
''innocent'' act, by the mere circumstance Of
being perpetrated by an abolitionist, instead
Of by an a~pologist for slavery!
An editorial in the last No. of the Bugle,
and the speeches of Phillips, Foster, &c. at
the late Anniversary, charge free labor abo-
l~itionists with laying down a principle and
violating it themselves, which they say anti
free labor abolitionists do mott! If there be
more merit in laying down a principle and
disregarding ii entirely, than in carrying it
out to the extent that it and many other prin-
ciples can be reasonably done, or if it be
more meritorious to violate an acknowledged
principle and deny it, than to do so to a less
extent and confess it, am not %envious of such
merit.
That a~nti-free labor abolitionists do recog-
nize in various ways a principle Involved in
the free labor question-that we are support.
ing slavery by our commercial connection
with the South-that they regard even the
reception of money from Shareholders for be.
n~evolent purposes, as a violation of The prin
ciple involved in this question, is abundantly
evident from innumerable documents and
speeches official and unofficial put forth by
the Society.
d. B. DAVIS.