Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-07-23
COMMUNICATIONS.
Slave Labor PrOduCtS---NO. 9.
FRIENDS EDIToRs -:

NA
reto power, respectfully to request that you
will concede to Inc the right to Judge whether
what write be Unnecessary 10 a correct un-
Outstanding " of my views. You will thus
be saved the trouble of curtailing, mutilating
or interpolating for me; l shall have some as
surance that what | write will be published
as arrange and prepare it, and your readers
will sometimes be favored with both sides of
a subject on which they would otherwise
have TO decide from hearing one only.*
GARRISON'S EDITORIAL.
This subject Of slave labor produce, says
Garrison, "must be left TO the individual
conscience" He quotes from Paul, "Let
every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind" &C.. "To him that esteemeth any
thing %unclean to him it is unclean,' &c.
Can any one tell what peculiar relevancy
there can be in such advice to the subject UNI
der consideration How will the same pre-
cepts sound when applied to the pro-slavery
church member, the Wing, the Democrat or
the Stakeholder! Why not leave such to
their individual conscience, also! Can any
one find a reason satisfactory to his own mind
for thus discriminating I?
Friend Garrison informs us that he is not
willing to discuss this question! He is not
now willing to assist in leading his friends
out Of an terror as he terms it, although he
was instrumental in involving them in it.
Many are indebted in part TO the
he has used for their conscientious scru-
pies" on this subject. He once laid down,
as a settled principle, the following declara-
ton:
"I hold this truth 10 be seJf-eridcnt, that no
transfer, or inheritance, or sale Of stolen pro-
periy, can convert il into just possession or de-
stroyt the claim Of The original gunner the mag
am being universally conceded to be Just, that
tie %rcceirer is as bad as tie Thief"
This was heralded forth to the world through
the Liberator, and who at that time would
have believed that the editor would have ever
abandoned that "selfevident TRUTH without
showing concfuSirely that the position was
false, or that he would deny the privilege to
others either to prove or %confute the PROPOSE
ton! He appears disposed to permit his
friends to stray off into the same terror"
from which he believes himself to have been
SO fortunately redeemed, pursuing after that
bubble of a self-evident truth which lie has
put them on the track of!
For such treatmen | think we have Just
cause to complain Of our once admired cham
pion. If we have any thing from his pen TO
eradicate the conviction, that we cannot in
n~ocently use the proceeds of unrequited toll,
and to upset the above axiom or prove it but a
chimera, it must be found in his late editorial
in the declaration that there are "dificul-
ties " in the question-that there are a thou
sand others" of vital importance-in the as
sertion that the Abolitionists are "innocent,"
but others are " not innocent" in using those
products-in a quotation from Paul that "to
him that esieemeth anything uncIean TO him
it is unclean," and in the comparison of 9TH
es systems of oppression with that of slave.
ry!! &c.
Is it possible that w. L. Garrison has beer
convinced by such reasons that the "%self-ev,
ident truth " that L" no transfer, or Inheritance
or sale of stolen property can convert it into
just possession is, and always was, al
"~error,'' or that " self-evident truths" are tC
be abandoned upon such evidence! The
disunionist would, as | conceive, have les.
cause for surprise, and less for complaint, i
Garrison would now reverse his course upor
that question, and assign similar reasons fol
such change, and then decline a further in
vestigation.
The Free Produce question was a conspic
nous item among the measures avowed b,
the parent society-Disunion was not. IN,
casuistry" has settled the disunion question
"like a moral axiom" Garrison, although
he seems to have forgotten it, has thus sci
tied the free produce question. The use {
the Union is claimed by a class of the ant
slavery people as a means of abolishing sl
very. No such claim | presume will be s.
r%iously made upon the use of slave lab
goods as a means of removing the evil
The " difficulties" of Withholding all suppc
to the Union are much greater than those
refusing the use of slave labor products, a
all the arguments used by Garrison in |
editorial would, it appears to me, apply wi
more force to his case, were he to aband
the d~isunion ground, and present to his rea
ers a similar defense for his course.
After reading and re-reading that EDITOR
and seeking in vain for any logical argume
in it, many of his friends will still be co
PEELED to adhere TO an old-fashioned id,
handed down by John Woolman and his
temporaries-thoroughly examined and fou
X This insinuation that we would exclu
one side of a question while we admitted
other, is entirely destitute of foundation.