Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-11-17
The EdmOndsOr Sisters.


-
The statements respecting these girls,
which is given on our first page, is well cal
culated to interest the feelings Of those whose
hearts are no, as hard as adamant. Yet the
case presents no new Development Of the
atrocities Of slavery, the fate which threaten
ed them was no worse than that 10 which
tens oil thousands are now subjected there is.
and was nothing in their circumstances which
especially comments them 10 the sympathy
Of the benevolent. Their experience is but a
common tale Of slavery, all save the scqpal,
as every abolilionist knows. Yet it is well
10 sometimes dwell upon a case like theirs
TO detach the experience Of an individual
from the great mass of human suffering, and
present it in such a form that the public al
ttn,ion will be attracted 10 it. Thousands
who care but little for the existence of slave
ry, who look coldly on while millions are
degraded. will have their sympathies aroused
by this relation Of individual outrage.
Mary and Emily Edmondson 1t appears
are both members of that church which de-
clared it had no right, no wish, no intention
10 interfere between them and their masters
we mean the Methodist Episcopal. They
are young girls, seventeen and fifteen years
of age, whose characters are irreproachable,
and yet they were designed to be sold as
prostitutes in the New Orleans market !
Public opinion was not sufficiently regencr-
ated to save them, the religion of the land
was no: disposed to interfere for their deliy-
erance, and it was only by the payment Of
50, 35O they were spared the shame and pol
luton that awaited them. Aud this too, in
q land which has its thirty thousand pension
ed ministers who profess to preach a gospel
of freedom and of purity o, shane -
Church members sold for prostitution! The
virtue Of young girls a matter for bargain and
sale in the market place! Why if the case
of the Edmondson girls were an exception to
the general treatment of slaves, instead of an
every day confirmation of the outrages TO
which they are at any time liable, the excep-
ton ought to be enough TO forever damn the
system in the estimation of every lover of
purity. One such outrage growing out of it
in a century, or in ten centuries should con-
sign it to perdiliOn.
But theirs is not an excepted case; end
while we should be sorry to turn aside from
them one drop of sympathy, we claim for
one and a half millions of their sex, who are
this day, in this land exposed TO all to which
they were exposed we claim for them at
least equal sympathy and equal efforts for
their deliverance. The legal, constitu tional
right Of Bruin and Hill to dispose of them as
they designed, cannot be questioned. The
Nations Law gave them this right; and it
gives them the right 10 take the $3.50 they
received for Mary and Emily Edmondson,
and purchase four other girls for the New
Orleans seraglios. Are not these entitled to
sympathy ! have they no claims upon huma-
nifty, they and the humid reds of thousands
who are alike Unfortunate? The fearful fate
that awaited Mary and Emily Edmondsoni
but shadows forth the doom 10 which every
female slave in this land is exposed whether
held by professor or non-professor, saint or
sinner and it is not alone for the one or two
abolitionists should toll, but for the millions
nothing short of the redemption Of aHshould
satisfy them, and that not by purchase, but
by argument, not by the power of the al
mighty dollar, but by the power Of Almighty
God