Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1852-09-30
For the Freeman.


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TITO cheat our Souls to ath"-Watts.
Itmuy not all be chargeablo npon the old Ser
pent, but there appears wonderful tendency
among mankind, if they are inclined to error, to
have ready justification or excuse for the
course they pursue; and this pretcxt Or excuse
is sometimes so far fetched, that it would seem
improbable that any but the old Serpent would
ever haze brought it among rational beings
This often appears in justifying the use of in
toxlcating liquors, and in the direct and Indirect
support of American Slavery. When persons
Justify what is called moderate drinking, by
speaking Of the good they fancy it does, and
affirming its safely FROM injury, forgetting that
the habitual use braces the whole system against
the good they speak Of, and makes smooth and
broad the road to drunkenness and death, there
is great deception in this, subseryient to the
aims of the adversary in creating dsreish for
anything good, and leading to crime and misery;
and thus cheating our souls to death. So with
regard 10 the support of slavery. What more
gross deception can ever be palmed upon an
honest man, who deems slavery with all its dc.
grading ignorance and oppression to be sin
against God, than to induce him to adopt the
principle OF choosing between two evils, two
moral evils, in his political action If We are
threatened with injury to our persons or proper
ty which we cannot wholly avoid, it is right, it
is duty, to endeavor to avoid that evil which we
deem the greater but when we are solicited to
volunteer in actions opposed to good morals, and
Two courses, both immoral, are proposed for our
choice, we have no business TO choose either Of
them, The injunction of Scripture is " Come
out from Among them, and touch not the unclean
thing" The mind can conceive a case in which
all would readily agree to the correctness of this
Scripture principle:--1'w0 men apply to YOU,
with equal inducement in point Of reward one
10 help him mnrder and rob single persons the
other, to murder and rob whole family. You
would readily perceive the FIRST to be the least
evil of the two would you therefore choose it !?
By no means. Your whole soul would be hor.
ror smilten, even at the proposition. Now the
principle is exactly the same, Gs applied to
immoral acts not INJECTING such horror. Take,
not supposed case, but an actual case in sup
port of Slavery. Two candidates, Generals
Scott and Pierce, are presented for your suiFn-
gcs for the next President. Both are alike
pledged to particular course in case of cleo.
ton. Both are pledged to carry into fall effect
that compromise system of 1850, which yields
to the shareholders all their claims to trample
under foot the sovereignty Of the Northern
States, and the individual rights Of the citizens
and compel you and me, by severe penalties, to
aid them 10 getting home their stray property,
as they would call it, and deprive human Beings,
made slaves by brute force, Of all their personal
and relative, and civil rights. Now we are
asked to vote for these men, yes, and told that
we must vote for one or the other Of them, and
do it Of necessity, without complaining Now
what is the ground of choice between these
candidates ? What do we virtually vote ful by
voting for either} Plainly, we vote that the
claims Of the shareholders, supported by all those
penalties, shall remain in force; that we will
accede to them peaceably that there shall be
no repeal of the statutes inaicting those penal
ties and that the slaveholIers may continue, by
brute force, 10 keep human beings in the most
degraded Ignorance and deprivation ali right II
we vote thus to aid The shareholders in their on.
preston, we vote ourselves paItakers of their
evil deeds. BY such voting we aid them, one or
the other of them for the present, and encourage
them aud both their parties, to persevere in
their aggressions on the rights Of the North,
and in the extension and perpetuity OF Slavery
If we merely refuse to vote for these candidates
and do not vote at all, this IL better than voting
for either of them; for it is less encouraging
aud less aiding them, and less dsconragng to
the friends of Freedom. But it we 70 the Whole
| figure, and not only refuse to vote for either of
them, but vote for the candidates who are select
ed to lead the host of Freedom in their warfare
upon the despotsm OF slavery, we net consist
CHLIy WIN Jul IiulCSolOuo vi CUHVGUludliGu OF
slavery, and show our unwilIngness to be trod.
den under foot by the slave power, and suren-
der to them all our polite al rights, according to
the extent of their lain. Now is not this no
ton of choosing between two moral evils lor con
senttg to commit the least Of two moral evils.
or voluntarily consenting 10 aid by our ballots
in committing of what we deem the least of two
moral evils, is not this the contrivance Of the
great Adversary himself to cheat us into par
tlclpaton in moral evils into warfare upon our
own rights, aud upon the rights of our country,
and the rights and happiness of the human race !?
No person or putty has any right or power to
force us into such dilemma. If we thus vote
we do ii voluntarily; we consent to the sin, and
we cannot dimish or ward off our guilt BY saying
that the Serpent beguiIed u.s. Let us, then
flock to the standard of Freedom, and enlist
under the banner of Hale and Julian, the Amer
lean Moses aud Aaron, selected to bring deliy,
erance from bondage.
TITUS HUTCHINSON.
WoodsioCt, Sent. 2lst, 1852,