, 1859-06-24

March 26th), TO the careful attention OF
orr readers. While we are satisfied that
It's argumentative style cannot bnt please
every inquiring mind, we feel sure that its
conclusions will meet with an affirmative
response from every lover Of his country ::
-IImss.
BosroN, March l6, 1859
Dear Brothsr-I have read your speech
Of the 2lst ult., delivered in the House of
Representatives. Ithas points of consider
able smariness, and will be praised by your
partisans as a very clever effort bur l see
no other effect that it can produce but to
irrtate the South. and ALLEVIATE one section
Of the Uniou still more from the other
Have we not at the North stimulated our
own self-righteOusness, in contrast with the
sins Of the South, quite mp TO, or beyond
the healthy point? Would it not be well
for us, for time, to look more at our own
failings and at the virtues Of our brethren
at the South 7
You speak Of the change of tone and
sentiment that has taken place during the
last twenty-five years OH the subject Of sla-
very. plead guilty to the truth Of this
charge. 1t was one of the dreams Of my
early life, that the condition Of mankind
might be greatly improved by Sudden po.
litical changes. Tue cry Of the slave came
to my youthful ear, waited by the eloquent
breath Of eye-witnesSes, from Virginia aud
New Jersey. Almost every man at the
South, at that time, admitted that slavery
was an evil, moral social, and political !;
the horrors Of the middle passage, the bar
baran cruelties of Jamaica, came 10 us
across the ocean. Wilberforce aud Clark
sou had acquired o worldwide fame by
their singular devotion to the abolition Of
the slave trade; the assault was soon made
upou slavery itself in the British West In
dies, and the lst of August, 1888, was cn-
tered in the calendar as one Of tue holy
days Of the year.
Campbell painted the wild chieftain on
his native plains, so noble, so free, so hap
py-caught, chained, doomed, suffering,
till the hurricanes in the West Indies were
commissioned TO avenge his wrongs. The
plaintive Cowper wept out his compassion
in the touching lines, would not have a
slave for all the gold that sinews bought
and sold have earned )" aud these tones
Of suffering, Of compassion Of pity, were
echoed by every harp, and re-echoed by
orator and preacher, till the whole atmos-
phere of New England was vocal with the
cries Of the slave. have done my full
share of it but greater men have been
mistaken, and have in ripper years been
compelled to revise and revoke the opiu-
p RI
raptured with the voice OF Liberty, as she
cried from across the channel; but in the
full strength of his manhood, he was COM
PEELED to denounce the crimes committed in
her name. Sir james Mcintosh wrote his
Findcial Gallice )" but was compelled
BY longer experience and wider obscr-
Vatlon, to cancel the opinions Of early life
by those Of maturer years. am compelled
to cancel many things that have said on
the subject OF slavery, aud substitute for
them the opinions OF ripper age. l might
nave once said what, or nearly what, you
nave said in your late speech in Congress :;
though think l should have left out those
portions which serve no other. end than
Simp py 10 irritate, without convincing. But
my convictions at the present time are, not
only that the shareholders have a complete
vindication of their present position, but
they are entitled to be looked upon as
benefactors to the country aud to the hu-
mau race
The only ground on which l can claim
tnelr patience and forbearance toward Us
mteddling with their affairs, and for abusing
tnem as much as we have, and as some still
continue to do, is this They gave us the
Ialse premises on which We reasoned cor
Iec'ly to false conclusions They gave
away their case by concession; for if sla-
very be sin, a wrong, or an evil, no fair
mlHa can resist the conclusion that efforts
Hsusht TO be made as soon as possible to do
away. This philosophy that slavery is
wrong, sprang up in Virginia, and was
Euop'ed and encouraged in nearly all the
sla'e states and the seed was thence in
soIuexion with the correct and grand prin-
s,Ples OF human government, scattered wide
O'er the free States. They have had their
growth, and now it is not little difficult to
PSn them up but they shall take the
wheat with them also
AnS South are impregnable The con-