Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-09-29
tours,
FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS,
CINCINNATI, Sept. 90, 1860

Mr.. MARIus r. ROBINSON, SALEM, ONO:
Having learned from the columns of the Stan.
dard' that you will have an anti.slavery meeting
on the End send you the warm greeting of an
anti-slavery heart. You are engaged in a work
which meets my hearty approval. l would that |
could be with you when the friends of the slave
assemble together. To the shame of the Queen
City be it said, active abolitionists are few and
far between Men strangely hesitate to step up
on that elevated platform where Pitt and Fox and
Wilberforce once stood; where Lord Brougham,
Victor Hugo ard our great American leaders now
stanG-the broad platform of equal rights to all.
But stEeakings of the morning light appear in the
horizon. The fash of the Marines, muskets at
llarper's Ferry awoke many sleeping anti-slavery
men, and the click of the drop on John Browns
scafold awoke many more. Let US then be up
and doing
have great faith in humanity. The tendency
OF the human race is upward. Whether Tho 'deyel.
opment theory be true or not, whether man is
but the aJworing out of lower grade Of animated
nature, | will not say. But humanity from its
creation TO the present limo has ever been mount
ing upward. One discovery serves as tho stepping
etone to another. Man will never rest while there
is an Alpine height to scale. The appetite for
knowledge is as powerful now as when our great
ancestor ate the forbidden fruit; the soul too keeps
pace with the intellect; once low, grovelling, cruel
and Gigotcd, now elevated, sympathetic, loving
and liberal; once feebly stretching gu: its hands
and exeiaiming show me Cod; now ir close com.
munion with the Father of Lights. The soul will
seek it: God as inevitably az the Phoenix was ia.
Iln1 IN Sank tho a,,n. fooJo-, 1-o-. a.o. I--l
in hand with her sisters, civilization and educa-
ton. The hands on The dial of civilization are
gradually moving toward the light hours; the
world is slowly but surely being emancipated; a
few hundred years ago We frd the rack, the
thumbscrew, the stake. Men, then as now, were
enslaved. Sooth-saying, astrology and every spc.
cies of mummery hoodwinked arc deluded the
people. Even later in New England, intellectual,
ireedom'loving New England, slaves we're bought
and sold. Now marx the Inference. The thumb
screw has rusted and the rack rot:ed away. Wild:
ows have been cut in tho prisoners cell. The air
of New England is no longer loaded with groans
of b%ondmen, but instead, it thrills with the elo-
quence of Phillips and Emerson. Capital punish
ment, that grim relic of a cruel age, will socn we
trust, cease to pain our eyes with it's CHASTITY spec
tacle. Has not the march of humanity been on.
ward, grandly onward ? And may we not hope
tina. as education and civilization pour their more
direct rays on the dark and hideo us institution of
African Slavery, it too must fall, and four millions
be added to the roll of freemen.
The greatest attention in the pathway of aboli-
tionism is the Republican party. No earnest
heated anti-slavery man can support it. 1t is the
South's best FRIEND it is S!avery's body guard.
The South hitche6 to the steeds of its own fanati-
cisth would dash itself to pieces, but the Republi-
can party rushes out to save it. All that nboli:
t%ionists ask, is for gentlemen to stand from under
Palsied be the hand that shall be lifted TO arrest
the South in her ruinous career. Away with the
Republican party and it's 'slaye.hound' candidate
who could seize the fugitive slave, whenever the
striped rag Of the Union gave him authority, even
beneath the shade Of the National Capital itself.
This will be my first Presidential vote, bat how
can l cast il for Abraham Lincoln / have no
sympathy with this lacrymose, spivelling, seDti-
mental, cushion'chair philanthropy which stays
within doors and accomplishes nothing. A man
may mourn over the unhappy state Of the slave
until he is gray, Aye shed tears enough to float the
Great Eastern, but he aids tho cause not half so
much as he who guides one poor Fugitive to Victo'
ria's free dominions. Action ID the law of nature.
God has allowed us but one day in seven for rest.
We must work if we would not defeat the end OF
our existence.
The abolitionists have been. %skulking too long
behind the false banners of Republicanism. Let
us stand apart from that organization which vies
with the South ia heaeing denuncia.ions on the
brave old hero Of Harper's Ferry. Let as act
then; let us have anti-slavery societies, anti-slavery
presses, and anti-slavery meetings; and for one, !
would like to see an anti-slavery electoral ticket,
headed with Gerrit Smith and Samuel Mcfarland.
/ believe such a move would unite the abolitionists
in a defNite struggle, and increase odr rAcrai
strength in the community.