Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-08-11
0be Antt- 5Iauerp Buolc.
LETTER FROM GERRIT SMITH.
The following extracts are from recent letter
VI Gerr; Smith to Frederick DOuglass.l


VI Gerri; Smith to Frederick Dougass.l
The cause of Temperance is PROSTATE. Who
prostratcd it Its professcd friends. Howy By
triaing with it, and ramplng it under foot at the
pole. BY voting for candidates whom they knew
10 be in favor of licensing the sale of Intoxicating
liquors for beverage. No man, who belev in
the rightfulness of such sale, is fit for any political
office. For the sole legitimate end Of every such
Office is protection Of the people: and hence they
and they only, who love to be and study TO be
their protectors arc fit for such Office But are
they such protectors, who license the dramshops
that mandatory not of drunkard's and paupers
only, but also of madmen, murdorers and every
other sort of criminals Certainly not As well
might we elect Shareholders to political office. nd
how unfit they who buy and sell peosle are to be
entrusted with the protection Of the people, does
surely not need to be argued. Nevertheless these
friends of Temperance yielding to other interests
and paraking Of the frenzy OF party politics. rush
80 the polls to vote for drunkards and drunkard
makers. The seller himself is not more
responsible drunkard maker than is he who licen.
him. And if here there is an earnest man,
whose conscience sternly fOrbids such prostitution
Of suffrage, he is scoffed at by these friends Of
Temperance as fanatic or Sol. They are ever
proclaiming that the dram sho2s is the greatest of
all rses:-and yet they ever voting to main
tain it. Is this their matchess iufatuation or their
amazing hypocrisy?
like treachery explains the like low condition
of the anti-shvery cause. Abolitonists have
from year to year voted against it, until at last
there are fewer Abolitonis.s than there have been
at any time within twenty years The mass Of
those, who once intent on abolishng slavery
every where, do not 60 now for its abolition any
where. The calculating policy Of nonex-
tention has taken the place uf the uncompI pIomsing
principle Of abolition,
In the year l644 more than sizty thousand men
voted for James G. Bifney. They would have re.
fused to 90 So had he not been opposed to the
returning of fugitive slaves to the continuance Of
slavery in the District of CulumLia to the contin-
nance Of tho slave trade between the States; and
80 the admission Of slave States But ere four
years had gone by another spiri; had entered into
;hem; ard now even Martin Van Burea, with all
his pro-slavery sins upon him. it to be voted
for by men, who had 50 recently concentrated
their votes to that repentant ehoder-thnt sub,
Timely pure and just man-Jam5s q. Brney. o.
these sixty thousand probably not one thousand
would now demand in iher can ldate the qnaIif.
cations which they demanded in 1911. WAC OF
all the sixty thousand would have voted as he did
had Bi-ney avowei himself in favor Of u white
mans party, or Of any however slight discrimiDa-
tion against the Llack man in the whole multitude
Of political tights? But now how very few Of
them oil would withhold their votes from their
candidate because of such atheistic ngownl or
his part2 | say atheiSc - for what is palmer
than that he who makes it does not believe in the
God who made of one blood all nutions?' Very
few of the sixty thousand but would now denouucc
candidate foolish or fanatical for placing him
self on any OF those high grounds on which Birney
stood forth so openly and firmly and molly. Now
the sixty thousand cali for cunning in their cand
date Then they insisted on integrity. Then the
candidate must be grandly moral as well as grand
ly intellectual in order to lie worthy Of their votes
Now he must know how to shape his creed to the
popular favor and be skilled in contrivances to
get votes. Thus increasingly rapid are the down.
ward steps in morals.
What mighty host would the sixty thousand
have become had they not fallen into the fatal
error Of giving up truth for numbers They
were impatient for succcss-no. knowing that they
already had it, and would coutinue to have il so
long as they adhered to principle. For not only
is it true that such adherence works out and sur-
rounds itself with every success, but that it is it.
self the highest form of success. The sixty thous
and had grown from seven thousand In four years
far less rate of progress would have put the
Government Of the country into their hands long
ere this :ime. Evil the hour in which they
listened to the proposal to purchase speedy victory
at tho price of their principles The price was
paid, But no victory and no good came in re-
turn. Thanks for the eternal ordination that n
good can be purchased at such price
The rotrogradaton of Northern Legislatures in
respect to slavery illustrates the decline of North
ern sentiment on that subject.
Vermont is acknowledged to be the most anti
slavery of all the States. But would her present
Legislature resolve by even bare majority in
favor of abolishing the inter State slave trades or
slavery in the District Of Columbia; or in favor of
refusing the admission of new slave States Tho
disastrous effect of such Resolutions on the coming
election would be an efectual plea against them.
Nevertheless in 1888 her Senate voted in favor Of
all these, and her Assembly by such an ovcrwhel-
ming acclamation, that no negatives were called
for.
The only Anti-Slavery to be found in any of the
present Parties is 40 unsteady opposition to the
establishment of slavery in Territory. Occa-
sionally surrendered, it must be also renewed to
the end that an apparent. albeit we'll nigh irfnit-
esimal. difference may be kept up between the Re,
publican and other parties on the question of sa-
very. Republican voter needs to hear and say
something now and then against Territorial slave
ry. not only to prevent others from confounding
him with Douglas Democrat but to preserve the
hairs breadth difference in his own conciousness.
At every other point than this OF territorial slavery
all the parties allow slavery it's full swing. And
how inconsistent aud vain would be even an earn