Richmond enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1815-1867, 1861-02-22
Enr The Eno,Jir.r
To the Hon. Abraham Lincoln, President


more fcSpOuSlOlc LOT tllc origin vi slavery than
We arc, acknowledge the fact. When it is
said that the institution exists, and that it is
very difficult to get rid OF it in any satisfac.
tory way, can understand and appreciate the
saying. | surely will not blame them for not
doing what should not know how to do nv.
sell. If all earthly power were given Inc, I
should not know what to do with the existing
institution. My first impulse would be to send
them to Liberia; but tnomentary reflection,
would convince me, that, whatever OF high
hope there may be in this, in the long run, its
sudden execution is impossible. If all landed
there in day, they would all perish in tho
next ten. What then? Free them and keep
them among US US underlings; is it certain that
this will better their condition! think |
would not hold one in slavery at any rate; vet,
the point is not clear enough for me to de.
nounce people upon. What nextt Free them
and make them, politically and socially, cur
equals? Ny orn feelings will not admit OF
this; and, if mine would, we we'll know that
those of the great mass Of white people will
not We cannot then make them equals. 1t
seems to me that systems of gradual emanci-
patton might be adopted but, for their tardi-
ness in this, will not undertake to Judge our
brethren of the South When they remind
US of their constitutional rights, acknow
ledge them not grudgingly, but fully and
fairly; and would give any le9islation
for the retaining Of the fugitives, which
should not, in its Stringency, be more like
ly to carry free men into slavery than onr
ordinary criminal laws arc to hang an innocent
one. Some men, mostly Wings, who condemn
the repeal of the Missouri compromise, never
theless, hesitate to so for its restoration, lest
they be thrown in company with the abolition
lists"
''Will they allow me as an old Wing, to tell
them good humoredly, that think this is very
silly. Stand with any body that stands right;
stand with him while he is right, and part
with him when lie goes wrong. Stand wih
the abolitonisst in restoring the Missouri coln-
promise; and stand against him when he at.
lemptS 10 repeal the fugitive slave law In the
latter case, You stand with the Southern dis
unioniSt. What Of that? You are still right;
in both caseS you oppose the dangerous e3-
tre'nes; i'll both you stand on middle ground,
and hold the ship level and steady; in both you
are national, and nothing less than NATIONAL
This is good old Wing ground. To desert such
ground, because Of any company, is TO be less
than a Whig-leSS than 4 tnan-lesS than an
American"-i Extracts FROM Mr.. Lincoln's
speech ut Peoria, Oct IL, 1854.
Your friends say that your opinions or these
questions have undergone no change You have
earned for yourself the soRbriqaet Of honest
Abraham Lincoln, and if YOU deserve it, which
we have no reason to doubt, aud your friends
have made this declaration Of your opinions by
your authority, We cannot in charity doubt it.
In addressing these remarks to you | would
not have you to think that intend to tlatter
you. At no time, especially in times like tho
present, would "tiattcr Neptune for his trident,
or Jore for his power to thunder" not to fat
ter you, but to do you justice is nay wish.-
Your conservative opinions, as quoted above,
was stranger to I'll. after the election"
like the air Of candor sincerity aud honesty
which Seems to pcrvade them. They seem to
me to have the tone OF one who does not, like
Talleyrand, believe that Language was given
to him to enable him 10 conceal his opinions.
learn, too, that you arc a son OF Virginia, or
Of Eirginias bosom daughter, Kentucky
A wits feather, aud chiefs rod,
An honest mans tho noblest work Of God.
1t shocks all common sense" to suppose that
you, an honest man, would wound the heart OF
the mother who gave you birth. cannot be.
lieve that you would 10 this, or that my old
friend and early prrccptor, the aniable Z. B.,
of NJ, would either. The fact is just this, you
and my old friend E. B. belong TO the old school.
Bu;--tsmpora mutanter CT nos mutamur in ills
Il think you both have been rather slow in
adapting yourselves to the change Of the times,
but for this, to use your own words, 1--WE
should not undertake 10 judge you"
We should be prepared to conccda much to
the prejudices of education, much 10 the pride
Of opinion, which makes it very hard, indeed,
for poor human nature TO acknowledge an
error even when convinced Of it. You, as ]
have been informed, since the election. were
in your carly days, 0pupil Of Charles Tackett
of the county vi Stafford, in the State OF fir-
gina BY the way, have been 1T Mr. Tackctts
school, have known quite number OF his
pupils, and. have observed that they We're
almost, without an exception, men of the
Washingtouan stamp Of educution-
mot gawkies, taupet, gowks and fools,
Frse colleges and boarding schools
reckoners, skiliul surveyors, smart clerks,
upright magistrates, and creditable repre-
sentatives in the Legislature. The men
of your age will very well remember the
school books which were put in the hands
of boys in those days, some Of them contain
ing abolition sentiments, which. in the present
day, would consign them 10 the flames in any
Southern State-Scott's Lessons, for instance,
containing extracts from Cowper on slavery,
&C., &C., which any one who has touch oil
the sentimental will acknowledge to be poetry
of i high order, but, while yielding his homage
to the poetical talent of the author, would be
constrained to acknowledge that it was all at
the expense Of that common sense which is our
surest guide in the everyday transactions OF
life. Poor Cowper! He uttered his sentiments
against slavery, without rejecting that he,
poor poet, flor poets are always poor,) was
wearing cotton Shirt, the product Of slave Ia
Dor; or that be, 4 dispeptic, (becsuse poet 10,
therefore, Il dispeptic) was rartaking OF dish
of slave grown rice. lie seemed to forget
that slave labor at that time, eighty years ago,
was as necessary 10 the comfort OF man every
where, as the trade Of the butcher to the COM
fort Of the city-as the practice OF dissection
10 skill in medicine anu surgery against each
of which the narrow-minded and illlbera may
attempt to get up prejudice. He seemed TO
forget that his own government, to which as a
loyal Briton he owed the devout homage OF MS
heart, was then planting her iron heel on the
PROSTATE millions Of devoted India. de forgot
the history of the coal.hre which was warming
him. Had he not, he could have very easily
descended from his warm chambers into the
bowels Of the earth, taken the pick-axe from
the hands of the collier, born and raised in the
cavern where he was working, and have sent
him out to behold the cheerful light 0! that
Heaven which he had never before SEEN.
But enough Of this! Let by-gones be by
cones St Domingo and Jamaica point moral;
The five millions Of British subjects, who would
starve without cotton, point moral. The COM
pass of earth and sea which England makes to
ret this cotton points moral-so does the
acknowledgement of her great error in the
emancipation of jamaica sc. So does her pro-
poaition to make mere machinery OF the Coolies
Much as has been said about your probable
course on this subject, (lnuch as you may have
been misreprescnted,) | see no reason from
your published opinions, why you should de,