Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1862-10-31
The Abolitionists.
Ono OF the abIest Articles that hRi
been Published during the War.
From Harper,s Weekly.

From Harper's Weekly.
There is no word more frequently and
angrily used and less understood than the
word Aboliuionist President Lincoln and
Daniel S. Dickinson, Governor Johnson
and Governor Andrew, Vhurlow Weed aud
Wendell Phillips, are all called by the same
name OF course there is but one point
upon which all these men agree, and that
is, a truly vigorous prosecution of the war.
B ut that is not abolitionism. Emancipation
as means of war may be justified by all
of them but that is not abOlitionism. The
| word Abolitionist desiguates party in the
country whose position and influence have
never been correctly estimated, because its
members have been too much hated to be
fairly treated. Nobody has taken the trou-
BILE to know what they thought or what
they proposed. 1t has been enough that they
were said to be disunionists, but have not
been questions thought to BE worth the
asking, especially by the politicians who
now call their late companions Adolf
tionists, because they insist upon the To-
ion at every cost and who think and call
the open bloody disunionists of the South
| "erFing brethren"
But the history of these times will have
to deal differently with the facts, the inhu-
ences, and the characters which are sum
marily cassed ns "Abolitionism.' For
merely TO call the men known as Abolition
| lists handful of fanatics, incendiaries, and
agitators, explains them and their cause as
much as Sydney Smiths sneering accounts
of Methodism and the Methodists, or
Hume's description of Cromwell and the
Independents, but more. 1t is certain
| " not very complimentary TO the American
people to say that a few bitter fanatics at
the North called Abolitionists, and few
other fanatics at the South called Seces-
sionists, plunged thirty millions of US into
this tremendous civil war. If the individ-
ual James Otis had held his tongue would
there have been no revolution? If John
Hampden bad paid the ship-mOney would
the Stuarts to day be Kings of England?
james Otis and John Hampden were men
who spoke for fundamental aud decisive
principles. When those ideas were in play
those men were Inevitable. II fifty Abo-
| litionists and as many Secessionists had
been hung, think many, there would have
been no trouble But do you think that if
Luther had been hung there would have
been no Reformation? In what conceiva-
bic way was Luther strong or successful
but in being the mouth of those who be-
lieved as he did Unless you could have
| hung the instinct of popular liberty in Eng
land in l640, or the same instinct IN Amer
! lea in 1870, you would have struck but one
| SOLulSG VI Nu hIln5 III ShllhlhS lA7LnpNSu VI
Otis. Unless you could kill Professionalism
you might as we'll spare Luther. And I'M
less you can hang abolitionism you will
hang Abolitionists in vain.
Correctly speaking, the Abolitionists
were, in our history, body of persons
who thought slavery wrong who held
that the Constitution favored it and that
as the system was sure to corrupt the
whites as we'll as imbrute the blacks, there
was no hope for either but in the change
of the Constitution and the dissolution of
the Union of which it was the bond. But
/ they proposed that the change should be
effected peacefully aud legally, By com.
mon consent; and to that end they en-
deavored to show what they considered
the ultimate danger and present wrong of
| the Constitution. This was their "agita-
ton" They opposed violence of every
kind. They werO, many of them, uon-re-
sistants. They did not vote for to vote
was to acknowledge what they thought
wicked Constitution. They did not ap-
prove the method, but OILY the PHrpose of
John Brown aud they said to the rest of
US, "You who believe in force have no
right to blame him tor helping others to
| do what you. praise our fathers for doing
in the Revolution" They believed that
immediate emancipation was desirable, but
they aimed to achieve it solely by infuen-
cling public opinion through that perfect
freedom of discussion which the Constitu-
ton guaranteed. Some among them-but
very feW-Were more vehement, and some
times attempted to resist the law, as in
Boston at the Burns capture. But the Per-
sonal Liberty bills, although the Adolf
zionist approved and advocated them, were
passed by Legislatures in which no Adolf
zionist sat, because no AbolitIonist could
swear to support the Constitution and the
laws of the United States.
Abolitionism, justly understood, was thus
purely moral power. 1t sought moral
end solely by moral means. 1t was fierce,
vituperatiye, and denunciatiYe but so has !
every party been. It's leaders deliberately |
resigned all the prizes of worldly ambition,
and accepted the contumely beaped upon
them by both the greatparties in the couu-
try. Republican and Democrat equally es-
chewed the name or suspicion of abolition
ism. And justly so. For the Democrats
were in political alliance with slavery, and |
the Republicans differed fundamentally |
from the AbolitiOntsts in their interpreta-