Delaware State journal and statesman., 1862-11-04
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From Harper's Weekly.
The Abolitio mist.

There is no word more frequently and angry
used and less understood thnu the word Abou-
ZIONIST. President Lincoln AID Daniel s. Dick
inson, Governor johnson and Governor Andrew.
Thurlow Weed and Wendell Phillips, are Mi
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.
But that is not aholitcnsm. Emancipation as
means Of war may be justified by all of them ;
but that is not abolitionism The word Abo.
zionist designates party in the country whose
position and influence have never been cortectlv
estimated, because its members have been too
much hated 10 he fairly treated Nobody has
taken the trouble to know what they thought or
what they proposed 1t has been enough that
they were said to be disunionists. What Bind
Of disunionists, or why dsunionists, have not
been questions thought to be worth the asking,
especially by the politicians who now call their
late companions Abotionists, because they in.
s.st upon the Union at every cost and who mink
aud call the open bloody disunionists of tue South
"errng brethren"
But the history of these times will have Ia
deal differently with the facts, the influences, end
the characters which are sunmarily classcd a.
Abolliuuism." For merely to call the men
known as Aholionists a handful of fanatics, in.
cendiaries, and agitators. explains them and their
cause as mach as Sydney Smiths sneerinr ac-
counts OF Meihodism and Metholists or Hume's
description OF Cromwell and the Independents
but no moe. 1t Is certainly not very cotnpli.
lnentary to the American people to saw that +,
few bitter fanatics at the North called Abolition.
lists, and few other fanatics at the South eallsd
Secessonists, plunged thirty millions of us into
this tremendous civil war; II the individual
James OTIS had held his tongue would there Inv,
been no Revolutionl If John Hampton had
paid the ship money would the Stuarts to-day be
Kings Of England? James Otis and John lIamp
den were but men who spoke for funltmenta
aud decisive principles When those ideas wer,
in play those men were inevitable. If fifty Ab1
litionists and rs many Secessionisis had beer
hung, think many, there would have been Ii,
trouble. But do you think that if Luther hal
been hung there would have been no Reforma
ton? ln what conceivable way was Luther
strong or successful but in being the mouth ol
those who believed as be did, Unless you could
have hung the instinct of popular liberty in Eng.
mud in l64O or the game instinct ia America ia
100 you would have struck but Que soldier of
an army in striking Hampdeu or Oils. Unless
you could kill Professionalism you might Ms well
spare Luther. And unless you can hang abo-
litOnism you will hang Aboltionists in vain
Correctly speaking, the Abolitonists were, in
our history, a body Of persons who thought sla-
very wrong who held that the Constitution
favored it and that as the system was sure to
corrupt the whites as well as imbrule the blncks.
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 pro-