her than kindly
feelings. If I have spoken at all with apparent harshness, it has been
of principles rather than of men. But I deprecate no censure. Conscious
of the honest and patriotic motives which have prompted their avowal, I
cheerfully leave my sentiments to their fate. Despised and contemned as
they may be, I believe they cannot be gainsaid. Sustained by the truth
as it exists in Nature and Revelation, sanctioned by the prevailing
spirit of the age, they are yet destined to work out the political and
moral regeneration of our country. The opposition which they meet with
does not dishearten me. In the lofty confidence of John Milton, I
believe that "though all the winds of doctrine be let loose upon the
earth, so Truth be among them, we need not fear. Let her and Falsehood
grapple; whoever knew her to be put to the worst in a free and open
encounter?"

HAVERHILL, MASS., 29th of 7th Mo., 1833.

LETTER TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL.

HAVERHILL, 10th of 1st Mo., 1834.

SAMUEL E. SEWALL, ESQ.,
Secretary New England A. S. Society

DEAR FRIEND,--I regret that circumstances beyond my control will not
allow of my attendance at the annual meeting of the New England Anti-
Slavery Society.

I need not say to the members of that society that I am with them, heart
and soul, in the cause of abolition; the abolition not of physical
slavery alone, abhorrent and monstrous as it is, but of that intellectual
slavery, the bondage of corrupt and mistaken opinion, which has fettered
as with iron the moral energies and intellectual strength of New England.

For what is slavery, after all, but fear,--fear, forcing mind and body
into unnatural action? And it matters little whether it be the terror of
the slave-whip on the body, or of the scourge of popular opinion upon the
inner man.

We all know how often the representatives of the Southern division of the
country have amused themselves in Congress by applying the opprobrious
name of "slave" to the free Northern laborer. And how familiar have the
significant epithets of "white slave" and "dough-face" become!

I fear these epithets have not been wholly misapplied. Have we not been
told here, gravely and authoritatively, by some of our learned judges,
divines, and politicians, that we, the free people of New England, have
no right to discuss the subject of slavery? Freemen, and no right to
suggest the duty or the policy of a practical adherence to the doctrines
of that