hat they may, that
moment you make him a vagabond, a thief, and a murderer, whom nothing
will satisfy but the blood of those who had been so "fanatical and
insane" as to treat him like a human being. Whence this opinion is
derived, no one can tell; for it is in direct opposition to reason,
common sense, the nature of the human mind, and is entirely
unsustained by facts. Indeed, so far as the evidence of facts is
concerned, the advocates of immediate abolition have a complete
monopoly. All experience proves two things, viz., the entire safety
of immediate emancipation, and that all danger has arisen from its
indefinite postponement; for this is really the true definition of
gradual emancipation.
We all know the results of slavery in Greece and Rome. Troy perished
by her slaves in a single night; and as like causes always produce
like effects, our obligations to our slaveholding brethren
imperiously demand that we should urge on them, in the most earnest
manner, the duty of immediately abolishing slavery as their only hope
of safety,--the only means by which they can escape the just
judgments of God. The safety of immediate emancipation has been
proved by Buenos Ayres in 1816, Colombia in 1821, Guatemala in 1824,
Peru and Chili in 1828, Mexico in 1829, and especially on the 1st of
August, 1834, when 800,000 slaves were set free in a single day in
the British West India Islands; and thus far, not a single life has
been lost, not a drop of blood shed, in consequence of that
beneficent and righteous act. The consequences of holding slaves in
bondage, and refusing to emancipate them, have always been
disastrous. In our present exemption from slavery in the Free States,
we have no cause of boasting, but rather of deep humiliation. We are
all involved in the guilt, and must share in the punishment, unless
timely and thorough repentance avert the impending blow. To do this
effectually, information must be spread, the spirit of inquiry
aroused, the temple of God be purified, and "the book of law be read
in the ears of all the people," that thus the gross mistakes and
misapprehensions which everywhere exist on the subject of slavery and
its abolition may be corrected.
Of these mistakes, no one is more prevalent or more dangerous than
the one just mentioned, that insurrection, rapine and bloodshed are
the necessary consequences of immediate emancipation; and that the
only way to avert the evils and the curse of slavery, is to
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