most all
attempts for their emancipation or even improvement. All this was
natural, though it was all, under the circumstances, of no avail, except
to rouse the spirit of the mother country, and to endanger the result of
the experiment of emancipation, by exasperating the feelings of the
slaves. Precisely similar has been the result of the efforts of the
American abolitionists as regards the slaveholders of America. They have
produced a state of alarming exasperation at the South, injurious to the
slave and dangerous to the country, while they have failed to enlist the
feelings of the North. This failure has resulted, not so much from
diversity of opinion on the abstract question of slavery; or from want
of sympathy among Northern men in the cause of human rights, as from the
fact, that the common sense of the public has been shocked by the
incongruity and folly of hoping to effect the abolition of slavery in
one country, by addressing the people of another. We do not expect to
abolish despotism in Russia, by getting up indignation meetings in New
York. Yet for all the purposes of legislation on this subject, Russia is
not more a foreign country to us than South Carolina. The idea of
inducing the Southern slaveholder to emancipate his slaves by
denunciation, is about as rational as to expect the sovereigns of Europe
to grant free institutions, by calling them tyrants and robbers. Could
we send our denunciations of despotism among the subjects of those
monarchs, and rouse the people to a sense of their wrongs and a
determination to redress them, there would be some prospect of success.
But our Northern abolitionists disclaim, with great earnestness, all
intention of allowing their appeals to reach the ears of the slaves. It
is, therefore, not to be wondered at, that the course pursued by the
anti-slavery societies, should produce exasperation at the South,
without conciliating sympathy at the North. The impolicy of their
conduct is so obvious, that men who agree with them as to all their
leading principles, not only stand aloof from their measures, but
unhesitatingly condemn their conduct. This is the case with Dr.
Channing. Although his book was written rather to repress the feeling of
opposition to these societies, than to encourage it, yet he fully admits
the justice of the principal charges brought against them. We extract a
few passages on the subject. "The abolitionists have done wrong, I
believe; nor is their wrong