ve the South extensively,
whilst their influence is counteracted by a pro-slavery spirit at the
North. How vain would be the attempt to reform the drunkards of your
town of Lexington, whilst the sober in it continue to drink intoxicating
liquors! The first step in the reformation is to induce the sober to
change their habits, and create that total abstinence-atmosphere, in the
breathing of which, the drunkard lives,--and, for the want of which, he
dies. The first step, in the merciful work of delivering the slaveholder
from his sin, is similar. It is to bring him under the influence of a
corrected public opinion--of an anti-slavery sentiment:--and they, who
are to be depended on to contribute to this public opinion--to make up
this anti-slavery sentiment--are those, who are not bound up in the iron
habits, and blinded by the mighty interests of the slaveholder. To
depend on slaveholders to give the lead to public opinion in the
anti-slavery enterprise, would be no less absurd, than to begin the
temperance reformation with drunkards, and to look to them to produce
the influences, which are indispensable to their own redemption.

You say of the abolitionists, _that "they are in favor of
amalgamation."_

The Anti-Slavery Society is, as its name imports, a society to oppose
slavery--not to "make matches." Whether abolitionists are inclined to
amalgamation more than anti-abolitionists are, I will not here take upon
myself to decide. So far, as you and I may be regarded as
representatives of these two parties, and so far as our marriages argue
our tastes in this matter, the abolitionists and anti-abolitionists may
be set down, as equally disposed to couple white with white and black
with black--for our wives, as you are aware, are both white. I will here
mention, as it may further argue the similarity in the matrimonial
tastes of abolitionists and anti-abolitionists, the fact so grateful to
us in the days, when we were "workers together" in promoting the "scheme
of Colonization," that our wives are natives of the same town.

I have a somewhat extensive acquaintance at the North; and I can truly
say, that I do not know a white abolitionist, who is the reputed father
of a colored child. At the South there are several hundred thousand
persons, whose yellow skins testify, that the white man's blood courses
through their veins. Whether the honorable portion of their parentage is
to be ascribed exclusively to the few abolitionist