eedom. But, however great a good,
abolitionists might deem the separation of the white and black races,
and however deeply they might be impressed with the power of slavery to
promote this separation, they nevertheless, dare not "do evil, that good
may come:"--they dare not seek to promote this separation, at the
fearful expense of upholding, or in anywise, countenancing a
humanity-crushing and God-defying system of oppression.
Another charge against the abolitionists is implied in the inquiry you
make, _whether since they do not "furnish in their own families or
persons examples of intermarriage, they intend to contaminate the
industrious and laborious classes of society of the North by a revolting
admixture of the black element."_
This inquiry shows how difficult it is for southern minds, accustomed as
they have ever been to identify labor with slavery, to conceive the true
character and position of such "classes" at the North; and also how
ignorant they are of the composition of our Anti-Slavery societies. To
correct your misapprehensions on these points, I will briefly say, in
the first place, that the laborers of the North are freemen and not
slaves;--that they marry whom they please, and are neither paired nor
unpaired to suit the interests of the breeder, or seller, or buyer, of
human stock:--and, in the second place, that the abolitionists, instead
of being a body of persons distinct from "the industrious and laborious
classes," do, more than nineteen twentieths of them, belong to those
"classes." You have fallen into great error in supposing, that
_abolitionists_ generally belong to the wealthy and aristocratic
classes. This, to a great extent, is true of _anti-abolitionists_. Have
you never heard the boast, that there have been anti-abolition mobs,
which consisted of "gentlemen of property and standing?"
You charge upon abolitionists "_the purpose to create a pinching
competition between black labor and white labor;" and add, that "on the
supposition of abolition the black class, migrating into the free
states, would enter into competition with the white class, diminishing
the wages of their labor_."
In making this charge, as well as in making that which immediately
precedes it, you have fallen into the error, that abolitionists do not
belong to "the industrious and laborious classes." In point of fact, the
abolitionists belong so generally to these classes, that if your charge
be true, they must have
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