veholder
himself, are now not only refusing to take another step in that
inconsistent and wicked way, but are repenting deeply of that, which
they have already taken in it.

Much as you dislike, not to say _dread_, abolition action at "the
ballot-box," I presume, that I need not spend any time in explaining to
you the inconsistency of which an abolitionist is guilty, who votes for
an upholder of slavery. A wholesome citizen would not vote fur a
candidate for a law maker, who is in favor of laws, which authorize
gaming-houses or _groggeries_. But, in the eye of one, who his attempted
to take the "guage and dimensions" of the hell of slavery, the laws,
which authorize slaveholding, far transcend in wickedness, those, which
authorize gaming-houses or _groggeries_. You would not vote for a
candidate for a law-maker, who is in favor of "the sub-treasury system."
But compared with the evil of slavery, what is that of the most
pernicious currency scheme ever devised? It is to be "counted as the
small dust of the balance." If you would withhold your vote in the case
supposed--how gross in your eyes must be the inconsistency of the
abolitionist, who casts his vote on the side of the system of
fathomless iniquity!

I have already remarked on "the third" of the "impediments" or
"obstacles" to emancipation, which you bring to view. _"The first
impediment," you say, "is the utter and absolute want of all power on
the part of the General Government to effect the purpose."_

But because there is this want on the part of the General Government, it
does not follow, that it also exists on the part of the States: nor does
it follow, that it also exists on the part of the slaveholders
themselves. It is a poor plea of your neighbor for continuing to hold
his fellow man in slavery, that neither the Federal Government nor the
State of Kentucky has power to emancipate them. Such a plea is about as
valid, as that of the girl for not having performed the task, which her
mistress had assigned to her. "I was tied to the table." "Who tied you
there?" "I tied myself there."

_"The next obstacle," you say, "in the way of abolition arises out of
the fact of the presence in the slave states of three millions
of slaves."_

This is, indeed a formidable "obstacle:" and I admit, that it is as much
more difficult for the impenitent slaveholder to surmount it, than it
would be if there were but one million of slaves, as it is for the
impenitent thief