aches to his language is this,
that every man is bound to treat his slaves, as nearly as he can, like
freemen; and to use all his influence to bring the system of slavery to
an end as soon as possible. And they allow that when men do this they
are free from guilt, in the matter of slavery, and undeserving of
censure.

But men at the North, and men at the South, understand the language used
in its true and proper sense; and Abolitionists have been using these
terms in a new and peculiar sense, which is inevitably and universally
misunderstood, and this is an occasion of much of the strife and alarm
which has prevailed both at the South and at the North. There are none
but these defenders of slavery who maintain that it is a relation
justifiable by the laws of the Gospel, who differ from Abolitionists in
regard to the real thing which is meant. The great mistake of
Abolitionists is in using terms which inculcate the immediate
annihilation of the relation, when they only intend to urge the
Christian duty of treating slaves according to the gospel rules of
justice and benevolence, and using all lawful and appropriate means for
bringing a most pernicious system to a speedy end.

If Abolitionists will only cease to teach that _all_ slave-holding is a
sin which ought to be _immediately abolished_; if they will cease to
urge their plan as one of _immediate emancipation_, and teach simply and
exactly that which they do mean, much strife and misunderstanding will
cease. But so long as they persevere in using these terms in a new and
peculiar sense, which will always be misunderstood, they are guilty of a
species of deception and accountable for the evils that follow.

One other instance of a similar misuse of terms may be mentioned. The
word "man-stealer" has one peculiar signification, and it is no more
synonymous with "slave-holder" than it is with "sheep-stealer." But
Abolitionists show that a slave-holder, in fact, does very many of the
evils that are perpetrated by a man-stealer, and that the crime is quite
as evil in its nature, and very similar in character, and, therefore, he
calls a slave-holder a man-stealer.

On this principle there is no abusive language that may not be employed
to render any man odious--for every man commits sin of some kind, and
every sin is like some other sin, in many respects, and in certain
aggravated cases, may be bad, or even worse, than another sin with a
much more odious name. It is easy