opted by those at the North
who oppose their _measures_. In this you are not correctly informed. In
the sense in which Abolitionists explain the terms they employ, there is
little, if any, difference between them and most northern persons.
Especially is this true of northern persons of religious principles. I
know not where to look for northern Christians, who would deny that
every slave-holder is bound to treat his slaves exactly as he would
claim that his own children ought to be treated in similar
circumstances; that the holding of our fellow men as property, or the
withholding any of the rights of freedom, for mere purposes of gain, is
a sin, and ought to be immediately abandoned; and that where the laws
are such, that a slave-holder cannot _legally_ emancipate his slaves,
without throwing them into worse bondage, he is bound to use all his
influence to alter those laws, and, in the meantime, to treat his slaves,
as nearly as he can, _as if_ they were free.

I do not suppose there is one person in a thousand, at the North, who
would dissent from these principles. They would only differ in the use
of terms, and call this the doctrine of _gradual emancipation_, while
Abolitionists would call it the doctrine of _immediate emancipation_.

As this is the state of public opinion at the North, there is no
necessity for using any influence with northern ladies, in order that
they may adopt your _principles_ on the subject of slavery; for they
hold them in common with yourself, and it would seem unwise, and might
prove irritating, to approach them as if they held opposite sentiments.

In regard to the duty of making efforts to bring the people of the
Southern States to adopt these principles, and act on them, it is
entirely another matter. On this point you would find a large majority
opposed to your views. Most persons in the non-slave-holding States have
considered the matter of Southern slavery, as one in which they were no
more called to interfere, than in the abolition of the press-gang system
in England, or the tythe system of Ireland. Public opinion may have been
wrong on this point, and yet have been right on all those great
principles of rectitude and justice relating to slavery, which
Abolitionists claim as their _distinctive_ peculiarities.

The distinctive peculiarity of the Abolition Society is this: it is a
voluntary association in one section of the country, designed to awaken
public sentiment against a mor