al evil existing in another section of the
country, and the principal point of effort seems to be, to enlarge the
numbers of this association as a means of influencing public sentiment.
The principal object of your proposed tour, I suppose, is to present
facts, arguments, and persuasions to influence northern ladies to enrol
themselves as members of this association.

I will therefore proceed to present some of the reasons which may be
brought against such a measure as the one you would urge.

In the first place, the main principle of action in that society rests
wholly on a false deduction from past experience. Experience has shown,
that when certain moral evils exist in a community, efforts to awaken
public sentiment against such practices, and combinations for the
exercise of personal influence and example, have in various cases tended
to rectify these evils. Thus in respect to intemperance;--the collecting
of facts, the labours of public lecturers and the distribution of
publications, have had much effect in diminishing the evil. So in
reference to the slave-trade and slavery in England. The English nation
possessed the power of regulating their own trade, and of giving liberty
to every slave in their dominions; and yet they were entirely unmindful
of their duty on this subject. Clarkson, Wilberforce, and their
coadjutors, commenced a system of operations to arouse and influence
public sentiment, and they succeeded in securing the suppression of the
slave trade, and the gradual abolition of slavery in the English
colonies. In both these cases, the effort was to enlighten and direct
public sentiment in a community, of which the actors were a portion, in
order to lead them to rectify an evil existing among THEMSELVES, which
was entirely under their control.

From the success of such efforts, the Abolitionists of this country have
drawn inferences, which appear to be not only illogical, but false.
Because individuals in _their own_ community have aroused their fellow
citizens to correct their own evils, therefore they infer that attempts
to convince their fellow-citizens of the faults of _another_ community
will lead that community to forsake their evil practices. An example
will more clearly illustrate the case. Suppose two rival cities, which
have always been in competition, and always jealous of each other's
reputation and prosperity. Certain individuals in one of these cities
become convinced, that the sin of int