In 8th month of the same year, the same paper contained the following extract from another correspondent in North Carolina.
—— N. C. July 9, 1834.
‘Rev. and dear Sir—If I owe an apology for intruding on you, and introducing myself, I must find it in the fact, that I wish to bid you God speed in the good cause in which you are so heartily engaged. While so many at the North are opposing, I wish to cheer you by one voice from the South. If it is unpopular to plead the cause of the oppressed negro in New York, how dangerous to be known as his friend in the far South, where, as a correspondent in the Evangelist justly observes, a minister cannot enforce the law of love, without being suspected of favoring emancipation. I am glad the people with you are beginning to feel and to act. I pray God that you may go on with all the light and love of the gospel, and that the cry of ‘Let us alone,’ will not frighten you from your labor of love.’
James A. Thome, a Presbyterian clergyman, a native, and still a resident of Kentucky, said in a speech at New York, at the Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1834:
‘Under all these disadvantages, you are doing much. The very little leaven which you have been enabled to introduce, is now working with tremendous power. One instance has lately occurred within my acquaintance, of an heir to slave property—a young man of growing influence, who was first awakened by reading a single number of the Anti-Slavery Reporter, sent to him by some unknown hand. He is now a whole-hearted abolitionist. I have facts to show that cases of this kind are by no means rare. A family of slaves in Arkansas Territory, another in Tennessee, and a third, consisting of 88, in Virginia, were successively emancipated through the influence of one abolition periodical. Then do not hesitate as to duty. Do not pause to consider the propriety of interference. It is as unquestionably the province of the North to labor in this cause, as it is the duty of the church to convert the world. The call is urgent—it is imperative. We want light. The ungodly are saying, ‘the church will not enlighten us.’ The church is saying, ‘the ministry will not enlighten us.’ The ministry is crying, ‘Peace—take care.’ We are altogether covered in gross darkness. We appeal to you for light. Send us facts—send us kind remonstrance and manly reasoning. We are perishing for lack of truth. We have been lulled to sleep by the guilty apologist.’
A letter from a Post Master in Virginia, to the editor of ‘Human Rights,’ dated August 15, 1835, contains the following:—
‘I have received two numbers of Human Rights, and one of The Emancipator. I have read and loaned them, had them returned, and loaned again. I can see no unsoundness in the arguments there advanced—and until I can see some evil in your publications, I shall distribute all you send to this office. It is certainly high time this subject was examined, and viewed in its proper light. I know these publications will displease those who hold their fellow men in bondage: but reason, truth and justice are on your side—and why should you seek the good will of any who do evil?
I would be pleased to have a copy of the last Report of the Am. Anti-Slavery Society, if convenient, and some of your other pamphlets, which you have to distribute gratis. I will read and use them to the best advantage.’
A gentleman of Middlesex County, Mass. whose house is one of my New England homes, told me that he had very recently met with a slaveholder from the South, who, during a warm discussion on the subject of slavery, made the following acknowledgment: ‘The worst of it is, we have fanatics among ourselves, and we don’t know what to do with them, for they are increasing fast, and are sustained in their opposition to slavery by the Abolitionists of the North.’