A Baptist clergyman whom I met in Worcester County, Mass., a few months since, told me that his brother-in-law, a lawyer of New Orleans, who had recently paid him a visit, took up the Report of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and read it with great interest. He then inquired, whether the principles set forth in that document were Anti-Slavery principles. Upon being informed that they were, he expressed his entire approbation of them, and full conviction that they would prevail as soon as the South understood them; for, said he, they are the principles of truth and justice, and must finally triumph. This gentleman requested to be furnished with some of our publications, and carried them to the South with him.
There certainly can be no doubt to a reflecting and candid mind, as to what will and must be the result of Anti-Slavery operations. Hear now the opinion of one of the leading political papers in Charleston, South Carolina, the Southern Patriot.
‘While agitation is permitted in Congress, there is no security for the South. While discussion is allowed in that body, year after year, in relation to slavery and its incidents, the rights of property at the South must, in the lapse of a short period, be undermined. It is the weapon of all who expect to work out great changes in public opinion. It was the instrument by which O’Connell gradually shook the fabric of popular prejudice in England on the Catholic question. His sole instrument was agitation, both in Parliament and out of it. His constant counsel to his followers was, agitate! agitate! They did agitate. They happily carried the question of Catholic rights.
Agitation may be successfully employed for a bad as well as good cause. What was the weapon of the English abolitionists?—Agitation. Regard the question of the abolition of the slave trade when first brought into Parliament—behold the influence of PITT and the tory party beating down its advocates by an overwhelming majority! Look at the question of abolition itself, twenty years after, and you see Wilberforce and his adherents carrying the question itself of abolition of slavery, by a majority as triumphant! How was all this accomplished?—By agitation in Parliament! It was on this ample theatre that the abolitionists worked their fatal spells. It was on this wide stage of discussion that they spoke to the people of England in that voice of fanaticism, which, at length, found an echo that suited their purposes. It was through the debates, which circulated by means of the press throughout every corner of the realm, that they carried that question to its extremest borders, to the hamlet of every peasant in the empire. Can it then be expected, if we give the American abolitionists the same advantage of that wide field of debate which Congress affords, that the same results will not follow? The local legislatures are limited theatres of action. Their debates are comparatively obscure. These are not read by the people at large. Allow the agitators a great political centre, like that of Washington—permit them to address their voice of fanatical violence to the whole American people, through their diffusive press, and they want no greater advantage. They have a MORAL LEVER BY WHICH THEY CAN MOVE A WORLD OF OPINION.
The course of the southern States is therefore marked out by a pencil of light. They should obtain additional guarantees against the discussion of slavery in Congress, in any manner, or in any of its forms, as it exists in the United States. This is the only means that promises success in removing agitation. We have said that this is the accepted time. When we look at the spread of opinion on this subject in some of the eastern States—in Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut—what are we to expect in a few years, in the middle States, should discussion proceed in Congress? These States are yet uninfected, in any considerable degree, by the fanatical spirit. They may not remain so after a lapse of five years. If they are animated by a true spirit of patriotism—by a genuine love for the Union, they should, and could with effect, interpose to stay this moral pestilence. Their voice in this matter would be influential. New York and Pennsylvania are intermediate between the South and East in position and in physical strength.’
Samuel L. Gould, a minister of the Baptist denomination, writing to the Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, from Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in 4th month, 1836, says:—
‘The Smithfield Anti-Slavery Society, [on the border of Virginia] has among its members, several residents of Virginia. Its President has been a slaveholder, and until recently, was a distinguished citizen of Virginia, the High Sheriff of Rockingham County. Having become convinced of the wickedness of slaveholding, a little more than a year ago he purchased an estate in Pennsylvania, and removed to it, his colored men accompanying him. He now employs them as hired laborers.’
I may mention, in this connection, an Alabama slaveholder, a lawyer named Smith, who emancipated his slaves, I think about twenty in number, a few months since. He was the brother-in-law of William Allan of Huntsville, who was in 1834, president of the Lane Seminary Anti-Slavery Society, and subsequently an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and who had for years previous been in kind and faithful correspondence with him on the subject of slavery.
Henry P. Thompson, a student of Lane Seminary, and a slaveholder at the time of the Anti-Slavery discussion in that Institution, was convinced by it, went to Kentucky, and emancipated his slaves.
Arthur Thome, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Kentucky, emancipated his slaves, fourteen in number, about two years since. J. G. Birney, speaking of him in the Philanthropist, says:—