CHAPTER X.
OUR BEST WITNESSES AND MASTERS IN THE ART OF WAR.
I think few worth damnation, save their kings;
And these but as a kind of quit-rent, to
Assert my right as lord.
Vision of Judgment.
We intend this chapter as our trump card, and have kept it in reserve, because it is rash to "lead trumps." We could produce a cloud of witnesses, but should only protract the trial thereby. We call into court Horace Greely, Wm. Goodell, Gerrit Smith, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, and Stephen Pearle Andrews, and propose to prove by them (the actual leaders and faithful exponents of abolition,) that their object, and that of their entire party, is not only to abolish Southern slavery, but to abolish also, or greatly to modify, the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, the institution of private property of all kinds, but especially separate ownership of lands, and the institution of Christian churches as now existing in America. We further charge, that whilst actively engaged in attempts to abolish Southern slavery, they are busy, with equal activity and more promise of success, in attempts to upset and re-organize society at the North.
In convening these gentlemen as witnesses, and also arraigning them on trial, we are actuated by no feelings of personal ill-will or disrespect. We admire them all, and have had kindly intercourse and correspondence with some of them. They are historical characters, who would seek notoriety in order to further their schemes of setting the world to rights. We have no doubt of their sincere philanthropy, and as little doubt, that they are only "paving hell with good intentions." We speak figuratively. We shall try their cause in the most calm and judicial temper. We would address each of them in language borrowed from Lord Byron:
Why,
My good old friend, for such I deem you,
Though our different parties make us fight so shy,
I ne'er mistake you for a personal foe;
Our difference is political, and I
Trust that whatever may occur,
You know my great respect for you, and this
Makes me regret whatever you do amiss.
Indeed, we should be ungrateful and discourteous in the extreme, if we did not entertain kindly remembrance and make gentlemanly return for the generous reception and treatment we received, especially from leading abolitionists, when we went north to personate Satan by defending Slavery. Though none agreed with us, none were made converts by us:
Yet still between his darkness and his brightness,
There passed a mutual glance of great politeness.
We will first call Mr. Wm. Goodell to the stand. His position as one of the most active leaders of the Gerrit Smith or Syracuse wing of abolition, would entitle his admissions and assertions of the failure of his own society to the greatest credence, since such admissions and assertions weaken his assaults on the South, and must be reluctantly drawn from him; but, independent of his peculiar position, his high character as a man, and his distinction as an author, should enlist attention and command respect for what he says. In his Democracy of Christianity, vol. 2d, page 197, he thus writes: