The above is a fair account, so far as my knowledge enables me to speak, of the character of those whom you are pleased to describe "a band of fanatical abolitionists." Light and rash minds, unaccustomed to penetrate to the real causes of great revolutions in public sentiment, will, of course, think and speak contemptuously of them, while the philosophic observer clearly sees, that such antagonists of error, armed with so powerful a weapon as the Truth, must, at all times, be invincible; and that in the end they will be triumphant.
A word, too, before I come to the state of the churches, with regard to Mr. Breckinridge's concluding topic last evening; to which I had not, of course, any opportunity to reply; and, as the time allotted for this discussion is now determined, I shall be permitted to dwell a few moments on the subject. Mr. Breckinridge did, I am ready to acknowledge, with tolerable fairness, state the views of the abolitionists with regard to prejudice against color; that it was sinful, that it ought to be abandoned, and that the colored man should be raised to the enjoyment of equal civil and religious privileges with the whites. But after he had laid down, generally speaking correctly, the views of the abolitionists, he proceeded to put the most unfair interpretation upon those views, and strangely contended that they were directly aiming to accomplish the amalgamation of the races in the fullest sense of that word. Once again, I deny this. Once again I appeal to all that the abolitionists have ever written or spoken: to their published, official, solemn, authoritative disclaimers; and I say on my behalf and on theirs, that with the intermixture of "the races," as they are called, (a phrase I do not like,) the abolitionists have nothing to do. What they have ever contended for is this, that the colored man should now be delivered from the condition of a beast; that he should cease to be regarded as the property of his fellow man; and that according to the laws of the state regulating the qualifications of citizens, he should be admitted to a participation of the privileges that are enjoyed by other classes of the community. We have never asked for more. We have left the doctrine of amalgamation to be settled by our opponents. The slave holders are the amalgamationists whose licentiousness has gone far to put an end to the existence of a black race in the South, and who are still carrying on, to use their own expression, "a bleaching system," whitening the population of the South, so that you may now discover all shades of colored persons; from those who are so fair that they are scarcely distinguishable from the whites, to the pure black of the unmixed negro. But my opponent defeated himself. While attempting to expose the folly and wickedness of amalgamation, he at the same time contended that the thing was physically impossible; that even a partial amalgamation could only be brought about by polygamy or prostitution, but that general amalgamation was hopeless, because physically impossible. If the thing be utterly beyond the reach of the abolitionists, why dread it as an evil? Why not let the abolitionists pursue their foolish and impracticable schemes? Why so much wrath against them for aiming at that which nature has rendered unattainable. I leave Mr. Breckinridge to find his way out of this difficulty in the best manner he is able.
Again, we are told, that in attempting to bring about amalgamation, and in preventing Colonization, we are interfering with the purposes of God; fighting against His ordinances, and exposing Africa to the horrors of extermination, should the descendants of Shem or Japhet colonize her shores, and not the black man who has sprung from her tribes. I confess I am somewhat surprised, when told by a Presbyterian clergyman of Calvinistic sentiments, that I am to regulate my conduct towards my fellow-men by the purposes of God, rather than by the law of God. This is surely a new doctrine! What, I ask, have I to do with the decrees of the Almighty? Has he not given me a law by which to walk? Has he not told me to love my neighbor as myself? to "honor all men?" Am I not told that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth? Where is the prohibition to marry with Shem or Ham. I know of no directions in the Old Testament respecting marriages, save such as were founded on religious differences, and I have yet to learn that there are any in the New Testament. That blessed Book declares, that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but all are one. The only injunction I am aware of is this, "be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers."
Mr. Breckinridge made a considerable parade of his knowledge of Universal History, and pretended to build his theory upon the most correct historical data. While upon this subject of amalgamation and extermination, I will take the liberty of submitting one or two inquiries to Mr. Breckinridge.
Is there any law in America forbidding ministers to celebrate marriages between Japhethite American Christians and Jewesses, (by birth, even if Christians by faith,) and Jews, (even if Christians.) to marry Japhethite, American females? If there be not, then, why may Shem and Japhet intermarry, but Ham with neither? Again: If there be no such law, then the doctrine about Noah's three sons, is not a principle on which the American people act, but Mr. B.'s individual dogma, got up to defend a line of conduct really proceeding without reference to any such principle. If it be said that Jewish and Japhethite Americans are very nearly, if not altogether, of the same color; and that there are no political evils to be dreaded from the intermixture of Jews with Japhethites; I reply, that, admitting the truth of both these representations, is not the sin of mixing Noah's sons, and counter-working the designs of God, the same in the case of Shem and Japhet as it would be in the case of Japhet or Shem with the tribes of Ham? Again,
Did the Romans, (Japhethites,) exterminate the Jews, (Shemites?)
Did the Arab Shemite conquerors of Egypt exterminate the ancient inhabitants (Hamites,) who still exist, and are known by the name of Copts or Cophti?
Did not the Tartars, now Turks, a (Japhethite tribe,) when they conquered the Caliphs, embrace the religion of the conquered, who were Mohamedans and Shemites?
Did not the Shemite Mohamedans conquer the Persians, (Japhethites,) a part of whom, who would not embrace the Mohamedan religion, and could not be tolerated by the Mohamedans in theirs, (viz. fire worship,) flee to India, where they still exist, known by the name of Guebers, while the rest of the people, embracing Mohamedanism, amalgamated with their conquerors; and is not the modern Persian language a proof of this, in which all the terms of religion and science are Arabic, (Shemite,) the rest of the language being a colluvies of the Deri, Zend, and Pehlavi dialects, which the most eminent phylologists consider as all resolvable into Sanscrit, the most ancient Japhethite speech existing?
The cases of the Romans and Jews, and of the Arab conquerors of Egypt and the Copts, are instances of conquest without extermination; the parties remaining dissevered by religious differences. The cases of the Tartar-Turks, and the Arabs, and of the Arabs and the Persians, are cases of conquest without extermination, and with amalgamation; the conquerors in the first case having adopted the religion of the conquered, and the conquered in the second case, that of the conquerors.