Note 5 — Chapter IV

There are certain principles, developed in these facts, which the reader ought to notice. Abolitionists meet with opposition from the slaveholder, and his abettors, for the same reason that this man was cursed by the tyrant who had just lashed Peter! He was angry with the man, because he told him the truth. It excited all the malignity of a demon in his breast to be rebuked. He knew he was doing wrong, and conscience made the reproof a barbed arrow to his soul, and he raved because his pride was mortified, and he felt disturbed.—So is it now! The Abolitionists are opposed for the same reason.—They are the first body of men in America, who have depicted slavery—they have dissected the fiendish monster, and brought down the contempt of the world, who love freedom, upon the head of the southern slaveholder. They have poured light, like a stream of fire, upon the whole South, and disturbed the consciences of the buyers and sellers of souls. And we see the malignity of hell itself boiling out of the southern mouth, and southern press; and politicians and religious (?) editors, and ministers of the gospel, are all pressed into the vile and low-lived business of bolstering up tyrants upon their unholy thrones, and propping up the darkest, and blackest system of oppression that ever existed on earth. These men have not been needed before, their help was not called for;—for nothing was being done to break down slavery. The Colonization Society, met with a different fate at the South, and for this reason it was sustained by all slaveholders who knew the policy. It was the best friend the slaveholder ever had—it kept the consciences of the tyrants quiet—it was a healing plaster just large enough for the sore.—And some of the most distinguished slaveholders in the United States, some of them officers of the American Colonization Society, and the most liberal donors of its funds, told the author of this note, that, they considered the Society the firmest support slavery had in the world, for ‘twould keep the North and the South quiet about their peculiar institutions. “The Society,” said one of them, who was at the time a member of the United States Senate, “has carried away about three thousand or four thousand niggers in twenty years, and the increase has been over half a million. Now, Sir, I can afford, on selfish principles, to give ten thousand dollars a year to that Society, rather than have it go down; for when it goes down, slavery will go with it, and it will go down just as soon as it loses the confidence of the people of the North!!!!!!! ☜ Very good reason why slaveholders should support Colonization!!!!!! There is not the fain’test doubt in creation, that the great mass of the South wish slavery, under the circumstances, to continue; and they make war against the Abolitionists because they want it to stop, and are doing all they can to put it down; (for this is the definition of an Abolitionist;) just as the drunkard makes war upon the Temperance Reformation, because it strikes a blow at his idol; just as infidels oppose revivals, because they disturb their consciences, and make infidelity contemptible. Now, I hesitate not to say, that no system of principles, or measures, will ever do away with slavery, except that system which meets with the determined, and combined opposition of slaveholders, and those who are interested in sustaining the system. For the system that destroys slavery, must aim a deadly blow at selfishness, and this will excite malignity, and this will show itself out in the gall that is poured upon Abolitionists, from the cowardly and sophistical apologies of Pro-Slavery Princeton Divines, down to the hard, but not convincing arguments of brick-bats.

The truth is, that the South oppose Abolition, not because “it has put back emancipation,” as the New York Observer says,—for, in that case, its champions would be found south of “Mason’s and Dixon’s line,”—but, because Abolition has a direct, and decided, and tremendous influence in hurling the system of heathenish, and cruel oppression to the ground. But there are some, a noble, an immortal few, hearts in the South who are waiting for the consolation of Africa, who bless God for every prayer we offer, and for every convert we gain. And the prayers of every man, and woman, in the slaveholding states, who longs for the freedom of the slave, follow the Abolitionists, and contribute to the spread and triumph of our principles.