Press enter after choosing selection

Anti-abolition Inefficient: For The Signal Of Liberty

Anti-abolition Inefficient: For The Signal Of Liberty image
Parent Issue
Day
18
Month
August
Year
1841
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

It is quito instructivo tonotice tho course taken by Bome in opposition to thefirst principies of liberty. Who undertakes to dony that all men are bom equal, and, as men, possess equal rights? How can this great principie be opposed! Some have taken tlie ground that the negro is not a man. This class of libertyvhaters are bolow all rcasoning. They can do no hurt. Another class oppose this cardinal principio, by saying that the negro is inferior in intellect, and therefore ought not to have equal rights with nis intellectual superiors. This is the Southern position, that mïght makes righf, that God has ordained that the wise and etrong should control and possess the vveak and ignorant. U tho rights of men are co-extensive with their intellects, it behooves the objector to look(to it, lest some one stronger aud wiser than ho enslave him. None but intellectual giants should meddle with this argument. There is a third class, a large part of whom are governed by passion and excitement, and they often act without any serious reflection at all. These people are liberty haters. At the North, they expect to convince people that all men have not equal rights by throwmg dirt, 6tones, eggs, brickbats, clubs, Sic, at them . Poor arguments, you wili say, to convince me that allmen are not bom equal. True,but they are the best they have. They uee physical arguments because they lack ïntelleclual. Not being able to convince the mind, they make application to the;body. They expect to overeóme and dethronc ;iie convictions of the immatorial mind by brute force.Al the South, we have the same argument pre6entod by the liberty-haters in a mor dignified manner. Tnstead of saying, "Sto this discussion about hberty, or we vi throw stones, or eggs, or dirt at you," the talk about their chivalry, and their swords and defending their propertv with their Ia6 drop of blood, kc. This has ahvaya bee the last resort of tyrants in efery ago of th world. They see the necessity of opposin the truth n some way, and they raake suc resistance as Ihey can. But they might a wel! not make any. Physical force may in deed soruetimes restrain tho expression o feeling, but it does not convince the judg ment. Just look at it. Here is an immatori al, iminortal mind, feeling that elavery i wrong. VVell, says the slaveholder, I wi soon make him feel that it is right. H ruises liis rifle and ehoote the man doad. Has he convinced him? He has indeed des troyed tho life of the body. But has he sho the mind] Has the bullet raade a lodgmen in the immaterial faculties of the miiid, con vincing it of error? If the spirit could speak would you hear an acknowledgment of mis take? Vain hope! matter cannot convine mind. You canuot shoot truth with a bullet, o ruu it through wilh a sword. The feelin that slavery is wrong, will arise in the mine of every other human being, just as quick a though the man liad not been shot. An wore you to raassacrethe whole human fam ily in the same way, the last man would be quite as likely to feel that slavery is wrong, as he with whom you began the attempt at conviction.Wo ask the reader to ivell consider wha kind of resistanco lio can make to the principies of liberty before hc oppoacs thein. So far as their mode of warfare is concerned, the abolitionists are non-resistants, and they use no physical force. If they did, you might oppose force to force, and perlmps overpower thern. The only successful course of oppoaition will be to convince theni of error; for truth is mighty and will prevail. - All attempts to oppose it, by whomsoever conceived, will ultimately result in dofeat and disappointment. If the principies of liberty, to which abolilioniets hoid, are oí God, liowuver great may be the hindrances wilh which they may moet, they will ultimately triumph,and still hold on their course, tvhen the record of the iittle temporary ex-j pediente which were once resorted to Jor' Uicir destruction, shall only le remembered as evidence oi' che fornier folly and porv rsity of man.