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Show James Freeman Clarke. an insurrection, he .;:nys, but only an escape of fugitiYe ·. lie is a man of truth, and I believe him. II. The second cause of this affair is False Conservati m at the North. It is not with the purpose of r etaliating charges made against Anti-Slavery men, but to expre a conviction I have held for years, that I say,- if the dark problem of Sla \·cry finds a bloody olution, that blood will cry from the ground against tho~e who, for years, have bern tcad ily laboring at the North to let down the entiment of Freedom- the Traitors at home, who have giYen moral aid and comfort to the Slave power. Had it not been for thc~e, we shoulcl haYe re~ istcd successfully the Annexation of T exas, or pa ~;:;cd the 1-Vilmot Provi ·o, or defeated the FugitiYc Slave Law, or the Repeal of the 1\lis ouri Compromise. The Slaxe power, defeated on these point., would h:wc era:- ·tl from its aggressions; the lon~rs of Freedom at the South would ha\·c been encouraged; the border States would han.! heen led to take mea. ures for emancipation. Grndually, p ·acefully, and joyfully the cause of Freedom would ba\'e g i·own -trong, thnt of Slavery weak- until, at Ia. t, surround<'<.! by the l10:-t~ of Free labor, by emigrants from the North, by invading light and advancing reli~ion; hemmed in by all this illumination and warmth, like the f'Corpion girt with fire, it would have turned its sting against itself:- The sting it nurtured for its foes " "hose Vl'llom never :Y<'t was vain, Gh·es but oue pang aud ends all pain. But as if on a teamer, running at high pressure, men should be frightened at the noise made by c caping steam, and so ~hut down the safety-valve and call the silence safety -.so With. us. These quietists think all danger to arise fi'Om no~sy Antt-Slan~.ry people at the Nort h, and try to stop that nOise. They thmk the danger not from Slavery, but from James Freeman Cl::nke. talking about it; and so are themselves the cause of the evil they try to shun. III. The tliird cause of this IIa rpe r's Feny tragedy i. to be found in the lo'~ condition of the Religion of the country. In such a conflict as that between Slavery and FreNlom Christianity, organized in churches, jmbodiccl in Cl11·istint; men and women, should have come forward, to speak the Truth in Love. Ilolcling fa, t to the Eternal I.At\V of God, rising high above all co n · identtion~ of uwre C'XJWdicney, it s!wuld have declared God'· word :-uprcme- above all politics, all legal enactment~, all State nee ':-':-:ity. .l\Ian, made in the image of God, cannot be the sian~ of his brother man. Proclaiming this, it .ltonld also have utter 'd it in Jove; with sympathy for the Slaveholder as w<·ll a, the Ic1ve; with perception of his difTieult and dangerous position, of his strong t emptation ~, and with an earnest de ·jrc to aid him l>y common ·ac rificcs. Unfortunately, lit tle of this ha been donr.. On the one side the supremacy of God's law ha~ not been maintained but we have Lecn taug ht from a thott~nnd p11lpit· that. tu an's' lower law mu::;t be obeyed and not the law of con~eience; on the othet· lJand, when the truth ha~ been uttl'red, it ha~ not been always uttered in love to the Slaveholder, but often in bitternes~, .::area ·m, and contempt. In saying tlti~ I do not refer to professed Abolitioni~ts alone. I think that we are always in danget of being unju~t to those whom we do not pCI"Onally know. I t i · not Pa!"y, at t hi:-; di~tance, to be ju:;t to Slav<'holuers. But certainly there has oflen been a hard, cold tone of inYerti,·c used :~gainst the South;- wh ich is unju t, because it does not r e<'ognize their difficulty :mu their efforts; unchri::;tian, because it docs not feel tow~u·us them as to brethren. The oppo ers of SlaYery have sometimes oppo.ecl it more in the spirit of Elijah than in that of Chri::;t- with fierce 28 |
