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Show 72 But has Enaland a rio-ht to boast over the slaveholder ? Who can fathom the de~ths of guilt and woe in that rich, prosperous island ? Is there another spot on earth, in which so many crimes and agonies are accumulated, as in London ? Where else on earth is so shocking a contrast to be seen of boundless luxury, and unutterable wretchcdne!is ? What a work has philanthropy to do for the ignorant, intemperate, half-famished crowds of Ireland and Great Britain ! Her nobles and merchants, indeed, scatter their thousands and ten thousands among the poor. But do they retrench one indulgence or one ostentatious display, or resolutely meet the great question, how the terrible evils which weigh down and threaten society are to be substantially redressed I I say not these things in the spirit of retaliation towards England. I ask from her just indignant remonstrance against our wrong doing. But I would show, that, in assailing slavery, I am not blind to aU other evils, that I mean not to set apart the slaveholder as alone deserving rebuke, and that I acknowledge the justice of many of his reproofs of these free States and of Europe. God alone knows the chief offender. The slaveholder indeed is chargeable with the peculiar guilt of ordaining, and upholding with set purpose, a system of enormous injustice. Slavery is a creature of human will and choice, and at the same time the greatest wrong and insult on hu· man nature. I therefore cry aloud against it. Of the individuals who defend and perpetuate the system, I am sure, that the best are deeply injured by it ; but among them, there are better than myself. I do not fix their rank in a world of transgressors. I desire to lift up the wronged and oppressed. I leave to a higher Judge, the heart, the sins, the virtues of the oppressor. I have now concluded my remarks on the topics suggested by 1\lr. Clay's Speech; and here you may expect me to close this long communication. But believing, as I do, 73 that_ my engagements and duties will not a1low me to write ~am on slavery, I am inclined to relieve my mind of all Jts burdens on this subject. Allow me then to say a few words on a topic, which has given me many painful thoughts the _more painful, because so few have seemed to share 111; feehngs. I refer to that gross outrage on rights and liberty' the burning of the Hall of Freedom in Philadelphia. I have felt this the more, because this Hall was erected for free dtscus~wn, was dedicated to Liberty of Speech. Un· dou~tedly Jt was especially designed to give the Abolihon~ sts a chance of being heard ; but it was also intended to gtve_ ~he same privilege to others, who, in consequence of havmg adopted unpopular opinions, might be excluded from the places commonly devoted to public meetings. This. bmldmg. was associated with the dearest right of an mtelhgcn~, _sptntual being, that of communicating thought and recetvm~ such communication in return ; more intimately assoctated with it than any other edifice in the country. And this was stormed by .a mob; a peaceful assemblage was driven from its walls ; and afterwards it was levelled to the earth by fire. Various circumstances conspired to take this out of the clas~ of common crimes. It was not the act of the coarse passiOnate multitude. It was not done in a transport of fury .. The incendiaries proceeded leisurely in their \-Vork and dtstinctly understood, that they were executing the wisl; and purpose of a great majority of the people. Passionate outbreaks may be forgiven. An act performed by the reckless few d~es .not alarm us, because we know that a moral ~or~e. subststs m the community to counteract it. But when md~vtduals, to whom we look for a restraining moral power ~n er\ake deliberately the work of the reckless and violent' t lCdn t le o~trage on law and right wears a singularly dark tahne fmo enacm• g as• pect . S uc1 1 a commum. ty may well feel oundatwns of social order tottering beneath them 7 . |
