Abolitionists Around
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ABOLITIONISTS AROUND.
We have heard of “the Abolitionists,” much more than we have seen them, for some while past; but about these times they are out again in full bloom. They are holding one of their Anniversaries in New York at Mozart Hall, and we have been greatly edified by running over the report of their yesterday’s sayings and doings. They are evidently a part of the people far too good for this wicked world. Our readers will be amused, and will get the pith of their doctrine, by a few extracts from the proceedings of yesterday.
The first speech was made by a very colored man, named Remond.1 He said—
“The American Government was a failure, and its dissolution was the question for white men as well as for black men. He might ransack the plantations of the South in vain to find a more abject slave than he held the Hon. Edw. Everitt2 to be.”
He went on to speak of many of the big bugs in the same manner. He said that the silence of the big bugs upon the subject of slavery was proof that the Union was “a failure.” Mr. Remond
“Hoped that the colored men of this country would some day assert their rights and their manhood, Union or no Union; that they would say to white men: Stand aside; I am a man!”
All this is good; but we especially admire the “Stand aside” part.
After our colored friend was through, came Wendell Phillips.3 He began by pitching into the ministers. He said,
“No Abolitionist could fail to recognize the patent fact that the church was a supporter of slavery. For 60 years it had educated men into supporters of oppression. The character of the nation was the result of the teachings of the Church and the Government. Doctors of Divinity preached in favor of it. Dr. Adams had lately preached a sermon on the reasonableness of eternal punishment. He proved it. It must be reasonable where such men as he existed.”
Give it to ‘em, Mr. Phillips! They need stirring up—cause or no cause. Then about the revival:
“We had a revival—of what? Of words, absurd forms, superstitious observances, of something that no two intelligent men as they met looked into each other’s faces without laughing at.”
But occasionally a sage good statement—as, for instance, what can be truer than this?
“Wellington said that the greatest merit of Napoleon was that he had an eagle eye to see a weak point, and a power unknown to history of concentrating a million of men upon that point. Slaveholding had the same power.”
And, in continuation, a long string of argument, anecdote, sweeping invective, &c., the burden whereof was that all who didn’t give up every thing else, and come and bear testimony against Slave-holders, were worse than any tyrants of the old world—worse than heathen—worse than the slaves themselves.
Wm. Loyd Garrison4 also had something to say. He too gave piety a good shake—
“He thought the revival spurious so far as the American nation was concerned. Everywhere was the same abstract confession of sins, which meant little, the same prayers, which meant less, and the same conversions which were also forms. He supposed that they would not disagree about the nation being corrupt. There was no end to rascality in the land, was there? If the prince of darkness ever had the command any where, he was at the present time commander-in-chief of the United States of America. If we had a genuine revival, which loved men and hated tyranny, then there would be a tremendous conflict going on in the land. But nobody trembled, and the devil was not uneasy, never more easy. Was corruption terrified? Why, it went to sleep and snored over it. A genuine revival of religion would scare James Buchanan so that he could not sleep nights.”
Mr. Garrison went on to say severe things against people and things.
When he was through, Wendell Phillips related a little anecdote for the benefit of the Amerocan Union—
“A British Middy, at examination, was asked if his ship had lost her masts and rudder, and was on a lee-shore, what he would do with her. “Let her go to the devil.” “Well,” said the examiner, “you could not do anything else.” So he thought of the Constitution and the Church.”
And this “sentiment” was received by a portion of the audience with applause!
The Abolitionists who hold these meetings, and give utterance to such doctrines, have so long and so intently fixed their eyes upon Slavery, that they can see no other evil in the world except it. And yet it is but one out of hundreds of evils. It is not of much consequence, however, what these men think—for they are morbid, and can never get the popular sympathies. Other means are already found to bring the whole question involved, before the tribunal of public opinion. We allude to the movements of our national politics, Kansas affairs, and the action of the Buchanan and Pierce Administrations. All these help the progress of the cause of freedom, by bringing out mighty discussions, and flooding the land with truths and arguments. The mass of the people sooner or later decide;—not an isolated association of men and women, black and white, of enthusiastic and often noble intentions, but sick, scornful of the people, and even partially insane.
Messrs. Garrison and Phillips may safely be permitted to scream their little screams, and denounce the Constitution, and the popular sentiment, but for all that, both the Constitution and the popular sentiment mean Human Liberty and Equality, and will in due time effectuate those results. Neither the physical, moral, or political world can be built in a day.