Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 113
constituted only one third of the white population of
these States, they held more than two thirds of all
the lucrative, and once honorable, offices; an indignity to which none but a subjugated people had ever
before submitted. The knowledge also became generally diffused that, while the Southern States owned
their Democracy at home, and voted for them, they
also systematically bribed the nominally Democratic
party at the North with the offices adroitly kept at
their disposal.
Through these and other instrumentalities, the
sentiments of tile original Garrisonian abolitionists
becname very widely extended, in forms more or less
diluted. But by far the most efficient co-laborers we
have ever had have been the slave States themselves.
By denying us the sacred right of petition, they
rousetd the free spirit of the North as it never could
have been roused by the loud trumpet of Garrison or
the soul-aninmating bugle of Phillips. They bought
the great slave, Daniel, and, according to their established usage, paid him no wages for his labor. By
his coiperation they forced the Fugitive Slave Law
upon us in violation of all our humane instincts and
all our principles of justice. And what did they procure for the abolitionists by that despotic process?
A deeper and wider detestation of slavery throughout the free States, and the publication of " Uncle
Tom's Cabin," an eloquent outburst of moral indignation, whose echoes wakened the world to look upon
their shame.
By filibustering and fraud they dismembered Mexico, and, having thus obtained the soil of Texas,
they tried to introduce it as a slave State into the
Union. Failing to effect their purpose by constitu8