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

134 LE TTERS.
to speak about it, and a right to be heard also. At
the North, we willingly publish pro-slavery arguments, and ask only a fair field and no fatvor for the
other side. But you will not even allow your own
citizens a chance to examine this important subject.
Your letter to me is published in Northern papers, as
well as Southern; but my reply will not be allowed to
appear in any Southern paper. The despotic measures
you take to silence investigation, and shut out the
light from your own white population, prove how little reliance you have on the strength of your cause.
In this enlightened age, all despotisms ought to cotme
to an end by the agency of moral and rattional mneans.
But if they resist such agencies, it is in the order of
Providence that they must come to an end by violence. History is full of such lessons.
Would that the veil of prejudice could be removed
from your eyes. If you would candidly examine the
statements of Governor Hincks of the British West
Indies, and of the Rev. Mr. Bleby, long time a mlissionary in those islands, both before and after emancipation, you could not fail to be convinced thlat Cash
is a more powerful incentive to lalbor than the Lash,
and far safer also. One fact in relation to those
islands is very significant. While the working people were slaves, it was always necessary to order out
the military during the Christmas holidays; but,
since emancipation, not a soldier is to be seen. A
hundred Johnl Browns might land there without exciting the slightest alarm.
To the personal questions you askl me, I will reply
in the name of all the wolmen of New Engltand. It
would be extremely difficult to find any woman in
wur villages who does not sew for the poor, atnd watch