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

146 LETTERS.
to hearts and minds not frozen or blinded by the influence of trade or politics.
If the colmmon plea of the inferiority of the African
race be true, that only adds meanness to our guilt;
the magnanimous strong are ashamed not to protect
the weak. But then everybody knows that an immense proportion of American slaves are not black.
Thousands upon thousands of them are lighter than
Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, Greeks, etc. They are
the sons and daughters of our presidents, governors,
judges, senators, and generals. The much vaunted
Anglo-Saxon blood is coursing in their veins, through
generations after generations.
If you set aside heart and conscience as appropriate
guides for women only, and assume pure cold intellect
for a standard of action, what answer will enlightened
reason give, if you ask whether free institutions in
one part of the country can possibly survive continual
compromises with despotism in another part? If the
lowest person in the community is legally oppressed,
is not the highest endangered thereby? And does
not the process inevitably demoralize the people by
taking away from law that which renders it sacred,
namely, equal and impartial justice? I again ask
you, respectfully and earnestly, to read my pamphlets
with candid attention. If the request seems to you
obtrusive or presumptuous, my apology is that I believe you to be an upright and kind man, and therefore infer that your heart and conscience are not in
fault, but only the blinding influences of your social
environment. Yours respectfully,
L. MARIA CHILD.