Slavery. By William E. Channing [pp. 268-306]

Slavery.
same sentiments, more offensively, and less ably urged, have
heretofore been thus received.
It is not by argument that the abolitionists have produced
the present unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the
characteristic of their publications. Denunciations of slaveholding, as man-stealing, robbery, piracy, and worse than
murder; consequent vituperation of slaveholders as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes; passionate appeals to the
feelings of the inhabitants of the northern states; gross exaggerations of the moral and physical condition of the slaves,
have formed the stapel of their addresses to the public. We
do not mean to say that there has been no calm and Christian
discussion of the subject. We mean merely to state what has,
to the best of our knowledge, been the predominant character
of the anti-slavery publications. There is one circumstance
which renders the error and guilt of this course of conduct
chargeable, in a great measure, on the abolitionists as a body,
and even upon those of their number who have pursued a
different course. We refer to the fact that they have upheld
the most extreme publications, and made common cause with
the most reckless declaimers. The wildest ravings of the
Liberator have been constantly lauded; agents have been
commissioned whose great distinction was a talent for eloquent vituperation; coincidence of opinion as to the single
point of immediate emancipation has been sufficient to unite
men of the most discordant character. There is in this conduct such a strange want of adaptation between the means
and the end which they profess to have in view, as to stagger the faith of most persons in the sincerity of their professions, who do not consider the extremes to which even good
men may be carried, when they allow one subject to take
exclusive possession of their minds. We do not doubt their
sincerity; but we marvel at their delusion. They seem to
have been led by the mere impulse of feeling, and a blind
immitation of their predecessors in England, to a course of
measures, which, though rational under one set of circumstances, is the height of infatuation under another. The English abolitionists addressed themselves to a community,
which, though it owned no slaves, had the power to abolish
slavery, and was therefore responsible for its continuance.
Their object was to rouse that community to immediate
action. For this purpose they addressed themselves to the
feelings of the people; they portrayed in the strongest colours the misery of the slaves; they dilated on the gratuitous
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