Nor does your unwillingness to listen to any
expression of anti-slavery sentiment arise from affection for or real
sympathy with Slavery, on moral grounds. Indeed, I have more than once
been exceedingly refreshed in spirit at observing the sincere and hearty
contempt with which you have treated what is blasphemously called the
Biblical argument in favor of human bondage. The pleading precedent of
Abraham has not seduced you, nor has the happy lot of the more modern
Onesimus quieted all your conscientious scruples. You have never failed,
in private conversation, to condemn the advocates of Slavery on whatever
grounds they have rested its defence, nor have you ever ceased to
deplore its existence in our country.
At the same time I must admit that you have invariably resisted all
attempts to apply any practical check or remedy to the great and growing
evil, stoutly maintaining that it was a local institution, and that we
of the North had no right to meddle with it. I am well aware that you
have stigmatized every effort to awaken public attention to its nature
and tendency, or to point out methods, more or less available, of
abolishing the system, as unconstitutional, incendiary, and quixotic.
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