I
concede that your indignation has always been in the abstract, and your
zeal eminently conservative. Yet, as a moral man, with a New-England
training, and a general disposition to indorse those principles which
have made New England what she is, you will not deny, that, in a
harmless and inoffensive way, you have been anti-slavery in your
opinions.
But, once more, my friend, have you any reason to be attached to Slavery
on political grounds? You have always been an earnest and uncompromising
Democrat. You have always professed to believe in the omnipotence of
political conventions and the sacred obligation of political platforms.
You have never failed to repudiate any effort to influence party action
by moral considerations. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that you must
have selected as your model that sturdy old Democratic deacon in New
Hampshire, who said that "politics was one thing, and religion was
another." You have never hesitated to support any candidate, or to
uphold any measure, dictated by the wisdom or the wickedness of your
party. Although you must have observed, that, with occasional and
infrequent eddies of opinion, the current of its political progress has
been steadily carrying the Northern Democracy farther and farther away
from the example and the doctrines of Jefferson, you have surrendered
yourself to the evil influence without a twinge of remorse or a sigh of
regret.
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