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oppressor, a reckless disregard of the warnings of earth and heaven, an obstinate perseverance in a system founded and sustained by robbery and wrong?
All wars are horrible, wicked, inexcusable, and truly and solemnly has Jefferson himself said that, in a contest of this kind, between the slave and the master, ‘the Almighty has no attribute which could take side with us.’
Understand us, gentlemen.
We only ask to have the fearful necessity taken away from us of sustaining the wretched policy of slavery by moral influence or physical force.
We ask alone to be allowed to wash our hands of the blood of millions of your fellow-beings, the cry of whom is rising up as a swift witness unto God against us.
8. Because all the facts connected with the subject warrant us in a most confident belief that a speedy and general emancipation might be made with entire safety, and that the consequences of such an emancipation would be highly beneficial to the planters of the South.
Awful as may be their estimate in time and eternity, I will not, gentlemen, dwell upon the priceless benefits of a conscience at rest, a soul redeemed from the all-polluting influences of slavery, and against which the cry of the laborer whose hire has been kept back by fraud does not ascend.
Nor will I rest the defence of my position upon the fact that it can never be unsafe to obey the commands of God.
These are the old and common arguments of ‘fanatics’ and ‘enthusiasts,’ melting away like frost-work in the glorious sunshine of
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Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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