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[42] extremity of its danger and for self-preservation, as He now grants to this Government. Emancipation is to destroy nothing but evil; it is to establish good; it is to transform human beings from things into men; it is to make freedom, and education, and invention, and enterprise, and prosperity, and peace, and a true Union possible and sure. Redeemed from the curse of slavery, the South shall in due time be as the garden of God. Though driven to the wall and reduced to great extremity by this rebellion, still we hold off, hold off, hold off, and reluctantly say, at last, if it must be so, but only to save ourselves from destruction, we will do this rebellious South the most beneficent act that any people ever yet did—one that will secure historic renown for the Administration, make this struggle memorable in all ages, and bring down upon the land the benediction of God! But we will not do this if we can possibly avoid it! Now, for myself, both as an act of justice to the oppressed and to serve the cause of freedom universally, I want the Government to be in haste to blow the trump of jubilee. I desire to bless and not curse the South— to make her prosperous and happy by substituting free institutions for her leprous system of slavery. I am as much interested in the safety and welfare of the slaveholders, as brother men, as I am in the liberation of their poor slaves; for we are all the children of God, and should strive to promote the happiness of all. I desire that the mission of Jesus, “Peace on earth, good will to men,” may be fulfilled in this and in every land.

This lecture attracted much attention, and brought Mr. Garrison urgent invitations to speak in other places. Especially was it the wish of some of the most trusted and sagacious of the anti-slavery leaders that he and Mr. Phillips should declare the sentiments and demands of the abolitionists in relation to the war, both in public addresses and in personal intercourse with the President and members of his Cabinet, and the Republican leaders in Congress. They felt that if this were done, and the Liberator and Standard kept afloat, other agencies and methods useful in the past might safely be discontinued, and a greater concentration of effort secured.1

1 Holding these views, Mrs. Chapman had already withdrawn from the management of the annual Subscription Festival, and J. M. McKim now resigned his position as corresponding secretary of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. ‘I retire,’ the latter wrote, ‘because I believe that my peculiar work, in the position I have occupied, is done. The ultimate object of the Society, it is true, has not yet been attained, neither is its particular mission entirely accomplished. Slavery still exists; and public sentiment respecting it is not yet wholly rectified. But the signs of the times in regard to the former warrant the belief that its overthrow is near, and the progress of change in the character of the latter justifies the conviction that its regeneration will soon be sufficiently complete for all our intended purposes. The Society is now at liberty to discontinue the use of some of the instrumentalities heretofore deemed indispensable. The travelling lecturer is no longer a necessity, and the agent in the office need not feel bound to his place by a sense of obligation. This latter fact, applied to my own case, I accept as an indication of duty’ (Lib. 32.75). Mr. McKim gave practical effect to his belief by speedily identifying himself with the movement to relieve and educate the freedmen; and early in the summer of 1862 he made a visit of inspection to the freed people in the Sea Islands of South Carolina, accompanied by his daughter Lucy, whose musical notation of some of the weird and pathetic slave songs was the first ever published (Lib. 32: 120, 128, 191).

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