Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/165

Rh past, public sympathy has been earnestly directed in the wrong way; if it could be made to turn round, a most happy change would be produced. There are many people at the South who would be glad to have a safe method of emancipation discovered; but instead of encouraging them, all our presses, and pulpits, and books, and conversation, have been used to strengthen the hands of those who wish to perpetuate the "costly iniquity." Divine Providence always opens the way for the removal of evils, individual or national, whenever man is sincerely willing to have them removed; it may be difficult to do right, but it is never impossible. Yet a majority of my countrymen do, in effect, hold the following language: "We know that this evil cannot be cured; and we will speak and publish our opinion on every occasion; but you must not, for your lives, dare to assert that there is a possibility of our being mistaken."

If there were any apparent wish to get rid of this sin and disgrace, I believe the members of the Anti-Slavery Society would most heartily and courageously defend slave owners from any risk they might incur in a sincere effort to do right. They would teach the negro that it is the Christian's duty meekly and patiently to suffer wrong; but they dare not excuse the white man for continuing to inflict the wrong.

They think it unfair that all arguments on this subject should be founded on the convenience and safety of the master alone. They wish to see the white man's claims have their due weight; but they insist that the negro's rights ought not to be thrown out of the balance.

At the time a large reward was offered for the capture of Mr Garrison, on the ground that his paper excited insurrections, it is a fact, that he had never sent or caused to be sent, a single paper south of Mason and Dixon's line. He afterwards sent papers to some of the leading politicians there; but they of course were not the ones to promote negro insurrections. "But," it has been answered, "the papers did find their way there." Are we then forbidden to publish our opinions upon an important subject, for fear somebody will send them somewhere? Is slavery to remain a sealed book in this most communicative of all ages, and this most inquisitive of