Page:Letters on American slavery from Victor Hugo, de Tocqueville, Emile de Girardin, Carnot, Passy, Mazzini, Humboldt, O. Lafayette.djvu/23

Rh all English Christians. They feel deeply for their Christian brethren and sisters in bondage, and it is difficult for them to believe that other Christian brethren can be the means of so great an injustice. A Christian inflicting the lash, as it is inflicted in the Slave States of America, or selling his fellow man for money, seems to them an incomprehensible thing. Be it remembered, there is no national or political prejudice in this. English Christians felt the same when the slave owners were their own countrymen, and so strongly did they feel it as to buy the freedom of the slaves at a great price. May they not, then, appeal to the Christians of the United States, to declare uncompromising hostility against the slave system? Let slavery be abolished, and the United States would rise higher in the estimation of the Old World, than if all the New World were embraced in their Union, and all were one golden California.

EDWARD BAINES.

, Nov. 9th, 1856.

I will now turn to a subject of congratulation: I mean the Anti-Slavery Societies of America—those noble-hearted men and women, who, through difficulties and dangers, have proved how hearty they are in the cause of abolition. I hail them all as my friends, and wish them to regard me as a brother. I wish for no higher station in the world; but I do covet the honor of being a brother with these American abolitionists. In this country, the abolitionists are in perfect safety; here we have fame and honor; we are lauded and encouraged by the good; we are smiled upon and cheered by the fair; we are bound together by godlike truth and charity; and though we have our differences as to points of faith, we have no differences as to this point, and we proceed in our useful career esteemed and honored. But it is not so with our anti-slavery friends in America: there they are vilified, there