Hasten, therefore, to withdraw that
support at the instant of time when the local friends of freedom have
just been induced to declare themselves, and so to become the unshielded
victims of slaveholding vindictiveness the instant the provisional
security of the new party derived from abroad ceases to exist. What
would 'the dissatisfaction with slavery' from 'hostility to the
rebellion' have amounted to in Maryland, as a power, against the haughty
and overbearing authority of the slaveholding Despotism, at the
commencement of the war, without the intervention of General Butler; or
that of Missouri, without that of General Fremont? What would that same
dissatisfaction with Slavery amount to at this very day even, in those
States, against the reflex wave of pro-slavery influence and power, if
all influence from the armies and authority of the United States were
completely withdrawn? Or, granting even that in those two Border States,
the most advanced of all, the most under ordinary influences from the
Free States, there is already inaugurated an Anti-slavery Movement which
would retain energy enough to carry on the struggle without foreign
aid--which even is extremely doubtful; the case would stand wholly
otherwise in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, or Arkansas, where no
well-constituted Party of Freedom has as yet achieved any successes, and
where the slaveholding interest and desperation are ten times stronger
than they are in the Border States.
Pages:
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157