329 
 El 2d 
 
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[from the 
 
 NATIONAL ERA.] 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 MSRRIHEW AND THOMPSON, PRINTERS, 
 
 No. 7 Carter’s Alley. 
 
 1851. 
 
 E TP [LJ 
 
 r- 
 
 
 _TLI 
 
 
 
The Article which follows appeared in the National Era of May 1 and 
 subsequent numbers of that well-tred journal. If the views which it 
 presents so clearly could receive an idditional recommendation, it would 
 be found in the announcement by tie Editor of the Era that it is from 
 the pen of Da. William Elder. 
 
 June 19, 1851. 
 
0 5 °l' ci 5>*^ 
 
 \;’i ct 
 
 r 
 
 “THE DUTY OF ANTI-SLAVERY VOTERS.” 
 
 May 1 , 1851. 
 
 The question of questions with the readers and writers 
 of the Era just now, is being discussed under this caption. 
 In terms very general you answer it, (in your leader of the 
 20th February:) “We can (ought to) vote our principles 
 into office.” “ Use the ballot-box for the establishment of 
 free principles.” “ In every State we should take care to 
 insure the election of anti-slavery men * * * by using 
 
 our elective franchise wisely.” 
 
 Taken together, your article is clear and unequivocal up¬ 
 on the point of duty. I read the sentences quoted with 
 emphasis upon the words insure and wisely , and insist upon 
 so enforcing and directing their significance. Duty gets a 
 different statement and drift when calculated from the point 
 of results, from what it receives when inferred from general 
 principles without any consideration of results. In the one 
 case, a man may justify himself by doing no wrong, though 
 at the expense of doing nothing useful for the excellent end 
 in view ; in the other, he will make sure to do right, and 
 whatever is practicable and expedient also. In the one, 
 the man is intent upon saving his own soul and maintaining 
 his consistency of principle, whatever becomes of the enter- 
 ^ prise; in the other, he throws his soul into it, equally care- 
 f ful for both, under the conviction that there must be some 
 ? right way of doing and getting the thing done, if it be a 
 3 duty at all. The one may stop short with self sacrifice and 
 solemn protest, the other sets his heart earnestly upon 
 
2 
 
 achievement. The one is sublime in principle, the other be¬ 
 neficent in practice, with all the possible difference that may 
 be between abstract truth and providential use. 
 
 In the interspace and difference of these two apprehen¬ 
 sions of duty, your w r ord wisely mediates, for expediency is 
 the wisdom of actual life—the adjustment, every moment 
 demanded, of principles to affairs, in order to effect the 
 greatest possible good in the circumstances, without ob¬ 
 scuring, or weakening, or offending against the truth which 
 rightfully rules the case. It must not be forgotten, either, 
 that this territory, which is thus under the dominion of an 
 honest discretion, is also the devil’s own play-ground—a 
 wilderness of temptation, where he would turn stones into 
 bread to meet an exigency or avoid a trial—a nice pinnacle 
 point of balance, hard to maintain, from 'which he tempts 
 world-menders to cast themselves in headlong impatience— 
 a grand prospect, offering glorious success in reward of de¬ 
 mon worship ! Heaven help us! Besides being honest, we 
 need to be wise as serpents, avoiding their wickedness, or, 
 for the world’s use, we might as well not be at all. 
 
 I am going to assume a general assent to your statement 
 of our duty . By which I understand explicitly, in the first 
 place, that we must do something ; secondly, that we must 
 do it in truth and righteousness; and, thirdly, that w r e must 
 do as much of it as possible, without shrinking from the 
 conditions, in order to take care of the rest of our goodness 
 and wisdom which we cannot get into immediate play. In 
 this way, and on these terms, the w r orld does get along— 
 with some help, to be sure, from the impracticables who do 
 the preaching and protesting of the great principles which 
 over -rule all, and will, in good time, rule in all. 
 
 But in the mean time, what of the method and policy of 
 
3 
 
 our action in the premises ? This is the open question; 
 very full of difficulty in itself, for it envoives the whole the¬ 
 ory of reform, which, perhaps, nobody understands tho¬ 
 roughly ; and is, besides, complicated by different opinions 
 sharply opposed to each other, and obscured, also, by much 
 doubt and hopelessness, which demand satisfaction before 
 they can be arrayed into any shape for service. 
 
 One opinion would return, in effect, to the old close-com¬ 
 munion Liberty organization, pivoted upon its one idea; 
 another would go forward to something still more severely 
 and exactly conscientious than that, for the sake of scrupu¬ 
 lousness and logical perfectness: a third would organize a 
 reserve guard of light troops, choice men and brave spirits, 
 capable of being wheeled into line and brought to the charge 
 wherever a dash might be made in the heat of a conflict, 
 with the whole field of politics, and both sides of the battle, 
 for range of action; a fourth, worn out in the old service, 
 and tired of drill, will enlist nowhere, and answ r er to no 
 muster-roll, but will vote for officers only who promise to 
 fight for the right; and perhaps another variety is ready 
 for re-absorption into their old parties, from which they 
 rose, in the notion that a few drops of fresh water may sen¬ 
 sibly abate the saltness of the sea. And there remains still 
 another way, which you suggest, (in Era, No. 219,) as the 
 “ thought of many friends ;” and “ if we are to have a new 
 national organization,” it has your approbation, to wit: 
 “ The formation of a new party, taking the Democratic 
 principle as its central idea, and boldly applying it to the 
 solution of all the political questions now pressing upon the 
 public mind.” 
 
 Without charging myself with the orderly treatment of 
 these propositions, I will offer some thoughts upon them, 
 
4 
 
 expecting the application wherever it is clear and correct 
 in the reader’s apprehension. 
 
 A political party cannot be built upon a sentiment which 
 
 respects only the interests of a small or otherwise inconsid- 
 
 ■* 
 
 erable class of the people, very unlike in circumstances and 
 wants from the mass; because, the general business of 
 Government, and the rights of other classes, are impera¬ 
 tive ; because, the progress and promise of the established 
 order must go forward ; and because, one reform will not 
 'Wait for another, less favorably circumstanced, or be post¬ 
 poned or excluded by it. 
 
 Nay, more: a political party and policy cannot be built 
 upon a sentiment at all. They must grow out of interests 
 —all the interests which Government is concerned about. 
 A great idea may, indeed, monopolize the attention of a 
 community for a time; perhaps one important specialty or 
 another does exclusively command the public mind until it 
 gets settled ; but whenever such particular sentiment or in¬ 
 terest is really strong enough to employ a party, or form 
 one, it is strong enough to constrain an existing one. New 
 organizations are not necessary to new movements, unless 
 they are revolutionary in their character and manner of 
 working ; neither can such separate organizations sustain 
 themselves long enough for success, because they have their 
 own partialism and defectiveness to answer for, as well as 
 their proper antagonism to meet in its fortified places. 
 
 A moral reform, as such, is not the legitimate business of 
 Government functionaries. They are appropriately occu¬ 
 pied only with the conduct of affairs, according to the prin¬ 
 ciples which rule in the Constitution. The “ Higher Law” 
 is not the rule of representative legislation ; republicanism 
 restrains its representatives to the duty of reflecting the 
 
5 
 
 public sentiment and giving form and effect to the public 
 will. . A member of Congress is not deputed to digest the 
 Divine will into statutes to be enforced by courts of justice, 
 but as an agent to effectuate that of his constituency. The 
 “ Higher Law” is the rule of right, the rule of the individ¬ 
 ual conscience; but no Democratic legislator has the right 
 to misrepresent the people for whom he acts, either by a 
 higher or lower law than reflects them truly. He should 
 not deceive them in their suffrages, nor should he disappoint 
 them in his services. The system of civil government and 
 the economy of society are so much below the truth, so sadly 
 out of harmony with right, that we must not expect con¬ 
 formity to good conscience and the Divine will in the ad¬ 
 ministration of affairs. Are we not a Christian people ? 
 Yet what impediment did our morality and religion oppose 
 to the annexation of Texas, and the assumption of her 
 crimes—to the Mexican war—to the Compromise measures of 
 the last Congress ? These things have all happened within 
 the last seven years ! Seven years before the first of them, 
 they all felt incredible and impossible; but they are facts 
 now ; not intolerable, but quietly familiar. A moral senti¬ 
 ment claim controlling authority in Government ! Why, 
 one hero of that war has been elected President of the na¬ 
 tion for the glory of it, and another is now a candidate up¬ 
 on its merits, and all the prominent aspirants for public 
 favor are building their hopes upon one or other of the enor¬ 
 mities of this bloody week of years ! 
 
 A moral sentiment inaugurated in the system of politics ! 
 American Republicanism separates Church and State, di¬ 
 vorces religion from politics upon system, and our churches 
 surrender to the Government supremacy in all points of 
 morals which it chooses to usurp ! Is it worth while to talk 
 
6 
 
 of carrying a principle of piety, Christian duty, and broth¬ 
 erly love, into the Administration, while it is discounte¬ 
 nanced by the churches to which the officers belong ? 
 
 I conclude that slavery, considered as a sin, an immoral¬ 
 ity, or wrong inflicted upon our neighbor, offers no complete 
 basis for a political party, and no nucleus for a political or¬ 
 ganization. We have seen the higher law mocked and 
 scorned when it was arrayed point-blank against the lower. 
 Where it could not be evaded it was defied, and the Chief 
 Priests have joined with Herod and Pontius Pilate in its 
 crucifixion. From which we learn that the Christianity of 
 to-day will not submit to that of the millennium ; nay, that 
 it will not tolerate it, but joins with patriotism in calling 
 upon Pilate to crucify it as he is a friend to Caesar. But— 
 it is not the business of philosophy to rail at facts, but to 
 learn by them. 
 
 This is not said in doubt or condemnation of our organ¬ 
 ized movements in the past. Whatever expectations they 
 have disappointed, they yet have answered their proper 
 ends. They have informed public opinion and awakened 
 public sentiment, by means of oral discussion, and newspa¬ 
 per and periodical publications ; and they have carried their 
 system of propagandism into the halls of Congress, and per¬ 
 haps every free State Legislature in the Union: all means 
 have been employed that could give earnestness and inter¬ 
 est to the discussion, until every interest and enterprise of 
 the times, in both Church and State, has been reached by 
 it; until abolitionism has become an institution with all the 
 apparatus and relations of a religious, moral, and political 
 reform. It has had it3 special representatives in most of 
 the Legislatures of the North, as well as in both branches 
 of the National Congress, though it has not, I believe, car- 
 
 K>*\ihuii 
 
 m n 
 
7 
 
 ried any measure of policy by its own proper organic force 
 —its success having been achieved, generally, through coali¬ 
 tions with minority parties, where, in conjunction, they hap¬ 
 pened to have the required strength. 
 
 In saying that the Liberty party could not get estab¬ 
 lished in the Government, I am not saying that its existence 
 was a mistake, for it may have been a proper and necessary 
 means of forwarding the cause in that sphere and direction ; 
 and I think it was ; and I think, for this reason, that it was 
 worth all the labor and money which it cost. The disap¬ 
 pointment of an ostensible aim is nothing in a right effort, 
 if its proper effect is nevertheless secured. 
 
 In 1848 the Liberty party was merged in a new organi¬ 
 zation, with a creed intended to cover all the issues then 
 available as rallying-points, and deserving of such support. 
 This fact, itself, is evidence that the former movement had 
 become incapable of the expected service. In other words, 
 the party felt that it would no longer avail to be only preach¬ 
 ers of a supplementary gospel of politics, or to stand still 
 in the attitude of watching and criticising the great parties 
 who were fighting within reach of the victory, but that it 
 must bring itself into the front of the battle, with all the 
 means of success, and all the capacities to administer the 
 power contended for. 
 
 When the Liberty party was formed, it was right; talent 
 and zeal are good for nothing if the amount invested in that 
 movement could not secure against a total blunder. While 
 it lived it was right, and when it died it was because it had 
 fulfilled its office and lost its capacity for use by change of 
 the conditions which had called it into being. A new 
 method was made necessary by the very success of the old. 
 
 These notions of a party, formed upon a single idea, or a 
 
8 
 
 specialty less than a whole governmental system, are cor¬ 
 roborated, I think, by extending them to the case of the 
 anti-slavery representatives elected to both Houses of Con¬ 
 gress ; that is, by looking at the actual successes of the 
 scheme, as well as inferring its working capacities from 
 general considerations. 
 
 In the lower House, nearly a dozen men of extraordinary 
 abilities and zeal represent the anti-slavery sentiment, and, 
 in fact, permit no opportunity for its defence and advocacy 
 to pass unimproved. In the earlier days of the controversy, 
 Adams and Giddings took the position and pressed the doc¬ 
 trines of the movement with all the effect that mind of the 
 highest force and range, and heart of the firmest quality, 
 could insure. They had the nation for their audience, and 
 nothing was wanting in the champions, the cause, or its 
 conditions, to agitate a people thoroughly. From that day 
 to this, the assault has not slackened fire or altered its aim; 
 and Hale in the Senate has for years now been as active, 
 capable, and efficient, as the warmest friend could wish. I 
 believe that every man sent to Congress expressly on this 
 errand has done his whole duty. The men of other parties 
 have disappointed our reasonable expectations and broken 
 their express pledges ; but our own representatives in no 
 instance. The last seven years has brought up the subject 
 in every form, and we have had our champions present, in 
 every variety of quality and adaptation, to give it the most 
 ample and thorough development. For all the purposes of 
 agitation and propagandism, the Congressional controversy 
 has been full to complete satisfaction. 
 
 And now the question comes up, Have we any thing more 
 to hope from this agency ? Or, is it so promising that we 
 should address all our energies to its continuance and ex¬ 
 tension ? 
 
I 
 
 9 
 
 My own opinion is, that an Abolition speech in Congress 
 has no longer any special or considerable power to arouse 
 or convince, any more than if it had equal publicity through 
 our other means of publication ; and I think that the ineffi¬ 
 cacy of such speeches to the legitimate ends of legislation 
 is now felt as a fault, at the same time that they afford no 
 compensation in the conviction and persuasion of the pub¬ 
 lic. There is such a thing as the interest and excitement of 
 a debate surviving its utility. 
 
 From another ground I draw the same conclusion. Agi¬ 
 tation was once the best service that could be rendered to 
 the cause of liberty, and Congress Hall the best place for 
 it. The North understood it so, and desired it; the South 
 understood it so, and feared it. Silence, absolute, -was the 
 demand in 1837, and the slaveholders at that time used 
 every means, most unscrupulously, to enforce it. But how 
 is it now ? The discussions of slavery have been almost un¬ 
 interrupted through the period of the last Congress, and 
 they were led off in almost every instance by the pro-slavery 
 leaders ! Whatever this change means in other respects, it 
 is a significant one touching the policy of agitation and de¬ 
 bate in the Capitol for out-door purposes. And the effect 
 of the long discussion upon the respective Houses! No 
 abolitionist looks without amazement at the reports. He 
 finds none of the effects upon the opposition members which 
 he expected, from the faithful exhibition of the truth, when, 
 some years ago, he labored so hard merely to get it a hear¬ 
 ing. Liberty and Slavery have had a hand-to-hand strug¬ 
 gle in the freest field of combat in the world ; Europe has 
 all the while been shaken with revolutions; and America 
 has been even extravagant in its sympathies; the issues 
 involved were of the most urgent practical importance; the 
 
10 
 
 sentiment and the interests were in their fullest activity; 
 yet the champions of the wrong have not been overwhelmed; 
 they have not been made to confess it; and they are even 
 supported in their defiant attitude by frequent and flagrant 
 apostacies from principle in the ranks of allies which the 
 friends of Liberty relied upon with the greatest assurance. 
 In all these years legislation has constantly answered to the 
 demands of the enemy ; the victory rests with the spirit of 
 aggression, and success is, as usual, working out its own 
 justification, and changing itself into glory that passes al¬ 
 most unchallenged ! 
 
 So soon as the field of debate was fairly opened and freed, 
 the friends of the right brought the abstract principles of 
 truth and righteousness to bear upon the opposition ; and 
 behold ! this day they are openly repudiated. Seven years 
 ago, these principles asked only a hearing; to-day, they 
 are seeking for shelter and defence ! Conscience and the 
 Higher Law have the reputation of a pestilence—Compro¬ 
 mise and quiet are the only patriotism and orthodoxy ! 
 
 A political party with abolitionism for its exclusive, or 
 principal, or central idea, gets no countenance from any of 
 these considerations. In this form and array it has already 
 suffered the defeat of its aims in the policy of the Govern¬ 
 ment and country. 
 
 To those to whom this argument is conclusive or unneces 
 sary, it may seem also tedious; but I have other uses for 
 the investigation than its bearing upon this particular pro¬ 
 position, and I proceed with it 'with this view. 
 
 Domestic Slavery at the South surpasses every other evil 
 in the minds of the Abolitionists of the North ; but it is not 
 so felt among the people who must be relied upon for politi¬ 
 cal opposition to it. An analysis of the classes of voters in 
 
11 
 
 the North, with their party affinities, would be a most va¬ 
 luable achievement. But our purpose demands only an im¬ 
 perfect classification; and it will be safe loosely to assign 
 the mercantile and manufacturing men, the aspiring politi¬ 
 cians, the leading churchmen, and aristocratic capitalists 
 and idlers, to the service of the adverse interest—in a word, 
 all the prosperous, prudent classes, who prefer their pros¬ 
 pects and their ease to the odiousness and onerousness of 
 reform and agitation. These, we may as well surrender in 
 the lump to the enemy. 
 
 What is the character of our own array and reliances ? 
 First, the men of the martyr spirit, and the conscience 
 class. These mustered something less than 7,000 strong in 
 1840, and in 1844, 62,000, with the issue of slavery exten¬ 
 sion fairly before the community. Sixty-two thousand out 
 of two and a half millions ! If that is not the highest aver¬ 
 age for an anti-slavery party, it is near enough to judge it 
 by. (In 1848 a large auxiliary force was brought in upon 
 an enlarged platform, but chiefly though an accidental dis¬ 
 affection in the ranks of the Democratic party, and a few 
 recruits from the Whig ranks, induced by its imposing 
 promise. But it was not supposed or intended to be a per¬ 
 manent organization. 
 
 The source of growth and hope of strength for such a 
 party would be chiefly in the class of voters who are not 
 committed by interest or affection to the present ruling par¬ 
 ties. These are the laborers and the small proprietaries, 
 who are not specially exposed to temptation. All that are 
 free in their conditions, with all that are either refractory, 
 discontented, or progressive in character; and after these 
 were won and organized, the better portion of the conser¬ 
 vatives made ready to move by the promise of immediate, 
 
12 
 
 * 
 
 or at least certain success. One or two hundred thousand 
 devotees of the sentiment might be set down for service in 
 any circumstances. But how does the project stand ad¬ 
 dressed to the other divisions of this hope ? 
 
 With the multitude of working men employed at wages 
 by capitalists, the question of personal liberty or chattel 
 slavery is by no means the principal one of the times. They 
 are too much occupied with their own social and pecuniary 
 privations, too much occupied with the general interests of 
 productive industry, and the more equal distribution of 
 wealth in their own world, to give an effective sympathy to 
 the slave of the South. With them, the first necessities of 
 life are at stake, or, if daily bread is regularly earned by 
 daily toil, the felt insecurity of the provision presses upon 
 them; and this feeling is enhanced by the wants of that 
 ambition and aspiration which civil freedom inspires for 
 themselves and for their dependencies. They are not so 
 much at ease in their own condition as to feel the impulses 
 of a disinterested philanthropy. The emancipation of the 
 bondman does not come easily home to their sympathies, for 
 the want of analogy to their own evils and necessities. 
 Nor do the theories which grow up out of their own fami¬ 
 liar speculations easily apply to the slave’s condition. 
 
 The English and Irish poor tacitly assent to emancipa¬ 
 tion doctrines at home, -where they mean nothing near and 
 practical to themselves ; but not an immigrant in a hundred 
 from either of these islands will acknowledge abolitionism 
 here. They are Democrats, and nothing else, upon the in¬ 
 stinct that arrays itself against the forms of oppression 
 which affect themselves, wherever you find them, whether 
 in the alms-house or custom-house, in the church or gin- 
 shop. Daniel O’Connell might say what he pleased in their 
 
13 
 
 name at home, but here he lost all his power on this point, 
 and Father Mathew altered his attitude to the subject mar¬ 
 vellously, when he came under the influences of our cli¬ 
 mate. 
 
 These people are coming to us from every kingdom of 
 Europe, by millions ; almost immediately they are active 
 elements of our political movements, and they seem, as a 
 rule, insensible to the claims of the chattel slave. For this, 
 there are many occasional causes, but the primary and effi¬ 
 cient one is such as affords no hope of removal. And the 
 native laborers of our great cities are, for the like cause, as 
 far from the sentiment, and as indifferent to the demands 
 of Abolitionism, as these. 
 
 In truth, it is the great problem of labor, its relations to 
 capital, or the system of property, that occupies these peo¬ 
 ple. Bring them a system of rights and remedies in this 
 interest, and they will listen; or give them a method of 
 exerting their political power hopefully to this end, and 
 they will allow you to add whatever philanthropy to remote 
 objects you please, which will not encumber their own work. 
 They are not hostile, but they are not concerned ; and if 
 ever they behave with violent injustice in this matter, it is 
 not from any sentimental antagonism, but in recklessness 
 and wantonness toward that which is nothing to them but 
 its annoyance. 
 
 The free negro and the slave understand the matter of 
 personal liberty much better than these. The want of it, 
 and the fresh and well-contrasted enjoyment of it, keep the 
 feeling warm and strong in our colored people; but it 
 touches the free laborer nowhere near enough to be felt ve¬ 
 hemently. He has never feared bondage ; he does not find 
 his freedom a positive and productive blessing ; self-govern- 
 
14 
 
 ment is pretty well balanced in bis condition, by self-de¬ 
 pendence, with all its burdens and responsibilities ; for, in 
 embarrassed circumstances it is not a matter of perpetual 
 exultation, and for that reason it is less efficient as a sentiment. 
 Indeed, there are some pinching places in the toiler’s ex¬ 
 periences where the Declaration of Independence does feel 
 like “ a rhetorical flourish,” and that “inalienable liberty” 
 a mockery, which, while it forbids the sale of the man’s 
 bones and muscles upon the auction-block, nevertheless al¬ 
 lows the sale of all there is in them every day at the 
 counter of the employer, without hope of an alternative 
 for free choice. 
 
 I am neither assuming nor accepting that theory of hu“ 
 man nature which has been called the “selfish system,” 
 nor am I denying to the class of men under discussion any 
 quality which humanity, in any condition, may boast of. 
 The mob and the millionaires, the mass and the upper ten, 
 are all alike essentially ; they are all men—such men as 
 God will yet make a beautiful world of. Indeed, if there 
 be any difference of receptivity for truth induced by con¬ 
 ditions, it is the poor who first accept the gospel of reform; 
 for it is to them that it is eminently adapted ; but it is be¬ 
 cause it is so adapted to their own conditions that they re¬ 
 ceive it. The proclamation of “liberty to the captive” 
 makes the “ year of the Lord acceptable to them that are 
 bound .” Nothing in the nature of things can better dis¬ 
 pose the poor and illiterate toward redeeming truth than 
 the rich, cultivated, and refined, except their special ad¬ 
 justment to it in circumstances ; and accordingly, it is 
 found, in all time, that the majorities have accepted for 
 themselves what they wanted for themselves, neglecting, if 
 not opposing, the extension beyond their own sphere and 
 
15 
 
 affinities. The believing Jew has ever his doubts if the 
 Gentiles are included in the covenant of grace; and it is 
 only the greater spirits who understand the brotherhood, 
 the unity, of the race. Closely examined, the difference 
 between tyrant and slave, oppressed and oppressor, is not 
 so great that the whole breadth of the 44 great gulf” lies be¬ 
 tween them, either here or hereafter. Providence redeems 
 the world by devoting the very highest, his chosen ones, to 
 the service of the lowest. The intermediate styles of men 
 are too nearly in the condition of objects, to be active 
 agents of the beneficent work. The missionary and martyr 
 race look through the whole, they see the end from the be¬ 
 ginning, they reveal the truth, anticipating its establish, 
 ment. In their enthusiasm they are prone to imagine that 
 44 the ends of the world have come upon them,” that they 
 44 stand in the last days,” and that 44 the day of the Lord is 
 at hand.” Nevertheless, it is a certainty of both reason 
 and experience, that the 44 better time” must wait till it is 
 woven gradually and smoothly into the life of the world. 
 Government, which is only the public business of the com¬ 
 munity, will not take up the redemption of society on specu¬ 
 lation ; and political parties, whose instincts are measured 
 by their uses, get blind and furious when the over-bright 
 light is flared into their eyes. Reform, to get recognised 
 and legislated into force, must first get itself infused into 
 the life and manners of the people, and thence reflected in 
 the political administration. 
 
 My point is, that Southern slavery, though it touches every 
 concern of our lives, mingles in every speculation, and mixes 
 with every form of business—though it follows the Ameri¬ 
 can over the world, a shadow upon his path, and an impedi¬ 
 ment to every movement—though the slave-hunts in which 
 
16 
 
 the African was first captured, in his native wilderness, are 
 reenacted every day before our eyes, in his recapture—chat¬ 
 tel slavery is yet not the question with the uprising masses 
 of society. They have their own liberty asserted complete 
 in paper charters ; they have all its forms in familiar use, 
 and now they are intent upon securing its essence, its sub¬ 
 stantial promise, in fact. Popular rights, sharply scru¬ 
 tinized, turn out to be only the right and position of a hard 
 fight for the means of life, to the majority ; and the common 
 soldiery, in the great battle of business competition, are 
 occupied, as they never were before, with forwarding the 
 progress which they have already made, and securing the 
 actual fruits of it. 
 
 Some day soon, the Reformers, who are so upon the sen¬ 
 timent, and the Progressives, who are busy with their own 
 necessities, will understand each other ; the Insight and the 
 Impulse will harmonize, and the old repugnances against 
 each other will be dropped along with the old insurrection¬ 
 ary battle-cries which have lost all their pertinence and 
 power; for, in fact, the feudalism of property which reigns 
 now, is wholly unlike the feudalism of force, against which 
 the old revolutions were arrayed; and republican liberty 
 answers even better all the purposes of the new dynasty 
 than absolute monarchy could do. The despotism of caste, 
 color, prejudice and bigotry, are over, with all their pride and 
 dignity. The parties in the struggle really are capital and 
 labor, and the old watchwords of personal liberty and po¬ 
 litical enfranchisement have lost much of their directness 
 of application, and, in proportion, their inspiration. Once 
 they were the object and end, now they are but a scaf¬ 
 folding to reach it. But when all the parties of progress 
 fully comprehend the philosophy and method of their great 
 
17 
 
 purpose, it will be accomplished; for then it will have all 
 its friends in firm array, it will have the best use of all its 
 own power, and the consent also of all that is important in 
 the opposition; for the integral plan will comprehend them 
 and their interests too. The achievement will not stand 
 upon the precarious foundation of conquest, but on the 
 broad basis of accorded right, and then “ a nation may be 
 born in a day,” but not till then. 
 
 The project of a new Democratic party, with your per¬ 
 mission, I will examine in my next, and will then, perhaps, 
 find some conclusion in my ideas about the general matter, 
 here something too bald and disjointed in form for my pur¬ 
 pose. 
 
 Senior. 
 
 In my former communication I reached the conclusion 
 that a political party, pivoted upon the anti-slavery senti¬ 
 ment, or mainly devoted to it and controlled by it, has no 
 such adaptation to the administration of the Government, 
 and no such expediency and availability even for its own 
 proper ends, as might justify its policy. 
 
 I cannot presume that your readers gave my thoughts 
 such consideration as will have kept them fresh in memory 
 through their interrupted publication, but I do not intend 
 now to rehearse the points for my present use, though I 
 need their service in my promised discussion of the project 
 of “A New Party taking the Democratic principle as its 
 central idea, and boldly applying it to the solution of all 
 the questions now pressing upon the public mind.” 
 
 This scheme of a New Democratic Party must be con- 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 sidered not only as to its intrinsic character, hut in refer¬ 
 ence to the particular want which it is to meet; for it is a 
 suggestion made to the anti-slavery voters of the country, 
 and offered to them as a method of effecting their special 
 object, to wit: “the divorce of the Federal Government 
 from all support of slavery, and opposition to the evil 
 within constitutional limits.” And, moreover, while con¬ 
 sidering it at one time, as to its several special aims, for it 
 has many, and at another, in its entirety of character and 
 action, it must not be forgotten that its practicability and 
 efficiency depend upon the equal earnestness and energy 
 of every principle and policy embraced in its creed; and 
 this to such degree and effect, that the party would in fact 
 he neither Anti-Slavery, Land Reform, Free Trade, nor 
 anything else that it promises, except as these are Demo¬ 
 cratic and mutually helpful, dependent, and harmonious. 
 
 The questions “pressing” for governmental action and 
 settlement now, and for which such new party must provide 
 an opinion and a position in its system, are, Anti-Slavery; 
 Land Reform; River and Harbor improvement by the 
 national funds ; Election of Officers by the people; Tariff 
 for Revenue with incidental Protection, or for Revenue 
 only, or, Free Trade and Direct Taxation; the Banking 
 system; Exemption of the Homestead from attachment for 
 debt; Restriction upon Land Monopoly; and sundry other 
 questions of equal interest with the best of these. Some 
 of these things, mentioned and intimated, are perhaps not 
 prominent interests in an organization for National pur¬ 
 poses, because they do not fall within the functions of the 
 Federal Government, but they are all of high importance 
 in State action, and the party that is to apply “ the Demo¬ 
 cratic idea to all the questions pressing upon the public 
 
19 
 
 mind,” must agree upon them before it can get into the 
 harmony required for unitary action upon any of them. 
 
 The new organization proposes to gather up the Reform¬ 
 ers and Progressives of all parties, and embody them by 
 force of their various affinities in a separate and indepen¬ 
 dent party; and with this view, it spreads a platform with 
 a plank in it for every opinion which the Democratic idea 
 is capable of. Very well—every earnest, honest man in 
 the nation is wishing and waiting for an effective array of 
 the wisdom and goodness of the country. And what has 
 hindered, hitherto? The excellence of the idea has ever 
 been just as apparent and attractive as it can be made ; yet, 
 wonderfully enough, no such party exists, and its practica¬ 
 bility is a question now! And very questionable it is, too, 
 because if it were as feasible as beautiful, it would assuredly 
 be in full life and governing the nation to-day; for, the men 
 who have any enmity to the general welfare, or any inte¬ 
 rest in the continuance of abuses, are surely much less than 
 a majority of our three millions of voters. 
 
 But with the understanding of all parties clear, and their 
 motives all pure, there is a grand difference between sub¬ 
 mitting to exceptionable things in an established party— 
 one of the two into which the country is regularly divided— 
 and accepting the overtures of a new one got up to secure 
 to every man his special preferences, and which must, be¬ 
 sides, be built up into a majority before it can do anything 
 which it proposes. 
 
 The old party to which a man belongs has some thing or 
 things in it for which he gave it his attachments, things all 
 the dearer to him for all the fighting he has done for them 
 with the enemy ; and, it has the power to effect them. If 
 occasionally it does nothing that he wishes, and opposes the 
 
 w 
 
20 
 
 things he wishes most, there always remains to him some 
 promise, and especially some possibility, that keeps the 
 hope of better things alive in him. He adheres, though he 
 cannot give reasons, or answer objections, or justify incon¬ 
 sistencies. 
 
 The popular instinct in a rough sort of omnibus classifi¬ 
 cation divides good and evil with only one partition line, so 
 that in the freest Governments there are usually but two 
 political parties. Indeed, there can be but two in the final 
 issue of questions, wherever the majority principle decides 
 all differences. Fragments feel that they must coalesce, 
 and swallow all repugnancies less than the very greatest, 
 when the last trial comes ; and it is natural enough, under 
 the anticipation of this necessity, to compromise everything 
 but the highest for the sake of the highest, or for the hope- 
 fullest, if that is all that is possible, or even for the old 
 grudge when all hopes are lost, and nothing but fears are 
 left. But even when attachments weaken and old antagon¬ 
 isms abate, so that party feeling sits light and loose, and 
 dissatisfaction goes the length of a total divorce from the 
 old, a transference to the new is not yet insured; for men 
 are not the less scrupulous about new commitments for the 
 resistance they have made against former differences, and 
 the fine practice in hard fighting which it afforded, but the 
 contrary. There are no such radicals as the refugees from 
 despotism, and there is no conscience so difficult as a 
 reformer’s. Sectarianism is secession’s own brood, and 
 those who divide for opinion’s sake are as likely to split at 
 one seam as another, and in fact usually do go far to 
 demonstrate that men, like matter, are infinitely divisible. 
 
 Moreover, (I am not speaking for myself,) the evils and 
 sins of the established order seem unavoidable, and get a 
 
shelter under the general excuses of human infirmity and 
 necessity; but those of a new voluntary arrangement feel 
 as if they were assumed freely, and brought an unmitigated 
 responsibility with them. The favorite doctrine may be 
 duly honored, but there are the other things that must 
 come with it, some of them unwelcome ; some of them odi¬ 
 ous ; and they are not like the old mischiefs, to be endured 
 only, but to be accepted and adopted ! Above all, a man 
 leaves the old because it will do nothing that he wishes, 
 and will do something that he opposes; (sentiments and 
 opinions merely he could overlook). Will h‘e join the 
 new which can do nothing that he wishes, though he agrees 
 with it throughout, and may, perchance, demand his 
 approval of something that he disbelieves and dislikes ? 
 
 I have indicated a dozen points of principle and policy 
 comprehended by the “ Democratic idea,” about which men 
 may differ after they have agreed upon anti-slavery—points 
 which must severally stand the challenge of every man 
 whose soundness is to be tried by them, and each man must 
 be satisfied with at least all of them which he thinks import¬ 
 ant, for he is going now upon principle, in total disregard 
 of the new party’s present feebleness, and there is no prac¬ 
 tical good within reach that might compensate for some 
 evil, but the whole is to be adopted for the purpose of pro- 
 pagandism, and must be believed, supported, and defended, 
 until the time of strength comes, and must not be disputed 
 then, when the possible mischief is to take effect. If I do 
 not mistake or exaggerate this consideration, there are dif¬ 
 ferences enough in the varieties of policy to be embraced, 
 to account for the want of such an organization as we are 
 thinking about in the past, and to put the present feasi¬ 
 bility into serious doubt. 
 
 2 * 
 
22 
 
 ✓ 
 
 Differences of drift and difficulties in faith occur every¬ 
 where. The anti-slavery man who is most capable of sac¬ 
 rifice is also the least disposed to compromise; and besides 
 his “one idea,” he has several others which must be satis¬ 
 fied when they are wakened up. He is generally sound in 
 the matter of personal liberty—the rights of man against 
 property in man, or chattel slavery, and whatever of jus¬ 
 tice and philanthropy is involved in it. He insists upon 
 civil freedom for all men, and wages for work, against all 
 laws and conventions which refuse them ; but for this pur¬ 
 pose, and the means of achieving it, will he also pledge him¬ 
 self to the Chartist, Socialist, and industrial Radical, and 
 make common cause with them? And will the “working 
 man,” who holds that the laborer ought to be the partner 
 and pot the mere machinery of capital, step out of the way 
 to give aid—not to the slave, whose sufferings appeal for 
 his compassion, and in any direct way might have his sym¬ 
 pathies—but to an anti-slavery party which will do nothing 
 for him ? 
 
 There are earnest men among us who believe in their 
 hearts that the best interests of the industrial classes depend 
 upon the protection of home manufactures against the 
 “pauper labor of Europe;” and they insist upon a tariff of 
 duties for revenue, with incidental protection, so distributed 
 and levied as shall in all events secure this end; and they 
 base this policy upon a patriotism and benevolence which 
 they hold to be as great and imperative as compassion for 
 the southern slave, and entitled even to preference, if 
 either must be postponed, because it touches those wffio are 
 nearer to the level of our natural sympathies, and more 
 immediately and terribly exposed to the evils of misgovern- 
 ment. And there, to oppose these, are the Radical Demo- 
 
23 
 
 crats, on whom we must so largely rely, with their cry of 
 anti-bank, no monopoly, and no class legislation. 
 
 Non-imprisonment for debt, exemption of the homestead 
 and of the household furniture from execution, with a 
 thorough system of school and college education, at the 
 public expense, for every child in the State, are deemed by 
 a large body of liberalists essential to the complete eman¬ 
 cipation of the freeman and his family from the disabilities 
 of poverty, and the bondage, mental and personal, which it 
 inflicts ; and as much above the claim of legal freedom for 
 the southern slave in importance and urgency, as the cul¬ 
 tivated white man outranks the ignorant plantation drudge 
 in social and political value. Here, again, a conscientious 
 difference opposes the required conciliation of parties. 
 
 A very large class of the recruits we must count upon are 
 willing to break every legal yoke, and put the whole world 
 upon such equality as diversity of gifts, fortunes, and cul¬ 
 ture, will allow, but will go no farther to level equalities 
 and remove disabilities. They would give all men equal 
 rights before the law, in parchment and in possibility, but 
 they are firm for order, and for all the defences of indi¬ 
 vidualism, and all the distinctions of wealth, education and 
 rank, that free competition can produce ; in the belief that 
 religion, law, and morals, individual and national welfare, 
 and all the best interests of rich and poor, rest upon them. 
 Such men will not accept the extreme of liberty as the 
 remedy for any of our existing slaveries; they hope for a 
 better method. 
 
 But there is scarcely any limit to these differences, and 
 the very integrity of the men to be relied upon for the 
 necessary compromises forbids the hope of it; and the pas¬ 
 sions and prejudices, with all the forms of selfishness and 
 
24 
 
 folly, which disturb the working of the world’s affairs in 
 other combinations, are to be expected here as well. 
 
 Under all these influences, a third party can expect the 
 support only of such men as are willing to throw away their 
 votes upon it for the sake of doing right in some particular 
 which such party maintains, and for the sake of using its 
 machinery for the purposes of moral suasion and proselyt- 
 ism; and, of those who resort to it in a fit of displeasure 
 and temporary alienation from their old associates, as we 
 witnessed in New York in 1848. There are also a few men 
 in the world who will support perfectly hopeless nomina¬ 
 tions for a lifetime, on the simple ground that they will do 
 right, because they cannot do better; a class of men, by 
 the way, v T ho are distinguished for always using irresistible 
 arguments against immovable objections, and wiselyresting 
 their case upon eternal principles, for the reason that 
 nothing less enduring is likely to last, till the day of their 
 triumph. 
 
 There are times, indeed, it must not be forgotten, when 
 protest is the proper expression of despairing principle, and 
 the best rebuke of atrocious wrong. In such circumstances, 
 men can render no higher duty to Truth and Righteousness 
 than the most public and striking declaration of their dis¬ 
 sent, Third parties, in such cases, have the noblest uses, 
 and can take the grandest attitudes; but they can have no 
 permanent place in affairs, and no success by their own 
 proper force. 
 
 The Free Soil party of the last Presidential contest had 
 all the available questions which were then “ pressing upon 
 the public mind,” and the most popular side of them, 
 among its sentiments and declared objects; it had quite an 
 array of men and means; and it had party discontent, 
 
25 
 
 but little short of disruption, in one of its great rivals, and 
 an actual division in the other, to help it; yet it failed to 
 command a single electoral vote for its candidates, and was 
 thereupon immediately dissolved. It was pledged in the 
 most positive way to the most unexceptionable anti-slavery 
 action upon the issues then asking settlement by the Fede¬ 
 ral Government; the opponents of slavery asked no more 
 than it promised, and a statesman wholly indifferent to that 
 question could not blame it with excess; to this it added 
 the best conditioned points of liberal legislation, and 
 endeavored the inauguration of the advance sentiment of 
 Democracy in the Government; and, besides, it brought 
 with it the warranty of the highest names, and the services 
 of some of the best men in the Democratic party. Further : 
 A very large majority of the people of the North were then, 
 as now, in sentiment, opposed to chattel slavery, and in 
 interest were all opposed to its extension and encroach¬ 
 ments, which were then pressing as practically and urgently 
 as they could be put; yet, not more than one-eighth of the 
 votes polled in the Free States were given to the party of 
 freedom and progress ! 
 
 If any one, to avoid the conclusion which this piece of 
 experience furnishes to the argument for a continuance or 
 reorganization of such party, urges that the party was then 
 in its infancy, the answer is two-fold—It died in that 
 infancy, and of course ceased to grow; or, it is a law of 
 third parties that they never come to maturity, but, like 
 certain other anomalies in nature, they are as big the day 
 they are hatched as they ever will be afterwards, until they 
 merge into the standard form again. 
 
 Moreover, the withdrawal of the disaffected is not always 
 either an evil or a terror to the erring party ; for if the 
 
26 
 
 two rival parties lose about equal numbers, their relative 
 strength is not thereby affected, and as long as the loss is 
 equal, and the seceders not dangerous from their own num¬ 
 bers, an independent party so formed counts nothing, and 
 comes to nothing in the contest; nobody loses anything by 
 them, but those whom they desire to befriend. 
 
 I need not repeat here, that when the exigency is such 
 that support cannot rightfully be given, and silence is for¬ 
 bidden by conscience, a party organization and an open 
 protest may be both duty and wisdom, though there be no 
 hope of either immediate or ultimate success for it. But 
 am I not right in the opinion that, ordinarily and simply, 
 the effect of withdrawing the virtue and conscience of the 
 community from the ranks of the governing parties, leaves 
 them to vie with each other in flattering and courting the 
 vice of the times ? And if it is fair to infer, or true in fact, 
 that such protesting third party comes from the two rivals 
 in pretty equal proportion, then the secessions rather relieve 
 than constrain the conduct of the regulars. 
 
 Be these things as they may, it was in the presence of 
 such a third party that all the enormities of the last seven 
 years have been enacted, and it was against its best efforts 
 directly opposed and exerted. The available questions in 
 its hands were—The right of petition and free debate, 
 Texan annexation, the Mexican war, abolition of the Slave- 
 trade in the District of Columbia, the admission of Oregon 
 and California, settlement of the Texan boundary line, and 
 Slavery in the District and Territories. What has become 
 of all these questions? And what is left of them for use 
 and hope ? Slavery in the District and the repeal of the 
 Fugitive Slave Law ! for it is settled that Utah and New 
 Mexico shall come in as they please to present themselves, 
 
27 
 
 now that the Proviso has failed in their Territorial organi¬ 
 zation. 
 
 I do not say that there is nothing in the general and cur¬ 
 rent conduct of the Government demanding amendment, 
 but I see nothing in it that can be presented with hope of 
 effect after failure with such a hand as we had in the great 
 political game of the past seven years. 
 
 Further, I submit that the history of the Missouri strug¬ 
 gle gives no help to the idea of an independent organization 
 for the resistance of a great national crime. In 1819-’20, 
 there was no separate anti-slavery party; yet, if I am not 
 very much mistaken, every State Legislature of the North 
 instructed its Senators, and requested its members of the 
 House in Congress, to oppose the admission of that State 
 with slavery in its Constitution. The anti-slavery sentiment 
 of that day found as full and effective expression then as a 
 distinct party could have given it, and came something 
 nearer to the accomplishment of its purpose than we have 
 done any time since 1844. The cases may not be parallel, 
 nor the struggles equal in their condition, for all purposes, 
 but it is safe to say that third parties gain nothing by the 
 comparison. It is as easy to say, that if the anti-slavery 
 vote of 1848 had been sprinkled into the great parties, it 
 might have more effectually modified them than it did in 
 its separate action, as it would be to say that if the majori¬ 
 ties of the Northern States in 1820 had been represented 
 in Congress by men elected and pledged to that very thing, 
 Henry Clay could not have seduced them from their 
 integrity. 
 
 My conviction is that no method of resistance, possible 
 to the reform spirit of this Union, could have altered the 
 results for the better, and I am as well satisfied that the 
 
28 
 
 good and true men of the nation have in all these instances 
 done their best, aye, and their wisest, too, in the premises. 
 I could not have been an honest man, if I had withheld 
 anything either of service or sacrifice which the policy I 
 am now considering so freely has cost me, and I have 
 neither regret nor reproach for the past. 
 
 I conclude that an omnibus reform party cannot be 
 organized with reasonable hope of success—that a party of 
 one idea has no proper political capabilities—that any inde¬ 
 pendent third party is only another method of moral sua¬ 
 sion or of hopeless protest. 
 
 What then ? 
 
 I do not know that I can satisfy even myself as to the 
 positive “ duty of anti-slavery voters ” in the present con¬ 
 dition of things, but you must allow me a little space for 
 such word as I have to utter upon this most interesting and 
 most difficult point in a future letter. 
 
 It is curious that we have not a word for more than two 
 months from any of your correspondents upon the proper 
 policy of the Free Soil party. It must be discussed and 
 settled. I am doing my duty to my friends—“ a disagreea¬ 
 ble duty ”—hut not “ with alacrity.” 
 
 SENIOR. 
 

UNIVERSmr OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 3 0112 073362797