nize as slavery, we hold it to be invariably sinful. As for the th which, when they attempt to speak accurately, they call ema pation, we hold it to be the plainest and first duty of every mas As for the thing which they describe as the meaning of im diate abolition, we hold it to be not only practicable and safe, the very first thing to be done for the safety of a slave-hoid country. The immediate abolition against which we protest perilous to the commonwealth, and unjust to the slaves, is a ferent thing from that which the immediate abolitionists think th are urging on the country.

Why, then, dispute about words? Why not let these men sta their object, and call it by what name they choose? We answe because words in such a case are not mere breath, but things, a things of great importance in their effect on the public mind, and their effect on those who use them. "In questions of philosoph or divinity, that have occupied the learned, and been the subje of many successive controversies, for one instance of mere log machy," says Coleridge, "I could bring ten instances of log dædaly, or verbal legerdemain, which have perilously confirme prejudices, and withstood the advancement of truth, in conse quence of the neglect of verbal debate, that is, the strict discus sion of terms." This sagacious remark is, at least, as true re specting questions of political right, and of practical morality, a it is respecting questions of abstract philosophy, or scientific the ology. In the present instance, it is not mere logomachy to dis sent strongly from these immediate abolitionists; there is, in their use of terms, a certain logical sleight-of-hand, which perplexes, irritates, and inflames the public, and the influence of which, on their own minds, combining with the exciting character of the subject, and with the peculiar temperament of some among their leaders, tends to embitter their philanthropy, and to turn their sense of right into something too much like rancor.

The sophism by which they unwittingly impose on their own minds, and inflame the minds of others, is this:-the terms 'slavery,' 'slave-holding,' 'immediate emancipation,' etc., have one meaning in their definitions, and, to a great and unavoidable extent, another meaning in their denunciations and popular harangues. Thus they define a slave-holder to be one who claims and treats his fellow-men as property, as things, as destitute of all personal rights,-one, in a word, whose criminality is self-evident; but the moment they begin to speak of slave-holders in the way of declamation, the word which they have strained from its proper import, springs back to its position, and denotes any man who stands in the rela tion of overseer and governor to those whom the law has constituted slaves; and every man, who, in the meaning of the laws, or in the meaning of common parlance, is a slave-holder, is

denounced, with unmeasured expressions of abhorrence and hate, as an enemy of the species. What is the effect of this on their own minds? What-on the minds of those who happen, from one cause or another, to be ripe for factious and fanatical exctement against the south? What-on the minds of those, who, without unraveling the sophistry of the case, know, that many a slave-holder is conscientious, and does regard his slaves as brethren? What-on the minds of those slave-holders themselves, who are conscious of no such criminality? So of immediate emancipation. They define that to be an immediate cessation from the sin of claiming and treating men as chattels; but when they begin to urge this duty, in appeals to popular feeling, the phrase 'immediate emancipation,' cannot be hindered from meaning an immediate discharge of the slave from all special guardianship and govemment, and his immediate investiture with the power of selfcontrol. This, they are understood to mean, by the great mass of those who hear them, and this they do actually imply in many of their appeals, notwithstanding their definitions and restrictions. And what is the effect? The public understands them as demanding immediate and complete emancipation, in the obvious meaning of the terms; and the public at large, north and south, east and west, denounces them as visionary and reckless agitators. Hence it is, that even in those states where the hatred of slavery is most pervading, and most intense, the call for an immediate abolition meeting, is so often the signal for some demonstration of popular indignation. What is the effect on themselves? Convinced as they are, by their definition, of the self-evident duty of immediate emancipation, as they define it, and of the indispensable necessity of that emancipation, as preliminary to any other effort for the benefit of the slaves, they forget that immediate emancipation, in the ordinary acceptation of terms, is not equally a self-evident duty, and equally indispensable, as preliminary to other efforts; and so they look with contempt, with dislike, and, unless they are very watchful over their own spirits, with something akin to malignity, on the efforts now made at the south, by christians of various denominations, for the thorough religious instruction of those held in bondage. They must husband their strength." They "have no energies to waste in the chase of phantoms." They "cannot afford to be diverted from the main object by eloquent speeches, and touching appeals, about plans of instruction." They declare, peremptorily, that "all attempts at instruction are a real evil." Those

attempts may, indeed, inform the mind of the slave with "truths which are essential to his salvation," but still they are to be deprecated as "a real evil," inasmuch as slavery without instruction is so much more fertile in horrors, wherewithal to garnish the appeals of abolitionists, and to rouse the public mind to action.

If such a man as Mr. Phelps, (see p. 111 of the work before us,) a minister of the gospel, with a mind gifted by nature, and disciplined by education, can be deluded by this "verbal legerdemain" into the expression of such sentiments, what may we not expect from men of a lower order as to intellect and spirit.

We say, then, we cannot consent to be enrolled among the doctors or disciples in this school of immediate abolition. Though their immediate abolition may be a harmless thing, as they define it, they insist on arming that harmless thing with a most harmful name. Their well-intended definitions, unable to overcome that intrinsic power by which words retain their popular signification, define only to mystify, and mystify only to irritate.

We know it is often said, that any doctrine short of immediate emancipation, puts the conscience of the slave-holder asleep, and justifies him in transmitting slavery unmitigated to another generation. But nothing can be more unwarranted than such an assertion. The duty of immediate emancipation is one thing. The immediate duty of emancipation is another thing. That duty, the present duty of beginning the emancipation of his slaves, the instant duty of commencing a process with them, which shall infal libly result in their complete liberation, at the earliest date consistent with their well-being, may be urged at once on every slaveholder as a direct and indisputable corollary from the great law of love. Such a process, under whatever form it may be commenced, must imply at the outset, that, in the estimation of the master at least, the slave is no longer a chattel, but a person; no longer a thing, but a man, invested with the majesty of God's image, and endowed with the rights that belong to God's intelligent and accountable creature.

Here, then, let the public sentiment of the country speak out for the emancipation of slaves, and for the abolition of slavery. This is the gradual abolition which we stand ready always to advocate, without the liability to mean one thing when we define it, and another thing when we urge it. Let it be every where insisted on, as the first point to be carried, that to hold men as property, to claim them, and use them, and dispose of them, as things without personality, and without rights, is a sin, with which neither humanity nor religion can have any compromise. On this point, the north can be made to speak through all the organs of public sentiment, as with the voice of many thunders. On this point, the feeling in the free states is unanimous, and has been for these forty years. The preachers of immediate abolition often profess, that a great battle must be fought, before even New-England will come out against slavery. A battle must be fought, indeed, before New-England will fall in with their measures, or adopt their style; but it is nothing better than a libel on New-England, to affirm, that there is here one particle of

sympathy with slavery, or any feeling adverse to its abolition. Where, in New-England, can even the repulsive power of immediate abolitionism drive New-England men from their avowed abhorrence of slavery, in all its forms and operations? Nothing is wanting but the occasion and the call, to bring out the public sentiment of all the north in one loud cry of reprobation against the practice of making merchandise of men.

Nor will it be found impracticable to discuss this point at the south, or to convince even slave-holders of the wrong of claiming their slaves as 'property, in the same sense with their brood mares.* It is not impracticable; for there are hundreds of masters there, who are convinced already, and who act on the conviction, that they stand to their slaves not in the relation of ownership over property, but in the relation of guardianship and government over men, intelligent, and invested by the God of nature with the rights of humanity, yet ignorant, dependent, and, but for the master, defenseless. By the power, not indeed of heat, and smoke, and fury, but of light and love, that conviction may be made to spread, till having first pervaded the churches there, of every denomination, it shall become the strong conviction of the popular mind; and till the majesty of the people, speaking by distinct enactments, shall pronounce, that the slaves are persons, having human rights, and, as such, subject to the law, and under its protection. Then will the key-stone of the mighty fabric of oppression have been taken away; and legislation will have begun, effectually, the abolition of slavery.

We appeal, therefore, earnestly, to all the rational philanthropists of the so called Anti-Slavery party, to cease from the bewildering cry for an immediate emancipation, which, as defined by them, is either not immediate, or not emancipation; and for an immediate abolition, which, as they explain it, is to leave slavery mitigated, indeed, but not yet abolished. We call on them to forsake all fraternity with those who insist on thus blinding themselves, and abusing the public. We call on them henceforth to use language in its proper acceptation; and when they mean to demand, that men shall no longer be held and treated as merchandise, to demand it only in terms that shall convey their meaning clearly to every mind. Let them go with this point to the General Assembly, and all the Synods of the Presbyterian church, to the General Associations of New-England, to the Conferences of Methodism, to every assembly and convention by which public sentiment, on a point of morals, can be directed, or through which such sentiment can find fit

'It seems incredible that such a comparison should have been made by an advocate of slavery, within a few months past, in the legislature of proud Virginia. Yet such is the fact.

utterance. Let them persuade every ecclesiastical tribunal in the land to fix it as a principle, that he who buys, or sells, or treats, his fellow-men as merchandise, is to be dealt with as a sinner. We will go with them; our voice shall be lifted up as loud in the demand as theirs. Let them employ the press in all its forms of influence, till first the buying and selling, and then the owning and treating of men as merchandise, shall be infamous throughout the land. We will be their hearty coadjutors. It needs no longcontinued effort,-it needs only wise and vigorous effort,-to make the traffic in human beings, and the claim on which that traffic rests, infamous, utterly infamous, even among slave-holders. Make that traffic infamous; waken the public conscience at the south, to decide upon it as it is; and then the spirit, first of individual emancipation, next of general abolition, will come in like a resistless flood. What is it which, at the present time, stands more than any thing else in the way of abolition? It is the domestic slavetrade. It is the fact that slaves have a market price, and can be exchanged for money, at the pleasure or necessity of the proprietor. The market for slaves, in the recently settled cotton and sugar states, is the only cause which makes the slaves of Maryland and Virginia, of Kentucky and Tennessee, worth holding as property. The value of slaves in Maryland, depends entirely on their value at New-Orleans. Shut up the southern market, and the Maryland slave-holder is richer without his slaves than with them, so that his pecuniary interest is on the side of emancipation Make him feel, that he has no right to sell his slaves; make him see, that he cannot sell them without infamy; and to him the mar ket is shut up already; nothing but benevolence can hinder him from the most immediate emancipation, unless the laws forbid him.

We are confident that the appeal which we here make to rational abolitionists, will not be in vain. We entreat them in behalf of our common country, and in behalf of all those interests of mankind, which depend on the internal peace and continued prosperity of this nation; we entreat them in behalf of the slaves, the objects of their sympathy; we entreat them as men of soberness and reason, as friends of man, as friends of Him who came to preach de liverance to the captives; we beg them not to reject this appeal, without a candid and serious consideration.