Southern elections always have been
scenes of mob violence _when only white men voted_.
Multitudes of lives have been lost at the polls in this way, and if
against their will negro suffrage was forced upon them, I do not see
how any one in their senses can expect anything less than an immediate
war of races.
If negro suffrage were required as a condition of acquiring political
position, there is no doubt the slave States would grant it; grant it
nominally, because they would know that the grant never could or would
become an actual realization. And what would then be gained for the
negro?
I am sorry that people cannot differ on such great and perplexing
public questions without impugning each other's motives. Henry has
been called a backslider because of the lenity of his counsels, but I
cannot but think it is the Spirit of Christ that influences him.
Garrison has been in the same way spoken of as a deserter, because he
says that a work that _is_ done shall be called done, and because
he would not keep up an anti-slavery society when slavery is
abolished; and I think our President is much injured by the abuse that
is heaped on him, and the selfish and unworthy motives that are
ascribed to him by those who seem determined to allow to nobody an
honest, unselfish difference in judgment from their own.
Henry has often spoken of you and your duke as pleasant memories in a
scene of almost superhuman labor and excitement.
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