SOLON ROBINSON, 1849 271 



vain did the tories and abolitionists of that day urge it 

 upon them — and in vain, in the last war, did they pursue 

 the same course — and in vain, at this day, is British gold 

 poured out for the same object, aided as she is in her 

 insiduous policy, by the thousands of fanatical allies in 

 this country, who rush blindly to assist her in the only 

 way on earth that she can conquer this Union : and that 

 is by dissolving it through the agency of her tools, the 

 abolitionists. Already have they succeeded in dissolving 

 the union of one of the strongest churches in the country, 

 and seem determined never to rest until they have dis- 

 solved the political Union. 



But all the efforts of British and American abolition- 

 ists will never abolish slavery, unless you compel them to 

 be free against their will. And until they themselves 

 will to be free, I feel as though I was committing a sin 

 to urge it upon them. 



Nor am I defending slavery, as that word is often 

 understood in the northern States. Many seem to sup- 

 pose that slavery means cruelty, tyranny, oppression and 

 every thing that tends to make those in bondage suffer 

 and hopelessly repine. Now if slavery means anything 

 of that nature, then slavery does not exist in any of the 

 States over which I have traveled. The word slavery 

 suggests a wrong idea to those unacquainted with the 

 patriarchal form of government exercised over them in 

 the United States. It is precisely the kind of slavery to 

 which every abolitionist in the country dooms his wife 

 and children; and I should feel just as guilty of med- 

 dling with that which I had no right to meddle with, 

 while attempting to free them from his control, as I 

 should to free the southern slave from the control of a 

 kind master. Yea, more so, for in doing the latter I 

 should feel as though I were taking a being as helpless as 

 a child, from a state of comparative happiness and re- 

 ducing him to a state of absolute misery. The few ne- 

 groes that are needed among the whites in free States, to 

 fill the menial offices of barbers, shoe-blacks, waiters, 



