ANtl-SLAVERY SOCIETr. 323 



as a temperate legislature is elected, in any one of the states 

 penal enactments may be passed, to punish, as a crime, the 

 drinking of spirits, or at least the sale of them in such state. 



THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY, 



Is a National Society ; Ohio has a slate branch of it, and 

 the counties have auxiliaries. Having very few free Hacks, in 

 the state for it to operate upon, little has been done here by it. 

 In other words, having nothing to do, it has done nothing. 



Bdt another state society and its numerous branches, have 

 excited highly, the public mind, and called forth expressions, 

 on both sides of the question in dispute, not always in strict 

 accordance with truth and propriety; This is the Abolition? 

 or Anti Slavery Society. The first society of this kind, 

 the parent of all others, in this Union, was established in Phi- 

 ladelphia, about fifty years since, and Doctor Benjamin Frank- 

 lin was its first president. Its object was to protect and 

 defend those who were unjustly held in slavery. Washington, 

 Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and, the most distinguished men in 

 Virginia, highly approved of it under their own hands, in letters 

 addressed by them to its thrice illustrious founder. This society 

 wisely moved forward operating beneficially, and opposed by 

 none. But some few years since, things took a different 

 turn, in which Ohio had nothing to do, and it belongs not to our 

 history. Finally, a few societies were founded here, mostly, we 

 believe, by persons immigrating into this, from slave-holding 

 states. A few remarks on the origin of this society in Ohio, 

 its views, tendency and persecutions seem to us to belong to 

 our history and cannot be dispensed with by its author. We 

 do not make facts, but merely relate events, which we would 

 sometimes rejoice were they otherwise. Thus situated, and 

 compelled to speak, what we believe to be the truth, offend 

 whom it may, we proceed in our remarks, on the society, and 

 likewise, on its sensitive and bitter opponents. This society 

 is of very recent origin in this state, dating no further back 

 than February 1834. 



