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RIGHT AND WRONG
MASSACHUSETTS.
BY MARIA WESTON CHAPMAN.
BOSTON: DOW & JACKSON'S ANTI-SLAVERY PRESS. 14 Devonshire Street. 1839.
RIGHT AND WRONG.
RETROSPECTION.
Before bringing forward upon the stage the characters who figure in the drama, I have endeavored to make the reader acquainted with the ground on which the different scenes were to be acted. THIERRY.
The position of New England in 1829, was a most cheerless one for Freedom. All the great interests of the country were nearly or remotely involved in slaveholding, through all their various arrangements, civil, ecclesiastical, mercantile and matrimonial; yet all disclaimed its alliance. Every body was, in some way or other, actively or passively, sustaining slavery; yet every body disclaimed all responsibility for its existence, opposed all efforts for its extinction, and was 'as much anti-slavery as any body else.' Even the natural and kindly tide of human sympathy for suffering, was turned away from the service of Freedom by the Colonization Society. The moving principles of Northern and Southern life, had become inseparably mingled below the surface of events, like the roots of giant trees beneath the soil.
They lectured on the subject of slavery as they found opportunity; and by circulation of the Liberator and such publications as their means could furnish, and by diligence in conversation and argument, they succeeded in arousing a portion of the community to its consideration.
Though the idea of united, concentrated moral effort, was familiar to their minds,--though the land was in fact permeated by education and missionary Societies,--though this was emphatically the age of benevolence and of voluntary association, yet a mighty preparation of heart was needed in every individual who listened to this call of Liberty, before he could resolve to avail himself of similar means for the promulgation of her great principles: principles, which, lying deeper than the shallow foundations of the popular benevolent enterprises of the day, were identical with those of Christianity herself.
Christianity, in every age, has ever presented herself as the antagonist of its crying abomination. The same in spirit, her visible appearance is modified by the giant obstacle she meets in each successive generation. Sometimes, in conflict with idolatry, she stands with her face of triumphant brightness opposed to the refined, the intellectual, and the powerful; and every step is over a crumbling altar and a prostrate priest. Sometimes, as in the days immediately preceding those of which we write, her advanced guard are casting out the unclean spirit of intemperance. In the close-succeeding years, she comes, like LIBERTY, to inhabit the dwelling from which intemperance has been banished to make room for her beatific presence.
"This conduct, Jew, doth verily seem Christian."
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