NATIONALITY: DISSOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN UNION.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Ifamore Cottage, Roseneath, 31st August 1845.
Sin—In the Spectator of 23d August is an editorial in which you comment on a resolution offered by me and adopted at a meeting of the Glasgow Emanci- pation Society—affirming the "duty of the friends of liberty and equal rights in reat Britain, to combine, and by Christian, peaceful, and bloodless means, to seek the dissolution of the American Union, as the gigantic enemy of freedom and the rights of man." Your personal allusions to myself, of course I shall not notice; but if your sense of duty will allow you to insert the following in your columns, I would thank you for the courtesy. I sin an enemy to the American Union and seek its dissolution, because, in the language of John Quincey Adams, "the preservation, propagation, and perpetua- tion of slavery, constitute the vital and animating spirit of the national govern- meat." I am a Christian, and of course opposed to the shedding of blood as a penalty or in defence, and to armed revolutions. You say "the flourish about" Ubristian, peaceful, bloodless means, "is mere verbiage." It may be so to you; but to me, Christianity2 as a means to overthrow the strongholds of wickedness, is anything but "verbiage." It is "the power of God and the wisdom of God." Revolution is not necessarily associated with blood. I would array against the American Union the moral and religious sentiment of the world, and by this means abolish American slavery. Fifty years ago, that sum of all villany covered a territory of only 209,000 square miles; under the fostering care of the Union it now covers a million. If that compact continues, that whole continent will ere long become a vast slave-market. Down with every government and church that cannot exist without enslaving men! Never sacrifice man to his incidents. Institutions for men, not men for institutions. But the man who would revolu- tionize a government by arms is no less guilty than he who thus supports it. Both are the advocates and perpetrators of murder. So I understand Christianity. But why seek aid from Britain to overthrow the American Union? Simply because that aid is needed; because the people of this country have a right to give it; and because it is their dutyto give it. In common with the 3,000,000 of American slaves, they call the same Being their Father; they belong to the same brotherhood'; their obligation to" feel for those in bonds as bound with them" is not limited by geographical lines and national boundaries; but wherever there is a slave, they have a duty to perform, i. e. to redeem that brother, and to seek the overthrow of every religious and political institution which persists in trading in"slaves and the souls of men." It is the duty of the people of Great Britain to use all their moral, social, and intellectual influence, "to disseminate among American citizens disaffection and disloyalty" to their slave-breeding, slave- trading, and slave-holding Government; and I shall do what in me lies to excite them to a faithful discharge of this duty. I would that I could persuade the a8,000,000 of this kingdom to send a memorial to the Free States of America milling on them to "dissolve their covenant with Death and to annul their agree- ment with Hell." Think not that such a call would fall powerless upon the ears of American slave-holders. I know their sensitiveness to the moral and religious sentiment of mankind. Slavery has no self-sustaining power in a physical or moral sense. It could not exist but for the countenance and support which it receives from abroad. Not long ago, John C. Calhoun, a slave-breeder, said in the Senate of the United States, "The war which Abolitionists wage against us is not against our lives, but against our character, which is far more effective." Another slave-breeder, Duff Green, editor of the United States Telegraph at that tune, said, "We have most to fear from the organized action of Abolitionists upon _the consciences of slaveholders themselves." Only by alarming the consciences of the weak, and diffusing among the people a morbid sensibility on the question of slavery, can the Abolitionists accomplish their object. Let the people of this nation combme, and by "Christian, peaceful, and bloodless means," seek the dissolution of that slave-breeding and slave-trailing Union; let them bar their pulpits and their communions against every man-stealer from that land of Republican( ?) whips and chains; let every slaveholder be treated as a common thief and pickpocket should he treated; and thus let them see that they must stand alone in their infamy, and American slavery would soon cease to curse and blight the earth.
Because I love my family, friends, and neighbour; and the land that is endeared bythe associations of childhood—because I love liberty and abhorslavery—because I believe hypocrisy, injustice, and despotism, have not a more efficient friend, and freedom a more potent enemy than the American Union—therefore I call upon all the friends of human rights in Britain to band together and bring their concen- trated moral influence to bear upon it to effect its dissolution. Unless this is Alone, American slavery will at no distant day involve that whole continent and the nations of Europe in a bloody war. It exists only by blood; and in blood it will expire. Nothing can prevent this but "the organized action" of the friends of liberty in the Free States, in Britain, and throughout Europe, "upon the con- sciences of slaveholdem themselves."
For thus seeking to array the combined moral and social power of Great Britain aunst the American Union, I am called a traitor to that government. So be it. ". lave-breeding, slave-trading, and slave-holding, form the whole foundation" of that government. I must be a traitor to it, or to my nature and my God. To acknowledge allegiance to it, would be to renounce my allegiance to the "King Eternal." Would you unite with liars, to promote truth ? with hypocrite; to promote sincerity? with thieves, to promote honesty? nor will I baud with slave- breeders and slave-traders to sustain and spread liberty. Better, far better, be a traitor to human institutions than to htunan nature.
HENRI, C. Vinkurr, of Philadelphia.
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