Oct. 20, 1846.
my Dear Sir My
engagements have been such since I received your last letter with the
resolutions that I have had no time to write or think as I could wish, — I saw
by a letter from Mr. Atkins published in the Cleveland American that you read
my letter to you at a meeting in Hartford and I have thought it a duty to those
with whom I have acted for several years past to write to that paper stating my
true position so as to prevent the dissemination among liberty men of
misapprehensions under which Mr. Atkins labored and which it was natural enough
he should receive from the letter unconnected with the whole correspondence.—I
have faild. in expressing myself with as much clearness as I wishd,
if I have conveyd, the idea to yr. mind that I am prepard.
to accede to any political union, wch. is not based upon the substantial
principles & measures of the Liberty men. What I am willing to give
up is names, separate organizations, what I am not willing to give up is
Principle & Consistent action both with reference to men & measures in
accordance with principle. — I have no objectn, to the reading of my
letter — no complaint to make on that score — for I do not wish to conceal any
sentiments wh. it containd, but I fear that it was not
sufficiently explicit in its terms to be free from the risk of misapprehension,
when read separate from the correspondence of wh. it was a part. In
relation to your resolutions I will say that in my judgmt. they are good,
so far as they go; but they do not go far enough if intended as a basis of a
political organization separate from existing parties. If intended merely as
resolutions to guide the action of those who adopt them in their existing
political relations, they are certainly a great way in advance of any positions
heretofore takn by bodies of men in the old parties & it is very
desirable to augment the number of adherents to them in those parties. I would
except only to one of them, viz. the resolution relating to new states, &
to this only so far as its phraseology is concernd. It seems by
implication to deny the right of Congress to admit new states if foreign at the
time into the union. I have no doubt that this may be done constitutionally,
perhaps not by joint resolution but certainly by the concurrent action of the
treaty making & legislative powers of the government. My objection to the
introduction of such states is founded entirely in other considerations than
defect of power, indeed so far as any such introduction has yet taken place
exclusively on the consideration of slavery. I enclose you a liberty creed wh.
was drawn up by me & has been widely circulated & everywhere endorsed
by the Liberty presses. May I ask of you to consider the several articles of it
attentively & give me your assent or dissent to them, severally with
a brief statement of the reasons of your dissent why you do dissent — Let me
state to you briefly my idea of the grounds wh. in my judgmt.
shd. determine the course of an honest man in political action in
reference to the subject of slavery. If I were a whig in the whig party &
believed that by the action of that party the extinction of slavery & the
overthrow of the slave power could be most speedily achieved I would act with
& in that party supporting however for office only anti slavery men. If I
were a Democrat in the democrtic party, & entertained the same belief as to
that party as above stated in regard to the whig party I would act with & in
the democratic party supporting however for office only anti slavery men.
If I were persuaded
(as I am) that there is now no reasonable prospect that either the whig or
democratic party constituted as both are of slaveholders & nonslaveholders
& as national parties admitting no anti slavery article into their creed
& much less any avowed anti slavery measures into their action can at
present be relied on for cordial, inflexible, & uncompromising hostilities
to slavery & the slave power, I could (& of course do) abstain from
cooperation with either of those parties & act with & in the only party
with wh. I agree as to principle & action in relation to the
paramount, political question before the country.—What is yr.
objection to this. — Recurring to your resolutions let me ask if you do not
perceive a great practical difficulty growing out of the terms “satisfactory
evidence” &c? You on the Reserve, Whigs, Liberty men, & democrats
thought there was satisfactory evidence that Mr. Bebb was hostile to whole the
black code.1 The Cleveland American gave him full credit for such
hostility & yet in Mercer Co. where of all places on earth Mr. Bebb should
have been outspoken in denunciation of the cruel outrages on the blacks &
of the laws which lead to such outrages we find him most materially changing
his ground, stating as a ground for the repeal of the testimony clause the
expectation of a slaveholder that he could then get at abolitionists who aided
the escape of fugitive slaves by means of their testimony when recaptured,
& actually proposing a law to prevent colonization of colored people in
Ohio, & to that end, suggesting a law to prevent them from holding real
estate! He reiterated these views at Dayton with additions. Would these
speeches have been satisfactory evidence on the reserve of opposition to the
Black laws?
Could he have been
elected had he avowed these sentiments on the Reserve or in such time that
authentic reports could have reached the Reserve? The effect of such a course
as this upon the confidence of Liberty men &. others in Anti-Slavery men
acting with the whigs, however honestly cannot fail to be appreciated by you.
_______________
* From letter book
6, pp. 42. Extracts from this letter were printed by Schuckers, p. 100.
1
For an account of the Ohio black
laws and the struggle for their repeal, see The
Negro in Ohio, 1802-1872, by C. J. Hickok, A. M. Published by Western
Reserve University, Cleveland, 1896.
SOURCE: Annual Report of the American Historical
Association for the Year 1902, Vol. 2, p. 108-11