least probability that she would have been able, all at once, to make so vital and radical a change as this? If not, then she should be sparing of her reproaches against America, for this is just her difficulty.[1]
But, in truth, moreover, due credit has never been given to America for the serious and, to a considerable extent, successful efforts which she has already made to rid herself of this evil. Very early, and while yet in her colonial state, did she, from her own religious sense of justice, make these efforts — taking the lead, in fact, of all the world in this respect. In the first place, she opposed at the outset the introduction of the slaves whom the mother-country for her own selfish ends would thrust upon her, and she strove by various means to stop or check. the infamous trade. The
- ↑ The following remarks on this head from a London journal contain, we think, much truth:
"Can we forget our own position? It is scarcely different from that of a newly reformed drunkard, remonstrating with a youth whom he himself has corrupted, — England forced slavery upon America. Her statesmen plotted, her diplomatists bargained, and her armies fought, to secure the detestable monopoly of supplying the New World with negroes. — From the guilt of slavery itself, how long have we been free? scarce fifteen years. And how was that guilt removed? Only by the indomitable perseverance of a few nobler spirits, who, in despite of neglect and odium, gradually worked up the nation to the great measure of abolition. — If, instead of having 800,000 slaves, we, like America, had four times that number; if, instead of being confined to distant dependencies, we had the institution interlaced with all our social arrangements at home; if, instead of being able to buy off the evil with a sacrifice which was almost imperceptible, — we had, with less resources, to incur a far mightier cost; and if we saw or believed that even the agitation of the subject was jeopardizing a Constitution which stood between us and anarchy, who will be bold enough to say, that we should, even at the present time, have cleared ourselves wholly from the crime?" — London Inquirer, June, 1851.
