Yankee himself, but was said to be a gentlemanly, humane man. Some are
no doubt ready to ask, Why was it, that the abolition excitement in
the North, produced such a panic in the South? It was the revolting
and shocking doctrines, which they openly promulgated. It was their
notorious disregard of the laws of God and man, and all those ties
which bind us together as one great nation; their denial of the right
of the South to hold slave property, notwithstanding that right had
been guaranteed to them by the Federal Constitution; their advocacy of
the right of the slave to arise in the night and cut his master's
throat; or, else, burn his house over his head; their advocacy of the
right of the North to force emancipation on the South, at the point of
the bayonet, &c.

It was these monstrous doctrines and assumptions, which were then, and
are to the present day, avowed and defended by abolition orators, that
alarmed the Southern people. It was not long before Northern
abolitionists were detected in circulating through the South, exciting
and incendiary publications, on the subject of slavery, and in some
instances, intermeddling with slaves, and trying to incite
insurrections among them. These things inflamed the public mind more
and more in the South. Legislatures met, and enacted laws still more
stringent for the punishment of such offenders; for the suppression of
public discussion; and they, withal, threw so many restrictions around
those who held slaves that in most of the states, emancipation became
exceedingly difficult, and in some of them, absolutely impracticable.
These are historical facts, and they are worth more than a volume of
any man's speculations on the subject of slavery. They speak for
themselves, and require but little comment from me. Who was it that
crushed in embryo, the reform which was in progress thirty-five years
ago? It was the abolitionists, and every one is aware of it, who is