The original and distinctive¹ Abolition² movement that was directed against slavery in all parts of the land without regard to State or territorial³ lines, and because it was assumed to be wrong in principle and practice, may be said, as far as the country at large was concerned, to have culminated⁴ at the advent⁵ of the Republican party. To a considerable extent it disappeared, but its disappearance⁶ was that of one stream flowing into or uniting with another. The union of the two currents extended, but did not intensify⁷, the Anti-Slavery sentiment of the country. It diluted⁸ it and really weakened it. It brought about a crisis of great peril⁹ to the cause of Anti-Slaveryism—in some respects the most critical through which it was called upon to pass. Many of those attaching themselves to the Republican party, as the new political organization was called, were not in sympathy with Abolitionism. They were utterly¹⁰ opposed to immediate¹¹ emancipation¹²; or, for that matter, to emancipation of any kind. They wanted slavery to remain where it was, and were perfectly¹³ willing that it should be undisturbed. They disliked the blacks, and did not want to have them freed, fearing that if set at liberty they would overrun what was then free soil.

分享到：