Is there any thing inherently
wrong in such denunciation of such criticism? This we may claim,--we
have never judged a man but out of his own mouth. We have seldom, if
ever, held him to account, except for acts of which he and his own
friends were proud. All that we ask the world and thoughtful men to note
are the principles and deeds on which the American pulpit and American
public men plume themselves. We always allow our opponents to paint
their own pictures. Our humble duty is to stand by and assure the
spectators that what they would take for a knave or a hypocrite is
really, in American estimation, a Doctor of Divinity or a Secretary of
State.
The South is one great brothel, where half a million of women are
flogged to prostitution, or, worse still, are degraded to believe it
honorable. The public squares of half our great cities echo to the wail
of families torn asunder at the auction-block; no one of our fair rivers
that has not closed over the negro seeking in death a refuge from a life
too wretched to bear; thousands of fugitives skulk along our highways,
afraid to tell their names, and trembling at the sight of a human being;
free men are kidnapped in our streets, to be plunged into that hell
of slavery; and now and then one, as if by miracle, after long years
returns to make men aghast with his tale.
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