A[bram] Pryne to Frederick Douglass, November 1860

REPLY TO C. A. H.

MR. EDITOR:—I have no desire to prolong the discussion which has sprung up in your columns; but as Mr. Charles A. Hammond might feel badly treated if I did not notice his sententious charges of sophistry made against me, and made with such a refreshing air of 'finality,' I have decided to say a few words which shall conclude this discussion on my part.

It is perhaps quite natural that Mr. Hammond should perceive some difficulty in the way of answering my arguments; but the cool impudence of giving the authority of his distinguished friend for saying that 'no man could answer and expose the tissue of sophistries contained in that article, better than the author of it,' is quite refreshing. This habit of borrowing insulting remarks from others, when your own supply of that sort of literature is exhausted, with which to meet the arguments of an opponent, may prove that a man is a Radical, but will scarcely suffice to elucidate the subject in debate.

Mr. Hammond's first charge upon my article is as follows:

'Perhaps the most dangerous, because the most ensnaring, is the assumption that in voting for Abraham Lincoln, Abolitionists simply aid the Republicans in limiting slavery, without being in any manner responsible for the WRONG THINGS which the candidate or the party may do.'

Now, if my reviewer had only seen fit to come down to plain fact, and stated where and when I ever put forth any such doctrine as the above, it would have aided plain common sense people to determine as to the soundness of my position. But as he does not do this, and as no such position was ever taken by me, it will be necessary to state the substance of what I did say on that point. My article did not concede that the Republican party proposed to do any 'wrong,' but that it proposes to do much good, but not all the good which the Radicals ask to have done.— In doing good, it proposes to go to the verge of its constitutional power of political action, and then to bring to bear its moral power against slavery even beyond teh limits of its constitutional political action. It does not propose to create or support slavery in the States, but to let it alone politically, because compelled so to do by its understanding of the Constitution. Most men of Mr. Hammond's age will be able to see the difference between this position and that of proposing to do a

positive wrong. I am morally bound to use my influence against profane swearing. I have a right to enforce the abstaining from oaths in my own family; and when I have done that, and used my moral influence against the habit in my neighbor's family, if Mr. Hammond should charge me with supporting all the swearing in the neighborhood, because I did not administer birch discipline to my neighbor's boys, and I should reply, I do all I can by authority at home and by moral influence abroad, to correct this bad practice; but I have no legal right to set up authority in the case beyond my own family circle—if he could not see the logical difference between the position and the position of sanctioning the 'wrong' of swearing, or doing that wrong myself, I should regard his radicalism as a little too much sublimated to to be reasoned with. He reminds me of the M. D. who was called to see a patient, and after feeling his pulse, and walking around his bed for some time, he confessed that he did not understand the case or know where the disease was located; 'but,' said he, 'I'll tell you what it is. I'll give him a dose that will throw him into fits, and then I can cure him—for I'm death on fits.' So Mr. Hammond seems to have been unable to find the seat of the difficulty in my real position, and resorts to misrepresentation to throw that position 'into fits,' and then shows that he is 'death on fits.'

Mr. Hammond's next 'lunge' is to charge Mr. Lincoln with being a 'slave-catching' President, in the event of his election. That Mr. Lincoln has said that he was not pledged to the 'UNCONDITIONAL' repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, is true; but tha tit is to be inferred from this that he would be a slavecatching President, is 'a most lame and impotent conclusion.' I am no tin favor of the 'UNCONDITIONAL' repeal of the present liquor law; but I consider it a very shabby law nevertheless. I understand Mr. Lincoln to be in favor of a law that shall leave this question of returning fugitive slaves or not to the States into which the fugitive may escape; and I believe that such a disposition of the fugitive question would be eminently safe for the slave. Republicans never did 'seize and restore fugitives to slaver;' but on the contrary, have often rescued them from the grip

of the slave-catcher. Those who rescued Jerry were, a large majority of them, Republicans. The Oberlin rescuers were all Republicans, and were backed up by the Republican party of Ohio, with Mr. Giddings at its head. The rescuers of Nalle were Republicans, and the only places in all the North where a fugitive could be 'seized and taken back to slavery,' are the few cottonized cities where the Republicans are in a minority. These facts are worth infinitely more than all the extracts from stump speeches made under the screens of a local political exigency ever delivered, as evidence of the real position of the Republicans on slave-catching. They are not quite so brave as the Radicals in resolutions; but in the Jerry case they ACTED, while the Radicals were in that secret meeting laying plans, and the Free Soil shout, as Jerry was brought forth, broke up the plan-laying meeting of the Radicals.

Mr. Hammond says Mr. Lincoln would suppress a slave insurrection, and that Mr. Smith would interfere to help the slaves. Mr. H. must have been too far from Peterboro' for consultation, when he wrote that sentence.— Mr. Smith commenced a libel suit a few months ago against a committee who charged him with favoring a slave insurrection, laying his damages at $50,000! Mr. Hammond must have received some new light recently, or else he has no authoirty to say that Mr. Smith would help the slaves in such an insurrection. Mr. Smith charges that this statement is a libel when printed in the New York Herald; and if it be a libel to say he favors an insurrection, who has a right to say that he would take sides with the insurrectionists?

Mr. Hammond says Mr. Lincoln would receive new slave States. Mr. Lincoln himself, speaking on that point, says: 'We (the Republicans) insist on the policy that shall restrict it (slavery) to its present limits.' He says also in his debate with Douglas, 'I am impliedly, if not expressly pledged to a belief in the right and the duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories.' If this is not a pledge to oppose the admission of new slave States, what would satisfy C. A. H. on that point? Does he like the position of his own candidate better, as it is defined in his speech in Congress, June 27, 1854, where he says:

'Let Cuba come to us if she wishes to come. She belongs to us by force of her geographical position. Let her come even if she shall not abolish her slavery. I am willing to risk the subjection of her slavery to a common fate with our own. Slavery must be short lived in this land.'

Now I do not like to call this 'fillibustering' after new slave territory, but I think it quite proper mildly to limit to the friends of a candidate who stands on the record thus, that they should be a little modest about charging Mr. Lincoln with being in favor of admitting new slave States. Rather too much glass in the roof of the political house which now shelters you, friend Hammond, for it to be very safe or judicious for you to throw stones! It would be very unjust to call Mr. Smith a 'tool of the slave power,' for uttering the above sentiment, although it commits him to the most odious and ultra measure put forth by the slave power during the last ten years. And I suggest to Mr. C. A. H. that he should be a little modest in applying such language to Mr. Lincoln, especially while Mr. Lincoln is opposed to the acquisition of more slave territory, and his candidate Mr. Smith seeks such addition.

Mr. Hammond winds up his communication by the authoritative declaration that my 'illustrations are wide of the mark!' The ipsi dixit of Mr. Hammond must be conclusive, and so the discussion may be brought to a conclusion.

A. PRYNE.