THE SOUTH MORE AFRAID OF WORDS THAN OF WAR.

"Do they [Southerners] expect the abolitionists will resort to arms, wil commence a crusade to liberate our slaves by force? Is this what they mean when they speak of the attempt to abolish Slavery? Let me tell our friends of the South who differ from us, that the war which the abolitionists wage against us is of a very different character and far more effective,-it is waged not against our lives but our character." JOHN C. CALHOUN.

ANTI-SLAVERY

RECORD.

VOL. II. No. IV. Vi

JUNE, 1836.

WHOLE NO. 18.

Ar the late interesting Anniversary of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Alvan Stewart, Esq., of Utica, rose just as the meeting was about to separate, and related the following anecdote, which may be relied upon as authentic. The sympathy of the audience was decidedly with the fugitive.

"In Georgia," said Mr. S., "about three years ago, there lived a man, black but noble, a giant in strength, and in form an Apollo Belvidere, about 35 years of age, a slave, with a wife and four children, also slaves. The love of liberty burned irrepressible in his bosom, and he determined to escape, and free his wife and children, at every haz ard. He had heard of Canada, as a place where the laws made every man free, and protected him in his freedom. But of its situation, or the road thither, or the geography of the intermediate country, he knew nothing. A Quaker who resided near him, being privy to his design, resolved to aid him in its accomplishment; and accordingly carried the slave and his family fifty miles in a wagon by night. In the day time they lay concealed in the woods; and on the second night the same

man carried them fifty miles further. At the end of the second night he told the black man that he could do no more for him, having already endangered both his life and property. He told the slave that he must not travel on the highway, nor attempt to cross a ferry, but, taking him by the hand, he committed him to God and the North star. This star he was to take as his guide, and it would lead him at length to the land of British freedom. The poor slave bade adieu to his benefactor, and after skulking in the day and travelling by night, he at length came to an unexpected obstacle. It was a broad river, (the Savannah,) the existence of which he had not the least knowledge. But as nothing remained but to cross it, he tied his two young children on his back, and between swimming where it was deep, and wading where it was shallow, his two elder sons swimming by his side, he at length made out to reach the opposite bank; then returning, he brought over his wife in the same manner. In this way he passed undiscovered through the states of South and North Carolina and Virginia, crossed Pennsylvania without even knowing that it was the land of the Quakers; and finally, after six weeks of toil and hardship, he reached Buffalo. Here he placed his wife and children in the custody of a tribe of Indians in the neighborhood, for the poor man will always be the poor man's friend, and the oppressed will stand by the oppressed. The man proceeded to town, and as he was passing through the streets, he attracted the notice of a colored barber, also a man of great bodily power. The barber stepped up to him, put his hand on his shoulder, and says, 'I know you are a runaway slave, but never fear, I am your friend. The man confessed he was from Georgia, when the barber said, 'Your master inquired about you to-day, in my shop, but do not fear; I have a friend who keeps a livery stable, and will give us a carriage as soon as night comes, to carry your family beyond the reach of a master.' As the ferry boat does not run across the Niagara river in the night, by day break they were at the ferry house, and rallied the ferryman to carry them to the Canada shore. They hastened to the boat, and just as they were about to let go, the master was seen, on his foaming horse, with pistol in hand, calling out to the ferryman to stop and set those people ashore, or he would blow his brains out. The stout barber, quick as thought, said to the ferryman, 'If you do n't put off this instant, I'll be the death of you.' The ferryman, thus threatened on both sides, lifted up his hands, and cried: "The Lord have mercy on me! It seems I am to be killed any how. But if I do die, I will die doing right,' and CUT THE ROPE.

The powerful current of the Niagara swept the boat rapidly into deep water, beyond the reach of tyranny. The workmen at work on the steamboat Henry Clay, near by, almost involuntarily gave three cheers for liberty. As the boat darted into the deep and rapid stream, the people on the Canada side, who had seen the occurrence, cheered her course, and in a few moments the broad current was passed, and the man, with his wife and children, were all safe on British soil, protected by British laws!!"

For the A. S. Record.

CASTE.

MR. EDITOR,-If you can afford the room, I will venture to express my sentiments on two points which are of great importance in the pre sent state of our holy cause.

1. Our duty as individuals in relation to the distinction of caste. 2. The propriety of separate institutions for the two castes.

1. Our duty as individuals. Caste is an arbitrary division of society into classes, which may not mingle, on terms of equality, in the com mon intercourse of life. It differs from the distinctions created by wealth, refinement, education, &c., by being unsurpassable. Its barrier separates between individuals who are, in all important respects, mental and corporeal, on an absolute level. It even consigns to a fic titious inferiority individuals who are every way superior.

Caste is a foe to human happiness, producing oppression, jealousy, revenge, and settled hate; and obstructing the progress of the Gospel of peace.

The American caste of color is the direct effect of slavery, and tends powerfully to perpetuate that unjust system.

Who then will not say that it is an unrighteous distinction, which ought to be universally abolished, if not individually disregarded? Such an abolition would not force individuals of the two classes into social intercourse, but would leave the laws which regulate the intercourse of members of either class to their unrestricted operation in regard to all. The propriety of these laws, whatever they may be, is not now the question.

But if the circumstances of color ought not socially to divide the community into two classes, then the duty of individuals rests upon two grounds. 1. The individual is bound to do all those acts which it would be his duty to do, were there no such unrighteous distinction. The duty of the community is nothing but the aggregate of individual duties. The opinions or wishes of others cannot make it right for me to neglect a plain duty. They may make it right for me to refrain from things which are not obligatory. They may make it my duty to abstain from those things which, indifferent in themselves, may be construed as an ostentatious disregard of others. But there are cases in which I cannot regard caste without sin, let the opinions of others be what they will. For example: It may be right for me to refrain from cultivating the acquaintance of a certain colored individual-from inviting him to my table, and accepting invitations to his; it would, perhaps, be even wrong for me, as things are, to seek him out and walk arm in arm with him up Broadway; but if he should present himself at the door of my house, or of my pew in the Church of God, it would be wrong, yea, WICKED in me to treat him with the less courtesy on account of his color, and the public prejudice against him for that reason. The false opinions and wrong feelings of others cannot be admitted among the considerations which determine duty in this case, without admitting a principle which will sanction all manner of sin. In my manner of doing my duty, I am bound not unnecessarily to disturb the feelings of others; but in the matter of it, I am bound to ober

whatever may be the consequences to myself or others, the commandment of God, "Honor all men."

2. Every individual is bound to do that which will convince others of the folly and wickedness of caste. He has duties as a reformer. What is it that keeps up caste? Example. And what else can throw it down? Precept without practice is notoriously powerless. It is even worse. No man's practice is so successfully quoted to support any sin, as his who acts contrary to, or not in accordance with, his right principle in regard to that sin. Now, whatever may be the clamor, wrath, and reviling, of any, or any number of individuals against abolitionists, for their intercourse with the colored people, I cannot but believe that to this, more than any other cause, we owe the firm hold which our doctrines have taken of the public conscience. We may have been occasionally indiscreet in the manner, but when we give up the matter, I shall despair of our cause-and not till then. I must, therefore, believe it peculiarly the duty of every abolitionist, as such, to take special pains to honor, by frank, open, unconstrained courtesy, merit, whenever it appears beneath a colored skin. He should not forsake the society of whites, but he should meet the deserving colored man with the hand and heart of a brother. Such conduct cannot fail to be appreciated by the objects of our regard, and to have the happiest effect. It will convince all candid men, that to make the abolition of slavery successful and happy, it is only necessary to prostrate caste. I believe the conduct of Christ, in eating with publicans and sinners, conversing with the Samaritan woman, &c., illustrates both these views.

2. Separate institutions. These may seem to have grown out of necessity, but they undoubtedly re-act, to strengthen the wrong which originated them. For the improvement of the colored people they are as absurd as would be separate schools for the more ignorant and backward class of children. But as they grow out of the prejudice of the more powerful caste, it is obviously premature to overthrow them till the prejudice can be measurably subverted which gave them rise. Neither is it proper to go on as though they were not to be dispensed with. The first openings of a reformed public feeling towards the colored people should be seized to introduce the better system. I suppose Christ and his apostles did not preach up, specially, emancipation from the slavery of their times, simply because there was not in the world fear of God enough to make it of any avail-there was no place to put the lever on-it was their business to lay that very thing for us. So we are laying a foundation on which our colored brethren may be, and ere long will be, invited to seats with us in the halls of science and the house of God. Let us not be impatient. Let us act out, and, Indeed, preach the whole truth, but in our preaching we must insist on the beginning till that is received. God himself, in communicating truth, has observed order; not because all truth was not obligatory, but because it was necessary to overcome the perverseness of depraved Our colored friends ought to avail themselves at present of their separate institutions; but no time should be lost, on our part, in the work of introducing a better system.

man.

W.