Right & Wrong in Boston

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836 edition. Excerpt: ... individually from the strong opposition of friends; and the remarks constantly made, and the reports constantly brought to us, proved conclusively that the opposition was not specific but generic. The hatred of Thompson, Garrison, and their infamous associates, as we were styled, was evidently active against us merely as personified principle. By a combination of unavoidable circumstances, we found ourselves the representatives, for the time, of the abolitionists. We felt our situation to be a responsible one, and prayed only to be guided by the single consideration of duty. Obeying its dictates, we determined that no weakness of ours, should render less defensible the stand our fathers, husbands, and brothers were maintaining. It was not for the gratification of a feminine whim that we acted, but upon a conviction of the great injury we should do to our consciences, and our cause, by yielding. Upon whom dare those call to resist the popular voice, who have themselves been silenced by its tumult? The greater the opposition to a right action, the stronger the necessity for its performance. The opposition of the assembled universe cannot make right, wrong. We agreed, that expediency is the only measure of right. But how assure ourselves of the truly expedient? It is evident that something must have determined the Almighty mind to give a revelation for the direction of human conduct, and we rationally enough concluded, it must have been a consideration ol the insufficiency of human reason to discern the end from the beginning. And when we meditated on the course, stamped with divine approbation, which has been pursued by the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the glorious company of the apostles, the noble army of martyrs, among whom...