Men dislike to hear the
outcries of a sensitive spirit, and dread to have their heathenism
called by Christian names. How much better it would be, they think, if
philanthropy never made an attack upon the representatives of cruelty!
they would soon become converted, if they were politely let alone. No
doubt, all that the supporters of any tyranny desire is to be let
alone. They delight in abstract delineations of the vices of their
system, which flourishes and develops while moral indignation is
struggling to avoid attacking it where only it is dangerous, in the
persons of its advocates. If there were nothing but metaphysical
wickedness in the world, how effective it would be never to allude to
a wicked man! If Slavery itself were the pale, thin ghost of an
abstraction, how bloodless this war would be! Fine words, genteel
deprecation, and magnanimous generality are the tricks of
villany. Indignant Mercy works with other tools; she leaps with the
directness of lightning, and the same unsparing sincerity, to the spot
to which she is attracted. What rogue ever felt the clutch of a stern
phrase at his throat, with a good opinion of it? Shall we throttle the
rascal in broad day, or grope in the dark after the impersonal weasand
of his crime?
And those amiable people who think to regenerate the world by
radiating amenity are the choice accomplices of the villains.
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