it stood upon in former days were held now, it might be calm,
as it was then; but ever since the day when it changed its mind,--ever
since it has assumed that the slave system is right and good and
admirable [255] and ought to be perpetual,--it has been growing more and
more passionate. Well, we must be patient with them. For my part, I am
frightened at the condition to which their folly is bringing them. It
is terrible to think that the distrust and fear of their slaves is
spreading itself all over the South country. To be sure, they, in their
unreasonableness, blame us for it. They might as well accuse England;
they might as well accuse all the civilized world. For the conviction
that slavery is wrong, that it ought not to be advocated, but to be
condemned, and ultimately removed from the world,-this conviction is
one of the inevitable developments of modern Christian thought and
sentiment. It is not we that are responsible for the rise and spread of
this sentiment; it is the civilized world; it is humanity itself.

And now what is it that the South asks of us as the condition of union
with it? Why, that we shall say and vote that we so much approve of
the slave-system, that we are willing, not merely that it should exist
untouched by us,--that is not the question,--but that it should be
taken to our bosom as a cherished national institution.

I hope we shall firmly but mildly refuse to say it. It is the only
honorable or dignified or conscientious position for us of the
North. But, do you see the result of these municipal elections in
Massachusetts? That does not look like firmness. There may be flinching.
But so it is, under the great Providence, that the world wears around
questions which it cannot sharply meet.

These matters take precedence of all others now-adays, or else my first
word would have been to say how glad we were to hear that C. is well
again.

Yours as ever,

ORVILLE DEWEY.

[256] To his Daughter Mary.

BOSTON, Feb. 10, 1861.

HAPPILY for my peace of mind, I have been over to the post-office this
evening and got your letter. For my one want has been to know how that
tremendous Thursday afternoon and night took you; that is, whether it
took you off the ground, or the roof off the house. Here, it did not
unroof any houses, but it blew over a carryall in Beacon Street; and
when Dr. J. went out, like a good Samaritan, to help the people, it
did not respect his virtue at all, but blew him over