no Republican designedly aided or encouraged
the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and
declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it.
We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which was
not held to and made by "our fathers who framed the Government under
which we live." You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this
affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near
at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by
charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in
those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not
quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at
least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it
to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and
declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any
interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your
slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do,
in common with "our fathers, who framed the Government under which
we live," declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves
do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the
slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe
they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your
misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political
contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with
sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the
charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood
and thunder among the slaves.

Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the
Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton
insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three
times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry?[30] You can
scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that
Southampton was "got up by Black Republicanism." In the present
state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or
even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The
indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have
no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black
or white, supply it. The