Every thoughtful and unprejudiced mind must see that such an
evil as slavery will yield only to the most radical
treatment. If you consider the work we have to do, you will
not think us needlessly aggressive, or that we dig down
unnecessarily deep in laying the foundations of our
enterprise. A money power of two thousand millions of
dollars, as the prices of slaves now range, held by a small
body of able and desperate men; that body raised into a
political aristocracy by special constitutional provisions;
cotton, the product of slave labor, forming the basis of our
whole foreign commerce, and the commercial class thus
subsidized; the press bought up, the pulpit reduced to
vassalage, the heart of the common people chilled by a bitter
prejudice against the black race; our leading men bribed, by
ambition, either to silence or open hostility;--in such a
land, on what shall an Abolitionist rely? On a few cold
prayers, mere lip-service, and never from the heart? On a
church resolution, hidden often in its records, and meant
only as a decent cover for servility in daily practice? On
political parties, with their superficial influence at best,
and seeking ordinarily only to use existing prejudices to the
best advantage? Slavery has deeper root here than any
aristocratic institution has in Europe; and politics is but
the common pulse-beat, of which revolution is the
fever-spasm. Yet we have seen European aristocracy survive
storms which seemed to reach down to the primal strata of
European life. Shall we, then, trust to mere politics, where
even revolution has failed? How shall the stream rise above
its fountain? Where shall our church organizations or parties
get strength to attack their great parent and moulder, the
slave power? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed
it, Why hast thou made me thus? The old jest of one who
tried to lift himself in his own basket, is but a tame
picture of the man who imagines that, by working solely
through existing sects and parties, he can destroy slavery.
Mechanics say nothing, but an earthquake strong enough to
move all Egypt can bring down the pyramids.

Experience has confirmed these views. The Abolitionists who
have acted on them have a "short method" with all
unbelievers. They have but to point to their own success, in