ed were in unison with my own. Judge, then, of
my feelings at the efforts which have been made and are now
making to change this free community of ours into a truly odious
one, consisting of masters and slaves--and you can judge the
better as your situation and principles are very similar with
mine. The great inducement with us both to emigrate to this State
was the firm belief that we should not be disturbed by the
clanking of the fetters of Slavery; that tyranny would not be
given a legal sanction, nor afforded the food on which it could
prey. But the majority of the people's representatives, having by
the most violent and unprecedented measure, taken a step with the
view of breaking down those barriers to oppression, which had
been erected by the wisdom and virtue of those who framed the
fundamental law of the State, and which you and many of us
considered, if not sacred, at least to have been permanently
settled, it becomes us to be on the alert to defeat a measure,
which if it should succeed, will not only be ruinous, and in the
highest degree unjust to many of us who have emigrated here under
the most solemn assurance that "neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude" should exist; but it will be of incalculable injury to
the interest of the State, of the Union, and of the extension and
advancement of freedom, and the amelioration of the human race.

You reside in a favorable situation to aid with effect this great
question. The county just below you forms the dividing line
between the sections of country in which the free and slave
parties predominate. It has occurred to me that the friends of
freedom would give ample support, and that the good cause would
be greatly promoted by establishing a printing press on the
Eastern side of the State. And I know of no place where it could
be established to so much advantage, as at Albion. Besides the
advantage it has in locality, there are in Albion, and its
vicinity, many persons who wield chaste and powerful pens, and
who have the means, and, I trust, the disposition of patronizing
an establishment of the kind. Pardon me for asking it as a favor
to me personally, and as a sacrifice to the furtherance of the
best and most virtuous of causes, that all personal, sectional,
national, county or town f