J[ames] R[awson] Johnson to Frederick Douglass, July 4, 1859

Our Correpsondence

THE NATION MUST BE ROUSED FOR THE CONTEST OF 1860.

FRIEND DOUGLASS:—Our hopes are too low. We must aim at a great work with an expectation of doing it. We all expect American slavery will be abolished sometime —but some of us are disposed to fix that time very far in the future. Even then, bloody insurrection stands prominent in our view as the means of accomplishing the desired object.—It is time for the friends of Freedom to cheerfully fix their thoughts on the peaceful and speedy abolition of slavery as the glorious result of the application of primary LAW. It can be done. How? We answer:

1. All those who hold ecclesiastical fellowship with slavery, must be made to feel the great injury which they are doing to the cause of freedom. Such church relations, sustained by professed anti-slavery men, stupify the public conscience. Try to smooth the matter as we may, church fellowship with slaveholders does efficiently uphold the most zealous political supporters of the 'peculiar institution.'

2. We must expose that false spirituality which is so fond of building tabernacles in the Mount of Transfiguration, but so slow to come down among the people and apply truth for the extermination of enactments upholding rum and slavery. This opiate piety is doing immense mischief. Such 'spiritually minded' saints are so intent on hearing the angels sing, that they are deaf to the groans of their fellow men. On the Sabbath they seem ex[ceed]ingly devout when they sing:

'Far from the thoughts, vain world, begone, Let my religious hours alone! Fain would my eyes my Savior see, I wait a visit, Lord, from thee.'

But on the next Tuesday, if their deeds at the polls were expressed in rhyme, the reading would be thus:

'Far from my thoughts, All Rights, begone, And let my VOTING hours alone! My party's triumph I would see, I wait a visit, CASH, from thee.'

Or we might retain the fourth line of the stanza unchanged in the sound of words, 'I wait a visit, Lord, from thee,' but greatly changed in meaning, representing their party as their Lord, a statement corresponding with fact.

This false notion of spirituality so perverts church discipline, that it is made to uphold slavery. As an illustration, witness the recent doings of the Presbyterian Church of Cortlandville, N. J. That church (as newspapers report) has expelled a worthy member for being occasionally absent from his own church on 'Lord's Day,' to hear some dis-

tinguished orators, who, though they do not follow with us, yet some of them are trying to cast our devils. As if to present to the world a contrast as impressive as possible, that same church has for many years retained, and now retains as a strong member of its session, a talented gentleman of great legal acquirements, who now defends the administration of James Buchanan. For years past his political creed and deeds have been of the same stamp. With him, for upholding the system of slavery, church discipline should have commenced. But perverted spirituality, blended with church fellowship of slavery through the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, directed the disciplinary work against 'Brother Brewer' for going to hear the 'Stone Church,' by its welcomed lecturers, 'cry out' against opperession in all its aspects.

3. Our united and determined effort must not be to remind the people that there cannot be any law for slavery. I was about to write, teach the people, &c., but I correct myself; for the intelligent masses know that slavery is a crime, and they know that crime cannot be legalized, although enactments, having the verbal form of law, but in design hostile to the soul of law, may be piled up like the Andes. Of all this they need to be simply reminded—not taught—for these axioms God has written on the consciences of all honest human beings. But a great effort will be needed to arouse the people, and make them earnest to apply at the polls these truths which they know. But it can be done. It MUST be done! See what strength we have. Five thousand earnest, thinking men in the State of New York voted last fall that they would not recognize any enactments for slavery as law. Some are almost disheartened because so few thus voted. I thank God and take courage for such testimony at the ballot box of the Empire State, of FIVE THOUSAND intelligent and determined witnesses. (Perhaps there were over 5,000; for convenience or illustration, I select a round and undisputed number.)

Suppose only one-fifth of that number to awake to the work of preparing voters to declare in the Presidential election of 1860, that American slavery is an outlaw; that number —yes, one thousand, could arouse the great mass of the people of the State of New York in the short space of three months. When New York is fully aroused, not another State in the Union can sleep. One thousand men for freedom, and trusting in God, constitute a mighty power to influence American minds as the eventful year of 1860 rapidly approaches. Dr. Kane says: 'there is nothing like emergency to quicken the energies.' That emergency is now upon us. Unless the people awake, and demand that the Republican party give us a nomination for the Presidency, which shall distinctly and unequivocally repudiate all the pretensions of slavery to legality, then that party will fall under the control of mere political managers, who care only for the 'loaves and the fishes' of office; and if such

men have their way and elect their nominee on the plea of opposing the EXTENSION of slavery, while endorsing its legality where it exists, such success would be a greater wound to the cause of Liberty, than the re-election of JAMES BUCHANAN, or the election of one yet more devoted to the interests of slavery, if any person has so vivid an imagination as to conjecture that such an one can be found.

Now is our time to make these doctrines familiar to the ears, eyes and hearts of the sovereign people, and not delay until nominations shall be made. Then our voice will not be heard only to obtain for us the thrust of being the 'day in the manger party,' and we shall be tauntingly asked, if we had anything to say worthy of the hearing of the people, why, in the name of common sense, we were not at our work in due season? I know some are at the work, and have been for a long time—William Goodell and Hon. Gerrit Smith as prominent examples—but we 'radicals' must all awake in earnest, like a man on 'the last day of grace' with the bank, when his homestead is in jeopardy. Then we shall do something. Those of us in the state of N. Y. who recognize these sentiments as true, need to have definite consultation very soon.—When, and where shall we have it? We should correspond with the resolute friends of the cause in Ohio. They are ripe for action. Those imprisoned rescuers are the most eloquent orators to-day. They, and their endorsers in Ohio, and in other States, will heartily respond to what is here written.

As I write, I hear the cannon near me, and my thoughts are fixed on those suffering lovers of Human Rights in Cayuhoga County Jail, in Cleveland, Ohio! I associate their history with

'A Lovejoy's blood, Which freely flowed to save what Warren bo't.'

Yours, J. R. JOHNSON.

ANDOVER, N. Y., July 4, 1859.