Darkness Made Visible.

Friend Douglass:—I have observed, in the paper of October 10, an article copied from the Rochester Advertiser, of October [illegible] on George Thompson, and applying to the abolitionists and his teachings, as the cause why the colored men at Christiania and Syracuse were not quite willing to come under the compromising provisions of the fugitive slave act. The editor appears, by the tone and temper of his communcation, to have been worked up to a fever heat and to the highest point of constitutional, democratic republican, slaveholding patriotism, in which he has shown himself off as a real defender of the faith in the constitutional and legislative right of making merchandize of the souls and bodies of men. If it can be proved, by truth or falsehood, that he has escaped the cruelty of slavery, I will copy so much of his fardel of slander against George Thompson as a true sample of modest democracy as it is, and interpolate his [illegible]cious form of falshood and abuse so as to make it read understandingly with his peculiar view of right and wrong. We have him thus: "Last winter, when the fillibustering abolitionists and the British spy George Thompson, left the dirty [portions] of the Tower Hamlets, and his cottonmonger constituency, and came over to this country to teach the natives philanthropy, and the principles of liberty and good government by assailing our institutions, (of slavery,) by slandering our (chattelizing) legislation, and rulers, black-guarding our (pious, preaching, praying, psalm-singing, slaveholding) clergy, and our religious institutions, (of even raping and plunder of a neighboring republic of her territory because she was more just and merciful than to continue slavery,) and stirring up the depraved and fanatical to a violent resistance to our laws and treasonably plotting the overthrow of our civil institution, (the fugitive slave act.) When the wandering vagrant and heartless demagogue was making his slimy trail towards the city of Rochester and through Western New York, we held him up to the scorn (without success) and contempt of our (republican slaveholding[)] countrymen, and cautioned the unwary (which, to the contrary, they proved themselves [illegible] wary) to avoid him as they would the pestilence. For so doing this, which was no more than an honest citizen, (slaveholder,) who has the love of his country at heart, and who feels tenacious of his honor, is bound to do, (when our beloved slaveholding institution is assailed, which is the chief cornerstone of our Democratic and Whig republic,) for this we were recklessly and bitterly assailed by the abolitionists and factious abolition Whig [presses], and charged (and that truly) with the design to raise a mob to put down the British emissary by brute force.—(That this was the prime object, [illegible] of common sense would doubt for one moment after reading his cowardly attack on an absent man.) These potent saints were shocked (to be sure) at the idea that the law and order of our quiet city were to be disturbed, for the purpose of driving out of our midst by force, a wretch who was plotting the subversion of our liberty loving (slaveholding) republic. Our readers will recollect [illegible]

against us of attempting to excite our people to any overt act of violence, that we deprecated all resort to illegal force or mob violence, and warned the honest and well-meaning to beware, and not to place these conspirators in the attitude of persecuted martyrs in even a bad cause (of trying to overthrow our time-honored institution of slavery.) And these better counsels prevailed. Wonderful how it preserved the wicked Union!) Our staid, respectable citizens suffered these insane railers (against our slaveholding institution.) to rail on unmolested, and to depart with nought save the contempt of all (pro-slavery presses) men to stamp their infamous conduct as it deserved. And still (after all this[)] we were assailed, (how cruel!) by the vindictive saints as having been guilty (true) of the foul design of stirring up the public to violence. The scene—how changed! (says this untiring defender of the true faith in slavery.) Those who affected to be shocked at the idea of mob law, have now thrown off all disguise, (and openly contended for the self-evident truth of all men's right to freedom) and unveiled themselves in their true light as mobocrats and conspirators against the laws of their country, and the lives of their countrymen (in slavecatching.) They have raised the red flag of rebellion, and struck down, not a foreign emissary, (but the fugitive slave act.) sent among us for purposes most infamous; but they have struck down the ministers of the law while in the discharge of their honest, imperative, legal duties (of slave-catching.)—Their hands are red with the blood of treason - yes, treason, that most foul and damnable of all civil crimes, (of not returning these chattels; but running them off to the British red-coats in Canada.) Again says this truly ardent, untiring friend of our slaveholding republicanism. If these conspirators, and traitors have been successful at Christiana and Syracuse, let them not lay the flattering unction to their souls that they will always meet with even such a degree of temporary success. We say temporary, for those conspirators are not yet done with. They have yet to settle the fearful reckoning with the outraged (but beloved fugitive slave act) country. I shall here refrain from further notice of this Democratic tirade of cowardly slander of George Thompson and his faithful co-adjutors for civil and religious liberty throughout the world. Taking the editorial of the Rochester Advertiser, from the beginning to the end, over and above, inside and out, it is one of the most rich and [spicy] productions we have noticed from the slavery press for some time, and carries with it evident proof of a mind writhing and wasting under the torture of a guilty conscience[, and] the gnawing of the worm that never dieth.

A being as far removed from the godlike principle, "Doing as he would be done by," as darkness is from light. A being who openly professes to be a worshipper of the Moloch of slavery, on whose bloody altar the American republic has made more offerings than any other nation of modern times. A being, of all others, the most ignorant of what constitutes the real and true basis of national greatness. A being who has the hardihood to stand out before the world with all his naked deformity and the absence of all good, crying: crucify, crucify! All justice and mercy to the outlawed slave, and all who place his cause before this wicked and slanderous nation. A being in whose soul all life has died out, a barren wilderness where nothing is to be found but the devouring beasts, seeking who they may devour. This is the character of this advocate of the slave institution in these United States. That whom justice and mercy is demanding, in the name of the Lord God of hosts, to let the bondsmen go free, is answering Pharoah-like, who is the Lord that I should obey him: I know not the Lord, neither will I let his people go. It is evident that the force of truth from George Thompson, to the pro-slavery people in these U. S., is making their dry bones to rattle causing consternation in camp, giving us evidence enough that every shot he fired against the hypocrisy; in church and state in their abomination, told where it hit. This we judge from the distempered rainings of the editor of the Rochester Advertiser, which we take to be about as fair a sample of slave-holding republicanism as we could bring before the public.

Believe me to be affectionately,

Nathan Graves.