The abolition party is a noble one.  Several of its champions have given their lives to propagate their faith.  But lately, indeed, the Texan journals took pains to tell us that a number of them had just been hung in that State; and, without even speaking of these noble victims, whose death completes the dishonor of the Southern cause, are there any bolder deeds in the history of mankind than those of the citizens of New England who, to wrest Kansas from slavery, went thither to build their cabins, thus braving a fearful struggle, not only with the slaveholders, but with the President, his illegal measures, and the troops charged with maintaining them?

We must fight to conquer.  This seems little understood by those who reproach abolitionism with having been a party militant; to hear them, the true way of bringing about the abolition of slavery was to let it alone:  to attack was to exasperate it.

This argument is so unfortunate as to be employed in all bad causes.  I remember that when measures were taken against the slave trade, we were told that the sufferings of the slaves would be thus increased, and that the slavers would be exasperated.  Later, when we held up to the indignation of the whole world the Protestant intolerance of Sweden, we were assured that these public denunciations would put back the question instead of accelerating it.  We persevered, and we did rightly.  Sweden is advancing, though at too slow a pace, towards religious liberty.  It would be difficult to cite any social iniquities that have reformed of themselves; and, since the existence of the world, the method which consists in attacking evil has been the one sanctioned by success.  In America itself, the progress made by the border States does not seem to confirm what is told us of the reaction caused by the aggressions of abolitionism.  In Virginia, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Delaware, etc., the liberty party has been continually gaining ground; and the votes received in the slave States by Mr. Lincoln prove it a very great mistake to suppose letting alone to be the condition of progress.  Would to God that slavery had not been let alone when the republic of the United States was founded!  Then, abolition was easy, the slaves were few in number, and no really formidable antagonism was in play.  Unhappily, false prudence made itself heard:  it was resolved to keep silence, and not to deprive the South of the honor of a voluntary emancipation—­in fine, to reserve the question for the future.  The future has bent under the weight of a task which has continued to increase with years, thanks to letting it alone.