The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

454
THE EARLE FAMILY
cause sake, stand by our friends, who have ventured on so bold a
step. The Convention, as I understand, have no reference whatever
that the nominees have been put up for any other purpose than
that of being elected. It strikes me that our answers ought to be
consistent with that dignified position. I should be pleased to hear
from you, at once.
Gentlemen :
Very truly yours,
James G. Birney.
Philadelphia, May 30th, 1840.
I duly received your letter of April 2d, communicat-
ing the unexpected information of my nomination by a convention ot
citizens of the United States, assembled at Albany, as a candidate for
the office of Vice-President, in connection with the name of my
esteemed friend, James G. Birney, as a candidate for the Presidency.
Before receiving your letter, I had deliberately weighed the ques-
tion of slavery in this country as connected with political action. It
appeared to me that a very large majority of the people of the United
States had, for more than fifty years past, been opposed to slavery in
sentiment, and favorable to its extinction by one mode or other ; yet,
while such was the sentiment of the people, and while, probably,
not one citizen in twenty was directly interested as a slave-owner,
we still saw the community of the whole Union, and of each particu-
lar State, go on, year after year, passing new laws, or continuing in
force those already existing, by which the public arm was lent to the
infliction, upon millions of innocent persons, of one of the greatest
and most demoralizing wrongs ever sanctioned by law in any region
of the globe.
It appeared to me that a change of the laws, whether found in the
Constitution or in acts of legislation by which this wrong was com-
mitted, was the great final end of anti-slavery efforts ;
for individual
outrage, of the kind in question, could not long exist unaided by the
laws ; and even admitting the possibility of converting all men to a
voluntary performance of their duty, it was not to be supposed that
the laws by which the public assisted in making slaves of human
beings would be continued in force until every individual in the country
should have voluntarily abandoned his share of the wrong. Hence, I
believed that the conversion required of the people of this country,
in relation to this matter, was not so much a conversion to a correct