(ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK HERALD.) BY F. G. DE FONTAINE, NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & Co. 1861. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. CHAS. CRASKE, STEREOTYPER. BARTON & SON, 111 Fulton Street, N. Y. INTRODUCTION. The following pages originally appeared in the NEW YORK HERALD, of February 2d, 1861. By request, they have been reproduced in their present shape, with the view of preserving, in a form more compact than that of a newspaper, the valuable facts embraced. Without an extensive range of research it is almost impossible to acquire the information which is thus compiled, and, at the present time, especially, it is believed that the publication of these facts will be desirable to the reading community. F. G. DE F. HISTORY OF AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM. CHAPTER I. The Spirit of the Age-Two Classes of Abolitionists-Their Objects-The Sources of their Inspiration-Influences upon Church and State-Proposed Invasions upon the Constitution-Effect upon the Slave States, &c., &c. One of the commanding characteristics of the present age is the spirit of agitation, collision and discord which has broken forth in every department of social and political life. While it has been an era of magnificent enterprises and unrivalled prosperity, it has likewise been an era of convulsion, which has well nigh upturned the foundations of the government. Never was this truth more evident than at the present moment. A single topic occupies the public mind-Union or Disunion-and is one of pre-eminently absorbing interest to every citizen. Upon this issue the entire nation has been involved in a moral distemper, that threatens its utter and irrevocable dissolution. Union—the child of compact, the creature of social and political tolerance-stands face to face with Disunion, the natural offspring of that anti-slavery sentiment, which has ever warred against the interests of 3 |