The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
been erected by the wisdom and virtue of those who framed the
fundamental law of the State, and which you and many of us
considered, if not sacred, at least to have been permanently
settled, it becomes us to be on the alert to defeat a measure,
which if it should succeed, will not only be ruinous, and in the
highest degree unjust to many of us who have emigrated here under
the most solemn assurance that "neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude" should exist; but it will be of incalculable injury to
the interest of the State, of the Union, and of the extension and
advancement of freedom, and the amelioration of the human race.
You reside in a favorable situation to aid with effect this great
question. The county just below you forms the dividing line
between the sections of country in which the free and slave
parties predominate. It has occurred to me that the friends of
freedom would give ample support, and that the good cause would
be greatly promoted by establishing a printing press on the
Eastern side of the State. And I know of no place where it could
be established to so much advantage, as at Albion. Besides the
advantage it has in locality, there are in Albion, and its
vicinity, many persons who wield chaste and powerful pens, and
who have the means, and, I trust, the disposition of patronizing
an establishment of the kind. Pardon me for asking it as a favor
to me personally, and as a sacrifice to the furtherance of the
best and most virtuous of causes, that all personal, sectional,
national, county or town feelings, and all other unkind feelings,
let them originate from what cause they may, shall be buried, at
least while the great question is pending. I will write and ask
the same favor of Mr. Birkbeck. I have but little news. From all
I can learn a considerable majority of the people of the counties
situated in the north-west part of the State, as far south as
Monroe, St. Clair and Washington, are opposed to a call of a
convention, but great and extraordinary efforts are already
making to induce the people to vote for it.
Present my respectful compliments to Mrs. F. and family, and to
your son and his lady, and be assured of my respect and esteem.
EDWARD COLES.
GOVERNOR COLES TO NICHOLAS BIDDLE
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