Lowell, Feb. 23, 1846

Dear Spooner,

     By the last English Steamer, I read a letter from James Haughton[?], of Dublin; from which I offer you the following extract, which shows, if there were need of showing, how difficult it is for men tolerably good & tolerably sensible men to allow the truth to do its perfect work in them:

     “Spooners is an ingenious work, & his arguments, if offered to reasonable beings, would seem to be incontrovertible; but liking[?] the actual state of things as they exists in your country, it appears to me that his essay is an additional argument in favor of the “dissolution of the Union.” For however true it may be that slavery is unconstitutional, yet when you slave states, who have the power, choose to put a construction of their own on the written instrument, & that construction in opposition to freedom, what other alternative have the friends of freedom, than to withdraw themselves from such an alliance. If Mr. Spooner were to go into a slave state, & act in accordance with his views (& I think his view are just[?]) of his constitutional rights, every judge in this land would rule against him, & he would be thrown into prison, & they would be justified for so doing in this way. They could show from the speeches of many of the frames of the your constitution, that however much ashamed these men might have been because of their slave system, they meant at the time to cheat[?] the ____ of human rights, by putting such a construction on their document or would give a color for its actual overthrow in regard to the Negro race. I therefore who[?] the cry ‘Abolish slavery, or down with the Union.’”

     My friend Haughton has some cynically profound remarks on the relative merits of the non-voting & the voting abolitionists of America.

     I think Phillip’s attack on your argument[?] has[?] but the inevitable result of an irrepressible _______ of wrath and mortification, at finding how utterly it had swept away the basis of most of his firm[?] ______ speeches. I can now make nothing ot it.

     I gave your respects to Hildreth & his wife, to Garrison, & to Morsh; all of whom rec’d the same with evident thankfulness. I will remember you to others, equally worthy, on my return to the city, tomorrow; not forgetting your love to Mrs. Sargeant, so soon as I can get near enough to her to present it.

My brother, who is “a practical man”, thinks I have come to be extremely visionary, & wonders not at my _______ to ______ ________. And why, do you think? Chiefly because I have talked somewhat to him of some of the views I obtained from your work, now in progress--- Free banking, he says, has been tried, & has failed, in Ohio; it worked only mischief to the poor. Are you acquainted with the present banking system of that state? It strikes me as the most perfect of any I have yet heard of, or being[?] in operation in this country.

Boston, 24^th Feb. It is no consequence, of course, that this was not immediately forwarded to ______ to _____ at in one to the Dr.; but had not time to write him still to-day; & I will now; & I would not write you before writing the good Dr & his better half.

     Sewall will not, I incline to think, take time to stop whenever your book is not satisfactory to him. He told me, yesterday, that it would be a great deal of work for him to do so; and added, as usual, a high satisfaction with your argument on the ______ clause[?]. ---I spoke to him of your work now in progress. He will doubtless deem[?] some of the _____ views rather impractical[?].

                                  Truly yours,

                                  Geo Bradburn