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Bangor, Sept. 8, 1845 Dear Spooner, I had expected on leaving you to return to
Boston as early as Tuesday next (tomorrow); but, finding it necessary to
protract a little my absence, I cannot help saying that I have watched with
interest what the paper has said of your essay, whose value has been constantly
growing in my own estimation. Garrison was more favorable, or rather less
unfavorable, than I had ventured to hope. It is considerable, I think, that he
should admit you are neither a known [?] nor a fool, and to even go [?] far as
to assert, that you are both honest and acute, ______ complimenting the style
of your reply. His admiration of your boldness in thus attempting “to _____ the
seal off of the bond,” his surprise, that the anti-slavery character of the
Const. [?] should have been discovered by somebody before this later period,
his allegation, that, whatever may be said of your argument, “the fact remains
the same”; and sundry other things: these were all to have been expected. But
what does he mean by saying “the fact remains the same”? I suppose “the fact” is the premier [?] to
have been the character of the constitution touching slavery. --- But Phillips,
it seems, was moved to rap G. over the knuckles, slightly, for having taken so
favorable a notice of the Essay, and, with all the weight of his authority,
both as an abolitionist and as a lawyer, to pronounce it “weak & fanciful,”
promising, however, to know it to be so in a forthcoming review of the same. I
think Phillips will yet respect this contemptuous article of his. By the way, I
do not remember, that you pronounced those amendments and that sec 9 of art. 1st
to be merely restrictions of the State Legislatures. Nor was I aware before,
that _____ Morshole [?] and other have decided, those amendments, etc[?] to be
restrictions on the power “of the General Government only”; but imagined they
restricted, in part or in whole, the National & the State
Legisltaures. He thinks he “has you on the hip[?],” _____ the eligibility of
females to the office of President, impairing the obligation of contracts,
etc. But I’ll not detain you with any
impressions of mine, respecting [?] the profoundness of his scribblings on
other points that “the book is a ______ pan[?]”! The intellect of an ass [?]
might see, that “the confusing of two different meanings of the same word,” is
a confusion of his own making. --- The notice in Atlas [?] was by Hildrith, I
suppose. I could wish it had been fuller; t’was very good, though. ---I wish,
--- I can hardly say I hope, notwithstanding what he told you, ---the work may
be thoroughly reviewed by Leavitt.# [#I suppose it was Levitt who wrote the
brief notice of it that appeared in the C. [?] as a communication. I’ve [?]
member [?] to have heard his or late the _____. The lawyer was B. J. Hollett [?]]
--- The Granite Freeman (of Concord, N.H.) speaks highly of it, in an article
of only a few lines. It promises to return to the support, though professing
itself unable [?] to open with all the Essayists views. --- Then have appeared
many notices of the work, doubtable, which I have not seen. The ed. of the Let me support[?], if you would not do well
to preserve the arguments made against your book by such persons as Phillips,
& others of equal caliber, & answer the whole of them together, by ___
in a pamphlet. I probably shall return to Will you hand or send the ______ into [?]
Mr. Russell? Very Truly
Yours, Ger Bradburn Envelope: Lysander Spooner,
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