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The following communication from a christian, a philanthropist, and a gentleman, we insert with pleasure. The language is energetic, occasionally severe, but we hold not ourself answerable for its severity. The circumstances of the case justify it. Cruel charges, unsubstantiated by the least shadow of evidence, have been too frequently brought against Abolitionists, and we have a right to demand the proof or a retraction, and if neither is given, he who makes those charge is, to say the least, a traducer of character.

For the Unionist.

To the Editor of the Norwich Courier

SIR—I presume that you will agree with me in the sentiment that the editor of a public journal is under weighty responsibilities, and should suffer nothing to appear in the columns of his publication but with extreme caution. Opinions disseminated through the columns of a newspaper will, to a greater or less degree, influence the opinions of the reading community, and when the editor of a paper advocates any particular doctrine, he doubtless desires that his readers may adhere to the same doctrine. Great care therefore is necessary that a person in your connexion with community should disseminate thro’ that community, precepts which shall bear the test of truth—principles founded upon the strictest rules of justice and sound morality. You sir, I presume, professing to be governed by high and honorable motives, will readily assent to this, and at all times be willing to turn your attention to any thing which may have escaped your pen, and if any one of your readers should be so unfortunate as to differ from you in sentiment, you will, I presume, cheerfully examine the ground of their complaints, to be convinced, or to show some reason for a different course.

I would request of you, sir, to re-peruse an article which appeared under your editorial head, Oct. 23d, in relation to Miss Crandall’s school and the sentiments of the abolitionists. I would ask you to do it calmly and dispassionately— searching for the truth —unbiased by opinions previously expressed, farther than you find reason to be your supporter.

You say, “Although we think that Miss Crandall has a right to continue her school we are by no means friendly to the doctrines which are said to be taught in it; yet these doctrines can never be put down by persecution—they must be met by fair argument, and in such a contest they will prove wholly untenable.” I am glad to find that you have never denied the right of Miss Crandall to teach such a school—it is rather a matter or surprise to me, as it probably is to you, that New-England should contain an enlightened man who would deny that right. I know not what doctrines you have heard to be taught in that school, neither have you seen fit to inform the public. But you have said that dangerous doctrines are taught there that ought to be “put down.” If so, are not you, sir, bound to tell us what these doctrines are, as you wish to enlighten the public all you can—to overthrow these dangerous doctrines, and to free society from their contamination, will you not condescend to meet them by “fair argument,” as “in such a contest” you are confident “they will prove wholly untenable?” I am anxious to see, what I have never yet seen and feat I never shal, the attempt made to “put them down” by “fair argument,” instead of addled eggs, &c.

You say again, “The least that can be said of the Abolition scheme is that it is an insane project—one which no man in the full possession and exercise of his faculties can contemplate as being practicable, or at the present time desirable.” I know, sir, it is very easy for a person, especially when under a little excitement, to go on and make severe accusations against his opponents, but it is quite another thing to show the reason of these accusations. I might say that the editor of the Norwich Courier was governed by passion and prejudice, with as much ease as you charge Abolitionists of insanity; and I doubt not, sir, that I should be able to substantiate my charge as soon as you yours. I have seen similar charges in your paper before, but I have never known of your being more particular. You are satisfied with making a general assertion, why not specify wherein this insanity consists? The leading doctrine of the Abolitionists is that no man has a right to hold his fellow man in bondage a single moment. Is this insane? Is it untrue? Is it a fact that man has a right to rob his fellow man of liberty—of himself? If he has such a right, tell me, sir, who gave him that right, and how long it is to continue. If he has a right to hold him in bondage one moment, how many moments may he have that right? But who are these insane Abolitionists? How long since this spirit of insanity come upon them? They are all around you—men of distinguished worth—of brilliant talents—to whom you, sire, in your highest estimation of yourself, never considered yourself worthy to be called an equal. You accuse them of forwarding a project which is not desirable. Do you pronounce them all hypocrites? No, you dare not, but they are insane, and therefore may be, for aught you know, sincere. But they are men of exemplary piety—men of fervent prayer—of extensive influence in promoting the cause of our Redeemer. You have not been accustomed to pronounce them insane—even now you are ready to quote their opinions upon other subjects and would place more confidence in their judgment than in your own. How happens it that their insanity is confined to this subject alone?

You say, “The agitators appear to have bid adieu to common sense and a regard for the constitution and the laws,” &c. I know not what you call bidding adieu to common sense, but one thing I know, that the leading Abolitionists in our country are the leading men in every other project to benefit the human race—men distinguished for their moral courage, seeking for the approval of God rather than for the favor of man. They have inquired for the path of duty and having ascertained it they have not failed to run in that path. Some, perhaps, might say that common sense in this respect is a disposition to act in a manner most congenial with popular feeling, If this is your definition of the term, I admit that they have ‘bid adieu to common sense,’ but as I understand the term they have most strictly adhered to it.

As for the charge of their disregarding the constitution and the laws, I think it a very grave accusation to be brought against many of the best men of our country. But you, sir, are not the only one who has seen fit to make it—neither are you the only one who has made it without specifying what part of the constitution or what laws they disregard—and I must tell you, sire, that neither you nor all the wholesale accusers who you join can point out a single line of our constitution from which Abolitionists, as such, have departed. “Bid adieu to a regard for the constitution!” It is not true—and I here call upon you, sir, to clear your character from the imputation of falsehood. I would not say, sir, that you intended to assert an untruth, but I do say that you have asserted one, and unless you retract or substantiate it, the charge of falsehood must rest upon you. Is it unconstitutional to assert that it is morally wrong to hold slaves? Does the constitution of a free, republican people forbid that we should speak against chaining the mortal body and degrading the immortal mind? Is it against the constitution of a Christian people to declaim against the cruel system of slavery? —to say that it is contrary to the righteous laws of God—that it is inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel and the precepts of our Savior? Is it a fact that the republicans of the United States hold one sixth of their number in the chains of the verist despotism—that two millions of our fellow creatures are groaning under worse than Egyptian servitude—that two million of immortal souls are shut out from the light of science and closed to the entrance of one cheering ray from the Sun of Righteousness—and that when a few fearless men stand forth and say that these things are wrong, you, the editor of a public journal, cry out that in so saying they have “bid adieu to a regard for the constitution?” Tell me, sir, if these things are facts? O that you could tell me that they were not facts! But, alas! they are. We must not say that it is wrong to degrade the image of God to a level with the brutes that perish, for it is unconstitutional. Thank God!  we have no such constitution as this! Shame on my countrymen! Shame on any republican asserting such a doctrine! I know the constitution permits the several states to hold slaves if they choose—but no where does it say that we shall not raise our voices against this abominable system. Wherein, then, have Abolitionists “bid adieu to a regard for the constitution?” Will you, sir, point out this treason, or cease longer to make an unfounded accusation?

You say, “That this unprincipled opposition to the labors of the Colonization Society will raise up many warm friends to the latter there is abundant ground to hope.” As “unprincipled," sir, as these ‘agitators’ may be, I deem it no disparagement to you to say that they are men in the splendor of whose moral qualities you would be hardly visible, and whose names will be breathed with veneration by the virtuous and the good when yours shall have long been forgotten. But I am perfectly willing that you should, if you can, console yourself that by this opposition many warm friends will be raised up to the Colonization Society, but perhaps it may soften future disappointment, to inform you that many of those who have been "warm friends” to that society are flocking around the Abolition standard, and however many ‘warm friends’ the Colonization Society may have, the cause of Abolition must forever stand. As long as justice reigns in heaven and sin is found on earth, so long will those be found who will exert themselves to hasten the triumph of the former and crush and extirpate the latter, and as sure as God is good so sure will he cause them to prosper.

Again you say, “If the blacks are to be benefitted at all, it can only be accomplished by the aid of the Colonization Society, and their removal to Africa.” O that you had spared the penning of that sentence! What principle do you mean to advocate? Into what would you convert our happy land? What, sir, shall we think of the man, professing to be governed by that religion which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, who tells us that here are two and a half millions of immortal beings among us, degraded and wretched, and if they “are to be benefitted at all” it must be by “their removal to Africa?” What, in the name of God, is the reason they cannot be benefitted here? What but that you and some of your brother editors are so wickedly prejudiced against them that you are determined they shall not be? They can be benefitted here—they will be benefitted here. The number of blacks in this country will never be less than at the present moment—for in the first place we have not the means to make them less, increasing as they do 70,000 per year, and in the second place if we had the means of carrying them to Africa they do not want to go. They must always remain with us unless we serve them as we have served the poor Indians, and though you may continue to assert that they must always remain degraded, yet every true Christian will rejoice that God in his good providence has ordered it otherwise.

                                                                                                            JUSTICE.