Letter from Seward Mitchell, Cornville, [Me.], to William Lloyd Garrison, [March 19 1855]

Seward Mitchell laments to William Lloyd Garrison his impression that the abolitionist cause is making "but little or no advance" against slavery. Mitchell charges the American government with the responsibility (moral and otherwise) for the creation, implementation, and continuation of slavery, and labels it a "slaveholding government", asserting that John Quincy Adams has "spoken the truth in relation to it". Mitchell questions Stephen Foster's formation of a new political party, and asserts that in the "last five thousand years" there has not been one political faction which has proved to be a "blessing to mankind". Mitchell declares that the American government must be "destroyed as the great enemy of God and man". Mitchell lables political action to be "all wrong", and states his hopes that this theme will be taken up at the Worcester meeting of the Non-Resistance Society.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library