James M. Folger Letter to Arvine C. Wales Regarding Slavery

              [page 1]

[corresponds to page 1 of James M. Folger Letter to Arvine C. Wales Regarding Slavery]

			          Ravenna July 25th 1848

Friend Arvine

                                 If you feel interest sufficient to read

this after my long delay which however was beyond my

control I will endeavor to send a scroll of proportion

ate length.  Much has and is constantly occurring of

interest and I should be extremely happy could we

have personal intersesions to interchange thoughts on

the absorbing questions of the day.  The principles of

Universal Love and the Brotherhood of Man,  Were ever

terms more comprehensive!  What vast practical changes

are being and to be wrought by the recognition.  The

criminal but a less fortunate brother than me whom

promise  it is with the aid always vouched in the

right to restore him to the dignity and confidence of

manhood.  Crime, deceit and oppression forgotten in

the light of the new commandment that you love one

another and the resultant New Day which dawns upon us

like a summer morning on our beautiful earth.

is this a dream? Or are the [illegible] of party and sec

tarian creed snapping asunder to unite NG on

general and self evident principles?  We whom true in

terests have never been further divided than our im

agination and misconceptions of them,   Around you

were free and kind enough to vent many expres-

sions of interest in me in your last, I feel much

In you- with such opportunistics for education, and

I know [underlined] all will be engaged to assist in the search

ing enquiry to "know the True be the Good and act

the Right"   I understood you would soon go east to

complete your studies.  Will it be convenient to attend

the Buffalo convention to be hold on the 9th..

    We have had C.C.Burleigh and H.C. Wright anti

slavery lectures   the former the author of the Death

penalty which you have doubtless seen and the lat

ter an advocate of PEACE.  I was rather more

pleased with the former, as he was not so vita

perative, I do not agree in their abuse of the church

es or the south.  These they wish to reform as the
				    
indirect sustainers and agents of an [carrot mark] evil [above carrot mark] system.  Ap-

proach them then with motives addressed to their

clearest reason and best feelings- all these are in

the shape of motives in the  wide Universe- with all

the difference of Right and Wrong in your favour