“WASHINGTON, May 5, 1838.

    To JAMES G. BIRNEY, Esq., Cor.  Sec.  A.A.S.S.

SIR,—­I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 1st instant, in which you again refer to the publication of the Correspondence between us, in relation to the measures and designs of the abolitionists.  I would have certainly answered yours of the 2d ult., on the same subject, more fully before this, had it not escaped my recollection, in consequence [of] having been more engaged than usual in the business before the House.  I hope the delay has been productive of no inconvenience.

If I correctly understand your letters above referred to, the control of these papers, and the decision as to their publication, have passed into the ’Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society;’ and, from their tenor, I infer that their determination is so far made, that nothing I could object would prevent it, if I desired to do so.  I was certainly not apprised, when I entered into this Correspondence, that its disposition was to depend on any other will than yours and mine,—­but that matters nothing now,—­you had the power, and I am not disposed to question the right or propriety of its exercise.  I heard of you as a man of intelligence, sincerity, and truth,—­who, although laboring in a bad cause, did it with ability, and from a mistaken conviction of its justice.  As one of the Representatives of a slave-holding constituency, and one of a committee raised by the Representatives of the slave-holding States, to ascertain the intentions and progress of your associations, I availed myself of the opportunity offered by your character and situation, to propose to you inquiries as to facts, which would make those developments so important to be known by our people.  My inquiries were framed to draw out full and authentic details of the organization, numbers, resources, and designs of the abolitionists, of the means they resorted to for the accomplishment of their ends, and the progress made, and making, in their dangerous work, that all such information might be laid before the four millions and a half of white inhabitants in the slave States, whose lives and property are menaced and endangered by this ill-considered, misnamed, and disorganizing philanthropy.  They should be informed of the full length and breadth and depth of this storm which is gathering over their heads, before it breaks in its desolating fury.  Christians and civilized, they are now industrious, prosperous, and happy; but should your schemes of abolition prevail, it will bring upon them overwhelming ruin, and misery unutterable.  The two races cannot exist together upon terms of equality—­the extirpation of one and the ruin of the other would be inevitable.  This humanity, conceived in wrong and born in civil strife, would be baptized in a people’s blood.  It was, that our people might know, in time to