Excerpt from The Truth of Anti-Slavery History

Now, how does Mr. Johnson dispose of all this evidence? Simply by styling it the careless rhetoric of Levi Coffin and other associates of Mr. Osborn He says it is easy to see how, in their warm regard for their friend, and in their commendable desire to do full justice to his memory, they failed to make discriminations required by truth, and affirmed more than he ever claimed for himself. This is the legal logic Of Oliver Johnson, who thinks I am the victim ofa credulity more amiable than discriminating or judicious, and that I have not clearly understood the question at issue, or known just how to weigh the evidence in the case What does he mean by all this careless rhetoric? Does he not see that in discarding the whole body of evidence of Mr. Osborn's friends on the assumption that they were blinded to truth by their devotion to their leader he maks a precedent for setting aside all that has been said or written in glorification of Mr. Garrison by his friends and admirers Does he not confuse and befog all the rules of evidence by which we can safely be guided in the search of the truth Does he mean anything less than that the well-informed and conscientious friends of Mr. Osborn were, in fact, either knaves or lunatics I fear the simple truth is - and I say it in all personal kindness - that Mr. Johnson has entered upon this con troversy as the helpless victim of a foregone conclusion, and finds his way out of his dilemma so difficult and bewildering that he is obliged to set common sense at defiance. The judicial faculty seems to be wholly wanting. If our legal tribunals, Sitting to hear and impartially decide questions of controverted fact, were to be guided by such loose and sentimental notions, the administration of justice would become a farce, and probably end in a tragedy.

Mr. Johnson, however, is not satisfied with his summary attempt to get rid of the testimony of Mr. Osborn's friends, for he goes on to argue that if the doctrine in question had been proclaimed at the time mentioned it would not have failed to arrest public attention, and446 the truth OF anti-slavery history.

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