OCR Text |
Show 32 CHAPTER V. The diil-icu!ty already stated might appal ordinary minds, but there is nothing too arduous for the efforts of fanaticism ; nothing too quixotic for the knight erranty of religious reform ers. L et us then look at the case in another point of view. The masters of s!Jves, it is admitted, are not at present in a temper of mind to give them liberty and the s laves themselves are not in a condition to receive it. "Vhat are the means of abolition. "I only ask" - says Dr. C.-" that the slave holding States should resolve conscientiously and in good faith to remove this greatest of moral evils and WI'Ongs, and would bring immed·ialely to the work all their intelligence, virtue and power." The extreme simplici ty of this modest request shews the value of the proposal for all practical purposes. It is only that the whole population of the slave distriet should change its habits, manners, feelings, tastes, inclinations, principles, objects, wants and wishes. It is only that while they think themselves in perfect health they should believe this physician of souls that they are gangrened at the heart. It only that for the purpose of curing a disease of which they are not sensible, they should submit not merely a spouting artery to be tied up by this skilful surgeon, but as if there were any hope of life in the experiment, make bare the whole vascular system to be dissected fi'Om the quivering trunk. This little operation seems not even to our author to be quite definite enough in its vlan, and the matter is therefore persued further into detail. "The Church should rest not day or night till this stain be wiped away." Mathias professed to be a prophet. The elect Lady claimed to work miracles. The l\Iormonites have some pretence ,, 33 to supernatural power, but none of them ever ventured on a greater extravagance than this. In a contest with S lavery the Church itself would be destroyed, so far at least as its influence in other respects would be concerned. But the Church is first to be persuaded. The Church at the South is composed of slave-holders. Its p1·iests and its levites are slave-holders. Its temples are erected, its altars are maintained, its offerings are purchased with the lahar of slaves. B ut says Dr. C. "Government should devote itself to this, as its great object. Legislatures should meet to free the slave .'' This is, indeed, somewhat alarming. Force, power, authority are to intecfere, and what cannot be accomplished by argument, is to be made successful by the arm of the law. Religious reforme1·s have, in all ages, been persecutors. They have depended on reason and logic when they have had no better means of persuasion ; and resorted to penalties, fines, imprisonment, the scaffold and the stake, whenever the power to do so has come into their hands. Mahometan and Christian are in this alike. All sects of Christianity have stained their fair fame by similar iniquity ; and while we supposed that a better system and a purer faith now prevailed in the world, and that the fires of Smithfield had been extinguished forever, the head of the liberal clergy, in the advance of the nineteenth century, proposes to change the whole domestic arrangements of the greater part of a continent, and to demolish what many millions of people deem to be their right of property, by the power of government and the aid of legislatures ' ! The moral reformer, who suggests this mode of attaining his object, abandons his own cause. But government and legislatures, in our day, are not what they once were. Government and legislatures are but another name for the people. S lave-holders, in the slave country, make them; and they, who are thus created, are slaveholders themselves. To call on government to put down S lavery, shews rather a disposition to use power than a knowledge of its character. It is more absurd than to call on the 5 |