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Show 12 they estimate to be worth to them about five hundred millions of dollars. The moral influence, which is to work this stupendous miracle in their hearts, is first to commence by persuading them that they are guilty of atrocious crime ; then it is to make them penitent for their deep transgressions, - and, as penitence is nothing without reformation, they are to be induced to part with this accumulation of ill-gotten wealth, and surrender it at the instigation of an authorized minister of the gospel of peace ! ! Surely, the first step in this gigantic enterprise, should be to conciliate the confidence and esteem of the patients, upon whom it is to be essayed. A prudent and skilful necromancer, befo re he cou!J ex pect to charm them out of their fortun es, would endeavor to win his way to th eir hearts. Peter the hermit, when he preJched a crusade, dealt out his promises as lib erally as his threats, and assured his devoted hearers that, although they might die in Palestine, they should wake in H eaven. Some politic priests, who have the credit, in modern times, of being extremely successful in obtaining property for pious uses, have opened the strong box with the key of love,- or, if the terrors of the confessional have induced some miserable penitent to plate sin with gold, it was when the extravagance of his fears had swallowed up his judgment. The attempt, in the present case, is greater than was ever conceived by the Vatican, and one which, in no age of the church, would have been made as a requisition of authority. An Unitarian clergyman goes on a desperate enterprise, when he attempts to awe men or frighten them into a compliance with his will. He may deride, if he pleases, the arrogance of the slave-holder, and describe it as the consequence of power habitually maintained over one or two hundred dependents ; but what will the slave-holder say, in return, of that temper of mind which ventures to intimidate five millions of freemen, by menace, denunciation, and indignity. If, indeed, we mean to fight the slaves free, it is of no mo- .. IS ment how angry we make their masters ; but if we really intend to use moral means and the powers of persuasion, it is extremely unfortunate that we give them strong reason to believe we are not sincere. 3. lt is a breach of our highest political contract, and a violation of good faith and common honesty, to disturb the internal condition and domestic arrangements of the slave-holding States. I assume this position to be self-evident. At any rate, I do not address myself to those who deny it. The only open question is, does this book and its doctrines interfere with the internal condition and domestic arrangements of the slave-holding States ! First, I say, they are intended to do it. Slavery is established by law ; and the object of this publication is to abolish it. If, in the opinion of our author, his book will not, and cannot disturb the existing relations of Slavery, it was a work of gratuitous folly to publish it. Second. The press is the only power that can be used to disturb the domestic arrangements of Slavery. It is not imagined that any law in Massachusetts can operate in Carolina, or that we are to move with an army to put down our white fellow-citizens. No other interference is poss ible but the interference of the press ; and he who uses it in a manner to produce a dissolution of the relations of Slavery, does what he can and all he can to produce that disturbance which honor, truth, and conscience bind us not to excite. Is it said this book is not, by its manner, calculated to produee disturbance among slaves! Let us examine it. Think you, if Dr. Channing was to go into the slave country, and, gathering round him a hundred negroes, preach the doctrines to them which he has published to us, it would be likely to produce disturbance ! Or, what is the same thing, if be should send his book to some free negro, who should mount a stump, and read to his race, would it produce disturbance ! Is it a book that any slave-owner would permit to be published on his plantation ! Is the existence of the book good cause |