it to be supposed that they are not men like ourselves? Do they not sometimes tremble at the awful workings of fear, and despair, and agony, which they witness when they are tearing asunder living hearts in the depths of those fearful slave-prisons? What, then, keeps down the consciences of these traders? It is the public sentiment of the community where they live; and that public sentiment is made by ministers and church-members. The trader sees plainly enough a logical sequence between the declarations of the church and the practice of his trade. He sees plainly enough that, if slavery is sanctioned by God, and it is right to set it up in a new territory, it is right to take the means to do this; and, as slaves do not grow on bushes in Texas, it is necessary that there should be traders to gather up coffles and carry them out there;—and, as they cannot always take whole families, it is necessary that they should part them; and, as slaves wilt not go by moral suasion, it is necessary that they should be forced; and, as gentle force will not do, they must whip and torture. Hence come gags, thumb-screws, cowhides, blood,—all necessary measures of carrying out what Christians say God sanctions.
So goes the argument one way. Let us now trace it back the other. The South Carolina and Mississippi Presbyteries maintain opinions which, in their legitimate results, endorse the slave-trader. The Old School General Assembly maintains fellowship with these Presbyteries, without discipline or protest. The New School Assembly signifies its willingness to reünite with the Old, while, at the same time, it declares the system of slavery an abomination, a gross violation of the most sacred rights, and so on. Well, now the chain is as complete as need be. All parts are in; every one standing in his place, and saying just what is required, and no more. The trader does the repulsive work, the Southern church defends him, the Northern chuich defends the South. Every one does as much for slavery as would be at all expedient, considering the latitude they live in. This is the practical result of the thing.
The melancholy part of the matter is, that while a large body of New School men, and many Old School, are decided anti-slavery men, this denominational position carries their influence on the other side. As goes the General Assembly, so goes their influence. The following affecting letter on this suhject was written by that eminently pious man. Dr. Nelson, whose work on Infidelity is one of the most efficient popular appeals that has ever appeared:
I have resided in North Carolina more than forty years, and been intimately acquainted with the system, and I can scarcely even think of its operations without shedding tears. It causes me excessive grief to think of my own poor slaves, for whom I have for years been trying to find a free home. It strikes me with equal astonishment and horror to hear Northern people make light of slavery. Had they seen and known as much of it as I, they could not thus treat it, unless callous to the deepest woes and degradation of humanity, and dead both to the religion and philanthropy of the gospel. But many of them are doing just what the hardest-hearted tyrants of the South most desire. Those tyrants would not, on any account, have them advocate or even apologize for slavery in an unqualified manner. This would be bad policy with the North. I wonder that Gerritt Smith should understand slavery so much better than most of the Northern people. How true was his remark, on a certain occasion, namely, that the South are laughing in their sleeves, to think what dupes they make of most of the people at the North in regard to the real character of slavery! Well did Mr. Smith remark that the system, carried out on its fundamental principle, would as soon enslave any laboring white man as the African. But, if it here not for the support of the North, the fabric of blood would fall at once. And of all the efforts of public bodies at the North to sustain slavery, the Connecticut General Association has made the best one. I have never seen anything so well constructed in that line as their resolutions of June, 1836. The South certainly could not have asked anything more effectual. But, of all Northern periodicals, the New York Observer must have the preference, as an efficient support of slavery. I am not sure but it does more than all things combined to keep the dreadful system alive. It is just the succor demanded by the South. Its abuse of the abolitionists is music in Southern ears, which operates as a charm. But nothing is equal to its harping upon the "religious privileges and instruction" of the slaves of the South. And nothing could be so false and injurious (to the cause of freedom and religion) as the impression it gives on that subject. I say what I know when I speak in relation to this matter. I have been intimately acquainted with the religious opportunities of slaves,—in the constant habit of hearing the sermons which are preached to them. And I solemnly affirm, that, during the forty years of my residence and observation in this line, I never heard a single one of these sermons but what was taken up with the obligations and duties of slaves to their masters. Indeed, I never heard a sermon to slaves but what made obedience to masters by the slaves the fundamental and supreme law of religion. Any candid and intelligent man can decide whether such preaching is not, as to religious purposes, worse than none at all.
Again: it is wonderful how the credulity of the North is subjected to imposition in regard to the kind treatment of slaves. For myself, I can clear up the apparent contradictions found in writers who have resided at or visited the South. The "majority of slave-holders," say some, "treat
their slaves with kindness." Now, this may be
