CHAPTER V.

THE CHURCHES AND SLAVERY.


This leads me to examine a side of the American question upon which,
attention is, naturally fixed at the present time; how is it that the
iniquities of slavery are maintained among this charitable and liberal
people? how is it that such iniquities have subsisted under the
influence of so powerful a Christian sentiment? Can it be true that
Christians have deserted the cause of justice? Has the Gospel had the
place which belongs to it, in the great struggle that is going on
between the North and the South? yes; or no. This is perhaps the point
of all others most important to clear up; first, because it is the one
on which the most errors have accumulated; next, because it is the one
most closely connected with the final solution; for this solution will
not be happy, if the Gospel has no hand in it.

To judge rightly, let us approach and endeavor to comprehend the true
position of those whose conduct we seek to appreciate. See the South,
for example, where the almost universal opinion is favorable to slavery,
where governors write dithyrambics on its benefits, where many
Christians have succeeded in discovering that it is sanctioned by the
Gospel, where men of sincerity are now placing their impious crusades in
behalf of its extension under the protection of God, where numerous
preachers expound in their own way the celebrated text "Cursed be
Canaan!" Do not these sentiments of the South, detestable as they are,