THE PRESIDENT'S FAST; 
 
 DISCOUKSE 
 
 #iir '$Kimml €mus aii^ Jfdlies, 
 
 PRIiACUKD I.V THE 
 
 BROADW^VY TABERNACLE CHLIRCII, 
 
 JANUARY 4, 1861. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH P. T 
 
 NEW YOKK : 
 THOMAS HOLMAN, PRINTER, CORNER OF CENTRE &. WHITE STS. 
 
 18 61. 
 
J 
 
THE PRESIDENTS FAST; 
 
 DISCOUKSE 
 
 §iir Ilatkniil Crimes anlr Jfollics, 
 
 FREACUED IN THE 
 
 BROADWAY TABERNACLE CIIURCK, 
 
 JANUARY 4, 1861. 
 
 _^'- 
 
 / 
 
 B 
 
 JOSEPH p. THOMPSON. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 THOMAS HOLMAN, PRINTER, CORNER OF CENTRE <fc WHITE STS. 
 
 18 61. 
 
T^8 
 
u 
 
 ^ 
 
 New Yokk, Jan. 5, 1861. 
 Rev. J. P. Thompson, D.D. : 
 
 Dear Sir,— lJa\in^ been appointed l)y the audience, who listened to your 
 Sermon in tlie Broadwuy Tabernacle Churcli on tlie evening of the 4th instant 
 (National Fast), to request a copy of said sermon for publication, the under- 
 signed, in compliance with that appointment, respectfully solicit a copy for that 
 purpose : 
 
 Thomas Rittek, 
 Ceokge H. White, 
 TnojiAS 8. Bkiiuy, 
 Adon Smith, 
 Myron J. Fkisbie. 
 
 New York, Jan. .5, 1861. 
 Gentlemen,— The vote of the Congregation which you have kindly conveyed 
 to me, requesting for publication the Discourse preached last evening, precludes 
 my own judgment in the premises, and constrains me to an affirmative answer. 
 I place the Discourse at your disposal, in the liope that it may contribute toward 
 a better understanding of the causes of the " calamity and peril" tliat "threaten 
 the Union of the .States." 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 Jos. P. TUOMPSON. 
 
 To Messrs. Thomas Rittek, 
 • George H. White, 
 
 Thomas S. Bekuv, 
 Adon Smith, 
 Myron J. Frisbie. 
 
TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 A RECOMMENDATION. 
 
 Numerous appeals have been made to me by pious and patriotic associations 
 and citizens, in view of the present distracted and dangerous condition of our 
 country, to recommend that a day be set apart for Humiliation, Fasting, and 
 Prayer throughout the Union. 
 
 In compliance with their request and my own sense of duty, I designate 
 Friday, the 4tu day of January, 1861, for this purpose, and recommend 
 that the people assemble on that day, according to their several forms of wor- 
 ship, to keep it as a solemn fast. 
 
 The Union of the States is at the present moment threatened with alarm- 
 ing and immediate danger ; panic and distress of a fearful character prevail 
 throughout the land ; our laboring population are without employment, and 
 consequently deprived of the means of earning their bread. Indeed, hope 
 seems to have deserted the minds of men. All classes are in a state of con- 
 fusion and dismay, and the wisest counsels of our best and purest men are 
 wholly disregarded. 
 
 In this the hour of our calamity and peril, to whom shall we resort for re- 
 lief but to the God of our fathers ? His omnipotent arm only can sare us 
 from the awful effects of our own crimes and follies — our own ingratitude and 
 guilt toward our Heavenly Father. 
 
 Let us, then, with deep contrition and penitent sorrow, unite in humbling 
 ourselves before the Most High, in confessing our individual and national sins, 
 and in acknowledging the justice of our punishment. Let us implore Him to 
 remove from our hearts that false pride of opinion which would impel us to 
 persevere in wrong for the sake of consistency, rather than yield a just sub- 
 mission to the unforeseen exigencies by which we are surrounded. Let us with 
 deep reverence beseech Him to restore the friendship and good-will which pre- 
 vailed in former days among the people of the several States ; and, above all, 
 to save us from the horrors of civil war and " blood-guiltiness." Let our fer- 
 vent prayers ascend to His Throne that he would not desert us in this hour of 
 extreme peril, but remember us as He did our fathers in the darkest days of 
 the Revolution, and preserve our Constitution and our Union, the work of 
 their hands, for ages yet to come. 
 
 An Omnipotent Providence may overrule existing evils for permanent good. 
 He can make the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath 
 He can restrain. Let me invoke every individual, in whatever sphere of life 
 he may be placed, to feel a personal responsibility to God and his country for 
 keeping this day holy, and for contributing all in his power to I'emove our 
 actual and impending calamities. 
 
 JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 Washington, December 14, 1860. 
 
vS E 11 M N. 
 
 Tliy princes are rebelliou.s, and compnnionii of tliicves : everyone Ir)vetli gifts, and followeth 
 after rewards ; they judge not tlic fatherless, neither dutli tlie cause of the widow c'lnie unto 
 them. Therefore saith the Lord, the Ix>rd of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will case me 
 of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies. And I will turn my hand upon thee, and 
 purelj' puree away thy dross, and take away all thy tin. Ami I will restore thy judges as at the 
 first, and thy counselors as at the beginning : afterward thou hlialt Re called, Tlie city of righteous- 
 ness, the faithful city. — Is.kum, i., •j:5-'J7. 
 
 History becomes pertinent anil almost personal to present 
 times, because two of the principal factors of liistury, tlie de- 
 pravity of man, and the rij^hteous l^rovidencc of (lod, remain 
 unchaiig-ed. It is as true to day as it was in Israel S'lOO years 
 ago, that the lust of wealtli and power will lead a people of even 
 the highest religious ideas and institutions to apostatize from 
 God ; and that such apostaey will be followed by political and 
 social corruption and degeiieracy, and by the righteous judg- 
 ments of Jehovah. Tlie root of iiatiniial corruption ami decay is 
 commonly found in some departure from public rectitiid(>, through 
 the lust of aggrandizement and the pride of power : or in some 
 general defection from principle in the public mind, through 
 covetousiiess, luxury, or political expediency. A breach of mo- 
 rality, a vitjlation of some fiiiidamental law or laws of ethics, as 
 applied to society and nations, as surely leads to degeneracy and 
 corruption in the State, as a breach of conscience tends to the 
 defilement of the individual. And then, by the great law of 
 retributive suffering that attends all human wickedness, and also 
 by special Providential manifestations of (Jod's moral government 
 over the world, come evils to society and the State that no political 
 sao-acity can ward off, and no political constitution or combina- 
 tion can resist. 
 
 Such an epoch of abounding wickedness, and consequent 
 
6 
 
 calamity and peril, this nation has reached, befure completing the 
 first century of its independent existence. The Proclamation of 
 the President of the United States recommending this as a day 
 of Humiliation and Prayer, " in view of the present distracted 
 and dang-erous condition of the country," sets forth — with some 
 exaggeration of details and a melancholic strain of language, 
 yet with a substantial basis of facts — that " the Union of the 
 States is at tlie present moment threatened with alarming and 
 immediate danger;" — that "our actual and impending calami- 
 ties" are the result of "our own crimes and follies — our own 
 ingratitude and guilt toward our Heavenly Father ;" and that 
 therefore it becomes us " to humble ourselves before the ilost 
 High, confessing our individual and national sins, and acknowl- 
 edging the justice of our punishment." 
 
 The morality of this reconnnendation, I am thankful to acknowl- 
 edge, is of a higher grade than that of the Odend Manifesto — 
 which openly advocated the robbing of a weak and declining 
 neighbor, in order the more securely to hold in bondage a poor 
 and oppressed race among ourselves ; which insisted that even 
 by coercion we should acquire Cuba, in order to protect Slavery 
 at the South against the contagious proximity of a Free Negro 
 State. At the instance of President Pierce, the ministers of the 
 United States to Great Britain, France, and Spain, convened at 
 Ostend to consider the possibility of acquiring Cuba for the 
 United States. As the result of that Conference, a document was 
 forwarded to the Secretary of State, in which after arguing the 
 commercial and political advantages to be derived from the pos- 
 session of Cuba, the writers discuss the possibility of emancipa- 
 tion in Cuba, either by concessions from Spain, or by servile 
 insurrection. Contemplating the intluence of emancipation in 
 Cuba upon the neighboring States of the South, the Conference 
 proceed to ask, " Does Cuba, in the possession of Spain, seriously 
 endanger our internal peace, and the existence of our cherished 
 Union ? If this be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law 
 human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting rr from Spain, 
 if ^cc possess the jwwe?', and this upon the very same principle that 
 would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house 
 of his neighbor if there were no other means of preventing the 
 flames from destroying his own house. Wo would be recreant to 
 our duty, be unworthy of our gallant forefathers, and commit 
 
base treason against our posterity, sliunld \vc permit Cuba to be 
 Africanized, and become a second St. Domingo."* 
 
 Tlie first name appended to tbis document was Jamks Hi ciianan. 
 Tbis audacious [)roposal of national piracy for tiie protection of 
 slavery was understood to be Mr. Bucbanan's bid for tlic Presi- 
 dency, and to indicate bis principles and policy. It is grateful 
 to notice tbat tbe recommendation for to-day, deprecates national 
 " crimes and follies " as provoking tbe just punisbment of beaveu. 
 
 Tbe morality (jf tbis Fast-Day recommendation is bigber, also, 
 tban that of tiie Inaugural Address of tbe same " public func- 
 tionarj'," wbicb foresbadowed tbe false and inliuman dogma, so 
 soon to be promulged from tbe Bench of the Supreme Court, tliat 
 tbe Constitution of tbe Federal Union recognizes slaves as prop- 
 erty, and pledges tbe General Government to protect it.f Tiie 
 doctrine of tlie Inaugural was, tliat tbe existence or non-existence 
 of Slavery in a territory of the United States is a matter of in- 
 difference ; the moral aspec;ts of tlie (juestion arc ignored, and it 
 is reduced to a mere common-place topic of numerical accident, or 
 political convenience or expediency. Yet, it is assumed tbat tbe 
 Federal Constitution sanctions Slavery in tbe territories, and tbat 
 the Supren)e Court will so decide. No "crime or folly" was 
 thought of then, in connection with the system that now agitates 
 tbe land. 
 
 The morality of this Fast-Day rccommemlation is more elevated 
 tban that of the first ^fessage of the same high functionary, in 
 1857, declaring that the right of property in slaves then in Kan- 
 sas, was guaranteed under tbe Constitution of tbe United States ; 
 and defending the notorious attempt to force upon that territory 
 a Pro-slavery Constitution, devised by fraud and maintained by 
 armed invasion, with the whcjle force of the Federal (lovernment 
 
 * The Conference met at Ogtend, Belgium. October 9, 10. and 11, 185t, and 
 continued its ses.sion at Ai.v-la-Chnpello until the 18th of that month. The 
 document addressed to Mr. Secretary Marcy was dated at Aiz, October 18, 
 1854, and signed by James Buchanan. J. Y. Ma.>^i)n. and Pierre Soulo. 
 
 t This opinion in the case of Dred iScolt vs. San. (1!) How., SO."*) was uttered 
 only three days after Mr. Buchanan's inauguration. In liis last annual .Message, 
 the President refers to this fact as indicating the tone of his administration. He 
 boasts that '• the Supreme Court has solemnly decided that slaves arc properhj, 
 and, like all other property, their owners have a right to take them into the com- 
 mon territories, and bold them there under the prottxtim of the ConstiiiUion.^' 
 
8 
 
 upon the side of perjury and violence. And, lastly, the tone of 
 this recommendation is quite above the morality of the recent 
 Message of the President, imputing the prevalent discontent, and 
 tlie threatened destruction of the Union, " to the long-continued 
 and intemperate interference of the northern people with the 
 question of Slavery in the Southern States." The Presidential 
 lesson for to-day is pitched on quite another key. Instead of a 
 plea for stealing Cuba ; for legitimating human chattelism in the 
 territories ; for imposing Slavery upon Kansas by armed ruf- 
 fians and perjured voters ; for the vigorous enforcement of ne- 
 gro-catching, as the only means of preserving the Union from 
 revolutionary resistance — instead of such topics which have 
 formed the staple of our Presidential literature for the past four 
 years, we have now a document whicli distinctly traces the "pres- 
 ent distracted and dangerous condition of the country" to the 
 " crimes and follies" of the nation, not excluding its Executive 
 head ; and which seeks a remedy for this calamity and peril, not in 
 the old specific of stealing negroes, whether in Cuba, Kansas, or 
 NcAV York, not by interpolating Fugitive Slave Laws and Dred 
 Scott decisions into the Constitution, but by confessing individual 
 and national sins, by abandoning any " false pride of opinion which 
 would impel us to persevere in wrong," by acknowledging the evils 
 we suffer to be " a just punishment" from our Heavenly Father ; 
 and of course, if we are not hypocrites— thougli the President 
 forgets to say this— by openly renouncing and forsaking the 
 crimes and follies that have brought us to this hour of danger. 
 
 It seems a long way from the pirate's creed issued at Ostend, 
 and the buccaneering manifestoes against Kansas, to the Calvin- 
 istic humility and dependence of our Fast-Day lesson. Yet 
 there is a logical connection between these extremes ; the crime 
 meditated against Cuba, the bloody raid upon Kansas, an almost 
 unbroken course of public injustice and wrong pursued in the 
 interest of Slavery, have necessitated the marked judgments of 
 Jehovah ; and these have startled the mummified consciences of 
 public functionaries into an energy all the more terrific, because so 
 long restrained. The handwriting is seen upon the wall, and the 
 knees smite together. Under the lead of our rulers, we, as a na- 
 tion, have followed Israel in boldly rebelling against God and 
 mocking at his higher law, till we have become a people "laden 
 with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children of corruption ;" keep- 
 
ing np the routine of relij^ioiis obsprvanccs, and inv^kin;^ the 
 name of God, while our hands were fidl of Mood, and the wages 
 of oppression and deceit ; till at length even our luinoes have 
 become rebels and the companions of thieves ! 
 
 I do not recall public documents so oflensiveto the mural sense 
 of Christendom, with a view to criminate their individual author 
 — for I would not forget that salutary precept of Christianity, 
 " Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy [leople." But such 
 documents, emanating from such a source, represent that tone of 
 the public mind and that course of national policy which have 
 precipitated upon us our present confusion and distress ; they 
 exhibit that reckless disregard of justice and of moral f)bligation 
 which has marked our public policy, since the system of Slavery, 
 which our fathers outlawed from the Federal Constitution and 
 fenced in by the ordinance of '87, has been suflered to dictate its 
 own terms to political organizations, and to issue its own orders 
 from the Senate Chamber, the Executive Cabinet, and the Supreme 
 Bench of Justice. 
 
 The prophet Isaiah assigns the corn]|>tion of the people and 
 their rulers as the cause of the calamities that had overtaken 
 Israel. And the specific instructions he gives as to the way of 
 reformation, show the character of the sins of which they had 
 been guilty as a nation. Seek judgment ; i. e., make justice the 
 standard of your national policy ; seek justice — as Pr. Addison 
 Alexander paraphrases it — "be not content with abstinence from 
 wrong, but seek opportunities of doing justice, especially to those 
 who can not right themselves ;" rifjhten the oppressed ; redress 
 wrong, judge the fatherless — deal justly by him and protect him 
 — "befriend the widow, take her part, espouse her cause ; orphans 
 and widows being special objects of divine compassi<in, and rep- 
 resenting the whole class of helpless innocents." 
 
 The sins of the nation, therefore, were pre-eminently the sins of 
 injustice, bribery, covetousness, and oppression of the poor ; and 
 all their punctilious observance of the external duties of religion, 
 was not only vain and worthless, but a mockery of God, while 
 their hands were stained with oppression and wrong. If the 
 President had transcribed this first chapter of Isaiah, would he 
 not have made a faithful catalogue of our public crimes and fol- 
 lies, not omitting its special application to magistrates and rulers ? 
 For, to quote again tlie Princeton commentator, "t!iey who were 
 
10 
 
 bound officially to suppress disorder and protect the helpless, were 
 themselves greedy of gain, rebellious against God, and tyrannical 
 toward men. Thy rulers are rebels and fellows of thieves (not 
 merely like them, but accomplices, partakers of their sins), 
 every one of them loving a bribe and pursuing rewards." There- 
 fore, because the very fountains of justice have thus become cor- 
 rupt, as a necessary vindication of his own sovereigntyvand jus- 
 tice, Jehovah declares, " I will take thee in hand, I will purge out 
 thy dross like purity itself, and will take away all thine alloy." 
 Our sins involve our calamities, as both a necessary consequence 
 and a judicial infliction. 
 
 In considering our national crimes and follies as related to our 
 calamities, we shall be aided by a glance at the present state of 
 the country. If we compare the moral, social, and commercial 
 conditions of two great sections of the country, it may help us to 
 locate the seat of the pi-esent disorder, and to ascertain its cause. 
 The President informs us that " panic and distress of a fearful 
 character prevail throughout the land ;" that " our laboring pop- 
 ulation are without employment, and deprived of the means of earn- 
 ing their bread ;" that " hope seems to have deserted the minds of 
 men ;" that "all classes are in a state of confusion and dismay." 
 Now, surely we in this community do not recognize this picture, 
 as in accordance with facts. True, the money-market has been 
 seriously disturbed, and all securities and values depressed ; busi- 
 ness has been subjected to another of those spasmodic convulsions 
 which so often interrupt the course of our prosperity ; there have 
 been heavy losses, and many disappointments, and the general 
 derangement of the finances has of course affected unfavorably 
 the laboring population, and made itself felt among all classes. 
 But much of this distress has been owing to precautionary 
 measures against some possible evil, rather than to the actual 
 pressure of present evils. It has been limited mainly to cities 
 and large manufacturing towns ; and has been exaggerated even 
 there. The 2^<^^^ic is fairly over. Confidence, under caution, is 
 returning. The banks have not suspended their payments, passed 
 their dividends, nor materially curtailed their discounts. The 
 number of business failures has not been large, as compared with 
 former revulsions. There is no general distress among the work- 
 ing-men of the North. There is plenty of food in the land, and 
 plenty of money for those who know what to do with it. Above 
 
11 
 
 all, wc are at peace among ourselves. There are no signs hero 
 of a social revolution ; no threats. of violence ; no bands of armed 
 men in our streets ; no apprehensions of civil war. The people 
 are peaceably and safely pursuing their business, and do not even 
 stint themselves in their pleasures. The holiday shops have done 
 a good trade ; the New Year's calls were cheerful. Fifth Avenue 
 keeps carnival on every bright day, and the Central Park invites 
 the equestrian and the skater. Should the Prince of Wales land 
 at the Battery to-day, and ride up to the Central Park, he might 
 find " all classes in that state of confusion" incident to a crowd, 
 but would see nothing of " dismay" at the impending " horrors of 
 civil war," nothing of that fearful panic and distress which the 
 President assumes to prevail throughout the land, lie would find 
 all as quiet and serene as though South Carolina had never passed 
 an ordinance of secession, and the right of Coney Island to an 
 independent sovereignty, had never been mooted. 
 
 And yet, in another section of our common country, tlie picture 
 drawn by the President is fearfully true. It touches one to sad- 
 ness to think of the actual condition of the South, and should move 
 us to prayerful sympathy. There alarm pervades every house- 
 hold — that terror by night, that fear of one's own servants and 
 dependents, of which, happily, we have no conception ; there is dis- 
 tress for food, bordering upon starvation ; there hope has de- 
 serted the best and purest of the citizens, while madness runs riot 
 on every side ; there " all classes are in a state of confusion and 
 dismay ;" there are the impending horrors of civil war ; an 
 armed mob coercing public opinion, coercing the press, coercing 
 men of substance and standing to give their countenance and 
 money to the support of measures they dare not oppose ; there is 
 bankruptcy and financial ruin, and the hourly peril of anarchy. 
 There, too, in the language of the President's Message, not con- 
 tradicted, not even qualified in any quarter, " a sense of security 
 no longer exists around the family altar. The feeling of peace at 
 home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrection. 
 Man}' a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of 
 what may befall herself and her children before the morning." A 
 sad and dreary picture, but, alas, too true ! 
 
 But xohy is it so ? Why this distracted and dangerous con- 
 dition of one section of the countr}', while another is in perfect 
 security and peace ? Are there preparations here fur an armed 
 
12 
 
 invasion of the South ? A 3'car ago, one forlorn old man, a moral 
 hero with a crazed brain, attempted that, but found no approval 
 of his deed among the thousands who pitied his fate. Is there a 
 political organization anywhere at the North to interfere with 
 the State rights of the South ? Could such a party be formed in 
 any Northern State ? or, if formed, could it find any support from 
 the press or at the polls ? The few at the North wlio urge the 
 dissolution of the Union as the speediest way to the abolition of 
 Slavery, are men who conscientiously abstain from recognizing 
 the Union by voting. They organize no party in politics, they 
 train no companies for war. Wlience all this terror at the South ? 
 The state of the country is summed up in these words : 
 
 Sl.VVERY BEfiETS ITS OWN" TERROR, AND BY TH.VT TERROR SEEKS TO 
 COERCE US TO ITS SUPPORT. 
 
 Who have disturbed the finances of the country ? Who have 
 gone to the verge of treason in their acts, and sought to involve 
 this nation in the horrors of anarchy and civil war ? The men 
 who wish to perpetuate Slavery, and those who, for the sake of pe- 
 cuniary gain, of political power, or of a temporary quiet, are willing 
 to combine with them for that end. The crimes and follies that 
 have brought the nation to " this hour of calamity and peril" are 
 all connected with the purpose to uphold, extend, and perpetuate 
 the system of Slavery. If that system were done away, can you 
 point to any tiling in all the land, from Maine to Florida, from 
 ocean to ocean, that could seriously distract and divide the na- 
 tion, or ever threaten it with civil war ? 
 
 The President speaks of the exigencies of the hour as " unfore- 
 seen." Unforeseen! Who that was not blinded by covetous or 
 partisan interests could fail to see that the attempt to nationalize 
 and extend a system of unmitigated injustice and wrong must 
 demoralize those embarked in it, must corrupt the whole political 
 administration of the country, must lower the tone of public jus- 
 tice and honor, must arouse the opposition of conscientious and 
 God-fearing men, and provoke the righteous judgments of God ? 
 Unforeseen ! Did not Jefferson, the father of Democracy, long 
 ago write with reference to the possibility of a bloody conflict 
 arising out of Slavery : " I tremble for my country when I reflect 
 that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. . .The 
 Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a 
 
13 
 
 contest ?"* Unfoi-csccn ! Did not Jefferson say again, toucliing- 
 the emancipation of the slaves : " When the measure of their tears 
 shall be full, when their groans shall have involved Heaven itself 
 in darkness, doubtless a God of justice will awaken to their dis- 
 tress." ..." Nothing is more cei'tainly written in the Book of 
 Fate, than that this people are to be frec."f " Unforeseen exi- 
 gencies !" Did not Col. Mason, of Virginia, in the convention that 
 framed the Federal Constitution, say that Slavery " brings the 
 judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations can not be re- 
 warded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By 
 an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes 
 national sins by national calamities." Foreseeing calamity as 
 the consequence of Slavery, Mason opposed the Slave-trade. 
 
 Unforeseen ! Did not leading citizens of Connecticut, in a 
 memorial to Congress in 1191, say, "The whole system of Ameri- 
 can Slavery is unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles, and 
 in its consequences, 7'ainous to (he induslrij and enterprise of the 
 citizenii of these States.-' And the Virginia Society for the Aboli- 
 tion of Slavery, in addressing an early Congress, declare "that 
 righteousness exalteth a nation, and that Slavery is not only an 
 odious degradation, but an outrageous violation of one of the 
 most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to 
 the precepts of the Gospel ?";j; 
 
 Unforeseen ! Did not John Jay, first Chief Justice of tlie 
 United States, say, " Till America comes into this measure [of the 
 abolition of Slavery], her prayers to Heaven will be impious. I 
 believe that God governs the world, and I believe it to be a maxim 
 in his, as in our courts, that those who ask for equity onght to 
 do it." 
 
 Unforeseen exigencies ! Did not Mr. ^'ebstor say, at Niblo's 
 in '37, the (question of Slavery " has arrested the religious feel- 
 ing of the country, it has taken strong hold on the consciences of 
 men. He is a rash man, indeed, and little conversant with 
 human nature, and especially has he an erroneous estimate of the 
 character of the pcojde of this country, who suppos(?s that a feel- 
 ing of this kind is to be trifled with or despised. It will assuredly 
 
 * Notes on Virginia. Query xviii. Works, vol. viii., p. 404. 
 
 ■\ Works, vol. ix., 279 ; vol. i., 49. 
 
 X Quoted by Goodell. Slavery and Anti-slavery. 
 
14 
 
 cause itself to be respected/ But to coerce it into silence, to 
 endeavor to restrain its free expression, to seek to compress and 
 confine it, warm as it is, and more heated as such endeavors 
 would inevitably render it — should this be attempted, I know 
 nothing, even in the Constitution or in the Union itself, which would 
 not be endangered by the explosion lohich might follow ?"* 
 
 The " exigencies" that are upon us, therefore, so far from be- 
 ing " unforeseen," were predicted years ago by the framers and 
 defenders of the Constitution, as an inevitable result of any na- 
 tional encouragement to Slavery, and even of the prolonged exist- 
 ence of the system in the country. Almost with one voice the 
 fathers and sages of the past have .warned us of the " crime and 
 folly" of sanctioning that system of injustice and wrong, which 
 must deteriorate society and provoke tlie judgments of Heaven. 
 And yet, for the past fifteen years, we have scarce done any thing, 
 as a nation, but consult for the preservation of Slavery, or humor 
 its clamor and demands, as if this was the one great interest of 
 the country. The annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, the 
 Fugitive Slave Law, the Nebraska Bill, repealing the Missouri 
 Compromise, the raid in Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, the re- 
 opening of the African Slave-trade with the connivance of Federal 
 officers, the demand that Slavery shall be recognized in the terri- 
 tories as under the law of nature and the Constitution — all these 
 and kindred measures, adopted into political platforms, or advo- 
 cated by public men, show the subserviency of our national policy 
 to Slavery. As these successive steps of iniquity have been 
 taken, the pulpit has often warned the country of the very judg- 
 ments that are upon it. I trust that without misconstruction, I 
 may give one or two examples from the published utterances of 
 the pulpit of the Broadway Tabernacle Church, 
 
 In 1848, alluding to the war with Mexico and the proposal to 
 carry Slavery into the territories, your pastor said : 
 
 " For myself, I should be guilty of a crime against my own 
 nature, against my moral sensibilities, against every feeling of 
 the man which God has planted within my soul ; I should be guilty 
 of a crime against mankind — against the great interests of human- 
 ity ; I should bo guilty of a crime against the principles of our 
 Declaration of Independence, and against the memory of the fathers 
 
 * WorkR, vol. i.. p. 357. 
 
15 
 
 of the Republic ; a crime against civilization and Christianity ; I 
 should be guilty of a crime against God and the Savior of men, if 
 I should fail to record my testimony in the most distinct and cftect- 
 ive manner against the extension of Slavery. I could not answer 
 for that crime at the bar of God, any more than I could bear in my 
 own person the woes of the untold millions who will be doomed to 
 bondage if this measure prevails. And I call upon you, Christian 
 men, to look to your own consciences in this matter. Consider 
 the consequences that may result from your vote, and make the 
 casting of that vote a subject of prayerful deliberation. Let us 
 seek to avert the judgments of Heaven. I tremble for my country 
 when I consider that God is just. The language of Jehovah to 
 Israel is singularly appropriate to us. ' You only have I known 
 of all the nations of the earth, therefore you will I punish for all 
 your iniquities.' I think of Assyria, of Greece, of Carthage, of 
 Rome, of Jerusalem, and fear at times that we, like them, are fill- 
 ing up the measure of our iniquities, to follow in their ruin."* 
 
 Again : In 1851, this pulpit said : 
 
 " While Slavery stands, it is an evidence that the truth is there 
 hampered or shut out, and to that extent liberty is in danger. It is 
 impossible that Liberty and Slavery should forever exist together 
 on the same soil. They can hardly do this for another half centuiy. 
 One or the other must come to an end. Neither can be passive ; 
 the interests of each struggle for the ascendency ; concessions and 
 compromises will not long hold them together ; one or the other 
 must encroach and enlarge ; one must go up, the other must go 
 down. Either Slavery must go down voluntarily, peaceably, speedi- 
 ly, under the moral influence of the Gospel, or slavery or uberty 
 WILL ONE DAY GO DOWN IN BLOOD. This must bc SO. Liberty lives only 
 in the light of truth. Slavery lives only in darkness. The day will 
 brighten or the night will deepen. The disastrous twilight of 
 late shed over us may well excite our fear. The Gospel of Christ 
 must prevail, and if we will not prepare the way for its triumph, 
 God will make way for it by blotting us out from among thr nations. 
 It is true of nations as of individuals, that if they Avill not live by 
 the Gospel, they must die by the law. For freedom's sake, for the 
 sake of our posterity, for the sake of our brethren involved in this 
 system, the slaveholder and the slave, for humanity's sake, let us 
 continually pray, and through all lit channels of moral influence, 
 let lis diligently labor that this curse may be removed. "f 
 
 I am no [)rophet, nor the son of a prophet ; but surely the exi- 
 gencies now upon us were not " unforeseen" when these words 
 were uttered ten years ago. 
 
 * Thie sermon was published under the title of J)uU(s of tfit. Christian Citi:m. 
 t Published under the title, Christianity Essential to Ltbtrti/ . a Vltajor Ilungary. 
 
16 
 
 Ag-ain : la 1854, rcnionstrating- against the Nebraska Bill : 
 
 " Would that I might stir up your consciences to recognize the 
 retributive government of God, and tQ free yourselves from per- 
 sonal guilt in this matter. I speak in no narrow, sectional, or 
 party spirit. I belong to no Anti-Slavery Society, and to no polit- 
 ical party whatever. I plead for the honor of Christ's name ; for 
 his suffering cause ; for the dignity of religion ; for the sake of 
 humanity ; for the sake of liberty ; for the honor and safety of 
 my country. I fear that this wickedness will be consummated. 
 It will be no marvel if we see the oppression of the poor. And 
 then it will be no marvel if our children see a prostrate commerce, 
 
 A SERVILE IN'SURRECTIOX, OR A CIVIL WAR. * * * * * 
 
 There is a God over the nations, and for no sin does he rebuke 
 them so fearfully as for the sin of oppressing the poor. And now 
 in face of a wrath written on the graves of all past empires, shall 
 this nation dare to oppress the poor ? Let us hasten to acquit 
 our souls of this stupendous crime. ' When God shall make inqui- 
 sition for blood, lie will remember the cry of the needy.' "* 
 
 We alrcad}" see a commerce prostrated by the slave-power, and 
 servile insurrection and civil war are both impending. " Unfore- 
 seen exigencies !" A child might have predicted them. 
 
 Again : In 185G, when Slavery in Kansas was a distinct issue 
 at the polls, this pulpit said : 
 
 " Christianity and Slavery can not live together. They have 
 now met face to face upon a virgin soil. We know that in 
 the end Christianity must triumph. We know that Slavery 
 must go down ; but (his 7iation, like Rome, may frst go down 
 in the struggle. The prayers and efforts of Christians alone 
 can avert a catastrophe which the madness of rulers is hast- 
 ening on. You can not make this a question of party measures 
 or of political expediency. It is a question of vital, practical 
 Christianity between your soul and God. If you thrust it aside, 
 it will haunt you in night-dreams, and it will face you in 'that 
 day.' The day shall come when all part}' platforms, measures, 
 and resolutions shall be burned with fire, and all human works and 
 institutions shall be dissolved. Then shall you stand face to face 
 with the slave before Him who is no respecter of persons."f 
 
 In these extracts I have confined myself to sermons which have 
 been published at the request of members of this congi'egation. 
 Such have been the warnings of this pulpit for fifteen years. 
 Such, too, have been the warnings of thousands of pulpits through- 
 out the land. The very peril now upon us has long been foretold. 
 
 * Published uader the title The Voice of God against National Crime. 
 t Teachings of the New Testament on Slavery. 
 
17 
 
 Yet the warning of the fathers of the RcvoUition and the frani- 
 ersofthe Constitution, the warnings of patriots and the pulpit 
 have been unheeded ; political chicanery, partisan zeal, and the 
 sensitiveness of commerce and all the pursuits of industry, have 
 been the agents of that compact, resolute, imperious, untiring 
 oligarchy which has usurped the reins of power, and domineered 
 over every department of government for tlie sole interest of 
 Slavery. 
 
 But God is now educating this nation to understand the unscru- 
 pulous wickedness of Slavery and its abettors. He is unmasking 
 the system, and showing that the spirit which tramples upon the 
 rights and the nianliot)d()f the black race, would trample also ufion 
 the rights and the manliood of all ; would disown tlie most sacred 
 compacts of government ; violate the good faith of States ; put 
 perjurers and traitors in the high places of power ; wreak desola- 
 tion upon the peaceful industry and commerce of the country ; 
 repudiate honest debts ; mob, imprison, torture, hang business 
 collectors and inoflfensive travelers ; suppress all inquiry and de- 
 bate touching its own doings ; gag the press ; outlaw or murder 
 all who dissent from its will ; wage war upon defenseless neigh- 
 bors ; and either monopolize the territory, the treasury, the offices 
 of the country, or tear down the fabric of our Constitution, and 
 deluge the land with blood. The lesson is fearful, but we deserve 
 it for disregarding the warnings of history, the Avarnings of the 
 patriots of other days, the warnings of the Word of God. Let us 
 accept the evils that arc upon us as " the just punishment of our 
 sins," and seek to profit by the lesson of the hour. 
 
 I once heard Messrs. Cobden and Bright address a mass meeting 
 at Manchester, assembled to congratulate them upon the repeal 
 of the odious and oppressive Corn Laws of England. Why is 
 it, said thc}', that this measure which we so long advocated 
 with a feeble and despised minority, has now found favor in the 
 eyes of all the people — farmers, landlords, manufacturers, mer- 
 chants, parliament, and the ministry of the crown ? We have 
 brought forward no new argument or appeal ; the facts, figures, 
 and reasonings we use to-day are the same that we used twenty 
 years ago, when we began to agitate this question. But the 
 nation would not hear us then ; it needed the terrible appeal of 
 the famine in Ireland ; when men died by hundreds on the road- 
 side, till, in some places the living were not enough to bury the 
 
18 
 
 dead ; when our streets were crowded with wretched beings in 
 the last stages of hunger, and the cry of ' bread or blood' came up 
 into our palaces ; then the Corn Laws went down amid the mingled 
 execrations and rejoicings of the nation. The horrors, of famine 
 were needed to teach the people of England one of the simplest 
 lessons of political economy. Just so preachers, patriots, and 
 moralists have warned this nation that Slavery in one part of 
 the country meant tyranny over the whole ; that such injustice 
 and wrong must breed corruption, violence, anarchy ; and that 
 the judgment of God must come upon us for the oppression of 
 the poor. It is nearly thirty years since Mr. Bancroft wi-ote, as a 
 historian, that " Despotism, in the order of Divine Providence, is 
 the punishment of a nation for the institution of Slavery."* But 
 the nation would not hear. Those who gave such warnings were 
 denounced as fanatics and traitors ; they were hooted at and 
 mobbed. We needed the peril of financial ruin, and the impend- 
 ing horrors of civil war, to arouse the nation to its guilt, and teach 
 it the first lessons of public justice and morality. Let us try to 
 profit by the lesson, somewhat in detail. 
 
 L God is rebuking our idolatry of the Union. I value the Union 
 of these States as a means of peace and prosperity to them all. 
 I value the Union and the Constitution, as ordained for freedom 
 and justice, and capable of bringing out the highest develop- 
 ment of self-government under recognized law. I deprecate any 
 attempt, from any quarter, whether in Massachusetts or in South 
 Carolina, to overthrow the original compact under which tlie 
 States were united. The sternest opponents of Slavery stand 
 before the world to-day as the friends of law and order, of the 
 Constitution and the Union. They will even stand by a President 
 for whom none of them voted, if he will stand by his oath, " to pre- 
 serve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 But some, instead of valuing the Union as a means to the great 
 ends of order, freedom, and peace, have glorified it as in itself an 
 END, and have vaunted the Constitution above the " higher law" of 
 God. When the advocates of Slavery have demanded some pal- 
 pable wrong under threat of breaking up the L'nion, these 
 worshipers of the Union, as such, have conceded the wrong to 
 save the Union. That was an idolatry," like the idolatry of 
 
 * Miscellanies, p. 307. 
 
19 
 
 Pharaoli, wlicn ho boasted of the Nile as his creation ; like that 
 of Nebuchadnezzar, who boasted of great Babylon tliat he liad 
 built. God is rebuking- that idolatry. We have assumed that 
 this Union was the perfection of human government, and neces- 
 sary to the advancement of religion in the world. God is rebuk- 
 ing our pride and idolatry. He is teaching us that no human 
 agency is indispensable to his plans, and that he can overthrow 
 our Constitution with a breath. Our Dagon falls in its tem])lc 
 before the ark of his strength. 
 
 2. God is rebuking, also, our pride of material resources, and our 
 luxury of living. We have relied upon our wealth and material 
 prosperity, and have nursed these as our pride and power. Com- 
 merce has divided with "the Union the homage of the nation. I 
 put a high value upon commerce, as the handmaid of civiliza- 
 tion, and often the servant of Christianity. I believe a mercan- 
 tile community to be, upon the whole, as upright, honorable, and 
 magnanimous as any other. It is right, it is in accordance with 
 Christianity, to seek prosperity by all honorable means. I can 
 not join in the denunciation of mercantile men as habitually self- 
 ish, covetous, timid, and time-serving. Rather would I sympa- 
 thize with them in their temptations and trials, and rejoice with 
 them in all honorable successes. 
 
 But there are those who put trade above everything; who 
 count it as a sufiScient argument for or against any measure of 
 public policy, that it will help or injure trade ; and when the 
 advocates of Slavery have brought forward scheme after scheme 
 of iniquity, such persons have virtually said, " This is all wrong, 
 to be sure, we are sorry it was ever proposed ; but let it pass, 
 rather than have business broken up by agitation." Now, God 
 is teaching us that business gains no security and no blessing 
 when it enters in^o partnership with wrong. As John Owen 
 admonished the British Parliament, so God is teaching us, " Say 
 not, in the first place, this or that suits the interest of England ; 
 but look what suits the interest of Christ, and assure yourselves, 
 that the true interest of any nation is wrapjxd up therein.^' 
 
 It was domestic Slavery, not barbarian invasion that destroyed 
 the life of ancient Rome. " It is a calumny," says Bancroft, " to 
 charge the devastation of Italy upon the Barbarians. The large 
 Roman plantations, tilled by slave labor, were its ruin. Tlie care- 
 less system impoverished the soil, and wore out even the rich fields 
 
20 
 
 of Campania The Barbarians did not ruin Italy. The 
 
 Romans themselves ruined it. Slavery had effected the decline 
 of the Roman people, and had wasted the land, before a Scythian 
 
 or a Scandinavian had crossed the Alps None of the 
 
 Barbarians were tempted to make Italy the seat of empire, or 
 Rome a metropolis. Slavery had destroj^ed the democracy, had 
 destroyed the aristocracy, had destroyed the empire ; and at last 
 it left the traces of its ruinous power deeply furrowed on the 
 face of nature herself"* Slavery must eventually prove the 
 destruction of ag-ricnlture, of manufactures, of commerce, and all 
 industrial arts, wherever it gains ascendancy. 
 
 3. God is rebuking all political expedients devised to harbor and 
 perpetuate iniquiti/. Tliat which God requires of us, as individuals 
 and as communities, touching- any iniquit}', is not concealment, 
 evasion, palliation, but ^' pxdling away," renunciation. He may 
 bear with us long, while we are honestly laboring to remove an 
 evil and to reform our ways. He is long-suflering and kind. lie 
 will give us all needful time 'to remedy any social disaster or 
 wrong. But if we make compromises with injustice and wrong, 
 he will break these up. The fatal error of our legislation for forty 
 years has been that of treating Slavery as a mere political institu- 
 tion to be conciliated, instead of a moral wrong to be repudiated 
 from our public policy. " \Yherefore hear the word of the Lord, 
 ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Be- 
 cause ye have said, we have made a covenant with death and with 
 hell are we at agreement ; when the overflowing scourge shall 
 pass through, it shall not come to us : for we have made lies our 
 refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves : . . .Judgment 
 also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and 
 the hail sliall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall 
 overflow the hiding-place. And your covenant with death shall 
 be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand ; 
 when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be 
 trodden down by it." Isaiah, xxviii., 14-19. 
 
 AVc have seen compromise after compromise with Slavery, 
 framed for the pacification of the country, broken up by a more 
 violent agitation, till at length the advocates of Slavery themselves 
 trample all compromises and concessions under foot, and demand 
 
 * Bancroft's Literary and Historical Miscellanies, p. 317 
 
21 
 
 that wc sliall abnegate our moral sentiment against Slavery or 
 accept the challeng-e of civil war. Vainly have wo sought to daub 
 this sj^stem of iniquity with the untempercd mortar of political 
 compromises. Whatever is cemented together with such "anti- 
 cliristian lime," must needs be shaken "so as to have every cranny 
 searched and brushed," till tlie iniquity is thoroughly purged away. 
 
 This review of the state of the nation in tlie light of liistory and 
 of Scripture shows us Avhat "crimes and follies" have brought us 
 to this hour of peril. They all run back into Slavery as their tap- 
 root. Now, no man here doubts that Slavery, as it exists in this 
 country, is a CRIME. I would not insult your moral sense by 
 assuming that that question needs to be argued. If it does, the 
 argument is brief enough. Let me go to your house to-night, and 
 by force tear away your wife or child, to be held and used as my 
 property, subject to my will and passions, without redress, to be 
 sold by me at pleasure, and forever placed beyond your reach, and 
 beyond every legal right of personality. You would cry out for 
 the law to avenge the outrage ; you would cry out for the humani- 
 ty, the justice, the conscience, of the whole community to come to 
 your rescue ; you would appeal to God in heaven — knowing Ilim 
 to abhor such an iniquity. But just that act is the root and the 
 essence of our American Slavery. I do not charge that each 
 individual slaveholder, born to the inheritance of the system, is 
 guilty of that act in its specific form. But the law of Slavery in 
 this count,ry, is that very act incorporated into a statutory per- 
 manence. The LAW of American Slavery is simply the law of rob- 
 bery and violence. It makes the slave an article of merchandise, 
 and by all its interpretation and administration treats him, not as 
 a person, but as a chattel. And, therefore, whatever the treatment 
 of individual slaves by masters who are better than the laws, 
 every slave at the South is liable to all the fearful possibilities of 
 this system of legalized robbery. Mr. Webster did not exaggerate 
 when he said that, in this odious but characteristic feature of 
 chattelism, American Slavery is without a parallel on the face of 
 the globe. "This particular description of Slavery does not, I 
 believe, now exist in Europe, nor in any other civilized portion of 
 the habitable globe. It is not a predial Slavery. It is not analo- 
 gous to the case of the predial slaves, or slaves glebce adscripti of 
 Russia, or Hungary, or other States. It is a peculiar system of 
 
22 
 
 personal Slavery, by which the person who is called a slave is 
 transferable as a chattel from hand to hand. Although Slavery, 
 as a system of servitude attached to the earth, exists in various 
 countries of Europe, / am not at the present moment aware of amj 
 jjlace on the globe in which this jyroperty of man in a human being 
 as a slave, tramferable as a chattel, exists, except America."* AVell 
 mig-ht Mr. Webster say, " I regard domestic Slavery as one of the 
 greatest evils, both moral and political."f 
 
 What folly, what wickedness, for men calling themselves 
 ministers of Christ, to attempt to foist such a system into the 
 Bible by such pettifoggery as was used in a Brooklyn pulpit the 
 other day ! You know that this stupendous injustice can find no 
 sanction in the AVord of God. You know that no curse of Slavery 
 was ever pronounced upon " the seed of Ham," and that Noah's 
 malediction upon Canaan was fulfilled when Joshua took posses- 
 sion of Palestine. You know that the household retainers whom 
 Abraham Iield after the manner of an Arab sheikh, whom he sent 
 upon distant journeys, laden with treasures, or led forth to war 
 against foreign tribes, were not his chattel slaves. No southern 
 Abraham would think of sending a slave to New York with costly 
 presents, for his Isaac's bride, or of marching his slaves under 
 arms to prevent Mr. Lincoln's inauguration ! You know that the 
 idea of property in man is no more to be found in the Mosaic law 
 than it is in the Constitution of the United States, from which it 
 was excluded at every point ; and after all the paltering of un- 
 8cholarly preachers about doulos and Onesimus, any tyro knows 
 that the term doulos does not determine a condition of chattel- 
 slavery, and you all know that the very first article in the Con- 
 stitution of a Christian church — the equality of the brotherhood, 
 and the golden rule of Christ's kingdom, equal justice toward all 
 men — forbade any believer in the apostolic age to hold his ser- 
 vant as a chattel, under the existing Roman law of Slavery | You 
 
 * Works, vol. 5, p. 305. 
 
 t Vol. 3, p. 279. 
 
 J I hav6 somewhat expanded this part of the discourse in preparing it for the 
 press. But having akeady discui^sed the Biblical view of the sulyect. in •' The 
 Fugitive Slave Law of the Old Testament," and " The Teachings of the Now 
 Testament on Slavery," I have still forcborne to enter at length into the Bible 
 argument against the system. Dr. Tayler Lewis, in his reply to Rev. IL J. Van 
 Dyke, says with truth and force : 
 
23 
 
 know tliat every principle and precept of Christianity toncliing- 
 the mutual relations of men is diametrically opposed to American 
 Slavery as defined by its own laws. 
 
 I make every allowance for those born and educated under that 
 system. Zealous anti-slavery men sometimes denounce me for an 
 excess of charity in that direction ; but, knowing human weakness 
 and depravity, I will have charity for those who do a wrong that 
 I too might do, in their circumstances. But you and /know that 
 the whole system of slave law is unjust — that it is against right, 
 against humanity, against God. 
 
 You and I can not sanction it without crime. This nation, with 
 all its light and experience, can not sanction it without crime. 
 
 " It is not the mere presence, but the predominance of the one or the other of 
 these ideas, the property or the government idea, which gives its chief moral 
 character to servitude. In the patriarchal, we venture to affirm, the former was 
 altogether subordinate, or rather almost wholly unknown, according to the 
 modern mercantile conception of it. There is mention of persons ' bought with 
 money.' It was, as we have said, an evidence of the social change. With the 
 heathen sellers it might have had all the nature of mercenary traffic. That so it 
 was regarded by the patriarchs themselves, there is not a particle of proof. 
 There is the strongest inferential evidence to the contrary. We boldly challenge 
 any man to produce one line or word of Scripture to show, directly or indirectly 
 that any patriarch ever sold a slave to the heathen, or to any other patriarch ; 
 that ever a Jew, in later times, sold a bondsman to a heathen or to any other 
 Jew. There may have been transfers of neighborhood, or convenimcc, but 
 nothing like traffic, in our modern sense of the word. They were bought with 
 money, and, doubtless, in this way many a poor stranger escaped death, or ex- 
 changed a hard vassalage for a blessed patriarchal home ; but there was no 
 domestic slave-trade. Neither arc slaves ever mentioned as articles of 'property.' 
 They are never reckoned in the Jewish statistics along with ' the corn, the wine, 
 ■and the oil, the barley, the flocks, and the herds.' They are enumerated in the 
 census of the household ; and in this way are named in connection sometimes 
 with lower things, but never as articles of traffic or merchandise. They are 
 mentioned, sometimes, as evidence of their Lord's power and greatness, but 
 rather as followers and vassals than as slaves. It is said ' Thou slialt not covet 
 thy neighbor's man-servant,' and the text is often quoted to prove the scriptural 
 lawfulness of the modern human bondage ; but so is it also said, ' Thou slialt 
 not covet thy neighbor'.<wife.' He who would pervert the guileless scriptural 
 language in the one case, may do so with equal justice in the other. AVives 
 were sometimes bought with money ; wives arc mentioned among the items of 
 household property ; the argument is as good in the one case as in the other. 
 In neither does it present any thing more than the painted outside resemblance 
 to our modern trafficking, while in f^pirit it is as remote from it as the ages are 
 from each other.'' 
 
24 
 
 And God is now testing us upon the very point, whether, at what- 
 ever cost of money, pride, or power, we will refuse to sanction an 
 enormous crime, or will succumb to terror, strike hands with 
 iniquity, and some new political evasion of a plain moral duty. 
 Have we the moral force to go through this present trial without 
 flinching, and to refuse to be implicated, as a nation, in this 
 iniquity ? Whatever is done by Congress to uphold or sanction 
 Slavery, commits the nation to a crime. God's commandment to 
 us this day is, " Wash you, make you clean ; put away the evil 
 of your doings from before mine eyes." Have we faith enough to 
 obey his voice, and to abide the issue ? 
 
 Good men have been accustomed to pray that God would over- 
 turn all iniquity, and many have prayed specifically for the over- 
 throw of Slavery. Yet, when they sec convulsions premonitory 
 to that overthrow, some seem to be afraid of the answer to their 
 own prayers. A plain shrewd man, on the Connecticut River, was 
 asked why the minister of his parish did not pray for rain in a 
 time of drought. " Oh, he don't dare to," was the answer. " Does 
 not dare to pray for rain 1 Why so ?" " Well, two years ago, it 
 was very dry hereabouts, and the minister prayed for rain ; and 
 the Lord sent such a tremendous flood, that it swept half of his 
 farm into the Connecticut Eiver; and ever since he has been afraid 
 to pray for rain !" Just so we have prayed that Slavery might 
 be done away ; yet, because the flood of divine judgments against 
 the iniquity has washed oft' a portion of our national farm into 
 the Atlantic Ocean, some begin to tremble, and propose to dike in 
 the waters. But " the voice of the Lord is upon the waters : the 
 God of glory thundereth. The Lord sitteth upon the flood ; yea, 
 the Lord sitteth King forever." If the desolating flood of human 
 passions now f aging at the South, be God's judicial dispensation 
 for the overthrow of Slavery, who am I that I should seek to stay 
 his hand ? Rather let me, shunning alike all carnal strife and all 
 carnal fear, " stand still" in the meekness and the firmness of 
 faith, "and see the salvation of the Lord." 
 
 Some business men are just now ready to make peace with the 
 slave-power, upon any terms. I appreciate the desirableness of 
 quiet and stability to the mercantile community. But, my 
 friends, you can not have peace in this matter, upon" a???/ terms. 
 Only God's terms of justice and righteousness will bring you 
 
25 
 
 peace. Suppose you compromise in moral right. Will that give 
 peace ? It will only increase the agitation. 
 
 Bad men will soon agitate the country with greater demands 
 of wickedness. If you do wrong under their intimidation, it is 
 like beginning to pay black mail to buy oft' a conspiracy against 
 your character. When the villains get all j^our money, you will 
 find your character gone too. If 3'ou yield now to threats, you 
 will put 3^our business, your peace, your rights, into the power of 
 evil and designing men, to be recovered only by bloody revolu- 
 tion. " Be not afraid of their terror, neitlier be troubled ; but 
 sanctfij the Lord God in your hearts." 
 
 If you compromise away the I'ight, good men will agitate. 
 You can not silence conscience, and conscience will speak wliilo 
 wrong endures. Can you muzzle the press ? Can you silence 
 those who, through 3'ears of conflict and obloquy, have gained the 
 ear of the people for liberty ? Will you drive out the minister 
 from the pulpit ? You make the nation his audience. He will 
 agitate the more. Remember Dudley T^'ng. They who break 
 windows, by-and-by have to pay for the glass. Tliey who pro- 
 voke mob law, may have to submit to martial law. A good con- 
 science before God is ready for any trial from man. It will not 
 cease to agitate, because wicked men oppose it. Men of good 
 conscience ai-e thereby committed to oppose Slavery, " at all 
 times, in all places, under all circumstances," where that iniquity 
 shows its head. 
 
 Above all, if you compromise away the right, God will agitate. 
 Come what may to business, to governments, to social and polit- 
 ical compacts, tlie God of truth and justice will overturn and 
 overturn, till slavery is cast down forever. This nation is now 
 in the favored day of opportunity — such as was given to Jeru- 
 salem of old, bitt given, alas ! in vain. This is the Goi.nES' hour 
 for putting away evil from before the Lord, and receiving at his 
 hands an infinity of good. Let us, then, leave our sins in the 
 valley, of humiliation, at the foot of the cross, and go up the 
 mount of prophecy for this golden vision of hope and peace. If, 
 by a firm and unalterable commitment against legalizing and 
 nationalizing Slavery, this nation shall free itself from the incubus 
 of crime and terror so long seated upon its heart, then shall this 
 day prove the turning point of its destiny. Henceforth it shall be 
 strong only for freedom and for righteousness, and the grandeur 
 
26 
 
 of its pli3'sical domain and the might of its material resources, 
 shall be lost in the glory of its moral progress rolling onward 
 through the ages. As our fathers kept the recognition of Slavery 
 out of the Constitution, and the fact of Slavery out of the great 
 national domain, let us with equal firmness and patriotism, refuse 
 any legislative recognition or support of Slavery by Congress, 
 any sanction of it by the General Government ; and having thus 
 washed our hands of all complicity with crime, we shall be ready 
 peaceably, cordially, wisely, safely, at wliatever pecuniary cost, 
 to aid our brethren of the South in ridding themselves of an 
 institution which is no less a burden than a sin. The financial 
 struggle of northern emancipation from the slave-power is more 
 tlian half over ; the political struggle is more than half achieved. 
 If we have the nerve to go through, this is the golden hour of 
 opportunity. 
 
 A hope indicated by the text, lies just before us. The promise 
 to Israel was, after her liery discipline, " I will restore thy judges 
 as at the first, i. c, in the earliest and best days of the common- 
 wealth, and thy counselors, or ministers of state, as m the begin- 
 nimjP Lest any should accuse me of a partisan interpretation of 
 these words, I will give the exact paraphrase published ten years 
 ago, by the Princeton Commentator, now in his grave. Here is 
 promised a "restoration to a former state of purity, to bo efl'ected 
 not by the conversion of the wicked rulers, but by filling tiikir 
 PLACES WITH BETTER MEN."* Yet would I remember the admonition, 
 " Put not your trust in princes ;" " it is better to trust in the Lord 
 than to put confidence in man." If w^e commit ourselves to God 
 in doing right, he will be our strength and salvation. Once rid 
 of our national iniquity, we shall behold a country more glorious 
 than the brightest dreams of patriot or poet— from the lakes to 
 the gulf, and from ocean to ocean, United, Prosperous, Free. 
 
 God bless our native land ! For her our prajer .shall rise 
 
 Firm may she ever stand, To God above the skies; 
 
 Through storm and night ; On him we wait : 
 
 When the wild tempests rave, Thou who art ever nijjh, ' 
 
 Ruler of winds and wave, Guarding with watchful eye. 
 
 Do thou our country save To Thee aloud we cry, 
 
 By thy great might. God s.we tde State. 
 
 * Dr. J. Addiaon Alexander. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 ■lili 
 
 011 895 808 1 
 
 vyu;; 
 
 . A