'.'1?':'^ : 
 
 RELATION OF THE NORTH TO SLAVERY. 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 FEDERAL STREET ^MEETINGHOUSE, IN BOSTON, 
 
 ON SUNDAY, JUNE 11, 18M. 
 
 EZRA S. GANNETT, 
 
 MIM3TEB OF THE FEDEKAL-STEEET SOCIETr. 
 
 rUBLISHED BY BEQUEST. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CROSBY, NICHOLS & COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLIV.
 
 RELATIONS OK THE NORTH TO SLAVERY. 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 PKEACHED IN THE 
 
 FEDERAL STREET MEETINGHOUSE, IN BOSTON, 
 
 ON SUNDxiY, JUNE 11, 1854. 
 
 BY 
 
 EZRA S. G ANNE T T, 
 
 WNISTEB OP THE FEDERAL-STREET SOCIETT- 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BEQTTEST. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CROSBY, NICHOLS & COMPANY. 
 
 MDCCCLIV.
 
 TDOKSTON, TORRV, AND KMEBSOX, rmSTKHS.
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 MATTHEW, VI. 23. 
 
 IF THE LIGHT THAT IS IN THEK BE DABKNESS, HOW GREAT IS THAT DARKNESS I 
 
 If the good that is in us be made subservient to 
 purposes of evil, how low must we have sunk ! If 
 the understanding be misled and the heart depraved, 
 how deplorable our condition ! This is one inter- 
 pretation which we may give to the passage, and that 
 which our Lord probably intended it should bear. It 
 expresses a general truth, of which many illustra- 
 tions arise as we look into ourselves or into society. 
 Take these two, for example: — If we allow any just 
 opinion or right feeling to lend its countenance to a 
 wrong course of conduct, how sad is that perversion of 
 what in itself and in its proper uses is good ! Or, if 
 that portion of a community who entertain enlight- 
 ened views and command the widest influence, suffer 
 their judgment or their influence to be drawn to the 
 support of measures detrimental to the character or 
 welfare of the people, how sorely should such a mis- 
 take be lamented !
 
 The present time affords us an opportunity of 
 making either and all of these applications of the 
 truth so vividly expressed in the figurative language 
 of the text. It is an anxious and unquiet time ; 
 when good men may be expected to differ, and when 
 there is danger that, from the strong influences 
 which will be brought to bear on different minds, 
 (aftecting them variously, according to situation and 
 temperament,) the convictions, sympathies or habits 
 which they laudably cherish, by inclining them to 
 lean too much on the one side or the other, may 
 betray them into serious error; the light that is in 
 them in effect becoming darkness. 
 
 It is a familiar remark, that few persons act on 
 large or impartial views ; a remark, however, that 
 conveys not so much a censure on any one's conduct, 
 as a recognition of the immaturity of our present 
 condition. Only a well-trained mind, and a mind of 
 more than ordinary strength, can rise above personal 
 attachments or private interests, local prejudices or 
 temporary influences, and calmly survey the whole 
 field of duty. Sometimes we say of others, that they 
 carry their principles too far; a mischievous criticism, 
 if it suggest the thought that principle may ever be 
 sacrificed to other considerations. But if it mean that 
 our life should, in all its purposes and details, pro- 
 ceed on such an adjustment of the several principles 
 that have force in tlie moral universe as shall give
 
 to each its proper weight, and not on an obedience to 
 any one of them alone, it is both true and practically- 
 important. Again, it is often said, that one or another 
 has acted unwisely, though from the best of feelings. 
 Here, also, is a truth that should be remembered. 
 The very best feelings may prompt us to do that 
 which a sober judgment would disapprove. The 
 clear head and the warm heart must control, or 
 rather help one pother. 
 
 In times of surprise or excitement, of peril or 
 distress, we stand in special need of calm and resolute 
 minds. Calm and resolute ; not calm only, nor res- 
 olute only. We must consider what should be done, 
 and be ready to do it. Such a time is the present. 
 On the last Sunday I alluded to a subject of which 
 I feared that J could not then speak with a clear and 
 temperate earnestness. What I may now say, my 
 friends, I ask you to hear, if for no other reason, 
 because when such issues as are involved in this 
 subject are brought directly before us, and the best 
 and the worst passions are aroused, it seems neither 
 frank nor manly for the minister to affect an uncon- 
 cern which he does not feel, or to study a silence that 
 may be misconstrued. I have no fear that you will 
 take offence at what I may say, even if it should 
 not harmonize with your conclusions; because I 
 shall endeavor to clothe my sincere convictions in 
 language suitable to this place and hour.
 
 Ou the circumstances which have raised the insti- 
 tution of Southern Slavery into such prominence 
 among our thoughts I shall not dwell, because they 
 seem to me to derive their importance from the 
 subject which lies behind them, and not to give that 
 subject an importance not strictly belonging to it. It 
 is the relation which we shall in future hold to Sla- 
 very, that was brought before us by the occurrences 
 which so painfully agitated this community for 
 many days, and at last drew tears from the eyes of 
 men, and harsh words from woman's lips ; it is the 
 relation in which we shall allow ourselves hereafter 
 to stand towards Slavery, that demands serious and 
 Christian thought. For this is not purely a political 
 question ; it has its moral side, and religion and 
 Christianity are entitled to examine it as entering 
 within their domain. 
 
 We shall arrive at a just decision more speedily, 
 if we separate the question both from the individuals 
 and from the incidents connected with any particular 
 exhibition of its character. A mistake has been 
 made, as I believe, in regard alike to the indignation 
 and to the sympathy that have been awakened, by 
 confining them within too narrow limits. It was 
 inevitable that attention should be given to the 
 immediate transactions, and to the persons concerned 
 in them. Those transactions were the exciting cause 
 of public feeling, and the actors of one class and
 
 another would, of course, become conspicuous. The 
 law, too, whether in its menace or its protection, 
 must deal with individuals and not with ideas. But 
 the intelligence, the conscience, and the heart of the 
 people should expend their strength not on the' oc- 
 casion or the exponent, but on the institution which 
 brings them into notice, and on our connection with it. 
 Another mistake, and more than a mistake, a 
 wrong has been committed, by many who are indig- 
 nant at wrong-doing on one side and the other, in 
 imputing unworthy motives to men of whose conduct 
 they have disapproved. We should be very cautious 
 how we allow any difference of opinion, or any re- 
 sentment we may feel, to tempt us to ascribe the 
 course another may pursue to moral cowardice, to a 
 love of popularity, or to a mercenary spirit. A man 
 may take a wrong view of his duty, and yet act from 
 an imperative sense of duty. It may be his duty, 
 under the circumstances in which he is placed, to do 
 that which under other circumstances he would not 
 only be free, but would rejoice, not to do. I should 
 be ashamed to repeat such truisms, if they were not 
 disregarded, as well by those who uphold order as 
 by those who counsel disturbance. We can explain 
 men's opposite behavior, without imputing to them 
 bad hearts; and it is at once arrogant presumption 
 and gross injustice to deny that others may have been 
 governed by a sincere purpose of rectitude, because
 
 8 
 
 they have clone what our consciences would not let 
 us do. 
 
 The judgment of many at the Xoith on Slavery 
 has been vitiated, and its effect upon the South been 
 impaired, by similar errors. To make the fact of 
 slaveholding conclusive proof against a man's char- 
 acter shows a disregard of one of the plainest lessons 
 tauglit by human history. That which seems to you 
 or me to be palpably wrong, may be accounted by 
 another whose education has been different, to be 
 justifiable on grounds alike of morality and humanity. 
 I can believe that a Southerner may in good faith use 
 arguments in defence of Slavery which, as I hold, 
 have no foundation in fact or sound reason. He may 
 assert the native inferiority and inevitable dependence 
 of the black race, contradict statements and conclu- 
 sions which appear to me incontrovertible, maintain 
 that the transportation of the negro from his own 
 continent to this Christian land has been to him and 
 his descendants a blessing, and frame a vindication of 
 ownership in human beings from texts gathered out 
 of the Bible, and I will not only be slow to charge 
 him with wilful sin, I dare not do it. The slave- 
 dealer who traffics in his fellow-beings for the sake of 
 gain, or who treats them with a cruelty which he 
 w^ould not exercise towards a brute, I am justified 
 in pronouncing a bad man, for passion or avarice is 
 liis acknowledged motive. But there are thousands
 
 9 
 
 of masters at the South who believe Slaveiy to be a 
 logical deduction from sure premises, and a fair in- 
 ference from Christian truths. 
 
 It is equally wrong to charge upon all masters 
 harsh usage or cold neglect of their slaves. In many 
 families they are treated with uniform kindness. We 
 gain nothinsr in our address to the consciences or the 
 sensibilities of Southern slaveholders by representing 
 them as destitute of all proper feeling. 
 
 Not less impolitic is it, nor less imsound, to take 
 our impression of Slavery from the extreme cases 
 which arise, on the one hand or on the other. Such 
 cases show to what abuse of authority it may tend, or, 
 contrariwise, what mitigation it may carry in its own 
 bosom ; but they do not expose the real character of 
 the institution : and it is against this that we must 
 direct our efforts, and this therefore that w^e need to 
 understand. The fault in that tale which had such 
 an unprecedented reception from half the civilized 
 world, but in its permanent influence will be seriously 
 damaged by this defect, lies in the fact, that it is a 
 narrative of exceptional cases ; each of which may 
 have had its counterpart in actual life, but still illus- 
 trates a comparatively rare result of the system. The 
 beautiful piety of the slave and the sweet humanity 
 of the child, the brutahty of the trader and the bar- 
 barity of the planter, in that tale, arc all of this class, 
 exceptions, not the usual characteristics of the sys- 
 
 2
 
 10 
 
 tern ; and therefore, however artistically grouped, they 
 cannot present a picture faithful to the reality which 
 they are meant to describe. Neither a gallery of 
 lovely faces nor a museum of deformed limbs, nor 
 both of them together, would exhibit mankind as 
 they appear in life. Besides, when we give our atten- 
 tion to the grosser examples of inhumanity and im- 
 morality whicli occur, we may overlook or slightly 
 consider the inherent quality of the institution itself, 
 while this it is which should excite our strongest 
 aversion. 
 
 To this then we come at last, and till we come to 
 this we fall short of a just consideration of the mat- 
 ter, — the intrinsic character, the inherent vice of 
 slavery. ^Vliat should we of the North think of it 
 as an institution, and what should we do in regard 
 to it, that the light whicli is in us may not be dark- 
 ness? 
 
 To the former of these questions I answer, we 
 should think of it as ineradicably wrong and bad- 
 The institution which dooms a human being to in- 
 voluntaiy servitude as long as his master chooses to 
 keep him in that state, and makes him a piece of 
 property, to be transferred from one owner to another, 
 like any other article of merchandise, should be re- 
 garded by us Avith abhorrence. The fact of irre- 
 sponsible ownership constitutes the central offence 
 in the case. Until we deny the right of man to
 
 11 
 
 buy and sell his fellow-man, as if he were a beast 
 of burden or a part of the household stuff, we do 
 not put ourselves on the only position from which we 
 cannot be dislodged. So long as we build our com- 
 plaints or reproaches upon the e\ils which the system 
 generates, rather than on the evil of the system 
 itself, we give the slaveholder a double advantage; 
 as he can reply that these results, however common, 
 are incidental, not unavoidable; and further, that 
 institutions which we foster are debased by similar 
 results. Pointing to our homes, he may cite from 
 the records of our courts instances of parental cru- 
 elty or conjugal unhappiness, and maintain that the 
 principle of judgment which we apply to his social 
 state condemns our domestic life. Southern Slavery, 
 in its mildest form, involves a great wrong ; a wrong 
 to every one of those held in bondage, a wrong to the 
 race of which they are a part, a wrong to human 
 nature. This truth, I am willing to confess, I never 
 felt in its full power till I came into close observa- 
 tion of the system. A year ago I had, for the first 
 time, an opportunity of ascertaining its real import. 
 I saw this peculiarity of Southern life under the 
 most favorable circumstances, for a lenient or approv- 
 ing judgment. I beheld its very best aspects. I 
 saw the well-dressed and lightly tasked slaves of the 
 city, and the kindly treated and tenderly watched 
 slaves of the plantation. And I returned home with
 
 12 
 
 a persuasion which I think will never be changed, 
 that Slavery is a grievous wrong. I heard its pro- 
 priety and its necessity maintained, and I came home 
 with the conviction that it is utterly indefensible and 
 unjustifiable. 
 
 It does not follow that immediate emancipation, 
 in the sense of absolute freedom for the millions now 
 held in bondage, is the duty of the South, or would 
 be its duty, if the whole South entertained the con- 
 ^ iction which I have expressed ; since their past life 
 has disqualified the greater portion of the slaves for 
 taking care of themselves. But an immediate adop- 
 tion of measures for the final liberation of every 
 man, woman and child, now regarded as transferable 
 property, is what a correct view of duty would 
 obtain from the Southern masters. And we of the 
 North have the same right to speak of their duty, 
 (in terms of brotherly kindness, not of angry invec- 
 tive,) that we have to speak of Euglish legislation 
 about India, or the Czar s government of his empire. 
 Free criticism is a privilege which the people of 
 this century claim in virtue of their place in the 
 history of civilization. At least, whether the North 
 address the South in lanfjuage of fraternal counsel 
 or not, public sentiment here should be sound on 
 the subject. Slavery should be held in universal 
 and immitigable condemnation. 
 
 It may be more difficult to determine what should
 
 13 
 
 be done than what should be thought, since action 
 may induce unpleasant relations or commit us to 
 illegal proceedings, while thought is be}ond the 
 reach of any but a Divine penalty. Some may think 
 we can do nothing, hampered as we are by restrictions 
 of both a political and moral nature. But these 
 restrictions do not impose the duty of acquiescence 
 in whatever may arise to prove our fidelity either to 
 constitutional obligations or to moral convictions. 
 We may more easily distinguish what is within the 
 scope of our practical purposes, if we first decide 
 what we may not do. And here it will be sufiicient 
 for us to notice two directions which our activity 
 must avoid. 
 
 We are, in the first place, precluded, by the terms 
 of citizenship under which we enjoy the privileges 
 of the Union, from intermeddling with Slavery in the 
 States which adopt it as a part of their social insti- 
 tutions. So long as we remain under the Constitution 
 of the United States, each State must be left un- 
 disturbed in the settlement of its own internal policy. 
 No other State may attempt to control that policy, 
 while it is kept within the boundaries of the State 
 in which it originates, and does not invade the con- 
 stitutional rights of any citizen of another State. 
 The General Government is placed under similar re- 
 straint by the terms on which it exists. No Northern 
 man may assail the institutions of the South by any
 
 14 
 
 direct or covert action on the soil to wliich they 
 belong, or. by any measures at home inconsistent 
 Avith a strict interpretation of the compact under 
 Avhich the Republic Mas organized. Plaui speech 
 and fair discussion are allowable, if one can find 
 hearers, but the instrument which makes us a nation 
 guarantees to the South an unmolested enjoyment of 
 its own ways, so far as they affect only itself; and 
 we can honorably -violate neither the letter nor the 
 spirit of that instrument, while we avail ourselves 
 of the advantages it yields us, or recognize its au- 
 thority as the supreme law of the land. 
 
 The law of the land. We are subjects of a govern- 
 ment which we, or our flithers on our behalf, have 
 created, as well as freemen who have inherited liber- 
 ties that we will never alienate. Order is the first 
 condition of a safe or prosperous community. We 
 are prohibited, therefore, from resorting to violence 
 as an expression of our dislike of Slavery. This is 
 the second restraint which we must religiously ob- 
 serve. Religiously, I say, because religion teaches us 
 " if it be possible, as far as in us lies, to live peace- 
 ably with all men," and to set before one another an 
 example of respect for law. Until that solemn crisis 
 arrives, which in the providence of God is the ulti- 
 mate fact of political history, when a people are 
 driven upon the right of revolution, and society re- 
 turning to its first principles is dissolved into its
 
 15 
 
 Original elements, — a crisis which no thoughtful 
 man will contemplate hut with dismay, — we must 
 avoid all conflict with the laws o¥ the legal author- 
 ities of the land. We may present a passive resist- 
 ance to an enactment or a mandate which it would 
 violate our consciences to obey. Else our obedience 
 to human law may supplant our respect for what we 
 believe to be the requisition of God, which would 
 be fatal to integrity and purity of character. But in 
 this collision between the claims of an earthly and a 
 Divine government, each of which we recognize as 
 legitimate, we must accept the penalty of disobedi- 
 ence to the former, — suffering, not fighting for con- 
 science' sake. Violence in the support of truths dear 
 to us, or disorderly resistance to offensive legislation, 
 is as unwise as it is improper, and as unchristian as 
 it is injurious. Painful as may be the struggle, we 
 must not disturb the public peace for the sake of 
 redressing a private wrong. If the barriers of order 
 may be swept away by popular commotion, freedom 
 is imperilled, and right is left to the arbitration of 
 numerical force. 
 
 What then remains for us to do 1 More than some 
 persons may at first suppose. Four ways are open 
 by which we may signify our repugnance to Slavery, 
 without the breach of any obligation that rests on 
 us as Christians or citizens. 
 
 First, we may maintain an inflexible determina-
 
 16 
 
 tion to be drawn into no farther support or counte- 
 nance of this institution, direct or indirect, than we 
 are ah-eady obliged to render. Not a hair's breadth 
 beyond the necessities of the case should we allow 
 ourselves to go, under whatever inducement. Nei- 
 ther by intimidation nor by flattery should we be 
 diverted from the strictest construction of our con- 
 stitutional and legal interest in this subject. While we 
 adhere to the terms which our fathers made a part 
 of the framework of government for their posterity, 
 we must enter into no new compromises, arrange- 
 ments or concessions, by which the peculiar mstitutions 
 of the South shall be made more impregnable than 
 they now are. Our sister States can claim of us 
 nothing more than a fulfilment of the compact which 
 we found pressing upon the land when we became 
 capable of discharging political duties ; and if they 
 openly or artfully attempt to lead us into any further 
 concurrence with them in upholding their favorite 
 interest, we must be as firm as justice itself, refusing 
 to harbor a suggestion to that efi'ect. New England 
 is involved enough already in the sad perplexity of 
 sustaining what she disapproves, and nothing more 
 may she yield. 
 
 Secondly, we may take all constitutional and law- 
 ful methods for securing an abrogation of those 
 enactments, and of those proAisions of the fundamental 
 law, which offend our moral convictions. By peti-
 
 17 
 
 tions to Congress, and especially by placing in our na- 
 tional legislature, and so far as we may be able, in still 
 higher posts, men \ylio will represent our views and 
 feelings, we may seek, and eventually secure a repeal 
 or modification of obnoxious statutes. I confess that 
 I do not attach to such a measui'e the importance it 
 holds in the judgment of many others, because, as I 
 have said, I think our moral sentiment should go 
 behind any particular form which the e^dl may 
 assume, to the radical vice of the system; and I 
 should be grieved to see the North sinking into 
 apathy in regard to the condition of the Southern 
 slaves, because the most objectionable features of a 
 specific law were changed. Still, whatever we can do 
 to lessen the enormity of the evil, or to mitigate its 
 severity, should be done. 
 
 Thirdly, we may oppose every attempt of the 
 South to extend the institution beyond its present 
 limits. Such opposition we are bound to make by 
 every principle of loyalty to our country, or to the 
 cause of human freedom. Slavery is intrinsically 
 bad, and therefore we have no right to consent that 
 resions in which it does not now exist, and over 
 whose future history we have any control, should 
 be afilicted by its presence. Politicians or moralists 
 at the South may take a different view of its charac- 
 ter ; and they have a perfect right to press that view 
 on our consideration. But while we persist in pro- 
 3
 
 18 
 
 nouncing it wholly false, we are not justified in per- 
 mitting involuntary bondage without crime to tres- 
 pass on a single inch of territory beyond that which 
 it now impoverishes. It is our duty, to resist and 
 defeat the purpose of the slaveholder to subject a 
 soil not yet marked by this stain, to the disgrace 
 and damage it would incur by legalizing property 
 in human beings. Let Southern statesmen argue in 
 defence of what they consider the rights of the 
 South ; but let our statesmen stand firm on what 
 w^e believe to be both the right and the duty of the 
 Xorth. If the consequence should be that our poli- 
 tics become sectional, and the country be divided 
 according to local judgments, we shall not be ac- 
 countable for this result. It will have been forced 
 upon us, and they who shall compel us to accept 
 such an issue must answer to posterity for placing 
 us in a position from which we cannot honorably 
 retire. 
 
 Fourthly, we may proceed to rescue our own soil 
 from being trampled by those whose attempts to 
 reclaim their fugitive servants are conducted in a 
 manner to wound our sensibilities and provoke our 
 passions. I repeat, that while a law stands in force, 
 we must either consent to its execution or bear the 
 penalty of disobedience. But when the execution of 
 that law not only inflicts a pang on our moral nature, 
 but is made doubly painful by the frequency and zeal
 
 19 
 
 with which it is carried into effect, we cannot, or if 
 we can, we ought not to fold our arms and close our 
 lips in patient acquiescence. The principle of the 
 present Fugitive Slave Law was embodied in the sim- 
 ilar act of Congress passed more than half a century 
 ago, but for more than fifty years the South was 
 content that the act should remain comparatively 
 inoperative ; let it take the same course now, and the 
 North would acquiesce in the legal validity of a 
 claim seldom enforced. But if the South evince a 
 determination to put Northern feeling to a trial on 
 this question whenever it shall have an opportu- 
 nity, Northern men will not consent to witness often 
 such scenes as we were made to endure a few days 
 since. The question will not be simply, whether a 
 law shall be executed or be resisted ; a deeper question 
 will arise, when the Southern master shall use the 
 free States as the ground on which to assert the im- 
 maculate character of Slavery. The alternative will 
 then present itself, whether we will become ready 
 participants in upholding a system which we abhor, 
 or will seek a dissolution of the bond which holds us 
 and the South together. This is sad language, and 
 fearful. I know what it means, and what it suggests. 
 But the facts which wring such language from us are 
 sad and fearful. I have loved the Union as dearly 
 perhaps as any one. I have clung to it as the guide 
 and hope of the oppressed nations of the world. I
 
 20 
 
 have lost friends and been traduced, — that is no 
 matter, except as it shows how I have spoken, — be- 
 cause I maintained that the Union must be preserved 
 at almost any cost. I say so now. But it may cost us 
 too much. If every manly, and honest and Christian 
 sentiment must be subjected to continual indignity, 
 then will sober men, who have loved the Union and 
 clung to it, ask whether a peaceable separation, with 
 all its prospective issues, would not be preferable. 
 We do not want what has been justly styled " the 
 characteristic of Southern civilization " made familiar 
 to our eyes, and we shall not be able, I think, to bear 
 • it. Not as threatening or braving the South, do we 
 so speak. We believe the Southern part of our 
 country would suffer more than we from disunion. 
 But the relative prosperity of the two sections can- 
 not be permitted to decide a question of such moral 
 import as this. In sorrowful, not in passionate 
 emphasis we say, that if the South insist on mak- 
 in"- the North the scene of its activity in maintain- 
 in"- an institution from which the conscience and 
 the heart of the North revolt, it will compel us to ask 
 in serious and solemn deliberation, is the Union worth 
 preserving on that condition 1 
 
 Many of our best feelings will shrink from a con- 
 templation of this alternative, and will incline us to 
 turn away from a subject of such painful and diffi- 
 cult decision. But what is this, if it be not letting
 
 21 
 
 the light that is in us become darkness 1 May I, in 
 a few words bestowed on each, indicate four among 
 the influences that are likely to have this effect 1 
 
 First, some persons will recur to the love of peace, 
 which is with them a conscientious as well as a 
 Christian feeling. But I advise no measures of vio- 
 lence. In the worst resort, a peaceable division of our 
 territory is all that I would dare to counsel ; and if 
 Southern statesmen be sincere in the language they 
 have used, many of them would welcome the proposal. 
 If they would not, then the instruction they would 
 receive in regard to the strength of Northern feeling 
 might produce a change in their policy. What we 
 say is, that our national administration and our free 
 soil must not be used to promote the interests of 
 Slavery; and if, in maintaining this position, a re- 
 sult which five years ago, or a year ago, we should 
 have regarded as among the most extravagant sug- 
 gestions of a gloomy foresight should become in- 
 evitable, and even be followed by disasters which we 
 tremble when we think possible, we may deplore the 
 situation into which we shall be brought; but how 
 can we, with self-respect or in consistency with our 
 holiest persuasions, avoid it I We must do our duty, 
 and leave the issue with Him who ruleth over the 
 affairs of men. 
 
 Others will be led by their attachment to the Union, 
 to deprecate a disruption of the ties which bind these
 
 22 
 
 States into one great Republic. I have already said it 
 would be dreadful ; and I do not think it need come, 
 for I believe that nothing but firmness and harmony 
 at the North is needed, to deter the South from 
 driving us upon ulterior measures. But if it must 
 come, then I can only repeat, that precious as our 
 national history and national hope are, righteousness 
 and liberty are still dearer possessions. 
 
 Many of us would grieve at the interruption of 
 domestic sympathies. Thank God, these sympathies 
 are felt at the South as well as here, and they 
 may arrest the evil which we dread, by mitigating 
 the evil which we deplore. But the kindly rela- 
 tions of households need not be broken because 
 our political union is dissolved. Such relations dis- 
 regard the lines of national sovereignty, and weave 
 the fimilies of the earth together by closer bonds 
 than those which spring from the support of a com- 
 mon government. 
 
 Yet other persons may be influenced by the effect 
 upon the financial and mercantile interests of the 
 land, which depend so much on mutual confidence 
 and the most ready interchange of commodities. 
 Doubtless, all parts of the country would suffer from 
 a disturbance of our political connections ; but there 
 is enterprise and energy and wisdom enough in the 
 Northern States for them to retrieve their aft'airs, 
 though for a time prostrated. And if duty call us
 
 23 
 
 to proceed, in whatever direction, I will not sup- 
 pose that a love of gain would make us deaf to the 
 command. 
 
 I gladly quit this strain of remark. I have 
 been speaking of a possible alternative for which 
 we may need to be prepared. The surest way to 
 prevent its actually coming before us is, for all to 
 take a calm and firm attitude on the subject which 
 has siven rise to this discourse. We must not 
 ignore the fact of Slavery; — we cannot ignore it. 
 Then must we not be indifferent to it. We must 
 indulge and express Christian feeling on the subject. 
 We must not let the light that is in us be darkness ; 
 but, following our convictions, must act wisely, seek- 
 ing of God more light and more strength. 
 
 I have spoken to you, my friends, feebly, but hon- 
 estly. I have meant to speak frankly, but neither 
 dogmatically nor vehemently. I have been impelled 
 by a feeling that I could not put aside, to express my 
 own opinions. Allow them the weight which they 
 may seem to you to deserve.
 
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