We see, therefore, that slavery is protected and defended at all points by the political fabric of this country. We profess, that we have no complacency in slavery, and never had: and that we have no gratification in coming to this conclusion, so far as it presents the prospect of the perpetuity of this acknowledged evil. But the time has come when a far greater evil, than that of slavery, threatens this land, in the unlawful measures which have been concerted, and which are being unlawfully urged, to do it away. The time has come, when it is important for the public to know what the law is, in relation to this movement; that they may know how to appreciate it, and how to act. The time has come, when it would be treason to the country wilfully to conceal the law, or to misinterpret it; for the law is the only power, that can settle this question in the public mind, on this side of that fearful resort, which brings despotism first, and barbarism last. Whatever the law is, we want to know it; the people of this country want to know it; and we believe they will abide by it, till, in peaceable times, they can make a better, if a better can be made.
The Abolitionists of this country are fast driving the people to the law—to a law, which has long been asleep and forgotten, because there was no demand for its authority; to a law, which we think, will assuredly work against the Agitators; to a law, which may yet have occasion to say to the tempest they have raised—“Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.”
[CHAPTER V.]
VIOLENT REFORMS, AND THEIR CONNEXION WITH ABOLITIONISM.
It can hardly have escaped the attentive observer of the history of our country, that for a considerable period, and to a great extent, it has been characterised by violent reforms, both in religion and morals; and it would be impossible, in our judgment, to understand the causes of the Abolition movement, if we should leave out of view this important and prominent historical feature. All great movements in society have their moral causes, and it is by referring to them, that we are enabled to ascertain their true character.
Religion has always been a potent element in American society, and it is to the conservative power of Christianity, that we owe our greatest blessings. But it does not remain for us to prove what history has decided, that religion may be abused and perverted. In such a case, it becomes important to distinguish between Christianity and religious excesses, or corruptions, and to rescue the former from a responsibility which would dishonor and injure it. When religion is profaned and degraded by extravagant modes of action; when it becomes rude and violent, instead of maintaining the genuine character of Christian suavity and mildness; when it assumes an overbearing and despotic dictation to private and public conscience, instead of the kind and winning arts of persuasion, which shine so conspicuously in the example of the Divine founder of Christianity, and of his Apostles;—and more especially, when it has leaped from its appropriate sphere of the moral, to the agitations of the political, world, seized on a stupendous political machinery in violation of the laws of the country, disturbed civil order to an alarming extent, threatened to overthrow the Government, and to deluge the land in the blood of a civil war—it is time to enquire into the causes of such a movement, how it originated, and how it may be checked, if checked it can be. These causes cannot be understood, without alluding to the facts and events of our religious history; for it is after all, and in truth, a religious movement, even by its own public and authoritative confession, as before seen. The Constitutional law of this land has carefully excluded religion from a participation in the authorities of State, and it cannot lawfully meddle with its affairs. It is a notable fact, however, notwithstanding these cautious provisions, that it has finally and suddenly overstepped these constitutional barriers, and usurped the most important and most momentous State questions, that could possibly be taken in hand.
In the first place, we remark, as a simple matter of fact—the deductions from which will afterwards claim our attention—that certain very extraordinary and painful scenes, sufficiently well known, have been enacted in our religious history, bordering on fanaticism, in some of the means employed, and modes adopted, for the extension of the interests of religion, according to the particular views of those engaged in these measures. So long, however, as those excesses were confined to religious action, they have been tolerated and protected by the laws of the land. It is the spirit of our Government, and the general temper of the community, not to disturb religion, even when its measures, in the judgment of the more sober, are deemed very extravagant and fanatical. Hence the rather forcing methods that have been so extensively adopted to gain and multiply converts, have been connived at, because they have been allowed to be sincere, and it was hoped they might be useful, as a conscientiously religious man is a better citizen than one whose sense of moral obligation is not founded in religious motives. This high stimulation of the moral world, however, has had the effect to produce an extensive and powerfully active leaven of a specific character, which seemed to require a wider scope of action, or an action the results of which might be somewhat more palpable in the common regions of society, than that which relates merely to the spiritual affections of mankind. In a word, instead of being satisfied with the religion of those “who declare plainly, that they seek a country” not yet possessed, it has shown a disposition to take under its charge a country already possessed. A religious faith, which ought to have maintained ulterior and higher aims, has degenerated somewhat into a religious patriotism; which still might have been well enough, as to any objections from general society, if it had not transcended the laws of the land. But it was perfectly natural, that a spirit which was violent, and addicted to forcing measures in one department of society, should also be violent, and employ like forcing measures in another, whenever its drift or inclinations should tempt it from its original and legitimate sphere of action.
It will be understood, of course, that we allude, in the first place, to the violence which has been so extensively manifested in religious reforms; and next, to the same spirit which afterwards took hold of Abolitionism. It was the breaking over of all religious order in the first instance, which prepared the way for the violation of civil order in the second. That boldness which trampled on custom in one case, was naturally schooled to set at defiance the law in the other.
But all breaches of propriety and of law, human or divine, are generally a work of degrees. Moral reforms came next to the religious—to neither of which, of course, do we take exception, any farther than as respects the violence that has been practised. But it is equally known, that the excesses which characterized one class, have been carried into the other. That religious patriotism, if we may call it so—an honorable appellation, certainly—which began to trouble itself with the condition and affairs of the country, soon discovered, that the state of public and general morals required attention—a conclusion most natural and most worthy, and an object which could hardly fail to meet with general approbation. And accordingly it has been approved, and well sustained. It was a work, in its various forms, from which much good was expected, and by which, no doubt, much good has been done.