That the Abolitionists have not held the second of these positions, must be obvious to all who have read their documents. It would therefore be unwise and wrong to join an association which sustains a principle false in itself, and one which, if acted out, would tend to wrath and strife and every evil word and work.
Another reason, and the most important of all, against promoting the plans of the Abolitionists, is involved in the main question—what are the probabilities as to the results of their movements? The only way to judge of the future results of certain measures is, by the known laws of mind, and the recorded experience of the past.
Now what is the evil to be cured?
Slavery in this Nation.
That this evil is at no distant period to come to an end, is the unanimous opinion of all who either notice the tendencies of the age, or believe in the prophecies of the Bible. All who act on Christian principles in regard to slavery, believe that in a given period (variously estimated) it will end. The only question then, in regard to the benefits to be gained, or the evils to be dreaded in the present agitation of the subject, relates to the time and the manner of its extinction. The Abolitionists claim that their method will bring it to an end in the shortest time, and in the safest and best way. Their opponents believe, that it will tend to bring it to an end, if at all, at the most distant period, and in the most dangerous way.
As neither party are gifted with prescience, and as the Deity has made no revelations as to the future results of any given measures, all the means of judging that remain to us, as before stated, are the laws of mind, and the records of the past.
The position then I would aim to establish is, that the method taken by the Abolitionists is the one that, according to the laws of mind and past experience, is least likely to bring about the results they aim to accomplish. The general statement is this.
The object to be accomplished is:
First. To convince a certain community, that they are in the practice of a great sin, and
Secondly. To make them willing to relinquish it.