The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-02-07
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QUESTION.
Duties of the North and Of the South
A S { R NJ 0 N
BY REV. NJ. D. CONWAY, PASTOR
Preached in the Unitarian Church. Washington
JANUARY %, 1850

: FIRST PURE, THEN PEAcEABLK. - names, III, l..
r 1t is now eight weeks, and the Congress of
these States called, as if in bitter irony United,
is still unorganized. There is reason enough
for the grave apprehension now pressing upon
the mind of every patriot. Our young Hercules,
Just as his labors have arisen before him, and
the nations looked on to see him strange the
Hydra here, and there unbar the food of Re-
form toward manifold Augean stables, sudden
~ becomes paralyzed. Oh, son of Jove, last
and strongest, what is this whittier has thy
noble promise fled?
We meet here, my friends, on common
ground. Varied perceptions of the relations
of that common ground to human welfare sep
erate US into different parties We are also of
diverse sections. | do not think the pulpit
should be used TO assail any OF these, as SUCH
], therefore, shall not permit myself doubt, as
/ touch this most sensitive subject, that you
will sympathize with me and with each other.
/ do so only because, in these troubled times,
my heart burns to point you to the ancient land
marks of Right and Wrong, which, when seen,
Zone can fail to acknowledge; for, like the OBJ
jects of the ear and eye, they are their own evil
dence. / shall not make any partisan state
men for | belong to no party; but there IS one
phase of the present state of things which en-
tprs my pulpit whether / will or not. This arc
of the circle-not the arcs of the politician or
economist-the pulpit cannot be true to itself
without interpreting. And / am constrained
70 believe it mathematical certainty, that any
arc Of any circle, moral or geometric, being
given, the others may be discovered and de-
scribed, and the radii traced to their centre.
l shall waste no words on the dogma that
such subjects are not proper to the pulpit.
Christ and Paul found them appropriate to
their ministry. If moral questions should not
enter here, what should? And if questions in
volving the happiness of millions, and the good
relations of section with section, and man with
man, throughout the land, are not moral, what
are?
1t was the saddest day that ever dawned on
the country, when this was made any other
than a moral question. In the day when it
was made one of national political issue, the
wind was sown; to-day, we reap the whirlwind.
1t is exclusively moral question, as are all
questions affecting humanity. 1t is not a ques-
ton of North and South-those very terms should
be banished as unhealthy here. How complete
~ do we find moral perceptions obscured, when
here, in the noon of the Nineteenth Century, on
q question involving more entirely than any
other the just relations of men toward each
other and toward God, a great nation Is geo.
graphically divided. Men with divine souls
must be Jumped with the clod whereon they
Ssread, and certain principles and ideas consid-
ared as exclusively products of certain sections,
IS coffee or cotton. Given mans longitude
, md latitude, and you may predict his views on
slavery, and nearly everything else; as when
,-,ou know the way the wind blows, you may an
lodnce with certainty the position of the near
st yeatner-yanes.
But in the present state of things, the politi-
al view hears its triumph of Doom. The old
i, 'arty watch fires are but blackened earth and
shes: their lines have fallen in unpleasant
;,laces. A fearful disintegration has super
Tened the political mess. Let US nope by the
tsorking of higher synthesis. Hitherto we
have had ancestral comp acts and the political
representation of negroes canvaased. Men have
spoken of what is "wise and expedient,"* rath-
er than what is right, You need not that any
ons should show you how this political treat
ment has miserably failed, even in objects no
higher than its own. Each party has come
forssard with its nostrum, declaring itself the
original old DR.. Jacob Townsend, whose pills,
and none others, were genuine: each was to
bring repose to the distracted patient, ana
See Pierce's last message