The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1857-08-04

Strange that we have no business to discuss
slavery, when every square foot Of these frss
states is legal hunting ground for the slave
chaser, and every man Of us is by law an er
o6icio slave catcher! Up to the boundary Of
our free states the negro-huntcr chases his
painting and bleeding human victim with dog
and gun; but when he crosses the boundary,
he abandons fourlegged hounds for human
hounds of two. BY law of Congress, signed
by President Fillmore, ,os are his hounds; the
ex President himself included. Oar only
business, forsooth, is to be good faithful ne
gro-catchers, and to shut our mouths. Should
general Southern slave rebellion take place,
the Moth is bound TO send her armies to re-
duce the bondsmen to submission. 1t is
Northern power in fact that holds tho slave in
awe and the system in existence! Wo are, in
reality, the Shareholders while they are the
sidve oWners. And who does not know, even
of these deniers of our right to touch the sub
ject, how by filhbuster southward, by border
rufiansm soestWard, and by great Judicial
Lie, almost big enough to cover the con tinent,
nullify the Constitution, and dehumanize a
race, at the center, slavery is making most
audacious push for supremacy over every
square inch and every living soul Of Us in this
great nationg The very retort 30 often made
that Northern men and Northern capital arc
involved in the maintenance Of the system,
proves that the responsibility and, therefore,
the duty and the right, Of vyormdtory speech
and action are not limited by state lines, but
are common North and South. And when
we think how willing Northern completely
haa haa hAxx Inlx fha
pro-savery measures have been sustained by
Northern votes, given by Congressman elec-
ted by Northern voters, We do not thank the
varlet who tells us that we have nothing to
do with the subject. But when Northern
er, and he Methodist, and Methodist
preacher especially, holds this language, wo
put the Discipline before his eyes, and tell
him that our free Northern Church makes the
matter her business. We respectfully and af-
fectionately remind him that he is off the old
conservative platform of our venerable Meth
odsm. If such be his Interchangeable senti.
meuts, the Discipline of our mother Church
kindly commends him to take up his reposc
in the moro congenial bosom of her dusky
sister of the South.
8. Opening the Discipline, we find SOL
emn question put, which in its very terms
does not condescend to assert, but coolly as
sumes, that fundamental object of the exis-
tence Of our Church is, the ertirpation Of
Slavery. Now it would be unworthy the dig
nifty Of our beloved Church TO suppose that
she would har.split distinction between er-
tirpation and abolition. We beseech all ven-
cradle damsels, of both sexes, not to be fright
cned at mere words. John Wesley, William
Wesley, William Wilberforce, Francis AS
bury, and DR.. Coke were abolitionists, and
would not have dreamed Of shrinking from
the name. Nor arc VIC willing on account Of
the violences of irreligious and disorganizing
ultrasts, to surrender to dishonor name con-
secrated by such illustrious applications. Nor
are we clearly informed Of any intrinsic diff
ference between the ancient abolitionism and
our true "modern aboiitionism;;" both being
the same as the ertirpationism of our Disci-
plne. When. therefore, we hear Methodists
denouncing abolitionisna, and using the term
as a sur name, we hesitate not to take the
Discipline and uBchurch them. Pro tanto,
they are not Methodists. They deny their
faith. They abjure their venerable mother. |
Nay, when whole conference proceeds to
lead her young candidates up to the altar and
there oblige them to pledge, as a condition to
holy orders, that they will have nothing to do
with "modern abolitionism," We would like to
see some competent authority take Disci-
pline and read that conference out of pro osla-
veryism into Methodism. Our hearts are sad
dened at one of the most questionable pro-
cedures ever prosecuted in any Northern
Protestant American Church. We would be
glad to bury it in forgetfulncss; but that most
blabber of uncc mfortable truths,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, has, in the Appendix
to her Dred, proclaimed it to the world. We
would hope that if the conference record of
these transactions cannot be expunged or girt
with mourning lines, some darkness or shad-
DIV of death may be found to hide them. We
rejoice that if we cannot quite erase this blem-
sh from the escutcheon Of single conferences,
we can take our big little book, and clear the
honor of our beloved Church by pronopncing
these proceedings to be undisciplinary, uncon
un- Wesleyan, and un- n-Methodistical
A. With the same open Discipline in our
minister's striking the sin of slavery
rom his circle of pulpit topics. If that Dis
cipline does not permit that topic to be ban
shed, either as political, sectional, or an
abolition matter, on what grounds docs any
minister seal his own lips in silence9 Is not
slavery a present sin, here, on this very spot9
Is the dehumanizing near four millions of hu-
man souls too small sin to be noticed? Is
here any other sin upon whieh our Disci-
oline erpends one fundamental rale and one
entire chop'ers Why not blot an article from
Of our twenty five? What worse is a theo-
logical than moral judgment seat of Christ;
Or how his omission is reconcilable with his
Christianity or his solemn profession of hol-
ness we ask how he can answer to his ordi-
nation vows, and how he can make it consis-
tent with his Discipline and his Mcthodism
5. Nor do We sec how our Disciplinary log
ic can quite spare an lin-Methodistical Church.
II there he Churches within our limits which
require their pastor to be silent in Difference
TO the slave power-Churchcs that say, awe
Ia ,ot ,oo tho e,roat evil ~ eIavary ond |