Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-08-15
Tbe Antt- Glaurrp Bllole.
THE METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW
ON SLAVERY.

erto maintained the most perfect silence on thu
slavery question until the July number,when for
beginning it speaks out with considerable empha
SIS We transfer the following extract to col
ums. When this conservative organ Of the ohurcl
thus speaks it marks the progress of anti-slaeery
principles in q most gratifying degree.
ut is we'll known some sections adopt the favor
lite motto. ''the Discipline as it is )" others, more
ultra conservative, perhaps advocate the Disc
pline as it was. They would restore that brief but
golden period when the Church conceded place
to slavery. That to that consumation we may ul-
timatey come, we trust is the United expectation,
hope, and prayer of nearly all. That freedom,
both in principles and practice, will extend its era
beyond our present Southern border, and at no
distant period, relieve the arduous task of those
who may be firmly maintaining outposts, we
confidently trust. That the cause OF righteous
ness must win the battle in Church and in Stale,
we no more doubt than we stand on American soil,
and live in the light of the nineteenth century.
"The order given for the untrammeed issue of
an-slavery tracts from our book rooms,settled Tor
ever the point that John Wesley'e voice was not to
be smothered in the house of his friends. The
manning of the editorial posts with men of clear
anti-slavery autecedents, tolled the knell Of the
reign of old Silence. In the general, from every
post we have heard clear and unequivocal report.
st, Louis has bravely responded to Chicago; and
Boston has had no faint echo from Cincinnati and
ilutsDurBn. Inc pages VI OuT iuob unu plcoeIb
Quarterly prove that New York may perhaps be
able to roll metropolitan peal loudest and clear
est OF all. The present attitude of things is most
cheering. Surely Church is dispensing the
delusve shadows that dimmed her. dscarding the
sophsms that deluded her, rcpudiating the false
leaderships that misguided her, and will come
forth in her purity and her bravery; and as she
has record on the subject more bright than any
other Church, and fundamental declaration more
uneq uivocal, so she will take her stand at the
head of all her Protestant sisters and lead the
march of freedom faith and victory.
l. ut is not Methodsm to affirm that slavery is
n political matter with which the church and pull
pit have nothing to do. Such doctrine can in
deed be shown, from various reasons, to be false
and cowardly. Is the minister to take limitations
of his commission from the politician, or from Je-
sus Christ =? Shall demagogue governor or a
partzan editor prescribe to me, a minister, the
topics l may touch? Shall political party as.
sumo what ground it pleases and thereby exclude
the church from any of the most momentous po-
sitions Is the Church subordinate to the eau
Gus, and the pulpit the pupil of the newspaper !?
The ministry has not been silent upon rumselling,
although political party has made temperance its
platform. 1t has never ceased to oppose popery,
though aDtipopery is agitated at the ballot box.
Nor will the church be silent in regard to polig-
amy when Mormonism becomes question of State
policy. What an addiction of our ministerial duty
it is to decline denouncing the great crime ct our
age and country the pretense that it is political!
But at any rate, the Methodist minister who adopts
this pretenSe is unmethodistical. viii any Meth
dist minister dare say tae Methodist Discipline
with its fundamental rule and its full chapter on
slavery, is political book To do so would be
inveiging against the doctrines and discipline OF
the Church. If it be not n political book. them
slavery is q moral topic topic belonging to the
Church, within the limits of pulpit discussion and
ecclesiastical action. 1t is and it has been the
doctrine of our church, from its foundation to
the present hour, that slavery is matter with
which size and her ministers are bound to deal; and
he who denies it, on the ground of its political
character is on the platform of the Church South.
q 1t is anti ti.Methodism to affirm that we of the
North have nothing to do with Southern slavery
1t is not uncommon for Southern sprig to be
seen North, some sub-overseer, perhaps, aping the
true "plantaton manners" impudently telling us
that the North has no right to touch the subject
Doubtless, this insolent bravado will be repeated
from the same so long as there are Nor
therners imbece enough to listen to it with gratu-
tous servility. For ourselves, it delights us to
comb down these stray underlings from the rice
swamp, whose proprietors evidently do not know
they are abroad. Strange that we have no bust
ness to discuss slavery, when every square foot Of
these free states is legal huntingground 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-hunter chases his
dog and gun but when he crosses the
boundary, he abandons his four-egged hounds
for human hounds Of two By law of Congress,
signed by President Fillmore, his hounds
the ex-President himself included. Our only busi-
ness forsooth is to be good faithful negrO-cathers,
and to shut our mouths. Should general Southern
slave rebellion take place, the North is bound to
send her enemies to reduce the bondsmen to sub
mission. 1t is Northern power in fact that holds
the slave in awe and the system in existence. We
are in reality the shareholders while they are the
slave owners. And who does not know, even of
fhesa of right To tOuch the suliant
by flibuster southwark, by border rufHansm
westward and by great Judicial Lie, almost big
enough to the continen tnullifY the Constitu.
ton, and dehumanze a race, at the CENTRE slavery
is making most audacious push for a supremacy
over every square inch and every living soul of us
in this great nation? The very retort so often
made, that Northern men and Northern capital
are involved in the maintenance of the system
proves that the responsibility, and, therefore, the
duty and the rights of reformatory speech and ac.
ton are not limited by state lines but are common
North and South, And when we think how will
ling Northern completely has been, and how SER
silely the very worst pro-savery measures have
been sustained by Northern votes, lgven by Con-
gressmen elected by Northern voters, we do not
thank the varlet who tells that we have nothing
to do with the subject But when Northerner,
and he Methodist, and Methodist preacher es-
pecaly, holds this language, put the discipline
before his eyes and tell him that free Northern
church makes the matter her business We re-
.spectfuy and affeetionately remind him that he is
off the old conservative platform of our venerable
Methodism. II suchs be his unchangable serti-
meuts, the Discipline of our mother Church kindly
commends him to take up his repose in the more
congenial bosom of her dusky sister of the South,
3. Opening the Discipline, find a solemn
question put which in its very terms does not
descend to assert but cOolly assumes, that fund
amental object of the existence of our Church is,
the extrpaton of slavery Now it would be un-
worthy the dignity Of our beloved Church to sup
pose that she would hair'splt distinction between
extrpation and abolition. We beseech all vener-
able damsels, of both sexes, not to be frightened
at mere words John Wesley William Wilber-