Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1863-01-22

their true relations to each other and to
moral government.
We were tempted, almost unconscious.
ly, into that snare by introducing moral
cment-slavery--into the reckoning oI
politics, and thereby brought Church and
State together down to that lower level
From that time our glogy has departed
Our Christianity has become secular, and
our secular glory has been dimmed in
having lost the reflection of a more spir-
itual light. We have substituted specu.
lation for faith, and our speculative dis.
cussions have been degraded into wrang.
lings. We have made God and man 10
eXchage places. His institutes and His
constitutions we have interpreted by the
"higher Law" of our own conceits. We
have converted the sovereign law.piver
into politician. We have discussed by
our own standards, and determined by
vote, how it is best for Him to carry On
His government in the world. We have
popularized our creeds, measured prinri.
pies by their utilities, men by their clothes
and God himself by his supposed subser.
viency to our ideas.
Let us observe the process The South
Is slayeholding. 1t is so constitutioually
and legally. Slavery enters into TIE
structure OF its society; not a thing OF
accident, possibly not everywhere of pref.
erencr, but an Inheritance accordinp to
HE common law Of the earth a proyi.
DENTAL Order-without which, in view Of
necessarily, that is of naturally and stead.
ny existing diversties of race, culture
and condition, the social state could not
have been constituted at all, and olire.
liberty and happiness" would have been
Insecure to civilized and Christian peo.
pie, who had just bought them at so great
Pilce, Slavery was not indeel the
cornerstone, but the practical condition
ot the Union, the Constitution and the
laws. w hatever disadvantages were adj
mitted to attend it, like all other institu-
tlons administered by men, it was held to
be legitimate. 1t had existed in the
usaScs OF nations, for the ends of social
conservatism and of moral government,
since Cain was stigmatized and made n
fugitive ana vagabond on earth, and Ham
wa conslSne., in one of his descendants.
to the rule Of Shem and Jcphet. 1t was
common law. 1t was incorporated into
the civil institutes Of Moses. 1t was rec
oSnized accordingly by Christ and his
Apostles. They regulated it by the
Just and benevolent preccpts of the New
Testament. They condemned all inter
meddIers with it-such as they predicted
OF the last days of the Christian di,pen.
satlon-as proud, knowing nothing, out
dotlnS about questions and strife of words
whereof cometh envy, strife, raiings, T. vii
suTmINings, pcrverse disput ons of men of
corrupt minds and destitute 0 t the truth -
from whom all Christians, and especially
the pastors OF the flock, should turn away.
/ he fathers were not remarkably consii.
crate OF these things, but they were bot
'g"orant OF them. They accordingly held
slavery to be exceptionable only in its
abuses, and that, notwithstanding abuses
1t should be lett to the rcgul ations of the
States, whose climate, soil, or other nhvs-
zeal habtudes or conditions should need
them to retain it.
1t actually obtained, at the adoption of
the Constitution, in all but a single State
which had early favored the introduction
OF the new philosophy, and whose expe-
Iience had found it to be unproftable-
Wherever 1t was subsequently abolished,
its want of physical adaptation and its
consequent inconvenience, not its essen
tlal wlongfuness, were mainly the rea-
sons OF its abolition. Against that, in
an early period, Jonathan Edwards had
protested, in vindication of moral gvv-
ernment; and, to assert his Christian lib
erty, he bought a slave. Thoughtful
men werc not troubled by the thing Itself,
but only by Its accidents. The phyloso.
ply OF sen iment and romance had not
then extensively y infected the descendants
OF the Puritans. Ii excitable individuals
among them had begun to feel the aura
OF the dawning ilIuminism IN aud cosmopol.
ltlSm OF that period and consequently con
demned slavery by that criterion, even
they were not regardless Of their plighted
faith. They saw no ,ustiable reason for
the supposed evil, but in such amend.
mcnts to the Constitution as are provided
Tor III that instrument itself, or in friendly
legislation, or the inscnsi- |
bIe influence Of presidential or moral !
that could not be reckoned or
beforehand. SO it stood-an
nuegal pant Of the best social edifce
mat had ever been reared by man, and |
in its own constituted order, |
to an uneXamrled prosperity. SO itstood
an occasion, indeed, Of many wrongs
ana suiIerings such as are incident to
'arth, but also of invaluable and other
wise impossible benefits to a degraded |
people, thereby brought nearer to the
1Sages Of civilized life, and, in as great
proportion as our own citizens, into fell
owShip with the Church of God.
SO it stood, till generation arouse
hat comprehended none Of these living re.
'Iltles, that honored not the God of their
atherS, and tor his everlasting word of
Natural aud revealed reli ion, substituted
higher law" Among them were
'orn the Abolitionists, who are now off
tally, supreme over the land. They
we're, at first, small class of speculative
nthusists, intoxicated by the airy pam
heiSm of France and Germany, which
lad coyertly breathed its spirit into the
'gittering generalites" of the Declara-
ion of Independence, and by that instru-
nent inSensibly infected the public mind.
they were men of no figure, inflated Wis
ionaries, mistaking their own lancies for
mother gospel, which is another, desti-