Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1863-05-21

nor tho craft OF politicians could have
awakened dangerous personal or section.
al amin osities, or disturbed constitutions
relations, 80 long as they overstepped o,
the limits of expediency, and effected nc
moral control of the public mind. Cal.
houn and Webster at the head, or such
men as Brooks and Sumner at the tail,
could never have contended greatly to
the public detriment, till the Congress
let in subjects Of discussion that concern
ed more Immediately the moral govern
ment Of God. I his was our original
hich some of the fathers had
forseen with fears and warnings-the
common mistake of all countries, as vir.
tue declines; of essaying Willingly or un-
Willingly, to bring together what God
requires us to keep asunder-the Church
and the State. Till we made that blum.
der the country was united, prosperous
and happy. There had been no such
instance in the history Of the known
world.
If there were, before that time, any
dangerous plotters against the govern
hhohV, IOltu VI COutH, we unu no eVl-
dence of it in history. That there may
have been men on both sides, ready to
have taken advantage of occasions to ex.
alt themselves on the ruins of the repub.
lie, it is not improbable, for Americans
are no exceptions to the common law OF
selfshness and ambition. But such men
could have made no figure. The Union.
the Constitution and the laws are sacred
and the country would have rejected any
conspiracy against them as healthy
stomach rejects poison. Such madness
could have reached no higher than O
weakly insurrection. We were safe and
honorable till the moral balance was de.
ranged, and the Church fell out of their
true relations to each other and to moral
government
We were tempted, almost uncon-
scously, into that snare by introducing
moral element-slavery-into the recll
oning of politics, and thereby brought
Church and State together down to that
lower level. From that time our glory
has departed. Our Christianity has be-
come secular, and our secular glory has
been dimmed in having lost the reflection
of more spiritual light. We have sub
stituted speculation for faith, and our
discussions have been degraded into an :
CRY wranglings. We have made God
and man to exchange places. His insti.
tutes and His constitutions we have in
terpreted by the "higher law" Of our own
conceits. We have converted the sover.
eign law giver into a politician. We
have discussed by our own standards, and
determined by vote, how it is best fol
him to carry on his government of the
world. We have inquired not what He
has willed, and said and done, but what
it is expedient for Him to will, and say
and do, according to master, a party,
or a school. We have popularized our
creeds, measured principles by their util-
tiles, men by their clothes, and God him
self by his supposed subserviency to our
ideas.
Let us observe the process. The South
is slaveholding. 1t is constitutionally
and legally SO. Slavery enters into the
structure of its society not thing Of
cident,-possibly no. everywhere OF
preference, but an inheritance according
to the common law of earth-a providen
tisl without which, in view OF
necessarily, that is of naturally and sta
tedly existing diversity of race, culture
and condition, the social state could not
have been constituted at all. and "life,
liberty and happiness" would have been
insecure to civilized and christian peo-
pie, who have just bought them at SO
great price. Slavery was not indee /,
the corner stone, but the practical condi-
ton of the Union, the Constitution and
the laws. Whatever disadvantages were
admitted to attend it, like all other insti
tutions administered by men, it was held
to be Legitimate. 1t had existed in the
usages of nations. for the end Of social
conservation and moral government,
since Cain was stigmatized and made q
fugitive and vagabound on earth, and
Ham was consigned in one line oil his de
scenuants to the rule Of Shem and ia.
pheth. 1t was common law. 1t was in,
corporated into the civil institutes of Mo
ses. 1t was recognized accordingly by
Christ and his Apostles. They regula
ted it by the just and benevolent preceptl
of the New Testament. They condemn
ed all intermeddlers with it--sush as they
predicted of the last days of the Chris
tian dispensation-as proud, knowing
nothing, but doting about questions and
strifes of words, whereof cometh envy,
strife. railing, evil surmisings, preverse
disputings Of men Of corrupt minds and
destitute Of the TRUTH" from whom all
Christians. and especially the pastors o
the flock, should turn away. The Faith
ers were not remarkably cansiderate o.
these things, but they were not ignorant
Of them. They accordingly held slavery
to be exceptional only in its abuses, and
that notwithstanding abuses, it should bt
left to the regulations of the States, whose
climate, soil. OF other physical habitudei
or conditions should need them 10 re-
tain it.
1t actually obtained at the adoption o.
the Constitution, in all but single State
which had early favored the introduction
of the new philosophy, and whose expe-
rience had found it to be unprof able
Wherever it was subsequently abolished
its want of physical adoption and itt
consequent inconveniences, not its essen,
tial wrongfulness, were mainly the rea
son OF its abolition. Against that, in an
early period, Jonathan Edwards had pro.