The influence of slavery on our Government has received the profoundest philosophical investigation from the pen of Richard Hildreth, in his invaluable essay on _Despotism in America_,--a work which deserves a place by the side of the ablest political disquisitions of any age.
Even the vigorous mind of Rantoul, the ablest man, without doubt, of the Democratic party, and perhaps the ripest politician in New England, added little or nothing to the store-house of antislavery argument. * * * His speeches on our question, too short and too few, are remarkable for their compact statement, iron logic, bold denunciation, and the wonderful light thrown back upon our history. Yet how little do they present which was not familiar for years in our anti-slavery meetings! Look, too, at the last great effort of the idol of so many thousands,--Mr. Senator Sumner,--the discussion of a great national question, of which it has been said that we must go back to Webster's reply to Hayne, and Fisher Ames on the Jay treaty, to find its equal in Congress,--praise which we might perhaps qualify, if any adequate report were left us of some of the noble orations of Adams. No one can be blind to the skilful use he has made of his materials, the consummate ability with which he has marshalled them, and the radiant glow which his genius has thrown over all. Yet, with the exception of his reference to the antislavery debate in Congress in 1817, there is hardly a train of thought or argument, and no single fact in the whole speech, which has not been familiar in our meetings and essays for the last ten years. * *
The relations of the American Church to slavery, and the duties of private Christians, the whole casuistry of this portion of the question, so momentous among descendants of the Puritans,--have been discussed with great acuteness and rare common-sense by Messrs. Garrison, Goodell, Gerrit Smith, Pillsbury, and Foster. They have never attempted to judge the American Church by any standard except that which she has herself laid down,--never claimed that she should be perfect, but have contented themselves by demanding that she should be consistent. They have never judged her except out of her own mouth, and on facts asserted by her own presses and leaders. The sundering of the Methodist and Baptist denominations, and the universal agitation of the religious world, are the best proof of the sagacity with which their measures have been chosen, the cogent arguments they have used, and the indisputable facts on which their criticisms have been founded. In nothing have the Abolitionists shown more sagacity or more thorough knowledge of their countrymen than in the course they have pursued in relation to the Church. None but a New-Englander can appreciate the power which church organizations wield over all who share the blood of the Puritans. The influence of each sect over its own members is overwhelming, often shutting out, or controlling, all other influences. We have Popes here, all the more dangerous because no triple crown puts you on your guard. * * * In such a land, the Abolitionists early saw, that, for a moral question like theirs, only two paths lay open: to work through the Church; that failing, to join battle with it. Some tried long, like Luther, to be Protestants, and yet not come out of Catholicism; but their eyes were soon opened. Since then we have been convinced that, to come out from the Church, to hold her up as the bulwark of slavery, and to make her shortcomings the main burden of our appeals to the religious sentiment of the community, was our first duty and best policy. This course alienated many friends, and was a subject of frequent rebuke from such men as Dr. Channing. But nothing has ever more strengthened the cause, or won it more influence; and it has had the healthiest effect on the Church itself. * *