o establish the
sinfulness of slavery itself.[271] They, therefore, waste their
strength. Nor is this the least evil. They promote the cause of their
opponents. If they do not discriminate between slaveholding and the
slave laws, it gives the slaveholder not merely an excuse but an
occasion and a reason for making no such distinction. He is thus led to
feel the same conviction in the propriety of the one that he does in
that of the other. His mind and conscience may be satisfied that the
mere act of holding slaves is not a crime. This is the point, however,
to which the abolitionist directs his attention. He examines their
arguments, and becomes convinced of their inconclusiveness, and is not
only thus rendered impervious to their attacks, but is exasperated by
what he considers their unmerited abuse. In the mean time his attention
is withdrawn from far more important points;--the manner in which he
treats his slaves, and the laws enacted for the security of his
possession. These are points on which his judgment might be much more
readily convinced of error, and his conscience of sin.

In the second place, besides fortifying the position and strengthening
the purpose of the slaveholder, the error in question divides and
weakens the friends of freedom. To secure any valuable result by public
sentiment, you must satisfy the public mind and rouse the public
conscience. Their passions had better be allowed to rest in peace. As
the anti-slavery societies declare it to be their object to convince
their fellow-citizens that slaveholding is necessarily a heinous crime
in the sight of God, we consider their attempt as desperate, so long as
the Bible is regarded as the rule of right and wrong. They can hardly
secure either the verdict of the public mind or of the public conscience
in behalf of this proposition. Their success hitherto has not been very
encouraging, and is certainly not very flattering, if Dr. Channing's
account of the class of persons to whom they have principally addressed
their arguments, is correct. The tendency of their exertions, be their
success great or small, is not to unite, but to divide. They do not
carry the judgment or conscience of the people with them. They form,
therefore, a class by themselves. Thousands who earnestly desire to see
the South convinced of the injustice and consequent impolicy of their
slave laws, and under this conviction, of their own accord, adopting
those principles which the Bi