e country--and those of
other denominations, in his judgment, had no Divine warrant for
exercising the functions of the sacred office. He repudiated the whole
of them. But how to get married, that was the problem. He tried to
persuade his intended to agree to a marriage contract, before witnesses,
which could be confirmed whenever a proper minister should arrive from
Scotland. But his "lady-love" would not consent to the plan. She must be
married "like other folk," or not at all--because "people would talk
so." The Scotchman for want of a wife, like Great Britain for want of
cotton, saw very plainly that his children must suffer; and so he
resolved to get married at all hazards, as England buys her cotton, but
so as not to violate conscience. Proceeding with his intended to a
magistrate's office, the ceremony was soon performed, and they twain
pronounced "one flesh." But no sooner had he "kissed the bride," the
sealing act of the contract at that day, than the good Cameronian drew a
written document from his pocket, which he read aloud before the officer
and witnesses; and in which he entered his solemn protest against the
authority of the Government of the United States, against that of the
State of Pennsylvania, and especially against the power, right, and
lawfulness of the acts of the magistrate who had just married him. This
done, he went his way, rejoicing that he had secured a wife without
recognizing the lawfulness of ungodly governments, or violating his
conscience.

[94] _National Intelligencer_, 1854.

[95] Psalm 1: 16, 18.

CONCLUSION.

IN concluding our labors, there is little need of extended observation.
The work of emancipation, in our country, was checked, and the extension
of slavery promoted:--first, by the neglect of the free colored people
to improve the advantages afforded them; second, by the increasing value
imparted to slave labor; third, by the mistaken policy into which the
English and American abolitionists have fallen. Whatever reasons might
now be offered for emancipation, from an improvement of our free colored
people, is far more than counterbalanced by its failure in the West
Indies, and the constantly increasing value of the labor of the slave.
If, when the planters had only a moiety of the markets for cotton, the
value of slavery was such as to arrest emancipation, how must the
obstacles be increased, now, when they have the monopoly of the markets
of the world? And, beside