reverend preachers of cotton politics were elevated into patriots, and
their disquisitions against the "higher law" were scattered on the wings
of the commercial press broadcast over the land.[2] The theology which
holds that the allegiance we owe to civil government binds the
conscience to obedience to its mandates, is the same with which
Shakspeare's assassin quieted his scruples when acting under the royal
command,--"If a king bid a man be a villain, he is bound by the
indenture of his oath to be one."

[2] In one of the most celebrated of these sermons, we find the
following broad assertion:--"If God _has_ left to men the choice of the
_kind_ of government they will have, he has _not_ left it to their
choice whether they will obey human government or not. He has
_commanded_ that obedience." Our rulers command us, when required by a
commissioner's agent, to aid in hunting and seizing our innocent
fellow-men, and delivering them into the hands of their task-masters.
That the reverend preacher would render a cheerful obedience to such a
mandate, there is little doubt. We read that the Jewish rulers, "The
chief priests and Pharisees, had given a _commandment_, that, if any one
knew where he (Jesus) was, he should show it, that they might take him."
Strange is it, that of the college of Apostles there was but one "good
citizen," who rendered obedience to the powers ordained by God; all the
others suffered death for their wilful, deliberate defiance of the laws
and the magistrates of the land. As a specimen of the teaching of these
cotton divines, I quote from this same admired sermon the following
precious piece of information, viz.:--"Nor is it true that the _fugitive
slave_ is made an _outlaw_, and on that ground justifiable for bloody
and murderous resistance of law. He is under _the protection of law_;
and if any man injures him, or kills him, the law will avenge him, just
_as soon as it would you or me_." To deny the truth of this solemn
declaration, made in the house of God, would be, in the reverend
gentleman's estimation, but a portion of "that perpetual abuse of our
Southern brethren" of which he complains. He must, however, permit us to
call his attention to the following advertisements respecting a FUGITIVE
SLAVE, published in the Wilmington Journal of the 18th of October last,
in pursuance of a law of the State of North Carolina.

"_State of North Carolina, New Hanover County._--Whereas complaint upon
oath