. No passion sullied its
temper; slave and slave-holder were held in equal regard; the case was
pleaded on irresistible grounds--of facts beyond question and rooted in
the very constitution of human nature. The needed, the righteous, the
inevitable reform, was shown as part of the upward movement of humanity,
and as appealing to every consideration of practical wisdom and of
justice. The little book of 150 pages deserves to be held as a classic
in American history.

Channing never lost the sense of proportion in his own work. He went on
giving inspiration and leadership to religious thought and to social
advance. It was neither necessary nor possible for him to be in close
sympathy or habitual alliance with the extreme Abolitionists. But he
vindicated the right of free speech when it was denied them, and he was
recognized by the best of their number as a friend of the cause. Mrs.
Lydia Maria Child,--like Mr. May, one of the finest spirits among the
Abolitionists--wrote: "He constantly grew upon my respect, until I came
to regard him as the wisest as well as the gentlest apostle of humanity.
I owe him thanks for preserving me from the one-sidedness to which
zealous reformers are so apt to run. He never sought to undervalue the
importance of anti-slavery, but he said many things to prevent me from
looking upon it as the only question interesting to humanity."

Side by side with the anti-slavery sentiment was growing another
sentiment--distinct from it, at first often in practical hostility to
it, but at last blending with it for a common triumph. It was the
sentiment of American nationality--the love of the Union. The separate
colonies were brought together in the Revolution by a common peril and a
common struggle. Then their tendency to fall apart was counteracted by
the strong bond of the Constitution and the Federal government. Diverse
interests and mutual distrust still tended to draw them asunder. With
the continuance of the Union, the strengthening of the tie by use, the
hallowing of old associations under the glamour of memory, and the
growth of the new bonds of commerce and travel, the sense of a common
country and destiny began to take root in the hearts of men, and on
occasion disclosed itself with the strength and nobility of a heroic
passion. True, a new rift was appearing, in the doctrine of
nullification and the question of slavery, but this evoked at times a
more militant and again a more appealing aspect