another phase of the crusade
against liberty. The ship Creole had sailed from Baltimore to New
Orleans in 1841 with a cargo of slaves. The negroes mutinied on the high
seas, slew one man, gained possession of the vessel, sailed to Nassau,
and were there set free by the British Government. Prolonged diplomatic
negotiations followed in which our Government held that, as slaves were
property in the United States, they continued to be such on the high
seas. In the midst of the controversy, Giddings introduced a resolution
into the House, declaring that slavery, being an abridgment of liberty,
could exist only under local rules, and that on the high seas there can
be no slavery. For this act Giddings was arraigned and censured by
the House. He at once resigned, but was reelected with instructions to
continue the fight for freedom of debate in the House.

In the campaign against the rights of freemen mob violence was first
employed, but in the South the weapon of repressive legislation was
soon substituted, and this was powerfully supplemented by social and
religious ostracism. Except in a few districts in the border States,
these measures were successful. Public profession of abolitionism was
suppressed. The violence of the mob was of much longer duration in the
North and reached its height in the years 1834 and 1835. But Northern
mobs only quickened the zeal of the abolitionists and made converts to
their cause. The attempt to substitute repressive state legislation had
the same effect, and the use of church authority for making an end of
the agitation for human liberty was only temporarily influential.

As early as 1838 the Presbyterian Church was divided over questions of
doctrine into Old School and New School Presbyterians. This served to
forestall the impending division on the slavery question. The Old School
in the South became pro-slavery and the New School in the North became
anti-slavery. At the same time the Methodist Church of the entire
country was beset by a division on the main question. In 1844 Southern
Methodist Episcopalian conferences resolved upon separation and
committed themselves to the defense of slavery. The division in the
Methodist Church was completed in 1846. A corresponding division took
place in the Baptist Church in 1845. The controversy was dividing the
country into a free North and an enslaved South, and Southern white men
as well as negroes were threatened with subjection to the demands of