xiliaries of deliberation and argument.... We are
murderers--a nation of murderers--while we tolerate and reward
the perpetrators of the crime."

Words such as these resounding from pulpit after pulpit, multiplied and
disseminated by means of the press, acted on by representative bodies of
churches, becoming embodied in anti-dueling societies, exorcised the
foul spirit from the land. The criminal folly of dueling did not,
indeed, at once and altogether cease. Instances of it continue to be
heard of to this day. But the conscience of the nation was instructed,
and a warning was served upon political parties to beware of proposing
for national honors men whose hands were defiled with blood.[264:1]

Another instance of the fidelity of the church in resistance to public
wrong was its action in the matter of the dealing of the State of
Georgia and the national government toward the Georgia Indians. This is
no place for the details of the shameful story of perfidy and
oppression. It is well told by Helen Hunt Jackson in the melancholy
pages of "A Century of Dishonor." The wrongs inflicted on the Cherokee
nation were deepened by every conceivable aggravation.

"In the whole history of our government's dealings with the
Indian tribes there is no record so black as the record of its
perfidy to this nation. There will come a time in the remote
future when to the student of American history it will seem
well-nigh incredible. From the beginning of the century they
had been steadily advancing in civilization. As far back as
1800 they had begun the manufacture of cotton cloth, and in
1820 there was scarcely a family in that part of the nation
living east of the Mississippi but what understood the use of
the card and spinning-wheel. Every family had its farm under
cultivation. The territory was laid off into districts, with a
council-house, a judge, and a marshal in each district. A
national committee and council were the supreme authority in
the nation. Schools were flourishing in all the villages.
Printing-presses were at work.... They were enthusiastic in
their efforts to establish and perfect their own system of
jurisprudence. Missions of several sects were established in
their country, and a large number of them had professed
Christianity and were leading exemplary lives. There is no
instance in all history of a race o