regard the
dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the
consequences of slavery--consequences not imaginary, but which
connect themselves with its very existence. The evils to which
the slave is _always_ exposed often take place in fact, and in
their worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take
place, as we rejoice to say that in many instances, through
the influence of the principles of humanity and religion on
the minds of masters, they do not, still the slave is deprived
of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed
to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may
inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which
inhumanity and avarice may suggest.

"From this view of the consequences resulting from the
practice into which Christian people have most inconsistently
fallen of enslaving a portion of their _brethren_ of
mankind,--for 'God hath made of one blood all nations of men
to dwell on the face of the earth,'--it is manifestly the duty
of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when
the inconsistency of slavery both with the dictates of
humanity and religion has been demonstrated and is generally
seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest, and
unwearied endeavors to correct the errors of former times, and
as speedily as possible to efface this blot on our holy
religion and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery
throughout Christendom, and if possible throughout the world."

It was not strange that while sentiments like these prevailed without
contradiction in all parts of the country, while in State after State
emancipations were taking place and acts of abolition were passing, and
even in the States most deeply involved in slavery "a great, and the
most virtuous, part of the community abhorred slavery and wished its
extermination,"[270:1] there should seem to be little call for debate.
But that the antislavery spirit in the churches was not dead was
demonstrated with the first occasion.

In the spring of 1820, at the close of two years of agitating
discussion, the new State of Missouri was admitted to the Union as a
slave State, although with the stipulation that the remaining territory
of the United States north of the parallel of latitude bounding Missouri
on the south should be consecrated forever to free