y licenses. The law does not recognize the family
relations of a slave; and extends to him no protection in the
enjoyment of domestic endearments. The members of a slave
family may be forcibly separated, so that they shall never
more meet until the final judgment. And cupidity often
induces the masters to practise what the law allows. Brothers
and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are
torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. These
acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and
the agony, often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a
trumpet-tongue, the iniquity and cruelty of our system. The
cry of these sufferers goes up to the ears of the Lord of
Sabaoth. There is not a neighborhood, where these
heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a
village or road that does not behold the sad procession of
manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances
tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts
held dear. Our church, years ago, raised its voice by solemn
warning against this flagrant violation of every principle of
mercy, justice, and humanity. Yet WE BLUSH TO ANNOUNCE TO YOU
AND TO THE WORLD, THAT, THIS WARNING HAS BEEN OFTEN
DISREGARDED, EVEN BY THOSE WHO HOLD TO OUR COMMUNION. CASES
HAVE OCCURRED, IN OUR OWN DENOMINATION, WHERE PROFESSORS OF
THE RELIGION OF MERCY HAVE TORN THE MOTHER FROM HER CHILDREN,
AND SENT HER INTO A MERCILESS AND RETURNLESS EXILE. YET ACTS
OF DISCIPLINE HAVE RARELY FOLLOWED SUCH CONDUCT."

Follow me now into the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Presbyterian Church of
the United States, convened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May, 1835,
and let the individual who addresses you be forgotten, while you
listen to the things uttered in the midst of that solemn convocation.
At the time when the passages I am about to read, were spoken, there
were sitting in that Assembly, men from all parts of the country. The
Southern Churches fully represented by row upon row of ministers and
elders from every region of the slaveholding States. In that Assembly,
one year from this time, did the Rev. J. H. Dickey, of the Chilicothe
Presbytery, Ohio, (a clergyman who had passed thirty years of his life
in a slave State.) and Mr. Stewart, a ruling elder from the Presbytery
of Schuyler, Illinois, make the following statements, which have
remaine