portion of which he declares to be contrary to the Law of Nations, the Law of Nature, and (by clear implication) the Law of God.

There is one small obstacle in the way of making such pulpit-denunciations and glorifications" usual," and that is, the public press; and particularly that rascally paper, the Journal of Commerce, which has the effrontery to call in question the propriety of such language in the pulpit, or anywhere else. If only we could muzzle the press, as the Popish clergy do in France, and make it criminal to "attack our religion," that is, to publish what we say and do, with appropriate comments, we should get on much more comfortably.

The Independent admits that the "congregation had a right to make a complaint, if the pastor did not perform his duties suitably." Does it mean the congregation as a whole, or as individuals? May they complain publicly, or only privately, to the pastor? There are several laymen who would like to know what rights they have in the premises, if indeed they have any. What prudent man would needlessly encounter the arrogance and uncharitableness breathed forth in the above extracts? Suppose some parishioner should come and tell such a pastor that he was grieved at the constant dinging of Abolitionism and Free-Soilism in his ears, and beg him to consider whether he could not with propriety omit them, and give his sermons and prayers a more uniformly religious cast? What would be the reply? If consistent with the extracts we have quoted, and others which we have not quoted, it would be something like this: "What! do you mean to say that Abolitionism is not the Gospel? Are you grieved because I tell you the truth? Go home to your closet, and pray God to convert you. You are still in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity." We can tell the editors of the Independent that more than one member of their congregations have tendered us their most hearty thanks for the articles we have written on this subject. They have suffered as long and as much as they can well endure. And they expect that when the excitement of the moment shall be past, the Rev. gentlemen will profit by our "instructions.” We hope so; but if they do not, we shall have the satisfaction of feeling that we have done our duty.

We are happy to acknowledge an improvement in the Independent's manners, to the extent of admitting that we are honest in our errors. As to the errors themselves, it speaks as positively as if it possessed infinite wisdom and knowledge. Thus saith the (*) editor:

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"Let any paper take an unchristian ground, and unchristian men will clap it on the back and swear by it. This is the very thing which we charge upon the Journal of Commerce—not dishonesty, not insincerity, not doing what it has no civil right to do, but simply and only taking the unchristian side of the great moral question of the day, and then finding fault that ministers who abhor that ground, do not preach to suit it." The gentleman will please bear in mind that he is not here speaking from the pulpit, but from the press. Even, therefore, if we admitted his authority to pronounce from the pulpit what is Christian and what is "unchristian," to the exclusion of the right of private judgment on the part of his hearers (agreeably to the claims of the Papal hierarchy), we here stand on equal ground with him. We have the same Bible, and the same means of judging in other respects. We have lived as long, and probably reflected as much. In short, if he will not head us off with the plea of no conscience," i. e., a moral incapacity to form correct opinions, we trust we shall be able to do a living business. Well, then, the gentleman thinks we have taken “the unchristian side" of the Slavery question; which, we suppose, is equivalent to the wrong side. We think the same in regard to him and the paper of which he writes. We believe, if we believe anything, that to press the Wilmot Proviso through Congress under existing circumstances, would be one of the wickedest acts that ever was committed. It would do no good, because slavery is more likely to be excluded from the new Territories without it than with it. We speak of actual exclusion, and not of paper edicts. We have recently shown, from official documents, that the Ordinance of 1787 did not prevent the introduction of near 1200 slaves into Indiana and Illinois, prior to the erection of those Territories into States, whereas the moment the State Constitutions were formed, prohibiting Slavery, its death knell was rung, and provision made for its gradual extinction. So it will be in the new Territories, if they are permitted to act for themselves. California has led the way; New Mexico and Deseret (or Utah), will follow in due time. And if meanwhile a small number of slaves

should be carried thither from the Southern States, it will insure their emancipation in a few years at farthest. Even if Congress should pass a prohibitory law, it would become inoperative the moment the Territories should be erected into States. So that, either way, it comes to, this at last, that you must TRUST THE PEOPLE of the new Territories. If they are not sound on the subject of slavery, you can not eventually control them. If they are sound, your interference is unnecessary and useless. Either way it is useless. Either way it is a humbug; and all the pulpits in Christendom cannot make it otherwise. This the public are beginning to understand.

Next we have to say, that if the Wilmot Proviso, i. e., an Act of Congress forever prohibiting slavery in the new Territories, is unnecessary, and would be useless, then to pass such an Act, with a full knowledge that it would exasperate one third of the nation to frenzy, alienate communities from each other whom God and nature have united together as brethren, and not improbably lead to a dissolution of the Union, would be an atrocity which could only be measured by its deplorable consequences. The Independent speaks of the Gospel as "coming full-freighted with divisions and overturnings"; but it does not follow that all divisions and overturnings are of the Gospel. The prevailing influence of the Gospel is PEACE; whereas wars and fightings, according to the highest authority, spring from men's lusts and passions. The Gospel tends to universal brotherhood. It exhorts its disciples to study the things that make for peace. It discountenances wrath, clamor, evil speaking, and the whole catalogue of denunciatory weapons for which Abolitionists have been famous, the world

over.

Then as to the District of Columbia; Our doctrine is, that the slave trade ought to be immediately abolished there, (as it will be, if the Compromise proposed by the Senate Committee of Thirteen should be adopted.) and slavery as soon as the consent of the inhabitants of the District, and of Maryland from which the District was taken, can be obtained,—with the full understanding that the value of the slaves as property shall be paid to the owners by the government of the United States. This accords with the sentiments of an article in the American Review which the Independent assailed with so much ferocity a few days ago. We inferred from the remarks of the Independent that it was opposed, and very warmly opposed, to each of the three conditions mentioned by the Review, and in favor of abolition in the District without regard to these conditions. We still think that such is the fair import of the language. We can see no point to the criticism on any other supposition. But a later number of the paper, (April 18th,) clearly intimates, though it does not distinctly assert, "that such was not its meaning." Say the editors:

"Nor did we adopt or express any one of the three views which the Journal imputes to us. There is nothing in the article to justify the inference that we favor under any conditions, the immediate abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia."

Indeed! Well, perhaps, after all, the Independent is as "unchristian," and as destitute of "moral sense," as we are. We, too, are in favor of the abolition of slavery in the District, as soon as the above conditions can be complied with, and so is Henry Clay, and so is the American Review. By the way, we find on referring to that publication, that the paragraphs on which the Independent based the harsh criticism above alluded to, are a mere outline of Henry Clay's arguments and views on the topic in question, as expressed in his recent speech, and are seen to be so on the face of them. Within the compass of less than half an 8vo. page, containing said paragraphs, the expression "Mr. Clay argues," "Mr. Clay urges," or "he contends," occurs four times; sufficient, one would suppose, to give "color to the idea" that it was his sentiments, substantially, which were there put forth. Precisely the three conditions mentioned by the reviewer, are the conditions mentioned by Mr. Clay. Does the Independent approve of them or not? That is the question. ·

The Territories and the District of Columbia are admitted, even by Abolition Societies, to be the only portions of the country in which the jurisdiction of the national government extends to the matter of slavery,-always excepting forts, arsenals and dockyards. Concerning these last we have no opinion in particular. As to the Territories and District, our views have been expressed. From all this it is manifest that the people of the North have but little to do with slavery. They have had much to do with it. They and their English brethren are the chief authors of the mischief.

They owned the ships, stole the slaves from Africa, landed them at the southern ports, or kept them here till slavery was found to be unprofitable, and then sold them to the South. No doubt many of the noisy calumniators of everything Southern, are at this moment enjoying the proceeds of the very money which was received by their fathers in exchange for human flesh and blood. Having got all they can out of the system, they call heaven and earth to bear witness to its turpitude, and exhort the owners of the slaves to emancipate them immediately. Such is poor human nature.

From the Independent, May 23.

MORAL SENSE AND THE JOURNAL OF COMMERCE.*

On the general question of "Politics and the Pulpit," we may leave the Journal of Commerce to the handling of our friend and contributor *. But on the particular question of "Moral Sense in Politics," we beg leave to refresh the memory of that respectable journal.

A grave complaint was made that we had imputed to the Journal of Commerce an "absolute deadness of moral sense in regard to slavery." We admitted the fact alleged in the complaint, and attempted to justify the imputation by inquiring whether, since the death of Mr. Hale, the columns of the Journal have contained " one paragraph, one word, one syllable, implying or conceding that the institution of slavery, as it is constituted or upheld by law in the slaveholding States, is in any respect offensive to the moral sense." We earnestly invited the Journal to speak for itself, if we had done it any injustice, and to put us to shame "by uttering its own moral sense in regard to this institution of American slavery." And to show what we mean by a deadness of moral sense in regard to slavery," we defined with great carefulness the particular question of right and wrong on which the serious judgment of the Journal of Commerce is desired not by us only but by thousands besides. The editor can be explicit when he pleases. Nobody is in the dark as to his opinion on the protective system or on the system of free banking. He can make his readers understand that he detests and abhors the anti-slavery agitation. He writes very intelligible and pointed paragraphs against the Pope. And we have no doubt that if he has any living moral sense in regard to slavery, he can so utter it as to be understood. We beg leave, therefore, to remind him of the question.

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"The question on which thousands of readers would like to have that most respectable and influential journal declare itself unequivocally and manfully, without dodging or mystification, is simply this-Whether the institution of Slavery, as defined and maintained by the laws of the slaveholding States, is RIGHT?”

Since we first presented the question thus definitely to the attention of the editor, on the 18th of April, the Journal of Commerce has devoted we know not how many columns weekly to controversy with The Independent; but we have not been so fortunate as to discover in all its lucubrations any explicit answer to this question. We might, no doubt, infer from almost every paragraph that, in the opinion of the Journal, slavery, as defined and maintained by the laws of the slaveholding States, is entirely right, and indeed we remember one passage to the effect that a Congressional prohibition of slavery in the territories would be positively wicked; but perhaps our inference, though perfectly logical, would be repudiated by the editor. We will therefore abstain from making such an inference at present. We only beg leave to remind the Journal that till it has declared itself explicitly on this question, it is liable to the imputation which it resents with so much sensibility. IS SLAVERY RIGHT? Not slaveholding in all possible circumstances, but the institution of slavery—IS IT RIGHT? Not slavery as defined by the Mosaic laws-not slavery as it existed under the feudal system--but slavery as defined by the laws and judicial decisions of the slaveholding States-18 IT RIGHT? Let the Journal of Commerce speak out, and show whether it has any moral sense that can be offended by anything in this institution of American negro slavery.

* Dr. Bacon.

From the Independent-same number as above.

POLITICS AND THE PULPIT.*

We promised, after the hurry of the Anniversaries, thoroughly to examine the positions of the Journal of Commerce in the three articles with the above title. This we shall now do. Not as a mere matter of difference between two newspapers; but because the questions raised are vital; and no opportunity to diffuse right opinions should be lost. Thousands will read even this long article, as a reply to a thorough and persistent attempt of the Journal of Commerce to deny the rights of the pulpit by circumscribing its topics, who would hardly read an essay on liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, the duties of Christians, or the natural rights of men.

Is the subject of American Slavery a proper topic for the Christian Pulpit? There is no difference, we think, in any denomination of Christians on this subject. Single individuals there are who would refuse the least mention of the subject. But so generally is it the opinion of Christian ministers that the subject should enter, in some measure, into their ministrations, that we may safely say that it is the public sentiment of the American Pulpit that Slavery is a lawful topic.

There are differences, great and serious. But they are not here. How often, and how earnestly this subject should be discussed; the nature and extent of its evils and guilt-the responsible parties-the remedies for it, and the duties of men as individuals; and of Christians as members of churches; and of conferences, conventions, assemblies, or associations, as ecclesiastical bodies-upon all these questions there is, as might be expected, a wide diversity; but none as to the fact that, at appropriate times, and in an appropriate spirit, the morals of Slavery should form some part of pulpit ministrations. Every minister must determine the method of preaching on Slavery, from his own disposition, the wants of his flock, and the circumstances of the community; and no one man can be a model for all men. But we think that few men in the North would care to say, in the present state of public enlightenment, that they have never, in any way, spoken to their people on the sin of slavery.

The issue between the Journal of Commerce and The Independent is not whether the Pulpit has a right to speak politically of slavery, but whether it has a right to speak of it morally and religiously; whether it has a right to speak at all. The charges of the Journal are not that we have preached on a legitimate theme in a wrong spirit; it is not that we have preached on the political question of slavery instead of upon the morals of slavery. The charges are unmistakable that the sin of the Pulpit lies in touching the subject in any manner whatsoever (with the single remarkable exception which we shall in due time mention.)

Those whom the Journal of Commerce charges with Sabbath and pulpit desecration, have never held the duty of preaching on the political relations of slavery. They have declared that slavery had the most vital moral and religious bearings; and that a Christian minister, on the Christian Sabbath, in the Christian pulpit, ought to inform his people of these religious aspects of slavery. This is the doctrine of anti-slavery men as a body. Those who desire to go further are few; and though their right is respected, their practice is not accepted, as the Journal of Commerce full well knows, by the great body of anti-slavery men in the North. This is the doctrine of The Independent.

When assailed, the editors of The Independent, in an article which we thought to be imprudent by an excess of prudence, most cautiously carved out their position, and gave the pulpit almost less ground than we believed it entitled to.

The Journal copied portions of this exposition of The Independent; such as this: "Thousands of religious assemblies there are, in every one of which, on every Sabbath day, the minister, conducting the devotions of his fellow-worshipers, offers the petition that God would enlighten the ignorant, raise up the degraded, and deliver the oppressed. In many a Christian assembly, every Sabbath day, prayer is offered not only that Antichrist may be dethroned, and the altars of superstition be overturned, but also that everywhere the rod of the oppressor may be broken, and that all men of every clime and lineage may stand up in the freedom of the sons of God."

And this:

*H. W. Beecher.

"And as for the preaching, doubtless thousands of sermons are preached every Sabbath day, which no man could hear and inwardly digest to his spiritual edification and to his soul's health, without some quickening of his moral sense against all injustice, or without some determination of his will against lending himself, however indirectly, to the crime of opening a new market for the sale of human beings. If this is what the Journal of Commerce means by 'preaching Free Soilism in the pulpit, on the Sabbath,' the assertion is quite true."

No man can mistake this claim to a right to handle Slavery upon moral and religious grounds. What says the Journal to these very paragraphs ?

“The Independent admits enough to convince any reasonable man, that the charge which we brought against a portion of the clergy of preaching and praying Free Soilism in their pulpits on the Sabbath, is well founded."

The Star (*) contributor to The Independent, in an article expressly defining his ideas of the duties of the pulpit, says:

“Our belief then is, not that the Pulpit should discuss party questions, nor meddle with candidates, nor take sides with this or that man, or measure; but that it is bound to set forth what principles should guide Christian men in political action, whatever party and without regard to measures."

Could anything be more explicit?

But one of two courses was open to the Journal, either to agree with these views and drop the discussion; or to disagree and prolong the attack upon them. It chose the latter. It says expressly that we do not introduce politics into the Pulpit, in the usual sense of that word:

Not that they bring into the pulpit mere party politics, although in some cases there is a near approximation to it. Free Soilism, used in its technical party sense, expresses the idea in black and white."

It meets our distinct avowal that it is not Slavery as an economic question, as a political question, but as a religious question that we claim for the Pulpit-by replying:

"Of course, in the utterance of such sentiments there would be a suitable expansion of thought, and an increased fervor of expression as the speaker advanced--and before he got through, it is more than probable he would inflict upon his hearers a regular Free Soil Abolition Lecture."

No man can read the three articles of the Journal, but especially the last, written after The Independent had fully disclosed its ground, without admitting that the Journal of Commerce has proscribed the whole topic of Slavery, in all its relations, and under every aspect, from the Pulpit.

How any man on earth could have failed to see, that of all questions that ever agitated a nation, the question of the debasement of 3,000,000 men, subject to, and notoriously enduring the utmost flood of sensual lust; untaught, without Bibles or religious teachers, without family rights, subject to sale and wide dispersion with every fluctuation of the market, or every pinch of the owner's purse-is a question in which the religious side, is the side of all others, first, strongest, most memorable, we have no faculty or experience where with to conceive. But so it is.

It is in vain to parry this truth by denying these facts, and affirming that hundreds of thousands of slaves have Christian instruction. What if they do? There are millions that do not. As a boy, throughout the South, slaves are not religiously instructed. The Charleston (S. C.) Observer declared, some years ago, that "throughout the bounds of the Charlton Synod (Presbyterian) there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as the whites, who have never heard of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer.

The Rev. C. C. Jones, a minister who had devoted his life to the cause of the slave in the South, says in a sermon preached before two associations of planters in 1831: Generally speaking, they (the slaves) are a nation of heathen in the midst of the land. They are without hope and without God in the world." A Report made to the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia in 1833, says: "They have no Bible to read by their own firesides; they have no family altars; and when, in affliction, sickness, or death, they have no minister to address to them the consolations of the Gospel."