t about doing good.

The Senator further entreats the clergy to desist from their efforts
in behalf of abolitionism. Who authorized the Senator, as a
politician, to use his influence to point out to the clergy what they
should preach, or for what they should pray? Would the Senator dare
exert his power here to bind the consciences of men? By what rule of
ethics, then, does he undertake to use his influence, from this high
place of power, in order to gain the same object, I am at a loss to
determine. Sir, this movement of the Senator is far more censurable
and dangerous, as an attempt to unite Church and State, than were the
petitions against Sunday mails, the report in opposition to which
gained for you, Mr. President, so much applause in the country. I,
sir, also appeal to the clergy to maintain their rights of conscience;
and if they believe slavery to be a sin, we ought to honor and respect
them for their open denunciation of it, rather than call on them to
desist, for between their conscience and their God, we have no power
to interfere; we do not wish to make them political agents for any
purpose.

But the Senator is not content to entreat the clergy alone to desist;
he calls on his countrywomen to warn them, also, to cease their
efforts, and reminds them that the ink shed from the pen held in their
fair fingers when writing their names to abolition petitions, may be
the cause of shedding much human blood! Sir, the language towards this
class of petitioners is very much changed of late; they formerly were
pronounced idlers, fanatics, old women and school misses, unworthy of
respect from intelligent and respectable men. I warned gentlemen then
that they would change their language; the blows they aimed fell
harmless at the feet of those against whom they were intended to
injure. In this movement of my countrywomen I thought was plainly to
be discovered the operations of Providence, and a sure sign of the
final triumph of _universal emancipation_. All history, both sacred
and profane, both ancient and modern, bears testimony to the efficacy
of female influence and power in the cause of human liberty. From the
time of the preservation, by the hands of women, of the great Jewish
law-giver, in his infantile hours, and who was preserved for the
purpose of freeing his countrymen from Egyptian bondage, has woman
been made a powerful agent in breaking to pieces the rod of the
oppressor. With a pure and uncontaminated mind