t to be. It was
mostly in considering this aspect of the case that the Church and clergy
more and more developed conscience and voice on freedom's side, as
practical allies of abolitionism. In each great denomination the South
had to break off from the North on account of the latter's love to the
black as a human being. Men felt that an institution unable to stand
discussion ought to fall. By 1850 there were few places at the North
where an Abolitionist might not safely speak his mind.

It were as unjust as it would be painful to view this long, courageous,
desperate defence of slavery as the pure product of depravity. The South
had a cause, in logic, law, and, to an extent, even in justice. Both
sides could rightly appeal to the Constitution, the deep, irrepressible
antagonism of freedom against bondage having there its seat. The very
existence of the Constitution presupposed that each section should
respect the institutions of the other. What right, then, had the North
to allow publications confessedly intended to destroy a legal southern
institution, deeply rooted and cherished? From a merely constitutional
point of view this question was no less proper than the other: What
right had the South, among much else, to enact laws putting in prison
northern citizens of color absolutely without indictment, when, as
sailors, they touched at southern ports, and keeping them there till
their ships sailed? This outrage had occurred repeatedly. What was
worse, when Messrs. Hoar and Hubbard visited Charleston and New Orleans,
respectively, to bring amicable suits that should go to the Supreme
Court and there decide the legality of such detention, they were obliged
to withdraw to escape personal violence.

It was said that the North must bear these incidents of slavery, so
obnoxious to it, in deference to our complex political system. Yes, but
it was equally the South's duty to bear the, to it, obnoxious incidents
of freedom. Southern men seem never to have thought of this. Doubtless,
as emancipation in any style would have afflicted it, the South could
not but account all incitements thereto as hardships; but the North must
have suffered hardships, if less gross and tangible, yet more real and
galling, had it acceded to southern wishes touching liberty of person,
speech, and the press. That at the North which offended the South was of
the very soul and essence of free government; that at the South which
aggrieved the North was