nestly say to them, "Throw the weight of
your influence against unrighteous laws, fulfil to servants the law of
God, and you shall have the sympathy and confidence of good men
everywhere. Nay, more; you, with their help, and they with your help,
will confine the spreading curse, till, with God's blessing, it shall
cease; and Christian and civilized man shall have no more communion with
it."

These discriminations answer certain ecclesiastical questions, which
have occasioned much perplexity and discord. When properly applied, they
take away whatever support a wicked institution has found by leaning
upon the Church; at the same time they award to consistent Christians
what is due to them by the religion of Jesus. If it shall be said, there
will be practical difficulty in applying these discriminations, it is
sufficient to answer, it will be less than the difficulty of
disregarding them.

The question now arises, what can be done for the restriction and
ultimate extinction of slavery as it is; for, since it is sinful,
Christianity and patriotism declare it should be restrained and
abolished.

First. The extension of slavery can and should be prevented by the
Federal Government. The Scriptures have shown us, that the people in
their sovereignty have not the right to create a slave State or a slave.
Of course, the legislators and presidents; who receive in trust the
power which emanates from the people, have no such right. If the
Constitution assumed to confer this power, it would be the first
national duly to amend that instrument in this particular. There is no
power on earth competent to set aside either of the Creator's original
institutions for man. But, according to the sound and established
principle of strict construction, the Constitution as it is does not
create slavery, or even acknowledge its existence, except by inference.
Hence there is no legal objection to the measure which religion herself
ordains. The religious and the political obligations of all citizens and
all legislators coincide to protect, under the jurisdiction of Congress,
the right of every man to be exempt from the condition of property, and
to enjoy the property which he honestly earns. Thus the question
concerning slavery and the territories is morally settled by divine
authority; and to this no real objection can be made, except by that
great interest, whose existence is inherently unrighteous and
irreligious.

Secondly. In the slave St