Please let us keep to the point. The reopening of
the slave-trade is a question by itself.

"It seems that God had chosen to redeem and save large numbers of the
African race by having them transported to this Christian land.
Philanthropists would not be at the cost and trouble of all this. God
has, therefore, used the cupidity of men to accomplish his purposes, and
he punishes the wicked agents of his own benevolent schemes. His curse
has for ages rested on the African race, and the laws of nature have, to
a great degree, interposed to prevent Christian efforts in their behalf.
God saw fit to change the prison-house, and prison yards and shops of
this race from one continent to another, and New England merchantmen, in
part, have been allowed to be the conveyers. In the process of
transferring these future subjects of civilization and Christianity,
vast misery is endured, as in opening a way by the sword for the
execution of his decrees, great slaughter is the inevitable attendant. I
look at the whole subject of slavery in the light of God's providence.
And I do not see that his providence yet indicates any way for its
termination consistent with the interests of the colored people.

"As to the extension of slavery, in this land, if the Most High has any
further purposes of mercy for the African race in connection with us, he
will not consult you nor me. He will open districts of our country for
them; if my political party refuses to be the instrument in doing this,
from benevolent motives, or from any other cause, He will make that
party to be defeated, it may be by a party below us in moral principle,
as we view it. This question of slavery, its extension and continuance,
is therefore among the great problems of God's providence. I shall do
all that I properly can to prevent it, and to encourage, and, if called
upon, to aid my brethren now in immediate charge of the slaves, to
fulfil their solemn trust; but anything like impatience and passion at
the existence of slavery, I hold to be a sin against God. I pity those
good men whose minds are so inflamed by the consideration of individual
cases of suffering as not to perceive the great and steadfast march of
the divine administration. Politicians and others who get their places,
or their bread, by easy appeals to sympathy for individual cases of
suffering, are the causes of much misplaced commiseration and of a low,
uninstructed view of the great interests involved in