he other documents I have, since this debate was
publicly known--a volume of letters written to one of these churches
on the whole case, by the Rev. Mr. Paxton, at that time its pastor.
That gentleman is now on this side of the Atlantic, and may perhaps
explain what Mr. Thompson has so sedulously concealed; how he was a
colonizationist; how he manumitted and sent his own servants to
Liberia; how he labored in this particular matter with his church,
long before the existence of abolitionism; and how, finding the
difficulties insuperable, he had written this kind and modest volume,
worth all the abolition froth ever spued forth,--and left the charge
in which he found it so difficult to preserve at once an honest
conscience and a healthful influence. It will not, however, be
understood that even these few churches are worthy of the
indiscriminate abuse lavished on us, all for their sakes; nor that
their present path of duty is either an easy or a plain one. Whether
it is that there are express stipulations in the original instruments
conveying the slaves in trust for certain purposes; or whether the
general principle of law, which would transfer to the State, or to the
heir of the first owner, the slaves with their increase,--upon a
failure of the intention of the donor, either by act of God, or of the
parties themselves, embarrass the subject; it is very certain that
wiser and better men than either Mr. Thompson or myself, are convinced
that these vilified churches have no power whatever to set their
slaves free. If the churches were to give up the slaves, it could only
have the effect, it is believed, to send them into everlasting bondage
to the heirs of the original proprietors. They have therefore justly
considered it better for the slaves themselves that they should remain
as they were in a state of nominal servitude, rather than be remitted
into real slavery. Such is the real state of the few cases which have
first been exhibited as the sin, if not the actual condition of the
American churches; and then exaggerated into the utmost turpitude by
hiding every mitigating circumstance, adding some purely new, and
distorting all things. Whether right or wrong, the same state of
things exists amongst the Society of Friends in North Carolina, to a
partial extent, and in another form. They did not consider themselves
liable to just censure, although they held title in and authority over
slaves, as individuals, while they gave