Public sentiment had become so far changed in Massachusetts by the eight years’ warfare of abolitionists, that ministers were almost as liable to public censure for an _open_ pro-slavery course, as for an open advocacy of Freedom. They, of all men, were, in one sense, justified in the customary declaration that they were “as much anti-slavery as others;” for they kept careful watch of the times, that they might not vary from them materially. With all their prudence and caution, they found this _double_ public a difficult monster to manage. Though, as a body, they had undergone no change of feeling, they perceived that their efforts to check the progress of Freedom, must be made more carefully than ever; and they adopted a tone of great solicitude for “the _poor_ slave.” Pity, even when unfeigned, is not principle, any more than “American Union”[3] was anti-slavery; and in this instance “poor slave” was but the synonym for hostility to the Massachusetts Society. Well has _cant_ been called “the second power of a lie.” The additional ground on which a division of feeling preparatory to the projected outward division was attempted, was the assertion, sedulously disseminated by Mr. St. Clair, Mr. Torrey, Mr. Stanton, and Mr. Phelps, that the Massachusetts Society was a “no-government Society.” Of this the only proof was, that it had not ostracised Mr. Garrison. It was argued that the Constitution of the Massachusetts Society required the use of every means sanctioned by law, humanity and religion; therefore Mr. Garrison and all other Non-Resistants who decline exercising the elective franchise, were, by the terms of the Constitution, excluded from the Society. “Political action,” adverted to in the Constitution, now had a new definition affixed to it. It was defined by one of this new school to mean _poll-itical_ action, or action at the _polls_. This logic, though very efficacious among those who had rather see the battle rage round the polls than round the pulpit, produced but little effect on the real abolitionists. “Law _and_ humanity _and_ religion;” they said----“Well! these must, by the Constitution of the Society, _conjunctively_ agree upon the means to be employed, and each man was _of course_ to be his _own_ judge of their requisitions; for there never would have been a Constitution or a Society on any _other_ understanding. Law! Well; the _law_ sanctions my restoration of a fugitive slave, should I deem such a propitiation of the master likely to produce a happy effect in hastening a general emancipation. Am I therefore bound to do it? No! for my humanity and religion interpose their veto. But, what if Mr. Garrison’s humanity and religion forbid him to vote? _I_ cannot see why they should, but that’s _his_ look-out as an individual--not mine as an abolitionist:--and the Constitution of the Massachusetts Society covers us both.”