The most serious obstacle to the progress of the antislavery cause was the conduct of the clergy and churches in our country. Perhaps it would be more proper to say the churches and the clergy, for it was only too obvious that, in the wrong course which they took, the shepherds were driven by the sheep. The influential members of the churches,--“the gentlemen of property and standing,”--still more the politicians, who “of course understood better than ministers the Constitution of the United States, and the guaranties that were given to slaveholders by the framers of our Union,”--these gentlemen, too important to be alienated, were permitted to direct the action of the churches, and the preaching of their pastors on this “delicate question,” “this exciting topic.” Consequently the histories of the several religious denominations in our country (with very small exceptions) evince, from the time of our Revolution, a continual decline of respect for the rights of colored persons, and of disapproval of their enslavement. In the early days of our Republic--until after 1808--all the religious sects in the land, I believe, gave more or less emphatic testimonies against enslaving fellow-men, especially against the African slave-trade. But after that accursed traffic was nominally abolished, the zeal of its opponents subsided (not very slowly) to acquiescence in the condition of those who had long been enslaved and their descendants. “They are used to it”; “they seem happy enough”; “unconscious of their degradation”; it was said. Then “the labor of slaves is indispensable to their owners, especially on the rich, virgin soils of the Southern States.” “It is sad,” said the semi-apologists, “but so it is. The condition of laboring people everywhere is hard, and we are by no means sure that the condition of the slaves is worse, if so bad as, that of many laborers elsewhere who are nominally free.” “Many masters,” it was added, “are very kind to their slaves; feed them and clothe them well, and never overwork them, unless it is absolutely necessary.” But the consciences of the doubting were quieted more than all by the plea that “in one respect certainly the condition of the enslaved Africans has been immensely improved by their transportation to our country. Here they are introduced to the knowledge of ‘the way of salvation’; here many of them become Christians. As Joseph through his bondage in Egypt was led to the highest position in that empire, next only to the king, so these poor, benighted heathen, by being brought in slavery to our land, may be led to become children of the King of kings, so wonderful are the ways of Divine Providence.” By these and similar palliations and apologies, the people of almost every religious sect at the South, and their Methodist or Baptist or Presbyterian or Episcopalian brethren at the North, were led to overlook the _essential_ evil, the tremendous wrong of slavery, and to