"I am very far from thinking that it can never be right and proper to set up abolition candidates without regard to party preferences. Had the question of emancipation been almost equally poised in the British Parliament it would have been patriotic to turn the scale by a temporary abandonment of the contested objects and the election of antislavery members. And so also I can readily conceive of circumstances in which it may be the duty of the abolitionists of a particular State or district to suspend for a time their labours for the slave in order to unite with the friends of temperance to carry some great point. But taking into consideration the existing circumstances of the antislavery cause, I am not clear that the formation of an abolition political party, disregarding all the other interests of the country, is consistent with either duty or policy, and of course it becomes me to decline the request with which you have honoured me. May God enlighten and direct us, and when we cannot think alike may He give us the graces of meekness and charity." CHAPTER VI. JUDGE JAY CONTINUES TO SUPPORT THE ANTISLAVERY CAUSE BY HIS ADVICE AND WRITINGS.--IN CONSEQUENCE OF HIS OPINIONS HE IS DEPRIVED OF HIS SEAT ON THE BENCH.--HIS VISIT TO EUROPE.--HIS VIEWS ON THE LIBERTY PARTY.--ON THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.--HIS "REVIEW OF THE MEXICAN WAR."--HIS ADVOCACY OF INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION AS A REMEDY FOR WAR.--HIS WORK IN THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. After the division in the ranks of the antislavery societies in 1840, Judge Jay ceased to take an active part in their proceedings, preferring to support the cause independently by his writings. But he was continually applied to by the societies to assist them by his advice, to give legal opinions on the positions which they wished to take, and to prepare documents which required special judgment and ability. In April, 1842, Jay prepared an address to the British Antislavery Society, at the request of Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, who wrote on behalf of the American Antislavery Society. A little later, again by request of Mrs. Child, he gave a legal opinion on the advisability of carrying to the Supreme Court the cases of three men who had been condemned in Missouri to twelve years' imprisonment for aiding slaves to escape. He continued his membership in the American and Foreign Antislavery Society in New York. Here he laboured unceasingly to keep the society fast to its declared purpose, and to prevent it from adding new doctrines and objects which he believed must result in further divisions injurious to the cause. In April, 1841, he wrote on this subject to Lewis Tappan: