&c.; and then, in the next utterance, making all sorts of
apologies and justifications for the slave-holder. Thus: this august body
has been in the habit of telling the Southern master (especially in the
Detroit resolutions of 1850) that he is a _sinner_, hardly meet to be
called a _Christian_; but, nevertheless, if he will only sin "from
unavoidable necessity, imposed by the laws of the States,"--if he will
only sin under the "obligations of guardianship,"--if he will only sin
"from the demands of humanity,"--why, then, forsooth, he may be a
slave-holder as long as _he has a mind to_. Yea, he may hold one slave,
one hundred or one thousand slaves, and till the day of judgment.
Happening to be in attendance, as a member of the body, in Buffalo, May,
1853, when, as usual, the system of slavery was touched, in a series of
questions sent down to the church courts below, I made the following
remarks, in good-natured ridicule of such preposterous and stultifying
testimony; and, as an argument, opening the views I have since reproduced
in the second speech of this volume, delivered in the General Assembly
which convened in New York, May, 1856, and also in the letters
following:--
BUFFALO, FRIDAY, May 27, 1853.
The order of the day was reached at a quarter before eleven, and the
report read again,--viz.:
"1.
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