Let me show you some things you have secured, as the
results of your work.
_First Result of Agitation_.
1. The most consistent abolitionists, affirming the sin of slavery, on the
maxim of created equality and unalienable right, after torturing the Bible
for a while, to make it give the same testimony, felt they could get
nothing from the book. They felt that the God of the Bible disregarded the
thumb-screw, the boot, and the wheel; that he would not speak for them,
but against them. These consistent men have now turned away from the
word, in despondency; and are seeking, somewhere, an abolition Bible, an
abolition Constitution for the United States, and an abolition God.
This, sir, is the _first result_ of your agitation:--the very van of your
attack repulsed, and driven into infidelity.
_A Second Result of Agitation_.
2. Many others, and you among them, are trying in exactly the same way
just mentioned to make the Bible speak against slave-holding. You get
nothing by torturing the English version. People understand English. Nay,
you get little by applying the rack to the Hebrew and Greek; even before a
tribunal of men like you, who proclaim beforehand that Moses, in Hebrew,
and Paul, in Greek, _must_ condemn slavery because "_it is a violation of
the first sentiments of the Declaration of Independence_.
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