" He saw insurmountable obstacles against
immediate emancipation, one of which was that the negro would exchange
the evil now affecting him for greater ones--for a relapse into deeper
debasement, if not for bloodshed and internal war.
He therefore advocated a system of Christian education, to make the
negro slaves fit for emancipation and to prepare them for freedom, Then,
he argued, without bloodshed and the violation of property rights, and
with unimpaired benefit to the negro, the desirable end might be reached
in the utter extinction of slavery.
Of this appropriate address, so important in the light of coming events,
we quote two paragraphs in full. In speaking of existing evils and the
remedies for them, he observed: "For the mitigation of these evils, we
must, I think, look not only to particular measures, but to the
restoration of sounder general principles. I mean especially that
principle on which alone the incorporation of Religion with the State in
our Constitution can be defended; that the duties of governors are
strictly and peculiarly religious; and that legislatures, like
individuals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the
high truths they have acknowledged.
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