So of other things, which
theoretically are oppressive, but practically right; while many things
in the system which are rigorous are as little used as the equipments in
an arsenal in times of peace.
When you quote John Wesley's words and apply them to the South: "Slavery
is the sum of all villanies," you unconsciously utter a fearful slander.
Whatever may have been true of British slavery, in foreign plantations,
in Wesley's day, the good man never would utter such words about our
Southern people could he see and enjoy that which gladdens every
Christian heart. If slavery be, necessarily, "the sum of all villanies,"
as you and many use the expression, the relation cannot exist without
making each slave-holder a villain, in all the degrees of villany. You
will do well to look into the cant phrases of "freedom," before you
indulge in the use of them. The bishops and clergy of the noble army of
Methodists in the South would not sustain their great chief in applying
the phrase in question to the actual state of things in the Southern
country. Wesley used those words concerning slavery in foreign colonies;
he had not seen it mixed up with society in England, as it is in the
South.
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