In earlier pages we have already traced the succession of bold protests and organized labors on the part of church and clergy against the institution of slavery.[268:1] If protest and argument against it seem to be less frequent in the early years of the new century, it is only because debate must needs languish when there is no antagonist. Slavery had at that time no defenders in the church. No body of men in 1818 more unmistakably represented the Christian citizenship of the whole country, North, South, and West, outside of New England, than the General Assembly of the then undivided Presbyterian Church. In that year the Assembly set forth a full and unanimous expression of its sentiments on the subject of slavery, addressed "to the churches and people under its care." This monumental document is too long to be cited here in full. The opening paragraphs of it exhibit the universally accepted sentiment of American Christians of that time:
"We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoin that 'all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' Slavery creates a paradox in the moral system. It exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of others whether they shall receive religious instruction; whether they shall know and worship the true God; whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity or regard the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the consequences of slavery--consequences not imaginary, but which connect themselves with its very existence. The evils to which the slave is _always_ exposed often take place in fact, and in their worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take place, as we rejoice to say that in many instances, through the influence of the principles of humanity and religion on the minds of masters, they do not, still the slave is deprived of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which inhumanity and avarice may suggest.