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.
Taking the blacks as they are, and comparing them also with what they would be in Africa, or if set free, to remain in connection with the whites, slavery is not a curse.

To be free is, of course, in itself a blessing.

But it depends on many things whether, under existing circumstances, being a slave here is practically a curse.

Our people generally insist that it must be, and therefore that it is.