In the highest Christian sense, he was not qualified to understand this subject; he reasoned like one who did not take into view the providence and the purposes of God, even while he was saying what he did of there being "no attribute in the Almighty that would take part with us" in favor of slavery.

Standing as I do by this providential view of the great subject, the assailants of slavery at the North seem to me, some of them, almost insane, and others, even ministers of the Gospel, shall I say it?
more than unchristian;--there is a sort of blind, wild, French Jacobinical atheism in their feeling and behavior; while as to the rest, good people, they are misled by what Mr.Webster, in one of his speeches in the Senate, called "the constant rub-a-dub of the press,"-- "no drum-head," he says, "in the longest day's march, having been more incessantly beaten than the feeling of the public in certain parts of the North." I cannot reason with these men,' continued the Judge, 'for I confess, at once, that I cannot demonstrate, either by logic or by mathematics, a modern quitclaim or warranty in holding slaves.

In combating their illogical and unscriptural positions, I seem to them to be an advocate of the divine right of oppression,--which I am not.

That it is best, however, and that it is right, for this relation to continue until God shall manifest some purpose to terminate it consistently with the good of all concerned, I am perfectly convinced and satisfied.

I believe that it has reference to the great plan of mercy toward our world, and that when the object is accomplished, the providence of God will, in some way, make it known.