May I not hope
that you, Mr. Smylie, perceive a difference between despotism and an
"indifferent thing." May I not hope, that you will, both as a Republican
and a Christian, take the ground, that despotism has a moral character,
and a bad one? When our fathers prayed, and toiled, and bled, to obtain
for themselves and their children the right of self-government, and to
effect their liberation from a power, which, in the extent and rigor of
its despotism, is no more to be compared to the Roman government, than
the "little finger" to the "loins," I doubt not, that they felt that
despotism had a moral, and a very bad moral character. And so would
Prof. Hodge have felt, had he stood by their side, instead of being one
of their ungrateful sons. I say ungrateful--for, who more so, than he
who publishes doctrines that disparage the holy cause in which they were
embarked, and exhibits them, as contending for straws, rather than for
principles? Tell me, how long will this Republic endure after our people
shall have imbibed the doctrine, that the _nature_ of civil government
is an indifferent thing: and that the poet was right when he said,
"For forms of government let _fools_ contest?"
This, however, is but one of many doctrines of ruinous tendency to the
cause of civil liberty, advanced by pro-slavery writers to sustain their
system of oppression.
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