uphold the liberties purchased for them by the blood of their
fathers. The Massachusetts Legislature did not comply with the
request of Governor McDuffie of South Carolina to take the first
step towards the enslavement of all laborers, white as well as
black. And Rhode Island refused to enact into law the pending
bill for the suppression of anti-slavery societies. They declined
to violate the plain requirements of their Constitution that the
interests of slavery might be promoted. Not many years later they
were ready to strain or break the Constitution for the sake of
liberty.

In the general crusade against liberty churches proved more
pliable than States. The authority of nearly all the leading
denominations was directed against the abolitionists. The General
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church passed in 1836 a
resolution censuring two of their members who had lectured in
favor of modern abolitionism. The Ohio Conference of the same
denomination had passed resolutions urging resistance to the
anti-slavery movement. In June, 1836, the New York Conference
decided that no one should be chosen as deacon or elder who did
not give pledge that he would refrain from agitating the church
on the subject.

The same spirit appeared in theological seminaries. The trustees
of Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio, voted that students
should not organize or be members of anti-slavery societies or
hold meetings or lecture or speak on the subject. Whereupon the
students left in a body, and many of the professors withdrew and
united with others in the founding of an anti-slavery college at
Oberlin.