The movement of the societies which had then been recently formed at Boston and New York, with 'Immediate abolition' for their motto, was made use of to stimulate the terror and the fury of the South....
The position of political parties and of candidates for the Presidency, just at that juncture, gave special advantage to the agitators--an advantage that was not neglected.

Everything was done that practiced demagogues could contrive to stimulate the South into a frenzy and to put down at once and forever all opposition to slavery.

The clergy and the religious bodies were summoned to the patriotic duty of committing themselves on the side of 'southern institutions.' Just then it was, if we mistake not, that their apostasy began.

They dared not say that slavery as an institution in the State is essentially an organized injustice, and that, though the Scriptures rightly and wisely enjoin justice and the recognition of the slaves' brotherhood upon masters, and conscientious meekness upon slaves, the organized injustice of the institution ought to be abolished by the shortest process consistent with the public safety and the welfare of the enslaved.

They dared not even keep silence under the plea that the institution is political and therefore not to be meddled with by religious bodies or religious persons.