Excerpt from Conscience and Law: A Discourse Preached in the North Church, Portsmouth New Hampshire, on Fast Day, April 3, 1851 He whose mission it was to calm the angry passions of men, and who has said, Blessed are the peacemakers, has also said, I came not to send peace, but a sword. These apparently conflicting principles it will be our pur pose to attempt to reconcile, and we hope to show that we may be obedient to God and true to the dictates of humanity, without infringing in the least degree upon the soundest patriot ism, and the highest reverence for human law. With the extremes of fanaticism on this question we have nothing to do. And while we would not force into the ranks of the ultra slavery supporters, that large class of respectable citizens who have felt themselves called upon to make speeches and preach discourses in favor of sustaining the Union, and rendering implicit obedience to human laws we would at the same time protest against the disposition that not a few persons have manifested, to class with disunionists and rebels those masses of our citizens who are conscientiously opposed to the fugitive slave bill. If the anathemas, which have been so freely hurled from the pulpit and the press, have been aimed against these opponents of the law as disunionists and traitors, then these writers have been fighting a man of straw. If, on the other hand, this expenditure of acute logic and fervid eloquencehas been called forth by the ultra factions to which reference has been made, then are the threats and power of these fac tions entitled to more consideration than we have been accus tomed to give them. They have suddenly reached a position of influence and power, to which we never dreamed they would attain. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.