THANKSGIVING SERMON. 35 ness. I do not know that the history of the world records a more criminal procedure. After what I have said on a former occasion, it is needless for me to enlarge on this theme. Proof upon proof has been multiplied in the daily and weekly journals, in the quarterly reviews and periodicals, and in discourses from the pulpit, many of them written with great candor and great ability, of the fallacy, the political heresy of the doctrine that every; state possesses the reserved right of withdrawing at pleasure from the federal compact. Concede this, and we have no Union, no government, no nation; secession abolishes the national constitution and subverts its government. We should have no difference of opinion as to the part which the Church of God, in her organized capacity, ought to pursue in this matter if we are once united on this one question. If the question were a mere political one, and had no moral bearings, we might hesitate. If it were an open question, we might hesitate. As Presbyterians, and guided not merely by the convictions of conscience, but by the decisions of the assembled Church, we regard secession not merely as a “political
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