Summary

The Democratic editor castigated the Conference for labeling slavery an "evil," and admonished it for involving itself in political issues, such as the "slavery question."

EXCERPT:

"The Methodist Discipline assumes a postulate which, in our belief, is erroneous in ethic and unconstitutional in theory, when it brands slavery as an evil, and intimates it can be 'extirpated,' in propounding the question, 'what shall be done for the extirpation of the evil of slavery?' That slavery is purely a political question is sufficiently attested by the early legislation of the country, and its recognition as such in the Federal Constitution itself."

Full-text web version of newspaper

"Augusta's Democratic Party emphasized that slavery was the country's economic engine of success, protected in the territories by the Dred Scott decision, and they defended Stephen Douglas to the end as the best candidate to defeat Lincoln."