14  GREAT  STRUGGLE   BETWEEN

holding  class  of  the  community  during  the  colonial  state  of
the  countiy,  and  many  of  them  still  later,  that  this  was
within  fifty  or  sixty  years  of  the  beginning  of  the  anti-
slavery  agitation  in  1832,  and  that  many  of  the  present  min-
isters of  New  England  are  the  sons  and  most  of  them  the
successors,  of  slave  holding  ministers,  it  cannot  reasonably
be  doubted  that  that  untoward  circumstance  has  had  a  bear-
ing upon  the  position  of  the  present  generation  of  ministers
in  New  England,  in  respect  to  the  agitation  of  the  subject,
and  especially  in  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  the  inherent
sinfulness  of  slave  holding.  A  similar  remark  might  be  made,
with  perhaps  greater  force,  in  respect  to  New  Jersey,  and,
to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  in  respect  to  a  great  part  of  the
middle  states.  The  beginning  of  the  present  agitation,  in
fact,  found  slavery  existing,  to  a  considerable  extent,  in  New
Jersey,  and  the  influence  of  that  fact  has  been  seen  and  felt,
wherever  the  slave  question  has  been  discussed,  in  this
country.*

Slavery  in  the  now  Atlantic  slave  states  received,  substan-
tially, its  present  complexion  during  the  colonial  period.  The
most  important  enactments  on  the  subject  bear  date  previous
to  the  Declaration  of  Independence.
