The same is true also as regards the controversy which arose during the Civil War on the question of Slavery. Our pastors were accused of defending slavery, despite the fact that they declared explicitly at the annual meeting of the Synod in 1861, that ``Slavery in itself is an evil and a punishment from God, and we condemn all the abuses and sins which are connected with it, just as we, when our official duties demand it, will work for its abolition.'' But they were not willing to deny a number of clear passages of the New Testament which speak of the keeping of slaves, and therefore they would not declare that it is a sin in itself to have slaves. They chose rather to endure the stigma of being called defenders of slavery than to accommodate the word of God to human reasoning. In ``Festskrift,'' a volume published on the occasion of the Synod's fiftieth anniversary, Rev. H. Halvorsen points out the significance of the position held by the Synod on this question in the following words: ``So far as the pastors of the Synod were concerned, the question of slavery was in itself a peripheric question, one of only secondary or remote importance, but since it involved the assertion of the absolute authority of Scripture in opposition to human sentiments and preconceived opinions, it became a matter of paramount importance. Another objectionable feature was the fact that Clausen, as well as many of those who sided with him, did not distinguish rightly between external, bodily liberty and the internal, spiritual liberty, which Christ had procured for us.