Letters and Discussions on the Formation of Colored Regiments, / and the Duty of the Colored People in Regard to the Great Slaveholders' Rebellion, in the United States of America

by Alfred M. Green

MEETING OF THE CHURCH ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.

From the Anglo-African, September, 1861.

The regular monthly meeting of the Church Anti-Slavery Society was held on Tuesday evening, September 10th, at the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Cherry street, east of Eleventh. The meeting was considerably larger than usual, which, of course, during these times, is ominous of good to our cause. Another very important item is the fact that the meeting was largely interspersed with the leading and representative families of color belonging to this city. Our people have long been derelict to duty and interest in this direction, but it is hoped that war—this great purifier and refiner’s fire of this as well as every other age—will eventually bring us up to the standard of true elevation.

Wm. S. Young, Esq., was called to the chair, by the temporary absence of the Rev. Dr. Church, the regular chairman. The Rev. Mr. Johnston, of the Old School Presbyterian Church, as I was informed, opened the meeting with prayer.

A note was then read from the Chairman (Rev. Dr. Church,) expressive of his regret for unavoidable absence, and expressing the desire that the meeting might be favored with the best consequences, &c.

By reading the minutes of the last meeting it occurred that, agreeably to announcement, Prof. A. M. Green had been invited to address the meeting on the Duty of the Colored People of the North in Relation to the Great Rebellion. At eight o’clock Mr. Green was introduced, and proceeded with great ability to reason not only the propriety but the practical necessity of colored men taking an active part in this war, against the aggressive power of the mighty dragon of the nineteenth century, American slavery. Mr. Green argued that, viewed from whatever stand-point, every honest man must conclude that this war is one that has been inaugurated by the labors of abolitionists and anti-slavery men, in a moral contest against this great evil; men have avowed it to be their purpose to bring the two elements to a hand-to-hand struggle; the efforts of our party for thirty years have been to array the North against the South on this question of slavery. And though the government denies the responsibility to be incurred by acknowledging the true issue, yet it also denies that it had any thing to do with inaugurating it. It is just as emphatically true that the government cannot control the issue involved in this war, as it is true that it could not for thirty years control the moral conflict kept up on this same question. It was our duty from very many considerations, elaborately presented by Mr. Green, to bear an honorable part in the great contest.

When Mr. Green closed, an opportunity was afforded for any remarks that might be offered on the question of the evening. A white gentleman present, whose name I learned at the time, but have since forgotten, took the floor, and strongly opposed Mr. Green’s position. He claimed that the government was even worse, if possible, than ever it was, for now that it could justly, by availing itself of the war power, emancipate every slave in the South, yet instead of doing so, it fled from it as a man would flee from deadly poison. He said he had neither sympathy nor faith in the government; and until the war-making power became honest enough to emancipate, enfranchise, and wash its hands of the injustice done to black men in the country, it was not fit for Christian men, white or colored, but more especially the latter, to touch, taste or handle. The gentleman argued in this strain at some length. Mr. Isaiah C. Wears was called on, and in his usual very forcible manner dissented from Mr. Green. He made many allusions to the meanness of the government, and thought men would fall like sheep; that colored men could not be spared at such a time, and in such a cause. He said the South were more practically a fighting people than the North; that they were undoubtedly the superiors of the Northern whites in this respect, and the Northern whites were our superiors as much as the South was theirs; it could readily be perceived that we were, therefore, of all people the least prepared to go into this great slaughter-house of the government. He agreed, however, with many points Mr. Green had raised, and was pleased with his treatment of the subject; he believed this would be a long war, and that no doubt thousands of colored men would see service in this war before rebellion was put down. Several other gentlemen, white and colored, participated on both sides of the question, which kept up quite a friendly and spirited meeting till a late hour of the evening. Just before adjournment, Mr. Green arose and said, he had taken the main points suggested by those who expressed themselves as opposed to his position, and he was willing to give them the consideration they deserved. But he said his opponents admitted too much that was argument for him; he said:

1. They had admitted it was a war between North and South.

2. That these two sections were naturally at war on the slavery question.

3. That the South openly admitted that she was fighting for the uninterrupted extension of the slavery power.

4. That they (the South) were the best fighters.

5. That we, the colored people, were the poorest fighters of either of the disputants.

6. That it would probably be a long war, and we would be called into it after a while.

He said he would ask those gentlemen whether it was not our duty, in view of the first four admissions, to enlist with the North, if honest in our ancient doctrines on the slavery question? And whether, in view of their two last admissions, it was not a positive necessity to counsel strenuous preparatory efforts among our people?

The subject was continued till the next meeting, on the second Tuesday in November.