ANTI-SLAVERY MEETINGS IN PITTSBURGH.
There have recently been two most interesting anti-slavery meetings in Pittsburgh, which were addressed by a number of members of the Presbyterian General Assembly. In this connection, we have the pleasure to state, that forty-eight members, or about one fourth part of that body, this year, were found to be favorable to immediate emancipation: of these, six are ministers from slave states. Last year there were only two known abolitionists in the Assembly. The speeches at the anti-slavery meetings were Christian-like, eloquent, and rich in facts. We make a few extracts.
FROM THE REV. DR. BEMAN OF TROY.
“Admitting, as all do, that slavery is a great evil, existing in the land, we would anxiously inquire, Is there no remedy? Is there any evil for which God has provided no remedy? No, I would not slander the Bible, by making such an assertion. Let us all come up to the work, shoulder to shoulder, in a pleasant way, (I don’t like scowls,) and there is no danger but we can get right. I have heard many remedies proposed; and one very queer one: ‘Better let it alone.’ This is a very popular remedy. In case of slight pain, or momentary head-ach, it will do very well. But who ever heard that an acute disease, which racks the whole frame, and threatens speedy dissolution, if left to the operations of nature, will cure itself? Sin is an inveterate disease—it has no curative principle—it never gets well of itself. Slavery will never cure itself.—This let-alone policy—if it were in the church, I would call it heresy—it is moral heresy.
“But, I have heard of another remedy: ‘Just leave that question to the slave states. What have we at the north to do with slavery?’ But, here is ground for caution. Have not we at the north our share in the government of the District of Columbia? Do we not in fact govern it? Yet, that district is the central mart of the traffic in human flesh. Yes, sir, we at the north do govern slave shambles. Our hands are not quite so clean as we have supposed—as in the dusty atmosphere of Pittsburgh, we often get them a little smutty before we are aware of it.
“My southern brethren never heard me slander them. I am candid on this subject. Often do we hear it said, ‘What do northern people know about slavery?’ Sir, I am not a stranger to slavery. I have resided eleven years at the south, and three or four winters into the bargain, and I know something about it. It is an immense evil. I can go, chapter and verse, with the able document that has been read.[2] It is even so—the very picture of slavery. Are our southern brethren infallible? They are very kind-hearted brethren; yet some of them SELL THE IMAGE OF JESUS IN THEIR SLAVES! Are they competent judges in the case?—The wise man says, ‘A gift blindeth the eyes.’ They judge with the price of human flesh in their hands.”
FROM REV. A. RANKIN OF OHIO.
Mr. Rankin is brother to Rev. John Rankin, author of “Letters on Slavery,” and is, if we mistake not, by birth a southern man.
“But we are told, ‘You at the north know nothing of slavery—why meddle with what you do not understand?’ Sir, we do know what slavery is. It is usurped authority—a system of legalized oppression. If we could show what is this moment transpiring in the land of slavery, every bosom in this house would thrill with horror. I will state a case: A minister of the gospel owned a female slave, whose husband was owned by another man in the same neighborhood. The husband did something supposed to be an offence sufficient to justify his master in selling him for the southern market. As he started, his wife obtained leave to visit him. She took her final leave of him, and started to return to her master’s house. She went a few steps, and returned and embraced him again, and then started the second time to go to her master’s house; but the feelings of her heart overcame her, and she turned about and embraced him the third time. Again she endeavoured to bear up under the heavy trial, and return; but it was too much for her—she had a woman’s heart. She returned the fourth time, embraced her husband, and turned about—A MANIAC. To judge what slavery is, we must place ourselves in the condition of the slave. Who that has a wife, who that has a husband, could endure for a moment the thought of such a separation! Take another case: A company of slave dealers were passing through Louisville with a drove of slaves, of all classes and descriptions. Among them were many mothers with infants in their arms. These often become troublesome to the drivers: and in this case, in order to get rid of the trouble, the inhuman monsters severed the cords of maternal affection, and took these infants, from three to five months old, and sold them in the streets of Louisville, for what they could get. Do we know nothing of slavery? Can we shut our eyes to such facts as these, which are constantly staring us in the face?”
[2] The Declaration of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention.
FROM REV. MR. BOARDMAN OF N. Y.
Mr. Boardman directed his address especially to ladies, and we should think not without effect. He said:
“In slavery, marriage is unknown. Men and women live together: but the tie is not formally sanctioned. There is no minister, no magistrate, to give religious or civil authority to the relation. It is a system of concubinage. And this state of things is encouraged, or rather marriage is discouraged, because it throws an obstacle in the way of the sale of these human chattels. Notwithstanding, the ties of affection are not less strong on account of the absence of legal or religious sanction. Indeed, the fellowship of suffering binds still stronger the hearts of husband and wife. It is the only channel of affection. The children of the slave are not his own—they are not subject to his authority, and they may be torn from him without a moment’s warning. Pent up in every other direction, the affections of husband and wife naturally centre entirely upon each other. Yet, even this tie is rudely severed. A slave in the west, who had a wife belonging to another master, learned, to his great grief, that his wife had been sold for the southern market. He went to his master, and requested that he might be sold, so as not to be separated from his wife. In order to dissuade him from it, his master described the hardships to which he would be exposed in the south; but he was firm to his purpose, choosing the severe servitude of the sugar plantations of the south, in preference to a separation from the wife of his bosom. His master then offered him money to satisfy him; but no, he said he could not leave his wife. ‘O,’ says his master, ‘You can get another!’ ‘Why, massa, don’t you think I am a man!’
“Another case, I will mention, to show the legitimate effects of slavery upon the relations of life. A colored man, who was a member of the church, and who had been living with a woman, according to the customs of the slaves, went to his master, who was an elder in the Presbyterian church, and told him that he did not feel right to be living so, and requested permission to be lawfully married. And, how do you suppose this reasonable request was received? Although it was a request from one Christian brother to another to be permitted to cease from sin, yet it was received with a laugh, and positively denied.
“It is in behalf of woman, to woman that this appeal is made, It is woman in bondage that calls for woman’s sympathies, woman’s efforts, and woman’s prayers. And I feel confident that this appeal will not meet a cold repulse, because the object of it has a black skin. I remember, in my boyhood, of seeing a colored man driving a cart, and by some accident he was precipitated from his seat, and crushed to death. But when the alarm began to spread, I heard it said, ‘O, its only a poor negro that is killed.’ But O, thought I, it is a man. And, boy as I was, I remembered that he had an immortal soul. Ah, think you woman would have said that? No. Woman has a heart that can be moved with the sufferings of the poor negro.
“Woman did much for the abolition of slavery in Great Britain and her dependencies. When the petition was presented to parliament, it required four men to carry it to the speaker’s desk. It was signed by 182,000 ladies. A noble lord arose, and with much emotion, said, ‘It is time for us to move in this matter, when we are called upon in this manner by our wives, and sisters, and mothers!’ And I rejoice that the ladies of this country are already lifting up their voices on this subject. Sir, I was much gratified to hear the voice of 1,000 of my countrywomen raised in the General Assembly, in behalf of suffering humanity. And, I feel assured that woman’s voice will be heard. But, if man will not hear, there is an audience where you can appear with the assurance of being heard. O, then, mothers, sisters, wives, let your voice be heard at the throne of grace, pleading in behalf of your enslaved sisters, and of suffering bondmen.
“But, the question is asked and reiterated, ‘What has abolition done?’ What has abolition done! It has done much, sir. It has so modified the sentiments of many colonizationists that they speak a language in reference to slavery, which would not have been tolerated in 1830. Its voice is now heard in Maryland, in Kentucky, in Tennessee, in Missouri—in some places, indeed, it is feeble—in others it is the voice of thunder. What has abolition done? On the first day of August, 1834, it broke the manacles of 800,000 slaves. The sun set upon them in bondage, and rose upon them in freedom.”
FROM REV. MR. DICKEY OF OHIO.
“Sir,” said Mr. D., “I am not ignorant of slavery. Having passed thirty years of my life in a slave state, and having been a slave-holder myself, I know something about it.
“Slavery in the church exposes her to the scoffs of the world. Infidels despise a religion which they suppose sanctions such oppression. I once heard a professor of religion laboring to justify slavery from the Bible, in the presence of an infidel; who turned from him with contempt, saying he despised such a religion.
“It exerts an influence upon the mind of the slave, prejudicial to the reception of instruction. Suppose the master himself attempt to instruct his slaves in the truths of religion—what confidence can he have in the man, who deprives him of his liberty, and robs him of his labor? I will state a case: An old slave told me, “Massa bery ’ligious—he bery good Christian. He hab prayers e’vry Sunday wid the slaves—but he sure to read ’em dat chapter what say servants be ’bedient to massa.”