Congregational.
It is somewhat difficult to define with any great degree of precision, the position of the Congregational churches in relation to slavery. Many of these churches are actively anti-slavery. The Congregationalists of Ohio, in a convention held at Mansfield:
“Resolved That we regard American slavery as both a great evil and a great violation of the law of God and the rights of man; and that we deem it our sacred duty to protest, by every christian means, against slaveholding, and against any and all acts which recognize the false and pernicious principle that makes merchandise of man.”
The largest representative body of congregationalists which has expressed itself on the question of slavery recently was the Albany Convention which met in 1852. This body adopted the following resolution:
Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, it is the tendency of the gospel, wherever preached in its purity, to correct all social evils, and to destroy sin in all its forms; and that it is the duty of Missionary Societies to grant aid to churches in slaveholding States in the support of such ministers only as shall so preach the gospel, and inculcate the principles and application of gospel discipline, that, with the blessing of God, it shall have its full effect in awakening and enlightening the moral sense in respect to slavery, and in bringing to pass the speedy abolition of that stupendous wrong; and that wherever a minister is not permitted so to preach, he should, in accordance with the directions of Christ in such cases “depart out of that city.”
It is believed that Congregationalists generally are progressing in the right direction.[16]