Various Churches.
Besides the churches already mentioned the following are decidedly anti-slavery:—“Associate Presbyterian,” “Reformed Presbyterian,” “Free Presbyterian,” (of which the venerable John Rankin is a member,) many local “Independent” churches, and the “Friends” or Quakers. The Quakers have a world-wide reputation for practical philanthropy. And on the other hand the following large denominations are decidedly pro-slavery:—“German Reformed,” “Dutch Reformed,” “Cumberland Presbyterian,” “Lutheran” and “Disciple” (or Campbellite.)
The following estimate made by W. G. Gephart, a Presbyterian minister, will give a “bird’s eye view” of the relation of the leading denominations of this country to slavery as it stood a few years since. At the present time they are only more deeply involved in the trade in the souls of men, than they were when this estimate was made:
| DENOMINATIONS. | NO. OF SLAVES. |
|---|---|
| Methodists, | 219,563 |
| Presbyterian, Old and New School, | 77,000 |
| Baptists, | 125,000 |
| Campbellites, | 101,000 |
| Episcopalians, | 88,000 |
| Allow for all other denominations, | 50,000 |
| Total number of slaves owned by ministers of the gospel and members of the different Protestant churches, | 660,563 |
“Now, suppose the average value of all these slaves be only $400 each, and it will give a capital of $264,225,200! invested in humanity, the interests of 660,653 beings upon whom God has chartered immortality, and stamped it with the signet of his own image.”
From this review it will be perceived that the most influential denominations have given their sanction to slavery. They have opened wide their doors to slaveholders, and have welcomed them to their communion. They have not advised nor commanded them to emancipate their slaves as a condition of admission to the church, to the Lord’s table, to the pulpit, or even into heaven itself!
Divines have, by a perversion of the Bible, corrupted the consciences of Southern, aye, even of Northern Christians, by the most subtle and monstrous errors. The holy Bible has been made, in the language of Blanchard, a smith shop whence consecrated hands have brought fetters for the feet, and manacles for the mind! “We have,” said Frederick Douglass, “men-stealers for ministers, woman-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church-members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cow-skin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week, meets me as class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible, denies me the right of learning to read the name of God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage, robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that, scatters whole families,—sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand together. The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church may be heard at the same time. The dealers in the bodies and souls of men, erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.”
[CHAPTER XII.]
Slavery and the Church.
NON-FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.
We shall now proceed to show what we conceive to be the true position of a Christian church in relation to slavery. It has been demonstrated that slavery is a complicated and monstrous iniquity involving a direct violation of the whole second table of the Decalogue. This being an established position it will not be difficult to determine the relation which the church should sustain to this sin, and to those who commit it.
The scriptural position of a Christian and a Christian society in relation to sin, may be ascertained from the following quotations: “But I have written unto you not to keep company—if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or railer, or drunkard, or extortioner, with such an one, no, not to eat.”
“Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord; and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”
“Now we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly.”
In these passages the duty of open and decided non-fellowship with sinners is unequivocally asserted. 1. Do not “keep company” with covetous persons and extortioners. Do not “eat” with them at the sacramental table, for this would imply a sanction of their sin. 2. “Come out from among them.” Let there be between you a plain line of demarcation so that the whole world will know that you are not in favor with their sin, and are not a party to it. “Have NO FELLOWSHIP.” Be not united in any associations which require it. Go not with them to the sacramental board. Unite not with them in benevolent efforts for the conversion of the world, for this would require fellowship. Have no fellowship. 4. “In the name of the Lord Jesus withdraw yourselves”—cut off all ties which imply fellowship. Do this solemnly—do it in the name of the blessed Jesus—do it for the glory of God—do it as an act of discipline—withdraw yourselves from every disorderly walker—from every “darkness worker,”—let them be unto you “as a heathen man and a publican.”
Now how are these scriptures to be obeyed respecting the great sin of slavery? We answer: 1. The church should debar slaveholders from its communion. While they remain impenitent in relation to the monstrous sin of slavery and refuse to emancipate their slaves, they should be peremptorily refused admittance into the fellowship of saints. At the door they ought to be met by an emphatic “No sirs; your hands are red with blood, your purses are filled with unjust gains, you rob the widow and the fatherless, you make merchandise of men, repent, reform, do justly, love mercy, or away ye men-stealers!”
2. If by any means slaveholders have obtained a place in the church, they should be plainly dealt with, according to the directions given in such cases by the sacred writers, and in case of a refusal on their part to “hear the church,” they should be immediately thrust out—accounted as “heathen”—“delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh.”
3. But in case a church refuses to discipline slaveholders, as it disciplines other offenders against God, and on the contrary persistently retains them in its communion and officially recognizes them as members of the household of faith,—as holy persons,—as good christians, then a christian can do no better than to withdraw from that church. He cannot remain in it without giving an expressed or implied sanction to a slaveholding christianity. The whole force of his piety and influence will go abroad to create the conviction that slavery is right and quite consistent with holiness.
In support of this view of the true position of a church and of christians in relation to slavery, the following additional considerations are submitted:
1. The church is required to be holy. But it cannot approximate to holiness while welcoming into its pale sinners such as slaveholders are, and sanctioning such an impurity as is slavery.
2. The Church is required to be the “pillar and ground of the truth.” But a slaveholding church wofully perverts and corrupts the truth in many important particulars. The truth that God hates oppression and robbery for instance, is corrupted by it, for it pronounces the very chief oppressors and robbers the true children of God, and assures the world that He approbates their conduct. It corrupts the truth in relation to the true idea of a christian. It denies that justice, mercy and love, are essential attributes of a christian character, by passing off upon a deluded world a class of persons as christians who are pre-eminently unjust, unmerciful, and full of hate to the human brotherhood.
3. The church should honor the holy scriptures. But a slaveholding church necessarily dishonors them. The church is presumed to be a faithful and competent expounder of the doctrines and moral precepts of the Bible, and hence what it approves, it is supposed, the Bible sanctions, and as it approves of slavery, it gives currency to the idea that the Bible is a pro-slavery book,—that Christianity is favorable to oppression, and an enemy to equality and fraternity. Thus a slaveholding church dishonors the Word of Truth and is an infidel-making organization. Non-fellowship with slaveholding is demanded as a condition of faithfulness to the Bible.
4. The church is expected to convert the world to righteousness. But it can never do this while shielding the Leviathan of sins. Slavery is a system of barbarism which must necessarily be destroyed in order to the evangelization of America and of the world. The tyranny, injustice and cruelty of masters, and the ignorance, servility and general degradation of slaves are inconsistent with christianity, and to sanction these is to sanction and sustain sin, and interpose a barrier to the progress of truth and righteousness. And in addition to this, a church must have a character to give it influence with men. A church without character for disinterestedness, benevolence and truth, will be despised by men and forsaken of God. A slaveholding church is without a good moral character, and hence lacks moral power. Men will be slow to believe that, while fiercely defending a monstrous national sin, it is in earnest in its opposition to lesser crimes and trivial wrongs. How powerless is a body of christians whose virtue gives way under the temptation of a popular and lucrative vice! How justly branded with cowardice and hypocrisy!
5. Duty to slaveholders demands non-fellowship with slaveholding. The course pursued by the popular churches involves the souls of slaveholders in imminent peril. Their consciences are lulled into quietude or narcoticized by deadly moral nostrums, skillfully prepared and treacherously administered by time-serving, fleece-seeking hirelings, who assume the sacred office of shepherds. Many of them are not aware of their sin and danger, and how can they be aroused while honored in the church and flattered as good christians, and imitators in the slaveholding business, of the good old patriarchs? To save these men the church must be plain with them, and require repentance of all their sins, and especially of the sin of slaveholding, as a condition of a place in the temple of God.
6. Duty to the slave demands non-fellowship with slaveholding. The oppressed have a claim upon the church, because Christ died for them, and they are, while enslaved, in such a situation that they can neither love him with all their powers, nor do much to establish his church and publish his name in the earth. Hence it is the duty of christians and christian societies to break off the fetters which bind not only their limbs but their minds. The American church is able to emancipate every slave in the land. Who doubts that it is its duty? But in order to do this glorious work, the principle of strict non-fellowship with slaveholders must be adopted. Let every church in America declare slavery to be a sin and exclude slaveholders from its communion, and the doom of slavery will be sealed. All the laws and compromises and compacts which the ingenuity of the prince of darkness could invent would not preserve it. It is the church which is the bulwark of slavery. Not one day could it stand up in this country without the strength imparted to it by a powerful but awfully corrupted church. “Let all the evangelical denominations,” says Albert Barnes, “but follow the simple example of the Quakers in this country, and slavery would soon come to an end. There is not vital energy enough; there is not power of numbers and influence enough, out of the church, to sustain it. Let every religious denomination in the land detach itself from all connection with slavery, without saying a word against others; let the time come when, in all the mighty denominations of Christians, it can be announced that the evil has ceased with them FOREVER, and let the voice from each denomination be lifted up in kind, but firm and solemn testimony against the system—with no ‘mealy’ words; with no attempt at apology; with no wish to blink it, with no effort to throw the sacred shield of religion over so great an evil—and the work is done. There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it.” Hence the reasons for non-fellowship with slaveholding are as vast as the interests temporal and eternal of millions and millions of our fellow-creatures, and as vast as the treachery which leaves them in chains! Depend upon it the curse of God will come down upon the American church in a storm of fiery vengeance if it arise not and do justice to the slave!
7. If slaveholders are admitted to church-fellowship no class of sinners on earth should be excluded. The church cannot consistently expel from its communion the rich man who grinds the face of the poor laborer that reaps down his fields, and at the same time retain the slaveholder who lives entirely upon the unpaid labor of the poor. He who occasionally cheats his neighbor out of a few dollars cannot consistently be censured by the church while the man who cheats whole families out of domestic comfort, home, education, and their all, passes without reproof. The occasional adulterer cannot receive church discipline in the presence of him who compels his slaves to live together without the sanction, and without the protection of the law. He who steals a sheep cannot be cast out from a church in which he who steals men occupies a high seat. As slaveholding is a violation directly or indirectly of every commandment of the Decalogue, if it cannot and must not be disciplined, then church discipline is useless; and all classes of sinners should be admitted and retained in this Holy Temple, unless the principle be established that he who commits a petty offense shall be cast out, but he who has the heart and courage to commit a high offense, a daring crime, shall remain in full fellowship. I have wondered how slaveholding church members could try and expel from a religious society a poor negro who, in addition to his peck of corn per week, had stolen a little meat, while they were conscious of robbing that same negro of the products of his daily toil, and of his own soul and body.
8. To maintain its independence the church must discard fellowship with slaveholders.—In no case have slaveholders been willing to occupy an humble position in a religious body long. They assume to be pre-eminently the members of the church, and the press, pulpit, and General Assembly or General Conference, must, unequivocally, endorse, or patriarchalize their slaveholding. The history of all the pro-slavery churches in America is proof of this remark. A few slaveholders are able to change entirely the action of a powerful ecclesiastical body—to range it on the side of oppression, to silence or subborn its witnesses, to shut up its sympathies and take away the bow of hope from the slave. How many of the hundreds of ministers in the whole south are free to utter their convictions on slavery to day? How many religious presses are unfettered? If then the church would stand upon the solid rock of truth, unawed by the popular will, uncorrupted with gold, the immutable friend of man, proclaiming and enforcing the whole truth, it must keep out of her communion legalized and practiced tyrants.
9. Regard for decency, refined sensibility and common humanity, urges non-fellowship with slaveholders. The members of a slaveholding church become insensible to the grossest outrages upon the better feelings of slaves, and they habitually commit acts, without a blush, which, one should think, would pale the cheek of a demon. For illustration take a well authenticated fact: “A runaway slave in 1841, assigned the following as the reason why he refused to commune with a church of which he was a member. ‘The church,’ said he, ‘had silver furniture for the administration of the Lord’s supper, to procure which they sold my brother! and I could not bear the feelings it produced to go forward and receive the sacrament from the vessels which were the purchase of my brother’s blood!’” But the members of that church, generally, were altogether without feeling upon the subject, and were as little disturbed in selling a slave to purchase silver ware for the sacramental table, or to pay a parson, or to support a missionary, as in selling a mule for the same purposes.
10. If slavery be fellowshiped in the church, then slaveholding preachers will be coming around and preaching the gospel to us! A dealer in human flesh will undertake to teach us to be just and merciful. We will be expected to receive the elements of the holy sacrament from hands that use the cowskin occasionally on the backs of slaves! It is notorious that churches which fellowship slavery have an exceedingly dumb and callous ministry on the subject of oppression. Frederick Douglass, I think it was, who said that the hardest master he ever served was a Methodist Protestant preacher. The following incident will illustrate this thought: “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 offense 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 started a second time to go to her master’s house; but the feelings of her heart again overcame her, and she turned about and embraced him the third time. Again she endeavored 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!”—(Anti-slavery Record.)
Good God! can any one plead for the admission of such cruelty into the bosom of the church and into the ministry?
And let it be remembered that this preacher simply did what the legal relation authorized, and what all slaveholding ministers may do without ecclesiastical censure.
11. If slavery be fellowshiped in the church, then we shall be compelled to sit in religious meetings, class-meetings and conference meetings, and hear a good experience told by one who lives on the toil of wretched slaves, and who would sell at public sale one of our own brethren in the Lord, yea, even ourselves, if the laws would allow it. Take the following specimen of a Methodist sister, and ask yourselves how you would like to attend class with her.
“A poor woman was put in jail about a week since. It is the jail that cost the people of the United States nearly, or quite, $60,000. Had this woman committed crime? Not the least in the world. Her mistress wants to sell her, and pocket the money—that’s all. She puts her into jail simply to know where she is when she finds a customer. This poor woman, offered for sale, expects to be confined in a few weeks. She has a husband and mother, but neither of them are allowed to go into the jail to visit her. The husband tried to talk with her through the grated window, the other day, but was driven off by some menial of the establishment. Amanda, the slave-woman, is a member of the Methodist Church, which takes the name of Bethlehem. I hear she is in good standing in the Church, and sustains a fair and good character generally. The mistress—the owner—the trader—who is she? She is Miss A. B., a venerable spinster, a few years ago from Virginia, and now residing in this city. She brought with her this woman, her mother, and two or three children, upon whose wages she has lived for years past, and now proposes to put Amanda in her pocket. She (Miss A. B.) is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, belongs to the M’Kendree Chapel congregation, and attends class regularly. I am glad to say some of the brethren are a little stirred about this transaction.”—Elliott, page 73.
“A little stirred!” Indeed! One would think they would have stirred that villainous woman out of the Church in short metre, or stirred out of it themselves. But no, they were only “a little stirred!”
[CHAPTER XIII.]
Slavery and the Church.
OBJECTIONS TO THE EXCLUSION OF SLAVEHOLDERS ANSWERED.
1. It has been objected that fellowship should not be withdrawn from all slaveholders, because some of them are exceedingly kind to their slaves. To this it may be answered that it is impossible for a master to be really very kind to those he holds in slavery, because the holding of them in that relation is extreme unkindness. A kind slaveholder? What entitles him to that character? Does he renounce the claim of property in his slaves? No. Does he hire them to work for him and pay them when the work is done? No. Does he open a school on his plantation for their mental and moral culture? No. Does he permit his slaves to instruct each other in the rudiments of education? No. Does he use his influence to have the diabolical laws enacted to crush the manhood out of the colored man, repealed? No. Does he secure his slaves against the chances of the inter-state slave trade—against sale at auction for his debts—against the lash of a Legree? No. What then entitles him to the character of a kind slaveholder? Why he simply treats them as a good man treats a fine horse or a favorite dog. He feeds them well, works them moderately, whips but little, but robs them of all! We abuse language when we say—a benevolent robber, a gentlemanly pickpocket, an honorable pirate or a kind slaveholder.
The poet, Longfellow, while traveling in Va., became acquainted with an honest old slave owned by a fine specimen of a kind, Christian, Presbyterian slaveholder. Said he:
“Calling at a blacksmith’s shop for a small job of work, I found the smith was a slave. On inquiring to whom I should make payment, he told me I might to him. His practice was to receive all the money paid at the shop, and pay it over to his master at night. I asked him how his master knew whether he rendered a just account. He replied, that he knew him too well not to trust him. That, as wrong as his master did by him, it was no excuse for him to do wrong by his master. He could deceive his master, but he could not deceive God, to whom he must render his final account. He said he was a Baptist, and had regular family prayers. His master was a Presbyterian, to whom he gave credit for good usage and good training. But as he had faithfully served him fifty years, he did think that he ought to have the remainder of his days to himself. He regretted that he could not read the Bible; and I was pained to hear him attempt to quote it, he made such blunders. The tears started in the eyes of the poor man as he spoke of his hard condition, and looked forward to death only for release from his bondage. He thanked God that he had no children to inherit his ignorance and servitude.”
The kindness of certain slaveholders might be mere favorably considered if it were productive of any permanent practical benefits to the slave; but while it leaves him in the depth of his wretchedness,—exposed to all the horrors of the worst form of slavery, it is a meritless thing—unworthy the name of kindness. The kind slaveholder knows that when he dies his slaves will be sold at auction together with his horses, cattle, and plantation. What avails his fancied kindness when he knows the horrible chances to which he subjects his helpless victims. And how deeply guilty is he in the sight of God for refusing to break every yoke when he has the opportunity! To illustrate this thought and show the sequel of kind slaveholding we will subjoin a sketch of a woman’s history who was the property of a kind slaveholder.
“A kind slave-master, in one of the Carolinas, had a large family, of various colors, some enslaved, some free. One of the slaves was his favorite daughter, and much accomplished. Dying, he willed his heir, her brother, to provide for her handsomely, and make her free. But her brother was a slave-master, and she was a slave. He kept and debauched her. At the end of four years he got tired of her; and that notorious slave-dealer, Woolfork, coming down to collect a drove, he sold his sister to him. “There is her cottage,” said he to Woolfork; “she is a violent woman. I don’t like to go near her; go and carry her off by yourself.” Woolfork strode into the cottage, told her of the fact and ordered her to prepare. She was dreadfully agitated. He urged her to hasten. She arose and said, ‘White man, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that my brother would thus sell me, and his children. I will not believe unless he come himself.’—Woolfork coolly went, and required her brother’s presence. The seducer, the tyrant came, and, standing at the door, confirmed the slaveholder’s report. ‘And is it true? and have you sold me?’ she exclaimed. ‘Is it really possible? Look at this child! Don’t you see in every feature the lineaments of its father? Don’t you know that your blood flows in its veins? Have you, have you sold me?’ The terrible fact was repeated by her master. ‘These children,’ said she, with a voice only half articulate, ‘shall never be slaves.’ ‘Never mind about that,’ said Woolfork, ‘go and get ready. I shall only wait a few minutes longer.’ She retired with her children. The two white men continued alone. They waited. She returned not. They grew tired of waiting, and followed her to her chamber. There they found their victims beyond the reach of human wickedness, bedded in their blood.”—(Anti-Slavery Record.)
2. Slaveholders ought not to be excluded from the church, it is argued, because their views and feelings on the subject of slavery have been corrupted by the prevalence of this popular sin. They are not, it is maintained, individually responsible—the fault—the sin, the shame attaches to a false public morality. Dr. McClintock offers this objection in the following words: “Their position,” he says, “has the eminent unhappiness of almost necessitating a feeble or corrupt moral sense on this subject; they are carried along by a great movement that absorbs their individuality, so to speak; the personal conscience is lost in the general sense of the community. The great work to be done is to purify that general sense; not to curse and malign individual slaveholders, but to break up the false public morality in which the system finds its main support.”[22]
We answer that no man is excusable for falling in with a “great movement” which is manifestly wicked. Noah, Lot, Abraham and Elijah were not carried along with sin in this way. Their moral sense was neither enfeebled nor corrupted by the prevailing vices. The apostles did not lose their “personal conscience” in the “general sense” of idolatrous communities, in the midst of which they labored. And in no case does the Bible excuse a sinner because of the prevalence of sin.—Idolaters were not taken into church because that vice was sustained by law and prevailing custom. And he who lived in Corinth in the days of St. Paul, found himself in the midst of gross, shameless sensuality—and it was quite easy for such a person to fall in with the vices for which that city was notorious; and some Christians did fall in with those vices. But did St. Paul excuse them, and forbid their expulsion from the church, throwing the blame of their conduct upon the prevailing vice? Did he ordain that until the “general sense” were purified, the “fornicator,” the “incestuous person” and the “drunkard” must remain in the church? By no means. He knew that the public conscience was made up of individual consciences—that public corruption was the aggregate of individual corruption—and hence that the only possible method of reaching and purifying the general sense, was by reaching and purifying the individual sense. And hence individual purity was required as a condition of church membership. Churches now proceed precisely upon this principle in relation to all sins, however prevalent, slavery excepted; and no good reason can be offered for making it an exception. And if slaveholders have an enfeebled moral sense, which is certainly the case, it is because the ministry and church have been recreant to duty and truth, and have said to them “peace, peace, when God had not spoken peace.” The only way to prevent them from being swept along by the flood tides of this devastating iniquity until they launch upon the shoreless sea of wrath, is to sound the alarm! But alas, those watchmen who have their ear are apt to say to them, do not be alarmed—the “false public morality” will be a satisfactory apology for your sins! When asked by the judge why you were an oppressor, you can answer, that you only followed the prevailing example!
3. Slavery, it is objected, is a political question and hence the church ought not to meddle with it. We answer, that slavery is not only a political, but a moral question—it is a question concerning the rights of man, and all that concerns man concerns a christian. Temperance is made a political question, should the church therefore fellowship the drunkard? The observance of the Sabbath is a political question—must the church therefore drop it, lest it be entangled with politics? The same may be said of gambling, perjury and theft.
4. But, says one, the laws uphold slavery, and whatever of blame attaches to slaveholding is justly chargeable to the laws. To this it is answered that slaveholders are the makers of their own laws, and hence are responsible for them. But if they had no voice in the government it would be impossible to shift the responsibility of slaveholding upon the laws, because, in the first place, a good man cannot innocently avail himself of the provisions of laws which permit him to injure his fellow creatures; and in the next place, the laws compel no one to hold slaves. They allow it, but do not require it.
5. But some, it is urged, are slaveholders from necessity, hence they ought not to be blamed. This cannot be. The laws do not compel people to buy, steal, trade for, receive as a gift, or inherit slaves. Any one may refuse to own this kind of property unless he is an idiot or a child. And if by any means a man finds himself in possession of slaves he can emancipate them. It is not far to the free states. Why do not those pious Methodists and Presbyterians, who are always talking of the impossibility of “getting rid” of their slaves, permit the abolitionists to help them? They would cheerfully pilot them, or give them a free passage on the Under-Ground Railroad! But all those pious slaveholders from necessity are ready to lynch or imprison any man who may undertake to release them from the “necessary evils” of slavery. A slaveholder from necessity is one who holds slaves because holding them is a necessary condition of robbing them.
6. But the church has no right to ask a man to give away his property and impoverish himself. Yes, the church has a right to require a man to restore stolen property, and this is the kind of property slaves are. As to impoverishing slaveholders, there is danger of that, but poverty is no crime and is often good for the soul. It is better to be a Lazarus in this world with his future, than a Dives with his future. And besides, there is no law of God allowing a man to roll in wealth acquired by robbery.
7. Nothing can be said against some slaveholders only that they hold slaves. In every other respect they are christian-like in their conduct, and it seems hard to exclude such fine people from the church.
Alas that any christian should speak of slaveholding as “only” a small objection. But one sin may ruin the soul. Some men are in every respect excellent persons except that they are addicted to intemperate habits, to lying, or to licentiousness—shall they therefore be excused for their besetting sin, and allowed to indulge it? One who has cheated a poor white neighbor out of only one year’s toil, ought never to be admitted into the church until he makes restitution. So in the case of a slaveholder—let him be just to every creature of God—let him give up his idol or serve it in its appropriate temple, and not disgrace the church of God with its image and worshiper.
8. It has been maintained that slaveholders should be taken into the church that they may come under the direct influence of the gospel, the tendency of which is to destroy slavery. We answer—a. The same reason might be urged with equal force for the admission of the drunkard, liar, thief or adulterer.
b. Experience proves that slaveholders, when admitted to church fellowship, are not more likely to emancipate their slaves than others. They are apt to settle down in the belief that it is right to hold slaves, and the height of impertinence for any one to meddle with them about it. A minister in Kentucky, Rev. Mr. Fee, who is well acquainted with this subject from experience and actual observation, says of the slaveholder—“The way to lull his conscience on the subject is, to bring him into the church in the practice of his sin. I know repeated instances of persons whose consciences and hearts, at the time of their awakening, seemed to be tender on the subject of slaveholding. But after they had been fully received, and a few comfortable meetings passed over, they became wholly indifferent; and after hearing or reading one or two pro-slavery sermons, declaring slavery to be a Bible institution, they were almost ready to seize the torch, and apply the fires of persecution to the individual who would disturb their Zion. The place to induce the slaveholder to give up his sin is at the time, or before, he enters the door of the church; before he has been pronounced as being in a salvable state; for ‘all that a man hath will he give for his life.’”
But this is no abstruse question as “cotton Divines” would persuade us. Slaveholding is a wicked business and must be treated as such. It is impossible to treat it as such while fellowship is extended to slaveholders. The christian is bound to refuse that fellowship. If any branch of the church officially or practically sanctions slavery and endorses the piety of slaveholders, then, in order to be consistent and safe, a christian must come out of that church, because in it, he will be a partaker of its sins and a sufferer of its plagues.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
Political Duties of Christians.
THE EXTIRPATION OF SLAVERY FROM THE WORLD.
Civil government is necessary to the preservation, prosperity and safety of society. In some important sense, “the powers that be, are ordained of God.” It does not appear that the Creator has established any specific form of government, but the genius of christianity is evidently democratic. The leading objects of government are defined to be “the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well.” When a government fails to protect and encourage the good and to punish evil doers,—when it becomes a mighty engine of oppression, the object of its institution is frustrated.
In the United States the voters are responsible for the character of the government. The people are the sovereign rulers. The ballot box controls legislation. If our country is badly governed it is the people’s fault.
The free white people of America are responsible for the existence of American slavery. They could at the ballot box break every yoke. They have the power to release more than three millions of slaves and thereby make heaven and earth rejoice!
A weighty responsibility, therefore, rests upon voters in relation to slavery. If it continue, it will be because they shall will it, and express that will at the ballot box. He who votes for a representative that is pledged to sustain slavery, becomes responsible for that representative’s acts on the slavery question. The responsibility cannot be shifted or dodged. Representatives consult the will of their constituents and act as they wish them to act. They are only the people’s agents, the echo of the people’s voice.
In the light of these facts how can a christian vote for a slaveholder or a friend of slavery? How can he, by his vote, say that slavery shall be perpetual? Every pulsation of a christian’s heart beats in harmony with liberty; he could not have slaves in his own hands. How then can he, how dare he, by his vote, chain them and deliver them over to the slave driver? It is mean and wicked for a strong man to beat a weak one, but it is equally as mean and wicked to hold the weak man so that the strong one may beat him at his leisure and with ease. So it is bad to own a slave and tax his sinews, sweat and blood, to beat and bruise him, but it is equally wrong to hold the slave while the southern slaveholder does the same thing. Hence, he who votes for pro-slavery representatives, votes for slavery and all its swarms of evils, and is indirectly a slaveholder himself.
Let it be distinctly understood, then, that political power has been entrusted to the christian people of America by the God of nations, who holds them responsible for its proper exercise; and that acting politically is a serious business, affecting the interests directly, in this country, of twenty millions of freemen, and more than three millions of slaves; and also affecting indirectly, the interests of the whole human family.
If the supporters of slavery continue to control the policy of the American government; to trample under foot the “higher law;” to render the Declaration of Independence a nullity; to denationalize liberty; to nationalize slavery and perpetuate and extend it; and thus to belie all our professions of Democracy, and render this government a Godless tyrant, delighting in crushed hopes and hearts—then the whole human race may weep. That our government has been progressing toward this terrible consummation for the last thirty years is but too evident.
The Declaration of Independence is a sound anti-slavery document. It does not regard the right of all men to liberty as an unsettled opinion or a question to be proved by abstruse argument, but pronounces it a “SELF EVIDENT TRUTH.”
The Constitution in form if not in fact, pretty fully embodies the sentiments of the Declaration. The word slave is not found in it, and it was kept out not accidentally, but purposely. The framers of the Constitution carefully guarded that instrument against any endorsement of slavery. In the convention which formed the Constitution, Gov. Morris of Pennsylvania said, “He never would concur in upholding domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution.” Mr. Getry, of Massachusetts, in the same convention said, “we had nothing to do with the conduct of the States as to slavery, but we ought to be very careful not to give any sanction to it.” The idea that there could be property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution. It was about to be foisted into that instrument by the adoption of a report of a committee fixing a tax on importations. But Mr. Sherman was against “acknowledging men to be property, by taxing them as such under the character of slaves.” Madison “thought it wrong to admit in the constitution the idea that there could be property in man.” But if the idea of property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution, then it is clear that chattel slavery is not in form recognized, much less established by that instrument.
It is evident that the framers of the Constitution expected the speedy abolition of slavery; and hence, while providing in fact though not in form, for its continuance under the constitution, by virtue of local State laws, they so framed that instrument that it would not countenance slavery or deny the glorious doctrines of the immortal Declaration, which contained what Mr. Sumner calls “the national heart, the national soul, the national will, and the national voice.”[23]
Washington said “That it was among his first wishes to see some plan adopted, by which slavery may be abolished by law.”
Adams regarded slavery as “a sacrilegious breach of trust.”
Hamilton considered slaves, “though free by the law of God, held in slavery by the laws of men.”
Jefferson said that the “abolition of domestic slavery was the greatest object of desire.”
Patrick Henry said—“I will not, I cannot justify it.”
Benj. Franklin, when 84 years of age, came up before Congress with a petition from the “Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, praying that body to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men, who alone, in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage, and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen are groaning in servile subjection.” This petition besought Congress to “step to the VERY VERGE of the power vested in them for discouraging every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow men.”
These facts afford conclusive evidence, that the founders of the American Republic did not intend to fasten upon the object of their toils, perils and sacrifices, a monster which would speedily eat out its virtue, destroy its vitality and overthrow it forever.
But the policy of the government has been reversed. Millions of acres of territory have been purchased and annexed to make room for slavery, which has become a great national pet—the god before whom aspiring politicians must kneel and worship as a condition of political elevation.
The President of the United States and his Cabinet, the Supreme Court, and both Houses of Congress are all under the control of the Slaveocracy. No man can be a President of the United States unless he bows the knee and swears upon the altar of this modern Baal. Zeal for the infamous Fugitive Slave Law is now a particular test of political orthodoxy. A Congressman who advocates the principles of Washington, Franklin and Jefferson is considered as standing outside of any “healthy organization” and is not deemed worthy of a place on the most insignificant Congressional committee. Our government has been thoroughly changed from an anti-slavery to a pro-slavery government.
In view of these facts how important that the concentrated moral and political power of every American christian be brought to the rescue of our great Republic from the sin and shame of its present position.
Christians, in the States where slavery exists, are under obligations to use their whole political and moral power to bring about the speedy repeal of the entire slave code. That code is a miserable barbarism and should be swept away forever from the statutes of Christian States. My christian brethren in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, are you prepared to use all the power, moral and political, with which you are entrusted, as you shall answer to God, for the emancipation of your suffering fellow citizens? Your political influence must tell somewhere! Remember that.
Christians in the free States are obliged to do what is in their power for the repeal of all laws which bear upon the colored man because he is a colored man. The word “white” ought to be erased from the statutes of all christian States. All “black laws” are anti-democratic, anti-christian, and not only insult and annoy, but discourage the colored man and obstruct his progress in the path of improvement.—Christian brethren of the free States, you have not done your duty toward your colored brother. You have sustained laws which gall his neck as a heavy yoke. You have treated him as an alien and an enemy. Will you henceforth do him justice, as you shall answer to God?
Christian citizens of all the States are directly responsible for the existence of slavery in the District of Columbia, and they should not be content until that foul pollution is wiped away from the Capital of our country. Slavery at Washington is especially a national disgrace, a blistering shame, a satire upon our professions.
When the foreign minister or visitor comes to our country, and goes to Washington, he sees in the streets, at the hotels, and everywhere, a poor, stupid, oppressed people, whose very speech and looks betray their ignorance and servility. Ah! Is this American freedom? Equality? Republicanism? Upon inquiry, he finds that one-seventh of all the people are in this state of servile wretchedness.
And when a member of Congress from a free State goes to the proud Capital of his country, he beholds passing by the tall and splendid buildings of the government, droves of men, women and children, chained together,—some sullenly indifferent to their fate—others weeping as if their hearts would break.—Who are these? American citizens!
Men, as white as some members of Congress, and women as fair as their wives and as virtuous as their daughters, are cried off at auction to the highest bidder, in Washington!
There our senators and representatives sit and legislate, in sight of the slave prison, and slave market—in hearing of the clanking of chains, and coffles,—and of the wail of slave mothers, weeping for their children, because they are
“Gone, gone, sold and gone.”
They are also responsible for the extension of slavery into territory now free. If they go not to the utmost verge of their power to save the Lord’s free earth from the overspreading and blighting curse of slavery, they cannot but be execrated by an enlightened posterity.
But more than all this. A christian is a citizen of the world, and hence is required to employ the whole force of his moral and political power for the extirpation of slavery from every State in the Union, and from every country on the globe. The influence of an intelligent, active christian citizen is worldwide. He cannot be the dupe or tool of any party; he is never shackled by party organizations; he does not commit the keeping of his conscience to political leaders. He sincerely loves God, believes the Bible, and loves his fellow-men, because they are men. Prejudice, caste, and all other relics of barbarism, he has thrown away. He talks, votes and prays for universal liberty and righteousness. In the pulpit, in the shop, on the farm, anywhere, everywhere the whole weight of his influence is thrown against slavery in the territories, in the District of Columbia, in the States, and against it wherever it exists in the world. As he seeks for the physical, intellectual and moral improvement and happiness of all men, he must desire intensely the speedy extirpation of slavery from the earth.
Christian voter, when you approach the ballot box, think of the three millions of bondmen who are holding up their hands “all manacled and bleeding,” pleading to you for deliverance!
[CHAPTER XV.]
Abolition of Slavery.
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION.
“Long has thy night of sorrow been,
Without a star to cheer the scene.
Nay; there was One that watched and wept,
When thou didst think all mercy slept;
That eye which beams with love divine
Where all celestial glories shine.
Justice shall soon the sceptre take;
The scourge shall fall, the tyrant quake.
Hark! ’tis the voice of One from heaven;
The word, the high command is given,
‘Break every yoke, loose every chain,
To usher in the Savior’s reign.’”
Many persons, who appear to be sensible of the evils of slavery, seem utterly at a loss for some feasible method of abolishing it. “It is here in our midst,” say they, “and how are we to get rid of it?”
To this question we have a plain scriptural answer. “Loose the bands of wickedness,”—“undo the heavy burdens,”—“Let the oppressed go free,”—“break every yoke,”—“proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
Immediate, unconditional, universal emancipation is the only just, the only reasonable and the only possible method of adjusting the slavery question. To this measure the people of the United States must come. A general Jubilee is inevitable. Slavery is an unmitigated wrong. Every element of it is at variance with the happiness of man and the law of God. It is without a single redeeming principle, and hence its destruction—its total annihilation is necessary.
Since the gigantic wrongs of slavery have been so generally made known as somewhat to arouse the public conscience from its long sleep, some writers, anxious to preserve the system, have proposed to reform it. They say, “Slavery, of itself, is a very innocent relation, but its evils are horrible. Let us correct the evils and preserve the system.”
But slavery cannot be reformed, so as to make it a tolerable institution because its essential feature—viz, property in a human being, is, wherever imposed, an outrageous, an insufferable wrong. Who would think of reforming robbery—of making laws to regulate robbers in their trade—and to prevent brutal men from engaging in it? What if it should be enacted by grave senators that none but gentlemen should rob, and that they must do it genteelly—using no unnecessary cruelty or coercion? All the world would laugh such senators to scorn. But slavery is from beginning to end a system of robbery, which it is as impossible to reform, so as to take away its “evils,” as it is to so reform piracy as to destroy its evils, and make it a humane, just and christian trade.
But the American slaves, it is maintained, are not prepared for freedom. This objection is without foundation. God creates men free, and sends them forth into the world with such endowments as are needed in a state of freedom, and as are suited to no other state. To say that a race, which God has created free, is unprepared for freedom is to reproach the Maker. Freedom is the native element of man. And
“The heavens, the earth, man’s heart and sea,
Forever cry, let all be free!”
“Not prepared for freedom?” This has been the watchword of oppressors in all ages. The “people,” the uninformed “masses,” have, in the estimation of tyrants, always been prepared for slavery and injustice of every kind, but never for freedom. And it has ever been their policy to render them less fit for any station or any responsibility in life. They never put forth an effort to prepare their victims for any higher business than obsequious submission to usurped authority. True to this spirit, those who are most noisy about the unfitness of slaves for freedom, are most zealous for the maintenance of those odious laws and usages which shut them out from all chance of mental and moral culture.
And if the slaves are unprepared for freedom, what is to prepare them for it? Their present degradation is owing to slavery, and it is not likely that the continuance of the cause of their degradation will elevate them. Remove the cause, and the effect will cease. Emancipate the colored man, open to him our schools and colleges, place before him motives for action such as animate freemen, and swell the hearts of Christians, give him an opportunity and he will prove himself every whit a MAN. How mean and hypocritical the objection, that slaves are not prepared for freedom, when we employ the whole weight of our laws and prejudices to crush out their manhood, and as far as possible unfit them for any condition except that of working animals.
But thousands of slaves have fled from their oppressors, and, in the midst of the greatest difficulties and embarrassments, have not only proved themselves prepared for freedom, but also to take a position amongst the most cultivated and honored freemen.
The half-free colored people of the United States prove themselves worthy of all the rights of American citizens.
There are now in Canada about 35,000 fugitive slaves; and no people have ever entered upon the possession of freedom under more embarrassing circumstances. They were born in chains. The iron yoke had galled their necks. Their backs had felt the keen lash. In their flight they were pursued by hungry blood-hounds and more hungry marshals.—Naked, broken in spirit, impoverished and uneducated, they reached a cold, ungenial clime. But they were free! And those 35,000 escaped slaves are rapidly improving in wealth, intelligence, and in every social virtue. In the town of Buxton 130 families reside who own a body of 9,000 acres of land. The fugitive slaves of Canada West now own 25,000 acres of land. Were they not prepared for freedom?
Immediate emancipation worked admirably in the British West Indies. The masters were not murdered by the emancipated slaves, as was predicted, but good order reigned everywhere. The liberated people have been rapidly improving in intelligence and wealth.—The terrible wrongs and miseries of slavery are no more. Rev. Mr. Richardson, a missionary in Jamaica, speaking of the moral condition of those islands, says:
“Marriage is much more common than formerly, and the blessings of the family and social relations are much more extensively enjoyed. The Sabbath is also more generally observed. The means of education and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although but little appreciated and improved by the great mass of the people. It is also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming somewhat enlightened. But while this is true, yet their moral condition is very far from being what it ought to be.
“Our brightest hopes and fondest anticipations must and will centre around the YOUTH of this island. I see the hand of Providence steadily urging onward, with resistless might, the car of Progress. Gaunt Prejudice and grim Superstition gradually give way; Darkness and Error recede before the sunlight of Truth; and even the demon of Lust and the giant Intemperance (twin brothers in Satan’s family) are bereft of their power, and chained for a season. I see intelligence, purity, and piety supplanting ignorance, licentiousness, and irreligion, and this moral waste becoming transformed until it blooms and flourishes as the garden of God.”
“Immediate emancipation?” exclaims a fearful friend, “that will never do! Murder, amalgamation, and many other evils will be inevitable consequences of such a measure. Let us colonize the slaves. Send them back to their own country.” To these objections it may be answered,
1. Colored men are not more inclined to murder than are white men. Africans have the same natural dispositions which distinguish other races.
2. Many masters have emancipated their slaves, and thereby secured their undying affection. Liberated slaves have never turned with bloody hands upon their liberators.
3. In the West India Islands 800,000 slaves were emancipated in one day, and although sixteen years have since elapsed, none of the terrible massacres which were predicted by the opponents of the measure have occurred.
4. This fear of the vengeance of emancipated slaves arises, doubtless, from a guilty conscience—or a feeling that it is richly deserved. A highwayman robs a man, and then says, if I let him go he may have me arrested and punished, therefore I will kill him. Americans say, on the same principle, we have most terribly abused our slaves, and hence, if we let them go they will retaliate, therefore, we must continue the wrong for self preservation!
5. As to amalgamation we have only to say that slavery is an extensive system of forced amalgamation. In the free States this much dreaded evil is of rare occurrence. Immediate emancipation would speedily arrest the very thing here deprecated.
a. The colonization scheme is impracticable. Between three and four millions of people can never be shipped off to Africa. It is impracticable to send even the annual increase of the free colored population. There are in America now about twelve millions of colored people, and there is no power, civil or ecclesiastical, which can carry them away to Africa.[24] A few will go and ought to go as missionaries, but the great and rapidly increasing masses are firmly planted on this continent and here they must remain.
b. Forcible colonization is wrong. Colored people have the same right to live in America that white people have. The Creator made the earth for the habitation of man, and He has never surrendered his ownership of it to any government. The colored man has a right to live in any country on the globe—a right derived from the Creator. Has God said that every race under heaven may have a home in America but the African? Never. It is impertinent as well as wicked for one people to say to another, “you shall not live in this State, nor on this continent.” Such people arrogate to themselves a prerogative which Jehovah only possesses.
c. The present popular scheme of colonization leaves unquestioned the title of the slaveholder, encourages the doctrine that the Bible sanctions the institution, appeals to the basest prejudices of the American people to induce them to countenance the scheme, and encourages the enactment of such laws as now disgrace the statutes of several of the free States, in order, it would seem, to harrass the free colored man until he shall be compelled to flee from the land of his birth to a distant shore for refuge. One who speaks what he knows, says,
“I speak the words of soberness and truth when I say that the most inveterate, the most formidable, the deadliest enemy of the peace, prosperity, and happiness of the colored population of the United States, is that system of African colonization which originated in and is perpetuated by a worldly, Pharaoh-like policy beneath the dignity of a magnanimous and Christian people;—a system which receives much of its vitality from ad captandum appeals to popular prejudices, and to the unholy, groveling passions of the canaille;—a system that interposes every possible obstacle in the way of the improvement and elevation of the colored man in the land of his birth;—that instigates the enactment of laws whose design and tendency are obviously to annoy him, to make him feel, while at home, that he is a stranger and a pilgrim—nay more,—to make him ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked;’—to make him ‘a hissing and a by-word,’ ‘a fugitive and a vagabond’ throughout the American Union;—a system that is so irreconcilably opposed to the purpose of God in making ‘of one blood all nations for to dwell on all the face of the earth,’ that when the dying slaveholder, under the lashes of a guilty conscience, would give to his slaves unqualified freedom, it wickedly interposes, and persuades him that ‘to do justly and love mercy’ would be to inflict an irreparable injury upon the community, and that to do his duty to God and his fellow-creatures, under the circumstances, he should bequeath to his surviving slaves the cruel alternative of either expatriation to a far-off, pestilential clime, with the prospect of a premature death, or perpetual slavery, with its untold horrors, in his native land.”—Watkins.
Many objections are offered against immediate emancipation, but they are evidently mere excuses. This may be laid down as a safe rule: Offer no objection to the manumission of slaves which would not satisfy you were you yourselves the slaves to be manumitted. Tried by this reasonable and scriptural rule all apologies, objections and excuses offered for the perpetuation of human bondage, vanish away. There can be no good reason advanced for the continuance of this curse a single year longer. Too long already has it dishonored our churches and our country. Too many souls have been already involved by it in hopeless ruin. Too many generations of slaves have already gone in sorrow and despair down to their graves. Too long has the public conscience been debauched. Justice, humanity and religion with united voice call for immediate emancipation.
If our free institutions are to be preserved they must be released from the folds and the deadly charm of this monster serpent. Freedom cannot flourish in its coils nor survive in its slimy embrace.
Individual and national repentance and reformation only can avert the terrible judgments of an offended God. The cries of the oppressed have gone up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and he will be avenged speedily.
“We have offended. O! my countrymen!
We have offended very grievously;
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces heaven!”
There are not more than one hundred and twenty thousand slaveholders in the United States, and it would be easy for them to settle this whole question in one year or even in a day. Let them simply be honest, be just, obey the Bible, overcome their pride, avarice, prejudices and lusts, and the work will be done. The example of Freeborn Garretson is commended to the special attention of all slaveholders, and especially of those who profess religion. This good man says:
“As I stood with a book in my hand, in the act of giving out a hymn, this thought powerfully struck my mind: ‘It is not right for you to keep your fellow-creatures in bondage; you must let the oppressed go free.’ I knew it to be that same blessed voice which had spoken to me before. Till then I had not suspected that the practice of slave-keeping was wrong; I had not read a book on the subject, nor been told so by any. I paused a minute, and then replied, ‘Lord, the oppressed shall go free.’ And I was as clear of them in my mind, as if I had never owned one. I told them they did not belong to me, and that I did not desire their services without making them a compensation. I was now at liberty to proceed in worship. After singing, I kneeled to pray. Had I the tongue of an angel, I could not fully describe what I felt: all my dejection, and that melancholy gloom which preyed upon me, vanished in a moment, and a divine sweetness ran through my whole frame.
“It was God, not man, that taught me the impropriety of holding slaves: and I shall never be able to praise him enough for it. My very heart has bled, since that, for slaveholders, especially those who made a profession of religion; for I believe it to be a crying sin.”
[CHAPTER XVI.]
What of the Night?
HOPE THOU IN GOD.
Are there any prospects that the long and dreary night of American despotism will speedily end in a joyous morning?
If we turn our eye towards the political horizon we shall find it overspread with heavy clouds portentous of evil to the oppressed. The government of the United States is intensely pro-slavery. The great political parties, with which the masses of the people act, vie with each other in their supple and obsequious devotion to the slaveocracy. The wise policy of the fathers of the Republic to confine slavery within very narrow limits, so that it would speedily die out and be supplanted by freedom, has been abandoned; the whole spirit of our policy has been reversed—and our national government seems chiefly concerned for the honor, perpetuation and extension of slavery.
The powerful religious denominations have been following in the wake of the state. Their ancient and bold testimony against slavery has been expurgated from their confessions and disciplines, or completely neutralized.—Slavery as it is receives their unqualified sanction. The giant Christian publication societies of the day so completely ignore the question of slavery that a reader of all their books would not suspect that millions of slaves are groaning under an iron yoke in this country. Dark as a starless, moonless midnight, is the aspect presented by the heavens of the popular religious denominations.
American prejudice is yet very powerful. The polite, educated, and talented free colored traveler is exposed, in most parts of the Union, to the coarsest insults from this gaunt demon. He feels everywhere its hellish power. One who was more than twenty years a slave presents in the following eloquent language a true picture of the present anomalous condition of the children of Ham in the midst of the general joy of freedom:
“The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew and the Gentile, all find in this goodly land a home; and when any of them, or all of them, desire to speak, they find willing ears, warm hearts, and open hands. For these people, the Americans have principles of justice, maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and feelings of brotherhood in abundance. But for my poor people, (alas, how poor!)—enslaved, scourged, blasted, overwhelmed, and ruined, it would appear that America had neither justice, mercy, nor religion. She has no scales in which to weigh our wrongs, and no standard by which to measure our rights.... Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which has known us for two centuries, among a people who did not wait for us to seek them, but who sought us, found us, and brought us to their own chosen land,—a people for whom we have performed the humblest services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from the soil by our sable and sinewy arms,—I say, sir, among such a people, and with such obvious recommendations to favor, we are far less esteemed than the veriest stranger and sojourner.... We are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities—human and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name of the immortal declaration of independence, and of the written constitution of government, and we are answered with imprecations and curses. In the sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the slave-whip, red with blood, cracks over us in mockery.... We cry for help to humanity—a common humanity, and here too we are repulsed. American humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very personality. The outspread wing of American christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones are brass, and its feathers iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only fled from the hungry bloodhound to the devouring wolf,—from a corrupt and selfish world to a hollow and hypocritical church.”—Fred. Douglass.
But dark as is this picture, there is still hope. The exorbitant demands of the slave power, the extreme measures it adopts, the deep humiliation to which it subjects political aspirants, will produce a reaction. Inflated with past success it is throwing off its mask and revealing its hideous proportions. It is now proving itself the enemy of all freedom.
The extreme servility of the popular churches is opening the eyes of many earnest people to the importance of taking a bolder position. They are finding out that it is a duty to come out from churches which sanction the vilest iniquity that ever existed, or exhaust their zeal for the oppressed in tame resolves, never to be executed.
The truth is gaining ground that slaveholding is a great sin, that slaveholders are great sinners, and that he who apologises for the system is a participator in the guilt and shame.
Free mission societies, reform publication societies, and free churches are rising up all over the country, in the free and in the slave States. They take their stand upon a solid Bible platform, and their power will be rapidly augmented until the strongholds of oppression will tremble at their approach.
Literature is coming to the rescue of the slave, and even now is pleading his cause with astonishing power in all the languages of christendom.
Christianity is on the side of the slave, and its true spirit is beginning to be practically applied.
Thousands of devout persons are found day and night pleading with God for the speedy deliverance of the captive.
But a voice from heaven is heard saying, “Hope thou in God.” God is on the side of the oppressed. He will never abandon them. He approves their cause, hears their cries, and is interested in all their movements. Those millions of colored Americans are now in the fiery furnace, but He will bring them out. From their house of bondage they will come forth, and accomplish a glorious mission on the earth. God has reserved for them some of the grandest achievements in music, poetry, science, arts, morals, freedom and religion. Never has he permitted a people to be more deeply humbled, and none will in the end be more highly exalted. God’s ways are not as our ways. He can make the wrath of man to praise him.
The day of deliverance is not distant. God is stirring up the nations. The slavery question is agitating the whole enlightened world. It cannot be put to rest. Politicians pronounce it dead and solemnly bury it, but it rises before the third day and confronts them in every assembly. Church councils resolve to let it alone, but it will not let them alone. They hate agitation, and cry for peace, but are answered, “first pure, then peaceable.”
God of liberty! hasten the hour when the reddening East shall authorize the joyful announcement to American bondsmen—“the morning cometh.” Till then let us “TOIL AND TRUST.”