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.