The sale of a slave member of the church provoked rather drastic action by the Assembly of 1818,[147] but in the same proceedings it expressed its sympathy for those upon whom slavery had been entailed as “a great and most virtuous part of the community abhor slavery, and wish its extermination as sincerely as any others.”
The Assembly of 1825 said:
We notice with pleasure the enlightened attention which has been paid to the religious instruction and evangelization of the unhappy slaves and free people of color of our country in some regions of our church.... No more honored name can be conferred on a minister of Jesus Christ than that of Apostle to the American Slaves; and no service can be more pleasing to the God of Heaven or more useful to our beloved country than that which this title designates.
The slavery question came up again in 1836 when the church was pretty well divided. There was a majority report which recommended taking no action, and a minority report which strongly opposed slavery. The majority report was accepted by the assembly.[148] Twenty-eight members protested this action of the assembly. The Presbyterians had an anti-slavery element all along that they could not control. This element separated from the church in 1821 and called itself the Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church.[149] There was a second element, calling itself the New School, that based its action very largely on slavery. This element kept up an anti-slavery propaganda, repeating in 1846 and in 1849, the slavery declaration of 1818. The southern and more conservative element was able to control the assembly, and in 1853 the New School element withdrew from the church.[150] This was the last division in the church until the guns fired on Fort Sumter.
The attitude of the Tennessee Presbyterians on slavery was well expressed by the Synod of Tennessee in 1817, in an address to the American Colonization Society. This memorial, after congratulating the society upon its purpose, said:
We wish you, therefore, to know, that within our bounds the public sentiment appears clearly and decidedly in your favor.... We ardently wish that your exertions and the best influence of all philanthropists may be united, to meliorate the condition of human society, and especially of its most degraded classes, till liberty, religion, and happiness shall be the enjoyment of the whole family of man.[151]
There were several very prominent anti-slavery Presbyterian leaders in Tennessee, among both the laymen and the clergymen. Judge S. J. W. Lucky was a prominent example of a layman who was an active anti-slavery worker. Hon. John Blair, who was a ruling elder and representative of his district in Congress for twelve years, became convinced that slavery was wrong, and offered to give a bill of sale of his slaves to Dr. David Nelson. He was unable to see any practical way out of slavery.[152]
Among the ministers were three who did valuable service in the cause of freedom. Rev. John Rankin’s work as an anti-slavery leader has been noticed in another connection. He was one of the pioneers in the cause. Rev. Dr. David Nelson, a native of Washington County, and brother-in-law of Chief Justice James W. Frederick, was one of the most determined anti-slavery men in the country.[153] He had to be saved from a mob for proposing to his congregation to take a subscription with which to buy and colonize slaves. He was eloquent in promoting colonization.[154] Rev. E. T. Brantley, a West Tennessee Presbyterian minister, said of him: “He cordially disapproved of slavery. He found no justification of it anywhere. All look forward to the extinction of slavery.... If the North could be aware of the progress of anti-slavery sentiment at the South, particularly among Christians, they would think the day of emancipation had already dawned.”[155] Rev. Dr. Ross, of Tennessee, was one of the most able leaders in Presbyterianism in the South. He was the spokesman of Southern Presbyterianism in the general assembly, which met at Buffalo in May, 1853. It was in this assembly that the committee on slavery recommended that a committee consisting of one member from each of the synods of Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and Virginia, be appointed to investigate the slaveholding members of the church on the following points, and report to the next general assembly:
1. The number of slaveholders in connection with the churches, and the number of slaves held by them.
2. The extent to which slaves are held, from an unavoidable necessity imposed by the laws of the States, the obligation of guardianship, and the demands of humanity.