3. Whether the Southern churches regard the sacredness of the marriage relation as it exists among the slaves; whether baptism is duly administered to the children of the slaves professing Christianity; and, in general, to what extent, and in what manner, provision is made for the religious well-being of the enslaved.[156]
Dr. Ross warmly opposed this action, asserting emphatically that the South never submitted to a scrutiny. He proposed a substitute motion to the effect that “a committee from each of the Northern synods ... be appointed to report to the next general assembly on the following points:
1. The number of Northern church members who traffic with slaveholders, and are seeking to make money by selling them negro clothing, handcuffs, and cowhides.
2. How many Northern church members are concerned, directly or indirectly, in building and fitting out ships for the African slave trade, and the slave-trade between the States?
3. How many Northern church members have sent orders to New Orleans and other Southern cities, to have slaves sold, to pay debts coming to them from the South? (See Uncle Tom’s Cabin.)
4. How many Northern church members buy the cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, oranges, pineapple, figs, ginger, cocoa, melons, and a thousand other things, raised by slave labor?
5. How many Northern church members have intermarried with slaveholders, and have become slaveholders themselves, or enjoy the wealth made by the blood of the slaves, especially if there be any Northern ministers of the Gospel in such a predicament?
6. How many Northern church members are descendants of the men who kidnapped negroes in Africa, and brought them to Virginia and New England, in former years?
7. What is the aggregate and individual wealth of church members thus descended, and what action is best to compel them to disgorge this blood-stained wealth, or to make them give dollar for dollar in equalizing the loss of the South by emancipation?
8. How many Northern church members, ministers especially, have advocated murder in resistance to the laws of the land.