The Way to Abolish Slavery

by Charles Stearns

What a picture has just been presented before this nation! A new territory, free from Slavery, demands protection from its awful curse. A large majority of all the people in the United States, treat this prayer with contempt, and virtually say it shall not be granted by voting for candidates for the presidency, known to be in favor of its admission there. Here the mangled victims of Slavery, have these 50 years, lain bleeding upon the plantations of the South, loudly calling upon our government to desist from protecting their cruel masters; but their cries have been stifled by the clamor of noisy politicians, who have talked of the necessity of preserving our glorious Union, at whatever expense to the crushed and manacled Slave.

A new era seemed about to commence. The question is obtruded upon the whole country, and becomes the pivot upon which the presidential election is made to turn. Shall these cries of three millions of Slaves be made louder and more acute, or shall a barrier be interposed between them, and all increase of their sufferings? Shall Mexico be the slough of despondency, into whose terrible mire shall be cast the gasping Slave, and a new mart be opened for the gratification of men who examine the bodies of their victims, as a man does a horse he is about to purchase, and women as well as men; or shall a sword of cherubic power, guard all entrance to this country, as the angel's sword protected the garden of Eden?

This was the question brought before the people of this country at the last election, and how was it decided? Let history shrink back astonished as she pens the degrading fact, that the whole country was rocked with emotion, and reeled with the mighty efforts put forth, to place a man in the presidential chair known to be in favor of this extension. It needs no argument to prove the turpitude of such a people. Their guilt is self-evident, their hypocrisy glaring. It stares all the world in its face, like the lurid flames of hell, ascending from their subterranean enclosure. Guilt, did we say? There are no terms in the English language sufficiently strong to describe the wickedness of this transaction; and yet the church participated in it. No warning voice was heard from her public bodies arousing her members to opposition to this direful deed. On the contrary, many of her ministers volunteered to help forward the accursed transaction. The piety of Gen. Taylor was vouched for by reverend fathers in God; and saints of the most high, were found bowing in reverential adoration before this Juggernaut. Few and far between were the voices of single ministers, in opposition to this course; and now that the deed is done, who exclaims against it? Who comes out from the churches where these guilty men rule? Who refuses to hear ministers preach or pray who voted for Gen. Taylor? What society has yet dismissed its minister for so doing? What church has passed resolutions in opposition to the recognition of such men as Christian ministers? Why, a highway robber has as good a claim to the character of a Christian minister, as one has who voted for Gen. Taylor.

We have yet to learn of the first church ejecting a member for this flagitious transaction; and yet voting for Taylor is as much worse than common stealing, as a man is of more value than a beast or a dollar. By voting for a slave-holding warrior, you say that Slavery is right, reputable, and worthy of praise. Instead of frowning upon the slave-holder, as you would upon the horse-thief, you elevate him to the highest office in your gift; thus doing all in your power to render slave-holding honorable. It is just as great a crime to aid in elevating a slave-holder to the presidency, as it is to hold Slaves. It does more to uphold Slavery; for it says we will heap the highest honors of society upon slave-holders. We will place them where all their influence can be used to strengthen the system; and it serves to shut the mouths of Anti-Slavery men; for it will not do to cry out against slave-holders as robbers, when our President is a slave-holder.

Besides this, a very large portion of the church cast their votes for a man pledged to go for the extension of Slavery, although not nominally a slave-holder. Gen. Cass justified the extension of Slavery, and argued in favor of the unconstitutionality of prohibiting its extension; and thousands of votes were cast for him, by church members. To their praise be it said, many church members and ministers refused to vote for either of these men; but what action have they taken in their churches in reference to those who did? If such acts as these are to be passed over, in silence, then is the sanction of the church given to slave-holding, and the extension of Slavery. Recollect that the question was not, should Slavery exist at all? On that question there might have been some excuse for inaction; but it was should it be extended over a territory nearly half as large as the whole of the United States? It would seem as if Christians could not have hesitated a moment on this point; as if the whole host of God's elect, as the church claims to be, would have been marshalled in battle array against the myrmidons of the slave-power. But no, a death like silence pervades the entire church upon this point. It matters not to her whether Slavery "covers the earth, as the waters cover the sea," or not. Her "mission is to let it alone." To cry out against gambling, whoredom, Sabbath breaking, and such unpopular sins, is her duty; but to advance before public opinion, and create a purer one, is no part of her work. She is so engaged in saving souls, she has no time to attend to the bodies of the people. But seriously, is it not a terrible state of things when the churches of our land are asleep over such a dreadful evil? When the voice of the watchman is but faintly heard, if at all, in rebuke of the most heaven daring of crimes? We appeal to all who are in the habit of attending church. Does your minister every Sunday, exclaim against the horrid enormities of extending Slavery, to say nothing of it where it now is? Do you hear from his lips as severe denunciations of those engaged in this wicked business, as fell from the lips of Jesus Christ, as he reproved the oppressors of his day? No, you do not, only occasionally. It is considered a rare instance of courage if a minister dares to rebuke his people for having voted for Gen. Taylor?

What, then, is to be done in the matter? That the church at the North upholds Slavery can no longer be denied, for she goes farther, and upholds its extension; yea, farther yet, she countenances fighting for its increased power, murdering men, women and children, that it may exist, where it could not without this fighting. O, shame on a church having in its folds a single member who cast a vote for that most wicked of men—Gen. Zachary Taylor! But declamation will avail nothing without action. We propose a remedy for all this wickedness. We call upon all true friends of the Slave to leave those churches where ministers or members voted for Taylor or Cass. Further, we invite you all to make a critical examination of your relations to Southern slave-holding churches, and see if your associations, your conferences, or your conventions, are not in league with slave-holders, or with those who are allied with them. If you belong to a church not having a single member in it who voted for Taylor or Cass; yet if your church fellowships those churches having such members, are you not a pro-slavery church? To fellowship the churches who retain pro-slavery voters, is to say that such voting is not wrong. But if you cut loose from all such relations, do you not fellowship northern churches, who have slave-holders themselves in their bounds; for instance the northern Methodist Church, having still slave-holding members?

But if you are clear from all such connections, there is still another point we beg leave to submit to your serious consideration, which brings us to the second great pillar the statue of Slavery stands upon. You have seen the influence given to the system by the church; now look at the power given to it by the Government. This is the principal foothold of the dreadful system. Destroy this prop, and Slavery falls; but before advancing to this position in our argument, let us see for a moment how Slavery is acknowledged by law; for it is in this relation we are about to contemplate it.

The Government of the United States creates no Slaves; it only recognises as lawful the Slavery existing in the several States, or to use the words of the Constitution, "held to service or labor, under the laws thereof." The laws of the several slave-holding States are made the standard for the general government's action upon this subject. No quibble can possibly evade this, for it is not necessary to prove that a runaway Slave justly owes service to his master, but only if he does, under the the laws of his master. The master has made certain laws, claiming his Slaves as absolute property; the Constitution says, "persons owing service under these laws," shall be returned, thus making the most complete provision for the support of the system. The laws of the State in which the claimant lives, are the rule to go by, not the feelings of the judge, respecting the abstract question of the possibility of one human being owing compulsory service to another. It is just as much a violation of his oath, for a judge to refuse to deliver a Slave proved to be such, under the laws of the State, without "a bill of sale from the Almighty," as the Vermont judge did, as it would be to refuse to deliver the Slave with the bill of sale from the Almighty. If it is the bond that we contend for so strictly, as the Jew did for the pound of flesh, we must abide by the bond, which says, not if the Almighty furnishes a bill of sale, shall the Slave be delivered up; but if the laws of the State say he is a Slave. The recent decision of judge Edmonds in behalf of Belt, the most favorable one on record, fully recognises this principle; and Belt owes his liberty not so much to the humanity of the judge, as to the absence of positive proof that the laws of Maryland uphold Slavery. A copy of the Slave laws of Maryland was produced, but it only said published by authority, and not by the authority of the legislature, therefore Belt was allowed to go free. The omission of one word in a book, saved Belt from the jaws of Slavery, more than any other thing. To be sure, it was proved that the master did not take legal steps after the seizure of Belt, and therefore had no right to him; but the main reason for his discharge was, not the wrongfulness of delivering him up, not because God had given Lee no bill of sale, but because a lawyer could not swear that a certain book was the laws of Maryland!

From this decision there is no appeal, until a higher authority has decided differently. All that a slave-hunter has to do, is merely to bring an attested copy of the laws of the State, in which he lives, and prove that in such a State he held the person claimed as his Slave, and there is no redress for the panting fugitive. He must be returned to his former bondage, without any power to protect him from the punishment his master may choose to inflict upon him in consequence of his escape. Thus is Slavery legalized by our laws; and if we cannot expect a higher standard of morality than what the church upholds, certainly we cannot expect practices to cease, which the government pronounces lawful. People are not generally so much in advance of their laws and religion, as to refuse to perpetrate what those laws and that religion justify, and pronounce honorable. Thus the whole influence of jurisprudence, and church action, is thrown around Slavery. Is it any wonder, that it exists in so much power, and now seeks to extend its sway over new territory? What then is necessary to be done to remove this prop from under the colossal statue of Slavery? Plainly, to repeal all laws recognising its existence. Do this, and refuse to obey any of the claims of the South in reference to this matter, and Slavery ceases as soon as the earth would cease to turn upon its axis, if the Almighty should remove his hand from the crank of the mighty wheel. Or to drop all figure, as soon as the Slaves should arise and assert their liberty; which would be almost instantly, if it were not for the North. We are so hemmed in now by compromises and promises, that even in the act of voting not to extend Slavery, we unconsciously pledge ourselves to sustain it where it now exists.

But let us examine another point a few moments. What gives 250,000 slave-holders power to hold 3,000,000 of Slaves in bondage? Not the power of non-slave-holders at the South, for they could not be relied on, in case of an insurrection. They suffer so much now in consequence of the degradation Slavery attaches to labor, and are so impoverished by its influence, that few and faint would be the blows they would strike in behalf of slave-holders; as a body they are envious of the slave-holders, and would like to see him deprived of all his Slaves. They gain nothing by the existence of Slavery, but on the contrary suffer much; for the labor of Slaves is so cheap, that their services are not demanded; and they are not respected as a general thing, except in those sections of country where but a few slave-holders reside. What motive have they to put down a Slave insurrection? There is not a man of them but would be more independent than the present slave-holders, if Slavery was abolished; for there is so much land lying idle at the South, that the Slaves after emancipation would be under no necessity of working for their former masters. It would not be with them as it is with the free laborer of the North; for their power would be so great, that they could take possession of the best plantations, and leave their masters to look out for themselves; and the latter being unused to labor would be miserably off, which would reduce them to a worse condition, than that of the poor whites, who would immediately become the aristocracy of the South. In fact, if an insurrection of the Slaves should take place, there is not much doubt but it would be encouraged by the non-slave-holders of the South. Who, then, give the 250,000 slave-holders of the South their power? Let the winds of heaven answer, as they blow across the fertile fields of the South, and waft the scent of the cotton, rice and sugar plantations, to the nostrils of the money-loving northerners. Let the cargoes of bleached cottons and handsome prints, slave-tools, hats, boots and shoes, whiskey, and all other northern goods, as they sail into southern ports, testify. Let the ships freighted with produce from one southern port to another, the great carrying trade, for which our fathers bartered their virtue, loudly respond. There goes not a vessel from the North to Savannah, Charleston or New Orleans, but it carries within its timbers and on its decks, proof to the slave-holder of northern readiness to sustain him in his foul business. In proof of this, let me ask who voted for Taylor at the recent election more than the great merchants of the North? Did not capitalists universally cry out, "Great is Zachary Taylor!" Was not Abbott Lawrence, the prince of northern manufacturers, loudest in his professions of zeal for "Old Zach?" Go throughout our country, up and down all its cities and villages, and enquire who in those places voted for Taylor, and you will be told that the great manufacturers, the rich merchants of those towns and cities did. That they poured out their ill-gotten gains in behalf of Gen. Taylor's election; that the South might be pleased, and northern industry protected! Perish the word industry from the vocabulary of man, if this is the basis upon which it rests. What! northern industry only protected by electing the greatest of idlers to the presidential chair? Who feels less sympathy for northern workingmen than the man who drives three hundred laborers to their daily toil, with the crack of the whip sounding in their ears, and who robs them of nearly all their earnings, and forces them to live in a state of prostitution? Is such a man a friend to the rights of northern laborers?