Slavery Ordained of God

by F. A. Ross

I agree with you then, sir, fully, that some men have been, are, and will be, made infidels by hearing that God, in the Bible, has ordained slavery. But I hold this to be no argument against the fact that the Bible does so teach, because men are made infidels by any other doctrine or precept they hate to believe.

Sir, no man has said all this better than you. And I cannot express my grief that you--in the principle now avowed, that every man must interpret the Bible as he chooses to reason and feel--sanction all the infidelity in the world, obliterate your "Notes" on the Bible, and deny the preaching of your whole life, so far as God may, in his wrath, permit you to expunge or recall the words of the wisdom of your better day.

Testimonies of General Assemblies.

I agree with you that the Presbyterian Church, both before and since its division, has testified, after a fashion, against slavery. But some of its action has been very curious testimony. I know not how the anti-slavery resolutions of 1818 were gotten up; nor how in some Assemblies since. I can guess, however, from what I do know, as to how such resolutions passed in Buffalo in 1853, and in New York in 1856. I know that in Buffalo they were at first voted down by a large majority. Then they were reconsidered in mere courtesy to men who said they wanted to speak. So the resolutions were passed after some days, in which the screws were applied and turned, in part, by female hands, to save the chairman of the committee from the effects of the resolutions being finally voted down!

I know that, in New York, the decision of the Assembly to spread the minority report on the minutes was considered, in the body and out of it, as a Southern victory; for it revealed, however glossed over, that many in the house, who could not vote directly for the minority report, did in fact prefer it to the other.

I was not in Detroit in 1850; but I think it was established in New York last May that that Detroit testimony was so admirably worded that both Southern and Northern men might vote for it with clear consciences!

I need not pursue the investigation. I admit that, after this sort, you have the stultified abstractions of the New School Presbyterian Church,--while I have its common sense; you have its Delphic words,--I have its actions; you have the traditions of the elders making void the word of God,--I have the providence of God restraining the church from destroying itself and our social organization under folly, fanaticism, and infidelity. You, sir, seem to acknowledge this; for, while you appear pleased with the testimony of the New School Presbyterian Church, such as it is, you lament that the Old School have not been true to the resolutions of 1818,--that, in that branch of the church, it is questionable whether those resolutions could now be adopted. You lament the silence of the Episcopal, the Southern Methodist, and the Baptist denominations; you might add the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And you know that in New England, in New York, and in the Northwest, many testify against us as a pro-slavery body. You lament that so many members of the church, ministers of the gospel, and editors of religious papers, defend the system; you lament that so large a part of the religious literature of the land, though having its seat North and sustained chiefly by Northern funds, shows a perpetual deference to the slave-holder; you lament that, after fifty years, nothing has been done to arrest slavery; you lament and ask, "Why should this be so?" In saying this, you acknowledge that, while you have been laboring to get and have reached the abstract testimony of the church, all diluted as it is, the common-sense fact has been and is more and more brought out, in the providence of God, that the slave-power has been and is gaining ground in the United States. In one word, you have contrived to get, in confused utterance, the voice of the Sanhedrim; while Christ himself has been preaching in the streets of our Jerusalem the true meaning of slavery as one form of his government over fallen men.

These, then, are some of the things I promised to show as the results of your agitation. This is the "tone" of the past and present speech of Providence on the subject of slavery. You seem disturbed. I feel sure things are going on well as to that subject. Speak on, then, "in unambiguous tones." But, sir, when you desire to go from words to actions,--when you intimate that the constitution of the Presbyterian Church may be altered to permit such action, or that, without its alteration, the church can detach itself from slavery by its existing laws or the modification of them,--then I understand you to mean that you desire to deal, in fact, with slave-holders as offenders. Then, sir, you mean to exscind the South; for it is absurd to imagine that you suppose the South will submit to such action. You mean, then, to exscind the South, or to exscind yourself and others, or to compel the South to withdraw. Your tract, just published, is, I suppose, intended by you to prepare the next General Assembly for such movement? What then? Will you make your "American Presbyterian," and your Presbyterian House, effect that great change in the religious literature of the land whereby the subject of slave-holding shall be approached precisely as you deal with "theft, highway-robbery, or piracy?" Will you, then, by act of Assembly, Synod, Presbytery, Session, deny your pulpits, and communion-bread and wine, to slave-holding ministers, elders, and members? Will you, then, tell New England, and especially little Rhoda, We have purified our skirts from the blood: forgive us, and take us again to your love? What then? Will you then ostracize the South and compel the abolition of slavery? Sir, do you bid us fear these coming events, thus casting their shadow before from the leaves of your book?

Sir, you may destroy the integrity of the New School Presbyterian Church. So much evil you may do; but you will hereby only add immensely to the great power and good of the Old School; and you will make disclosures of Providence, unfolding a consummation of things very different from the end you wish to accomplish for your country and the world.

I write as one of the animalcules contributing to the coral reef of public opinion.