"In one region of country, where I am acquainted, of rather more than THIRTY Presbyterian ministers, including missionaries, TWENTY are farmers, viz. (planters and SLAVEHOLDERS,) ON A PRETTY EXTENSIVE SCALE; three are school teachers; one is a farmer and a teacher; one, a farmer and a merchant, and joint proprietor of iron works, which must be in operation on the Sabbath; and one is a farmer and editor of a political newspaper. These farmers generally superintend their own business. THEY OVERSEE THEIR NEGROES, attend to their stock, make purchases, and visit the markets to make sale of their crops. They necessarily have much intercourse with their neighbors on worldly business, and not unfrequently come into unpleasant collision with the merchants."
O, Sir, what a revelation of things is here! These are not the calumnies of George Thompson, but the confessions of one, striving earnestly to awaken the attention of the Virginia clergy to a sense of the degradation and barrenness of the church, and to direct their attention to the main causes of such lamentable effects.
Next, permit me to request your attention to an extract from "An Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipation of their slaves; by a Committee of the SYNOD OF KENTUCKY. Cincinnati: published by Eli Taylor, 1835." We shall, in this document, get at the opinion of men, sensitively jealous for the honor, purity, and usefulness of the Presbyterian churches, from which Mr. Breckinridge is A DELEGATE. What say they of slavery in general, and the practice of THEIR CHURCH in particular:
"Brutal stripes, and all the various kinds of personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty, which slavery licenses. The law does not recognize the family relations of a slave; and extends to him no protection in the enjoyment of domestic endearments. The members of a slave family may be forcibly separated, so that they shall never more meet until the final judgment. And cupidity often induces the masters to practise what the law allows. Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. These acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and the agony, often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a trumpet-tongue, the iniquity and cruelty of our system. The cry of these sufferers goes up to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. There is not a neighborhood, where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts held dear. Our church, years ago, raised its voice by solemn warning against this flagrant violation of every principle of mercy, justice, and humanity. Yet WE BLUSH TO ANNOUNCE TO YOU AND TO THE WORLD, THAT, THIS WARNING HAS BEEN OFTEN DISREGARDED, EVEN BY THOSE WHO HOLD TO OUR COMMUNION. CASES HAVE OCCURRED, IN OUR OWN DENOMINATION, WHERE PROFESSORS OF THE RELIGION OF MERCY HAVE TORN THE MOTHER FROM HER CHILDREN, AND SENT HER INTO A MERCILESS AND RETURNLESS EXILE. YET ACTS OF DISCIPLINE HAVE RARELY FOLLOWED SUCH CONDUCT."
Follow me now into the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, convened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May, 1835, and let the individual who addresses you be forgotten, while you listen to the things uttered in the midst of that solemn convocation. At the time when the passages I am about to read, were spoken, there were sitting in that Assembly, men from all parts of the country. The Southern Churches fully represented by row upon row of ministers and elders from every region of the slaveholding States. In that Assembly, one year from this time, did the Rev. J. H. Dickey, of the Chilicothe Presbytery, Ohio, (a clergyman who had passed thirty years of his life in a slave State.) and Mr. Stewart, a ruling elder from the Presbytery of Schuyler, Illinois, make the following statements, which have remained, I believe, uncontradicted to this hour:
"He (Mr. Dickey,) believed there were many, and great evils in the Presbyterian Church; but the doctrine of slaveholding, he was fully persuaded, was the worst heresy now found in the Church."
"Mr. STEWART—I hope this Assembly are prepared to come out fully, and declare their sentiments, that slaveholding is a most flagrant and heinous SIN. Let us not pass it by in this indirect way, while so many thousands and thousands of our fellow-creatures are writhing under the lash, often inflicted too by MINISTERS AND ELDERS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH."
"IN THIS CHURCH, a man may take a free born child, force it away from its parents, to whom God gave it in charge, saying, 'Bring it up for me,' and sell it as a beast, or hold it in perpetual bondage, and not only escape corporal punishment, but really be esteemed an excellent Christian. NAY, EVEN MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL, AND DOCTORS OF DIVINITY, may engage in this unholy traffic, and yet sustain their high and holy calling."