AMOS DRESSER'S CASE.
I proceed to notice the case of Amos Dresser; the young man who was so inhumanly tortured by the citizens and professing Christians of the city of Nashville, Tennessee. I can assure my opponent, that the discrepancy in my statements which he has noticed, is an error in reporting. I am not aware of having ever stated the number of elders in the committee to be eleven. My statement of the case has always been simply this—that Mr. Dresser, a pious and respectable young man, was apprehended in Nashville, on suspicion of being an abolitionist; brought before a Vigilance Committee, and, according to "Lynch Law," was sentenced to receive twenty lashes with a cowskin, on his bare back. That he was so punished; and that upon the Committee were seven elders of the Presbyterian church, and one Campbellite minister. The whole case as narrated by Mr. Dresser, and published in the Cincinnati Gazette, is now before me. The Committee, by which Mr. Dresser was tried and sentenced, is called a "Committee of Vigilance and Safety."
The following are the names of the seven elders in the Presbyterian Church:
JOHN NICHOL,
ALPHA KINGSLEY,
A. A. CASSEDAY,
WM. ARMSTRONG,
SAMUEL SEAY,
S. V. D. STOUT.
S. C. ROBINSON.
The name of the Campbellite Minister, THOMAS CLAIBORNE.
The Committee, after examining his books, papers, and private memoranda, and hearing his defence, found him guilty—1st. "Of being a member of an Anti-Slavery Society in Ohio." 2d. "Of having in his possession periodicals published by the American Anti-Slavery Society." And 3d. "They BELIEVED he had circulated these periodicals, and advocated in the community the principles they inculcated." The Chairman, (says Mr. Dresser,) then pronounced that I was condemned to receive twenty lashes on my bare back, and ordered to leave the place in twenty-four hours. This was not an hour previous to the commencement of the Sabbath. Mr. Dresser gives the following account of the infliction of the sentence:
"I knelt to receive the punishment, which was inflicted by Mr. Braughton, the city officer, with a HEAVY COWSKIN. When the infliction ceased, an involuntary feeling of thanksgiving to God, for the fortitude with which I had been enabled to endure it, arose in my soul, to which I began aloud to give utterance. The death-like silence that prevailed for a moment, was suddenly broken, with loud exclamations, "G—d d—m him, stop his praying." I was raised to my feet by Mr. Braughton, and conducted by him to my lodging, where it was thought safe for me to remain but for a few moments.
"Among my triers, there was a great portion of the respectability of Nashville. Nearly half the whole number, professors of Christianity, the reputed stay of the church, supporters of the cause of benevolence in the form of tract and missionary societies and Sabbath schools, several members and most of the elders of the Presbyterian church, from whose hands, but a few days before, I had received the emblems of the broken body, and shed blood of our blessed Saviour." (!!!!)
Mr. Breckinridge has twice referred to the appearance of a runaway slave at my lectures in London, and has accused me of carrying him about with me, to enact interludes during my meeting. I can assure Mr. Breckinridge that I never had any thing to do with the attendance of Moses Roper at my meetings, or with the speeches he delivered. On neither of the occasions mentioned had I any knowledge of his being in the chapel until I found him among the rest of my auditors. As for denying the facts stated by him, knowing as I do the brutalizing effects of slavery, and the state of society in the slave States of America, it is out of the question. I see nothing in the facts stated by Moses Roper at all improbable. Since I last came to this city, I have read in an American newspaper, an account of an affair in Tennessee, at which the blood runs cold. A black man having committed some crime, was lodged in prison by the authorities, but being demanded by the citizens, was given up to them, tied to a tree, and BURNT ALIVE! During my residence in the United States, a negro was burnt alive, according to a sentence given by one of the constituted tribunals of the State! It was called an exemplary punishment, and many of the papers throughout the country were filled with long and learned articles, justifying the horrid outrage. Mr. Breckinridge may point to the laws and the constitution of the country, but I tell him they and the authorities appointed to enforce them are alike powerless. I point him to the atrocities of Lynch law all over the land; to the brutal massacre of the gamblers in Mississippi, where men in the broad daylight were dragged forth, and tied by the neck to branches of trees, their eyes starting from their sockets, and their wives driven across the river, in open boats; their lives threatened, for daring to ask for the dead bodies of their husbands. I ask if any law reached the fiends in human shape, who perpetrated these deeds. I ask Mr. Breckinridge if any law punished the felons of Charleston, who, seizing the public conveyances, violated the constitution, and the law of the State, by robbing the mail bags of their contents, and burning them? Did not the Post Master General encouragingly say, "I cannot sanction, but I will not condemn what you have done. In your circumstances I would have acted in a similar manner." Need I remind Mr. Breckinridge of the mobs at the North; the riots of New York; the sacking of Mr. Tappan's house, and the demolition of colored schools? Laws there may be, but while slavery exists, and is defended by public sentiment, and while the ferocious prejudice against color remains, they will want the "executory principle," without which they are but cruel mockery.
A glance at the moral and religious state of the slave population will show the amount of care and attention exercised by the Christian churches at the South.
What says the Rev. C. C. Jones, in a sermon preached before two associations of planters in Georgia, in 1831?