Orangeburgh, July 21st, 1836.
The Rev. Thomas S. Witherspoon, a member of the Presbyterian Church, writing to the editor of the Emancipator, says:
I draw my warrant from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to hold the slave in bondage. The principle of holding the heathen in bondage is recognized by God. * * * When the tardy process of the law is too long in redressing our grievances, we of the South have adopted the summary remedy of Judge Lynch—and really I think it one of the most wholesome and salutary remedies for the malady of Northern fanaticism that can be applied, and no doubt my worthy friend, the Editor of the Emancipator and Human Rights, would feel the better of its enforcement, provided he had a Southern administrator. I go to the Bible for my warrant in all moral matters. * * Let your emissaries dare venture to cross the Potomac, and I cannot promise you that their fate will be less than Haman’s. Then beware how you goad an insulted but magnanimous people to deeds of desperation!
The Rev. Robert N. Anderson, also a member of the Presbyterian Church, says, in a letter to the Sessions of the Presbyterian Congregations within the bounds of the West Hanover Presbytery:
At the approaching stated meeting of our Presbytery, I design to offer a preamble and string of resolutions on the subject of the use of wine in the Lord’s Supper: and also a preamble and string of resolutions on the subject of the treasonable and abominably wicked interference of the Northern and Eastern fanatics with our political and civil rights, our property and our domestic concerns. You are aware that our clergy, whether with or without reason, are more suspected by the public than the clergy of other denominations. Now, dear Christian brethren, I humbly express it as my earnest wish, that you quit yourselves like men. If there be any stray goat of a minister among you, tainted with the bloodhound principles of abolitionism, let him be ferreted out, silenced, excommunicated, and left to the public to dispose of him in other respects.
Your affectionate brother in the Lord,
Robert N. Anderson.
The Rev. William S. Plummer, D.D., of Richmond, a member of the Old-school Presbyterian Church, is another instance of the same sort. He was absent from Richmond at the time the clergy in that city purged themselves, in a body, from the charge of being favorably disposed to abolition. On his return, he lost no time in communicating to the “Chairman of the Committee of Correspondence” his agreement with his clerical brethren. The passages quoted occur in his letter to the chairman:
I have carefully watched this matter from its earliest existence, and everything I have seen or heard of its character, both from its patrons and its enemies, has confirmed me, beyond repentance, in the belief, that, let the character of abolitionists be what it may in the sight of the Judge of all the earth, this is the most meddlesome, impudent, reckless, fierce, and wicked excitement I ever saw.
If abolitionists will set the country in a blaze, it is but fair that they should receive the first warming at the fire.