That if the General Assembly shall undertake to exercise authority on the subject of slavery, so as to make it an immorality, or shall in any way declare that Christians are criminal in holding slaves, that a declaration shall be presented by the Southern delegation declining their jurisdiction in the case, and our determination not to submit to such decision.
In view of these conflicting reports, the Assembly resolved as follows:
Inasmuch as the constitution of the Presbyterian Church, in its preliminary and fundamental principles, declares that no church judicatories ought to pretend to make laws to bind the conscience in virtue of their own authority; and as the urgency of the business of the Assembly, and the shortness of the time during which they can continue in session, render it impossible to deliberate and decide judiciously on the subject of slavery in its relation to the church; therefore, Resolved, That this whole subject be indefinitely postponed.
The amount of the slave-trade at the time when the General Assembly refused to act upon the subject of slavery at all, may be inferred from the following items. The Virginia Times, in an article published in this very year of 1836, estimated the number of slaves exported for sale from that state alone, during the twelve months preceding, at forty thousand. The Natchez (Miss.) Courier says that in the same year the States of Alabama, Missouri and Arkansas, received two hundred and fifty thousand slaves from the more northern states. If we deduct from these all who may be supposed to have emigrated with their masters, still what an immense trade is here indicated!
The Rev. James H. Dickey, who moved the resolutions above presented, had seen some sights which would naturally incline him to wish the Assembly to take some action on the subject, as appears from the following account of a slave-coffle, from his pen.
In the summer of 1822, as I returned with my family from a visit to the Barrens of Kentucky, I witnessed a scene such as I never witnessed before, and such as I hope never to witness again. Having passed through Paris, in Bourbon county, Ky., the sound of music (beyond a little rising ground) attracted my attention. I looked forward, and saw the flag of my country waving. Supposing that I was about to meet a military parade, I drove hastily to the side of the road; and, having gained the ascent, I discovered (I suppose) about forty black men all chained together after the following manner: each of them was handcuffed, and they were arranged in rank and file. A chain perhaps forty feet long, the size of a fifth-horse-chain, was stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were joined, which connected with the handcuffs. Behind them were, I suppose, about thirty women, in double rank, the couples tied hand to hand. A solemn sadness sat on every countenance, and the dismal silence of this march of despair was interrupted only by the sound of two violins; yes, as if to add insult to injury, the foremost couple were furnished with a violin apiece; the second couple were ornamented with cockades, while near the centre waved the republican flag, carried by a hand literally in chains. I could not forbear exclaiming to the lordly driver who rode at his ease along-side, “Heaven will curse that man who engages in such traffic, and the government that protects him in it!” I pursued my journey till evening, and put up for the night, when I mentioned the scene I had witnessed. “Ah!” cried my landlady, “that is my brother!” From her I learned that his name is Stone, of Bourbon county, Kentucky, in partnership with one Kinningham, of Paris; and that a few days before he had purchased a negro-woman from a man in Nicholas county. She refused to go with him; he attempted to compel her, but she defended herself. Without further ceremony, he stepped back, and, by a blow on the side of her head with the butt of his whip, brought her to the ground; he tied her, and drove her off. I learned further, that besides the drove I had seen, there were about thirty shut up in the Paris prison for safe-keeping, to be added to the company, and that they were designed for the Orleans market. And to this they are doomed for no other crime than that of a black skin and curled locks. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
It cannot be possible that these Christian men realized these things, or, at most, they realized them just as we realize the most tremendous truths of religion, dimly and feebly.
Two years after, the General Assembly, by a sudden and very unexpected movement, passed a vote exscinding, without trial, from the communion of the church, four synods, comprising the most active and decided anti-slavery portions of the church. The reasons alleged were, doctrinal differences and ecclesiastical practices inconsistent with Presbyterianism. By this act about five hundred ministers and sixty thousand members were cut off from the Presbyterian Church.
That portion of the Presbyterian Church called New School, considering this act unjust, refused to assent to it, joined the exscinded synods, and formed themselves into the New School General Assembly. In this communion only three slave-holding presbyteries remained. In the old there were between thirty and forty.
The course of the Old School Assembly, after the separation, in relation to the subject of slavery, may be best expressed by quoting one of their resolutions, passed in 1845. Having some decided anti-slavery members in its body, and being, moreover, addressed on the subject of slavery by associated bodies, they presented, on this year, the following deliberate statement of their policy. (Minutes for 1845, p. 18.)