Rev. William Homes, of Mo., said:
“The action of the Assembly of Detroit is null and void; for how can any man be found, not to be included in one or the other of the exceptions contained in it? All claim that their slaveholding is involuntary and justifiable. He concluded by strenuously asserting that the South would not submit to these inquiries.”
Rev. William Terry, of Va., said:
“He could not promise that the Virginia Presbyteries would give any replies to these inquiries. There was no hope, so long as slavery exists, that the church shall be free from it. If it has come to be true that the feeling of the North will not suffer the slaveholding ministers and members to remain in fellowship with the Church, the South will not remain with you. They do not contemplate a disconnection with slavery.”
Since the meeting of the Assembly the Presbyteries in the South have almost unanimously protested against the action in relation to slavery as “inquisitorial,” and have resolved to disregard totally the “earnest request” of the General Assembly. They have also resolved that the agitation of the subject in the Assembly must cease as a condition of the continued union of the church. Whether the pro-slavery element of this denomination will prevail, so as to “bury out of sight the Detroit resolution, silence the General Assembly on slavery, and make the New School Presbyterian Church a quiet home for those who “buy” “sell” and “work” slaves “because they can make money out of them,” cannot now be determined. We hope not, but knowing the aggressive spirit of slavery, we fear.[15]
Congregational.
It is somewhat difficult to define with any great degree of precision, the position of the Congregational churches in relation to slavery. Many of these churches are actively anti-slavery. The Congregationalists of Ohio, in a convention held at Mansfield:
“Resolved That we regard American slavery as both a great evil and a great violation of the law of God and the rights of man; and that we deem it our sacred duty to protest, by every christian means, against slaveholding, and against any and all acts which recognize the false and pernicious principle that makes merchandise of man.”
The largest representative body of congregationalists which has expressed itself on the question of slavery recently was the Albany Convention which met in 1852. This body adopted the following resolution:
Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, it is the tendency of the gospel, wherever preached in its purity, to correct all social evils, and to destroy sin in all its forms; and that it is the duty of Missionary Societies to grant aid to churches in slaveholding States in the support of such ministers only as shall so preach the gospel, and inculcate the principles and application of gospel discipline, that, with the blessing of God, it shall have its full effect in awakening and enlightening the moral sense in respect to slavery, and in bringing to pass the speedy abolition of that stupendous wrong; and that wherever a minister is not permitted so to preach, he should, in accordance with the directions of Christ in such cases “depart out of that city.”