CHAPTER XIII.
Baptists, “Friends to Humanity.”—Their Anti-slavery position.—Mr. Clark joins them.—Manner of his reception.—His Views of African Slavery.—Views of African Colonization.—Made Life-member of a Colonization Society.—Circulars on Slavery.—Personal behavior.—Conversational Gifts.—Writes Family Records.
A class of Baptists had commenced organizing churches, first in Illinois and then in Missouri, denominated, as a kind of distinction from other Baptists, as “Friends to Humanity.” They were frequently called emancipators by others. They were opposed to slavery, and being desirous of operating in a quiet and peaceful manner against the commerce in human beings, this class adopted rules by which they were to be governed in the admission of slave-holders into the churches. The organization originated in Kentucky, in 1807, and made a division in a small association in Illinois in 1809. They would not receive persons to membership “whose practice appeared friendly to perpetual slavery;” that is, those who justified the holding of human beings as property, on the same grounds of right as they claimed their horses or other kinds of property. They did admit to membership in the churches of Christ slave-holders under the following exceptions.
1. Persons holding young slaves, and recording a deed of emancipation at such an age as the church should agree to.
2. Persons who had purchased slaves in their ignorance, and who are willing the church should decide when they shall be free.
3. Women who have no legal power to liberate slaves.
4. Those that held slaves who from age, debility, insanity, or idiotcy were unfit for emancipation. And they add, “some other cases which we would wish the churches to judge of, agreeable to the principles of humanity.”
These Baptists differed widely from modern abolitionists of the Northern States and England, at least in the following particulars.
1. They never adopted the dogma that slave-holding is a “sin per se,”—a sin in itself, irrespective of all the circumstances in which the parties might be providentially placed. Hence they could consistently buy slaves and prepare them for freedom; or contribute funds to enable slaves to purchase themselves, with a clear conscience.
2. They never aided fugitive slaves to escape from their masters, or secreted them, in violation of the constitution and laws of the land.
3. They never interfered in any objectionable way, with the legal and political rights of slave-holders. They preached the gospel in an acceptable and successful manner among slave-holders.
4. They aimed to do good both to master and servant, in a quiet, lawful and peaceable mode.