"One instance of the all-pervading espionage of the slave power I may mention. The newly appointed postmaster of Philadelphia employed, among his numerous clerks and letter-carriers, Joshua Coffin, who, some three years ago, aided in restoring to liberty a free colored citizen of New York, who had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. The appointment of the postmaster not being confirmed, he wrote to his friends in Congress to inquire the reason, and was told that the delay was occasioned by the fact that he had employed Coffin as one of his letter-carriers! Coffin was immediately dismissed, and the senate in a few days confirmed the appointment! Is not this a pitiful business?"
If the reader, who wishes further information, will consult William Jay's work, entitled "A View of the Action of the Federal Government in behalf of Slavery," he will find ample historical proof that the internal and external administration of the Union—legislative, executive, and diplomatic—has been employed, without any deviation from consistency, to subserve the interests of the slave-holding States. Yet these States are, in population, numerically weaker than those of the North, and inferior, to a far greater degree, in wealth, intelligence, and the other elements of political power. They are strong only in the compactness of their union, while the citizens of the free States are divided in interest and opinion. Here, then, is presented a distinct and legitimate object for those of the abolitionists who regard their political rights as a trust for the benefit of the oppressed and helpless, to combine the scattered and divided power of the North into a united phalanx, which shall wrest the administration of the Federal Union from the slave-holding interest, and shall purify the general Government from the contamination of slavery, by reversing its general policy on that subject, and by the adoption of the specific measures before mentioned; while, in the States in which they respectively reside, the abolitionists feel it to be their duty to exert themselves, to wipe away from the statute book every vestige of that barbarism which makes political, civil, or religious rights depend upon the color of the skin.
Yet more important is it, however, to bring the moral force of the North to bear against slavery, by reforming the prevailing public sentiment of the religious, moral, and intelligent portion of the community. Here again, one of the most sagacious leaders of the pro-slavery party, J.C. Calhoun, has descried the danger from afar, and has publicly proclaimed it in the senate of the United States, by vehemently deprecating the anti-slavery proceedings, not as intended to provoke the slaves to a servile war, but as a crusade against the character of the slave-holders.
Although the different States are distinct governments, their geographical boundaries are mere lines upon the map; their inhabitants speak the same language, and enjoy a communion of citizenship all over the Union. The North Eastern States have by far the greater part of the whole commerce of the Union, and are the medium through which the planter exchanges his cotton for provisions and clothing for his slaves, implements for his agriculture, and his own family supplies. These commercial ties create a direct and extensive pro-slavery interest in the North. Again, the planter is yet more dependent on the North for education for his children, and for the gratification of his own intellectual wants, as the slave-holding region has few colleges, and those of secondary reputation; while I believe it has no periodical of higher pretension than the political newspapers. The pro-slavery re-action in this way, on the seminaries of the North, and on the literature of the United States, is most sensibly felt.
Another powerful cause that contributes to leaven the entire population into one mind on the subject of slavery, is the double migration that annually takes place of people of the Southern States to the North, in summer, and of the inhabitants of the free States to the South in winter. Hence follow family alliances, the interchange of hospitalities, and a fusion of sentiments, so that the slavery interest spreads its countless ramifications through every corner of the free north.
Another cause, and perhaps the most powerful of all, is the community of religious fellowship in leading denominations. The Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Presbyterians of two schools, are severally but one body, all over the Union, and as a matter of course, all are tainted with slavery, and for consistency's sake, make common cause against abolition. The pamphlet of James G. Birney, entitled "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery,"[A] offers the amplest proof that the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist, the Presbyterian, and the Anglican Episcopal Churches are committed, both in the persons of their eminent ministers, and by resolutions passed in a church capacity, to the monstrous assertion that slavery, so far from being a moral evil, which it is the duty of the church to seek to remove, is a Christian institution resting on a scriptural basis; this assertion is repeated in the numerous quotations of the pamphlet, in a variety and force of expression that show the utterers were resolved not to leave their meaning in the smallest doubt. Indeed, it might be supposed, from the perusal of this pamphlet, that the suppression of abolitionism, if not the maintenance of slavery, was one of the first duties of the Christian churches in America.
[A]: Published by Ward & Co., Paternoster-row, London.
The following extracts are offered in illustration:—
THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.—"Resolved, That it is the sense of the Georgia Annual Conference, that slavery, as it exists in the United States, is not a moral evil."
"The Rev. Wilbur Fisk, D.D., late President of the (Methodist) Wesleyan University in Connecticut—'The New Testament enjoins obedience upon the slave as an obligation due to a present rightful authority.'"
"Rev. E.D. Simms, Professor in Randolph Macon College, a Methodist Institution—'Thus we see, that the slavery which exists in America, was founded in right.'"
"The Rev. William Winans, of Mississippi, in the General Conference, in 1836—'Yes, sir, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, should be slaveholders,—yes, he repeated it boldly—there should be members, and deacons, and ELDERS and BISHOPS, too, who were slave-holders.'"
"The Rev. J.H. Thornwell, at a public meeting, held in South Carolina, supported the following resolution—'That slavery, as it exists in the South, is no evil, and is consistent with the principles of revealed religion; and that all opposition to it arises from a misguided and fiendish fanaticism, which we are bound to resist in the very threshold.'"
"Rev. Mr. Crowder, of Virginia, at the Annual Conference in Baltimore, 1840—'In its moral aspect, slavery was not only countenanced, permitted, and regulated by the Bible, but it was positively instituted by GOD HIMSELF—he had, in so many words, ENJOINED IT.'"
THE BAPTIST CHURCH—"Memorial of the Charleston Baptist Association, to the Legislature of South Carolina: