Not alone by his bountiful gifts of land and money has he mightily helped the cause of our cruelly oppressed and despised countrymen. He has spoken often, and written abundantly in their behalf,—always faithfully, sometimes with exceeding power. I am sure there is not an individual in Central New York, I doubt if there be one in our whole country, unless he has been an agent or appointed lecturer of some Antislavery Society, who has attended so many antislavery meetings, has made so many antislavery speeches, and written and published so many antislavery letters, as has our honored and beloved brother of Peterboro’, always excepting, of course, those devotees, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips. I shall have occasion hereafter to tell of one or more of his timely and most effective speeches.
Mr. Smith has entertained and freely expressed some opinions that have been peculiar to himself, and has done some things that have appeared eccentric; but I believe that he has never consciously done or said anything unfriendly to an oppressed or despised fellow-being, white or black.
CONDUCT OF THE CLERGY AND CHURCHES.
The most serious obstacle to the progress of the antislavery cause was the conduct of the clergy and churches in our country. Perhaps it would be more proper to say the churches and the clergy, for it was only too obvious that, in the wrong course which they took, the shepherds were driven by the sheep. The influential members of the churches,—“the gentlemen of property and standing,”—still more the politicians, who “of course understood better than ministers the Constitution of the United States, and the guaranties that were given to slaveholders by the framers of our Union,”—these gentlemen, too important to be alienated, were permitted to direct the action of the churches, and the preaching of their pastors on this “delicate question,” “this exciting topic.” Consequently the histories of the several religious denominations in our country (with very small exceptions) evince, from the time of our Revolution, a continual decline of respect for the rights of colored persons, and of disapproval of their enslavement. In the early days of our Republic—until after 1808—all the religious sects in the land, I believe, gave more or less emphatic testimonies against enslaving fellow-men, especially against the African slave-trade. But after that accursed traffic was nominally abolished, the zeal of its opponents subsided (not very slowly) to acquiescence in the condition of those who had long been enslaved and their descendants. “They are used to it”; “they seem happy enough”; “unconscious of their degradation”; it was said. Then “the labor of slaves is indispensable to their owners, especially on the rich, virgin soils of the Southern States.” “It is sad,” said the semi-apologists, “but so it is. The condition of laboring people everywhere is hard, and we are by no means sure that the condition of the slaves is worse, if so bad as, that of many laborers elsewhere who are nominally free.” “Many masters,” it was added, “are very kind to their slaves; feed them and clothe them well, and never overwork them, unless it is absolutely necessary.” But the consciences of the doubting were quieted more than all by the plea that “in one respect certainly the condition of the enslaved Africans has been immensely improved by their transportation to our country. Here they are introduced to the knowledge of ‘the way of salvation’; here many of them become Christians. As Joseph through his bondage in Egypt was led to the highest position in that empire, next only to the king, so these poor, benighted heathen, by being brought in slavery to our land, may be led to become children of the King of kings, so wonderful are the ways of Divine Providence.” By these and similar palliations and apologies, the people of almost every religious sect at the South, and their Methodist or Baptist or Presbyterian or Episcopalian brethren at the North, were led to overlook the essential evil, the tremendous wrong of slavery, and to hope and trust that God would, in due time, by his inscrutable method, bring some inestimable good out of this great evil.
Accordingly, we find, on turning to the doings of the great ecclesiastical bodies of our country, that they have descended from their very distinct protests against the enslavement of men, in 1780, 1789, 1794, &c., to palliations of the “sum of all villanies,” as Wesley called it,—and apologies for it, and justifications of it, and explicit, biblical defences of it, until at length—after Mr. Garrison and his co-laborers arose, demanding for the slaves their inalienable right to liberty—the churches and ministers of all denominations (excepting the Freewill Baptists and Scotch Covenanters) gathered about the “Peculiar Institution” for its protection; and vehemently denounced as incendiaries, disunionists, infidels, all those who insisted upon its abolition.[Q]
This, I repeat, was the most serious obstacle to the progress of our antislavery reform. In 1830, and for several years afterwards, the influence of the clergy and the churches was paramount in our Northern, if not in the Southern communities; certainly it was second only to the love of money. The people generally, then, were wont to take for granted that what the ministers and church-members approved must be morally right, and what they so vehemently denounced must be morally wrong. Accordingly, the most violent conflicts we had, and the most outrageous mobs we encountered, were led on or instigated by persons professing to be religious.
If the clergy and churches have less influence over the people now than they had forty years ago, it must be in a great measure because the people find that they were wofully deceived by them as to the character of slavery, and misled to oppose its abolition, until the slaveholders, encouraged by their Northern abettors, dared to attempt the dissolution of our Union, and so brought on our late civil war, in which hundreds of thousands of the people were killed, and an immense debt imposed upon this and succeeding generations.
In justice, however, to the professing Christians of our country, it should be recorded that very much the larger portions of our antislavery host were recruited from the churches of all denominations, though some persons who made no pretensions to a religious character rendered us signal services. It ought also to be stated that more of the antislavery lecturers, agents, and devoted laborers had been of the ministerial profession than of any other of the callings of men, in proportion to the numbers of each. Still, it cannot be denied that the most formidable opposition we had to contend against was that which was made by the ministers and churches and ecclesiastical authorities. When the true history of the antislavery conflict shall be fully written, and the sayings and doings of preachers, theological professors, editors of religious periodicals, and of Presbyteries, Associations, Conferences, and General Assemblies, shall be spread before the people in the light of our enlarged liberty, no one will fail to see that, practically, the worst enemies of truth, righteousness, and humanity were of those who professed to be the friends and followers of Christ. Had they been generally faithful and fearless in behalf of the oppressed, no other opponents would have dared to withstand the just demand for their immediate emancipation.
Mr. Garrison, who was and is by nature and education an unfeignedly religious man, felt that he ought to look first to the clergy and the professing Christians for sympathy, and should confidently expect their co-operation. Indeed, he knew that if they would heartily espouse the cause of our enslaved countrymen, he might, without unfaithfulness to them, retire to some printing-office, and get his living as he had been trained to do. His disappointment and astonishment were unspeakable when he found how blind and deaf and dumb the preachers of the Gospel were in view of the unparalleled iniquity of our nation, and the inestimable wrongs that were allowed to be inflicted upon millions of the people. It was as painful to him and his associates as it was necessary, to expose to the people the infidelity of their religious teachers and guides; to show them that, not only had the statesmen and politicians of our country become fearfully corrupted by consenting with slaveholders, but also the bishops, priests, ministers of religion. All, with few exceptions, had lost faith in the true and the right, and in the God of truth and righteousness. They were afraid to obey the Divine Law, and bowed rather to the commandments of men. They respected a compromise more than a principle, and trusted to what seemed politic rather than to that which was self-evidently right. “The whole head of our nation was sick, and the whole heart was faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there seemed to be no soundness in it.” “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom; we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”