It must have been observed by my readers that, in speaking above of the sympathy and co-operation of the Northern ministers and churches with their slaveholding brethren in the Southern States, I did not name Universalists and Unitarians among the guilty sects. This was because I reserved them for a separate, and the Unitarians for a more particular notice. Of the course pursued by the Universalists I have known but little. There are very few churches of their denomination in any of the slaveholding States; in most of them, I believe, not one. They claimed the Rev. Theodore Clapp, of New Orleans, a preacher of distinguished ability, and in some respects a very estimable gentleman, but who was one of the most unblushing advocates of slavery in the country. In a sermon preached at New Orleans, April 15, 1838, he said: “The venerable patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others were all slaveholders. In all probability each possessed a greater number of bondmen and bondwomen than any planter now living in Louisiana or Mississippi.” “The same God who gave Abraham sunshine, air, rain, earth, flocks, herds, silver, and gold blessed him with a donative of slaves. Here we see God dealing in slaves, giving them to his favorite child,—a man of superlative worth, and as a reward for his eminent goodness.” These extracts are not an exaggerated specimen of the whole discourse. A few years afterwards, it was rumored that Mr. Clapp had essentially modified his opinions as above expressed. This rumor brought out an explanation in The New Orleans Picayune (probably from himself), to the effect that, “Christian philanthropy does not require the immediate emancipation of slaves.” “Whilst one lives in a slave State, he is bound by Christianity to submit to its laws touching slavery.” “Christianity does not propose to release the obligations of slaves to their masters.” I am not informed that his Universalist brethren at the North ever passed any censure upon him for such misrepresentations of our Heavenly Father, and of the duty of men to their oppressed fellow-beings.
UNITARIANS.
In commencing the discreditable account I must give of the proslavery conduct of the Unitarian denomination, I may as well record the fact, of which the mention of Rev. Theodore Clapp reminds me. Notwithstanding the utterance of such sentiments as I have just now quoted, none of which had been retracted or apologized for, a few years afterwards Mr. Clapp was specially invited by a committee of Boston Unitarians to attend their religious anniversaries; and his letter in reply was read in their principal meeting, where, perhaps, a thousand persons were present, including a large number of ministers and prominent laymen, without any remonstrance or rebuke to those who had invited him.
But before I proceed further with the disagreeable narrative, let me state, to the honor of the sect, that though a very small one in comparison with those called Orthodox (having at this day not more than three hundred and sixty ministers, and in 1853 only two hundred and seven), we Unitarians have given to the antislavery cause more preachers, writers, lecturers, agents, poets, than any other denomination in proportion to our numbers, if not more without that comparison. Of those Unitarian ministers no longer on earth, we hold in most grateful remembrance Dr. N. Worcester, Dr. Follen, Dr. Channing, Dr. S. Willard, Theodore Parker, John Pierpont, Dr. H. Ware, Jr., and A. H. Conant. Others, though less outspoken, were always explicitly on the side of the oppressed,—Dr. Lowell, Dr. C. Francis, Dr. E. B. Hall, G. F. Simmons, E. Q. Sewall, B. Whitman, N. A. Staples, S. Judd, B. Frost. Of those who are still in the body, we gratefully claim as fellow-laborers in the antislavery cause Drs. J. G. Palfrey, W. H. Furness, J. F. Clarke, T. T. Stone, J. Allen, G. W. Briggs, R. P. Stebbins, O. Stearns, and Rev. Messrs. S. May, Jr., C. Stetson, W. H. Channing, M. D. Conway, O. B. Frothingham, J. Parkman, Jr., J. T. Sargent, N. Hall, A. A. Livermore, J. L. Russell, J. H. Heywood, T. W. Higginson, R. W. Emerson, S. Longfellow, S. Johnson, F. Frothingham, W. H. Knapp, R. F. Wallcut, R. Collyer, E. B. Willson, W. P. Tilden, W. H. Fish, C. G. Ames, John Weiss, R. C. Waterston, T. J. Mumford, C. C. Shackford, F. W. Holland, E. Buckingham, C. C. Sewall, F. Tiffany, R. R. Shippen. All these are or were Unitarian preachers, and did service in the conflict. Many of them suffered obloquy, persecution, loss, because of their fidelity to the principles of impartial liberty. I may have forgotten some whose names should stand in this honored list. I have mentioned all whose services I remember to have witnessed or to have heard of. How small a portion of the whole number of our ministers during the last forty years!
The Unitarians as a body dealt with the question of slavery in any but an impartial, courageous, and Christian way. Continually in their public meetings the question was staved off and driven out, because of technical, formal, verbal difficulties which were of no real importance, and ought not to have caused a moment’s hesitation. Avowing among their distinctive doctrines, “The fatherly character of God as reflected in his Son Jesus Christ,” and “The brotherhood of man with man everywhere,” we had a right to expect from Unitarians a steadfast and unqualified protest against so unjust, tyrannical, and cruel a system as that of American slavery. And considering their position as a body, not entangled with any proslavery alliances, not hampered by any ecclesiastical organization, it does seem to me that they were pre-eminently guilty in reference to the enslavement of the millions in our land with its attendant wrongs, cruelties, horrors. They, of all other sects, ought to have spoken boldly, as one man, for God our Father, for Jesus the all-loving Saviour and Elder Brother, and for Humanity, especially where it was outraged in the least of the brethren. But they did not. They refused to speak as a body, and censured, condemned, execrated their members who did speak faithfully for the down-trodden, and who co-operated with him whom a merciful Providence sent as the prophet of the reform, which alone could have saved our country from our late awful civil war. Let no honor be withheld from the individuals who were so prominent and noble exceptions to the general policy of the denomination,—the ministers whom I have named above, together with those faithful laymen, Samuel E. Sewall, Francis Jackson, David L. Child, Ellis Gray Loring, Edmund Quincy, A. Bronson Alcott, Dr. H. I. Bowditch, William I. Bowditch, with others; and those excellent women, Mrs. L. M. Child, Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, Mrs. Follen, Miss Cabot, Mrs. Mary May, Misses Weston, Misses Chapman, Miss Sargent, and more who should be named; let no honor be withheld from these and such as they were. But let the sad truth be plainly told, as a solemn warning to all coming generations, that even the Unitarians, as a body, were corrupted and morally paralyzed by our national consenting with slaveholders, even the Unitarians to whose avowed faith in the paternity of God, the brotherhood of all mankind, and the divinity of human nature, the enslavement of men should have been especially abhorrent. On a subsequent page I shall have occasion to tell of their most glaring dereliction of duty to the enslaved, and those who were ready to help them out of bondage. Meanwhile I must state some facts in support of my allegations against the sect to which I belong and with which I shall labor for the dissemination of our most precious faith so long as life and strength remain.
In 1843 the subject of the slavery of millions in our land was brought before the American Unitarian Association by Rev. John Parkman, Jr. But it was not discussed. It was put aside as a matter about which there were serious differences of opinion among the members, and with which that body, therefore, had better not meddle.
Early in 1844 an address on the subject was sent from British Unitarians to their brethren in America. It was an able, affectionate, respectful appeal to us, signed by one hundred and eighty-five ministers. A meeting of the Unitarian clergy was held in Boston to consider and reply to it. But it seemed to be regarded by many, and was spoken of by some, as an impertinence. “Our British brethren,” it was said, “are interfering in a matter which is beset with peculiar difficulties in this country, about which they know little or nothing.” And my cousin, Rev. Samuel May, Jr., of Leicester, who had visited England the year before, was severely censured for having encouraged our brethren there thus to meddle. Here let me say, few have labored so diligently, faithfully, disinterestedly, as Mr. May has in the cause of the slaves. And no one of our denomination has taken so much pains to prevent the Unitarians from committing themselves to the wrong side, or failing to do their duty on the right side, of every question relating to slavery. For this fidelity he has received anything but the thanks of most of the brethren. Here and elsewhere I am bound to tell what I know of him, for owing to the similarity of our names, and the sameness of our connections with the Antislavery Societies, many of his good words and deeds have been attributed to me by those who do not know both of us.
At the Autumnal Unitarian Conference held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1842, he offered a series of resolutions, setting forth the great extent, the appalling evils, and fearful wickedness of slavery, and endeavored to bring the Conference to resolve: “That, as ministers and disciples of Jesus Christ, we feel bound to declare our solemn opinion, that the institution of slavery is radically and inherently opposite to his religion; that it ought to be immediately abandoned by all who profess to be Christians; and that we do affectionately admonish and entreat all who hold ‘the like precious faith’ with us, to free themselves at once from the guilt of sustaining this evil thing.” There was manifested a great unwillingness to express any opinion upon the subject, and the Conference adjourned without taking action upon it.
When in England, in the summer of 1843, Mr. May attended a large meeting of Unitarians. Having been invited to address them, and to speak particularly upon the subject of slavery in America, and of the attitude of our denomination towards the great iniquity, he did speak at considerable length. But he gave a very truthful and candid statement of the case as it then was. He set before his British hearers the influences which tended to mislead even the most kindly disposed in this country, and the obstacles and difficulties that beset the way of those who were most resolute in the cause of the enslaved. He acknowledged gratefully, generously, the important services which Dr. Follen, Dr. Channing, and other Unitarian ministers and laymen had rendered. But he was obliged, as a man of truth, to confess that our denomination as a whole had been recreant to their duty. And he encouraged our English brethren to address a letter of fraternal counsel and entreaty to us, not doubting that such a communication would be gratefully received by the American Unitarians as coming from those who had had to contend against a similar system of iniquity, and had helped their national government to abolish it. But I have already stated how utterly disappointed he was in the result.