After a preamble, setting forth the offensive conduct of the Savannah church,—
“Resolved, That, viewing the institution of slavery in the light of Christianity, we cannot fail to perceive that it conflicts with the natural rights of human beings as the equal children of a common Father, and that it subverts the fundamental principle of human brotherhood.
“Resolved, In the necessary effects of slavery upon the personal and social condition, and upon the moral and religious character of all affected by it, we perceive an accumulation of evils over which Christianity must weep, against which Christianity should remonstrate, and for the removal of which Christianity appeals to the hearts and consciences of all disciples of Jesus to do what they can by their prayers, by the indulgence and expression of their sympathy, and by the unremitting and undisguised exertion of whatever moral and religious influence they may possess.”
Then follows a resolution that it should not be considered, in any part of our country, a disqualification of any minister or missionary for the performance of the appropriate duties of his office, that he is known to have expressed antislavery sentiments, and approving the course of the Executive Committee in withdrawing their assistance from the church in Savannah because of their rejection of Rev. Mr. Motte.
The discussions at that meeting were seasoned with many vehement denunciations of the Abolitionists, uttered by several prominent Unitarian ministers. William L. Garrison was denounced as one “instigated by a diabolical spirit.” “The Abolitionists,” it was said, “were aiming to subvert Christianity, to extirpate it from the earth.” Dr. Francis Parkman, of Boston, loudly declared that “no letter or resolution condemning slavery should ever go forth from the American Unitarian Association while he was a member of it.” And he highly commended a New England captain, of whom we had then recently heard, because “he put his ship about and carried back to the master a slave whom he had found secreted on board the vessel.” Dr. Parkman openly and personally denounced those who introduced the subject, as “born to plague the Association.” And he, together with Dr. G. Putnam, and other prominent ministers, spoke of Dr. Channing’s earnestness in the antislavery cause as a great weakness.
Later in the same year, 1845, at a meeting of Unitarian ministers in Boston, “A Protest against American Slavery,” prepared I suppose by Rev. Caleb Stetson, John T. Sargent, and Samuel May, Jr., was adopted and sent out to be circulated for signatures. It received the names of one hundred and seventy-three ministers, of whom one hundred and fifty-three were of New England. It was publicly stated at the time that about eighty, comprising many of the most influential ministers of the denomination, refused to sign the Protest. Among the recusants were the Rev. Drs. Gannett, Dewey, Young, Parkman, Lothrop, G. Putnam, Lamson, N. Frothingham, S. Barrett, E. Peabody, G. E. Ellis, Bartol, Morison, and Lunt.
Of those who did sign the Protest, I am sorry to add not a large proportion can with truth be said to have been faithful to the solemn pledge they therein gave, as follows: “We on our part do hereby pledge ourselves, before God and our brethren, never to be weary in laboring in the cause of human rights and freedom, until slavery shall be abolished and every slave set free.”
Once or twice afterwards Mr. May pressed the subject upon the Unitarian Association, but with little better results. Subsequent events, however, have shown, too plainly to be denied or doubted, that it would have been more creditable to themselves, and far better for our country, if “the older and wiser” men of our denomination had listened to his counsels and followed his noble example. Alas, our land is filled with testimonies written in blood, that if the ministers of religion had only been fearless and faithful in declaring the impartial love of the Heavenly Father for the children of men of all complexions, and their equal, inalienable rights, which would assuredly be vindicated by Divine justice, our late civil war would have been averted!
In 1847 Mr. May was appointed General Agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and continued in that responsible and laborious office until after the abolition of slavery in 1865. He was instant in season and out of season, and in co-operation with his devoted assistant, Rev. R. F. Wallcut, rendered services the amount and value of which cannot easily be estimated.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
The awful iniquity of our nation culminated in the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law, which, as Edmund Quincy said at the time, stood, as it now stands, “a piece of diabolical ingenuity, for the accomplishment of a devilish purpose, without a rival among all the tyrannical enactments or edicts of servile parliaments or despotic monarchs.” It was the essential article of a political conglomerate, prepared by the Arch Compromiser, Henry Clay, which was called the Omnibus Bill; some parts of which, he vainly thought, would conciliate the Northern States to the reception of the whole. It provided for the admission of California into our Union, with an antislavery Constitution; for the organization of two other Territories without the prohibition of slavery; the extension of the southwestern boundary of Texas to the Rio Grande; the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, with the guaranty of slavery to its inhabitants until they should see fit to abolish it; and the perpetuity of the interstate slave-trade; but infinitely worse than any of these objectionable parts were the stringent measures it proposed for the recovery of fugitives from slavery. Stripped of the verbiage of legal enactments, the provisions of this abominable law were as follows:—