Let it be understood, also, that Missourians did not so much oppose the emancipation of their slaves as they did the means used to accomplish it. For thousands of slaveholders believed that the abolition of slavery would be a blessing both to the slave and the master, if it could be done in a lawful and peaceable way. Many of them were laboring to reach the result through a political organization, by open-handed, lawful means.
For ten years before the war it was a foregone conclusion with the more intelligent classes that slavery would be abolished in Missouri, and a system of free labor adopted that would be more successful in developing the resources of the State. But they looked for it to be done by a change of the Constitution and the necessary legislation; and, while they expected this result to be reached in a lawful way, they heartily detested the secret organizations and treacherous agents that were seeking to decoy the slave from his master, and furnish facilities for his escape from bondage, and his protection from the legal claims of his owner.
This was against law, in contravention of law, and in flagrant violation of constitutional guaranties, which all the courts and officers of the country were sworn to protect and enforce; and hence it was considered by the people and the courts—by the law and the gospel—a crime against the peace and dignity of the State. But it was one of those crimes which either could not be covered by statutory enactments, or in the commission of which the statute could be evaded or the guilty party concealed.
Legal processes could not be served; the law could be set at defiance while the mischief was being done; and the only recourse left to the people was in such protection as they could devise outside of the law. Some carried their slaves into the Southern States and disposed of them. And in some communities, where forbearance with these disturbers of domestic tranquillity had ceased to be a virtue, the citizens assembled together in a peaceable and lawful way, interchanged views, and devised the only lawful means left them to protect themselves and secure the public peace. They adopted resolutions, stating publicly and openly their grievances, and warning the abolition emissaries to desist from intermeddling with their property and their rights, and if they could not settle down and become peaceable, law-abiding citizens, then to leave the country for the country’s good. In a few counties of the State these public meetings were held, and in no instance was there any indignities or outrages committed on the person or property of any man by such public assemblies or by their authority.
CHAPTER VI.
From 1845 to 1861, Continued.
Responsibility of Ministers, Editors and Publishers—Perversion of Facts, a Double Guilt—Public Meetings—Presses Mobbed—Fabius Township Meeting in 1854—Rev. Mr. Sellers—Review of the Preamble and Resolutions—Meeting at Rochester, Andrew County—Three Facts Affirmed of these Meetings—The Best Citizens Controlled Them—What the Author of the Fabius Township Resolutions Says—Jackson Seminary in Cape Girardeau County—The Jefferson City Land Company and the Great Northern Methodist University—The Transaction Transparent—Resolution of Missouri Conference of 1858—A. Bewley—The True Facts in his Case—That he was Hanged at Fort Worth, Texas, not for being a Minister of the Gospel, but for Complicity in the most Horrible Crimes—The Facts Analyzed—The Bailey Letter—Bishop Morris—Dr. Elliott—Truth is Mighty—Correct View of the Relation of the M. E. Church to the People of Missouri prior to the War.
When historical facts are perverted, or so detached from each other as to destroy their connection, and false impressions are made thereby, and bad feelings created in the interest of designing men, the moral wrong is twofold, and the perpetrators are doubly guilty—falsehood reaches its result on the credit of truth, and Christ, the truth, is fatally wounded in the house of his friends. Ministers of the gospel, editors and publishers are accountable to men and God for the most potent of all responsibility. They are a savor of life or a savor of death, and through them peoples and countries have peace or war.
The uses made by them of the public meetings of citizens held in various parts of this State prior to the war did much to aggravate the spirit of animosity between the Northern and Southern people in Missouri, and to embitter the scenes of war. Some papers were so severe upon certain classes of citizens as to provoke mob violence, when party feeling was at blood heat, and a few printing offices were visited by an insulted populace, and type, press, cases and fixtures thrown into the streets, or made to settle accounts at the bottom of the river, while the editors and publishers were driven off. Public meetings were called in many places by the best citizens, to prevent mob violence and promote the public tranquillity. This was their object.
Much has been said in the Northern press and pulpit about a meeting of the citizens of Fabius Township, Marion county, Mo., held February 18, 1854, just after fifteen slaves had walked off to Canada from that township. It was alleged by these preachers and papers, and the statement is reiterated by Dr. C. Elliott, in his book called “Southwestern Methodism,” that the said “meeting was held by the citizens of Fabius Township for the purpose of carrying out a scheme to expel Rev. Mr. Sellers, a minister of the M. E. Church, from the country”—p. 39; and a great hue and cry was raised over the persecution of this Mr. Sellers by the aforesaid citizens. And all the cheap capital was made out of this heroic victim of pro-slavery malice of which the utmost torture of the facts was capable. But, after all, it is rather surprising to find that neither in the long preamble nor in any one of the five resolutions is the name of Mr. Sellers so much as once used; nor do they contain so much as a personal allusion to him or any other individual man. They refer to a class of men, and are directed against a dozen others as much as against Mr. Sellers.
The preamble sets forth, amongst other things, as follows: “And, Whereas, there is in our community considerable excitement, arising from the belief upon the part of many of our citizens that the ministers of the Northern division of said Church, who have for some time past been preaching in Fabius Township, are the representatives of a body whose sentiments upon the subject of slavery are decidedly hostile to our interests as slaveholders and dangerous to our peace; and that the leading object of their mission here is the destruction of slavery by the propagation—in any manner not inconsistent with the safety of their persons—of doctrines calculated to array against the institution the weak-minded and fanatical among us, and to create discontent, dissatisfaction and insubordination among our slaves; therefore,” &c.