SEAVERY

oe) ) Aner Sores 5)

?

from a state of slavery. There is the fact! Look | it! Think of it. Is it your duty to consider the mat- ‘ r?. They. are your fellow-men, your fellow-countrymen, an. > Americans, many of them, doubtless, your fellow- Slavery constitutes a leading element of our

Jigious congregation, North or South, can gaehaows or Rept or part with a pastor, without having his mind ed on some point connected with slavery, nor Sora pees ¢ a decision about: it. ee

2 On SLAVERY.

territory, as slaveholding States multiply, and as slave- — holders acquire constantly a more camplete. control of the - government md, ponbfal church. pokey of the country, it is moré and* more infposstblé for’ us to live and not con- sider and act uporf sthjs qifestion.< 5

Is it not plairt* tlfaf there is a “providence, i in all this? We have.g duty: td pert, ria," Wes ape-boaded , with responsi- bility fox our; enslaved. brethren,” a3 well as for our kindred who hold slaves, and so Heaven has righteously decreed that we shall think and act upon it. Truly, we ought not to avoid the subject. It is unworthy of Americans to shrink from inquiry as to our condition, our prospects, and our duty. Let us meet the subject like men. Truth will not harm us—certainly not if we obey il. Shame on* the man who thinks or admits that the free institutions in which we glory, cannot stand the test of truth and free inquiry.

What is a slave ? ye pt

A slave is a person held in slavery. We are never to — forget that the slaves are human beings. Their black complexion and degraded condition often incline us to overlook this fact. We talk about the African race, but the slaves are of the human race. If all other proofs’ were set aside, the unmistakable evidence.that they par- take in the consequences of Adam’s fall, would settle the question. God selected their ancestors as one of the four men who were preserved in Noah’s Ark, to repeople the desolated earth, after the deluge, and Jesus Christ came to seek them among the lost sheep for whose salva-_ tion he laid down his life. They are our brethren by descent from the same parent, by being found in the same general depravity, and by sharing in the mercy of the — same Savior. To deny the brotherhood of the-slave, is to adopt the principles of the priest toward the man —

On SLAVERY. 3

among thieves ; it is to possess the spirit of Cain, who would not be his brother’s keeper ; it is to deny God our . Maker, and Christ our Savior. The people of the United States are precluded by their Constitution, from denying , that negroes and even slaves are men, because it is re- quired that they shall be numbered in the census, and reckoned in the apportionment of Representatives, as ‘‘ three-fifths of all other PERSONS.’’ The slaveholders cannot raise this question, because they govern the coun- try through this representation of slaves, as persons.

_ There is great meanness, as well as cruelty, in most of the discussions about race, by which people too often try to quiet their consciences in neglecting to consider this subject. The slaves are poor, they are dependent, they are subjected, they are helpless, and it is cowardly to taunt them with that which they cannot help. ‘‘ Who- soever mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker.’’ It is a fearful thing to reproach God. Consider also that the people of color are generally very sensitive on this sub- ject. very indignity, or unkindness, or injury they experience, is like thrusting at an old sore, which has become preternaturally irritable by prolonged suffering. A large part, it is believed, a clear majority of the per- sons now held as slaves, are of mixed blood, and so partake of the pride of the Caucasian as well as the sensitiveness of the African blood; and, it is taught by physiologists, that this mixed race have the keenest sen- sibilities in the world. If we would make the case our own, or consider how tenderly we treat other classes, who are poor, sick, bereaved, or oppressed, and not by their own fault; and then, realize that the slaves do not suffer less by being used to it, but are even more sensi- tive to every injury the longer they endure it—we shall then take up the subject in a proper view.

4 On SLAVERY.

Slavery is not a natural relation, nor does it exist by any natural right, but can only be created by positive law—so all writers and all courts hold. Ifa man is law- fully a slave, it is because the law has made him so. We must, therefore, go to the law to find what slavery is by law. And here we find that the essential element is ownership of the person. A man’s wife or child is not his slave, although they are his own; the law gives him a property in their society and their services, which he may sue for in the courts, but not in their persons. The slave is his property as a chattel, in the same sense as his horse and his gun are property. Slavery, then, 18 human chattelhood. The law makes it this and nothing else. Take this away and you destroy slavery. You -may substitute any other form of dependence or servi- tude, worse or better, but it is not slavery. The law of South Carolina gives an express definition: <‘ Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in- law, to be chattels, permanent in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administra- tors and assigns, to all interests, constructions and pur- poses whatsoever.” And the law of Louisiana terribly describes the necessary legal consequences that flow from this condition of chattelhood: ‘‘A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs. The master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry and his labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire anything but what belongs to his master.” It is surprising how unreasonably and pertinaciously many people keep the real thing that constitutes slavery, out of sight, when they talk about slavery, or apologize for those who practise it. If they would have this thing before their minds, there is not a human being on earth who would not pronounce it ‘a stupendous wrong.” |

On SLAVERY. 5

It is the plain intention of these laws to deprive the slave of every personal right, and to dehumanize him. There is no other despotism on earth which takes away all the rights of its subject. The abstract principles of the old Roman law are here carried to the extreme, with- out any of the actual limitations which obtained in Rome by the fact that the slaves were not regarded as a dis- ' tinct race, could be made valuable by education, could be freed without restraint, and they or their children could become citizens. There is no other slaveholding country which completely annihilates the rights and hopes of the slave. In the Spanish colonies, the slave has a right to obtain property and purchase his freedom. The American slave cannot even sue for the freedom that has been given him, but is dependent on some white person to sue in his behalf, so that there may not be even an implied acknowledgement that the slave has rights. There are, indeed, certain laws prohibiting the maiming or murdering of a slave, ‘‘unless by moderate correc- tion,’’ but these laws are designed chiefly for the protec- tion of the property, or to preserve public morals, (like our laws against cruelty to animals), and they are of little practical use, because no colored person can testify against a white man, and the cruelties to slaves are, of course, committed on isolated plantations or in dwellings where none but slaves are present. There are some cases of white persons punished for wounding or murdering other people’s slaves, but no known case of a slaveholder hanged for the murder of his own slave. A solitary case of execution was lately reported in a Southern pa- per, but it was expressly stated that the hanging was on account of some special circumstances in the case.

There is this difference between cruelty to an animal and cruelty to a slave—that the slave is known to bea

6 On SLAVERY.

human being, whose will is capable of rising higher and higher in resistance to unjust power, while slavery re- quires, that he should be brought into absolute subjection to the will of his master. If a man has an unruly ox, or an unmanageable horse, it harms no one but himself; but the whole slaveholding section would be convulsed if it should be known that there was a single slave who could not be subdued. Hence the measure of excessive punishment, or cruelty to a slave, is not the amount of torture inflicted, or the barbarous methods employed ; nothing is excessive or cruel, provided it is necessary, in order to subdue a refractory slave. It has been expressly decided by the courts, that the services of the slave ‘‘ can only be expected from one who has no will of his own, who surrenders his will in implicit obedience to the will of another ;” that ‘‘such obedience is the consequence only of uncontrolled authority over the body ;’’ and that ‘‘the power of the master must be absolute, to render the submission of the slave perfect.” [2 Dev. N. C. Re- ports, 263. |

Although the laws thus deny the rights of human na- ture to the slave, the passions of lust and of vengeance, are not to be controlled by these enactments. People are provoked by the disobedience or carelessness of a slave, who would feel ashamed to be thrown into a rage by the waywardness of a horse. Those who are convers- ant among slaveholders, find them always a peculiarly irritable race, easily thrown into a towering passion, or rendered frantic with rage, even towards their equals in society, and especially towards mechanics and laborers. This is because their passions are accustomed to be ex- cited towards their slaves, and to be allowed their full scope of gratification without restraint. Unless human nature is annihilated in slaveholders as well as in slaves,

On SLAVERY. 7

it is impossible but that the carrying on of such a system of slavery, over fifteen States, and three millions of en- slaved persons, must be attended by an indescribable amount of cruelty, beyond what can possibly exist im any other state of society on earth.

The correctness of this inference is proved by the care which is taken to prevent the exposure to the world of the actual condition of things on the plantation. No man is allowed to explore those terrible secrets ; to make in- quiries on the subject in a slaveholding State, would be dangerous ; unless the person inquiring will either take the word of the master as true, or otherwise show him- self a friend of the system. ‘The condition of French exiles in Cayenne, or a Russian prisoner in Siberia, is not so concealed as that of slaves on the plantation, from the scrutiny of the world, or the censure of public opinion. The manner in which slaves who run away, are described in the newspaper advertisements, reveals something. ‘T'he Presbyterian Synod, of Kentucky, in 1834, testified that ‘brutal stripes, and all the varied kinds of personal in- eee are not the only species of cruelty which slavery licenses.’ :

It has been proved, by bedipcieit witnesses, that slaves are whipped with incredible severity ; are fastened down to the ground and whipped ; are hung up by the wrists, or even thumbs, and whipped ; are flayed with the lash, and then washed down with brine or red pepper-water ; are flogged, daily, for many days in succession ;; are flogged beyond measure, and kept to die unattended ; the son is compelled to flog his mother that bore him, the husband to flog his pregnant wife, the lover his mis- tress, in order more effectually to humble them ; they are cropped, their teeth drawn, their noses slit, their fingers or toes cut off; they are branded on the cheek or breast,

8 On Savery.

with hot irons; made to work, loaded with iron collars and chains; compelled to stand and have knives thrown into their flesh, and then to draw out the knives and re- turn them to their tormentors, or to have the snapper of the driver’s whip cut out bits of skin and flesh from their bodies ; to eat and drink the most disgusting and unna- tural substances, to endure hunger and thirst, and naked- ness and cold; to be confined in postures that forbid sleep ; in short, it is hardly possible for the imagination to conceive so many forms of cruelty as have been invented and applied by the diabolical cruelty which slavery must necessarily engender. Said the North Carolina Supreme Court, in the case referred to: ‘* We cannot allow the right of the master [to punish] to be brought into dis- cussion in the courts of justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible that there is no appeal from his master. The danger would be great indeed, if the tribunals of justice should be called on to graduate the punishment appropriate to every temper and every de- reliction of menial duty. No man can anticipate the many and aggravated provocations of the master, which the slave would be constantly stimulated, by his own passions or the instigation of others to give; or, the con- sequent wrath of the master, prompting him to bloody vengeance upon the turbulent traitor—a vengeance gen- erally practised with impunity, by reason of its privacy.” In establishing a relation the most provoking to human nature, the practice of cruelty is practically almost unre- strained.

It is to be borne in mind, that mere law cannot make a man a slave; it can only enact that he shall be a slave. Nature makes no slave, but the law takes him and puts him, as raw material, into the hand of a master, to un- dergo the process of manufacture, by which he is made

On SLAVERY. 9

an actual slave: And this process is the great wrong of slavery—the subjugation of the will—the annihilation of the moral power of the soul, wherein consists the radical distinction of man, as accountable—the essential image of God, which remains to our fallen nature, whereon rests the guilt of murder—‘‘for in the image of God made he man.’’—Gen. ix: 6.

The act by which a man is transferred into a slave, is ealled ‘‘Overseerism,’’ because overseers are special practitioners of it; but, every slaveholder is obliged to learn it more or less, and to practise it if he lives sur- rounded by slaves. Said the Court, in the above case: «This dominion is essential to the value of slaves, as property, to the security of their master, and the public tranquility is greatly dependent on their subordination.”’ The slave has no legal right of will, and the business of the overseer is to suppress even the natural desire to will—to eradicate the vitality of the moral nature, so that it may never even attempt to rise from its prostration. The bodily tortures which savages inflict and endure without shrinking, the sufferings and triumphs of mar- tyrs, prove that the spirit of man, when free, is capable of rising above almost every degree of physical suffer- ing, while the will is unbroken. The first lesson in slavery, is the crushing of the will, so that it may never again re-assert its existence as an emanation from Deity. What language can describe the torture of the soul, through which a man must pass before he is made into a slave? It is this amputation of the will, which old Homer refers to, where he says—

«Whatever day Makes man a slave, takes half his worth away.”

A few years ago, all Europe was horror-struck with

the story that a youth named Casper Hauser, had been

10 On SLAVERY.

kept for twenty years, from his birth, in a state of abso- lute seclusion, so that not one of his powers or faculties had grown beyond those of infancy. The jurists taxed their learning for a definition of the crime, of thus swad- dling the life and powers of a human being, as the Chinese beauty bandages her feet, to suppress their na- tural development and expansion; and they called it the ‘‘crime against the life of the soul.’”? Whether the story of Casper Hauser is true or false, the definition aptly de- » scribes the guilt of those who exercise the functions of slavery, in subduing the will of a man until he is made into a slave. To be thus despoiled of manhood, to long for its restoration ; to be conscious that it is the work of a fellow-man, feeling power and forgetting right, is doubt- less the crowning misery of the slave.

Not only the laws, but even the moralists and religion- ists of the South, are compelled to recognize the practical annihilation of that voluntary principle in the soul of the slave, wherein consists his responsibility to the laws of God. Everywhere, the will of the master is considered a valid excuse for the slave. Hence the churches do not require slave parents to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or slave children to honor their father. and mother, or obey their parents in the Lord, or slave husbands to cherish and honor their wives, or slave wives to submit to their husbands in the Lord, or slave ministers of the Gospel to go and preach as the Spirit of God may lead them, and his providence open a door of acceptance, for the Word. Its moralists argue that slaves have no right to complain at being separated from those they love, for they know the lia- bility of their condition, and have only themselves to ~ blame for having formed such attachments—thus pro- fessedly subjecting every natural affection of the human

On SLAVERY. 1]

heart toitsiron hand. Its churches have no censures for those who sell their slaves under any pressure of neces- sity or convenience, even if the slaves sold are members of the same society, and have just partaken of the same holy communion with their master. No slave is excluded from fellowship, because living in a connection which is not hallowed by lawful marriage—for there is no such thing as lawful marriage to a slave. Nor is it held to be adul- tery, when a slave who has been sold to a great distance from husband or wife, forms a new connection of the same kind with that which has’ been broken. Slaves are customarily advertised for sale with the recommendation that they are pious, are exemplary Christians, are exhor- ters or preachers, and the like. Now if you ask any re- ligious person what made him a Christian, he will tell you it was the Spirit of God in him, or Christ within him, the hope of glory, and that his body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. He who should sell a slave decorated with earthly jewelry, would be sure to sell the jewels with the body ; and so he who sells the slave at a higher price for his religion, sells with his body the soul that has received the Holy Ghost, and, Judas-like, fills his purse with the price of his Savior. The general withholding from the slaves of the power to read the Scriptures, and the careful protestations of religious bodies that in promoting Christi- anity among slayes, they employ only ‘‘oral instruction,”’ is an admission of the comprehensive sweep of slave law. “The Bible is the religion of Protestants,”’ but slavery has reduced Romanists and Protestants toa level. Hun- dreds of thousands of dollars have been spent in giving the printed Bible and the means of mental cultivation to a handful of people in the Sandwich Islands, as the in- dispensible means of giving efficacy to the Christian faith among them ; while the religious world is exulting in the

12 On SLAVERY.

extension of a system of measures for Christianizing the slaves, by withholding the Bible, putting out the eyes of the intellect, and forbidding the means of intellectual im- provement. Is it right for any of us to sit still and allow such a system to continue and grow, in our own country, without one word of remonstrance, or one effort to bring about its extinction by such means as God has furnished, and the Gospel of Christ ?

Slavery not only annihilates the rights and extinguishes the soulhood of the-slave ; it destroys also the liberties of the slaveholder. No man can be free in a slavehold- ing community. -To allow freedom of the press and of speech, freedom of public assemblies and public orators, freedom of conscience and of religious action, is wholly incompatible with the continuance of slavery, and is not permitted in any slave State of this Union. In the out- break of the American Revolution, Lord Chatham said, in Parliament, that he rejoiced at the resistance of Amer- icans, because three millions of people in America who were willing to be slaves, were enough to endanger the liberties of all the rest. The slaveholder may make any use he will, of his slave property, in the way of degra- dation and debasement, but he cannot render his slave serviceable by entrusting him with arms, or by giving — him the care of his plantation, or by teaching him to read and write, and keep accounts as a clerk, or by fitting him, as the Romans used to do, for an amanuensis or a scrivener, or a teacher of his children. He cannot stim- ulate the industry of the slave by securing him a share of his own earnings, for the benefit of himself or his family. Much as intelligence, and morality, and re- ligion increase the productive capacity of a man, the slaveholder is prohibited, either by law or the fear of such violence, from thus enhancing the money value of

: On SLAveRY. 13

bts property, by the means of cultivation which alone make men intelligent and pious. _ Neither the slaveholder nor the preacher, nor any other person, is allowed to question the rightfulness of slavery, or of any of its incidents. If aman should by any means be convinced that slaveholding is the life of slavery, and that the better man a slaveholder is in other respects, the more his example supports the system, that no man can be made to hold slaves but by his own act, as no man can be made to worship an idol but by his own consent, or by any reasoning should be brought to feel it his duty as a Christian, at the peril of his soul, to give freedom to his slaves—he is not allowed by law to doit. By a pe- euliar refinement, he is punished for doing it, not only by a fine or imprisonment, but more diabolically by seeing the slave he has emancipated, diabolically despoiled of his newly found freedom, seized by the sheriff and sold to the highest bidder, as a slave forever. Thomas Jeffer- son left it in his will, as a dying request to the Legisla- ture of his idolized Virginia, that his slaves (some of them said to be his own offspring) might be allowed to be freed and remain in the place ‘‘ where their ‘families _and connections are ;’’ but the request was denied, and the slaves were sold. It is the law of Christian fellowship, that all who love the Lord Jesus, are members one of another, and that when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Hence the thrilling of that cord of sympathy which has ‘been felt in all ages of the church, toward those who suf- fer for conscience sake, or who are deprived of the free- dom of worshipping God and obeying the commands of Christ. Witness the recent meetings and the intense ex- citement throughout the Protestant world, in regard to the case of Francisco Madiai and his wife, imprisoned

"14 On SLAveERY.

in Tuscany, for the crime of reading the Scriptures. Both the slaves and the free people of color, in the slave States, live in a constant state of persecution. They can not learn nor teach the Scriptures without being exposed to stripes, they cannot meet for worship, nor to preach and hear the Gospel as their religion dictates, All their’ attempts at self-cultivation or to educate their offspring, are repressed, by a despotism more ubiquitous and all- pervading than it is possible for the Austrians to exercise’ in Italy. The essence of spiritual despotism and perse- cution lies in the enforcement of laws, in that of Virginia, that ‘any free colored person who undertakes to preach or conduct a religious meeting, by day or night, may be whipped not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, at the discre- tion of any justice of the peace.” The pious Christians of the South, of the North, of the whole world/ are themselves aggrieved and oppressed by such enactments} and when they see their fellow-Christians dragged from the house of prayer to the calaboose, or writhing under’ the lash for the offence of the Cross, must sympathize | with them, and feel that- they themselves, their religion, and theit Savior, share in the cruel persecution. — ef Atrocious as are the statutes forbidding the master to free his slave, and making even the attempt am offence punishable by fine or imprisonment, there is one feature of the laws in the slave States still more abominable ; it is that which perpetually watches for opportunities to en- slave the free. The legal presumption in those States is that every colored person is somebody’s slave, and if found — going at large, that he has run away, and ought to be captured and sent back. Hence any person may seize and detain him, unless he carries in his pocket the legal proofs of his freedon ; he is advertised, and if any owner appears to claim him, he is delivered up as a slave, or if

On SLAVERY. 15

‘no owner comes, he is sold for his suit fees, and so is made hopelessly a slave. Any emancipated slave may be seized by the sheriff, and sold. In the year 1776, a number of Quakers, in North Carolina, became so im- pressed with the wrongfulness of slavery, that they emancipated their slaves, one hundred and thirty-four in number. There being then no law to prevent it, the Legislature passed an act requiring the County Courts to sell these persons, and when the Supreme Court declared

the sale illegal, the legislature passed another act, con-

firming the title of the purchasers, and so they and their posterity are slaves still.

It is still an aggravating consideration that all this terrible legislation owes its force and terror entirely to - the cowardly submission of those who live under it. The sole pretext for its necessity is that slavery cannot be up- held without it. Only let Christian people receive the docirine that slavery itself is wrong, and that there can be no obligation on any man to support it, and then let them act according to the dictates of conscience and the obvious rules of Christ’s kingdom, and those unnatural

laws are instantly paralyzed. A solitary individual, or a few scattered here and there, might be unable to sustain themselves, and might even be subjected to penalties. But as soon as any considerable number of Christians openly but quietly commence preaching and. teaching, and distributing Bibles and tracts among the slaves, just as they would among any other class of people, the exe- cution of such laws is at once impossible—prisons could not hold the people, nor could magistrates or sheriffs be found to enforce such precepts. Let Christian men emancipate their slaves, evidently for the love of God and the safety of their own souls, continuing their care over the freed people, until they become accustomed to

a

16 On SLAVERY.

take care of themselves, and doing everything for their benefit which justice and humanity would require in the circumstances, and it would not be possible to re-enslave them—not even the professional soul-advisers would buy them. And when once the work is begun, it will advance spontaneously, with accelerating speed. Thousands of noble hearts, at the South, are now waiting for the finger of God to point out the man, the hour, and the place, when the deliverance from this crushing spiritual bond- age will take place.

It would take too much space to explain the disastrous influence of slavery, upon the general prosperity of the nation. The power which the slaveholders have acquired in politics is too well known, and too humiliating. It is important to consider the effect of slavery and its institu- tions, in weakening the safe-guards of civil liberty. By the common law, which is the basis of our free institu- tions, the rights of persons are always paramount to the interests of property. But slavery has grafted the bad principles of the Roman law upon our jurisprudence, and made the claims of property the foremost objects of, re- gard. As a casein point, about a dozen years ago, some Africans escaped from slavery, in Cuba, and landed with the schooner Amistad, on our shore. They were taken in custody, by the United States Marshal. Their friends sued out a writ of habeas corpus, at common law, to establish their freedom, which was unquestionable, as they were evidently just imported from Africa, and so. were free by Spanish law. But the Spanish purchaser libelled them in admiralty, as his property. Judge. Thompson, of the United States Court, decided that the admiralty case must first be heard, to see whether those. men were not property, before they could be allowed to, show that they were free men. .The writ of habeas cor-,

On Savery. 17

pus, which our constitution recognizes as an existing general right prior to the constitution or the Union itself, was devised for the express purpose of bringing the right of personal freedom under the instant cognizance of the courts ; and, to postpone habeas corpus to admi- ralty proceedings, as concerning property, is destructive to the most precious safe-cuards of liberty. The methods of proceeding in the case of alleged fugitives from slavery are also derogatory to habeas corpus. And as neither the constitution nor the laws of Congress say anything about the dark complexion or African descent of the vic- tims, the provisions of the injurious Fugitive Slave Law are fully fitted in the hands of an oppressive administra- tion, or a corrupt commissioner, to be employed in the abduction or imprisonment of any person whatever.

It is found absolutely impossible to administer two such systems of jurisprudence in harmony, as the law of lib- erty and the law of slavery. They cannot work together. They cannot both be executed. And certainly, of late, we have found the principles of formal freedom so often sacrificed and so generally made light of, that there is ground for great alarm as to the future.

Is it not then the duty of every one of us to be inquir- ing how this thing is to end? Certainly, things cannot remain as they are, but must grow either worse or better. Tt is not at all natural that such an evil should cure itself. There must be an influence brought to bear upon it from without itself. The impulse must come from the people of the free States, just as certainly as the impulse for the recovery of the inebriates, came from the sober. The actual work of emancipation must be done at the South, and by one of two ways—by the will of the slaveholders or by the will of the slaves. If a wise and healthful in- fluence can be created at the North, and so kindly and

18 On SLAVERY.

firmly presented, as to be responded to at the South, slavery will be abolished by voluntary surrender, at the will of the slaveholders, according to the dictates of jus- tice and humanity, by the force of truth, and to the glory — of God and the good of all parties. If this influence is not exerted at the North, or if it will not be tolerated by the South, then the mingled influence of increasing num- bers and intelligence among the slavés, or—by increasing severity by the slaveholders—a purely Southern influ- ence, will burst the chains at the will of the slaves, with consequences more terrible than the heart can conceive. The great multiplication of deeds of vengeance among the slaves, since the supporters of the ‘‘ Compromise”? pronounced the anti-slavery movement of the North to be dead and buried, is a warning of what would happen, were despair of human help to become universal, among the slaves.

It is certain that the Northern advocates of emancipa- tion are alone the true friends of the South. They stand between the planters and their vassals. They keep back the coming earthquake. And if they can put forth power enough, and in season, they may well hope to avert the calamity, and turn the threatened storm into a calm. Every dictate of Christianity, of humanity, of patriotism, and sympathy with our dear friends at the South, urges us to do something —to do everything that is in our power, to create that influence in the North, which will be felt and yielded to as good at the South. You ask what you shall do.

There are two main pillars of Northern support, by which the system of slavery is manifestly upheld — poli- tics and religion. The political support of slavery, by: parties and politicians, and capitalists and clergymen, secures to the slaveholders an absolute control of the

On SLAVERY. 19

government, the appointments to office, the legislation of Congress, diplomacy with foreign powers, and the spoils of the National Treasury. So long as the North submits to this, you may depend upon it, Southern politicians will cling to slavery as the sure ladder of their ambition. It is for the people of the North to change this, by refusing to vote for any man, to any office, who will lend his po- litical support to the slave power, and then, by seizing every opportunity of voting against such subservient men, and elevating in their place men who will wield official power in favor of freedom and against slavery. When the support of slavery becomes a disqualification rather than a passport for office at the North, and as soon as the North can be made to act together on this plat- form, the tide of influence will turn. As soon as the friends of freedom shall become a well compacted body at the North, the longing hearts at the South will be in- spired with confidence, and will respond to every effort in a kindred spirit and with special effect.

The moral and religious branch of this reform is more complicated, and in some respects more difficult, on ac- count of the great diversity of views among Christians as to the modes of operation for the extension of the truth. It is also more far-reaching and vastly more ef- fective in the long run, because it looks to the general changing of the minds of the slaveholders, by the power of Christian suasion, until they shall joyfully ‘let the oppressed go free.’’ In general terms, we are to counte- nance those ministers and editors who are themselves faithful to truth and duty on this subject, and when prac- ticable withdraw our patronage and countenance from those who are wilfully perverse, and hesitate. Let char- ity have the fullest possible scope consistent with common sense. But charity is not a fool, nor bound to close her

20 On Savery.

eyes against palpable facts. It is certainly time to re- quire some proofs from the South, that the Gospel, as there administered, tends to abolish and not to perpetuate slavery. The missionary boards cannot evade that test of the results of their labor, both among the whites and in the Indian tribes. When is your sort of Christianity going to begin to free the slaves ?

In a matter confessedly so difficult, and among a people whose views are so diverse, it is too much to ex- pect a unity of views among all the friends of freedom, except upon a very few, very simple, and most directly practical points. Let us not fall into the error of those who forbade their neighbors casting out the devil, ‘‘ be- cause he followeth not with us,’’ im all the points of doc- trine or practice. We should gladly commend all who give reasonable evidence of sincerity in their endeavors. Let them do all the good they can, as well as they know. If we know a better way, let us follow it in a better man- ner. Without a compromise of principle, there needs to be an increase of mutual forbearance. But this is less essential than a great increase of zeal. And as all de- pends upon the wisdom of God for guidance, and upon his blessing for success—there is oné thing in which we can all agree—that prayer be made without ceasing unto God in behalf of our enslaving and enslaved fellow- countrymen, for their speedy deliverance from this stu- pendous curse.

THE END.

AMERICAN Rerorm Tract anv Book Socizry.

REMARKS OF THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE.

The author of the foregoing Tract has drawn a vivid,

- forcible, and, as both experience and the slave code show, atruthful picture of slavery. Terrible as it appears, it

isno fancy sketch. The system as here described, actu-

_ ally exists among us, and actually reduces to the condi- _ tion of a herd of cattle, three millions of the American people, while its reactive influence demoralizes other mil- lions, and embroils and endangers the whole country.

Judged by the Word of God, or the unbiassed con- science of man, to establish or maintain such a system is a sin against God, of the most aggravated character. We know how it was established, but by whom is if now

maintained? Who is responsible before God for its con- tinuance ? Who is involved in its guilt? These are ques- tions which we are all bound to examine, as we hope to be acquitted at Jehovah’s bar. The answer to these in-

quiries bears most heavily upon the Christians of this country, when we consider the controlling influence which is wielded by the churches, in its favor, and remember to what an appalling extent these churches are directly in- volved in this sin of buying, selling, and holding, which constitutes the stealing of men. As appears by the fol- lowing table, believed to be within the truth, nearly onz- yourTH of all the slaveholding of the country rests upon the members of our churches:

can. | yes eae Vee, 44 2 Ae p

29, REMARKS OF THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE. Denominations. No. of Slaves Methodistais i. weer. Naa »«0219,563:. | Presbyterians, Old and New Schools........ 77,000 | Baptists, oo. cic iia acs eon eine te ao adele 125,000

Disciples, or Reformed Baptists............ 101,000 Episcopalians. 0s)... << 4s eee eee 88,000 _ Other Denominations........ pa Aagh Ay oy 50,000

Total owned by Ministers and Church members 600,563

The disposition to hold slaves has not been diminished’ since this calculation was made, and we may consider the' number of slaves thus owned at the present time, as at least seven hundred thousand, allowing the above esti-' mate as correct when made. | ‘i

Who does not perceive that the almost resistless influ- ence of the churches watchful to protect Two HUNDRED: AND EIGHTY MILLIONS OF DOLLARS thus invested by their: own members, must form the principal defence of thd slaveholding system? Political influence could not. maintain it a singte year, if unsupported by the churches themselves. Here then rests the main responsibility and! the principal guilt. Reader, how much of this responsi-+ bility rests upon you? Do you belong to a chara whose members are owners of slaves, whose ministers: defend it, or refuse to class it among sins? Do you not. then belong to a slaveholding and slavetrading copart- nership, anak are you not nesouale involved in the guilt? Do you support Mission Boards or other Societies that: foster slavery, or refuse to rebuke and expose it? If so,' are you not verily guilty of your brother’s blood and tears? Does your vote sustain the system or its sup-' porters? Are you not then guilty, and is not your name’ mentioned in the’cry that ascends to the throne of God?

—

é

WHAT IS TO BE DONE?

~

- ‘The thing to be done, of which I shall chiefly speak, is ; that the whole American church, of all denominations, . should unitedly come up to the noble purpose avowed by ihe Presbyterian Assembly of 1818, to seek the EN- _ TIRE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY THROUGHOUT AMERICA AND | THROUGHOUT CHRISTENDOM.

To this noble course, the united voice of Christians in

all other countries is urgently calling the American

ts

church. Expressions of this’ feeling have come from

/ Christians of all denominations in England, in Scotland, in

_ Ireland, in France, in Switzerland, in ean in Persia, in the Sandwich Islands, and in China. All seem to be animated by one spirit. They have loved and honored

. this American church. They have rejoiced in the bright-

ness of her rising. Her prosperity and success have been

them as their own, and they have had hopes that God meant to confer inestimable blessings through her upon all nations. The American church has been to them like the rising of a glorious sun, shedding healing from his wings, dispersing mists and fogs, and bringing songs of birds and yoices of cheerful industry, and sounds of glad- ness, contentment, and peace. But lo!. in this beautiful

orb is seen a disastrous spot of dim eclipse, whose gradu-

_ ally widening shadow threatens a total darkness, Can we _ wonder that the voice of remonstrance comes to us from

those who have so much at stake in our prosperity and suc- cess? We have sent out our missionaries to all quarters

24 WHAT 18 10 BE Donn? ci of the globe; but how shall they tell their he

— is

verts the are that are done in en

pudiated ? 2 | : A missionary among the aretha | in ha writes back that his course is, much embarrassed by a suspicion at is afloat among the Karens, that the Americans i d steal and sell them. He says: os «J dread the time when these Ravens will be a le ‘to , read our books and get a full knowledge of all t. at 1S QO- ~ &§

ing on in our country. Many of them are very quisitive — now, and often ask pets that I fing if bi iti

cult to answer.’ No, there is no resource.

The charéh 4 - U;

She can never fulfill her mission till this is done: 0] as she neglects this, it will lie in the Way, of everyth else which she attempts to do. Be ae - She must undertake it for another reason —bocntse she

be geodad out between the upper and soe soillatoties eas parties, then what will avert ee, angry C0

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