Statistical Account of the Connection of the Religious Bodies in America with Slavery ; Together...

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STAPESTEO AE "A OCO TU NT FLUE “865

OF THE

CONNECTION OF THE RELIGIOUS BODIES IN AMER

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WITH SLAVERY;

TOGETHER WITH A NOTICE OF VARIOUS ANTI-SLAVERY SECESSIONS.

PRESENTED BY THE REV. EDWARD MATHEWS, OF WISCONSIN,
(Delegate of the American Baptist Free Mission Society,)

TO THE

Cummitter of the Bristol att Clitton Laview’ Anti-Slavery Society.

MARCH, 1852.

To the Bristol and Clifton Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Committee.

EstEEMED FRIENDS,

Kwnowiné low éarnestly you have laboured to array
the moral power of the religious bodies against Slavery, and

how encotraging atid beneficial have been the results, I |

willingly comply with your invitation, and submit for your
disposal, a brief statement of facts, showing the relation to the
slaye-power whieh various denominations in America are now
sustaining.
THE EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH.
Ministers, 1,504,— Members, 73,000, — Slaves, 88,000.

Slaveholders, equally with non-slaveholders, enjoy the pri-
vileges of church-fellowship The former threaten to withdraw
from the body if discussion on slavery is permitted, Henceit,
in common with other religious bodies which I shall cite, for the
sake of “ Union,” connive at the sin of slaveholding —altogether
forgetful of the principle, “First pure, then peaceable.” The
Episcopalian press also enforces silence. ‘The New York
Churchman has assailed the abolitionists in bitter and con-
temptuous terms, and declared that “the legal prohibition of
Nag colored people to read does nof trench on the law of

od.”

Of the Bishops, some of the most popular declare slavery to
be a Heaven-ordained institution, Bishop Mead, of Virginia,
for instance, says, in his sermon to the slaves,—< Almighty
God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give
you nothing but poverty and labour in this world; which you
are obliged to submit to, as it is His will that it should be so.”

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'* The facts and information following, are the same as those contained
in the document which I prepared for the recent meeting of the Evangel-
ical Alliance in Bristol, and which I earnestly desired might be read by
the Chairman: The Alliance Committee, however, declined receiving it.

On the other hand, worthy of note, are the efforts of Judge
Jay, of New York, who has labored nobly, though almost
alone, in the slave’s behalf.

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Ministers, 4,578,—Members, 490,259,— Slaves. 77,000.

In its early history, this church declared slaveholding to be
a “moral. evil,”—‘“ man _ stealing.” Slaveholders, however,
crept into the body, and raising objections to its testimony
against slavery, first brought the members to declare it a
« moutnful,” instead of a “ moral” evil, and at length threat-
ened to dissolve the union with northern members, if they
should agitate the slavery question. ;

After one occasion when silerice had been thus compelled,
Dr Cox, of Brooklyn, triumphantly exclaimed,—* We have
capped the volcano for three more years.”

Dr Baird, who stands high in the estimation of slave-
holders, says—trefetring to Dr Bacon and himself—< We gave
eases [in the Council of the British Alliance, 1851,] in which
the state of things is made such by the laws of the slavehold-
ing states—laws which the Christians in those States, who are
a siia!l minority of the inhabitants, could not prevent being
made,—that there are persons holding slaves there, whom
Christianity itself would not allow them to liberate in the
present circumstances.”

At the last meeting of the New School General Assembly,

| the Rev. Mr Grosvenor, a mémber, moved a resolution con-

demning the Fugitive Slave Law; but the body could not be
induced to condemn the iniquitous enactment.
THE CONGREGATIONALISTS

Have but few members in the slave States ; they unite with
the Presbyterians in sustaining the “Home and Foreign
Missions,” ahd other societies, which are controlled by the

slave power. They send as delegates to the Presbyterian | —
Assemblies, men who sustain the system of slavery, or‘ tem~, |‘:

porisers, who make no earnest effort to bring ‘titem: to. see’ |
that the religion of Jesus announces “liberty to the captive.”

In proof of this, it may be mentioned that last autumn, the
Congregational Conference at Maine (the body of which Dr
Chickering is a member) elected. as delegate to the, Old
School General Assembly, the Rev. J. O. Fisk, of Bath, who
preached a sermon in defence of the infamous Fugitive Slave
Law. The committee of arrangements also reyéefed a resolution
passed at Connecticut, affirming “the supreme rights of God, |
and of conscience, to human law,” and brought forward in its
stead, the subject of colonization, allowing the speaker twice
the allotted time, in order to prevent discussion on other
branches of the subject.

THE PRESBYTERIAN SECESSION.

This newly organized body is composed of those who have
seceded on anti-slavery grounds from both the Old and New
School Presbyterians. The form of government is the same,
but their cardinal principle is, to admit no slaveholder to mem-
bership. They number probably not more than one thousand
chureh-members, yet the leading men in this body are the tried
friends of the slave, and suffer much persecution. They pub‘ish
a weekly anti-slavery paper, Zhe Free Presbyterian, of good
size, ably edited, and which is doing excellent anti-slavery
service. The “ Reformed Tract Society,” which will no doubt
have an important influence over our anti-slavery literature,
in a great degree owes its existence to this body. In the mis-
sionary cause they co-operate with the American Missionary
Association, also an anti-slavery body.

THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
Ministers, 6,000.—Members, 1,250,000 —Slaveés, 219,563.

At its commencement, this body exhibited an anti-slavery
spirit; during the revolutionary war, however, slaveholders
became members, and by a gradual process secured for them-
selves the posts of influence and anthority ; until in 1836, at
the General Conference, they required that two ministers
should be censnred for attending an anti-slavery meeting, and
the conference accordingly censured them. They then re-
quired that the ministers throughout the free states should
be silent on the subject of slavery, “on pain of expulsion
from that body.” Thus the clasp was placed upon their lips,
but some refusing to submit to it, passed through a fiery
ecclestiastical ordeal, and were ultimately excluded. In 1844
it came to light that Bishop Andrew, one of their six principal
leaders, who have absolute power in the appointing of the
ministers to their fields of labor, was himself a slaveholder.
This produced a discussion, which continued a fortnight, and
ended in the conference mildly requesting the Bishop not to
officiate, as Bishop, while he held slaves. |

As even this was an indirect censure upon slaveholders, they
became indignant, and rent the church in twain The
Northern Division of this body is not, however, free from the
stain of slavery, for 4,000 slaveholders, and 27,000 slaves still
remain members of it, consequently, (as might have been ex-
pected,) some of the leading men are urging upon it, “for the
sake of the peace of the church, to be silent on slavery.”

| good size, is most ably edited by the Rev. Luther Lee.

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THE METHODIST SECESSION.

; Sdme,niemVers ofthe popular body having labored to purity
it frota*the evik of slavery, and finding their efforts defeated
by the slaveholders, seceded, and formed another church, on
the Methodist basis,taking the name of the Wes/eyan Methodists.
They number about twenty thousand—the fundamental law
of the church being, “ No Fellowship with Slaveholders !”
Their organ, Zhe True Wesleyan, a weekly newspaper of
In
Nortb Carolina their missionaries have been recently treated
with great cruelty, and driven from the state.
Their entire body is an efficient anti-slavery organization.

THE BAPTIST CHURCHES.
Ministers, 8,168.— Members, 948,867.—Slaves, 226,000.

Once the firm advocates of civil and religious liberty, they
have gradualy become subservient to the slaveholders. As
each Baptist church governs itself, no ecclesiastical power
existed by means of which slaveholders could strike down the
abolitionists ; they therefore turned to the Missionary Conven-
tion, resolving to use it as an engine of persecution,—for in
that convention Baptists of the free and the slave states
co-operate together.

When this convention was organized, in 1814, slaveholders
were admitted members, on the plea that they did not justify
the principle of holding slaves, but simply held them out of
kindness !

They succeeded, however, in constantly electing a slave-
holder as a president, for twenty-one years of the thirty
during which the convention existed; and every church
planted by its agents in slave territory, became a slaveholding
church. In order to silence the anti-slavery remonstrances of
the northern Baptists, they required that the Baptist Mission-
ary Magazine should give a pledge to be silent on the subject.
The pledge was given; and has been kept! They required
of leading northern Baptists, that they should sign a pledge of
continued fellowship with slaveholders.—Many did so! They
required that no anti-slavery Baptist should be elected an
officer in the missionary body.—Not one was elected! And
not until all these requisitions were conceded to them, would
the slaveholders pay in their contributions to the society. By
such means do the slaveholders retain their unholy influence
over the religious bodies of America.

The Baptist newspapers in the free states, with three honor-
able exceptions, discourage agitation on this subject, —while
in the slave states they justify slavery by the Bible.

BAPTIST SECESSION.

The sacrifice of Christian principle made to slaveholding
domination, led some members to refuse to co-operate with the
Missionary Convention. They therefore organized in Boston,
Massachusetts, in 1843, a society, named the Baptist Free
Mission Society, which refuses to receive slaveholders to mem-
bership, or to admit their blood-stained offerings into its trea-
sury. It ‘publishes a large weekly paper— Zhe American
Baptist—which is edited with distinguished ability by the
Rev. W. Walker. Jt is leavening the churches with anti-
slavery principles. This. society employs agents, who travel
from church tochurch, lifting up their voices against slavery,

aiming to array the moral power of all religious societies in
behalf of the down-trodden. It has established in Western
New York, an anti-slavery College, one of the Professors of
which—Mr W. G. Allen—is a colored gentleman; and among
the hundred and fifty students, are many of African descent.

It has a mission and several schools among the refugee
slaves in Canada, and has collected more than three thousand
dollars for their benefit.

THE FRIENDS,
Congregations, 300.

This ancient and respectable association have yielded to the
popular feeling, and lost their anti-slavery energy and char-
acter ; not that a slaveholder would be received a member by
them,—the rules forbid it. Their influential moral position,
however, is neutralized by their unwillingness to “come up to
the help of the Lord against the mighty.” The combined
action of three or four yearly meetings, if weighed on the bal-
ance against the single efforts of one Friend—John G., Whittier
—would rise to the beam. Many members voted for General
Taylor to be President of the United States,—a man holding
in slavery abont three hundred of his fellow men, and a war-
rior for additional slave territory. From no place have more
colored people been sent back to the unspeakable horrors of
slavery, than from Philadelphia, the stronghold of the Friends,

Were they but to shake off their apathy, and be willing to
forego commercial profits and political advantage,—were they
but to bear the faithful testimony against slavery which for-
merly characterized them, the tone of feeling would be entirely
changed ;—not only in Philadelphia, but in all the region
round about, and slaveholders in the farthest south would
quail before their mighty influence.

THE SECESSION FROM FRIENDS.

The yearly meeting of Friends in Indiana (which is the
largest in the world, numbering about 30,000 members),
had forbidden their members to engage in active opposition
to slavery, and deprived some who persisted in it, of their
offices as overseers, ministers, elders, &c., and rendered the
others ineligible. A considerable number, in consequence,
seceded, forming a quarterly and yearly meeting of their own,
similar in doctrine and discipline to that they had left, but
where they had full liberty to plead for the slave. The London
Yearly Epistles had repeatedly and earnestly recommended
“ Friends in America to co-operate with the advocates of free-
dom ;” but as soon as the Indiana anti-slavery Friends obeyed
these injunctions, influential members of the society in England
undertook a mission to Indiana, for the purpose of inducing the
seceders to acquiesce in the passive course imposed by the
parent meeting. This mission was unsuccessful, and the anti-
slavery Friends are still bearing noble testimony to the supre-
macy of Christ’s laws over those of their sect.

TRACT, MISSIONARY, AND BIBLE SOCIETIES,
SUNDAY SCHOOL UNION, &e.
All these bodies have slaveholding members.
The Tract Society employs seven steam presses, but refuses
to print any tract on the slavery question.
The Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, through-
out its extensive operations, never treat slavery as a sin.

The Parent Sunday School Union, at the requirement of the
slave power, suppressed one of its volumes, because it con-
tained a paragraph descriptive of slavery.

The Home Mission Society, though sustained chiefly by
the north, has been active in planting slaveliolding churches
in the south.

THe Baptist Home Misston Socrety has planted slave-
holding churches in the south, and steadfastly refuses to treat
slavery as a sin.

Tur American Baptist Missionary UNIon was organized
for the purpose of fraternizing with slaveholders ; they are
members of the body, and of the mission churches in the
Cherokee Territory. To the extent of its power, this “ Union”
crushes anti-slavery energy and sympathy.

The American Bible Society, and the American and Foreign
Bible Society, make no appeal in behalf of the slaves’ destitu-
tion, and Bible-withholding despots are members of both bodies.

The American Bible Union is controlled by its slaveholding
members, so are the societies to convert the Jews, the Indians,

&e.
ANTI-SLAVERY.

After the heart-saddening details which I have given in
the preceding pages, it is refreshing to turn for a moment to
those who in spite of prejudices and persecution faithfuliy
show that they “recognise the image of God and a human
brother in every being, of whatever clime, colour, or condition
of humanity.” I will therefore briefly recapitulate those religi-
ous bodies that are from principle, Anti-Slavery.

ANTI-SLAVERY TRACT, BIBLE, MISSIONARY
SOCIETIES, &c.

The American Missionary Association has been already re-
ferred to. It is constitutionally separated from slaveholders,
emplcys about ninety missionaries, and publishes a monthly,
The American Missionary. The Rev. Geo Whipple, New
York, is the secretary. Its collections during the past year
were 34,664 dollars, 65 cents. The Baptist Free Mission
Society has been described already. Its coilections for the
past year were about 10,000 dollars. The Reformed Tract
Society is as yet in its infancy, but promises to be a great
blessing.

The Free Will Baptists do not receive slaveholders to
membership, and their missionary society is conducted on an-
ti-slavery principles. Their organ, the Morning Siar, has
been very faithful to the slave.

There are also some smaller bodies, as the Covenanters,
the Reformed Presbyterians, and others who are anti-slavery.

Such are the religious elements in America. A conflict is
going on at this hour between the pro-slavery religionists and
the anti-slavery followers of Christ, in which the British
churches are neither unconcerned nor uninterested. The
sanction given to ministers who remain in connection with
slaveholding organizations, by their English brethren, adds to
the difficulty and obstacles now in the way of the tried friends
of the slave, and strengthens the position of the pro-slavery
bodies, Every effort is put forth to intercept anti-slavery
light in its progress to the English mind

THE EVANGELICAL ALLIANCE

Is an instance of this. The, pro-slavery ministers .of
America, who had begun. to. tremble. in, view of the anti-

slavery iinfluence of British churches, have succeeded to a |
considerable extent. in neutralizing that influence through |

the medium of the Ecumenical Evangelical Alliance,—which
by,.its) manifest, determination to suppress discussion ‘on
slavery, and its reception of slaveholding-members; has proved
a most formidable opponent to the anti-slavery secessionists of
America.. The British Branch, also, by its endeavors to sup-
press discussion, and. by jthe facilities which it has furnished
to: Dr Baird to, poison the British, mind with ‘his subtle defence
of slaveholders, has become an antagonist to the friends of the
slave, and to the cause which, amid so much persecution, they
are advocating. Few are aware of the extent of this influence.

The following fact is illustrative... The American Baptist
Free Mission, Society having separated itself from slavery,
collected the letters which had been sent to America’ by the
English Baptist Union,—letters urging the Baptists to take
this very step—published them, and sent them, by its agents,
through all the churches. It might have been supposed that
this good service would be recognized by the English Baptist
Union. I learn; however, on the authority of the secretary,
Rev. J. H. Hinton, that the Executive Committee are ‘‘ not
disposed.” to do. so.:, from which I.infer that the Free Mission
Society is to be ignored. How extensively this feeling exists;

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I know not, nor why it is. that the important facts I herewith
present have not reached the public through the columns of
the Anti-Slavery Reporter. ;

In conclusion, permit me to. say that the fate of the slave
rests, in a great degree, with the British churches. They
can, if they will, put American Slavery under the ban of
evangelical Christendom, Let but the English churches make
common cause with the anti-slavery secessionists of America,
—let them reprove their persecutors, instead of uniting with
them,—let them send: wretten and hiving epistles to those
pleaders for the slave—encouraging them in the severe (con-
flict—whispering hope to their sorrowful hearts—aiding them
in spreading anti-slavery light—in sustaining anti-slavery
schools—in furnishing aid to the refugee slaves in Canada—
and, above all, let them. bring their, mighty moral power
to bear against the enormities. of slavery. Let this but be
done, and the cause will, advance with renewed \ vigor, so
that we may ere long hope to seé.the last slave stand free
and untettered. oh smear Salt

With earnest prayers that your united labors may continue
to bless the world,

I am, esteemed friends,
Yours if’ the cause of suffering humanity,
Bristol, March, 1852. EDWARD MATHEWS.

‘N.HAMPSHIREN

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