Part 19

What then should the similar declarations of Mr. Thompson, made deliberately and repeatedly, and with infinite pretence of candour and affection, what feelings _can_ they excite; and how will that insulted people regard the easy credulity which has led the Christians of Britain to believe and reiterate charges in which it is not easy to tell whether there is less truth or more malignity? For how stood the facts? What church owns slaves? What Christian corporation is a proprietor of men? Out of our ten thousand churches perhaps half are involved in this sin? Perhaps a tenth part? Surely one Presbytery at least? No,--this mountain of fiction has but a grain of truth to support its vast and hateful proportions. If there be above five congregations in all America that own slaves, I never heard of them. The actual number, of whose existence I ever heard, is, I believe, precisely _three_! They are all Presbyterian congregations, and churches situated in the southern part of Virginia, and got into their unhappy condition in the following manner:--Many years ago, during those times of ignorance at which God winked--when such a man as John Newton could go a slaving voyage to Africa, and write back that he never had enjoyed sweeter communion with God than on that voyage; during such a period as that, a few well meaning individuals had bequeathed a small number of slaves for the support of the gospel in three or four churches. These unfortunate legacies had increased and multiplied themselves to a great extent, and under present circumstances to a most inconvenient degree. A fact which puts the clearest contradiction on that assertion of this "accuser of the brethren"--representing their condition as being one of unusual privation and suffering. Of late years these cases had attracted attention, and given great uneasiness to some of the persons connected with these churches. I have on this platform, kindly furnished me, like most of the other documents I have, since this debate was publicly known--a volume of letters written to one of these churches on the whole case, by the Rev. Mr. Paxton, at that time its pastor. That gentleman is now on this side of the Atlantic, and may perhaps explain what Mr. Thompson has so sedulously concealed; how he was a colonizationist; how he manumitted and sent his own servants to Liberia; how he labored in this particular matter with his church, long before the existence of abolitionism; and how, finding the difficulties insuperable, he had written this kind and modest volume, worth all the abolition froth ever spued forth,--and left the charge in which he found it so difficult to preserve at once an honest conscience and a healthful influence. It will not, however, be understood that even these few churches are worthy of the indiscriminate abuse lavished on us, all for their sakes; nor that their present path of duty is either an easy or a plain one. Whether it is that there are express stipulations in the original instruments conveying the slaves in trust for certain purposes; or whether the general principle of law, which would transfer to the State, or to the heir of the first owner, the slaves with their increase,--upon a failure of the intention of the donor, either by act of God, or of the parties themselves, embarrass the subject; it is very certain that wiser and better men than either Mr. Thompson or myself, are convinced that these vilified churches have no power whatever to set their slaves free. If the churches were to give up the slaves, it could only have the effect, it is believed, to send them into everlasting bondage to the heirs of the original proprietors. They have therefore justly considered it better for the slaves themselves that they should remain as they were in a state of nominal servitude, rather than be remitted into real slavery. Such is the real state of the few cases which have first been exhibited as the sin, if not the actual condition of the American churches; and then exaggerated into the utmost turpitude by hiding every mitigating circumstance, adding some purely new, and distorting all things. Whether right or wrong, the same state of things exists amongst the Society of Friends in North Carolina, to a partial extent, and in another form. They did not consider themselves liable to just censure, although they held title in and authority over slaves, as individuals, while they gave them their whole earnings, and had collected large sums from their brethren in England, which were applied to the benefit of these slaves. It is not now for the first time that charges have been made against the Church of God--that Judah is like all the heathen. But all who embark in such courses--have met with the common fate of the revilers of God's people; and they, with such as select to stand in their lot--may find in the word of life a worse end apportioned for them, than even for those they denounce, in case every word they utter had been true. We bless God that no weapon formed against Zion can prosper. There was one other instance which he had noted under this head as requiring some comment, which could not bear omission, regarding the private members of the Christian churches in the United States, of whom a casual hearer or reader of Mr. Thompson's speeches would believe that the far greater part actually owned slaves; that very few, and they almost exclusively abolitionists, considered slavery at all wrong; that with one accord they deprived the slaves of all religious privileges, and used them, not only as a chattel, but as nothing else than a chattel. According to our last census, there were about 11,000,000 of whites, 2,000,000 of slaves, and 400,000 free blacks in America, making a total of nearly thirteen and a half millions. All the slaves were gathered into the 12 most southerly states, free blacks were not far from half in the free and half in the slave states, and of the whites over 7,000,000 were in the free, and less than 3,000,000 in the slave states. The best information I possess on this subject, authorizes me to say--about 1 person in 9, throughout the nation, black and white, is a member of a Christian church, the proportion being somewhat larger to the north, and comparatively smaller at the south. There are, therefore, above 1,100,000 white Christians in the United States, of which about 800,000 live in the 12 free States, and neither own slaves nor think slavery right; leaving rather over 330,000 for the 12 slave States. Now, if these white Christians in the slave States own all the slaves, and the other 8-9ths of the whites owned none at all, there will be only about 6 slaves to each Christian there, a number far below the average of the slave holders; and all the North, and all the South, except Christians, free of charge and guilt, in the specific thing. But if we divide these Christians into families, and suppose there may be as many, as one in three or four of them, who is a head of a family, say 100,000; and that they own all the slaves: in that case, there would be an average of twenty slaves to every white head of a Christian family in the slave States. But here again all the slaves would be absorbed: all the North innocent, above two-thirds of the Christians at the South proved to be not slave holders at all; and all the followers of the devil wholly innocent of that crime. These calculations demonstrate that these accusations are as groundless and absurd as any of the preceding. And while it is painfully true that in the slaveholding States far too many Christians do still own slaves; it is equally true, that they bear a small proportion to those who own none, even in those States. If we suppose the Christians in America to be about on an equal footing as to wealth with other people; and to have no more conscience about slavery, than those around them in the slave States; and that twenty slaves may be taken as the average, to each master; and a ninth of the people pious, as stated before, it follows that only about 11,000 professors of religion can be slaveholders; or about one in every hundred of the whole number in the nation. Yet every one of the above suppositions is against the churches, and yet upon this basis rests the charges of a candid, affectionate Christian brother against them all! The only remaining illustration of Mr. Thompson's proneness to represent a little truth, in such a way as to have all the effects of an immense misrepresentation, regards his own posture, doings and sufferings in America. "Fourteen months of toil, of peril, and persecution, almost unparalleled;" "there were paid myrmidons seeking my blood;" "there were thousands waiting to rejoice over my destruction;" "when any individual tells George Thompson who has put his life into his hands, and gone where slavery is rife; when I, George Thompson, am told I am to be spared," &c. Similar statements, ad infinitum, fill up all his speeches; and are noticed now, not for the purpose of commenting on, or even contradicting them, but of affording my countrymen, who may chance to see the report of this discussion, specimens, as our certificates often run "of the modesty, probity, and good demeanor," of the individual.

He would pass next to a fourth general objection against Mr. Thompson's testimony, as regards America, which was, that much of it was in the strictest sense, positively untrue. For instance, Mr. Thompson had twice put a runaway slave forward upon the platform at London; or at least connived at the doing of it; who stated of his own knowledge, that a Mr. Garrison, of South Carolina, had paid 500 dollars for a slave, that he might burn him, and that he had done so without hindrance or challenge, afterwards. This statement Mr. T. has never yet contradicted in any one of his numerous speeches, although he must have known it to be untrue. I have myself several times directed his attention to the subject, and yet the only answer is, "expressive silence." Then I distinctly challenge his notice of the case; and while I solemnly declare, that according to my belief, whoever should do such an act in any part of America, would be hung: I as distinctly charge Mr. Thompson, with giving countenance to, and deriving countenance from this wilful misstatement.

As an other instance of the same kind, you are told that a free man was sold from the jail at Washington city, as a slave, without even the form of a trial; which is farther aggravated by the assertion that this is vouched as a fact, on the testimony of 1000 signatures. This matter, when Mr. Thompson's own proof is produced, resolves itself into this: that Mr. Thompson said, there had been a thousand signatures to a certain paper, which said, that a certain man taken up as a runaway slave, said he was free! If he was a slave, the whole case falls; whether he was a slave or not, was a fact that could have been judicially investigated and decided, if the person most interested, or any other, had chosen to demand it. So that in point of fact, Mr. Thompson's whole statements, touching this oft repeated case, are all purely gratuitous. And with what horror, must every good man hear that Mr. Thompson, within the last two or three weeks, told a crowd of people in Mr. Price's Chapel, Devonshire Square, London, in allusion to this very case, that the poor black had "DEMONSTRATED HIS FREEDOM," and afterwards been "sold into everlasting bondage!" And yet upon this fiction he bases one of his most effective "illustrations of American slavery," and some of his fiercest denunciations of the American people. Oh! shame, where is thy blush! He could if time permitted exhibit other cases,--in principle perhaps worse than these; in which neither the false assertions of Moses Roper--nor the pretended evidence of misrepresented petitions existed to make a show of evidence; and which nothing but the most extraordinary ignorance, or recklessness could explain. Such are the assertions made by himself or his coadjutors in his presence, that slaves are brought to the district of Columbia from all the slave states for sale; that five years is the average number, that slaves carried to the Southern States live; that slaves without trial, or even examination, were often executed, by tens, twenties, and even thirties; that the banner of the United States, which floated over a slave dealing congress, in the midst of the slave market of the entire nation, had the word "_Liberty_" upon it (which single sentence contained three misstatements;) that religious men weighed children in scales, and sold them by the pound like meat;--that there were 2,000,000 of slaves in America who never heard the name of Christ; that no white man would ever be respected after he had been seen to shake hands with a man of colour; all which _unnameable_ assertions are contained, along with double as many others like them, in one single newspaper (the London _Patriot_ of June 1, 1835;) and in a portion of the report of only two of Mr. Thompson's meetings! Alas! for poor human nature! Having now gone through all that his time permitted him to say, of the proof against America, he would lay before them some counter testimony upon several parts of this great subject. He had at one time greatly feared that he might be obliged to ask them to believe his mere word, perhaps in the face of other proof; but through the providence of God, he had been put in possession of a very limited file of American newspapers, from the contents of which he thought he should be able to make out as strong a case for the truth, as he had proved the case against it to be weak and rotten. There were so many denominations of Christians in America, that he would only tire the meeting by enumerating them. They were of every variety of name and opinion. As to many of them he knew but little, and the present audience perhaps less. The Societies of Friends generally did not tolerate slaveholding among their members; neither did the Covenanters. The Congregationalists, or Independents, had not, he believed, a dozen churches in all the Slave States, and, of course, they should be considered as exempt from the charge. It was, however, the less necessary to occupy ourselves in general remarks, inasmuch as Mr. Thompson had laid the stress of his accusations on the three great denominations of America. "He took all the guilt of this system, and he laid it where? On the Church of America. When he said the Church, he did not allude to any particular denomination. He spoke of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, the three great props--the all-sustaining pillars of that blood-cemented fabric." Such were the words of Mr. T., and it would therefore be needless to trouble ourselves about the minor, if we could settle the major to our satisfaction. As to two of these denominations, he should say but little; his chief and natural business being to defend that one of which he knew most. In regard to the Baptists, he was sorry to be obliged to say, that he believed they were the least defensible of the three denominations, now principally implicated; indeed that some of their Associations had taken ground on the whole case, from which he entirely dissented,--and which, he was sure, had given great pain to the majority of their own brethren. He begged leave to refer them to the work of Drs. Cox and Hoby, just through the press, in which he presumed, for he had not seen it, they would find an authentic and ample information on this and every other point relating to that denomination in America. In relation to the Methodists, his knowledge was both more full and more accurate. Their discipline denounced Slavery, and prohibited their Members from owning slaves, and though their discipline itself was not carried into effect with rigid exactness, he did not believe that there was a Methodist Church in the United States, or upon the Earth, which owned slaves, as a Church. He believed that very few Methodist preachers--indeed, almost none, owned any slaves, and nothing but the most direct proof could for a moment make him believe, that one of them was a slave-dealer. The whole sect, or at least the great majority of it, might be considered as fairly represented, in the following Resolutions passed in the Conference, held at Baltimore; and which could be a set off to those read by Mr. Thompson, from one of the northern Conferences.

METHODIST'S RESOLUTIONS ON ABOLITION.

At a late meeting of the Baltimore Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held at Baltimore, the following preamble and Resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the names of all the members and probationers present, in number, one hundred and fifty-seven, were subscribed, and ordered to be published. The secretary was also directed to furnish Rev. John A. Collins, with a copy for insertion in the Globe and Intelligencer, of Washington City.

Whereas great excitement has pervaded this country for some time past on the subject of abolition; and whereas such excitement is believed to be destructive to the best interests of the country and of religion; therefore

1. _Resolved_, That "we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery."

2. That we are opposed in every part and particular to the proceedings of the abolitionists, which look to the immediate indiscriminate, and general emancipation of slaves.

3. That we have no connexion with any press, by whomsoever conducted, in the interest of the abolition cause.

As to his own Connection, the Presbyterian, he would go as fully as his materials permitted, into the proof of their past principles, and present posture. And in the first place he was most happy to be able to present them with an abstract of the decisions of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. He found it printed in the New York Observer, of May 23, 1835, embodied in the proceedings of the Presbytery of Montrose, and transcribed by it no doubt from the Assembly's digest.

As early as A. D. 1787, the Synod of N. York and Philadelphia issued an opinion adverse to slavery, and recommended measures for its final extinction; and in the year 1796 the General Assembly assured "all the churches under their care, that they viewed with the deepest concern any vestiges of slavery which then existed in our country;" and in the year 1815 the same judicatory decided, "that the buying and selling of slaves by way of traffic, (meaning, doubtless, the domestic traffic,) is inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel." But in the year 1818, a more full and explicit avowal of the sentiments of the church was unanimously agreed on in the General Assembly. "We consider, (say the Assembly,) the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoin, that "whatever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." They add, "It is manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when the inconsistency of slavery, both with the dictates of humanity and religion, has been demonstrated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest and unwearied endeavors to correct the errors of former times, and as speedily as possible, to efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom and if possible, throughout the world."

If, said Mr. B., he had expressed sentiments different from these, or if he had inculcated as the principles of his brethren any thing different from these just and noble sentiments, let the blame be heaped upon his bare head. These sentiments they had held from a period to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Here tonight, 3000 miles off, God enabled him to produce a record proving an antiquity of half a century, in full maturity! How grand, how far sighted, how illustrious is truth--compared with the wretched and new born, and blear eyed fanaticism that carps at her! These are the principles of the Presbyterian church of the United States. She has risen with them, she will stand, or, if it be God's will, she will fall with them. But she will not change them less or more. The General Assembly is but now adjourned. They have had this question before them--perhaps have been deeply agitated by its discussion. But so tranquilly does my heart rest on the truth of these principles, and on the fixed adherence to them, by my brethren, that nothing but a feeling that it would be impertinent, in one like me, to vouch for a body like that, could deter me from any lawful gage, that all its decisions will stand with its ancient and unaltered principles. In accordance with these principles the great body of the members of that church had been all along acting.--There were about 24 synods under the care of the General Assembly, of which about one third were in the slave country. The number was constantly increasing, on which account, and in the absence of all records, he could not be more exact. The synods in the free states stood, he believed, without exception, just where the Assembly stood, on this subject. In the slave states, much had been done--much was still doing--and in proof of this as regarded this particular denomination--in addition to what he had all along declared, with reference to the great emancipation party, in all of those states, he asked attention to the several documents he was about to lay before them. The first was a series of resolutions appended to a lucid and extended report, drawn up by a large committee of Ministers and Elders of the synod of Kentucky--in obedience to its orders after the subject had been several years before that body. That Synod embraces the whole state of _Kentucky_, which is one of the largest slave states in the Union. The resolutions are quoted from the New York Observer, of April 23, 1836.

1. We would recommend that all slaves now under 20 years of age, and all those yet to be born in our possession be emancipated, as they severally reach their 25th year.

2. We recommend that deeds of emancipation be now drawn up, and recorded in our respective County Courts, specifying the slaves we are about to emancipate, and the age at which each is to become free.

This measure is highly necessary, as it will furnish to our own minds, to the world, and to our slaves, satisfactory proof of our sincerity in this work; and it will also secure the liberty of the slaves against contingencies.

3. We recommend that our slaves be instructed in the common elementary branches of education.

4. We recommend that strenuous and persevering efforts be made, to induce them to attend regularly upon the ordinary services of religion, both domestic and public.

5. We recommend that great pains be token to teach them the Holy Scriptures; and that to effect this, the instrumentality of Sabbath Schools, wherever they can be enjoyed, be united with that of domestic instruction.