Part 28

At the Autumnal Unitarian Conference held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1842, he offered a series of resolutions, setting forth the great extent, the appalling evils, and fearful wickedness of slavery, and endeavored to bring the Conference to resolve: “That, as ministers and disciples of Jesus Christ, we feel bound to declare our solemn opinion, that the institution of slavery is radically and inherently opposite to his religion; that it ought to be immediately abandoned by all who profess to be Christians; and that we do affectionately admonish and entreat all who hold ‘the like precious faith’ with us, to free themselves at once from the guilt of sustaining this evil thing.” There was manifested a great unwillingness to express any opinion upon the subject, and the Conference adjourned without taking action upon it.

When in England, in the summer of 1843, Mr. May attended a large meeting of Unitarians. Having been invited to address them, and to speak particularly upon the subject of slavery in America, and of the attitude of our denomination towards the great iniquity, he did speak at considerable length. But he gave a very truthful and candid statement of the case as it then was. He set before his British hearers the influences which tended to mislead even the most kindly disposed in this country, and the obstacles and difficulties that beset the way of those who were most resolute in the cause of the enslaved. He acknowledged gratefully, generously, the important services which Dr. Follen, Dr. Channing, and other Unitarian ministers and laymen had rendered. But he was obliged, as a man of truth, to confess that our denomination as a whole had been recreant to their duty. And he encouraged our English brethren to address a letter of fraternal counsel and entreaty to us, not doubting that such a communication would be gratefully received by the American Unitarians as coming from those who had had to contend against a similar system of iniquity, and had helped their national government to abolish it. But I have already stated how utterly disappointed he was in the result.

Soon after his return from England, at the annual meeting of the American Unitarian Association in May, 1844, he again brought up the subject, and earnestly endeavored, with others, to induce that body to vote that slaveholding was anti-republican, inhuman, and unchristian. It led to a protracted discussion of two days or more, which resulted in nothing else than a vote of censure passed upon the Unitarian Church in Savannah, Georgia, because they refused to receive the services of the Rev. Mr. Motte, sent to them by the Executive Committee of the Association, having heard that he had protested in a sermon against the wrongs inflicted upon the colored people both at the North and South.

Henry H. Fuller, of Boston, strenuously opposed the introduction of the subject of slavery to the consideration of the Association in any way. “We of the North have nothing to do with it. It is a system of labor established in some of our sister States by their highest legislative authority. It was consented to by the framers of our National Constitution, and guaranties given for its protection,” &c., &c. After much more of the same sort, he gave way for Mr. May to offer the following resolutions, instead of those by which he had called up the debate:--

1. “_Resolved_, That the American Unitarian Association, desirous that the pecuniary or other aid rendered by them from time to time to individuals and societies in the slaveholding sections of our country should not be misunderstood or misconstrued, do hereby declare their conviction that the institution of slavery, as existing in this country, is contrary to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ (especially to the views which _we_ entertain of it), to the rights of man, and to every principle of justice and humanity; and in a spirit not of dictation, but of friendly remonstrance and entreaty, would call upon those whom they may address, as believers in one God and Father of all, to bear a faithful testimony against slavery.

2. “_Resolved_, That the Executive Committee be, and they hereby are, requested to transmit a copy of the preceding resolution to each of our auxiliary Associations, and to such societies in the slaveholding sections of the country as may from time to time receive pecuniary aid from this Association.”

Dr. J. H. Morison objected to any action by the meeting. “1st. Because we shall thereby lose our influence at the South. 2d. Because we shall convert the Association into an Abolition Society. 3d. Because it would be a dastardly proceeding, at our distance from the scene of danger, to utter sentiments hostile to slavery, with which the Southern Unitarian societies might be identified.”

Dr. E. S. Gannett said that the Association never contemplated any action on slavery. It was contrary to the objects of its formation. It would also be an invasion of the rights of conscience,--being the setting up of a creed with reference to this subject. Moreover, he said, it would be injurious to the slaves. Ten years ago their bondage was much lighter than at present. And then it would be to identify ourselves with the Abolitionists of the free States, whom he most unsparingly and vehemently condemned, and said there was little comparative need for us to go South to rebuke an evil, when we had such a “hellish spirit alive and active here in our very midst, even in New England.”

Hon. S. C. Phillips, of Salem, was not in favor of such action as the resolutions proposed, but still thought we should take some action, and very properly in connection with this case of the Savannah church we should present, as we fairly might, our views on the whole subject of slavery. He said there had been great error in our so long silence on the subject. Our leading policy had been to avoid it, and much injury, and the prevention of much good, had been the consequence. “The time has come,” said he, “when no man can be silent everywhere, and at all times, on this subject without guilt.”

Mr. Phillips offered a series of resolutions instead of Mr. May’s.

Rev. Mr. Lunt, of Quincy, opposed any action, and spoke with great severity of the Abolitionists, whom he charged with being bent on the dissolution of our Union and also the subversion of Christianity.

My cousin vindicated the Abolitionists from Mr. Lunt’s charges, reminding him and the audience of the ground which Dr. Channing and other true friends of our country had taken respecting disunion, in case of the annexation of Texas. Mr. May showed that the Abolitionists had opposed only a false and corrupt church, not the Church of Christ, and still less Christianity itself, in which they gloried as the basis and impelling principle of their movement.

The resolutions were ably supported by the mover, Mr. Phillips, and four other laymen, and by eleven ministers, and finally passed by a majority of forty to fifteen, and were in part as follows:--

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:--

1. The claimant of any person who had escaped, or should escape from slavery in any State or Territory, might apply to any Court of Record or Judge thereof, describe the fugitive and make satisfactory proof that he or she owed service or labor to said claimant. Thereupon the Court, or in vacation the Judge, was required to cause a record to be made of the description of the alleged fugitive, and of the proof of his or her enslavement, and give an attested copy of that record to the claimant; which copy was required to be received by any court, judge, or commissioner in any other State or Territory of the Union, as full and conclusive evidence that the person claimed, and so described, was a fugitive from slavery and owed service to the claimant, and therefore should be delivered up.

Any marshal or deputy who should refuse to arrest such a fugitive was to be fined _one thousand dollars_. And if, after having arrested him or her, the fugitive should in any way escape from his custody, the marshal or deputy should be held liable to pay to the claimant the value of the runaway.

And any person who should in any way prevent the claimant or his agent or assistants from getting possession of the fugitive, by hiding him or helping him to escape, or by open opposition to his would-be captor,--such offender was to be fined _one thousand dollars_ for violating this _righteous_ law; and be liable to pay another _thousand dollars_ to the claimant of the fugitive.

In order that every facility should be afforded to _our slaveholding brethren_ to retake their fleeing property, many commissioners were ordered to be appointed in all suitable places (in addition to the courts and judges) whose especial duty it should be to attend to cases that might arise under the Fugitive Slave Law. And each commissioner or judge, who found the accused guilty of having fled from bondage, was to receive a fee of ten dollars. But if the proof adduced by the claimant did not satisfy him that the accused was a fugitive from his service, then the judge or commissioner was to receive only five dollars. Thus bribery was by this law superadded to every other device to enable the American slaveholder to recover his escaped slave, and return him or her to a still more cruel bondage.

Nor was this all that was atrociously wicked in the enactment. It provided further that, while the claimant or his agent might give testimony or make affidavit to the enslavement of the arrested one, “in no trial or hearing under the Act was the testimony of the alleged fugitive to be admitted in evidence” that he was not the one that his claimant called him, or that he had been emancipated by the will of a former owner, or by the purchase of his liberty.

If there be among the laws of any other nation, in any other part and in any other age of the world, an enactment, a decree, a ukase, so profoundly wicked, so ingeniously cruel, as this law which the Congress of the United States passed in 1850,--the very middle of the nineteenth century,--I beg to be informed of it, for I confess at the close of this recital I feel as if, in my shame and misery, I should be relieved for a moment by bad company.

At first it may seem strange that Mr. Clay should have supposed the people of the Northern States would conform to the requirements of such a law; would consent that their States should be made the hunting-grounds, and themselves the bloodhounds of Southern oppressors in pursuit of their fleeing slaves. And yet was he not justified in this low opinion of us by the conduct of many of those who were elected to be representatives of the opinions and wishes of the majority of our communities? The execrable bill could not have become a law, without the concurrence of Northern members in both Houses of Congress; for, in both, the larger number were from the non-slaveholding States. Yet it was enacted by the votes of twenty-seven of the Senators against only twelve; and by one hundred and nine of the Representatives opposed by seventy-five. And many of these recreants to the fundamental principles of justice and humanity had led Mr. Clay, and the Southern politicians generally, to expect such votes as they gave by the sentiments they uttered in the preceding debates.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

The man who did more than any one, if not more than all of the members of Congress from the free States, to procure the passage of the Bill of Abominations, was _Daniel Webster_, who had represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for twenty-five years; who led her in opposition to the Missouri Compromise in 1819, and for nearly twenty years afterwards was regarded as a leader of the advanced guard of liberty and humanity. But when, in 1838, he went into the Southern States to make his bids for the presidency, he uttered words that foretold his moral declension, though not to so deep a depth as he descended in his advocacy of the Fugitive Slave Law. The infamy of his speech on the 7th of March, 1850, can never be forgotten while he is remembered. He then declared it to be his intention “to support the Bill with all its provisions to the fullest extent.”

Another fact which adds a sting of bitterness to the shame of the North was, that this Act, the baseness, meanness, cruelty of which no epithet in my vocabulary can adequately express, became a law by the signature of the President, subscribed by _Millard Fillmore_, a New York man and a Unitarian withal.

Notwithstanding the general expressions of indignation and disgust at Mr. Webster’s baseness and treachery in supporting the Fugitive Slave Bill throughout the North, especially from all parts of his own State, Massachusetts, he and other members of the Senate and the House of Representatives persisted until, as we have seen, the Act became a law. The arch-traitor was rewarded with the office of Secretary of State. Such was his gratitude for this small compensation that, on taking leave of the Senate, he pledged himself anew to the infamous principles he had avowed on the 7th of March.[R]

No sooner was the deed done, the Fugitive Slave Act sent forth to be the law of the land, than outcries of contempt and defiance came from every free State, and pledges of protection were given to the colored population. It is not within the scope of my plan to attempt an account of the indignation-meetings that were held in places too numerous to be even mentioned here. They will make a proud episode in the history of our nation since 1830, whenever it shall be fully written. Meanwhile, let me here refer my readers to the admirable Reports of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, especially those written by the piquant pen, under the guidance of the astute mind, of Edmund Quincy, for the last ten or fifteen years of our fiery conflict.

I must confine myself to my personal recollections, and in this particular they are most grateful to me, and honorable to the city of Syracuse, where I have resided since 1845.

The Fugitive Slave Act was signed by the President on the 18th of September. Eight days afterwards, a call was issued through our newspapers summoning the citizens of Syracuse and its vicinity, without respect to party, to meet in our City Hall on the 4th of October ensuing, to denounce and take measures to withstand this law. As the time of the meeting approached the popular excitement increased, and at an early hour the hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. Hon. A. H. Hovey, the Mayor of the city, was elected to preside, sustained by eight vice-presidents of the two political parties, three of whom had been then, or have been since, mayors of Syracuse, and the other five, gentlemen of the highest respectability, though only one of them had been active with the Abolitionists,--Hon. E. W. Leavenworth, Hon. Horace Wheaton, John Woodruff, Esq., Captain Oliver Teall, Robert Gere, Esq., Hon. L. Kingsley, Captain Hiram Putnam, Dr. Lyman Clary.

The President addressed the meeting very acceptably, declared himself to be with us in opposition to the law, adding: “The colored man must be protected,--he must be secure among us, come what will of political organizations.” A series of thirteen resolutions was read, three of which will make known sufficiently the spirit of them all. The second was:--

1. “_Resolved_, That the Fugitive Slave Law, recently enacted by the Congress of these United States, is a most flagrant outrage upon the inalienable rights of man, and a daring assault upon the palladium of American liberties.”

3. “That every intelligent man and woman throughout our country, ought to read attentively, and understand the provisions of this law, in all its details, so that they may be fully aware of its diabolical spirit and cruel ingenuity, and prepare themselves to _oppose_ all attempts to enforce it.”

13. “_Resolved_, That we recommend the appointment of a Vigilance Committee of thirteen citizens, whose duty it shall be to see that no person is deprived of his liberty without ‘due process of law.’ And all good citizens are earnestly requested to aid and sustain them in all needed efforts for the security of every person claiming the protection of our laws.”

The meeting was addressed in a very spirited strain by two colored gentlemen,--Rev. S. R. Ward and Rev. J. W. Loguen. They each declared that they and their colored fellow-citizens generally had determined to make the most violent resistance to any attempt that might be made to re-enslave them. They would have their liberty or die in its defence.

Mr. Charles A. Wheaton, Chairman of a Committee, then read an Address to the citizens of the State of New York, setting very plainly before them the degradation to which this law would reduce them. It showed them how the law would nullify all the provisions made in the Constitution for the protection of our dearest rights, as well as the liberties of any amongst us who might have complexions shaded in any measure. And it called upon the citizens of the Empire State to rise in their majesty and put down all attempts to enforce this law.