CHAPTER II

THE DAWN OF THE NEW DAY

The new thought at work in the minds of the American people during the second half of the eighteenth century, especially after the Seven Years' War, aroused further interest in the uplift of the groups far down. By this time the colonists had become more conscious of their unique position in America, more appreciative of their worth in the development of the new world, and more cognizant of the necessity to take care of themselves by development from within rather than addition from without. How to rehabilitate the weakened forces and how to minister to those who had been neglected became a matter of concern to all forward-looking men of that time.

The clergy thereafter considered the Negro more seriously even in those parts where slaves were found in large numbers. Among those directing attention to the spiritual needs of the race were Rev. Thomas Bacon and Rev. Jonathan Boucher of the Anglican Church. The former undertook to arouse his people through a series of sermons addressed to masters and slaves about the year 1750. He said: "We should make this reading and studying the Holy Scriptures and the reading and explaining of them to our children and servants or the catechising and instructing them in the principles of the Christian religion a stated duty. If the grown up slaves from confirmed habits of vice are hard to be reclaimed, the children surely are in our power and may be trained up in the way they should go, with rational hopes that when they are old, they will not depart from it." In 1763 Jonathan Boucher boldly said: "It certainly is not a necessary circumstance essential to the condition of the slave that he be not indoctrinated; yet this is the general and almost universal lot of the slaves." He said, moreover: "You may unfetter them from the chains of ignorance, you may emancipate them from the bondage of sin, the worse slavery to which they could be subjected; and by thus setting at liberty those that are bruised though they still continue to be your slaves, they shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God."

The accomplishment of the task of more thoroughly proselyting the Negroes, however, belongs to the record of other sects than the Anglican Church. Even if the Negroes had been given the invitation to take a part in the propagation of the gospel as promoted by the first sects in control, the organization of these bodies, the philosophical foundation of their doctrines, and the controversial atmosphere in which their protagonists lived in this conflict of creeds, made it impossible for persons of such limited mental development as the slaves were permitted to experience, to participate. The Latin ceremonies of the Catholic church and the ritualistic conformity required by the Anglicans too often baffled the Negro's understanding, leaving him, even when he had made a profession of faith, in a position of being compelled to accept the spiritual blessings largely on the recommendation of the missionary proffering them. The simplicity of the Quakers set forth as an attack on the forms and ceremonies of the more aristocratic churches equally taxed the undeveloped intellect of certain Negroes who often wondered how matters so mysterious could be reduced to such an ordinary formula.

During the latter part of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth, there were rising to power in the United States two sects, which, because of their evangelical appeal to the untutored mind, made such inroads upon the Negro population as to take over in a few years thereafter the direction of the spiritual development of most of the Negroes throughout the United States. These were the Methodists and Baptists. They, together with the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, imbibed more freely than other denominations the social-compact philosophy of John Locke and emphasized the doctrines of Coke, Milton, and Blackstone as a means to justify the struggle for an enlargement of the domain of political liberty, primarily for the purpose of securing religious freedom denied them by the adherents of the Anglican Church.

Neither the Baptists nor the Methodists, however, were at first especially interested in the Negro. Whitefield in Georgia advocated the introduction of slaves and rum for the economic improvement of the colony. He even owned slaves himself, although Wesley, Coke, and Asbury opposed the institution and advocated emancipation as a means to thorough evangelization. The work of the Methodists in behalf of the Negroes, moreover, was still less directed toward their liberation in the West Indies than on the continent, doubtless because of the fact that in that section there did not develop the struggle for the rights of man as an attack upon the British government as it happened in the colonies along the Atlantic. But it is said that out of the 352,404 signatures to memorials sent by Dissenters to Parliament praying for the abolition of slavery, 229,426 were the names of Methodists.

The missionaries, however, seemed to be trying to stir between Scylla and Charybdis. They were forbidden to hold slaves but they were required to promote the moral and religious improvement of the slaves without in the least degree, in public or private, interfering with their civil condition. One who served for twenty years in the West Indies said: "For half a century from the commencement of Methodism the slaves never expected freedom, and the missionaries never taught them to expect it; and when the agitation of later years unavoidably affected them more or less, as they learned chiefly through the violent speeches of their own masters or overseers what was going on in their favor in England; it was missionary influence that moderated their passions, kept them in the steady course of duty, and prevented them from sinning against God by offending against the laws of man. Whatever outbreaks or insurrections at any time occurred, no Methodist slave was ever proved guilty of incendiarism or rebellion for more than seventy years, namely, from 1760 to 1833. An extensive examination of their correspondence throughout that lengthened period, and an acquaintance with their general character and history, enables me confidently to affirm that a more humble, laborious, zealous, and unoffending class of Christian missionaries were never employed by any section of the church than those sent out by the British conference to the West India Isles. They were eminently men of one business, unconnected with any political party, though often strongly suspected by the jealousies so rife in slaveholding communities. A curious instance of this jealousy occurred in regard to one who was firmly believed to be a correspondent of the Anti-Slavery Society in England. "I did not know," said Fowell Buxton, in the House of Commons, "that such a man was in existence, till I heard that he was to be hung for corresponding with me."

In what is now the United States, on the contrary, there developed among the Baptists and Methodists a number of traveling missionaries, seemingly like the apostles of old, who in preaching to blacks and whites alike won most Negroes by attacking all evils, among which was slavery. Freeborn Garretson, one of the earliest Methodist missionaries, said to his countrymen that it was revealed to him that "it is not right for you to keep your fellow creatures in bondage; you must let the oppressed go free." He said in 1776: "It was God, not man, that taught me the impropriety of holding slaves: and I shall never be able to praise him enough for it. My very heart has bled, since that, for slaveholders, especially those who make a profession of religion; for I believe it to be a crying sin."

Bishop Asbury recorded in his _Journal_ in 1776: "I met the class and then the black people, some of whose unhappy masters forbid their coming for religious instruction. How will the sons of oppression answer for their conduct when the great proprietor of all shall call them to account?" In 1780 he records that he spoke to some select friends about slave keeping but they could not bear it. He said: "This I know. God will plead the cause of the oppressed though it gives offense to say so here.... I am grieved for slavery and the manner of keeping these poor people."

With these missionaries attacking slavery, the church as an organization had to take some position. In 1780 the church required traveling preachers to set their slaves free, declaring at the same time that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man and nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and pure religion, and doing that which we would not that others should do to us and ours. In 1784 the conference took steps for the abolition of slavery, viewing it as "contrary to the golden laws of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets; and the inalienable rights of mankind, as well as every principle of the Revolution, to hold in the deepest abasement in a more abject slavery, than is, perhaps, to be found in any part of the world, except America, so many souls that are all capable of the image of God." Every slaveholding member of their society was required to liberate his bondmen within twelve months. A record was to be kept of all slaves belonging to masters within the respective circuits and further records of their manumissions. Any person who would not comply with these regulations would have liberty quietly to withdraw from the society within twelve months, and, if he did not, he would be excluded at that time.[1] Persons thus withdrawing should not partake of the Lord's Supper and those holding slaves would be excluded from this same privilege.

The Methodists who had taken this advanced position on slavery in 1784, however, soon found that they were ahead of the majority of the local members. Much agitation had been caused by this discussion in the State of Virginia and in 1785 there came several petitions asking for a suspension of the resolution passed in 1784 and it was so ordered in 1785 in the words: "It is recommended to all our brethren to suspend the execution of the minute on slavery _till the deliberations of a future conference_; and that an equal space of time be allowed to all our members for consideration when the minute shall be put in force." The conference declared, however, that it held in deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery and would not cease to seek its destruction by all wise and prudent means. These rules of 1784 were thereafter never put in effect but in 1796 the conference took the position of requiring the Methodists to be exceedingly cautious what persons they admitted to official stations in the church; "and in case of future admission to official stations, to require such security of those who hold slaves for the emancipation of them immediately, or gradually, as the laws of the States respectively and the circumstances of the case will admit." A traveling preacher becoming the owner of a slave forfeited his ministerial position. No slaveholder should be received in the society until the preacher who has oversight of the circuit had spoken to him freely and faithfully upon the subject of slavery. Every member who sold a slave should immediately after full proof be excluded from the society, and if any member purchased a slave, the quarterly meeting should determine the number of years in which the slave so purchased would work out the price of his purchase. The preachers and other members of the society were requested to consider the subject of Negro slavery with deep attention and to impart to the General Conference through the medium of yearly conferences, or otherwise, any important thought upon the subject. The annual conferences were directed to draw up addresses for the gradual emancipation of the slaves to the legislatures of those States in which no general laws had been passed for that purpose.

Locally the Baptists were winning more Negroes than the Methodists by their attack on slavery during these years, but because of the lack of organized effort the Baptists did not exert as much antislavery influence as the early Methodists. Through their conferences they often influenced the local churches to do more against slavery than they would have done for fear that they might lose their status among their brethren. As the Baptist church emphasized above all things local self-government, each church being a law unto itself, it did not as a national body persistently attack slavery. The Baptists reached their most advanced position as an anti-slavery body in 1789 when they took action to the effect "that slavery is a violent depredation of the rights of nature and inconsistent with a republican government, and therefore, recommend it to our brethren, to make use of their local missions to extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the great jubilee consistent with the principles of good policy."

From this position most Baptists gradually receded. Yet, although not working as an organized body, the Baptists in certain parts of the country were unusually outspoken and effective in waging war on slavery. As there were a number of disputes, owing to the fact that the denomination as a body was far from unanimity on this subject, some dissension in the ranks followed. Those who believed in the abolition of slavery by immediate means styled themselves the _Emancipating Baptists_ or the _Emancipating Society_ in contradistinction to the remaining Calvinistic Baptists who desired to be silent on the question.

The most outspoken of the former was David Barrow.[2] He was a native of Virginia, where he commenced his ministry in 1771, passing through the period of much insolence and persecution of the rude countrymen then denying the liberal sects religious freedom. He early became attached to the antislavery school and consequently emancipated his own slaves in Virginia without at first having so very much to say against the institution. After distinguishing himself in the State of Virginia for his unusual piety and great ability, he moved to Kentucky in 1798 and settled in Montgomery County. When the antislavery dispute became very ardent soon thereafter, he carried his opposition to the extent of alienating the support of his coworkers, who, sitting as an advisory council, expelled him from the ministry for preaching emancipation, and preferred similar charges against him that his local church at Mount Sterling might act accordingly. After having taken this drastic step, however, the Association at its next session voted to rescind this action; but Barrow had then joined with the emancipators and did not desire to return. Among those whom he found sufficiently companionable in the new work which he had undertaken were Rev. Donald Holmes, Carter Tarrant, Jacob Grigg, George Smith, and numerous other ministers, some of whom were native Americans and others native Europeans.

These emancipators began by inquiring: "Can any person whose practice is friendly to perpetual slavery be admitted a member of this meeting?" They thought not. They inquired, moreover: "Is there any case in which persons holding slaves may be admitted to membership into the church of Christ?" They said: "No, except in the case of holding young slaves with a view to their future emancipation when they reach the age of responsibility, in the case of persons who have purchased slaves in their ignorance and desire to leave it to the church to say when they may be free, in the case of women whose husbands are opposed to emancipation, in the case of a widow who has it not in her power to liberate them, and in the case when the slaves are idiots or too old to maintain themselves." Another query was: "Shall members in union with us be at liberty in any case to purchase slaves?" The answer was negative, except it was with a view to ransom them in such a way as the church might approve. These emancipators in Kentucky constituted themselves some years later an organized body and finally became known as the "_Baptized Licking-Locust Association_." In the course of time, however, feeling that that mode of association or the consolidation of churches was unscriptural and ought to be laid aside, they changed their organization to that of an abolition society.

It is interesting to note the attitude of the Presbyterians toward the amelioration of the condition of the Negroes. In 1774 when abolition was agitated in connection with the struggle for the rights of man, the Presbyterians were early requested to take action. A representation from Dr. Ezra Stiles and Rev. Samuel Hopkins respecting the sending of two natives of Africa on a mission to propagate Christianity in that land, brought before that body a discussion of all aspects of Negro slavery. In this debate a committee was requested to bring in a report on Negro slavery. The Assembly concurred in the proposal to send the missionaries to Africa, but deferred further consideration of slavery.

The first action taken on the subject came, after delay from year to year, in 1787. The committee on overtures brought in a report to the effect that the "Creator of the world having made of one flesh all the children of men, it becomes them as members of the same family, to consult and promote each other's happiness. It is more especially the duty of those who maintain the rights of humanity, and who acknowledge and teach the obligations of Christianity, to use such means as are in their power to extend the blessings of equal freedom to every part of the human race." Convinced of these truths, and sensible that the rights of human nature are too well understood to admit of debate, the Synod recommended in the warmest terms to every member of their body, and to all the churches and families under their care, to do everything in their power consistent with the rights of civil society, to promote the abolition of slavery, and the instruction of Negroes, whether bond or free.

After some consideration, however, the Synod reached the conclusion of expressing very much interest in the principles in favor of universal liberty that prevailed in America and also in that of the abolition of slavery. Yet inasmuch as it would be difficult to change slaves from a servile state to a participation in all the privileges of society without proper education and previous habits of industry, it recommended to all persons holding slaves to give them such education as might prepare them for the better enjoyment of freedom, and recommended further that in those cases in which the masters found the slaves disposed to make just improvement of the privilege they should give them "a peculium or sufficient time and sufficient means for procuring their liberty at a moderate rate."

There was some agitation of the question in 1793, when a memorial was addressed to the General Assembly by Warner Mifflin, a member of the Society of Friends; but no action of importance was taken again until 1795, when there arose the question as to whether the church should uphold communion with slaveholders. After due deliberation the General Assembly passed a resolution referring the memorialists to the action that the Assembly had already taken with reference to slavery in 1787 and 1793. As it seemed that the Presbytery of Transylvania was primarily concerned in this affair, Mr. Rice and Dr. Muir, ministers, and Mr. Robert Patterson, an elder, all of that section, were appointed a committee to draft the following pacifist letter to that Assembly, which determined for generations thereafter the policy of the Presbyterians with reference to slavery:

"To our brethren, members of the Presbyterian Church, under the care of Transylvania Presbytery.

"_Dear Friends and Brethren_--The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church hear with concern from your Commissioners, that differences of opinion with respect to holding Christian communion with those possessed of slaves, agitate the minds of some among you, and threaten divisions which may have the most ruinous tendency. The subject of slavery has repeatedly claimed the attention of the General Assembly, and the Commissioners from the Presbytery of Transylvania are furnished with attested copies of these decisions, to be read by the Presbytery when it shall appear to them proper, together with a copy of this letter, to the several Churches under their care.

"The General Assembly have taken every step which they deemed expedient or wise, to encourage emancipation, and to render the state of those who are in slavery as mild and tolerable as possible.

"Forbearance and peace are frequently inculcated and enjoined in the New Testament. 'Blessed are the peace-makers.' 'Let no one do anything through strife and vainglory.' 'Let such esteem others better than himself.' The followers of Jesus ought conscientiously to walk worthy of their vocations, 'with all lowliness, and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.' If every difference of opinion were to keep men at a distance, they could subsist in no state of society, either civil or religious. The General Assembly would impress this upon the minds of their brethren, and urge them to follow peace, and the things which make for peace.

"The General Assembly commend our dear friends and brethren to the grace of God, praying that the peace of God, which passeth all understanding may possess their hearts and minds."