Even with the most philosophical and philanthropic, a vague, indefinite, and ill-conceived impression of the “spirit of the age” as it is called, that was to carry everybody onward and upward to the dignity of freemen, without the exhausting cares, anxieties, and solicitudes of those who had almost worn themselves out in the long struggle, had operated as a welcome furlough, or discharge from service. When the army and the commander-in-chief [George Washington] were permitted to retire from the public defence, why should not they [do so]?

The human mind, so long and so intensely kept on the stretch,

How much more the masses of the people, whose vigilance and combined efforts were then needed? Withdrawing their attention too much from public affairs, they expended their strength on their own personal and domestic concerns, that now needed unusual care, after a season of comparative neglect. A people impoverished by a seven, years' war, were now to replenish their exhausted stores, and pay off their public and private debts, at a time when the proportion of producers had been diminished, first by the demands of the war, and next, by the flood of idlers, or worse than idlers, which had come with the return of peace.

How easily would most men [people] excuse themselves from anti-slavery agitation [activism] at such a period, to say nothing of an unwillingness to hazard, afresh, at the close of a civil war, the amicable relations that remained. In all this we see a cause, not an adequate excuse, for the general apathy that succeeded to the revolutionary struggle.

The lesson for our instruction is, the importance of never relinquishing a contest for freedom, till it is thoroughly secured, or of never yielding a moral controversy till it is settled on the right basis.

Inequality of possession, continually increasing and in striking contrast to earlier times, had undermined the spirit of equality, and introduced aristocratic tastes. Humanity and human rights were less valued than weaith. The concentration of capital created a new element of political power, and diverted it from its former channels. The possession of wealth, or of talents prostituted

Tn the effort to establish a national Constitution, to organise a new general government, and to mark out a course of national policy, this element became distinctly visible. It might be described as the aristocracy of intellect, combined, to a great extent, (though with some marked exceptions,) with high moral worth, which, in the absence of numbers, gave it, for a time, great weight and power. It was not so much, if at all, an aristocracy of misanthropy or of gross selfishness, as of conscious superiority of intelligence and character, and a distrust in the capacities of the mass of the people for self-government.

With a goodly share of the friends of humanity and justice in its ranks, (the friends of the enslaved,) seeking earnestly their future or ultimate freedom, it nevertheless failed to yield its full assent to those self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence which must lie at the basis of any consistent and thorough agitation [activism] for the present removal of slavery.

If the masses of the people could not safely be intrusted with the experiment of self-government, as this class of statesmen seem to have supposed, it would have been the consummation of folly and madness to have set the slaves all loose, at once, without any previous preparation for freedom. Even the professedly democratic portion of our public men were, by no means, prepared to apply their principles to the case of the unlettered and uncultivated negro

Was it to be expected, then, of those who trembled at the experiment of republican institutions even for the educated yeomanry of New England, without the protecting shadow of a royal throne, or its equivalent in some form—those who sought to restrict as much as possible the right of suffrage, making property the evidence of qualification; those who sought for balances and checks against the people, and the placing of the highest officers of government at the greatest practicable distance from their control—was it to be expected, we demand, of such a school of statesmen, that they should signalize themselves by demanding the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the enslaved? Most assuredly it was not. And no such anomaly was witnessed.

Admit that they embodied a majorlty of the most intelligent, respectable, philanthropic, and religious portion of the community, as has been plausibly, and perhaps justly, claimed for them—admit that among their prominent men were some of the most prominent and worthy patrons of manumission, and even of abolition societies—admit that they favored the circulation of the more radical and truly democratic anti-slavery doctrines of Hopkins and Edwards^*—it nevertheless remains true that no prominent statesman of this class, (nor even of their more democratic opponents,) proposed an immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery.

The democratic theory of human rights and corresponding capabilities, was not then sufficiently understood, to warrant [enable] such a movement. We mention this as an indisputable and important historical fact—not for any purposes of invidious reproach. If the best friends of the enslaved among our purest and most prominent statesmen were not ready to demand for them immediate justice, then their continued enslavement was a matter of course, until the rise
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* We cannnot say that Hopkins and Edwards were not both identified, in their political influence, as most of their clerical associates were, with the school of politics we have describod. It would be remarkable if they were not. But their writings on slavery are among the most radically democratic of their times.

Fidelity to historical truth compels us to add, that the class of statesmen just described exerted a powerful influence in moulding the Federal Constitution; that they distinguished themselves and obtained their political name, as Federalists, by advocating its adoption; that the administration of the Federal Government, on its first organization, came into their hands; that they administered it for the first twelve years [1789-1801], during which time the national policy was gradually but substantially settled upon the basis upon which it has been administered ever since,^*   so far as the slave question is concerned, only that the exorbitant demands of the slave power have been constantly “growing with its growth, and strengthening with its strength.”

Impartiality requires us to notice these facts concerning the Federal party while in power, as the Democratic party so called, is justly obnoxious to the charge of violating, even more conspicuousiy and outrageously, the free principles of which they boast, during their much longer administration [1801-1829, 1833-1841, 1845-1849, 1853-1861] of the government in after [subsequent] years.

The want [lack] of a thorough, consistent, and Christian democracy, therefore, is distinctiy visible in the origin and continuation of the pro-slavery policy of the national government, and to this fact, as to a comprehensive cause, the present ascendency of the slave power may be traced. Had the “Federalists” been more democratic in their theory of civil government—had the “Democrats” (or “Republicans,” as they were then called [pre-1857]) reduced their own theory to practice.^†
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* Facts, in evidence of this, will be adduced in the proper connection of the history.

† Having never belonged to either of those parties, nor voted more than twice or thrice before the formation of the Liberty party in 1840, (though an attentive witness of party strugles since 1804,) the writer [William Goodell (1792-1878)] hoped to have presented a picture which would have been admitted by all the intelligent friends of liberty to be a just and impartial one. But on submitting his manuscript to the inspection of judicious friends, he finds his mistake. He now makes up his mind that some good men of

If millions of educated and polished Frenchmen could not be transferred at once from a state of mere political servility to a state of civil and political freedom, without becoming fired with the frenzy of demons, abjuring all the restraints of religion, subverting the state, proscribing [banning] the church, engulfing society and property in the wildest chaos of disorder; drenching the land with blood, and exterminating each other by the rapid succession and violent proscription [banning] of rival factions, how could it be thought safe or prudent to release suddenly from a state of still deeper degradation a more ignorant population of slaves?

Thus it must have been that men [people] reasoned, especially that portion of them whose previous jealousy of [hostility toward] popular ascendency had been so unequivocally manifested, who looked upon these trans-atlantic developments with unmingled horror, and pointed to them as evidences in confirmation of their predictions.

Even the most sanguine and democratic among our American statesmen, and those who had most joyfully hailed the dawn of liberty in France, were compelled, though reluctantly, at length to join in the general condemnation of such excesses, and to feel if they could not re-echo the appeals now so eloquently made
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opposite parties will think him unjust to their party. No course seems to remain for him but the expression of his own convictions. He has no desire nor temptation to follow the bad custom of abusing the obsolete Federal party, the representative of a former age [era]. A more honest and patriotic party never administered the governinent. We have only attributed to it a defective theory, consistently followed—a less reprehensible error than that of its opponent, the holding of a better theory in abeyance, for the sake of pro-slavery support and the spoils of office.

So late [recently] as the beginning of the present anti-slavery agitation, in 1838, the “reign of terror” in France, and “the horrors of St. Domingo,”^*   were successfully adverted to [alleged] by opposers [of emancipation]; and the doctrines of immediate and unconditional emancipation, as taught by Edwards, were systematically confounded with [pretended to be the same as] the “Jacobinism of the first French Revolution”—a misrepresentation less excusable now, than during the dimness and confusion, near the close of the last century.

The horrors of the French Revolution, too, in like manner, are to be charged mainly upon the corruption in the Church, and the despotism in the State [government], that reduced the French philosophers into atheism, and drove the populace to desperation. And then it was but a counterfeit of true democracy that was introduced, and holding no nearer affinity to it than the corrupted Christianity of France had held to the Christianity of Christ. In fact, the anarchy that was misnamed liberty, was only a reproduction of the old despotisms in another form, trampling all the inalienable rights of humanity under foot, and resulting in a settled military despotism [Napoleon I] in the end.

Thomas Paine, a leading democratic writer of this country during the Revolution, and the intimate friend of Thomas Jefferson, came home from a sojourn in France, deeply imbued with these sentiments [beliefs], and found kindred spirits here, where his infidel writings had preceded him.

In the ranks of this school might be numbered not a few of that class of American revolationists, before noticed, whose influence and example, like Paine's^*,   were not on the side of morality and social order, and who could not have contributed, had they been thus disposed (as very many of them were not) to any healthful or hopeful enterprise for slave emancipation. Had any thing been desired or attempted,^†   in that direction, by the party absorbing this class of influences, and coming into power with Mr. Jefferson, in 1801, it is not improbable that the cry against them, of “infidelity, anarchy, and bloodshed” would have been, if possible, redoubled. That the opposite
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* Paine was an advocate of the abolition of slavery, and as clerk of the Pennsylvania House of Assembly, affixed his signature to the act of prospective emancipation in that State. The infidel principles and [alleged] lax morals of Paine occasioned much prejudice against his doctrine of the “rights of man.”

† There is no evidence that the Democratic or Republican party, at any period, was inclined to abolish slavery. Among all the loud and bitter complaints raised by them against the alleged despotic tendencies of the Federal party, its support of slavery was never mentioned. And among all the democratic measures proposed by Mr. Jefferson while in office, the abolition of slavery was not one. His own eloquent writings against slavery could not persuade him to emancipate (as Washington had done) his own slaves. The early identification of a majority of leading slaveholders with the Democratic party, and the steady control of that party by them, ever since, has always been a great puzzle and a great stumbling-block in the way of Democratic progress.

The historical solution seems to be, that Northern talent and Northern capital (the natural rivals of Southern talent and capital) had committed themselves against the democratic theory. The only way to “get up an issue” was to espouse the theory, but blink [at] the particular application to slavery, with the double advantage of neutralizing and disarming the hostile principle. And if democratic measures favored labor, the slaveholder adroitly stood in the place of the Sonthern laborer, and might count on the co-operation of the Northern laborer.

We say nothing in excuse of the derelictions of either of these parties, nor in peculiar or exclusive reproach of either of them, but we think it important to present a true and impartial account of the facts of that period, that the causes of our present unhappy position may be understood, and avoided in future. A Christianity crippled by an alliance with even the most pure and elevated description of aristocracy, is incompetent to the task of securing human freedom. A democracy, or a philanthropy, however ardent and radical, that is not based upon the Christianity of the Bible, is equally impotent, for the same sublime mission.^*

When the cotton manufacture of the North came to engross so great an amount of northern capital, a bond of affinity between northern and southern capitalists [the "Lords of the Lash" and the "Lords of the Loom," Wendell Phillips' term] was created, which at length, has almost indissolubly interwoven the Eastern States in the web of the slave power. If anything is to be done to disentangle or cut the threads, it must be done soon.

But there is, at the South, a still more potent passion than the love of wealth. It is the lust of political power, and slavery has always been an element of political power to the slaveholders in the Southern States. Though frequently, if not commonly, a minority, in the different States, (counting slaves, free colored persons, and non-slaveholding whites,) the slaveholders have always held the political power of the slave States in their own hands, and may calculate upon doing this while the slave System continues.

Since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, in 1789, slavery has also become an all-controlling element of political power in this nation, in the hands of an oligarchy of slaveholders. This element, at first, was scarcely perceived. It originated in that [falsely alleged] provision of the Constitution which gives to the South a representation for their slaves, in the apportionment of representatives, and in the election of President and Vice President of the United States. A perception of this advantage has taught the slaveholders to regard the slave system as the grand instrument of their political ascendency in the nation. It has taught political aspirants at the North to become sycophantic and servile.

Not one of the causes or indications already enumerated, has failed to affect, most injuriously, the character and the influence of the Church, and when the weight [influence] of the Church itself came to be thrown into the scale of [for] slavery, each one of the causes or indications connected with the transition could not fail to receive fresh accessions of strength; and, by being combined in the bosom of the Church, consolidating and intrenching themselves there, with a compactness and solidity unknown before, they have rendered themselves almost impregnable, ever since.

In speaking of this transition of the Church, we do not forget that the Church had not, at any period, divorced herself wholly from slavery, nor even, as a whole, taken the ground of immediate and uncompromising action on the sabject. The doctrine of "gradual" repentance, resulting, in part, from the defective theologies then commonly in vogue, and which rejected the idea of sudden moral transformations, was the fatal error of the Church, and from her it had been imbibed by the best statesmen of the age, nurtured and taught in her bosom.

But we speak of the transition of the Church as we do of the corresponding transition of the State. We give both bodies the credit of no small degree of earnestness and honesty, in their opposition to slavery during the revolutionary

a state of comparative apathy, first;

of a quiescence, next; and

finally, of apology, of biblical defence, and of opposition to all

earnest endeavors to diffuse information on the subject, and

to array a public sentiment [viewpoint, attitude] against slavery.

When the external pressures, and the special dangers [the "fear" that Britain would enforce the anti-slavery law] incident to the slave system, during the [Revolutionary] war [1776-1783], were removed from the community by the return of peace, they were removed also from the Church.

The Church, too, as well as the world, forgot her solemn resolutions, in the hour of distress, to put away this iniquity from her bosom. When philanthropists contented themselves with mere moral suasion, without demanding distinct and effective legislation on the subject, they acted upon maxims they had imbibed in the Church; a Church that neglected to preach the religious duty of political justice in “delivering the spoiled out of the hands of the oppresser [Jeremiah 22:3],” and “executing judgment between a man and his neighbor.”

When projects of gradualism deceived the friends of the oppressed, it was because the Church had taught the doctrines of gradualism ["grace," doing away with Bible commandments] rather than those of immediate and unconditional compliance with all the divine precepts. When the moral reformers of those times consented to moral compromises, they were kept in countenance by the corresponding policy of the Church, from which they had received, directly or indirectly, their moral education [disinformation], and of which the greater part of them were members.

The general decline of pure religion and sound morality after the Revolution, is known to have affected, very seriously, the Church, and it was the testimony and the complaint of her most vigilant watchmen, that her standard of morality, and the efficacy of her discipline could not be restored to their former state. How evidently and how disastrously must such a fact have affected the position of the Church on the slave question!

And how notoriously have these manifestations been increasing ever since!

The general decline of the spirit of liberty that was witnessed in the community, was witnessed also in the Church, and the same moral lethargy and stupor came over them both. The influx of wealth, the erection of castes and aristocracies in society, that displaced simplicity and equality in the State, produced similar effects in the Church.

Especially was it true that the more elevated aristocracy of [alleged] intelligence, of [alleged] character, and of spiritual pride, that led prominent statesmen to distrust their fellow-citizens in the exercise of their God-given rights, found its home and its sanctuary in the high places of the Church and the ministry, by whom the policy of those statesmen was most earnestly and effectively sustained.

By these, in an especial manner, were the [alleged] horrors of the French Revolution so exhibited as to teach the danger of according to human beings, as such, the exercise of essential human rights. However honest may have been the error, and however plausibly maintained, it was none the less to be deplored.

The unexpected profitableness of slave labor in the production of cotton was a temptation to the Church, as well as to the rest of the community, and with the rest of the community the Southern Church fell into the snare. And the profitableness of the cotton manufacture at the North, and the consequent sympathy of the manufacturer with the planter, has influenced the Northern Church, not excepting the Society of Friends [Quakers], as really (if not as universally) as it has the rest of the community.

The same may be said of the temptations of ambition, connected with this anomalous element of political power, and among our most

So that all the elements and causes of declension [moral deterioration], in respect to the treatment of slavery, that have appeared and operated in the body politic, have appeared and operated likewise in the Church. There they have become concentrated, there they have been strengthened, there, above all, they

have been baptized “into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost”—

have been seated at the communion table,

have been elevated into the pulpit,

have been installed trustees and professors of Colleges and Theological Seminaries;

have been made managers and life members of Bible, Tract, and Missionary Societies,

have shaped the course of ecclesiastical bodies,

and revised and controlled the discipline [doctrines] of the Church.

Besides all this, the Church has seemed to embody elements of deterioration peculiarly her own. Her divisions into rival sects and theological schools have ensnared her; she has compromised her Christian principles, has neutralized, or withdrawn her testimony, and has faltered in her administration of discipline, to gain strength and numbers wherewith to carry on schismatic and polemic [denominational] wars within her own bosom!

When the Methodist testimonies against slavery were found to stand in the way of the comparative growth and prospective ascendency of the Methodist sect, then the severity of Methodist discipline [doctrine] against slavery must be relaxed (so we have been told by the apologists of that policy) to propitiate the favor of slaveholders.

In the same way, and for the same object [reason, growth], the testimonies of the Presbyterian sect against slavery must be rendered a dead letter, and the most pointed of them at length, expunged. The unity and extension of the sect, and the harmony of its ecclesiastical action throughout the country, must not be disturbed by any agitation of the exciting [offending] question [slavery issue].

From its flat contradiction of the Bible, we should characterize it as decidedly of infidel parentage, yet we find it nestling in the bosom of the Church. From its unaccountableness, we should describe it by the names of hypocrisy and pretence, did not its malignity prove its sincerity and reality.

Were it less murderous and less blasphemous, we might laugh at it; were it less ludicrous, we might reason against it; were it less mean, we could enter the lists against it, as an object of honorable warfare.

We should attribute it [the color prejudice, racism] to sheer vulgarity and ignorance (where we find it signally at home) but that we meet with it also in circles claiming refinement and learning. We allude to the infatuation [prejudice, racism]

that virtually predicates humanity upon the hue of the skin, that disbelieves that “God had made of one blood all nations of men” [Acts17:26],

that arrogates to less than one-sixth part of the human race the exclusive monopoly of our common humanity,

that thus falsifies the self-evident truths of our Declaration of Independence, and sets up, in the temples of Jehovah [the churches], the monuments of heathen caste.

The Maryland laws, before quoted [p 22], forbidding white women to marry negroes, simply for the reason stated, that the latter were slaves, afford sufficient proof of the modern date of this prejudice [racism], and of its origin in the slave System.

In countries not familiarized with a population of colored slaves, (as in Russia and Poland, where the serfs are all whites,) the prejudice against colored people is unknown, and its existence among us is there discredited, considered an inexplicable phenomenon.

In France, in England, in Germany, and throughout all Europe, though the Jews are a degraded [discriminated against] caste [ethnic group], the educated negro has free [unsegregated] access, and on terms of unquestioned equality, to the very highest circles of society.

It is reserved to a nation [the U.S.] pluming [priding] itself upon being the world's teacher of the doctrine of human equality, to deny the common courtesies of life, along with the essential rights of humanity, to a large part of the human species, (to the very race first proficient in literature and civilization,) on account of their color! Thus do we [the U.S. under “Bible-Belt” domination] invite and merit a world's scorn!

Were it not for this stupid prejudice against color [racism], the sceptre of the slaveholding oligarchy would drop powerless at once, and the nation would be disenthralled. Sustained by this debasing prejudice, its supremacy must remain unbroken, and the nation must be enslaved [remains under slaver domination, tobacco pushers].

The speech [by this insane but powerful politician unable to distinguish practice from rule of law] will repay close study. In no part of it does Mr. Clay intimate a future abolition of slavery. [Southrons intended slavery forever, expanded it!] The “impediments“ he urges will not diminish. The limited powers of the Federal Government—the sanction of centuries of legislation—the impossibility of separation or removal—the appalling amount of property invested—all these, except the first item, must increase.

Neither does Mr. Clay predict the future extinction of SLAVERY, but only the disappearance of the “black race from among OUR posterity!” The language is exceedingly guarded, and [in view of slavers' mass rapes] commendably accurate. Mr. Clay knows that the slave population, like the free, are increasing in a geometrical ratio. And that, if it be true that the free (or as he has psays] it, the European portion) are gaining a little more rapidly, this does not alter the fact of the rapid increase of slaves, whatever their color may be. Indisputably it is the process of amalgamation, and nothing else, that lays the foundation for the estimate that one hundred and fifty or two hundred years will “leave but few vestiges of the black race AMONG our posterity!” Neither the “slaves” nor the “blacks” are diminishing by depopulation, like the Indians and the Sandwich Islanders. The reverse is the known fact. Mr. Clay's remedy for the “bondage of the African race” is manifestly a future enslavement of a vastly greater number of “our posterity” “AMONG” whom will remain “but few vestiges of the black race in one hundred and fifty or two hundred years.”

Gov. [George] McDuffie, of South Carolina, had declared a laboring community [working class, blue collar], “bleached [white] or unbleached [black],” “a dangerous element in the body politic.” He had anticipated their enslavement, in the Northern States, in “less than a quarter of a century.”

To Mr. Clay it was reserved to intimate a respite of one hundred and fifty or two hundred years, showing how it must then be inevitably iutroduced, by causes already in operation, and fortified by formidable “obstacles” and “impediments” in

To this point, then, at length, our [U.S.] declension [moral decline] has reached. We hesitate to give up the insane prejudice that supports slavery, though told never so plainly, and from the best authority, that the consequence must be the loss of our own liberties—the enslavement of our own children! Nay, while we hear it proclaimed from the loftiest battlements of slavedom, that “the noblest blood of Virginia,” the noblest blood of our revolutionary sires [the Founding Fathers], runs in the veins of slaves.^*
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the way of their removal. Those “obstacles” and “impediments” present the problem for the laboring people of the free States. Unless overcome, the prophecy of Mr. Clay must become history. There is no possible or conceivable alternative. Let the people banish prejudice against color, and all Mr. Clay's “impediments” and “obstacles” would vanish in twenty-four hours.

* It has been credibly reported, over the signatures of respectable citizens, that a reputed daughter of Thomas Jefferson has been seen exposed for sale at auction in New Orleans, as a slave. The known usages [customs, traditions, habits, practices] of slavery in America are such as to render the statement a highly probable one. It is also said that a grand-daughter of Mr. Jefferson is among the colonists of Liberia. The statement, along with the following, is from a communication in “Frederick Douglass' paper” for March 25, 1852:

“I have heard from an eye witness, that on more than one occasion, when the sage of Monticello left that retreat for the Presidential abode at Washington [now, the “White House”], there would be on the top of the same coach a yellow boy 'running away.' “And when told that one of his slaves was going off without leave, Jefferson said, 'Well, let him go, his right is as good as his father's!' And, somehow that boy would get a doceur before the 'parting of the ways.'” Ed. Note: See also related modern data on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. This evidence from 1852 is consistent and corrroborative.

IN speaking of the position of the churches, we shall have reference to the general fact—the principal religious nominations—the leading influences—not forgetting that there are honorable exceptions to the picture we shall be compelled to present.

The former anti-slavery testimonies of the Society of Friends, and also of the Presbyterian and Methodist, and some of the Baptist churches, until near the close of the last century, we have presented already.* Of other denominations, as such, at that period, we had nothing of an authentic character to record. We are assured that there were earnest opposers of slavery among Episcopalians, and other religious communions.

Of the course of the principal denominations since that time, and their position at present, we propose now to treat; in doing which, such facts will be brought forward as will enable the reader to form his own judgment in the premises.
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In reverting to the action, of the Methodist Conferences, towards the close of the last century (Chap. IX.), the reader would almost be warranted to take it for granted that slaveholding, in that religious denomination, must have speedily come to an end. There can be no doubt that such was the intention of the Conferences, and that such was the general expectation at the time. Such, however, was not the fact.

The fatal error seems to have consisted in an unwarrantable lenity towards delinquent members, in not promptly enforcing the discipline [anti-slavery doctrine], and this under the delusive expectation that they would, in a short time, be prepared to take the step, voluntarily, themselves, without being authoritatively coerced. Never, perhaps, was there a more striking illustration of the danger of such delays. The church that, with a full and clear perception of the iniquity of a practice existing among its members, has not fidelity and energy to expel it at once, has no reason to flatter itself that it ever will.

If the Friends [Quakers] were more successful notwithstanding their tardy process, the reason may perhaps be found in the fact, that they did not so directly sin against their own conscientious convictions, in withholding church discipline. They were first led to condemn, what appeared to be the abuses of slavery, then, the slave trade, and at last, slaveholding itself. And so far as their convictions went, they put them in practice. But Methodism, which had its rise amid the testimonies and the conviction that “SLAVERY is the sum of all villanies” [p 27], could not sit down with that iniquity in her skirts without being overcome by it.

In 1801, the General Conference said—

And there the testimony still stands [51 years later, 1852]. “More than ever convinced of the great evil,” and “more than ever” wedded to it and embedded in it. Such testimonies, though sometimes apparently relied upon, to disprove the pro-slavery

Yet there should be noticed here, perhaps, a studied dilution of the testimony previously given. In 1780 [p 106, supra], slavery was admitted to be

This [wording] clearly describes it [slavery] as a sin. But in 1801 it is only designated, in vague terms, as an evil; whether physical or moral, is not expressed. To those who would understand the [deteriorating] course and the [lowered morality] position of our ecclesiastical bodies, these nice distinctions should be noticed with care. “Fraud lurketh in generalities,” said Lord Coke [an eminent word analysis expert].

The General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held at Cincinnati, in 1836, declared that they

This was adopted by a vote of 120 to 14.

The action of the Conference, at the same time against abolitionists, will be noticed in another chapter.

What we have to do with, now, is the changed [morally deteriorated] attitude of the [1830's - 1850's] Methodist Episcopal Church, respecting slavery. We quote their proceedings still farther on this point. In their Pastoral Address, dissuading their members from agitating [speaking out on] the subject, they say—

What [new] “Constitutional Compact” had there been made since 1797, when the General Conference, as before shown,^* had required its preachers to memorialize [petition] the legislatures?

And if, as stated in 1836, the sole responsibility rested on the State Legislatures, why not continue to memorialize them still? There must have been Methodists in those legislatures, and probably few or no members of those bodies held seats there without the aid of Methodist votes?

Aside from this, how could any state or national arrangements relieve the Church from the responsibility of carrying out its own Church discipline [doctrine]? The truth was expressed in the Resolution just now quoted. The Conference had “no wish” “to interfere in the civil and political relation of master and slave.” Too many of them were slavemasters themselves [infilitrated into the Church].

Another important thing to be noticed here, is, the new views of the M. E. Conference, since 1797 or 1801 and 1836, on the snbject of the bearings [meaning, relevance] of the Federal Constitution on the question. It indicates a corresponding [morally deteriorated] change in the community in general. New expositions and applications of
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Leading non-slaveholding ministers of the M. E. Church, were now forward [willing] to take similar [morally deteriorated] ground, and even to vindicate falsely allege] the rightfulness of slaveholding.

The late [vile] Wilbur Fisk, D. D., President of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., said:

“Rev. Elijah Hedding, D. D., one of the six Methodist Bishops,” and also a northern man, said:

Bishop Hedding, presiding at the New England Conference, in 1838, refused to put [allow the members to discuss] resolutions, condemning the buying and selling of slaves, and at the same time refused to put [allow discusison of] a motion declaring slavery to be a moral evil.

For a full account the reader is referred to the work just quoted, and also to Lucius O. Matlack's “History of American Slavery and Methodism,” from 1780 to 1849, an elaborate and documentary work of nearly 400 pages.

The Editor of the True Wesleyan, proceeds to specify an instance of the latter. In re-publishing Watson's Theological Institutes, in which were found some pointed remarks against slaveholders, a note is appended, evidently designed to make [create] the [misleading] impression that it is not applicable to American slavery.

The General Conference for 1840 adopted the following:

A motion was made to re-consider this Resolution, and several attempts were made at compromise, but after a long discussion, the resolution was permitted to stand. Thus was the ecclesiastical polity [doctrine] of the Church conformed [deteriorated] to the slave code.

Sometime after the "Wesleyan" secession from the M. E. Church on account of slavery, a division took place in the Methodist Episcopal Church, growing out of the refusal of the Church to consent to having slaveholding bishops. Of this division we present the following account from the True Wesleyan (a paper of the Wesleyan Secession,) then edited by Rev. Luther Lee, as copied into the Annual Report of the Am. and For. A. S. Society, for 1850:

This progress, (if it be progress) as well as the inconsistencies connected with it, may perhaps be accounted for, by the movements among Northern Methodist Abolitionists, resulting in a secession, and in the organization of a new ecclesiastical connection, called the Wesleyan Church. These movements made it necessary to oppose the election of a slaveholding bishop, and to adopt strong resolutions against slavery.
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* The following statement apparently varies from the preceding, in respect to the number of slaveholding Conferences:

“The Methodist Church North has about one-fifth part as many slaveholding societies as the entire church South. It reports in the slave States three annual conferences, 857 preachers, and 86,627 members, all in actual and full fellowship with slaveholding.”—Pres. Blanchard, as reported by Cleveland True Democrat, Sep. 26, 1851.

The solution, as furnished us by Mr. Lee, is, that five of the Conferences, viz., the Pittsburg, the Ohio, the Indiana, the Illinois, and the Philadelphia, though bearing Northern names, include portions of slave territory; while the Western Virginia, the Missouri, and the Baltimore, are slaveholding, of course: eight in all.

Notwithstanding the testimony of the Presbyterian Church, in 1794, that it is "man-stealing" to "keep, sell, or buy slaves," or "retain men in slavery," yet the Church contented itself with recording its doctrine without reducing it to practice. No discipline was enforced, and the custom of slave-holding, among its members and even among the officers of the Church, became general [widespread, common, rampant sin], in the slave states.

The effect of this temporizing and procrastinating policy was precisely such as might have been anticipated. The “mournful evil” only struck its roots deeper under such pruning.

In 1834, the Synod of Kentucky adopted a report on slavery, in which they draw a thrilling [horrifying] picture of the cruelties and horrors of the internal slave trade, in which families are forcibly separated from each other. They say:

But, who would have believed it?—the Synod of Kentucky were not, and are not, in favor of present emancipation on the soil [without forced deportation]. With a knowledge of the “incontestible fact” (as Henry Clay calls it), that the internal slave trade is inseparable from slavery, and equally aware, as they must be, that no removal of the slaves could be effected in a ccntury, the Synod of Kentucky, and its leading members, who tell us this sad story, are unwilling to listen to any proposal for emancipation, without the colonization [forced deportation] of the slaves.

And the one only Presbyterian minister within their bounds [denomination] who advocated immediate and unconditional emancipation on the soil [without deportation], was given to understand by his Presbytery, that he could not consistently remain with them.^†

The [Presbyterian] Synod has fresh cause to “blush”—but it will need something besides blushes to purge out the plague spot. To “confess” avails little, unless they “forsake.”

In 1885, Mr. Stewart, of Illinois, a ruling elder, in advocating sundry anti-slavery memorials [petitions], urged the General Assembly to take action on the subject. He said:

The facts were not disputed; yet nothing was done to censure the act or the actors, further than to appoint a committee, a majority of whom were known to be opposed to the prayer [petition] of the [anti-slavery] memorialists [activists] (of which the late Dr. Samuel Miller,
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* J. G. Birney, long resident in Kentucky, says “never.”

† J. G. Fee.—The intimation was heeded.

In 1836, this [pro-slavery] report was presented at Pittsburg. In a preamble, it is said that

“the subject of slavery is inseparably connected with the [unconstitutional] laws of many of the States of this Union, with which it is by no means proper for an ecclesiastical body to interfere,”^* [to have Church members follow Bible anti-slavery commands!] and that

“any action on the part of this Assembly, &c., would tend to distract and divide our churches,” &c. [by exposing the blatant sinners]

Resolutions were therefore recommended declaring it

“inexpedient for the Assembly to take any further order in relation to this subject;”

also affirming [alleging] that the note on the eighth commandment, in 1794 [p 151, supra], was “introduced irregularly—never had the sanction of the church, and therefore never possessed any authority,” &c.

A minority of the committee, Messrs. Dickey and Beman, presented a report, declaring “the buying, selling, or holding a human being as property” “a heinous sin,” that “ought to subject the doer of it to the censures of the church,” &c., &c.; whereupon forty-eight slaveholding delegates met apart, and resolved that if any such action was taken by the Assembly they [as unrepentant blatant sinners] would not submit to the decision. They also, at an adjourned meeting, prepared a substitute for Dr. Miller's resolution, declaring that “the General Assembly have no authority to assume or exercise jurisdiction in regard to the existence of slavery.”

The subject was finally disposed of by a long preamble and a brief resolution, that “this whole snbject be indefinitely postponed.”

In the meantime, while the Assembly were in session, a pamphlet being a reprint of an article in the Princeton Repertory, was issued from the Pittsburg press, labelled, “for gratuitous circulation” among the members of the Assembly. It is said to have been written by [vile] Prof. Hodge, of Princeton,
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* Yet the funds of the Presbyterian Church, at this moment, to the amount of more than $94,000, were invested in the South-Western banks, in prospect of gaming more than 6 per cent. interest, on account of the unprecedented briskness of the domestic slave trade. For the sequel see a succeeding Chapter.

In 1837, many anti-slavery memorials [petitions] were presented to the [Presbyterian] Assembly. They were referred to a committee, of which [vile] Dr. Witherspoon, a slaveholder, of South Carolina, was chairman, and which reported, near the time for adjournment, that the memorials be “returned to the house,” and the chairman moved to lay the whole subject on the table [refuse consideration of the subject]. This was done by a vote of 97 to 28.

At this same session the General Assembly excinded [expelled, excommunicated, disfellowshipped] four northern Synods, called New School, containing a Presbyterian population of about sixty thousand persons. This was done ostensibly on account of theological differences, but it is remarkable that it cut off a very large proportion [percentage] of the active opponents of slavery in the communion [membership] of the Presbyterian Church. Dr. G. A. Baxter, President of the Union Theological Serninary, Prince Edward Co., Va., changed sides suddenly from New School to Old, about the same time, and justified the change by avowing that “one motive” was the firm position of the Old School against abolition. And since the separation, in 1838, some anti-abolition clergyman, once known as New School, within the bounds of the excinded Synods, in the State of New York, have transferred their relations to the Old School.

“In 1838, the two Schools separated,^*   leaving three slaveholding Presby-
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* The separation in 1838 is understood to have been for the same cause [pro-slavery] as the excision of 1837.

According to a correspondent of the New York Observer, Dr. Gardiner Spring, of New York, at a Colonization Meeting in Washington City [D.C.], in 1839, held the following language:

In 1838, the O. S. General Assembly resolved that “it is of the greatest consequence to the best interests of our [Presbyterian] church, that the subject of slavery shall not be discussed in the ensuing General Assembly,” &c.

lu 1843, they laid anti-slavery memorials [pettions] on the table without reading [refusing to consider them].

In 1845, after an hour's discussion, at Cincinnati, they adopted a report that they could not treat slavery as necessarily a sin, “without charging the apostles of Christ with conniving at such sin.” “For the [Presbyterian] Assembly to make slaveholding a bar to communion would be to dissolve itself.”—Vide statements of Pres. Blanchard and Cincinnati Herald of May 28, 1845; Chr. Inv., June, 1847.

In 1847, the General Assembly reaffirmed all its former testimonies on slavery, contradictory as they were.

In 1850, in reply to a resolution of the General Association of Massachusetts communicated to the General Assembly, and very courteously expressing their conviction that the cause of religion required the removal of slavery from the churches, the General Assembly adopted the following [hostile, disdainful, substitute for a reply]:

From the Old School we now turn to the New.
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“He stated that the unhappy divisions in the Presbyterian Church had grown out of this opposition” (i. e. to “the [slaver hostility to the pro-Bible] proceedings and designs of the Abolition Society”), “and, painful as it was, they [slavers] were obliged to rend [split] the church to avoid being engulfed in [caused to repent by] the [pro-Bible] sentiments, feelings [views], and schemes of abolitionists [to enforce Bible teadchings].”

At other times, the ground of division had been stated to be the heresy of “New School” theology, and tendencies towards Congregational Church government in the New School portion of the Presbyterian Church.

The excuse [pretext] was, that business connected with the division of the two assemblies made it difficult to attend to another subject.

In 1836, the General Assembly adopted a paper drawn up by Dr. Duffield, declaring the unrighteous and oppressive character of slavery, lamenting its continued existence in the churches, exhorting to the use of all means in their power to put it away from them, since no mere mitigation of its severity “would be regarded as a testimony against the system, or as, in the least degree, changing its essential character.”

After all this, the Assembly, nevertheless, at the same time,
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* The language employed, either in 1839 or '40, we believe, was this: “Solemnly referring the whole subject to the lower judicatories, to take such action as in their jndgment is most judicious and adapted to remove the evil”—refusing the request of Rev. Geo. Beecher to insert the word moral before evil; that is, they refused to call slavery a moral evil.”—Vide Letter of Pres. Blanchard and others.

The confusion, incongruity, and self-contradiction of this action, can hardly escape notice, even when our attention is confined to the doings of this one session. Slavery is characterized as unrighteous and oppressive; but this unrighteousness and oppression must not be promiscuously [widely] condemned, nor excluded from the table of thc Lord, lest it should destroy the unity and disturb the peace of the Church.

Still more confused, incongruous, and self-contradictory does the action of the General Assembly appear, when the doings of one session, in one year, are compared with those of another. In 1839, the whole subjcct was referred to the Presbyteries; in 1848, the Presbyteries were censured for acting, and requested to rcscind their acts; but in 1846 the subject was again referred to the Presbyteries. In 1846, as in 1839, the Assembly possessed no legislative or judicial authority; but in 1843 its powers appear to have been ample.

The true solution seems to be that the Assembly has no power against slavery, but claims and exercises power in its favor. It could not censure slavery, but it could censure Presbyteries by whom slavery is censured.

It could go farther than this, and restore to his former standing, a minister (Dr. Graham) who, in 1845, had been suspended by his Presbytery (acting on recommendation of the Assembly,) for [fraudulently] defending slavery by the Bible.^*   This was done in 1846, or afterwards.
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* He [heretically] maintained that Jesus Christ “has authorized slaveholding, in the charters of the Church, and in all the laws he ever made, for its regulation.”

The General Assembly of 1846 also invited the Old School General Assembly, then sitting in the same city, to unite with them in a celebration of the Lord's Supper, but the invitation was declined, and the [pro-slavery] Old School Assembly bears the blame of the “schism.”

Thus does the Presbyterian New School, like the Methodist Episcopal Church North, by a fair implication, profess that slavery is not to be regarded as a sufficient cause of division, or a bar against Christian communion. This will further appear as we proceed.

In 1849, the General Assembly, in strange forgetfulness, one would think, of the facts conceded or implied in its testimony of 1846, declared:

The slaveholders could, at any time, if they pleased, give their slaves a “pass” into the Free States, which, in most cases, would not only be eagerly accepted, but carried into operation with little or no expense or trouble to the masters, to say nothing of the practicability, in Kentucky, &c., of making them legally free on the soil [meaning, without deportation].

In 1850, the General Assembly, (no longer triennial, ^*) came together again, and after a long discussion, during which a number of propositions for acting against slavery were rejected, settled down upon a declaration vcry closely resembling that of 1816, so far as direct action by thc General Assembly is concerned.

Among the propositions rejected, one, presented by “Rev.
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* In 1849, overtures were sent down to the Presbyteries in favor of making the General Assemblies annual again, instead of triennial, and in 1850, on their coming together, the answer being favorable, the constitution was changed back again, making the [denomination-wide] meetings henceforth annual. The policy of having triennial conventions had answered [achieved] its [immoral, pro-slavery] purpose, there being now no fires in the “Vesuvius” [i.e., the abolitionists had been expelled or were otherwise gone] to threaten an explosion [raising the sinfulness-of-slavery issue].

This would seem sufficiently mild and guarded, if the [Presbyterian] Assembly had been willing to meet directly, the sin, in any way of effective reproof.

Equally so was another proposition presented by P. F. Smith, an Elder, from Pennsylvania, affirming that slaveholding was “prima facia an offence within the meaning of our Book of Discipline,” and throwing upon the slaveholder “the burden of showing such circumstances” as “will take away from him the guilt of the offence.”

The rejection of these propositions will assist the reader to a better understanding of the [weak, near-meaningless] propositions adopted by the Assembly, the most pointed of which was the following:

The exceptions above specified will be found to embrace the very excuses in view of which all slaveholders continue the practice, except those who justify slavery, “in the abstract,” and consider it a blessing instead of an evil.

Even this [limited] action [allowing “exception” a mile wide], however, was strenuously opposed.

The adoption of even this evasive [weak exception-oriented] testimony is to be construed in the light of the following action, by the same body, at the same session, by which, after this idle show of threatening some sorts of slaveholders with Church discipline, the New School General Assembly eagerly throws its arms of embrace around all sorts of slaveholders in the Old School Assembly, including slavery propagandists, extensionists, slave sellers, and all. A statement was unanimously adopted, of which the following is the substance:

Thus, then, “before God and the world,” the New School General Assembly of 1850 “unanimously” declared itself ready to commune with the Old School, at a tirne when the great body of Old School Presbyterians at the South were zealous for the extension of slavery, claimed of the Federal Government its extension as an act of justice, and defended it

The discriminating reader will now judge for himself respecting the moral difference between the Old School and the New, in their relations to slavery. The one has more slave-holders under its jurisdiction than the other, but both tolerate the practice.* The one does this to retain many members; the other to retain a few. The one does it believing slavery to be a Bible institution; the other, believing it to be "unrighteous" and "oppressive." The one makes no pretence of any intention to discipline any sort of slaveholders; the other holds the rod over a class of them that it "has no information" of being found within its enclosures, but yearns to go out of its boundaries to clasp them to its bosom.

In 1851, the General Assembly met at Utica, New York. It declined to take action against slavery, and won the commendation of President [Millard] Fillmore [1850-1853], who expressed to some members of the Assembly his high gratification with the proceedings.
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*The following statement is from a lecture by Pres. Blanchard, as reported in the Cleveland True Democrat of Sept. 26, 1851:

"The Old School branch has now fifty slaveholding Presbyteries; more than one-third of its whole number.

"The New School Assembly, at its first separate meeting in 1838, was followed by but three slaveholding-commissioners, and there was fervent prayer and strong hope that this might become an anti-slavery body. But once separated from the Old School and seized by the natural desire for denominational success, it has steadily increased its slaveholding wing till it has now twenty slaveholding Presbyteries, between one and two hundred ministers, and from fifteen to twenty thousand members, in the slave States, all walking in Christian fellowship with slaveholders.

CONGREGATIONALISTS, like Baptists, are subject to the control of no ecclesiastical body, holding jurisdiction over the whole country. Unlike Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, they number no churches, or none sufficient to deserve notice, in the present slaveholding States. They claim to be, emphatically, the descendants and successors of the Puritans, and of that particular branch of them whose democratic polity gave origin to the free institutions—so far as they are free— of republican America.

Congregationalists have had, moreover, the chief influence in moulding the religious and moral sentiment of New England; they have their central home and seat in the birth-place of Hopkins and Edwards, the scene of their agitating anti-slavery labors, in the atmosphere of a theological literature enriched by those luminaries, and still cherished in the churches as a badge of honorable distinction.

Theoretically, they are, for the most part, or claim to be, of the same creed or phase of religious faith, the very technicalities of which are identified with the most uncompromising of all schemes of ethics, allowing no palliatives of transgression, no exceptions to the demand of immediate and unconditional

But Congregationalists, through their Associations of Ministers, have held regular correspondence and close affinity with Presbyterians; have received delegates from the General Assembly, and sent delegates to them. Congregational ministers removing out of New England, have readily become Presbyterian. And Presbyterian ministers have been received as pastors of Gongregational churches. Congregationalism in Connecticut has been so modified as to be claimed by Presbyterian writers as being virtually Presbyterian. In the Middle and Northwestern States, a “plan of accommodation,” so called, has brought churches claiming to be Congregational into connection with the Presbyteries.

In all these ways, as well as by missionary co-operation, by plans and processes of ministerial education, as well as by similarity of creed, and identity of rituals and forms of public worship, the cord of sympathy and the bond of unity betwcen Congregationalists and Presbyterians have been strengthened. Congregational ministers, educated in New England, transferred to the Presbyterian church, and located, by the enterprising spirit of New England emigration, in the slaveholding States, have often become slaveholders themselves, and defenders or apologists of the slave system, and commonly without forfeiting their [alleged] religious character or ecclesiastical standing with their friends and relatives in New England.^*   The same spirit of emigra-
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* The following statement, made by “Rev. A. H. H. Boyd, of Virginia,” in the New School General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1850, has a bearing quite as appropriate and significant upon Northern Congregationalists, as upon northern Presbyterians:

“In the Southern country we depend upon the north for ministers, in a great neasure. Few of our Southern young men are educated for ministers. In some parts it is necessary that some born South should endorse a minister, before commencing his labor [job], because some have endeavored [by daring to preach Bible principles] to loosen the [alleged] relation of master and slave.”—N. Y. Observer, June 15, 1850.

A similar remark would apply to schoolmasters, only that there is, perhaps, less

Congregationalists in New England, as well as other members of churches, and perhaps to a greater extent than in most other sects at the North, as being most numerous and enterprising, have been subjected to [vile] influences of this character. Besides all this, Congregational ministers in New England, along with other gentlemen of the learned professions, (who were then chiefly members of Congregational churches,) constituted a large portion of the few who were slaveholders, during the existence of slavery in the Northern and Eastern States, there being few, then, in New England, of other religious sects, thus making that denomination responsible for a very great portion of all the slaveholding that ever existed in New England. And there is no reason to think that all of these slaveholding Congregationalists, whether laymen or ministers, ever welcomed heartily and fully the radical [Biblical] views of Hopkins and Edwards on this subject, or ceased to become slaveholders until slaveholding became impraeticable under the State laws.

It would be idle to suppose that facts like these would be without their significance and bearing in that general decline
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jealousy of them. Schoolmasters and ministers for the South have been reckoned among the staple exports of New England, and they are commonly adapted to the market. Can the Congregational churches of New England, which supply a large share of these teachers of religion and literature, be uninfluenced by such facts?

The distribution of the Princeton pamphlet among the members of the Presbyterian General Assembly, at Pittsburg, in 1836, before mentioned [pp 154-155, supra], was the beglnning of a series of similar [vile] demonstrations among clergymen at the North, not excepting Congregational ministers in New England, from whom at least three printed sermons in [pretended] biblical defence or palliation of slavery appeared not long afterwards. They were echoes of the Princeton doctrine, not marked with any unusual force of reasoning; and, not coming from sources particularly suited to arrest attention, they produced no very deep, general, or permanent impression.

The most remarkable thing in respect to them was, that they procured for their authors no such ecclesiastical disclaimers, in the proceedings of their respective associations and consociations, as those with which the doctrines or measures of abolitionists in the same ecclesiastical connections were so bountifully visited about the same time. If not fully approved, they were not accounted so heretical as to deserve the notice that would have been given to any departure from their recognized thelogical standards. The same doctrine from Dr. Graham, some years afterwards, was branded as a heresy by the Pres•yterian Synod of Cincinnati. But in 1836 it does not appear to have been regarded as “heresy,” by the Congregational bodies in New England, whatever may be supposed to have been the prevalent sentiment [beliefs, doctrines] among them.

Nor can it be said that any remarkable improvement was perceptible in 1837. In that year an occasion presented itself for remonstrating against the heresy of biblical human chattelhood, had it been accounted a heresy, as promulgated from a quarter that could not be accounted too obscure to require notice.

MOSES STUART, Professor in the Theological Seminary at Andover, Mass., stood then, and for many years afterwards,

The late Dr. Fisk, then President of the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Conn., whose views of slavery the reader has seen in our account [p 147, supra] of the position of the Methodist Episcopal Church, addressed a letter to Prof. Stuart, designed to draw out, for publication, his views of the slave question. The following is an extract from Prof. Stuart's answer:

† i.e., “That which is, in itself, sin.”

Learned men are not always wise.

Beneficial as the science of biblical exigesis may be, when needed, and when directed by Christian simplicity and manly common sense, it can never be otherwise than powerless, except for mischief, when wielded either without or against them, or when used to mystify and perplex what is already plain. Aside from such glosses as those just now quoted, and in the absence of the iniquitous practices that gave rise to them, no simple-minded reader of the New Testament would ever have detected in the passages commented upon, the slightest sanction of such usages as those that go to define modern slaveholding.

The art [here, fraud], most assuredly, is not a desirable one, that could thus torture and invert [alter] the plain import [meaning] of Paul's Letter to Philemon.

In this instance, the beautiful and affectionate dissuasive of “Paul the aged” against the too rigid exaction of an honest debt, voluntarily assumed, is transmuted [falsified] into an apostolic warranty and example for the rendition, of fugitive slaves. This result could not be reached without a palpable and direct falsification of the text; which says, “Receive him”—“Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved,” “both in the flesh, and in the Lord:” a brother, in the secular as well as the religious acceptation of the term. Instead of this, the apostle is [falsely] represented as “sending him back to be a servant for life.”

Onesimus was not a slave, for a slave can make no contract and incur no debt. Yet Paul entreated (what he says he might have enjoined by authority), that the obligation should be cancelled.

But whatever we consider to be the relation between the parties, the entire drift [meaning, purpose] of the epistle was evidently to induce a change, and not a continuance, of the relation.

In his exposition [alleged explanation] of 1 Tim. 6: 2, the learned [but mentally ill] writer coolly [insanely] took for granted [assumed] the very gist of the controversy, by [psychotically] assuming that the word rendered “master” is equivalent to “slaveholder,” and that there could have been no “servants” [employees] but

It would be difficult to reconcile Prof. Stuart with himself, or with the plain dictates of the Christian religion and of common sense, which the learned and the unlearned can equally understand. The following [irrational, disturbed] propositions and results will be found involved in his statements:

“The duty of the master in respect to liberation,” was the very question that then agitated the country. It was because abolitionists insisted upon this “duty,” that they were opposed and censured, and the pen of Prof. Stuart was invoked [by pro-slavery Dr. Fisk] to counteract their influence. To this end he controverted [fraudulently, indeed psychotically, denied via bizarre self-contradictory claims] their [abolitionists'] doctrine [from the Bible], that slaveholding is sinful.

If [slavery is] not sinful, who could urge upon them [slavers] the “duty” of giving up the practice? But,

Then Paul was not treating of the [Bible] lawfulness or unlawfulness of slaveholding:—he was not treating on the question whether “the relation of master and slave” was “abrogated among Christians.” If Prof. Stuart was aware of all this, why did he labor to make the contrary impression?

Does any one now inquire whether, or to what extent, the Congregationalists of the North and of New England were responsible for these [vile] opinions of Prof. Stuart? We will answer by propounding another inquiry.

Suppose Prof. Stuart, instead of writing what we have here quoted concerning slavery, had written a biblical defonce of Universalism, or of some other doctrine that orthodox Congregationalists had considered “heresy.” Then suppose the intercourse, the bearing, and the relations of the Congregational sect towards Prof. Stuart had continued to be what every one knows they were [favorable and supportive], at the time of his writing on slavery, and for fifteen years afterwards—we ask, whether orthodox Congregationalists in England, and whether public sentiment, the world over, would not inevitably have held New England Gongregationalists, as a body, responsible for his doctrines?

When Dr. Graham, in the Presbyterian Church, wrote a biblical defence of slaveholding, his Synod suspended him from the ministry. Why? Because they knew that they should otherwise be held responsible for his heresy; which was substantially the same with that of Prof. Stuart,^*   who, had he been a member of the Synod of Cincinnati, would probably have been suspended, likewise.

It may be said [alleged] that Congregationalists hold no such ecclesiastical powers. But they hold and freely exercise (no
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* It may be said that Prof. Stuart's defence of slavery was less self-consistent than Dr. Graham's, containing concessions that [on scrutiny] overturned his whole argument. This only shows that he was not unaware that the prlnciples of Christianity were hostile to slavery, while he was laboring to construe particular texts in its favor.

Suppose, again, that Prof. Stuart had written concerning adultery, or concubinage (one feature of slavery), or concerning robbery, or horse-stealing, or any other known and proscribed crime, as he wrote concerning slaveholding. Would or would not an impartial public sentiment abroad, or in coming ages, hold the sect responsible that continued to hold fraternity with him, to confide in him as a religious teacher, an accomplished educator of religious teachers?

No personal dislike of Prof. Stuart has occasioned these remarks. He had his attractive traits of character. He was the admired representative of a class—a very large class—of Congregational ministers, his associates and pupils. His memory is still venerated; he is proudly pointed to, by his sect, as “the father of the science of biblical criticism in America;” and the clergy of other sects recognize the validity of the claim.

All this [pretense that the Bible condones slavery] tends directly and almost irresistibly to confirm, in the community, the [wrong] belief that slaveholding is not inconsistent with the Bible. If “the father of biblical criticism” says so, who shall contradict it? One in ten of those who receive his testimony, may infer the innocency of slaveholding; while nine in ten will infer the moral deficiency of the Bible, and this will swell the tide of horror and amazement at “infidel abolitionism.”

Impartial history, if it attempts to look below the surface of things, and trace effects to their causes, must give marked prominence to influences like these. The real position of the sects [denominations] could not otherwise be understood.

It is not known that the Trustees, Faculty, and friends of the Theological Seminary at Andover, were ever distressed with the apprehension [concern] that Prof. Stuart's heresy on the slave question would [promote heathenism,] diminish the patronage, or injure the reputa-

The views of Prof. Stuart were extensively circulated among the Congregational churches and ministry of New England. Had there been any general or earnest dissent from them, or if his intimate associates had been grieved at his course, the religious journals of the denomination would have contained evidence of the fact.

Slight shades of difference in metaphysical speculation, among professors of theology, have given rise to rival claims among the Theological Seminaries of New England, but the position of the learned Professor at Andover concerning slavery has occasioned no manifestations of that character. Dissent was indeed strongly expressed; but it was the dissent of an inconsiderable though increasing minority, not of the main body.

It may be in place to add here, that soon, after the passage, by Congress, of the Fugitive Slave Bill, in 1850, Prof. Stuart (who had previously resigned his Professorship at Andover), appeared as the public defender and eulogist of Hon. Daniel Webster, for the part he took in procuring and vindicating that iniquitous measure. In company with Dr. Leonard Woods, late Professor at Andover, Prof. Ralph Emerson, of the same institution, and other Congregational ministers,^*   he gave his signature to a paper drawn up for the purpose. And afterwards he vindicated his position in a pamphlet, at some length.

This new demonstration in favor of slavery, we are happy to add, appears to have been less favorably received among Congregationalists, than the former one. It is understood that most of the Professors at Andover declined signing the paper above-mentioned (though they entered no public protest
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* Among the names appended to this paper were those of Dr. Dana of Newburyport, Rev. W. W. Rogers of Boston, Prof. Sparks of Harvard College (Unitarian), &c., &c.

The General Association of Congregational Ministers in Connecticut have repeatedly defined their position in respect to slavery. The resolutions adopted at different times are as follows:

To the reader uninitiated in the nice distinctions elaborated by the New England Congregational Clergy, in their discussions on this subject, these Resolutions, standing by themselves, would appear to be tolerably distinct testimonies against the practice of slaveholding. To understand them correctly, they must be construed in the light of what the same bodies refused to say, on the same subject, and also in the light of the discussions had, at the time of adopting them.

We will, therefore, put them by the side of the resolutions “offered by Rev. Mr. Perkins of Meriden, in 1845,” but not adopted:

After a long debate, these Resolutions were set aside [rejected], and the action taken which has already been recorded. On a comparison it will be seen that the Association declined saying that “no man is bound in conscience to obey slave law”—declined expressing sympathy for “Christian men,” imprisoned on charge of aiding fugitive slaves—declined affirming the

On a further examination of the Resolutions at different times adopted by the General Association, and re-affirmed in 1845, some further differences between the sentiments [views] expressed, and the rejected resolations of Mr. Perkins, will be manifest.

The General Association, even in 1834, had learned, it seems, to condemn “slavery,” rather than “slaveholding.” The distinction was not then understood by the public as it has since been insisted on, and the preamble of [by] Mr. Perkins, stating that the General Association had “frequently delivered its opinions in relation to slaveholding,” seems to have been considered too inaccurate a statement (as doubtless it was) to be endorsed. The Association had not condemned the act, but only the abstraction.

The resolutions of 1834 expended their strength upon “laws and usages,” rather than upon persons doing a wrong act under shelter of them. They would be understood at the South as bearing against the slave trade, rather than against slave holding. They suggested, likewise the implication of a sentiment [view] since insisted on, that slaves may be held without being “treated as merchandise,” and that the distinction between “bond and free” is, by no means, the significant point in that matter.

The resolution of 1836, plainly condemns huying, selling, and holding human beings as slaves, only when it is done for selfish ends; thus teaching, by implication, the doctrine now openly insisted on, that all this may be innocently and even laudably done, for benevolent ends—which is all the license the slaveholder asks. He thinks [pretends to outsiders, that] he only holds slaves for their own good.

The resolution of 1840 retains the same distinction between slavery and slave-holding; that is, slavery in the abstract, and

The debates on the proposed Resolutions of Mr. Perkins illustrate the meaning [meaninglessness] of the Resolutions adopted.

Rev. Mr. Andrews vindicated the course of the General Assembly. Slavery (he [deceptively] said) existed in the time of Christ and his apostles. They did not condemn it. He would vote for no resolution that did not distinctly avow that slaveholding was not sin.

Rev. E. Hall, of Norwalk, said that if he supposed there was the least danger that these resolutions would pass, he would make a strenuous speech. He abhorred slavery totally, and from the bottom of his heart, but these resolutions were rank Garrisonism and Dorrism. He could not think more than one or two persons would vote for them.

Dr. Bennett Tyler (of the Theological Seminary at East Windsor) said [with intent to mislead] that “Christ and his apostles did not condemn slaveholders, nor command them to emancipate their slaves.”

“Rev. Mr. Ely” repeated the old [knowingly false] story of Paul's returning a fugitive slave to his master. He would seek the conversion of the slaves first, and then seek their liberty in the Lord's way and in the Lord's time.

The [pro-slavery] New York Observer, in its account of this matter, declares that the resolutions introduced by Mr. Perkins were the most ultra and untenable [most pro-Bible!] ever heard of in any ecclesiastical body.

A severer satire upon “ecclesiastical bodies” it would be difficult to indite [cite]. If the Resolutions of Mr. Perkins were too ultra, there was an opportunity presented to the General Association, had they been disposed, to have adopted others of a sufficiently accommodating [weak] character.

These Resolutions are similar in spirit to those presented to the American Board at Brooklyn, the same year, by Dr. Leonard Bacon of New Haven, and unsuccessfully advocated by him, on that occasion. He also advocated the above resolutions of Mr. Dutton, before the General Association of Connecticut.

What objection could there have been against them? They were specially designed to waive the mooted questions of the sinfulness both of slavery and slaveholding, and fix upon what are claimed to be the abuses of the system. He urged upon the Board, and upon the General Assembly, the importance of condemning, distinctly, these practices.

Why could it not be done? Why, but because, instead of an indefinite and vague abstraction there was an inconvenient and well understood specification [listing] of prevalent practices; of practices which would criminate the great body of [pretended] religious slaveholders ["Bible-Belt"] at the [demonized] South? Because, moreover, the third Resolution would be understood at the South as evidence that the General Association of Connecticut were in earnest [at last sincere] for the removal of these practices.

It will be seen, on inspection, that the action of the General Association of Connecticut does not conflict with the positions of Professor Stuart, or, at least, only as Professor Stuart's positions conflict with each other. Self-consistency is not to be expected, where the effort is to avoid the condemnation of

This body of Congregational Ministers have been led to record [establish] a somewhat different testimony, and one which it might be difficult to reconcile with their patronage of Professor Stuart, and of the American Board.

In 1834 the General Association adopted the following Resolutions:

A sixth resolution recommended the Colonization Society to the continued support of the churches, by collections on the Fourth of July, &c. How far the first three resolutions were congruous with the remaining ones, and how well they comported with the subsequent activities of those who voted for them, we do not now stop to inquire. But it is proper to remark that these resolutions were adopted in the presence of the agents of the two societies, (the Anti-slavery and the Colonization,) who were pressing their rival daims, and at a time when the opposition of leading Colonizationists to the Anti-slavery movement had diminished the receipts [donations, income] of the Colonization Society.

In 1837, the General Association adopted the following:

How well these resolutions, especially the second, correspond with the action of the General Association at the same session, and the year previens, in respect to the labors of anti-slavery lecturers among their churches, the reader will judge when he shall have seen the record, in another chapter, of the opposition raised against abolitionists. For the present, we let it stand disconnected with those matters, and by the side of other Congregational testimonies concerning slavery.

In 1849, the General Association adopted the following:

The fact of a religious connection and fraternal intercourse between the Congregationalists of Massachusetts and the slaveholding Presbyterians of the South, is here distinctly recognized, an item of some importance, as we sometimes hear it confidently [brazenly falsely] denied. The manner in which the Old School General Assembly, as already mentioned, repulsed this remon-

THE CONVENTION OF CONGREGATlONAL MINISTERS of Massachusetts, in 1848, appointed a committee to prepare a report on slavery. The committee made an elaborate report in 1849. The Convention approving of “the general principles and results of the same,” authorized its publication.^*   The annual report of the Am. & For. A. S. Society says, that it contains some things which they (the anti-slavery committee) cannot approve, but that, on the whole, it bears “a faithful testimony against the wrongfulness of slavery.” From some extracts it appears that this document

This body is composed of Congregational ministers and lay delegates. In 1836, the Conference

The Congregational ministers and churches of Maine, as a body, have appeared to be more earnest in their condemnation of slavery, than those of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Ihe Christian Spectator, the organ of the New Haven or New School Theology of New England, was earlier in its [lying] defence of slavery than the Old School Doctors at Princeton, or the Professor at Andover.

The innocency of “despotism” in general is strange doctrine in America, and among the sons of the Puritans, admitting, for the sake of the argument, that chattel slavery is no worse—which is not true [see p 27, supra].

On the vitally important subject of oral instruction for slaves, as a substitute for the reading of the scriptures, the Congre-

The Editor of the Vermont Chronicle, (Rev. Joseph Tracy,) afterwards Editor of the Boston Recorder, and more recently assistant Editor of the N. Y. Observer, wrote of the slaves as follows:

"They have a right to such religious and other instruction as they are capable of receiving. When they have profited by that, they will be capable of receiving more, and so on, till they become capable of performing the duties of freemen and THEN they will have a right to be FREE. That they have a right to be taught to read, immediately, we do not say, but their right to be taught that which it will be immensely difficult, all but impossible, to teach them without reading, is as evident as the sun at noon-day."—Vermont Chronicle, vide Emancipator, March 11, 1834.

"The art of reading, we know, wonderfully increases the facility with which we may fit ourselves for the performance of duty, but it is possible to become safe citizens without it. We, therefore, PASS NO SENTENCE, either OF CONDEMNATION OR APPROVAL, ON THOSE WHO WITHHOLD THIS ART FROM THEIR SLAVES. We only say they must be educated. You must educate them. Take your own way to do it. If you find it SAFE to put books into their hands, it will diminish your labor immensely. If not, you must do it, nevertheless. The labor of educating them without books will be immense, but, books or no books, it must be done, and if books are UNSAFE instruments, you must work the harder."—Sermon of Rev. Joseph Tracy, before the Vermont Col. Soc.

"Capable of receiving!" How long before they will be "capable" of learning to read? What right have one class of men to sit in judgment, and decide upon the capabilities of another class to receive and study the scriptures? If we may "pass no sentence of condemnation" on this assumption in America, then we must cease our condemnation of it in Spain and Italy.

In 1835, the Charleston Baptist Association addressed a memorial [correspondence] to the Legislature of South Carolina, in defence of slavery. They say:

As it is here assumed that Christ and Christianity do not “intermeddle” with questions of mere “political economy,” and as slavery is affirmed to be purely such a question, and not a question of morals, it might be inquired why an ecclesiastical body should depart from what it alleged to be Christ's example, by “intermeddling” with this purely political subject? The “Association” proceeded to affirm [alleged] their right to hold slaves, and to say:

The Association then [practice law, erroneously] claims [contrary to the Constitution!] for the State of S. Carolina, the exclusive right “to regulate the existence and continuance of slavery within her territorial limits,” and they add:

The object [purpose], then, of this ecclesiastical memorial [correspondence] to the State Legislature, was to affirm the inherent right of slaveholding, on the same basis of the rights of property in “money and lands,” to invoke or encourage a continued legislative protection of this supposed right, and to pledge The Charles-

Sad business for the professed disciples of him who came to proclaim the jubilee of deliverance to the captives! [Luke 4:18 per Isaiah 61:1].

How Baptist slaveholders understand the tenure of their assumed rights of property in man, and at what expense they expect those rights to be maintained by their State Legislatures, may be learned from the following:

In 1835 the following query relating to slaves, was presented to the Savannah River Baptist Association of ministers:

Incidentally here, the fact leaks out that slave cohabitation is enforced by the authority of the masters, for the increase of their human chattels, and that this is done in utter contempt of the divine institution of marriage.

And a body of [pretended] devout ecclesiastics gravely decide that inasmuch as this [depraved] process, in connection with thc frequent and forced separation from each other of wives and husbands belonging to Baptist churches, is inseparable from the slave system, the divine institution of marriage, as expounded by Christ, must be modified in conformity with the slave code, in order that those whom God hath joined together [Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9], may, by man, be put asunder, so that Baptist wives may have two husbands and Baptist husbands may have two wives, without being subjected to “church censure.”

The “censure” of such churches, verily [sarcastically], must be of vast

In the same year, 1835, the ministers and messengers of the Goslein Baptist Association, assembled at Free Union, Virginia, adopted resolutions, [falsely] affirming their right to slave property.

In 1833, [vile] Rev. Dr. [Richard] Furman addressed to the Governor of South Carolina an exposition of the views of Baptists, in which he [lied about the Bible and] said:

This is Baptist religion at the South. And what is it at the North?

“The great majority of northern Baptists endorse this statement and certify the essential identity of their religion with that of Southern Baptists, by joining with them in sending THEIR religion . . . to the heathen.

The North Carolina Baptist Convention, in 1838 or 1839,

Thus careful were they to be understood as not intending to recommend giving slaves the Bible and permitting them to read.

This body was organized in 1814.

Connected with the Triennial Convention was a General Board of Baptist Foreign Missions; and subordinate to this was an “Acting Board,” located in Boston.

So late as 1844, near the time of the dissolution of that body, it came to light that there was a slaveholding missionary in its employ, a Mr. Bushyhead, who was laboring among the Cherokees. He lived in a fine dwelling, had a plantation, and several slaves.—Ib. p. 102.

It also appeared, not long after, that there were several southern missionaries employed by the Board, and that, among these Mr. Davenport and his wife, at Siam, were slaveholders.
____________________________________
* In 1823 or 1824, Mr. Cone was pastor of a slaveholding Baptist Church in Alexandria (D. C.).

It was also stated, on good authority, that several others among the foreign missionaries were slaveholders.—Ib. p. 122-3.

was organized in the City of New York, April 27, 1832." "Missionary Societies" (northern and southern) "by paying into its treasury their surplus funds, become auxiliary." Its constitution makes no distinction between slaveholders and non-slaveholders. "The Society has elected slaveholding officers, sent out slaveholding missionaries, and planted slave-holding churches, and all this in perfect keeping with its Constitution. Slaveholders are, to-day, (1850) on its list of life members, and its treasury is open to the price of men and women and little children." "As the Missionary of this Society, (Mr. Tryon,) entered Texas, he drove his slaves before him."—Ib. p. 63-65.

It was publicly stated, at a meeting in Philadelphia, by Eld. Duncan Dunbar, that twenty-six slaveholders had been employed by the Board.—Ib. p. 65.

The subject of employing slaveholding Missionaries came up for consideration, at its twelfth annual meeting, at Philadelphia, in 1844, but, after discussion, no action was taken against it. Instead of this, a Resolution (drawn up by Eld. R. Fuller, a slaveholder of South Carolina, and a Biblical defender of slavery,) was adopted, assuming neutral ground, and disclaiming fellowship, as a Society, either with slavery or anti-slavery. At this meeting, Eld. B. M. Hill, Corresponding Secretary of the Society, stated that the Southern States paid more into the treasury than the Northern States, and therefore more southern missionaries were appointed than northern ones.—Ib. p. 88-90.

At the meeting of the Society at Providence, R.I., April, 1845, some further discussion was had, and some incipient

(Baptist) was organized in 1837, the year of the martyrdom of [Rev.] Lovejoy, and after the murderous spirit of slaveholding ministers and church members against northern abolitionists had been fully revealed. It was a fraternal union between the leading ministers and the great majority of the lay brotherhood of Baptists, at the North and at the South. It had, in 1841, fifty-eight auxiliary societies in the slaveholding states. It has never been without slaveholding officers.—Ib. p. 58-9.

The (Baptist) "Christian Index," Georgia, of November 16, 1848, contained an appeal in behalf of this Bible Society, and also an advertisement, in which "a plantation with some twenty negroes, stock of every kind," &c., were offered for sale.—Ib. p. 323-4.

At a meeting of this Society, it was "Resolved to furnish every family in the United States with a Bible."

Eld. Abel Brown immediately rose and inquired, mildly, whether the resolution embraced slaves? Scarcely had the words escaped his lips, when the house resounded with the cry of "Order! order! order!" and the President, Eld. Spencer H. Cone, with emphatic voice and gesture, called out to him,—"Sit down, Sir! you are out of order."—Ib. 327.

The Society has never published its intention of giving the Bible to the poor heathen in the slave states, though it is be-

And yet, in a communication to the committee of the (English) General Baptist Missionary Society, the Board of the American and Foreign Bible Society, Nov. 3, 1847, over the signature of Eld. Spencer H. Cone, said, of the Society,—

"They have never withheld the Bible from the slave." And they further say they have reason to believe that "the colored race, bond and free," receive a fair proportion of their books!

Of the credibility of these statements, the American reader can judge.—Ib. 325-334.

The Board further says: "We have never designed, nor are we conscious that we have done aught to abet the system or practice of slavery." Yet the Society (1849) receives slave-holders to membership, has 59 auxiliaries, 506 life members, 99 life directors, and 9 Vice Presidents, in the slave states.—Ib. p. 333-4.

is also "a bond of union between the North and the South," publishing nothing against slavery.—Ib. p. 340-44.

A further account of the position of Baptist organizations in respect to slavery, will appear in another chapter, as connected with the movements of abolitionists, and Baptist "Free Missions."

The Churchman, edited by a Doctor of Divinity, and previously an instructor in a theological seminary, held the following language, in respect to the legal prohibition of teaching the colored population to read:

This argument would justify the Romish Church in withholding the Bible from the laity. And by the same kind of logic it might be argued, with much greater force, that, since "the holy scriptures are able to make men wise unto salvation" [2 Tim. 3:15] therefore, in a community that can read and that has Bibles, "a law of the land interdicting other means of instruction" (oral instruction by preaching) "does not trench upon the law of God." If the civil or ecclesiastical authorities may interdict some means of religious instruction, they may interdict others.

If they [Ed Note: politicians's laws] may interdict the Bible, they may, doubtless, interdict the "Book of Common Prayer" and all the forms of instruction, including the rituals of the Episcopal or any other church. To such results do those drive their arguments who would defend the usages of slavery.

The employment of such arguments certifies what those usages are, and that the slave code is not a dead letter. The quarter they come from indicates the relative position, in respect to them, of the Church and the State. If the prevailing religion of the country did not sanction them, they could not be protected by the State

Alexander Crummel, a colored young gentleman, of the city of New York, made application to "become a candidate for holy orders." He received from his bishop the usual circular in such cases, in which he was encouraged to "belong to the General Theological Seminary,'' located at New York. In the statutes of the Seminary it is expressly said, "Every person producing to the Faculty satisfactory evidence of his having been admitted a candidate for holy orders," &c., "shall be received as a student of the Seminary."

He was, however, referred to the Board of Trustees. A committee was appointed to consider and report, consisting of Bishop Doane, Rev. Drs. Milnor, Taylor, and Smith, and Messrs. D. B. Ogden, Newton, and Johnson. The next day (June 26, 1839), Bishop Doane, on request, was excused from further service on this committee, and Bishop Onderdonk, of Pennsylvania, appointed to fill the vacancy. This committee reported, June 27th, that "having deliberately considered the said petition, they are of opinion that it ought not to be granted," and they recommended a resolution accordingly, winch, on motion of Rev. Dr. Hawks, was adopted. Mr. Huntington moved that the subject be referred to the Faculty, which was lost. Bishop Doane, June 28th, asked leave to state to the Board his reasons for dissent, with a view to the entering of the same on the minutes. Leave was not granted.

During these proceedings Mr. Crummel was advised by the Bishop of New York to withdraw his petition, and was assured that the Faculty were willing to impart to him private instruction. In the minutes of the proceedings there was a careful avoidance of all allusion to the cause of

Regularly ordained ministers and rectors of parishes have been excluded from seats in the ecclesiastical councils of their church, solely on account of their color. "The rector of a colored church in Philadelphia is excluded by an express canon of the Diocesan Convention."—Vide J. G. Birney's Am. Churches, pp. 39-41.

Quite recently, the Episcopal Convention of Pennsylvania, sitting in Philadelphia, after discussion, decided against the admission of colored delegates.

We learn from the Saturday Evening Post, that at the late Episcopal Convention, a final decision was made upon the question of admitting representatives from the African Church of St. Thomas.

The majority of the committee appointed to consider the subject, reported adversely to the admission, arguing that the color, and physical and social condition and education of the blacks, render them unfit to participate in legislative bodies. The Rev. Mr. Montgomery submitted a minority report, which stated that, in the month of September, 1794, Bishop White laid before the Convention the Constitution of St. Thomas's Church, and it was then resolved, that as soon as they should sign the Act of Association, they should be entitled to all the privileges of the Diocese. It also urged that the exclusion of delegates on account of their color, was contrary to the spirit of Christianity, and the practice of the church in apostolic times.

After a short discussion, the vote was taken upon adopting the report of the majority, which was decided as follows: Clerical, ayes 44, nays 42. Lay votes, by churches, ayes 50, nays 17. So it was resolved that the delegates from St. Thomas' Church should not be admitted to seats in the Convention!!—Liberator, June 28, 1850.