This site is one in a series on the abolitionists from before the 1861-1865 Civil War.
This site presents a book by one of them, Rev. Parker Pillsbury (1809-1898).
Abolitionists such as Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) had shown slavery to be a sin. But many, even "most," clergymen were evil, pro-slavery. By the time Pillsbury wrote this book, in 1883, many Americans had forgotten the events leading to that war; pro-South disinformation was being circulated instead. This was in two contradictory styles: Telling two different stories at the same time is classic fraud. Both stories cannot be true! But both stories may be false, as in this situation. The real truth was, Evil clergy had even supported U.S. wars of conquest, e.g., stealing Texas from Mexico, in a war of aggression, pp 81 and 381. This is not to mention other Southern evils cited by other abolitionists, and later killing hundreds of thousands of people. Pillsbury had excommunicated the vile clergy, p 374, the vast majority in the U.S.A. He, and real Christians (Protestant and Catholic, as shown in this series), had fought slavery. The real Christians, not the pretenders, were now, 1883, being forgotten. As in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four [1984] by George Orwell, the truth of history was being rewritten, falsified. The facts of the time were being reversed, to state the opposite of what had happened, to conceal the facts of the majority clergy's wicked record from their gullible members / sheeple. (This type lying continues to present!) Harriet Martineau (1802-1876), in Society in America (1837), § XVI, "Administration of Religion," had warned that once slavery was abolished, clergy might try to steal the credit: "if the clergy of America follow the example of other rearguards of society, they will be the first to glory in the reformation which they have done their utmost to retard." Now, decades later, this predicted credit-stealing was occurring. “After the war, former Confederates [had] wondered how to hold on to their . . . pride after [the] devastating defeat. . . . So they reverse-engineered a cause worthy of [their] heroics. They also sensed . . . that the end of slavery would confer a gloss of nobility, and bragging rights, on the North," says Donald von Drehle, "The Civil War, 1861-2011, The Way We Weren't" (Time, 18 April 2011), p 40. So pro-slavers, unreconstructed Confederates, and their apologists and accessories resolved on denial and disinformation, including pretending that the pro-slavery clergy had helped end slavery!!! “The readiness with which Southern [slavers and defenders] prefer the most false and audacious claims . . . exhibits a state of society in which truth and honor are but little respected,” says Lewis Tappan, Address to the Non-slaveholders of the South: on The Social and Political Evils of Slavery (New York: S.W. Benedict, 1843), p 36. Of course they'd lie! and keep on doing so! both before and after the Civil War. So Pillsbury, by then (1883) age 73, wrote this history to set the record straight in abolitionists' honor, and to remind Americans of the fakes, the pretenders, whom he had excommunicated, p 374. The real truth was: "[N]othing . . . has done so much to tolerate and perpetuate the sin in our midst, as the practice [tradition] of the Church."—Rev. John G. Fee (1816-1901), Anti-Slavery Manual (1851), p 69. See parody, pp 326-327. Accordingly, President Abraham Lincoln gave no credit for ending slavery to the churches, but instead, quite the opposite, had credited the anti-clerical William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) and others: "The logic and moral power of Garrison and the Anti-slavery people . . . And the army have done it all," freed the slaves, cited by Truman Nelson (History Writer), Documents of Upheaval: Selections from William Lloyd Garrison's THE LIBERATOR, 1831-1865 (NY: Hill and Wang, 1966), xvii Churches were creating pagans, infidels, by their bad examples and doctrines, said Rev. William W. Patton (1846). Such evils are a legacy of the various Roman Emperors, including Diocletian's persecution of the Early Church. U.S. slavery was unconstitutional. John Wesley called it the "the vilest." Such history is vital now, in 2009, as the fakes, the pretended Christians, continue. Some still say the Bible is FOR slavery; others pretend to have 'repented' of their predecessors having been pro-slavery! Both groups lie, pretend the bulk of U.S. clergy were anti-slavery! despite the truth having been the extreme opposite! Neither group (the deniers of slavery-being-a-sin, and the pretenders-of-having-opposed-slavery) bring forth "fruits meet for repentance [Luke 3:8]." They bring forth
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by Rev. Parker Pillsbury (Concord, N.H., 1883)
Some books, judged by their titles, are more remarkable for what they do not contain, than for what they do. This work is only Acts, not the Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles. It is only a small portion of a very small part of those apostles. There were many in the great west, as well as not a few in the east, whose labors, sacrifices and sufferings entitle them to volumes of well-written biography, who can scarcely be mentioned here, even by name. At this time of my life of nearly three score and fourteen years, more than forty of which have been spent in the field of moral, peaceful and religious agitation for the rights of humanity, it seemed presumption in me to attempt a labor of even this magnitude. And it was only earnest, continued importunity on the part of my very few surviving associates in the conflict, and their friends, that finally determined my course. Truth only has been sought. Not the whole truth; for that were impossible. But strict truth and exact justice, to the full extent of my time and space. The present generation knows little of the terrible mysteries and meanings of slavery or anti-slavery; the outrages and horrors of the former, or the desperate and deadly encounters with the monster by the latter, long before the cannonade of Fort Sumpter, or the dreadful war chorus of the subsequent rebellion. And all which is now attempted is some disclosure of those mysteries. By anti-slavery apostles are meant those only whose work was in the lecturing field; who literally "went everywhere preaching the word;" often as with their lives in their hands. Nor will only few of them, however worthy and deserving, be mentioned even by name. This work will be rather pictures and sketches than history. It will hardly enter more than two states, New Hampshire and Massachusetts; never go beyond New England. But in New England every type and phase of anti-slavery experience, doing, suffering and triumphing was represented to the fullest possible extent. What was true there was true everywhere in the country. And the truth on slavery and anti-slavery can be presented on so small space, and in time equally limited, as well as if the whole country were included, and all the thirty years of the moral and peaceful, and so, truly religious, agitation of the mighty problem were covered and all the heroes and martyrs named. The whole, as originally intended, would have comprised acts and experiences of some of those heroes, with brief personal sketches of them, together with short biographical notices of William Lloyd Garrison, of The Liberator and Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, of the Herald of Freedom. But, as the work of writing went on, articles began to appear from our old opponents or their children, not only declaring that they or their fathers abolished the evil, but that it could have been sooner and more easily done, "had Garrison and his small, but motley following" been out of their way! So some chapters of acts of the pro-slavery apostles, became necessary; at cost of both extending the volume, and also excluding some worthy names and noble deeds that had earned good right to grace these pages. These misrepresentations came mainly from the clergy, as did most of our bitterest opposition while prosecuting our anti-slavery labors, as will be hereafter shown beyond all question or contradiction. So now the order of the book will be:
And it scarcely need be added that the abundant testimony adduced, is only a small part of what the churches and their ministers have treasured up against themselves, to be hereafter unfolded from their own archives, should occasion for it ever arise.
 Abolitionist Reunion - 1893 Danvers, Massachusetts Historical Society
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-viii- ACTS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY APOSTLES. —•— WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. The Acts of the twelve apostles are not the history of Christianity. Nor will the Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles be a history of the anti-slavery movement in the United States. My own beginning in that sublime enterprise was in the year 1840, when, dating from the establishment of The Liberator in Boston, by William Lloyd Garrison, it was about ten years old. At that time, so far as can be shown, was first announced the doctrine of immediate unconditional emancipation to every slave, without compensation to master or expatriation to the slave. Most of my anti-slavery work was of the missionary character, as was that of the first Christian apostles, who "went everywhere preaching the word." And the purpose of this Scripture is to present a true record, as far as practicable, of what passed under my own immediate observation, and in which it was my honor to bear some humble part. My earliest associates, editors as well as lecturers, are mostly now no more, and some personal account of a part of them is also in my present contemplation. My first anti-slavery newspapers were The Liberator, The Emancipator, published in New York, organ and property of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and Herald of Freedom of Concord. New Hampshire. Through some changes occurring in 1840, The Emancipator passed out of the society's hands, but was immediately succeeded by the National Anti-Slavery Standard, which continued with unswerving integrity till slavery was abolished in the country by presidential proclamation, and the male slave at least was made secure in his right of suffrage and citizenship. The first issue of his Liberator by Mr. Garrison was on January 1, 1831. It was a most humble, unpretentious little sheet of four pages, about fourteen inches by nine in size, but charged with the destiny of a race of human beings whose redemption from chattel, brutal bondage, was one day to shake to its foundations the mightiest republic ever yet existing on the globe.
The next day was Saturday, and I went by stage to Fitchburg, about fifty miles, and on Sunday evening delivered my first address on slavery, as agent of my association. And though I did in the course of that year, and the beginning of 1840, accept and occupy the position of a minister for a very small Congregational church and society in an obscure New Hampshire town, it seems on the whole more pertinent, proper and desirable, to date the beginning of my life mission and labor from that anti-slavery committee meeting in Boston and introduction to Mr. Garrison, and first work as an anti- slavery agent in Fitchburg and through the county of Worcester in the spring of 1839. Of the boyhood history of Mr. Garrison this may not be the place to speak. Like many men of high eminence, he commenced life among the lowly. Nor was his native town, Newburyport, Massachusetts ever distinguished for any but most conservative ideas in government, religion or social policy. His excellent mother, a devout member of the Baptist church, early sent him to learn the trade of a shoemaker. Fortunately too early, for his knees could not support the lap-stone, the anvil of the shoemaker of that day, and he was soon discharged, and entered as an apprentice to a cabinet maker. But neither was this a success. Nor did he even approach nor tend to his future high calling, until, while still a youth, he entered a printing office. That, as has been truly said, was to him high school, college and university, from which he graduated with honors, after long and faithful apprenticeship. His first business enterprise was to establish a little newspaper in his native town, which he characteristically named the Free Press. He soon learned, how ever, that the time for a Free Press was not yet. But the voice of his genius still said, Cry! and he responded next in Boston, with the National Philanthropist devoted doctrinally and practically to entire abstinence from all intoxicating drinks. His motto was, "Moderate drinking, the down-hill road to drunkenness." This undertaking was in the year 1827, when he was twenty-two years old. But the Philanthropist like the Free Press proved a premature birth. In 1828, his powers of mind and heart coming to be better appreciated, he had and accepted a proposition to go to Bennington, Vermont, and establish a political paper to be known as The Journal of the Times, and to advocate the claims of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency of the United States. Here, again, was a failure, and this journal soon slept with its predecessors. However, the valiant, persevering young editor was still full of courage and hope, and held on his way. He soon made acquaintance with Benjamin Lundy, an early, brave and true-hearted Quaker anti-slavery man, though hardly yet a pronounced abolitionist. Of kindred spirit, in the main, the two men formed a partnership in the autumn of 1829, and together published the Genius of Universal Emancipation. But though of one spirit, there was in methods between the two men a difference wide as earth and heaven. Mr. Lundy, in common with the highest humanities of the time, only demanded a gradual removal of slavery. Mr. Garrison, instead of gradual, almost stunned the nation with the new and more excellent evangel: "IMMEDIATE AND UNCONDITIONAL EMANCIPATION!" Here, then, was a new problem to be solved, or reconciled. An organized existence with one heart, but two voices: one serene, quiet, such as men might hear but not fear; the other the seven unloosed Apocalyptic thunders that men should hear, and hearing, tremble, as had Thomas Jefferson already, even in anticipation, almost half a century before the terrible utterance was heard by mortal ear! But Friend Lundy's persuasion prevailed for the present. After long, honest consideration and discussion, he finally said to Mr. Garrison: "Well, thee may put thy initials to thy editorial articles and I will put my initials to mine." But the stern logic of events soon showed that iron and clay could never be so welded together. This was in Baltimore, a slave-breeding, slave-trading, slave-holding city; indeed, had already become a great shipping emporium of the domestic slave trade of the United States! where, as has been said, slave pens flaunted their signs in open day on the principal streets, their rich owners the best city society and most devout worshippers in Christian churches. The wonder was that the gradualism of Lundy could be tolerated. And he soon learned who had struck at the great tap root of the deadly upas. Mr. Garrison wrote:
And so the Genius of Universal Emancipation would undoubtedly have soon been buried in the tomb of its three predecessors who owed their paternity to Mr. Garrison. But his intrepidity and fidelity in denouncing the domestic slave trade and exposure of its great cruelty, in the action of a ship captain engaged in it from his own native town of Newburyport, led to his arrest on a charge of libel, and conviction, fine, and imprisonment in a Baltimore jail. Nor had he one friend in the city to prevent it, if even to deplore his fate. Released from prison, his fine and court expenses being paid by Mr. Arthur Tappan of New York, and his partnership with Friend Lundy dissolved by mutual consent and in most cordial spirit, Mr. Garrison conceived the thought of establishing a paper at Washington, where the slave power and the domestic slave trade, in all their terrors, had established themselves under the sheltering wing and by direct authority of the Federal Government. Having in August, 1830, issued his prospectus, he visited the principal cities between Baltimore and Boston to test the tone of the public feeling for such an enterprise. But though he found Boston scarcely more friendly to his doctrines and determinations against slavery than even Baltimore itself, he finally concluded that it, rather, than Washington, was the ground whereon The Liberator should be set up. Writing, after his tour of observation, he said:
Thus, at last, had come the hour and the man. The great clock of the eternities struck the hour. And out of the dread silences came the prophetic word which was to finish the work of Washington and the Revolution, proclaiming "LIBERTY throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof [Leviticus 25:10]." In a Baltimore prison he had learned to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them [Hebrews 13:3];" and this was his self-consecration, in the earnest strains of Thomas Pringle:
*The Liberator, Vol. 1, No. 1: Saturday, January 1, 1831. This was the man in his sixth and twentieth year. His work and word, if not his name, was The Liberator. And to the end this was his motto: "My country is the world; my countrymen are all mankind." Of the philosophy and method of Mr. Garrison as the acknowledged leader of the anti-slavery movement, a few words cannot here be out of place. In scripture phrase it might be sufficient to say, "the weapons of his warfare were not carnal." He was ever pre-eminently a man of peace. At this time he was a devout believer in the truest, best interpretation of the New Testament, especially of the Sermon on the Mount and the story of the Good Samaritan. He held his mission to be a completion of the work begun in the Revolutionary War; but in magnitude, sublimity and solemnity, as well as in probable results on the destiny of the world, as far transcending that, as moral truth and right transcend physical force. All war, he held to be inherently, intrinsically wrong. And so he early declared all carnal weapons, even for deliverance from bondage, contrary to the spirit of Christ as well as of His teachings; and even counselled the slaves earnestly against any resort to them in achieving their liberty. And the Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society, work of his hand, contained such a provision. In a "Declaration of Principles adopted by a convention assembled in Philadelphia to organize a national anti-slavery association," are words like these from the same brain, heart and hand:
After much more in similar strain, follows this:
In youth, Garrison had been a pronounced politician of the conservative party, as were most of the leading men of his native town. It was the sound of the Greek revolution against Turkish despotism which first filled his ear, and fired his young soul with the spirit of freedom. The powerful appeals of Daniel Weebster and Henry Clay in the American Senate fed the flame. Webster became to him the divinity of the forum. He even contemplated at one time a brief term at the West Point military school that he might take the field in person in the cause of the struggling Greeks. John Randolph had not yet told him and Webster and Clay that "the Greeks were at their own doors." But as Mr. Garrison increased in wisdom and spiritual stature, and it became evident that he was to be the divinely constituted leader in the sublimest movement in behalf of liberty and humanity of many generations, his vision was so anointed that he saw clearly that, though he was indeed to wrestle with principalities and powers, and with spiritual wickedness in high places also, his weapons were to be drawn from no earthly magazines. The sword of the spirit of Truth only, was to be made mighty in his hands, to an extent such as had not been beheld before, from the day when an apostate Christianity in the person of Constantine the Great, mounted the throne of the Cæsars and most ingloriously proclaimed herself mistress of the world! When the American Anti-Slavery Society was formed in Philadelphia, in 1833, Garrison was a New Testament Christian, as he understood the word, in all the word can rightly be made to mean. And most of all, did he reverence the doctrines of freedom and peace. Peace on earth, liberty and good-will to men, to all men, and all women, were then his proclamation and song. Human life he came to regard as sacred above all other things. And so capital punishment and war, as well as slavery, were to him an abhorrence. Hence, logically, he renounced all allegiance to human governments founded in military force, and openly proclaimed himself disciple of the Prince of Peace, in these memorable words:
The New England Non-Resistance Society was organized in 1838, and Mr. Garrison was elected corresponding secretary and member of the executive committee; and many of its first official papers and records, besides breathing his spirit, bear unmistakable imprint of his brain and hand. A portion of the preamble to its constitution reads thus:
A part of Article II of the constitution reads:
At this time it cannot be doubted that the belief of Mr. Garrison in both the inspiration and authority of the Bible, the Trinity and Atonement, but especially in all the teachings and precepts of Christ, was almost precisely such as was then, and still is professed, by the whole Evangelical church. Among his many devout poetical effusions this will be found:
Such was Mr. Garrison as a Christian, as a follower of the Christ of the New Testament. And wondrously consistent with his faith were his spirit, his life, and his whole character. At home or abroad; in private or in public; as writer or as speaker; as husband, father, friend, neighbor, or in whatever relation; after long, wide, and intimate acquaintance with men in pulpit, church, politics, and the world at large; for the constant exercise of what we call the Christian virtues and graces, I surely have seen few the peer, none the superior of William Lloyd Garrison. And yet he was called an infidel by almost all the universal church of the nation, from the university and theological seminary down to the humblest village pastors, churches, and Sunday-schools. With a life pure and spotless as the white plumage of angels, his whole character and conduct unsullied by the slightest breath of reproach, blessing many temporally and spiritually with whom he had intercourse, gentle and patient with ignorance, forbearing and long-suffering with prejudice and perverseness, and yet bold and brave, unconcealing and uncompromising where oppression and iniquity, injustice and cruelty were to be exposed and rebuked, no matter in what high places entrenched—yet was he branded, blasted as infidel, even atheist, when those words were made to stand for, were presumed to stand for all that is to be dreaded, shunned, execrated and exterminated at whatever cost! Revering the New Testament as law divine, he studied and respected its teachings. Did he read "Resist Not Evil?" He observed the sacred requirement, preached it in his journal, The Liberator, and practiced it everywhere. Hence arose the Non-Resistance Society, as well as a great national anti-slavery movement, which, without proscription, rested substantially and was largely sustained on a similar foundation. With him "love your enemies" never meant shoot them in war, nor hang nor imprison them in peace. And so The Liberator, which was his own property from first to last, was not only a proclamation of peace, liberty and love on earth, but of general, universal unfolding, progressing and perfecting to all man and womankind. But, joining himself to no religious sect nor party, chained down to no narrow, dogmatic ringbolt, he had ever eye and ear, as well as heart and hospitality, for whatever new truth might appear—in whatever book, science or religion it might be found. And what wonder if years of violent opposition and persecution from almost the whole American church and clergy on account of his fidelity to the Christian doctrines of peace, purity and liberty as they were taught in the sermon on the mount, and the unswerving example of its great Author, should have clarified and quickened his vision mentally and spiritually! At any rate, he subsequently re-examined the faiths and formulas of the professedly evangelical sects in religion, including their avowed belief in plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture. As one result of his farther investigations, he attended a convention at Hartford, Connecticut, in 1853, called especially to consider the claim and character of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The meeting was very large, having representatives, men and women, from east and west, continuing four days, with three long sessions each. In one of them Mr. Garrison offered and ably defended a series of resolutions, the first of which was to this purport:
And yet, to the end of life, no man more venerated or made wiser use of the Bible than did Mr. Garrison. A late testimonial of his reads thus:
Garrison early learned to doubt nothing only because it was new, and he accepted nothing unless he saw on it more than the mold and moss of age and time. He found the world, even its most enlightened people, dead in the trespasses and sins of intemperance, slavery, war, capital punishment, and woman's enslavement. He lived to set on foot, or largely and liberally co-operate in enterprises and instrumentalities for correcting all these abuses, for righting all these fearful wrongs. But at last there came another stranger to his door. With characteristic hospitality that door was again opened. Francis Jackson, one of the noblest, bravest, most steadfast supporters of Mr. Garrison and his life work, once said with respect to sheltering and protecting the fugitive slave: "When I unfeelingly shut my door against a hunted, fleeing slave, may the God of compassion close the door of his mercy against me!" So no slave, nor even stranger, ever appealed in vain to Garrison. The new guest was Spiritualism. That was a "sect everywhere spoken against" as fast as it grew in numbers—as anti-slavery had been in the generation preceding it. Even many of the best abolitionists, men and women who had bravely suffered persecution for and with the slave, treated it with contempt and scorn. Not so, never so, with Mr. Garrison. Many of his truest friends, some of them Quakers, as well as of other religious denominations, became early and devoted spiritualists, and that alone would have forever prevented him from dismissing, still less condemning, any stranger or defendant uncondemned, or even unheard. And in finally giving the new and mysterious idea recognition, he found, and to the end of his life believed, that he had literally entertained angels, and angels not unawares. Nor did he hesitate to make proclamation of the new and sublime Evangel. In The Liberator of March 3d, 1854, is an article from his pen, of which the following are but the opening paragraphs, giving a detailed account of a highly demonstrative seance he had just attended in New York, where writing, rapping, drumming, "drumming in admirable time and most spiritual manner," and other wondrous phenomena were witnessed. He wrote: We are often privately asked what we think of the "spiritual manifestations," so called, and whether we have had any opportunities to investigate them. have spread from house to house, from city to city, from one part of the country to the other, across the Atlantic into Europe, till now the civilized world is compelled to acknowledge their reality, however diverse in accounting for them; as these manifestations continue to increase in variety and power, so that all suspicion of trick or imposture becomes simply absurd and preposterous; and as every attempt to find a solution for them in some physical theory relating to electricity, the odic force, clairvoyance, and the like, has thus far proved abortive—it becomes every intelligent mind to enter into an investigation of them with candor and fairness, as opportunity may offer, and to bear such testimony in regard to them as the facts may warrant: no matter what ridicule it may excite on the part of the uninformed or sceptical. At the burial of his friend Henry C. Wright, who died on the 16th of August, 1870, he made one of the most eloquent and impressive addresses of his whole life. Mr. Wright had been for several years a pronounced and active spiritualist, and this is the tribute, or a portion of it, which Mr. Garrison paid to that part of his life work:
When spiritualism was on trial at the bar of the judgment of this world, some of Mr. Garrison's friends saw with deep regret his hospitality and charity towards it. There were those who even denied positively that he was, or was in any danger of becoming, a spiritualist. So doutbtless his early political and religious associates felt and reasoned, when they saw his heart warmed, and his hand and voice were lifted in behalf of the imbruted slave and his few devoted, but despised and persecuted friends. With his shining talents and deep devotion to his then sincerely cherished political and religious principles, both of respectable and popular character, how could he ever become an Abolitionist? But there's a Divinity that shapes our ends; and Garrison was a young man when he wrote:
And spiritualism he yoked to his chariot of salvation so soon as he espoused it in its fullness and conscious truth, as had already his friend Henry C. Wright, a few years before, and doubtless in the full faith and hope of Lord Brougham, when he wrote: "Even in the most cloudless skies of Skepticism, I see a rain-cloud, if it be no bigger than a man's hand, and its name is Spiritualism." NATHANIEL PEABODY ROGERS When some discerning Romans saw how many statues were reared in their city to persons of only indifferent merit, while Cato, one of their wisest and best, had none, they wondered. But the great man had answered the question beforehand: "Better that posterity should ask why Cato has not a monument, than why he has."
And yet to that hallowed spot I have conducted many devout pilgrims from east and west, both women and men. For there, since Sunday, the 18th day of October, 1846, exactly thirty-six years ago this very [1882] day, and almost hour, have slumbered the mortal remains of Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, surely one of the brightest, noblest, truest and every way most gifted sons, not only of the Granite state, but of any state of this union of states, departing at the early age of only fifty-two years. And no visitor from near or remote, ever fails to ask, sometimes with almost stunning emphasis: "Why has Rogers no monument?" Should that sacred spot speak out from its silence of six and thirty years, doubtless its answer to the eminently pertinent inquiry would be, as was that of Cato, so well remembered, so much admired, so often repeated now, after more than two thousand years. Such as was Rogers, never die. They need no monuments reared by other hands than their own. Time mows down all marble and granite, tramples out all inscriptions in bronze or brass. And so such registers are soon lost for evermore.
And scarcely of any man departed or still visible to mortal sight, could this be sung more appropriately than of the subject of this chapter {Nathaniel P. Rogers]; and for some seven years editor of the Herald of Freedom, published in Concord, New Hampshire, ten or twelve years.
And surely the blood of the martyr, literally and spiritually, flowed in the veins of his remote descendant, answering "heart to heart," as well as "face to face." For those who have been privileged to see both our departed editor in the flesh and form, and a singularly well preserved portrait of the martyr in the American Antiquarian Society hall at Worcester, Massachusetts, have wondered at the remarkable resemblance in the shape of head and face, in complexion, color of eye and hair, and the whole general expression of the two memorable men. He graduated with honors at Dartmouth college, in the year 1816. He studied law with the distinguished Richard Fletcher, and then settled down to its practice in his native town, marrying a daughter of Hon. Daniel Farrand, of Burlington, Vermont. He conducted a flourishing and successful law practice in Plymouth for about twenty years before moving to Concord to take charge of the Herald of Freedom. As student in general literature, especially in history and poetry, none of his day were before him. Few ever heard Shakespeare, Scott, Byron and Burns read more beautifully, more thrillingly, than at his fireside, surrounded by his estimable wife and seven children, with sometimes a few invited friends. But general reading and home delights never detracted from the duties of his profession. When he died, an intimate friend, who had known him long and well, wrote that so accurate was his knowledge of law, and so industrious was he in business, that the success of a client was always confidently expected from the moment his assistance was secured. His life mission, however, was neither literature nor law. He was in due time ordained, consecrated as a high priest in the great fellowship of humanity, and wondrously, divinely did he magnify his office in the ten or twelve last years of his earthly life. In the year 1835, he made acquaintance with Garrison, and soon placed himself at his side as the hated, hunted, persecuted champion of the American slave, as by this time Garrison was known to be. And from that time, too, Rogers was ever found the firm, unshaken, uncompromising friend and advocate of not only the anti-slavery enterprise, but of the causes of temperance, peace, rights of woman, abolition of the gallows and halter, and other social and moral reforms. Here may be the place to say what certainly should be said at some time and place, a few words on the early religious character of Mr. Rogers. For it is neither known to this generation nor presumed what manner of men and women were most of those who early espoused the cause of the American slave; especially in their relations to the popular and prevailing religion of their time. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rogers were active and honored members in the Congregational church at Plymouth, when they espoused the cause of the slave. And they naturally looked, as did other anti-slavery Christians, to the church and pulpit as the divinely appointed instrumentality for emancipating the bondmen, especially of their own country, enslaved, too, by laws of their own enactment and religious sanction and approval. Perhaps a few excerpts from an early editorial in the Herald of Freedom will illustrate the quality of the religious sentiment and opinion of the editor, as well as the tone and temper of his heart and spirit. The whole article is in the Herald of August 11, 1838, and is a review of a contribution to the Christian Examiner, entitled "The Presence of God." The Examiner was a Unitarian journal, the sect at that time quite alien to the more evangelical views of Mr. Rogers: "We wander a moment from our technical anti-slavery sphere, to say, with permission of our readers, a word or two on a beautiful article in the Christian Examiner. It is from the pen of one of our gifted fellow citizens, to whom the unhappy subjects of insanity in this state owe so much for the public charity now contemplated in their behalf. It is written with great eloquence, perspicuity and force of style; and what is more, it seems scarcely to want that spirit of heart-broken Christianity so apt to be missing in the peaceful speculation of reviews, and may we not say in the speculations of the elegant corps among whom the writer of the article is here found. We will find briefly what fault we can with the article. tence of the Eternal Spirit, needs to be broken in upon. We need to help each other to escape a fatuity of mind on this subject that we may feel that God's ark still rides o'er the world's waves, and that the burning bush has not gone out." the entire race of man. It will save only those who will enter it. And the time of entering, as it was at the flood, is before the sky of probation is overcast. The door is that now, as then, before the falling of the first great drops of the eternal thunder shower. Thus loyal was the editor of the Herald to the religious doctrine and teaching of his time in the church of his choice. The church of his fathers through nine generations. Thus diligently had he studied and considered them; and thus eloquently and faithfully, though tenderly and affectionately, did he present, recommend and enforce them, whenever and wherever he had opportunity. In 1838 he removed from Plymouth to Concord, and became sole editor of the Herald of Freedom, He had, from its establishment in 1834, furnished many most brilliant and trenchant articles for its columns. To the readers of the paper, now alas! the most of them, with its editor, no more, nothing need be said of his power with his pen. Only a single duodecimo volume of three hundred and eighty pages of his editorial writings has been reprinted and preserved, and that long ago disappeared from the market. Ten dollars, it is said, have been offered for a single copy; though that perhaps might have been before most of the early readers had passed away. Some of its descriptive articles have been pronounced as unsurpassed in life and vigor, brilliancy and beauty, as were their rebukes of slave holders and their abettors and accomplices, scathing, withering, but always eminently just. His "Jaunt to the White Mountains" with Garrison in the year 1841, was copied from the Herald columns into a neat tract and was a capital contribution to the tourist literature of that period. Its length precludes possibility of insertion here; but one of less volume and of scarcely less power entitled "Ailsa Craig," may not so reasonably be rejected. For the world never knew the sublimely gifted writer as it should have known him, and doubtless would, but for his too early removal to higher spheres. Young readers will surely pardon a page or two when they have read them, introduced here for their profit as well as pleasure, showing not only the power of the writer, but also giving them a description of one of the most remarkable as well as interesting spots in the British realm. It is from the Herald of Freedom of April 30, 1841: This famous rock in the Irish Sea, we meant to have said something about when we saw it, long before this time. But anti-slavery makes us omit and forget the wonders of the Old World. We passed it on a trip from Scotland to Ireland. We left Glasgow on the twenty-eighth of July, 1840, at ten in the morning, for Dublin. William Lloyd Garrison in company, our fellow passenger to the Irish Capital. * * * enclosing mountains which we could descry in the misty distance, up the Vale. "We had supposed it was in the Forth on the other side of Scotland. As we were looking at it, Mr. McTear asked us to guess the distance to it. Strangers he said, were apt to greatly mistake the distance. We looked at the rock along the intervening water. We could get no aid from the shores which were at great distance, quite out of sight on one hand. We supposed of course, we should underrate the distance. So we stretched it liberally, as we thought, and guessed two miles, though it did not look like that distance. the captain. "It will be all the better. It will make quite a flight, ye'll find. Load her up pretty well." The steamer meanwhile kept nearing the giant craig, which was a bare rock from summit to sea, and all of a dull, chalky whiteness, occasioned, as the captain said, by the excrement of the birds. We saw caves in the sides of the mountain and down by the water; the retreats, our informant told us, in former times, of the smugglers who used to frequent the craig and carry on an extensive trade from these places of concealment. We had got so near as to see the white birds flitting across the entrances to the caverns like bees about the hive. With the spy-glass we could see them distinctly and in very considerable numbers; and at length approached so that we could see them on the ledges all over the sides of the mountain. minutes there ensued a general silence. For our own part, we were quite amazed and overawed at the spectacle. We had seen nothing like it before. We had seen White Mountain Notches and Niagara Falls in our own land, and the vastness of the wide and deep ocean, which was separating us from it. We had seen something of art's magnificence in the old world; its cloud-capped towers, gorgeous palaces and solemn temples, but we had never witnessed sublimity to be compared to that rising of sea-birds from Ailsa Craig. They were of countless varieties in kind and size, from the largest goose to the smallest marsh bird, and of every conceivable variety of dismal note. Off they moved in wild and alarmed route, like a people going into exile, filling the air far and wide, with their reproachful lament at the wanton cruelty that had broken them up and driven them into captivity. leaving their native cliffs forever. Slowly and sadly they seemed to return, while the eye sought in vain to ken the outskirts of their mighty caravan. And Ailsa Craig had sunk far into our rear, and quite sensibly diminished in the distance, before the rearmost of the feathered host had disappeared from our sight.
Nor, perhaps, would this cheap age even then understand nor comprehend it.
It quotes Pope and Burns about an "honest man," but seems not to know him when he comes. It celebrated the birthday of [Scottish poet] Robert Burns [1759-1796] with much pomp and demonstration in less than one month after it hung [abolitionist] John Brown [1800-1859] for a heroism and devotion to freedom and humanity, which began, rekindled with divine fervor, where the zeal of LaFayette for a white man's liberty paled out of human sight.
persecuting spirit that burned his illustrious ancestor [the first English Protestant martyr, Rev. John Rogers (1500-1555] in the [1555] Smithfield pyre [under English Queen Mary (1553-1558)]. In the true spirit of martyrdom did Rogers, like John Brown, join the anti-slavery movement in an hour of peril. Garrison had been mobbed in Boston, as was said, "in broad day, by Boston's best men in broadcloth, gentlemen of property and standing"; driven from a female anti-slavery concert of prayer which he had been invited to attend and address. Mr. Garrison said of the spectacle when all the streets near the place of meeting were thronged with a mob burning with murderous intent: "It was an awful, sublime and soul-thrilling scene—enough, one would suppose, to melt adamantine hearts, and make even fiends of darkness stagger and retreat. Indeed the clear, untremulous voice of that Christian heroine, Miss Parker, in prayer occasionally awed the ruffians into silence, and she was heard distinctly, even in the midst of their hisses and yells and curses."Garrison withdrew from the prayer meeting and the mayor entered in obedience to the wishes of the fiendish crew, and dispersed it. Then the cry, the shriek, the yell was, Some of the rioters discovered and seized him. They drew him furiously to a window and were about to thrust him out, when one of them relented and said, But they coiled a rope about his body, nearly stripped him of his clothing, then dragged him through the streets till he was finally rescued by posse comitatus and at frightful peril was at length got to the mayor's office. There he was provided with clothing and from thence sent to jail, as "a disturber of the peace," the mayor and his advisers declaring that "the only way to preserve his life." In Alton Rev. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, too, another anti-slavery editor, had been shot and killed by a mob, five bullets being taken from his body, three from his breast, and that, too, in 1837, only a few months before Mr. Rogers removed with his family to Concord to conduct the Herald of Freedom.
So that in assuming such position, he also, as might be said, "took his life in his hand." For Concord itself was no stranger to the mob at that time and for years afterward was the consecrated guardian of slavery. As a member of the Plymouth Congregational church, both Mr. and Mrs. Rogers had cooperated earnestly, faithfully in works of religious benevolence and charity. But when they demanded that those in bonds in their own country should be remembered even "as bound with them," they were repulsed as disorderly, contumacious disturbers of the peace of the church and its minister, who, at that time, was among the most virulent opposers of the whole anti-slavery enterprise. But they did not withdraw from their church connection till they saw that southern slaveholders were more welcome to the pulpit and sacramental table, than were faithful, devoted abolitionists, whose moral and religious integrity of character, as well as soundness of opinion, were above reproach or suspicion. Rogers, beyond most public men, ever had unshaken faith in the people, though conservative while a politician, and orthodox in his religious faith. When he left the church he investigated its character anew and for himself. The claims of the clergy to prerogative in things temporal as well as spiritual, he soon learned to hold in profound disesteem. To no one man then living, or who has appeared since, does the world owe more than to him for exposing and rebuking the arrogance and insolence not to say down-right fraud and dishonesty, of a ministry whose ruling, directing power in all the great popular demonstrations of the land, north as well as south, was exerted in support and sanctification of slavery. The exceptions to this charge were too few to change the result, as will appear in the progress of this work. Mr. Rogers never doubted for a moment that the people, well and wisely taught, would abolish slavery and cease to oppress one another. And so like the Great Emancipator of Nazareth, he directed all his sternest strokes and rebukes at the priests and rulers, who really "bound the heavy burdens and laid them on men's shoulders [Matthew 23:4]," as in Judea, two thousand years ago. He and his associates of the Garrison school of abolitionists relied solely on the power of moral and spiritual truth to rescue the slave as well as to redeem and save the world. They formed, they joined no political party. They abjured the ballot altogether as a reforming or restoring agency, as much as they did the bullet, the only specie redemption of the ballot, in every government of force. Both Mr. and Mrs. Rogers were members and officers of the New England Non-Resistance Society. And none ever more highly adorned the doctrine of their profession than they. As one with vision anointed to perceive all moral and spiritual truth, Rogers seemed to stand almost alone. His editorial writings are witness to this, and will be to more than the next generation. It were well for man and womankind, if whole volumes of them, judiciously selected, could be reproduced and scattered everywhere, like the shining constellation among the dimmer stars. His words to-day are, many of them, wondrously fresh and new. The temperance cause had no firmer or mure consistent friend. The peace societies had best of reasons to be proud of his support, in word and deed. To him human life was sacred as the life of God. Once, at a grand Peace gathering, it was strenuously argued by most of the members who spoke, that human life could and should be taken by divine command. And the president of the society himself made an argument in defence of all the slaughters of the Canaanites and other tribes and peoples, men, women and children, by Moses, Joshua and their destroying hosts, because perpetrated by command of God. It was at one of the last meetings Rogers ever attended, and he was then too feeble to bear an active part m the deliberations. But after listening a good while to scripture text and learned logic under Levitical law, he rose to his feet and in low voice asked: "Does our brother yonder say that if God commanded him, he would take a sword and use it in slaying human beings, and innocent, helpless human beings? "Yes, if God commanded," was the answer. "Well, I wouldn't," responded Rogers, and sank back into his seat, amid loud cheers of evident approval and admiration. Woman, to him, was in all rights, privileges and prerogatives, the full equal of man. He was a Christian in the divinest, sublimest sense of that still mysterious and much abused word. And as such his kingdom was not of this world. And so he could neither vote in, nor ask others to vote in nor to fight for any government based on military power. As husband and father, none ever knew one in whom his family were more supremely felicitated. As companion and friend, blessed and happy were all those who enjoyed his confidence and esteem. Gentle, simple, tender, kind, ready to sacrifice his own comfort; sharing on occasion, like General Washington, his room and bed with a colored man, and yet always discriminating in high degree; with tastes most refined; ever ready to criticise, even censure a friend, however dear, when he deemed it just and demanded; firm as his own Ailsa Craig, whenever or wherever, or however a moral principal was in jeopardy; running over with music, poetry, and culture of every kind, he was a man, the like of whom the world has seldom seen—may not soon see again. CHAPTER III. SLAVERY—AS IT WAS. Everybody now is anti-slavery. It is honorable now to be a child of the man who "cast the first anti-slavery vote in our town;" or called "our first anti-slavery meeting;" or first entertained Garrison as guest, or Abby Kelley, or Frederick Douglass; or rescued Stephen Foster or Lucy Stone from the hands of a ferocious mob; or raised, or commanded the first company of colored troops in the war of Rebellion, at the time when not a musical band could be found in the whole city of New York to play for a colored regiment, as it marched from the New Haven Railway station to the steamer at the foot of Canal street to embark for the seat of war! "Paid pipers" the venerable Dr. Tyng with withering scorn called them all on the same evening in Cooper Institute, where he presided at a lecture by George William Curtis. "Paid pipers," with wind too immaculate to blow away in escort of a gallant battalion of our country's saviors, "when there was no other name under heaven given among men," whereby the nationality could be saved but the negro name; despised as he was and rejected of men; "a man of sorrows" and acquainted all his dreary life with grief! Everybody now is [claims to be] an abolitionist, or son, or grandson of an anti-slavery parentage, and so all seem to claim equal honor, so far as honor is due, for ridding the world of the sublimest scourge and curse that ever afflicted the human race. Few now, however, have much conception of what slavery was; or what was genuine, effective anti-slavery, when slavery sat supreme "on its throne of skulls," and ruled the whole nation, state, church and school, literature, trade, commerce, manufactures and agriculture, as with rod of iron! And its first command, great command, only command was, "Thou shalt have no god but me." Not, as from Mount Sinai, "no other gods before me," but no other god. Not "no other gods before me," but "no other gods with, or above or below me!" So it was. Anti-slavery then, was more than a name; more than profession; or denomination in religion; or party in the government. So Christianity had mighty meanings when the great apostle to the Gentiles wrote: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." [Rom 1:16.] And "I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." [I Cor. 2:2.] It had fearful meanings when the gardens of Nero were illumined with the burning bodies of martyred saints, both men and women, young and old! When to name the Christ of God was death in lingering torments—when crucifixions were so multiplied that, as in grim epigram it was said, "space was wanted for crosses, and crosses for christians." And yet so sublime was Christian heroism at that hour, that it could have well been added, but christians are never wanting for crosses. But what was our slave system, that so many now proudly claim to have aided to destroy? And whose fathers and mothers were those who really did bear active, effective part in the thirty years moral and peaceful conflict, inaugurated by Garrison with "sword of the spirit;" whose only weapons were Made mighty through the living God?" Or whose sons and brothers rushed at last to the field of mortal combat, and fought the bloodiest, mightiest, everyway, most frightful war, that has shaken the earth and darkened the skies in all the Christian years? Slavery! What is it? What was it on the American plantation? "Peculiar Institution," some called it. "Patriarchal Institution," others! But what was it? All language pales and is silent in its dread presence. Slave-holding! "Deed without a name!" In cant phrase we said slavery degrades man to the brute, sinks woman to the dead level of the horse. And then who knows the height and depth, the length and breadth of those stunning words; insulting blasphemies against the Holy Spirit of Humanity! Let one advertisement, distributed by large handbills, as well as published in the daily newspapers of New Orleans, aid the imagination :
In the light of a spectacle like this, it is possible to fancy slightly what should be understood when it is said that slavery degrades human beings to the plane of brute beasts. Or reverse the order of illustration, if we dare, and imagine a brute beast raised to the dignity and honor, the privilege and prerogative of a man, an immortal being. History or fable tells us of a Roman Sovereign who made a favorite horse first Consul of the Empire. Such mockery might have been. But suppose in a Christian country, in a Christian sanctuary, it were proposed to admit, not a horse, but some dogs into full fellowship and communion with the church. It is on a delightful Sunday of early summer, in a pleasant New England country town. The village gardens are already abloom with early flowers, the orchards are white with prophecy of abundant fruit, and every tree is an orchestra of cheerful birds, whose worship-notes almost charm the Sabbath silence into sweet accord with the songs of paradise. All the village and the districts around assemble at their, to them, "house of God." At the appointed hour, the baptized communicants of the accepted faith are invited to seats at the sacramental board. The unregenerate of the congregation retire to the outer seats, paying silent but respectful attention. The first scene in the solemn service is admission of new members, who are invited forward to the altar. There, in presence of the congregation, they listen and bow silent assent to the Articles of Faith and the Covenant Vows, and receive the seal of baptism, in the name of the triune God. Solemn and impressive as this may be, it may excite no unusual emotions, being neither new nor infrequent. But slavery, we used to say with lip only, "degrades man and woman to a level with the brutes;" puts the "bay horse, Star," and the "Mulatto girl, Sarah," into the same raffle, or on the same auction-block. Now change the order. Elevate the brutes to the place of immortal beings at the baptismal font and sacramental table. Whistle up two or three dogs and solemnly read over to them the creed and covenant, and sprinkle them with the holy drops of baptism, calling them by their appropriate brute names, "Lion, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Tiger, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." And let the third be a female: "Topsy, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." Let such a spectacle be enacted on a delightful summer Sunday afternoon, in a beautiful New England village, in its pleasant white meeting-house, and at the memorial supper of that crucified Redeemer in whom the church and its pastor devoutly believed, and through whom they humbly hoped for salvation. Can the effect on the beholders of such a daring spectacle be described, or even imagined? As well, but no better, attempt a description of that slavery which truly did degrade human beings to a level with horses and with dogs. This whole scene was once supposed as illustration, in the days of slavery, in just such town and house of worship as here described, and not only that town, but the pulpit and religious press of both the hemispheres almost shrieked as with holy horror at what they called so audacious, so diabolical blasphemy. And the cry came up from near and far for immediate punishment of him who had so illumined slavery, to the fullest demand of the statute, which was long confinement, it was held, in the State prison! But one thing was made clear. The words, Slavery degrades man to a level with beasts, were seen and felt as perhaps never before. The congregation where the illustration was presented saw and solemnly felt that from beasts up to men—to men exalted to angelic heights—was no farther than those deeps down which immortal man is plunged, to reach the level of the beasts that perish. And that frightful pit was reached by every chattel slave ever born. But the question, What was American slavery? is not yet answered. To call it robbery, by only our dictionary definition, would pay it high compliment. Its fell [evil, atheist, demonized] work began where all ordinary robbery leaves off.
And if he did not pronounce the slave holder sum of all villains, he did address him in words like these:
Slavery is not robbery therefore, because it is so much more, and worse. Indeed, to rob man of manhood, and beastialize him down with not only animals, but the dead matter on which brutes feed and tread, makes any farther spoliation simply impossible. Or shall we pronounce American slavery adultery, wholesale, unblushing adultery? If not, it must be because, as with robbery, it was something so much worse. For, first, what is adultery but setting aside all rights, privileges and responsibilities, human and divine, of both the marriage and parental relations? Slavery knew no more of marriage and parentage among slaves than among swine. Logically, as well as legally, it could not. And the statutes and court decisions so declared.
The following was the answer:
James G. Birney was at one time a slaveholder as well as judge in the courts, and a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church. He was induced to emancipate his slaves, as well as to provide for their future support, taking them over into the free state of Ohio for that purpose, by the faithful and earnest argument and appeal of Theodore D. Weld, an early, eloquent and everyway most efficient apostle and laborer in the anti-slavery field. Washing his own hands from the blood and guilt of slave holding, Judge Birney set himself to the work of abolishing the foul system. Among his first endeavors was an attempt to purify the churches, beginning with his own. But neither his official standing in both state and church, nor his high consequent social status availed to shield him from every possible indignity and outrage at the hands of infuriated mobs, composed largely sometimes of members of the churches. Driven from Kentucky he removed to Ohio. His descent on Cincinnati, where he had now become known, was a signal to waken all the vengeance of both church and state against him. Meetings were at once called, "to see if the people will permit abolition papers to be published in this city." At the first meeting the postmaster, who was also a minister, presided. A committee of thirteen, all eminent citizens, and eight of them church members, was appointed to wait on Mr. Birney and assure him that his paper must stop, or the meeting would not be responsible for the consequences of its continuance. The chairman of the committee declared that "if the paper were not promptly suspended, a mob, unusual in numbers, determined in purpose, and desolating in its ravages, would be inevitable!" All of which proved true, for the paper did not stop. In the darkness of midnight the mob entered and carried press, types and all else of contents and sunk them in the Ohio river. And twice afterwards was the same outrage perpetrated. No wonder Mr. Burney entitled his memorable tract, published at the time, "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery." For the title was more than justified on every subsequent page, as will hereafter be made to appear. And the word of divine truth uttered by Mr. Weld, and the baptism of fire and water three times administered by the fiendish mob, with full approval of state, church and pulpit, were sufficient consecration of the author of the memorable tract to his subsequent anti-slavery ministry and apostleship. But returning to the argument. Not only was slavery adultery, as sanctified and committed by the churches, in thus sundering all marriage rights and responsibilities; it was legally and in solemn compact annihilation of human marriage and parentage. The court decisions contained sentiments such as these: "With consent of their masters, slaves may marry; but in a state of slavery it can produce no civil effect, because slaves are deprived of all civil rights." [Judge Matthews of Louisana]. Attorney-General Delany, of Maryland, held that slaves would not be admonished for incontinence, or punished for adultery or fornication; or prosecuted for petty treason, or for killing a husband, being a slave. The code of Louisiana declared, "a slave could not contract matrimony. The association which takes place among slaves, and is called marriage, being properly designated contubernium, a relation without sanctity, and to which no civil rights adhere."So the plain, unquestionable fact was, slavery was wholesale, legalized, sanctified concubinage, or adultery, from first to last. Our government was based on the prostrate bodies, souls, and civil, social, marital, parental, educational, moral and religious rights of half a million of immortal beings. In three-quarters of a century their numbers multiplied till at the downfall of the institution there were four millions, and not one legal marriage ever existed in all their generations! And yet, compelled by law thus to live and herd like brute beasts, hundreds of thousands of them were admitted to baptism and sacramental communion and fellowship in all the great evangelical denominations in the land! One other attribute of the dreadful system remains to be exposed, and that was murder. Under the written law of slavery, more than seventy offences, when committed by slaves, were punishable with death. One law read, "if any slave shall presume to strike any white person, such slave may be lawfully killed." Of course killed on the spot. A woman or girl would have been killed (undoubtedly many were killed) for defending her person against the lustful attack of her overseer or other white assailant. Special laws existed for recapturing escaped slaves at any cost of life to the victims, by first proclaiming them outlaws. The following legal instrument with its accompaniments will suffice to show the way:
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Another advertisement, from the Sumpter County (Alabama) Whig will illustrate the methods of slave hunting in other States besides North Carolina:
The New York Commercial-Advertiser of June 8th, 1827, contained the following item of news, not uncommon at that time, as the irresponsibility of slave-holders over the lives of their slaves had hardly been questioned: "HUNTING MEN WITH DOGS.—A negro who had absconded from his master, and for whom a reward of a hundred dollars was offered, has been apprehended and committed to prison in Savannah." The editor who states the fact adds, with as much coolness as though there were no barbarity in the matter, that he did not surrender till he was considerably maimed by the dogs that had been set on him—desperately fighting them, and badly cutting one of them with a sword. The St. Francisville (La.) Chronicle of February 1st, 1839, reports a slave-hunt after this sort: "Two or three days ago a gentleman of this parish, in hunting runaway negroes, came upon a camp of them in the swamp on Cat Island. He succeeded in arresting two of them, but the third made fight. On being shot in the shoulder, he fled to a sluice, where the dogs succeeded in drowning him before assistance could arrive." Had "assistance arrived," would it have been tendered to the dogs or their victim? is a question, to this day. But calling off the dogs altogether, let the subject be illumined a little farther with lights like this, from the Charleston (S. C.) Courier, in 1825.
True, the killing is here omitted, possibly by accident, but if such an atrocity does not involve murder sublimated, what shall be said of this from the Wilmington (N. C.) Advertiser of July 13th, 1838?
But no more such evidences of the murderous spirit of slavery, can be needed; though the last advertisement suggests an incident in South Carolina, so late as 1844, which is too instructive and assuring not to be given. That "wife, Eliza, who ran away from Colonel Thompson," possibly might have a tale unfolded, whose lightest word would have harrowed up the soul. There were many such tales. A young man in South Carolina was seen walking with a young woman, a slave, to whom it was known he was tenderly attached, and whom, it was farther shown, he married and aided to escape from slavery. That was his crime. He was arrested, tried, and found guilty. Sentence of death was pronounced upon him by Judge J. B. O'Neale, in word and spirit as now reproduced: "JOHN L. BROWN—It is my duty to announce to you the consequences of the conviction which you heard at Winnsboro', and of the opinion you have just heard read, refusing your two-fold motion in arrest of judgment for a new trial. you, I know, most appalling. Little did you dream of it when you stepped into the bar with an air as if you thought it was a fine frolic. But the consequences of crime are just such as you are realizing. Punishment often comes when it is least expected. explain to you until you will be able to understand; and understanding, to call upon the only One who can help you and save you—Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world. To Him I commend you. And through Him may you have that opening of the Day-Spring of mercy from on high, which shall bless you here, and crown you as a saint in an everlasting world, forever and ever. No event in anti-slavery history up to that time so stirred the two hemispheres as did this frightful sentence of Judge O'Neale. Even in the British House of Lords, two illustrious members, Brougham and Denman, gave it pathetic and powerful consideration. One London journal said: "The dreadful case of John L. Brown has created throughout Great Britain, a sensation of deepest and most painful character. Addresses to the churches in South Carolina have been extensively signed by the independent churches in England and Scotland." The Glasgow Argus, among the most important journals of Scotland, twice published the Charge on account of its fearful character, and said of it, "we know of nothing more atrocious in the judicial annals of modern times. * * * And what are we to think of a judge, who in passing sentence for what in our country, our land of Freedom, would be looked upon as a praiseworthy act, invokes the sacred name of Deity and the Holy Book of Inspiration as lending sanction to the atrocity about to be committed!" But perhaps the most imposing movement in Great Britain, on this terrible perversion of all justice, as well as outrage on all decency, humanity and charity, was a "Memorial addressed to the Churches of Christ in South Carolina, as representing those of other states," signed by more than thirteen hundred ministers and office-holders in the churches and other benevolent associations of London, and other portions of the kingdom, in solemn protest against it. But it need hardly be told, that all the sympathy felt, all the effort made, all the appeals and memorials sent, eloquent, tender, pathetic, devout as many, if not all of them were, seemed almost wholly thrown away on the press, pulpit, and vast majority of the people of the United States, even though South Carolina did yield to foreign pressure at last, and commuted the sentence to fifty lashes on the bare back; and even they were said to have been remitted on condition that the young man quit the state forever.
Let then their favorite and faithful poet, [John Greenleaf] Whittier [1807-1892], be their oracle:
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Severity of punishments inflicted on slaves short of death, were often a thousand times more cruel than death by the halter; not unfrequently terminating in death, though only by whipping. But hanging was not always severe enough, as witness a law of Maryland, enacted in 1729: "The slave shall first have the right hand cut off, then be hanged in the usual manner; the head be severed from the body, the body divided into four quarters, and the head and quarters be set up in the most public places of the county where such act was committed."And this horrible barbarity could be inflicted by a simple justice's court. But it may be said this legislation was before the foundations of this republic were laid. That is true. But in the year 1836, in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, an act was perpetrated, of which the following was the accepted newspaper account, on the spot and over the country: On the 28th of April, 1836, in the city of St. Louis, a black man named Mcintosh, who [in attempting self-rescue as per precedents] had stabbed an [extortioner, i.e., felony-committing] officer who had arrested him, The Alton Telegraph thus describes a part of the scene: "All was silent as death while the executioners were piling the wood around the victim. He said not a word till he felt that the flames had seized him. He then uttered an awful howl, attempting to sing and pray, then hung his head and suffered in silence. A St. Louis correspondent of a New York paper sent an account of the diabolical deed, of which this is an excerpt: "The shrieks and groans of the victim were loud and piercing, and to observe one limb after another drop into the fire, was awful indeed. In dying, he was about fifteen minutes. A subsequent Judicial decision by judge Luke E. Lawless, of the Circuit Court of Missouri, made at a session of court in St. Louis, was, that as the burning of Mcintosh was the act, directly or indirectly, by countenance of a majority of the citizens, it is a case which transcends the jurisdiction of the grand jury! And so the dreadful sacrament was sanctified and solemnized by high judicial decision. And as such atrocities were common while slavery lasted, why need the law of Maryland be shorn of its odium and terror in the popular apprehension, only because it was older than the Declaration of American Independence? Assuming that nations are not better than their laws, or that laws are never made till needed, what shall be said of legislation like this? A law of North Carolina provided that: If any person shall wilfully kill his own slave, or of any other person, every such offender shall, on conviction, forfeit and pay the sum of seven hundred pounds, and shall forever be rendered incapable of holding or exercising any office. And this law was not repealed till the year 1821, if ever. Another section of the same act provided: If any person shall, in sudden heat of passion, or by undue correction, kill his own slave, or the slave of any other person, he shall forfeit the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds. A still further provision of the same act read thus: If any person shall wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, castrate, or cruelly scald or burn any slave, or deprive any slave of any limb or member, or shall inflict any other cruel punishment, other than by whipping or beating with a switch, horse-whip or cow-skin, or by putting on irons, or imprisoning such slave, such person, for every such offence, shall forfeit and pay one hundred pounds. Judge Stroud, in his carefully prepared "Sketch of Laws Relating to Slavery," says in his latest edition, (1856): "This, so far as I can learn, has been suffered to disgrace the statute book to the present hour. Amid all the mutations which Christianity has effected within the last century, she has not been able to conquer the spirit which dictated this law." And not to speak of the shameful outrage, so denounced in Deuteronomy, xxiii, i, what must be thought of the decency, humanity, not to say religion, of a people that enacts, supports, sanctifies a law which beats without limit, without mercy, with horse-whip, cowskin or other missile, a human being, man, woman, child, unrebuked, unless the last stroke should produce immediate death? With one more well authenticated fact and one other witness, and he none other than Thomas Jefferson himself, the question as to the character of slavery shall be submitted to readers, to history, to posterity. The outrage to be described was witnessed by John James Appleton, Esq., whom Hon. David Lee Child and his illustrious wife, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, endorse as "a gentleman of high attainments and accomplishments," a secretary of legation at Rio Janeiro, Madrid and the Hague, commissioner at Naples and charge d'affaires at Stockholm. Mr. Appleton was present at the burial of a female slave in Mississippi, who had been whipped to death by her master, for being gone longer on an errand than was thought necessary. She protested under the terrible torture that she was ill and had to rest in the fields. To complete the climax of horror, she was delivered of a dead child while undergoing the punishment!! Is it strange that she had to rest by the way? But we will hasten to our last witness. To-day as I write, the Democratic party, party of Thomas Jefferson, is celebrating here in Massachusetts, a political success, almost unexampled under the circumstances, in state elections, since the party was first inaugurated. The tribes of Israel never claimed Abraham as their father with more devout pride and filial reverence, than have the Democrats of this nation Thomas Jefferson as theirs, since their party first learned to lisp his name. And those tribes crying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him," in the court-room of Pilate, or mocking their victim as he climbed Mount Calvary, bearing his cross in sweating agony, did not more dishonor their patriarchal father and founder than did the Democratic party and their Whig accomplices on the plains of Texas, murdering the Mexicans in a bloody war to reinstate slavery where the Mexican government, with its Roman Catholic religion, had not many years before, abolished it, as all humanity hoped, forever. That was almost forty years ago. Undoubtedly, devotion to slavery sent the old Whig party to a scarcely too early grave. Worship of the same unclean and bloody Moloch, stove down democratic rule, from the kindled wrath of the Infinite Justice around Fort Sumter, until the victories won yesterday in so many States of this Union, and proudly celebrated to-day, give sign almost unmistakable, of its probable return at the next presidential election. And now the next and last witness as to the whole quality and character of slavery, even as he saw it and himself embraced it, is the patriarchal American Democrat, Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826] himself.
The section relating to slavery contains so many general observations on human relations and obligations, individual as well as collective, social as well as civil and governmental, with a profoundly reverent recognition of higher authority than any man-made institutions, or constitutions, that it surely is not too much to declare that a return of the Democratic party to power will be a blessing or scourge and curse, exactly in proportion as it shall follow, or reject the doctrines and counsels of its justly venerated founder and progenitor, as laid down in the passage from his "Notes on the State of Virginia," here reproduced:
Such was American slavery. Jefferson proved its historian as well as prophet, to wondrous extent. Happy for the nation, had it heeded his wise and timely counsels. Happy for it would it even now learn to regard them. When, before or since our slave system, did governments ever punish with death for seventy offences, and then forbid, under penalties almost as severe as death, to teach one of the victims of such tyranny to read one law of man or God, in any book, the Bible not excepted? It may have been, But when, or where? What but cold-blooded murder must such governing have been! To rid the land of such a plague, no wonder it required an army on our side only, of more than two million seven hundred thousand men, half a million of whom never returned! And then, as a crowning, sealing sacrifice, an idolized president [Ed. Note: Abraham Lincoln] massacred, murdered, and his tall form stretched across their premature graves, while not this nation only, but foreign peoples stood aghast! All this, not to speak of moneyed cost and loss; nor counting the sighs and tears, bereavements and mournings of mothers, sisters, widows and orphans! All this, not reckoning moral and spiritual, as well as financial impoverishment and desolation, not to be restored perhaps till our third and fourth generations! Such was part of the price paid to redeem the land from its uncommon curse. Men called the war of sword and bayonet, Rebellion. It might have been rebellion on the part of slavery and the South. But to the North it was Retribution. The. South claimed as property, the slave. But the North, by the terms of the Federal Union, held him pinned down to the earth as with the point of the bayonet. From the torture-chambers of the imprisoned slave our guilt ascended, by silent but sure evaporation, until it hung in threatening clouds over all the sky, waiting the dread hour when the Infinite Patience could endure it no longer! At last the command was given, and the tempest and thunder shook the very heavens, saying to the North, "Give up;" to the South, "Keep not back." No lightning-rod shielded either; and Slavery, with all its reeking, shrieking altars, and ghastly paraphernalia of whips, fetters, bloodhounds and red-hot branding irons, was swept away in cataclysms of blood and fire! ANTI-SLAVERY — WHAT IT WAS NOT.
Such account could slavery give of itself, "Peculiar Institution " it was often called. But it was not peculiar to the southern states. Fortunes were made by the African slave trade, even in little Rhode Island. The history of slavery and slave trading in Massachusetts is one of the most surprising volumes ever issued by the American press. New Hampshire held slaves.
Vermont, had a fugitive slave case in 1808. But the brave Judge Harrington stunned the remorseless claimant with his decision that "nothing less than a bill of sale from the Almighty could establish ownership" in his victim.
And he [Judge Harrington], too, returned home despoiled and shamed. Slavery was the sin and crime of north as well as south. It was sustained by the government, it was sanctified by almost the whole religion of the nation. I have read that even the Quakers gravely considered the question, not whether it was right to hold slaves, but whether it was proper to brand them with red hot marking irons. To the credit of that sect, however, it should be told that it was among the first, if not the very first, to cast the accursed thing forever out of its fellowship. Three clauses in the federal constitution were so interpreted as to brand the whole nation as slave-holders, slave-hunters and slave-traders; and one of those clauses was in two words, "suppress insurrections." And another was in this apparently innocent, inoffensive period: "No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."
Our African slave trade was a piracy that paled all ordinary buccaneering into innocence. That traffic, with all its nameless terrors and tortures, was secured to the United States and positively protected by this specious and apparently inoffensive phrase in the ninth section of Article I in the federal constitution: "The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importations, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." And Mr. Madison, afterwards president, declared, and it is part of our history, that "the southern states would not have entered the union without the temporary permission of that trade." The first fugitive slave law was enacted in 1793. But as anti-slavery sentiment increased, through the faithful and persistent labors of the uncompromising Abolitionists, "underground railroads," as they were called, multiplied, and Judge Harrington's decisions became more frequent.
So [Ed. Note: pursuant to Southern slaver reaction to escapes to freedom, like when the East German Communists built the Berlin Wall in 1961, to keep people in] another and severer fugitive law was demanded, and in 1850 enacted.
That law, in the first place,
And many of the best families in the land were beggared only for religiously observing the Golden Rule and remembering and-
As early as the year 1840 [Ed. Note: meaning, next election after anti-slavery newspapers raised the issue], efforts began to be made by some anti-slavery men, who had faith or hope in political action against slavery, to change the interpretations of the constitution and decisions of the Supreme Court so as to make not only the clauses just now cited, but the whole instrument a proclamation and protection of universal liberty. Foremost among these men was Mr. Gerrit Smith [1797-1874], of New York.
A third political party was inaugurated, and James G. Birney, whose name has already had honorable mention in these pages, was the first nominated anti-slavery candidate for the presidency, and whose first anti-slavery works, as a repentant slave-holder, entitled him to such distinction. But his name was withdrawn after his first vote was given in 1844, and John P. Hale of New Hampshire, succeeded him. He also was superseded in the candidacy for one who undoubtedly might control a larger vote, Martin Van Buren [1782-1862], but whose anti-slavery reputation was surely of most questionable character.
Mark the words, "express and irrevocable." Express: not implied; not doubtful. Irrevocable: not to be revoked; more than statute of Medes and Persians. [Dan. 6:15].
Thus to slave-breeding as well as slave-working; to slave-buying, selling, holding and hunting, was the whole nation and government committed under the presidency, not of a southern, but a northern man; not of the Democratic, but the Republican party, and, as was claimed, the very best of that party. And the whole national domain was made human hunting ground, from Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill, to the wilds of Alaska, and the Golden Gate. And by the fugitive slave law, every man and woman was held to the bloodhound business of hunting slaves, when required by the officers, under heavy fines and cruel imprisonments. Such, in the Christian year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, was the culmination of all anti-slavery political parties. The American Anti-Slavery Society had also a constitution. Its declared aim was,
A declaration of sentiment, issued at the inauguration of the society, spoke thus:
And faithfully, consistently, persistently, without concealment, without compromise, did the true abolitionists continue so to act to the end. In an enterprise solely moral and religious, as well as philanthropic, the first, most earnest appeal was to the church and pulpit. A more devoutly religious man than was Mr. Garrison at the outset, or more soundly orthodox and evangelical in sentiment, could not be found. That has already been sufficiently shown. And his strongest, kindest, most affectionate appeals in behalf of the enslaved were first made to the ministers and churches of Boston, the then venerable Dr. Beecher being most eminent among them. I was a very humble unordained minister in a little New Hampshire town, where I was preaching as a candidate for settlement, when my first official testimony was asked and cheerfully given in relation to the crime and curse of slavery. The county anti-slavery society where I was, issued, through a committee whose chairman was the afterwards well and widely known Stephen S. Foster, a Circular to all the ministers of the county, respectfully asking their several answers to the following questions, relative to the duty of the church and clergy of the country on the subject of slavery:
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Readers, young and old, can see by these crucial questions what stern demands were made on the abolitionists at that day, who would keep their hands clean, their garments unspotted from the guilt of slavery, whose victims then numbered two and a half millions. Many ministers, to whom the letter of inquiry was sent, paid no attention to it. Some answered cautiously and prudently, having in their churches and societies influential men whose political party ties, if not their own personal opinions, bound them as with iron bands, to the accursed institution. A very few ventured as far in testimony or protest against the system as possible without periling their denominational position and fellowship. Perhaps the only satisfactory response in all respects to the questions propounded, was in part as given below :
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To-day, when everyone is, or would be thought an abolitionist, or the descendant of an abolitionist, such sentiments seem only reasonable and right; only logical and consistent; slavery being everywhere and always a heinous sin and crime. But in 1840, when slavery had yet before it almost a quarter of a century in which to plague us, it was not so. Slave-holders were welcomed to the pulpits and sacramental suppers of the churches in every state and county, if not in every single town, where churches existed. And the faithful and devout abolitionists, however evangelical in sentiment, were as universally cast out. There were exceptions, but so rare as rather to affirm and confirm than impeach the rule. And the political test of the time was not less stern and severe. The great political parties vied with each other in zeal and devotion to the demands of the national idol. Louisiana and Florida had already been purchased by the government, in obedience to its behest, though in avowed violation of the federal constitution. All the Indian tribes in the southern seaboard states had been driven from their homes, their churches and school-houses, their printing presses, and the graves of their ancestors, with unheard of haste and cruelty, that their coveted lands might be seized and doomed to slave-holding, the Seminoles in Florida only excepted. And General Taylor, with government troops, supplemented by imported Cuban blood-hounds, was soon to complete the bloody business by exterminating such as presumed to resist, and capturing and banishing the rest to the western wilds, then unexplored and almost unknown. Arrangements were making, secret and open, to seize Texas from Mexico, at whatever cost of national dishonor and war, to reinstate slavery, which Roman Catholic Mexico had abolished almost twenty years before, and then annex it [as a pro-slavery entity] to the United States.
Both the whig and democratic parties were emulating each other in their zeal and devotion to so vile an object by such unhallowed means. And so the anti-slavery demand on the parties, as well as on the churches, was to come out of them. No religious or theological opinions were questioned, no political party preferences were challenged, Baptist, Congregationalist, Methodist or Presbyterian might remain true to their chosen creed, only treat slavery in the church as other robbery, adultery, and murder. So whig and democrat, only let the equality of all men, as announced in the Declaration of Independence, be solemnly observed and applied, might remain whig and democrat forever. For themselves, the American Anti-Slavery Society abolitionists, at their national anniversary in 1844, adopted the resolution below, to which they adhered till the slave-holders' rebellion made sure the end of slavery: "Resolved, That secession from the present United States government is the duty of every abolitionist; since no one can take office or cast a vote for another to hold office under the United States constitution, without violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor of the slave-holder in his sin." To expect to find editors, missionaries and apostles able, ready, willing to adopt, inculcate and defend doctrines and measures thus uncompromising and extreme, was to pay high compliment to human nature, courage and character. But such appeared, both women and men. Indeed, long before this time [1844], the slave power had revealed itself in almost every possible way, both in state and church, as ready to execute terrible vengeance on any who dared refuse quick obedience to its behests, or even to question its right to reign supreme.
At the opening of the anti-slavery apocalypse [revelation] by Garrison in 1830, the whole nation—state, church, government, religion, education, trade, commerce,—all were held subservient to its sovereign will and pleasure. Every conceivable human interest, nearly every distinguished clergyman, politician, office-seeker as well as office-holder, bowed reverently in our temple of Moloch, humbly exclaiming, "Not my will, but thine be done." Already had Garrison been heavily fined, and imprisoned in Baltimore, only for exposing in a newspaper an atrocious instance of cruelty in our coastwise slave trade. In Boston he had been mobbed, stripped nearly naked, dragged by a rope through the streets till rescued by the authorities and shut in the strongest jail, to save his imperilled life. A worthy minister in New Hampshire, engaged to give an anti-slavery lecture, was arrested as a "common brawler," jerked from his knees and pulpit to trial as he was offering his opening prayer. Churches, school-houses, orphan asylums and dwellings of colored people, in Providence, New York, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, had been mobbed, sacked, burned down; twelve in New York and one church; more than forty in Philadelphia and two churches; and one church and many dwellings in Cincinnati. And many colored men were severely injured in their persons, and girls and women grossly outraged by their diabolical assailants. So were they hated for their color; and because millions of their kindred were slaves to democratic, republican and Christian masters. Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, was erected at cost of forty thousand dollars, wholly for anti-slavery and other philanthrophic purposes. During an anti-slavery convention, in 1838, that spacious and beautiful structure was mobbed, set on fire, and burned to ashes, with all its contents. A valuable library and much other property were consumed in the flames. Nor did the city authorities, from mayor and aldermen to sheriff and police, utter a protest; still less proffer any protection, or word of sympathy to the innocent and peaceful sufferers. Rev. Elijah Parish Lovejoy, native of Maine, graduate of Waterville College, and brother of Owen Lovejoy, afterwards member of Congress, perished in an attempt to protect his press and printing office from the fate of Pennsylvania Hall. [Details]. It was in Alton, Illinois, north of St. Louis, on the opposite bank of the Mississippi, that the most heart-rending and horrible instance of burning a slave to death over a slow fire in St. Louis-in the year 1837, had just been made public, as has been already described [pp 64-65]. The St. Louis newspapers, though generally approving the devilish deed, stirred the civilized world with their account of it. Of course the editorial pen of Lovejoy was hot with hallowed fire at the awful recital. His office and life were soon threatened. He appealed to the authorities for protection. He might as well have looked to the murderers of the poor slave. His friends counselled him to flee. He answered:
This was the fourth printing press he [Rev. Lovejoy] had set up. All the others had been ruthlessly destroyed by the same mob violence that now assailed this. Refused all municipal protection, he and a few brave friends entered the building alone. They fearlessly faced the mob till the building was in flames. As they came out, Lovejoy received five bullets and fell dead. Three of the bullets were taken out of his breast. He was but thirty-two and left a young wife and babes. When his mother read the account of his death, she said: "It is well; I had rather he died defending his principles, than that he should have forsaken them!" So it became all who entered the conflict to count well the cost.
CHAPTER V. ACTS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY APOSTLES, WITH SOME
My first intimate acquaintance and companion in travel in the missionary field, was Stephen Symonds Foster. To him was largely due my first and best lessons in anti-slavery work.
My preparation for the Congregational Ministry was all made in less than four years from the reaper and the plough. The three years regular theological course was at Gilmanton, New Hampshire, where attempt was made to stretch the charter of an academical institution to cover an entire theological department. The enterprise failed, though in those years, the little, remote hamlet of "Gilmanton Corner," aspired and strove hard to become famous as the seat of Gilmanton Theological Seminary, I was first to enter the new department, and for several days one professor, and he not inaugurated nor installed, and one student, were all that were visible of that "School of the Prophets." But during my three years, the usual three regular classes were formed, though with small numbers, and two professors were elected and inaugurated. Some good and useful men were graduated, but in a few years, "Gilmanton Theological Seminary" ceased to be, and was known no more. My own three years' course seemed to me so short, preceded as it had been by neither collegiate nor academical study, that I determined on a year at Andover. It continued, however, only through the long fall and winter term; and then, after a short anti-slavery traveling agency, I commenced the work of a parish minister in a small New Hampshire town, but without ordination. My religious sentiments were of the true Gilmanton and Andover complexion. The creed of both was the same, though my printed copy was the Andover, a pamphlet of thirty pages octavo. A few extracts may be interesting to readers in these stirring theological times: "Every person appointed or elected a professor in this seminary shall, on the day of his inauguration into office, and in presence of the trustees, publicly make and subscribe the following declarations: that the saints will be made perfectly blessed in the full enjoyment of God to all eternity; These extracts are copied from the Laws of the Theological Institution in Andover printed at Andover by Gould & Newman, in 1837, one year before my entrance there. Nor had I openly dissented from any of these doctrines, as I understood them, when I left the Congregational church and its pulpit for the divine ministry of freedom, humanity and holiness.  (pp 88-99)
has risen up among us;" and he immediately called him to order; adding, "I think I have the spirit of God. I am a Christian!" This, and the Haverhill and Littleton ministers already described, with the Hopkinton association of divines, were only true representatives of the great majority of the popular New England clergy of that day. Their plainness of speech well accorded with the rest. And besides, much larger bodies than the Hopkinton association, were alike audacious in utterance, as well. That campaign in northern New Hampshire, made in the autumn after the society secessions, separations and new organizations, fully convinced me, had other hopes been entertained before, that the church and its ministry would be found in very deed the "bulwarks," if not at last "the forlorn hope of slavery," in complete confirmation of the declarations of Hon. James G. Birney [1792-1857]. It was no less plain, too, that very few of the abolitionists themselves were aware of the terrible contest before them; as many later withdrawals from their always scanty ranks proved. In a subsequent account rendered to the society through their paper, the Herald, I hazarded the prediction, that
If our thirty years war of moral and peaceful agitation failed to fulfill all these prophecies, what shall be said of the subsequent four years war of rebellion, with all their frightful costs of blood and treasure? War, whose thunders shook the land, the sea, the skies! Whose reverberations still go sounding down towards the night of the nineteenth century! CONVENTIONS AND MEETINGS WITH MR. ROGERS
New Hampshire continued my field of operations through 1840. Following the Grafton county campaign were two or three quite notable anti-slavery conventions, the best everyway, perhaps, at Milford, when all parts of Hillsboro county had representation. Mr. Garrison, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Foster, and some others were present to assist in the proceedings. The genius and spirit of our movement at that time may be gathered somewhat from the Resolutions generally, most thoroughly considered and usually adopted with few, if any, dissenting voices. At Milford the following passed after a searching and able discussion:
Milford was early an anti-slavery town. With such resolutions most ably discussed, and almost unanim- ously adopted by a large congregation, the meeting was everyway a success. It commenced on Thanksgiving evening, with an opening address by Mr. Garrison, in the spacious and then new Congregational meeting-house, the minister, Mr. Warner, another Gilmanton classmatc of mine. Himself and church, however, were already far on the road to new organization. Those who remained faithful to the anti-slavery cause soon after withdrew from the church, and were henceforth known as comeouters, infidels, non-resistants, Garrisonians, or whatever other name, honorable or opprobrious, was fastened upon them and others like them. It may be worthy of mention that the Concord attendants drove over to Milford in two open carriages, leaving home early on Thanksgiving morning, in a cold November rain, from which umbrellas were a poor protection. But the joyous greeting and reception which awaited us at our half-way house, the hospitable and sumptuous home of the farmers, Luther and Lucinda Melendy, on Chestnut hill, in Amherst, very soon dispelled all memory of outside storms, or other exposure or inconvenience. Rogers, in his Herald account of the convention, said of this incident: We were received at the Melendys with the welcome which compensates for months of pro-slavery scowling round about our path of life. Cordiality and brotherly love adorned the face of the household—the bounties of the season, the hospitable board ; and the Bible, the Liberator, Herald of Freedom, and National Anti-Slavery Standard the reading table. Here were the circumstances and conditions of genuine anti-slavery. * * * We were obliged to leave the interesting .spot too soon. We reached Milford, brother and sister Melendy in company, just as friend Warner's meeting-house was lighted up for a (pp 104-119) anti-slavery ministers among them all, told us to what purpose. "Let the individual fellowship of the churches be left to themselves," he said after cutting connexion with the larger ecclesiastical bodies. But even that to any effective extent, was never done. In 1842, Judge Birney revised and made more conclusive the argument in his work entitled "The American Churches, the Bulwarks of American Slavery;" himself a leading member and ruling elder of the Presbyterian church when the book was written. In 1844, appeared, "The Brotherhood of Thieves; or a True Picture of the American Church and Clergy," taking up the argument where Mr. Birney had left off, besides greatly strengthening his, by multiplied proofs from the same sources. In 1847, "The Church as It Is; the Forlorn Hope of Slavery," appeared, bringing the action of the churches and clergy on the slavery question down to that time. A peculiarity [characteristic] of all these books was, the churches and ministers furnished the testimony, so that they were judged by their own words and works. A division occurred in the general conference of the Methodist church. But the south, not the north, separated. And there still remained seven or eight annual conferences in the northern division, the boundaries distinctly discribed in the Book of Discipline. And on slavery the books of north and south read exactly alike, and it was shown clearly by Methodist testimony that there were still thousands of slave-holders and many thousand slaves in the northern general conference. The one unquestionable fact was, that though there were exceptions to the fearful charge, the system of slavery was supported by the government and sanctified by the religion of the nation, till the Infinite Patience could bear it no longer. The trump of the avenging angel first sounded at Fort Sumter, summoning north and south to their judgment day. Nor could the dread call be resisted. At the memorable field of Bull Run the two armies met face to face. It was on a beautiful summer Sunday morning. The northern and the southern states, regiments of Baptists, Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, from Maine to Michigan; regiments of the same denominations were up to meet them from the shores of the Mexican gulf to Mason and Dixon's line. Many of both armies must have sometime sat together at the sacramental supper-tables of the same denominational faith. But now their hour had come. Now the warnings, entreaties and expostulations of the faithful abolitionists were ended, and their terrible predictions were to be fulfilled. On that bright Sunday the two armies met in battle array. Avenging Justice beheld them, and seizing the one in His right hand the other in His left, dashed them together, dashed them in pieces, and gave frightful multitudes of them their last sacrament; not any more in the blood of slaves sold for wine of communion, but in the steaming battle blood of each other! For days both sides claimed a victory. The rebel commander-in-chief sent to his congress at Richmond forthwith dispatches dated Sunday night, and commencing thus:
Let readers mark those words, "the fugitives." New England, Boston even, had many noble sons in that fight; and only a little while before New England, and even Boston, was returning fugitive slaws to their masters. Who was He who once said, "With what measure ye meet, it shall be measured to you again?" [Matt. 7:2; Mk. 4:24; Lk. 6:38]And what the Boston pulpit, what Andover Theological Seminary said, what nearly every evangelical doctor of divinity taught on the duty of returning fugitive slaves, shall be shown in some future chapter of these fearful chronicles. CHAPTER VII. ACTS CONTINUED, WITH PERSONAL SKETCH
The last chapter contained an account of a sally into the lecturing field in which Mr. Foster and myself were accompanied by our inestimable coadjutor, Mr. Rogers, of the Herald of Freedom. My next campaign was with Foster alone, and as some account of Mr. Garrison and Mr. Rogers has been given, it may be proper to advert briefly to some of the more general incidents in the early life of Stephen S. Foster. It has been already intimated that in this work only the acts of a small number of the anti-slavery apostles can be even named. There were many, both men and women, whose separate faithful labors, patient endurance of privations, perils, sacrifices and sufferings, earned for each one a volume larger and abler than this can possibly be. Men and women whose very names should only be spoken by those of cleanest lips and purest hearts. Mr. Foster was born in Canterbury, New Hampshire, in November, 1809, son of Colonel Asa Foster, of revolutionary days. He was the ninth child of a family of thirteen. The old Foster homestead is in the north part of Canterbury, on a beautiful hillside, overlooking a long stretch of the Merrimack river valley, including Concord, and a wide view east and west, as well as south. It includes several hundred acres, and is still owned by one of the Foster brothers. Stephen left it early and learned the trade of a carpenter and builder. In that, however, he did not come to his life occupation. His parents were most devout and exemplary members of the Congregational church, to which he also was joined in youthful years. At that time the call for ministers and missionaries, especially to occupy the new opening field at the west, called then "the great valley of the Mississippi," was loud and earnest. At twenty-two [c. 1831] he heard and heeded it, and immediately entered on a course of collegiate study to that end, and it is only just to say that a more consistent, conscientious, divinely consecrated spirit never set itself to prepare for that then counted holiest of callings. Though assenting to the creed and covenant of his denomination, his whole rule of practical life and work was the "Sermon on the Mount [Matt. 5:3-7:27]," as interpreted and illustrated in the life and death of its author. With him "Love your enemies" [Matt. 5:44] was more than words, and "Resist not evil" [Matt. 5:39]was not returning evil, nor inflicting penalties under human enactments. And he went early to prison for non-appearance at military parade, armed with weapons of death. In Dartmouth College he was called to perform military service. On christian principles he declined, and was arrested and dragged away to jail. So bad were the roads that a part of the way the sheriff was compelled to ask him to leave the carriage and walk. He would cheerfully have walked all the way, as once did George Fox [1624-1691], good naturedly telling the officer, "Thee need not go thyself; send thy boy, I know the way;" for Foster feared no prison cells. He had earnest work in hand which led through many of them in subsequent years. Eternal Goodness might have had objects in view in sending him to Haverhill, for he found the jail in a condition to demand the hand of a Hercules, as in the "Augæan" stables for its cleansing. His companions there were poor debtors, as well as thieves, murderers, and lesser felons. One man so gained his confidence as to whisper in his ear that on his hands was the blood of murder, though none knew it but himself. Another poor wretch had been so long confined by illness to his miserable bed, that it literally swarmed with vermin crawling from his putrid sores. Foster wrote and sent to the world such a letter as few but he could write, awakening general horror and indignation wherever it was read, and a cleansing operation was forthwith instituted. The filth on the floor was found so deep and so hard trodden, that strong men had to come with pick-axes and dig it up. And that jail was not only revolutionized, but the whole prison system of the state from that time began to be reformed; and imprisonment for debt was soon heard of here no more. His college studies closed, he entered, for a theological course, the Union Seminary in New York. Soon aftenward there was threatened war between our country and Great Britain, over a short stretch of the northeastern boundary line, about which the two nations had disputed for half a century. Wholly opposed to war as was he, for any cause, he and a few of his friends proposed a meeting for prayer and conference, in relation to it as then menaced. Foster asked for the use of a lecture room for their purpose, but was surprised as much as grieved to find the seminary faculty not only opposed to granting the use of the room, but sternly against the holding of any such meeting. That refusal, probably more than any other one event, determined his whole future course. For while in college he had had many serious doubts and misgivings as to the claim of the great body of the American church and clergy to the Christian name and character; not only because of their supporting war and approval of his incarceration for peace principles, but also for their persistent countenance of slave-holding and fellowship of even slave-breeders and slave-holders, as Christians and Christian ministers. In 1839, Mr. Foster abandoned all hope of the Congregational ministry, and entered the anti-slavery service, side by side with Garrison, of the Boston Liberator, and Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, of the New Hampshire Herald of Freedom. And from that time onward till slavery was abolished, and indeed to the day of his death, the cause of freedom and humanity, justice and truth, had no more faithful, few if any more able champions. In the autumn of 1845, he married Miss Abby Kelley, of Worcester, Massachusetts, then a well and widely-known lecturer on anti-slavery, temperance, peace, and other subjects pertaining to the rights and the welfare of man and womankind. She and a daughter, their only child, survive him. The daughter graduated first at Vassar College, then entered Cornell University, which she left at the end of the year, with the degree of Master of Arts. I first saw Stephen Foster in the autumn of 1834. We were commencing teaching schools in adjoining districts of a small country town. A "revival of religion" soon appeared in the town, and was eminently powerful in his school, if, indeed, it did not commence there. His school was much larger than mine, and many of the parents were members, and some of them officers, of the Congregational church. They found in Mr. Foster a teacher, or at any rate a leader in religion, as well as in the literature of their school. And though most satisfactory progress was made in all the branches, and the discipline of the school was deemed throughout of the very best, nearly every scholar of or above fifteen years old was converted and joined the Congregational church; and then their teacher and some of themselves came over as missionaries into my more remote and benighted district, and quite a work was accomplished there. The venerable minister of the town thought, and from the standpoint, and in the light of that day, thought truly, that, "with young Mr. Foster, evidently, was 'the secret of the Lord!'" And that same characteristic faithfulness he brought with him into the anti-slavery cause. And soon learning where was the great, deep, tap-root of the deadly upas, he laid the axe at the root of the tree. His encounters with the church and ministry, the frequency with which his meetings had been and were still broken up by brutal mobs, not unfrequently justified by the pulpit and religious press, had made him a disciple to the Birney doctrine, "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery," long before this startling tract had come before the public. Mr. Birney's experiences with the same power suggested his title; but a few years later, another pamphlet appeared from Foster's own pen, entitled, "The Brotherhood of Thieves; or a True Picture of the American Church and Clergy." Mr. Birney had already proved the pertinence and propriety of such a title in his little work; but in a ringing book, of more than seventy pages, Foster showed, by super-abundant testimony, and every single witness furnished by the church itself, that if slavery were man stealing, as the Presbyterian church had declared it forty years before, and "the highest kind of theft," then surely the whole southern church was indeed a vast "Brotherhood of Thieves!" with their northern baptized brethren, who fellowshiped them as Christians, their not less guilty accomplices!
There were a few exceptions; but not enough to affect the general charge. Northern academies, colleges, universities, and theological seminaries, toned down their whole curriculum of moral and religious training and teaching to suit the depraved demand and taste of the whole brotherhood of southern slave-holders. And with most rare exceptions, the northern press attuned itself to the same key. The religious public soon learned to dread Mr. Foster's presence or approach. Convicted of the most malignant pro-slaveryism, and by its own public records and reports of proceedings of ecclesiastical bodies and associations, from general assemblies, general conferences, and American Bible, missionary and tract societies, to state and county conferences and consociations, they had good reason to fear such a judgment-day before the time. So there was a conspiracy among all classes of the people to conquer the abolitionists, "by letting them severely alone." And in some states the clergy went so far as to issue pastoral letters to the churches, declaring that anti-slavery lecturers had no right to invade a people who had chosen a pastor and regularly inducted him into office; nor had such a people any right to permit it. A Massachusetts clerical mandate, duly published in the religious papers, signed by two congregational ministers, contained this paragraph:
Nor was this law a dead letter in any place where it could possibly be enforced, whether in Massachusetts or anywhere in the north or west. But the brave faithfulness of Mr. Foster to the enslaved and to his own solemn convictions, soon triumphed over such religious despotism. He conceived the idea of entering the meeting houses on Sunday, and at the hour of sermon, respectfully rising and claiming the right to be heard then and there, on the duties and obligations of the church to those who were in bonds at the south. This measure he first adopted in the old North church, at Concord, in September, 1841. He was immediately seized by "three young gentlemen, one a southerner from Alabama, and the other two, guards (pp 130-141) better that they had been all given in the same manner and continued, in this extract. Almost all the parties, official and unofficial, are now dead; many of them died long ago, even those who led the mob outrages at the church door where Foster received his bodily injuries. The court room during the trial, which lasted through the most of an afternoon, was crowded with an audience whose sympathies at the beginning were doubtless quite evenly divided, for Concord was at that time by no means an anti-slavery town. But when the complaint was read, solemnly charging the accused, who was a well-known, consistent peace man and non-resistant, with "force and arms," and "rude and indecent behavior," the whole scene assumed a ludicrous aspect only. As the trial proceeded, however, it soon became manifest that malice and spite instigated the arrest, and that summary vengeance was to be inflicted, however unjust. Then when Foster so serenely corrected the court in its knowledge of law, telling just when the law was repealed, and where, and at whose desire, and exactly for what purpose the law then existing to protect public religious meetings was enacted, all of which he showed to the full satisfaction of the court, the burst of admiring applause was as general and hearty as it was long continued. Nor was there any attempt to suppress it. That was the verdict of humanity and justice, instinctively rendered, with voice and power irresistible. And when Judge Badger remitted the fine, which doubtless gave him great pleasure, though he transcended his authority in doing so, there was another demonstration of delight, at which Sheriff Pettingill stepped forward and told him he would remit his fees with the fine, and take nothing for his services. To which the judge good naturedly responded that he would not be outdone in magnanimity, and would throw in his charges with the rest, and Mr. Foster might be discharged. The demonstration which succeeded needs no description, no report. But there was yet one more incident worthy of mention. Judge Badger beholding the generous pile of silver which had been tossed on his table, asked, "What shall be done with all this money?" "Give it to Foster, give it to Foster," was shouted out from all over the yet crowded room. Carried by acclamation. It was done. Sheriff Pettingill then gave Foster his hand and said, "Now if you will step into my carriage I will be very happy to take you back to your lodgings." The offer was cordially and gratefully accepted by our weary and suffering friend, and thus ended the day with its strange and wondrous disclosures and deeds. But perhaps narration should not close without a brief mention of two or three meetings held immediately, to consider the right and propriety of so liberal construction of the rights of speech and worship, as were attempted by Mr. Foster and countenanced by Mr. Wood. Both being members of the state anti-slavery executive committee, that committee united with them in a formal call for such expression. And a committee was appointed to extend a special invitation to the clergy of the town to attend and participate in the deliberations. But the clergy did not come, though the people did, in number and quality, too, much to their surprise. Mr. Foster vindicated himself in the course he pursued, by the example of Jesus Christ and his apostles, who were both dragged out of the synagogues by the church and clergy of their time. He showed that Christ enjoined on his (pp 144-153) rough, so that when we arrived it was time to commence, and a good audience had assembled, some from several miles away. The days were at the shortest, and we were to hold an evening meeting, so that there was not much time to be lost. It was quite sunset when we closed. A Mr. Sanborn came and said we had better go home with him to supper, as probably no other family would invite us, and there was no tavern in the town. He told us he and his family were anti-slavery, and kept to the old organization, and would be extremely glad to entertain us, though he lived two miles away, and up the mountain besides. "Catamount hill," as it was and is called, proved to us the "Delectable mountains" of Bunyan's pilgrims.
We had two interesting meetings, but New Organisation had preceded us and captured the church and minister, so that those who aided us there, as elsewhere, with hospitality, with sympathy, or otherwise, were outside of the sectarian folds.
The experiences of Monday and Tuesday were a fair average of the experiences of the week, for we reached Concord on Monday, having been absent eight days; and we had held one or two meetings every day. A snow storm came in the time, and we were compelled to have our Tunbridge winter shod in consequence.
We had had some success in disposing of our shares to the debt, but beyond that our financial operations would not to-day be pronounced a success.
On reckoning up we had exactly thirty-seven cents more than when we set out, and that was in my hands. I did not smile if Foster did, when he said: "Well, Parker, I have no wife and you have; so this time we will not divide." Nor prob-
But next morning, to my wonderment, we had just the same for breakfast. In a joking way I complained of her fare, and said something about a new boarding house unless she set a better table. The wit was a little too cool and deposited a dew drop or two in her eye and down her cheek, as she told me her money was out, and she did not like to break our resolution, never to be in debt.
It would have been in order then for my eye to reflect back her's, but a rainbow in her sky seemed to me just then the needed return.
It was true we determined in our little forty dollars a year rent never to be in debt; but her health then was not as robust as mine. Such a breakfast was soon dispatched, and nearly as soon I was on the street to break our good resolution, if there was strength in my credit to do it.
Mr. Franklin Evans then (as I believe ever since) kept an excellent general country store, and readily consented to trust me for whatever was needed.
When I asked for my first and costliest article, which was fourteen pounds of good flour, he advised my taking a half barrel, as more economical. But I declined his generous proposal, and kept my bill within three dollars, though some nice butter and sugar were in my purchase. Before bed-time three dollars came from some unexpected source, with which the debt was paid as promised, and wife and I slept that night as before from our marriage, "owing no man anything, but to love one another."
And it is only truth and justice to say that from that night, the handful of meal and cruse of oil never wholly failed our humble home.
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES CONTINUED—LETTER OF
As we are now back in Concord, we will once more recur briefly to the South church. Readers doubtless have seen, if not deplored, some repetition in previous chapters—only necessary till they become acquainted with the persons and the principles mostly presented in these pages for their consideration.
It is now proposed to present a new phase of anti-slavery action and effort, in which all could bear active part who chose. Concord South Congregational church had several excellent men and women, who had made themselves quite offensive to the minister and some prominent members by their fidelity to the anti-slavery cause. Some had even withdrawn, both from communion supper service and Sunday worship. Some were women who were denied all speech or prayer, in private as well as public assemblies. They addressed a formal communication to the church, expressive of their views and determinations, and then withdrew wholly from such fellowship..
And in presenting that letter here it should be said that the same course became common, if not general, among genuine abolitionists all over the country, until the sect known as Come-outers grew to be numerous, and odious, too, to all who lacked courage or honesty to imitate that entirely scriptural course. Great numbers of these church withdrawal letters are before
New organized and third political party abolitionists displayed most fiery zeal at the ballot box once or twice a year; would vote for no whig nor democrat to fill the meanest office.
At the baptismal and sacramental altar whig and democrat shrunk into "gnats," and were swallowed in the communion wine, who, on Monday at the polls, swelled into larger "camels" than ever were exhibited at Barnum's menagerie.
Not so the women, nor some of the husbands of the women who addressed the subjoined
Three millions of our fellow beings are living in our midst under the following circumstances:
Root. Nor was his church as a body, far behind him. Nor was he by any means among the first, nor most active in the clerical conspiracy which led or drove to the division and new organisation.
Had northern clerical cooperation and church participation in all the crimes, cruelties and damning guilt of slavery never been arraigned, Dover had never had a mob in defence of such partnership in the sin.
Had Mr. Root remained the minister of that church, it is hardly probable that scenes so disgraceful would have been witnessed.
But Mr. Root had left Dover and New Hampshire, and the Rev. Mr. Young was in his stead straight from the sombre shades of Andover Theological Seminary. It was a large, rich church and society that had settled and ordained him, and they worshipped in one of the largest and finest meeting houses then in the state.
Some of us who were with Mr. Young at Andover rather wondered at their selection to succeed such a man as David Root. But so it was, though his stay in Dover was short, and he early abandoned thé ministry altogether.
The mob of that dark December night was precipitated by the arraignment of Rev. Edwin Holt, of Portsmouth, as a slaveholder. And yet Mr. Young knew the charge was true. He admitted it to Mr. Rogers at the very steps of the altar, before the tumult had wholly ceased. His church must have known it was true.
And Mr. Holt knew that Mr. Young knew it was true, because Mr. Young told us that Mr. Holt knew what his opinion of the business was, and he gave us to understand, doubtless intended that we should understand, that he had dealt very faithfully with him, as an offending brother. Why, then, did he cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war on our meeting for free and friendly discussion? A
A meeting in which Mr. Young or Mr. Cogswell, or Mr. Pierce, could have had half of every hour, and more, had he desired, to contradict or disprove any statement of ours, about Mr. Holt, or anybody, or anything else.
But the truth was, there was nothing to contradict. We knew whereof we affirmed. That was no new scene to us.
On that very night, Foster had on a coat, (a dress coat of the style of that time), one skirt of which was torn square off in a violent mob at Portland, only the week before, and which coat he wore for weeks afterward, as a testimony against Portland christianity, though his friends very soon furnished him another.
No, it is not very likely we could be convicted of false statements in the face of two or three mobs in a week. For we were not courting persecution. We were not ambitions for martyr honors, nor confessors' crowns. But we spoke the truth, and if not the whole truth, certainly nothing but the truth in the love of God and man. And we could not often be successfully contradicted, as most who heard us knew full well.
Mr. Young was not countenanced by all his congregation in his strange and unwarrantable course on that occasion. Indeed, he was quite sharply, though good-naturedly rebuked by one parishioner as we groped our way out in the total darkness. He happened, unfortunately, to tell us what we could not mistake, that it was very dark. Then responded his parishioner, who could hear but not see him,
MEETINGS IN WEST CHESTER—-RIOTOUS AND SHAMEFUL
That the churches were indeed the bulwarks of slavery grew every day more and more apparent. And as Dover, and several other of the larger towns have testified, it may be proper to report briefly on a few of the smaller places we visited, such as Auburn, Chester, and Derry. Auburn was at that time known as West Chester. Its church was Presbyterian, its minister, Rev. Benjamin Sargent, already introduced in these pages, venerable in years and rich in the graces of the true Christian minister and man of that period.
The Methodists had a strong hold in West Chester, but at the center of the town, Congregationalism held undisputed sway and ruled with rigor not often surpassed. No town ever more sternly or successfully resisted the anti-slavery, or other unpopular reforms.
In conversation with a venerable deacon of the church on the Indian question, so prominent at the time of the Scminole war, he declared to me that it was the duty of the first settlers of the country to exterminate the Indian tribes as completely as did the Israelites the inhabitants of Canaan and of Midian; "killing everything that breathed." He said all our Indian wars ever since were God's judgments, sent as penalty for neglecting that duty! And, moreover, that they would be inflicted till that duty was done.
II. Resolved—That we, being saints, do hereby take possession of that portion of it bounded as follows, etc., etc." I never heard that the Chester Congregational church, or its deacons, or minister, held ever afterwards any more humane sentiment towards the Indians, or even the slaves, while slavery lasted.
Our first anti-slavery meeting at West Chester was held in the Methodist meeting-house—adjourned there from the school-house, which was too small for half who came, the evening being Sunday.
Most of the time was occupied by Mr. Foster, who paid the Methodists, who were present in large numbers, the compliment of presuming that they wished to know the exact truth as to their connection with slavery, that they might be governed accordingly. So he opened Judge Birney's tract and proceeded to read exactly the record the denomination had furnished for itself in the past as far back as 1780; when it was
In 1784, when the Methodist church had been fully organized, rules were adopted fixing the time when members who were already slaveholders should emancipate all their slaves, and then followed this solemn injunction:
And then, again, in 1801, the conference declared:
So much, and more of the same character, Mr. Foster had in hand to read to the Methodists who on that evening composed a large proportion of our numerous audience. And so much he read to the credit of early Methodism. But then he had to unfold and expose the terrible degeneracy and apostacy in a single generation. And this was his offence, though his testimony was still as before only what the denomination itself furnished him.
In the year 1836 the general conference was held in Cincinnati, Ohio, and adopted with only fourteen dissenting voices this resolution:
And this resolution, though ample to the purpose of Foster, was a small part of the stunning testimony he presented to show that the northern Methodists were fully as guilty as their southern brethren of all the abominations of slave holding. For instance, he cited the declarations of the most eminent northern ministers and doctors of Methodist divinity. Rev. Dr. [Wilbur] Fisk, president of the Wesleyan university of Connecticut, said and published to this effect:
Only so much from a great deal by Dr. Fisk, in like vein and tone. And this one baptismal seal by Bishop [Elijah] Hedding, then living in Lynn, Massachusetts, as read in the Christian Advocate and Journal:
The argument of Mr. Foster enraged, as much as surprised, the Methodist portion of the audience. He showed slavery to be wholesale adultery and concubinage, and that all, who upheld it by fellowshipping it
He declared no house of ill-fame in New York was guilty of such fearful impiety, such frightful abomination. For there the victim or the guilty could flee out and escape, while in the churches they were held, were compelled by both religion and government, to stay and endure, even though their soul and spirit were pure as the angels of God!
Mr. Foster was heard an hour or more with comparative order and attention. Suddenly a man rose in great agitation, much as a drunken man or lunatic some times did in our meetings, and demanded proof of what had been said. Nothing needed proving, as the church and clergy supplied all the argument, and the inferences were as self-evident as heat from fire, or light from the heavens. But instead of drunkard or lunatic, the man proved to be one of the leading members of that very church, and it required the aid of some of his brethren to quiet him and restore the order of the meeting. Foster then opened the Bible and read the eighteenth chapter of Revelation down to the thirteenth verse, and sat down, leaving the remaining time to me.
The verse [Revelation 18:4] containing the injunction: "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues," read in Mr. Foster's deep, earnest, solemn tones, produced a deep impression; and a man rose with much apparent sincerity and asked: "Would it not be better to remain in the churches and reform them?" He, too, was a Methodist brother and, we were told, was a reformed inebriate. Had I known that at the time, I should have asked him whether dram-shops and brothels were fit haunts for those who had abandoned them, even to save the still lost ones, when everything and more could be done, and better done, from the outside? and especially if remaining within, or going within, involved eating of the same loaf and drinking the same cup with the guilty.
[Ed. Note: See also Rev. John G. Fee's 1849 book saying likewise.]
But as it was, I asked why Wesley did not remain in the old Episcopal church? Why not so preach his doctrine as not to create schism and separation? I asked if Unitarians or Universalists were ever exhorted to remain in their communion and work reform there, instead of coming out and uniting with the more evangelical churches into whose faith they had been converted.
On the question of changing their religious preferences or beliefs, by leaving their pro-slavery communions to become abolitionists, I remarked that no such change would be required. I said, do you wish or prefer to be a Methodist? Then be a Methodist with all your heart; be such a Methodist as was Wesley who declared slavery "the sum of all villanies," which must brand a slave-holder as the sum of all villains; such a Methodist as was Dr. Adam Clarke [1762-1832], your own great Bible Commentator, who said and wrote:
After the lapse of about three-quarters of an hour, most of the rioters retired from the hall. Joined, as we supposed, by a new recruit from the bar-room, they soon came back and commenced a hideous noise in the entry, which entirely overpowered the speaker's voice, and gave signs of another brutal assault.
Several persons, not abolitionists, attempted to hush the noise, but to little purpose.
One of them called upon the constable to take the leaders into custody, but he declined on the ground that he had no precept.
I took occasion to remind this scrupulously conscientious political "minister of God" that when I entered your meeting-house for the purpose of preaching the gospel in an orderly manner, it was not thought necessary to obtain a precept in order to dispose of me; but that any member of the congregation who chose, the minister himself not excepted, turned constable and thrust me from the house.
Finding it impossible to proceed with our exercises, brother Pillsbury and myself felt it our duty to shake off the dust of our feet and leave the place. This we did by a short, though solemn testimony, against all those through whose agency the meeting had been broken up.
While recording that testimony, a death-like silence pervaded the room. Even the infuriated ranks of the besotted rioters that were momentarily threatening to break forth upon us, were overpowered by its fearful import, and they silently retired in dismay at the terrors of the coming judgment, leaving us to return in safety and unmolested to our lodgings.
Such are the prominent facts connected with this disgraceful outrage. It only remains for me to submit the question whether, in view of them, I am not fully justified in the opinion that you were the guilty author.
What possible interest had Mr. Hilton and his associates in the breaking up of our meeting? The anti slavery enterprise does not and cannot molest them. They have nothing to fear from the prevalence of free principles. The mob was on your be- How is it, sir, that the bar-room has disgorged itself to furnish a body-guard for the pulpit? Why are the most vicious of your citizens so jealous of your reputation?
Can we suppose that they acted contrary to your wishes in this matter? Men may oppose, but will rarely defend us by means which we do not sanction and approve.
You declared you "would sooner co-operate with fiends from perdition than with Rogers and his coadjutors!"
Is not this mob alarming proof that you are co-operating with fiends from perdition in the perpetuity of slavery, and not with Rogers and his coadjutors in its overthrow?
DARTMOUTH COLLEEGE—RIOTOUS BEHAVIOR OF THE
Franklin was but a specimen of New Hampshire, and Mr. Knight was in immense majority, and Dartmouth college was helping to keep the number of his kind good, if not increase it. At Franklin, the rioters were mostly boys, set on or led on by some old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers, drunk on rum or rage, spleen and spite, but doing the will and pleasure of church and minister. Their ribaldry was as offensive as their blasphemy.
What we most feared, had most reason to fear, was that some indiscreet friend of ours might be impelled to resist their outrages of word and deed by force. True, the provocation was very great. But had such resistance been made, even to a single blow, however slight, it would have filled the hordes surrounding us with fiendish delight, and bloody scenes must inevitably have followed. Since the war of the rebellion, almost every ruffian appears to be armed with dirk, pistol, or both, ready for use at any moment. It was not so then and there, but I long kept in my cabinet stones and other missiles, including heavy bullets, which had been hurled at me and my brave companion, through windows, or as we walked or rode along the streets to or from our meetings.
We read in New Testament times of a Stephen [Acts 7:58-59] stoned to death by a mob. I traveled and worked
The next experiences and their results to be described occurred, soon after at Dartmouth college, which introduced me to society and scenes unknown before.
The question has often been asked me, sometimes in letters from distant states, at what college I received my education. It always sounded strangely in my ears, when remembering that at seven and twenty there was not a harder worked, nor working man, young nor old, in my native state of Massachusetts, nor my involuntarily adopted state of New Hampshire, at four years old. At twenty-four, I joined the Congregational church, in Henniker. To me, it was the most sacred, solemn step of my whole life. There had been none of those dark, despairing convictions, so frequently felt and described, and still less had
A doubt that such were necessary had not entered my mind, though many around me gave sad evidence in their lives and conversation after their experience, that even the most intense anguish of conviction and exttaic joy in the hour of conversion, were no assurance of regeneration or change of heart.
The reasonableness, wisdom and righteousness of the divine requirements were made so plain to my understanding, and the observance of them, according to my enlightenment, so necessary to the highest happiness and welfare of the human race, that in the very love of them, I accepted them, irrespective of all questions of perdition as penalty or paradise as reward.
Educated almost from infancy in the Congregational Sunday-school, and corresponding religious teaching with scrupulous care and faithfulness at home, it was easy to assume as true all the doctrines of our denomination, trinity atonement, total depravity and election, as well as everlasting rewards and retributions.
If away beyond my comprehension, I remembered how many great and holy men had embraced and defended them; how many godly men and women had died martyrs for them on torturing racks and in burning flames, and who in my situation could doubt their truth without violence to every pulsation of soul and spirit?
And so I entered the church tremblingly, but resolved to the best of all I was, or could become, to adorn my profession. And whatever duties were taught me as a Christian professer, I endeavored to perform.
Temperance and anti-slavery were among my first espousals; the former with the approval of
Our first anti-slavery lecture was delivered in the Methodist meeting-house, by Moses A. Cartland, then a most excellent Quaker school-teacher and principal, if not founder, of the once well-known Clinton Grove school, in the adjoining town of Weare. It was in the spring of 1835, while I was yet with my father and family on the farm.
The lecture was a calm, serene, but truthful and faithful presentation of the wrongs of the slave, the crimes and cruelties, the outrages and abominations inseparable from the slave system; but all delivered with the gentleness and spirit of Lydia Maria Child, from whose writings he frequently and liberally quoted, and several older members of the church than myself were deeply impressed by the important truths we heard.
Not so, however, the minister and most of the leading church members and officers. A general town meeting was called at the town house, and speeches were made and resolutions adopted denouncing and condemning the anti-slavery agitation and all who abetted or encouraged it. And similar meetings were held in many towns all over the state, and their proceedings were published in the newspapers.
At this time, and for three or four years afterward, the agitation had not jarred the foundations of church or pulpit to such a degree as to produce the winnowings, the separations and rendings that were to ensue in 1839 and 1840, when in very deed judgment had to begin, and did "begin at the house of God!" [I Peter 4:17].
Till then, there were many in the churches, ministers as well as others, who hated slavery and were willing it should be abolished if the peace and sleep of their organizations be not thereby disturbed. But so it could not be.
In our church at
Had the ministers espoused and proclaimed the doctrines and duties of anti-slavery as earnestly, most of the church would as cordially have embraced them.
My anti-slavery gave some offence, especially when once a slaveholder came and preached in our pulpit, and I absented myself from meeting solely in consequence.
But only few held with me, and none had gone so far as to refuse sermon and sacrament from a slaveholder, though several men and women approved my course in such refusal.
It was to the question however, at what college my education was obtained, that I proposed to answer a few words, and directly in continuation of the matter in hand. In prosecuting our mission, Mr. Foster and myself found ourselves at Hanover, and the gates of Dartmouth college, from whence Foster had graduated only three years before, and with more than ordinary college honors.
I had never before seen the interior of that, nor of any other college, in my life; and to academies and high-schools I was scarcely less a stranger.
The annual meeting of the Grafton county society had been already held, but in the south part of the county, a full day's drive from Hanover, and a similar convening seemed desirable in the northern section, and Hanover was the selected place.
It was a full week, however, before any house could be found in which to assemble, and the committee were at length, after that delay, compelled to call our meeting at the dancing hall of the principal hotel. Neither church
At the time appointed, however, the convention assembled in encouraging numbers, was duly organized, opened with prayer, and we proceeded to business. Henry C. Wright, of Philadelphia, formerly a Congregational minister, Mr. Foster, and myself were present as principal speakers, though all persons present were cordially invited, as was our invariable custom, to participate in the discussions.
The first resolution presented was to the effect that in any moral conflict, strength and success depended, not so much upon numbers, as on inflexible adherence to principle. An interesting debate ensued, which occupied the remainder of the morning session, when the resolution passed unanimously, and we adjourned till afternoon.
At two o'clock we again assembled, when after prayer the following resolution was offered:
This resolution was the order for afternoon. A clerical agent of the new organisation came also among us. He moved an amendment diluting thc resolution to his taste and temper. And as church, college and village made a large part of the audience after closing all their doors against us, the original resolution was rejected, by small majority. In the evening, our resolution read as below:
The college students crowded themselves together and were very disorderly, both before and after the exercises began, clapping, hissing, and hooting, in most indecent and vulgar manner.
Mr. Foster opened the discussion in an address of wondrous eloquence and power of argument, showing how slavery was all the resolution charged and a great deal more, and that logically, morally, every way, the slave-holder must be robber, adulterer, man-stealer and murderer.
Then he illustrated what these crimes meant in slavery; how a man-Stealer must be as much greater than a horse or sheep-stealer, as a man is better and greater than sheep or horse. Then he asked: "How much greater is a man than a sheep?" [Matthew 12:12]. "Who in Dartmouth college can solve that problem? Who?"
And yet, he declared,
All this, not to speak of the other capital crimes mentioned in the resolution.
And who perpetrates these outrages? They are ministers, bishops, elders, doctors of divinity, deacons, and church members, presidents and professors of collèges and theological seminaries." And he declared,
"We do not see them do the deeds, and so we hold them innocent.
"But what would you say if President Lord, of your own college, should be seen carrying home at night, a stolen sheep? or buying one he knew had just been stolen?" From that time, the order and quiet of the convention were no more. But the disturbance did not begin then, it was only mightily increased. It commenced before the opening prayer, and did not wholly cease during the evening.
There were those, not all boys, who, during some of Mr. Foster's most thrilling appeals, and blood curdling descriptions, would keep up their scraping, whistling, and snickering, as though they were in some cheap circus or minstrel show.
Possibly on some battle-field in the Rebellion [1861-1865], they learned their mistake [via casualties].
For a time we were completely silenced by the uproar. The editor of the Hanover Amulet, who happened to enter at that moment, said in his next paper:
which tumult continued through the evening with greater or less atrocity to the very last; and the clerical new organization agent added greatly, and seemed to enjoy greatly, the outrage.
But no explanation which Mr. Foster could make availed anything. For a long time, he had no hearing at all. When he obtained the ear for a few moments, he abjured utterly, any disrespect to President Lord or to the college.
He only wished to impress on the minds and hearts of his hearers, the awful wickedness of slavery, and not less of the north, especially the northern church and clergy, in fellowshiping as christians, thèse monsters of iniquity—that for Dr. Lord he had only profound respect; and with good reason, he said, for he had ever been as a father to him, both while he was at college and since he graduated; and that sooner should his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth than be guilty of uttering one word
culture, fresh from his travels and the hospitalities of the best families of England, rudely and roughly treated on his arrival in his native state.
And Senator Wilson could have named others besides Dr. Mann, who suffered similar indignities and for the same reasons. James N. Buffum had traveled extensively in Britain with Douglass, addressing immense anti-slavery meetings; but in his own town of Lynn, with him was dragged out of railway cars, making no resistance except to cling to the backs of the seats, which, as they were athletic men, they generally brought out with them, "one in each hand." The railroad authorities at length became so indignant that they refused to allow the trains to stop in Lynn at all. And for several days the rule was enforced. At one time they sent a police-officer with the trains to see that their atrocious mandates on the subject of negro hate were obeyed.
One day Mr. Buffum saw a white man riding in the cars with a pet monkey in his lap. He good-naturedly asked the conductor: DISCUSSION ON CHURCH ORGANIZATIONS BY REV. MR.
The Strafford-county anniversary has occupied much space, but discloses the genius and spirit, philosophy and methods, of the anti-slavery enterprise; and could the addresses and speeches have been reported and published with the proceedings, the wondrous ability of at least some of its advocates, would have been no less apparent. The editor of the Herald earned unpayable thanks for his glowing descriptions which are as just and truthful as they are brilliant and beautiful.
New organizantion was now asserting itself, and gave us some inconvenience, chiefly through clerical influence and action, as the following incident will reveal:
In the winter of 1841, Rev. Rufus A. Putnam, Congregational minister, of Chichester, proposed an evening discussion with our faithful friend, Rev. Mr. Sargent, of West Chester, on the question: "Are our church organizations Christian?" Happening that week to be at home in Concord, and the moon and sleighing favoring, I proposed to Mr. Rogers that we attend and hear the arguments. Knowing that our new organized clergy, of most of the sects, were then in arms to defend them, he readily consented, and just as the sun was setting and the moon rising, we
It might be uncharitable to presume that the unexpected arrival from Concord had something to do with the prolonged devotional exercises. But the editor of the Herald had voice as well as pen, and it would have been uncourteous not to have invited him to a part in the proceedings of the meeting. But undoubtedly the less time allotted to him, the better it might be for the affirmative side of the question in hand. And so some were not surprised that prayer and praise were thus prolonged, even though inopportune, for still another hymn had to be solemnly read and then sung.
There was a good country audience, some, like Mr. Rogers and myself, having come several miles. Preliminaries being settled at last, Mr. Putnam appeared behind a huge pile of notes, newspapers, and other signs of most elaborate preparation, and commenced a tiresome apology, for ill health, many duties, including attending a funeral, and general want of suitable
His main subject, instead of being as was expected, the Christianity of the churches, was the infidelity and Jacobinism of the old organization. And he tried to prove it by showing that Garrison and others in Massachusetts had betrayed the anti-slavery cause, by sifting into The Liberator other subjects than anti-slavery, such as non-resistence and woman's rights, no Sabbath, no ministry, no church of Christ. He did not pretend that these subjects were brought openly into the anti-slavery society, but we were secretly promoting them. He read a part of the phrenological character of Garrison, as given by O. S. Fowler, to prove his secretiveness, and that he did not tell everybody all he thought. And Rogers and Pillsbury and Foster had introduced these subjects into New Hampshire, and Garrison and Rogers had even carried them to England. He read with all the emphasis at his command, something from a print he had brought, advocating the right and propriety of unlimited intercourse of the sexes, and placed it with his other documents, which he had given
After a most pleasant refreshment, bodily and mental, with our affectionate friends, (who have not yet cast off from their association their pro-slavery church corporation) we resumed our ride for Hancock, among some of the boldest inhabited scenery I have ever seen in New Hampshire. Bold and free as his own intrepid spirit, we passed the farm on which grew up, from four years old, our noble coadjutor and veteran fellow-laborer, Parker Pillsbury. The rugged mountain homestead where he was bred from early childhood—bred to toil; where he worked through all his young life, hard and faithfully as his manhood is laboring for the slave, with almost as little acknowledgement or thanks as the world then awarded him, where he developed obscurely among the rocks. We passed the solitary school housed where he was allowed the few weeks schooling of his childhood. But thanks The abolitionists of the country ought to know Parker Pillsbury better than they do. I know him for all that is noble in soul, and powerful in talent and eloquence. The remote district school houses in New Hampshire and in the granite old county of Essex, Massachusetts, where he was born, would bear me witness to all I could say. He is one of the strong men of our age. I wish he oftener felt his own strength, if he ever feels it and would oftener put it forth, when he happens among the multitude audiences of the lowlands, where he is too apt to keep himself in the back ground. And the abolitionists, I fear, have regarded him too much as he regards himself. He has overlooked himself, and they have overlooked him. He has undervalued his inestimable services, and the abolitionists have imitated him in it. He has gone unpaid—not that, it is not the word he would allow. Paid or unpaid are not the words for him, but unsustained, unsupported. He has broken down in two or three years by giant labor, a constitution of adamant, matured and hardened into iron 'in the school of his early toil. He has broken it down and what has he received in requital? The curses of the priesthood and their vassal followers, and the forgetfulness of the abolitionists. He has been abroad in the fields, and they snugly at their homes; he has performed the incessant labor of the galley slave, with little better than slaves' fare, often times, and hardly better than slaves' wages. He never complains, but
When the clerical or political party leaders saw that we were determined the cause of the slave should be presented to the people, they felt safe in setting the [white trash] mob on us at any time, knowing that we were non-resistants in every encounter.
At Hancock, when the volley of stones came crashing in at the windows among the people, the women kept quiet, but a man cried out, "Let's adjourn; let's adjourn." Happening to be speaking at the moment, I raised my voice so as to be heard in the confusion and asked;
The effect was as sudden as satisfactory, and the silence and order continued to the close of the session. The poor fellow with the shilalah in the pulpit had been drinking, but he rose and made a few very sensible remarks, rebuking severely the disturbers, which we applauded, and that rather won him to our side.
I had often by strategy captured the champion of rioters [mob leader] whom they had crazed with liquor and put forward to annoy me so as to break up the meeting if possible.
Sometimes I would invite him to a friendly discussion and take him to the platform and propose that I would speak half an hour and he take notes and reply as he saw might be needed. I would furnish paper and pencil and proceed. The plan would not always succeed; neither did it always fail of the desired result.
I well recollect such an occurrence one terrible night in Vermont. The moon was bright as silver, but the mercury was much below zero. I should have held my man and the audience [attention] had not the rioters began pelting their [own] champion at the table with paper pellets, tobacco quids and similar
I was able to continue speaking in the confusion till the disturbing element was shamed into comparative silence, and then closed the meeting. This was unexpected, and some of the most violent begged me to proceed, promising the best of order and behavior to the end.
But I declined, telling them I had captured their champion [leader] and proved him the most decent man of them all, and now they might have the responsibility of breaking up a free meeting where they would have been welcome to half the time.
The Hancock convention had no presiding nor other officers, and so was a gathering after Mr. Rogers's own heart, as his graphic but eminently just and truthful description shows.
While on Hillsborough county it may be opportune to report one more meeting held or attempted by Mr. Foster alone. It was in the town of Nashua, where anti-slavery never had rapid nor healthy growth. The people not coming to Mr. Foster he felt called on to go to them.
It need not be told again that he differed at that time from most of his fellow christians in modes of worship. He believed devoutly that in all Christian assemblies there should be freedom of utterance, whether by prayer, speaking, or song, as was both preached and practiced by Christ and the early apostles.
But into whatever religious assembly he entered, his manner was always decent and respectful, and whether he spoke or prayed, his tones of voice were remarkably solemn and impressive. But I am sure he never once interrupted any religious services, except in places where political leaders and religious
Mr. Foster's own account of the [Nashua] affair will best describe it, and as it was written in a prison into which his faithfulness brought him, it will be all the more interesting. A part only of his letter will here be given. It was dated,
MY DEAR BROTHER ROGERS—Under the superintending providence of Him by whose permission, Joseph was cast into prison in Egypt, and the prophet Jeremiah was incarcerated in a loathsome dungeon, and Jesus Christ scourged, spit upon, and nailed to the cross, I have been given up into the power of my enemies, arrested and confined within the walls of a loathsome cell.
But though captured, I am not conquered; nay, I am a conquerer.
My body is indeed incased in granite and iron, but I was never more free than at this moment; I have at length triumphed over every foe; I have achieved this victory by conquering my own servile slavish fear of man, and all the instruments of torture and death, which his malicious passions have invented. * * *
I was a slave. I am a slave no longer.
My lips have been sealed by man. They will never be again, till sealed in death. My body is freely yielded to the persecutors to torture at pleasure. But my spirit must and shall be free.
Equal, unrestricted liberty of speech at all times, and in all places, is my birthright. It is the gift of God to every member of the family of man, and I will defend it in the face of prison and of death. * * *
You, brother Rogers, and the rest of my anti-slavery coadjutors may turn your backs upoo our synagogues, or sit silent spectators of their hypocritical worship, while the dying wail of millions of your countrymen is borne to your ears on every southern breeze—if you can. I cannot. I will My countrymen are pirates. [Details].
They [unconstitutionally] legalize the sale and enslavement of their own "free and equal" brethren. They authorize their transportation to distant ports to be sold into perpetual slavery.
I scorn the friendship of such a people; it is enmity against God. * * *
My enemies never made greater blunder than when they sent me to this gloomy prison. It is an honor I did not expect; one I feared I might never merit.
As your readers may wish to know the circumstances under which I came to this place, I will relate them, with such accuracy as can be done from memory, though there is not time for detail.
Last Saturday I visited Nashua, with the intention of giving a course of anti-slavery lectures, similar to those I have recently given at Dover, Exeter, and Somersworth. On my arrival, application was made for a house [meeting hall] suitable to my purpose, but no such place could be obtained.
The meeting-houses were refused [me], for no valid reason, except the Universalist, which was engaged for a course of scientific lectures.
I called on Rev. D. D. Pratt, pastor of the Baptist church, and requested permission to address his congregation on the subject of slavery, the next day.
Mr. Pratt refused my request, and remarked that he felt himself compelled to decide what was best for his people, and that he would send for me when he wanted my help.
I then called on the Congregationalist ministers, Mr. Richards and Mr. McGee, for similar purpose, but with no better success.
On Saturday evening, I attended a meeting at Mr. Richards' vestry, and spoke twenty minutes or more to an attentive audience, most of whom I presumed were members of the church.
On Sunday morning, after mature reflection and fervent prayer to God for divine guidance, I visited the Baptist meeting-house for the purpose of occupying some portion of the day in advocating the claims of that part of our countrymen who are held in slavery by the minis- In doing so, I acted in good faith to the assembly I met.
[I.] They said that place was the house of God, and I took them at their word and claimed in it the rights and privileges of a child of God.
[II.] They said their assembly was a Christian meeting, and I knew if it was, it would recognize and respect the equal right of all to speak, or "to prophesy one by one." [I Cor. 14:31].
[III.] They said Christ was their Lord and Master, and I knew if they were followers of his, I should be in no danger of being thrust from their house.
[b.] Or when did he privately instruct Deacon Andrew or Rev. Simon Peter to drag out the spies that he foreknew would come into the temple "to entangle him in his talk [Matt. 22:15]," feigning themselves just men? [IV.] They said they were the sheep of Christ's flock, sent forth by their divine shepherd into the midst of wolves [Matt. 10:16], of which I was one, and I knew if such were the fact, I was in no danger of being devoured by them, or dragged from their fold; for when was it ever heard of sheep that they had devoured a wolf, or ferociously seized, upon him and hurled him from their pen?
[V.] They said Jesus had commanded them to "be wise as serpents and harmless as doves [Matt. 10:16]," and I knew if they followed such directions, they would look to God for protection, and not to a wicked Universalist; and would seek to conquer their enemies by the power of love, and not by the terrors of the avenging sword.
[VI.] They claimed to be Christians, and I knew that among such, it would be perfectly safe for me to give utterance to my sympathies for God's perishing poor.
I rose for that purpose, but was immediately interrupted by Mr. Pratt, who said he wished to commence the regular exercises.
I did not notice this interruption, and was proceeding with my remarks, when suddenly Deacon Chase pounced upon my back and held me fast in his talons.
We did not have a regular fight, like some which have recently disgraced the halls of congress, for the one only reason, that I declined a combat with the reverend ambassador of Christ and I would not assert that Rev. Mr. Pratt would have fought in person, had I stood upon my rights. He might have thought that too undignified. He would doubtless have contented himself with aiding and abetting the affray, by giving it his countenance and approval, as he did my subsequent ejection from the house.
After being dragged from the platform by the deacon, I was carried into the street by three or four men, whose names were not given. I inquired of the deacon, who still had me in his talons, if I was his prisoner. He replied that I was not, and let go his grasp.
I then turned to go into the house, but was arrested by the deacon and his associates. A messenger was immediately dispatched to the Universalist meeting-house, in search of one of those "ministers of God, who bear not the sword in vain."
The messenger soon returned, accompanied by Constable Gillis, by whom, with the assistance of Deacon Chase, I was pulled by the arms and collar a distance of fifteen rods or more, to a rum tavern, and thrown on the bar-room floor. Soon after, I was seized and dragged up two flights of stairs and thrown upon the floor of a small upper chamber, and subsequently delivered into the custody of two keepers.
Having secured me in this temporary prison, the deacon returned to his meeting, to tender to the church the emblems of the body and blood of "the Prince of Peace." I was arrested, as the constable informed me, on complaint of Deacon Edwin Chase, Deacon David Philbrook, Norman Fuller, and another member of the church, whose name I have lost.
During the afternoon, Brother Preble, a Free-will Baptist minister, came into my prison and asked the constable, who was then present, to accompany me to Thayer's hall, at five o'clock, to fulfill an appointment made for me at that place. This he declined doing, but said he would release me for that purpose, on condition that Brother Preble and certain others would be responsible for my return, provided he could obtain consent of the complainants. Their consent to this was asked, but denied!
During the evening, one At ten o'clock, on Monday morning, I was put on trial before Israel Hunt. The complaint set forth that I had entered the Baptist meeting-house, "with force and arms," and disturbed the meeting by making a noise, by rude and indecent behavior, etc., etc.
The principal witnesses against me were Rev. Dura D. Pratt, aud Deacon Edwin Chase.
As a precaution, Mr. Hunt required them to swear by the living God, that they would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, relative to the case under trial. But instead of so doing, both of them kept back a part of it, as did Annanias and Sapphira a part of their possessions [Acts 5:1-11], and, what was quite as unchristian, testified to what was palpably false, and what I think they must have known was false.
None present could fail to remark that their memory was all on one side.
Mr. Pratt testified that I treated him "ungentlemanly." On being asked what I said or did that was ungentlemanly, he could not recollect, he said, then, but he was certain, very, that I treated him ungentlemanly.
His answers to my questions on the point reminded me of the lines I have seen, but cannot now recall where:
So with the reverend gentleman. He knew full well that I treated him "ungentlemanly," but wherein he could not tell. But finally, being pressed on that point, he testified that I told him I would preach to his people whether he was willing or not. This, in his opinion, was ungentlemanly.
Well, admitting [arguendo] that it would have been, it so happened that I did not say it, as brother Preble, who was present, will testify. But I did say to Mr. Pratt that I had come to Nashua to obtain a hearing in behalf of my en- As I do not acknowledge allegiance to any human power, I made no defence. I asked the witnesses some questions, and said a few words, but they were designed to influence the audience present, rather than the decision of Mr. Hunt. In that, I felt no interest. My only object was to expose the wickedness and hypocrisy of Dura D. Pratt and the majority of his [heathen] church, that they might no longer ensnare the ignorant and unwary.
Mr. Hunt's sentence was, that I pay a fine of three dollars and costs of prosecution; at the same time intimating that a repetition of the offence would be followed by a much heavier penalty.
I assured him I had done my duty in attempting to preach the gospel to the Baptists, and it was contrary to my sense of propriety to pay a fine for it. And I should, therefore, refuse to do it. And, as to threat of augmented penalty for similar fidelity in future, I should not be at all intimidated by it. And so long as any portion of my countrymen were held in slavery, my voice would never he silent, till silent in death.
Mr. Hunt then ordered me to be imprisoned till the fine was paid.
At ten o'clock the next day this order was carried into effect, by my incarceration in this loathsome prison, where duty to God and my countrymen requires me to remain at present. Relief is kindly offered me from several sources, whenever I shall think proper to accept it.
But I feel that the object is not yet accomplished that my heavenly Father had in view, in sending me to this dismal abode. And till that is done, I have no wish to be relieved. To one as restless as I am, imprisonment is oppressive. But I can endure it patiently for His sake who died for me. I can now surely "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." * * * *
But my friends, one and all, be of good cheer. We shall triumph soon. My eye is already on the victory. You and I may be called to yield up our lives in
Your friend and brother,
Brave hero! But many did call him insane, even some of his best, truest friends.
I remember once, in Faneuil Hall, at an anniversary, we had a discussion lasting all an afternoon and evening.
The house was crowded in every part. Mr. Pierpont was speaking, and with quite his usual eloquence and power. I was sitting with Foster, down in the body of the hall. Every ear seemed to be opened, every eye fixed on the speaker.
Suddenly, Foster detected what proved a fatal moral flaw in the logic. Quietly he rose and addressed the chair: "Mr. President."
Mr. Pierpont, always the perfect gentleman in every grace the word implies, and never more so than when in debate, ceased speaking and listened. Everybody listened.
Foster resumed: "Mr. President, will our friend, Mr. Pierpont, allow me to ask him a question just here?"
"Certainly," was the ready response from the speaker, gracefully drawing back from the front of the platform.
Foster then proposed his question. I do not remember it, but I well recollect that it lighted up the whole dark, deep chasm between moral rectitude and political expediency, showing Mr. Pierpont far
All saw it, but none applauded, though, in that vast throng, thousands must have approved. The stillness was almost overpowering.
Mr. Pierpont broke it in a manner that at once engraved him on the tablets of my memory, and embalmed him in my heart's affection forevermore. He spoke only this: "Mr. President, some folks say our friend Foster is crazy. But I wonder what this audience think about it?"
Only this, when a storm of applause burst forth almost rocking the old "Cradle of Liberty" to its foundations. Mr. Foster's triumph was complete; but the graceful magnanimity of Mr. Pierpont I am sure entitled him to a kingly share in all the honors of that memorable scene.
Mr. Foster, not without reason and propriety, closed his pathetic prison epistle with the appeal: "Think me not insane because I thus write."
Insane! Had a like insanity pervaded a small part of the American church, pulpit and people, southern slavery would never have attained such proportions in the name of republican liberty and protestant Christian religion, as to demand the blood of half a million young men, brave and beautiful, to wash its guilt away.
Insane! Rogers did not deem him insane.
Blazing down two solid columns of the same page of the Herald of Freedom with the letter, went his editorial comments, every word of which should be here reproduced, in justice to martyr memory and the facts of history. On the Jail itself he wrote:
"Those two localities abound in "The character of a people may be judged somewhat by its prisons, as well as its deacons and clergy.
A savage people will support bloody minded incarcerating deacons and dragging-out clergy, and filthy, noisome, verminous cells, in which to shut up those whom it hates and fears." Referring to the justice [Mr. Israel Hunt] who tried the cause and pronounced the sentence, he said:
"I should love to have witnessed the look with which Stephen replied to that magnificent suggestion.
"Poor depository of a little brief authority [the judge]!
"He little apprehended the character or the calling of the man he was dealing with.
"He might naturally enough suppose that one
It [self-delusionally thinking that a fine and jail would deter Foster's future preaching] was Mr. Rogers had some time before given his [legal] opinion of Mr. Foster's right to enter professedly Christian assemblies, to plead the cause of the oppressed, in language to this effect:
"For ourselves, we cannot deny the Christianity of it, and we see not how the meetings he enters can, or how they can object to it consistently with their Christian profession.
"They assume [claim] to be Christian assemblies, and to be governed by apostolic rules and usages. They would be scandalized to be designated as any other than Christian meetings.
"By those [apostolic] rules and usages, Foster has undoubted right to enter, uninvited, unpermitted, and be heard. They are congregational meetings to be sure, but they claim that Congregationalism is christianity, in its most approved form, and has no other than New Testament organization, principles and usages.
As political assemblies, they may deny Foster's right. As worldly meetings, they may charge him with intrusion. As
heathen meetings, they may complain and cannot be estopped by the plea that Foster comes in as a Christian, claiming under the usages of a Christian assembly.
"The reply that they are a heathen and not a Christian assembly would put him on a different defense. Whether it would be a defense in that case for him to say that, as a man he has a right, and is in duty bound to enter any human assembly and cry aloud in the paramount behalf of perishing humanity, This, and much more, was written for and published in the Herald of Freedom of the first of October, 1841, in connection with an account of the Hancock meeting of that year.
Whether Mr. Foster was right or wrong in his course, was never considered by the clergy at all. They assumed that he was wrong, and with equal audacity, they assumed always that they were right in ordering him dragged out and sent to prison, or fined, or both, at the discrétion of a civil magistrate.
Thus they voluntarily placed themselves, as [professing] Christian ministers, under the protection of the sword of human, worldly authority, while claiming to be, while professing to be, servants and disciples of the prophesied "Prince of Peace." Of him who said:
Nor should readers of these chronicles forget who was Mr. Foster, and what was his object in thus seeking the ear, the heart and conscience of the American churches and people, "whether they would hear or whether they would forbear." He was a Christian teacher and minister, not then ordained, though he had thoroughly educated and qualified himself to occupy any pulpit or professor's chair, in college or theological seminary.
He knew profoundly the history of the church and its ministry, from the calling of Moses and the Levites to Samuel, the earliest prophet; to Isaiah and Ezekiel, and onward to John the Baptist and Jesus Christ and his chosen and ordained apostles.
And when or where in all the Jew-
Or when, or where, was it ever read or heard that such right, or even duty, was ever forbidden by any "rules or usages [traditions]," still less, laws of divine appointment or approval, in any assembly, Jewish or Christian?
Mr. Foster, like Mr. Garrison and Mr. Rogers, was a Christian and Christian minister and teacher, in all that those words of hallowed memory could ever be rightly made to mean. And to whom was he sent? Or, if not sent, to whom did he come?
To a nation of oppressors, the like of whom, under all the circumstances, no age had ever seen [details], from the bondage of Israel in Egypt to the enslavement of Anglo Saxons by Norman invaders, whose deeds of manumission were sometimes recorded on the blank leaves of the parish Bible, kept in the church, secure from all invasion or violation as though sanctioned by a "thus saith the Lord," with the volume itself.
Foster was himself part of a nation, (no unimportant part, as became apparent), that in the name of republicanism and christianity, enslaved down to lowest brute-beast level, one-sixth part of its entire people.
He found in his own nation, millions of human, immortal beings, without one marriage sanctioned by law, or sanctified by religion, among them all! One-sixth part of the habitations of the people, houses of open, known prostitution, the holy rights, responsibilities and delights of parentage as utterly unknown, unrecognized, as among the beasts of the stable or the stall.
Millions of immortal, accountable human beings, and not one of them permitted to learn to read the name of the great creator, under pains and penalties, severe,
Millions of men, women and children, held accountable to human law, as well as divine, of whom a commission of the synods of South Carolina and Georgia, in the year of Christian grace, 1833, declared, as with astonishment:
"From long-continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such that they may justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world!" Another writer in that same South Carolina synod, on his own account, calls loudly for missionaries to those heathens, saying;
To such a [vile, demonized, heathen] people and nation did Stephen Foster come with his terrible words of warning, expostulation and rebuke. Saw Moses and Aaron any such abomination and outrage in Egypt?
But they asked no leave to enter the house of Pharaoh and confront the tyrant to his face; demand immediate and unconditional emancipation of every bondman in the land, and all his house hold; and flocks and herds, as well.
Isaiah asked no leave nor license to go to the house of Israel and Jacob, and show them their sins, and rebuke them for their vain fastings and solemn, religious mockeries, while refusing to
and break every yoke of
And he obeyed; and so did Jeremiah; so did Ezekiel. To be sure, they were persecuted; were imprisoned; some suffered death. But what then?
They were obeying what to them, was a divine command.
"They will not hearken unto thee, for they will not hearken unto me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hard-hearted." [Ezekiel 3:7]. But can it be shown from any history, sacred or secular, that Hebrew prophet ever saw such oppression and cruelty as our slave-holders created and unblushingly confessed! Or even paganism more dreadful than that which southern synods owned covered all their slaveland as with a funeral pall?
But the no less faithful prophet, Stephen Foster, saw it. He felt it. He felt that he was a part of it [as per Eph. 5:7], till so far as it was possible,
Had not James G. Birney proved by his tract, of stunning power of argument, that "the American churches were the bulwarks of American slavery;" and every witness furnished by the church and pulpit themselves; and Judge Birney himself a ruling elder in the most powerful and popular denomination in
And had not Foster demonstrated to the whole Christian world, and out of their own mouths, too, that the American church and clergy were a great brotherhood of thieves? A great brotherhood of thieves, taking them at their own word; not producing a single witness of his own, nor cross-questioning one of theirs?
Why should he not then enter the synagogues on the sabbath day, with greater boldness than ever did Jesus the synagogues of Judea, or the temple at Jerusalem? enter them, though every New Hampshire hill had been a Calvary, and every tree a cross!
Who was Mr. Justice Hunt of Nashua, with his stupendous three dollar fine, or the deacons of Reverend Dura D. Pratt, or his reverence himself, with Amherst jail and a constable drafted from Nashua Universalist church to drag him away to it [pp 268-271], who, or what were all these to the soul and spirit of one who had heard and heeded the voice of Him who said;
But this account may be extended too far. In closing it, probably it may be as a leave taking from my ever to be revered friend and companion in arms [1809-1881] in our moral but fearful conflict for the rights of humanity. Incidentally his name may appear again in these pages, but that will be all their limits allow.
The close shall also be in his own words, appropriate climax to his letter
I am disarmed if not conquered by the enemy. My voice for all practicable purposes is gone. Since the wet weather came on, the inflammation on my lungs has returned with other symptoms of [more] unfavorable character than those of the original attack. * * *
I am now laid on the shelf for the present, perhaps for the winter. Possibly for even a longer period.
Indeed, when I dare look on my shattered form, I sometimes think prisons will be needed for me but little longer. * *
Within the last fifteen months four times have they opened their dismal cells for my reception. Twenty-four times have my countrymen dragged me from their temples of worship, and twice have they thrown me with great violence from the second story of their buildings, careless of consequences.
Once in a Baptist meeting-house they gave me an evangelical kick in the side, which left me for weeks an invalid. Times out of memory have they broken up my meetings with violence, and hunted me with brick-bats and bad eggs. Once they indicted me for assault and battery; I think it was on that notorious band of kidnappers, the Boston police and their abettors, the judges of the supreme court.
Once in the name of outraged law and Justice have they attempted to put me in irons. * * * Still I will not complain, though death should be found close on my track. My lot is easy compared with that of those for whom I labor. I can endure the prison, but save me from the plantation!" Space permits no more. This whole letter is worthy a place by the side of the most pathetic strains in the epistles of the great apostle to the Gentiles.
THE MARTYR PERIOD—IMPRISONMENT OF ALLEN,
Two British women wrote each a work on American slavery, of similar character. One was entitled "The Martyr Age," by Harriet Martineau; the other, by Eliza Wigham, was "The Anti-slavery Cause in America, and its Martyrs." Both were highly interesting and valuable but neither could treat of the later persecutions and imprisonment of Foster and others, for their heroic determination to bring the cause of the enslaved to the doors and altars of the sanctuary.
A dozen years before, Garrison had appealed to the pulpit, beginning with his own minister, Dr. Lyman Beecher, then of Boston. But his appeal was worse than in vain. "I have already too many irons in the fire," responded the reverend doctor. But Garrison said, seriously: "You had better let all your irons burn up, than neglect your duty to the slave." "I am a colonizationist," said the doctor; "your zeal is commendable, but misguided. Give up your fanatical notions about immediate emancipation, and be guided by us (meaning the clergy), and we will make you the Wilberforce of America."
And so said nearly all the leading clergy of the north; Congregational, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, Unitarian, all alike. The exceptions, such as were worthy the distinction, were soon proscribed as " Garrisonians," name then below every name. And there seemed a settled determination that the people should
Take the following excerpts from one Pastoral Circular, issued by the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Baptist association, headed, "To the churches composing the Portsmouth association—grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, and Christ Jesus, our Lord:"
"There are indications that we are on the eve of a moral and religious revolution." This was in the autumn of 1842, and the dreaded "revolution" was indeed upon them, in the new and increased faithfulness of some, at least, of the anti-slavery apostles in breaking down the barriers a wicked and cruel clergy had raised between them and the people, as well without as within the churches. With subtle cunning and real Jesuitry they concealed in their Circular (wishing "grace, mercy and peace"), the names, not only of persons, but.of principles and objects they meant to oppose, and talked about important schemes of moral and philanthropic name under direction of those who have little or no sympathy for pure Christianity; in
With verbiage vague as this, the Circular proceeded at much length to caricature the faithful laborers in the lecturing field, as well as editors and others, and warning their disciples against presuming on the dignity and authority of those who claim to be set over them in the Lord, in strain like this:
But the following single paragraph is quite sufficient for all present purposes:
Such was the faithfulness with which abolitionists were in those perilous days accustomed to deal with one another, no matter how dear to each other, nor how prominent in position or influence. But it so turned out that our true-hearted friend Harriman received in the same paper with his faithful reproofs of Boyce and Buffum, an announcement which must have cheered and encouraged him greatly in his lonely cell.
Beach, too, heard the same glad tidings down in his Newburyport confinement, showing him that his work among the Quakers of Lynn had already borne glorious fruit among the most noble and intelligent young men and women in the society; for on the next page of the Herald containing his letter, Mr. Harriman read the following incidental notice of James Buffum, by Mr. Rogers, giving account of a five days' Stratford county anti-slavery meeting held at Great Falls:
Before returning to the Harriman and Beach arrest and imprisonment, it will be pertinent and profitable to introduce a brief extract from the history of Lynn, as found in the late, large, and generally valuable history of the county of Essex, Massachusetts. The reasons for it will be apparent in subsequent pages. The extract is as follows:
"But not finding the cause of the slave well espoused by most of the religious bodies of that day, they unwisely pronounced all the churches, in league with Slavery, and called for good men and women to come out and testify against them. Hence the name, come-outers.
"They were not confined to Lynn, but they had a strong position here, being upheld by such men as Christopher Robinson, Jonathan Buffum and others, men of private and public excellence apart from the delusion here sustained. The real mischief was from without, as will appear.
"On a Sunday in 1841, they rallied here in force, determined to try a bold, though foolish movement. The people in general knew nothing of it; but there were in town, Stephen S. Foster, Nathaniel P. Rogers, Parker Pillsbury, Thomas P. Beach, Henry Clapp, Jr., and many others, full of bitter words and martyr spirit.
"Dividing into parties, they repaired to several of the churches of the largest congregations, entered without ceremony, and interrupted the services with excited harangues. Foster led off at the first church; Dr. Cook commanded him to "sit down;" but as he paid no heed, half a dozen men quietly seized him and carried him out, passive as a log, and set him on the side-walk, his mates following.
"Pillsbury at the same time, headed an attack on the Baptists; and proving more troublesome, was shut up in a closet and detained till the end of service.
"Afternoon, nothing daunted, Beach entered the First Methodist "Some of the others had visited the Quaker meeting in the morning, and finding opportunity, without interrupting others, had spoken and been sharply rebuked in turn; but no conflict happened there.
"About six o'clock in the afternoon, Lyceum Hall was opened, and they made a demonstration of their own, where probably more harshness, more invective, more unreason, were poured out within an hour, than most ever hear in a lifetime.
"But there was no more disturbance; Foster ranted to small crowds about the streets for a few days, not much noticed, and then disappeared.
"Others made some trouble for themselves, elsewhere, and their printed effusions were abundant in Lynn; but their strength was all gone in that one effort. The foregoing has at least the virtue of brevity. But for truthfulness, if this be a sample of his whole work, it certainly is fortunate for Lynn that Mr. Cyrus M. Tracy is not her only historian. His first mistake is as to time; he should have made it 1842. The second relates to number of speakers who "rallied in force."
Only four came, and but two of them spoke in any of the churches, or attempted to speak; the other two believed in the right of their companions to speak, under the circumstances, in any christian assembly, oniy observing the apostolic rules of decency and order; and as Beach and Foster felt it their religious duty more than right, to do as they did, Mr. Rogers and I accompanied them in part of their attempts to be heard on that memorable occasion. We were all present at the Congregational meeting-
But we did not go to the Baptist house at all till we saw him, from the other side of the common, dragged by a furious crowd down the steps, and thrown violently to the ground, and, as afterwards appeared, quite severely hurt.
It should be remembered that these methods were not adopted at all till every possible means had been used, from fairest to foulest, to prevent our access to the people, and more especially to the churches. Nor was Lynn, by a great way, the first attempt. Nor was there anything peculiar about the movements there, except in their greater number on one day, and in one place.
On Saturday, the 25th of June, 1842, Mr. Rogers and I went to Lynn and called at the very hospitable home of Jonathan and Hannah Buffum, intending to remain over Sunday. I do not recollect, and can now never ascertain, whether we expected to meet Foster or Beach, but certainly no meeting was appointed, till on Saturday evening, Mr. Christopher Robinson called with Foster and Beach at Mr. Buffum's, with proposals that something be done for anti-slavery work on the morrow.
It was concluded that he and Foster would call on Rev. Mr. Cook, of the Congregational meeting-house, to procure, if possible, a hearing for him there, and that Mr. Beach and I should call on Overseer Nathan Breed, and ask for the Friend's meeting-house, for similar purpose. But we were denied in both instances.
Foster first asked Mr. Cook if he would be willing to allow him to preach for him a part of the day. Th no was emphatic. Then would you permit us the use of the house at five o'clock, afternoon, or some unoccupied
Foster had said no word about going in, but did say, calmly, that it was uncertain where he should speak next day, but probably somewhere in Lynn.
Friend Breed was told, when he denied us the Friends' house, that he must not be surprised if he should hear some of us speaking in his meeting, to which he replied, "You will find us a peaceable people."
The next morning, Rogers went by himself to the Congregational house, having understood that Foster would be there, and probably would attempt to address the people. I accompanied Beach and Foster. Foster went forward and sat down in a side slip, opposite the pulpit. It was as perfect a June Sunday as ever shone, but the large house and not less large minister, avoirdupois, had but scattered audience.
At the close of the long prayer, which at that period was offered with the congregation standing, Foster, instead of sitting down, commenced speaking, in very solemn and subdued tone of voice.
As soon as Mr. Cook heard him, he turned towards him, and in most military tone, as became a commander in the "church militant," ordered him to "sit down."
Foster did not obey. "Sit down, sir!" was then uttered with force and gesture.
But Foster seemed only to hear a higher command, saying,
At which Cook thundered out, in a tone strangely unlike the solemn voice of Foster,
By that time, the sexton and two others came to the rescue, and seizing Foster, (whose non-resistance principles
Rogers and Beach followed, as did I and several others, who were of the audience, though to us strangers. Foster rose to his feet at once, and, looking at his bearers, said, pleasantly,
He continued speaking, to attentive listeners, too, till the sexton, seeing the attention given, told the people to go back into the house.
The sexton laughed. We all laughed.
Rogers advised the good-natured sexton to resign and not do such dirty work for such a minister and church. After speaking some time to excellent purpose, Foster walked directly across the common, not many rods, entered the Baptist meeting-house and sat down till the services were closed and the benediction pronounced.
Then, as the people were moving out, he began speaking again.
The sexton at the other house had asked Foster, in a kindly way, why he didn't wait till the exercises closed, and then he would not have been molested.
But Foster assured him
As those Baptists verily did. They fell on him the moment they heard his voice, like blood-hounds. They hurried him down the aisle and door-steps to the ground, with such
Rogers stood thoughtfully surveying the scene, when some younger brethren of "the Baptism of John," assailed him a little in the style of the high priest's palace, in Jerusalem, eighteen centuries ago. "This is one of them," said a beardless youth, with a leer of contempt. Rogers did not deny.
"You ought to be tarred and feathered," sneered out another, spitefully. "Yes," said the first, "and carried to the county jail."
"And cowhided," said another, "for disturbing meetings on the Sabbath in such a way."
"Ah," responded Rogers, "is that, then, the spirit of your worship? Does your gospel run like that, my friends? Is it tar your enemies; feather them that hate you; cowhide them that despitefully use you? Why, friends, is that your way?" [And not Matthew 5:44].
Some of the world's people were rather pleased, and laughed; whereat, the knights of the tar-bucket ran away.
At noon, we decided to hold a meeting in Lyceum hall, at six o'clock, and issued notices to that effect.
Mr. Rogers, never having seen a Friends' meeting, in the afternoon attended their regular service, at three o'clock. He found there both Beach and Foster. I did not go near. All was still for a considerable time.
Beach was first to break the silence. He said he had a testimony to bear, and proceeded in his usual serious and moderate manner, ten or fifteen minutes, and gradually drew into the then inactive and very indifferent course of the Friends' societies towards the anti-slavery enterprise in particular; but
Beach responded that he thought speech was free in Friends' meetings, and proceeded. Then another voice came down from the high seat, desiring the friend to be quiet.
But Beach kept on, till a third elder rose, and asked to be heard.
Beach then said, "If anything is revealed to thee, I will hold my peace."
"I have," said the high-seat voice, and Beach sat down.
Then the "revealed" word was uttered, thus: "We request thee not to disturb our meeting any longer by thy speaking."
Beach then resumed; upon which high-seat members began shaking hands, the sign for closing the meeting.
As the elders and some others passed down the aisles, William Bassett, then an esteemed and much respected young member, called out to them to remain and hear the truth, and not run away from it.
Just then, his mother, a venerable and highly honored member of the society, rushed forward, and in great apparent grief besought him, in piteous and pleading tones, to desist and be quiet. But he answered her tenderly and affectionately, though firmly,
He then proceeded at some length, most of the elderly men having gone out.
When Mr. Bassett had closed his testimony, which he confessed he had too long neglected, Foster arose, most of the women and young men remaining, and some of the elders returning, and stepping on a seat overlooking the crowd, he called attention to "that afflicted mother," as he designated Mrs. Bassett.
He was proceeding in such fervid strain, when the older members, near the door, dashed forward, and seizing him with great violence, pulled him down from the seat and started with him for the door.
Friend Nathan Breed had told Mr. Beach and me the evening before, that we would find them "a peaceable people," should we wish to speak. And here and thus they were.
But before Foster had been dragged half way to the door, a brave young friend had reached him, and called out to the furious crowd, "Hold! you shan't drag this man out."
He was followed by several others, and Foster was rescued and resumed his speaking.
Of course the excitement was very great, but Foster now had full opportunity. He cited [the precedents of] George Fox [1624-1691] and Edward Burroughs, the highest Quaker authorities [who had in turn followed first-century apostolic precedents] for entering any religious assembly, and demanding right to be heard.
He called for the history of their example, and William Bassett immediately produced and read it to them all, undoubtedly to the astonishment of most of them.
The fact was, Beach and Foster had done exactly what the early Friends both [Fox and Burroughs] did, and defended and taught, if they did not command, and their cause prospered greatly through their bravery and fidelity, as did ours that day at Lynn, as has been already seen.
When, at a late hour in the afternoon, the crowd at the Friends' meeting-house dispersed, Foster and Beach took some notices of our Lyceum hall meeting and walked down, Beach to the First Methodist, and Foster to the Baptist house, from which he had been dragged, a few hours before, intending to read them at the close of their third services. But both were dragged out with savage fury, though both meet-
Though their services were through, he was caught up and carried down to the porch and thrust into a dark closet under the stairs, where the sexton kept the lamps, oil-cans, and other similar sanctuary utensils, and stored him there "some fifteen or twenty minutes." When they finally released him, he made them a short and kindly address, and holding up his damaged raiment, he said,
It need not be said that by this time the town was quite awake. We hardly dared think that our Lyceum hall meeting would be tolerated. But it was, and crowded, too, and continued with unabated interest three hours, and the order and quiet were all that could be desired.
All four of us from New Hampshire were heard with attention and respect; and though we spoke our extremest thought on the rights of speech and of worship, and of the importance of a true understanding of them for the success of the anti-slavery enterprise, beset by foes on every hand, and of every description, the pro-slavery church and clergy, of course the most deadly and dangerous, the very "bulwarks of slavery," not one whisper of doubt or dissent was manifested by word or deed.
Foster not only invited, but urged discussion on any of our positions, then and there, by clergy or laity, or any
So on Tuesday, Rogers and I returned to New Hampshire, leaving Foster and Beach to pursue the work in their own way, which they did, and with mighty power, and signal success, too, notwithstanding the complacent conclusion of Mr. Tracy, the Lynn historian, that "their strength was all gone in that one effort" in Lynn, as we shall see.
Foster extended his field with Beach to Boston, and then alone to New Bedford and Nantucket. There the people became so stirred, Quaker population though it lately was, as to break up his course of lectures with one of the fiercest mobs of the whole conflict, and he was solemnly advised to leave the island,
which he accordingly did.
But he soon after more than completed his course of lectures, for at the request of leading citizens of Nattucket, he wrote and published "The Brotherhood of Thieves; or a True Picture of the American Church and Clergy." The world some day may wish to see it. It ran through ten editions, of two thousand copies each, and produced most millennial results, both east and west. For stunning as the title page sounded, the seventy-two subsequent pages proved beyond doubt or question, that it was true and just.
But Beach and Foster did not hasten their departure from Essex county. Soon they were in South Danvers and Danvers New Mills. Were both dragged out of meeting-houses there as at Lynn, and for the same offense. Their experiences there were varied,
Beach would have been a dipped Baptist, at New Mills, whether he would or no, but for the good-natured roguishness of a boy in emptying the water trough; and Foster might have seen one of his South Danvers persecutors severely punished had he been willing to appear against him in court.
The Herald of Freedom of the 22d of July, 1842, has this brief notice of the scenes, headed
"Thomas P. Beach, our anti-slavery lecturer, rose to speak in a professed Christian meeting at Danvers New Mills Sunday before last, and the professors [pretended Christians] flew into a rage and fell upon him and dragged him out of the meeting and went to plunge him into a large water trough, they had filled for the purpose, but they found the trough dry.
"A little boy hearing of their sectarian purpose had pulled out the plug and hid it.
"It is unnecessary to say that they were Baptists.
"The same day Stephen S. Foster as I learn, at another professed Christian meeting at South Danvers, being kicked out by one of the worshippers, and the man kicking him, prosecuted for it by another of the worshippers, (because, as I suppose, he had kicked beyond worship measure) and Foster being ordered to testify against him, and declining doing so, on the ground that that was not his way of forgiving an injury, the church fined him.
"He declined paying the fine, and they thrust him into Salem jail. The New Mills Baptists Imprisonments at that period were frequent of abolitionists, some of whom being non-resistants, were committed for refusing to take lessons in the art of human slaughter, under the milder name of "military duty."
Most of the victims from our ranks were for the crime of a too liberal interpretation and exercise of the rights of speech and worship, in a country whose government and religion were incorrigibly committed to breeding, trafficking in and holding slaves.
The imprisonment of Thomas Parnell Beach at Newburyport, foreshadowed by the letter of Mr. Harriman from Salem jail, already given, came a few weeks later. He was kept in close confinement three months, on indictments by the Lynn Quakers and Danvers Baptists. His own account written in the jail reads to this purport:
Those quiet, meek, peaceable, persecuting followers of Jesus have marched up and bowed their joints at the door of the court house and begged the state to stretch out the bayonets, load up the big guns and rifles, and drive this blood-thirsty Beach to prison sine die, or till he pay a fine of a hundred dollars, which he has no means of paying, and could not pay conscientiousiy if he had.
"For every dollar so paid helps the church to persecute Christ, making the state her more willing tool.
"I am not astonished that Danvers' Baptist majors and captains should fly to the courts and the forts, but that meek, loving, forgiving Quakers, who cannot bear arms, which are the only possible support of human governments, can step forward and say to the state, 'Please imprison Thomas Most, perhaps all, who were active in this persecution of an innocent but brave, noble, peaceful and conscientious man, have long since passed with him to their final account, so I would tread softly on their ashes, and speak of them only in tones of tenderness and charity. I will let their victim be mainly his own chronicler. He forgave them here; he will forgive them there, or wherever they have gone, and help them to forgive themselves.
His friends, while he was confined, brought his family to Newburyport, and kindiy and tenderly cared for them. His little boy, three or four years old, shared his cell with him much of the time; and through his prison bars he spoke to larger audiences and to better purpose than ever before; though always one of the most impressive, persuasive, effective pleaders for the deliverance of the enslaved who ever entered the field.
While a prisoner, he not only wrote some powerful articles for the Newburyport Herald, some of which are now before me; but the friends of Freedom, not knowing whether he would ever be discharged, established a paper expressly for him, called A Voice from the Jail. It ran during his confinement, and was conducted with remarkable ability. Some of its pages flashed as with heavenly fire; every word of them would be worth reprinting, were it only to reveal the power, intellectual and spiritual, of some of the bravest champions in reform, whose word and work ever enlightened and blessed mankind.
With a very few extracts of articles written by Mr. Beach while a prisoner, this account, already too extended, will close.
On the right to speak anywhere in behalf of enslaved millions, ground down into the dust as human being never was before; and when every voice, every press, every pulpit, was bidden to silence, as widely and effectively as possible, he wrote thus:
"Right to speak in God's house for three hundred new-born babes daily sacrificed to the Moloch of slavery!
"Right to echo the prayer of three hundred and fifty thousand women, members of nominal churches, that they may be delivered from the lust, violence, and degradation to which a man-stealing church and clergy have reduced them!
"Right to stand on the threshold of the sanctuary, and cry in the ear of the dozing priest and deacon, thus guilty in fellowshipping hell itself as a Christian institution; to beseech them to lift their heel from the neck of my wife, brother, sister, mother!
"Right to cry robber, adulterer, murderer, in the ear of a church that buys, sells and enslaves God's own image; that sells Jesus Christ at auction, and then declare they "have not violated the Christian faith!"
"O shame, where is thy blush? 0 spirit of 1835 and '37, where art thou? Does fear wither thy courage? or startle thee from thy high purpose to deliver the slave, at all hazards? has love, or desire of applause ennervated thy power, or scattered those rays that once came flashing, burning from thine eyes? * * * * * *
"Oh, if the state could have enough of this work to do, it would soon be sick of supporting the victims of church malice and sectarian hate! * * *
"I want company here; I wish every jail in Massachusetts and New Hampshire filled with those who have boidness enough to go and charge upon these God-dishonoring corporations, not only all the guilt, for the tears, stripes, groans and degradation of the slave, but also for the bolting and barring of every "Oh my God, when will thy children be willing to suffer with Jesus, for a perishing world? when renounce home, money, lands, pride, selfishness, lust, for the cross of Christ and the crown of glory? * * * * *
"I am in this prison for attempting to exercise speech freely as a man.
"I felt called on to open my mouth for the slave, in places where professing christians meet to worship. Should I not obey that call? Am I a man, and may I not speak when I think and feel that I ought to speak?
"Why am I made with these organs of utterance and capacities for thought and conviction if all may be controlled by the power of others?
"Why have I sympathies for my suffering kind if I may not let them flow out?
"What did God mean in my formation? Has He made me in mockery? Is He deluding me? Is He trifling with His intelligent creation? He, who never trifles with brutes nor inanimate nature?
"I spoke for the slave on my humanity's motion, and at the bidding of God, and I am here for it.
"Well, I will bear it as becomes a man. But let me tell my incarcerators, they commit a mighty mistake when they imprison a nature that knows how to endure privation like this. * *
"I am a prisoner, but no matter, it is experience—an invaluable teacher. I am an abolitionist now, and can remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. [Hebrews 13:3]. * *
"Oh, the crime of making slaves of human beings! Of keeping them slaves! Oh, the responsibility which lies on this christendom! Oh, the crime of professing godliness, and keeping humanity in slavery! This is the crime of the churches.
"Oh, the awful crime against God and man of assuming a priesthood [ministry], pretending it to be Christian, and using its mighty influence to perpetuate human enslavement and hinder a peaceful movement for its overthrow!
"Speech, glorious organ of reform among men, will it ever be free! Free, it would work wonders. Free, men and women would then speak like God. Now speech is enchained. Men speak as they would walk The list of the imprisoned could be extended, but the instances given aiready must suffice. They show what manner of spirit actuated both the persecutors and their victims.
Many more were roughly removed from meetings when they attempted to speak in most decent and proper manner for the enslaved [as per Hebrews 13:3], some of them women of spotless purity of heart and life.
The churches lost many of their choicest members and the
Come-outer [Rev. 18:4] connection greatly increased, especially in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
Hayward's "Book of Religions" contains an excellent descriptive account of them, written by William Bassett, whose name has already graced honorably these pages.
Many meetings of them were established, and the present Free religious societies, now so widely known, may be truly said to have had their beginnings then and there. Lynn furnished memorable instances.
Two months after the Sunday demonstration there by Beach and Poster, already described at so great length, Mr. Rogers was again there and attended the regular "Come-outer" meeting. He wrote:
Among the speakers on that day was Frederick Douglass, then comparatively new on the anti-slavery platform. He spoke on the subject of prayer, and illustrated it by his own experience while a slave. He said he prayed long and earnestly for freedom in words as he had been taught but nothing came of it. At length he
And Douglass might have added, perhaps he did add, you "Come-outers" are but fugitive slaves escaped from your spiritual and ecclesiastical plantations.
CONVENTIONS AT NANTUCKET AND NEW
Here may be the place to go back a year and give account of two conventions, memorable in anti-slavery history, held in New Bedford and Nantucket, in August, 1841. All our meetings, of that and the following year, as has been seen, especially in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, were of intense interest, and peril, too, on account of the new and stern tests demanded of abolitionists, both in their political and ecclesiastical relations. Both the whig and democratic parties and all the great popular religious denominations, as the Baptist, Congregationalist, Episcopalian, Methodist and Presbyterian (new school and old), were all committed to the power and policy of the southern
slaveholders.
And so the text of the true anti-slavery apostles and prophets was: "Come out of them, my people, that ye be not partakers in their sins, and receive not of their plagues!" [Rev. 18:4.]
Prominent among the speakers at that meeting in New Bedford, were Garrison, Edmund Quincy, and George Bradburn, then a talented and popular Universalist minister and radical abolitionist; though, with the other two named, now no more. We closed late on Sunday, and adjourned to meet at the same place on Monday morning at half-past seven o'clock.
The "Report of Proceedings at New Bedford" is not now before me; but the following resolution, adopted at Taunton, by a unanimous vote, the next week, on my return, after long discussion, is probably a fair specimen, as relates to the church; and our position was not different towards the political parties:—
Several of our speakers were colored, of whom New Bedford at that time had many. I think there were two religious societies of colored people there, each with meeting-house and minister. Many of them, however, fled—men and women—to Canada, in 1850, on the enactment of the new fugitive-slave law, swifter than the exodus of Israel out of Egypt.
One of them spoke so effectively at our meetings that he was invited to go with us to Nantucket, with promise of expenses paid. Not much was required for fare, for he and his wife were allowed only the forward deck, where they suffered from both sun and rain, especially on our return, by rain. Our company, of course, protested, but the rule was imperious.
The Nantucket meeting continued two or three days and evenings, most ably sustained, and with increasing interest to the very last. Till then I had
A young New Bedford barber, slightly colored, named Sanderson, never a slave, tall, handsome, made one of the finest addresses I had then heard on the subject of slavery, Edmund Quincy, who sat by me, remarked, and truly, as the young man sat down, "There was not an error of grammar in that whole speech." And it was more than half an hour in delivery.
Later in the evening, our invited friend from New Bedford, the fugitive slave, came to the platform. The house was crowded in every part, and he evidently began to speak under much embarrassment. To that time the meetings had advanced with increasing fervor, and, as this was the last session, I began to fear a decline for the close. But the young man soon gained self-possession, and gradually rose to the importance of the occasion and the dignity of his theme.
In the course of his remarks, he gave a most side-splitting specimen of a slave-holding minister's sermon, both as to delivery and doctrine, the text being: "Servants, obey in all things your masters."
I can vouch for the correctness of its doctrine, from a
volume of published sermons [See excerpt, pp 429-434, infra], preached to masters and slaves, (now on my desk) by the then Bishop [William] Meade [1789-1862], of the Virginia Episcopal church.
There was a parody, too, on a hymn then much sung at the south, entitled, "Christian Union." The following verses are part of it:
They'll church you if you sip a dram,
They'll raise tobacco, corn and rye,
They'll crack old Tony on the skull,
I do not distinctly remember that this parody was given in that sermon, but as we so often heard it, and sometimes sung with most exquisite drollery and grace, it is hardly probable that it was omitted there.
When the young man closed, late in the evening though none seemed to know nor to care for the hour, Mr. Garrison rose to make the concluding address. I think he never before nor afterwards felt more profoundly the sacredness of his mission nor the importance of a crisis moment to his success. I surely never saw him when he seemed more divinely inspired. The crowded congregation had been wrought up almost to enchantment during the long evening, particularly by some of the utterances of the last speaker, as he turned over the terrible Apocalypse of his experiences in slavery.
But Mr. Garrison was singularly serene and calm. It was well that he was so. He only asked a few simple, direct questions. I can recall but few of them, though I do remember the first and the last. The
"A man! A man!" shouted fully five hundred voices of women and men.
"And should such a man be held a slave in a republican and Christian land?" was another question.
"No, no! Never, never!" again swelled up from the same voices, like the billows of the deep.
But the last was this: "Shall such a man ever be sent back to slavery from the soil of old Massachusetts?" this time uttered with all the power of voice of which Garrison was capable, now more than forty years ago.
Almost the whole assembly sprang with one accord to their feet and the walls and the roof of the Athenaeum seemed to shudder with the "No, no!" loud and long continued in the wild enthusiasm of the scene.
As soon as Garrison could be heard, he caught up the acclaim, and superadded: "No!—a thousand times no! Sooner the lightnings of heaven blast Bunker Hill monument till not one stone shall be left standing on another!"
The whole can better be imagined than described by pen of mine. I could rehearse as well the raptures of cherubim and seraphim around the throne over the rescue of a thousand souls from the slavery of Satan and of sin.
Before us stood one trophy, self-delivered, self-redeemed from our chattel slave system, then seething with all the terrors of the second death. And why should not we have rejoiced then and there? For that proved none other than the baptismal, the consecrating service of Frederick Douglass into the life-work and ministry which he has since so wondrously fulfilled.
Not long before Mr. Garrison's death, I wrote him a letter [Dec 1875], congratulatory, as was his due, on the singu-
"But this delay happily enables me to date my answer on New Year's day [1 Jan 1876], and consequently to offer you the heartfelt congratulations of the season, and my best wishes that this may prove the happiest year you have yet experienced.
"However, let it bring forth what it may or must, whether of prosperity or adversity, joy or sorrow, health or sickness, even unto death, I have no doubt you will bear with courage and fortitude what ever comes, remembering that our earthly existence is conditioned upon ever shifting vicissitudes and final decay. You will be prepared to say :
"Your anti-slavery reminiscenses seemed almost literally to turn back the wheel of time and make me fancy that I was still residing in Seaver Place [1840], where our personal acquaintance and friendship began. Since then I have doubled my age, having completed my seventieth year on the twelfth of last month [Dec 1875]. You are several years my junior, and so at that period were comparatively a young man, but stout in heart and consecrated in purpose to the work of breaking every yoke and letting the oppressed go free. "For then the aspect of things was peculiarly disheartening, a formidable schism existing in the anti-slavery ranks, and the pro-slavery elements of the country in furious commotion. But you stood at your post with the faithfulness of an Abdiel, and whether men would hear or forbear, you did not at any time to the end of the struggle fail to speak in thunder tones in the ear of the nation, exposing its blood-guiltiness, warning it of the wrath to come, and setting forth the duty of thorough repentance and restitution.
"If you resorted to a ram's horn instead of using a silver trumpet, it was because thus only could the walls of our slave-holding Jericho be shaken to their overthrow.
"I need not remind you of what you were called to confront in the anti-slavery lecturing field, for more than a score of years. Atrocious misrepresentation and defamation on the one hand, and sharp privations and perilous liabilities on the other.
"And so in regard to Stephen S. and Abby Kelley Foster and other faithful and self-sacrificing laborers in the same manner. No heavier burdens were borne by any in the abolition ranks, nor borne with greater cheerfulness.
"The agitation thus produced, the light thus disseminated were essential to the overthrow of the slave system.
"You, too, have seen the travail of your soul, and may well be satisfied. Laus Deo!
"Truly yours,
So much was said in the last chapter about my native county of Essex, that a brief account of my own experiences there may here not be out of place.
Salem had a few excellent abolitionists, including Charles Lenox Remond, and the several members of the family, of whom he was eldest son. It was a cold dismal day when I arrived; alternate snow and rain rendering it quite as unpleasant under foot as over head. After two hours of weary walking and calling and denials, I obtained the use of a small meeting-house, belonging to the colored people, quite in the south part of the town. Then I set about posting up notices, such as agents then carried, which unruly boys following me tore down almost as fast as nailed up. But the news went round, and the dark evening brought together the few abolitionists of the place and enough colored people to make a fair audience.
Salem at that time was almost fatally infected with prejudice against the African color. "Colorphobia" was the name we abolitionists gave the disease, and a more frothing, foaming madness was never visited on the human family. It raged so fearfully that respectable, intelligent, well-dressed, well-behaved colored people, ministers, church members, school teachers, women as well as men, were frequently insulted and outraged not only on railroads, but wherever they were, if they presumed to exercise the plainest, most simple of the inalienable rights of humanity. In some towns, I am quite certain that Salem was one of them, lyceums
At my first meeting in Salem, prejudice against color was the theme of remark. The town had furnished sufficient reasons only a short time before for such a course. On the following evening we held our meeting in a commodious lecture room under Mechanics' hall, then occupied on Sundays by a religious society. But for some reason our numbers were not much increased. There was at that time a general determination on the part of leaders in state and church, especially the latter, to keep the people from coming to a knowledge of the truth. Reason enough surely, for the course so soon to be adopted by Foster, Beach and others, of going where the people were.
At my second meeting, I threw down the gauntlet to new organization, by a direct attack on the hypocritical pretensions of its anti-slavery. The Howard street Congregational church had had for its ministers, Rev. Geo. B. Cheever, an imprisoned martyr, a few years before, for bold and daring faithfulness in the temperance cause; and Rev. Charles T. Torrey, who had left it a few years before, that he might better serve the anti-slavery enterprise, and who perished subsequently in a Baltimore prison, for the offense, as was alleged, of going into the south to incite slaves to run away from the plantations to Canada or the northern states. With such a previous record, the Howard-street church had set itself forth as a model new organization anti-slavery church, and I proposed on the third evening, to examine its claims, not only to an anti-slavery character at all, but as any kind of
The next evening brought together many more than could find admission, and the defenders of the church appeared in force. Some were communicants, though many more were not; but all seemed inspired, or impelled, or influenced by the same spirit, and of what manner of spirit, the evening was to disclose.
It was claimed for the church that six or seven years before it had passed and registered a resolution of refusal to hold Christian communion and fellowship with slave-holders. It was, however, shown that the member of the church who presented the resolutions, had since lived a considerable time in Tennessee; was in business among slave-holders there, and lived unmolested; while Birney, Dresser, Crandall and others, not to speak of the murdered Lovejoy, had not only suffered every indignity, almost, short of death, but had finally been driven away from the slave states altogether.
My direct charges against the church, notwithstanding its anti-slavery resolutions and professions, were,
i. That its minister exchanged pulpits with the other Congregational ministers of Salem and vicinity, many of whom were notoriously pro-slavery, and violently opposed the whole anti-slavery movement.
2. When the church celebrated the sacramental supper, invitation was given to "all members of sister churches in regular standing," to sit down at the table.
3. That Howard-street church was part and parcel of the Essex county and Massachusetts associations
4. That it contributed its money to the support of Bible, missionary and tract societies, that were in part managed as well as supported by slave-holders, whose money was the price of slaves bought and sold in the marker or of their unpaid and unpitied toil under the lash of cruel task-masters.
5. That both its meeting-house and vestry were peremptorily refused us for anti-slavery meetings, where all persons present were to have equal right of speech and discussion.
Such were my allegations, and not one of them had to be proved, for every one was admitted, and some of them with unblushing boasts! It was even declared, by one influential member of the congregation, that in his opinion, if a colored family should purchase a pew in the central part of the meeting-house, a dozen families would immediately leave the society. It was doubtless so. Such was the anti-slavery of the Howard-street church, on its own admissions and confessions. And that church was every way as good as the average churches of Massachusetts and of New England, of every evangelical denomination.
Instead of meeting my charges, the defenders of the church openly accused me with deliberately meditating the destruction of the Christian church, ministry, sabbath and all religious institutions; declared the Garrisonians were doing no good; were arraigning the churches before tribunals of ungodly men; were inducing good men and women to leave their churches, to renounce their Bibles, to disregard their ministers, and closed his harangue, which had wrought him into
Others spoke on the same side and to similar purport. Late in the evening, Mr. Remond rose to reply, amid much tumult, but gave way for an adjournment to the next evening, in the same hall. That night came the crowd, many evidently on mischief intent. The exercises were opened with prayer and reading part of the twenty-third chapter of Matthew. I then made a few remarks on the anti-slavery character of the Howard-street church, and its strange defense and defenders of the previous evening, and gave way for Mr. Remond. His reply to the charges against the abolitionists and his eulogy of Mr. Garrison, as the hero and champion of the anti-slavery enterprise and faithful friend of the colored race everywhere, north, as well as south, was one of the most earnest, eloquent and impressive utterances I had then ever heard from human lips, no matter of what color or race.
But it only roused the rage of our opponents. The principal defender of the church generally, and of the Howard church in special, took possession of the floor and he and his troop held it for the remainder of the evening. On announcing my appointment for the next night, I was interrupted by a very ruffianly fellow mounting a seat and declaiming loudly, In less than three minutes every slip on the side of the hall occupied by the men from porch to platform was not only stove down, but pulverized almost to kindling wood; and most of the lamps were extinguished and their shades and reflectors, if not the lamps themselves, mingled in the general crash and destruction. Then the other side, as the women rushed forward towards the platform, shared similar fate; the doors and entrance were so thronged as to make escape impossible. It was most fortunate that we were on the lower floor, so that many of the women, greatly terrified, escaped through the windows. One fainted quite away and was, with much difficulty restored to consciousness.
We had almost been broken up an hour before, by a false cry ol fire raised in the vestibule, but the full chorus of confusion and uproar was reserved till now. I learned next day that my friends kept watch and ward over me, having reasons to fear for my personal safety. The threatened violence was not offered, however, nor had it once occurred to me that I was in the least peril; in all those days of darkness and danger, my implicit trust was in non-resistance, and in the infinite wisdom and power from whence, as I then fully believed, proceeded that sublime inspiration.
But we and our meeting were not all that suffered in that visitation of mob violence. While all the proud and popular sectarian meeting-houses of Salem were closed to the cry of the enslaved, and to us who had espoused their cause, Rev. Mr. Comings threw open the doors of the hired hall of his free church and society, and cordially invited us in, charging no rent beyond cost of warming and light; but seeing the general storm of opposition raised against us, the board of directors of the Mechanic Hall immediately passed the following order:
"Pursuant to the above, I hereby notify you that I shall take possession of the room immediately and request that you will cease to occupy it from and after this day.
Yours respectfully,
Some little delay was, of course necessary, to procure means of moving, and place where to move; but the next the society knew, their little library and whatever else they possessed there, were thrown into the street. Their rent was ever paid punctually on the day it was due, and the conditions of contract entitled the society, as we were assured, to three months' notice before they should be required to vacate the premises. So here was exemplified, what really was new organized, church anti-slavery; and the best of it, too. Shut out of its meeting-houses, vestries, chapels and every place they controlled, as remorselessly as from any others, we found a platform in a basement hall, secular in itself, though rented by a religious society for its Sunday service, and there we hoped for at least two or three evenings, we might
I held one more meeting, but had to return to the colored people's Bethel where the series began; and it should be said to the crédit of that little despised church and society, that their conduct throughout the whole scene, was noble, manly, womanly, brave and heroic to the last degree, though subjected at times to insult and outrage almost too shameful for human nature to endure.
The last meeting was as riotous as either of the others, though the noise was mostly in the porch and outside, though not all.
One old deacon, who need not be named, as he must [now, 1883] have been dead many years, abused the colored people grossly in his talk. But he was let off as he deserved, as he doubtless felt most, with a silent contempt. I was told that he was frequently guilty of similar behavior towards the people of color, though many, if not most of them in the town, were in every way his superiors.
One woman, compelled by sickness to leave the meeting, was roughly assaulted in the porch, her cap and bonnet were torn off, and her dress otherwise badly damaged.
An inoffending colored young man was also attacked in the porch, knocked down and then pitched headlong into the street; he gathered himself up and ran, but was chased. In the dark, he threw a stone at his pursuers, which, if it hit, did not hurt so badly as to prevent the ruffian from prosecuting him and bringing him, next morning into court.
The case was brought before Hon. J. G. Waters. I attended, determined if possible to see justice done. To my surprise and satisfaction, Judge Waters, after patient hearing of the parties, dismissed the case, severely reprimanding the complainant, and telling him he was the offender, and more deserved punishment than the young man he had arrested.
Thus terminated my first anti-slavery visit to that ancient town [Salem]. I had good reasons to believe my humble services were not lost upon it; Essex county became famous in the cause of true and unfaltering anti-slavery, and even its political abolitionists, some of them, were of the very bravest and best. Its Evangelical pulpits were always conservative, some of them even bitterly so; the Unitarians and Universalists furnished some eminent exceptions; and the names of Thomas T. Stone, Samuel Johnson, John L. Russell and Willard Spalding will always be had in honor as the unfaltering friends of radical, uncompromising anti-slavery.
But returning to the narrative, it should be borne in mind by readers that the incidents related here, though numerous, are only representative of thousands which will never be recorded; or, as is hyperbolically declared in the new Testament [John 21:] of the works of another, "the world itself might not contain the books which should be written;" for our conflict extended over thirty years.
A day's work and its incidents, in which I had a partner, a quiet young beginner in the service, will not be inappropriate, as following the scenes and experiences of Salem.
In the early spring of 1852, I made a little tour in the state of Maine, in which I was joined by Alonzo J. Grever, now an eminent lawyer at the west. He
On a snowy, sleety, windy morning, we arrived in Brunswick, perfect strangers to every human inhabitant. Dropping our not capacious valises at a corner grocery, we ventured out to reconnoitre, with a view to an evening meeting.
The low, level land was covered with the melting and melted snow and mud, making walking disagreeable, indeed. And we were not sorry that no suitable place within our means, could be had for our lectures, as it would be nearly impossible, under such circumstances, to secure attendance and a collection that would pay the expenses of the hall.
So after an hour or two of prospecting, under much difficulty and discouragement, we concluded to abandon Brunswick, with its college and churches, and try what Freeport, the next, and much smaller place, might do for us.
The skies were still scowling, and some large snow-flakes continued to fall, melting, mostly, as they reached the ground. It was ten o'clock, or after, when we picked up our satchels and set out for Freeport, seven or eight miles off. The walking was bad, of course; but my companion was young and valiant, and I had not then grown old.
By two o'clock we reached our destination, having been on our feet nearly five and a half hours, the ground cold and wet and snow falling most of the time. And the Brunswick heart and hospitality were colder and more repelling than the weather.
Our first inquiry on reaching Freeport, was for a hall. We soon found one of unattractive appearance, over a store, entered by a flight of outside stairs. It had no seats, only round the sides, facing used mainly, probably, for dancing.
We could have it in the evening, seating, warming and lighting it ourselves, for some small sum, probably not more than one dollar.
Our next business was to give notice. For that purpose, after posting a written bill or two at the post office, and another store, we entered the street, beginning at one end, one of us on one side and the other on the opposite, and walked its entire length, calling and leaving word at every house. That occupied an hour or more, bringing us to the middle of the afternoon.
We did not forget that we had not dined, but till our hall was secured and the people notified of our meeting, dinner had to wait. We dined for a few cents, on such crackers and cheese or herrings as the grocery afforded, no unusual occurrence with us in those days, and then proceeded with our evening preparations.
There being no tavern in the town, we first looked up lodgings for the night. A woman who kept a few boarders [mini-hotel] consented to entertain [lodge] us, though we told her that having just dined, we should need no supper, and might not call on her till after the meeting.
Returning to our hired hall, we called at a house where there was plenty of dry wood, and paid the owner a four-pence-ha'-penny for as much as we could carry in our arms, and that furnished our evening fire. Then for seats, we borrowed some soap or candle boxes of the store-keeper, who seemed much to admire our thrift, and with a few boards laid on them, that need was met.
It now only remained to procure the light. For that, we bought a pound of tallow candies, ten to the pound, and the good-natured store-keeper, I am sorry to have forgotten his name, threw us in five good-sized potatoes, out of a barrel, which, slashed in halves and bored, made ten, not the
It was almost dark when our preparations were completed, so we kindled the fire, lighted a candle, and, contentedly enough, sat down for a little rest, before the meeting should commence.
It was more than thirty years ago, in a small country village, the day had been stormy or cloudy, darkness came on early, and so did our audience. It was composed wholly of men and boys. That was neither new nor strange.
No anti-slavery meeting had ever been held or attempted there before, so far as we could learn. Others might be held possibly to excellent purpose.
We were respectfully heard, so soon as we could get understood.
As no women were present, some did not hasten to put away their cigars when we commenced speaking. "Chewing the cud" seemed almost as common as among the cattle in the stall. Neither was that any surprise; seeing it as we had from our boyhood, in even the meeting-houses on Sunday, as well as in the pulpits and pews.
Generally if we asked for a collection something would be raised, at least sufficient to pay for the hall. In this instance, as we traveled into and out of town on foot, and paid but sixteen and a quarter cents for fire and lights, and a very small fee for the room, I have forgotten how little, we surely were not, so far, much out of pocket.
What our boarding-house charges would be, we had not then ascertained. But we did learn, a few minutes later, when we put out our candles, and, valises in hand, presented ourselves at the door. We were permitted to enter and sit down.
Then our prudent hostess told us that had she known what was the object of our "going about," and what sort of lectures we gave, she should not have consented to take us into her house. Her family, she said, were bitterly opposed to us and our [anti-slavery] work; and a good deal more in similar tone and spirit. But as there was no other place where we could get in, she would keep us over night, though we must leave as soon as we were up in the morning. We staid.
Supperless to bed and breakfastless on the road next morning, baggage in hand, and almost before the villagers were any of them abroad, was pretty rugged discipline for my new comrade, but he bore it well; and, doubtless, should he write a sketch of that day and night adventure he would enliven it with many incidents which have escaped my recollection, or which, for sake of brevity, I have omitted, and yet it was in no important sense peculiar or unusual. Every earnest, faithful, anti-slavery lecturer in those dark and often perilous days, encountered the same or much more disagreeable every week, all the year through, especially when, as we were then, breaking in to new and unexplored fields.
But older and more cultivated grounds did not always greet the coming of the apostle with anything like the Hebrew strain: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings [Isaiah 52:7; Romans 10:15]," as the following account of a Portland meeting proves:
The autumn of 1842 was memorable for the vigor, earnestness and success, too, of the anti-slavery movement in eastern Massachusetts and eastern New Hampshire. Extensive accounts of meetings and movements in Lynn, Salem, Danvers, Georgetown and
The good old lady, however, insisted on my eating dinner, from which she and her daughter had just risen. Then, with both hands full of bags and bundles, I set off, on foot, for Saco, five or six miles.
I never in my life saw such intolerable walking in New England. The soil, much of the way, was clay, and the frost just coming out of it, and then a mingling of snow, it made a complete compound of Bunyan's "Slough of Despond," "Enchanted Ground," "Hill of Difficulty," and all his dragons.
The cold north-east wind, too, blew full in my face, and every sign denoted immediate storm. I plunged along as fast as possible, to escape that additional woe, and reached Saco and Biddeford late in the afternoon, possibly somewhat fatigued, and perfectly parboiled in perspiration. It was a pilgrimage not to be forgotten.
The week has gone—and it has been one of most uncommon labor, disappointment, vexation and suffering. I have lectured to everybody who came near me, but my labors in that line were confined to Rochester, and two meetings.
My traveling expenses have been three dollars and seventy-five cents, to say nothing of my walking, which was worth twice as much; my receipts have been one dollar and five cents, and I have not procured one single subscriber to the Liberator nor to any of our papers.
Such is the experience of one week. Who would not be a soldier in such a warfare?
Yours, still full of hope and trust,
Portland, April 12, 1852. A. J. Grover rejoined me in Portland [Maine], and our next campaign included Brunswick and Freeport, of which report has been already given.
One more riotous demonstration should have place [mention] in these chronicles, but space and time must make it both brief and the last. It occurred in Harwich, Mass., on Sunday, the fourth and last day of a grand anti-slavery convention, held in a beautiful grove, in September of the year 1848. No building on the Cape could have held half the attendance.
Cape Cod at that time was the birth-place and nursery of more sea-captains than any other portion, of equal extent on the whole Atlantic coast. And many of the most eminent of them were early able and faithful friends and supporters of the anti-slavery enterprise.
But sea-captains were not all abolitionists, else the Harwich Sunday tumult, in defense of the church as "the bulwark of slavery," would not have transpired.
The constitution of the country, the courts, the political parties, the commerce and trade, had all been shown to be conducted [aiding, abetting, and partaking] in the interest of slavery, and no riotous demonstration appeared.
But not so on Sunday, when the churches and clergy were arraigned as the bulwark and forlorn hope of the accursed institution.
The mob at Harwich was the result of an exposure of a diabolical deed by the captain of a coaster, sailing between Norfolk and New York, and other northern ports. I am glad to have forgotten his name, and do not care ever to hear it spoken again.
But while in Norfolk, not long before our convention, a slave came on board and asked this captain what he would charge to carry him and another to New York or Boston. A contract was made for one hundred dollars—paid in advance. The captain
We who knew the slave system, could imagine the fate of the imprisoned victim, though we never heard what it was. The cruel captain never told us that, though undoubtediy he knew, for when he went back to Norfolk he carried the money, found the owner, paid him over the hundred dollars, and received back twenty-five as his reward!
Twenty-five dollars for a deed that no Modoc nor Apache Indian under heaven would ever have done! In cold, unprovoked blood—never!
Sunday was the fourth and last day of our convention, and not less than three thousand people were on the ground. Some estimated them at four thousand.
I learned all the facts I have just given, from the captain himself, early in the day. In the afternoon, when the crowd was the greatest, I made a full statement of the case, in words as fitting as were then at my command. Of course the effect on the audience was intense, but dependent on the estimate which different persons placed on the transaction between the captain and his helpless victim.
In the tumult, the captain came to the platform, and not having heard my statement, he demanded, in great wrath, who it was that accused him of stealing! He said somebody had just told him he had been accused of stealing.
He was answered that his name had not been mentioned there; and that nothing had been said about stealing.
He said he had a right to be heard, and wished to be heard. We cheerfully accorded him the platform. He came forward, and in the frankest, blandest manner, stated his own case
Stephen Foster spoke next. He began in quite a conversational tone to say: Mr. Chairman—We have now heard from his own mouth, what our friend had to say of the matter in hand. And he confirms every statement of Mr. Pillsbury, excepting one: he has not told us that he is a member in good and regular standing of the Baptist church, as Mr. Pillsbury assured us he was. Now I wish to ask him if that is also true. He admitted that with the rest.
Foster then opened his argument. And those who ever heard him can more easily imagine than I can describe, its power. Every eye kindled, every heart throbbed, with admiration, or with rage and wrath. I had often heard him called "a son of thunder," before. At that moment, he seemed Father of the seven thunders of Patmos, with all their bolts at command.
He swayed those hundreds and thousands as prairie cyclones, the vast fields of corn. And yet the captain, really on trial, listened to every word with respect and attention. I knew he heard a voice within, louder, more eloquent than the utterances of Foster, and whose rebuke he could not resist.
The [pro-slavery] mob spirits now rushed for the platform, and with oaths and curses of stunning power, called on the captain to pitch him [the speaker, Rev. Foster] down to them. Their number seemed legion; and their nature and spirit like that other [demon] legion, known of old. [Mark 5:9, Luke 8:30].
The captain mildly replied to them that he wished none of their interference nor defense. He left the platform soon after, and moved out of the crowd, and held a long conversation with some Boston abolitionists, who had come down on purpose to attend the convention. And he very frankly told them that he had no fault to find
Mr. Foster kept his feet and held the crowd at bay, showing our [pretended Christian] religion to be falsehood and hypocrisy, when a member of the orthodox church, who had just come from his meeting, (and it was said from the sacrament), leaped like a lion on to the platform.
His eyes flashed fury if not fire; his teeth and fists were clenched, and he seemed a spirit from the pit, who might have been commissioned to lead its myrmidons in a deadly fray, for such a faith and such a church as his, that a dozen years before [1840] had been proved by [James Birney] one of its most eminent members, |
My first introduction to Mr. Garrison was in the early spring of 1839. I had just concluded to undertake a short lecturing and financial agency for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and was invited to a meeting of its executive committee, to mature my arrangements. It was an evening business session, in West street, Boston, and at the close Mr. Garrison invited me to his home, then of unassuming pretensions, in Seaver Place, to pass the night.
In the cemeteries of Concord, New Hampshire, are many memorial stones. Some of great beauty and cost, with proportionally elaborate and, perhaps, appropriate inscriptions. But situated among them is one lot of the ordinary family size, protected by no iron railing, no granite embankment, and whose dead level surface would seem never to have been invaded for burial, agricultural or any other human purpose.
It has been said of the immortal Senator [Charles] Sumner [1811-1874] and his humble tombstone at Mount Auburn, and lowly indeed it is:
Mr. Rogers was born at Plymouth, on the 3d of June, 1794, and was one of the tenth generation from him who is so well, widely and honorably known as "Rev. John Rogers," the first in that blessed company of martyrs who suffered in the reign of the bigoted and bloody [English Queen] Mary, in the year 1555.
John Wesley saw it [American slavery] and pronounced it, "
But such abomination had not only state sanction, but church sanctification as well. Judge Birney, of Kentucky, once a slave-holder, in his memorable tract entitled: "
But this account though already extended, would not be complete unless the feelings excited in the hearts of the American Abolitionists, in view of the whole scene, could have utterance.
His memorable "Notes on the State of Virginia," so often cited in the past, so greatly disregarded while slavery continued, were revised and published in 1787, when the problem of slavery was shaking the new republic to its foundation.
General Washington himself while President of the United States, hunted a slave woman and her child all the way into that then remote state.
Underground railroads were only lines of travel through the northern states to Canada, over which, under cover of night, great numbers of slaves were conveyed, sometimes in whole families; one anti-slavery man hurrying them from his town to the next, or farther, if necessary, and then another taking them in charge, and so on till they were safely landed in Canada, beyond reach of further pursuit or danger.
"
But the popular sentiment, press, pulpit, everything, everywhere prevailed over all such [anti-slavery parties'] innovation [attempts to get an anti-slavery man elected President] till the [formation in 1854 of the new Republican Party; the 1860 split in the Democrat Party; and the] election of 
Mr. Foster therefore made the popular, prevailing religions his main point of attack. What could he have done otherwise? The churches of the north were opened to southern slave-breeders, slave-traders, slave-hunters, and slave-holders, if members of the same, and often even of widely different denominations, both for preaching, baptizing and sacramental supper occasions and purposes.
But he was immediately outvoiced by the yelling troop, who leaped like tigers at his heels, as into the arena, and added fearful deeds to his not less fearful words. What became of my platform companions I did not see. I was immediately seized, and with kicks, blows, and dilapidated clothing, hurled to the ground. There lay Captain Chase and Captain Smith, of Harwich, both old men, who, with many others, had sprung to our defense. There the two lay, their faces covered with blood! They were both radical peace men, and only remonstrated with our remorseless assailants. But both of them would willingly have died in our stead, or in our defense. Truer, nobler men never lived. Havoc was soon made of our platform and what it contained. It was roofed over, but a temporary structure, for officers and speakers, and aged persons who sought its convenience and comfort. William Wells Brown, one of our eloquent fugitive slave lecturers, was roughly seized up and pitched over back of the platform by the infuriated crowd, down some six or eight feet, and left to his fate. Mr. Foster was rescued and taken away from danger—his Sunday frock coat rent in twain from bottom to top, and his body considerably battered and bruised. Lucy Stone stood heroically with the rest of us, ready for any fate. But her serene, quiet bearing disarmed the vulgar villainy of our assailants, and she escaped unharmed. I have seen many mobs and riots in my more than forty years of humble service in the cause of freedom and humanity, but I never encountered one more desperate in determination, nor fiendish in spirit, than was that in Harwich, in the year 1848. And that mob was wholly, directly and undeniably in defense of the American church. "I'll defend the church," was the wild shout of the baptized ruffian who led the hordes, as he vaulted unbidden to our platform of moral and peaceful agitation and argument in behalf of our enslaved millions. "I'll defend the church," and his infuriated, yelling and blaspheming troop followed him, and commenced their fell work. Yes, to save the church was that dire scene enacted. The church that Judge Birney had proved out of her own mouth was the "bulwark of American slavery in every one of her largest, most popular denominations!" Church, clergy, and theological seminary, everything, indeed, under ecclesiastical control. And Hon. James G. Birney was surely among her choicest leaders and brightest lights. To my own account of this remarkable scene, perhaps should be subjoined at least an excerpt of the official proceedings of the convention. The following is the close of it:
Only time, space and patience of readers prevent insertion of the whole of the able report of the secretaries of that phenomenal convention. Most of the names of the rioters mentioned in the extract given are suppressed. No other mob or riot will be described in this work. Such as are given are but representative of many, very many; some less destructive to property and harmful to person, and some others in those respects a great deal worse. And now, wondrous to tell, with such records, the [lying] church and clergy claim and boast that they abolished slavery! The real, everlasting truth is, we had almost to abolish the [Christian] church before we could reach the dreadful institution at all. We divided, if we did not destroy. Not to speak of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church at all, we did divide and even subdivided the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. The slavery question certainly produced rupture in the American Board of Foreign Missions, the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions and the American Tract Society, as has been, or as will be shown. If it be said that it was their own internal heat that was consuming them, the answer would be it was not light and fire from heaven, the divine illumination of the Holy Ghost, or their differences would not have been so easily reconciled by surrendering the whole ground to the enemy; the Northern Methodist Conference retaining thousands of slave-holders and tens of thousands of slaves, and six of the very largest of the slave states, besides Delaware and Maryland. The two missionary boards and tract society threatened at one time some separation or purification, but to what purpose will be made to appear. The institution at Oberlin, Ohio, was first to attempt a new standard for freedom in education and religion, irrespective of sex, complexion or race, with a professedly anti-slavery board of teachers and directors. But Oberlin was at once proscribed by the great bodies of ministers and churches, whose fellowship extended to the south. And even Oberlin never so much as contemplated any separation from our unhallowed union with slave-holders. Instead of it, under an assumed idea or pretence that the constitution was anti-slavery and not pro-slavery, an assumption that no president, congress nor supreme court nor state legislature nor court ever believed for an hour [see 1941 rebuttal], Oberlin continued loyal to the government, swore by itself or elected rulers to support the constitution, and then kept the oath or made a virtue of perjury and violated it by refusing to return the fugitive slave. And scarcely had the institution reached respectability in the estimation of more declared pro-slavery ecclesiastical associations, north and south, before the Infinite Patience was exhausted,
SOME ACTS OF THE PRO-SLAVERY APOSTLES—PERSONAL
It is time to draw this work to a close. It was undertaken with extreme reluctance at the earnest solicitation of those whose wishes it is my delight to obey, even at any cost of personal, sacrifice of my latest years, only if the cause of truth and the demands of history be also subserved. And strict truth and justice to everybody concerned, has been, and shall be to the end, my one constant study and care. The next chapter may be called "Acts of the Pro-Slavery Apostles," and will have respect mainly to the connection of the church and clergy of the country with the slave system. Their hostility to the anti-slavery enterprise was not wakened into fierce and general opposition till slavery was not only declared a SIN; such sin as that no slave-holder could be a Christian, nor worthy to be fellowshipped as such, whether south or north. The abolitionists insisted that every church and pulpit dictating terms of sacramental communion should hold the man-stealer as just so much greater criminal than the felon of the sheep-fold, as a man is better than a sheep, remembering who He was that asked, "How much better is a man than a sheep?" [Matt. 12:12] And our warrant for this judgment came from the very highest evangelical authority the church could furnish. Long before slavery had reached the pro- portions of 1834, or developed half its prospective cruelties, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church had officially and authoritively taught [1805], citing as their scripture basis, the first epistle of Timothy, first chapter, ninth and tenth verses:
In 1791, Rev. Jonathan Edwards, D. D., declared and published this:
With abundance more of similar character and from the same high and representative sources, so that the abolitionists in their position and demand were only holding the church and pulpit to their own once declared and published principles on slavery as well as always on every other acknowledged sin. But every one of the great popular denominations apostacized as slavery grew in numbers of its victims and in the terrible crimes, cruelties, tortures and torments, incident to the system, and became directly implicated, if not indeed the very chief of sinners, themselves. What then could true Christian abolitionists do, whether ministers or church members, but come out of such fellowship, to avoid the guilt of partaking in the sin? Nothing in all scripture was more sublimely emphatic than the apocalyptic command, And among the sins charged in that blood-guilty communion was, that its "merchandize" was "in slaves and souls of men" [Rev. 18:13]."Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers in her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." [Rev. 18:4. Cf. Ephesians 5:7 and 1 Timothy 5:22.] Some of those who composed the associations, who were known as "Come-outers," framed a course of procedure for themselves, and rather excommunica- ted the churches than came out from them. To them the church was a principle, an idea, not a corporation or organization, voting members in or out by majorities, and in many of the sects forbidding women to vote at all on any question, though generally a majority, and frequently a large majority of the membership. To such Come-outers the visible church of the New Testament was Christianity made visible in the life and character, whether of one or more, no matter how many, only let purity go before peace and liberty before charity. Conservatives held that "peaceful error was better than boisterous truth." But the other answered "Nay, not so. Peace if possible, but truth and right at whatever cost." Our church in Henniker refused any forward step. Several withdrew from it altogether when a Kentucky slave-holder was invited to preach in the pulpit on Sunday, and administer the sacramental supper. Once when visiting in town a meeting was appointed for him all day on Saturday, in hope that two successive days of his preaching might produce a religious awakening and possibly a revival. No such result, however, followed. But an anti-slavery society was formed in the town, that did good and effective work, some joining from all the churches. After absenting myself from the communion service a number of years, engaged constantly in the anti-slavery apostleship, I sent a letter to the church, excommunicating it from my Christian regard and fellowship until it should repent of the sins and shames of slave-holding and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. No notice was taken of me nor my letter till in the autumn of 1846. Then, with a new pastor, who was also clerk of the church, an official order was sent me, signed and countersigned by the clerk, sum- moning me to appear, on a given day, to answer to the charge, not of absence from worship and communion table, but of denying the inspiration of the Bible. I had labored with the church publicly and privately for years on the guilt and danger of slave-holding, or of recognizing as Christians or christian ministers the southern slave-breeders or slave-holders, before sending my letter of solemn excommunication. But no similar step, nor any steps, had been taken towards me, by the church or pastor, till the formal call, couched in quite legal phrase, to come into court and plead guilty or not guilty, to a charge foreign as possible from the question, which for years had been in agitation between us. My only answer was the following letter, forwarded without unnecessary delay, to the minister, who was also clerk of the church:
What action was taken on this letter, if any, I never knew. If excommunication was voted, or other steps taken, no copy or report was ever sent me, and so there the matter rested. But a controversy with the ministry, still more grave, yet remained. I was licensed to preach in Boston by the Suffolk north association of divines, after a pretty severe doctrinal examination, my certificate being signal by Dr. Curtis, president, and Dr. Warren Fay, secretary of the association, both then ministers in Charlestown. My preaching was mainly in New Hampshire and within the bounds of the Hopkinton association. Only for remembering them that were in bonds as bound with them, according to the dictates of my own conscience and interpretation of the divine will [Heb. 13:3, I gave great offense to members of the association. But instead of calling on me [as per Matt. 18:15] in any capacity, official or private, they made complaint to the Suffolk association that granted my [ministerial] license. This led to correspondence between that body and myself, of which the following letters are all that concern either history or the present. It will be observed by dates of letters, that all this was some years before my final encounter with the minister and people at Henniker. This whole [disfellowshipment] affair to-day [1883] may seem trivial; but to myself and wife, and other near and dear friends, there was mighty meaning in every step, as one after another had to be taken. The summons before the Suffolk association was as below:
To this arraignment, I immediately responded, to the following effect:
At a subsequent meeting of the [pro-slavery] Suffolk North Association my [ministerial] "license" was resumed [revoked], as had been before intimated and threatened.
But my higher, more divine commission became to me from that time more and more sacred and important. Under it, I have spoken the words of truth, righteousness and freedom for more than forty years, to multitudes of men, women and children in both the hemispheres, and as I humbly hope and trust, not all in vain. The first open, direct arraignment of the American church and clergy as the guilty accomplices, north and south, in all the crimes and cruelties, the sins and shames of slavery, was a little pamphlet, entitled, "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery." It was written by an American [James G. Birney], though first published in England in 1840. The last [slavery-era book] of similar import and purpose, was a larger work, published in 1847, entitled, "The Church as it is; The Forlorn Hope of Slavery." The peculiarity of both these publications was, that the persons and parties whose character and conduct were to be considered, furnished all the testimony themselves, and the evidence was all direct, with no cross question nor quibble of any description, from the other side, so whatever conclusion might be reached, it would be wholly through their own words and works, as by themselves published to the world. Since slavery was abolished, the clergy, as was always predicted they would, have claimed [Ed. Note: meaning, the majority clergy intentionally lied] it as the result of their prayers, preaching and votes. [!!] But it was never expected that they or their children would boldly declare through pulpit and press, as well as by lips and lungs, that the abolitionists, even Garrison, did more harm than good; that
A semi-centennial discourse, delivered in Cincinnati, Ohio, in April, 1881, contains most of these quota- tions; and Rev. A. T. Rankin, in some published essays, the present year, supplies part of the remainder. But it remained for Leonard Woolsey Bacon, son of the late Dr. Leonard Bacon, of Connecticut, to print such a life-size portrait of Garrison as will be here subjoined. It is in a biographical sketch of his father, in a popular magazine. Dr. Bacon's anti-slavery [!!] was worthy such a [lying] son, and to be by him celebrated in the manner it is in the notice furnished the Century. It received many well-deserved scathings when it appeared, and as anti-slavery had nothing to fear from the father, so neither has the memory or good name of Garrison anything to dread from the contemptuous caricatures of the son. Both may be safely trusted to history and to posterity. But here is the Woolsey Bacon portrait:
And yet this bold calumniator has the grace to admit that
Till the firing on Fort Sumter the abolitionists never knew that "the brunt of Dr. Bacon's arguments was ever changed in its direction," to any important purpose, to either side. Leonard Woolsey Bacon graciously thinks, however, that Garrison, now that slavery is abolished, may "be forgiven the great harm he did for the sake of the little good." But all this aside from the main question in hand. The clergy to-day would have the world believe they were always opposed to slavery, and sought its overthrow. They were opposed to slavery just as was the government. No more; no less.
And if the church and government were against slavery, why did they not put it out of existence? How could it have stood against them? If they were opposed to slavery, why were Louisiana and Florida bought for its extension? Why was Mexico robbed of Texas after a four years' bloody and cruel, and fearfully unjust war on our part, only to reinstate slavery where Roman Catholicism a few years before had abolished it, as it hoped, forever?
Whatever of slave-breeding, or slave-holding, or slave-trading abroad, or slave-hunting at home the government authorized and supported, the church sanctioned and sanctified. So also of slavery extension. The clergy actually clamored for chaplaincies in the atrocious Mexican war [8 May 1846-30 May 1848], knowing well its origin and objects. The religious press, north and south, shouted for the war, irrespective of denominational differences. The Presbyterian Herald asked its readers," Do you pray for the Mexicans?" and answered:
The pope decreed the abolition of slavery in Mexico in 1829, "for the glory of God and to distinguish mankind from the brute creation." Good reason why slave-holding Presbyterians should "pray for the conversion of Mexicans as well as for Hindoos and Hottentots." But the Presbyterian Herald had another reason for praying for the Mexicans, verily this:
The Protestant Telegraph viewed the war and its results, thus hopefully:
But what shall be said of this from so eminent a Divine, as Rev. Joel Parker, D.D., in a sermon preached, and then published in the Christian Observer?
Or this in the New England Puritan, from its editor, Rev. Parsons Cooke, D.D.
The [emperor-worshipper] Rev. Evan Stevenson, editor of a monthly magazine in Georgetown, Kentucky, hungered after the righteousness of such a war [of aggression] as keenly as this discloses:
Only two more of these excerpts, and one of them very brief. The Christian Observer, a new-school Presbyterian organ, of first-class, spoke in this tone, and at such length, by a correspondent:
And this one more, from the Nashville, Tennessee, Union:
So did the government and the governing part and power of the vile, demonized, heathen-while-professing-"Christian" church, cooperate in fighting and robbing to extend, as well as support slavery. ACTS OF PRO-SLAVERY APOSTLES—GENERAL ASSEMBLY
A long chapter this may be, though it is last but one, and that one, readers may be glad to know, will not be long. The charges against the church and clergy may be sweeping and severe. All that is now proposed is to submit their own recorded, printed, published testimony in support of them. In scripture phrase, "By their own words shall they be justified, or condemned." [Matt. 12:37] For convenience, the great representative ecclesiastical bodies will be considered separately, beginning with the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church. Notwithstanding its powerful testimony against sla- very, so late as 1818, as has been shown, it grew to be one of the boldest blasphemers against the holy spirit of freedom the world has produced. And the New-school assembly, after the memorable separation into old and new schools, became quite as unscrupulous as the other. Though slavery had little or nothing to do in dividing the body, the new school was much the strongest in the northern states. In the new-school general assembly, in 1840, a motion was made, by a member, on the subject of slavery, when Rev. Dr. Cox, of Brooklyn, immediately moved its indefinite postponement. On the motion being carried, he exultingly exclaimed: "Our Vesuvius is capped safely for three years," that being the time for the next meeting. And Judge Birney assures us that Dr. Cox was at the first an abolitionist. The clergy of the old-school were even more demonstrative in opposition to anything like hostility to the "peculiar institution." When the Richmond ministers held a meeting, expressly to wash their hands clean before all the world, of any anti-slavery stain, Dr. William L. Plummer was absent; but on his return, he made haste to assure his acceptance and approval of the action taken, by a letter to the committee of correspondence, from which these are extracts: To these instances of clerical devotion to the worship of the bloody idol, Judge Birney adds this; a letter from a reverend divine, announcing his inten- (pp 388-403)
the board reported its work done in the Choctaw nation, and in 1860, in the Cherokee, and gave its legitimate, logical reason: "The Cherokees are a Christian people." * * *The Choctaw mission was similarly closed, in 1859. O, no! "Slavery had nothing to do with it!" The board found slavery among the Indians in 1817, accepted it as of divine appointment, and compelled its missionaries to accept it, and they did; as did the churches and pulpits that sustained them. When the anti-slavery agitation reached to the churches, and protests were sent up against a slave-holding religion, supported at home, and sent abroad to the heathen, the Board refused to interfere. And once when the Sandwich Island missionaries sent home a most powerful remonstrance against slave-holding in the churches as a hindrance to their missionary work as well as false to the true Christian faith, the Board suppressed their testimony, and by solemn resolution duly adopted, recorded and published, virtually imposed silence on the subject, at every missionary station under its patronage. When the interest on the subject began to threaten loss to the treasury, then the Board by its Secretaries attempted, by argument to justify slavery as supported by scripture; by patriarchal practice and apostolic approval, the very chiefest apostle [Paul] actually, as was [falsely] claimed, voluntarily restoring a runaway slave to his owner. From 1817 to 1860, more than forty years, did the Board conduct the religious and moral education of those Indian tribes, gathering them into churches: masters and slaves alike, with this law in full force: "No slave, or child of a slave, is to be taught to read or write, in or at any school, by any one connected in any capacity therewith, on pain of dismissal and expulsion from the nation." And now one thought more, and the Board and all its work shall be discharged from further consideration. In 1860 the Cherokees, and in 1859 the Choctaws, were graduated by the Board from paganism to Christianity with full credentials, as no longer in the darkness of the heathen world. In 1861, the war of Rebellion set the country on fire. The Indian tribes were early awake to the situation. The New York Evangelist, on the 21st of March of the same year, 1861, said: "the Cherokee, Choctaw, and other Indian tribes of the south-west, nearly all of them slave-holders, are evidently under the influence of the secessionists. The principal Choctaw chief hastened to convene the local legislature * * * and recommended a general council of the Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles and Choctaws to be held at a central point for the purpose of adopting some line of policy necessary to their security." In August following, the New York Journal of Commerce announced that: "The Choctaws, Creeks, Seminoles and Chickasaws have given their adherence to the Confederates, and probably the Cherokees are divided on the question." Of the rest, we know enough. How well and truly was it said at the opening of the war of Rebellion, "in the forty-two years of the maintenance of the Cherokee and Choctaw missions, by the American Board, they have connived at slavery, avoiding, by various dishonorable and dishonest means and contrivances, the hard duty of reformation. Now they go a step further, spontaneously and publicly vouching for slave-holding churches as christian churches, and for a nation upholding the worst form of slavery, as "a Christian people." And between four and five thousand armed Indian warriors, led by an able Boston born general, the tallest, handsomest officer in the rebel army, at the battle of Pea Ridge, fighting in a war waged by slave-holders and waged wholly for slavery, and nothing else, was a spectacle worthy the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions! Or if we turn to the Baptist denomination with its vast proportion in the slave states, the record will not improve; and in that again we can learn its spirit and position through its great national Foreign Missionary Association known in early anti-slavery days as The Baptist Triennial Convention. The harmony in it seems never to have been disturbed by the slavery problem till broken by the tocsin of the abolitionists. For so late as the year 1834, Rev. Dr. Bolles, of Boston, one of its Secretaries of correspondence in an official paper, said: "There is a pleasing degree of union among the multiplying thousands of Baptists throughout the land. * * * Our southern brethren are generally slave-holders, both ministers and people." [See Parody]. And another Boston Baptist doctor of divinity, Rev. Daniel Sharp, wrote under date January 21st, 1840: "There were undoubtedly both slave-holders and slaves in the primitive churches; I therefore for one, do not feel myself at liberty to make conditions of commun- ion which neither Christ nor his apostles made. I do not feel myself wiser nor better than were they; * * * and I believe that a majority of the wisest and best men at the north hold to these sentiments." [Ed. Note: Rebutted by Rev. John Fee, in An Anti-Slavery Manual, pages 110-121] In 1841, at the Triennial convention and by appointment, a slave-holder presided, another slave-holder performed the devotional exercises, and a third slave-holder preached the Triennial sermon; and the Rev. Elon Galusha, of New York, an earnest, outspoken anti-slavery man, was removed from the Board of Management, partly, or principally, from demands like this of the Camden, South Carolina Baptist church:
And as already told, Mr. Galusha was removed. All the proceedings appeared to have been in keeping with such expulsion; for the meeting closed with the sacramental supper and singing: Are brethren who agree!" A member writing to the Biblical Recorder and Southern Watchman, thus rejoices: "Our meeting was truly delightful. The spirit of the gospel prevailed, and gave a tremendous shock to the abolitionists. Let us be thankful to God, and give him the glory. And now, if we of the south and they of the north, whose sympathies are with us, shall be mild, I am satisfied that abolitionism will go down among Baptists. All our "principal men" are sound to the core on this vexed question. But such dissatisfaction arose among the now "principal men" in the convention that before the next Triennial gathering a division occurred. A new but small rival society was formed. One principal reason assigned being that gifts of slave-holders should not mingle with northern contributions in the missionary treasury, since God had said "I hate robbery for a burnt offering." But the extent of principle and height of integrity of this new and sublimated movement, was seen in the fact, that when, just afterwards, the old board sustained a loss by a failure in India, there was an immediate appropriation of five hundred dollars voted to it, with all its slavery, out of this purified treasury. The following is the official record of the proceeding: "Whereas, The Foreign Mission Board have recently sustained a heavy loss, by the failure of their banker at Calcutta, and thus appropriated supplies are cut off from the missionaries in Asia; therefore The new association seems to have been short lived, for at the next meeting of the old board, all parties old and new were present, and the proceedings were as unanimous almost as before slavery had ever disturbed them. The president, a North Carolina slave-holder, declined a reelection, on the ground that, as for more than thirty years the chief officer had been selected from the slave states, it was time the boon should be conferred on the north. Accordingly, the Rev. Dr. [Francis] Wayland, of Providence, on the second ballotting, was elected to that office. The subject of Slavery was introduced and disposed of by the passage of the following resolution, ONLY TWO voting in the negative:
Rev. Mr. Davis, of New York, [neighbor of Elon Galusha] then remarked with much exultation, if not exaltation, that the convention had passed a stupendous crisis and moved a season of devotional exercises. The season was voted, a northern minister, Mr. Webb, of Philadelphia, gave thanks, and they closed with singing the Doxology, by the congregation, In view of the passage of the above resolution, the editor of the Boston Christian Reflector, a professedly anti-slavery journal, most complacently remarked: "It will be seen by the passage of the resolution on Friday, that we are no longer required to fellowship slavery or slave-holders, as such, in the work of missions." But had the business related to infant sprinkling instead of infant stealing, or on immersion as baptism, instead of sprinkling, the whole past history of this immense denomination throughout Christendom proves it would never have been so easily nor so amicably adjusted. In 1846, a new association was incorporated under the name of "The American Baptist Missionary Union," and the old triennial was no more. The first article of the new constitution designates the name, the second the object of the society. The third provides that "persons," without reference to place, "may be life members, by the payment at one time of not less than one hundred dollars." The twenty-first article declares that the officers and missionaries of the association "shall be members in good standing of regular Baptist churches." No north nor south any more. It has been contended that this association was formed with particular reference to a separation from slavery. I was so informed by an officer of the board. But there was no such intimation, either in the act of incorporation or the constitution. Among the life members were persons from Missouri, Mississippi, Delaware, and Georgia; and the first meeting of the board of managers was organized by the choice of a president from a free, and a secretary from a slave state. The first meeting of the union was opened with prayer by the Rev. Nathaniel Colver, of Boston. All these proceedings, and others, are appended to the annual report of the old Baptist convention for 1846. But enough about the mission movements as between south and north, or between slavery and anti-slavery. The Baptist denomination, like the others, had hosts of anti-slavery men and women; but the ruling power was for slavery, or the system could not have survived as it did, till stove down by the avenging bolts of eternal wrath. Coming now to the mighty Methodist denomination it would be a relief and joy if a far better record could be given. But to write history, not make it, is the work still in hand. Two copies of the Methodist Book of Discipline are before me, of different dates, but both contain an address "To the Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church," signed by the bishops, in which it is declared: "We wish to see this little publication in the house of every Methodist. And the more so, as it contains the articles of religion, maintained more or less, in part, or in whole, by every reformed church in the world. Far from wishing you to be ignorant of any of our doctrines, or any part of our discipline, we wish you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the whole. You ought, next to the word of God, to procure the (pp 412-425)
The anti-slavery character of this denomination is pretty clearly set forth in a pamphlet, entitled, "Thoughts on the duty of the Episcopal church in relation to slavery," by the late
As why should they not, or, rather, it might be asked, how could they have done otherwise? pulpit, or press, with instructions like the following, issued by the oldest bishop in the United States, for their instruction and guidance, though directed, as will be seen, to a far more august dignitary than the bishop himself:
Here is another singularly illustrative act, furnished, too, as is all the testimony introduced—by the [pretended Christian] church itself. In 1836 Rev. George W. Freeman delivered two sermons in Raleigh, North Carolina, that were published under the imposing title of "The Rights and Duties of Slave-holders," with the following imprimatur from Bishop Ives, of the diocese:
In South Carolina, the "Society for the Advancement of Christianity," made up of clergymen and laymen, the bishop at the head of it, seized upon the sermons, imprimatur and all, and published them as religious tracts, for gratuitous distribution.
An extract from the [vile and heathen, pro-slavery] sermons read thus:
And now one more witness, perhaps most valuable of all, and a late bishop, too. On my table is a work with this imposing title:
In his preface, Bishop [William] Meade [1789-1862] remarks:
The title of this work shows its miscellaneous character. The sermons are in two series, the first, doubtless, by Mr. Bacon published in 1743. Then succeed two others, author not named, but presumably by Bishop Meade himself, and always so assigned while he lived [1789-1862]. And from them the following excerpts are taken. He first [purportedly] shows that God appointed, for great and wonderfui ends [purposes], several offices and degrees in his family, making some masters and mistresses, some kings and rulers, some merchants and sea-faring men, some tradesmen, husbandmen and planters and laboring men to work for their own living, and some He hath made servants and slaves to assist and work for their masters and mistresses who provide for them.
And as God hath sent each of us into the world for some or other of these purposes, we are all obliged, from the king to the poorest slave, to do the business He hath set us about. And while you whom He hath made slaves are honestly and quietly doing your business and living as poor christians ought to live, you are serving God in your low station as much as the greatest prince alive. With more in the same strain, but not one duty specified, not one grace, not one emotion nor aspiration that rises above, or relates to any power or person, only the master and mistress and their service and adoration, as what follows, in the recent bishop's own words, abundantly shows:
Turning now to the next sermon, page 116 of the volume, the bishop expounds, reasons, and argues to this effect:
So much for Bishop Meade; his whole volume is a wonderful exposition and illumination of the whole slave system, as related to, or rather sanctified by the American church, almost irrespective of denomination. Judge Birney, might have reproduced these extracts in his luminous tract on slavery and the church, and on them alone, so far as the Episcopal body is concerned, have rested his case forever. The whole volume of Bishop Meade contains two hundred and fifty pages of solid apology for, and justification of slavery as then existing at the south, in the name of the Christian religion, its Christ and God. No other copy of it has ever come to my knowledge. For it, I was indebted to the kindness of my excellent friend, Mr. Samuel Brooke, a native Virginian himself. He was born a Friend or Quaker, one of a family of four or five brothers, ail excellent men who early removed into Ohio and became earnest, working abolitionists, eminently hospitable to anti-slavery lecturers, both men and women; besides being large proprietors in the underground railroad; and frequently running its nightly and well loaded trains, themselves. And my friend, Samuel Brooke, who gave me Bishop Meade, was long an active anti-slavery agent, and for a number of years, general agent of the Western Anti-Slavery Society, and since slavery was abolished, an officer in the revenue department of the government service. But a word more on the Protestant Episcopal church and its defense and reverend defenders of the terrible slave system. For besides Bishop Meade, another eminent divine has left us his volume of sermons, now on my table. It contains twenty-six discourses, and the title-page reads thus:
In his preface, Dr. Glennie says:
The fourth sermon of the twenty-six is precisely in tone and sentiment like the quotations from Bishop Meade. Readers, therefore, could not be interested in them. Let this one exclamation suffice. The text is:
And the law of the state at that moment, punished with twenty lashes any slave found in any assembly convened for mental instruction, held in any secret place, though in presence of white persons. And an older law, never repealed, punished with fine of a hundred pounds, any person who should teach a slave to write. In North Carolina, to teach a slave to read or to sell, or give a slave any book, Bible or tract not excepted, was thirty-nine lashes, if the offender were a free negro; or, if a white person, a fine of two hundred dollars.
The reason given for this law was stated in the preamble, and read, in part, thus: That
More time and space have been given to the Episcopal church than was intended. Not by any means because that was more culpable than the other denominations; but the nature of the testimony adduced, appeared to throw more and clearer light on the relation between master and slave, and between both and the church, than almost any other, making incontestably certain that in church and clerical estimation, slaves had no religious rights which white saints were bound to respect here; nor any salvation hereafter, but such as must be worked out with "literal fear and trembling," in wholly secular service for such masters and mistresses as "God had set" to wield the lash over them.
To just such, and there were then three millions of them, and a fourth million being born, could Rev. Dr. Glennie, with deep [self-deluded] devotion, exclaim:
But let one more Episcopal bishop come into this court of inquiry and investigation; "the Right Rev. George W. Doane, bishop of New Jersey." For there may be worse, as well as better men than Dr. Glennie and Bishop Meade, and northern men, too. In 1857, or near, there was published in Philadelphia, an edition of the Episcopal "book of common prayer," marked by the authentic imprimatur of Bishop Doane.
The New York Tribune shall tell the rest, in an article copied into the National Anti-Slavery Standard, of January 2d, 1858:
(pp 438-477) information and evidence have been derived on the American Bible and Tract societies, and on the great leading, controlling, religious sects and organizations that represented the religious sentiment of the country at the beginning, and in the progress of the great anti-slavery conflict. And what must be the conclusion from it all? Judge Birney answered early: "The American churches: the bulwarks of American slavery." Stephen S. Foster replied later, in tones of thunder, "The Brotherhood of thieves; or a true picture of the American church and clergy." Then came a ringing voice from the west: "Slavery, and the slave-holder's Religion;" by Samuel Brooke, of Ohio, and still later: "The Church as it is: the Forlorn Hope of slavery," a larger pamphlet than the others. Nor were these all. And all pursuing the same course, which was to permit the accused to furnish all the testimony; not half, nor part, but the whole. Nor was there any cross questioning, nor inferential evidence, from beginning to end. What more could church or clergy have asked, unless in the language and spirit of those who demanded of the great teacher of Nazareth: "What have we to do with thee? let us alone!" Or what can this generation ask of us to-day? the very few of us who yet remain on earth? and in justice to ourselves and our cause, what less, or otherwise, could, or should we abolitionists, have done? CHAPTER XVI. SOME PERSONAL SKETCHES AND REMINISCENCES—A
Returning now to the acts of the anti-slavery apostles, it should be explained that this long digression to the acts of another order of apostles became necessary after the work was begun, and extends it, too, beyond my original design. Within the past year, the enemies of the anti-slavery enterprise, or their children, have not only renewed their old calumnies against the faithful and uncompromising friends and advocates of that enterprise, but they have urged them with augmented aggravations. Their language need not be here reproduced. They themselves have given it to history and to posterity, and they and the sure years, will render a true and just verdict. But though the book has grown already beyond my purpose at the outset, it shall not close without at least some fraternal and friendly allusions to a few faithful men and noble women with whom I became acquainted in the lecturing field, each single one of whom deserves a volume of finer strains than mine. The Burleigh brothers, Charles C., and Cyrus M., came to the field almost in their boyhood, but valiant, vigorous as the young knights of chivalry, equal always to any encounter. Had Charles C. Burleigh pursued the profession of the law, as was his intention, there was no eminence he could not easily have reached. On the platform, in argument, he had no superior and few equals. We always felt safe when Burleigh came to the stand. He never rose but when he had something to say. And, generally, when he had spoken, not much more was needed on the question in hand. With his pen, when he did write, he was not less mighty, as his "Thoughts on the Death Penalty," away back in 1845, proved. N. P. Rogers wrote of it in the Herald of Freedom: "I have gone over the 'Thoughts' as particularly as I am able to a book, and can witness to its being all that the reader has right to expect from the power of the writer. It is arranged with great Judgment and order, and winds about the poor old gallows tree an uninterupted chain for its destruction. Chain lightning, I wish it might prove, to strike and splinter it to its very roots, as I have seen a white pine, that had been just visited by one of these touches from the clouds. * * * A trimmer, abler, more masterly argument, has not been put together in words. Burleigh's antagonist is Dr. George B. Cheever. Burleigh doesn't leave a rag of his parson's gown on his back. Nobody makes an argument perfect and unanswerable but Charles Burleigh. Give him a good cause at the bar, as good as he has here, and let him speak firsthand the adversary council would never reply. The court wouldn't let him. His client wouldn't let him, not if he had common sense. The counsel wouldn't himself, for he wouldn't find an inch of ground left to start on. I never knew so absolute an arguer as Burleigh. And he has displayed himself completely in this work." A younger brother, Cyrus M. Burleigh, was an earnest, faithful worker in the lecture field, but fell an early victim to consumption. Amiable, gentle, com- panionable, simple and sincere, he was ever well received, and most beloved and respected, where best known. Abby Kelley Foster and Lucy Stone both achieved enviable success in their anti-slavery work, not to speak of their ever abounding labors since in the cause of woman suffrage, to well fill a volume. And each has a brilliant and cultivated daughter, too, every way equal to its production. Mrs. Foster was in the lecturing field when I entered it, in 1840, and had been for a number of years. And she is the last survivor of those I found there who continued constantly in the conflict till the battle was won. She early entered to conquer or die, and nobly and bravely she kept her vow. Lucy Stone came later, but came not less with the spirit of hero and martyr, and came long before the period of peril, as well as of sacrifice and severe suffering was passed. I have seen her in truly ferocious mobs, that knew no distinction of sex nor color, race nor religion. I once saw her hit on the head with a large Swedenborgian prayer-book, hurled across the hall with a velocity and force worthy other cannons than the "sacred canons" of "holy church." A less severe blow, on a vital spot, has taken life. The mob was in a hall, used on Sundays for Swedenborgian worship; and in a town famous in that day for the manufacture of cotton gins, for southern trade, and so was an offering to slave-holding customers, as well as a tribute to religion and worship. Charles Lenox Remond earned a place in anti-slavery history worthy a monument, as well as extended biography. Salem, the place of his birth and residence during most of his life, never knew him, never will, to do any justice to his memory and worth. But he achieved a reputation, both in his own country and (pp 482-495) for which we should be scarcely responsible in the least degree, might have preserved from many a discordant note that seemed to ring on down to the gates of the grave. It was not anger, it was not hate. It was rather the result of intensity of love. At least it was so among some of our very truest, bravest, best, whose natures could but love, could never hate.
To the last, there were differences of opinion. On the question when to cease our operations as an anti-slavery organization, there was much earnest debate. Some contended that our distinctive work was not accomplished till the slave was made equal to the master at the ballot box, and in the government. And that this was all the more important since it was only by the slaves' valor on the battle-field, that the masters had been defeated and their rebellion suppressed. As my last printed speech was on that subject, at the last anti-slavery anniversary I attended, it may be pardonable to present it here, as showing somewhat the temper and spirit of the discussion, as well as the nature of the subject then in hand. It is, however, only pardonable because from the beginning it has been my constant care to be myself as little obtrusive as the nature of my work would warrant consistently with exact truth and right. The anniversary exercises were held in the church of the Puritans, whose walls had often shuddered with the truly terrible eloquence of Dr. Cheever, from Sunday to Sunday, in rebuke and denunciation of the southern oppressor and his not less guilty abettor and accomplice in the north, in church and pulpit, as well as in the state. In the later years of the anti-slavery conflict, after he had been anathematized by the pulpit and almost driven from the pale of the church, only for his faithfulness to the cause of freedom and humanity, for his orthodoxy, as well as private virtues were high as heaven above suspicion, he seemed to speak as by permission and power of Him who "touched Isaiah's lips with hallowed fire," and to superadd at times all the terrors of Patmos as well. No other voice penetrated the dark, deep recesses of the pro-slavery church and pulpit, the American Bible, missionary and tract societies, as did his. For to his faith and virtue, he added a perfect knowledge of all their works and ways. My resolution at that last anniversary, read as below: Resolved, That the objects of the American anti-slavery society, as announced in its constitution and declaration of sentiment, are, "the entire abolition of slavery in the United States," and "the elevation of all persons of color, who possess the qualifications of others, to the enjoyment of the same privileges, and the exercise of the same prerogatives as others." And while we joyfully welcome, and will heartily co-operate with every new auxiliary in this vast field of action and effort, under whatever name, we can never lay down our own distinctive apostleship, until all those high purposes are fully accomplished." Though we had come to the last day and session of our meeting, I had not spoken before. We met at an early hour in the forenoon, and it was now nearly three in the afternoon, and we had not even taken a recess; but I ventured to obtrude myself at that unseasonable hour, and was heard with most respectful attention in the following remarks: Four years ago it was announced on our platform that slavery was dead—that our anti-slavery efforts were no longer needed—that General Scott was now our general agent in place of Mr. May, and that the American army was now the American anti-slavery society. Well, that new anti-slavery society, under General Scott and others, prosecuted its conflict with such success and disaster as we now know. And the war dragged its slow length along, through nearly four dreary, desolating years. And slavery was still able to compete valiantly, if not successfully, with the mightiest armies that ever gathered in the field of bloody fight. For though we began with but seventy-five thousand, and they enrolled only for ninety days, before that period expired, we had summoned suddenly a half-million more, for a three years' service. And in less than four years, our army had reached the stupendous muster-roll of more than two and a half millions, and nearly the half-million had already "fought their last battle, slept their last sleep!" Last month, we were wakened early one Monday morning, to celebrate what we presumed to be the complete triumph of our northern hosts and vanquishing of every southern foe. Richmond had surrendered, General Lee was our prisoner, and his forces with him, and we fancied that then, indeed, our work was done. There lay the monster slavery writhing in death agonies at our feet, his head not bruised only, but severed from his scaly form. And the whole free north burst into a joy unseen, unknown before since we were a nation. And that was a full week of jubilation. We thought the great red dragon was dead, our work done, and already reconstruction was under way. The president had made that last speech of his on the question, and the press of the country had given in its adhesion to his fatal [easy Reconstruction] doctrine. I well remember that on our Massachusetts Fast-day, our friend, Mr. Spaulding, of Salem, who addressed us so earnestly this morning, invited me to occupy his pulpit. And let me say for him, that although pastor of one of the largest churches in that state, he has been so faithful as to have driven what is known as "the copper-head element," pretty much out of his congregation, and dared still to invite me to give the fast-day discourse. So, occupying the desk, I presumed the prerogative of minister and selected a text from the scriptures, and spoke of the goodness and forbearance of God to the nation. The text was this, from the Hebrew prophets: "What could I have done for my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" [Isa. 5:4] In the course of remark, I referred to that speech of President Lincoln, and said it appeared to me highly proper that we observe a day of fasting and prayer, for we had to treat with an evil spirit, which, though we fancied he was dead, and were celebrating our conquest and victory, was one that went not out after all, but by prayer and fasting. In the afternoon of that day, I went into the Salem Athenæum and read every daily newspaper of New York and Boston there, and every one, I think, with no exception endorsed its doctrine. I had a lecture in a neighboring town that evening, and went to it with a heavy heart; for I felt that it would be my duty to tell my audience that our joy was ill-timed, and would be vain; that our rejoicing, I was sure, would be turned into mourning. For in our very hour of triumph and of victory, as we thought, we were not doing justice; and were ready to reconstruct the government on the basis of white suffrage and citizenship, and that also disloyal; rejecting the bravery and loyalty that God had made the salvation of the country! I went to my lecture, you may be sure with heavy, desponding heart. I told my audience it seemed to me we were lost. I said: you have all called me "blue, blue-black, and bilious," and 1 know not what else, from the beginning of the war, but we are inevitably lost! For God has visited us in judgment; and in the last hour, when He seems to have left nothing undone that he could do for His vineyard, we still forget justice and judgment; none calling for justice, nor any in the high places of government pleading the cause of the poor, the very poorest of the poor! It was a sad meeting; well might it have been sad; it continued till a late hour in the evening; and a sadder audience, I never addressed, and a sadder heart in that joyous week, probably could not be found, than was mine. But in four and twenty hours from that time, God did appear, and in most mysterious manner, and showed that there was at least one thing more possible to be done in his vineyard, that had not been done. The solemn, mourning drapery which darkens this temple to-day, answers the question of our text: "what more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done in it?" [Isa. 5:4] And so we closed our week of joy. I thought of the lines of Byron on Bonaparte, when he sung of his greatness and his fall: "O who would soar the solar height
I felt then, that there was more work for me to do; and I have felt all through this meeting, that there was more work yet to be done by this grand old anti-slavery society, and I thought if we were indeed to cease from our good old apostleship, and our association was to be sacrificed here, it was fitting and well that we had this funeral drapery hanging here about us. But it seems to me that such a deed as our disbandment and dissolution would better become Ford's theatre than "the church of the Puritans," crape-darkened as it is for the dreadful tragedy which long yet must the nation mourn! No, Mr. Chairman, no; our work is not yet quite done; at least mine is not done, nor will it be done till the blackest man has every right which I, myself enjoy. I cannot prove that I love my neighbor as myself till he stand by my side.
And I dare tell you my friends, that when slavery is abolished, we shall all know it, for it will be as though "Death and Hell gave up the ghost!" When we comprehend the malignity, yea, the "uncommon wrath" of the fell [evil] demon we have to face and overcome, and the terrible power and tenacity of life he has acquired, we shall all realize that our warfare is no pastime, no children's play; and that however freedmen's aid societies, and Christian associations may operate in their fields, they will every one of them, need the old polar star to guide them in their new, untried and dangerous way. Charity of readers may be trusted to forgive the egotism of inserting this address, in part for its sad historical reminiscences, but more especially for the other reasons already intimated. In methods and measures, abolitionists, even of clearest vision, spiritual as well as mental, could not always see eye to eye; though ready to live and die in defense of their common cause. But let the temper and spirit which breathe in this utterance, remarkable only that it was my last on our great subject ever given to the public through the press; let this witness, that even in our differings, we were still in heart and spirit friends in all which that divine word can be made to mean. And now this work is done. Would, that it could be as truthfully said, "well done." But nearly three score and fourteen, is too late in life to be engaged in such a service; especially when it is remembered that authorship has been no part of all my public labors of three and forty years. Truth in statement, justice and right towards all persons and parties interested in any way in these chronicles, have been constantly, carefully, kept in view, alike towards foe and friend. In soul, spirit, purpose, I have known no foes; no sun has risen nor gone down on any wrath of mine. Most of my early comrades in the field-service, have gone, some of them long since gone to their well earned rest and reward. It is mine yet to live and guard watchfully their graves, and with tenderest affection to cherish their memory, and to shield it from any unjust reproach to the full extent of my power and to my latest breath. Of the great west and my many dear ones there living, or dead, I have scarcely spoken. And yet, nearly twenty of my autumns, and several winters were spent in most laborious service in the western states; and many there became not only faithful co-workers, but life-long and devoted friends. A volume much larger than this and greatly better every way would not suffice to do any justice to their exalted worth. But I live in unshaken faith and expectation of a glorious re-union awaiting us all. Nor with my present vision, could I desire sublimer felicity in such re-union, than to become more and more divinely endowed with celestial wisdom, knowledge and power; and then, in the same spirit of love and good will to men, to all men, appealing ever only to the highest, divinest elements in the human nature, to continue our work and service till the whole race shall be restored and redeemed, and sin and death, the last great and only real enemies, shall together give up the ghost.
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What followed after the 300's C.E., and still continues, was essentially the old pagan Emperor worship, meaning, so-called 'Christians' voided God's civil laws [those for running society until Messiah comes]; they voided them, repealed them, annuled them, abolished them, slandered them as a "curse," declared them (!!) 'done away.'
“The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application—laws essential to the existence of men in society,” said U.S. President John Quincy Adams, Letters of John Quincy Adams, to His Son, on the Bible and Its Teachings (Auburn: James M. Alden, 1850), p. 61.
“We might rest [base] the demonstration [proof] of a divine inspiration of the Pentateuch [Bible Society Management Laws] in no small degree on the supernatural benevolence and wisdom of those laws,” says a rare honest clergyman, Rev. George B. Cheever, D.D., God Against Slavery (Cincinnati: Am. Reform Tract and Book Society, 1857), 
At that time no works of religious art were more admired than those of [Dutch painter] Ary Scheffer [1795-1858], and not one of his more than his wonderful and deeply affecting "Christus Consolator."
See also the biography, Parker Pillsbury: Radical Abolitionist, Male Feminist, by