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 Copy 2 
 
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Class E.4* ! 
 
 Book ^ 4— 
 
i, 
 
SPEECH 
 
 ON THE 
 
 SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 GENERAL ASSEMBLY 
 
 WHICH MET IN DETROIT IN MAY LAST, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH C. STILES. 
 
 °f WASHINGTON: 
 
 RINTER BY JNO. T. TOWERS. 
 
 1850. 
 

 
SPEECH. 
 
 Mr. Moderator: — On this long-vexed question, at this very 
 moment menacing more than ever the rupture of Church and 
 State, permit me to express my strong conviction that he argues 
 most cogently who argues most kindly. May I be assisted to re- 
 member this. I shall express myself with the earnestness of fresh 
 investigation, but I beseech my brethren to interpret all my lan- 
 guage as uttered under the conviction of ultimate fallibility, 
 whatever may be the seeming confidence of the moment. Espe- 
 cially does it become me to cherish this remembrance when I call 
 to mind that the South is the land of my birth, and the home of 
 my kindred, and may well therefore be exerting a present influ- 
 ence over my judgment of which I am altogether unconscious. 
 
 The Memorialists complain of the Southern Church, and charge 
 her, not so much with slave-making, nor with slave-trading, as 
 with s\a,ve-holding. They direct the attention of the Assembly 
 to the character of this institution, and inquire concerning the 
 method of its expulsion from the Presbyterian Body. 
 
 Two solemn questions demand our investigation : 
 
 What is the moral character of slaveholding ? 
 What the duties of the parties concerned ? 
 
 FIRST. THE MORAL CHARACTER OF SLAVEHOLDING? 
 
 It need hardly be stated that he who exerts a compulsory au- 
 thority over a human being as a master, who holds a fellow-man 
 in the relation of involuntary servitude, is the party implicated 
 in the charge. 
 
 Let it be premised that in this investigation we are bound to 
 regard slaveholding in its most favorable aspect. Who are before 
 us ? The Southern Public at large 1 No, sir ! We have nothing 
 to do with it. It is the membership and the ministry of the Pres- 
 byterian Church who stand accused. They are our brethren and 
 uncondemned. We are bound therefore in Christian justice to 
 consider them as carrying out this relation with all the good feel- 
 ing and principle of which its nature will admit. 
 
 The Memorialists affirm that slaveholding is sin. 
 
 If it is simply intended that slaveholding, in the language of the 
 Majority Report, " leads to sin," I am prepared to yield my hearty 
 assent. In the master, slaveholding insensibly tends to breed in- 
 dolence, pride, impatience, irritability, hard-heart edn ess, and arbi- 
 trary temper. It tends to make the servant discontented, deceitful, 
 
6 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 and dishonest ; to break down every high motive to general in- 
 dustry, as well as to all intellectual and moral culture. It saps 
 the energies of a community, discourages personal enterprise, and 
 perils universal peace. Yet while the moral bearings of slave- 
 holding do, in general, lie in this direction, it should be conceded 
 that this relation does frequently present the most amiable testi- 
 monies of mutual affection and fidelity, on the part of master and 
 servant. Nay ! strange as it may seem, I am persuaded that 
 there exists more love and confidence between the two races at 
 the South than at the North. 
 
 The sinful tendency of slaveholding, however, is not all that 
 our brethren would express by the language employed. They 
 charge that slaveholding is sin per se, sin in itself, nothing but sin. 
 They insist that he who holds this relation for a moment, thereby 
 sins ; that every act of a master's authority over his servant is can 
 act of oppression ; in fine, that there is no law from heaven appli- 
 cable to this relation but the law of immediate abolition. This, 
 in general, will be conceded to be a fair statement of the views 
 of the Memorialists. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, this method of expression I am not prepared to 
 adopt, and must beg leave respectfully to say, that in my judg- 
 ment, the proposition which affirms that slaveholding is essentially 
 sinful is overthrown, first, by a simple statement of the facts in the 
 case, and again by a just view of every argument adduced to sup- 
 port it. 
 
 First. Statement of the case. 
 
 Slaveholding is an existing relation between man and man. 
 We hold it true of human relations, that there are three grand 
 moral grades: one purely virtuous, another purely vicious, and a 
 third of a compound nature. 
 
 A relation perfectly virtuous is marked by the five following 
 criteria: — 1. It is directly planned by God for the good of man. 
 2. Its moral bearings are decidedly salutary. 3. Christianity can, 
 and does, coalesce with it, i. e., it acts in and through it. 4. Chris- 
 tianity can, and does, regulate it. 5. Christianity will but im- 
 prove it to the close of time. The relations of parent and child, 
 of husband and wife, illustrate this class. 
 
 The characteristics of a relation perfectly sinful are the follow- 
 ing: — I. It is expressly forbidden by God. 2. Its moral bearings 
 are decidedly injurious. 3. Christianity cannot coalesce with it. 
 4. Christianity cannot regulate it. 5. Christianity in its progress 
 will surely do it away. Professional thieves — associated pirates 
 illustrate this class. 
 
 There exists also such a state of things in human society as a 
 mixed relation. In the sense above described, it is neither purely 
 virtuous on the one hand, nor purely vicious on the other, but 
 partakes of the properties of both. 
 
 Now under which of these categories shall we place the rela- 
 tion of slaveholding? Certainly not under the first head. As 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 7 
 
 clearly not under the second. Palpably under the third. Observe 
 two facts. Slaveholding does not bear the first and capital mark 
 either of relations perfectly virtuous, or of those perfectly vicious. 
 It was not planned by God on the one hand, neither is it expressly 
 forbidden by God on the other. Again, slaveholding equally di- 
 vides the four remaining characteristics of each class. It lacks 
 two of the essential marks of relations perfectly pure, viz : virtu- 
 ous bearing, and permanency under the gospel ; but possesses the 
 remaining two, viz.: co-existence with the gospel (i. e., the mas- 
 ter's exercise of compulsory authority may be a duty discharged,) 
 and regulation by it, (i. e., the gospel does lay down rules to guide 
 the conduct both of the master and the slave.) In like manner 
 slaveholding possesses two essential marks of relations perfectly 
 sinful, viz.: vicious bearing, and disappearance under the progress 
 of the gospel ; while it clearly lacks the two remaining essential 
 properties of such relations — impossible coincidence with the gos- 
 pel, and impossible regulation by it. 
 
 I apprehend that this statement of truth few men will dispute. 
 In general, mankind will promptly admit, first, that in moral 
 character, human relations are threefold, good, bad, and mixed ; 
 second, that slaveholding belongs to the third category, and not 
 to the first, or second — in a word, that in morality, slaveholding 
 stands between such relations as parent and child, and husband 
 and wife, on the one hand, and such relations as banded thieves 
 and murderers on the other. 
 
 If these be facts, then without argument, upon a mere state- 
 ment of the case, it appears that slaveholding, as a relation, is not 
 sinful in itself. Consequently Southern brethren are not obnox- 
 ious to church discipline simply because they do not instantly 
 adopt Abolition principles. 
 
 In weighing this statement of the case, permit me to say, 
 
 1st. Our Abolition brethren should not aggrieve us who hold 
 more moderate principles, by the misstatement of our moral esti- 
 mate of this relation. It does seem to us that by the law of un- 
 righteous position, of inordinate feeling, in their ordinary state- 
 ment of our sentiments our brethren are unconsciously impelled 
 to wrong our principles in order to justify their own. We do not 
 hold (as we are often said to do) that slaveholding is either a 
 Bible institution or that it receives God's high sanction. On the 
 contrary, unlike every such institution, it was not planned by 
 God, does not naturally tend to the good of society, and will as- 
 suredly fall before the gospel. It will break half their opposition, 
 if our brethren will think and speak of our sentiments as we 
 think and speak of the subject. 
 
 2d. Our Abolition brethren should sustain us by the prompt ad- 
 mission that slaveholding is a relation which God in the Scrip- 
 tures does certainly recognize and regulate. We hold that slave- 
 holding, unlike relations purely sinful, is not expressly prohibited 
 by God, but does consist with the spirit, principle, and practice of 
 
8 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 Christianity, so far at least that God does certainly prescribe the 
 duties which become the parties in this relation. It will throw 
 our brethren largely into sympathy with us if they will bind them- 
 selves on every hand to concede this undeniable truth, viz.: If 
 slavery is not a regular institution of the Bible, it is a scripturally 
 regulated relation amongst men. 
 
 3d. If such are the moral characteristics of this relation that 
 God neither sanctions it as an institution of his own, nor yet pro- 
 hibits it as a relation sinful per se, then it is perfectly reasonable 
 that a state of human society, so peculiar, should receive a pecu- 
 liar treatment at his hand. This it certainly does. On the one 
 hand, he does not enjoin it upon men to form this relation ; on the 
 other, he does not tear societ}*to atoms by demanding its immedi- 
 ate abolition. On the contrary, wherever it exists, he imposes 
 rules upon the parties which, if observed, will gradually work it 
 off amongst the things that were, and meanwhile contribute to 
 accomplish a grand providential end, by giving exercise to some 
 of the most singular and beautiful shapes of the Christian prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 4th. In view of this statement, you may infer the response 
 which should be given to an inquhy so frequently, solemnly, and 
 confidently propounded in this Assembly: "Is slavery right, or is 
 it wrong? If this inquiry respects the relation of slavery, we an- 
 swer : It is neither wholly right, nor wholly wrong. There is right 
 about it, and there is wrong about it. It has no such right as 
 would sanction its enrollment on the catalogue of Bible institu- 
 tions. It involves no such wrong as should constrain God to 
 inflict upon it the anathemas directed against theft and murder. 
 If the question respects this or that act of slaveholding, we are 
 ready to reply: If the act is performed in obedience to any one of 
 the rules which God has prescribed for the conduct of the master, 
 like any other act of obedience to God, it is right. If the act is 
 performed in violation of any such rule, like any other act of 
 disobedience to God, it is wrong. If the question respects the 
 character of this or that slaveholder, we answer: If the master in 
 question holds his servant in any such spirit, or with any such 
 aims, as permit and. prompt him to obey the spirit of the rules 
 enjoined upon the master in the Word of God, he is an innocent, 
 a worthy master. If he holds him in an opposite spirit and for 
 opposite ends, he is neither a worthy nor an innocent master. 
 
 We repeat, therefore, upon an intelligent statement of the 
 case at large, it is hard to conceive how any candid person could 
 adjudge that the simple fact of holding slaves constitutes our 
 Southern brethren such "prima facie sinners" ;is makes it the 
 iluU dI' this Assembly, as far as its authority extends, to enjoin 
 forthwith the commencement of criminal process against them, 
 throughout the length and breadth of the Church. 
 
 If the statement of the case does not carry our brethren with 
 us, then, Mr. Moderator, I respond: 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. V 
 
 Second. In my judgment, the arguments advanced to establish 
 the entire sinfulness of the relation of master and servant, fairly 
 examined, disprove the proposition which they would set up. 
 
 The reasons advanced by opposing brethren on this floor, may 
 be grouped under the five following heads : — 
 
 I. The Liberty Argument 
 
 May be stated thus : God has made every man so far free, that no 
 one man has a natural right to exercise compulsory authority over 
 another. The master does exercise such authority ; therefore he 
 sins. The delect of the argument lies in the erroneous statement 
 of the major proposition. The fact is, the negation of a natural 
 right of control over others is not absolute but qualified. The 
 argument, you observe, requires the absolute form of statement, 
 viz.: that every exercise of compulsory authority is a violation of 
 natural right. Inordinate feeling, I apprehend, is the parent of 
 this error. By this phrase — inordinate feeling — I mean such a 
 state of mind as cannot justify itself by the facts of the case, and 
 therefore unconsciously forces the intellect to sustain its extrava- 
 gance, by one of two processes — either by incorporating with the 
 subject elevating properties which do not belong to it, or by sep- 
 arating from it depreciating circumstances which do attach to it. 
 Now inordinate sympathy with the supposed wrongs of the slave — 
 how readily it rises, and when roused how impetuously it heaves 
 to inflict some palpable and flagrant condemnation upon the 
 offender ! How shall this be done ? The fact is, the face of 
 society presents, a diversified catalogue of cases wherein one 
 man exercises compulsory control over another, and thus coun- 
 tenances the right of the master. To sustain itself, inordinate 
 anti-slavery excitement boldly strikes off the whole series of 
 qualifying circumstances, and states the case absolutely. But 
 clearly in this shape it is a misstatement. Who questions the 
 rightful authority of the parent over the child, the guardian over 
 the ward, the principal over the apprentice, the keeper over the 
 lunatic, the jailor over the convict, and the governor over the 
 subject ? The Liberty argument, you perceive, is a failure. God 
 has not made man so free that no one man has a right to exer- 
 cise a compulsory authority over another. The statement must 
 be qualified, and when you qualify it properly, you will find that 
 it gives a stronger countenance to this disputed relation than 
 would at first be imagined. 
 
 I am prepared now to affirm, that the doctrine of Human 
 Rights, properly understood, rather establishes the master's au- 
 thority over the servant. I am free to concede, I know no direct 
 right of the master. Where shall we find the basis of such a 
 right? Not in any such inferior physical and intellectual struc- 
 ture of the African as indicates God's purpose to subject him to 
 the permanent dominion of his superior neighbor; not in that 
 original curse of God which consigned the descendants of Canaan 
 
10 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 to eternal servitude to the posterity of his brethren ; not in the 
 fact that the forfeiture of the captive's life on the battle-field 
 works a forfeiture of his own liberty and that of his posterity for- 
 ever ; not in the payment of a valuable consideration for the ser- 
 vices of the slave ; not in the authority of the law to convert him 
 into a chattel; not in the custom of good men to treat him thus, 
 and call it right ; not in your inability to discover what advan- 
 tage could accrue to the slave from immediate abolition. No ! 
 Mr. Moderator ! every such basis of the master's claim I utterly 
 discard. Where then shall we find in nature a competent foun- 
 dation for the power which the master exercises ? We shall find 
 it, I apprehend, largely in the shape of an obligation upon the 
 master, resulting from a natural right in the person of the slave. 
 
 Human rights I take to be summarily three. 1st. The right of 
 existence. Life is the gift of God, and operates a right of exist- 
 ence against all save Him who bestows it. This right involves 
 a reasonable use of all the faculties and powers of the subject. 
 2d. A right of happiness. The Creator has surrounded man with 
 every object suited to refresh the desires of his nature, and thus 
 invests him with a right of indulgence, a right of happiness. 3d. 
 A right of supervision. God, in creation and providence, fre- 
 quently places man in a state of dependence wherein the enjoy- 
 ment of his natural rights can never be reached without progres- 
 sive development, under competent supervision. This indicates 
 a right of supervision. Such a right is universally felt to result 
 from the coincidence of three things. Let there exist an inca- 
 pacity of self-government, which renders its exercise mischievous 
 to the parties and to society, and for which God in creation or 
 providence has appointed a guardianship, and all men will feel 
 that every such human being has a right to wise and kind super- 
 vision. A child by nature has no power of self-government. Left 
 to self-direction, a child will surely injure itself and all about it. 
 God in the constitution of things has made provision for its neces- 
 sity in the parental relation. Were there no other basis than 
 this, all men would feel that the child was entitled to supervision 
 at the hand of his parent. There results, of course, to the parent, 
 aright of authority over the child. So upon the death of the 
 parent, and the legal appointment of a guardian, all men feel the 
 right of supervision on the one side, and of control on the other. 
 So also in the case of the apprentice, of the lunatic, of the con- 
 vict, and of the subject. In each of these cases there is for the 
 time being a natural or moral incompetency of self-government ; 
 in each case, self-government exercised would seriously damage 
 the subject and the community; and in each case God has indi- 
 cated a governing superior. Now it would seem impossible for 
 the human mind to withhold its assent from this truth, viz. : that 
 in each of these cases, these three things constitute a clear right 
 in the inferior to kind and wise management, and consequently 
 confer an indisputable authority on the superior to exercise such, 
 control. 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 11 
 
 I hold now, Mr. Moderator, that these three things are equally 
 applicable to the case in hand. 1st. The slave is incapable of 
 self-government. As a general remark who doubts this? 2d. 
 The sudden release of the slave from the accustomed direction of 
 the master, would produce irreparable mischiefs to himself and to 
 society. Who questions this? 3d. God has pointed to the party 
 who is to exercise control over him. This too is undeniable. 
 Now as in each of the other cases, so in this, these three circum- 
 stances lay the basis of a right of supervision on the part of the 
 servant, and of course, of control on the part of the master. 
 Dispute this position ; carry out your principle. The children of 
 this generation rise up in mass, assert that God made them as 
 free as their parents, demand immediate absolution from all au- 
 thority, and set out at once to exercise unrestricted self-govern- 
 ment. Does not every eye see, that the child's ignorance of him- 
 self, of those who lie in wait to destroy, of the consequences of 
 right and wrong conduct, <fcc, &c, — his utter incapacity to sup- 
 port, instruct, direct, or defend himself, — in a word, his incessant, 
 invisible, unavoidable temptations to an indolent and profligate 
 life, would make enlargement from parental control the severest 
 curse which could be inflicted upon himself and society, and for 
 this reason, the most unrighteous act the parent could perform ? 
 Mark the analogy in the case of the slave and that of the child. 
 1st. There is in the framework of society an existing practical 
 guardianship. 2d. The slave is just as incompetent to guide, 
 support, and protect himself; just as much exposed to indolence, 
 sensuality and imposition ; and just as certain, freed from the 
 master's supervision, to inflict upon himself and society the most 
 disquieting and outrageous mischiefs. Now would it be right to 
 cast the reins upon his neck and turn him loose, — right to him- 
 self, — right to community ? Above all things, I ask, what does 
 the child, what does the slave need ? Surely, wise and kind su- 
 pervision, until he can be educated to take care of himself, to 
 enjoy his liberty. This is a boon of which he stands in perishing 
 need. By the law of love, therefore, it is duty not to withhold 
 this supervision and leave him to perish, but in efficient wisdom 
 and philanthropy to exercise it. 
 
 I hold, Mr. Moderator, that this is by far the most exalted, nay, 
 the only perfect law of Human Rights. In the language of the 
 Majority Report, " The laws of guardianship" and " the demands 
 of humanity''' clothe it with an impregnable endorsement. Deny 
 this view of the subject, and the end of natural liberty is denied 
 to one-half of the human family. Carry out this doctrine faith- 
 fully, and all our brethren who are now incompetent to enjoy 
 their natural rights are put under a benign supervision, which 
 provides the best present substitute for the privation, and secures 
 the ultimate beneficial possession of their liberties at the earliest 
 period. 
 
 In weighing this view of the Liberty argument, should my bro- 
 ther object : 
 
12 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 1st. That the parental relation is not slavery, the relation of 
 guardian and ward is not slavery, of the lunatic and his keeper 
 is not slavery, &c. &c, — I answer, the argument asserts no such 
 thing. There are differences, of course, in different objects. The 
 argument simply inquires, first, whether there is not an agree- 
 ment in three certain things ; and second, whether those three 
 things do not lay the basis of a right of supervision, on the one 
 hand, and of control on the other. 
 
 2d. That masters at the South do not hold their slaves by any 
 such benignant lien as my doctrine supports ; — I admit the fact 
 that very many do not. And here let me say, that in the sequel 
 I hope to secure as frank an admission on his part, that the num- 
 ber of masters who do hold some such views on this subject, is 
 vastly greater than he had hitherto supposed. 
 
 3d. Should he object again, that my doctrine of natural rights 
 does not sustain the doctrine of eternal servitude, I readily grant 
 it, and am free for one to say, that I hold no such doctrine. And 
 now I trust that my objecting brother will be as prompt to con- 
 cede, that the view presented certainly does overthrow his doc- 
 trine of sin per se, since his principle imperatively demands im- 
 mediate abolition, whereas mine demonstrates in the master an 
 indisputable authority for the time being. 
 
 The Liberty argument ! I put it to you, Mr. Moderator, whe- 
 ther it does not fight against its author ? 
 
 II. Scripture Argument. 
 
 Mr. Moderator: How does Scripture teach that slaveholding is 
 sin ? Where is the text 1 It is my deep conviction, sir, that al- 
 most as invariably as a religious assembly has entered upon a 
 formal discussion of the question before this house, many a sober 
 inquirer after truth has been impressed with profound surprise by 
 two things : The readiness of our Abolition brethren to deal out 
 their abhorrence of the man who would prostitute the Scriptures 
 to the abetting of any doctrine on this subject save that of abo- 
 lition, and yet the extreme reluctance with which they themselves 
 come square up to the Scriptures. Mr. Moderator, 1 am sensible 
 of no inconsidcration when I bear this testimony — that in all the 
 discussions I ever remember to have heard on this subject, private 
 or public, this bas appeared to me in general a characteristic fea- 
 ture : Few who hold extreme doctrines attempt a Scripture ar- 
 gument, and those who do rarely reach the Word of God. Nor 
 can I deny, sir, that our present debate would seem to have moved 
 along thus far in very good keeping with this description. One of 
 our excellent brethren in his Scriptural discussion avers that sla- 
 very in its moral bearings is a violation of the governmental 
 system of the Bible. This system develops the intelligence, the 
 morality, the dignity, the liberty, and the felicity of man ; but 
 slavery is unfriendly to such results. Another, in his Scriptural 
 argument, affirms that, in legal interpretation, we are to have de- 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 13 
 
 cisive reference to the grand spirit and principle of the law ; and 
 all seeming exceptions should be disposed of, if possible, so as not 
 to violate this radical characteristic. Now since the spirit and 
 principle of Scripture law is love, slavery must of course be a vio- 
 lation of it. I have stated the substance of the views of the 
 speakers to the best of my recollection ; and if these brethren 
 came nearer to the Scriptures, or any others approached as closely, 
 I do not remember it. Why is it that complainants seeking to 
 establish a charge of sin seem so strangely compelled to keep at 
 arm's length from God's Word, the only standard of sin 1 Let 
 not my brethren be displeased when I express my judgment that 
 it had been strange indeed if these good men had made freer use 
 of Holy Writ. I believe it to be true, Mr. Moderator, that the 
 Scriptural argument generally advanced to support the doctrine 
 of immediate abolition, sifted to its foundations, will be found to 
 be strictly anft-scriptural. In its capital features, I hold it to be 
 precisely that method of reasoning which sets aside the Bible and 
 lets in all heresy. It is, in one word, neither more nor less than 
 a surrender of the Divine declaration to human deduction. Scrip- 
 ture says, "The Lord our God is one L&rd." Therefore, says 
 human reason, God is not Three I But God himself advances, and 
 declares, I am " Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." What does that 
 man who objects still \ He surrenders the second Divine decla- 
 ration to his own deduction from the first, and becomes a Unita- 
 rian. Scripture says, " God is Love." Then, says human reason, 
 God will never destroy His own creature in hell for ever. 5ut 
 God responds, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." 
 What now 1 Why, he who objects still, discards the Divine de- 
 claration and stands upon his own deduction, and becomes a 
 Universalist. Scripture says, " God works in man to will." Then, 
 says human reason, " Man is not free." But God adds, " Work 
 out your salvation." And yet the reasoner objects still. Clearly 
 then he gives more credit to the inference of his own judgment 
 than to the direct declaration of the God of truth, and thus be- 
 comes a Fatalist. So exactly in the case in hand. Scripture 
 says God's law is love and justice, and by a thousand texts com- 
 mands every man to be equitable and benign in the treatment of 
 his neighbor. " Therefore," say our brethren, " in view of this 
 great law of justice and mercy, no man can hold a slave and 
 please God." But stay ; God himself advances, and responds, 
 " Ye masters, while ye stand over your servants, do this and that 
 unto them, and you will please me." I ask my brethren, first, 
 whether this is not the clear voice of the New Testament ? I ask 
 again, if they still insist that he who holds a slave, do what he 
 may, sins against God, whether they do not place more reliance 
 upon their own judgment than upon God's knowledge ? Whether 
 they do not sacrifice God's teaching to their own reasoning ? If 
 they do, then the Scripture argument of Abolitionism is anti- 
 scriptural. 
 
14 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 I know of but two classes of texts employed by opposing breth- 
 ren. 
 
 The first is positive, and may be summed up in the second table 
 of the law : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." There 
 is perhaps no one word of Scripture quoted with more confidence 
 on this subject than this form of the general commandment : " Do 
 unto others as ye would have others do unto you." One of our 
 brethren, doubtless in allusion to this passage, thus expresses him- 
 self : " My objection to slavery is this, I do not want to be a slave." 
 Had the Saviour said, " Do unto others in their circumstances as 
 you would have them do unto you in yours" the passage would 
 prove the doctrine it is brought to establish, but the world would 
 lose far more than the slave would gain. Such an interpretation 
 destroys all the wisdom and philanthropy of this noble text. This 
 word of Jesus Christ rather requires us to do unto others in their 
 circumstances as we would have them do unto us were we in the 
 same. As I am, like my brother, I do not desire to be a slave. But 
 were I in the place of the slave, — on the one hand destitute of all 
 competent capacity to support, protect, or guide myself ; on the 
 other, subjected to the authority of a superior, who managed me 
 largely that he might ultimately develop my power to serve God, 
 man, and myself to higher advantage, — then I am prepared to 
 say I would desire to be a slave. This whole class of passages 
 therefore, properly interpreted, sustains the relation as I have at- 
 tempted to explain it. 
 
 The second class is negative, and is summed up in this senti- 
 ment : "Thou shalt not oppress thy neighbor." The power of 
 this class of passages is destroyed by the application of a well 
 known rule of interpretation, viz.: General laws are always to 
 give way to Particular laws. The reason is obvious. You reach 
 the will of the legislator more surely through his own language, 
 expressed in the Particular law, than you do through your infer- 
 ence concerning his will, drawn from his words in the General 
 law. In the formation of a General law, the eye of the legislator 
 passes over a large field of particulars, and without resting on 
 any one of them for a moment, employs itself in comparing this 
 general truth with, other general truths, that he may mark their 
 distinguishing features. Now it is only through an interpreter's 
 inference that you cover any particular case by the General law. 
 Whenever therefore the legislator himself takes up any particular 
 case and expresses himselfthereupon, most surely you arc not now 
 to go back to your inferences from the General law. You have 
 express evidence of his will. General laws of course always find 
 their interpretation in the special laws enacted upon the same 
 subject. Now, Mr. Moderator, I call upon my brethren to say 
 whether God in the New Testament does not treat of this precise 
 relation of master and servant ; whether he does not in his own 
 language bring up a great variety of supposed acts on the part 
 of the master to the slave and of the slave to the master; whether 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 15 
 
 he does not explicitly express himself touching his own estimate 
 of the moral character of these acts ? Mr. Moderator, through 
 you I do beseech my brethren to give me an explicit response to 
 this question : So far from announcing to men that any act of a 
 master, as such, to a servant, as such, is an act of oppression, 
 does not God on the contrary most perspicuously and repeatedly 
 affirm that such and such acts of the master are what he would 
 have him do — are his duty — are what God himself deems not op- 
 pressive, but absolutely right to his fellow-men ? What then, sir, 
 have we, under law, to do with our inferences of oppression, when 
 the Ruler himself instructs us that these very miscalled acts of 
 oppression are but duty commanded, the very wisest, kindest, and 
 best acts in the circumstances the party can perform ; the very 
 acts which He, the Maker, calls for? 1 put it to you, Mr. Mod- 
 erator, whether the Scripture testimony relied upon to prove the 
 doctrine of sin per se is not an eminent failure? 
 
 You are prepared now to have me advance and say, that in 
 my judgment the Scriptures, properly interpreted, destroy the 
 doctrine of sin per se in the very manner in which it is held to 
 establish it. 
 
 Positively. It is an undeniable truth that God in the Old Tes- 
 tament authorizes the Jew to sustain the relation of a master to 
 his heathen slave. 
 
 In the 25th chapter of Leviticus, God contrasts at length two 
 classes of servants — Jewish and heathen. He ordains that they 
 occupy different grades. The Jewish servant is to receive the 
 treatment of an hired servant. "As an hired servant he shall be 
 with thee." The heathen servant is to receive the treatment of 
 a slave. " Thy bondmen and thy bondmaids shall be of the 
 heathen." Two points of contrast are clearly laid down. First, 
 the Jewish servant was redeemable by himself or his kinsmen at 
 any time. " One of his brethren may redeem him, or if he be 
 able he may redeem himself." The heathen servant was not re- 
 deemable. " Tbey shall be your possession." Second, the Jewish 
 servant must be released at the jubilee. " He shall go out in the 
 year of jubilee, both he and his children with him." The heathen 
 servant was not to be released at the jubilee. " Ye shall take 
 them as an inheritance for your children after you." 
 
 I readily admit that God in the laws of Moses furnishes various 
 indications of his compassion toward the slave, and some signs of 
 his unwillingness to look with permanent favor upon this institu- 
 tion ; and yet, as a general regulation for the time being, it is an 
 indisputable fact that God does here recognize and authorize the 
 relation of master and bondman. "They shall be your bondmen 
 for ever." 
 
 Now the question arises : Can the holding of a divinely-autho- 
 rized relation be a sin per se ? Can obedience and sin co-exist ? 
 My brother responds, " There are Christian sinners as well as 
 other sinners." Mr. Moderator, my brother's mind in this Ian- 
 
16 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 guage does not come within sight of the argument. That Chris- 
 tianity, that obedience to God, can co-exist with sin in the man 
 everybody knows ; but this is heaven-wide of the case. Can 
 Christianity co-exist with sin in the act? That is the point. Can 
 obedience ri ake up a part of sin ? You say that slaveholding is 
 an act of sin. The Word of God here shows you that slaves were 
 held of old in obedience to a divine regulation. In what part of 
 an act of idolatry or an act of murder can you put obedience to 
 God ? If I mistake not, the teaching is — " These are contrary the 
 one to the other." If then obedience is not disobedience, and men 
 held slaves of old in obedience to Old Testament teaching, the 
 holding of a slave is not an act of sin. 
 
 Again: It is a Scripture fact that the New Testament recog- 
 nizes the relation of master and servant, and imposes reciprocal 
 duties upon the parties. Who questions this fact 1 It will not 
 be disputed that the Scriptures on the one hand command the 
 servant, in view of the master's claims, to "obey," to " honor," 
 and to "be subject" to him; " not despising him," " not answering 
 him back," not "purloining from him," &c; on the other, that 
 they enjoin it upon masters, in view of the claims of the servant, 
 to " do the same things unto them," especially to "give unto them 
 that which is just and equal," to "forbear threatening," and to 
 remember in all their treatment of their slaves that they too 
 " have a Master in heaven." 
 
 The argument upheld by this unquestionable Scripture fact 
 may be thus stated : What God commands man to do is not sin. 
 God commands man to do the duties of a master ; therefore the 
 man who discharges the prescribed duties of a master does not 
 sin. Against what point will you drive your objection to this ar- 
 gument ? Against the major proposition ? Surely not. Who 
 dares to say what God commands it is sin to do ? Against the 
 minor proposition? Surely not. Who will venture to affirm that 
 God does not lay commands upon the master touching his obliga- 
 tion to his servant ? Against the conclusion? Surely not. For 
 if he who follows God's commands is not a sinner, then the mas- 
 ter who follows God's commands does not sin. What will my 
 brethren do with this argument ? How can the doctrine of sin 
 per se and the doctrine of the New Testament stand together? 
 To hold a slave is a sin in itself. Yet God tells the master how 
 to hold his slave, and what to do with him. Can God tell a 
 creature how to commit sin ? Can a sin-hating God make rules 
 to direct the idolater, the murderer, the thief, in the work they 
 do? Can a sovereign God give rules to a subject to break his 
 own law ? How preposterous the position of our brethren ! The 
 whole controversy comes to this: If God has a right to give laws 
 to his creatures, the holding of slaves is not sin per se. 
 
 Negatively. Let it be premised that it lies at the basis of 
 every word of God to his creatures, that whatever is sin God 
 requires every soul to abandon instantly. The doctrine of our 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 17 
 
 brethren therefore, the doctrine, of sin-in-itself carries to every 
 slaveholder God's command of immediate abolition. Now, the 
 Bible, so far from requiring the instantaneous disruption of the 
 tie between master and servant, contemplates its continuance. 
 You may see this truth in the absence of all evidence of its 
 divine discontinuance. Had Christianity demanded the immedi- 
 ate abolition of this venerable, deep-seated, all-pervading feature 
 of the frame*- work of ancient society, there must have sprung up 
 a sudden, prodigious, and perilous domestic and political agita- 
 tion, which would have blazed out upon every record which 
 descended to us from primitive times. But we have not one 
 reliable word of any such revolution, either in Scripture precept 
 or narration, or in ecclesiastical or profane history. You may 
 see it in the presence of everything which would naturally indi- 
 cate the fact that Christianity did not abrogate this relation. 
 Here are God's commands to the parties respectively. Tell me, 
 how can a master or a servant do his duty except through the 
 existence of the relation itself? Here is the palpable tenor of 
 Scripture teaching. More than once on the holy page, God 
 states, seriatim, the duties of parent and child, the duties of hus- 
 band and wife, and the duties of master and servant. When 
 God states the duties of parents and children, he means surely 
 that the parties are to go forward discharging the same. So 
 when God prescribes the duties of husband and wife, he requires 
 the parties to go on and perform them. This you admit. Now 
 when God addresses the same species of commands to master 
 and servant, surely he intends that they too shall proceed to do 
 as he has commanded, i. e., he palpably contemplates the contin- 
 uance, not the disruption of the relation. Here, too, is the obvi- 
 ous force of Bible terms and phrases. Servants are more than 
 once commanded to obey their masters "in all things" The 
 multitude and diversity of acts of obedience which make up the 
 sum total of a servant's duty cannot be crowded into one 
 moment. To meet this necessity, therefore, the relation must 
 continue. The master too is commanded to do the " same 
 things" to his servant; and these same things are not one or two 
 acts of duty, but a multitude, and of course demand the preserva- 
 tion of the relation for the time being. " Let every man," says 
 the apostle, "abide in the same calling wherein he is called." 
 Conversion does not require a change in a man's natural, social, 
 or civil obligations. Abide contented in your condition, whether 
 married or single, whether bond or free. "Art thou called being 
 a servant? Care not for it." Continue contented in your rela- 
 tion to your earthly master, for you are the Lord's freeman. 
 This language clearly teaches the valid existence of the relation 
 after the conversion of the servant; while Paul's last word utter- 
 ly demolishes the allegation that primitive Christianity wrought 
 the immediate abolition of this institution : "But if thou maycst 
 be made free, use it rather" Certainly, the apostle says, " You 
 2 
 
18 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 are a slave. Well ! remain contented in your calling, and do 
 your duty. Should it happen however that Providence opens a 
 way whereby you may acquire your freedom, this on the whole 
 is a better state; avail yourself of it.'' Finally, here is the histo- 
 rical fact of the recognized existence and validity of this relation 
 naturally running along the sacred record through a continuous 
 period. In the year of our Lord 59 T Paul addresses his bond 
 brethren in the church of Corinth. In 60, Peter sends his instruc- 
 tions to the servants scattered through the churches of Asia 
 Minor. In 64, Paul calls up the attention of those who belong to 
 the churches of Ephesus, Colosse, and Philippi. And in 65, Paul 
 educates Timothy and Titus in the proper method of teaching 
 and exhorting the respective parties to this relation. 
 
 In view of this evidence, what intelligent mind can believe 
 for a moment that Christianity as administered by the apostles 
 did actually put to death the relation of master and servant, as 
 an institution too sinful to breathe under its eye? Such a 
 stroke had jarred the world, and its tremors had been felt to this 
 day, at least in the records which ^each us from earlier times. 
 But where is the testimony to any such occurrence? On the 
 contrary, there on the face of the sacred record stands ac- 
 knowledged, regulated slavery. God's commands to the parties 
 presuppose the existence of the relation, else the commands 
 themselves would not have been delivered ; and its valid con- 
 tinuance, else the created duties could not be discharged. God's 
 Word requires the parties to abide in the relation in which 
 Christianity finds them, describes a continuous obligation on both 
 sides, and speaks of the dissolution of the relation only as a pos- 
 sible occurrence; while God's ministers from church to church, 
 and from year to year, are found most solemnly dealing with 
 master and servant as variously bound to each other and deeply 
 responsible to God. 
 
 Thus, if I have rightly understood the Word of God, there is no 
 testimony upon its pages, either positive or negative, that slave- 
 holding is 6m per se ; but ample evidence, both negative and 
 positive, that the holding of a slave is not of necessity a sin. 
 
 1 put it to you, Mr. Moderator, whether the Scripture argu- 
 ment of our brethren, fairly investigated, like the argument from 
 Natural Liberty, does not recoil upon its author and overthrow 
 the doctrine it was enlisted to establish? 
 
 III. The Historical Argument. 
 
 Our brethren contend that the divine imposition of reciprocal 
 duties upon master and servant, in the New Testament, does not 
 protect slaveholding from the charge of sin per se, because, 
 
 I. 1 1 is an historical fact that there were no slates in the primi- 
 tive Church; that the Greek terms translated in our version 
 "servant," do not mean "slave," but freed-servant. 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 19 
 
 I apprehend, Mr. Moderator, it will be no easy task to set aside 
 the adverse testimony already elicited from the Scriptures in the 
 discussion of previous topics. But let us examine this argument 
 on its own merits. 
 
 I affirm that the cardinal rules of interpretation indisputably 
 fix the current import of the disputed terms, i. e., the New Testa- 
 ment "servant" was a slave. 
 
 1st. Words are to be understood in their most known and usu- 
 al signification. Consult every cotemporaneous Greek writer, 
 every lexicographer, commentator and Biblical critic, and there 
 would be assembled a harmonious mass of testimony in favor of 
 the popular import of these terms, which would probably silence 
 the most prejudiced opponent. 
 
 2d. Words are to be defined by reference to their connection. 
 Again, words are of course to be explained in view of their use 
 in different passages. Still again, words are to be understood in 
 reference to the nature of the subject about which they are em- 
 ployed. These three rules are identical in their application to 
 the case in point. Group together all the predicates of the term 
 "servant" in the New Testament, collect all the commands, pro- 
 hibitions, and admonitions addressed to this person, and we shall 
 find that the Scriptures seem to describe the state and character 
 of the slave with great clearness, and to prescribe for it with 
 great address. 
 
 Every condition in life has its peculiar besetments. Those of 
 the slave are strongly marked. 
 
 The first peculiar temptation of the slave is, to serve from ne- 
 cessity only, and therefore without conscience toward God. His 
 condition strongly tempts him to feel that in truth there is no 
 moral obligation in the case ; no, not even to his Maker. Now 
 the Scriptures see this, and multiply such injunctions as the fol- 
 lowing: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters 
 according to the flesh, in singleness of heart as unto Christ." 
 "As the servant of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart." 
 " Doing service as to the Lord and not to men." Knowing that 
 God will amply reward your fidelity. 
 
 The second peculiar temptation of the slave is to serve from 
 necessity only, and therefore without love to his master. His 
 seeming to receive so small a benefit from his labors, naturally 
 unites with other influences to indispose him to work with a kind 
 and cheerful heart. The Scriptures see this, and meet the neces- 
 sity of the case by imposing upon servants such commands as 
 these: "Count your masters worthy of all honor; despise them 
 not, because they are brethren ; rather do them service, because 
 they are faithful and beloved partakers of the (benefits;" "Serve 
 them in singleness of heart;" "Please them in all things;" 
 "With good will doing service." 
 
 The third peculiar temptation is this: He never serves when 
 he can help it, and will only pretend to serve when this is neces- 
 
20 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 sary to secure him from the displeasure of his superior. The 
 Scriptures see this, and thus admonish the servant: "Obey not 
 with eye-service.''' Mark here, first, lack of principle. There i» 
 no conscience toward God, no love of his master, nothing to rouse 
 him to labor until the eye of his master falls upon him. Again, 
 fearfulness and pretense. The eye of the master starts him to' 
 serve, and always with an air as though he had not been idle^ 
 How strikingly does the slave fill out this description. Who that 
 has lived in a slave-land does not instantly recall times and occa- 
 sions without number or description, in which he has first seen 
 the lounging slave, and then the instant motive power of the 
 master's eye, at least upon his frame ? No wonder the Scrip- 
 tures repeat the injunction, il not with eye-service.'' Again, the 
 Scriptures admonish servants to obey their masters, " not as men- 
 pleasers." They seem to say, 'Do not feel that you have accom- 
 plished every end if you have simply kept the man, the master, 
 from being displeased with you.' He who is familiar with the 
 practical operation of slavery, will not be surprised that the 
 Scriptures repeat the injunction, "not as men-plea sers." 
 
 The fourth peculiar temptation is this : The slave serves with 
 his body when he must, and lets out the rebellion of his heart 
 when he may. The Scriptures see this, and command servants, 
 " Count your masters worthy of all honor." " Be subject to them 
 with all fear." There is a profound respect indicated in this lan- 
 guage which hardly befits any existing relation between freemen, 
 but well becomes the more humble and dependent condition of the 
 slave. The Scriptures add, "not answering again." Sound 
 judgment, I apprehend, discovers some lack of propriety in the 
 application of such a precept to the dignity and rights of a free- 
 man, though a servant ; while it must appreciate its consummate 
 importance to him who is the most dependent of all men. The 
 Scriptures impose a deeper humiliation upon the servant, and 
 command him to obey his master ''with fear and trembling.'" 
 That such an injunction should be addressed to a freeman is in- 
 conceivable ; even to him who occupies the most abject admissi- 
 ble state among men it would seem to be a very strong prescrip- 
 tion. But Scripture advances still one step further, and enjoins 
 it upon the servant when " butleted," and not " for your faults, to 
 take it patiently;" yes ! and go on to serve even "the froward." 
 None other counsel than this can be addressed to the slave in view 
 of the necessities of his condition ; but to require a freeman when 
 buffeted unrighteously to submit to it with patience, and continue 
 in the service of the 1'roward, is what I judge no man interprets 
 the Bible to teach. 
 
 The last temptation of the slave is to feel that since his master 
 will not, pay him for his labor when he ought, he may pay him- 
 self when he can. 1 suspect it is naturally an underground pub- 
 lic sentiment in every community of slaves, that there is no theft 
 in taking from the master. Little pilfering, apart from the power 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 21 
 
 of the gospel, will be very apt to prevail where slavery exists. 
 The Scriptures see this and say, Obey your masters " not pur- 
 loining."* 
 
 By the rule of interpretation now under discussion, the disputed 
 word "servant" must find its definition in the nature of the sub- 
 ject which it is employed to express. We have the description of 
 the subject full before us in the Scripture. I affirm that herein 
 the Bible describes the qualities and circumstances of the slave, 
 because, as we have seen, every appeal of the Scriptures speaks 
 with singular application to the peculiarities of his character and 
 condition. I affirm that the Bible does not describe the free ser- 
 vant, because there is no peculiar basis in his character or state 
 for any one of all the Scriptural commands addressed to the ser- 
 vant. A freeman serves whom he chooses, as long as he chooses, 
 and for what he chooses ; he is paid for his labor, and loses em- 
 ployment if he is not diligent, skilful, and respectful. There is 
 nothing therefore in his condition which naturally impels him to 
 serve either without conscience toward God or kindness toward 
 man, or which gives such power to the master's eye ; nothing 
 which peculiarly exposes him either to deception or discontent or 
 dishonesty ; nothing that demands either a trembling service or 
 abject submission to injurious treatment. 
 
 3d. Another rule of interpretation requires us, when one leg of 
 an antithesis is ascertained, to go to its opposite for the other. Of 
 the Scriptural servant the apostle says; "If thou mayest be made 
 free." What is the present state of that servant who is to be 
 made free ? It would seem rather hard to escape the blunt force 
 of this passage, unless we could devise a process whereby a man 
 already occupying a certain state might still be put into the same. 
 Clearly, if at the time, the party was out of a state of freedom he 
 was in a state of slavery. 
 
 4th. Words are always to be understood with reference to the 
 state of society in which they were spoken, its usages, prejudices, 
 &c. Now two things, I apprehend, all parties admit : First, That 
 the term servant, when literally employed by the tongue or pen 
 of an apostle, always fell among a people where slavery prevailed. 
 Again, the Greek terms translated servant in the New Testament, 
 in common parlance out of the Church, did always carry the idea 
 of slavery. These facts suggest two instructive inquiries. Did 
 there actually exist any considerable class of free domestics in 
 that state of society ? If there did, would the apostles address 
 them by terms universally applied to another and far more de- 
 graded "caste ? Dares any white man at the South look a man 
 of his own color in the face and call him "slave," and speak of 
 
 *I am not to be here understood as giving a portraiture of slavery at large. For what- 
 ever be the evils of this institution, in our own country slaves are generally a happy peo- 
 ple, and not greatly distinguished for immorality. I design simply to present those pecu- 
 liar temptations to vice in the slave, which would most naturally attract the legislation 
 of a moral governor, and thus furnish a key to the character addressed. 
 
22 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 his " master V The usages and prejudices of all slaveholding- 
 society are dead against any such signification of the word. 
 
 Finally, The opinions of the learned should always have weight 
 w r ith us. The uniform current of testimony from historians, gen- 
 ral scholars, and Biblical critics, settles the fact beyond contro- 
 versy, that there were slaves in the primitive Church. My brother 
 from Virginia, adverting to the favorable bearing of American 
 testimony on this subject, has reminded us of the sentiments of 
 two of our most distinguished scholars occupying very different 
 positions in the ecclesiastical world, Drs. Charming and Wayland. 
 Of the mass of favorable testimony beyond the waters, I will sim- 
 ply glance at the opinions of two still more eminent Biblical 
 students. Lardner argues against the authority of the so-called 
 " Apostolical Constitutions," because they provided such an un- 
 reasonable multitude of holidays for the slaves. To imagine that 
 so serious an encroachment upon the rights of the master would 
 have been tolerated for a moment in that state of society, he holds 
 to be perfectly absurd. You see his opinion. Hokne, in com- 
 menting upon 1 Tim. vi. 1, states the fact that one class of the 
 Pharisees taught that the proselyte in becoming a Jew abandoned 
 all his heathen relations, social, civil and natural. He supposes 
 it probable that this party would apply their doctrine to Christi- 
 anity, and contend that the convert on entering the Christian 
 Church left slavery behind him. He understands Paul in this 
 passage to strike at this class of primitive Abolitionists when he 
 taught this lesson : in order that blasphemy against the name of 
 God and his doctrine might, be averted, it is the duty of servants 
 under the yoke to count their masters worthy of all honor, love and 
 service. Nor did he hesitate to pronounce those early Abolition- 
 ists who "teach otherwise " ungodly, proud, ignorant, contentious, 
 and mischievous to the last degree ; persons to be avoided on ac- 
 count of their sentiments, spirit, and conduct. 
 
 It does not appear to me, Mr. Moderator, that I have passed by 
 any of the great ordinary rules for interpreting language, nor 
 travelled far to find them, nor forced their application to the sub- 
 ject. It would be strange indeed if all this body of principles 
 verily work the other way, and teach that a servant under the 
 yoke is a freeman above it. 
 
 II. But this historical argument finds a refuge in a second posi- 
 tion. Admit the existence of slavery under the eye of the apostles, 
 yet the peculiar abominations of our American system demand that 
 the Church should instantly and indignantly rise up and pronounce 
 it accursed of God. But what comparison is there between the 
 model n and the ancient institution ? By Roman law, slaves were 
 held "pro nullis, pro mortuis, pro quadrupedibus." The master 
 might force his slave to become a harlot, or a gladiator ; might 
 chastise him without limit as to method, severity, or continuance ; 
 might torture him at will for crime, caprice, or pleasure; nay, 
 might put him to death at any time, in any manner, for any pur- 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 
 
 23 
 
 pose, or for none. The distinctive Roman principle was this : That 
 a slave could not be injured by his master. I venture to affirm that 
 there is not an inch of ground in these United States where any- 
 one of this catalogue of cruelties could he inflicted without awa- 
 kening the instant vengeance both of law and public sentiment. 
 When men in our day cut up and feed out their slaves to give 
 their fish a richer flavor ; or sit at ease and enjoy themselves in 
 the excruciating tortures by which the slave gives up life before 
 their eyes ; or when the blood of hundreds in one sacrifice is shed 
 upon the grave of a departed kinsman in some sort of sympathy 
 wath his ghost, — it will not then be in season to speak of the pe- 
 cidiar excesses of slavery in our day. 
 
 I put it to you, Mr. Moderator, whether this Historical argu- 
 ment does not share the fate of its predecessors? If the apostles 
 did verily regard slavery in the days of ancient Rome as a domes- 
 tic relation which Christianity might regulate and Christians 
 might fill, what right has any uninspired disciple of Jesus to pro- 
 nounce this institution under the moderated features of our own 
 day, such an insufferable sin against God as demands its instan- 
 taneous abolition, be the consequences what they may ? 
 
 IV. The Progress Argument. 
 
 I should have been gratified to hear some more distinct state- 
 ment of the mode of reasoning relied upon under this head. 
 From the discussions rather of the lobbies of this house than of 
 the floor, as far as I have been able to understand the mind of 
 my brethren, the sentiment seems to be this: Ancient language 
 concerning slavery is inapplicable in our day, in view of the 
 greater light of modern times. The argument, I apprehend, they 
 would state thus : The divine withholdment of specific truth in 
 ancient times left the sin of slavery uncondemned. The provi- 
 dential impartation of greater light in our day calls upon us to 
 come out and condemn it. 
 
 Permit me to inquire whether the introduction of this topic 
 does not reduce the reasoner to an unwelcome alternative. If 
 his Scripture argument has foundations, and the Bible verily 
 teaches that slaveholding is sin per se, then this argument fails. 
 If the Progress argument has foundations, and Scripture has not 
 furnished any definite light upon the subject, then the Scripture 
 argument fails. Be this as it may, I invite your attention to three 
 answers to the reasoning under this head. 
 
 I. The argument has no foundations. The conclusion lacks a 
 premise. It is not true that decisive light touching the character 
 of this institution was withheld from the primitive Church. 
 
 1st. The end of my brother's argument would seem to forbid 
 this position. 
 
 I admit that God does withhold truth on various topics, and 
 for various reasons. For instance, when the mind is unprepared 
 to receive it through lack of intellectual developement. Paul 
 
24 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 would now lay down advanced principles of religion, but his 
 slow-learning brethren are not able to bear the teaching, and 
 he must needs still feed them with milk when they should be 
 living upon stronger diet. So when there is a lack of moral prepa- 
 ration through prejudice. Jesus did not at first disclose to his dis- 
 ciples the exact dignity of his person, the manner of his death, his 
 purposes touching the future relations of the Jews and Gentiles 
 to his Church, &c. &c. Offenses, too, of inferior criminality God 
 does sometimes comparatively wink at for a season, which at a 
 future time he fully exposes and condemns. I apprehend, how- 
 ever, that these offenses will always be found to be mala jjrohibita, 
 and that there is not, in all God's revelation to man, any approxi- 
 mation to the fact which this argument assumes. Here is a case 
 of sin per se, a case of the most flagrant enormity. God brings 
 it up again and again in the Old Testament and in the New, but 
 never, never to the close of the sacred canon reveals its true 
 character, and actually ceases to speak to man, leaving him to find 
 out as best he can, that this whole thing is a stench in his nos- 
 trils, and that he expels the perpetrator from the fellowship of 
 his people. I lay no great stress upon this point of evidence, yet 
 I would respectfully ask my brother whether there is not some- 
 thing like a quarrel between the first necessary fact of his Pro- 
 gress argument, viz., that God of old withheld from man his judg- 
 ment of the moral character of slaveiy, and the conclusion which 
 he builds his argument to sustain, viz., that slaveholding in itself 
 is an outrageous offense against God. 
 
 2d. The Scriptures emphatically forbid it. 
 
 What additional instructions upon this subject could have been 
 reasonably expected in God's Word? It cannot be denied that 
 the institution of slavery is made the subject of deliberate and 
 systematic regulation, both in the Old Testament and in the New ; 
 that, in both, the relative duty of the respective parties, the mo- 
 tives by which they are to be actuated, the spirit they are to cul- 
 tivate, the ends they are to seek, the temptations they are to avoid, 
 the final account to which they are held, and the solemn retribu- 
 tion they must expect, are all stated and discussed with ordinary 
 perspicuity. Now if the Progress argument is true, and God has 
 withheld reasonable instructions concerning the character of this 
 relation, on what topics, I ask, has God given us what might be 
 termed a reasonable degree of information ? I venture to affirm 
 that the whole catalogue of social relations, husband and wife, 
 parent and child, brother and sister, ruler and subject, pastor and 
 people, &c., scarce furnishes a solitary instance of more perspicu- 
 ous, definite, frequent, or extended Scripture teaching. One fact 
 every eye accustomed to overlook the holy page will promptly re- 
 cognize, namely, that this doctrine of master and servant is fre- 
 quently brought up by holy writers in immediate connection with 
 the most clearly defined and important human relations, and not 
 only treated as to general method precisely as they are, but not 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 25 
 
 unfrequently with decidedly greater particularity and elaboration. 
 I put it to you, Mr. Moderator, whether this argument does not 
 fail at its foundations? It sets out with the allegation that God 
 in the Scriptures has actually failed to give man due light as to 
 his duty in the relation of master and servant ; an unreasonable 
 allegation, by the way, since it charges God either with incapa- 
 city, for he has certainly made many efforts to convey such in- 
 struction, or with malignity, for he wilfully hides needed truth, 
 and leaves man to wander unwarned in desperate sin. But if the 
 world has no right to rise up and charge God with having wick- 
 edly left us iu the dark touching duty in the great, relations of 
 husband and wife, parent and child, ruler and subject, &c, then 
 this Progress argument fails, and we need not that man should 
 mend the perfect work of his Maker in this matter. 
 
 II. It destroys the foundations of the Bible. You say, my bro- 
 ther, that God of old gave not to man by revelation adequate 
 knowledge of the moral features of slavery. Very well. You 
 say that the world in her progress has reached advanced provi- 
 dential light on this topic; and you are prepared now to speak 
 out touching the enormity of the institution. Very well. Now, 
 brother, where is my Bible ? I will trust you with this responsi- 
 ble office — Go through the Word of God and gather together all 
 the topics on which man needs Divine teaching, and has received 
 no more than God has given us on the subject we discuss. You 
 yourself will admit that here are the residue of the great social 
 relations which make up more than half of human life ; these 
 must all be thrown by as so many great moral topics on which we 
 have as yet no adequate inspired instruction. Here, too, are a 
 thousand acts which I daily perform, and ten thousand views and 
 feelings embracing God and man, of whose moral character I have 
 no more discriminating Bible instruction than I have of the duties 
 of master and servant. All these too must be laid aside as 
 matters about which I have yet to learn where and how the line 
 of duty is to be drawn. I call upon you to tell me where is my 
 Bible. See, my brother ! These providential lights bring us no 
 arbiter. How shall we reach the decisive truth on anyone of 
 these multiplied points about which God has so inconsiderately 
 neglected to inform us ? You say that light upon slavery has 
 reached you, and that by the law of Human Rights every holder 
 of a slave is bound to release him instantly. I insist that provi- 
 dential light has reached my mind also, and that the law of Hu- 
 man Rights requires the master to keep his hold upon the servant 
 for the present. Now I beg you to bear in mind that you, a poor, 
 fallible creature interpreting the lights of Providence, are not my 
 Bible. My Bible is God acting arbiter between fallible men, and 
 stating the truth. And now I insist upon it, if your Progress ar- 
 gument is right, and there is no adequate Scripture light on the 
 subject of slavery, and of course no adequate Scripture instruc- 
 tion on the nine hundred and ninety-nine points of Christian duty 
 
26 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 of which God has said only as much, then you have taken away 
 my Bible, and I am undone. But this is not all. 
 
 III. It sets up a Bible of humanisms in the place of the Word of 
 God. I know not what child of man's crazy fancy you may not 
 make Bible to me upon the principle of your Progress argument. 
 Here is the doctrine of Womanism, so solemnly baptized of late 
 in the West by a string of Female Conventional Resolutions. 
 Your P ogress argument puts as large a basis under this vagary 
 as under your Abolitionism. The Scriptures we think sufficiently 
 explicit in defining woman's position in society. It tells us that 
 the head of the woman is the man, for woman was made second, 
 and is the weaker vessel. As such she is commanded to submit 
 herself to her own husband, as to the Lord, and to be subject to 
 him in everything. If she would be chaste, discreet, or obedient, 
 she must be a stayer at home, that she might bear children, guide 
 the house, and build the same. But the moment she leaves her 
 modest sphere, and would assume a more conspicuous and com- 
 manding position, that moment Scripture meets her with the out- 
 cry, " It is a shame for a woman !!" &c; that moment Scripture 
 sends her back with the mandate, " Let the woman learn in si- 
 lence with all subjection," " For it is not permitted unto them to 
 speak nor to usurp authority, but to be in silence." All this 
 would seem to indicate clearly enough that it does not belong to 
 woman to take the lead in human society. 
 
 But your doctrine, in the hand of the champion of this new 
 light, assumes that all these Scriptures were penned in a dark and 
 barbarous age ; that doubtless God had many things to say, im- 
 portant to the perfect development of woman's capacities, rela- 
 tions, and rights, but these preparatory lights had not then come, 
 and consequently society was not able to bear the revelation. 
 Now, however, in her onward progress, society has reached the 
 abundant and elevated teachings of history, science, and univer- 
 sal improvement. Now the shades of Scripture times are passing 
 away, and hosts of new truths are coming to light. More con- 
 spicuous than all, nature's grand doctrine of Liberty and Equali- 
 ty springs to view, and, favored by the novel and glorious illus- 
 trations of popular government, what a hearty cheering it radi- 
 ates through all the ranks of the oppressed. No wonder woman, 
 downtrodden into the very earth from its foundations, should be- 
 gin to feel the stirrings of sympathy with her long-lost rights! 
 No wonder she now begins to realize in all her soul that her 
 Maker's hand has formed her just as free, just as gifted, just as 
 worthy as her companion, and that there existed not the shadow 
 of a reason why she should not have been permitted to enjoy her 
 equal rights in filling the higher stations of life, and to employ 
 her equal capacities in the distinguished toil of lifting man to his 
 destined perfection. Poor thing! What a barbarous usurpation 
 has Stripped her all life long of the high prerogative of her nature, 
 and doomed her to stand back and resign all share in making 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 27 
 
 laws, governing States, commanding armies ! What a glorious 
 day for woman ! Providence with his new lights has come to 
 her rescue. Let arrogant, rebuked man now give place, and 
 welcome woman to her legitimate dignities. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, why are not Womanism, and Communism, and 
 Socialism, and Shakerism, and every other foolery of the earth, 
 as well founded upon this doctrine of Progress, as Abolitionism? 
 We say that the duty of master and servant, the social position 
 of woman, the law of property, &c. &c, are all clearly revealed 
 in the Scriptures, and that man has no commission to perfect the 
 Word of God, and thus the matter is at rest. But our opposing 
 brethren contend that God of old made revelation to man only as 
 he was able to bear it, and that new developments were to be 
 providentially expected in the progress of society ; that revelation 
 upon the subject of slavery, as upon many other topics, was only 
 partial, and that new light has now come, and that the world 
 must follow it. I ask now, why have not these fanatics respec- 
 tively as much right to affirm, first, that for the hardness of man's 
 heart revelation of old was only partial touching the Rights of 
 Woman, the Distribution of the gifts of the Creator, &c. &c; se- 
 cond, that new light has come to man on these points respective- 
 ly ; and, third, that the world must follow it 1 
 
 In weighing this argument let me say — 
 
 1st. That the Bible is a revelation to man. 
 
 Therefore that progress which either ascertains the original im- 
 port of the text by sound rules of construction, or discovers that 
 this or that old or new method of living is or is not covered by 
 this or that rule of Scripture, — such progress, I say, is legitimate, 
 and onward to the Millennium. 
 
 2d. The Bible is not a revelation to a generation. 
 
 Therefore that progress which proposes to enlighten the proper 
 original import of God's Word ; which, confessedly or covertly, 
 leaves the Scriptures to find the rule of life in improving develop- 
 ments, — I say such progress exactly cuts the cable after the ship 
 has gone to anchor because she could not live in the tempest. A 
 law above the Constitution may possibly be seen in one direction, 
 but progress beyond the Bible is out of sight altogether. 
 
 I put it to you, Mr. Moderator, whether I may not lay by this 
 Progress argument with its predecessors ? For if it so far fails 
 of its end as to put down God's Word, and set up human extrava- 
 gance, like the residue of the catalogue, it turns upon its author 
 with a vengeance. 
 
 V. The Practical Argument. 
 
 Brethren contend that experience establishes the essential sin- 
 fulness of slaveholding. The gospel reforms society. The Church 
 has effectually tried the doctrine that slaveholding is not essen- 
 tially sinful, and nothing is done. And nothing will be done un- 
 
28 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 til we change the ground, come back to the truth, and make 
 slavery — sin. 
 
 To this argument it might be responded, If the tardiness of the 
 operation disproves the genuineness of the principle, why not 
 throw up the plan of missionary operations ? Surely our mis- 
 sionary progress has been slow. Why not look up another reli- 
 gion ? Christianity, after 6,000 years, has yet most of her work 
 to do. But I answer more particularly : All things considered, if 
 more has been done by the gospel in many branches of Chiistian 
 benevolence in this land, during the last thirty years, I know it not. 
 
 Let us study the work of the Southern Church with an impar- 
 tial mind, and inquire whether opposing brethren, instead of vent- 
 ing a prejudiced conscience fretted by the imagination of a sta- 
 tionary criminality in the whole business, should not thank God 
 and take courage, in view of the wholesome progress of the 
 cause ; and instead of calling for discipline upon Southern breth- 
 ren, whether they should not heartily lend a helping hand in the 
 work they do? I invite my brethren to glance over the field 
 with me, and candidly weigh the following considerations. 
 
 I. The strongest and purest expression of anti-slavery sentiment, 
 probably ever made by man, lias been uttered by the South. 
 
 I doubt not that pure and strong Anti-slavery convictions are 
 entertained at the North, and that our brethren furnish every rea- 
 sonable evidence of their sincerity and earnestness. But we have 
 no evidence yet of the supreme strength of this conviction. How 
 will you try the purity and the power of a sentiment in the hu- 
 man heart ? Surely not by words only ; not by any process of 
 stubborn and imperious public agitation ; not by any determined 
 political stand against Southern measures ; not by any transient 
 aid and comfort rendered to flying slaves. All these and many 
 similar developments may cost but little. On the contrary, the 
 power of a principle exhibits itself in the labors it can put forth, 
 the oppositions it can resist, the self-denials it can bear, — in a 
 word, by the sacrifices it can make. Where shall we find the 
 most commanding expression of that calm, enlightened, benign, 
 high-souled Anti-slavery sentiment which is uttered by sacrifice? 
 You point us to England. For freedom in the West Indies, 
 20,000,000 pounds sterling!! This was a noble testimony of her 
 will to give freedom to the slave, the like of which our Northern 
 friends have never approached. Three things, however, should 
 work some abatement of our first impressions of British devotion 
 to this cause. This sum was furnished by the very richest trea- 
 sury in the world. Only the interest of this sum has been paid; 
 the principal never will be until the great English debt is can- 
 celled. Nor do I deem it scandal to say, that probably no small 
 portion of this sum was paid to self-interest, and not by benevo- 
 lent principle. A friend travelling in England at the time of the 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 20 
 
 preparatory public agitation of the subject, informs me that one 
 argument which told powerfully in persuading the English people 
 to adopt this measure was the widely published doctrine that, 
 since free labor was so far superior to slave labor, by this opera- 
 tion West India sugars would be purchased in England at a pen- 
 ny a pound below its present cost, so that England would receive 
 100,000,000 pounds in return for her 20,000,000. 
 
 It gives me pleasure to remind you, Mr. Moderator, that near 
 250,000 slaves are computed to have been freed in this country, 
 mainly at the South. Assuming the average value of the slave 
 to be 100 pounds sterling, you have, sir, upon this principle more 
 than five and twenty millions of pounds sterlino contributed 
 to this cause of putting away slavery from these United States by 
 the slaveholders of the South. Mark the contrast. This im- 
 mense sum has been actually paid out, not interest only, but 
 principal also ; not by a rich public treasury, but by private 
 families who lived by the slaves they surrendered ; not before 
 the public eye, but in the retirement of private life ; not under 
 the cheering voice of universal praise, but possibly under the 
 chilling looks of many a neighbor who charges the emancipator 
 with the discontent which now springs up in the bosom of his 
 colored family ; not under circumstances which provided the 
 slightest hope of pecuniary emolument, but from no other possible 
 motive than conscientious, quiet, kind, anti-slavery sentiment. 
 Let Northern brethren weigh this, and hereafter give to the 
 South the respect due to the very first position of friendship to 
 African freedom by pecuniary sacrifice. 
 
 II. The men who dwell south of Mason and Dixon's line have 
 done more to convert the heathen than the whole world beside. 
 
 What is the whole number of converted heathen which the 
 American Church presents this day to the eye of God and the 
 world ? — 
 
 American Board, 26,000 
 
 Baptist Missions, 15,000 
 
 Methodist Missions, 13,000 
 
 Presbyterian Missions, 250 
 
 Episcopal Missions, '1 
 
 54,321 
 
 Observe, Mr. Moderator, one branch of one Christian denomi- 
 nation at the South, viz., the Methodist Episcopal Church num- 
 bers 134,722 Colored members. More than twice as many heathen 
 converted through Southern instrumentality as the combined 
 American Church can produce. 
 
 What, sir, allow me now to inquire, is the sum total of the 
 membership of all the heathen churches in the world ? By those 
 best informed on this subject the number is estimated at some- 
 thing like 200,000. Turn your eye once more to the South. Say 
 
30 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 nothing of the Colored members of all the churches in the State 
 of Maryland, (and they are numerous,) nor of the Presbyterian 
 Church, nor of the Episcopal Church, nor of the Lutheran 
 Church, nor of certain branches of the Methodist and of the Bap- 
 tist denominations, in all the South. Simply fix your eye upon 
 one branch respectively of two Christian Churches. You will 
 find enrolled upon their list of Colored members — 
 
 In the Methodist Church, 134,000 
 
 « Baptist Church, 130,000 
 
 264,000 
 
 Thus, sir, a part of the Southern Church holds up this day to 
 the gaze of heaven and earth scores of thousands more of heathen 
 fellow-men hoping in Christ through their labors than all the 
 chu'ches of the Free Soil of the world combined have yet gathered 
 to the Master. Let philanthropists employ all proper methods to 
 free the soil of the world. It is a noble cause, and I will unite 
 with them. But let our Northern brethren weigh one singular 
 fact : These very brethren of the South, upon whom they them- 
 selves have been laying on so hard and so long for their cruel 
 oppression of the bondman, and whom forsooth from year to year 
 they have been so anxious to persuade Providence to thrust out of 
 the Church, as not worthy of a standing in it, — these are the very 
 men whom that very Providence has made the honored instru- 
 ments, in one sense at least, of doing more for the salvation of the 
 heathen world than all the Church militant beside. Yes, let them 
 j)onder this. 
 
 III. The Southern Church has effected a vast amelioration of the 
 social and religious condition of the slave. 
 
 When landed in this country, the African captive belonged to 
 the most degraded heathen upon the face of the earth. His de- 
 scendant still needs great improvement, but is far removed from 
 the universal debasement of his progenitor. Changes for the 
 better have marked the history of slavery, from its introduction 
 to the present hour. 
 
 1st. The Southern Church has done her part in working valu- 
 able modifications of the /a/r.v of the land.* An examination of 
 the slave laws of successive generations will exhibit a steady 
 advance in the considerate benignity of the legislator. Nor, 
 should we overlook the beneficial changes wrought in the spirit 
 and power of ancient statutes, through a constantly-improving 
 public sentiment. There are benefits conferred upon the slave 
 by statute, which of old never fully reached him in the adminis- 
 tration. From the earliest times there existed a law, forbidding 
 labor on the Sabbath. I well remember, when a boy, the uni- 
 versal custom of taking the servants on the Sabbath day to the 
 
 * Vide Appendix, (1). 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 31 
 
 corn-house to shell, or to the potato-field to dig, that the weekly 
 plantation-allowance of vegetable diet might be distributed. 
 This practice, I apprehend, is now universally abolished. That 
 t! e spirit and principle of the Church did its part in effecting the 
 change, you may learn from this incident. I knew a church 
 member, who, grieved by the prevalence of this custom, person- 
 ally persuaded his Christian brethren and friends to abolish it in 
 their respective families, and finding one stout opposer of the 
 innovation, beyond the limits of the Church, he at last calmly 
 apprised him of the law of the land, and of his purpose of becom- 
 ing Public Prosecutor if he did not yield to the public sentiment 
 of his neighbors. There always existed a law forbidding the in- 
 human correction of a slave. I am persuaded that there never 
 existed in Southern society such excessive violations of this law 
 as some uninformed persons at a distance imagine. Yet I well 
 remember a state of things which must have operated to break 
 the power of this benign statute. Years ago, any allusions to a 
 Southern master's treatment of his slave would have colored his 
 face as promptly and indignantly as though you had intermeddled 
 with his conduct towards his wife, or his child, or his disposition 
 of any chattel on his farm. But public sentiment on this subject 
 has undergone such a change, that, every community feels itself 
 a trustee to some extent of the natural and legal rights of the 
 slaves that dwell in its bosom, and the beneficiary now gets the 
 fair protection of this law. It may throw light upon the manner 
 in which this reformation was wrought, if I inform you that many 
 years since, a Christian hearing that a servant had been cruelly 
 chastised on a neighboring plantation, availed himself of the 
 Patrol system of the South, and having ascertained the fact by 
 personal observation, informed the overseer that he should prose- 
 cute him for breach of law. He did so, and had him convicted 
 and punished. I stood by the side of that Christian man when 
 he received intelligence that the enraged owner, in a neighbor- 
 ing city, had avowed his purpose to shoot him down as a dog 
 wherever he met him. One year afterwards, I was again walk- 
 ing from a religious meeting by his side, when the son of the 
 threatener delivered to that faithful Christian the father's permit 
 to enter the only plantation in the county which had heretofore 
 been closed against the good man's private visits for the religious 
 instruction of the servants. In most of the Southern States there 
 exists an old law, which forbids that a slave should be taught to 
 read. When a boy, I well remember my conviction of the terri- 
 ble authority of this edict. To the Southern mind in that day, to 
 violate this law seemed a little like taking one step toward the 
 application of the match to the magazine. Now, how changed 
 is the feeling? The good influence of the Bible upon the slave, and 
 every man's right of direct access to the Word of God is exten- 
 sively understood. It has long been a common spectacle to see the 
 children of a Southern family at night, or on the Sabbath, em- 
 
32 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 ployed in teaching the servants to read. It is many years since 
 night-schools, in which Colored adults taught Colored children to 
 read, were common in all our Southern cities, and I believe well 
 known to city authorities, and generally unmolested by them. It 
 is worthy of observation, that a few years since, when a South- 
 ern Legislature, alarmed by Abolition interference, revived this 
 obsolete law, Christian public sentiment at the South felt if Cae- 
 sar moved to put away the Bible from the servant, God's people 
 must move, as best they can, to bring it back. A consequent 
 impulse was given to Oral Instruction far and wide, whose 
 results have been singularly happy. One is this: that hundreds 
 of servants learn to read now, where none were taught before. 
 And hundreds of copies of the Scriptures are distributed among 
 the slaves at this day, which would never have been received if 
 the old law had been permitted to sleep. Thus you perceive 
 that the steady improvement of public sentiment at the South, in 
 part through the fidelity of the church, has been progressively 
 working a beneficial change in the face of the government to- 
 ward the slave,, not only by procuring the enactment of humane 
 laws, but by breaking down the governing power of unfriendly 
 statutes, and giving force to such benign legislation as was a 
 dead letter before. 
 
 2d. The same causes have wrought a corresponding social im- 
 provement in all things pertinent to the present comfort and future 
 prospects of the slave. I apprehend there is but little to be ob- 
 jected to at this day, in the physical treatment of Southern ser- 
 vants. Their condition is at least fair in respect to food, raiment, 
 shelter, work, and general discipline. A remarkable revolution 
 has occurred in the habits of Southern society respecting the dis- 
 cussion of the nature and claims of this relation. Haifa century 
 ago, this institution appeared to the mass of Southern population 
 as an impregnable fixture ; and yet it is a singular fact, that, as 
 a topic of deliberate meditation or discourse, it was clothed with 
 a forbidding awe, which made it almost as intangible as a plot of 
 treason. Now, he who journeys through the Southern States, in 
 public houses and conveyances may hear as frequent discourse 
 on this subject as on almost any other. And could he compare 
 the sentiments of the present generation with those of the past, 
 he would be delighted to mark the liberal tendency of the times. 
 
 The steady advance of the spirit of emancipation is another 
 and most interesting feature of the general progress. The re- 
 cords of the American Colonization Society furnish gratifying 
 testimony on this point. You will not forget, Mr. Moderator, the 
 testimony of one of our brethren on this lloor, that in his imme- 
 diate vicinity one of his neighbors had recenlly given to this cause 
 $500 ; another, .$1,000 ; a third, $2,000 ; a fourth, *:},000— all men 
 in moderate circumstances. Yes, sir, and in the wealthier sec- 
 tions of the South there are those who are this day giving their 
 850,000 to the freedom of the slave. 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 33 
 
 3d. In no respect, however, has the condition of the slave been 
 more decidedly improved, than in his religious jirivilegcs. It 
 is not surprising that his claims to spiritual care should have 
 been early neglected. There was nothing encouraging in the 
 state of the pupil, for he was exceedingly dark and unintelligent 
 at best, and there existed no common language between himself 
 and his teacher ; and nothing energetic in the spirit of the teacher, 
 for the Church in that day had not been aroused to the high duty 
 of transmitting God's truth to all within her reach. Since that 
 period, however, light from heaven has been gradually shed upon 
 the Southern Church, and she has responded to the appeal. To 
 the observant eye, the Southern country is full of testimonies to 
 this truth. The dark, dreamy, superstitious vieivs of religion, into 
 which the colored population naturally fell in the beginning, are 
 rapidly giving place to better teaching. In the early order of 
 things in Southern society, the Church rarely made its way to the 
 humble domiciles of the plantation to carry the gospel to their in- 
 mates, while the servants who found their way to the church of 
 their masters were called to participate in ordinances designed 
 primarily for others, and of very little comfort or profit to the un- 
 lettered. Left to themselves, the colored population very natu- 
 rally constructed a system of worship very greatly deficient in 
 truth, full of error, embracing in its active services large mea- 
 sures of bodily exercise, under repetitious and noisy songs and ex- 
 hortations, and producing a Christian experience which consisted 
 of little more than a tissue of dreams, visions, " travels," &c. It 
 is now, however, many years since Southern conscience was 
 taught to feel that it had a duty to discharge to the benighted ser- 
 vant — a duty too long neglected. To this duty the Church be- 
 took itself, with commendable energy and system, and the face of 
 the kingdom in this section of the country now presents a very 
 different aspect. 
 
 There are a diversity of established methods in which the mas- 
 ter brings the gospel to the servant. In the cities there are large 
 Colored churches, sometimes of two or three thousand members. 
 [Church edifices they are assisted to erect when necessary.] The 
 pulpit is generally supplied by pious, talented, Colored preachers ; 
 sometimes by white brethren of the very first talent and highest 
 stations in the Church.* Sabbath-schools, under the tuition of 
 intelligent white teachers, male and female, are in common use 
 in cities, towns, and villages. On plantations masters frequently 
 conduct family prayer, so as to secure sound instruction to the 
 servant. The travelling minister is almost always put in requi- 
 sition for this service. Instead of the old-fashioned Negro "praise- 
 
 * One such church finds a regular pastor in the President of a College, who receives a 
 salary from the Blacks of $600 or $800. A valued Professor in a Theological Seminary 
 vacated his chair to devote himself exclusively to the instruction of servants. The Presi- 
 dent of Washington College, Va., recently resigned his office to conduct a periodical de- 
 signed to convince his countrymen of the evils of the relation of master and servant. 
 3 
 
34 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 house" it is common in many parts of the country to build a neat 
 "Plantation Chapel," and to invite all accessible ministerial aid* 
 I am happy to know that on this subject of giving judicious reli- 
 gious instruction to the Colored population, there is a very com- 
 mendable fidelity on the part of the stated ministry in all sections 
 of the Southern country. Should you happen to enter a sanctu- 
 ary in Virginia, when a Presbytery was in session, you might 
 possibly hear the roll called, and each minister in his place sum- 
 moned to give an account to his brethren, according to a stated 
 order, of what he was doing within his bounds for the people of 
 color ; nor would you be more fortunate than I have been, if some 
 holy elder, (who, peradventure, paid a missionary to teach his 
 servants,) should rise a little out of order because he could not 
 contain himself, and most tenderly and solemnly express the feel- 
 ings of his conscience and heart, descriptive of that burden of re- 
 sponsibility to God and to the servant, which he felt rested in 
 common upon himself and all his brethren. Had your Presbytery 
 been assembled in South Carolina, the ministers would not have 
 escaped with so general an inquiry. Each, in his place, would 
 have been called to answer whether he had preached, during the 
 interval of Presbyterial sessions, one half of every Sabbath to the 
 servants of his neighborhood. 
 
 But the most important features of this reformation are yet to 
 be noticed. Catechisms to aid the master in the private instruc- 
 tion of his servant have been drawn up, if I mistake not, by every 
 prevalent denomination of the South, and distributed amongst the 
 people. The country, too, has been largely districted, (where this 
 operation was most needed,) and a Missionary employed to devote 
 himself exclusively to the Colored population within the pre- 
 scribed limit, in preaching, teaching, visitation, and Sabbath- 
 school supervision. It is ascertained that the churches built for 
 the worship of the masters, are in many cases injudiciously lo- 
 cated for the accommodation of the slaves; and I am credibly 
 informed that it is quite common to erect a new church in some 
 position selected exclusively for the convenience of the Colored 
 population, and devoted entirely to their service. I can think of 
 no religious meetings on this earth more delightful, none that my 
 heart more ardently pants to enjoy, than the worship of the mas- 
 ters and servants of adjacent plantations, under the ministry of 
 their beloved Missionary. My own past experience forbad me 
 to wonder at the tears of sympathy and joy, which lately fell from 
 the eyes of a good master, while casually sketching to me in pri- 
 vate his habitual enjoyment of such a privilege. In testimony to 
 the sound, conscientious, intelligent interest which is felt by the 
 Southern Church on this subject, 1 will only further say, that Es- 
 says, Reports, Pastoral Letters, Periodicals, &c, have long been 
 in course of publication ; that ecclesiastical bodies of all denomi- 
 nations have long been accustomed to give their highest authority, 
 their best services to this cause ; that Conventions, formed by 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 35 
 
 delegates from different States, and composed of the very first 
 men of the land, have sometimes devoted days to the most libe- 
 ral discussion of this whole subject ; and I am just now assured 
 by one well informed upon this subject, that the whole system of 
 imparting religious instruction to servants in all parts of the South 
 is in a healthful and improving condition. 
 
 It occurs to me here, that my Abolition brother has been com- 
 forting himself at heart under the imagined recital of the indirect, 
 but sure results of his own bold and fearless stand for Christianity 
 and the oppressed. I apprehend that truth before God requires 
 some considerable abatement of this self-complacent, most confi- 
 dent conviction. You remind me that improvement in the condi- 
 tion of the Southern slave has certainly been cotemporaneous with 
 the Abolition movement of the North. The same period dates a 
 similar improvement in almost every branch of Christian benevo- 
 lence, in the cause of Missions, the Bible, Tracts, Temperance, 
 &c. Were these, too, the fruit of Abolition effort ? Does not a 
 general effect call for a general cause ? And is not all this ad- 
 vance of the kingdom to be accredited to a general diffusion of 
 God's Spirit upon his Church? You respond, that agitation is the 
 means which the Spirit ordinarily employs to effect general refor- 
 mation. You will find it difficult of proof, however, that the agi- 
 tation of the subject of slavery occasioned by the Abolition 
 movement has secured that progress at the South, which I have 
 endeavored to sketch. There are three grand objections to the 
 wholesome power o! the Abolition effort, arising out of one fact — 
 the position of the agitator, beyond the limits of the body to be 
 reformed. 1st. Such an agitator will always lack influence. 
 His very first blow, and every successive one, strikes upon ancient 
 prejudice, and wakes up opposition, and it will be felt and said 
 constantly, You are a stranger, an intermeddler, an enemy; 
 and he will be sure to lack power over those he would move. 
 2d. Such an agitator will lack knowledge. He is not on the 
 ground. He does not see and know that of which he speaks, and 
 his zeal will tempt him to devour greedily the extravagances cast 
 upon his ears ; and you may rest assured these, his errors and ex- 
 travagances, will be promptly detected and largely overrated by 
 the assailed, to the limitation of his influence. 3d. Such an agi- 
 tator will be very apt to lack sympathy and discretion. He is not 
 part and parcel with the body he would reform, and will be almost 
 sure to be deficient in that spirit of tender interest, forbearance 
 and allowance, that constant, cautious fear of the disastrous con- 
 sequences of speaking too strong, or going too fast ; all of which 
 are so indispensable to the success of every reformation move- 
 ment. Mr. Moderator, the sun does not shine, if the influence of 
 our friends at the North, who would reform the South by their 
 violent speeches and measures, is not, to some extent, like the 
 agency of him who locks the door of the house he would enter. 
 Yet I have never felt with Southern men in general that this was 
 
36 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTION'S, 
 
 the only influence of Abolition on the South. Whether the Tist- 
 tural, necessary effect of the movement to rouse attention to the 
 subject, and to cast light upon some branches of it, has or has not 
 been counterbalanced by the mischiefs proceeding from the extra- 
 vagance of its radical principle, the uncharitable spirit of the 
 agitator, and his frequent errors in statement, positively and stub- 
 bornly advanced, I cannot, say. But my conviction is Very deci- 
 ded, that our Abolition friends are accustomed to overrate their 
 connection with Southern improvement, and to underrate home 
 influence in the same. Mr. Moderator, without recurring to his- 
 tory for its proof, I venture to express the opinion, that as it was 
 in the great Reformation, so in general it is in the multitude of 
 moral reforms effected by the progress of society, in every part 
 and age of the world, — the successful agitators are integral ele- 
 ments of the body reformed. The influence, the sympathy, the 
 minute knowledge, the admirable discretion, and the undying in- 
 terest, almost necessary to every such achievement, would seem 
 to demand it. Whether the substantial progress of the interest-- 
 ing Cause of the Bondman of the South has not been effected in 
 the same manner, I leave you to judge, upon the statement of a 
 few facts. 
 
 There has been unceasing agitation of this subject, in the wisest 
 and happiest manner, by Southern men, from the date of the land- 
 ing of the first slave on American soil. You know, sir, that be- 
 fore the Constitution of the United States was framed, while yet 
 we were colonies of England, the Southern States protested 
 against the introduction of this population. Now, sir, from that 
 day to this, I affirm that Southern records, political, religious, 
 literary, and historical, present a constant succession of publica- 
 tions on the subject of slavery, by Southern men of the highest 
 rank and talent, in Church and State, embodying as great a de- 
 gree of accuracy, kindness, discretion, and fidelity of sentiment 
 as characterizes any similar number of publications uttered at 
 the North within the last twenty years. If there is any approach 
 to truth in this statement, Mr. Moderator, with all the powerful 
 and various advantages of home influence, have all these efforts 
 been powerless, while similar efforts from abroad have been re- 
 forming the land ? Again, sir, from the earliest period of our his- 
 tory, ecclesiastical bodies at the South, and especially of the Pres- 
 byterian order, have held up this subject to their churches, and 
 pressed reiigious duty upon the conscience just as far as, in their 
 Christian judgment, they were permitted to do. What has been 
 the influence cf this steady movement through past generations ? 
 I intend no disrespect, but for reasons too obvious to need a state- 
 ment, I must be permitted to say, if any member of this body 
 imagines that a strong Abolition announcement by this General 
 Assembly will approach to the power over the Southern Church 
 which will always follow the calm, solemn, faithful appeal of her 
 own Presbyteries or Synods, he makes a great mistake. 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 37 
 
 Mr. Moderator, why may not reformation commence at home? 
 Are the masses so involved in a common interest and prejudice 
 against the truth that they are not likely to see and appreciate it? 
 But bear in mind, all reformation commences with individuals, 
 and all historv shows that there ever have been at the South 
 individual friends of the truth, awake and active upon this sub- 
 ject. These publications and decisions of old, brought to bear 
 upon the Colored race, what reformation element do they lack? 
 There is mind there, and truth there, and the gospel there, and 
 the Spirit there ; — certainly, too, a closer view of the necessities 
 of reformation, deeper interest in the work to be done, and higher 
 influence over the body to be moved. Mr. Moderator, to some 
 small extent I hold myself a witness in this case. I know by 
 personal observation, that these Southern efforts have carried 
 reformation power. Prior to the day when the South felt fretted 
 by Abolition interfence, now more than twenty years ago, I well 
 remmember that a Christian man, born and bred at the South, 
 rode many miles, called on me at my domicile in the State of 
 Georgia, and solicited me to become a member of a Society 
 which he purposed to form for the " Religious Instruction of the 
 Colored Population." This devoted and talented minister of 
 Jesus was himself made the General Agent of the Society origi- 
 nated at that time. Through him we put forth the first year an 
 able tract on the "Degradation of the Southern Slave" and scat- 
 tered it through the county. This, sir, did its work. We had 
 our anniversary, and reported progress. The second year we 
 drew up, and published, and distributed an able essay on the 
 "Obligation of the Master" I noticed the effect of this document 
 in all my itinerations. During the third year we published a 
 "Catechism" to aid this responsible master in the discharge of his 
 duty to this necessitous member of his family, — a document, let 
 me say, of such singular value, that it found its way across the 
 waters to the table of a missionary of the American Board, who 
 thought he saw in it the precise desideratum for his own field, 
 and had it printed, and set to the work of reformation among the 
 heathen abroad. Suffer me to say that this Society has been in 
 steady operation from that day to this, not only sending its Agent 
 around the district to instruct the slaves at convenient station- 
 houses erected for the purpose, but annually reporting, and occa- 
 sionally publishing as necessity demanded. To the favorable 
 influence of this movement, first upon the population under its 
 immediate supervision, then upon the counties adjacent, and 
 finally, through its publications, upon the friends of the cause at 
 a distance, and even in other States, multitudes can bear witness. 
 What had Abolition to do with the origin or power of this opera- 
 tion 1 
 
 It was my privilege, about the period of the formation of this 
 Society, to visit an eminent Christian who dwelt in a neighbor- 
 ing State, and where, you will remark, there now prevails through 
 
38 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 all the surrounding - country as high a degree of religious fidelity 
 to the Colored population as distinguishes any section of the 
 South. I learned that he had been in the habit of employing a 
 minister to preach to his large family of servants for many years. 
 He informed me that, though his neighbors far and near were at 
 that time favorable to this species of operation, yet when he first 
 commenced it, he was told that his movement endangered the 
 peace and the lives of the whites, and he must desist. He an- 
 swered their arguments, and moved forward in his duty. They 
 became more serious in their objections: he still persisted. At 
 length their opposition waxed so firm and united that he was 
 driven to tell them: "Gentlemen, I am engaged in my duty, and 
 before I give it up, I will plant a cannon in every window of my 
 house, and you shall go over my dead body to take away the 
 Word of God from my family." I had the pleasure of preaching 
 the gospel in his neighborhood, when the conversion of some of 
 his early opposers led him to give me this history. Here is an 
 operation that dates back its origin perhaps forty years from this 
 time. What had Abolition to do with the waking up of this 
 man's mind to duty? Now while we accord to this Northern 
 movement, with all its ill-workings, some collateral stimulation 
 of a good cause, its friends, in turn, should concede that where- 
 ver similar improvements are witnessed in Southern society at 
 this day, they may have had a similarly independent origin. 
 
 Here let me arrest this elaborate narration with one remark. 
 This subject is presented at great disadvantage, for it comes be- 
 fore you, not through the pen of the historian who had explored 
 the ground and collected the facts, but simply through the casual 
 recollections of one who, years ago, was an eye-witness of some 
 portions of the operation. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, what shall we say of this argument? Has 
 nothing been done under that Anti-slavery doctrine vdiich Abo- 
 litionism opposes? Sir, weigh the enormous disadvantages 
 against which the Reform principle had to contend : the interest, 
 the powerful interest, that both blinded and opposed the agent ; 
 the prejudice, the public sentiment, the laws that stood so direct- 
 ly, so strongly, so menacingly in the way; and in what branch of 
 Christian benevolence has more been effected in the same time ? 
 You have seen, sir, that by the outlay of a sum of money four 
 times as large as the whole American Church has contributed to 
 all Christian causes from the beginning,* Southern men have 
 earned the honor of exhibing the very noblest Anti-slavery senti- 
 ment uttered by any class of men in our day ; that the Southern 
 Church have been the happy instruments, under God, of baptizing 
 a larger number of heathen brethren than all the missionary op- 
 erations of the world beside ; that, by a self-denying, laborious, 
 and intrepid zeal, they have wrought a change in the social and 
 
 * See Appendix, No. III. 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 39 
 
 religious condition of the servant, and the public sentiment of 
 masters, which cannot fail to impart the deepest gratification to 
 every bosom that ever felt one beat of philanthropy for the bond- 
 man. 
 
 I put it to you, Mr. Moderator, whether this argument of my 
 brethren does not belong to the same catalogue of impregnable 
 proofs of the principle it was enlisted to overthrow? If moderate 
 Anti-slavery sentiment has really done so much, God and the 
 truth must be with it. 
 
 I repeat, sir, the fair statement of the acknowledged facts of 
 the case shows that slaveholding is not sin per se. So signally 
 true is this, that every argument advanced to establish the doc- 
 trine overthrows its own foundations, and builds up the doctrine 
 opposed. 
 
 SECOND. THE DUTY OF THE PARTIES CONCERNED. 
 
 The duty of all parties may be comprised in one brief sentence: 
 Come to the Word of God. 
 
 Let the Master come to the Word of God, and do what that 
 Word so plainly enjoins. Let him remember that, in general, he 
 owes his servant the love that belongs to every brother man ; 
 and, in particular, that kind and faithful guardianship which will 
 give him that which is just and equal in his relation. So doing, 
 he will be sure to labor to lift him ultimately above the disad- 
 vantages of his present position, by the wisest and surest method 
 which his judgment and circumstances may suggest. 
 
 Let the Servant come to the Word of God, and do all which 
 that Word enjoins. Let him, in general, love his master as he 
 should love every fellow- man, and be particularly careful to dis- 
 charge, with cheerfulness and fidelity, all the duties which Scrip- 
 ture devolves upon him as a servant. Let him strive to be con- 
 tent with his providential condition, and do nothing to alienate, 
 but everything to secure the good- will of his master. 
 
 Let the Non-slaveholding brother in the Church come to the 
 Word of God, and see to it that, in general, he speaks to that 
 master as God speaks to him in the Bible, and to that servant as 
 God speaks to him in the Scriptures. And let him especially be- 
 ware, lest he set himself above the Apostles and their Lord, by 
 teaching such doctrines, touching these parties respectively, as 
 the New Testament has not revealed, and by addressing such 
 counsel to the parties as the New Testament never gives. 
 
 God has made DVjty the appointed channel of divine blessing. 
 All good will follow fidelity here. 
 
 1. Nothing like Bible duty will build up the character of the 
 parties. I am persuaded that there is nothing which will more 
 beautifully develop the Christian character of the master, than a 
 conscientious, just, and sympathizing discharge of all his Scrip- 
 ture duty to his servant : nothing which will more certainly or 
 
40 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 happily perfect the Christian character of the servant, than a 
 studious, steady effort to serve his master in strict accordance 
 with the spirit and terms of Scripture requirement. 
 
 2. Nothing like Bible duty will brighten the prospects of the 
 parlies. As for the servant, his present comfort and future hopes 
 depend far more upon his fidelity than upon any other conceiv- 
 able influence. Only let him be faithful toward God and man, 
 and he will feel, in the depths of his own heart, the abiding con- 
 solation of high-souled virtue ; a sustaining sense of integrity, 
 cheered by the joy and peace of ever-flowing benevolent affec- 
 tion. Only let him be faithful, and his fidelity, as nothing else 
 can, will be sure to act upon the master's intellect and conscience, 
 so as to open his mind to clearer and still clearer views of his 
 elevated relative duty, and win upon his heart to do for this hum- 
 ble, faithful friend all that wisdom and love suggest. Nothing 
 like mutual fidelity will so certainly or so soundly convince the 
 master that slavery, on the whole, is not a wholesome condition 
 of human society for either party. It intrusts too much unguard- 
 ed power to imperfect man. This he will daily feel. It subjects 
 the degraded yet elevated capacities of an immortal nature to 
 too unpropitious a school lor desirable development. This he 
 will daily see. Such, I judge, will be the class of reflections and 
 influences which mutual fidelity will be sure to bring to bear 
 upon the master's mind. The result is obvious ; an augmenting 
 perception of what, on the whole, is best for both parties, and a 
 growing, generous inclination to do for the inferior that which 
 will ultimately plant him and his posterity upon the grand plat- 
 form of equal rights. 
 
 3. Nothing like Bible duty will secure the friendship of the 
 parties. Mutual daily action upon such principles must make 
 the intercourse increasingly pleasant and kind. And when the 
 slave is ultimately raised to freedom by the master's generosity, 
 while the master feels it is more blessed to give than to receive, 
 the nature of that gift will never, never permit the master's 
 kindness to be effaced from the freedman's heart. Go and con- 
 verse with the <,fficers of the American Colonization Society — 
 they will tell you freedom, thus obtained, is entailing eternal and 
 tenderest friendship between these long embittered races. Who 
 does not see that this is God's way of doing this work 1 
 
 4. Nothing like Bible duty will display the very brightest glory 
 of Christianity. Behold the operation of Christianity in working 
 off slavery from the face of the earth ! Thete is no relation un- 
 der heaven so tryingly, desperately abject on the one hand, nor 
 independent on the other. Consequently there is no such field 
 amongst men for the exercise of generous, self-controlling, self- 
 denying sympathy with the helpless on the one hand ; nor of noble, 
 cheerful humility, unrewarded, self-sacrificing consecration on 
 the other. Thus, more singular and beautiful specimens of celes- 
 tial virtue, than the gospel will work out in gradually dismissing 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 
 
 41 
 
 slavery from the earth, I do not expect to behold in the day of the 
 revelation of all things. 
 
 5. Nothing like Bible duty will heal the breach of the Church. 
 The strife of Christian brethren should be allayed. Let all par- 
 ties come to the Word of God. Now we see eye to eye. Now, 
 brother harbors dishonoring sentiment — utters provoking lan- 
 guage — presses excommuaicating measures against his brother no 
 more. No ! he now takes a different view both of the character 
 and condition of his brother. He sympathizes, he encourages, he 
 advises, he cooperates. The darkened, struggling, tempted, bur- 
 dened mind of the other ! who can tell what seasonable counsel, 
 encouragement and strength in its momentous, self-denying work 
 it imbibes from all this fraternal sympathy ? Thus, kind patience 
 on the one hand generates teachable respect on the other, and the 
 brethren are brought together, and God's good work is accom- 
 plished. 
 
 6. Nothing like Bible duty will ease of the friction of the na- 
 tion. Pronounce slaveholding sin per se, and act upon your dog- 
 ma. There can be no cordial respect — no courteous language — 
 no kind cooperation. There can be no compromise — no patience — 
 no safe association. The one faces the other as a desperate 
 wrong-doer. The second bristles up against the first as an im- 
 pertinent, fanatical, provoking accuser. Mark ! it is this very 
 doctrine which is cutting, at this very hour, upon the tie of the 
 Union with more severing energy than all other agencies com- 
 bined. Let the State as well as the Church come to the Word of 
 God — respect, cordiality, compromise spring up, and perilous fric- 
 tion instantly subsides into harmony and peace. 
 
 Now, let the parties violate this injunction, and fail to come to 
 the Word of God, and continue to legislate for themselves on this 
 subject, anal act on the doctrine that slavery is sin per se, and what 
 will be the issue? 
 
 Nothing can more seriously mutilate the character of master 
 and servant; for it spreads an influence over the spirit of both, 
 and makes the one hostile and insurgent — the other suspicious 
 and severe : nothing so effectually dissipate the prospect of pre- 
 sent comfort or future deliverance ; for without respect, the serv- 
 ing of the one must be pure hardship — without love, the spirit of 
 the other will never cherish an inclination to emancipate: noth- 
 ing so certainly destroys all the foundations of friendship ; for 
 Abolitionism will disturb both parties for the present, and, if it 
 ever frees the slave, it will entail an eternal hostility upon the 
 races it tears apart : nothing more grievously wrong Christian- 
 ity; for it will spoil those lovely shapes of Christian virtue to 
 which the providence and Word of God entitle her in the glorious 
 progress of the Gospel : nothing more surely aggravate the pre- 
 sent mischievous agitation of the Church, or compel Jacob's chil- 
 dren ultimately to fall out by the way: nothing has hitherto 
 
42 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS, 
 
 so fearfully shaken the State to its foundations — and nothing so 
 sure to split it to atoms in the end. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, if there is an error in this land which light and 
 love summon us instantly to abandon, it is, in my judgment, the 
 doctrine that to hold a slave, no matter on what principle, for 
 what end, is sin against God. 
 
 Mr. Moderator: For a series of years our Abolition brethren 
 have been violently knocking at your door, and demanding the 
 discipline of the Southern Church for the sin of slavery. If they 
 can bear one word more, I shall be pleased to inquire whether 
 they ever imagined what would follow an imitation of their spirit 
 and practice by the Southern Church? Should it surprise them 
 if, in her turn, she should respectfully solicit at your hand a 
 solemn inquiry into the moral character of Abolitionism, and a 
 recommendation to your inferior courts to purge the Church forth- 
 with of this offensive element ? 
 
 Confine your investigation to a single development of the prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 It will not be denied, I presume, that a line of Abolition posts 
 has been long since established on the extreme southern border 
 of the Free States, from the Mississippi river, perhaps to the 
 Atlantic, organized to apprise the oppressed population beyond 
 the line that the moment a slave makes his way across to Free 
 Soil he will there find every arrangement made, every power at 
 hand, to transport him rapidly from his house of bondage to a 
 safe refuge in the bosom of Canada. Reports of annual progress 
 are frequently published by these organizations. 
 
 What, sir, is the moral influence of this movement, 
 
 1st. Upon human respect for the authority of the Word of God ? 
 God's Word delivers various commands to the servant, — com- 
 mands, every line of which, be it remembered, carries just as 
 much Divine authority as any text of Holy Writ. What is the 
 influence of the obvious spirit, ordinary language, and prominent 
 act of this frontier movement, upon the authority of God's Word, 
 especially on the mind of the slave ? Is it possible for human 
 ingenuity to invent a method which shall enlist a more palpaple 
 or powerful moral force to break down in the soul of the slave 
 all regard for God's commands to him in the Bible ? Does not 
 this whole movement as it were put a violent hand upon him, and 
 force him into a direct and outrageous disobedience of every Di- 
 vine injunction addressed to him in the Scriptures? Reflect! 
 His master, God in the Bible commands him "to honor," "to obey," 
 "to serve," "to submit to," "to please," "not. to despise," " not to 
 answer again," "not to purloin from." Now, these Abolition 
 brethren who meet the flying slave on the shore— does the spirit 
 they breathe towards his master, the words they address to him 
 about his master, the act they perform in its relation to his mas- 
 ter, produce any other effect than to stir up the whole heart of the 
 
DELIVERED IN THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 
 
 43 
 
 servant into the most positive and flagrant violation of the spirit 
 and letter of every word of God to his soul concerning his duty 
 to that master. 
 
 Oh, my brethren ! I would that every bondman on the face of 
 the earth were possessed of the freedom you so highly prize. But, 
 the Bible ! the Bible ! ! framed to do this and every other good 
 work for man — what deep and shameful dishonor you cast upon 
 this Blessed Bible ! ! The violent tendency of this conduct is to 
 break down the power of the Bible upon the face of the whole 
 earth. Mr. Moderator, with great kindness I must be allowed to 
 say, whatever benevolent promptings toward man do beat in the 
 heart of my brethren, this, their act, in its moral bearing upon the 
 Scriptures, I hold to be great dishonor to God, great hurt to the 
 earth, and, therefore, great sin against God and man. 
 
 2d. Upon the character of the master, the servant, and the agent ? 
 Collect every command of God to the master as well as to the 
 servant, in the Holy Scriptures, and I think you will find that 
 this your frontier movement violently tempts the one party, and 
 provokes the other to direct and universal disobedience. And if 
 this is so, what must be its influence upon the agent? Mr. 
 Moderator, when God at great expense and in great love has 
 stooped from heaven expressly to mark out the only path in which 
 perishing man must walk to find spiritual deliverance, is it not a 
 great sin that Christian men should throw themselves violently 
 between God and the soul he is rescuing, and press that soul 
 away from the path of life 1 Is it not the greater sin in that it is 
 done in direct violation of apostolic example in similar circum- 
 stances ? Can such work as this be of sanctification to the soul 
 engaged in it ? 
 
 3d. There is one far more delicate, more shocking bearing of this 
 frontier movement, which, Mr. Moderator, my brethren will par- 
 don me if I advert to for an instant. I mean its corrupting, I am 
 pained to say, its degrading influence upon a certain class of young 
 ministers of the gospel. A young man has a generous and intrepid 
 spirit : this is felt and valued by his every friend. Peradventure 
 nature has not so largely endowed him with discretion and a 
 sense of the propriety of things. He is called to Christ, and com- 
 missioned to preach the gospel. Kinsmen and acquaintances 
 alike anticipate a life of heaven-blest devotion to the good cause. 
 He becomes an Abolitionist. He sees his seniors all around him 
 building shelters for the refugees, collecting funds, providing 
 means, appointing agents, and forming plans to secure their res- 
 cue. Yes, sir, he sees them upon the bank opening wide their 
 arms, and lifting high their inviting voice to the bondman across 
 the river. What wonder, Mr. Moderator, that his fired soul 
 should boldly, I will say generously, if misguidedly, over-step the 
 line, and risk his own freedom in a clandestine enterprise to de- 
 liver the fellow-creature he had been taught to believe was so 
 wickedly oppressed ? A Judge on the bench, in the State of Mis- 
 
44 SPEECH ON THE SLAVERY RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 souri, once informed me that such a young minister had just been 
 brought before him. The evidence was irresistible. No sym- 
 pathy, no learning, no eloquence, no possible interposition, could 
 protect him from the issue. He further assured me that he had 
 received reliable information, that since his departure from home 
 two others had been arrested under similar circumstances, whom 
 he feared he should be compelled to dismiss to the same inglorious 
 destination. Nor is Missouri the only State where such unhappy 
 transactions have taken place. 
 
 Now, Mr. Moderator, I feel aggrieved for the honor of the de- 
 nomination to which I belong, I feel aggrieved for the stained 
 character, the wounded feelings, the blighted influence of these 
 young servants of the Lord. Yes, sir, I feel for them ; for I have 
 heard of the generous and noble nature of one of them, of his fa- 
 vorable influence upon his keepers and his miserable companions 
 in confinement ; and, sir, I charge it to Abolitionism that such 
 young men have been betrayed into such grievous impropriety. 
 I hold it the legitimate fruit of its own wretched extravagance. 
 
 My brethren, unaflfronted, will allow me to speak out, and say, 
 not that it should tinge the cheek, but that it should rouse the 
 judgment and awaken the conscience of every disciple of his 
 creed, to be assured that his own Abolitionism has put forth a 
 power, and wrought a deed in various sections of the country 
 which, after regular judicial investigation, stands pronounced 
 upon the records of this nation to be literally that very act which 
 they themselves are wont to impute to other men as the consum- 
 mation of all shame. 
 
 Mr. Moderator, I forbear. I simply designed by this (perad- 
 venture) rude suggestion to throw, if possible, some new light 
 upon some of the many bearings of this solemn subject, that my 
 brethren may reflect upon what seems not a little like hastening 
 to form exaggerated conceptions of the guilt of others without a 
 due consideration of the infelicities that lie at our own door ; not 
 a little like the indiscretion of driving Providence from his own 
 field, and taking his work into our hands. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 One grand allegation of Abolitionism is this: That Southern laws regard slaves as 
 chattels only. That they are treated as human beings also, may be learned from the 
 following sketch of some of the provisions of the laws of Georgia furnished by one of the 
 Judges of the Supreme Court of that State. Such, in general, are the spirit and tenor 
 Of the laws of every Southern State. 
 
 1. By the Constitution of the State, any person who shall maliciously dismember or 
 deprive a slave of life, shall suffer such punishment as would be inflicted in case the like 
 offence had been committed on a free white person and on the like proof, except in case 
 of insurrection, and except in cases where such death may happen by accident in giving 
 moderate correction. — Constitution of Georgia, Article 4, Section 12. 
 
 By the act of 1799, this article of the constitution is fully carried out. By that act 
 the proceeding, the law and the evidence, and the punishment, in case of murder by a 
 white man of°a white man are made applicable to the murder of a slave.— Prince's 
 Dig. 786-'7. 
 
 2. Any person other than the owner, overseer, or employer, who shall beat, whip, or 
 wound a slave, without sufficient cause or provocation, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and 
 punishable with fine and imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the Court.— Hotch- 
 kiss' Digest, 770. 
 
 3. Any owner or employer of slaves, who shall cruelly treat such slaves by unneces- 
 sary and excessive whipping, by withholding proper food and sustenance, by requiring 
 greater labor than they are able to perform, or by not affording proper clothing, whereby 
 their health may be injured or impaired ; or cause or permit the same to be done, is pun- 
 ishable by fine and imprisonment, or both, at the discretion of the Court. — Holchkiss' 
 Digest, 779. 
 
 4. If any person shall on the Lord's Day, employ a slave at any work or labor, (works 
 of absolute necessity, and the necessary occasions of the family excepted,) he shall for- 
 feit and pay the sum often shillings for every slave thus caused to work. — Hotchkiss, 770. 
 
 5. Persons selling spirituous liquors to slaves, are punished with fine not less than ten 
 nor more than fifty dollars for the first offence ; for the second, with fine not exceeding 
 five hundred dollars and imprisonment not exceeding sixty days, at the discretion of the 
 Court. — Hotchkiss, 771. 
 
 6. Provision is -made for trying the question of freedom at the instance of any person 
 of color claiming to be free; the question of freedom or not, is to be tried by a jury 
 before the Superior Court, as at common law. — Hitchkiss, 802, 3, 4, 5. 
 
 7. By the act of 1815, it is made the duty of the Inferior, or County Court, of each 
 county, to afford relief to infirm slaves, in their discretion ; whenever they are certified 
 upon oath that they are in a suffering condition from the neglect of their owners. And 
 they are empowered to sue for and recover the costs of such relief out of the owner. — 1 
 Prince, 791. 
 
 8. An Infirmary for aged and afflicted negroes was established by law at Savannah. 
 The corporators have power to receive and maintain such aged and afflicted negroes, 
 residents in the State, as they may deem proper objects of their benevolence.— Hotchkiss, 
 206, 7, 8. 
 
 Before the act of the last Legislature, slaves were tried for capital offenses, before the 
 Inferior Court. Now they aiie tried as white persons are tried, before the Superior 
 Court, upon presentment, or bill found by the Grand Jury, and by a jury selected for 
 the purpose, as in case of a white man. — Acts of 1849-50, page 372. 
 
 As a judicial exposition of the character and condition of negroes as chattels, and at 
 the same time human creatures, I refer to the opinion pronounced by the Judges in 
 Convention in the case of The State vs. Philpot. The Convention of Judges was at 
 
48 APPENDIX. 
 
 that time the highest judicial tribunal known to the laws of Georgia. And it was com- 
 posed of the Judges of the Superior Courts, at the head of whom was the late Wm. H. 
 Crawford. A bench surpassed, in my judgment, by none of the benches of our sister 
 States, for learning and integrity. I extract from that opinion, the following paragraphs: 
 
 " It is true slaves are property, and by the act of 10th May, 1770, are declared to be 
 personal chattels in the hands of their owners, and are alienable ; but it does not thence 
 fellow that they are mere things, horses, as was contended in argument. This pro- 
 perty or personal chattel consists in the right of governing the slave, sbject to such re- 
 straints as the Legislature may impose on the master, and of enjoying his perpetual 
 and involuntary service. The law has never yet ceased to consider slaves, though thus 
 subject to the government and service of the master, as human beings, subject to ita 
 protection, and bound to obey its requirements. And so careful were the people of 
 Georgia upon this subject, that in their Constitution, article 4, section 12, the life and 
 members of slaves are expressly protected in the same manner as the life and members 
 of free white persons are. They are subjected to general laws. — See acts of 1811 and 
 1816, and the laws throughout on this subject. 
 
 " They have secured to them a formal trial for all offenses and the right of examining 
 witnesses ; and in capital cases, the right of trial by jury. They cannot be tried twice 
 for the same offense. — Act of 1803, section 4. 
 
 " Their persons are protected from violence and cruelty, none but the master having 
 the right causelessly to strike or whip them, and the master himself being restrained to 
 such moderate chastisement as may be necessary for discipline and the preservation of a 
 just subordination. They have likewise secured to them from the hands of the master 
 all care, food, sustenance, and clothing proper and necessary for them, and are exempted 
 from excessive labor." — See Dudley's Geo. E., pages 51, 52. 
 
 II. 
 
 The statement touching the number and value of slaves manumitted, I derive princi- 
 pally from the publication of a friend remarkable for the accuracy of his statistics. 
 
 III. 
 
 The following table of the sum total of the contributions of the American Church, 
 from the birth-day of her Christian liberality, was prepared at my request by one well- 
 advised on all this subject. It exhibits the date of the formation of each of the promi- 
 nent Benevolent Societies of this country, together with the sum total of its contributions 
 from the beginning: — 
 
 1810. Am. Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, $5,547,090 
 
 1813. Baptist Foreign Missionary Association, 1,183,834 
 
 1816. American Bible Society, 3 500,000 
 
 1816. " Education Society, 1,142,650 
 
 1816. Presbyterian Board of Domestic Missions, 987,687 
 
 1819. " " Education, 787,679 
 
 1820. Methodist Missionary Society 1,848,577 
 
 1822. Episcopal Missionary Society, 942,458 
 
 1824. American Sunday-school Unien, 1,878,410 
 
 1825. " Tract Society, 2,462,771 
 
 1826. " Home Missionary Society, 1,897,259 
 
 1828. " Seamens' Friend Society, 315,344 
 
 1832. Baptist Home Missionary Association, 649,442 
 
 1833. Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, 960,934 
 
 " " Publication, 397,473 
 
 1837. American and Foreign Bible Society, (Baptist,) 378,566 
 
 1839. Foreign Evangelical Society, 196,675 
 
 1848. American Protestant Society, 92,812 
 
 American Colonization Society, 1,000,000 
 
 General contributions of the American Church from the beginning, 
 
 Total, $25,668,557 
 
 Southern contribution for the cause of Emancipation, nearly .$125,000,000 
 
Ja'12 
 
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