most vehemently urged, by many petitions and memorials.
These memorials were referred to a committee of decided anti-
slavery men. The argument on one side was, that the time was
now come to take decided measures to cut free wholly from all
pro-slavery complicity, and avow their principles with decision,
even though it should repel all such Churches from their com-
munion as were not prepared for immediate emancipation.
On the other hand, the majority of the committee were urged
by opposing considerations. The brethren from slave States made
to them representations somewhat alike to these: “Brethren,
our hearts are with you. We are with you in faith, in charity,
in prayer. We sympathised in the injury that had been done
you by excision. We stood by you then, and are ready to stand
by you still. We have no sympathy with the party that have
expelled you, and we do not wish to go back to them. As to
this matter of slavery, we do not differ from you. We consider
it an evil. We mourn and lament over it. We are trying, by
gradual and peaceable means, to exclude it from our Churches.
We are going as far in advance of the sentiment of our Churches
as we consistently can. We cannot come up to more decided
action without losing our hold over them, and, as we think,
throwing back the cause of emancipation. If you begin in this
decided manner, we cannot hold our Churches in the union; they
will divide, and go to the Old School.”
Here was a very strong plea, made by good and sincere men.
It was an appeal, too, to the most generous feelings of the heart.
It was, in effect, saying, “Brothers, we stood by you, and fought
your battles, when everything was going against you; and, now
that you have the power in your hands, are you going to use it
so as to cast us out?”
These men, strong anti-slavery men as they were, were affected.
One member of the committee foresaw and feared the result. He
felt and suggested that the course proposed conceded the whole
question. The majority thought, on the whole, that it was best
to postpone the subject. The committee reported that the ap-
plicants, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, had withdrawn
their papers.
The next year, in 1839, the subject was resumed; and it was
again urged that the Assembly should take high, and decided, and
unmistakeable ground; and certainly, if we consider that all this
time not a single Church had emancipated its slaves, and that the
power of the institution was everywhere stretching and growing
and increasing, it would certainly seem that something more
efficient was necessary than a general understanding that the
Church agreed with the testimony delivered in 1818. It was
strongly represented that it was time something was done. This
year the Assembly decided to refer the subject to Presbyteries, to
do what they deemed advisable. The words employed were
these: “Solemnly referring the whole subject to the lower judi-
catories, to take such action as in their judgment is most judicious,
and adapted to remove the evil.” The Rev. George Beecher
moved to insert the word moral before evil; they declined.*
This brought, in 1840, a much larger number of memorials
and petitions; and very strong attempts were made by the
abolitionists to obtain some decided action.
The committee this year referred to what had been done last
year, and declared it inexpedient to do anything further. The
subject was indefinitely postponed. At this time it was resolved
that the Assembly should meet only once in three years. Accord-
ingly, it did not meet till 1843. In 1843, several memorials
were again presented, and some resolutions offered to the As-
sembly, of which this was one (Minutes of the General Assembly
for 1843, p. 15).
Resolved, That we affectionately and earnestly urge upon the Ministers, Sessions,
Presbyteries, and Synods connected with this Assembly, that they treat this as all
other sins of great magnitude; and by a diligent, kind, and faithful application of
the means which God has given them, by instruction, remonstrance, reproof, and
effective discipline, seek to purify the Church of this great iniquity.
This resolution they declined. They passed the following:--
Whereas there is in this Assembly great diversity of opinion as to the proper
and best mode of action on the subject of slavery; and whereas, in such circum-
stances, any expression of sentiment would carry with it but little weight, as it
would be passed by a small majority, and must operate to produce alienation and
division; and whereas the Assembly of 1839, with great unanimity, referred this
whole subject to the lower judicatories, to take such order as in their judgement
might be adapted to remove the evil;--Resolved, That the Assembly do not think
it for the edification of the Church for this body to take any action on the subject.
They, however, passed the following:--
Resolved, That the fashionable amusement of promiscuous dancing is so entirely
unscriptural, and eminently and exclusively that of “the world which lieth in
wickedness,” and so wholly inconsistent with the spirit of Christ, and with that
propriety of Christian deportment and that purity of heart which his followers
are bound to maintain, as to render it not only improper and injurious for pro-
fessing Christians either to partake in it, or to qualify their children for it, by
teaching them the “art,” but also to call for the faithful and judicious exercise
of discipline on the part of Church Sessions, when any of the members of their
Churches have been guilty.
Three years after, in 1846, the General Assembly published
the following declaration of sentiment:--
1. The system of slavery as it exists in these United States, viewed either in
the laws of the several States which sanction it, or in its actual operation and
results in society, is intrinsically unrighteous and oppressive; and is opposed to
the prescriptions of the law of God, to the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, and
to the best interests of humanity.
2. The testimony of the General Assembly from a.d. 1787 to a.d. 1818, inclu-
sive, has condemned it; and it remains still the recorded testimony of the Pres-
byterian Church of these United States against it, from which we do not recede.
3. We cannot, therefore, withhold the expression of our deep regret that slavery
should be continued and countenanced by any of the members of our Churches;
and we do earnestly exhort both them and the Churches among whom it exists to
use all means in their power to put it away from them. Its perpetuation among
them cannot fail to be regarded by multitudes, influenced by their example, as
sanctioning the system portrayed in it, and maintained by the statutes of the
several slaveholding States wherein they dwell. Nor can any mere mitigation of
its severity, prompted by the humanity and Christian feeling of any who continue
to hold their fellow-men in bondage, be regarded either as a testimony against
the system, or as in the least degree changing its essential character.
4. But while we believe that many evils incident to the system render it im-
portant and obligatory to bear testimony against it, yet would we not undertake to
determine the degree of moral turpitude on the part of individuals involved by it.
This will doubtless be found to vary, in the sight of God, according to the degree
of light and other circumstances pertaining to each. In view of all the embar-
rassments and obstacles in the way of emancipation interposed by the statutes of
the slaveholding States, and by the social influence affecting the views and con-
duct of those involved in it, we cannot pronounce a judgment of general and pro-
miscuous condemnation, implying that destitution of Christian principle and
feeling which should exclude from the table of the Lord all who should stand
in the legal relation of masters to slaves, or justify us in withholding our eccle-
siastical and Christian fellowship from them. We rather sympathise with, and
would seek to succour them in their embarrassments, believing that separation and
secession among the Churches and their members are not the methods God ap-
proves and sanctions for the reformation of his Church.
5. While, therefore, we feel bound to bear our testimony against slavery, and
to exhort our beloved brethren to remove it from them as speedily as possible by
all appropriate and available means, we do at the same time condemn all divisive
and schismatical measures, tending to destroy the unity and disturb the peace of
our Church, and deprecate the spirit of denunciation and inflicting severities, which
would cast from the fold those whom we are rather bound, by the spirit of the
Gospel, and the obligations of our covenant, to instruct, to counsel, to exhort, and
thus to lead in the ways of God; and towards whom, even though they may err,
we ought to exercise forbearance and brotherly love.
6. As a court of our Lord Jesus Christ, we possess no legislative authority;
and as the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, we possess no judi-
ciary authority. We have no right to institute and prescribe a test of Christian
character and Church membership not recognised and sanctioned in the sacred
Scriptures, and in our standards, by which we have agreed to walk. We must
therefore this matter with the sessions and synods--the judi-
discipline as they may judge it to be their duty, constitutionally subject to the
General Assembly only in the way of general review and control.
When a boat is imperceptibly going down stream on a gentle
but strong current, we can see its passage only by comparing
objects with each other on the shore.
If this declaration of the New-School General Assembly be
compared with that of 1818, it will be found to be far less out-
spoken and decided in its tone, while in the meantime slavery
had become four-fold more powerful. In 1818, the Assembly
states that the most virtuous portion of the community in slave
States abhor slavery, and wish its extermination. In 1846, the
Assembly states with regret that slavery is still continued and
countenanced by any of the members of our Churches. The
testimony of 1818 has the frank out-spoken air of a unanimous
document, where there was but one opinion. That of 1846 has
the guarded air of a compromise ground out between the upper
and nether millstone of two contending parties--it is winnowed,
guarded, cautious, and careful.
Considering the document, however, in itself, it is certainly
a very good one; and it would be a very proper expression of
Christian feeling, had it related to an evil of any common
magnitude, and had it been uttered in any common crisis; but
let us consider what was the evil attacked, and what was the
crisis. Consider the picture which the Kentucky Synod had
drawn of the actual state of things among them:--“The mem-
bers of slave-families separated, never to meet again until the
final judgment; brothers and sisters, parents and children, hus-
bands and wives, daily torn asunder, and permitted to see each
other no more; the shrieks and agonies, proclaiming as with
trumpet-tongue the iniquity and cruelty of the system; the cries
of the sufferers going up to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth;
not a neighbourhood where those heart-rending scenes are not
displayed; not a village or road without the sad procession of
manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances tell
they are exiled by force from all that heart holds dear; Christian
professors rending the mother from her child to sell her into
returnless exile.”
This was the language of the Kentucky Synod fourteen years
before; and those scenes had been going on ever since, and are
going on now, as the advertisements of every Southern paper
show; and yet the Church of Christ since 1818 had done
nothing but express regret and hold grave metaphysical discus-
sions as to whether slavery was an “evil per se,” and censure the
rash action of men who, in utter despair of stopping the evil any
other way, tried to stop it by excluding slaveholders from the
Church. As if it were not better that one slaveholder in a
hundred should stay out of the Church, if he be peculiarly circum-
stanced, than that all this horrible agony and iniquity should
continually receive the sanction of the Church's example! Should
not a generous Christian man say, “If Church excision will stop
this terrible evil, let it come, though it does bear hardly upon
me! Better that I suffer a little injustice than that this horrible
injustice be still credited to the account of Christ's Church. Shall
I embarrass the whole Church with my embarrassments? What
if I am careful and humane in my treatment of my slaves--what
if, in my heart, I have repudiated the wicked doctrine that they
are my property, and am treating them as my brethren--what
am I then doing? All the credit of my example goes to give
force to the system. The Church ought to reprove this fearful
injustice, and reprovers ought to have clean hands; and if I
cannot really get clear of this, I had better keep out of the
Church till I can.”
Let us consider, also, the awful entrenchments and strength
of the evil against which this very moderate resolution was dis-
charged. “A money power of two thousand millions of dollars
held by a small body of able and desperate men; that body
raised into a political aristocracy by special constitutional pro-
visions; cotton, the product of slave-labour, forming the basis of
our whole foreign commerce, and the commercial class thus
subsidised; the press bought up; the Southern pulpit reduced
to vassalage; the heart of the common people chilled by a bitter
prejudice against the black race; and our leading men bribed by
ambition either to silence or open hostility.”* And now, in
this condition of things, the whole weight of these Churches goes
in support of slavery, from the fact of their containing slave-
holders. No matter if they d
id not participate in the abuses of
the system; nobody wants them to do that. The slave power
does not wish professors of religion to separate families, or over-
work their slaves, or do any disreputable thing--that is not their
part. The slave power wants pious, tender-hearted, generous
and humane masters, and must have them, to hold up the system
against the rising moral sense of the world; and the more pious
and generous the better. Slavery could not stand an hour with-
out these men. What then? These men uphold the system,
and that great anti-slavery body of ministers uphold these men.
That is the final upshot of the matter.
Paul says that we must remember those that are in bonds, as
bound with them. Suppose that this General Assembly had
been made up of men who had been fugitives. Suppose one of
them had had his daughters sent to the New Orleans slave-
market, like Emily and Mary Edmondson; that another's daugh-
ter had died on the overland passage in a slave-coffle, with no
nurse but a slave-driver, like poor Emily Russell: another's wife
died broken-hearted when her children were sold out of her bosom;
and another had a half-crazed mother, whose hair had been turned
prematurely white with agony. Suppose these scenes of
agonizing partings, with shrieks and groans, which the Kentucky
Synod says have been witnessed so long among the slaves, had
been seen in these ministers' families, and that they had come
up to this discussion with their hearts as scarred and seared as
the heart of poor old Paul Edmondson, when he came to New
York to beg for his daughters. Suppose that they saw that the
horrid system by which all this had been done was extending
every hour; that professed Christians in every denomination at
the South declared it to be an appointed institution of God;
that all the wealth, and all the rank, and all the fashion in the
country were committed in its favour; and that they, like
Aaron, were sent to stand between the living and the dead, that
the plague might be stayed.
Most humbly, most earnestly, let it be submitted to the
Christians of this nation, and to Christians of all nations, for
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