the South this winter, and they will raise one hundred thousand dollars for
you. New Orleans, itself, will be pledged for it. Desiring no further
acquaintance with you, and never expecting to see you but once in time or
eternity, that is at the judgment, I subscribe myself the friend of the Bible,
and the opposer of abolitionists.
Orangeburgh, July 21, 1836. J. C. Postell.
The Rev. Thomas S. Witherspoon, a member of the Presby-
terian Church, writing to the editor of the Emancipator, says:
I draw my warrant from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to
hold the slave in bondage. The principle of holding the heathen in bondage is
recognised by God. * * * When the tardy process of the law is too long in
redressing our grievances, we of the South have adopted the summary remedy of
Judge Lynch; and really I think it one of the most wholesome and salutary
remedies for the malady of Northern fanaticism that can be applied, and no
doubt my worthy friend, the Editor of the Emancipator and Human Rights, would
feel the better of its enforcement, provided he had a Southern administrator. I
go to the Bible for my warrant in all moral matters. * * * Let your
emissaries dare venture to cross the Potomac, and I cannot promise you that their
fate will be less than Haman's. Then beware how you goad an insulted but
magnanimous people to deeds of desperation.
The Rev. Robert N. Anderson, also a member of the Presby-
terian Church, says, in a letter to the Sessions of the Presby-
terian Congregations within the bounds of the West Hanover
Presbytery:
At the approaching stated meeting of our Presbytery, I design to offer a
preamble and string of resolutions on the subject of the use of wine in the
Lord's Supper; and also a preamble and string of resolutions on the subject of
the treasonable and abominably-wicked interference of the Northern and
Eastern fanatics with our political and civil rights, our property and our
domestic concerns. You are aware that our clergy, whether with or without
reason, are more suspected by the public than the clergy of other denominations.
Now, dear Christian brethren, I humbly express it as my earnest wish, that
you quit yourselves like men. If there be any stray goat of a minister among
you, tainted with the blood-hound principles of abolitionism, let him be ferreted
out, silenced, excommunicated, and left to the public to dispose of him in other
respects.
Your affectionate brother in the Lord,
Robert N. Anderson.
The Rev. William S. Plummer, D.D., of Richmond, a member
of the Old School Presbyterian Church, is another instance of
the same sort. He was absent from Richmond at the time the
clergy in that city purged themselves, in a body, from the charge
of being favourably disposed to abolition. On his return, he
lost no time in communicating to the “Chairman of the Com-
mittee of Correspondence” his agreement with his clerical
brethren. The passages quoted occur in his letter to the
chairman:
I have carefully watched this matter from its earliest existence, and everything I
have seen or heard of its character, both from its patrons and its enemies, has con-
firmed me, beyond repentance, in the belief that, let the character of abolitionists
be what it may in the sight of the Judge of all the earth, this is the most meddle-
some, impudent, reckless, fierce, and wicked excitement I ever saw.
If abolitionists will set the country in a blaze, it is but fair that they should
receive the first warning at the fire.
* * * * * *
Lastly. Abolitionists are like infidels, wholly unaddicted to martyrdom for
opinion's sake. Let them understand that they will be caught [Lynched] if they
come among us, and they will take good heed to keep out of our way. There is
not one man among them who has any more idea of shedding his blood in this
cause than he has of making war on the Grand Turk.
The Rev. Dr. Hill, of Virginia, said, in the New School
Assembly:
The abolitionists have made the servitude of the slave harder. If I could tell
you some of the dirty tricks which these abolitionists have played, you would not
wonder. Some of them have been Lynched, and it served them right.
These things sufficiently show the estimate which the Southern
clergy and church have formed and expressed as to the relative
value of slavery and the right of free inquiry. It shows, also,
that they consider slavery as so important that they can tolerate
and encourage acts of lawless violence, and risk all the dangers
of encouraging mob-law, for its sake. These passages and con-
siderations sufficiently show the stand which the Southern church
takes upon this subject.
For many of these opinions, shocking as they may appear,
some apology may be found in that blinding power of custom,
and all those deadly educational influences which always attend
the system of slavery, and which must necessarily produce a
certain obtuseness of the moral sense in the mind of any man
who is educated from childhood under them.
There is also, in the habits of mind formed under a system
which is supported by continual resort to force and violence, a
necessary deadening of sensibility to the evils of force and
violence, as applied to other subjects. The whole style of
civilization which is formed under such an institution has been
not unaptly denominated by a popular writer “the bowie-knife
style;” and we must not be surprised at its producing a
peculiarly martial cast of religious character and ideas very
much at variance with the spirit of the gospel. A religious
man, born and educated at the South, has all these difficulties
to contend with in elevating himself to the true spirit of the
gospel.
It was said by one that, after the Reformation, the best of
men being educated under a system of despotism and force, and
accustomed from childhood to have force, and not argument,
made the test of opinion, came to look upon all controversies
very much in a Smithfield light, the question being not as to
the propriety of burning heretics, but as to which party ought
to be burned.
The system of slavery is a simple retrogression of society to
the worst abuses of the middle ages. We must not, therefore,
be surprised to find the opinions and practices of the middle
ages, as to civil and religious toleration, prevailing.
However much we may reprobate and deplore those unworthy
views of God and religion which are implied in such declara-
tions as are here recorded--however blasphemous and absurd
they may appear--still, it is apparent that their authors uttered
them with sincerity; and this is the most melancholy feature of
the case. They are as sincere as Paul when he breathed out
threatenings and slaughter, and when he thought within himself
that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus.
They are as sincere as the Brahmin or Hindoo, conscientiously
supporting a religion of cruelty
and blood. They are as sincere
as many enlightened, scholarlike, and Christian men in modern
Europe, who, born and bred under systems of civil and religious
despotism, and having them entwined with all their dearest
associations of home and country, and having all their habits of
thought and feeling biassed by them, do most conscientiously
defend them.
There is something in conscientious conviction, even in case
of the worst kind of opinions, which is not without a certain
degree of respectability. That the religion expressed by the
declarations which we have quoted is as truly Antichrist as the
religion of the Church of Rome, it is presumed no sensible person
out of the sphere of American influences will deny. That there
may be very sincere Christians under this system of religion,
with all its false principles and all its disadvantageous influences,
liberality must concede. The Church of Rome has had its
Fenelon, its Thomas à Kempis; and the Southern Church,
which has adopted these principles, has had men who have risen
above the level of their system. At the time of the Reformation,
and now the Church of Rome had in its bosom thousands of
praying, devoted, humble, Christians, which, like flowers in the
clefts of rocks, could be counted by no eye save God's alone.
And so, amid the rifts and glaciers of this horrible spiritual and
temporal despotism, we hope are blooming flowers of Paradise,
patient, prayerful, and self-denying Christians; and it is the
deepest grief, in attacking the dreadful system under which they
have been born and brought up, that violence must be done to
their cherished feelings and associations. In another and better
world, perhaps they may appreciate the motives of those who do
this.
But now another consideration comes to the mind. These
Southern Christians have been united in ecclesiastical relations
with Christians of the Northern and free States, meeting with
them, by their representatives, yearly, in their various eccle-
siastical assemblies. One might hope, in case of such a union,
that those debasing views of Christianity, and that deadness of
public sentiment, which were the inevitable result of an educa-
tion under the slave system, might have been qualified by inter-
course with Christians in free States, who, having grown up
under free institutions, would naturally be supposed to feel the
utmost abhorrence of such sentiments. One would have sup-
posed that the church and clergy of the free States would
naturally have used the most strenuous endeavours, by all the
means in their power, to convince their brethren of errors so dis-
honourable to Christianity, and tending to such dreadful practical
results. One would have supposed also, that, failing to convince
their brethren, they would have felt it due to Christianity to clear
themselves from all complicity with these sentiments, by the
most solemn, earnest, and reiterated protests.
Let us now inquire what has, in fact, been the course of the
Northern Church on this subject.
Previous to making this inquiry, let us review the declarations
that have been made in the Southern Church, and see what
principles have been established by them:--
1. That slavery is an innocent and lawful relation, as much as
that of parent and child, husband and wife, or any other lawful
relation of society. (Harmony Pres., S. C.)
2. That it is consistent with the most fraternal regard for the
good of the slave. (Charleston Union Pres., S. C.)
3. That masters ought not to be disciplined for selling slaves
without their consent. (New School Pres. Church, Petersburg,
Va.)
4. That the right to buy, sell, and hold men for purposes of
gain, was given by express permission of God. (James Smylie
and his Presbyteries.)
5. That the laws which forbid the education of the slave are
right, and meet the approbation of the reflecting part of the
Christian community. (Ibid.)
6. That the fact of slavery is not a question of morals at all,
but is purely one of political economy. (Charleston Baptist
Association.)
7. The right of masters to dispose of the time of their slaves
has been distinctly recognised by the Creator of all things. (Ibid.)
8. That slavery, as it exists in these United States, is not a
moral evil. (Georgia Conference, Methodist.)
9. That, without a new revelation from heaven, no man is
entitled to pronounce slavery wrong.
10. That the separation of slaves by sale should be regarded
as separation by death, and the parties allowed to marry again.
(Shiloh Baptist Ass., and Savannah River Ass.)
11. That the testimony of coloured members of the churches
shall not be taken against a white person. (Methodist Church.)
In addition, it has been plainly avowed, by the expressed
principles and practice of Christians of various denominations,
that they regard it right and proper to put down all inquiry upon
this subject by Lynch law.
One would have imagined that these principles were suffi-
ciently extraordinary, as coming from the professors of the re-
ligion of Christ, to have excited a good deal of attention in their
Northern brethren. It also must be seen that, as principles,
they are principles of very extensive application, underlying the
whole foundations of religion and morality. If not true, they
were certainly heresies of no ordinary magnitude, involving no
ordinary results. Let us now return to our inquiry as to the
course of the Northern Church in relation to them.
* Birney's Pamphlet.
CHAPTER II.
In the first place, have any of these opinions ever been treated
in the church as heresies, and the teachers of them been sub-
jected to the censures with which it is thought proper to visit
heresy?
After a somewhat extended examination upon the subject, the
writer has been able to discover but one instance of this sort.
It may be possible that such cases have existed in other denomi-
nations, which have escaped inquiry.
A clergyman in the Cincinnati N. S. Presbytery maintained
the doctrine that slave-holding was justified by the Bible, and
for persistence in teaching this sentiment was suspended by that
presbytery. He appealed to Synod, and the decision was con-
firmed by the Cincinnati Synod. The New School General
Assembly, however, reversed this decision of the presbytery, and
restored the standing of the clergyman. The presbytery, on its
part, refused to receive him back, and he was received into the
Old School Church.
The Presbyterian Church has probably exceeded all other
churches of the United States in its zeal for doctrinal opinions.
This church has been shaken and agitated to its very foundation
with questions of heresy; but, except in this individual case, it
is not known that any of these principles which have been asserted
by Southern Presbyteri
an bodies and individuals have ever been
discussed in its General Assembly as matters of heresy.
About the time that Smylie's pamphlet came out, the Presby-
terian Church was convulsed with the trial of the Rev. Albert
Barnes for certain alleged heresies. These heresies related to
the federal headship of Adam, the propriety of imputing his sin
to all his posterity, and the question whether men have any
ability of any kind to obey the commandments of God.
For advancing certain sentiments on these topics, Mr. Barnes
was silenced by the vote of the Synod to which he belonged, and
his trial in the General Assembly on these points was the all-
engrossing topic in the Presbyterian Church for some time. The
Rev. Dr. L. Beecher went through a trial with reference to
similar opinions. During all this time no notice was taken of
the heresy, if such it be, that the right to buy, sell, and hold
men for purposes of gain, was expressly given by God, although
that heresy was publicly promulgated in the same Presbyterian
Church by Mr. Smylie, and the Presbyterians with which he was
connected.
If it be accounted for by saying that the question of slavery
is a question of practical morals, and not of dogmatic theology,
we are then reminded that questions of morals of far less magni-
tude have been discussed with absorbing interest.
The Old School Presbyterian Church, in whose communion
the greater part of the slaveholding Presbyterians of the South
are found, has never felt called upon to discipline its members
for upholding a system which denies legal marriage to all slaves.
Yet this church was agitated to its very foundation by the dis-
cussion of a question of morals which an impartial observer
would probably consider of far less magnitude, namely, whether
a man might lawfully marry his deceased wife's sister. For the
time, all the strength and attention of the church seemed con-
centrated upon this important subject. The trial went from
Presbytery to Synod, and from Synod to General Assembly; and
ended with deposing a very respectable minister for this crime.
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