The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Rev. Robert J. Breckenridge, D.D., a member of the Old

  School Assembly, has thus described the state of the slave po-

  pulation as to their marriage relations: “The system of slavery

  denies to a whole class of human beings the sacredness of mar-

  riage and of home, compelling them to live in a state of concu-

  binage; for, in the eye of the law, no coloured slave-man is the

  husband of any wife in particular, nor any slave-woman the wife

  of any husband in particular; no slave-man is the father of any

  children in particular, and no slave-child is the child of any

  parent in particular.”

  Now, had this church considered the fact that three millions

  of men and women were, by the laws of the land, obliged to live

  in this manner, as of equally serious consequence, it is evident,

  from the ingenuity, argument, vehemence, Biblical research, and

  untiring zeal which they bestowed on Mr. McQueen's trial,

  that they could have made a very strong case with regard to this

  also.

  The history of the united action of denominations which in-

  cluded churches both in the slave and free States is a melancholy

  exemplification, to a reflecting mind, of that gradual deterioration

  of the moral sense which results from admitting any compromise,

  however slight, with an acknowledged sin. The best minds in

  the world cannot bear such a familiarity without injury to the

  moral sense. The facts of the slave system and of the slave laws,

  when presented to disinterested judges in Europe, have excited

  a universal outburst of horror; yet, in assemblies composed of

  the wisest and best clergymen of America, these things have

  been discussed from year to year, and yet brought no results

  that have, in the slightest degree, lessened the evil. The reason

  is this. A portion of the members of these bodies had pledged

  themselves to sustain the system, and peremptorily to refuse and

  put down all discussion of it; and the other part of the body

  did not consider this stand so taken as being of sufficiently vital

  consequence to authorise separation.

  Nobody will doubt that, had the Southern members taken such

  a stand against the divinity of our Lord, the division would have

  been immediate and unanimous; but yet the Southern members

  do maintain the right to buy and sell, lease, hire, and mortgage,

  multitudes of men and women, whom, with the same breath, they

  declared to be members of their churches and true Christians.

  The Bible declares of all such that they are the temples of the

  Holy Ghost; that they are the members of Christ's body, of his

  flesh and bones. Is not the doctrine that men may lawfully

  sell the members of Christ, his body, his flesh and bones,

  for purposes of gain, as really a heresy as the denial of the

  divinity of Christ; and is it not a dishonour to Him who is

  over all, God blessed for ever, to tolerate this dreadful opinion,

  with its more dreadful consequences, while the smallest heresies

  concerning the imputation of Adam's sin are pursued with eager

  vehemence? If the history of the action of all the bodies thus

  united can be traced downwards, we shall find that, by reason of

  this tolerance of an admitted sin, the anti-slavery testimony has

  every year grown weaker and weaker. If we look over the

  history of all denominations, we shall see that at first they used

  very stringent language with relation to slavery. This is particu-

  larly the case with the Methodist and Presbyterian bodies, and

  for that reason we select these two as examples. The Methodist

  Society especially, as organised by John Wesley, was an anti-

  slavery society, and the Book of Discipline contained the most

  positive statutes against slaveholding. The history of the

  successive resolutions of the conference of this church is very

  striking. In 1780, before the church was regularly organised

  in the United States, they resolved as follows:--

  The conference acknowledges that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man,

  and nature, and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience and true.

  In 1784, when the church was fully organised, rules were

  adopted prescribing the times at which members who were

  already slaveholders should emancipate their slaves. These

  rules were succeeded by the following:--

  Every person concerned, who will not comply with these rules, shall have liberty

  quietly to withdraw from our Society within the twelve months following the

  notice being given him, as aforesaid; otherwise the assistants shall exclude him

  from the society.

  No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into the Society, or to the

  Lord's Supper, till he previously comply with these rules concerning slavery.

  Those who buy, sell, or give slaves away, unless on purpose to free them, shall

  be expelled immediately.

  In 1801:--

  We declare that we are more than ever convinced of the great evil of African

  slavery, which still exists in these United States.

  Every member of the Society who sells a slave shall immediately, after full proof,

  be excluded from the Society, &c.

  The Annual Conferences are directed to draw up addresses for the gradual eman-

  cipation of the slaves, to the Legislature. Proper committees shall be appointed

  by the Annual Conference, out of the most respectable of our friends, for the con-

  ducting of the business; and the presiding elders, deacons, and travelling preachers,

  shall procure as many proper signatures as possible to the addresses, and give all

  the assistance in their power, in every respect, to aid the committees, and to further

  the blessed undertaking. Let this be continued from year to year, till the desired

  end be accomplished.

  In 1836, let us notice the change. The General Conference

  held its annual session in Cincinnati, and resolved as follows:--

  Resolved, by the delegates of the Annual Conferences in General Conference

  assembled, that they are decidedly opposed to modern abolitionism, and wholly

  disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and political relation

  between master and slave, as it exists in the slaveholding States of this Union.

  These resolutions were passed by a very large majority. An

  address was received from the Wesleyan Methodist Conference in

  England, affectionately remonstrating on the subject of slavery.

  The Conference refused to publish it. In the pastoral address

  to the churches are these passages:--

  It cannot be unknown to you that the question of slavery in the United

  States, by the constitutional compact which binds us together as a nation, is left

  to be regulated by the several State Legislatures themselves; and thereby is put

  beyond the control of the general government, as well as that of all ecclesiastical

  bodies, it being manifest that in the slaveholding States themselves the entire

  non-existence rests with those State Legislatures.

  * * * * These facts, which are only mentioned here as a reason for

  the friendly admonition which we wish to give you, constrain us, as your pastors,
/>
  who are called to watch over your souls, as they must give account, to exhort you

  to abstain from all abolition movements and associations, and to refrain from

  patronising any of their publications, &c. * * * *

  The subordinate conferences showed the same spirit.

  In 1836, the New York Annual Conference resolved that no

  one should be elected a deacon or elder in the church unless he

  would give a pledge to the church that he would refrain from

  discussing this subject.*

  In 1838 the Conference resolved--

  As the sense of this Conference, that any of its members, or probationers, who

  shall patronise Zion's Watchman, either by writing in commendation of its cha-

  racter, by circulating it, recommending it to our people, or procuring subscribers,

  or by collecting or remitting moneys, shall be deemed guilty of indiscretion, and

  dealt with accordingly.

  It will be recollected that Zion's Watchman was edited by Le

  Roy Sunderland, for whose abduction the State of Alabama had

  offered fifty thousand dollars.

  In 1840, the General Conference at Baltimore passed the

  resolution that we have already quoted, forbidding preachers to

  allow coloured persons to give testimony in their churches. It

  has been computed that about eighty thousand people were

  deprived of the right of testimony by this Act. This Methodist

  Church subsequently broke into a Northern and Southern Con-

  ference. The Southern Conference is avowedly all pro-slavery,

  and the Northern Conference has still in its communion slave-

  holding conferences and members.

  Of the Northern Conferences, one of the largest, the Baltimore,

  passed the following:--

  Resolved, That this Conference disclaims having any fellowship with abolitionism.

  On the contrary, while it is determined to maintain its well-known and long-esta-

  blished position, by keeping the travelling preachers composing its own body free

  from slavery, it is also determined not to hold connexion with any ecclesiastical

  body that shall make non-slaveholding a condition of membership in the church,

  but to stand by and maintain the discipline as it is.

  The following extract is made from an address of the Phila-

  delphia Annual Conference to the societies under its care, dated

  Wilmington, Del., April 7, 1847:--

  If the plan of separation gives us the pastoral care of you, it remains to inquire

  whether we have done anything, as a conference, or as men, to forfeit your confidence

  and affection. We are not advised that even in the great excitement which has

  distressed you for some months past, any one has impeached our moral conduct,

  or charged us with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption or tyranny in the

  administration of discipline. But we learn that the simple cause of the unhappy

  excitement among you is, that some suspect us, or affect to suspect us, of being

  abolitionists. Yet no particular act of the Conference, or any particular member

  thereof, is adduced as the ground of the erroneous and injurious suspicion.

  We would ask you, brethren, whether the conduct of our ministry among you

  for sixty years past ought not to be sufficient to protect us from this charge?

  Whether the question we have been accustomed, for a few years past, to put

  to candidates for admission among us, namely, Are you an abolitionist?

  and, without each one answered in the negative, he was not received, ought not

  to protect us from the charge. Whether the action of the last Conference on this

  particular matter ought not to satisfy any fair and candid mind that we are not,

  and do not desire to be, abolitionists? * * * * We cannot see how we

  can be regarded as abolitionists, without the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal

  Church South being considered in the same light. * * * * * *

  Wishing you all heavenly benedictions, we are, dear brethren, yours, in Christ

  Jesus,

  J. P. Durbin,

  J. Kennaday,

  Ignatius T. Cooper,

  William H. Gilder,

  Joseph Castle, Committee.

  These facts sufficiently define the position of the Methodist

  Church. The history is melancholy but instructive. The his-

  tory of the Presbyterian Church is also of interest.

  In 1793, the following note to the eighth commandment was

  inserted in the Book of Discipline, as expressing the doctrine of

  the church upon slaveholding:

  1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for man-stealers. This crime among the

  Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment, Exodus xxi. 15; and

  the apostle here classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in

  its original import, comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human

  race into slavery, or in retaining them in it. Hominum fures, qui servos vel liberos,

  abducunt, retinent, vendunt, vel cmunt. Stealers of men are all those who bring

  off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them. To steal a free man, says

  Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. In other instances, we only steal human

  property; but when we steal or retain men in slavery, we seize those who, in com-

  mon with ourselves, are constituted by the original grant lords of the earth.

  No rules of church discipline were enforced, and members

  whom this passage declared guilty of this crime remained

  undisturbed in its communion, as ministers and elders. This

  inconsistency was obviated in 1816 by expunging the passage

  from the Book of Discipline. In 1818 it adopted an expression

  of its views on slavery. This document is a long one con-

  ceived and written in a very Christian spirit. The Assembly's

  Digest says, page 341, that it was unanimously adopted. The

  following is its testimony as to the nature of slavery:

  We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another

  as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as

  utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbour

  as ourselves; and as totally irreconcileable with the spirit and principles of the

  gospel of Christ, which enjoin that “all things whatsoever ye would that men

  should do to you, do ye even so to them.” Slavery creates a paradox in the moral

  system--it exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings in such circum-

  stances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It exhibits them as

  dependent on the will of others, whether they shall receive religious instruction;

  whether they shall know and worship the true God; whether they shall enjoy

  the ordinances of the gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish

  the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbours and

  friends; whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity, or regard the dic-

  tates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the consequences of slavery--con-

  sequences not imaginary, but which connect themselves with its very existence.

  The evils to which the slave is always exposed often take place in fact, and in their

  very worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take place--as we re-

  joice to say that in many instances, through the influence of the principles
of

  humanity and religion on the minds of masters, they do not--still the slave is

  deprived of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger

  of passing into the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships

  and injuries which inhumanity and avarice may suggest.

  This language was surely decided, and it was unanimously adopted by slaveholders and non-slaveholders. Certainly one

  might think the time of redemption was drawing nigh. The

  declaration goes on to say:

  It is manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day,

  when the inconsistency of slavery both with the dictates of humanity and religion

  has been demonstrated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use honest,

  earnest, unwearied endeavours to correct the errors of former times, and as speedily

  as possible to efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete

  abolition of slavery throughout Christendom and throughout the world.

  Here we have the Presbyterian Church, slaveholding and

  non-slaveholding, virtually formed into one great abolition

  society, as we have seen the Methodist was.

  The Assembly then goes on to state that the slaves are not at

  present prepared to be free--that they tenderly sympathise with

  the portion of the church and country that has had this evil

  entailed upon them, where, as they say, “a great and the most

  virtuous part of the community abhor slavery and wish its

  extermination.” But they exhort them to commence imme-

  diately the work of instructing slaves, with a view to preparing

  them for freedom; and to let no greater delay take place than

  “a regard to public welfare indispensably demands.” “To be

  governed by no other considerations than an honest and

  impartial regard to the happiness of the injured party, unin-

  fluenced by the expense and inconvenience which such regard may

  involve.” It warns against “unduly extending this plea of

  necessity,” against making it a cover for the love and practice of

  slavery. It ends by recommending that any one who shall sell

  a fellow-Christian without his consent be immediately dis-

  ciplined and suspended.