Slave Narratives

by William L. Andrews

  “While these things were done the South continued violently to upbraid the Abolitionists of the North as the cause of all their troubles, and the ladies of South Carolina showered presents and caresses on the brutal assailant of Mr. Sumner. In 1856 the North endeavoured to elect a President who though fully recognising the right of the South to its slave property, was opposed to its extension in the territories. The North were defeated, and submitted almost without a murmur to the result. On the present occasion the South has submitted to the same ordeal, but not with the same success. They have taken their chance of electing a President of their own views, but they have failed. Mr. Lincoln, like Colonel Freemont, fully recognises the right of the South to the institution of slavery, but, like him, he is opposed to its extension. This cannot be endured. With a majority in both houses of Congress and in the Supreme Court of the United States, the South cannot submit to a President who is not their devoted servant. Unless every power in the constitution is to be strained in order to promote the progress of slavery, they will not remain in the Union; they will not wait to see whether they are injured, but resent the first check to their onward progress as an intolerable injury. This, then, is the result of the history of slavery. It began as a tolerated, it has ended as an aggressive institution, and if it now threatens to dissolve the Union, it is not because it has anything to fear for that which it possesses already, but because it has received a check to its hopes of future acquisition.”

  SECESSION CONDEMNED IN A SOUTHERN CONVENTION.

  SPEECH

  Of the Hon. A. H. STEPHENS, made at the Georgia State Convention, held January, 1861, for the purpose of determining whether the State of Georgia was to secede. Notwithstanding this remarkable speech of an extraordinary man, the Convention decided on secession. Mr. Stephens was afterwards elected Vice President of the so-called Confederacy. This distinction shows the estimate of his powers, and adds force to the deliverance, the prophetic declarations of which are now being fulfilled to the letter.

  This step (of secession) once taken, can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us; who, but this Convention will be held responsible for it? and but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reason you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments— what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in this calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case? and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend and lover of the South and her institutions; and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully—for yours, mine, and every other man’s interest—the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge; and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave trade or importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in congress for our slaves was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor and allegiance, was it not incorporated in the constitution, and again ratified and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of government for that has always been true to Southern interest. Again, gentleman, look at another fact, when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas out of which four States have been carved and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you by this unwise and impolitic act do not destroy this hope and perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation, which may reasonably be expected to follow. But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the constitution unfavourable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding president (pro. tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the house we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the speaker, because he, to a greater extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroard is clearly from the Free States, from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world’s markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors, and comptrollers filling the executive department, the records show for the last fifty years that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the republic. Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of government has uniformly been raised from the North. Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition—and for what? we ask again. Is it for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common
ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? And, as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government—the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

  THE CONFEDERATE AND THE SCOTTISH CLERGY ON SLAVERY.

  Some three months ago, we published an “Address to Christians throughout the world,” by “the clergy of the Confederate States of America;” and yesterday we published a reply to that address, signed by nearly a thousand ministers of the various Churches in Scotland. The Confederate address begins with a solemn declaration that its scope is not political but purely religious—that it is sent forth “in the name of our Holy Christianity,” and in the interests of “the cause of our most Blessed Master.” Immediately after making this declaration, however, the Confederate divines commence a long series of arguments designed to prove that the war cannot restore the Union; that the Southern States had a right to secede; that having seceded, their separation from the North is final; that the proclamation of PRESIDENT LINCOLN, seeking to free the slaves is a most horrible and wicked measure, calling for “solemn protest on the part of the people of GOD throughout the world;” that the war against the Confederacy has made no progress; and there seems no likelihood of the United States accomplishing any good by its continuance. This may be esteemed good gospel teaching in the Confederate States, but in this country it would be thought to have very little connection with “the cause of our most Blessed Master.” But the Southern clergymen reserve for the close of their address the defence of the grand dogma of their religion—the doctrine that negro slavery as carried out in the Southern States of America “is not incompatible with our holy Christianity.” Stupendous as this proposition may appear to the British mind, it offers no difficulty to these learned and pious men. Nay, they are not only convinced that slavery is “not incompatible” with Christianity, but they boldly affirm that it is a divinely established institution, designed to promote the temporal happiness and eternal salvation of the negro race, and that all efforts to bring about the abolition of slavery are sacrilegious attempts to interfere with the “plans of Divine Providence.” “We testify in the sight of GOD,” say the clergy of the Confederate States, “that the relation of master and slave among us, however we may deplore abuses in this, as in any other relations of mankind, is not incompatible with our holy Christianity, and that the presence of the Africans in our land is an occasion of gratitude on their behalf before GOD; seeing that thereby Divine Providence has brought them where missionaries of the cross may freely proclaim to them the word of salvation, and the work is not interrupted by agitating fanaticism. * * * We regard Abolitionism as an interference with the plans of Divine Providence. It has not the signs of the Lord’s blessing. It is a fanaticism which puts forth no good fruit; instead of blessing, it has brought forth cursing; instead of love, hatred, instead of life, death—bitterness and sorrow, and pain; and infidelity and moral degeneracy follow its labours.” There is no shirking of the question here. Slavery is proclaimed to be the GOD-appointed means for the regeneration of the African race, and those who seek to bring about the emancipation of the slaves are branded as apostles of infidelity. Upon these grounds, the confederate clergy appeal to Christians throughout the world to aid them in creating a sentiment against this war—“against persecution for conscience’ sake, against the ravaging of the church of GOD by fanatical invasion.”

  In their reply to this appeal, the Scottish ministers do what the Confederate ministers professed their intention of doing—they avoid every thing in the shape of political discussion. Among those gentlemen there is no doubt considerable difference of opinion respecting the two parties in the civil war; but they say nothing of that, and address themselves exclusively to the question of slavery. Happily, there is no difference of opinion upon that point among men who take upon themselves the high office of preaching God’s word in this country. The Scottish Ministers, in powerful and manly language, express the “deep grief, alarm, and indignation” with which they have seen men who profess to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ defend slavery as a Christian institution, worthy of being perpetuated and extended, not only without regret, but with entire satisfaction and approval. “Against all this,” say they, “in the name of that holy faith and that thrice holy name which they venture to invoke on the side of a system which treats immortal and redeemed men as goods and chattels, denies them the rights of marriage and of home, consigns them to ignorance of the first rudiments of education, and exposes them to the outrages of lust and passion—we must earnestly and emphatically protest.” We believe that this is the answer of the whole British community to the appeal of the Confederate clergy. However much the public sentiment may have been misled respecting the rights and the wrongs of the two parties in the war, it cannot but be sound at the core on the subject of slavery. There are many thousands of people who have not the slightest sympathy with slavery, and who yet sympathise with the slave-owners because they have a vague impression that the Southerners are brave gentlemen and the Northerners base mechanics. They have managed by some strange process to separate the cause of slavery from the cause of the slaveowner, and while they rejoice at every success which tends towards the establishment of a confederacy which is to have slavery as the “head stone of the corner,” they continue to pray as fervently as ever that the fetters of the slaves may be broken. All such people—and they constitute the mass of the Southern sympathisers in this country—must be ready to repudiate with the sternest indignation this attempt to connect the holy religion of Christ with the most horrible oppression which the cruelty and cupidity of man ever created.

  But it is not enough that the Confederate defence of slavery should be rejected. It was proper that the Scottish ministers of religion should deal only with the religious aspect of the question, but it is the duty of every man who feels that he has any influence in the world—and there is no man who has not some—to study the political lessons which the address affords. There can be no doubt that the appeal expresses the genuine sentiment of the Southern States, softened down by whatever softening influence there may be in their peculiar kind of Christianity, and shaped to offend as little as possible the prejudices of British readers. And what does it show us? Does it show us that emancipation is more likely to follow from the success of the Southern society which assumes to be at the helm of all schemes of religion and philanthropy, not only has no desire to put an end to slavery, but regards it in such a light that it will be its duty to extend it as much as possible. The Southern clergy say that the relation of master and slave is “not incompatible with our holy Christianity;” why, therefore, should they seek to get rid of it? From a thousand pulpits this language will be sent forth week after week, and it is clear that the religion of the Confederate States will be employed only to convince the slaveowner that he is doing perfectly right in perpetuating a system which enables him to buy men and women as chattels, and to obtain command of human bodies and minds at the prices current of the market. Then, the Southern clergy think it a cause for gratitude to GOD on behalf of the negroes “that He has brought them where missionaries of the Cross might freely proclaim to them the word of salvation.” Will it not, therefore, be the duty of the Southern clergy to extend those blessings to new millions of Afric
ans, and thus carry out the “plans of Divine Providence?” Is the whole tendency of this argument not to elevate the horrible trade of the slave-catcher to the same high level with the noble office of the missionary? Proclaiming as they do that the capture of Africans and their removal into slavery in the Southern States is GOD’s own missionary plan, the Confederate clergy and people will consider it as much their duty to equip slave-ships with cargoes of manacles and send them forth accompanied by the prayers of the churches, as it is now our duty to send forth missionary-ships laden with Bibles and preachers of the gospel. Then the heathen world will know what missionary Christianity really is. Thousand of Africans, caught on the west coast, will be torn from their families and taken chained on board ship; should they survive the horrors of the passage, they will be set to hard work under laws which permit of almost any degree of corporeal punishment and which deprive them of all the rights of men; and they will be told to thank GOD who has brought them into the blessed light of the Gospel! Let not the man who cannot reconcile his sympathies in the American struggle with his convictions on the question of slavery pooh-pooh this as an extravagant fancy picture of something that never can occur. It is exactly the missionary scheme which the Confederate clergy call “the plan of Divine Providence;” and supposing a powerful Southern Confederacy to be established, what is to prevent its being accomplished? Not the religious and philanthropic feelings of the Confederates; for the religious and philanthropic feelings of the confederates are all for a revival of the slave trade. Not treaties concluded with foreign nations; for a people holding such sentiments could never make a treaty shutting themselves out from the most promising field of missionary labour; or if forced by circumstances to conclude it, their religious convictions would urge them to break it at any moment. In fact, were a powerful nationality once established, with interests and religious convictions all pointing in the way of reviving the slave trade, it would be utterly impossible to prevent a resumption of that abominable traffic.