Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Resolved, That slavery through the South and West is not felt as an evil moral or political, but it is recognised in reference to the actual, and not to any Utopian condition of our slaves, as a blessing both to master and slave.

  Resolved, That it is our decided opinion that any individual who dares to circulate, with a view to effectuate the designs of the abolitionists, any of the incendiary tracts or newspapers now in a course of transmission to this country, is justly worthy, in the sight of God and man, of immediate death; and we doubt not that such would be the punishment of any such offender in any part of the State of Mississippi where he may be found.

  Resolved, That the clergy of the State of Mississippi be hereby recommended at once to take a stand upon this subject; and that their further silence in relation thereto, at this crisis, will, in our opinion, be subject to serious censure.

  The treatment to which persons were exposed, when taken up by any of these Vigilance Committees, as suspected of anti-slavery sentiments, may be gathered from the following account.

  The writer has a distinct recollection of the circumstances at the present time, as the victim of this injustice was a member of the seminary then under the care of her father.

  Amos Dresser, now a missionary in Jamaica, was a theological student at Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati. In the vacation (August 1835) he undertook to sell Bibles in the State of Tennessee, with a view to raise means further to continue his studies. Whilst there, he fell under suspicion of being an abolitionist, was arrested by the Vigilance Committee whilst attending a religious meeting in the neighbourhood of Nashville, the capital of the State, and, after an afternoon and evening’s inquisition, condemned to receive twenty lashes on his naked body. The sentence was executed on him between eleven and twelve o’clock on Saturday night, in the presence of most of the committee, and of an infuriated and blaspheming mob. The Vigilance Committee (an unlawful association) consisted of sixty persons. Of these, twenty-seven were members of churches; one, a religious teacher; another, the elder who, but a few days before, in the Presbyterian church, handed Mr. Dresser the bread and wine at the communion of the Lord’s Supper.

  It will readily be seen that the principle involved in such proceedings as these involves more than the question of slavery. The question was, in fact, this — Whether it is so important to hold African slaves that it is proper to deprive free Americans of the liberty of conscience, and liberty of speech, and liberty of the press, in order to do it? It is easy to see that very serious changes would be made in the government of a country by the admission of this principle; because it is quite plain that, if all these principles of our free government may be given up for one thing, they may for another; and that its ultimate tendency is to destroy entirely that freedom of opinion and thought which is considered to be the distinguishing excellence of American institutions.

  The question now is, Did the church join with the world in thinking the institution of slavery so important and desirable as to lead them to look with approbation upon Lynch law and the sacrifice of the rights of free inquiry? We answer the reader by submitting the following facts and quotations.

  At the large meeting which we have described above, in Charleston, South Carolina, the Charleston Courier informs us “that the clergy of all denominations attended in a body, lending their sanction to the proceedings, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene.” There can be no doubt that the presence of the clergy of all denominations, in a body, at a meeting held for such a purpose, was an impressive scene, truly!

  At this meeting it was resolved —

  That the thanks of this meeting are due to the reverend gentlemen of the clergy in this city, who have so promptly and so effectually responded to public sentiment, by suspending their schools in which the free coloured population were taught; and that this meeting deem it a patriotic action, worthy of all praise, and proper to be imitated by other teachers of similar schools throughout the State.

  The question here arises, whether their Lord, at the day of judgment, will comment on their actions in a similar strain.

  The alarm of the Virginia slave-holders was not less; nor were the clergy in the city of Richmond, the capital, less prompt than the clergy in Charleston to respond to “public sentiment.” Accordingly on the 29th of July, they assembled together and resolved, unanimously —

  That we earnestly deprecate the unwarrantable and highly improper interference of the people of any other State with the domestic relations of master and slave.

  That the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles, in not interfering with the question of slavery, but uniformly recognising the relations of master and servant, and giving full and affectionate instruction to both, is worthy of the imitation of all ministers of the gospel.

  That we will not patronise nor receive any pamphlet or newspaper of the anti-slavery societies, and that we will discountenance the circulation of all such papers in the community.

  The Rev. J. C. Postell, a Methodist minister of South Carolina, concludes a very violent letter to the Editor of “Zion’s Watchman,” a Methodist anti-slavery paper published in New York, in the following manner. The reader will see that this taunt is an allusion to the offer of fifty thousand dollars for his body at the South, which we have given before:

  But, if you desire to educate the slaves, I will tell you how to raise the money without editing “Zion’s Watchman.” You and old Arthur Tappan come out to 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 Presbyterian 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 Presbyterian Church, says, in a letter to the Sessions of the Presbyterian 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 Committee 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 confirmed 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 meddlesome, 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 considerations 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 declarations 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 ecclesiastical 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 education under the slave system, might have been qualified by intercourse 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 supposed 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 dishonourable 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.)