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A LETTER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 COMMITTEE CHOSEN BY THE AMERICAN 
 TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 TO INQUIRE INTO 
 
 C|£ fromMiigs d its (Emutite Ccinmittee, 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 SLAVERY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 
Committ^i^ of |u{|Birg> 
 
 Hon. THEO. FRELINGHUYSEN, New Brunswick, N J. 
 
 Rev. THOS. DEWITT, D. D., New York City, 
 
 Hon. WM. JESSUP, Montrose, Pa. 
 
 Rev. albert BARNES, Philadelphia. 
 
 Rev. F. WAYLAND, D. D., Providence, R. I. 
 
 Rev. M. B. ANDERSON, LL. D., Rochester, N. Y. 
 
 Rev. GREGORY T. BEDELL, D. D., New York City. 
 
 Rev. JOHN S. STONE, D. D. Brookline, Mass. 
 
 Rev. JOHN N. McLEOD, D. D., New York. 
 
 JAMES DONALDSON, Esq., New York. 
 
 GEORGE H. STUART, Esq., Philadelphia. 
 
 Rev. JOEL HAWES, D. D., Hartford, Ct. 
 
 Rev. ray PALMER, D. D., Albany. 
 
 Rev. S. S. SCHMUCKER, D. D., Gettysburg, Pa. 
 
LETTER, &c. 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 A responsibility, no less undesired than unexpected, has 
 been thrown upon you. The discharge of this responsibility 
 will either smooth or ruffle your dying pillow ; it will accom- 
 pany you through the dark valley, and bear witness for or 
 against you before the judgment sent. The weight of this re- 
 sponsibility consists in the influence your action will exert in 
 weakening or strengthening the fidelity and courage of the 
 American Church. This influence will spring solely from the 
 weight of your personal characters, and the high position you 
 occupy in the confidence of the religious community. Your 
 functions as a committee are not those of a jury, for there is 
 no issue of fact to be tried. The acts of the Executive Com- 
 mittee which have given offence, and which have led to your 
 appointment, far from being denied, are admitted and justified. 
 Nor are your functions those of a court, invested with authority 
 to decide and settle controverted rights. Whatever may be 
 your report, it cannot control, however it may influence, the 
 future action of the Society or the opinion of the public. As a 
 Committee of Inquiry, your province is to collect the argu- 
 ments urged for and against the action of the Executive Com- 
 mittee, and to express your opinion of their relative weight. 
 Hence each party has an undoubted right to present to you 
 their own view of the case, and thus to aid you in acquiring 
 a full and accurate knowledge of the merits of the controversy. 
 As already observed, you cannot authoritatively decide that 
 controversy ; and from your opinion of its merits, whatever it 
 may be, an appeal will certainly be made to the public. Hence it 
 becomes important that the public, as well as yourselves, should 
 
be furnished with the objections urged against the policy pur- 
 sued by the Executive Committee. The Committee have al- 
 ready taken care that the public should be abundantly informed 
 of the grounds on which that policy is defended. 
 
 The profound silence observed by the Society, in regard 
 to American Slavery, and its practice of expunging from its 
 reprints every reflection, however slight, on the wickedness of 
 the system, at length called forth a remonstrance from a distant 
 ecclesiastical association. The reply was the first intimation 
 given to the public, of the reasons for the policy objected to, 
 and of the intention of the Executive Committee to make that 
 policy permanent. The reasons were three: 1st. The consti- 
 tution requires that the publications of the Society be " calcu- 
 lated to meet the approbation of all evangelical Christians ;" 
 and hence, as there are Methodists, &c., who claim property in 
 man, no censure of such property would be approved by them. 
 2d. Expediency. " It would seem a sacrifice of a greater to a 
 lesser good to engage in the discussion of a topic already ex- 
 hausted, and with the likelihood of satisfying none, and with 
 the certainty of alienating multitudes of our best friends." 
 3d. It is the ofiice of the Society to "move forward on 
 the simple errand that brought the Saviour into the world — 
 proclaiming Christ and him crucified." This proclamation, to 
 the publication of which the Society is to confine its labors, is, 
 if interpreted by the conduct of the Society, the most unintel- 
 ligible ever announced to mankind. The proclamation of Christ 
 and him crucified, takes no notice of the cruelty and injustice 
 perpetrated by the disciples of the Crucified, against millions 
 of their fellow-men, in robbing them of every civil and reli- 
 gious right — in the annihilation of thoir conjugal and parental 
 relations — in their enfoi'ced concubinage — in sealing to their 
 eyes the volume of inspiration — and in their conversion and 
 that of their posterity into articles of merchandise and beasts 
 of burden. Hence, the Society will not go beyond the pro- 
 clamation. But the proclamation, although silent as to these 
 abominations, is copious in its denunciation of other offences, 
 including some not known at the time it was issued. Hence, the 
 
Society feels itself at full liberty, while moving forward on the 
 simple errand of reiterating the proclamation, to announce the 
 divine wrath against all who sell or drink intoxicating liquors 
 — who read novels, play cards, attend horse-races, join in the 
 dance, go to the theatre, and either smoke or chew tobacco ! ! 
 
 It is not surprising that such a vindication did not prove 
 satisfactory'. The agitation continued and increased, and new 
 intensity was given to it, by the conduct of the Eev. Nehemiah 
 Adams, D. D,, one of the Publishing Committee, and, as such, 
 possessing an absolute veto on every tract offered for publica- 
 tion. This Eev. gentleman had published a labored vindica- 
 tion of American Slavery, excusing and extenuating each of 
 its abominations, and in its sneering, jeering tone, highly in- 
 sulting to such of his fellow-Christians as had been zealous in 
 exposing the iniquities of the slave system. At length the 
 officers of the Society became alarmed ; and as the opponents 
 of its policy had intimated an intention of procuring the ap- 
 pointment of a committee to consider and report on that policy, 
 the Executive Committee, prudently making a virtue of ne- 
 cessity, the very day before the annual meeting in May last, 
 resolved, "That should it be the pleasure of the Society to 
 appoint a Special Committee to review the proceedings of their 
 Executive Committee, this Committee will welcome and facili- 
 tate all inquiries of such Special Committee, to any extent that 
 shall be desired." 
 
 Notwithstanding this official action, violent opposition was 
 made by the more ultra members to any investigation. A 
 heated debate ensued in a crowded assembly, and an effort to 
 obtain an expression of "undiminished confidence" in the 
 management of the Society, was abandoned as hopeless. Ulti- 
 mately the following resolution was adopted : 
 
 ''Regarding the action and proceedings of tlie Executive Committee as 
 frankly and ingenuously inviting the fullest investigation into all the afl'airs 
 entrusted to their care: Therefore^ Resolved., That, at the suggestion of the 
 Executive Committee themselves, a Special Committee of fifteen he ap- 
 pointed to inquire into, and review the proceedings of the Executive Com- 
 mittee, and report to the next annual meeting, or to a duly convened special 
 meeting to be called by said Committee at their discretion." 
 
The resolution is adroitly drawn. Its professed acceptance 
 of the invitation of the Committee, the very general terms in 
 which it is expressed, and its careful avoidance of all allusion 
 to the only subject on account of which the Committee was 
 desired, all indicate the extreme reluctance with which your 
 appointment was yielded to the anti-slavery sentiment of the 
 community. 
 
 The only proceedings you were, in fact, appointed to "in- 
 quire into and review," were such as, while they committed 
 the Society to an open avowed neutrality in regard to 
 "the sum of all villanies," virtually secured to the oppressor 
 the countenance and sympathy of a great and powerful reli- 
 gious institution. In reviewing these proceedings, you will of 
 course be compelled to review both the conduct and the apolo- 
 gies of the officers by whom they have been carried into effect. 
 One of the complaints against the Executive Committee is, 
 their practice of expunging from their reprints every expres- 
 sion which impugns the moral or religious character of Ameri- 
 can slavery. Instead of denying the charge, they aver in the 
 last report that they do expunge that " which Christians at 
 the South would regard as untruthful, harsh, or denunciato- 
 ry," p. 22. As a practical illustration of the rule adopted by 
 the Committee, take the following from the well-known and 
 excellent work entitled "Mammon," by Harris. The author, 
 showing the immoral and unchristian influence of covetousness, 
 observes, " Its history is the history of slavery and oppression 
 in all ages." This slight and accidental connection of slavery 
 with oppression and with covetousness, the Committee believe 
 would be regarded by Christians at the South " as untruthful, 
 harsh, or denunciatory," and therefore the sentence is made to read 
 in the Society's edition, "Its history is the history of oppression 
 in all ages," p. 78. Here, then, we have one of the most pow- 
 erful Christian associations in our land refusing to acknowledge 
 that the conversion of millions of human beings into articles 
 of merchandise for the pecuniary benefit of the rich, and their 
 deprivation of all civil and religious rights for the sole purpose 
 
of rendering them more profitable to their owners, partakes of 
 the character of either covetousness or oppression ! 
 
 The frank avowal of the Committee, and their action in 
 accordance with it, precludes all inquiry into the fact whether 
 the American Tract Society does or does not in its publications 
 shield American slavery from animadversion. As all the facts 
 complained of are boldly avowed, and zealously justified, you 
 have no other field of inquiry respecting the conduct of the 
 Committee, than the truth and sufficiency of the excuses they 
 have put forth, and the probable influence of their established 
 policy, on the cause of Christianity, and consequently on the 
 morality and happiness of the nation. Here, gentlemen, is found 
 the stupendous responsibility involved in your commission. If 
 the policy of the Society be unrighteous, and vindicated by 
 false sophistical arguments and assertions ; and if it tends to 
 bring dishonor on Christ — to give occasion to the enemies of 
 the Lord to blaspheme — to strengthen and extend cruelty and 
 oppression — to jeopard the salvation of souls, and if, never- 
 theless, you commend and uphold this policy, who shall esti- 
 mate the awful result of your error ! 
 
 Your attention will be first directed to the official reasons 
 assigned in support of the established policy. Mr. Secretary 
 Cook's proclamation argument, of course, will not detain you. 
 From that you will pass to the legal argument, on which the 
 Executive Committee apparentl}^ place great confidence. One 
 of the wits of the Edinhurg Review remarked, that he never 
 read a book before reviewing it, lest it might bias his judgment. 
 The gentlemen of the Committee, in appealing to the charter 
 of the Society, seem to have acted on the reviewer's rule. In 
 their circular of fifth of February, 1856, they tell us, "This 
 Society is a lody corporate, chartered for the accomplishment of 
 a specific object by prescribed means.'''' 31st Eep., p. 193. This 
 reference to the charter is evidently for the purpose of intima- 
 ting that as the law specified both the object to be pursued and 
 the means to be employed,'any reference to slavery in the 
 publications of the Society would be illegal. This idea is more 
 fully expressed and urged by the President of the Society in his 
 
printed official letter. He says to the Executive Committee and 
 other officers, By the words of your charter, the tracts pub- 
 lished were to be such as are ' calculated to receive the appro- 
 bation of all evangelical Christians,' — the objection is raised 
 that you do not publish as you ought on the subject of slavery. 
 The question then arises whether the Society consistently, 
 within the limits of their charter, by which they must be regulated, 
 could publish such tracts as the complainants propose ? Now 
 there are Churches of every denomination called evangelical, 
 scattered over all our Southern States — the great mass of in- 
 dividual Christians, and of Christian Churches, we have reason 
 to believe, would say such tracts did not receive the approba- 
 tion of all evangelical Christians among them. What, then, 
 should the American Tract Society, with their charter for their 
 guide, do? Shall they, without other evidence, denounce all 
 these churches, and all these individuals, as not evangelical? 
 How would such a sentence he regarded in courts of justice? ^^ The 
 argument leading to this last and strange interrogatory is 
 briefly this : The charter, the law of the State of New York, 
 requires the tracts to be such as are calculated to receive the 
 approbation of all evangelical Christians. Now, there are 
 such Christians at the South, yet the Society, by publishing 
 tracts against slavery, would, in fact, deny the existence of such 
 Christians, for, by law, no tract may issue offensive to any of 
 them. Now, in such cases, what would the courts do? Per- 
 haps declare the charter forfeited — perhaps issue an injunction 
 against the publication of anti-slavery tracts. The President 
 proceeds: "The sentence of excommunication which some, in 
 their heat, have pronounced against Southern ministers and 
 Southern Churches, is ex cathedra ; and officers acting under 
 your charter, would not, in my opinion, be justified in LAW 
 or conscience in adopting it." 
 
 Had the President taken the trouble to read t]:ie charter, 
 which plaj's such an important part in his defence of the So- 
 ciety, he would undoubtedly have received a bias, that would 
 have diminished his confidence in the argument he has founded 
 on it. Now, it so happens that this famous charter, this shield 
 
of liumcan bondage, is a very brief act of the New York Le- 
 gislature, passed 26th May, 1841, incorporating, in the usual 
 terms, " All such persons as now are or may hereafter become 
 members of the American Tract Society, formed in the city of 
 New York, for the purpose of printing and circulating religious 
 publications." This is all the charter says about "a specific 
 object by prescribed means." Not a word about evangelical 
 Christians, or indeed Christians of any sort or kind. " Non 
 constat," as the lawyers say, that the corporators are not Pa- 
 pists or Socinians. Not a word is said of the nature of the 
 publications to be issued, except that they are to be "religious." 
 The charter contains not the most distant allusion to either 
 slaver}^ or tobacco-chewing, yet Tract Society logic deduces 
 from it a legal prohibition to censure the one, and a legal war- 
 rant to denounce the divine displeasure against the other ! 
 Having seen ivhy^ what the President calls the excommunica- 
 tion of Southern Christians, that is, a condemnation of human 
 bondage, cannot be justified "6?/ law" let us next see why it 
 cannot be justified by ^^ conscience.'''' 
 
 "We are solemnly, repeatedly, and of&cially warned, that by 
 the first article of the constitution, the object of the Society is 
 declared to be, " To diffuse the knowledge of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ as the Redeemer of sinners, and to promote the interests 
 of vital godliness and sound morality, by the circulation of 
 religious tracts calculated to receive the approbation of all 
 EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS." Hence, says the President, " If 
 these Sovithern Churches remain evangelical Churches, and 
 Southern Christians are still evangelical Christians, it is their 
 right and your duty to abstain from publishing even truths^ the 
 publication of which they would not approve." But suppose 
 a portion do approve of these truths? It makes no matter, so 
 long as any evangelicals object. No truth may be published, 
 not accepted and approved by all. 
 
 If this be, indeed, the just and' literal meaning of tlie con- 
 stitution, then is the American Tract Society burthened with 
 a constitution unparalleled for its stupidity and absurdity ; a 
 constitution giving to each individual among the evangelical 
 
10 
 
 Christians in this and other countries, a veto on every tract 
 and book offered for publication to the Society. If such be 
 the constitution, its framers were fit subjects for a lunatic 
 asylum. But they were wise as well as good men, and the 
 article in question bears testimony to their character in both 
 respects. The interpretation now attempted to be fixed on the 
 constitutional restriction of the publications to be issued, has 
 been practically repudiated and rejected by the Society from 
 its first organization to the present day. 
 
 Who are evangelical Christians within the meaning of the 
 constitution ? Unquestionably such as profess to belong to a 
 Church or denomination holding certain doctrines respecting 
 the Trinity, the atonement, the influence of the Holy Spirit, 
 and justification by faith, &c., which are usually called "evan 
 gelical." When, therefore, it was agreed at the formation of 
 the Society, that its tracts should be calculated to receive the 
 approbation of all evangelical Christians, nothing more was or 
 could be intended than that these tracts should contain nothing 
 to which an evangelical Christian as siich could object, that 
 is, the doctrines held by his Church should not be impugned. 
 Whether a tract was or was not calculated to receive the 
 approbation of all evangelical Christians, was to be determined, 
 not by the opinion of an individual Methodist or Baptist, but 
 by an appeal to the creeds and confessions of faith of the 
 different evangelical Churches. Thus the Society itself, in its 
 petition to the Legislature of New York (1841) for a charter, 
 avers that it was formed for "promoting the interests of vital 
 godliness and sound morality, by the circulation of religious 
 tracts calculated to receive the approval of evangelical Chris- 
 tians of different denominations.'''' Here we see, that denomi- 
 national standards, and not the opinions of one or more indi- 
 viduals, were to be the test of approval. To secure the impar- 
 tial application of this test, the different evangelical denomina- 
 tions were to be represented in the Committee of Publication 
 by a member from each ; and the Committee were individually 
 vested with a veto on every proposed publication. The whole 
 arrangement exhibits not merely a most Christian and catholic 
 
11 
 
 spirit, but also a wise adaptation of means to secure justice to 
 the several denominations supporting the Society. 
 
 But the Society" is not to be confined to the diffusion of a 
 knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ in accordance with evan- 
 gelical doctrines. It has another and most important object, 
 the promotion of "sound morality." Now, sound morality is 
 not tested by evangelical doctrines, but by the precepts of 
 Scripture and the dictates of reason and of conscience. Scarcely 
 a single mooted question of morals is decided in any Church 
 creed ; nor is there such a question on which evangelical and 
 heterodox Christians will not be found united on either side. 
 And will it be maintained that the Society may express no 
 disapprobation of privateering, or of .the traffic in ardent 
 spirits, or of the practice of some lawyers in endeavoring to 
 screen from punishment men whom they know to be guilty of 
 fraud or crime, merely because its animadversions would fall 
 on and offend a few evangelicals among the various denomina- 
 tions ? If such an opinion has been entertained, it has been 
 treated by the Society with the contempt it merits. Innumer- 
 able are the amusements, occupations, and practices denounced 
 by the Society, which are vindicated and countenanced by 
 multitudes of Episcopalians, Presbyterians, &c., &c. Probably 
 the great mass of evangelical Christians in this and other 
 countries indulge in the use of intoxicating liquors, and 
 maintain that their moderate use is lawful and Christian. Not 
 a few sermons have been preached against the doctrine of total 
 abstinence ; and an evangelical bishop now living has declared 
 in print that the triumph of temperance societies would be 
 the triumph of infidelity. We all know the arguments drawn 
 from the Old Testament, the miracle at Cana, and the apostolic 
 injunction to Timothy, in favor of the use of wine and " strong 
 drink," Yet the Executive Committee, perfectly oblivious of 
 the first article of the constitution, and utterly regardless of the 
 disapprobation of whole multitudes of evangelical distillers, re- 
 tailers, and drinkers, have again and again launched its denun- 
 ciations against the use of all intoxicating liquors. Nay, they 
 have with reckless boldness assailed the very " soldiers of the 
 
12 
 
 churcli," evangelical soldiers too, for defending the practice of 
 using such liquors. Millions of evangelical Christians, and 
 certainly a great majority of the maje members of the Ameri- 
 can Tract Society, daily indulge in the use of tobacco, and 
 have no belief that such indulgence is unchristian. Yet the 
 Executive Committee, careless of their approbation, have 
 poured forth a tremendous counterblast to tobacco ! So also, 
 although evangelicals make war a trade, and vast numbers of 
 their ministers are army chaplains, and in the name of Christ 
 exhort the soldiers to be valiant in slaying the enemies of 
 their country, still the Executive Committee have not been 
 restrained by " the fundamental principle" of the Society from 
 denouncing war as unchristian. Yet it is now discovered that 
 nothing may be said against slavery, which is not calculated 
 to receive the approbation of all evangelical slave-holders, 
 traders, and breeders ! 
 
 It is for you, gentlemen, to announce how far, in your 
 opinion, the law of the State of New York, or the first article 
 of the constitution, compels the Executive Committee, in their 
 publications, to consult the feelings and interests of those who 
 hold their fellow-men as chattels, while the same sources of 
 authority give the Committee free license to assail the feelings, 
 the interests, the occupations, the amusements, the habits of 
 thousands, and hundreds of thousands of other evangelical 
 Christians. 
 
 Your commission empowers you to inquire into and re- 
 view the proceedings of the Executive Committee. Good men 
 are often bad logicians, and we may differ from their conclu- 
 sions without questioning their motives ; but we have a right 
 to expect from good men, if not sound arguments, at least 
 truthful statements. If any members of the Executive Com- 
 mittee, in vindicating their conduct, have made assertions at 
 variance with facts, it will be your part, gentlemen, in justice 
 both to the Society and the public, to point out the discrepancy, 
 and to make such apologies for their aberrations from truth, as 
 Christian candor and charity will allow. 
 
 In March, 1856, the chairman of the Publishing Com- 
 
13 
 
 mittee, and the senior Secretary, addressed a letter, in defence 
 of the policy of the Society, to one of the Yice-Presidents, 
 who had asked on what grounds it was justified. This letter 
 was widely circulated, and was afterwards embodied in the 
 annual report, p. 201. One most pregnant question put by 
 the Vice-President was, ^^ Has not the Society published^ on in.' 
 temperance and other evik, what many evangelical Christians do 
 not ap2?roveP^ To this interrogatory the two reverend gentle- 
 men returned the very laconic reply, " It has not, so far 
 AS WE KjSTOW." The infantile ignorance of these gentlemen, 
 who, for the last thirty years, have been breathing the atmos- 
 phere of the Tract Depository, is as wonderful as it is painful. 
 This declaration of ignorance was made, not only after mil- 
 lions of pages had been scattered broadcast through the land, 
 representing the moderate drinkers of intoxicating liquors on 
 the verge of perdition, but while the sheets of a new tract, 
 containing the following appeal, were scarcely dry from the 
 press: " What Christian can indulge himself in using tobacco 
 — a habit which benumbs the moral sense, as well as pollutes the 
 body, that temple which is designed for the indwelling of the 
 Spirit of truth ? How long are the sacred altars of God to be 
 polluted with the unhallowed offering, and the garments of 
 the priesthood to remain uncleansed from its defilements ?" 
 
 It may be proper to ascertain, gentlemen, by your in- 
 quiries, whether these two clergymen really believed that such 
 enormities as reading novels, drinking wine, selling spirituous 
 and malt liquors, dancing, attending theatres, smoking segars 
 and chewing tobacco, were confined to heretics and outside 
 barbarians, and that none of the fierce denunciations issued by 
 the Society against these iniquities fell on evangelical Christians. 
 If, however, such Christians may be told, both under the 
 charter and the constitution, that in using tobacco they are 
 benumbing their moral sense, would it not be well to explain 
 why others may not likewise be told that they are benumb- 
 ing their moral sense, in dealing in negro flesh, in shroud- 
 ing in darkness the intellects of millions, in annihilating mar- 
 riage, and in reducing to the condition of beasts of burden 
 
14 
 
 immortal, accountable beings, for whose redemption tbe Son 
 of God shed his own blood on the cross? 
 
 It is certainly within the limits of your commission to 
 inquire how far the conduct and avowed sentiments of any 
 member of the Executive Committee are in accordance with 
 the decorum and Christian character becoming an officer of a 
 great religious institution. If an officer has rendered himself 
 intensely odious to a large portion of the Society, and his 
 avowed sentiments are regarded as adverse to justice, humanity, 
 and the prosperity of his country, it is within your province to 
 recommend his resignation or removal. 
 
 You will of course understand these remarks as referring 
 to the Eev. Dr. N. Adams, one of the Publishing Committee, 
 and as such exercising an absolute and irresponsible veto on 
 every sentence of ever}^ tract offered for publication. This 
 gentleman has earned an unenviable notoriety by his unhappy 
 eulogium on American slavery. His unblessed book, entitled 
 *' A South Side View of Slavery," is too well known to 
 render man}'- extracts necessary to illustrate its character. 
 In contemplating a great and prosperous slave-holding Re- 
 public as the result of a dissolution of the Union, he antici- 
 pates with apparent complacency the i^encAval of the African 
 slave trade. He tells us, " Such have been the marvellous 
 acts of divine grace to the Africans in bringing them through 
 the cupidity and sinfulness of men to this countrj', and sav- 
 ing a multitude of them, that it requires neither strong faith 
 nor fancy to suppose that this work might still go on in 
 the form of interchange between Africa and the Southern 
 States. The South has learned to be, and is fitted to be, the 
 protector and friend of the African,'' p. 118. The interchange 
 alluded to is the transportation o^ free negroes by the Colo- 
 nization Society, and the importation of slaves. The mar- 
 vellous acts of divine grace exemplified in the slave trade are, 
 the conversion and salvation of multitudes of its victims ; and 
 of course these same marvellous acts will attend the revival 
 of the trade. The marvel is the greater from its being inde- 
 pendent of the ordinary means of grace — no Bibles, no tracts 
 
15 
 
 pour religious truths into the darkened minds of the poor 
 benighted wretches. They are kept in ignorance, in order 
 that they may more easily be kept in bondage. Another 
 marvel: " Of all the situations in which human beings can be 
 placed favorable to the salvation of the soul, under faithful 
 efforts on the part of teachers, it is difficult to conceive of one 
 better suited to this end, and in fact more successful, than the 
 relation of these slaves to their Christian masters. It seemed 
 as though human influence went further towards effecting the 
 reception of the Gospel by the slaves than in any other cases," 
 p. 60. Still the wonder grows : " In all that constitutes 
 Christian excellence and that knowledge of God which comes 
 directly from Him, they have no superiors," p. 57. At last 
 the marvel reaches its climax : " Probably in many places at 
 the South a larger proportion of the slaves than of the whites 
 have given evidence of being the children of God," p. 53. 
 Certainly the African slave trade is a most wonderful and 
 mysterious agent of divine grace, and a slave plantation is 
 none other than one of the gates of heaven 1 
 
 Before the present reign of terror in the Slave States, which 
 is now crushing in the dust freedom of speech, of the press, of 
 suffrage, and of the pulpit, revelations were sometimes made 
 of the moral state of our great prison-house, not wholly in 
 accordance with the brilliant visions of tlie Boston Seer. Said 
 the Rev. Dr. Nelson, of Tennessee, and a resident of Missouri, 
 " the concentrated recollection of thirty years furnishes me 
 three instances only which I could say, I have reason from the 
 known walk of that slave, to believe him or her a sincere 
 Christian. " Said the Rev. R. J. Breckenridge, formerly of 
 Baltimore, now of Kentucky, "What is slavery as it exists 
 among us? We reply, it is that condition enforced by one-half 
 the States of this confederacy, in which one portion of the 
 community called masters is allowed such power over another, 
 called slaves, as, 
 
 1. To deprive them of the entire earnings of their own 
 labor, except only so much as is necessary to continue labor 
 
16 
 
 itself, by continuing healthy existence, thus committing clear 
 rohhery. 
 
 2. To reduce them to the necessitj'- of universal concubinage, 
 by denying to them the civil rights of marriage, thus breaking 
 up the dearest relations and encouraging universal prostitu- 
 tion. 
 
 8. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of 
 moral and intellectual culture, in many States making it a high 
 penal offence to teach them to read ; ilius jperpetuatiyig ivhatever 
 fo evil there is that proceeds from ignorance. 
 
 4. To set up between parents and their children an au- 
 thority higher than the impulse of nature and the laws of 
 God, and which at pleasure separates the mother at a return- 
 less distance from her child, thus outraging all decency and 
 justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands of thousands 
 of beings created like themselves in the image of God. This 
 is slavery, as it is daily exhibited in every slave 
 State." 
 
 In a sermon preached before an association of planters, in 
 Georgia, by Kev. C. C. Jones, and published at Savannah, 1831, 
 we have the following confessions. " The description which 
 the Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, gives of the 
 heathen world, will apply with very little abatement to our 
 negroes. They lie, blaspheme, are slothful, envious, mali- 
 cious, implacable, unmerciful ; generally speaking, they appear 
 to be without hope and without God in the world — A nation 
 OF HEATHEN IN OUR VERY MIDST." In 1833, the synod of 
 South Carolina and Georgia, (the very States in which Dr. 
 Adams observed the marvellous spiritual blessings of the 
 slave trade,) thus describe the religious condition of the slaves; 
 and be it remembered that the address from which we quote 
 ■was published in Charleston, S. C. "Who would credit it, 
 that in these years of revival and benevolent effort, in this 
 Christian Republic, there are over two millions of human 
 beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects in a 
 worse condition ? From long continued and close observation 
 we believe that their moral and religious condition is such 
 
lY 
 
 that they may justly be considered the heathen of this 
 Christian country." 
 
 It will be observed that the authorities quoted, are all 
 Southern ministers, and probably as well acquainted with 
 the religious influence of slavery and the African slave trade 
 as our Boston divine. 
 
 Protestants are apt to regard religious liberty as favorable 
 to religious attainments; but the exalted position which the 
 slaves have acquired in the religion of Christ, as described by 
 the superintendent of the Tract press, has been reached under 
 a religious despotism more absolute and relentless than that 
 wielded by the Pope of Rome. Tlie Right Rev. Leonidas 
 Polk, of Louisiana, is a great slave-breeder. An English cler- 
 gyman, the Rev. Henry Caswell, in a late book of travels in 
 this country, gives us some anecdotes of this apostolic pa- 
 triarch, apparently collected from his own lips, in a conver- 
 sation with him. Four hundred human beings acknowledged 
 him as their lord and master, and Mr. Caswell tells us he "en- 
 deavors to bring them up in a religious manner. He tol- 
 erates no religion on his estate but that of the Church, He 
 baptizes all the children and teaches them their catechism." 
 Of course every slave on the plantation is converted to Epis- 
 copacy, not by the logic of the catechism, but that of the 
 overseer's whip. The Bishop's neighbor may be a Papist, and 
 if so, his slaves are all believers in the immaculate conception. 
 When the Bishop sells any of his black sheep, they enter a 
 different fold, receive new spiritual food, and profess the creed 
 of the " highest bidder." 
 
 The purifying and enlightening influence of slavery on 
 those whom it invests with despotic authority, is a favorite 
 topic with slaveholders ; but it was hardly to be expected that 
 a Boston clergyman, peculiarly honored by the Tract Society, 
 would have ventured the following assertion : "Spiritual rap- 
 pings, biology, second adventism, mormonism, and the whole 
 spawn of errors which infest us, do not find subjects at the 
 South. There is far more faith in the South, taken as a whole, 
 than with us. There is more faith and less infidelity at the 
 South, than at the North," p. 46. 
 
18 
 
 B. F. Stringfellow is a name familiar to all acquainted 
 with the atrocities of Border Kuflfians in Kansas. On the 20th 
 of July, 1854, two months after Douglass by his repeal of the 
 Missouri Compromise had thrown the territories open to slave- 
 ry, the " Platte County Defensive Association " was organized, 
 under the special auspices of the gentleman just named. He 
 soon presented the association with an address entitled " Negro 
 Slavery no Evil." It is very evident from the address that the 
 author is decidedly evangelical^ and that he differs but little in his 
 views from his brother of the Tract Society, He glories in the 
 fact, that while in New England there are two hundred and 
 two Unitarian, and two hundred and eighty-five Universalist 
 churches, there are in all Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, 
 South Carolina, and Georgia, but eight of these heretical syna- 
 gogues, viz : one Unitarian, and seven Universalist. Hence 
 he concludes, " the opinions usually deemed by the Christian 
 world heterodox, or infidel, find no place among slaveholders. 
 They run not after strange gods, invent no new religions, but 
 are content with old-fashioned, humble Christianity." The fol- 
 lowing may be taken as a specimen of the humble Christianity 
 of slaveholders. Says Mr. Stringfellow, "the negro thief, the 
 abolitionist, who induces a slave to run away, is a criminal of a 
 far more dangerous character than the house-breaker or the 
 highwa}^ robber ; his crime of a far higher grade than that of 
 an incendiary; it ranks at least with that of the midnight assas- 
 sin," p. 5. 
 
 Very frankly does our evangelical leader of the Border 
 Eufiians avow the pledge of the association, to aid "in ex- 
 pelling those who are exported to Kansas by the abolition aid 
 societies." With regard to the righteousness of human bond- 
 age, brothers Adams and Stringfellow are of one mind. The 
 latter avers, that " by the first law given to man by his Maker, 
 the law proclaimed from Sinai, slavery was established. Moses, 
 the divine lawgiver, was a slaveholder ; slavery was recog- 
 nized and regulated by our Saviour. A fugitive slave, instead 
 of being aided in his escape, was returned to his master, by 
 Paul, the great apostle to the Gentiles," p. 10. 
 
19 
 
 Mr. Stringfellow being " an evangelical Christian," the fun- 
 damentalconstitutional principle of the Societ}^, as now ex- 
 plained by its officers, forbids the publication of any tract not 
 calculated to receive his approbation. Of course, not a line may 
 be printed in disparagement of his theory of the divine origin 
 of slavery, nor of his assertion that Moses was a slaveholder. 
 How it is that this same fundamental principle allows the So- 
 ciety to rebuke the gentleman's profanity by publishing the 
 "Swearer's Prayer," his love of strong drink by tracts on total 
 abstinence, and his tobacco-chewing habit by their strong 
 protests against the iniquity of its indulgence, is a question 
 involved in an obscurity which the Executive Committee and 
 the Secretaries, with the aid of the President, have thus far 
 failed to dissipate. 
 
 It is now time to ask your attention, gentlemen, to the dis- 
 astrous influence exercised on the public morals and on the 
 religious power of the Church of Christ, by that system of ethics 
 which has been appropriately termed " Cotton Divinity" — a sys- 
 tem which virtually blesses, in the name of the Lord, the most 
 atrocious cruelty, injustice, and wickedness. "Well has it been 
 said by the Eev. Albert Barnes, " The outward progress of 
 liberty among the nations will compel the Churches, if they 
 would save the world from infidelity, to detach themselves 
 from slavery; " and he might have added, if they would save 
 themselves from contempt and dissolution. However depraved 
 may be human nature, it retains the power of distinguishing 
 between good and evil — a power essential to human responsi- 
 bility. The injustice, cruelty, and abominations inseparable 
 from American slavery, are repugnant to the moral sense of 
 mankind. The repugnance may indeed be practically over- 
 come by self-interest; but where this interest is not active, 
 nothing but a j^^fvertcd conscience can cause a belief in the 
 righteousness of slavery. It is impossible to convince the 
 community at large that slavery is in accordance with justice, 
 and mercy, and love, or that it is not identified with the grossest 
 s fishness and inhumanity. But cotton divinity proclaims, 
 that whether lu think it right or wrong, just or unjust, slavery 
 
20 
 
 was sanctioned by God among the Hebrews, and, therefore, He 
 now sanctions it among Americans. But God has not, it is 
 admitted, pointed out, at least in this country, who may be en- 
 slaved. In the absence of divine selection, the privilege is of 
 course entrusted to those who have the power of exercising it. 
 Hence it follows, that God has given to such of His children 
 as possess the requisite strength and means, license to subdue 
 and seize their feeble and helpless brethren, and convert them 
 into beasts of burden ; and, the more readily to keep them in 
 subjection and make them profitable, to steep their minds in 
 darkness, and render them mere human machines. Such is 
 the view presented by this school of divinity of the justice 
 and benevolence of the Deity, and of the consistency of the per- 
 mission given to the strong to rob and oppress the weak, witb 
 the attributes of Jehovah, and the precepts of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ ! To the question whether such a view of Christianity, 
 presented by its authorized teachers, is calculated to make 
 Christians or infidels, yonr own conscience will return an im- 
 mediate response. Many, to forward their own selfish views, 
 may deem it expedient apparently to countenance such preach- 
 ing, but few indeed will find it elevating their reverence either 
 for the clergy or for Christianity. 
 
 Men are not influenced by a religion they neither respect 
 nor believe. Hence cotton divinity has a direct palpable ten- 
 dency to bring the gospel and its ministers into contempt, 
 and to destroy the moral power of the Church. The result 
 must necessarily be an increase of wickedness. The Church 
 is intended to be the salt of the earth, and when the salt has 
 lost its savor, putrifaction must follow. Pro-slavery influ- 
 ence and interests are ever found at variance with, the spirit 
 of the gospel of Christ. The Mexican war was waged for the 
 extension of slavery. It was a most unjust war, and its par- 
 tisans, to obviate the moral objections urged against supporting 
 it, raised the God-defying cry, " Our country, right or wrong." 
 Then came the fugitive act, one of the most accursed laws 
 that disgraces the statute-book of any Christian nation. This 
 law required every citizen, when commanded by a miscreant 
 
21 
 
 slave-catcher, to aid him in his diabolical work. Much was 
 said about refusing obedience to this vile enactment, and im- 
 mediately certain reverend gentlemen were unwearied in reit- 
 erating the text, " the powers that be are ordained of God." 
 Thus the official man-hunter was elevated into a special agent 
 of the Deity ; and the conscientious Christian, who refused to 
 be a partaker of other men's sins, and declined joining in the 
 chase, was warned that "^whoever resisteth the power, resist- 
 eth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive 
 to themselves damnation." But some still demurred, and in- 
 sisted there was a higher law than even the fugitive act. In- 
 stantly a flood of obloquy and insult was poured upon the 
 advocates of a higher law, from Daniel AVebster down to the 
 Eev. censor of the Tract Society's press. The last gentleman 
 did not scruple to give utterance to the following sentiments : 
 " Unless we choose to live in a state of perpetual war, we 
 must prevent and punish all attempts to decoy slaves from 
 their masters ; there is a law of the land, a constitution, to 
 which we must submit or employ suitable means to change. 
 While it remains, all our appeals to a 'higher law' are 
 FANATICISM," p. 128. In Jerusalem there was once a law of 
 the land, a constitution, in virtue of which certain magistrates 
 commanded two men, whose names have come down to us, 
 not to teach in the name of Jesus; whereupon the fanatics had 
 the assurance to reply, " whether it be right in the sight of 
 God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." 
 Regardless of the powers, although ordained of God, unmind- 
 ful of the threat denounced against such as resist the power, 
 they appeal to the "higher laws," and how was the appeal 
 answered ? Presently the place in which they and their friends 
 were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the 
 Holy Ghost, and spoke the word of God, in defiance of the 
 law and the constitution, with great boldness. 
 
 Dr. Adams' respect for law seems to depend on its bearing 
 on human bondage and human liberty. The fugitive law is 
 sacred. How with the laws of the free States, which forbid 
 slavery, and consequently strike off the fetters from every 
 
22 
 
 slave brought upon their soil? The Rev. jurist, makes short 
 work with these laws. "We must put a stop,"' says he, "to 
 the iinlawful seizure of colored servants passing with their 
 masters through a free State; we must in some way prevent 
 the annoyance to which southern travellers are exposed, of 
 having their colored servants enticed away, or brought before 
 the courts to he emancijxcied f^ p. 15G. The '■^ seizure^'' (!) com- 
 plained of is the operation of the habeas corpus, and we 
 thus learn from our divine, that the application of this writ, 
 in behalf of southern "servants," is ^^unlawfuiy This Rev. 
 gentleman is for throwing open all the free States to the en- 
 trance of slaves as such. "Let our people be appealed to 
 against this injustice and unJcindness,^^ (the emancipation of 
 slaves in our courts.) ''Legislation cannot well remedy the 
 evil, especially if its only remedy be the poor donation of 
 leave to stay a few weeks, and no more, with a slave at the 
 North, as some of the free States have enacted. This con- 
 cession makes visitors from the South feel that the}^ are under 
 obligations to us for that which ought not to be placed on the 
 ground of ^^^^'^nission,''^ p. 150. And so the censor of the 
 Tract press claims for the slaveholder the right to bring and 
 keep his slaves upon free soil, and probably to work and flog 
 them at pleasure while there ; and thus would slavery be 
 quietly re-established in every free State. And how does this 
 jeering man of God treat there pugnance felt at the North to 
 this introduction of slaves as a matter of right ? " Are we 
 afraid that the sight of the ]ia2:)py relation subsisting between 
 masters and their slaves ivill make our iKojile in love with the 
 institution?^^ p. 151. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a law better calculated to scoundrel- 
 ize all concerned in its execution, and to familiarize the com- 
 munity with cruelty and injustice, than the fugitive act. 
 Well indeed may the men who voted for this accursed law 
 dread the woe denounced against such as decree unrighteous 
 decrees, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take 
 away the right from the poor. To the disgrace of a noble 
 profession, lawyers are not wanting who, deaf to the divine 
 
23 
 
 injunction, "Open thy mouth for the dumb, plead the cause 
 of the poor and need}'," are ready for the wages of iniquity, 
 to employ their talents in consigning to a life of unrequited 
 toil, misery, and degradation, a poor, helpless fellow-man, who 
 they know is innocent of crime, and as justly entitled to free- 
 dom as themselves. Jerusalem, it would seem, was infested 
 with men of similar character. " Among my people," says the 
 prophet, " are found wicked men ; they lay wait as he that 
 setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men." But thank 
 God, all do not catch men ; some there are who strive to " de- 
 liver the spoil out of the hand of the oppressor," and they are 
 honored with the derision of the Rev. N. Adams, D. D. 
 
 Another inroad on the morals of the community and the 
 independence and moral power of the Church, is found in the 
 recent clamor raised by the proslavery party against "politi- 
 cal preaching." The outburst of indignation with which the 
 fugitive law was received, was very annoying to the traders 
 in southern votes and merchandize. Immediately a number 
 of preachers set to work to turn, if possible, the current of 
 religious feeling setting against the law. Soon the press 
 groaned with sermons on the duty of obedience to the powers 
 that be, and the damning sin of resisting the ordinance of 
 God. Their sermons were received with great delight, by the 
 very class that is now scandalized by the profanity of "politi- 
 cal preaching." The New York union-saving, slave-catching 
 committee, comprising " the property and standing" of the 
 metropolis, had some of these very sermons printed at their 
 own expense, and scattered broad-cast through the land, and 
 Daniel Webster addressed a complimentary letter to the au- 
 thor of one of them. Then, proslavery " political preaching" 
 was both patriotic and Christian. Mr. Webster, trampling 
 under foot his most solemn and emphatic pledges, had be- 
 trayed the cause of freedom, had labored to throw immense 
 territories open to slavery, had travelled about the country 
 exhorting the people to conquer their prejudices and catch 
 slaves, and had endeavored to arm the fugitive act with the 
 terrors of constructive treason, hy converting the slightest 
 
24 
 
 resistance to its execution into the capital crime of levying war 
 against the United States! No sooner had he expired, than 
 ONE HUNDRED clergymen united in canonizing his memory 
 by sounding forth his praises from as many pulpits. Ser- 
 mons in praise of Daniel Webster and his politics, gave no 
 offence to pious slave-catchers and conservative divines. 
 
 At last the tide turned. The profligate repeal of the Mis- 
 souri Compromise, the villanies perpetrated in Kansas, the 
 wicked devotion of the Democratic party to the extension of 
 human bondage, and the nomination to the Presidential chair 
 of one of the parties to the Ostend rascality, all combined to 
 force on the consciences of some of Christ's ministers, the con- 
 sideration of their duty at the present crisis. Multitudes were 
 striving to effect measures adverse alike to the welfare of the 
 country and the precepts of God's word. Piratical warfare 
 was to be prosecuted for the benefit of the slave power ; vast 
 territories, now free, were to be subjected to the abominations of 
 slavery, and the opposition of the inhabitants was to be crushed 
 by brute force. What part, under such circumstances, were 
 the sentinels on the walls of Zion to take ? Were they to be, 
 like the priests of old, denounced by the prophet as "dumb 
 dogs," or were they to warn their people not to be partakers 
 of other men's sins? Such a warning would, of course, excite 
 the anger of Democratic politicians and South-side divines. 
 But said God to the prophet, "Thou shalt speak my words 
 unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will for- 
 bear." Hence, the question of duty was not to be decided by 
 the popular suffrage. "Son of man," was the command, 
 " cause Jerusalem to know her abominations ; shew my peo- 
 ple their transgressions, and the house of Israel their sins." 
 Happily for the honor and usefulness of the Church, several 
 faithful sermons were preached, urging the people not to en- 
 courage by their votes or otherwise, iniquitous measures, 
 whereby they would expose themselves and their country to 
 the Divine wrath. And now arose from the friends and sup- 
 porters of slavery a howl of anger and indignation, against 
 such a desecration of the sanctity of the pulpit ! 
 
25 
 
 "With mere questions of political expediency, the pulpit 
 has no legitimate connection, but questions of political moral- 
 ity are peculiarly within the province of men, who, by the 
 most solemn rites and the most awful vows, are appointed 
 preachers of righteousness. If the Legislature proposes to 
 legalize polygamy, to abolish the Sabbath, to license lewdness, 
 is the Church to be deaf and dumb ? If the Church may not 
 rebuke wickedness in high places, she becomes a mere tool in 
 the hands of rulers and demagogues, silently sanctioning their 
 atrocities, and reddening her skirts with the blood of souls 
 lost through her cowardice and selfishness. Churches, as well 
 as individuals, may be sure their sins will find them out. The 
 American Church is deeply involved in the guilt of slavery, 
 and has given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to 
 blaspheme. While, at the South, the clergy and church mem- 
 bers are almost universally slave-owners, and exhibit the same 
 unholy tempers on the subject that distinguish the southern 
 demagogues ; their brethren at the North not un frequently ape 
 their violence and vulgaritj'-, and thus, in both sections, the 
 Church is losing its hold on the public conscience, and giving 
 a new impulse to infidelity. The Rev. Mr. Tyng, of Philadel- 
 phia, an Episcopal clergyman, lately delivered a godly sermon 
 against the extension of slavery, and urging the duty of prayer, 
 humiliation, and penitence. A majority of his congregation 
 took offence, and compelled his resignation. And what sjra- 
 pathy did this martyr to ministerial fidelity receive from a 
 brother of his own Church, the Rev. Editor of the New 
 York Church Journal., professedly a religious paper ? With a 
 coarseness and malignity becoming a border-ruffian chaplain, 
 after noticing the dismissal, he added: "As to the particular 
 result, being summarily driven out of his parish for ' preach- 
 ing politics,' we have but three words to sa}^ — served him 
 
 RIGHT." 
 
 The priests of Anathoth were enraged against Jeremiah 
 for preaching politics ; but what was the Divine message to the 
 prophet ? " Thus saith the Lord, of the men of Anathoth that 
 seek thy life, saying, prophesy not in the name of the Lord, 
 
26 
 
 that thou die not by our hand, thus saith the Lord, behold, I 
 will punish them." The same spirit is now active which in 
 former days said to "the seers see not, and to the prophets 
 prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth 
 things, prophesy deceits." A minister may preach politics 
 with impunity, provided he preaches smooth things and prophe- 
 sies deceits. He may dwell at pleasure on our wealth and popu- 
 lation, and power and glory, and prophesy our future greatness 
 among the nations of the earth. But let him rebuke national 
 vanit}^, and arrogance, and profligacy, and those who have the 
 power will make him to know that "he is abhorred that 
 speaketh uprightly," and the men of Anathoth will exclaim, 
 " served him right." 
 
 Another wound which the proslavery spirit inflicts on 
 Christianity is the forgetfulness it induces, that negroes are of 
 the same nature with that assumed by the Son of God when 
 he was made flesh, and that they are equally entitled with their 
 white brethren to all the blessed hopes, and promises, and pre- 
 cepts of the Gospel. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, although we have millions of these 
 people, free and bond, in our country, our divines and church 
 members, for the most part, seem utterly unconscious, not 
 merely of their wrongs and sufferings, but of their very exist- 
 ence. Thus we have reports from the Bible Society agents at 
 the South, telling us all the families in such a county have been 
 visited, and that so many were found destitute, and so many 
 supplied; when, in fact, not one negro family was supplied, 
 nor even visited. No falsehood was intended, and nobody 
 supposed negroes were included in the sphere of the agent's 
 labors. And so also in the free States, negroes are rarely the 
 subjects of Christian solicitude. In the " Garner Dove,'''' for 
 September last, an Episcopal Missionary periodical, we have 
 an amusing instance of the extent to which this indifference to 
 the negro is carried. In an article intended to excite mission- 
 arj"" zeal in behalf of the Hindoos, by contrasting their subjec- 
 tion to caste with our happy exemption from it, the editor 
 exclaims: "How different is the condition of things in this 
 
27 
 
 country from wliat it is in India ! Here, all people are allowed 
 to follow the calling they prefer, or have a capaciiy for." 
 Now, the man who wrote this had no wish to deceive. He 
 knew, indeed, how zealously his own Church had maintained 
 caste within her walls, and how cruelly multitudes were crush- 
 ed, in the very city in which he was writing, by the distinc- 
 tion of caste ; but then he did not recognize negroes as " peo- 
 ple." He thought nothing about negroes. "ZTere, all people 
 are allowed to follow the calling they prefer, or have capacity 
 for!" And this most palpable untruth is put forth under 
 the sanction of a great religious association ! How com- 
 ports this complacent assertion with the fact that no negro 
 is permitted in New York to earn his bread bj^^sweeping 
 the streets, or taking a license to drive a cart ; and that, 
 however weary and feeble he may be, he is rudely driven 
 from many of our public coveyances. When Crummell ap- 
 plied for admission into the Theological Seminary as a can- 
 didate for Holy Orders, the Bishop informed the Trustees, 
 that, in literary acquirements and religious qualifications, he 
 was fully entitled to admission. But no; the physicians of 
 souls shut the gates of the Seminary against the low^-caste ap- 
 plicant. Is it strange that the phj^sicians of the body should 
 follow an example of such high authority, and expel from 
 their college a student who was suspected of having African 
 blood in his veins ? It is only recently, and in consequence of 
 external pressure, that the Convention of the Diocese of New 
 York consented to permit a low caste minister of Jesus Christ 
 to take a seat among the Brahmins. In the Pennsylvania Con- 
 vention such ministers are still excluded, notwithstanding the 
 earnest and Christian remonstrance of the Bishop. Yet we 
 are exhorted by the editor of the Carrier Dove to convert the 
 Hindoos, and thus relieve them from the curse of caste ! Phy- 
 sician, heal thyself. 
 
 Another and more public demonstration of this morbid 
 insensibility to the wrongs and sufferings of the colored race 
 among us, was given at the great meeting held in New York 
 in behalf of religious freedom in Tuscany (!) A man and his 
 
28 
 
 wife were said to have been imprisoned bj the Duke of Tus- 
 cany for the offence of reading the Bible. The rumor was false. 
 They were imprisoned, not for reading the Bible, but for 
 impugning the doctrines of the Romish Church and attempting 
 to make proselytes from the established religion. Great was 
 the indignation expressed against the religious intolerance of 
 Tuscany by divines and politicians, who look with silent in- 
 difference on the legal restraints of millions of their own 
 countrymen on reading the Word of God, Some one at this 
 meeting — of course a fanatic — proposed an expression of sym- 
 pathy for those at home who, suffering far greater tyranny than 
 that exercised by the Duke of Tuscany, are forbidden by law 
 the knowledge of letters, A hubbub ensued, and the resolve 
 was indignantly rejected. At this very time it was well known 
 that a Christian lady in Virginia was under indictment for 
 teaching a few colored children oi free parents to read ; and 
 only a few days after this great New York meeting in behalf 
 of religious freedom, Mrs, Douglass was tried, convicted, and 
 sent to the common jail for one month for her crime, and, to 
 the infamy of Virginia, served out her time. Yes, our dough- 
 faces, and democrats, and proslavery clergy, eagerly seized the 
 opportunity of pouring forth their indignation against tyranny 
 in Tuscany, while laboring to uphold in their own country a 
 most loathsome system of religious and civil despotism — a 
 despotism which subjects a mother to lashes on her bare 
 back for teaching her own child to read the Bible, In one 
 of our States, to give a slave any book, not excepting the 
 Bible, is a crime to be punished with thirty-nine lashes ! 
 Tyranny in Tuscany is horrible ; to oppose a tenfold worse 
 tyranny at home is fanaticism : to foster and extend it is 
 patriotic and democratic. 
 
 Greatly is the cause of religion wounded and dishonored 
 by the eulogiums passed by the professors of cotton divinity 
 on the religious character of the slave-holders, and of such 
 politicians as condescend to be their tools. Brother String- 
 fellow's estimate of the piety and orthodoxy of the South will 
 not do much harm ; but that estimate, endorsed by Brother 
 
n 
 
 Adams, and given to the public under the virtual sanction of 
 the American Tract Society, will be a cause of scoffing to the 
 infidel and of grief to the serious Christian. The slave region 
 is held up to our admiration as peculiarly religious and evan- 
 gelical. This character is not disproved by individual cases of 
 atrocity, for such cases occur in all communities, and the very 
 family of our Lord comprised a thief and a traitor. But in a 
 religious community there will be a religious public opinion ; 
 and the more extensively piety prevails, the greater will be the 
 abhorrence of crime. Dr. Adams is particularly enamored 
 with the slave-holding piety exhibited in Georgia, South 
 Carolina, and Virginia. It is in these States that orthodoxy 
 maintains its sway, and here is found an amount of faith 
 exceeding that held by the descendants of the Puritans, while 
 infidelity flourishes more vigorously on the soil of New Eng- 
 land than on that which is enriched with the tears and blood 
 of slaves. Instead of investigating the crimes committed in 
 these three pious and orthodox States, we shall bring their state 
 of morality to the single but decisive test of public opinion on 
 an act which, in every civilized community not corrupted by 
 slavery and its political and commercial influence, is deemed 
 most atrocious. 
 
 Mr. Sumner, a member of the U. S. Senate from Massa- 
 chusetts, had on various occasions been grossly insulted by 
 southern Senators for his frank, manly opposition to slavery. 
 On the conclusion of one of his speeches, a slave-holding 
 Senator in full Senate characterized it as " the barking of a 
 puppy." Unintimidated by insult, in May last he delivered a 
 powerful speech on the affairs in Kansas, and made free but 
 just remarks on the character of American slavery and the 
 means used to extend it. A Mr. Brooks, a member of the 
 lower House from South Carolina, took offence at this speech, 
 although it contained not the most distant personal allusion to 
 himself. The assault which followed is well known. The 
 plan of that assault, and the motives which led to its adoption, 
 were thus acknowledged by the assailant himself, in a speech 
 in the House of Eepresentatives : " Expressly to prevent 
 
30 
 
 taking life, I used an ordinary cane. I went to the Senate de- 
 liberately. I hesitated whether I should use a horse-whip or 
 a cow-hide ; bat knowing that the strength of the Senator was 
 superior to mine, I thought he might wrest it from me. If he 
 had, I might have done what I should have regretted for the 
 remainder of my life." A voice: "He would have killed 
 him." To this Brooks made no response, thus admitting the 
 inference drawn from his words. 
 
 It thus appears, from the confession of the ruffian himself, 
 that he was apprehensive that Sumner, being the strongest 
 man, might wrest from his hands a whip or cowskin, and per- 
 haps apply it to his own shoulders. Hence, the whip and 
 cowskin were laid aside for a weapon which might at once dis- 
 able the intended victim, and prevent him from returning a 
 blow, or defending himself. The advent into the Senate 
 chamber was deliberate. Sumner was in an arm-chair, writing 
 on a table before him, and thus, by his position, deprived of 
 the use of his limbs for defence. Brooks took his aim, and 
 by a well directed blow on the head, at once disabled the 
 object of both his fear and his hatred, and repeated his blows 
 on the head in quick succession, till the Senator fell senseless 
 on the floor. Had the first blow not produced the intended 
 effect, Sumner might have succeeded in wresting the cane from 
 his assailant. For such a contingency his enemy was pre- 
 pared, and a pistol or dagger was to ensure the assassination 
 of the antislavery orator. So severe was the injury inflicted, 
 so nearly was Sumner's life sacrificed, that after the lapse of 
 nine or ten months, he Avas still unable to resume his seat 
 in the Senate. 
 
 Let us now see how this man's conduct was regarded by a 
 people Avhom the Tract censor tries to make us believe have, 
 in consequence of the evangelizing influence of human bond- 
 age, made greater advances in Christian faith than the inhabit- 
 ants of New England, who are destitute of this special means 
 of grace. For the assault on Mr. Sumner, the paltry fine of 
 $300 was imposed by a Washington judge, without one word 
 of disapprobation of the conduct of the culprit. Immediately 
 
31 
 
 the newspapers announced that Brooks' constituents had raised 
 for him double the amount of the fine. 
 
 A resolution was introduced into the House of Representa- 
 tives to expel Brooks. It received a majority of the votes, 
 but failed for want of the required two-thirds. Not one 
 single member from Dr. Adams' three favorite States voted 
 for the expulsion. Still, as a majority had thus pointedly 
 condemned the outrage, the gentleman's honor was touched — 
 he resigned his seat, and appealed to his constituents, placing 
 his re-election on the single issue, whether he had done right 
 or wrong in attacking and nearly murdering a defenceless 
 man, and that man a Senator of the United States. He was 
 immediately re-elected without opposition, and received 7,900 
 votes. Honors were forthwith showered on him, and on his 
 return to South Carolina, after the adjournment of Congress, 
 ovations were offered to him as to some high-minded, virtuous 
 patriot or philanthropist. His journey through his State was 
 a triumphal progress. On reaching Columbia, the mayor sum- 
 moned a meeting of the citizens to greet his arrival. " At 
 eight o'clock," says the report, " the City Hall was so densely 
 crowded that it was found necessary to move an adjournment 
 to the street in front of the Court House, upon the balcony of 
 which Mayor Arthur presented Mr. Brooks, in presence of the 
 assembled mass of citizens, a handsome silver pitcher, a gold 
 goblet, and one of Mr. Beckham's finest hickory canes with a 
 handsome gold head. The mayor made him a flattering ad- 
 dress, and assured him that the citizens of Columbia delighted 
 to honor him." Brooks replied that " every foot of the way 
 from AVashington to this city, he had met with kindness from 
 the people of the South, and it gratified him to believe, that 
 were he to travel to the • extremest verge of the South, he 
 should meet with the same hearty welcome as he had expe- 
 rienced here and elsewhere." He then adverted to the possi- 
 bility of Fremont's election, and declared that, if elected, " it 
 was his deliberate opinion that on the 4th of March next, the 
 South should rise in their might, march to Washington, and 
 seize the archives and the Treasury of the Government." 
 
32 
 
 This exhortation to treason, civil war, and plunder, was well 
 received, and a display of fireworks concluded the festivities 
 in honor of a base ruffian. 
 
 On coming to Ninety Six, he found a grand banquet prepared 
 for him, at which the Governor of the State, and Mr. Toombs, 
 Senator from Georgia, were guests. Two goblets of gold and 
 one of silver, and two canes were presented to the hero of the 
 night. The chairman, referring to the assault, remarked to 
 the audience : " We highly approve of that act which he per- 
 formed on the 22d of May last, on the floor of the Senate 
 Chamber of the United States. That, gentlemen, was a noble, 
 though daring act." Brooks, in reply, observed : " For in- 
 flicting the punishment on Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, I 
 have had showered upon me applause and commendation from 
 every part of the South. My own people have even humbled 
 me by the honors they have poured down upon me." After 
 these extracts, it is unnecessary to quote from the ferocious 
 applause bestowed on Brooks by the people of South Carolina. 
 Let us next turn to Georgia. It is sufficient to say, that this 
 State was represented by her Senator, Mr. Toombs. This 
 gentleman made a speech at the banquet, in which he fully 
 approved of the outrage on Mr. Sumner, and declared "he 
 saw it done, and it was well done." Immediately after the 
 assault, this man justified it in a speech in the Senate. We 
 now come to Virginia, the third slave State especially com- 
 mended by Dr. Adams for its evangelical faith. 
 
 Eoom can be afforded for extracts from only two Virginia 
 papers, but they shall be the chief organs of the two great po- 
 litical parties. In a report of Mr. Sumner's health it had been 
 stated, " If he essays to walk, his lower limbs refuse their office." 
 On this the democratic organ, the Richmond Inquirer^ published 
 the following: " What a pity ! what a pity ! 'If he essays 
 to walk, his lower limbs refuse their office.' Possibly they are 
 ashamed to propel the contemptible carcass of the cowardly 
 cur. The most satisfactory test to which his lower limbs can 
 be subjected would be to set Preston S. Brooks after him with 
 a good cane." Again, " we consider the act good in concep- 
 
33 
 
 tioD, better in execution, and best of all in consequence. 
 These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate are getting above 
 themselves. They have grown saucy, and dare to be impu- 
 dent to gentlemen. Now they are a low, mean, scurvy set, 
 with some little book-learning, but as utterly devoid of spirit or 
 honor as a pack of curs. The truth is, they have been suffered 
 to run too long without collars. They must be lashed into 
 submission. Sumner, in particular, ought to have nine-and- 
 thirty every morning. He is a great, strapping fellow, and 
 could stand the cowhide beautifully. There is the blackguard 
 Wilso:n', an ignorant Nantick cobbler, swaggering in excess of 
 muscle, and absolutely dying for a beating. "Will not some 
 one take him in hand ? Hale is another huge, red-faced, 
 sweating scoundrel, whom some gentleman should kick and cuff 
 until he abate something of his impudent talk. Let them once 
 understand that for every word spoken against the South they 
 will suffer so many stripes, and they will soon learn to behave 
 themselves like decent dogs. We trust other gentlemen will 
 follow the example of Mr. Brooks, so that a curb may be im- 
 posed upon the truculence and insolence of abolition speakers. 
 If need be, let us have a caning or cowhiding every day. 
 Sumner and Sumner's friends must be punished and silenced. 
 Either such wretches must be hung or put in the penitentiary, 
 or the South should prepare at once to quit the Union. We 
 are the most moral, religious, contented, and law-abiding people 
 on earth, and are daily becoming more so." Such are the ut- 
 terings of Virginia democracy. Accustomed to the submissive 
 demeanor of northern doughfaces, those loell-hehaved and col- 
 lared dogs, it is exceedingly excited by any indication of inde- 
 pendence of feeling and expression on the part of northern 
 representatives. We now turn to the whig party, and, judg- 
 ing from its representative press, it has in vulgarity, indecency, 
 and profligacy, fallen to the level of the rival party. Said the 
 Richmond Whig: " A GoOD Deed. — It will be seen by the tel- 
 egraph that Mr. Brooks, of South Carolina, after the adjourn- 
 ment of the Senate yesterday, administered to Senator Sumner, 
 the notorious foul-mouthed abolitionist from Massachusetts, an 
 
34 
 
 elegant and effectual caning. We are rejoiced at tbis. We 
 ■ trust the ball may be kept in motion. Seward and others 
 should catch it next." 
 
 Surely if there be a woe unto them who call evil good and 
 good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, 
 that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter, it must fall on the 
 people who rejoice in and applaud the vile ferocity of Preston S. 
 Brooks, and also on those who hold up such a j)eople as a special 
 pattern of evangelical piety, among whom faith abounds and 
 infidelity is rare. 
 
 If farther evidence be wanting of the utter debasement of 
 public sentiment among slaveholders, it may be found in the 
 inscription on a banner borne in a democratic procession in 
 Washington, in honor of Buchanan's election: — •"Sumner 
 AND Kansas, — let them bleed ! " a sentiment worthy of 
 the Thugs of India. 
 
 The attempt constantly made by a certain class to cover 
 up the moral delinquencies of the slaveholders and their 
 northern tools, has a deleterious influence on public morals. 
 Mr. Pierce most grossly violated the solemn pledge he gave 
 the nation, to do nothing to revive the slavery agitation, in 
 zealously promoting the repeal of the Missouri compact. On 
 finding Governor Eeeder indisposed to aid in trampling on the 
 rights of the people of Kansas, he removed him under the false 
 and hypocritical pretence of speculating in public lands. But 
 the tender-conscience President had no scruples in retaining as 
 Governor of Utah the shameless Brigham Young, with his 
 twenty or forty wives. The Mormon Governor has not been 
 ungrateful for Mr. Pierce's favor, and has issued a proclama- 
 tion announcing " the democratic party is the instrument in 
 God's hand by which is to be effected our recognition as a sove- 
 reign State, witli the institutions of slavery and polygamy, as 
 established by the patriarchs and prophets of old, under divine 
 authority." Of course the Mormons are to be good democrats, 
 and the democratic party is henceforth to take polygamy under 
 its protecting care, as well as slavery. Yet pains have been 
 taken to hold up Mr. Pierce as a religious man, and we are 
 
35 
 
 told with an air of triumph that he attends the Presbyterian 
 Church, and says grace at table ! Mr. Buchanan not only prom- 
 ises to walk in the footsteps of Mr. Pierce, but has gone even 
 far beyond his predecessor, joining the piratical conspiracy at 
 Ostend for seizing Cuba, and thus giving new vigor to the 
 slave power at home. Yet a pious organ of cotton divinity 
 proclaims the joyful tidings that the new President has a pew 
 in a Presbyterian church, and reads "Jay's Morning Exer- 
 cises ! " Who will dare to condemn slavery as sinful, when 
 its champions and propagandists are such " evangelical Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 Christianity is moreover wounded, not merely by the de- 
 fence of the sum of all villanies by our northern clergymen, 
 but also by the violence, vulgarity, and malignity of not a few 
 southern divines. In various instances these men, in utter 
 disregard of the obligations of their holy profession, have 
 counselled and countenanced violence against abolitionists, 
 and in one instance, at least, a reverend gentleman has been 
 known to be placed on a Lynch club, claiming the right to 
 take life — that is, to commit murder. A proslavery evangeli- 
 cal parson held a conspicuous place in the Legislature forced 
 by the border ruffians on the people of Kansas. The Kev. 
 F. A. Ross, D. D., of the Presbyterian Church, Alabama, 
 thus excuses the Brooks' outrage : " I hold that God forbids 
 free speech as clearly as he forbids the free bludgeon. Free 
 speech sets the fire of hell. Such was Sumner's free speech ; 
 and God is more offended at that free speech than with the 
 free cane which replied to it." And how with the free speech 
 of the Richmond editors, and other proslavery orators every 
 where ? What amount of the bludgeon must be bestowed on 
 the Rev. gentleman, to equal in moral turpitude his own. 
 ribald and blasphemous free speech — viz: " God tells the 
 Planter to say to the North, to England, to France, to all who 
 buy cotton, * Ye men of Boston, New York, London, Paris — 
 ye hypocrites, ye brand me as a pirate, a kidnapper, a mur- 
 derer, a demon fit only for hell, and yet ye buy my blood- 
 stained cotton. Oh ! ye hypocrites, ye Boston hypocrites, 
 
36 
 
 why don't ye throw the cotton in the sea as your fathers did 
 the tea ? Ye hypocrites, ye abuse the devil, and then fall down 
 and worship him. Ye hypocrites — ye New England hypocrites 
 — ye Old England hypocrites — ye French hypocrites — ye 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin hypocrites — ye Beecher hypocrites — ye 
 Rhode Island Consociation hypocrites — Oh ! your holy twad- 
 dle stinks in the nostrils of God, and He commands me lash 
 you with my scorn, and His scorn, so long as ye gabble about 
 the sin of slavery, and then bow down to me, and buy and 
 spin cotton. Ye have, like French infidels, made reason your 
 goddess, and are exalting her above the Bible. In your uni- 
 tarianism and neology, and all modes of infidelity, ye are 
 rejecting and crucifying the Son of Grod.' " If this man really 
 believes, as he says, that Grod forbids what he calls free speech, 
 he affords a remarkable illustration of that desperate defiance 
 of the Deity which the Bible describes as " running upon the 
 thick bosses of his buckler." 
 
 In this country we have not far from 30,000 Protestant 
 ministers. Had these men fearlessly and faithfully proclaimed 
 the command of their Master, to love mercy and do justice, 
 irrespective of complexion, slavery would have withered and 
 died. "If," as God declared of the prophets of old, "they 
 had stood in my counsel and caused my people to hear my 
 word, then they would have turned them from their evil way 
 and from the evil of their doing." 
 
 Elijah, complaining of the idolatry of Israel, was comfort- 
 ed with the assurance that there were no less than 7,000 who 
 had not bowed to Baal. Would to God we had an equal 
 number of prophets, openly and fearlessly rejecting and con- 
 demning the worship of the southern Moloch.* Well, indeed, 
 
 * All indiscriminate censure is unjust. While the great hody of the 
 clergy have been time-serving, obsequious, tolerating, both by precept and 
 by practice, as "well as by silence, most stupendous cruelty and wickedness ; 
 there have been some, of various denominations, who, with the spirit 
 and holy devotion of martyrs, have bid defiance to the proud, the wealthy, 
 and the fashionable, and have, as faithful ambassadors of Christ, shown 
 the people their transgressions. There are not a few, it is hoped, of Christ's 
 
37 
 
 may every individual who names the name of Christ, or who 
 ministers at His altar, make the Psalmist's prayer his own : " Let 
 not those who wait on the Lord God of Hosts be ashamed for 
 my sake : let not them that seek thee, be confounded for my 
 sake, God of Israel." Of all the apostles of infidelity at 
 the present day, none are so efl&cient and successful, although 
 unconscious of the effect of their labors, as the reverend 
 champions and apologists of American slavery. Dr. Adams, 
 by his deplorable book, rendered still more disreputable by 
 his position in a great religious institution, has been a stum- 
 bling-block and a rock of offence to many. The Boston Tract 
 Society, which had included him among its officers, last spring 
 wisely removed him, and thus relieved itself from the odium 
 and responsibility of endorsing his conduct. But the Ameri- 
 can Tract Society, powerful in money, in members, and in in- 
 fluence, set at defiance all remonstrance, and re-elected this 
 champion of human bondage to guard its press ! A persever- 
 ance in its infatuated policy will soon convert into history the 
 recent advice of a returned missionary, Kev. A. M. Kichard- 
 son: — 
 
 '* We can better afford to have no more tracts ' on sound 
 morality and vital godliness' published in seven years to come, 
 than to have the consciences of proslavery men quieted by 
 their refusal to rebuke this giant wrong. It is true they have 
 done a great and good work, but that fact should not shield 
 them from merited rebuke for present wrong. They occupy 
 a false position — they misrepresent the Gospel. "When light 
 
 ministers who have imbibed enough of the spirit of their Master, to make 
 the glorious language of the Rev. Dr. "Wayland their own : " Slavery is a 
 sin against God, and an outrage on humanity. I believe that Christ died 
 for the redemption of our whole race ; for the ignorant and dovpu-trodden 
 African as well as for his haughty Anglo-Saxon oppressor. Taking Christ 
 for my example, and striving to imbibe His spirit, can I do otherwise than 
 take to my bosom every down-trodden child of humanity ? Jesus Christ, 
 my Master, is not ashamed to call them brethren, and can I have any part- 
 nership in an attempt to trample them under foot? The Union itself be- 
 comes to me an accursed thing, if I must first steep it in the tears and 
 blood of those for Avhom Christ died." 
 
38 
 
 has been refused, and the petitions and remonstrances of friends 
 of Christ have been disregarded, the time has come for Chris- 
 tians and Churches to act in the matter. It seems to me the 
 duty is plain. Let the Churches cut off their supplies, by turn- 
 ing their contributions into other channels until they repent." 
 But no repentance will be deemed sincere, so long as the Eev. 
 N. Adams, D. D., as the sentinel of the slave power, keeps 
 watch and ward over the Tract press. 
 
 From what has been said, you, gentlemen, will form some 
 idea of the momentous responsibility now resting on you. 
 Your report will do much, either to reconcile the northern 
 Church to human bondage and all its inseparable abominations, 
 and thus to expose her to the scofi" of the infidel, and to repel 
 from her bosom the lovers of justice and humanity; or else to 
 break the spell which has stupefied the consciences and indu- 
 rated the hearts of many professed disciples of Christ, and led 
 them to put Him to open shame. May Almighty God so en- 
 lighten your understandings, and sanctify your hearts, that 
 you may hereafter give your account of this stewardship with 
 joy and not with grief. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 February, 1857. 
 
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