I 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 703 352 5 
 
A EEPLY 
 
 E 540 
 j.115 R6 
 
 Copy 1 to THE 
 
 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 PASSED BY THE LATE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA ANNUAL CONFI^RENCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 IN MARCH, 1864. ^^ 
 
 WITH A SLIGHT NOTICE OF THE ACTS OF THE LATE 
 
 GENEEAL CONFERENCE OF SAID CHURCH 
 
 IN THE FOLLOWING MAY. 
 
 BY 
 JOHN BELL ROBINSON. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 JAMES CHALLEN & SON, 
 
 PUBLISHERS, BOOK-SELLERS, AND STATIONERS, 
 
 No. 1308 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
A EEPLY 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA ANNUAL CONFERENCE RESOLUTIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 
 AT THEIR LATE SESSION IN WILMINGTON, DELAWARE. 
 
 Fellow Sufferers of the M. E. Church : 
 
 I regret that circumstances compel me to raise my voice against tlie misre- 
 presentations contained in a preamble, and six or seven of the ten resolutions 
 passed by said Conference under date of March the 9th, 1864. If any one had 
 told me even one year before, that a majority of the Ministers of this Confer- 
 ence would have voted for, and passed a set of resolutions so full of thirst for 
 their brother's blood, and containing such a tissue of insults and misrepresen- 
 tations, I should have thought them insane, or vile persecutors of the true 
 friends of Grod, and their country. But to my great surprise and chagrin it is 
 even so. I have been looking for a reply to the vile slander, persecution, and 
 insults therein contained from some more able pen, who would be fully compe- 
 tent to expose the fallacy of these vile misrepresentations, and who would do 
 them justice. But I have seen nothing, nor heard of any attempt in so just a cause. 
 And I hope all will pardon me for my presumption in taking hold of such 
 a task. I know you would do this, if I could get you to realize the deep, per- 
 sonal interest I feel in the Grovernnient of the United States, which xcas formed 
 by the Free Sovereign State Governments, and without which there can be no 
 free United States (rovernment, nor any free Grovernment by the people there- 
 of. The "People" owe their allegiance to their own several State Govern- 
 ments, and the several Sovereign States owe allegiance to certain freely con- 
 ceded powers granted by them, not by force or obligation, but by their own 
 free Sovereign wills, for the mutual benefit of all then in existence, or that 
 should thereafter come into the family of States. The powers granted 
 by the States, for this great Union-machine, were all particularly s])ecilied by 
 name in the Organic law that they framed for the foundation of the National 
 Grovernment, reserving all other powers to themselves. The States owe no 
 allegiance whatever, beyond what was written in the Organic law, or Magna- 
 Charta as formed by our great and holy fathers, in the Conventions of 1787, 
 and 1789, and accepted at pleasure by the Sovereign people through and by 
 their several Sovereign States, by the free sovereign franchise of the legal vot- 
 ers of each separate independent Sovereign State, by their own free choice. 
 No shoulder straps, teass buttons, swords, or "green-back" influence were 
 brought to bear to coerce any voter to allegiance, as I believe was done by the 
 majority of the 270 Methodist preachers in the late Philadelphia Conference, 
 as will be apparent before I close. Two of the said States, if I mistake not, 
 reserved the right (in their state ordinances, accepting the Constitution, formed 
 
 •2 
 
for their mutual advantage) to go out apin at pleasure, others accepted it 
 voluntarily (of course,) because it was totally void of any coercive clause to hold 
 them in under this new Grovernment, that was created by the Sovereign States, 
 and was only an experiment at that time. If there had been any coercive clause 
 in it, there could not have been fifty people found in any one State who would 
 have accepted it. And those few were of the iron-shod or despotic make. 
 But this new experiment for a free general Government, soon proved to be the 
 greatest temporal blessing ever, bestowed upon mankind since the fall, and ex- 
 pulsion from Paradise. God must have presided over those great men, for no 
 such glorious temporal machine could ever have been invented and put in mo- 
 tion by mortal man, unless God had been with him. It was a United States 
 machine in every way suited to the wants of poor fallen man. Yea, it soon 
 proved to be such a blessing, that that glorious Paradise from which he had 
 fallen nearly 6000 years prior, soon hove almost in view. No such glory, peace, 
 prosperity, and union had ever before crowned the brow of any people on the 
 face of the globe. God was glorified by every section, article, and clause in 
 the Constitution, or Organic law of the Nation, as long as it was faithfully ad- 
 hered to by all the States. Yea, it was not only made a blessing to our revo- 
 lutionary fathers, and their posterity, but proved to be an asylum to the 
 oppressed of God's people who sought its coverts from all the nations of this 
 sin-stricken world. Even the poor black Africans w'ere taken from a land of 
 heathen barbarism, (where they kill and eat each other at feasts, as we kill and 
 eat turkies, and where they burn the wives and children on the funeral pile of 
 their husbands, and where their wretched kings sacrifice thousands upon thou- 
 sands of their own tribes annually to huge images of great black serpents, 
 which they rear up as objects of worship, ) and even these tribes were put under 
 its benign influences, and civilized b.y Christian masters, and made most useful 
 subjects of this God's great temporal kingdomj that he had made a type of 
 that Paradise from which Adam was expelled. And even that black heathen- 
 ish barbarous race was made to aid in the glorification of the great God of the 
 Universe. 
 
 To attempt to describe the glorious blessings that the Constitution, under 
 the providence of God, had proved to be, would be useless ; for there is no- 
 thing visible to compare it to, to demonstrate or illustrate its glories to mortal 
 man, for all materials are wanting. And when we saj^ it was in every way 
 suited to the various soils, climates, productions, businesses, peace, union, and 
 happiness of this great and glorious country, we have not said enough, but all 
 that we can say. And it was thought by our holy fathers who formed this 
 great general machine that can only be run by the free will of the several 
 sovereign states, which machine was formed for the mutual benefit of the stajtes, 
 that they had so created it, it being entirely in the hands and under the con- 
 trol of the several sovereign states, that it was utterly impossible for any 
 tjTant usurper to get such a hold that he could ever usurp the powers that be- 
 longed exclusively to the states, in which the only, and all the sovereignty of the 
 Nation lay. But alas ! how sadly were they mistaken. The devil had to use 
 a " serpent" to overthrow the Paradise formed for Adam. And he sent ser- 
 pents to beguile this Nation into "transgression," that we might be oyer- 
 throwUr But while the " serpent" that beguiled Eve, wa^ of the animal tribe, 
 the ones that beguiled the people of the Northern wing of this Nation, were 
 bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, and blood of our blood, who "dipped 
 with us in the same dish." These "serpents" are the great " serpents" 
 which are at the head of our downfall and ruin, and many of them are ministers 
 who were ordained to preach the everlasting Gospel of God our Saviour, to 
 poor fallen man ; through whom we hoped for the perpetuation of this glori- 
 ous Government to the end of time. But, my God I what have some of 
 them not done to ruin this great Nation, that was chosen by thee, and placed 
 as a city upon a hill, that all the world might see our greatness, and glorify 
 thy. great name. 
 
 I joined and shall adhere to the democratic party, not because it is a 
 party merely, nor because it has been mostly victorious, but because when 
 danger came it mainly flew to the only hope ancj safeguard for the union — the 
 Constitution of the United States — and because every man with the slightest 
 
knowledge of human nature, and state of affairs, knows that there never could 
 have been any union of these great states, nor permanent peace, prosperity, 
 and happiness, without a full and coiii^lete adherence to that oreat, glorious, 
 and God-ordained instrument., the Constitution of the United States. There- 
 fore I joined the democratic imrty, because they hold the Constitution with all 
 its safe-guards, and restrictions, and with them I expect to live and die, pro- 
 vided they stick to the principles of that great instrument, as ordained by our 
 fathers under the guidance of Almighty God. It was clearly one of the off- 
 springs and instrumentalities of the Gospel of God our Saviour for the tem- 
 poral salvation of man. Therefore the Philadelphia Conference must pardon 
 me for my disrespect to their prayer, but their request I will still hold under 
 consideration. For I do think the Constitution of the United States of far 
 more importance and value to me, and all the "peop/e" of this great Nation, 
 than the Philadelphia Conference resolutions. For even the Negro slaves 
 themselves had an asylum under its glorious wings and safe-guards, and were 
 made the happiest recipients of civilization on the globe. 
 
 I will here say that whoever calls me a traitor, or charges me with being in 
 secret league with traitors or rebels of any kind against the government of the 
 United States, as handed down to us by our fathers, makes the charge without 
 the slightest foundation or evidence of any such thing on my part, by word, 
 act, or deed. They have simply raised a standard for treason of their own con- 
 trivance, that they may bring into disrepute the true men of the nation, who 
 adhere to the only legal or constitutional government ever formed by the 
 United States : that they may adhere to and uphold the most wicked and dia- 
 bolical usurpation of power ever before seized upon on the globe ; by which 
 they may bhnd the masses while they are destroying this glorious system of a 
 free government, and building up a terrible military despotism on its ruins. 
 
 I will now take up the preambles and resolutions of said conference on the 
 state of the country. But what they had to do with the state of the country 
 in their ecclesiastical deliberations I am at a loss to know. Unless they had 
 become so swelled up or infatuated with treason against this, the best and 
 most humane form of a free human government ever before hit upon by mor- 
 tal man, that they concluded they were the House of Representatives of the 
 nation. 
 
 Report on the State of the Country. 
 
 "Whereas, A rebellion, unjust and causeless in its origin, and infamously wicked in its 
 objects, continues to threaten the existence of the government framed by the wisdom and 
 sacrijice of oxir fathers, and founded upon the corner stone of the freedom and equality of 
 all men : And 
 
 "Whereas, The success of the leaders in this unholy rebellion, in their avowed objects, — 
 the dissolution of our National Union, the dismemberment of the country, and establish- 
 ment of a new Confederacy within the present territorial limits, having for its corner-stone 
 the system of human slaverj', — would be to imperil the existence of civil and religious 
 liberty, which is the life of the nation ; And 
 
 "Whereas, As ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we relinquish no rights as American 
 citizens, but are compelled by the express letter of God's word, and by our articles of reli- 
 gion, to preach to all loyalty to the powers that ' are ordained of God.' " 
 
 ^ I will make a few remarks on these ''^ whereases,^ ^ before I go into the resolu- 
 tions, and will say, once for all, that I have no sympathy with secession whatever. 
 And he who charges me with belonging to that party, charges me with what 
 he or she does not know to be the truth, and what I know to oe false. I have 
 never seen a democrat who was a secessionist. 
 
 It gives me pain to feel compelled to come out against the ministers of the 
 church of my choice, and to which I have belori^ecJ^ for thirty-eight years. I 
 loved thoseinen more than any others, because I believed them to be the true 
 representatives of the Prince of peace, truth, union, the rights of men, 
 and liberties of conscience. But oh ! how sadly I have mistaken them. I 
 reverenced all ministers of the gospel, wherever I saw them, and vehemently 
 defended them when spoken against, any where and every where, especially 
 those of the church of my choice. 
 
 I have given and spent enough for their support, protection, and enjoyment, 
 to relieve me from present embarrassments: and it gave me great pain because 
 1 could not do more. I did not only love and reverence the ministers of our 
 
church, but to meet and associate with her members was a little heaven to me. 
 And mj'^ remarks now must not be applied to the true friends of Grod and man ; 
 for I still reverence them, whether in the pulpit or on the main floor. I shall 
 speak in severe terms of Abolition preachers only, and their followers. 1 pity 
 those who have jdelded under latent fear, and voted even against their own 
 convictions for the preamble and resolutions of the late conference ; for I am 
 not unacquainted with such fears, and know how to sympathize with all such, 
 and exhort them to stand fast to the truth, and pray for the courage that sus- 
 tained Paul before Agrippa; and for God's sake don't imitate Peter before 
 the servant girl at the trial of his Lord and Master any longer. I pray that 
 the echoes of the crowing cock may reach your ears as they did Peter's, and that 
 you may remember what the Lord and Master said, as Peter did, and that you 
 may repent and turn, as he did, to the true Shepherd and only hope of this 
 great nation. In the first preamble, these ministers declared this rebellion to 
 be "causeless. " Now, however wicked it might have been, it was not "cause- 
 less." For there were such causes at least twenty-five years ago, that many 
 far-seeing men warned us of our danger. The great and mighty Clay of the 
 West, as far back as 1833, warned the Abolition preachers and their followers 
 against any further encroachments on the constitutional rights of the Slave 
 States, with all the powers of his great eloquence, and the mighty powers of 
 his gigantic intellect, to stop their interference, and then told us what the 
 result would be. And again in 1850 he threw his patriotic soul into the scale 
 of constitutional liberty, and with all the powers of his gigantic mind told you 
 what you would do if you did not stop your treasonable attacks upon the law- 
 ful rights of other States ; and portrayed this untold catastrophe and ruin to 
 a great and happy nation. Yea, he pointed out all that has happened to us, 
 as far as it has gone ; and doubtless if you persevere in your wicked and trea- 
 sonable course, his entire prediction will be fulfilled; and then, instead of 
 being more blessed than all Grod's people, we shall be sunk below the lowest 
 civiUzed or partially civilized nations on the globe. As far back as 1803, dis- 
 union leagues were formed in New England, which have been kept up ever 
 since that day. And by some mysterious transformation, their name was 
 changed about two years ago to Union LeaguCj but in name only. The Hon. 
 John Quincy Adams told the public of them in 1827, in two or three publie 
 letters, that those treasonable combinations were organized in 1803 and 1804, 
 and that they made the annexation of the New Orleans territory a plea for 
 the overthrow and destruction of the nation. Mr. Adams said that they had 
 all of their mihtary chieftains appointed, and had formed an alliance with 
 Great Britain, that their success might be sure. _ About the time they got all 
 things ready, the New Orleans territory annexation became very popular, and 
 therefore their pretext failed them ; for it was only a pretext. 
 
 Those Puritanic saints did not disband their leagues, but kept up their 
 military organizations to await a new excuse to strike the terrible blow. Jf I 
 remember right, the first embargo was laid in 1807, upon which the traitors 
 seized as a sufficient cause for dissolving the Union and establishing a New 
 England monarchy. The New England States have always been opposed to 
 free government. Our informant goes on with the narrative: In 1809 they 
 had_ every thing ready to strike the terrible blow. Mr. Adams was made ac- 
 quainted with all the secrets of that most wicked league, and so well satisfied 
 was he that unless something was speedily done the days of the National Union 
 were numbered, that he wrote to the President, laying all the facts 
 before him, and told him that he thought nothing could save the government 
 but a modification of the embargo, which was done at once, and the terrible 
 catastrophe was averted the second time. But those saints of disunion did 
 not falter in the least in their determination to overthrow this glorious humane 
 government, because it placed all the "people " on a political equality. There- 
 fore they did not disband their secretly-organized army, but still kept up 
 their preparations. The quarrel being still continued between the United States 
 and Great Britain, the embargo was relaid in full force in 1812, if I mistake 
 not, and they determined then to strike the blow at the root of the govern- 
 ment._ But just as they got all things ready to commence hostilities by seces- 
 sion, in which they declared that they had a right to withdraw at pleasure, 
 
6 
 
 but if the nation attempted to interfere Great Britain was to join them and 
 crush this government out of existence. But just as they thought all was ripe 
 and ready for the lancet, the United States declared war against Great Britain 
 for various insults, and our Puritanic saints were foiled the third time in their 
 attempt to crush out this government. But they still held on to their wicked 
 and treasonable military organizations, increasing their wretched numbers, 
 until they should find a weak point, that they might strike a sure and fatal 
 blow, and establish their cherished monarchy. They kept up their secret 
 military organization through the war of 1812-13, and burnt blue-lights on the 
 coast, to guide the British vessels-of-war in and out of Boston harbour at 
 night-time, being their secret allies to overthrow the United States Govern- 
 ment, and did many other things as astoundingly wicked and diabolically 
 treasonable as this. In 1814 they came out more boldly, and called the Hart- 
 ford Convention for the purpose of seceding from the Union of States, and 
 establishing a New England Confederation. At that Convention they matured 
 all their wicked plans for the destruction of this great constitutional govern- 
 ment, because Jehovah (rocZwas the great King of the nation, and those Puri- 
 tanic wretches wanted a temporal kingdom with absolute powers, that they 
 might continue to burn witches, hang. whi]x and banish Quakers, as they had 
 done almost from the time they landed at Plymouth Eock, in 1620. At this 
 treasonable Convention they laid out all their diabolical plans, arranged all 
 their materials, got the powder ready, and arranged with the governors of the 
 New England States to meet them in Boston, I think in December, or the fol- 
 lowing January, with a new delegation appointed by their assumed authority 
 to co-operate with them, and strike the fatal blow. And then they appointed 
 a committee to petition Congress to divide the military fund of the nation, and 
 give New England her proportion, that she might be independent of the 
 United States in her military. This committee was to report to the adjourned 
 Convention from Hartford to Boston ; and if their petition should be granted, 
 it would be a source of encouragement in their schemes of treason ; but if de- 
 nied, it was to be a signal for immediate secession from the Union. Mr. 
 Adams gives a great many other evidences of the determination of the Puri- 
 tans never to live under a free Republican form of government, where all the 
 '.'people" had free and eqval political rights, wherein they (the Puritans) 
 could not .sway the entire sceptre, and flog negroes and Indians for being out 
 after night, and flog, hang, or banish Quakers for diftering with them in reli- 
 gious opinions, or having a different mode of worship or dress ; which afflic- 
 tion they did execute until they were cut off by the adoi)tion of the Constitu- 
 tion, and the formation of the Union of the several sovereign States, after- 
 wards called the United States. Mr. Adams gave a number of specimens of 
 pulpit denunciations of the Constitution and the Union, commencing as far 
 back, I believe, as 1803 or 1804. In a very short time after that, their Puri- 
 tanic disunion gosjiel declaimers made their churches echo with sounds of dis- 
 union, and in favour of their much-cherished New England Confederation. 
 Some of the northern ]nil)uts have kept up the same thing ever since. Those 
 Puritanic saints were all this time deeply interested in the foreign slave trade, 
 and had a very large amount of capital invested in that business. Mr. Adams 
 gave many incidents too tedious and lengthy for this expose. 
 
 The Convention met in Boston pursuant to adjournment. And the Governors 
 of each of their States had their special representatives there to co-oi>erate 
 with them in their diabolical treason against the Government of the United 
 States. The connnittee reported .that Congress had denied their petition, 
 which report brought them up to a sparkling heat, and they commenced to 
 arrange all their plans for a powerful and successful strike against the tuiion 
 of States. But just as they got all things in trim to unfurl the New England 
 confederated flag, and to dei'eiid it by the puritanic sword, a vessel arrived 
 from London w ith the treaty of peace, between the United States and Great 
 Britain, by which, said Mr. Adams, "under the pi-ovidencc of God," we were 
 saved from the greatest catastrophe that had ever befallen any na'tion on the 
 earth. And more surprising than all the rest, there was not the slightest ob- 
 jection made to negro slavery up to 1815, (when the treaty of peace was pub- 
 uahed) by those myrmidons of treason and ruin. They had to adjourn again 
 
•witliout consummating tlieir treason against Constitutional freedom. I may 
 make some slight errors in this synoptical view I have given from the Hon. 
 John Quincy Adams' pen. For I write entirely from memory of history I 
 read some years ago. Get the history and read for yourselves, and you will be 
 satisfied of the truth of what I say. (See 2d vol. Randall's life of Jefferson.) 
 The slave question was never named as an objectionable point to the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, until alhother pretexts had completely failed to bring 
 about their cherished object, the dissolution of the union of the co equal Sove- 
 reign States. I know the Quakers petitioned Congress on some specialities of 
 slavery long before 1803, l>ut only in a lawful way. After peace was proclaimed 
 in 1815, those wolves in sheep's clothing disbanded their army, but kept up 
 their secret organizations, and changed their modus operandi entirely. Instead 
 of seceding from the south, they made up their minds to compel the south to 
 secede from them if possible, which I will now endeavor to show. And every 
 true candid union-loving man will see it just as I do. They then had General 
 Washington's farewell address, and read his warning against Sectional parties, 
 and what the result of such parties would be. They seemed to have caught 
 the idea, and commenced the work of Sectionalism at once. And seeing that 
 the slave trade could no longer be safely followed,' and having been unprofit- 
 able in all the northern States, they seized upon that question as the most 
 prolific one for sectionism, and determined by that question to drive the south- 
 ern States out' of the Union, instead of withdrawing themselves. If I could 
 show you what they have done in the way of slander and defamation of the 
 character of our fathers who gained our liberties for us at the edge of the 
 sword, some of you would be astonished at least. William Lloyd Garrison, 
 many years ago, declared in the columns of the Liberator, that the Constitution 
 of the United States was a league with hell, and the Union a covenant with 
 the devil. Garrison is now and has been the sum and substance of the prin- 
 ciples of the whole abolition party in this country. The declaration has since 
 contained the entire creed of that most ungodly party. There has been no 
 shape that a slander could be put into against the south, that it has not been 
 put into that shape, and belched forth with all the venom of a rattle-snake 
 against an innocent and inoffensive people. Large public meetings have been 
 called in all the northern cities, to reek out their bitter slander not onlj' against 
 modern slave-holders but against our revolutionary fathers. I have heard 
 Gen. Washington denounced by their most popular leaders as a thief, mur- 
 derer, and robber, while the whole assembly of AboHtionists would shout 
 over the foul slander. Negro speakers at large Abolition gatherings have been 
 allowed to belch out the same venomous slander upon the character of that 
 great man, simply because (as they said) he was a slave-holder, and they de- 
 nounced all slave-holders as thieves, murderers, and robbers. They com- 
 menced some thirty-three years ago to instruct all children in day and Sabbath- 
 schools, in all sorts of slanders upon the characters of all slave-holders, 
 wherever they could get access to such schools, or could reach them by any 
 means. Falsehoods and slanders upon slave-holders were the highest virtues, 
 and the greatest accompUshments to an Abolitionist. No language was too 
 vile, nor charges against the southern people too vulgar and degrading to in- 
 struct the young of both sexes of the north in, or for topics of the social 
 circle, or to pronmlgate in the large assemblies. And no declamations would 
 produce such merriment and joy as a tremendous blast from the speaker of 
 such foul and vulgar slanders that would cause a blush among harlots. The 
 most heart-sickening stories were told of cruelties to slaves. ]\iillions of books 
 and periodical trash have been published and spread broad-cast over this whole 
 country, and also Europe, containing the foulest slanders, and the greatest 
 vulgarities against all the southern people, both in and out of the Christian 
 church. Uncle Tom's Cabin did more to produce this most wicked rebellion 
 than any other book ever published, it being introduced into all the theatres 
 of the free States of America, and then England, and I believe France, and 
 Spain too. It was played for four or five years, and almost exclusively in 
 some of them. Sucn foul _ slanders were more acceptable to the people of 
 these free states than any virtuous representations. 
 And in that way the people of the southern States were held up before the 
 
8" 
 
 people of nearly the whole civilized world, as the most wickedj vicious, de- 
 graded, and vile wretches on the face of the globe. And the vicious slander- 
 lovers were feasted everywhere at the expense and ruin of our southern cha- 
 racter. Mrs. Childs of Wayland, Mass. , and the two Misses Ghrimke, have 
 figured largely in the publication of all sorts of slanders and falsehoods 
 against the best people (to take them altogether) on whom the sun ever shone. 
 These Abolitionists have held their Annual tUonventions for many years, and 
 they usually gathered up all the copies of the Constitution of the United 
 States they could lay their hands on, to take them to those treasonable Con- 
 ventions, and burn them to ashes before those large assemblies, with appro- 
 priate ceremonies to the occasion, and the whole asseriibly would shout aloud, 
 that the effect of the Constitution should soon share a similar fate ; which was 
 the social institution of the south. In short, every thing was done in this 
 way that could be done or desired by the wickedness of bad men and women, 
 to drive the southern States out of the union. And had they not been great 
 adherents to the Constitution, and lovers of the Union, they would have struck 
 long before they did. But they deprecated the .very thought^ of secession or 
 disunion : and civil war a thousand times more. These abolitionists gave the 
 southern people the character of fire-eaters because they refused to acknow- 
 ledge their infamous and foul slanders, and denounced them as such, and threw 
 them back from whence they came with suitable indignation, the name you 
 gave them being only appropriate to yourselves. As soon as you found you 
 had worked the south up to a sufficient excitement and alarm, you entered the 
 arena of national politics; which was in 1840, and ran James Gr. Birney, of 
 Michigan, for the Presidency, and a Mr. Lamoin of Penna. , for Vice, and gave 
 them 7000 votes. You took them up again m 1844, and then they got 62,140 
 votes. They were run strictly on the Garrisonian principles ; that the Con- 
 stitution of the United States was a league with the devil, and the Union a 
 covenant with hell. Just after this, Martin Van Buren, through disappoint- 
 ment, came out against his party, he, always having been a wolf in sheeps 
 clothing, that is, an abolitionist in the garb of a patriot. The Abolition Con- 
 vention which met at Buffalo in 1848, nominated him for the Presidency, and 
 Charles F. Adams of Mass. for Vice President, as the _ free-soil candidates; 
 that being a new name they took to deceive the people ; it being more popular 
 among the half-converted Abolitionist or disunionist of the free States. He 
 received 296,232 votes. Here was an enormous vote given for the overthrow 
 of the social institutions of the south, or to drive those States out of the union. 
 In 1852, they took up John P. Hale as their nominee, and polled for him 
 157,296 votes.^ In 1856, they took up John C. Fremont, then of New York, 
 as their Presidential candidate, and Dayton of New Jersey, for Vice Presi- 
 dent, and polled 1,341,812 votes. There was no man of the slightest intelli- 
 gence and observation, north or south, who did not know that this enormous 
 vote was given against the Constitutional rights of the south, and their politi- 
 cal and social institutions. In this enormous vote, there was scarcely a hand- 
 ful given south of Mason and Dixey's line: I think about 1100. ^ That is, in all 
 the slave States. And Van Buren only got a little over 300, if I remember 
 right, in all the slave States in 1848. Their candidates each time, for the vice 
 Presidency being sectional also. In 1848, Judge Douglass, moved in the 
 United States Senate, to amend the Oregon bill by extending the Missouri 
 Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean, and it was carried through the Senate 
 by nearly two-thirds. Even John C. Calhoun voted for it, and all the south- 
 ern members. It went to the lower house, and there, every southern man 
 voted for it, except one, (the Hon. John W. Houston, of Delaware.) And 
 every free State man voted against it, excejjt four democrats. The Hon. C. J. 
 Ingersoll, of this city, was one of them ; 1 forget who the others were. The 
 bill was lost by almost a unanimous sectional vote. And doubtless, to prevent 
 a settlement satisfactory to the south. When in this, they offered to give up 
 exclusively to free labor forever, 900,000 square miles of the public domain, 
 while there would only be left 300,000 square miles ; in which the Abolitionists 
 would have equal rights with them, and the majority of voters from each ter- 
 ritory therein would decide the question of slavery in their new State Consti- 
 tutions. But this would have allayed all bad feelings forever between the two 
 
9 
 
 sections of our glorious country; and prevented separation and civil war; 
 therefore it was rejected by the Anti-Christian Infidel- Abolition party. Rev. 
 Theodore Parker, said in a sermon, 
 
 " The man who attacks me, to reduce me to slavery, in that moment of attack alienates 
 his right to life, and if' I were the fugitive, and could escape in no other way, I would kill 
 him loith as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face." 
 
 Remember that this Puritanic saint did not denounce slavery, but that he 
 would kill a man without the slightest compunctions for exercising his consti- 
 tutional and lawful rights, when his Lord and Master told him that he must 
 obey the powers that be. 
 
 Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts, said, at a free-soU meeting in Boston, 
 in 1849 : 
 
 "We confess that we intend to trample under foot the Constitution of this country. 
 Daniel Webster saj's ' you are a law-abiding people ;' that the glory of New England is 
 that it is a law-abiding community. Shame on it if this be true — if even the religion of 
 New England sinks as low as its statute-book ! But I say we are not a law-abiding com- 
 manity. God be thanked for it!" 
 
 He said again, in a pamphletrproclamation, in 1850: 
 
 " We are disunionist not from any love for separate confederacies, or as ignorant of the 
 thousand evils that spring from neighbouring and quarrelsome States, but toe would get rid 
 of this Union." 
 
 Again he said : 
 
 "No man has a right to he surprised at this state of things. It is just what we aboli- 
 tionists and disunionists have attempted to bring about. There is merit in the Republican 
 party. It is the first sectional party ever organized in this country. It does not know its 
 own face, but calls itself national ; but it is not national : it is sectional. The Republican 
 party is a party of the North pledged against the South." 
 
 Again he said : 
 
 " The Constitution of our fathers was a mistake. Tear it in pieces and make a better. 
 Don't say the machine is out of order; it is in order; it does what its framers intended — 
 protects slavery. Our aim is disunion, breaking up the States. I have shown you that 
 our work cannot be done under our institutions." 
 
 Again he said : 
 
 " No act of ours do we regard with more conscientious approval or higher satisfaction — 
 none do we submit more confidently to the tribunal of Heaven and the moral verdict of 
 mankind — than when, several years ago, on the 4th of July, in the presence of a great as- 
 sembly, we committed to the flames the Constitution of the United States." 
 
 I am met, and told that Wendell Phillips is a crazy fanatic. If this be true, 
 (doubtless it is), let us see how many crazy fanatics are in possession of this 
 great government. He was invited, 1 think in 1862, by leading men who con- 
 trol the powers that be, to deliver a lecture in the Smithsonian Institute, 
 Washington, D. C. He was on the spot at the appointed moment, and before 
 him were nearly all who hold the destinies of this great nation in their fists, 
 all of whom had sworn to protect and defend the Constitution of the nation. 
 His main point was an attack upon that sacred instrument. He told his audi- 
 tors that he had been labouring nineteen years to get nineteen States out of 
 the Union, and that he then rejoiced that his desire was almost realized, and 
 that the days of the Union could now be numbered. This declaration brought 
 down that crowded house with shouts that made the very foundations of the 
 temple shake. Why did they thus rejoice? Because that arch traitor struck 
 a withering blow upon the head of the glorious government of these United 
 States. And when he had closed his anathemas upon the Constitution and 
 the Union, thero was a rush by all the heads of departments and their satel- 
 lites toward thai, arch fiend, not to do what ought to have been done on the 
 spot, but to extol his name far above that of General Washington, whose name 
 he had denounced so often as that of a thief, murderer, and robber. But the 
 rush was to see who could get the first shake hands with this diabolical traitor. 
 He was highly extolled for his manly blows by those myrmidons of treason, 
 civil commotion, and murder. His hands were shaken as they never had been< 
 shaken. He was invited by the Vice President of the United States to visit 
 the Senate chamber next day, according to the reports of eye-witnesses. He 
 accepted and went. The Senate had organized, but when he entered the door, 
 2 
 
10 
 
 tlie Vice President sprang from his seat, and then on to tlie main floor, as re- 
 ports say, perhaps as had never been done before. All business was informally 
 suspended. His Honour caught him by the hand, and led him before that 
 august body of (Dis) -Union Leaguers, and formally introduced him; and there 
 was another rush for his sacrilegious hand. He was caressed and petted, as 
 no one had ever been before on that spot. He was taken to the White house, 
 and there met the same cordial greeting, and was told by the President that 
 he ought to travel and lecture all over the country. And just at that time he 
 received a telegram from the Capital of this State, tendering him the Senate 
 Chamber to belch forth his diabolical treason to the Abolitionisfs of this State 
 Legislature. I ask, was this notclear evidence that the south could not have 
 been mistaken in their impressions that these puritanic saints intended to 
 overthrow this glorious Government, and usurp a despotic one on its ruins. 
 Think of it. But see further. John P. Hale said, at an Abolition Conven- 
 tion in 1856,' in speaking of the disgrace of the union, and the probabilities of 
 its overthrow, and his surprise at the chances of the overthrow, and that he 
 would not be more surprised to see the '''' fruit folhwing the hud and hhssom." 
 
 He wrote to an Abolition committee of New York, on the 10th of August, 
 1856, regretting that he could not be with them at their meeting at the Taber- 
 nacle. 
 
 And said, 
 
 "I rejoice in your movement * * * I look forward hopefully for the day when the word 
 slave shall be without practical meaning in this, or the Eastern Continent ; when univer- 
 sal man shall stand erect, as God intended he should, calling no one lord or master ■■•■ "••• * 
 and recognizing no Government that is not founded on universal rights of humanity." 
 
 " If I did not believe that the election of Fremont and Dayton would be a step 
 in that direction, the movement would receive little sympathi/ from one:" 
 And again, 
 
 " On the 7th day of February, 1850, John P. Eale insisted upon, and along with" Chase 
 and Seward alone, voted to receive, refer and consider a petition demanding of Congress 
 an immediate dissolution of the Union, because a union with slaveholders is violation of 
 divine law and human right." 
 
 ".John P. Hale, on the 23d of March, 184S, presented a batch of eight petitions at once 
 demanding the dissolution of the Union." 
 
 David Kilgore said in the Indiana Abolition Convention in 1850, that tbe 
 " Negroes of this country had ten times more intelligence than any foreigners 
 who emigrate to this country." 
 
 ' ' Mark ! how stands Massachusetts at this hour in reference to the union. 
 Just where she ought to be, in an attitude of open hostility." — ^William Lloyd 
 Garrison, 
 
 Hon. J. R. Giddings, said on the Representative floor, that he would 
 kill a slave-holder in search of his slave property, as he would a sheep 
 killing dog. He said in the house of Congress, all that a vulgar black- 
 guard could have invented to slander and insult the whole south time and 
 again. Yet, his district would re-elect him and send him back to do the same 
 thing over again. 
 
 "On the 26th of February, 1842, Mr. Giddings presented a petition from a large num- 
 ber of Abolitionists of Austinburg, in his district, praying for dissolution of the Union, and 
 a separation of the slave from the free States." 
 
 John Q. Adams presents a petition for dissolution : 
 
 " On the 24th of February, 1842, .John Quincy Adams, presented a petition in the House 
 of Representatives signed by a large number of citizens of Haverhill, Massachusetts, for a 
 peaceable dissolution of the Union, ' assigning as one of the reasons the inequality of bene- 
 fits conferred on the different sections.' " [Blake's History of Slavery, p. 624.] 
 
 William H. Seward said in 1848, 
 
 "Whenever the public mind shall will the Abolition of slavery, the way will open for 
 it,. * * * Slavery can be limited to its present bounds ; it can be alienated. It can be, it 
 mast be abolished, and you and J can, and imtst do it.." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, said in a letter in April 1859, in answer to an invitation 
 to address an Abolition meeting in Boston : 
 
 " This i-: a woyld of compensations, he who would be no slave, must own no slaves, ha 
 who denieth freediim to others, deserves it not for himself, and under a just God he shall 
 not long retain it." 
 
11 
 
 He declared in a speecli in the House of Eepresentatiyes of the United 
 States, 
 
 That any part of the people of any Government, had an unconditional right to secede 
 at pleasure from the Government under which they lived, and to coerce all in their terri- 
 tory who should oppose them; provided they had the power, they had the right at any 
 time. 
 
 Ihave not given the thousandth part of the declarations and resolves of 
 traitors an4 di.sunionists against the blessed Grovernment of the United States, 
 as formed by our fathers, when there were no Abolitionists, partizan politi- 
 cians, nor Grovei'nraent suckers, or thieves in church or state. 
 
 In their State Convention of 1851, the Radicals of Massachusetts, on whom 
 the mantle of the Hartford Convention had fallen, and animated by the same 
 purpose, ^ 
 
 " Resolved, That the Constitution which provides for a slave representation and a slave 
 oligarchy in Congress; which legalizes slave catching- on every inch of American soil ; 
 which pledges the military and naval i>ower of the country to keep four millions of chattel 
 slaves in their chains, is to be trodden under foot and pronounced accursed, however unex- 
 ceptionable or valuable it may be in its other jirovisions. 
 
 *• That the one great issue before the country is the dissolution of the. Union, in compa- 
 rison with which all other issues with the slave power are as dust in the balance; therefore 
 wo have given ourselves to the work of 'annulling this covenant with death,' as essential 
 to our own innocency, and the speedy and everlasting overthrow of the slave power." 
 
 In 1856, the same party passed the following in convention : ^. 
 
 " Resolved, 1. That the necessity of disunion is written in the whole existing character 
 and condition of the two sections of the country, in their social organization, education, 
 habits, and laws; in the danger of our white citizens in Kansas, and our coloured men in 
 Boston ; in the wounds of Charles Sumner, and the laurels of his assailants; and no gov- 
 ernment on earth was ever strong enough to hold together such opposing forces. 
 
 "Resolved, 2. That this movement does not merely see disunion, but the more perfect 
 union of free States, by the expulsion of the slave States from the Confederation in which 
 they have ever been an element of discord, danger, and disgrace. 
 
 " Resolved, 3. That it is not probable that the ultimate severance of the Union will be 
 an act of deliberation or discussion, but that a long period of deliberation and discussion 
 must precede it; and here we meet to begin the work. 
 
 " Resolved, 4. That henceforward, instead of regarding it as an objection to any system 
 of policy that it will lead to a separation of the States, we will proclaim that to be the 
 highest of all recommendations, and the greatest proof of statesmanship, and will support 
 politically such men and measures as appear to tend most to this result." 
 
 Mr. Garrison made a speech in 1856, in which he declared : 
 
 "I have said, and I say again, that in proportion to the growth of disunion will be the 
 growth of Republicanism." * * ® * " The Union is a lie. The American Union is an im- 
 posture, and a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell." * ■■■ * * " I am for its 
 overthrow." * * *" * " Up with the flag of disunion, that we may have a free and glorious 
 Union of our own." 
 
 At a Republican Convention held at Monroe, Green County, Wisconsin, in 
 1856, the following resolution was passed : 
 
 " Resolved, That it is the duty of the North, in case they fail in electing a President and 
 Congress that will restore freedom to Kansas, to revolutionize the government." 
 
 Anson Burlingame made a speech in 1856, in which he blasphemously said : 
 " The time is coming, and soon will be, that we must have an anti-slavery Constitution, 
 an anti-slavery Bible, and an anti-slavery God." 
 
 The Montrose Democrat, of May 10, 1856, said: 
 
 " We recollect that over a year ago we heard Mr. Wilmot make the following declara- 
 tion : 
 
 " 'I am determined to arouse the people to the importance of the slavery issue, and get 
 up an organization through "which they can get the control of the government in 1836. 
 And if I become satisfied that these eflforts will fail, and the people will not assert their 
 rights, then I'll be d — d if I don't join the party that I think will send the country to h — 1 
 the quickest.'" 
 
 Horace Mann on one occasion said : 
 
 " In conclusion, I have only to add that such is my solemn and abiding conviction of the 
 character of slavery ; and under a full sense of responsibility to my country and my God, 
 I deliberately say, better disunion, better a civil or servile war, better anything that God 
 in his providence shall send, than an extension of the bonds of slavery." 
 
12 
 
 "I have before declared that the path of duty was clear as to the fugitive slave act, and 
 that I am bound to disobey it." [Charles Sumner, Sept., 1854.] 
 
 " If the Republicans fail at the ballot-box, we shall be forced to drive back the slaveo- 
 crats with fire and sword." [James Watson Webb.] 
 
 The True American, a Kepublican organ in Erie County, Pennsylvania, in 
 commenting upon a speech delivered at a Democratic meeting, says : 
 
 " This twaddle about the Union and its preservation is too silly and sickening for any 
 good effect. We think that the liberty of a single slave is worth more than all the Unions 
 God's universe can hold." 
 
 Rufus P. Spaulding, now an Administration member of this House, and a 
 member of the conventioa that nominated Fremont, said, in that convention, 
 that — 
 
 " In case of the alternative being presented of the continuance of slavery or a dissolution 
 of the Union, I am for dissolution, and I care not how quick it comes." 
 
 In 1854, the abolitionists of Massachusetts and of other States sent petitions 
 to Congress, from which the following is an extract : 
 
 " We earnestly request Congress at its present session to take initiatory measures for the 
 speedy, peaceful, and equitable dissolution of the existing Union, as the exigencies of the 
 case may require." 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher says : 
 
 "A great many people raise a cry about the Union and the Constitution, as if the two 
 were perfectly identical ; but the truth is, it is the Constitution itself that is the cause of 
 every division which this vexed question of slavery has eter occasioned in this country. 
 It has been the foundation of our troubles by attempting to hold together as reconciled 
 two opposing principles which will not harmonize nor agree." 
 
 Salmon P. Chase says : 
 
 " Slavery in the States would not continue a year after the accession of the anti-slavery 
 party to power." 
 
 Fred Douglass says : 
 
 " From this time forth, I consecrate my labours to the dissolution of the Union ; and I 
 care not whether the bolt that rends it shall come from heaven or from hell." 
 
 I quote from the New York Tribune, which was laid upon the members' 
 desks just before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act : 
 
 " We urge, therefore, unbending determination on the part of Northern members hostile 
 to this intolerable outrage, and demand of them in behalf of peace, in behalf of freedom, 
 in behalf of justice and humanity, resistance to the last. Better that confusion should 
 ensue — better that discord should reign in the national councils — better that Congress 
 should break up in wild disorder — nay, better that the Capitol itself should blaze by the torch 
 of the incendiary, or fall and bury all its inmates beneath its crumbling ruins, than this 
 perfidy p,nd wrong should be finally accomplished." 
 
 General Banks said : 
 
 " I am willing, in a certain contingency, to let the Union slide." 
 
 Rev. Dr. Bellows, President of the Sanitary Commission, in one of his pub- 
 lic discourses in the city of New York, disgraced the pulpit by uttering the 
 following : 
 
 " It is no longer a war in defence of'the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement 
 of the laws." 
 
 The American Anti-Slavery Society passed the following resolutions : 
 
 " Kteolvcd, That secession from the United States Government is the duty of every abo- 
 litionist, since no one can take office or deposit his vote under its Constitution without 
 violating his anti-slavery principles, and rendering himself an abettor to the slave-holder, 
 and committing a sin. 
 
 " Rendhed, That years of warfare against the slave power have convinced us that every 
 act dime in support of the American Union riyets the chain of the slave j that the only 
 exodus of the slave to freedom, unless it be one of blood, must ,be over the remains of the 
 present American church, and the grave of the present Union. 
 
 . " Bcsolrcd, That the abolitionists of this country should make it one of the primary ob- 
 jects of this agitation to dissolve the American Union." 
 
 James S. Pike, long editorially connected with the New York Tribune, and 
 now Minister to the Netherlands, said : 
 
 "I have no doubt that the free and slave States ought to separate. The Union is not 
 worth supporting in connection with the South." 
 
13 
 
 John W. Forney, editor of the Philadelphia Press, over the nom de plume 
 of Occasional, writing to his paper, said : 
 
 " Let us unite the North by any means. When men no longer volunteer, let there be 
 conscription. Silence every tongue that does not speak with respect of the cause and the 
 flag. Do away with politics, with luxuries, with comforts. Let us cease for the present 
 to speak of laws, and restrictions, and what are called safeguards." 
 
 Mr. Seward, at Boston, foreshadowed the purpose of the aholition party : 
 
 " What a commentary upon the history of man is the fact that eighteen years after the 
 death of John Quincy Adams, the people have for their standard-bearer Abraham Lincoln, 
 conferring the obligations of the higher law which the sage of Quincy proclaimed, and 
 contending for weal or woe, for life or death, in the irrepressible conflict between freedom 
 and slavery ! I desire only to say that we are in the last stage of the conflict before the 
 great triumphant inauguration of this policy into the Government of the United States." 
 
 Mr. Seward, in the Senate, threw this fire-brand at the South : 
 
 " Then the free States and slave States of the Atlantic, divided and warring with each 
 other, would disgust the free States of the Pacific, and they would have abundant (jause 
 and justification for withdrawing from the Union, productive no longer of peace, safety, 
 and liberty to themselves," &c. 
 
 In the Republican Convention of Chicago, 1860, at which Mr. Lincoln was 
 nominated, the following occurred among the proceedings, as published in the 
 New York Tribune of May, 1860 : 
 
 " Judge Jessup said that he desired to amend a verbal mistake in the name of the party. 
 It was printed in the resolution, * National Republican party.' He wished to strike out 
 the word ' national,' as that was not the name by which the party was properly known." 
 
 N. P. Banks, in a speech in Massachusetts, in 1856, thus predicts a "mili- 
 tary dictatorial government:" 
 
 " I can conceive of a time when this Constitution shall not be in existence, when we 
 shall have an absolute military dictatorial government transmitted from age to age, with 
 men at its head who are made rulers by military commission, or who claim a hereditary 
 right to govern those over whom they are placed." 
 
 Mr. Schurz, in 1860, said: 
 
 " May the God in human nature be aroused and pierce the very soul of our nation with 
 an energy that shall sweep as with the besom of destruction this abomination [slavery] 
 from theland. You call this revolution ; it is. In this we need revolution. We must, we 
 will have it. Let it come." 
 
 On the 12th of July, 1848, John P. Hale said: 
 
 " All the terrors of dissolution I can look steadfastly in the face, before I could look 
 to that moral union which must fall upon us when we can so far prostitute ourselves as to 
 become the pioneers of slavery in the territories." 
 
 In the Senate, February 26, 1856, Mr. Hale, in speaking of the conflict, 
 said : 
 
 " Good ! good ! Sir, I hope it will come ; and if it comes to blood, let it come. No, sir ; 
 if that issue must come, let it come ; and it cannot come too soon." 
 
 I will say here, that the Hon. John Q. Adams never favored a dissolution 
 of the Union of the States, or any interference with slavery in the southern States, 
 and attended no Abolition meetings, but held to the Constitutional right of 
 petition, but said it was better to part in peace than to be held together by 
 constraint. If it was true that the south, or any part of them desired to 
 break up the tfnion of these United States as formed, by the adoption of the 
 Constitution, how was it that all their members of both houses of Congress 
 always not only voted against, but indignantly protested against all the peti- 
 tions ever offered for a dissolution of the union of States, why were they so 
 bitterly opposed to such movements? If they desired to be separated from the 
 free States, why was there no response favorable to such petition, except from 
 such men as Seward, Chase, Griddings, Hale, and all such Abolitionists of the 
 free States? Ministers of the gospel, think of this, and stop and try to save 
 vour own souls. Read the 18th and 19th verses of the xxii. chapter of Reve- 
 lation. 1 J I. • 
 
 The language of those traitors can only be interpreted one way, and that is 
 to destroy all the social systems of the south, or drive them out of the union, 
 whenever they should get the reins of the Government in their hands. I hey 
 said a great deal more on the subject as strong as this at differen times and 
 
14 
 
 places. Salmon P. Chase, penned a resolution whicli was unanimously passed 
 at a large Abolition Convention in Bufialo, in whicli tliej' resolved that when- 
 ever they should take the Constitutional oath, that they would make a mental 
 reservation of the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution, and not consider it 
 any part of the Constitution, and would not be bound by it. I have enough 
 of such resolutions and speeches to make a large volume, nearly all from the 
 leading men now at the head of the Government. Southern citizens of the 
 highest standing have been shot dead by our people, for daring to come north, 
 to regain their slave property according to the Constitution and laws of the 
 nation. And thousands of the people exulted over it. The John Brown raid 
 at Harper's Ferry, was evidently got up in Massachusetts, and they (the ac- 
 tors) now publicly rejoice that they aided in getting it up. And they glory 
 that they had a hand in the first blow in this most ungodly civil war. Help- 
 er's book was written in the north, to be published on the heels of the John 
 Brown raid ; in which book it was said, Slavery must and shall he aioh'shed, 
 so help me God." I will quote one full paragraph from that celebrated pro- 
 ductiion, got up. perhaps by the same men, (United States Senators and llepre- 
 scntatives, doubtless, that the John Brown raid was. ) And they hired the 
 name of a poor North Carolinian, who got a very bad name south, not for his 
 opposition to slavery, for he was not an AboUtiouist when he left there. I read 
 in the book as follows : 
 
 "Ineligibility to Slavk-holders." 
 
 "Never another vote to the trafficker in human flesh. No co-opcrntion with slare-holders 
 in politics. No fellowship with them in religion. No affiliation with them in society. No 
 patronage to slave-holding merchants. No guestship to slave-waiting hotels. No fees to 
 slave-holding lawyers. No emploj'mcnt to slave-holding physicians. No audience to 
 slave-holding parsons. No recognition of pro-slavery tnen, except as ruffians, outlaws, and 
 criminals. Ahrupt discontinuance of subscription to pro-slavery newspapers. Immediate 
 death to slavery, if not immediate tinqual ified proscription of its advocates during the period 
 of its existence. A tax of sixty dollars on each and every negro in his possession at the 
 present time, or at any intermediate time between now and the 4th of July, 186.S," &c., <fec. 
 
 This is verbatim, and I thi:nk conclusive. It is in such perfect keeping with 
 what I have heard from the mouths of Abolitionists, and read in Abolition 
 books and pamphlets, for more than thirty years, that it could not have been 
 written by any other than a northern Abolitionist, of the Sumner, Chase, "Wil- 
 son, Seward, Hale, Lincoln, and Beecher school. But this book, like the old 
 John Brown raid, would not have been much, had it stood alone on its own 
 intrinsic strength. If idl in the free States had condemned that old murderer, 
 thief; outlaw, and traitor, we should be a happy and prosperous nation this 
 day, instead of being in this terrible civil conflict. But, instead of that, hun- 
 dreds of meetings were called, churches were thrown open, large halls were 
 rented, where thousands upon thousands assembled to endorse the murderous 
 and treasonable doings of that old devil incarnate. And he was completely 
 sainted, yea, further, he was fully deified by thousands of professing Chris- 
 tians and Christian ministers, around their altars, reared and dedicated to 
 Almighty God. And there he was fully sainted, and announced as the second 
 Jesus Christ,_ who had just been crucified, to turn and make black negroQs 
 equal to white men. Churches were hung in mourning, and "sack-cloth" 
 was put on. This was so general throughout New England, and even this 
 great city was so disgraced that this national air was composed : ' ' John Brown's 
 body is mouldering in the grave, but his soul is marching on. ' ' And many young 
 ladies and gentlemen^ would sit at their front doors until midnight, or march 
 through the streets singing this national air. So also with the Helper book. 
 It would not have been much, had it had no names to it but that of the al- 
 leged author. But how was it? It was fully and completely endorsed. By 
 whom? Not by the signatures of the Philadelphia Conference, but by the 
 signatures of 69 Ilepublican (Abolition) members of both houses of the Con- 
 gress of the United States, and recommended as the book. I hope the con- 
 ferencewill look at this picture, and think of the cause and efi"ect. There is a 
 moral in your preamble that places your ecclesiastical reputation at stake. 
 Think cif this, before you frame and pass any more preambles with untruths 
 embodied in them. After looking over this whole matter, do you not see that 
 
15 
 
 this terrible and wicked rebellion was not causeless? Think of the 69 mem- 
 bers of both houses of Congress endorsing the Helper book, and the millions 
 in tlicfrce, states who indorse thetn, for endorsing that wicked and treasonable 
 Aholition, Anti-union^ prorfj/ci^tbn. And the millions also who endorsed all of 
 old Brown's treason and murder. Now, do you not see, clearly see that you 
 voted for an untruth, when j'ou voted for and passed the words, " causeless re- 
 bellion?" Don't you think, in the name of Christianity, that this rebellion 
 was not only not "causeless," but that the^ greatest causes and provocations 
 were given, that ever before were given, that pi'oduced such ruin, desolation, 
 and devastation? Let us look at this matter in view of the great day of God, 
 and say, if it does not look as if the rebellion was ijrovoked by bad designing ■ 
 men in the north, in order to get a large army into the field to subjugate all 
 the States, and then establish a military despotism, for a national (xovern- 
 ment, on the ruins of this glorious Constitutional Government, adopted by our 
 fathers ", a Government that produced general peace and prosperity to all of 
 its recipients. Yea, so great was ouiv glory, peace, happiness, and general 
 prosperity, that all the crowned heads of Europe looked on with wonder, jea- 
 lousJ^ and env.y. But you, in your preamble and resolutions, have fully and 
 completely endorsed all the means used by wicked, bad men, to bring this po- 
 litical and social ruin upon this great nation. The pulpits have made all the 
 mischief, that is, it never could have been done without them. They have 
 overthrown this great Christian nation, and converted it into a military despo- 
 tism, and into dens of tliieves, plunderers and robbers, under a pretence to free 
 the negroes. 
 
 2d. Whereas : — "The success of the Icorders in this unholy rebellion in their avowed ob- 
 jects, — the dissolution of our National Union, the dismemberment of the country, and the 
 establishment of a new Confederacy within the present territorial limits, having for its 
 ■corner-stone the system of human slavery, — would imperil the existence of civil and re- 
 ligious Jib<.'rty, which is the life of the nation. 
 
 ;-!d. " Whereae, as Ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we rolinquish no rights as Anjeri- 
 can citizens, but are compelled by the express letter of God's word, and by our articles of 
 religion to preach loyalty to the f)Owers that are ordained of God ?" 
 
 In reply to the first part of the 2d " Whereas," I will merely quote a few 
 historical facts, which will set forth the wrongs of this part of the preanible. 
 In December 1S60,_ while a vast majority of the people of this whole country 
 were trembling with fear that we should be plunged into a civil war, and 
 thereby a dissolution of the itnion would ensue, the good people of the 
 south did all in their power to prevent a. collision, and thereby a disso- 
 hition of the union, that they prize above all other temporal blessings 
 that would have been conceived of under the canopy of heaven. And there 
 ^J'ere none for secession, only those who thought the movements in the north 
 for the last sixty years favored a dissolution of the union, that our holy fathers 
 vouchsafed to us, and sealed with their patriotic blood. But the movements 
 in the free States for the last forty years were such that demonstrated to them, 
 beyond all possible contradiction, that we were resolved to drive them out of 
 the union. For, let it be remembered, that the votes of the party now in 
 power have been almost entirely sectional. And the movements for the last 
 five years were such that they were left without a doubt, that they (the south i 
 were to be driven or crushed out. (See John Brown and Helper. ) It was too 
 clear to their minds for them to rest in peace. Therefore they called southern 
 Conventions all over the south, and passed all sorts of resolutions to try to 
 prevail ujDon the sectionalists of the north to let them alone in the enjoyment 
 of their Constitutional rights, as they {the south) never had disturbed tlie peace 
 of tJi£- northy in tJieir sacred rights tinder the Constitution. They even then 
 humbled themselves greatly, and oifered to yield largely of their dearest rights, 
 if the north would tet them alone in peace with the balance ; but all to no pur- 
 pose. They were only i)ressed the harder, and slandered the more. Nearly 
 all their members of Congress were instructed in 1860, to make the last eiFort 
 for a peaceful settlement, but to take nothing short of their entire Constitu- 
 tional rights. And if that could not be had without humiliation, to withdraw 
 and go home. Therefore, theii' Representatives and Senators did all in their 
 power to settle the question on a fair and honorable basis. The late Hon. John 
 
16 
 
 Jv Crittenden, of Kentucky, offered a compromise to save tlie union, that was 
 extremely humiliating to the south : though they had unanimously offered the 
 same thing in a full southern Convention in 1850, which met at Nashville, 
 Tenn. But it was treated with contempt by all the Abolition Congressmen, 
 when.it was presented there. A crisis committee of 13 were appointed in De- 
 cember ISOO, to try to draft something for an amendment to the Constitution, 
 that all would agree to. But the ADolitionists voted down all that was rea- 
 sonable. In fact, they voted down everything that was offered, and offered 
 nothing themselves. A.fter all had failed, even the Crittenden compromise, 
 the Hon. Jefferson Davis offered the following resolution, which he held to be 
 necessary as an elementary principle of an adjustment that would satisfy the 
 south. 
 
 "Resolved, That it shall be declared by an amendment of the Constitution, that property 
 in slaves, recognized as such by the local law of any of the States of the Union, shall stand 
 on the same footing in all Constitutional and Federal relations, as any other species of 
 property so recognized, and, like other property, shall not be subject to be divested or im- 
 paired by the local law of any other State, either in escaping thereto, or of transit or so- 
 journ of the owner therein ; and in no case whatever shall such property be subject to be 
 divested or impaired by any legislative act of the United States, or of any of the territories 
 thereof." 
 
 This was lost, the Republicans all voting against it, and all others for it 
 
 Then the Hon. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, offered the following resolu- 
 tions, which were lost by the same votes : 
 
 " First, That the people of the United States shall have an equal right to emigrate to, 
 and settle in the present or any future acquired territories, with whatever property they may 
 possess, including Slaves, and be securely protected in its peaceable enjoyment until such 
 territory may be admitted as a State into the Union, with or without alitveri/, as she may 
 determine, on an equality with all other States. 
 
 " Second, That property in slaves shall be entitled to the same protection from the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States in all of its departments, every where, which the Constitu- 
 tion confers the power upon it to extend to any other property ; provided nothing herein 
 contained shall be construed to limit or restrain the right now belonging to every State, 
 to prohibit, abolish, or establish and protect slavery within its limits. 
 
 " Third, That persons committing crimes against slave property in one State, and fleeing 
 to another, shall be delivered up in the same manner as persons committing other crimes, 
 and that the laws of the State from which such persons flee shall be the test of crimi- 
 nality." 
 
 Here are the offers made by those two leading men of the South. Had 
 either been accepted by the abolitionists, the peace of this nation would now 
 " flow as rivers," and the Uniqn of all the sovereign States would now be as 
 the Union of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, under the spirit and letter of 
 the Constitution ; and the affections and the union of the hearts of all the 
 people towards each other would be as that of the apostles of our Lord and 
 Master; and the preachers of the Philadelphia Conference would now be 
 preaching the gospel of the Son of God, instead of thirsting and clamoxtring 
 for their brothers^ blood. For humanity's sake compare the spirit of the reso- 
 lutions above to the spirit of the resolutions passed at your late session in Wil- 
 mington, Delaware. See the longing in those of the Georgian and the Missis- 
 sippian for permanent peace and union, in which they spoke the mind of the 
 entire South; while yours breathes forth disunion, malice, vengeance, war, 
 blood, desolation, and ruin. 
 
 The determination of the abolitionists has been too manifest for the last forty 
 years, and that of their successors, the so-called Republican party, for the last 
 seven years especially, for you to be able to blind all the people with such 
 humbuggery that none would be left to expose your treason not only against 
 the United States and of all the sovereign States, but against the spirit and 
 letter of the Holy Bible, especially the New Testament. Read the four gos- 
 pels of the Son of God, and the apostles' creed, and tell me where you get 
 your authority from as the representatives of the Prince of peace. I have 
 searched it, and if it is there, I confess I am too dumb or too blind to see it. 
 For it abounds in the principles of justice, mercy, love, peace, harmony, tran- 
 quiUty, and unipn ; and it calls upon you to "do unto others as you would 
 have them do unto you." Is there any such spirit perceptible any where in 
 the spirit of your most ungodly preamble and ten resolutions? Compare the 
 
17 
 
 spirit and Icttei- of the Jolin Brown raid and of Helper's bookj that was en- 
 dorsed by sixty-nine abolition members of Congress, with the spirit and letter 
 of the above offers of Davis and Toombs, and you will see who were the rebels 
 and who were not; both of which most positively contradict your assertions in 
 the second preamble. _ They were the very spirit, sum and substance, of that 
 part of the Constitution as meant by our fathers in '87. Can you show the 
 slightest inconsistency in them with the spirit and letter of the Constitution 
 of the United States, or the spirit and letter of both the Old and New Testa- 
 ment Scriptures? Look at the Mosaic law, the precepts of our Lord, and the 
 letters of St. Paul in reference to slavery, or any other clause in Divine law or 
 instruction, or the modern rights of men. Then why did you not " as mim's- 
 ters of .the Lord Jesus Chrkt," condemn the guilty party, and 7iof imbrue your 
 hands in innocent blood, as your exemplar Judas Iscariot did? Why did you 
 notj wliilst boastingly speaking of your love for loyalty to a great usurper and 
 tyrant, remember that part of the organic law of the nation, and the act of 
 Congress under that Constitution which requires us to deliver up fugitives 
 from laboui*, on proof of their master's right to such property? You know as 
 well as I, or anybody else, that he to whom you have pledged your allegiance 
 is a traitor to the organic law of the United States, and is trampling under foot 
 every principle of the Constitution of the nation and the reserved rights of the 
 sovereign States who formed the national government, and are its sovereigns. 
 I have ali'cady said more on j'our preamble than I thought of saying on the 
 whole ; therefore you must pardon me for saying little on your ten resolutions, 
 though I am deeply interested in them all. 
 
 " JResolvcd, 1. That, as ministers and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church ^vithin 
 the bounds of tlie Philadelphia Annual Conference, we re-affirm our jjast declarations since 
 this war commenced in reference to the rebellion, and our pledged determination to sustain 
 the gorernmcut in this crisis of our national existence." 
 
 I understood, from the New Testament and the ordinations of our church, 
 that ministers were pledged to, and sent forth to preach the doctrines of the 
 gospel of peace, union, and love to all mankind. And- "When j-ou pray," 
 saith our Lord, " say, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ; 
 thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ; give us this 
 day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins AS WE FORGIVE those who sin 
 against us ; lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is 
 the kingdom, the power, and the glory." 
 
 Forgive us, Lord Grod Almighty, our sins against thy holy law as we foi'- 
 give our Southern brethren with swords and bayonets thrust through our 
 heart*; forgive us with musket shot, cannon balls, and bomb- shells ; blow our 
 cursed hearts and brains out, blow our legs off by thousands, then set the 
 woods on fire, and burn us to death in the slowest, in the most torturing man- 
 ner, and send us to the bar of Thine eternal justice in a state of anger, malice, 
 and vengeance, that we may find no spiritual pardon, that we may be cast 
 down to hell, where the smoke of our torments shall ascend up for ever, yea, 
 for ever and ever. We have no right to look for forgiveness at the Throne of 
 Grrace or at the Mercy Scat only as we forgive our enemies, (whether superiors 
 or inferiors, ) their sins against us. And no preacher of the gospel, or layman, 
 who repeats the Lord's Prayer, either in public or private, in his devotions,' 
 but who prays just as I have described above, if he favours the preamble and 
 resolutions of the late Philadelphia Conference. Forgive us our sins as we 
 foi'give the Southern people their sins. Head the resolutions and see how 
 those abolition gospel-preachers deign to forgive the sins of the Southern peo- 
 ple for refusing to give uji all their original and constitutional rights to a set 
 of abolition tyrants and usurpers. Do they not pray for eternal destruction to 
 themselves? May Heaven have mercy upon all such preachers! 
 
 " Jiesolvcd, 2. That while we acknowledge the war as a great national calamity, and la- 
 ment the untold miseries that hij it are entailed u])on the land in the loss of precious lives, 
 (no care for precious spuls expressed,) and in its sad demoralizing influences, we believe that 
 the duty of the nation is to prosecute the war icith its resources of men and money until peace 
 shall be obtained by victory, (Tom Hyer like, of course,) the rebellion be completely subdued, 
 the legitimate power and authority of the government shall be re-established, and till the 
 flag of the nation, as the emblem of the undisputed sovereignty of the Federal Government, 
 shall ware over every foot of the territorial domain." 
 3 
 
18 
 
 I could not fully discuss this resolution in less than twentj'-five or thirty 
 pages ; therefore I have italicised those parts of it that I wish specially no- 
 ticed. And I will remind the reader that this resolution, as well as the others, 
 were framed and passed by those who allege that they are the representatives 
 of the Eternal Prince of peace and glory; and he says unto them, "Blessed are 
 the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of Grod." Matthew v. 9. 
 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Matthew v. 8. Yet 
 these Philadelphia Annual Conference belligerents propose to carry on this 
 war for the sake of a pugilistic or Tom Hyer victory, rather than to do good to 
 their enemies, and in that way to heap coals of fire on their heads, as com- 
 manded by their Lord and Master. But our Lord's sermon on the mount did 
 not seem to suit their taste ; therefore they do not wish a Christ-like victory, 
 for that would restore the government as it was, and Abraham would not be 
 made emperor, nor the M. L. Church the National Church. 
 
 Our Lord said, in Matt. vi. 14, 15, "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, 
 your heavenly Father will also forgive you. " " But if ye forgive not men their 
 trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. ' ' All I will say 
 now on the words "undisputed sovereignty of the Federal Grovernment" shall 
 be brief There never was a time, since the adoption of the Federal Govern- 
 ment, when the States had not the right to dissolve the Federal Government, 
 and each State receive back the powers conceded to this great United States 
 machine. It is a government of limited powers, and cannot go on without 
 the legal consent of the States. The States created it,* and they can uncreate 
 it ; and there is no power in the General Government to move one iota with- 
 out the sovereign States, only as they are now moving, and that is by usurpa- 
 tion and tyranny. What a glorious thing it would have been, if these and all 
 other professed gospel-preachers had only taken our Lord's sermon on the 
 mount for their ministerial guide ! 
 
 " Resolved, 3. That as tho Constitution of the United States, the supreme law of the 
 land, makes it the duty of the government to suppress rebellion, and as goyernment would 
 be a nullity aside from its administration, we maintain that loyalty to the government is 
 only to be understood, as loyalty to the administration of that government as duly elected 
 under tho Constitution, and that rendering to ' Cassar the things that belong to Cajsar,' the 
 entire, prompt, and unqualified obedience of all under its authority is to be rendered to the 
 administration, not for wrath, but for conscience' sake, and that resistance to its authority, 
 eiiher by word or action, is not only rebellion and treason to the civil government, but to 
 God." 
 
 This resolution seems to cap the climax. If such a resolution had been 
 passed by a set of infidels, or open and avowed traitors to the Government, 
 whose design was to overthrow it, or even by a set of hungry starving pot- 
 house politicians, I should not have been so mi;ch surprised, but for 270 men 
 who claim to be " Ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ," to adoptsuch did sur- 
 prise me greatly. In the first place, it is not true that the Constitution is the 
 supreme law of the land, only so far as certain powers were granted by the 
 States for specified purposes, and those purposes and powers are set forth in the 
 Constitution as clearly as day light. And the States have the right to change them 
 in a specified manner, and they are the makers of the United States Govern- 
 ment, and have it in their own power legally to stop the whole machinery of 
 the United States. The people of the States vote for no officer of the United 
 States Government, but for State officers, who have to get their authority to 
 act from their own several sovereign States. Not even the President of the 
 United States is directly voted for by the people of the several sovereign 
 States, but the people of each State, vote for and elect a certain number of 
 iree citizens of their own free state (under and by an agreement entered into 
 by the free will of the several sovereign States, when there were no United 
 States laws to guide them) as electors to vote for a citizen of some one of the 
 several States to act as President of the United States, fur a given time. Turij 
 to Article 2, Section 1, of the Constitution, and read it carefully, and you will 
 see how fearful our holy fathers were of such usurpers and tyrants as are now 
 at the head of the nation. They had studied human nature, and they were 
 men of great experience. And they knew that untrammeled and unlimited 
 powers placed at the disposal of a single man would ruin this nation as it had 
 ever done others. Therefore the safe-guards and restrictions were placed in 
 
19 
 
 the Constitution of the United States. ' There is no direct relation or asso- 
 ciation between the people of the several States and the United States Govern- 
 ment. The State (xovernments are the only medium through which the 
 people can have access to any legal power in the nation. The President is a 
 mere servant of the sovereign States, and possesses no power whatever inde- 
 pendently of the sovereign States. There is no sovereignty placed in his hands 
 whatever, independent of the States. He has no power beyond what is writ- 
 ten in the Constitution. There is nothing left optional with him of moment. 
 He is a servant. And if he steps beyond the limits of the Constitution, and 
 •assumes any powers not granted by the States in the Constitution, he at once 
 becomes a usurper and traitor, and all who endorse his illegitimate assumption 
 of power, are traitors to the United States Grovernment, and the State Govern- 
 ments. And the Philadelphia Annual Conference have rushed into treason 
 with their ej^es wide open, and have declared it to the world in those resolu- 
 tions. There is no power given to the President, or either, or both houses of 
 Congress to suppress rebellion or insurrection within the bounds of any sove- 
 reign State ; the United States Government was ordained by the States as a 
 servant of economy, to do certain specified work, that each State would have 
 had to have done separately, and it would have cost each State the same that 
 it costs all through tliis scheme of national economy, in which the States 
 agreed to concede with every possible restraint and safe-guard, power over 
 
 Eost-roads, and to establish Post-offices, rivers, lakes, and harbors, the 
 igh-seas, and our navigation of them all. And to collect revenue by taxing 
 foreign imports, and watch other nations, and see that no imposition 
 was committed by them on our trade, or our persons when abroad. And to 
 protect our commerce on the high seas, and in :^i-eign ports, and to settle dis- 
 putes between sovereign States, through a Supreme Court of the United 
 States,) only when that State shall find the rebellion too strong for its own 
 sovereign powers to put down, and shall call upon the President of the United 
 States, through their own State Executive, or their Legislature, to send help 
 to that State. The President has no legal power to invade any State with the 
 army of the United States, without the consent of said State or States. He 
 has no power given him even to raise an army, or to declare war. If he needs 
 soldiers, he uuist look to Congress, and Congress has to look to the States, or 
 give the President authority to do so. And the States are not bound to com- 
 ply ; even if the soldiers are needed, it is optional with them. Therefore this 
 war was got up to get a great army placed at the disposal of a so-called Presi- 
 dent of the United States, to break down State rights, that they might over- 
 throw the State Governments, and subjugate them all, and establish a great 
 central power at Washington, with a despotic form of Government, which will 
 make slaves of all the "people," far worse than any southern negro slavery 
 ever established. The rich to be the only free people, therefore, this rush for 
 money, by stealing, plundering, robbery, or in any way they can obtain it ; is 
 ■that they may be counted among the aristocracy, and escape the thraldom of 
 serfs, for which this great and happy nation will be mainly indebted to the 
 pulpit ; for the overthrow of its peace and happiness could not have been 
 efiected without them. The National Government is a " nullity" with the ad- 
 ministration, "aside" from the sinews of S^te rights and powers. Loyalty 
 to the Administration, may or maj?^ not be loyalty to the Government. If the 
 Administration should be truly loyal to the Constitution and law, then we 
 could not be loyal to one without being loyal to both. But we are not called 
 upon to be loyal to the Administration, but to the Constitution and the law. 
 We are bound to honor the Administration, just so far as it honors the 
 United States Government, and no further. And no State, people, "confer- 
 ence," or individuals am be loyal to the prese^it administration., loitliout being 
 disloyal and traitors to the Government of the United States. And every 
 preacher who voted for the above resolution, voted against the Government 
 of the United States, and is guilty of legal treason to the Constitution and 
 the laws of the nation. • No man can be really a loyal man who will stand by 
 and see the Administration trample upon every principle of the Government, 
 as the present administration is doing, and not raise his voice in tones of in- 
 dignation against such an Administration, even if it costs him his individual 
 
20 
 
 liberty for a perioJ, or liis life. The "people" owe tlieir allegiance to tieir 
 respective State Governments, and no where else except through their States. 
 In fact we owe no loyalty to any Administration, for we are not subjects, but 
 the sovereign powers, or the source of all power either of State, or the United 
 States. The Constitution and the laws do not belong to any Administration, 
 nor do the people, but all the Administrations of the States belong to the "peo- 
 ple" of their several respective States. They are our servants, and the people 
 have all claims on them, and they have no claims on the people only for their 
 wages, and when they get those all their claims are satisfied. The Administra- 
 tion of the United States belongs to the citizens of all the sovereign* 
 States, through their several State Governments. Tlierefore all alle- 
 giance is due to the "people," either directly or indirectly, and the 
 people owe none, for they are the sovereigns themselves. The charges of re- 
 bellion and treason against all who desire to adhere to the strictest letter of the 
 Government as directed by the Constitution are too perfectly super-ridiculous 
 to be replied to. It is very strange that those preachers should have such re- 
 spect to parts of the Constitution or Organic law of the nation, as to charge all 
 with treason ancU rebellion, (not only against the Government of the United 
 States, but against the moral Government of God,) for adhering to the whole 
 Organic law. What right have they to call us all traitors for loving the Go- 
 vernment more and the Administration less ; whieh Administration they re- 
 solved to sustain, though it has trampled upon every section, article, and clause 
 of the Constitution of the nation, that comes in the way of their diabolical 
 treason and rebellion against the best human Govermuent on which the sun 
 ever cast a beam of light ? It is our right and duty under the Government of 
 the United States, and of our own State, to denounce the whole course of the 
 present Administration in this ungodly war, as high treason and rebellion 
 against the Government of the United States, and of all the sovereign State 
 Governments as well as the moral Government of God. And I will do it at 
 the risk of my life or personal liberty ; and if arrested and put in a bastile by 
 the order of those political tyrants, I will denounce them there, to all whom I 
 may see through my prison bars, or the key-hole of my dungeon, as such trai- 
 tors and rebels, for the very fact of my arrest will sustain the charge. I know 
 I have the Constitution of the nation and the Bible on my side, as far as I am 
 able to understand them. And my plea being for Constitutional liberty and 
 Bible truth only, for this and all future generations, I feel bold in making 
 the charge of treason and rebellion against the present Administration, and all 
 intelligent men who endorse them in their treason against this glorious Go- 
 vernment of the United States. For I believe it was suggested by the spirit 
 of the Almighty to our fathers, and by them adopted. For no'ne but the God 
 of the Universe could have planned such a glorious system for a human Gov- 
 ernment. Therefore I conceive it treason for me to fold my arms and look on 
 a set of political tyrants destroying that glorious system of temporal salvation, 
 and cry to all who pass by that the Government is gone beyond recovery, be- 
 cause it will endanger our lives and liberty to attempt to save it. Oh, fellow 
 countrymen and democrats, suppose our Lord had thus done, and thus said, 
 when he saw the nails, the hammer, the cross, and the glittering spear of the 
 " Jewii^^h Sanhedrim," or our great revolutionary fathers had thus said, when 
 they saw the mane and switching tail of the British Lion? Would Lord Corn- 
 wallis have ever delivered the British sword to our great General Washington, 
 or should we have ever known Christian or Constitutional liberty ? No, there- 
 fore let us cry out with the great Patrick Hemy, give us our civil and religious 
 " liberties or death." 
 
 Resolved, 4. That while we recognize the right of citizens to discuss the measures and 
 policy of the Grovernment, we yet affirm that it is a religious duty not to speak evil of 
 Ministers and Magistrates, and that, especially in times like these, when the utmost wis- 
 dom is required in the Administration of civil affairs, the right of even such discussion is 
 only to be exercised with great caution, prudence and forbearance." 
 
 What a pity it was that these x\bolition saints did not think of this before 
 they plunged us into this fratricidal war. For had they let the question of 
 negro slavery alone, we should now be at peace from Maine to Florida, and from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific. And our union, peace, love, and prosperity would be 
 
21 
 
 nnehecked and undisttirbed from the centre to tlie circumference of this great i 
 nation. They seem now very sensitive on the subject of free discussion, after 
 they and their kind have plunged us into this desolating, fratricidal war, by 
 free discussion and treasonable protestations against the ' Government' ' of the 
 United States, as some of you alleged, because it sanctioned human slavery, 
 and since you find you have succeeded, and have brought ruin to the door of 
 every man in the entire nation (both white man and negro slave, and all ex- 
 cept army contractors, and all other Government thieves and plunderers, ) it is 
 now verj"- convenient to pass resolutions to suppress free and full discussion, 
 tor fear lest its authors might be exposed. The Abolitionist leaders are guilty 
 of the treason that has (lestroyed this once glorious human Paradise, and 
 turned it into a nation of thieves, murderers and robbers. And they are guilty 
 of cold-blooded murder in every life that has been or shall be lost in this great 
 civil contest that they have brought uponus. And, oh, how it pains my heart 
 to "find the chui-ch of my choice, whose ministry I loved more than all others, 
 (yea, I revered them wherever I saw them,) should now endorse that guilty 
 p'arty, and try to cover up their guilt, and worse than all, to lay it upon those 
 whom they know to be innocent. I am glad to know that many of the 2J0 
 IMinisters of the late Conference did not vote on those resolutions. The chair- 
 man of the ' ' committee on the state of the country, ' ' who has labored long in the 
 Abolition cause, so framed the resolutions (to catch all those whom some of 
 the young ducks, as well as some old ganders — they took such dehght in calling 
 -copper-heads and traitors on that floor) that they could not vote against them 
 Avithout voting against some principle of pure Christianity. They could not 
 vote against modern Abolitionism (treason) without voting against what is 
 called loyalty to the Government. Therefore they did not raise their hands 
 for nor against them. In that way it went out that those resolutions passed 
 uuanimouslj\ Doubtless, many voted for thenj under latent fear, -^persecu- 
 tion and foul slander being very hard to meet. I can sympathize with them, 
 for I know what it is. 
 
 '•' Itesolrcd, 5. That SO far as our influence may extend, we discountenance and condemn 
 the illy-concealed treason of those who, influenced by party spirit, or sympathy with hu- 
 man bondage, find fault with every warlike measure, under the pretext of discrimination 
 between the Constitution as the supreme law of the lanH, and the administration of the 
 governj»cnt as framed by the Constitution. They are the secret foes of the governmenf, 
 with all the venom', but without the manliness of rebels in open arms." 
 
 The i*eader must excuse me for not replying minutely to the above resolu- 
 tion. I could not do so short of thirty or forty pages of manuscript. It is so 
 slanderous, treasonable, and insulting to every true National Democrat, or old 
 iine Clay Whig, that I should be at a loss for language to express my indigna- 
 tion. Had it been passed by a set of hungry pot-house politicians, it would 
 have been in keeping with their profession. But they represent themselves 
 to be the true representatives of the Son of God, or "ministers of the Lord 
 Jesus Christ." I have not the language to express my grief and sorrow that 
 the church should be so afflicted by such men while professing to be the sons 
 of God, yet are trampling upon his sacred precepts, and turning his house 
 into abuse, slander, and thirst for their brothers' blood. I shall hereafter 
 speak of it in a general way. 
 
 " Eeiwhcd, 6. That we recognize in slavery — so justly characterized by the fathers of 
 our church ' as contrary to the golden law of God, on which hang all the Law and the 
 Prophets, and the inalienable rights of mankind, as well as every principle of the revolution ' 
 — the root and palpable cause of this most foul and wicked rebellion ; and we rejoice that 
 a system so contrary to the letter and spirit of our holy religion, so abhorrent to humanity, 
 •to civilization, has, by the sword of resistance to the government, secured its own destruc- 
 tion ; and that, in the emancipation policy of the government, we recognize the hand of 
 Him who, thus over-ruliup; the councils of men, caused a military necessity * to coincide 
 with the principles of everlasting righteousness in the extirpation of slavery — the prolific 
 mother of wicked legislation in the State, and of discussion and bickering in the church." 
 
 I have said a good deal already on many points in this resolution in my com- 
 ments on the preamble. This resolution is far more fraught with wickedness, 
 if possible, than the fifth ; for they have loaded all the nntold crimes of this 
 unholy war upon the shoulders of the holy Son of God^ who said to Peter, in 
 the gospel, "Put up thy sword into his place, for he that taketh the sword 
 
shall perisL. with the sword." I will point out a few passages of the golden 
 rule, for to me the whole_ Bible is a golden rule, and not a single passage only. 
 Please refer to the following passages, and read them without party prejudiee 
 or favour, and remember that the Bible is the only foundation of the Christian 
 ministry: (jleu. ix. 19-27, inclusive ;_ Gen. xvi. ; G-en. xvii. 12, 13; Gen. xx. 
 14; Exodus XX. 17, 18: Exodus xxi. 1-27, inclusive. Please read this with 
 mrirked attention. Lev. xix. 20; Lev. xxii. 10, 11, 12; Lev. xxv. 38-55. 
 Please read these aurfidly, and with marked discrimmafion. Dent. v. 14^21 ; 
 1 Kings ii. 39, 40. Take partiadar notice of these, Matthew viii. 5-13; Ephes. 
 -^-i. 5-9 ; Colos. iii. 17-25 ; Colos. iv. 1 ; 1 Tim. vi. 1-8 ; Titus ii. 9, 10, 11 ; 
 the whole book of Philemon (one chapter) ; 1 Peter ii. 18-24. I hope the 
 reader will read all the above passages with great care. (They are all from 
 St. l*aul, named in the New Testament, except one. ) The one referred to 
 in first Timothy vi. 1-8 inclusive especially. Think while you read of the 
 modern abolitionist. Mark how completely that great apostle and prophet of 
 our Lord points to that Puritanic saint, the Chairman of the Committee on the 
 State of th& Country, Rev. J. Walker Jackson. He was rocked in the cradle 
 of abolitionism. St. Paul gave special caution to the Christian church to be 
 on the lookout for such pretenders as follows : "If any man teach otherwise, 
 and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and to the doctrine which is according to godUness ; he is proud, knowing no- 
 thing, but doating about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, 
 strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, 
 and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness : from such with- 
 draw thyself." Verses 3-5 of this chapter. "All who teach otherwise," 
 &c. , &c. What does this holy apostle mean by this positive precept, "from 
 such withdraw thyself?" From ichom are we commanded to "withdraw?" 
 Read the first and second verses of this chapter, and you will see that it is 
 mostly ministers who "teach" differently from what St. Paul taught on the 
 subject of master and slave. Ptev. J . Walker Jackson and his hosts of fol- 
 lowers are the. very men pointed to, from whom the great apostle charges all 
 good men to withdj-aw themselves, and from all such. I have some time since 
 made up my mind to obey this precept to the strictest letter in all church mat- 
 ters, and shall continue to do so while I live. I don't mean to withdraw from 
 the church, not as long, at least, as I can find a true follower of St. Paul's doc- 
 trine in the ministry. But I shall withdraw from all abolition gospel- preachers, 
 for they are a great curse to both Church and State, and a mmance to all good 
 society. They have ruined this great and glorious ' 'country, ' 'destroyed the peace 
 and unity of society, and broken up almost all true social Christian relations. 
 They are the prolific source of all disputings and bickerings between brethren of 
 the same Christian altars. They have, by their infidelity to the Holy Scriptures, 
 destroyed not only the peace of the nation, but all good feelings of one partj^ 
 to the other, and created hate, malice, and venom between those who were 
 bound together in the strongest ties of Christian brotherhood, and fraternal 
 confidence, and love. They have plunged this great and happy nation into 
 this bloody, fratricidal, and most ungodly civil war, overthrown this great, 
 godlike government, devastated and desolated this new political paradise of 
 God's own choosing, and turned it into ajiolitical hell, destroyed a million and 
 a half of " precious lives," and sent that many souls to the bar of a just God 
 in a state of angry rage. They have demoralized one half of the whole nation, 
 and they glory in shedding their brothers' blood, and in all the plundering and 
 ruin of the very best part of this mighty country, and in all the cold blooded 
 nmrders and desperate rapes on pure, virtuous ladies by negro heathens.. 
 They have wasted thousands of millions of dollars, and justify the wanton de- 
 struction of as much more. They have driven out thousands of families from 
 their comfortable and plentiful homes, where they were in ease and afliuence, 
 and burnt and destroyed their houses, barns, and all other improvements, and 
 left whole districts of country a barren waste. They have caused the murder 
 and starvation of thousands, and perhaps hundreds of thousands of poor un- 
 fortunate negroes who were peaceable and happy with their Christian masters. 
 They have reduced hundreds of thousands of the best and most useful people 
 in the nation to utter want, and placed their estates in the hands of that many 
 
23 
 
 thieves and plunderers. If the Philadelphia Annual Conference had disap- 
 proved of all this wickedness, it would have been praiseworthy ; but did they 
 do so? Read the fifth and sixth resolutions, and you will see that they have 
 fully justified all of this carnage, desolation, and ruin not only on the principles 
 of war that these abolitionists had plunged the nation into, but thej'^ have jus- 
 tified the war with all its atrocities, and justified all the steps of usurpation 
 taken by the so-called President, his secretaries, and the Congress of the United 
 States ; and declared, in solemn resolves, that Cod so over-ruled the councils 
 of the nation, that a military necessity became justifiable for all the purposes 
 of the untold wickedness of this abolition war, which has stopped the social 
 wheels of the government, and completely checked the progress and prosperity 
 of the whole nation, and degraded us in the eyes of the whole civilized world. 
 And they declare, in the sixth resolution, that slavery is the '''' palpable cause 
 of this most fold andivicked rebellion.'" This I most positively deny. ' If they 
 had said slavery had been made a mere pretext to drive the South into rebel- 
 lion or secession in order to get up a war, and, as I have already said, to get a 
 great army into the hands of him whom they intend to seat upon the throne 
 of America, they would have told the truth. Believing they could easily sub- 
 jugate the South, and supposing they would have a vast majority of the free 
 States, they would have no trouble in establishing a military government, with 
 Abraham the First on the throne. This tons to be the climax of all his ''^ jokes.' ' 
 I admit that if there had been no slaves we could not have gotten up a war on 
 that subject; but I don't say that we should not have had the war; for I have 
 shown from the best of authority, that slaveiy was not the source of complaint 
 when those Puritanic saints of New England first commenced the rebellion. 
 They tried several other pretexts before they came to the negro slave ques- 
 tion, and even that was far more tedious than they anticipated ; for the afi'ec- 
 lions of the South were so glued to the Constitution and the Union of all the 
 States, that tliey found it a very hard and tedious, job to break them loose. I 
 will lieic mention one other scheme of nine at least of the free States, and I 
 am told eleven, to drive the South into rebellion or secession, and that is the 
 so-called " Personal. Liberty Bills" passed by those nine or eleven States. I 
 have several of them in my possession, all of which completely repudiate the 
 following clause of the Constitution of the United States, and an act of Con- 
 gress under said clause, either directly or indirectly. 
 
 '• No person held to service or labour in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into 
 another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
 service or labour, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
 labour may be due." 
 
 If all the Philadelphia Conference preachers would get these laws and read 
 tliem, they would wonder how the South held out as long as they did, even if 
 nothing else had been done to drive them to desperation besides the enactment 
 of those unconstitutional and treasonable State laws. 
 
 The Hon. Daniel Webster, the great expounder of the Constitution, said, in 
 1851, in a speech he made in Albany, that those laws were treason and rebel- 
 lion against the Groverument of the United States, and he warned the aboli- 
 tionists to withhold their opposition to the government of the nation, and told 
 them what it would produce if they did not. The Hon. John,Quincy Adams 
 gave a like warnin.2 in New York city, in a speech, and he as much as said 
 that the contract (Constitution) was broken by the majority (the free States) ; 
 therefore the minority were released from all responsibility to the Constitu- 
 tion. But still the South tenaciously stuck to the Constitution and the Union, 
 because they loved both ; if they had not, they would not have made the oiFers 
 they did in December.- 18ti(), which offers I have already quoted. Those offers 
 failed to get one single Republican vote, and were lost ; and after they were 
 lost, despair was said to be visible on every Democi-atic brow in the Senate 
 crisis committee of thirteen, especially on those of the South, or slave States. At 
 this moment silence prevailed for a season, and was only broken by the oft'er 
 of the Crittenden Comi>romise as a final settlement of the whole trouble. 
 After con.siderable hesitation on the part of the Southern members, the Hon. 
 Jefferson Davis rose froWi his seat with despair depicfced on his cheek, and 
 said something like the following : " Gentlemen, I come here instructed not to 
 
.24 
 
 agree to any settlement that f^hall alienate anj' rights of the slave States under 
 the Constitution of the United States. But^ gentlemen^ 1 see the disasters 
 ahead to this Union of States, and. althovgh it will now be hvmiliating to our- 
 selves and to all our coyistituents, yet, if you will give us the Crittenden Compro- 
 mise, ice will accept it, and abide hy it for ever. Mr. Toomhs, of Georgia^ 
 rose and endorsed Jam, and pledged tine tohole South to it. 
 
 The vote was taken on that noble offer, and vras lost just a,s the former offers 
 were. Every democrat and every southern man voting in the affirmative, and 
 every republican in the negative. This extremely liberal offer by the southern 
 members failed to get one single Eepiiblican advocate from either house of 
 Congress, and the cry came from all stages and classes of that party, " We have 
 got them and we will drive them to the wall, and we will see if they will be as 
 good as .their word. " This was said by many leading republicans, ministers 
 of the gospel, and laymen in the churches ; and the States, Governors, Secre- 
 taries, and legislatures, all joined in the resolve. A member of the Philadel- 
 phia Conference said to me at head quarters, that he would see the union split 
 into a thousand atoms before he would yield one iota of the Chicago platform, 
 and as he said it, he clinched it by letting his ponderous fist fall from aloft upon 
 the counter. I read Davis and Toombs' offer to a great leading republican 
 one day, and he raised his hand and stamped his foot and said in an excited 
 manner that he would see the Constitution and the Union sunk into the lowest 
 pit of hell before he would accede to any such propositions. Such expressions 
 came from nearly every republican to whom I spoke on the subject. And amid 
 all the carnage and ruin now before us they still stick to it. I was denounced 
 in 1860, as a sSnsationist by many, and by many others as a "union saver," 
 and by others as a " union shrieker," and not a few as a fool, for supposing 
 that there would be the slightest danger to the union or the peace of the na- 
 tion by the success of the republican party. AVhen I thought a child ten j^ears 
 old ought to have seen that the election of Abraham Lincoln of Ilhnois, and 
 Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, was the final success of the Garrisonian party who 
 had labored so long and faithfully^ for the overthrow of the union, and the total 
 disruption of our glorious Constitutional Government, formed by our great 
 fathers. A Government that had proved to be Heaven's best and greatest 
 blessing to all good men and women, yea, it even took the negro, heathen, 
 barbarians, who were even far down below the lowest of the brute creation, 
 and made them hai»i)y recipients of civilization, and of grace and glory, by be- 
 ing placed under its glorious covert, in the hands of Christian masters. I 
 ])ublished a book of some 400 pages in 1863, on the moral, social, political and 
 natural questions of negro slavery, which will satisfy any candid Christian man or 
 woman in the nation, that God made the African race for servile labor, and that 
 they never have been, nor ever will be of any use on the face of the earth except as 
 slaves, and are a natural curse to society, just in the ratio that they are freed. And 
 that ifthcy should be all freed even by common consent oftheir masters, it will ruin 
 this whole nation. Yet, as slaves they have proved one of God's greatest natural 
 blessings to this whole nation. Therefore, I will not argue that question in 
 this reply. Get the book and read it, and answer one point in it on that ques- 
 tion if you can. Tlie efforts that have been made since it appeared to destroy 
 my character both in and out of the church, for its publication, are sufficient 
 proof that the book is unanswerable, and if men and women go down to ruin 
 through their party ])rejudices, and hatred to free and equal rights of " God's 
 chosen people," it will not be my fault, for I have at the risk of my liberty and 
 life too, faithfully warned all to flee the political "wrath to come. Doubtless, 
 many voted for the above resolutions for bunkum, others voted through latent 
 fear, whilst others voted with a clear design to make the negro the white 
 man's equal, when they know that both the Old and New Testament Scrip- 
 tures protest by all their teachings against such ruin and degradation to his, 
 God's people, and that everything in the natural appearance, physical nature, 
 natural habits, and his whole history from Abraham to our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and from our Lord to Abraham, the first intended^jking of America, proves 
 beyond all successful contradiction that the African DiCgro was made for servile 
 labor. And he who cannot read his history thus, is not now nor ever was fit 
 
25 
 
 to preacli the gospel of God gur Saviour. I rejoice to learn that many did not 
 vote for such a burlesque on the Christian church, while some made a strong 
 set against them. I have already written far more than I intended, therefore, 
 I am compelled to leave uncopied four resolutions. They are very long, and 
 would lead me beyond my space. In the Sth resolution, they speak of the 
 freed men's aid societies, and compare them to our Saviour, yet they are the 
 very men who have plunged us into this ruin and degradation, and contradict 
 the Scriptures of truth, call Abraham, Moses, St. Paul, and all the holy men 
 of Bible history, " thieves, murderers, and robbers," and Abraham the joker 
 an angel of light. How it is these poor black Africans have so much higher 
 place in the sympathies and affections of those leading Puritanic saints of the 
 Philadelphia Annual Conference of the M. E. church, than the 75,000 sewing 
 women of Philadelphia and New York, I am at a loss to know. I saw and 
 talked with one this afternoon, who is making soldiers' drawers at 75 cents per 
 dozen pairs, that is 61 cents each, and she had to work day and night, and 
 could only make 30 pairs per week, $1,872- in green backs, or a little over 
 half that amount in money, and had to support herself and family out of that 
 small pittance. There are thousands upon thousands of just such cases, but 
 there was no sympathy in the hearts of those negro shriekers who call them- 
 selves "ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ," for these poor white women who 
 mostly are pure and spotless Christian ladies. (How can these things be? Is 
 this Christianity?) and not one iota of sympathy for any of the poor starving 
 white women and free negroes who have always been a thousand times worse off 
 than any of the freed negroes ever were before thej^ were seduced to leave their 
 masters by those aid societies. Thousands upon thousands have starved to 
 death since they were freed by those enemies of God and man. But starvation 
 has only just begun. I believe in mercy everywhere and under all circum- 
 stances. But to delude those poor negroes to such an esitent is more than the 
 world ever has been guilty of before. Yet, the so-called "ministers of the 
 Lord Jesus Christ' ' have not only endorsed this wickedness, but all the wick- 
 edness of this most ungodly war, and recommend in solemn resolutions, 
 that this bloody fratricidal war shall go on until a Tom Hyer victory shall be 
 gained, and all the diabolical, wicked, and most ungodly policy of king Abra- 
 ham shall be fully established on the ruins of this glorious Paradise of God. 
 In the preamble to two other resolutions passed in another batch, they say, ' ' We 
 have reason to fear that some of our members and ministers have shown them- 
 selves in f ivor of slavery, and against the Government of the United States. 
 What do they mean by this ? Is it not that all who are favorable to negro 
 slavery -are opposed to the government of the United States? They have 
 doubtless assumed this ground for two reasons : one to establish that wicked, 
 infidel doctrine that Abraham is the Government of the United States ; and 
 the other, to establish the charge of treason against every man in the nation 
 who holds to the Bible and the Constitutional doctrine of negro slavery, and 
 all who disagree with Abraham (the tyrant), and favor State rights. How 
 painfully saddening this is to all true lovers of the Holy Bible, the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, and pure Christianity, for such a scheme to be 
 adopted by a set of men, to whom we looked for counsel in divine truth, to 
 attempt to establish a doctrine, the establishment of which is the complete 
 overthrow of a pure, free, and republican form of government; and that 
 General Washington, Jefferson, and all those great, holy patriots who signed 
 the Constitution of the United States, and all their true followers, were and are 
 ti'aitors, and therefore none of those great men, or any of their successors, should 
 have ever been allowed, or should now be allowed to die natural deaths, because 
 treason is the forfeiture of life. You beseech us, "in the name of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, to return to calm reason, and from our evil way." The latter 
 clause of the last resolution of the second batch reads as follows : "We record 
 it as our solemn judgment, that no such man ought to be a religions teacher in 
 our church ; and if there be any such, we do hereby request him to withdraw 
 from among us. ' ' I feel strongly impressed that those saints have simply 
 made a sad mistake in their authority, and named the wi-ong master ; for in 
 the history of the "Lord Jesus Christ " I can find no such authority. I have 
 read the sermon on the mount, and I can find nothing but love. Our Lord 
 4 
 
26 
 
 did say, in the twenty-third chapter and thirty- t|»ird verse of Matthew : "Ye 
 serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" 
 I would refer all advocates of those resolutions, or whoever endorses them, to 
 that whole chapter. Our Lord was so much better a lecturer than I am, and 
 that chapter is so appropriate to all modern abolitionists and all abolition gos- 
 pel-preachers, that I will leave you all in his hands on that clause, knowing 
 that he will deal justly and love mercj^ But all who voted for the last clause 
 of the last resolution, and all who endorsed them, I will refer to the sixth 
 chapter of first Timothy, the first eight verses. I hope all will read and try 
 to understand them ; and if you are bothered, call to your aid Dr. Adam Clark 
 — who hated slavery — or some other good theologian, such as Watson, Ben- 
 son, or Burkitt's Notes ^ and then read all the passages in both the Old and 
 New Testaments that I have referred to, and the quotations I have made from 
 the Constitution of the United States. If you are not then satisfied of j'our 
 great error, it will be no use for me to try to bring you " to the knowledge of 
 the truth as it is in Christ Jesus," and also in the Constitutional Government 
 of the United States, all of which condemn your resolutions, just as you will 
 be condemned if you do not speedily repent and turn from your treasonable 
 course against this great and glorious free government that God gave to our 
 fathers to be their glorious inheritance and the inheritance of their posterity 
 for ever. But you have forgotten the holy precepts of Almighty God, and 
 have concluded that ''''gain is godliness;" therefore you have turned your affec- 
 tions over to ^''mammon," and thereby completely ruined and demoralized the 
 hest organized society for the conversion of the icorld ever established since Apoll- 
 yon got possession of the apostolic church ; which, like the Government of the 
 United States, could not have been thus established, had not God directed the 
 minds and hearts of those who founded it. For this cause, the devil assailed both 
 from the outside in their very infancy, and has not ceased to assail them since ; but 
 made little or no headway, until both church and State placed abolitionists 
 .(who were the true emissaries of Apollyon) upon the sanctum sa?icto?'?fm of 
 both church and State. The peace of both has been corrupted from that day. 
 I speak now of all Protestfint denominations. They even made the Roman 
 church an object to be watched by all others, while they were working in and 
 pDisoning_ the minds of all other Christian denominations, that they might, 
 under their, father the devil, be able to overthrow both church and State, that 
 he might drive Christianity and liberty from this great country, where God 
 had set his "people " upon the throne of civil and religious liberty, that the 
 whole civilized world might see that his "people" were capable of self-govern- 
 ment. At one time I had no fear that so many members of the Philadelphia 
 Conference would ever have given themselves over for the fit tools for such 
 wickedness ; yet it is even so. John Randolph said, in a speech — " You can 
 never change this government hut for a monarchy. ' ' Those Methodist preachers 
 who voted for those resolutions know this as well as anybody else. If they 
 did not know human nature well enough to know what Mr. Randolph said 
 would be true, they are not now, never were, nor never will be fit to preach 
 the gospel of God our Saviour. They know, or ought to have known, that 
 God never designed the African race for self-government, and he (the Al- 
 mighty) fitted that race for servile laboxir only. It is God's own plan for the 
 government of mankind that this abolitionist party are determined to over- 
 throw, and not the humble opinions of Burkitt, Clark, and other great men. 
 It is against his wisdom that they are struggling, and not against the Demo- 
 cratic party only. I confess that the so-called Union League have driven many 
 to want by proscription in all sorts of ways ; and they intend to crush all out 
 who oppose them in their treason against the Constitutional Government of 
 the United States, and against the sovereignty of all the State Governments. 
 But I, for one, intend to stick to the Bible and constitutional truth, even if I 
 should be crucified with my head downwards, or placed in a bastile. If that 
 should be my lot for standing up for the truth, it shall be for God's own truth, 
 and not for sustaining the tricks of any party. And my conscience shall be at 
 ease there, and I will preach Bible" truth and constitutional liberty to all I naay 
 see through my prison-bars, or the key-hole of my dungeon, whenever I may 
 hear a voice within speaking distance. I know I am right, and no power shall 
 
27 
 
 stop my tongue from contending for these noLle principles for the glory of 
 Grod's ^^ chosen jjeople," the Caucasian race, until my tongue shall be palsied, 
 and my mind cease to think ; for my heart is in this cause. 
 
 It is clear to my mind that this "wicked rebellion" was not causeless, 
 (however much we may depreciate and condemn it, ) and who produced it, and 
 that evei'y violent and arbitrary means have been adopted to close the mouths 
 of the righteous and truthful, for fear of exposure. Thousands have been 
 locked up for attempting to show the truth, and thousands more have been 
 incarcerated or banished, because those myrmidons of ruin knew they had the 
 truth and they (the Abolitionists) feared they would tell it, because they knew 
 they would stand by the truth. That greatest of all great patriots, the Hon. C. 
 L. Vallandigham, of Ohio, was arrested and banished for the truth, in tena- 
 ciously adhering to the Government adopted under Grod, by our great revolu- 
 tionary fathers, and is now an exile in a foreign land, far away from his family 
 and friends. For fear of the truth, the bastile and the gibbet have been es- 
 tablished. Had it not been for the extremes of this arbitrary power, the Phila- 
 delphia Annual Conference would never have even offered such resolutions. 
 But thej'^ thought the bastile and the gibbet would prevent exposure. 
 
 The Abolition portion of the Christian ministry know that they have mainly 
 plunged us into this untold misery and ruin, therefore they deprecate the facts 
 in the case more than they do sin. May Heaven have mercy on all such. I pub- 
 lished a pamphlet last April, that every man in the nation ought to_ get and 
 read, in that you will see to what extremes in fraud and corruption those 
 Abolitionists will resort to keep the truth down. In that you will see that the 
 frauds on the ballot-box in this state were at least 137,000 votes, and in Ohio, 
 160,000, and they sent an army into Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and even 
 little Delaware, to prevent all from voting who sought the truth, because the 
 establishment of the truth would overthrow Abolitionism and save the nation 
 from ruin. Hon. Alexander Henry, Mayor of Philadelphia, said, in a speech 
 he made in the State-house yard, in 18G1, that " our trouble is, that the south 
 believe the north opposed to their institutions. That belief is unfounded and 
 mistaken, but it becomes all to see to it, that where pubHc sentiment has been 
 misled, it must be restored to the stand-point occupied twenty years since. Tlie 
 lUMoise rhapsodies of the lecture rgoms and pulpits on the subject of slaverymust 
 be indignantly frowned upon. It is thus that you may hope to abate the agi- 
 tation which has shaken the Government to its centre." No man will doubt 
 the sincerity and truthfulness of Mayor Henry. He has always been looked 
 upon by all parties as one of the purest and most intelligent men in this great 
 city. He has been elected Mayor by the Kepublicans, and holds _ the chair 
 now by their votes ; and he fully sustains me in my opinions on this subject. 
 He knew what the Hon. Horace Greeley said in a lecture, and published it in 
 the great leading Abolition organ, the New York Tribune. See as follows, on 
 the American flag : 
 
 All hail the flaunting lie, 
 
 The stars grow pale and dim, 
 The stripes are bloody scars, 
 
 A lie, the vaunting hymn. 
 It shields a pirate's deck, 
 
 It binds a man in chains, 
 It yokes the captive's neck, 
 
 And wipes the bloody stains. 
 
 Tear down the flaunting lie; — 
 
 Half-mast the starry flag ; 
 Insult no sunny sk}', 
 
 AVith hell's polluted rag ; 
 Destroy it, ye who can ; 
 
 Deep sink it in the waves. 
 It bears a fellow-man, 
 
 To groan with fellow-slaves. 
 
 Seal the boasted lie ; 
 Till freedom lives again. 
 
28 
 
 ■ To rule once more in truth, ' 
 Among untrammeled men. 
 Roll u]) the starry sheen, 
 
 Conceal its bloody stains; 
 For in its folds are seen, 
 
 The stamp of rustling chains. 
 
 The above Teas extracted from tlie New York Tribune, that had more kind 
 attention and regards from the White-house than any other journal in the na- 
 tion, since 1861. Why was it so, when that paper had labored so incessant!}'- 
 for so many years for a dissolution of this glorious union, by driving out the 
 slave States which were the very bones and sinews of the prosperity and glory 
 of this great RepubHc ? If Abraham Lincoln was a union man, have I not 
 given evidence enough to prove to the satisfaction of any sane man, that it was 
 the intention of the Abohtion party to destroy and completely break up the 
 entire social and political systems of the republic, as soon as they should elect 
 their choice man to the head of the National Government? Yet the Philadel- 
 phia Annual Conference pass two batches of resolutions endorsing and sanc- 
 tioning all that the party in power has done, and all they intend to do. Even 
 making it a miHtary necessity to exterminate the whole white population of the 
 south that the negro slaves maybe placed on an equality with God's own 
 chosen people. I now call upon 300,000 democrats in the State of Penns.yl- 
 vania, who were all set down as traitors and rebels by solemn resolves, in the 
 late conference, to see to this. Are we to support those men just to insult, 
 slander, and abuse every man and woman in this country because we see pro- 
 per to stand by the Constitutional Government of the United States? Let us 
 
 indignantly frown upon" all who would tear it to pieces for a black race of 
 heathens, and thereby destroy the last hope of civilization, peace and protec- 
 tion to that poor unfortunate race. I call upon the 254,171 democrats who 
 voted at our late election, and the 25,000 (perhaps) whose votes were changed 
 by some mysterious hand from democratic votes to republican or abolition 
 votes, after they were handed in. And I call upon the 75,000 democratic 
 voters who were away in the army, and therefore could not vote at the late 
 election, to look into this matter. And let us take measures to put a stop to 
 any further insults from this source. Let every democrat indignantly frown 
 down all such outrages from whatever church or creed they may come. _ And if 
 they do not stop it speedily, let every lover of Constitutional freedom withdraw 
 his or her entire support from all who uphold such doctrines in tJie 2>idpit or 
 elsewhere. They are not the representatives of the prince of love, i)eacej and 
 glory, but the representatives of the prince of darkness and blood. Every cent 
 we pay to such hypocrites is just so much towards the destruction of our glo- 
 rious system of Government, that has given us such peace, happiness, and 
 prosperity. 
 
 It is time for a reform in the Christian churches. The Christian church 
 could even now save us from political overthrow and ruin by turning away 
 from advocating war and blood, and preach Christ in his glorious character of 
 love and mercy to all mankind, and teach slavery only as Paul did to the 
 Epliesians, Colossians, and follow his instructions to Timothy, Titus, Peter, and 
 Philemon. This would be their legitimate calling, and would bring peace to 
 this distracted country in a very short space of time. Unless they do this, 
 they are a demoralizing curse to both church and State, and will totally break 
 up all social intercourse in the nation, and our venom against each other will 
 be such that we shall be totally unfitted for self-government, and a military 
 despotism will be necessary for our government. Therefore, Democrats, and 
 all lovers of self-government, arouse from your slumber, and let us frown down 
 all such pulpit wretches. St. Paul said, "From such withdraw thyself" 
 We cannot sit under any such teachers without disobedience to St. Paul's 
 precept ; therefore, unless we do, we shall sin against both Heaven and earth. 
 I have made up my mind to follow Paul's injunction, even if my name should 
 be cast out as evil. My persecutions cannot be much greater than they have 
 been since 1860. I have written what I have written, and said what I have 
 said, from a pure love for the peace, happiness, and glory of this great countiy. 
 My object has been, and still is, to protect the rights and liberties of all, espe- 
 
29 
 
 cially the working-men, toiling women and cliildren, — of all whom the party 
 now in power are grinding into the dust, while they are feeding hundreds of 
 thousands of negroes at the public crib, and pressing and driving hundreds of 
 thousands of labouring men and sewing women almost to starvation to support 
 those negroes, all of whom they have stolen from happy homes, where they 
 were most useful, but are now demoralized and ruined.. And yet all this is 
 done to make them our equals in both church and State, and- also in the social 
 circle. I would not trust the power exclusively in the hands of the rich. I 
 have seen enough to know that they would be hard masters if they should get 
 the ballot-boxes ou.t.of the hands of the laboring or working classes, and ex- 
 clusively deposited in theirs. There are rich men who could be trusted to 
 any and all extsemes, but such would be in the minority. Those of them who 
 stand up with the Democratic party now deserve all praise, for the democracy 
 cannot be made to mix with the aristocracy, one being Republican, (not aboli- 
 tionists, ) and the other Monarchical. 
 
 Reasons for My Course Defined, and a few Strictures on tlie doings pftJie Gene- 
 ral Conference now in Session. 
 I w]Il now close with a few remarks in reference to the course I have pur- 
 sued in this great national trouble. I am a Union man, but a Constitutional 
 Union man ; because I know that there can be no advantageous Union of the 
 States outside of the Constitution of the United States. My present personal 
 interest prompted me to go in with the Republican (abolition) party ; the in- 
 terest I felt for a liberal support of my family prompted me to take the 
 same course ; my great love for the social intercovirse with all my old friends, 
 my love for money, and all surrounding circumstances prompted me to sup- 
 port the Administration, and I did support it as long as it supported the Con- 
 stitution of our great sires. But if 1 had been a traitor, or disunionist, I 
 should not have supported it then, but should now, with all of my energies. 
 If I now had the slightest desire to totally destroy the Union of States, I should 
 at once repudiate the present democracy, and join the so-called Republican 
 party with all its deceptions and cheats, and I should have no fear of not real- 
 izing my fullest desire on the success of that party in its present policy. If I 
 had given way to selfishness and the love of gain, I should have joined the 
 Republican (abolition) party at the time the Administration commenced the 
 arbitrary arrests ; for I saw then, without doubt, that my personal safety and 
 financial success would be in ''Abraham's bosom," where nearly all of my rich, 
 influential friends had taken shelter, and a vast majority of my beloved per- 
 sonal Christian friends, whose social circles were more delightful to me than 
 gold. The confidence' and sympathies of those were more desirable to me than 
 life and riches. I saw all this, but with that I saw that the party that had 
 just ascended to the Presidency had adopted the policy of those who had 
 sought the overthrow of this free constitutional Christian government for many • 
 years, with all its glorious benefits ; a policy which I thought would i*uin the 
 entire nation, take away the liberties of 'the "people," and reduce us all to 
 mere serfs, with all posterity, who would rise up and curse us for our wicked- 
 ness and imbecility, by entailing upon them such ruin as I thought I saw the 
 policy of the abolition party would render to them. Therefore I felt that the 
 present wrath of all my friends, with financial ruin and povei'ty would be more 
 pleasurable to me, than to be with all my old friends in "Abraham's bosom," 
 where all this ruin was being concocted, and would be entailed upon us and all 
 future generations, if successful. Therefore I have chosen my present course 
 with my eyes wide open, and I am not blind to what the consequences of the 
 publication of this may be to my liberty, or even my life. But I love a fi-ee 
 Republican constitutional and an unadulterated Anglo- American government 
 more than I fear all the consec^uences of the wrath of all his fanatical adhe- 
 rents. It never shall be said, m truth, that I had any hand in bringing these 
 ruins upon this once great and happy nation, either by adhering thereto, or by 
 withholding my opposition to it. No; Grod forbid. If Abraham should be suc- 
 cessful in his policy, we shall be reduced to mere serfs, and have a debt of $6,000, 
 000,000, the annual interest of which will be $360,000,000. To support the 
 government will require $200,000,000. This would be a nice little tax of $560, 
 
30 
 
 000,000 a year, through all time to come. Eemember that it would cost three 
 times as much to support the government hereafter, as it did before the 
 overthrow of the Grovernment of the United States bv the abolitionists now in 
 power ; for a strong militarj' government would have to be established to go- 
 vei:n all the subjects of the throne. Bear in mind what I tell j'ou about these 
 negro slaves, who wer^ the great producers in the nation," who will produce 
 nothing after they are all freed. The products of cotton alone, in 1859, were 
 2,278,000,000 fijs. that, at twenty cents per pound, would amount to $455,600. 
 000,00. Get out your census reports, and compare this alone with the entire 
 products of free labor in all the free States of the United States. And now 
 hear me, and remember what I tell j'ou, that one fourth of the above quantity 
 of cotton will never be produced in one year in this country after the slaves 
 are all freed ; for freed, no^ free, negroes will not till the soil, and no other 
 tribes can, in those climates, on the face of the globe; for they are (as laborers) 
 like the beasts of burden, wonderful producers of the good things of the soil, 
 with masters over them ; but without masters who can hold absolute control 
 by law over their muscles and minds, they are mere consumers or devourers 
 of the ''^people's" labor, and the spontaneous growths of the earth. Grct the 
 book I published last year, called the Pictures of Slavery and Freedom, of 
 about four hundred pages, in which you will learn the nature of the African 
 race, and see the ruin that has been produced to every country on the globe, 
 wherever universal emancipation has been effected to that race, where the 
 labour of the negro was requisite. Grod has made Torrid Zones in the world, 
 as well as the Frigid, and the natural laws that control them ; and whenever 
 man attempts to change those natural laws, he will only sink himself down 
 where Grod never intended him to be, only through his disobedience to the 
 laws of nature, which are Grod's own laws. And every attempt we make to 
 raise the African race to an equality with the Anglo-American, we shall (as 
 the Irishman said) only hoist ourselves down to the negro level. This has 
 been the experience of the world from Abraham the Patriarch and Prophet, 
 to Abraham the Tyrant. I will say also, that there has been more substantial 
 civilization effected by the negro slavery in this country, with the aid of the 
 foreign slave trade, than by all the foreirjn missionary efforts of the world. 
 This, doubtless, will startle many ; but prove the contrary by historical facts, 
 and then I shall be with you. 
 
 We have heard very extravagant stories told about the civilization of Africa 
 by Missionary influence. I remember when I thoyght the time would come 
 when Africa would stand on a level with the most civilized nations on the 
 globe. I argued thus, in my ignorance of historical facts and negro human 
 animal nature. Millions are being deceived in the same way by false report- 
 ers. But do the fticts sustain that idea, or hope ? They do not. What has be- 
 come of the 10,000 negroes who have been colonized there from this country 
 the last thirtj'-five years'? Where are thev to-day? Can 10,000 negroes be 
 found on the coast of Africa who have the slightest visible marks of civiHzation 
 upon them ? No ; there is no truth in those stories of wonderful civilization 
 among the Africans. I know it is re])orted that the 10,000 we have colonized 
 there, had_ civilized 120,000 natives of that most unfortunate race. Do the 
 facts sustain those reports ? They do not, unless I have entirely misunder- 
 stood the principles of civilization. If I understand the principles of civiliza- 
 tion aright, they do not merely mean that men shall cease to kill and eat each 
 other. They do not merely mean that mankind shall learn to read, write, and 
 talk, or even to be religious. But they consist in all that pertains to peace, 
 comfort, improvement, prosperity, happiness, and Christian civilization, none 
 of which can be perpetuated without constant, wise, industrial habits, and a 
 careful, prudent cultivation of the soil, with judicious economy in all things, 
 and to do " unto others as you would have them to do unto you." If this be 
 civilization, all of which are the fruits of Christianity, there certainly is but 
 little in the American and English colonies on the coast of Africa, if there be 
 any truth in verbal history by intelligent seamen who trade with that country, 
 and bring their articles of spontaneous growth to this. It is evident that in- 
 stead of the 10,(X)0 having civilized and Christianized the 120,000 na- 
 tives, the latter have completely heathenized and barbarized more than 
 
31 
 
 two-tliirds of the negroes who have been colonized on that coast. Many of the 
 emigrants hold out, but their children born there mostlj^ grow up lazy loafers. 
 There is no real genuine cultivation of the soil worth notice on that coast, or 
 husbandry of any kind. Let the face of white men be totally withdrawn from 
 that land, and they will sink to the present state of Dahomey's kingdom in less 
 than twenty years. Jehovah has thus formed them for servile labor, for the 
 good of all mankind, and for his own glory. And all the Abolitionists in the 
 world cannot reform them, and every attempt to raise them up will just so far 
 carry both races back towards the darker ages of the world's history. The 
 Government of the United States as adopted by our fathers in 87 and 89, un- 
 der the lead of the Spirit of God, proved to be the greatest blessing ever be- 
 fore bestowed upon poor fallen human nature. The devil saw this, and it gave 
 him pain, and he set at work to overthrow it in its infancy, and he knew that 
 without moral culture no free Government could long stand, and that the 
 Christian church was established by God himself for that specific purjiose, and 
 unless he could first corrupt that in all its various forms of denominational 
 creeds, he could not overthrow this temporal kingdom over which God reigned 
 through the representatives of the prince of peace and glory, (the Christian 
 ministry. ) But the devil was too subtle to attack the Government through the 
 Christian ministry at first, and used other means for a while, until he got the 
 way prepared by removing the foreign slave-trade by an act of Congress. And 
 then he soon introduced his emissaries into the church of God, in the shape of 
 Abolition gospel preachers. He had them ready installed twelve or fifteen years 
 before he allowed them to attack the Government on the slave question ; 
 though they were creating all the prejudice against it, they could on other 
 points. And even then they labored incessantly in preparing the soil for the 
 plough-share of ruin. They got all things ready by the year 1840, and then 
 commenced a direct attack upon the Government by trying to get its reins 
 into their sacrilegious hands. From that time a large number of the professed 
 Christian ministers, let off broadside after broadside against the Constitution 
 of the United States, because (as they alleged) it sanctioned negro slavery. 
 And now with an open Bible which as clearly sets forth that slavery was origi- 
 nated, endorsed, and sanctioned by the Almighty himself, as it sets forth that 
 Jesus Christ was God incarnate. Yet they make negro slavery a plea against 
 the Constitution, and the union of the several States. And the Philadelphia 
 Conference passed the ten solemn resolutions as a motive power to drive the 
 plough-share of ruin (not only) through this glorious Government, but also 
 the church of God on earth. In these resolutions they declare that they are 
 "^linisters of the Lord Jesiis Christ." Oh, what impudence, right in the 
 face of Divine truth ; and they even charged the holy God with producing this 
 most ungodly war, to destroy his own handy work, in order to justify their own 
 wickedness. And they charged every man with treason and rebellion who de- 
 sires constitutional peace throughout the land, or justifies negro slavery, when 
 they know that both the Bible and the Constitution of the United States up- 
 hold it. If they do not, they ought to be expelled from the ministry for 
 ignorance, for no such are fit to preach the gospel or sow its seed. We are 
 told in the book of God, ' ' That whatever we sow, of that shall we reap. ' ' If 
 we sow peace, love and union, we shall reap the same. And if we sow war, 
 desolation, malice and vengeance, we shall reap the same, as sure as God Jives. 
 
 There is a strong move on foot now, to blend church and state. Inducements 
 are held out at the King's palace to the ministry. May Heaven avert such a 
 disastrous ruin and desolation. 
 
 The General Conference of the 31. E. Church. 
 
 Since writing the above, the General Conference of our church has convened 
 in this city. This Conference is the supreme power of the M. E. Church. 
 They have the right to change or amend the rules and regulations of said 
 church, by consent of a majority of the Annual Conferences ; and from their 
 course since their present Convention, any one would suppose they had power 
 over not only this church, but over the sovereign States of the Union, and that 
 the moral Government of God is in their hands. Literally that " whatsoever 
 they should bind on earth should be bound in heaven ; and whatsoever they 
 
S2 
 
 should loose on earth, should be loosed in heaven." Their assumptions are 
 such as to impress the mind of ever\^ thinking man that thej' had all power 
 given vinto' them in heaven, earth, a«d hell ; and that they were charged to 
 tinker as they pleased the moral law, or revelation of x\lmighty God, as well 
 as the Constitution of the United States, and the laws of the Sovereign States. 
 They have also appointed a committee on the state of the country, to. investi- 
 gate the legal transactions of the Sovereign States, and of their united powers 
 at Washington. They have, like the Philadelphia Annual Conference, become 
 so wild and fanatical on the subject of freedom and equality of the negrf) race, 
 that they have concluded they are the powers " that be," of this whole nation, 
 therefore they dash into whatever looks Kke Christianity or civilization among 
 men, as though the church had formerly mistaken the impudence and malig- 
 nity of old Apollyon, for the glorious principles of peace, love, harmony, tran- 
 quility, and "Union," as taught by the Son of God. They certainly teach as 
 our Lord and his holy apostles never taught. They have dashed rough-shod 
 over almost every principle of Cliristianity and civihzation. They have not 
 only insulted and denounced every slave owner of the present day as being 
 guilty of the greatest abominations known in the catalogue of crimes ; but they 
 have insulted heaven, and every authorized medium between heaven and earth 
 from Noah down through all the Patriarchal history of the Old Testament, 
 and snatched the sceptre from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and charged 
 his holy a])ostles with crimes more malignant than the devil himself could be 
 guilty of, or as bad as he would have man to be for the safety of his own reign 
 in this world. I think that eveiy candid man will see and acknowledge that 
 the "Prince of darkness" could not have presumed more, when he led our 
 Lord up into the Mount to tempt him, or placed him on the " pinnacle of the 
 temple, and then told him to dash himself down;" than the majority of the 
 General Conference now in session have, since they convened. They have 
 even had the presumption to pass resolutions to amalgamate the pure white 
 Anglo-Americans with the African negroes in all church-worship and sittings. 
 If this General Conference would only adjourn to Kingston, Jamaica, and at- 
 tend worship there, and then visit the interior of that Island, and spend a few 
 weeks among the amalgamated citizens, and attend their places of worship, where 
 araalgat ion and ecjualiV were perfected by law some twenty-five years ago, we 
 should have no more of amalgation and equality between those distinct races, 
 from the genuine Christian portion of that Convention. If amalgamation is all, 
 the majority of this Puritanic assembly seem to long for, it would not be quite 
 so bad, but they have also endorsed all the abominations of this fratricidal war. 
 They have appointed a committee to hold up the hands of the tyrant-joker at 
 Washington, and to encourage him in all the untold ruin and disgrace that he 
 has brought upon this great heaven-born National Government, planned by 
 God hiniself, suited to every nook, corner, ])lain, and climate of the entire 
 country. They seem to gloiy in the ruin, as llxr as it has gone, and exult in 
 the prospect of a complete overthrow of the liberties of the _" People f be- 
 cause they say negro slavery is to be no more, therefore, all will be well. If 
 this Convention be made up of Christian ministers, and guided by the Spirit 
 that was in our Lord, I have altogether mistaken the spirit of Christianity. 
 And the great change that was wrought upon my heart thirty-eight years 
 ago, by a speck of faith in the Son of God, which brought about an entire 
 change' in all of my habits from that day to the present hour, which change 
 caused me not only to love God supremely, but to love my enemies, and to do 
 good to all mankind : was, and is a fatal mistake, and was produced by some 
 sort of a spirit unknown to the Christian Bible. But, if I was not mistaken 
 in that spirit and faith that made such a radical change in mj' heart, and gave 
 me such profound love and reverence for the Christian ministry ; it is high 
 time that all true lovers of a pure Christianity and a free Government should 
 strike for a reformed church. I certainly am in favor of a reformed Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, in which there shall be a Bishop elected for each Annual 
 Conference, whose term of service shall be four to eight years only, unless re- 
 elected for another term, and whose duty it shall be to travel throughout his ■ 
 Conference as often each year as is in his power, and meet the preachers of 
 his diocese at a given time and place each year as they now meet, and make 
 
the appointments for the subsequent j'ear, to which appointment the same 
 minister may be sent four years in succession if desired by the people, and 
 convenient for the Bishop. In wliich reformed M. E. Church, it shall be a 
 misdemeanor to introduce any political questions whatever, except as St. Paul 
 did to all parties, in the first five verses of vi. chap, of 1st Timothy. The Gene- 
 ral Conference to meet once in four years, where the Bishops shall be 
 elected — but no Abolitionist ever to be admitted to the pulpit of said 
 church. 
 
 One other point in the preamble to said resolutions, that I have omitted to 
 speak about, to show how little the Philadelphia Annual Conference respected 
 the truth, is found in the latter clause of the first preamble, as follows: 
 " Grovernment framed by the wisdom and sacrifice of our fathers, and founded 
 upon the corner stone of the freedom and equality of all men." I will here 
 make one or two quotations from the Constitution of the United States, which 
 ought to be sufiicient for all thinking, candid, Christian men and women, 
 without comment from me. See Constitution as follows : the latter clause of 
 Article V. : 
 
 " Provided that no amendments which may be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any 
 manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article." 
 
 Article I. , section 9, first clause : 
 
 " The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall 
 think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808." 
 
 Third clause of section 2d, Article IV. : 
 
 "No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into 
 another, shall, in consequeuoe of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
 service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or 
 labor may be due." 
 
 If in the ''''wisdom and sacrifice of our fathers" they formed a "govern- 
 ment founded upon the corner stone of freedom and equality of all men;" 
 why did they put the above clauses in the Constitution prohibiting ' ' the con- 
 gress' ' from interfering with the African slave trade for twenty years, by any 
 of the states that saw proper to import Africans as chattel property ? I will 
 tell you why. The New England delegates said to that patriotic assembly', 
 that if they cut off the foreign slave trade abruptly, it would ruin the New 
 England States, because they had a vast amount of capital invested in that 
 trade, and that unless they could have time allowed them to get their capital 
 out in safety, they could not accept the Constitution of the United States, and 
 therefore would be compelled to remain outside. Maryland, Virginia, and 
 South Carolina determined that the foreign slave trade should be stopped by 
 the adoption of the Constitution for a United States. Luther Martin of Ma- 
 ryland, a leading opponent of the slave trade, took strong grounds against its 
 continuance one day after the adoption of the Constitution. When New 
 England saw that the foreign slave trade would be abruptly cut off by the 
 adoption of the Constitution, they proposed to the three above southern 
 slave states, that if they would allow the foreign slave trade to go on for 
 twenty years longer, they would agree that three-fifths of all the African slaves 
 held by them should be counted in their enumeration for congressmen. This 
 took with ^Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, and they agreed that the 
 time should be extended twenty years to enable New England to get her 
 money out of that trade wthout loss. See again, third section of Article IV., 
 That no state should at any time pass any law, or make any regulation, that 
 should interfere in any way with the right of a master to go into any state in 
 the United States and arrest his negro slave that might run away to that 
 state. This right stands under the Constitution until this day. If the corner 
 stone of the G-overnment was the "freedom and equality of all men," how 
 came these clauses to be placed in the Constitution by the "wisdom and sacri- 
 fice of our fathers f" Methodist preachers (and all others) look at this and 
 study it well before you vote on any more such resolutions. For it is as wrong 
 to vote for what you do not know to be true, as it is to vote for what you know 
 to be false. I know some contend that the Constitution does not say that it 
 was negroes, who were to be imported as chattels. Suppose they were not 
 5 
 
84 
 
 negroes, and. were white men, does that alter the question? Are negroes any 
 better than white men ? Can you find a candid, respectable man in the United 
 States who has read the Constitution and the history of slavery that will say 
 to-day that it was not the African negroes, and negro slaves, who were to be 
 imported as chattel property? For the rescue of whom, from their importers 
 or purchasers could there any law be passed by any other state, or by the 
 United States, that could destroy the master's title to the earnings of all such 
 persofis for life? Then was the "Government" of the United States 
 '^founded upon the corner stone of freedom and equality of all men?^' Could 
 the true representatives of the i^rince of truth, righteousness, and peace have 
 solemnly passed such declarations and published them to an intelligent nation? 
 ]\Iay Heaven awaken such pretenders, and bring them to their senses ! But 
 when I look upon the ruin to this entire nation by you abolition ministers, I 
 wonder how pardons are to be obtained now for sins that will be committed 
 500 years hence, for you have made, and put in motion, machinery that may 
 be manufacturing wickedness and cruelties hundreds of years hence. It is 
 like Paine's " Age of Reason," which will work evil to the end of time ; not 
 only to the " people" of this nation, but to the poor unfortunate African race 
 in this country. Yea, you have brought a loithering curse upon the whole 
 civilized world. The poor of England and France are even now starving and 
 dying by the effects of the machinery that could never have been made and 
 put in motion had you faithfully adhered to your legitimate calling, to which 
 your Lord had called you. You have placed the entire Christian church in an 
 antagonistic attitude to this Government ; that must have been formed under 
 the fostering care of the Son of God, or it never could have produced such 
 union, peace, happiness, prosperity, and Christian brotherhood ; and abolition- 
 ism must be of the devil, or it would not have so suddenly ruined both church 
 and state, after they threw their doors open, and invited them to come in and 
 take part in their deliberations, the peace and happiness of both were dis- 
 turbed, and they (the abolitionists) proved to be the seeds of ruin to all who 
 embrace their doctrines. And they soon demoralized and blunted the moral 
 sensibilities of a majority of both church and state to such an extent, that to 
 them and their adherents, or converts, murder and plunder of the southern 
 " people" as well as to rob our own Government, would seem to be the great- 
 est virtues known to mankind. 
 
 I met a gentleman the other day who seemed to be glad to see me. He spoke 
 of Gen. Grant's success with the greatest confidence. He said there need not 
 be a doubt on the mind of any loyal man about his success ; that he would be 
 in possession of the Confederate Capital in less than a week. He said we- were 
 now on the very verge of perpetual peace, union, and prosperity. 1 asked him 
 why he thought so ? He said we should soon be clear of slavery which liad pro- 
 duced this war, but he said he was opi)Osed to war, but this war would be the 
 greatest blessing to this nation ever before bestowed u])on any people. Al- 
 though he was opposed to killing men. and women, still, rather than there 
 should be one slave left in bonds, let every white man, woman, and child, in 
 all the slave states be destroyed. He was a professing Christian man, I regret 
 to say, and made the above declarations without the slightest regrets, and with 
 a Christian i^laoidness that betokened the greatest satisfaction or fruition pos- 
 sible, under any circumstances. I always had looked upon that man as one of 
 the best of Christian gentlemen. His calm countenance and tone of voice were 
 lamb-like ; even when he thus expressed himself in fiivor of such a mon- 
 strosity. But, " by their fruits ye shall know them." There was no room to 
 doubt that this gentleman had been a true convert to Christianity, but by some 
 Satanic influence he had been led to the threshold of abolitionism, which is in- 
 fidelity, and inhumanity in disguise ; and he stood as it were with one foot 
 shod with true Christianity, and the other with the very essence of old Apoll- 
 yon. We know many such men, and women also, who seem fruitive of such 
 sentiments. Now, who has sown such seed in the Christian church ? How 
 is it that we find so many thousands of such leading the hosts of professing 
 Christians of all the Protestant denominations ? Why is it, that when they 
 make a convert, they make him "two-fold more the child of hell than he was 
 before?" What! Christian men and women to clamor for, and exult over 
 
*35 
 
 the prospect of the slaiTglifcer of 7,000,000 of their own race and color, — yea, 
 their blood kin, and Christian brethren, — simply because they refuse to give 
 up their liberties and rights to their own legal property, and all that is near 
 and dear to them, to a set of intruders, invaders, and Abolition tyrants ; who 
 have no Constitutional or moral right ; not even to dictate to them, much less 
 to invade, rob, and murder them ? 
 
 I will give another case to illustrate the effects of AboHtionism upon the 
 Christian heart, with some collateral testimony, that what I tell you is correct. 
 I left a church in this city for good causes, the particulars of wliich I would 
 love to publish, but my limits forbid it. I withdrew in the regular way, by 
 taking my certificate of membership. Abolitionism was the cause. I went to 
 hear a young man stationed at another M. E. church, and I soon became much 
 attached to, aud sought an introduction with him, which took place in front 
 of his pulpit after preaching. I was pleased with his manners. He solicited my 
 certificate, which I gave him the next Sunday morning, and became a member 
 of 'his church. At the first interview, he told me that he was a Democrat in 
 his politics, and therefore I would never hear any partisan politics in the pul- 
 pit from him. I went with my wife regularly to hear him, and was edified, 
 and besought my friends to go and hear him also. But, after some weeks he 
 began to pray a little for the success of our arms, and not to Jehovah God, to 
 bless all righteous means to bring peace to our afflicted country, as he had 
 done formerly. The next Annual Conference stationed him at Hestonville. I 
 published a book called, " Pictures of Slavery and Freedom," which came out 
 in June 1863. I met him one day in the city. He said he would like to have 
 one of my books on Slavery, and gave me his Post-ofiice. I did not send the 
 book by mail, but visited his village in the following September on other busi- 
 ness, and took him the book. Tb niy great surprise I found him one of the 
 most heartless destructionists I had ever met. He told me that he bath prayed 
 and preached war ; that he prayed Grod to strengthen the arm of the President 
 to carry on this war until every traitor (Democrat of- course) was swept from 
 the country, north, south, east and west. That he approved of all the arbi- 
 trary arrests, and hoped that Abraham Lincoln would arrest and lock up all 
 who spoke against his ])olicy, for all such were traitors. He desired however 
 to read my iDook. I told him that if he would pledgehimself to read it through 
 and then bring it into the city and leave it at a certain store, I would lend it to 
 him. He agreed to the proposition, and I left the book, and told him to take 
 his own time and gather the facts it contained, and if I had misstated anything 
 to point it out to me in writing. The Rev. Gentleman promised me positively 
 to do so. I handed him the book, and bid him good-bye. The book was left 
 the next morning at tha book-store as agreed to, except the reading, with the 
 following note folded and put under the cover of the book without seal, and it 
 laid there about eight days before I got it, for I had no expectation that it 
 would have been brought in so soon. I will italicise some words in the note 
 that I wish noticed specially. 
 
 Hestonville, September, 1863. 
 Brother Robinson: — 
 
 Common courtesy demands that I should thank you for the loan of your book. I 
 opened and attempted to read it, but felt that it was a 2irofitles8 waste of time. Its style is 
 so barbarous, its egotism so offensive, its perversion of facts so apparent, and its ignorance 
 of history so glaring, that I am surprised you ever ventured to publish such a monument 
 of folly. Hoping that you will for ever dismiss from your mind the allusiofi that I am a 
 disciple of your school, I remain yours truly, Theodore Stevens. 
 
 This is the Rev. Theodore Stevens, a member of the Philadelphia Annual 
 Conference of M. E. Church. The reader will please take particular notice 
 of the words in his letter I have italicised. He declares that he did not read 
 any portion of the book, yet he took the liberty of making those insulting 
 charges against its author. I think comment would be an insult to all intelli- 
 gent readers, for the letter tells its own story. But I am somewhat puzzled 
 to define the last clause of said letter. " Hoping that you will for ever dismiss 
 from your iliind the allusion that I am a disciple of your school." The only 
 " allusions" I made in the debate we had when I loaned him the book, that I 
 recollect, were, that I thought ba was a minister of the gospel in our church. 
 
36 
 
 and that 1 also thought he was a democrat. One or both of these schools he 
 wished "dismissed from my mind." The alkision that he was a disciple of 
 your (my) school was offensive to him. I hope Brother Stevens will tell us 
 if it was either, and if it was, which ; or if it was both, to let us know, for it 
 is a very important matter to us all. You told me, sir, that you were a demo- 
 crat, and that you could be nothing else ; that your father lived on the eastern 
 shore of Maryland, and was a democrat, and that you had thus been educated 
 in that school. Therefore if that is the school you allude to, it was your own 
 fault that such a fatal blunder was made by me. 
 
 This conversation took place in (xreen Street Church on the Sunday night 
 before I handed you my certificate of membership, if I recollect correctly ; and 
 now you pray Grod to enable the 2^1'esident to sweep from the country every 
 democrat. For you told me that you prayed daily and hourl}', that this war 
 might go on until every traitor was swept from American soil. And in answer 
 to a question of mine ; whom you called and looked upon as traitors, you re- 
 plied, every man and woman who spoke against the war policy of Mr. Lincoln 
 ought to be exterminated, and that you prayed God to sweep the country of all 
 such. You will doubtless remember my reply, that was, that I had been a 
 member of the church from about fifteen years before you were born into the 
 world, and therefore had the greater experience. 
 
 I v/ill make another quotation from Helper's Impending Crisis. The former 
 one will be found on the 155th and 156th pages. 1 quote now from the 186th 
 and 187th pages, as follows: — 
 
 " To tlie summons of the righteous monitor within, we shall endeavor to prove faithful ; 
 no opportunity for inflicting a mortal wound in the side of slavery shall be permitted to 
 pass us unimproved. Thus, terror-engenderers of the south, hare roe fully and frankly de- 
 fined our j>osition ; we have no modijicutions to propose, no compromisea to offer, nothing to 
 retract. Frown, Sirs, fret, prepare your weapons, threat, strike, shoot, stab, bring on civil 
 war, dissolve the union, nay, annihilate the solar system if you will — do all this, more, 
 less, better, worse, anything— do what you will. Sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate 
 us; our purpose is as Jirrnly fixed as the eternal pillars of heaven ; we have determined to 
 aholish slavery, and so help us God, abolish it we loill ! Take this to bed with you to-night, 
 Sirs, and think about it, dream over it, and let us know how you feci to-morrow morning." 
 
 I have italicised the words I wish especially noticed, but read the whole 
 quotation with calm deliberation. Don't say it was written by a southern man, 
 and therefore it does not change the nature of the ca.'^c. No southern man 
 ever wrote it. I know one " Hinton Rowan Helper" gave his name to it and 
 received a foreign important mission for it. It chimed in too nicely with the 
 John Brown raid, as I said, to the previous quotation. There cannot be a 
 doubt but that it was written by the same parties who surrounded a table at 
 an eating-house in Boston, Massachusetts, in July or August 1859, with old 
 John Brown at their head. The whole company consisted of leading New 
 England politicians who now take the lead in both houses of Congress and 
 cabinet, who were overheard by an Irish gentleman, talking about Harper's 
 Ferry and arsenal, and the number of arms therein, a farm in Maryland, and 
 many other expressions that were not understood by the gentleman at the 
 time ; but on the report of the seizing of the arsenal at Harper's Ferry in the 
 following October, the whole conversation was fully explained and defined. 
 Read over what I have said before on this point. There never was published 
 a more wicked, slanderous, devilish, insulting work than this said Helper]s 
 book. If the devil had penned it, it could not have been any worse than this 
 Yankee production. It abounds throughout in the most extravagant, bitter 
 hatred, vindictives, and tirades of abuse. Gret the book and read it, and you 
 will wonder how such malice and fiilsehoods could have been written down on 
 paper. And yet sixty-eight Republican members of the United States Congress 
 endorsed it with their own signatures in the winter of 1859-60. 
 
 Now, while you read the quotations I have made from that book, remember 
 the endorsers are all at the head of the Grovernment of the United States, and 
 this fratricidal war. Then, was what is called the Southern rebellion "cause- 
 less;" and did the Son of Grod turn devil to induce the Southern states to resist 
 the constant infringements by Abolitionists on their_ Constitutional rights, in 
 order that air the abominable atrocities of this war might be perpetrated ? this 
 
37 
 
 is clearly the inference from the Philadelphia Conference resolutions, and from 
 many prayers and sermons before and since the passage of said resolutions, 
 and also some of the resolutions and speeches of the late G-encral Conference. 
 One of the so-called " Ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ," prayed powerfully 
 in one of our city churches for God to kill all copper-heads and pitch them 
 headlong into hell. Another at Phoenixville, Chester county, on Sunday 
 night, the 19th of June, prayed about in same style, and then in his sermon 
 that followed, he said he wanted to see every copper-head (democrat of course) 
 hung up by the neck, and let hang until they rotted, and he hoped that that 
 town would be cleansed of them soon, and recommended it to begin at the 
 Mansion House at the loAver end of the town, and hang all in tliQ Borough. 
 The patriotic declaration went through the congregation like electricity, and a 
 great shout was produced among the loyalists of that chiaroh. And one great 
 patriot (a member) sprang to his feet and proposed to begin at once on the 
 spot and hang all in the church first to the chandelier, and then rush to the 
 streets and lanes of that Borough, and hang all the rest to the_ sign-post or 
 other suitable places, and pledged the Son of Grod to assist them in their glori- 
 ous work of exterminating all the copper-heads, (democrats of course) and 
 then a glorious peace would ensue. The Rev. Mr. P. , has long labored for 
 such a result, and his heart may be made satisfied before long if he perseveres 
 in the intentions of the Philadelphia Conference resolutions. How the cop- 
 per-heads must have trembled. The celebrated Parson Brownlow, on the 
 same Sabbath afternoon addressed a meeting in the 12th street church of this 
 citj'', in the presence of Bishop Simpson, in which he recommended "all the 
 negroes be armed, and the lions and tigers of South America, the alligators 
 of Florida, and all the devils in hell to be fully armed, and all" (those mon- 
 sters) " turned loose in the Southern States against the whole white popula- 
 tion, and there kept until every white man, woman, and child were destroyed 
 and sent to hell." A shout rent the church, and loud praises went up to God for 
 such a great patriotic hero. These are only some of the results of the course 
 of this and other Conferences. Am I wi-ong in believing that all such are of 
 the devil, that they are his chosen people to destroy the true Christian church, 
 and the glorious Government of the United States that was won by our great 
 Sires of 1776, and by them adopted in 1787, that has given the whole nation 
 such a glorious union, peace, harmony, tranquility, and prosperity for seventy 
 years ? I appeal to all good Christians of all the different Christian churches 
 for the truth of what I say on this subject. And I call upon all the opposition 
 to the overthrow of this Great Constitutional Government, whether Democrats 
 or Whigs, to unite in solid phalanx against such atrocities by these inhuman 
 pretenders of Christianity. Let us sustain the true ones ; for there are manj- 
 true men among them; and "frown down" the wicked infidel AboHtion gos- 
 pel-preachers. By their fruits they are known. St. Paul commanded us to 
 "withdraw from all such." Then shall we support and honor them 
 with our presence? I say no, for our Lord said of all such, " Ye serpents, ye 
 generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" Therefore 
 shall we not sin against both heaven and earth by subscribing to and support- 
 ing any such men, or encouraging them with our presence at their preaching? 
 Let us rather hold up the hands of the true ones, and sustain them to the ex- 
 tent of our ability in every Christian form. I am for peace to this whole 
 nation, and then union by Clmstian means, and in no other way. 
 
 But are we to have peace, and if so, on what terms ? It seems to me, that 
 any man with the slightest perception ought to see what kind of peace we shall 
 have, if the States in rebellion should be brought into the Union as the Phila- 
 delphia Annual Conference and the late General Conference have resolved 
 upon. That is, by a complete subjugation by the sword, and a complete so- 
 cial and political equality of the white and negro races in this whole country. 
 Any man or woman who has studied human nature to any extent will readily 
 foresee what kind of apeace and union it would be. A union by force of arms 
 would end all freedom to the American people. Such a union would be the 
 worst kind of a despotism. If any State should be forced into the Union, and 
 compelled to stay in after having been forced in by the sword, that State would 
 not be a free State, but a subject to a tyrant. Or if any State in the Union 
 
38 
 
 should be compelled to remain in by the force of arms, the freedom of that 
 State ends the very moment the right of staying in or going out at pleasure 
 should be assumed by the rest of the States. And, if there had been a power 
 when we were a perfect Union, that could have issued an edict that would 
 have been binding ; that every State in the Union should have been compelled 
 ■ to remain in the Union for 500 years, every State in it Avoidd have become dis- 
 satisfied in less than one year, and civil war would have been the result in less 
 than five J'ears, and no peace could have been had, only such as is had under de- 
 spotic Grovernments. This is human nature, and all the Abrahams and Gene- 
 ral, and Annual Conferences in the world cannot change it. x\nd those who 
 attempt it, contend with the Eternal Grod, and as sure as God lives they shall 
 be made to lick the dust. Therefore, a peace on any such terms, will be a 
 most grinding, humiliating, and terrible peace. Yea, it will be a peace such 
 as they have in Turkey and Arabia. It will be a peace such as we have had 
 for the last three years in the free States. Men and women will he arrested 
 and banished into strange countries, penniless ; or will be cast into political 
 BastileS; or dungeons, without a hearing, or ever knowing what for. May 
 Heaven save us from such a peace and union. But let us have a peace and 
 union founded upon the eternal principles set forth by the Son of God, and 
 contended for by his apostles, and all true followers and seekers after a Chris- 
 tian peace. On such principles was the Government of the United States 
 founded. Therefore our peace flowed as rivers, and the Union of States was 
 voluntary, therefore free and confident. And had their lawful and just rights 
 not been interfered with, and they been threatened to be whipped in if they 
 attempted to go out, no State would ever have had a desire, or thought of 
 leaving the Union. Heaven itself wpuld be a hell, were men and women 
 forced to go there, under an arbitrai-y law, sealing their fate, to remain there 
 throughout eternity; therefore God never decreed that any man should go 
 there and remain against his own will. If he had so decreed, none of his 
 chosen people would ever have followed him in pleasure, but in malice and 
 hatred. God made white men in his own imaee, and intended them for Self- 
 Government, and therefore he gave them a will of their own, and the princi- 
 ples and cai3ability to take charge of this world, to manage, rule, and cultivate 
 it, until they should usher in the great millennium foretold in the Bible, or the 
 time Avhen " The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall He 
 down with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together ; 
 and a little child shall lead them." Isa. xi. 0. This was given by the prophet 
 to denote what was to be the glory of man in this world through ithe preaching 
 of the gospel, and a faithful obedience to the moral law. He gave us the 
 Christian Bible and ministry for our security that the great millennium should 
 first appear in this our country; but alas, a majority of these safeguards 
 (the ministry) have preferred the example of " Judas" and betray ed_ their 
 Lord and master; and unless they speedily repent, turn, and forsake_ their evil 
 way, our hope of millennial glory has gone out, never to return to this land, as 
 a starting place for a pure free Christian Government. God has made us free 
 to choose and make our own laws and regulations for our own Government, 
 and he will aid and guide us in safety as long as we respect the only infallible 
 law ever written in this world (the Bible) ; all human laws are fallible, and 
 therefore, unless the blessing of God shall rest upon us, we can never have a 
 pleasant peace, and none but such a peace and union as they have had in Mex- 
 ico from the time they freed their negroes, and placed them on a perfect poli- 
 tical, civil, and social equality. No free Constitutional Government has ever 
 . yet existed with peace, harmony, and union, where the negro race had any- 
 thing to do with it, except as menial laborers, nor never will, for God has thus 
 made them to serve those of whom he said, " For unto me the children of Is- 
 rael are servants ; whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt : I am the 
 Lord yoiu- God." Lev. xxv. 59. Please read this chapter from the 38th to 
 the 55th without prejudice or favor. Don't let j'our prejudices destroy you, 
 both soul and body : and with you the best Government ever formed since the 
 one formed in Eden, which was formed by God's own wisdom and economy, 
 and where perhaps the incumbents had servants to do the menial labor, which 
 servants were used as instruments by old Apollyon to overthrow that glorious 
 
39 
 
 Grovernment formed by eternal ■wi>'clnni; tlie overthrow of which brought tlie 
 Son of Grod mto our world to save us from the rains of a broken law ; and to 
 do which he suffered martyrdom upon the cross. Those servants, or the one 
 that was used by the devil for the overthrow of our race was called a serpent, 
 because of his serpentine act in beguiling Eve to break the law. Read Adam 
 Clark's opinion of the serpent that overpowered Eve in argument, and you will 
 have a slight key to my views of the character of that serpent. To bring us 
 as near back to oiu- primitive and heavenly state, as possible in our fallen state, 
 God has caused a race of human beings to spring up in the world, (growing 
 out of the disrespect of Ham to his old father Noah, over 4200 years ago, while 
 in an accidentally unfortunate condition, (see 21st to 27_th ix. Gen.) to do the 
 menial labor for his chosen people. And now we are likely to be overthrown 
 in almost the same way, and may be thrown back another 6000 years. Eve 
 was beguiled by placing hei-self on an equality to a servant God had given her, 
 and we are doing far worse than Eve did, for she merely listened to the argu- 
 ments of one fai'beneatli her ; but our Government rulers are slaughtering, 
 and having slaughtered hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of 
 God's chosen people, to place us on a perfect political, civil, social, and ma- 
 trimonial equality with the African negroes. Though God had formed them so 
 abhorrent to nearly all of our senses, that it was thought by all good men in 
 this country when the Constitution was adopted, that no respectable set of 
 men or women would ever be found in this chosen land, for the re-establish- 
 ment of God's temporal kingdom in this sin-stricken_woi'ld, who would ever 
 sink so low as to advocate such wickedness. God will never work out his 
 plans for our restoration to purity, by arbitrary power ; such a rule over his 
 people has no favor in his heart ; for he has not indicated such a rule any where 
 in his written or revealed law, for the moral culture of the human race ; but he 
 placed this new paradise in our hands to be managed by us, his chosen people, 
 the pure Anglo-Am(5rican race. No people who have the slightest stain of African 
 blood in their veins will ever be made managers of a free Government. If 
 this be not true, how is it that the African race in their native Africa have 
 been sinking lower and lower for the last 4000 years? And w|iy are they now 
 so far down below any of the animal tribes of the forest? Are there any among 
 the animal creation that kill and eat their own species? If there _ are, then 
 there is an animal as low down in the scale of civilization and morality as the 
 native African race. Look at our condition now, that we have been brought 
 down to by our attempts to raise that race in this countrj' to be the white 
 man's equal ! The Eternal God has withdrawn his guiding blessings, and left 
 us to ourselves, and if we succeed in the wicked undertaking of freeing all the 
 negroes, and taking theiu to our bosom and beds, our Constitutional lamp of 
 freedom will go out, to be kindled no more, perhaps for ever. Where is there 
 a nation or tnbe on the globe who have a mixture _ of African bipod in their 
 veins, who make any encouraging show for civiHzation, pure Christianity and 
 Self-Government ? "There is no such to be found. And on the other hand, 
 where is there to be found a pure white race on the face of the globe, who are 
 
 Answer these questions by historical facts, ye Abolition gospel preachers, be- 
 fore you take any more steps for negro equahty. For you have already de- 
 stroyed the glory not only of the Chi'istian church, but also of this, great na- 
 tion, whose great general head was the Son of God. God is against all despot- 
 ic Governments over his people. Man glorifies God by governing himself, as 
 the people of the United States did for seventy-five years ; or until the Abo- 
 litionists got the reins of the general Government into their hands; From that 
 day " Ichabod" was written upon the Capitol gates of this nation, and one of 
 the first steps taken by the i infidel crew was to elect an infidel Abolition gospel 
 preacher, over a true preacher of Christ, as Chaplain to Congress.^ Yet the Phi- 
 ladelphia Annual Conference, and General Conference of the M. E. church in the 
 United States, endorsed it with all the other abominations of the party now in 
 power. May Heaven save us from the influences of Abolition gospel preachers. 
 They say slavery made this wa;r, and must be blotted out. I have already 
 
l_j.Di\m\i v»r \.«i^\^r\i.^ 
 
 I 
 
 40 III 
 
 013 703 352 5 
 
 proven that slavery did not make the war, but was made the pretext to get up a war against 
 the slave States for j)lunder and robbery, and to destroy the freedom of the Government. 
 They say slavery is a sin against heaven and earth. They tind one single passage in the whole 
 Scriptural code to sustain the assertion, and that is the passage in Matthew, " Do unto others 
 as you would have them to do unto you." This passage is just as binding on the slave 
 to do his duty to his master, as it is on the master to treat his slaves as exhorted to do by 
 St, Paul, in so many letters to brother apostles, and recorded in the New Testament Scrip- 
 tures for our instruction on that great subject. It also binds the Abolitionists to treat the 
 masters as they would be treated. Let them give us some infallible rule to sustain their 
 assertion, that no one man has a right to own another; and I for one will be content; but 
 they give us no authority to sustain their declaration, but call us traitors and copper-heads 
 for dissenting from them. Abolition gospel preachers, can you name any infallible moral 
 law to sustain your blood-thirsty opinions? Doubtless you will agree that the Bible is the 
 only moral rule and guide to the Christian's conscience. Now, if you have found any 
 other safe guide you are bound to give it to the public, as preachers of righteousness. 
 Jesus Christ, whom you profess tg represent, left no other guide for our faith and con- 
 science, nor did he name any other. But he commanded us toj " search the Scriptures, for 
 in them yc think ye have eternal life: and thej' are they which testify of me." Therefore 
 the Scriptures are infallible, with all their precepts and teachings. But your opinions as 
 well as mine are fallible, and all the books written subsequently are just as fallible as you 
 and I arc. Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Misses Ghrimkes, Mrs. Childs, Dred, the Impend- 
 ing Crisis, by Helper, Rev. H. W. Beecher, Wendell Phillips, or Abraham Lincoln, and 
 all of his advisers and lovers are alike fallible. And therefore ill of their opinions on any 
 moral question must be judged by the one and only infallible guide, the H0I3' Bible. Now 
 show me one single passage in the book of God from which even an inference can be ga- 
 thered by any fair, honest construction or application to negro slavery, and I for one will 
 yield the whole question, when decided in your favor by any competent commentators. I 
 would allow you to choose Dr. Adam Clark for your arbiter, though he did say that the 
 punishments of hell were inadequate to the crime of slavery. Yet I will accept him, or Bur- 
 kitt, both of whom were English commentators, or any other competent divine, who wrote 
 in view of the judgment day of God. Turn to the passages I have referred to, a few 
 pages back in this reply, and read them in view of meeting me at the eternal judgment 
 bar, remembering that the Bible is infallible, and the only infajlliblc moral instructor. If 
 you are a professed infidel, and deny the infallibility of the Bible, then I will meet you on 
 the nature of the African race wherever they are found on the face of the globe. I will 
 meet you on every historical fact concerning their fitness for freedom and Self-government. 
 I will go with you through Mexico, Central America, New Granada, Venezuela, Equador, 
 German, French, and British Guiana, and all the West India li;inds, and if I don't prove 
 to you that the negroes in nineteen cases out of every twenty have fallen far into heathen- 
 ism by freedom, and are a thousand times worse off than they were before freedom, I will 
 yield the whole question, and record my name against slavery. If I do not also prove 
 that there are now over 2,500,000 square miles of the very best land in the world in the 
 above named territories, thrown out and have become a wilderifess, in consequence of the 
 universal freedom and equality of the negro race with the white race, and that the freed 
 negro will not till the ground for love nor money, I will yield ail my opinions on this part 
 of the question of the war policy. And if you will show me any native Africans who have 
 ever emigrated from their native land to try to better their o«ndition, and have gone to 
 work and cleared the soil and built themselves up comfortable houses ; or any number of 
 American free or freed negroes (pure black negroes) who have emigrated West, East, North, 
 or South, by their own choice and will, and gone to work and built themselves up comfort- 
 able homes, and in any degree become useful in the impi-ovements of the country or to so- 
 ciety, or any other improvement to either church or state, I will on such a showing agree 
 that all men are created free and equal. Throw away your apologies and excuses for their 
 degradation, and show us some evidence of the fitness of the negroes for freedom and equal- 
 ity with us, and at the next" annual Conference, name them by a solemn resolve, and if 
 you find historical facts to fully sustain them, I will be for freedom. I will give one more 
 witness to prove that this abominable war was got up by the peojile of the free States. The 
 Hon. Edward Everett, of Mass. was written to by a gentleman of this city in 1861, to ad- 
 dress a Constitutional Union meeting. He answered, but declined, and gave his reasons as 
 follows : — " There is no use of addressing any more meetings for ike Union, unhsu the free 
 States will repeal all their unconstitutional 2)ersonal liberty hillt." You will certainly re- 
 spect this witness, for he very soon after writing this letter, took shelter in Abraham's 
 bosom, and is now safely lodged there with all the shodiies, Ac, Ac, <fec. David said, "I 
 am for peace, but I when I speak they are for war." It is even now possible for the Chris- 
 tian church to save this great nation alive with all its resources of peace, pleasure, and 
 prosperity, if the professed Christian ministry will turn to their only hope of salvation, 
 and the political salvation of this once happy and peaceful nation, and cast themselves en- 
 tirely upon the mercy and will of him who said, " Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Now Abolition gospel-preachers, and all who name 
 the name of the Son of God, will you not for Christ's sake do this, that this great nation 
 may live again ? Methodist ministers take the lead in so glorious a work, that heaven and 
 earth may again kiss each other.