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 REMARKS OF REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 Late of Andover Theological Seminary, 
 
 GS!©[!Kfir FMfiHPKiyi'ir 
 
 II EXAMINATION OF HIS SCRIPTURAL EXEGESIS, 
 
 ENTITLED, 
 
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 €wmmn irafr tip Constittitinn : 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 
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 Nao-Sork : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. A. GRAY, 79 FULTON, COR. OF GOLD 
 
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REPLY 
 
 TO 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 Lately a Professor in the Theological Seminary at Andover, 
 ON 
 
 HON. JOHN JAY, 
 
 AND AN 
 
 EXAMINATION OF HIS SCRIPTURAL EXEGESIS. 
 
 CONTAINED IN HIS RECENT PAMPHLET 
 
 ENTITLED, 
 
 "CONSCIENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION:" 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 $fau>-8ork : 
 
 PRINTED BY JOHN A. GRAY, 79 FULTON, COR. OF GOLD ST. 
 
 1850. 
 
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llfpllj. 
 
 Rev. Sir : 
 
 In your late work, " Conscience and the Constitu- 
 tion," you have by a coarse and clumsy device attempted 
 to rebuke me in the name of my honored parent. The char- 
 acter of your assault upon me is intended to convey the im- 
 pression, without the responsibility of a direct assertion, that 
 were John Jay now alive he would concur with you in sus- 
 taining the course of Mr. Webster, and in condemning the 
 doctrine of the sinfulness of human bondage. I owe it to his 
 memory, to save it from such a stigma. 
 
 You refrain from quoting the " declarations," by which, as 
 you assert, I " degrade and vilify " my own parent, and 
 "hold him up to contempt." The justice which you deny 
 me, I accord to you, and give the language on which I intend 
 to comment : — 
 
 " I could not help thinking more particularly on one great 
 and good man, who took an active part in all the formative 
 process of our General Government, and by his skill and wis- 
 dom saved our new settlements from the horrors of Indian 
 aggression. Every one will, of course, know that I speak of 
 the illustrious John Jay. What if his portrait had been 
 hanging in the hall where the Anti-slavery Society recently 
 met under the presiding auspices of his descendant? Would 
 it not have brought to every mind the recollection of what 
 the Earl of Chatham said, when addressing a descendant 
 1 
 
4 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 (then in the House of Commons) of a noble ancestor, whose 
 picture was in full view ? His words were, ' From the tap- 
 estry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor looks 
 down and frowns upon his degenerate offspring.' I must ex- 
 cept, in my application of this declaration, the last two words. 
 They should not be applied to such a man as the Hon. Will- 
 iam Jay. But I may say : Would not his immortal ancestor 
 have looked down with a mixture of sorrow and of frowning, 
 on a descendant who could exhort his countrymen to disre- 
 gard and trample under foot the Constitution which his father 
 had so signally helped to establish ; and who could pour out 
 an unrestrained torrent of vituperation upon Mr. Webster, 
 who has taken up the Constitution where Mr. Jay's ancestor 
 had left it, and stood ever since in the place of the latter as 
 its defender and expounder ? How would that agitated and 
 frowning face moreover have gathered blackness, when the 
 presiding officer of that meeting went on to say, that Mr. 
 Webster had not made his speech from any conviction of 
 sentiment, but because the cotton merchants and manufac- 
 turers of Boston demanded such views to be maintained, and 
 these gentiy had of course given it their approbation ? This — 
 all this — of such a man as Mr. Webster. And all this, too, 
 of the Boston gentlemen who commended Mr. Webster's 
 speech ! To one who knows them as well as I do, this is 
 absolutely shocking. At all events, it is ungentlemanly ; it 
 is passionate ; and what is more than all — it is absolutely 
 false. To see the Hon. W. Jay presiding over such a meet- 
 ing, and opening it with declarations which degrade and vil- 
 ify his illustrious ancestor, and hold him up to contempt, 
 forces from one the spontaneous exclamation : O quantum mu- 
 tatus abillo /" P. 62. 
 
 There is, sir, throughout your book, a freedom both of 
 language and of censure, and a recklessness of consequences 
 both to yourself and others, that bespeak at least great 
 frankness. It is therefore singular, that in the above passage 
 3<ou should shrink from applying to me the epithet of " de- 
 generate offspring," — an epithet I most richly merit, if w r hat 
 you say of me be true. Your disclaimer is not in keeping 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. 5 
 
 either with your language, or with your usual apparent sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 You think the portrait of John Jay, at the late meeting, 
 would have reminded all of the words you quote from Chat- 
 ham. The reason why I presided over the Anti-slavery 
 Society is, that now I am old, I do not depart from the way 
 in which I w r as early trained by parental precept and ex;i tri- 
 ple. The first Anti-slavery Society ever formed in New- 
 York, assembled in 17S5, under "the presiding auspices" of 
 John Jay. The first clause of the preamble to its constitu- 
 tion contained the following affirmation : — 
 
 " The benevolent Creator and Father of men having given 
 to them all an equal right to life, liberty and property, no sover- 
 eign power on earth can justly deprive them of either, but in 
 conformity to impartial government and laws to which they 
 have expressly or tacitly consented." 
 
 Here, you perceive, sir, there is a recognition of a Power 
 above every constitution and government on earth. And 
 what inference was drawn from the asserted gift of the " be- 
 nevolent Creator and Father of men"? — "It is therefore 
 our duty, both as free citizens and Christians, not only to re- 
 gard with compassion the injustice done to those among us 
 who are held as slaves, but to endeavor by lawful ways and 
 means to enable them to share equally with us in that civil 
 and religious liberty with which an indulgent Providence 
 has blessed these States, and to which our brethren are as 
 much entitled as ourselves." You now discover, sir, 
 that your denunciations against Abolitionists for their disre- 
 gard for the laws of Moses, the precepts of Christ, and the 
 teachings of the apostles, reach even the ancestor of him 
 you have so ruthlessly assailed. 
 
 On the 12th Nov., 1785, the Society ordered a reprim of 
 2,000 copies of a certain pamphlet first published in 1770, and 
 which in modern parlance would be described as " incendi- 
 ary, inflammatory, and insurrectionary in the highest degree*" 
 With the temerity and insolence still lingering among Aboli- 
 tionists, it was dedicated " To the Honorable Members 
 of the Continental Congress." I know not whether 
 
6 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 the following extracts will most excite your astonishment or 
 indignation: — 
 
 " We naturally look to you in behalf of more than half a 
 million of persons in these colonies, who are under such a 
 degree of oppression and tyranny as to be wholly deprived 
 of all civil and personal liberty, to which they have as good a 
 right as any of their fellow-men, and are reduced to the most 
 abject state of bondage and slavery, without any just cause. . . . 
 It is observable that when the Swiss were engaged in their 
 struggle for liberty, in which they so remarkably succeeded, 
 they entered into the following public resolve : ' No Swiss 
 shall take away anything by violence from another, neither 
 in time of war, nor peace.' How reasonable and important 
 is it, that we should at this time heartily enter into and thor- 
 oughly execute such a resolution ? And that this implies the 
 emancipation of all our African slaves, surely no one can 
 doubt. . . . May you judge the poor of the people, save the chil- 
 dren of the needy, relieve the oppressed, and deliver the 
 spoiled out of the hands of the oppressor, and be the happy 
 instruments of procuring and establishing universal liberty 
 to white and black, to be transmitted down to the latest pos- 
 terity." 
 
 On reading the tract thus dedicated, one is almost tempted to 
 pronounce it a forgery by some of the fanatical Abolitionists 
 of the present day, so remarkably does it correspond in sen- 
 timent and expression with their own writings. The follow- 
 ing is like some of that plain talk which so grievously offends 
 you : — " Why should the ministers of the gospel hold their 
 peace, and not testify against this great and public iniquity ? 
 How can they refuse to plead the cause of those oppressed 
 poor against their cruel oppressor? They are commanded to 
 lift up their voice and cry aloud, and show the people their 
 sins. Have we not reason to fear many of them have 
 offended Heaven by their silence, through fear of the masters 
 who stand ready to make war against any one who attempts 
 to deprive them of their slaves ; or because they themselves 
 have slaves which they are not willing to give up? A number 
 of churches in New-England have purged themselves of this 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. 7 
 
 iniquity, and determined not to tolerate slavery. If all the 
 churches in these United States would come to the same 
 measure, and imitate the Friends, called Quakers, would 
 they not act more like Christian churches than they now do ? " 
 
 Abolitionists, we are told, are vituperative ; but this is no 
 new thing; their fathers were so before them. "Though 
 your horse, which had been stolen from' you, has passed 
 through many hands, and been sold ten times, you think you 
 have a right to demand and take him, in whosesoever hands 
 you find him, without refunding a farthing of what he cost 
 him ; and yet, though your negroes prove their right to them- 
 selves, and constantly make a demand upon you to deliver 
 them up, you refuse till they pay the full price you gave for 
 them, because the civil law will not oblige you to do it. — ' Thou 
 Hypocrite.' Luke xiii. 15." 
 
 You affirm that " if Abolitionists are to be heard, God 
 has sanctioned not only a positive evil, but one of the 
 greatest of all crimes." P. 43. What think } r ou then, sir, 
 of the blasphemy of John Jay and his associates, who dared 
 to disseminate such doctrine as the following? — "If it be not 
 a sin, an open, flagrant violation of all the rules of justice 
 and humanity, to hold these slaves in bondage, it is folly to 
 put ourselves to any trouble and expense to free them ; but 
 if the contrary be true — if it be a sin of crimson dye, this 
 reformation cannot be urged with too much zeal, nor at- 
 tempted too soon, whatever difficulties are in the way." 
 
 Abuse of "our Southern brethren" is one of the many 
 crimes charged by you upon Abolitionists ; but you should 
 recollect that the vice is hereditary. Here is some veiy 
 old-fashioned abuse — contesting the plea that slave labor 
 is indispensable in hot climates, the New-York Society 
 say : — " There is not the least evidence of this, but 
 much to the contrary. The truth is, most of the whites 
 which are born in the Southern States, or the West Indies, 
 are not educated to labor, but great part of them in idleness 
 and intemperance. The blacks are introduced to do the work, 
 and it is thought a disgrace for a white person to gel his living 
 by labor. By this means the whites in general are vicious, and 
 
3 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 all imbibe a haughty, tyrannical spirit by holding so many 
 slaves, and many of them, rather a plague than a blessing to 
 all about them." 
 
 Not only did the Society publish this powerful Anti-slavery 
 tract of 60 pages, but they also reprinted " An Address to 
 the Owners of Slaves in the American Colonies." I 
 have room for only one extract from this Address : — " You 
 who are professors of religion, and yet the owners of slaves, 
 are entreated well to consider how you must appear in the 
 sight of God, and of all who view your conduct in a true 
 light, while you attend your family and public devotions, and 
 sit down from time to time at the table of the Lord. If your 
 neighbor wrong you of a few shillings, you think him utterly 
 unfit to attend that sacred ordinance with you : but what is 
 this to the wrong you are doing to your brethren whom you 
 are holding in slavery ! Should a man at Algiers have a 
 number of your children his slaves, and should he by some 
 means be converted, and become a professor of Christianity, 
 would you not expect he would soon set your children at 
 liberty ? " 
 
 These two tracts were, by the order of the Society, sent 
 to each member of Congress, together with the Constitution, 
 and the names of the officers. You will be amazed, sir, at 
 the audacious impudence of such a measure, and especially 
 when you recollect that John Jay, under whose " presiding 
 auspices" all this was done, was at the very moment holding, 
 at the pleasure of Congress, the most important and I believe 
 the most lucrative office in the Government. Yet strange as 
 it may appear to you, and the present race of Northern poli- 
 ticians, he was neither removed from office, nor rebuked for 
 his fanaticism and irreligion. 
 
 Mr. Jay was not a nominal President. In his official ca- 
 pacity he corresponded with an Anti-slavery Society in 
 France, and with another in England, and in his letter to the 
 latter remarked, " We will cheerfully co-operate with you in 
 endeavoring to procure advocates for the same cause in other 
 countries." In this same letter he declared that it was un- 
 doubtedly very inconsistent with the declarations of the United 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. 9 
 
 States, " on the subject of human rights, to permit a single 
 slave to be found within their jurisdiction," and added, " We 
 confess the justice of your strictures on that head." And all 
 this to Englishmen ! Certainly John Jay's patriotism was 
 much on a par with that of modern Abolitionists. He con- 
 tinued to occupy the chair of the Society till 1792, when he 
 resigned it, on taking his seat on the bench, as Chief Justice 
 of the United States. The elevation of an avowed Abolition- 
 ist, and the President of an Anti-slavery Society, to such a 
 station must excite your astonishment. To use your words 
 in respect to his son, it was " absolutely shocking." The 
 reason was, sir, that the servility of Northern politicians had 
 not then, as at present, conferred on the slaveholders the 
 power of excluding from office under the Federal Govern- 
 ment every known advocate of the rights of man. 
 
 During the Revolutionary War he wrote : " Till America 
 comes into this measure," (gradual abolition,) "her prayers to 
 Heaven for liberty will be impious ;" and at the same period, 
 having occasion to draft a deed of manumission, he prefaced 
 it with — " Whereas the children of men are by nature equally 
 free, and cannot without injustice be either reduced to, or held 
 in slavery." 
 
 On the whole, sir, I natter myself that there are some 
 minds to which my father's portrait at the late meeting would 
 not have suggested the words, "degenerate offspring," when 
 they beheld me following his example in presiding over an 
 Anti-slavery Society, and using strong language in reference 
 to human bondage. 
 
 You are pleased to ask in reference to myself, " Would not 
 his immortal ancestor have looked down with a mixture of 
 sorrow and of frowning on a descendant who could exhort his 
 countrymen to disregard and trample under foot the Constitu- 
 tion which his father had so signally helped to establish V 
 Your whole book bears ample testimony to the heedlessness 
 with which it was written. The extreme irritation caused by 
 the obloquy 3-ou had incurred by unadvisedly endorsisg the 
 dubious morality of Mr. Webster's course, did not pennii you 
 to weight he terms you employed, nor to consider the justice 
 
10 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 of the denunciations you fulminated. The charge you prefer 
 against me is founded on my printed Address ; yet it did not 
 occur to you that it would be but fair to quote the exhortation to 
 which you refer. Had you looked for it for the purpose of trans- 
 ferring it to your pages, you would not have found it. I gave 
 my reasons for believing the Mason and Webster bill of abomi- 
 nations a gross violation of the Constitution, and I did exhort 
 such of my hearers as regarded slavery a sin not to incur the 
 guilt of that sin, by aiding in reducing a fugitive once more to 
 bondage ; and I contended that, in all cases, it was our duty 
 to obey what we believed to be the commands of God, in 
 preference to the opposite commands of men. At the same 
 time I reminded my hearers that, when we could not consci- 
 entiously obey the laws of the land, Ave were bound to endure 
 the penalties of our disobedience, without making any forcible 
 resistance to their infliction. It is strange that a Christian 
 divine, who had spent forty years in thestudy of the Bible, 
 should controvert these great principles, or insult me for 
 uttering them. Had my father, sir, listened to my address, 
 he would have rejoiced in the evidence it afforded that his 
 efforts to bring me up in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord had not been wholly unavailing. As President of the 
 New-York Society, he drafted a petition to the Legislature, 
 praying for a law prohibiting the selling of slaves out of the 
 State. The petition thus commenced : " Your memorialists 
 being deeply affected by the situation of those who, though 
 free by the laws of God, are held in slavery by the laws 
 of this State." His name was placed at the head of this pe- 
 tition, and was followed by one hundred and twenty-two more. 
 Here was a declaration of one of the most offensive principles 
 of the modern Abolitionists, — a principle which you, if I un- 
 derstand your book, deem impious. It is because I regard a 
 fugitive free by the laws of God, that I cannot aid in reducing 
 him to slavery ; and because I refuse to join you and Mr. 
 Webster in catching runaways, you pour upon me the vials of 
 your indignant wrath. 
 
 I feel little disposed, sir, to examine your arguments in be- 
 half of slavery, since it is the strange peculiarity of your very 
 
ON HON". JOHN JAY. H 
 
 queer book, that on building up and completing an argument 
 you immediately knock it down. Abolitionists contend that 
 American slavery is sinful. You are shocked at the reproach 
 they thus cast upon the volume of inspiration and its Divine 
 Author. To that blessed volume you call their attention, and 
 introduce them to slaveholding patriarchs. You prove by 
 arithmetical calculation that the Father of the Faithful owned, 
 a gang of one thousand five hundred and ninety slaves. 
 Well, did that justify American slavery? You answer, 
 " What Christ has commanded us is our rule, and not what 
 the patriarchs did, who lived when the light was just begin- 
 ning to dawn." P. 26. So much for Abraham and his gang! 
 Turning your back upon the patriarchs, you advance to Moses. 
 You examine his laws, and triumphantly point to a statute 
 which, as you suppose, authorizes the purchase of slaves from 
 the neighboring nations. Well, does the former bondage of 
 Syrian heathen justify the present bondage of African heathen 
 and their descendants ? Again you answer : " None can rea- 
 son from the case of the Jews — the one favored, pre-eminent, 
 secluded nation — to the case of men who lived after the com- 
 ing of Him who broke down the middle wall of partition be- 
 tween Jews and Gentiles, proclaimed one common God and 
 Father of all, one common Redeemer and Sanctifier ; that this 
 God is no respecter of persons, and that he has made of one 
 blood all the nations that dwell upon the face of the earth. I 
 say, none can now crave liberty to purchase slaves of the Gen- 
 tiles or Jews on the ground of Mosaic permission." P. 36. So 
 much for Moses and his heathen slaves ! 
 
 From the Old Testament you turn to the New, with an air 
 of most perfect confidence, to demonstrate the lawfulness of 
 slavery. Christ, you tell us, took no special cognizance of 
 slavery, and if it were malum in se he cannot be free from " the 
 imputation of gross neglect and abandonment of duty as a 
 preacher of righteousness," p. 45. Paul and Peter expressly 
 sanctioned slavery in their epistles, and the former sent back 
 a runaway slave. " Paul's Christian conscience would not 
 permit him to injure the vested rights of Philemon." Again, 
 "The conscience of Paul sends back the fugitive without any 
 
12 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 obligation at all on the ground of compact." P. 61. You mean 
 Paul's ancestors had not formed a Constitution by which they 
 mutually agreed to surrender fugitives. Well, does the course 
 pursued by Christ and his apostles prove the righteousness of 
 American slavery ? For the third time you give a most 
 rational and satisfactory answer : "It" (American slavery) 
 "is a glaring contradiction of the first and fundamental prin- 
 ciple, not only of the Bible, which declares that all are of one 
 blood, but of our Declaration of Independence, which avers 
 that all men are born (created) with an inherent and inalien- 
 able right to life, liberty, and property. As existing among 
 us slavery has taken its worst form : it degrades men made 
 in the image of their God and Redeemer into brute beasts, or 
 (which makes them still lower) converts them into mere 
 goods and chattels. In this form of slavery all the sacred, 
 social relations of life are destroyed. Husband and wife, 
 parent and child, brother and sister, are not known in law, 
 nor protected nor recognized by it. In conformity with this, 
 these relations are every day severed by some slave-dealers, 
 without regard to the feelings of the wretched beings who are 
 torn asunder, and all their parental, conjugal, and filial sym- 
 pathies are the subject of scorn, if not derision. No inva- 
 sion of human rights can be worse than this, — none more di- 
 rectly opposed to the will of God inscribed upon the pages of 
 the Scriptures, and on the very nature of mankind." P. 103. 
 And thus you go on for about five pages, describing the horrors 
 aiad abominations of slavery, and the licentiousness and 
 wickedness in which it involves the whites. In short, the 
 slave region is pretty much of a Pandemonium. There is 
 one regulation which particularly excites your indignation, 
 but which is however in perfect keeping with the place and 
 the system : "In some of the States" (you might have said 
 in almost every one) " the learning even to read is forbidden, 
 thus contravening with a high hand the command of Heaven 
 to search the Scriptures. In such case obedience to a human 
 law is crime, it is treason against the majesty of Heaven." 
 P. 104. Really, sir, had my father, as you imagined, frowned 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. 13 
 
 upon me for maintaining the duty of disobeying a sinful law, 
 I might have called upon you to plead my apology. 
 
 And now, sir, if some poor wretch who had escaped from 
 this bad place, where the body is tortured, the heart crushed, 
 and the soul perishes for lack of knowledge, should be found 
 in Massachusetts, even at Andover, that mount of vision, 
 where Bibles are plenty, where schools are open, and where 
 the servants of the Lord teach the true orthodox faith, would 
 you seize him and thrust him back into the midst of the pol- 
 lutions, the miseries, and the spiritual darkness you have de- 
 scribed ? Certainly, — in the fullness of your gratitude you 
 have publicly thanked Mr. Daniel Webster for recalling you 
 to your constitutional duty. It would seem that it was by 
 him, and not by Saint Paul, that you have been awakened to 
 the duty of catching fugitives ; and now your conscience 
 would not permit you to injure " the vested rights " of Bruin, 
 or any other trafficker in human flesh. " The Constitution in 
 respect to fugitives held to service or labor must be obeyed. 
 It is useless to talk about conscience as setting it aside." P. 71. 
 So the Constitution and Paul's respect for Philemon's vested 
 rights leave you no discretion ; even Conscience may not in- 
 terpose her veto. But — " I would not have upon my con- 
 science the guilt of turning God's image, redeemed by the 
 blood of his Son, and made free by the Lord Jesus Christ 
 himself, into goods and chattels. I Mould not bring on my 
 soul that guilt for ten thousand worlds." P. 117. Certainly, 
 sir, there are, as you say, various kinds of consciences, and 
 some of them have the oscillations of a pendulum. 
 
 You have rendered any reply to your Scriptural arguments 
 in behalf of slavery unnecessary ; but I am skeptical as to 
 your asserted fact that St. Paul was a slave-catcher. You as- 
 sume without evidence that the servant of Philemon was a 
 slave. Without admitting this assumption, it is too favorable 
 to my present purpose to be now questioned by me. Accord- 
 ing to our Biblical chronology, the Epistle to Philemon was 
 written A. D. 64, the year after Paul arrived in Rome, \\ bere 
 he lived two whole years in his own hired house, and received 
 all that came unto him. Among those attracted to his dwell- 
 
14 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 ing by his preaching and conversation was a poor stranger. 
 By some means the apostle discovered that his humble but 
 attentive visitor was a runaway slave belonging to his friend 
 Philemon at Colosse. What course under such circumstances 
 would your conscience h^ive prompted you to take, had you 
 been in the apostle's plaee ? It would have warned you not 
 to "injure the vested rights" of your friend. Under this ad- 
 monition you would have \nstantly sent for one of the Fugi- 
 tivarii, a body of men at Rome whose profession it was to 
 catch fugitive slaves, — a profession which, under the counte- 
 nance of some eminent men in State and Church, may soon 
 be introduced into Massachusetts, as it already is in the 
 Southern States. The Fugitivarius, on being informed when 
 the slave would probably next visit you, would be on the 
 watch ; and, having seized him, would handcuff him and 
 hurry him off to Colosse, and there receive the usual reward 
 from the master. Not so St. Paul. He took the slave into his 
 house, as seems intimated by the context, he harbored him, 
 and refrained from giving Philemon any intelligence respect- 
 ing him. He continued his instructions to this poor, ignorant 
 slave, and was rewarded by his conversion. Having thus 
 begotten him in his bonds, he loved him, and called him his 
 son. His affection for the slave and his regard for the master 
 made him desirous of re-uniting them, being persuaded that 
 the happiness of both would thus be advanced. Formerly 
 Philemon had been a loser by Onesimus, but now the new 
 convert to Christ was in a capacity to be useful to his late 
 master, as he was already to the apostle. He is, said St. 
 Paul, "now profitable to thee and to me." How 'profitable*} 
 Had St. Paul been making money by the labor of his slave- 
 convert? He was profitable precisely in the same sense that 
 St. Paul's friend would have been had he been at Rome. "I 
 would have retained him, that in thy stead he might have 
 ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel." The Chris- 
 tian ministration of prayer and sympathy which Philemon 
 would joyfully have rendered to the apostle, he was now him- 
 self about to receive from his former slave. But, if Paul 
 wished to retain his convert with him, why did he not do so ? 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAT. 15 
 
 He tells his friend, " Without thy mind I would do nothing." 
 That is, as you understand him, " Without your leave I would 
 not injure your vested rights in your Christian chattel." Very 
 different are the words of the apostle : " Without thy mind I 
 would do nothing, that thy benefit should not be as it were of 
 necessity, but willingly." The benefit here spoken of was 
 obviously one to be conferred by Philemon, not received by 
 him ; and the apostle, by restoring Onesimus, gives his friend 
 the opportunity of conferring this benefit as a free-will offer- 
 ing, instead of permitting it to be apparently extorted from 
 him. No thanks to him that his slave was free at Rome ; let 
 Onesimus return to Colosse, and then it will be seen that this 
 benefit was not of necessity, but willingly. The letter con- 
 tinues: "Perhaps he therefore departed for a season that thou 
 shouldest receive him forever." St. Paul does not of course 
 here refer to the motive of the slave in absconding, but to the 
 reason why, in the course of Providence, he was permitted 
 to abscond. "Possibly it was so ordered, that your servant 
 should leave you for a season, that he might be re-united to 
 you in the bonds of the gospel, in the life that is, and in that 
 which is to come." You understand the apostle as here inti- 
 mating that perhaps the slave was permitted to run away, in 
 order that he might be taught at Rome not to run away a sec- 
 ond time ! " This last phrase (for ever) has reference to the 
 fact that Paul supposed that the sense of Christian obligation 
 which was now entertained by Onesimus would prevent him 
 from ever repeating his offense." P. 60. Most worthy object of 
 providential interference ! Most extraordinary exegesis from a 
 Doctor in Israel, and a teacher of a School of the Prophets ! 
 You truly remark, that " Philemon, being an active Chris- 
 tian, would in a moment have submitted to any command of 
 Paul respecting Onesimus." And what was the command ? 
 " Receive him, that is my own bowels, not now as a slave, but 
 above a slave, a brother beloved. If thou count me there- 
 fore as a partner, (of the grace of the gospel,) receive him as 
 myself." And how, sir, was this slave " sent back"? Not 
 in fetters, not in charge of officers, not bewailing his bitter 
 fate, not cursing a religion which reduced him to the level of 
 
 7 O O 
 
16 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 a brute. No, sir ; he went voluntarily, joyfully, carrying with 
 him apostolic orders for his immediate emancipation, and 
 blessing God for his temporal as well as spiritual liberty in 
 Christ Jesus. The letter to Philemon was not the only one 
 intrusted to him. The apostle conferred on him the honor of 
 making him the bearer of the epistle to the church at Colosse. 
 In this epistle the late slave is introduced to the church as "a 
 faithful and beloved brother," and the church is referred to 
 him for particular intelligence respecting the cause of Christ 
 in Rome. It is a tradition of the early church, that Onesi- 
 mus became Bishop of Ephesus. 
 
 Very little, sir, do you know of Abolitionists when you deem 
 it consistent with truth and decency to affirm, " If the great 
 apostle himself were to re-appear on earth, and come now in 
 the midst of us, (Boston,) and preach the doctrine contained 
 in his Epistles, he would unquestionably incur the danger of 
 being mobbed." P. 54. I think it far more likely he would 
 suffer the pains and penalties of the Webster and Mason bill 
 for harboring fugitive slaves. When you shall give satisfac- 
 tory assurances that you will "send back" fugitives in the 
 same manner and on the same terms that St. Paul did ; when 
 you shall induce them voluntarily to return to their masters, 
 and their masters to receive them not as slaves, but as beloved 
 brothers, and to treat them with the kindness due, I will not 
 say to " Paul the aged," but even to an Andover Professor, I 
 pledge myself that the Abolitionists throughout the whole 
 country, not excepting your neighbors in Boston, will consign 
 to your care every fugitive that may apply to them for succor. 
 
 But the Constitution declares that fugitives shall be deliv- 
 ered up, and you sneeringly exclaim, " Conscience violating a 
 solemn compact!" Neither Abolitionists nor their fathers 
 ever made a compact that private individuals should hunt 
 slaves ; nor would such a compact have been binding on any 
 who regarded its requisitions as sinful. You intimate that ob- 
 stacles cannot lawfully be thrown in the way of the claimant 
 ofafugitive. This is a modern opinion. Onthe2d June, 1795, 
 the New-York Society appointed a Committee to wait upon all 
 the printers in the city, to urge them to refuse to print ad- 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. 17 
 
 vertisements for the recovery of runaway slaves. This was 
 when New-York was a slave State, and the slave-catching 
 law of 1793 in full force. But you have another and very 
 curious argument in behalf of slave-catching. You ask, " Can 
 we respect a conscience which puts the broad seal of disgrace 
 and infamy on those immortal men and patriots who formed our 
 Constitution, and who in all our States accepted and approved 
 of it? And where now has conscience been these sixty years 
 past? I am astounded at the rapid railroad progress of new 
 discovery." P. G2. Or rather, sir, you are astounded that 
 others should even approximate to the rapid railroad progress 
 of your own discovery. Suffer me, sir, to ask a question at. 
 least as pertinent as your own : Can we respect a conscience 
 which puts the broad seal of disgrace not onl}* upon the pa- 
 triots of the Revolution, but on the fathers and martyrs of the 
 Church, by declaring that were they now alive and addicted to 
 their former habits, they would one and all be unlit for Christian 
 communion? Where now has "conscience been for centuries?" 
 You will surely recollect } T our laborious argument in support of 
 vour proposition — " It is a matter of expediency and 
 
 DUTY FOR OUR CHURCHES NOT TO ADMIT MEMBERS IN FUTURE, 
 EXCEPT ON THE GROUND OF TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM THE 
 USE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS, AND FROM ALL TRAFFIC IN 
 
 them." — Stuart's Prize Essay, p. G3. You expressly inelude 
 by name among intoxicating liquors, " Port, Madeira, Sherry, 
 TenerifFe, Lisbon," and other wines. So it seems he who ha- 
 bitually drinks a glass of wine after dinner is unworthy to 
 show forth the Lord's death; while he who habitually buys 
 and sells husbands, wives, and children, and uses their labor 
 without wages, is freely admitted to the holy table, and often 
 into the pulpit ! 
 
 You are sure, sir, my father's " agitated and frowning coun- 
 tenance would have gathered blackness" at hearing the re- 
 marks which fell from his son in regard to Mr. Webster and 
 the Boston gentlemen who commended his speech. Of 
 another gentleman of irreproachable Christian character, how- 
 ever much he may diflfer from you in his estimate ofMr. Web- 
 ster, yori scruple not to assert that he "exhibits marked signs 
 of preferring to reign in a certain bad place, rather than serve 
 
18 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 in a good one." P. 64. It is with ill grace, sir, that a cler- 
 gyman who has preached the gospel " more than forty-five 
 years," and who nevertheless indulges himself in the use of 
 such language, lectures a layman for freely expressing his 
 opinion of the public conduct of a public man; even "of such 
 a man as Mr. Webster." I would do dishonor to my father's 
 memory could I for a moment admit the possibility, that he 
 would have approved the tortuous course of that gentleman, 
 a course so totally different from that which he himself pur- 
 sued through life. 
 
 Had Mr. Webster justified his sudden and extraordinary vio- 
 lation of his repeated and energetic pledges in behalf of the Wil- 
 mot Proviso by a change of his opinion respecting the constitu- 
 tionality of the measure, he might have been commended for his 
 manly frankness. But he admits no such change of opinion. 
 He rests his justification on the discovery of a law of the earth's 
 formation, which renders the existence of slavery on one foot of 
 a territory twice as large as all France a physical ^impossibility ». 
 The people living in the territory are utterly unconscious ofany 
 such physical impossibility;* the slaveholders of the South 
 deny the existence of any such law of nature, t nor has it ever 
 been known or dreamed of in any portion of the four quarters of 
 the globe. When Mr. Webster offers a pretended " law of phy- 
 sical geography " and the "Asiatic scenery "J of New-Mexico 
 and California as an apology for his perfidy to the cause of 
 freedom, he offers, in my opinion, an insult not merely to the 
 moral sense, but also to the common sense of mankind. 
 
 * The people of New-Mexico petitioned Congress to be preserved from the es- 
 tablishment of slavery, and the people of California in their Constitution have pro- 
 hibited its introduction. 
 
 \ A Convention consisting of delegates from the Slave States, recently assembled 
 at Nashville. It resolved, "That California is peculiarly adapted for slave labor, 
 and that if the tenure of slave property was by recognition of this kind secured in 
 that part of the country south of 36° 30' it would in a short time form into one or 
 more slaveholding States, to swell the number and power of those already in exist- 
 ence." Mr. Webster extends the physical impossibility of slavery to California by 
 name, as well as to NeAV-Mexico. 
 
 t In 1840 it was computed there were 500,000 slaves in British India. A traffic 
 was carried on in slaves by importing them by sea from the eastern coast of Africa 
 into the East Lidies, and Arab dealers carried African slaves into Persia. — Adams's 
 Letters to T. F. Buxton on Slavery in British India, p. 18. So it is possible for 
 even negro slaves to breathe amid " Asiatic scenery:' 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. 19 
 
 You assail me for reflecting on the " Boston gentlemen who 
 commended Mr. Webster's speech." If you refer to the gen- 
 tlemen who joined you in signing the thanksgiving letter, you 
 are mistaken. I did not make one single allusion to them. 
 I was speaking of the slave-catching bill for which Mr. Web- 
 ster was to vote. My words were: " It is now a matter of 
 cool New-England calculation. The cotton interest of Mas- 
 sachusetts calls for it, and the gentry of Boston are cheering 
 on their Senator in his strange and reckless course." I re- 
 ferred to the cheers with which, as the papers informed us, his 
 street harangue on slave-catching was received by his au- 
 dience. No man born out of New-England has probably a 
 higher respect than myself for the intelligence and virtue of 
 her inhabitants. But human nature is, I suppose, the same 
 in Massachusetts as elsewhere ; and you have yet much to 
 learn of the character of your species, if you deny that pe- 
 cuniary interests, real or imagined, have a powerful influ- 
 ence on the political views of large bodies of men. 
 
 You greatly mistake me, sir, if you suppose I have troubled 
 you with this letter from any idea of 'self-defense. The passionate 
 and indefinite virulence of your assault renders it wholly in- 
 nocuous to myself; but you have attempted (I admit in a very 
 awkward manner) to identify my father's principles and con- 
 duct with the pro-slavery course of yourself and Mr. Web- 
 ster. You think the sanction of his name would be conven- 
 ient to both; In yielding to the promptings of filial duty, and 
 rescuing my father's memory from the disgrace yon would 
 attach to it, I may possibly have given some aid to a cause 
 dear to my parent's heart, by exhibiting his own sentiments 
 and conduct on the subject of slavery. You have moreover 
 afforded me a convenient opportunity of exhibiting, by your 
 own laborious (doits, the utter worthlessness of all Scriptural 
 arguments in justification of American slavery, and the foul 
 dishonor they cast upon the gospel of our ever blessed and 
 adorable Redeemer. I cheerfully do you the justice to admit 
 that your moral sense revolts against your Bible theory. But 
 I beg you to reflect whether you are engaged in a wise and 
 sale employment, and one becoming your position, when you 
 labor to prove that the fountain whence we draw our knowl- 
 
20 REPLY TO REV. MOSES STUART, 
 
 edge of God's holy will, is sending forth most bitter waters, 
 and that the tree of life is bearing the apples of Sodom ? 
 
 The very unceremonious manner with which you have been 
 pleased to treat me, will I trust exc use a little freedom on my part. 
 Permit me to use the frankness you have invited, in submit- 
 ting a few plain truths for the consideration of yourself, and 
 your Reverend associates in Andover and elsewhere, whose 
 theology embraces the political morality illustrated by Mr. 
 Webster, and that system of evangelical benevolence which 
 is exemplified in American slavery and the delivery of fugi- 
 tives. Laymen, from their more promiscuous intercourse with 
 the world, have usually better opportunities than the clergy 
 of marking the practical working of agencies and influences 
 unfavorable to Christianity. You are probably aware that 
 even religious men are too much inclined to expect a higher 
 standard of moral excellence in the clergy than they are will- 
 ing to prescribe lor themselves. The maxim that the world 
 will love its own, is reversed in regard to such of the minis- 
 ters of Christ as are supposed to belong to it. Hence in 
 public estimation, the sacred character of a preacher of 
 righteousness greatly aggravates every deviation from Chris- 
 tian morality, whether of conduct or opinion, which may be 
 imputed to him. No intelligent man, unbiased by interest or 
 education, can pause in pronouncing such a system as Amer- 
 ican slavery to be unjust and cruel. To deny this, is to deny 
 that God has given to man the knowledge of good and evil, 
 even in the lowest degree. But while multitudes are uncon- 
 trolled in their own conduct by their conviction of the wicked- 
 ness of slavery, that conviction necessarily influences, their 
 opinion of him who, professing to be the messenger of Heaven, 
 proclaims that this mighty wrong is sanctioned and allowed by 
 a just and holy God. Such an announcement generally leads to 
 one of two inferences : either that the preacher falsifies his mes- 
 sage, or that a religion which outrages the moral sense of man- 
 kind cannot be of divine origin. The first is the inference most 
 usually drawn, and disgust with the preacher is the natural 
 result. But unhappily, instances are not wanting in which 
 the arguments fabricated from the Bible effect a lodgment in 
 the mind, and excite, not as was intended hatred of abolition, 
 
ON HON. JOHN JAY. £1 
 
 hut hatred of Christianity. Facts have come to my knowl- 
 edge far too numerous to permit me to doubt for a moment, that 
 the course pursued by many of our clergy in relation to caste 
 and slavery, has shaken the faith of many weak Christians, 
 and given a vast impulse to infidelity. There is, sir, great 
 reason to fear that at the final account, the blood of souls will 
 be found in the skirts of some who have proclaimed them- 
 selves commissioned to sanctify the whip and the fetters of 
 the slave, by first hanging them on the cross of the Re- 
 deemer. 
 
 Once more, sir, — there is not a miscreant in the street who 
 insults and maltreats the negro, that does not know, if he 
 knows anything of Christianity, that it is a religion intended 
 for all, and that its Divine Author appeared in humble guise 
 and associated freely with the poor, the lowly and the despised. 
 Yet in the example and conduct of many a master in Israel 
 may a sanction be found for the contumely, injustice and cru- 
 elty which fall to the lot of an unhappy and persecuted peo- 
 ple. In vain has the voice of inspiration declared that in the 
 Church of Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision 
 nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free. In 
 vain have we been reminded from on high, "Ye are all one 
 in Christ Jesus." Certain Reverend disciples of the lowly 
 Redeemer scorn to be one with negroes, even in Christ Jesus, 
 and hence with impious hands they build up the heathen bar- 
 rier of caste, and insult in the very house of God all to whom 
 the Almighty Father has seen fit in his sovereign pleasure to 
 give a dark complexion. Not a few of these men are putting 
 forth high pretensions to ministerial power and dignity. Epis- 
 copalians have recently been told by one of their Bishops, that 
 the clergy are "the representatives of Christ, who alone have the 
 charge of the discipline of his Church, with power to remit and 
 retain sins." Yet within a few weeks the majority of the 
 clergy of a neighboring diocese, assembled in Convention, de- 
 liberately refused a scat in the council of the Church to a 
 brother representative of Christ, and equally with themselves 
 a remitter and retainer of sins, solely because African blood 
 flowed in his veins. 
 
 Wc arc favored with sermons and addresses in abundance 
 
22 REPLY TO REV. KOSES STUART. 
 
 on the importance of a learned ministry, and we are urged to 
 give our money for the support of Theological Seminaries. 
 Vet one of these Seminaries has practically declared that any 
 preaching is good enough for negroes, by shutting its doors 
 against the admission of colored candidates for holy orders. 
 
 The experience of the present, as well as of past times, in- 
 structs us that Christianity is so identified in the minds of 
 many with the character of its teachers, that the delinquencies 
 of the one unhappily afford to multitudes an apology for ques- 
 tioning the authenticity of the other. If a woe be pronounced 
 against him who offends even a little one who believes in 
 Christ, surely the minister of the cross cannot be guiltless, 
 when, yielding to political attachments, to the dictates of 
 worldly policy, or the influence of unholy prejudice, he under- 
 mines the faith of many, and gives great occasion to the ene- 
 mies of the Lord to blaspheme. 
 
 I am, Reverend Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 WILLIAM JAY. 
 
 Bedford, '26th June, 1850. 
 
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