I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it [slavery]; but there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is by Legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.

George Washington in Letter to Robert Morris, 1786

 

         Note: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington were slaveholders.  So, too, were Benjamin Franklin and the theologian Jonathan Edwards. 

 

The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is necessary to exclude all further importations from Africa; yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions . . . [have been prevented by the King].

Thomas Jefferson in Rights of British America, 1774 

Below is excerpted from "Thoughts Upon Slavery" John Wesley. 

    May I speak plainly to you? I must. Love constrains me; love to you, as well as to those you are concerned with. Is there a God? You know there is. Is he a just God? Then there must be a state of retribution; a state wherein the just God will reward every man according to his works. Then what reward will he render to you? O think betimes! before you drop into eternity! Think now, "He shall have judgment without mercy that showed no mercy.".............

Be gentle toward all men; and see that you invariably do unto every one as you would he should do unto you.

   7. O thou God of love, thou who art loving to every man, and whose mercy is over all thy works; thou who art the Father of the spirits of all flesh, and who art rich in mercy unto all; thou who hast mingled of one blood all the nations upon earth; have compassion upon these outcasts of men, who are trodden down as dung upon the earth! Arise, and help these that have no helper, whose blood is spilt upon the ground like water! Are not these also the work of thine own hands, the purchase of thy Son's blood? Stir them up to cry unto thee in the land of their captivity; and let their complaint come up before thee; let it enter into thy ears! Make even those that lead them away captive to pity them, and turn their captivity as the rivers in the south. O burst thou all their chains in sunder; more especially the chains of their sins! Thou Saviour of all, make them free, that they may be free indeed!

The servile progeny of Ham
Seize as the purchase of thy blood!
Let all the Heathens know thy name:
From idols to the living God
The dark Americans convert,
And shine in every pagan heart!

        John D. Long (1817-1894) wrote effectively against slavery.   Long was a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church whose book, Pictures of Slavery in Church and State, was influential in abolitionist circles.  From Wikipedia,

    Below are excerpts from: "PICTURES OF SLAVERY IN CHURCH AND STATE" BY REV. JOHN DIXON LONG, A Superannuated Minister of the Philadelphia Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church."    1857     PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.

    INTRODUCTION.        

     I am an ardent lover of Methodism, and consider that man its greatest enemy who strives, directly or indirectly, to fasten to it the dead and putrid body of chattel slavery. I trust I am no bigot; for I love those who love our Lord Jesus Christ, of whatever church, race, or color.......       

 .....     Slavery will be found, on close examination, to be the common foe of church and state; of master and slave; of rich and poor. I have added my mite of facts and observations against it. I believe that all truth is profitable, sooner or later. I have done what I conceive to be my duty to the church and to my country. May the blessing of Christ rest on the antislavery cause!

 

THE NEGRO RACE.          ....  I consider the Negro race inferior in mental endowment only to the great European or white race. The negro is as full of music as an egg is full of meat; and music is allied to poetry and eloquence. No people have the religious element more deeply grounded in their nature. As a race, they are proverbial for kindness and affection, and respect for authority and age. In their religious meetings they exhibit more reverence in their devotion than the whites. We defy any set of atheists to make many converts among them in theory. In drollery they are unequalled and are only inferior to the Irish in wit; even rivaling the French in politeness. If properly trained, they would make first-class orators and musicians. I have seen an exceedingly fine portrait executed by a colored artist of Baltimore. They are great aristocrats; and pay much respect to those above them in intellect and authority. Hence our great Southern aristocracy, by emancipating their negroes, could retain them by affection and their own choice; and thus reap all the benefits of slavery without its crime and consequences. ....

 

CHAPTER II.    METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND SLAVERY.

         THE M. E. Church was organized in 1784, in the city of Baltimore. What did the fathers of the church think of slavery at that time?  We will quote their own language, taken from the first Discipline of the church, compared with the Large Minutes. See the History of the Discipline by Rev. Robert Emory, former President of Dickinson College. Published at the Book-room, New York, for the M. E. Church: p. 43.

       .... We view it as contrary to the golden law of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets, and the alienable rights of mankind, as well as every principle of the Revolution.....

.....so many souls that are capable of the image of God. We therefore think it our most bounden duty to take immediately some effective method to extirpate this abomination from among us; and for that purpose we add the following to the rules of our society--viz.

         1st. Every member of our society who has slaves in his possession shall, within twelve months after notice given him by the assistant (which notice the assistants are required immediately, and without any delay, to give in their respective circuits), legally execute and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and sets free every slave in his possession......

         2d. Every assistant shall keep a journal, in which he shall regularly minute down the names and ages of all the slaves belonging to all the masters in his respective circuit, and also the date of every instrument executed and recorded for the manumission of the slaves, with the name of the court, book, and folio, in which said instrument respectively shall have been recorded; which journal shall be handed down in each circuit to the succeeding assistants.

         3d. In consideration that these rules form a new term of communion, every person concerned who will not comply with them, shall have liberty quietly to withdraw himself from our society within the twelve months succeeding the notice given as aforesaid; otherwise the assistants shall exclude him from the society.

         4th. No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into society or the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules concerning slavery.

         N. B. These rules are to affect the members of our society no further than as they are consistent with the laws of the States in which they reside.

         Question 43. What shall be done with those who buy, sell slaves, or give them away? Ans. They are immediately to be expelled; unless they buy them on purpose to free them.

         1. It will be seen, by the above, that our preachers, in 1784, viewed the holding of slaves, or the sustaining voluntarily the relation of master and slave, as contrary to the golden law of God. Hence, not only official members, but private members, were to break that relation by manumission according to the conditions laid down. ....

 

Let us get on the rock of eternal truth and righteousness, and then we shall have the sympathy of the good of all nations. And what is still better, we shall have the sympathy of the man Christ Jesus, who was sold like a slave for thirty pieces of silver. I believe that the blessed Jesus is an antislavery Redeemer. When he forgave me my sins, he whispered to my inmost soul that the holding of slaves was sin.....

....I believe that the only way to remedy any evil is to proclaim the truth, clearly and distinctly, concerning that evil. The man, and especially the Christian minister, who is silent on the subject of slavery, who never whispers to his friend or foe a word of opposition to it, is giving his example and influence in its favor. A prophet of God who can stand by, and see those for whom Christ died held in bondage, deprived of legal claim to wife, child, or to his own body, deprived of freely worshiping Almighty God, and yet give no alarm of danger, nor utter a cry of warning, need not be envied when he stands at the judgment-seat ..... 

....A Methodist slaveholder, who was defending his right to hold slaves, said to me, "I hear that you are an abolitionist." "Sir," I replied, "if you mean by abolitionist one that would persuade a slave to run away from his master, or cut his master's throat, then I am not an abolitionist; but, if you mean one who believes it a sin to hold one's fellow-beings in bondage, then I am an abolitionist."......

 

WASHINGTON AND PATRICK HENRY.  ....The immortal Washington emancipated all his negroes at his death; and if all the great slaveholders of Virginia had followed his example, the Old Dominion would not now be the fourth State in the Union. Virginia is remarkable for having given birth to more Presidents than any other State. She gave the first President to this great Republic. Ex-president Roberts, the first President of the Republic of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, is also a native of Virginia. Maryland has given birth to but one president, and he is a "Black Republican;" we allude to President Benson, the present chief-magistrate of Liberia.   See below for section regarding Liberia

 

MARTYRS.    It has ever been the practice of the world, and worldly churches, to extol the martyrs of the past, to build tombs and monuments to their memory, and to despise and persecute the martyrs of the present. I have no doubt that those who burned John Rogers at the stake at Smithfield, were great admirers of St. Stephen. It has forcibly struck me, in reading the lives of martyrs, ancient and modern, that they were never put to death by their persecutors for doing good works, or for loving their Creator with all their hearts, and their neighbors as themselves, but for meddling with politics, for violating the laws of the land, or for speaking against the customs and prejudices of their country! Our Divine Saviour was crucified on the charge of treason--of trying to overthrow the government of Cæsar. When Stephen was stoned to death, his enemies did not admit that it was for his goodness, but for speaking against the law of Moses and the custom of the Jews. The Jews despised the Gentiles as much as an American does a negro. And in these last days the test of martyrdom is opposition to slavery.

 

THE BEE-HIVE.   My father took great pleasure in raising bees. He had one swarm that no kindness and attention could tame or conciliate. There was a very self-conceited colored man in his employ, who boasted that he could rob them without being stung. He insisted that it was one's clothes that irritated bees, and that he would rob them for a given price. The bargain was made, and Arnold commenced, with his shirt off, in good earnest. He took the hive down, knocked off the head, and in a moment the bees swarmed on his neck and head, putting hundreds of stings in his black skin. As he had boasted so much of his skill, he endured it for some time, while I--then a boy--was rolling over in the garden, convulsed with laughter. Finally, nature could endure the agony no longer. Arnold gave a groan of despair, dropped his tub, sprang like a deer over the railing of the garden and plunged into the river to drown his tormentors.

         The spirit of slavery, like that hive of bees, cannot be tamed. You may take your hat off to it, and your shirt also; but it will not do. It will sting its best friends as well as its deadliest enemies. It must be drowned in the river of life and in the ocean of righteousness.

 

CEASE AGITATING SLAVERY.  The American nation may be compared to a building or temple on fire. Chattel slavery is the fire consuming the building. The antislavery men are running with engine and hose to arrest the flames, and, if possible, to save the building. Here comes a Southern pro-slavery man, as hoarse as if he had wool in his throat, and exclaims, "What is the matter here? Let the fire alone; it's none of your business! So clear yourselves!" "But it is our business," reply the antislavery men. "The fire will not only consume the southern portion of the building, but will spread to the northern part, and burn us all out of house and home." "No danger of this," says a northern pro-slavery man, choked up with cotton. "Let it alone, and slavery will die out of itself; agitation only makes it worse; the more water you pour on it, the fiercer it burns, because it is like no other kind of fire in the universe." Other kinds of fire may be quenched with water, all other subjects may be agitated, but this must not be disturbed. If you wish to put down swearing, you must preach against it. If you wish to put down drunkenness, you must hold up the evil effects of intoxication. If a merchant wants to sell goods, he must advertise in the newspapers. Every thing must be agitated but slavery. Just let it alone, and it will increase at the rate of 100,000 slaves yearly, or 1,000,000 every ten years, and die out of itself, especially in Texas; and when the slave-trade is reopened in Africa, and the Southern newspapers, books and pulpits are teeming with arguments in its defense, it will die out. O yes, it will die out of itself!

 

SLAVERY AND POPERY.     The modern slave-trade on the western coast of Africa originated in the Roman Catholic Church.

         Slavery on the continent of America is the daughter of Rome.

         "In 1442, Gonzales returned from a second voyage of two years and a half, and brought with him ten slaves and gold-dust.

         "This was the first gold, and these were the first slaves ever taken from the western shore of Africa, and may therefore be regarded as the beginning of that inhuman traffic in men which has continued with scarcely any interruption for more than four centuries. The slaves were presented by Prince Henry to Pope Martin the Fifth, who thereupon conferred upon Portugal the right of possession and sovereignty over all the country that might be discovered between Cape Bojador and the East Indies.

         "In accepting these slaves, the pope gave his sanction to the iniquitous transaction by which they were taken; but it would be difficult to say whether he was guilty of greater injustice in conferring upon Portugal territory over which he had no jurisdiction, and which, as yet, had been but partially discovered, or inhumanity in consigning the whole African race to perpetual servitude."

The Portuguese, who have ever been the most devoted of Romanists, were the first to engage in the bloody traffic, and will be the last to abandon it. The spirit and laws that mercilessly consign men, women, and children to be helpless chattels, are Popery in its blackest form.

         A pro-slavery Protestant, of whatever creed, is just as much opposed to liberty, and will wage as bitter warfare against free discussion, as any Romanist. There is as much liberty in Italy and Austria as in the extreme Southern States of the American Union. ......

 

"UNCLE TOM'S CABIN."     "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is the "Pilgrim's Progress" of American literature. It struck slavery the heaviest blow it ever received from one hand. It was astonishing how extensively it was read in the South. Every one denounced it. Some said it was "all a pack of lies." Still all would read it. An intelligent slaveholder was denouncing it in my presence. Said I, "Have you read it?" "No." "Do you get it, and read it before you condemn it." He promised to do so. Some time afterward I saw him. "Have you read 'Uncle Tom'?" "Yes." "How did you like it?" "Well, I read it to my wife and daughter, and we all cried. What puzzled me most about 'Uncle Tom' was, how a Northern woman could draw negro character to life, and speak negro language to perfection!"

 

THE CONVERSION.    The following is the only instance that ever came under my notice of a clear conversion by the reading of the Word of God alone. A young slave was very ill in the kitchen adjoining the dwelling of his master. He was so much alarmed on account of his sins, and by the prospect of death, that he would hold on to his mother, and would not consent for her to leave his bedside. A good brother informed me of his condition, and requested me to see him; and I asked the brother why he did not go and pray for him. He said that he was afraid of his master, who was violently opposed to religion.

         I immediately felt it my duty to see him. Then came the fear of man. Here was a struggle. The cross was heavy. I went, hoping that the master might be away; but he was at home.

         I entered the kitchen, and lest I might awaken the anger of the master, I did not attempt to sing or pray. I took my Testament, and drawing near the dying man, read a part of the third chapter of St. John's Gospel. When I read the sixteenth verse: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life," his soul drank it in with an attention and eagerness which I have never witnessed. I read the verse again and again, and left him. Before I reached home he was happy in the Saviour's love. He told his mother that she could leave him; he was ready and willing to die.

         I saw him on the following Sabbath, and love, hope, and joy gleamed from his countenance. He slept in Jesus. Despite the power of the slave-breeder, who labors to reduce the sons and daughters of our heavenly Father to brute beasts, the Christian slave, when dying, can exclaim,
                         "How can it be, thou heavenly King,
                         That thou shouldst me to glory bring;
                         Make a slave a partner of thy throne,
                         Decked with a never-fading crown!"          How different the end of this Christian slave from that of his proud, haughty, and despotic master. It was said that the last word that fell from the lips of the master was a horrid oath, addressed to a body-servant. He was struck speechless, and soon expired. Thousands of slaveholders die awful deaths. And no wonder, when the blood and tears of mothers, infants, orphans, fathers, brothers, and sisters cry to Heaven against them.

        

REV. JOHN NICHOLSON.     Rev. JOHN NICHOLSON was born in Lewes, Delaware, in 1807, and died in October, 1843, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. He was received on trial in the Philadelphia Conference in 1828. We have taken the following extract from the printed Minutes of the Conference for 1844:--

         "Bro. Nicholson was a man of study, of method, and of prayer. His piety was never questioned, and his qualifications for the work of the ministry were beyond dispute. His literary acquirements were respectable, and his talents, though not showy, were real, solid, compact, and available. He was indeed an amiable man, a Christian gentleman, an able minister of the New Testament, a faithful pastor, an affectionate husband, a kind parent, and true friend. He lived to honor his Divine Master, and fell asleep in Jesus, as a Christian warrior, fresh from the battle-field, with his laurels green upon him. Many are the gems of immortal beauty that will deck his unfading crown."

         John Nicholson was a man, in the highest sense of that term. While he did not dictate to others, he dared to think for himself, and had the moral nerve to avow his principles every where, fearless of consequences. In proof of this, I will recall an incident in his life which made a deep and lasting impression upon my mind. I think it was in 1842, or in 1843, during the session of our Conference, that something was said about abolitionism. Mr. Nicholson calmly arose, and in a tone of voice, and with a firmness of manner, that I can never forget, said "I am an abolitionist!" and immediately resumed his seat. It was the sublimest moral scene I ever witnessed. He was the only man who, to my knowledge, ever publicly avowed, upon the floor of the Philadelphia Conference, that he was an abolitionist. A few others may have held the same sentiments privately, but did not see proper to call themselves by that name. If, under the same circumstances, a young man had made the same avowal, he would have been located without his consent.

 

THE MONKEY THEORY.     I was once sitting at the table of a rich, haughty slaveholder, who addressed me thus: "Mr. Long, do you believe that the negroes are a part of the human race?" "Yes, sir," I replied. "Well, I do not," said he. "I believe that they are a species of monkey." "Then, sir," said I, "you do not believe in the Bible." His treatment of his slaves was in accordance with his theory. Yet he was more consistent than those who hold that they are of the same blood as ourselves, and yet treat them like brutes--who hold to their common origin with ourselves from Adam, and their common redemption by Christ, and yet sell them like oxen. Much ado has been made by some divines about the infidel theory that denies the common origin of the races. This theory is supported by Professor Agassiz and others. But the fact is we have, in the slave States, practically affirmed the diverse origin of the African race for one hundred and fifty years. It is the very nature of slavery to produce this result. I believe the Greeks and Romans held their origin to be distinct from that of their slaves. Slavery is doing more to cast discredit on the doctrine of the unity of the races, than the writings of all the infidel philosophers combined. Notwithstanding many pro-slavery men affect to be skeptical with regard to the intellect of the negro, yet, as a general rule, the South secretly and practically believes in the parity of mind of the two races. This is evident from the sleepless vigilance they exercise to keep all knowledge from them; by their forbidding them to learn the letters of the alphabet; and by excluding them from all honorable positions in society. With singular inconsistency, they withhold from the slave the means of mental culture, and then impute his ignorance to inferiority of mind. They not only by positive law interdict him educational advantages, but appeal to the worst prejudices of our nature against him. The governing minds of the South know full well that, if they were to open their schools and colleges to colored people, many of this degraded class would exhibit superior abilities. The very existence of the laws which forbid education to the slaves is positive proof that the lawmakers of the slave States believe in the improvability of the negro's intellect.

........

SLAVERY AND ITS REMEDY--LIBERIA.    The American Colonization Society, and the Colonization Societies of the different States, have, within the last forty years, succeeded in planting a colony of free and liberated colored persons on the west coast of Africa, called Liberia. The men who projected and now sustain the enterprise deserve all the credit they receive. The missionaries of the Cross who have labored and died there, have left the church a precious legacy. As a foundation of missionary operations for the conversion of the native African, and as a refuge for those who otherwise might never have enjoyed their freedom, I have ever given it my cordial support, and ever expect to. But as a remedy for American slavery, I have no confidence whatever in African colonization, and for the following reasons: The present colonial population of Liberia does not exceed 12,000; yet it has had an existence of more than thirty years. The slave population of the United States is now 4,000,000, and more than doubles itself every thirty years. The annual increase of slaves, exclusive of those that are sent to Liberia and those who flee to free States, is 100,000 souls. Now if you could transport 10,000 of these annually to Liberia, you would ruin the colony, and have 90,000 net increase left; for the plantation-slave would not till the soil, and would thus prove a curse to the colony. He would, if he could, get a few pipes and tobacco, and there set up a little shop.

         The North will not send them, for she believes that the colored man has as much right to the soil as the white man. The South will not, for the governing classes of that section proclaim that slavery is the best condition for the African. My opinion is that more slaves are smuggled here from Africa every year than are liberated by the South and sent to Liberia. If any one doubts this, let him read the back numbers of the Maryland Colonization Journal. I have often listened to colonization agents, and have heard them distinctly declare that colonization was not designed as a remedy for slavery, but for the benefit of the free colored people.

         Emancipation on the soil is the only remedy for chattel slavery. Colored people could then go to Liberia, to the West Indies, to the free States, and to the Territories or Canada, just as they pleased. This is no novel theory. The fathers of the Methodist Church, in 1784, believed in this remedy. Gen. Washington believed in it when he set his slaves free at his death.

         The present colored race have a claim on our justice, love, and magnanimity. We have degraded them, and we should labor to elevate them. In the stead of Negro-buyers and overseers, I would have ten thousand Yankee, English, and Irish school-teachers, who have no prejudices against color; and an equal number of schoolhouses. For slave-pens, I would have churches. For handcuffs and thumb-screws, I would have primers and New Testaments. I believe that, if the colored people were set free, they would make the peasantry of the South equal to the peasantry of Europe, or at least equal to some parts of it. It is objected to this plan, or remedy, that none but a few religious persons would ever consent to sacrifice the value of their slaves by emancipation. This does not prove the theory or principle a wrong one; nor does it militate against its justice and honesty. If the Pharaohs of the land will not set the slaves free, the Jehovah will do it by his judgments. I believe drunkenness to be wrong, and that abstinence from intoxicating liquors is its remedy. But thousands will drink on, heedless of the remedy, and perish. Christ will save to the uttermost all that come to him; but millions will continue to reject him and forever die. Yet the Gospel is true and soul-saving. We are to proclaim what we believe to be the truth, whether the multitude believe it or not.

    The greatest moral, religious, and political phenomenon that earth has ever seen is the United States of America, in which are concentrated the virtues, and the vices, and the various civilizations of all nations, ancient or modern. A national body, through whose veins circulates the blood of all races; a nation of "good, bad, and indifferent;" a land of political and religious enigmas, absurdities, contradictions, and inconsistencies; a land where the sublime and the ridiculous perpetually approach each other; a land of books and newspapers, where it is a disgrace for some not to read the Bible, and where it is treason to teach others to read it; a land of free speech and of trammeled speech; a land where the greatest liberty and the deadliest despotism that ever crushed a people prevail side by side; a land where there is no pope, and yet a million of popes; a land in which woman is treated with the utmost respect because she is woman, and where women are unsexed and sold like beasts of burden, and treated as incapable of virtue; a land of trial by jury, and of mob-law; a land where people teach, on every 4th of July, that there are certain self-evident truths--for instance, that the Great Creator has endowed all men, without distinction of color, with such rights as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-- and where, upon the same day of Independence, the same people teach that, so far as colored persons are concerned, these self-evident truths are self-evident lies; a land of churches, of Bibles, and tracts, and yet a land of darkness and slave-pens; a land where liberty is local, and slavery national; a nation combining within itself the greatest power and the greatest weakness; a people whose national emblems are the steam-engine, the printing-press, and the clipper-ship, while its slave-droves and old sedge fields loom out darkly in the background; a land that has given birth to the greatest and best men that ever lived, and also to the meanest and vilest wretches that ever breathed in any quarter of our globe.  Should old Apollyon call a world's convention, and offer a premium for the worst man in the world, it is probable that some New England advocate of slavery would, uncontested, bear off the prize.

 

THE RICH COLORED MAN.       Mr. RUSKIN was once a slave in one of the counties of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He succeeded in buying himself from his master; and being a man of superior abilities, and devoting his talent and energy to the accumulation of money, became one of the richest men in the county. I was informed that he was a member of the M. E. Church. He rode in the same style as the richest white men; and I observed, for he lived on a circuit adjoining mine, that when he entered a store, the utmost respect was shown him. The pro-slavery portion of the community held him in high esteem. The colored people despised him heartily; and so did I. He was a slaveholder, and treated his slaves precisely as his neighbors treated theirs. He died in 1846, and I witnessed his funeral cortege. His male slaves brought up the rear, mounted on horses. It was the grandest funeral procession that I saw while in the county. As the procession moved along, I involuntarily asked myself the question, whether his soul had gone to heaven!

         I have observed that, when colored men become wealthy in the South, they take sides, in a majority of cases, with the whites against the oppressed class of their own color. The possession of wealth, by such colored men, goes far, in the South, to mitigate the rigors of color.

         It is painful to reflect that this man, after having tasted the bitter cup of slavery himself, should, in his state of freedom, have become the oppressor of his own brethren. This case, however, proves the necessity of good laws; for some men will do any act, however atrocious, which has the sanction of legal authority. The white man oppresses the Indian and the negro. The Indian enslaves the negro. The negro sometimes owns the negro; and, according to the testimony of slaves themselves, he is the worst of masters, and the most cruel of overseers. The minister of the Gospel who turns slaveholder is the worst of slaveholders.

 

DELAWARE.        There are more free colored persons in Delaware, according to population, (if I mistake not,) than any other State. In Newcastle County there are very few slaves, if any. This result is due to the influence of the Friends or Quakers. Wherever the Quaker goes, he bears silent testimony against slavery. Who ever heard of a Quaker being killed by a negro? If the slaves of the South were emancipated, and there was any danger of an insurrection, one Quaker preacher would do more to suppress it than a hundred soldiers. The city of Wilmington is the only place in the State, so far as I know, that permits freedom of speech. If Delaware would buy all the slaves in the State, and proclaim herself a free State, she would immensely augment her wealth, and, what would be still better, she would elevate the moral tone, and increase the intellectual culture of her citizens. There is something very grating to my ears in the word "slave," as an appendage to a State or nation. How would it sound if applied to European nations? Were we to apply the stigma to England, to Holland, to Switzerland, and to France, with what scorn would the insult be repelled! Yet Southern men sometimes speak of Southern States as slave States, and even glory in the name.

 

THE SUPREME COURT.    The recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Dred Scott, has sent a thrill of sadness to the hearts of the good and benevolent throughout our country. By this decision nearly 500,000 Native Americans have been outlawed from the protection of the stars and stripes, which, proudly floating in all seas, is unfurled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Many of these are our brethren in Christ, and ambassadors from the Court of Heaven to sinful men. Those whom Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio claim and protect as citizens of their respective States, are regarded by the National Court as aliens, and unprotected as citizens by the Federal Government. Let no man after this insult Christianity by calling this Republic a Christian Government. Such a decision would not have been given by the Supreme Court from 1794 to 1820. But slavery has poisoned our theology; it has corrupted the vast majority of the pulpits of the land; it now controls many of the great ecclesiastic bodies of the Union, and has full possession of all departments of the National Government, the single distinctive measure of which seems to be to extend slavery, so that it shall henceforth be a national institution. The next step in the program will be the reopening of the foreign slave-trade. The destruction of Liberia is to follow, if she interposes any barrier to the traffic; for our Government has always refused to acknowledge the independence of that republic. I also predict that the slave States will pass laws to enslave the free negroes within their jurisdiction; then to enslave the antislavery men of the free States who may visit them; next, to reduce their own poor whites to chattel slaves by selling them for pretended debts; and, finally, to place the government under a military despotism. To the poor men of the free States, I say: "Arise, and shake yourselves from the dust, for the Philistines are already upon ye!" Henceforward I shall welcome with more joy than ever the thousands of foreign Protestants who shall arrive on our shores. I have noticed that nearly all Englishmen, Protestant Irish, and Germans are opposed to chattel-slavery; and by their assistance alone can the native American freemen successfully combat the slave power, backed up as it is by Romanism and rum. Slavery is as much opposed to Christianity as it is to patriotism--to the laboring white man as to the colored man. The antislavery foreigners should be welcomed as brothers beloved, for the power of slaveholders is more to be feared than that of such foreigners. Slavery is the common enemy of freemen of all nations, tongues, and races; just as Romanism is the common enemy of all Protestant denominations, freemasonry, and odd-fellowship.

 

SLAVERY AND WHITE LABOR.     There are certain professions and avocations in the South, which slaves cannot follow. The labor performed by these chattels--such as fieldwork, house-work, and certain mechanical trades--becomes, in the minds of the whites of the South, associated with the slaves themselves. In other words, such labor is regarded as dishonorable. Now, when the poor white man engages in such labor, he falls to the level of the slave himself in the estimation of the slave's master. Hence the effort of the whites in the South to avoid all labor usually performed by slaves. They will seek to hide themselves in obscure places, and live in idleness; or they will move to free States. But the evil stops not here. When the slaveholder comes North, and observes white men engaged in the same labor performed by his slaves, he regards them with secret contempt. The odium attached to domestic service on the part of poor white women in the North is the result of Southern slavery. Perhaps no nation on earth suffers so much family inconvenience and discord on account of female labor as our own. Slavery insults the free labor of the North. To dishonor labor in itself is one of its infallible results.

         Degrade a man to a chattel, and you degrade labor. Elevate the chattel to a man, and the elevation of labor follows. Hence the free laborer is bound by every principle of self-respect, as well as by his affection for his children, to oppose slavery everywhere and always to the uttermost. Slavery converts a lazy loafer into a gentleman, and degrades an industrious man to a slave. .....

       

EXHORTATION BY A COLORED PREACHER.       In one of our Northern cities, I once attended church among the colored people, knowing no one, and unknown to any one in the congregation. I took my seat at the door, and certainly had no expectation of hearing any thing upon the subject of slavery. What was unexpected by me, the sermon was delivered by a Quaker, who preached with much energy, and made a vigorous onslaught on the institutions of the South. He took his seat, and a colored preacher got up to exhort. I will give the substance of his speech:--

         "My Brethren: I was much pleased with the sermon of my brother. It had truth enough in it to save the whole world. But, brethren, I can be nothing but a Methodist; I am a corn-field preacher. My brethren, I think the abolitionists have done a great deal of good for us colored people; but some of my colored brethren say that the abolitionists have made it worse for them; that they are not so well off as before the abolitionists came about; that the masters are worse on their slaves than they were before! Now, brethren, Moses was an abolitionist. The Master told him to go to Pharaoh, and tell him that the Lord says: 'Let my people go, that they may serve me.' But Pharaoh said: 'Who is the Lord? I will not let his people go.' So Pharaoh oppressed the people more and more; and then they went to Moses and told him that he had made things worse than they were before; and they blamed Moses for stirring up Pharaoh. Now, my brethren, we must make the devil mad before we can do any good. The abolitionists have done good, because they have called the attention of the people to our brethren, who are under their taskmasters."

 

A SOUTHERN MAN WITH NORTHERN PRINCIPLES.    I was defining my views on slavery to a gentleman, who remarked that I was a "Southern man with Northern principles." I replied that I was not; that I was a Southern man with Bible principles. Antislavery principles claim a higher origin than Old or New England. They were written by the finger of God upon the heart of the first man, and they have been transmitted from generation to generation till this hour..........

http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

,

One of America's Most Inspiring Heroes

 

    In 1940, Dr. Washington became the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.

    The first coin to feature an African-American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar, 1946 to 1951.  

    He was the first African-American ever invited to the White House as the guest of a President, Theodore Roosevelt.  

    The house where he was born in Hardy, Virginia, is a United States National Monument. 

    Many schools across the country are named for him.

    Tuskegee Institute was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881 to provide students with both academic and vocational training. The students built their own buildings, produced their own food, and provided for most of their own basic necessities with the goal of later sharing learned skills with African American communities throughout the South.

Below quotes and anecdotes from Dr. Washington's fabulous autobiography, Up From Slavery, 1901.
 

    The world should not pass judgment upon the Negro, and especially the Negro youth, too quickly or too harshly. The Negro boy has obstacles, discouragements, and temptations to battle with that are little known to those not situated as he is. When a white boy undertakes a task, it is taken for granted that he will succeed. On the other hand, people are usually surprised if the Negro boy does not fail. In a word, the Negro youth starts out with the presumption against him.  

 

     At one time when we were in the greatest distress for money that we ever experienced, I placed the situation frankly before General Armstrong. Without hesitation he gave me his personal check for all the money which he had saved for his own use. This was not the only time that General Armstrong helped Tuskegee in this way. I do not think I have ever made this fact public before.   ....
    This first visit which General Armstrong made to Tuskegee gave me an opportunity to get an insight into his character such as I had not before had. I refer to his interest in the Southern white people. Before this I had had the thought that General Armstrong, having fought the Southern white man, rather cherished a feeling of bitterness toward the white South, and was interested in helping only the coloured man there. But this visit convinced me that I did not know the greatness and the generosity of the man. I soon learned, by his visits to the Southern white people, and from his conversations with them, that he was as anxious about the prosperity and the happiness of the white race as the black. He cherished no bitterness against the South, and was happy when an opportunity offered for manifesting his sympathy. In all my acquaintance with General Armstrong I never heard him speak, in public or in private, a single bitter word against the white man in the South. From his example in this respect I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.    ...

    When we seemed at the end of our resources, so far as securing money was concerned, something occurred which showed the greatness of General Armstrong--something which proved how far he was above the ordinary individual. When we were in the midst of great anxiety as to where and how we were to get funds for the new building, I received a telegram from General Armstrong asking me if I could spend a month travelling with him through the North, and asking me, if I could do so, to come to Hampton at once. Of course I accepted General Armstrong's invitation, and went to Hampton immediately. On arriving there I found that the General had decided to take a quartette of singers through the North, and hold meetings for a month in important cities, at which meetings he and I were to speak. Imagine my surprise when the General told me, further, that these meetings were to be held, not in the interests of Hampton, but in the interests of Tuskegee, and that the Hampton Institute was to be responsible for all the expenses.
    Although he never told me so in so many words, I found that General Armstrong took this method of introducing me to the people of the North, as well as for the sake of securing some immediate funds to be used in the erection of Alabama Hall. A weak and narrow man would have reasoned that all the money which came to Tuskegee in this way would be just so much taken from the Hampton Institute; but none of these selfish or short-sighted feelings ever entered the breast of General Armstrong. He was too big to be little, too good to be mean. He knew that the people in the North who gave money gave it for the purpose of helping the whole cause of Negro civilization, and not merely for the advancement of any one school. The General knew, too, that the way to strengthen Hampton was to make it a centre of unselfish power in the working out of the whole Southern problem.

    On another occasion, when I was making a trip from Augusta, Georgia, to Atlanta, being rather tired from much travel, I road in a Pullman sleeper. When I went into the car, I found there two ladies from Boston whom I knew well. These good ladies were perfectly ignorant, it seems, of the customs of the South, and in the goodness of their hearts insisted that I take a seat with them in their section. After some hesitation I consented. I had been there but a few minutes when one of them, without my knowledge, ordered supper to be served for the three of us. This embarrassed me still further. The car was full of Southern white men, most of whom had their eyes on our party. When I found that supper had been ordered, I tried to contrive some excuse that would permit me to leave the section, but the ladies insisted that I must eat with them. I finally settled back in my seat with a sigh, and said to myself, "I am in for it now, sure."
    To add further to the embarrassment of the situation, soon after the supper was placed on the table one of the ladies remembered that she had in her satchel a special kind of tea which she wished served, and as she said she felt quite sure the porter did not know how to brew it properly, she insisted upon getting up and preparing and serving it herself. At last the meal was over; and it seemed the longest one that I had ever eaten. When we were through, I decided to get myself out of the embarrassing situation and go to the smoking-room, where most of the men were by that time, to see how the land lay. In the meantime, however, it had become known in some way throughout the car who I was. When I went into the smoking-room I was never more surprised in my life than when each man, nearly every one of them a citizen of Georgia, came up and introduced himself to me and thanked me earnestly for the work that I was trying to do for the whole South. This was not flattery, because each one of these individuals knew that he had nothing to gain by trying to flatter me.

    My experience in getting money for Tuskegee has taught me to have no patience with those people who are always condemning the rich because they are rich, and because they do not give more to objects of charity. In the first place, those who are guilty of such sweeping criticisms do not know how many people would be made poor, and how much suffering would result, if wealthy people were to part all at once with any large proportion of their wealth in a way to disorganize and cripple great business enterprises. Then very few persons have any idea of the large number of applications for help that rich people are constantly being flooded with. I know wealthy people who receive as much as twenty calls a day for help. More than once when I have gone into the offices of rich men, I have found half a dozen persons waiting to see them, and all come for the same purpose, that of securing money. And all these calls in person, to say nothing of the applications received through the mails. Very few people have any idea of the amount of money given away by persons who never permit their names to be known. I have often heard persons condemned for not giving away money, who, to my own knowledge, were giving away thousands of dollars every year so quietly that the world knew nothing about it.

    Although it has been my privilege to be the medium through which a good many hundred thousand dollars have been received for the work at Tuskegee, I have always avoided what the world calls "begging." I often tell people that I have never "begged" any money, and that I am not a "beggar." My experience and observation have convinced me that persistent asking outright for money from the rich does not, as a rule, secure help. I have usually proceeded on the principle that persons who possess sense enough to earn money have sense enough to know how to give it away, and that the mere making known of the facts regarding Tuskegee, and especially the facts regarding the work of the graduates, has been more effective than outright begging. I think that the presentation of facts, on a high, dignified plane, is all the begging that most rich people care for.

    At one time, when I was in Boston, I called at the door of a rather wealthy lady, and was admitted to the vestibule and sent up my card. While I was waiting for an answer, her husband came in, and asked me in the most abrupt manner what I wanted. When I tried to explain the object of my call, he became still more ungentlemanly in his words and manner, and finally grew so excited that I left the house without waiting for a reply from the lady. A few blocks from that house I called to see a gentleman who received me in the most cordial manner. He wrote me his check for a generous sum, and then, before I had had an opportunity to thank him, said: "I am so grateful to you, Mr. Washington, for giving me the opportunity to help a good cause. It is a privilege to have a share in it. We in Boston are constantly indebted to you for doing our work." My experience in securing money convinces me that the first type of man is growing more rare all the time, and that the latter type is increasing; that is, that, more and more, rich people are coming to regard men and women who apply to them for help for worthy objects, not as beggars, but as agents for doing their work.

    I recall that on one occasion I obtained information that led me to believe that a gentleman who lived about two miles out in the country from Stamford, Conn., might become interest in our efforts at Tuskegee if our conditions and needs were presented to him. On an unusually cold and stormy day I walked the two miles to see him. After some difficulty I succeeded in securing an interview with him. He listened with some degree of interest to what I had to say, but did not give me anything. I could not help having the feeling that, in a measure, the three hours that I had spent in seeing him had been thrown away. Still, I had followed my usual rule of doing my duty. If I had not seen him, I should have felt unhappy over neglect of duty.
    Two years after this visit a letter came to Tuskegee from this man, which read like this: "Enclosed I send you a New York draft for ten thousand dollars, to be used in furtherance of your work. I had placed this sum in my will for your school, but deem it wiser to give it to you while I live. I recall with pleasure your visit to me two years ago."

    At one of our Commencements I was bold enough to invite the Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D.D., rector of Trinity Church, Boston, to preach the Commencement sermon. As we then had no room large enough to accommodate all who would be present, the place of meeting was under a large improvised arbour, built partly of brush and partly of rough boards. Soon after Dr. Donald had begun speaking, the rain came down in torrents, and he had to stop, while someone held an umbrella over him.
    The boldness of what I had done never dawned upon me until I saw the picture made by the rector of Trinity Church standing before that large audience under an old umbrella, waiting for the rain to cease so that he could go on with his address.
    It was not very long before the rain ceased and Dr. Donald finished his sermon; and an excellent sermon it was, too, in spite of the weather. After he had gone to his room, and had gotten the wet threads of his clothes dry, Dr. Donald ventured the remark that a large chapel at Tuskegee would not be out of place. The next day a letter came from two ladies who were then travelling in Italy, saying that they had decided to give us the money for such a chapel as we needed.

    A short time ago we received twenty thousand dollars from Mr. Andrew Carnegie, to be used for the purpose of erecting a new library building. Our first library and reading-room were in a corner of a shanty, and the whole thing occupied a space about five by twelve feet. It required ten years of work before I was able to secure Mr. Carnegie's interest and help. The first time I saw him, ten years ago, he seemed to take but little interest in our school, but I was determined to show him that we were worthy of his help. After ten years of hard work I wrote him a letter reading as follows:

December 15, 1900.  Mr. Andrew Carnegie, 5 W. Fifty-first St., New York. Dear Sir:

Complying with the request which you made of me when I saw you at your residence a few days ago, I now submit in writing an appeal for a library building for our institution.
We have 1100 students, 86 officers and instructors, together with their families, and about 200 coloured people living near the school, all of whom would make use of the library building.
We have over 12,000 books, periodicals, etc., gifts from our friends, but we have no suitable place for them, and we have no suitable reading-room.
Our graduates go to work in every section of the South, and whatever knowledge might be obtained in the library would serve to assist in the elevation of the whole Negro race.
Such a building as we need could be erected for about $20,000. All of the work for the building, such as brickmaking, brick-masonry, carpentry, blacksmithing, etc., would be done by the students. The money which you would give would not only supply the building, but the erection of the building would give a large number of students an opportunity to learn the building trades, and the students would use the money paid to them to keep themselves in school. I do not believe that a similar amount of money often could be made go so far in uplifting a whole race.
If you wish further information, I shall be glad to furnish it.
Yours truly,
Booker T. Washington, Principal.

    The next mail brought back the following reply: "I will be very glad to pay the bills for the library building as they are incurred, to the extent of twenty thousand dollars, and I am glad of this opportunity to show the interest I have in your noble work."

    I have spoken of several large gifts to the school; but by far the greater proportion of the money that has built up the institution has come in the form of small donations from persons of moderate means. It is upon these small gifts, which carry with them the interest of hundreds of donors, that any philanthropic work must depend largely for its support. In my efforts to get money I have often been surprised at the patience and deep interest of the ministers, who are besieged on every hand and at all hours of the day for help. If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christ-like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last thirty-five years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian. In a large degree it has been the pennies, the nickels, and the dimes which have come from the Sunday-schools, the Christian Endeavour societies, and the missionary societies, as well as from the church proper, that have helped to elevate the Negro at so rapid a rate.

    While a great deal of stress is laid upon the industrial side of the work at Tuskegee, we do not neglect or overlook in any degree the religious and spiritual side. The school is strictly undenominational, but it is thoroughly Christian, and the spiritual training or the students is not neglected. Our preaching service, prayer-meetings, Sunday-school, Christian Endeavour Society, Young Men's Christian Association, and various missionary organizations, testify to this.

    While speaking of changes in public sentiment, I recall that about ten years after the school at Tuskegee was established, I had an experience that I shall never forget. Dr. Lyman Abbott, then the pastor of Plymouth Church, and also editor of the Outlook (then the Christian Union), asked me to write a letter for his paper giving my opinion of the exact condition, mental and moral, of the coloured ministers in the South, as based upon my observations. I wrote the letter, giving the exact facts as I conceived them to be. The picture painted was a rather black one--or, since I am black, shall I say "white"? It could not be otherwise with a race but a few years out of slavery, a race which had not had time or opportunity to produce a competent ministry.
    What I said soon reached every Negro minister in the country, I think, and the letters of condemnation which I received from them were not few. I think that for a year after the publication of this article every association and every conference or religious body of any kind, of my race, that met, did not fail before adjourning to pass a resolution condemning me, or calling upon me to retract or modify what I had said. Many of these organizations went so far in their resolutions as to advise parents to cease sending their children to Tuskegee. One association even appointed a "missionary" whose duty it was to warn the people against sending their children to Tuskegee. This missionary had a son in the school, and I noticed that, whatever the "missionary" might have said or done with regard to others, he was careful not to take his son away from the institution. Many of the coloured papers, especially those that were the organs of religious bodies, joined in the general chorus of condemnation or demands for retraction.
    During the whole time of the excitement, and through all the criticism, I did not utter a word of explanation of retraction. I knew that I was right, and that time and the sober second thought of the people would vindicate me. It was not long before the bishops and other church leaders began to make careful investigation of the conditions of the ministry, and they found out that I was right. In fact, the oldest and most influential bishop in one branch of the Methodist Church said that my words were far too mild. Very soon public sentiment began making itself felt, in demanding a purifying of the ministry. While this is not yet complete by any means, I think I may say, without egotism, and I have been told by many of our most influential ministers, that my words had much to do with starting a demand for the placing of a higher type of men in the pulpit. I have had the satisfaction of having many who once condemned me thank me heartily for my frank words.
    The change of the attitude of the Negro ministry, so far as regards myself, is so complete that at the present time I have no warmer friends among any class than I have among the clergymen. The improvement in the character and life of the Negro ministers is one of the most gratifying evidences of the progress of the race. My experience with them, as well as other events in my life, convince me that the thing to do, when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing, and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.
 

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/treatise/bwashington/booker_01.htm.    Up From Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington

 

 

 

    Non-Fellowship With Slaveholders The Duty of Christians (1849) is a book by Reverend John G. Fee, a Kentucky clergyman who wrote several anti-slavery books.  He also founded Berea College. 

    His book underscores principles from the Bible and re-enforces writings by other clergymen such as Reverend George Bourne, An Address to the Presbyterian Church, Enforcing the Duty of Excluding All Slaveholders from The "Communion of Saints" (New York: 1833), Reverend Beriah Green, Things for Northern Men to Do (New York: 1836), Reverend Stephen Foster, American Clergy (1843), Reverend Parker Pillsbury, Forlorn Hope (1847), and Reverend Silas McKeen, Withdrawing Fellowship From Churches and Ecclesiastical Bodies Tolerating Slaveholding (1848).   http://medicolegal.tripod.com/feeduty1849.htm

    In 1904 Kentucky passed statute which segregates educational institutions.  Any school having "Negro" and "White" students in the same building was fined an initial $1000 and then another $100 a day for each day the school continues to operate.  Any instructor who taught in such schools was fined similarly.  Even the students were to be fined $50 a day.   Schools can run separate institutions for each race but they had to be more than 25 miles apart.  Berea at the time had 927 students of whom 174 were black.  Because of the new law, Berea paid for the transport of about 100 black students to Fiske College and Hampton Institute. .http://www.qx.net/jeff/afrolex/afrolaw.htm

"Let all professed Christians, who enslave their brethren, know that no honest man can "give them the hand of fellowship," as the disciples of the Saviour. Let them be debarred from the table of the Lord. Let them, if religious teachers they can claim to be, be excluded from the pulpit. Let them see that their sin is no longer to be "winked at;" that if they continue deaf to the voice of Christian reproof, they must be to the whole company of their disgraced and offended brethren, as a "heathen man and publican." They will doubtless be greatly vexed and shocked. They will doubtless remonstrate and complain. They will affirm, and deny, and threaten. But no shift, no turn, no expedient can save them from torturing convictions and stinging remorse. They will find "burning coals" in their bosoms. And the "accursed thing" they will put away."  Reverend Beriah Green, From Things for Northern Men to Do (New York: 1836).

 

"If all professed Christians, all ministers and churches, and larger Ecclesiastical Bodies, who believe slaveholding to be wrong, to be a great sin against both God and man, would refuse to have fellowship with all such professed Christians as practice or tolerate it, their influence against it would, beyond all doubt, but far greater and more powerful than it now is. ....
Slaveholding churches, left alone in their iniquity, cut off from all fellowship with other churches, and the Christian world, would be led to serious reflection; they would feel their position to be most undesirable; and such among them as fear God, and regard the honor of his cause, would be induced to unite their energies to deliver themselves from the disgrace and guilt which must ever be involved in the practice of this great iniquity."   Reverend Silas McKeen, From Withdrawing Fellowship From Churches and Ecclesiastical Bodies Tolerating Slaveholding (1848).  

"In the former part of my letter, I have shown that slavery is an American and not a Southern institution, and that the North and South are leagued together politically in its support.
I have also shown, both by reference to facts, and from the testimony of distinguished men at the South that the slave power could not sustain itself a single hour, without the aid and protection of the general government, but must fall at once before the avenging arm of its outraged victims; and,
consequently, that all who sustain the government in its unconstitutional pro-slavery character, do thereby sustain the slave system, and should be held responsible for all the guilt and misery which it involves.
But while the federal government, that is, the electors of the country, are the direct and visible agents on whose authority and fostering care slavery depends for support and perpetuity, there is, in this case, as in most others of a like nature, "a power behind the throne greater than the throne itself;" for in a country like ours, civil government is of no force, any than it is sustained by popular sentiment.
The will of the people for the time being is the supreme law of the land, the legislative and executive departments of the government being nothing more than a mere echo of the popular will.
Hence the power which controls public opinion does, in fact, give laws to our country, and is, therefore, pre-eminently responsible for the vices which are sanctioned by those laws.
That power in this, is the priesthood, backed up and supported by the church.
They are the manufacturers of our public sentiment; and, consequently, they hold in their hand the key to the great prison-house of Southern despotism, and can "open and no man shut, and shut and no man open."
There are in our country more than twenty thousand of this class of men, scattered over every part of the land, and at the same time so united in national and local associations as to act in perfect harmony, whenever concert is required.
They constitute what may properly be termed a "religious aristocracy."
Among the exclusive privileges which they claim and enjoy, is the right to administer the ordinances of sacraments, and to lead in all our religious services.
The ear of the nation is open to them every seventh day of the week, when they pour into it just such sentiments as they choose. And not only are they in direct and constant contact with the people in their public ministrations, but in their parochial visits, at the sick bed, at weddings, and at funerals, all of which are occasions when the mind is peculiarly tender, and susceptible of deep and lasting impressions.
Amply supported by the contributions of the church, their whole time is devoted to the work of molding and giving character to public sentiment; and with the advantages which they enjoy over all other classes of society, of leisure, the sanctity of their office, and direct and constant contact with the people as their "spiritual guides," their power has become all-controlling.

It is in a finite sense omnipresent in every section of the country and is absolutely irresistible, wherever their claims are allowed.
Hence, what they allow, it will be next to an impossibility to overthrow, at least till their order itself be overthrown; and whatever system of evil they oppose, must melt away like snow beneath the warm rays of an April sun."  Reverend Stephen Foster, From American Clergy (1843), some modernized English changes)
 

All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. 

Noah Webster, History of the United States, p. 339]

 

In 1785, Madison spoke in favor of a Jefferson bill for the gradual abolition of slavery.  Though the bill failed, a French observer was impressed with Madison.  He wrote that Madison was "A young man [who]. . . astonishes . . . his eloquence, his wisdom, and his genius, has had the humanity and courage (for such a proposition requires no small share of courage) to propose a general emancipation of the slaves...."   Marquis de Chastellux, Travels in North American the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782, Rice, ed. 2 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for Institute for Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Va., 1963), 653, [from footnote by George Grieve eighteenth century translator]. See James Madison and Slavery by Kenneth M. Clark ) http://www.innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html

Eloquence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it included persuasion by convincing, Mr. Madison was the most eloquent man I ever heard.
Patrick Henry, on James Madison, 1790

Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician with the scholar.
William Pierce, on James Madison, 1787

Harriet Beecher was the seventh child of a of a noted clergyman.  She had lived for 18 years in Cincinnati, separated only by the Ohio River from a slave-holding community in Kentucky.  She learned about the life of fugitive slaves through her contact with the "Underground Railroad," a secret network to help escaped slaves reach safety in the North.

    In 1836, Harriet married widower Calvin Stowe, a teacher of languages and biblical literature in the seminary.  In 1850 her husband became professor at Bowdoin College and moved his family to Brunswick, Maine.  In Brunswick, 1851, Stowe wrote the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin as a serial for the Washington, D.C., anti-slavery weekly, the National Era.  It became a book the next year.
    In writing the book, Stowe drew on her personal experience to accumulate a large number of documents and testimonies against slavery.  She brought to light the futility of slavery through Tom's truth over evil:

     "How would ye like to be tied to a tree, and have a slow fire lit up around ye?" asked Legree. 'Wouldn't that be pleasant, eh, Tom?'
    "Mas'r,' said Tom, 'I know ye can do dreadful things, but'—he stretched himself upward and clasped his hands—'but after ye've killed the body, there ain't no more ye can do. And oh! there's all eternity to come after that!' "

    Following publication of the book, she was invited often to speak against slavery both in America and Europe.  In 1856, she published a second anti-slavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp.

   Overcoming difficulties, she accomplished much.  She wrote religious periodicals, children's books, poems, travel books, biographical sketches, and ten adult novels. Throughout it all, she believed Christ was with her, "I thank God there is one thing running through all of them, from the time I was thirteen years old, and that is the intense unwavering sense of Christ's educating, guiding presence, and care.

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.  When I awake, I am still with you. 

Psalm 139:18

See: Bolton, Sarah K. Lives of Girls Who Became Famous. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1886. Erskine, John. Leading American Novelists. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910.  Fields, Annie (ed.) Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1898.

 Still, Still With Thee    by Harriet B. Stowe    Felix Mendelssohn

Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh
When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee
Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight
Dawns the sweet consciousness, I am with Thee

Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows
The solemn hush of nature newly born
Alone with Thee in breathless adoration
In the calm dew and freshness of the morn

Still, still with Thee as to each newborn morning

A fresh and solemn splendor still is giv'n,

So doth this blessed consciousness, awaking,

Breathe each day nearness unto Thee and heav'n!

 

When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber,

Its closing eyes look up to Thee in prayer;

Sweet the repose beneath Thy wings o'ershading,

But sweeter still to wake and find Thee there!

So shall it be at last, in that bright morning
When the soul waketh and life’s shadows flee
O in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning
Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with Thee

    Henry Ward Beecher:  Harriet Beecher Stowe's brother, a pastor filled with dramatic power and imagination as well as a heart of love and mind of intelligence.  He was very educated and read freely many books, even the likes of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer.

     He regarded God as a benevolent father, the Bible as a book in guidance for understanding, and religion as a way to an active life motivated by love.  He preached that love among brothers and sisters was fulfillment of the law as love of God was the essence of all Christianity. 

    Stowe believed that man must awaken their conscience and then must forbid the growth of slavery.  He was always against slavery and believed that it had to be overthrown under the constitution.  In his editorials, he impressed upon the public mind a clear opinion that slavery was wrong and against the best interests of the country.  He consulted with the political leaders, did his part to inspire the patriotism of the North, and created a mind set wanting to confirm and ratify the emancipation proclamation whenever the president should issue it.

Slavery naturally tends to destroy all sense of justice and equity. It puffs up the mind with pride: teaches youth a habit of looking down upon their fellow creatures with contempt, esteeming them as dogs or devils, and imagining themselves beings of superior dignity and importance, to whom all are indebted. This banishes the idea, and unqualifies the mind for the practice of common justice.
David Rice, speech to the constitutional convention of Kentucky, 1792

 

David Rice:  Clergyman, born in Virginia, 1733.  Graduated at Princeton where he studied theology. He was licensed to preach in 1762 and was installed as pastor of the Presbyterian church at Hanover, Virginia, in 1763. After five years he resigned; and three years later, he took charge of three congregations in new settlements of Virginia, where he worked during the period of the Revolution.

    When Kentucky was opened to settlement, he moved there with his family where he organized the first religious congregation in Kentucky, 1784. He and his wife, Mary, opened the earliest school in their house.  Mary was a daughter of Reverend Samuel Blair. 

     Rice organized and became chairman of a conference for instituting the Presbyterian church in the new territory in 1785.  He was founder of Transylvania Academy, which became Transylvania University. 

    In 1792, he helped frame Kentucky's constitution. Despite his protest speech against slavery, the Constitution continued the legalization of slavery in Kentucky.

    His published works include an Essay on Baptism (1789) ; Lecture on Divine Decrees (1791) ; Slavery Inconsistent with Justice and Policy (1792); An Epistle to the Citizens of Kentucky Professing Christianity, those that Are or Have Been Denominated Presbyterians (1805);  A Second Epistle to the Presbyterians of Kentucky," warning them against the errors of the day (1808), and A Kentucky Protest against Slavery" (New York, 1812).

 

David Rice's grandson was John Holt, a clergyman, educated at Liberty Hall academy where he began the study of medicine in 1799, afterward studied theology, and was later installed as pastor of a Presbyterian church in Virginia.  In 1815, he began the publication of the "Christian Monitor," a religious periodical, which he conducted for several years.  From 1818 till 1829 he edited a similar publication called the "Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine."

     He was asked to be president of Princeton in 1822, but a few weeks later accepted a professorship of theology at Hampden Sidney College.  He received the degree of D.D. from Princeton in 1819.

   
    Speech on abolition of slavery (excerpts below) was given by David Rice during Kentucky's constitutional convention.

    Sir, I have lived free, and in many respects happy for nearly sixty years; but my happiness has been greatly diminished ... by hearing a great part of the human species groaning under the galling yoke of bondage.... When I consider their deplorable state, and who are the cause of their misery, the load of misery that lies on them, and the load of guilt on us for imposing it on them; it fills my soul with anguish. I view their distresses, I read the anger of Heaven, I believe that if I should not exert myself, when, and as far, as in my power, in order to relieve them, I should be partaker of the guilt.   .......

    As creatures of God we are, with respect to liberty, all equal. If one has a right to live among his fellow creatures, and enjoy his freedom, so has another; if one has a right to enjoy the property he acquires by an honest industry, so has another. If I by force take that from another, which he has a just right to according to the law of nature (which is divine law) which he has never forfeited, and to which he has never relinquished his claim, I am certainly guilty of injustice and robbery; and when the thing taken is a man's liberty, when it is himself, it is the greatest injustice....

    A slave claims his freedom, he pleads that he is a man, that he was by nature free, that he had not forfeited his freedom, nor relinquished it. Now unless his master can prove that he is not a man, that he was not born free, or that he has forfeited or relinquished his freedom, he must be judged free; the justice of his claim must be acknowledged. His being long deprived of this right, by force or fraud, does not annihilate it, it remains; it is still his right. When I rob a man of his property, I leave him his liberty, and a capacity of acquiring and possessing more property; but when I deprive him of his liberty, I also deprive him of this capacity; therefore I do him greater injury, when I deprive him of his liberty, than when I rob him of his property. It is in vain for me to plead that I have the sanction of law; for this makes the injury the greater, it arms the community against him, and makes his case desperate.

    If my definition of a slave is true, he is a rational creature reduced by the power of legislation to the state of a brute, and thereby deprived of every privilege of humanity, except as above, that he may minister to the ease, luxury, lust, pride, or avarice of another, no better than himself.

    We only want a law enacted that no owner of a brute, nor any other person, should kill or dismember it, and then in law the case of a slave and a brute is in most respects parallel; and where they differ, the state of the brute is to be preferred. The brute may steal or rob, to supply his hunger; the law does not condemn him to die for his offence, it only permits his death; but the slave, though in the most starving condition, dare not do either, on penalty of death or some severe punishment.

    Is there any need of arguments to prove, that it is in a high degree unjust and cruel, to reduce one human creature to such an abject wretched state as this, that he may minister to the ease, luxury, lust, pride, or avarice of another? Has not that other the same right to have him reduced to this state, that he may minister to his interest or pleasure? On what is this right founded? Whence was it derived? Does it come from heaven, from earth, or from hell? Has the great King of heaven, the absolute sovereign disposer of all men, given this extraordinary right to white men over black men? Where is the charter? In whose hands is it lodged? Let it be produced and read, that we may know our privilege.

    Thus reducing men is an indignity, a degradation to our own nature. Had we not lost a true sense of its worth and dignity, we should blush to see it converted into brutes. We should blush to see our houses filled, or surrounded with cattle in our own shapes. We should look upon it to be a fouler, blacker stain, than that with which the vertical suns have tinged the blood of Africa. When we plead for slavery, we plead for the disgrace and ruin of our own nature. If we are capable of it we may ever after claim kindred with the brutes, and renounce our own superior dignity.

    From our definition it will appear, that a slave is a creature made after the image of God, and accountable to him for the maintenance of innocence and purity; but by law reduced to a liableness to be debauched by men, without any prospect or hope of redress.

    That a slave is made after the image of God no Christian will deny; that a slave is absolutely subjected to be debauched by men, is so apparent from the nature of slavery, that it need no proof....

    If slavery is not consistent with justice, it must be inconsistent with good policy. For who would venture to assert, that it would be good policy for us to erect a public monument of our injustice, and that injustice is necessary for our prosperity, and happiness?....

    The prosperity of a country depends upon the industry of its inhabitants; idleness will produce poverty: and when slavery becomes common, industry sinks into disgrace. To labor, is to slave, to work, is to work like a Negro; and this is viewed as disgraceful; it levels us with the meanest of the species; it sits hard upon the mind; it cannot be patiently borne. Youth are hereby tempted into idleness, and drawn into other vices; they see no other way to keep their credit, and acquire some little importance. This renders them like those they ape, nuisances of society....

    Slavery naturally tends to destroy all sense of justice and equity. It puffs up the mind with pride: teaches youth a habit of looking down upon their fellow creatures with contempt, esteeming them as dogs or devils, and imagining themselves beings of superior dignity and importance, to whom all are indebted. This banishes the idea, and unqualifies the mind for the practice of common justice. If I have, all my days, been accustomed to live at the expense of a black man, without making him any compensation, or considering myself at all in his debt, I cannot think it any great crime to live at the expense of a white man.... If I have no sense of obligation to do justice to a black man, I can think little to do justice to a white man.... If I am in principle a friend to slavery, I cannot, to be consistent, think it any crime to rob my country of its property and freedom, whenever my interest calls, and I find it in my power....

    Put all the above considerations together, and it evidently appears, that slavery is neither consistent with justice or good policy. These are considerations, one might think, sufficient to silence every objection; but I foresee, notwithstanding, that a number will be made....

    The question is that concerning the liberty of man....

    To call our fellow-men, who have not forfeited, nor voluntarily resigned their liberty, our property, is a gross absurdity, a contradiction to common sense, and an indignity to human nature....

    Human legislatures should remember, that they act in subordination to the great Ruler of the universe, have no right to take the government out of his hand nor to enact laws contrary to his; that if they should presume to attempt it, they cannot make that right, which he has made wrong; they cannot dissolve the allegiance of his subjects, and transfer it to themselves, and thereby free the people from their obligations to obey the laws of nature. The people should know, that legislatures have not this power....

    If there is not in government some fixed principle superior to all law, and above the power of legislators, there can be no stability, or consistency in it; it will be continually fluctuating with the opinions, humours, passions, prejudices, or interests, of different legislative bodies. Liberty is an inherent right of man, of every man; the existence of which ought not to depend upon the mutability of legislation....

    The slavery of the negroes began in iniquity; a curse has attended it, and a curse will follow it. National vices will be punished with national calamities. Let us avoid these vices, that we may avoid the punishment which they deserve; and endeavour to so act, as to secure the approbation and smiles of Heaven....

The preceding article is a rough version of the article that appeared in The American Almanac.  Any use of, or quotations from, this article must attribute them to The New Federalist, and The American Almanac. http://www.14beacon.org/abtarchives/abolitionist.htm

        LIBERIA

The first president of the American Colonization Society was former U.S. President James Monroe, for whom Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, was renamed.  Henry Clay was ACS president from 1836 to 1849.

        For many years the American Colonization Society tried to persuade the United States Congress to appropriate funds to send colonists to Liberia (“land of the free”). Although Henry Clay led the campaign, it failed. The society did, however, succeed in its appeals to some state legislatures.

        Freed slaves were sent to Africa "to promote and execute a plan for colonizing in Africa, with their own consent, the free people of color residing in the US."  They knew the African-American had a clear disadvantage in a dominantly white environment and believed their chances for happiness would be greater if they were given their own country.  Some also believed it was a good opportunity to spread Christianity in Africa.

        The ACS wanted a certain location in West Africa, but they were unable to persuade local tribal leaders to sell that territory.  In 1820, 88 free black settlers and 3 white helpers sailed for Sierra Leone shortly after signing a constitution requiring that the settlement operated according to U.S. laws. 

        Finding space on Scherbro Island off the west coast of Africa, the new immigrants began to construct a new settlement.  Within a few days, 22 of the African-Americans and all 3 white officials died of yellow fever.  Another ship soon arrived with new passengers and fresh supplies.
        In 1821, Captain Stockton of the USS Alligator obtained a 36-mile long strip of coastline in exchange for rum, weapons, shoes, and other miscellaneous items. The Scherbo Island group moved to this new location as did other blacks directly arriving from the United States.

        The settlement was on Providence Island near the city of Monrovia where the Society had made arrangements and agreements with local chiefs.  However, the agreement was not honored as the colonists were continuously attacked by indigenous peoples.  Add to this disaster, the threat of disease, and we find the settlers barely able to maintain their rightful home.  In 1824, they built protective forts, which gave them a degree of security. 

         In America, 1825: The ACS began a quarterly, The African Repository and Colonial Journal, edited by Rev. Ralph Randolph Gurley who headed the Society until 1844.  Among the items printed were positive articles about Africa, official dispatches emphasizing the prosperity of the colony, information about emigrants, and lists of donors.  Recruitment was difficult, however, as negative black attitudes toward colonization continued and limited the numbers of potential settlers.

        By 1830, only 1,430 blacks had been settled in Liberia, but many more blacks were now willing to emigrate since the Nat Turner rebellion had produced significant white backlash against free blacks. Virginia, Kentucky, and Maryland all appropriated funds for the shipment of free blacks to Africa. A Kentucky state affiliate was formed in 1828, and the members began to raise money for transporting Kentucky blacks—free volunteers as well as slaves set free on the condition that they agree to emigrate to Africa. Over 1,000 blacks went to Liberia in 1832
        The Society controlled the colony of Liberia until 1847 when Liberia was proclaimed a free and independent state. It was provided with a constitution much like the American constitution, making it the first democratic republic on the African continent.  Between 1848 and 1854, more money was appropriated by the states making it possible for over 4,000 free blacks to be brought to Liberia.  In 1850, Virginia set aside $30,000 annually for five years to aid and support emigration.  During the 1850s, the Society also received several thousand dollars from the New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Maryland legislatures.
        By 1867, the Society had sent more than 13,000 emigrants. They raised enough money to buy a 40-square-mile site along the St. Paul’s River. The principal town, established in 1846, was named in honor of Clay and his Lexington estate, Ashland.  After the Civil War, many more blacks wanted to go to Liberia, but financial support for colonization had waned.