The Views of Southern Churches on Slavery: An Address Delivered at Edinburg, Scotland June 4, 1846
THE VIEWS OF SOUTHERN CHURCHES ON SLAVERY: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, ON 4 JUNE 1846
Edinburgh Evening Post, 10 June 1846. Other texts in Edinburgh Caledonian Mercury, 8 June 1846; Edinburgh Advertiser, 9 June 1846; British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, ser. 2, 1 : 110–11 (1 July 1846).
After attending a week of meetings in London in late May, Douglass and George Thompson hurried back to Scotland to attend the meeting of the General Assembly of the Free Church, which convened in the spacious Music Hall and at Canonmills in Edinburgh on 27 May 1846. Led by Drs. Candlish and Cunningham, the Assembly asserted that southern churchmen desired emancipation and needed help from Christians elsewhere to extricate themselves from the circumstances of slaveownership. Douglass was disappointed by the actions of the Assembly and angered by the contempt with which it treated him. The meeting at the Music Hall in Edinburgh on 4 June 1846 was the last of a series of public meetings at which Douglass, Thompson, and Henry C. Wright protested the recent actions of the General Assembly. The hall was less crowded than it had been for a similar meeting two days earlier, when many had been turned away for want of space. Councillor Joseph Hood Stott sat in the chair. After Douglass's short address, Wright accused the Free Church of hypocrisy and denounced its scriptural apologies for slaveholding. Thompson's lengthy concluding remarks elaborated on the themes raised by his colleagues. Before adjourning, the meeting unanimously approved a resolution offered by Thompson to establish in Edinburgh a nonpartisan, nonsectarian emancipation society called the Scottish Anti-Slavery Society. London Patriot, 26 May, 4 June 1846; Edinburgh Caledonian Mercury, 1, 4 June 1846; Edinburgh Advertiser, 5 June 1846; Edinburgh Scotsman, 6 June 1846; Edinburgh Weekly Journal, 10 June 1846; BFASR, ser. 2, 1 : 110–11 (1 July 1846); Norman L. Walker, Chapters from the History of the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, [1895]), 17, 71–72.
Mr. Douglass, who first addressed the meeting, said—Without any discussion upon this question, we have dealt for the most part with the naked statements respecting the condition of the churches of the Southern States of the American Union. We have taken the ground generally whereby we could make the audience aware and acquainted with the facts in regard to the views held by the churches in the Southern States on the question of slavery; but as the argument recently put forth at Canonmills is based upon a presumption that the slaveholding churches
of the Southern States of the American Union disapprove of slavery, and are anxious to get rid of that institution,1The 1846 General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland met at Canonmills in Edinburgh. On 30 May and 1 June the Assembly discussed a letter and resolutions from the Old School Presbyterian Church of the United States in reply to the Assembly's remonstrance of 1844. The arguments which were set forth—chiefly the idea that there was a distinction between "the character of a system, and the character of the men whom circumstances have implicated therewith"—were based on the presumption that slaveholding congregations believed slavery a sin and therefore favored its abolition. But in their letter Old School Presbyterians only conceded the sinfulness of the "abuses" of slavery, not the sinfulness of slavery as such. The Free Church argued that while slavery was sinful, slaveowners were not necessarily sinners; the American church reasoned that if slaveowners were not necessarily sinners, then slavery was not necessarily sinful. The former idea pointed toward abolition, the latter toward amelioration which was as far as Old School Presbyterians were prepared to go. They openly eschewed emancipation. Thus in the letter which the General Assembly voted to send to Old School Presbyterians, the Free Church stated that it presumed the Americans favored "the abolition of slavery itself" when they advocated " 'the repeal of unjust and oppressive laws respecting slavery.' " Free Church Report, 1846, 8–52. it makes it necessary that I refer to statistics, showing that so far from their being averse to slavery, they are its most strenuous advocates. Therefore, during the few moments which I shall occupy your attention, I shall point to the doings of several large and influential religious bodies in the Southern States.
I could point to the doings of Baptists, of Methodists, of Independents, of Episcopalians, which would prove the whole religious sentiment of the South to be in perfect unison with slaveholding; but it is not material at this time, since the unison against which we are now contending is a unison between the Free Church of Scotland and the slaveholding churches of the United States. I wish the audience to bear in mind that we have no objections whatever to their being in unison or common intercourse with the Church in America or the Church in the United States; our testimony is only lifted against the slaveholding churches. (Applause.)
I myself feel in unison with those churches in America who are not slaveholding; I love them, and I believe that a slave may look with hope to their proceedings for deliverance. I am in unison with a class of churches in the United States, but not with the slaveholding churches—(hear)—it is with the anti-slavery churches that I am in fellowship.
I want to show you how much you may rely on the statements of the leaders of the Free Church of Scotland, by showing the utter falsity of their position, when they maintain that the slaveholding religionists of the Southern States are anxious and desirous for emancipation. I will read to this meeting their proceedings from documents of distinguished religious Assemblies, Synods, Presbyteries, and other ecclesiastical
courts of the United States; but, in the meantime, I shall merely confine myself to one or two. Hopeful Presbytery, in South Carolina, is one with which the Free Church of Scotland is in the closest communion, and hear how anxious and desirous they are for emancipation. The following are resolutions adopted at one of their meetings held not very long ago:—"1. Resolve[d] that slavery existed in the Church of God since the time of Abraham, and to this day members of the Church of God hold slaves which were bought with money , or born in their own houses, which is in conformity with the duties recognised and defined in the Old and New Testament. 2. Emancipation is not mentioned amongst the duties of the masters to the slaves, while a strict obedience to the word of the masters is enjoined upon the slave. (Exactly in keeping with the teachings of Dr. Cunningham.) 3. No instance can be produced in which the master is reproved, much less excommunicated, for the single act of holding domestic slaves from the days of Abraham down to the date of the modern Abolitionists."2Douglass actually refers to Hopewell Presbytery in South Carolina, whose resolutions appear in Birney, American Churches, 38.
You can easily see that the language of Dr. Cunningham at Canonmills bears the closest resemblance to that of this Presbytery in South Carolina. Mr. Douglass next alluded to the resolutions of another Presbytery in the same State, and one with which the Free Church of Scotland were as closely connected. They are as follows:—"1. Whereas sundry persons in Scotland and England, and in the north and east of our own country have denounced slavery as obnoxious to the laws of God, some of whom presented to the General Assembly of our Church a petition, praying for the abolition of the relation between master and slave, and whereas from their statements, in reasoning and circumstances connected therewith, it is most manifest that these persons know not what they say, and with this ignorance discover a spirit of insurrection, resolve—(Is it that they are anxious to get rid of slavery? No!)—as the Kingdom of the Lord is not of this world, and as the laws of his Church are such that none has a right to alter or abolish, they cannot conform to any new institutions of these m e n , whether political or civil. 2. Slavery existed since the days of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were all slaveholders—(laughter)—and Apostle Paul sent Onesimus back to Philemon. We are now in the Kingdom of Heaven, till the time we find that he wrote a Christian letter to this slaveholder,
which still stands in the canon of the sacred Scriptures, and the slavery which existed in the days of the Apostle does now exist."3Resolutions from Harmony Presbytery of South Carolina appear in Birney, American Churches, 38 - 39.
Mr. Douglass next referred to the Charleston Union Presbytery. It was the Rev. Dr. Smyth of that Presbytery who preached a sermon, welcoming the deputation of the Free Church of Scotland to the free United States. It is presumed that their sentiments were then in unison with Dr. Smyth's, for he would not countenance that deputation if he received an impression that these men were anxious to get rid of slavery; but it is most probable that they were received by Dr. Smyth on the same terms as they were received by the other ministers of the Presbyterian Churches of South Carolina. Hear what they say:—"1. The slavery which exists amongst us is a political institution with which the ecclesiastical judicatories have not the smallest right to interfere, and we all know that such an interference would b e a great moral wrong, and fraught with the most dangerous and pernicious consequences, and our consciences being identified with this solemn conviction, it is our duty to maintain them under any circumstances. 2. It is the opinion of this Presbytery that slavery, so far from being a sin in the sight of God, is nowhere condemned in his Holy Word, but in the circumstances, acting in accordance with the example set forth by the Apostle Paul, we have a parental regard for those servants whom God has committed to our charge."4The resolutions of the Charleston Union Presbytery may be found in Birney, American Churches, 39.
Mr. Douglass then read extracts from the decisions of the Synods of Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, of the same nature as those above m e n t i o n e d , and then went on to say that the book from which he read those extracts was now before the public for the last six years,5Douglass read from Birney, American Churches, 39 - 40. Birney's pamphlet was first published in London in 1840 by Thomas Ward. and not one statement was called in question, not one fact denied, although the subject n o doubt underwent the strictest criticism. Drs. Cunningham and Candlish speak of publications and proceedings of organised associations, and of being greatly disturbed by some parties in the land. But who, pray, have we disturbed? We have disturbed the slaveholders—we have disturbed the pro-slavery minister—we have disturbed the man-stealing Church. We have not only unmasked the conduct of those
religious men who devour the widow's means under the pretence of making long prayers—(hear, hear)—but those who make widows by tearing asunder what God had joined together.
"Greatly disturbed the Free C h u r c h ! " What for? It is not because they left the Establishment—it is not for peculiar religious views; but because they have allied themselves to those who have trampled on the rights of their fellow-beings—because they allied themselves to man-stealers, and threw themselves across the pathway to emancipation. (Applause.) Therefore it is that we have disturbed them, and mean to continue disturbing them. (Applause.) W e must continue to disturb them until they let go the necks and throats of those they hold in bondage.
W e are bound to disturb them—we are bound to cry out—to call upon Almighty God who denies any rest or peace to the wicked. (Applause.) W e shall never give them rest so long as we live, and have health and strength; as our hearts sympathize with the poor slave we shall agitate this question, not only in America, England, and Ireland, but in Scotland. (Applause.) But I must g o on and read; I find that I am forgetting what I intended to do, thinking on the Free Church. (Laughter.)
Mr. Douglass then read some further extracts from the proceedings of Synods and other ecclesiastical courts, and then resumed by saying that slaveholders were quite careless regarding what might be said about slavery in general, or as it existed in Cuba or Brazil. Slaveholding in either of these places, or in any quarter of the world, might be denounced as a great crime, but it was nothing sinful in the United States—it was not in the nature of things—because we slaveholders or masters of slaves are excellent good Christians, and if there is any doubt we beg to refer to Drs. Cunningham, Candlish, and Chalmers of Scotland. (Applause.)
I thought, when down at Canonmills the other day, how consistent was the theology I heard there with that of the slave state of Maryland, from which I once ran away. They often preach to the slaves from this text,—" Servants obey your masters."6Douglass may refer to "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh" (Eph. 6 : 5), or "Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh" (Col. 3 : 22), or "Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters" (Titus 2 : 9). They tell those in bondage to obey their masters:—1st, because the Almighty commanded them to obey their masters; 2d, because the Lord brought them from Africa to that Christian country; 3d, because their happiness was dependent on
their obedience. They preach from that text to the slave; but they sometimes venture to preach from this text, " All things whatsoever you would men do unto you, do ye the same to them."7Douglass paraphrases Matt. 7 : 12. And how do you think they apply these words? Do they say " Slaveholders, do unto your slaves as you think your slaves would do unto you" ? No! That would be the natural mode of preaching; but the slaveholders can depart from the principle laid down by our blessed Saviour. They have this way of preaching from the text, namely—all things whatsoever you would men to do unto you d o ye the same unto them—therefore, masters do unto your slaves what you would have your slaves do unto you, if you yourselves were slaves, preserving the relation all the while between the master and the slave, and doing nothing to militate against this relation—taking care not to call in question the authority the slaveholder holds over his slaves, or opposing it in any way whatever.
This is just what was done at Canonmills the other day; they commiserated the poor slaveholder—they had compassion on him for having fallen into so unfortunate a predicament. (Laughter.) They had no sympathy with the man who was burning in the fire; but they were well able to sympathise with the man who was making up the fire around him. They had no sympathy with the unfortunate who was tied to the whipping post; but they had a great deal of pity for the monster who was applying the lash to his back. Oh! they had compassion on him who stands in need of sympathy—who has fallen into such an unfortunate predicament. It was providence that placed him in it. (Hear and laughter.) I could go on and give you a multiplicity of extracts, if George Thompson was not present.
Mr. Douglass then read a letter written in 1835, by Dr. Plummer,8William Swan Plumer (1802-80), proslavery Presbyterian minister, was bom in Griersburg, Pennsylvania, and ordained in 1837, after graduating from Washington College, now Washington and Lee University, and Princeton Theological Seminary. For thirty-eight years (1829-67), Plumer was pastor of churches in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In 1836 he coauthored an act of the Virginia synod that repudiated "modern abolition principles." Plumer successfully urged delegates to the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1837 to expel four synods for their antislavery stance and convinced the majority to support the Old School faction. That same year, Plumer established the Watchman of the South, the Old School's unofficial organ, which he edited for eight years. He was a trustee of the Hampden-Sidney College and taught theology at the Western Theological Seminary (1854—62) and at Columbia (South Carolina) Theological Seminary (1867-80). Plumer wrote the letter to which Douglass refers in support of a resolution passed by Richmond clergymen who vowed not to "patronize or receive any pamphlet or newspaper of the Anti-Slavery Societies." The full text of Plumer's letter appears in American Anti-Slavery Society, Third Annual Report (New York, 1836), 72 - 73, while an abridged text is in Birney, American Churches, 42. "Correspondence of Dr. Woods and Rev. Mr. Plummer [sic]," Literary and Theological Review, 2 : 194-222 (June 1835); Alfred Nevin, ed., Encyclopaedia of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Including the Northern and Southern Assemblies (Philadelphia, 1884), 622; Richmond Daily Dispatch, 26 October 1880; William Henry Foote, Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, 2d ed., rev. (Philadelphia, 1856), 507; Staiger, "Abolitionism and the Presbyterian Schism of 1837-8, " 391-414; Alfred J. Morrison, The College of Hampden-Sidney: Calendar of Board Minutes, 1776-1876 (Richmond, 1912), 128, 179; Ernest Trice Thompson, Presbyterians in the South, 2 vols. (Richmond, 1963), 2 : 243, 369; Clement Eaton, Freedom of Thought in the Old South (Durham, N.C., 1940), 197-98.
at the time the Abolitionists were prohibited from going to the south, under the pain of instant death. In some parts their houses were ransacked, their property destroyed, and their dwellings burnt over t h e m, and several were killed on the spot. The cry in the south was death—instant death to the Abolitionists; and the first moment a minister or any other person, no matter whether a public or private individual, went to lecture on the subject of slavery, that moment his tongue was cut out. At this time it was very dangerous for any man to make use of the word "slavery" in the south—it was then that Dr. Plummer wrote a letter, recommending the burning of all Abolitionists who passed the Potomack, and in urging the necessity of such punishment, quoted the opinions of Montesquieu, Burke, and Coleridge, three eminent masters of the science of human nature, who each affirmed that all men who were slaves must be jealous of their liberty, and, at the same time, that of a Mr. Pennyson, who pronounced the Southern States to be the "cradle of liberty.9This is a garbled line from Plumer's letter on behalf of Richmond clergymen which actually reads: "One of Pennsylvania's most gifted sons has lately pronounced the South the cradle of liberty." American Anti-Slavery Society, Third Annual Report, 72; Birney, American Churches, 42."
Mr. Douglass subsequently read extracts from letters of Dr. Anderson10A Presbyterian minister, Robert N. Anderson (?-1872) was born and raised in Cumberland County, Virginia, and educated at Hampden-Sidney College in the same state. He was licensed to preach in 1819 and ordained by the West Hanover Presbytery shortly thereafter. During the last part of his career he was a member of the Roanoke Presbytery, though he never held a pastoral charge because of his reputation for "marked eccentricities of manner, which hindered his usefulness and prevented him from being engaged constantly and successfully in the work of the ministry." He lived in retirement for a number of years before his death. Douglass read an extract from a letter which Anderson addressed in 1835 to the session meetings in West Hanover Presbytery, first published in the Richmond Enquirer. Nowhere in his letter did Anderson defend slavery on scriptural grounds; he merely announced his intention to introduce at the next meeting of the Presbytery "a string of resolutions on the subject of the treasonable and abominably wicked interference of the Northern and Eastern fanatics with our political and civil rights, our property, and our domestic concerns." As a measure for enforcing orthodox social opinions within the Presbytery he recommended: "If there be any stray-goat of a minister among us, tainted with the blood-hound principles of abolitionism, let him be ferreted out, silenced, excommunicated, and left to the public to dispose of him in other respects." The letter was reprinted in Lib., 26 September 1835 and extracted in Birney, American Churches, 43, which was probably Douglass's source. Presbyterian Church in the United States, Minutes of the Synod of Virginia at Their Sessions in Baltimore, November, 1872 (Wytheville, Va., 1872), 227; Rev. E. C. Scott, comp., Ministerial Directory of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., 1861-1941 (Austin, Tex., 1942), 16. and the Rev. Mr. Witherspoon of Alabama,11Thomas Sydenham Witherspoon (1805 - 45), a native of South Carolina, lived the last twenty years of his life in Alabama. After graduating in 1828, from Union College in Schenectady, New York, Witherspoon was licensed in 1830 and ordained in 1832 by the Presbytery of South Alabama. He preached in Greensboro for some fifteen years. Douglass read the extract of Witherspoon's letter to the Emancipator, which appears in Birney, American Churches, 42—43: "I draw my warrant from the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to hold the slave in bondage. The principle of holding the heathen in bondage is recognized by God. . . . When the tardy process of the law is too long in redressing our grievances, we of the South have adopted the summary remedy of Judge Lynch; and really, I think it one of the most wholesome and salutary remedies for the malady of Northern fanaticism that can be applied, and no doubt my worthy friend, the editor of the Emancipator and Human Rights, would feel the better of its enforcement, provided he had a Southern administrator. I go to the Bible for my warrant in all moral matters. . . . Let your emissaries dare venture to cross the Potomac, and I cannot promise you that their fate will be less than Haman's. Then beware how you goad an insulted, but magnanimous people to deeds of desperation." Thomas McAdory Owen, History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, 4 vols. (Chicago, 1921), 4 : 1795; Nevin, Presbyterian Church in the United States, 1026-27. both of whom
defended slavery by making references to the Scriptures; and urged the same method of punishing the Abolitionists as that recommended by Dr. Plummer. And at the conclusion of his address, in showing the falsity of the statements of the leaders of the Free Church, said that, at the very time Dr. Cunningham was in New York, an announcement was made in the New York newspapers, by a Mr. George Smith and other gentlemen, offering 1000 dollars for the liberation of a certain number of slaves;12Douglass later identified this person as Gerrit Smith and said that he was joined in this enterprise by Arthur Tappan and other northern philanthropists. Apparently these gentlemen ran advertisements in many northern journals roughly from 1837 to 1847, if not longer, offering $10,000 to any slaveholders who wanted to manumit their slaves but were prevented from doing so by a lack of money for sending them out of the South, as per state law. Farewell Speech of Frederick Douglass . . . at the London Tavern on March 30, 1847 (London, 1847), 15; Harlow, Gerrit Smith, 269 - 74. but not a single slaveholder came forward to accept the proposal, notwithstanding all that Drs. Cunningham and Candlish would have us to believe, that slaveholders were anxious to get rid of slavery.