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The Southern Style of Preaching to Slaves: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, January 28, 1842

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28 JANUARY 1842 15

what they think about abolition, for it only tempts them to pretend to be
abolitionists. Now I had rather take my chance about that, than be
obliged to take a man I know nothing about, upon the mere nomination
of the third party. Why, when I see men I know have never been active
abolitionists, setting up other men who were never before heard of in
the cause, and no questions asked, I inquire, why am I to suppose this
man is an abolitionist, any more than the candidate of the other parties?
Then, again, look at the root of this third party. Those who were active
once in the cause, and begun to find out that it led to more sacrifice than
they wanted to make, got it up when they found their plans to put down
the old Society failed. Much as I respect the sincerity of some who are
engaged in it, I see that the plan itself, to begin with, is only new orga-
nization 4 new organized.

THE SOUTHERN STYLE OF PREACHING TO SLAVES: AN
ADDRESS DELIVERED IN NOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ON
28 JANUARY 1842

Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Soc-
iety
(Boston, 1842), 18-19. Another text in Liberator, 4 February 1842.

On the evening of 28 January 1842, some 4000 people gathered in Bos-
ton’s Faneuil Hall to attend a public meeting sponsored by the Mas-
sachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Called to promote the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia, the meeting focused on the antislavery signifi-
cance of the “Address From the People of Ireland to Their Countrymen
and Countrywomen in America," which black abolitionist Charles Lenox
Remond had brought to the United States in December. Irish statesman
Daniel O‘Connell, temperance advocate Theobald Mathew, and 60,000
other signatories urged Irish Americans to “treat the colored people as
your equals
” and to “CLING BY THE ABOLITIONISTS.” Abolitionists Jon-
athan Peckham Miller, George Bradburn, James Canning Fuller, and
Wendell Phillips praised the influence of Irish intellectuals and reformers
on their own antislavery convictions. Presiding officer William Lloyd Gar-
rison then introduced Douglass in tersely dramatic fashion. “It is recorded
in holy writ that a beast once spoke,” Garrison declared. “A greater mira-

4. "New Organization" refers to the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, formed in
1840 when some 300 members of the American Anti-Slavery Society protested the leadership of
Williams Lloyd Garrison. The new group had close ties to the Liberal party, organized the same
year. Dumond, Antislavery, 285-87.

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16 BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

cle is here tonight. A chattel becomes a man.” The meeting proceeded
smoothly and Garrison’s fears that it might be disrupted proved ground-
less. The audience, which included many Irishmen present to hear the
“Irish Address," particularly appreciated Douglass’s parody of a slave-
holder’s sermon. Moved by the appeals to freedom in behalf of American
slaves and Irish nationalists, an unidentified “friend of universal liberty”
rose from the gallery and, obtaining permission to speak, denounced the
“factory system” and its contributions to “slavery in the free States.” The
“Irish Address" is reprinted in Lib., 11 March 1842. See also Lib., 4 Feb-
ruary 1842; Garrison to George W. Benson, [28], 29 January 1842, Garri-
son to Richard D. Webb, 27 February 1842, in Merrill and Ruchames,
Garrison Letters, 3 : 46-48, 53; [Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis
Jackson Garrison], William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His
Life Told By His Children,
4 vols. (1885; New York, 1969), 3 : 43-51
(hereafter cited as Garrison Life).

I rejoice to be permitted, as well as to be able to speak upon this subject
in Faneuil Hall. I will not detain you long, for I stand here a slave. (No!
no! from the meeting.) A slave at least in the eye of the Constitution.
(No! no! with emphasis from the meeting.) It is a slave by the laws of
the South, who now addresses you. (That’s it! from the meeting.) My
back is scarred by the lash—that I could show you. I would, I could
make visible the wounds of this system upon my soul. I merely rose to
return you thanks for this cheering sight, representing as I do, the two
and a half millions remaining in that bondage from which I have es-
caped. I thank God that I have the opportunity to do it. Those bondmen,
whose cause you are called to espouse, are entirely deprived of the priv-
ilege of speaking for themselves. They are goods and chattels, not men.
They are denied the privileges of the Christian—they are denied the
rights of citizens. They are refused the claims of the man. They are not
allowed the rights of the husband and the father. They may not name the
name of Liberty. It is to save them from all this, that you are called. Do
it!—and they who are ready to perish shall bless you! Do it! and all
good men will cheer you onward! Do it! and God will reward you for
the deed; and your own consciences will testify that you have been true
to the demands of the religion of Christ. (Applause)

But what a mockery of His religion is preached at the South! I have
been called upon to describe the style in which it is set forth. And I find
our ministers there learn to do it at the northern colleges. I used to know
they went away somewhere I did not know where, and came back min-
isters; and this is the way they would preach. They would take a text—

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25 MAY 1842 17

say this;—“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
And this is the way they would apply it. They would explain it to mean,
“slaveholders, do unto slaveholders what you would have them do unto
you: ”—and then looking impudently up to the slaves’ gallery, (for they
have a place set apart for us, though it is said they have no prejudice,
just as is done here in the northern churches;) looking high up to the
poor colored drivers and the rest, and spreading his hands gracefully
abroad, he says, (mimicking,) “And you too, my friends, have souls of
infinite value—souls that will live through endless happiness or misery
in eternity. Oh, labor diligently to make your calling and election sure.
Oh, receive into your souls these words of the holy apostle—‘Servants,
be obedient unto your masters.” (Shouts of laughter and applause.) Oh,
consider the wonderful goodness of God! Look at your hard, horny
hands, your strong muscular frames, and see how mercifully he has
adapted you to the duties you are to fulfill (continued laughter and
applause) while to your masters, who have slender frames and long deli-
cate fingers, he has given brilliant intellects, that they may do the think-
ing
, while you do the working.”1 (Shouts of applause.) It has been said
here at the North, that the slaves have the gospel preached to them. But
you will see what sort of a gospel it is:—a gospoel which, more than
chains, or whips, or thumb-screws, gives perpetuity to this horrible sys-
tem.

THE CHURCH IS THE BULWARK OF SLAVERY: AN
ADDRESS DELIVERED IN BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ON
25 MAY 1842

Boston Courier, 26 May 1842. Another text in Liberator, 3 June 1842.

From 24 to 27 May 1842 the annual convention of the New England Anti-
Slavery Society met in Boston's Chardon Street Chapel, a place described

1. This is the fullest of several early accounts of Douglass's famous Slaveholder’s Ser-
mon," which he gave often during his youthful days as an abolitionist lecturer. The parody is based
in part on personal observation and apparently in part on William Meade, ed., Sermons Addressed
to Masters and Servants . . . Published in the Year 1743, by the Rev. Thomas Bacon . . . With
Other Tracts and Dialogues . . .
(Winchester, Va., 1813) and idem, Sermons, Dialogues and
Narratives for Servants, to be Read to Them in Families; Abridged, Altered and Adapted to Their
Condition
(Richmond, 1836), two of the better-known manuals written by Southern clergymen on
the religious instruction of slaves. The sermons in the latter manual were somewhat modified ver-
sions of those in Bacon’s tract. William S. Jenkins, Pro-Slavery Thought in the Old South (Chapel
Hill, 1935), 14-15n., 214n.

Creator

Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895

Date

1842-01-28

Publisher

Yale University Press 1979

Collection

Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (Boston, 1842), 18—19

Type

Speeches

Publication Status

Published

Source

Tenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (Boston, 1842), 18—19