The Free Church Alliance with Man-Stealers: An Address Delivered at Glasgow, Scotland April 21, 1846
THE FREE CHURCH ALLIANCE WITH MAN-STEALERS: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN GLASGOW, SCOTLAND, ON 21 APRIL 1846
Free Church Alliance With Manstealers . . . ( Glasgow, 1846 ), 19-24. Other texts in Glasgow Scottish Guardian, 24 April 1846; Glasgow Examiner, 25 April 1846; Glasgow Argus 27 April 1846; Liberator, 29 May 1846; Speech File, reel 13, frames 543-51, FD Papers, DLC; Woodson, Negro Orators, 170-77, misdated 29 May
1846.
Everything seemed to ensure that the public meeting sponsored by the Glasgow Emancipation Society on the evening of 21 April 1846 would be large and influential. Douglass found Scotland "in a blaze of anti-slavery agitation" and Glasgow was not about to bank the fires. The slogan "Send Back the Money" issued from pulpit, press, and placards for three days before the meeting took place. City councillor James Turner chaired the meeting and other members of the Glasgow Society occupied the platform. Henry C. Wright, the American Garrisonian and peace advocate, opened the meeting with a witty speech and a set of resolutions that declared that since slavery was a sin, no argument could possibly justify Christian fellowship with the men who practiced it. Frederick Douglass spoke to good effect in support of Wright's resolutions, as did James N. Buffum and British abolitionist George Thompson. Despite objections from a few spectators, who bristled at the strong criticisms of Free Church leaders and argued that the cause of abolition would be hindered by ceasing to communicate with American slaveholders, the resolutions passed by acclamation. The Glasgow Society voted to forward a copy of the resolutions to the General Assembly of the Free Church and approved George Thompson's motion to invite Garrison to the British Isles. Glasgow Constitu-
tional, 25 April 1846; Edinburgh Evening Post, 25 April 1846; Glasgow Saturday Post and Paisley and Renfrewshire Reformer, 25 April 1846; Douglass to Garrison, 16 April 1846, in Lib., 15 May 1846; Temperley, British Antislavery, 210-13.
Mr. Douglass next addressed the meeting nearly as follows:—The abolitionists of the United States have been labouring, during the last fifteen years, to establish the conviction throughout the country that slavery is a sin, and ought to be treated as such by all professing Christians. This conviction they have written about, they have spoken about, they have published about—they have used all the ordinary facilities for forwarding this view of the question of slavery. Previous to that operation, slavery was not regarded as a sin. It was spoken of as an evil—in some cases it was spoken of as a wrong—i n some cases it was spoken of as an excellent institution—and it was nowhere, or scarcely anywhere, counted as a sin, or treated as a sin, except by the Society of Friends, and by the Reformed Presbyterians,1America's Reformed Presbyterians were distinguished in the nineteenth century for their refusal to vote or hold office under the U.S. Constitution because it did not acknowledge the supreme authority of God. The ecclesiastical descendants of seventeenth-century Scottish Covenanters, members of the sect arrived in the colonies as early as the 1720s, but their numbers grew slowly and it was not until 1774 that they organized the short-lived Reform Presbytery of America at Paxtang, Pennsylvania. The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church absorbed the latter body in 1782 and was succeeded by the Reformed Presbyterian Church, organized in Philadelphia in 1798. The slavery issue first confronted the church in 1799 when the Reverend Alexander McLeod declined a pastorate in Orange County, New York, because a member of the congregation owned slaves. In 1800 the Presbytery decided to exclude slaveholders from church membership. This decision had a particularly serious impact in South Carolina, where some church members freed their slaves while others left the church entirely. McLeod later advocated African colonization, while in Philadelphia Reformed clergymen like Samuel Wylie and George Stuart actively supported the antislavery cause. During the Civil War the church established freedmen's missions in Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and in Washington, D.C. Ahlstrom, Religious History of the American People, 277; Murray, Presbyterians and the Negro, 129; David M. Carson, "The Reformed Presbyterian Church in America," in Gaius J. Slosser, ed., They Seek A Country: The American Presbyterians (New York, 1955), 102-26; Mabee, Black Freedom, 71, 218, 230, 240; Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 198. two small bodies of Christians in the United States.
The abolitionists, for advocating or attempting to show that slave- holding is a sin, have been called incendiaries and madmen, and they have been treated as such—only much worse in many instances; for they have been mobbed, beaten, pelted, and defamed in every possible way, because they disclaimed the idea that slavery is not a sin—a sin against God, a violation of the rights of man—a sin demanding immediate
repentance on the part of the slaveholders, and demanding the immediate emancipation of the trampled and down crushed slave. (Cheers.) They had made considerable progress in establishing this view of the case in the United States. They had succeeded in establishing to a considerable extent in the northern part of the United States a deep conviction that to hold human beings in the condition of slavery is a sin and ought to be treated as such, and that the slaveholder ought to be treated as a sinner. (Hear and applause.)
They had called upon the religious organisations of the land to treat slaveholding as a sin. They had recommended that the slaveholder should receive the same treatment from the church that is meted out to the ordinary thief. They had demanded his exclusion from the churches, and some of the largest denominations in the country had separated at Mason & Dixon's line, dividing the free states from the slave states, solely on account of slaveholding, as those who hold anti-slavery views felt that they could not stand in fellowship with men who trade in the bodies and souls of their fellow-men.2By 1846 the issue of slavery had split two of America's major Protestant denominations and caused a major theological rift in a third. The Methodists split in 1844 and the Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845. The division of Presbyterians into Old School and New School factions in 1837 ostensibly turned on abstract theological questions. Modern scholars argue, however, that Southern support of conservative Northern Calvinists grew out of a desire to check the growth of antislavery sentiment evident among church liberals. C. Bruce Staiger, "Abolitionism and the Presbyterian Schism of 1837-38, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 36 : 391-414 (December 1949); Victor B. Howard, "The Anti-Slavery Movement in the Presbyterian Church, 1835-1861" (Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1961); Murray, Presbyterians and the Negro, 103. (Applause.) Indeed, the anti-slavery sentiment not to sit in communion with these men, and to warn the slaveholder not to come near nor partake of the emblems of Christ's body and blood, lest they eat and drink damnation to themselves, is become very prevalent in the free states. They demand of the slaveholder first to put away this evil—first to wash his hands in innocency— first to abandon his grasp on the throat of the slave, and until he was ready to do that, they can have nothing to do with him.
All was going on gloriously—triumphantly; the moral and religious sentiment of the country was becoming concentrated against slavery, slaveholders, and the abetters of slaveholders, when, at this period, the Free Church of Scotland sent a deputation to the United States with a doctrine diametrically opposed to the abolitionists, taking up the ground that, instead of no fellowship, they should fellowship the slaveholders. According to them the slaveholding system is a sin, but not the slave-
holder a sinner. They taught the doctrine, that it was right for Christians to unite in Christian fellowship with slaveholders, and their influence has been highly detrimental to the anti-slavery cause in the United States. (Hear, hear.) All their reasonings and a r g u m e n t s , instead of being quoted on behalf of the abolition cause, are quoted on behalf of slavery. (Disapprobation.)
The newspapers which came from the United States came laden with eulogies of Drs. Candlish and Cunningham, and of the Free Church in general. While the slaveholders have long disconnected them-selves with the Secession Church in this country,3Scotland's United Secession Church originated in 1733 when several ministers, led by the Reverend Ebenezer Erskine, seceded from the Church of Scotland and organized the Associate Presbytery, which became the Associate Synod of the Secession Church in 1745. The latter body split into "Burgher" and "Antiburgher" factions, only to reunite in 1820 under the name United Secession Church. As early as 1788 the church's Antiburgher synod published a protest against the slave trade and in the 1820s the United Secession Church petitioned Parliament to abolish slavery in the British West Indies. Between 1834 and 1843 the Scottish synod sent six antislavery remonstrances to American churches and voted on 8 May 1846 to cease holding Christian fellowship with any church sanctioning slavery. In 1782 the church's American members organized the Associate Synod of North America, which maintained a separate existence until 1858 when it joined with another secessionist group to form the United Presbyterian Church of North America. In 1811 the Associate Synod of North America instructed its members either to free their slaves or to "treat them with as much justice as if they were liberated." In 1831 this synod voted to exclude slaveholders from church membership but took no steps to enforce the rule. After 1840, however, when the synod's moderator was mobbed by white South Carolinians for having urged "moral emancipation," most of the body's Southern members moved north of the Ohio River and abandoned slaveholding altogether. Testimony of the United Associate Synod of the Secession Church . . . , 3d ed. (Edinburgh, 1831), 36 - 66; John McKerrow, History of the Secession Church (Edinburgh, 1848), 64, 71, 343, 494-95, 675; Memorial and Remonstrance Respecting Slavery to the Churches of the United States of America, By the Synod of the United Secession Church (Glasgow, 1846), 1-7; Murray, Presbyterians and the Negro, 127-28; Edinburgh Witness, 9 May 1846. I do not say that the Secession Church has formally repudiated all alliance with them , but by the faithfulness of their remonstrances, by their denunciations of slavery from time to time, and by their opinions and arguments being known of all men, the slaveholders have disconnected themselves with them. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
Now, we want to have the matter of the Free Church thoroughly sifted here to-night. We want to call attention to the deputation particu-larly which admitted the principle of holding fellowship with slave-holders. To fellowship slaveholders as the type and representatives of Jesus Christ on earth, and not only that, but to take their money to build churches, and pay their ministers, the Free Church sent a deputation to America. That deputation was met by the Abolitionists of New York,
and remonstrated with, and begged not to stain their cause by striking hands with man-stealers, and not to take the polluted gains of slavery to pay their ministers; but by all means to take the side of the oppressed. The deputation had an excellent opportunity of aiming an effectual blow at slavery, but they turned a deaf ear and refused to listen to the friends of freedom. They turned a deaf ear to the groans of the oppressed slave—they neglected the entreaties of his friends—and they went into the slave states, not for the purpose of imparting knowledge to the slave, but to go and strike hands with the slaveholders, in order to get money to build Free Churches and pay Free Church ministers in Scotland. (Cries of " shame, " and applause.)
Now, I am here to charge that deputation with having gone into a country where they saw three millions of human beings deprived of every right, stripped of every privilege, ranged with four-footed beasts and creeping things, with no power over their own bodies and souls, deprived of the privilege of learning to read the name of the God who made them, compelled to live in the grossest ignorance, herded together in a state of concubinage—without marriage—without God—a n d with-out hope;—they went into the midst of such people—in the midst of those who held such a people, and never uttered a word of sympathy on behalf of the oppressed, or raised their voices against their oppressors.
We have been told that that deputation went to the United States for the purpose of making the Christians of the United States acquainted with the position of the Free Church of Scotland, or rather to explain the nature of the struggles of the Free Church in behalf of religious free-dom, and to preach the gospel. Now, I am here to say that that deputation did not preach the gospel to the slave—that gospel which came from above—that gospel which is peaceable and pure, and easy to be entreated. Had they preached that God was the God of the poor slave as well as of his rich master—had they raised their voices on behalf of that gospel—they would have been hung upon the first lamp-post. The slaveholders hate the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing they hate so much. A man may go there and preach certain doctrines connected with the gospel of Christ, but if ever he apply the principles of the love of God to man—to the slave as well as to the slaveholder—it will immediately appear how such a doctrine would be relished.
But this is not all. Not only did the Free Church Deputation not preach the gospel, or say a word on behalf of the slave, but they took care to preach such doctrines as would be palatable—as would be
agreeably received—and as would bring them the slaveholders' money. (Cries of "Shame," and applause.) They said, "We have only one object to accomplish; " and they justified themselves for not meddling with the sins with which they came into contact in America, on the ground that they had one particular object to employ their attention. Was it to obey the voice of God? Was it to proclaim the terrors of the law against all iniquity? No. It was to get money to build Free Churches, and to pay Free Ministers. That was the object to be accomplished, and in following this course they acted more like thieves than Christian ministers. (Applause.) I verily believe, that, had I been at the South, and had I been a slave, as I have been a slave—and I am a slave still by the laws of the United States—had I been there, and that deputation had come into my neighbourhood, and my master had sold m e on the auction block, and given the produce of my body and soul to them, they would have pocketed it and brought it to Scotland to build their churches and pay their ministers. (Cries of " No," "Yes, yes," and applause.) Why not? I am no better than the blackest slave in the Southern plantations.
These men knew who were the persons they were going amongst. It had been said they were not bound to inquire as to where money comes from, when it is put into the treasury of the Lord. But in this case there was no need of inquiry. They knew they were going to a class of people who were robbers—known stealers of men—for what is a thief? what is
a robber? but he who appropriates to himself what belongs to another? The slaveholders do this continually. They publish their willingness to do so. They defend their right to do so, and the deputation knew they did this. They knew that the hat upon the head of the slaveholder, the coat upon his back, and the cash in his pocket were the result of the unpaid toil of the fettered and bound slave, and yet in view of this fact they went amongst them. They went with a lighted candle in their hands. They were told what would be the consequence, but they went—purity gave way to temptation, and w e see the result. The result is evil to Scotland, and evil to America, but more to the former than to the latter; for I think the Free Church has committed more sin in attempting to defend certain principles connected with this question, than in accepting the money. They have had to upset all the first principles of Christianity in its defence. They have had to adopt the arguments of the Infidels, of the Socialists and others, by which to defend themselves, and have brought a foul blot on Christianity. (Cheers, and slight sounds of disapprobation.)
Now, what are their arguments? Why is Dr. Chalmers speaking as he does of the slaveholders and slavery, and trying to make it appear that there is a distinction without a difference? This eminent Free Church leader says, "A distinction ought to be made between the character of a system, and the character of persons whom circumstances have connected therewith. Nor would it be just," continues the Doctor, "to visit upon the person all the recoil and moral indignation which we feel towards the system itself." Here he lays down a principle by which to justify the present policy of the Free Church. This is the rock of their present position. They say "Distinction ought to be made, for while slavery may be very bad, a sin and a crime, a violation of the law of God, and an outrage on the rights of man, yet, the slaveholder may be a good and excellent Christian, and that in him we may embrace a type and standing representative of Christ. "While they would denounce theft, they would spare the thief; while they would denounce gambling, they would spare the gambler; while they would denounce the dice, they would spare the sharper; for a distinction should men whom circumstances have connected therewith. (Cheers and laughter.)
Dr. Chalmers and his Master are at odds. Christ says, "By their fruits shall they be known." Oh! no, says Dr. Chalmers, a distinction should be made between the fruits and the character of a system! Oh! the artful dodger. (Great laughter.) Well may the thief be glad, the robber sing, and the adulterer clap his hands for joy. The character of adultery and the character of the adulterer—and the character of slavery and the character of the slaveholder, are not the same. We may blame the system, therefore, but not the persons whom circumstances have connected therewith.
I would like to see the slaveholder made so by circumstances, and I should like to trace out the turn of circumstances which compelled him to be a slaveholder. (Hear, and cheers.) I know what they say about this matter. They say the law compels a slaveholder to keep his slaves, but I utterly deny that such a law exists in the United States. There is no law to compel a man to keep his slaves, or to prevent him from being emancipated. There are three or four States where the master is not allowed to emancipate his slaves on the soil, but he can remove them to a free State, or, at all events, to Canada, where the British lion prowls upon three sides of us, and there they would be free. (Cheers.) The slaveholder who wishes to emancipate his slaves has but to say, "There is
the north star—that is the road to Canada — I will never claim you"—and there would be little doubt of their finding their way to freedom. There was not a single slaveholder in America but who, if he chose, could emancipate his slaves instantly; so all the argument on this basis falls to the ground, as the fact did not exist on which it is built.
(Cheers.)
Slavery—I hold it to be an indisputable proposition—exists in the United States because it is respectable. The slaveholder is a respectable man in America. All the important offices in the Government and the Church are filled by slaveholders. Slaveholders are Doctors of Divinity; and men are sold to build churches, women, to support missionaries, and children to send Bibles to the heathen. Revivals in religion and revivals in the slave trade go on at one and the same time. Now, what we want to do is to make slavery disrespectable. Whatever tends to make it respectable tends to elevate the slaveholder, and whatever, therefore, proclaims the respectability of the slaveholders, or of slaveholding, tends to perpetuate the existence of this vile system. Now, I hold one of the most direct, one of the most powerful means of making him a respectable man, is to say that he is a Christian; for I hold that of all other men a Christian is most entitled to my affection and regard. Well, the Free Church is now proclaiming that these men — all blood-besmeared as they are, with their stripes, gags, and thumbscrews, and all the bloody paraphernalia of slave-holding, and who are depriving the slave of the right to learn to read the word of God, that these men — are Christians! and ought to be in fellowship as such. (Cries of "No," and "Yes.") Does any man deny that the Free Church does this?
Mr. PINKERTON.4Little is known about James Pinkerton. So far as can be determined, he was not a clergyman and his name does not appear on the committees of any benevolent, moral, or religious societies in Glasgow. Possibly he was affiliated with the firm of J. and M. Pinkerton, curriers, Macfarlane Street. Earlier in the meeting Pinkerton challenged the statements of Henry C. Wright and was the mover and sole advocate of a resolution urging the Free Church to retain its U.S. contributions. Free Church Alliance, 18-19.—You are libelling the Free Church.
Mr. DOUGLASS.—What! is this disputed? Will they not fellowship those who will not teach their slaves to read? I have to say, in answer, that there is not a slaveholder in the American Union who teaches his slaves to read, and I have to inform that individual, and the Free Church, and Scotland generally, that there are several States where it is punishable with death for the second offence to teach a slave his letters.
(Great applause.) And further (said Mr. Douglass) I have to tell him there is yet to be the first petition to the Legislature demanding a repeal of that law. If the Free Church are to fellowship the slaveholders at all, they must fellowship them in their blood and their sins just as they find them; and if they will not fellowship them except they teach their slaves to read, then they must not fellowship them at all. It was necessary to keep the slaves in ignorance. If he were not kept in ignorance, where there are so many facilities for escape, he would not long remain a slave, and every means are resorted to to keep him ignorant. The sentiment is general, that slaves should know nothing, but to do what is told them by their masters.
But a short time ago there was a Sabbath school established in Richmond, Virginia, in which the slaves, it was supposed, were being educated.5In 1845 St. James Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, was criticized for sponsoring a religious school for slaves. An anonymous writer to the Richmond Whig charged that three black Sabbath schools existed in the city and that several hundred children were enrolled at the St. James school alone. The writer demanded the matter be "attended to before evils arise which would be difficult to quell." The rector of St. James assured the Whig's readers that his school was conducted "in exact accordance with, and under the restrictions imposed by, our laws." The slave children were not being taught to read or to write: "They will, exclusively, be taught orally;—they will be taught the great truths and duties of natural and revealed religion—their duties to themselves, their fellow creatures, and their Maker—those things only that tend to make better servants —more trusty, dutiful and obedient—more virtuous and pious, more useful, exemplary and happy—more what all Masters wish their servants to be. "Although it is not clear whether the St. James school was suppressed in 1845, in 1852 the school maintained a teaching staff of eight and had an average attendance of fifty students. Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser, 3, 17 June 1845; Lib., 4 July 1845; Luther P. Jackson, "Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia from 1760 to 1860," JNH, 16 : 231 (January 1931).
The story reached the north, and was some cause of gratification; but in three weeks afterwards we found in the Richmond papers an article inquiring into the character of that school, and demanding to know why a Sabbath-school had been established in Virginia. Well, they gave an account of themselves, and what was it? In that Sabbath-school nothing was taught but what would tend to make the slave a better servant than before it was established; and in the second place, that there had not been, and there never would be, any book whatever. So they have schools there without books, and learn to read without letters. You will find Sabbath-schools, therefore, in many parts of the country, but you will find these such as I have described. (Applause.) Mr. Douglass concluded a long speech by paying a compliment to Mr. Thompson for his efforts in the cause of slave emancipation.