Emancipation is an Individual, a National, and an International Responsibility: An Address Delivered at London, England, May 18, 1846
EMANCIPATION IS AN INDIVIDUAL, A NATIONAL, AND AN INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN LONDON, ENGLAND, ON 18 MAY 1846
London Patriot, 26 May 1846. Other texts in London Universe, 19 May 1846; London Nonconformist, 20 May 1846; London Inquirer, 23 May 1846; British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, ser. 2, 1 : 93–95 (1 June 1846).
While barnstorming Scotland on their "Send Back the Money" campaign, Douglass and George Thompson were invited by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to address its annual convention at Freemasons' Hall in London on 18 May 1846. Although the Broad Street organization was anti-Garrisonian, it was more sympathetic than many of its auxiliaries to denunciations of Free Church policy, and Douglass believed it his duty to "speak in any meeting where freedom of speech is allowed and where I may do anything toward exposing the bloody system of slavery." Attendance, though thin, was of "the highest respectability." The audience included Sir Edward North Buxton, son of Thomas Fowell Buxton, Joseph Sturge, a member of Parliament, and several distinguished English divines. The Reverend William Chalmers even put in an appearance to speak in palliation of the Free Church and to invoke scriptural sanction for communion with slaveholders. Neither the apology nor the exegesis went over well with the audience. The meeting overwhelmingly approved a resolution imploring the Free Church to return the slaveholders' money and spurned any biblical interpretation which might impose on it the duty, as John Scoble put it, "to send back Frederick Douglass to his master." Never having seen Douglass before, most of the audience was anxious to hear the man who would, according to William Sharman Crawford, detail "the miseries to which the American slaves are subjected: and vindicate the talents and abilities of the African people." Douglass gave the last address. It was "a long and eloquent speech," said a reporter for the Edinburgh Witness, longer even than that delivered by George Thompson, who preceded Douglass with a talk on the "blood-stained" money, and the speech might have been longer still had Douglass been permitted to continue with his intended remarks on the condition of free blacks. But John Howard Hinton, the editor of the society's Anti-Slavery Reporter, thought it advisable to consider this question at a special meeting, and the convention adjourned. Douglass to Maria Weston Chapman, 18 August 1846, in
Taylor, British and American Abolitionists, 277-78; Edinburgh Witness, 21 May 1846; Glasgow Saturday Post, 30 May 1846; Scotch Reformer's Gazette, 2 May 1846; London Morning Herald, 19 May 1846; London Morning Advertiser, 19 May 1846; London Daily News, 19 May 1846; Douglass to Edmund Quincy, 28 April 1846, CSmH; Douglass to Garrison, 23 May 1846, in Lib.,
26 June 1846.
Mr. Frederick Douglass then stood forward, and was received with enthusiastic cheers, on the subsidence of which he said: I experience great pleasure in having the opportunity afforded me of addressing an English audience on the subject of American slavery. About eight years ago I escaped from slavery in America, and went to New Bedford, where I obtained my livelihood by working on the wharfs as a common labourer. I remained at work there about three years, at which time I met with a number of abolitionists, both in New Bedford and Nantucket, who were holding an anti-slavery meeting.
I was induced, from the kindly tone they entertained towards me, to say a few words at that meeting respecting what I knew was the actual state of slavery in Maryland. What I said led them to desire that I should go to different states [counties] in Massachusetts, and make known the facts with which I was acquainted, for they thought it would attract attention, and create a deeper interest than had been felt before on this subject. Accordingly, after much solicitation, I went to tell my story of the wrongs of my brethren in bonds.
For four years I have prosecuted my labours in season and out of season, amidst obstacles and difficulties of various kinds, mobs, and so on. However, about the latter part of the four years, in such parts of the states as I was now very well known, my manner was such as to create a suspicion that I was not a runaway slave, but some educated free negro, whom the abolitionists had sent forth to attract attention to what was called there a faltering cause. They said, he appears to have no fear of white people. How can he ever have been in bondage? But one strong reason for this doubt was, the fact that I never made known to the people to whom I spoke where I came from. I never stated in public in the United States who my master was;1Douglass here is essentially correct, for up to this time he had not revealed publicly the name of his former master. However, he had revealed details about his enslavement on at least two occasions in the United States, in New York City on 6 May 1845 and in Boston on 27 May 1845. New York Morning Express, 7 May 1845; New York Evangelist, 8 May 1845; Herald of Freedom, 16 May 1845; Lib., 16 May 1845; NASS, 22 May 1845; Boston Daily Courier, 28 May 1845. and for this very good reason; had I
told them, any one in the northern states might have written to him, and have informed him of my whereabouts, and I might have been hurled back to the jaws of that system from which I had escaped. I therefore kept the matter secret, contenting myself with facts regarding slavery, and having nothing to say of individual slaveholders. But it became necessary to set myself right before the public in the United States, and to reveal the whole facts of my case. I did not feel it safe to do so till last spring, when I was solicited to it by a number of anti-slavery friends, who assured me that it would be safe to do so.2In his second autobiography Douglass claimed that he wrote his Narrative in order to dispel growing doubts that he had ever been a slave and that white friends tried to dissuade him from publishing it for fear that it would expose him to recapture by fugitive slave hunters. Wendell Phillips went so far as to say that, were he in Douglass's place, "I should throw the MS. into the fire." Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 363-64; idem, Narrative, 20. I then published a narrative of my experience in slavery, in which I detailed the cruelties of it as I had myself felt them. I stated the existence of crime, and identified the perpetrators of the crime that I alleged, calling them by name, and telling where they lived, and what Church they belonged to, and that the man who claimed property in my body and soul is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and a class-leader in it. (Hear, hear.)
My statements were taken up with avidity by the northern papers, and circulated in the far south, where my master soon became acquainted with the fact,—that this Frederick Douglass, who was going about through the whole of the United States, was the veritable Frederick Bailey, who was once his property. (Cheers.) There is no law by which I could be free in any part of America, so that it was thought better that I should leave the country for a while; at least until public opinion is so far advanced anti-slavery-wise in the northern states as to make it a little safer for me than it now is, and which may be the case in a year or two.
One word with regard to the fact, that there is no part of America in which a man who has escaped from slavery can be free. This is one of the darkest spots in the American character. I want the audience to remember that there are those who come to this country who attempt to establish the conviction that slavery belongs entirely to the southern states of America and does not belong to the north. I am here, however, to say that slavery is an American institution—(hear, hear)—that it belongs to the entire community; that the whole land is one great hunting-ground for catching slaves and returning them to their masters.
(Hear, hear.) There is not a spot upon which a poor black fugitive may stand free—no valley so deep, no mountain so high, no plain so expanded, in all that "land of the free and home of the brave," that I may enjoy the right to use my own hands without being liable to be hunted by the bloodhounds. (Cheers.) Hence I came to this country, and I feel exceedingly glad to be here. (Loud cheers.)
My master, whom I have accused of being a very mean man, and who has attempted a refutation of the truth of my narrative in a letter which he published in the United States,3An extract from Thomas Auld's letter to A.C.C. Thompson dated 12 January 1846 was published in the Albany Patriot and reprinted in Lib., 20 February 1846. tried to show that he was an excellent man, and he has generously transferred his legal right in my body and soul to his brother. He has actually made his brother a present of the body and bones of Frederick Douglass. His brother must feel exceedingly rich to-day. (Laughter.) He must feel himself as wealthy as though he had received a title deed to the planet Mars. (Laughter and cheers.) He has given every proof of his meanness in giving me away running. He ought to have given me to his brother when I should have been of some service to him, but he has made him a present of a person 3,000 miles off. The brother, however, seems very proud of the gift, and resolves that if ever I touch American soil, I shall be instantly reduced to a state of slavery.4Hugh Auld's threat first appeared in PaF, 26 February 1846. However, it is not to a state of slavery that they wish now to have me reduced. They have a feeling of revenge to gratify.
I have not only exposed them in the northern states, but during the last nine months I have been going the length of Ireland and Scotland, tearing off the mask from the abominable system of slavery, and exposing the American slaveholders to the gaze and indignation of the Christian people of those countries. (Cheers.) They feel it sensibly, as the periodicals they have coming from the other side show. They speak as though they felt the statements that are now being made for their character, by one who has broken the chain, and has succeeded in reaching a land where he may be free. (Loud cheers.)
There is a great deal said in this country with regard to the system of American slavery. For my part, I have done speaking of the system of slavery. I have heard persons who would start up, and with both hands denounce the system in louder language, and more eloquent terms, than I am capable of using; but, at the same time, would stand apologising
for the Christian character of the slaveholder, and speaking of him as being an excellent man as disconnected from the system. Now I have done with American slaveholders. This matter of holding slaves is an individual affair in America, as well as a national one. All attempts to remove the responsibility of the slaveholder from the individual to the nation, is erroneous, fallacious, false. All attempts to make it exclusively an individual matter are equally wrong—however it is more of an individual matter than a national one. The slaveholder holds his slave from choice—he trades in the bodies and souls of his fellow-men, because it is convenient for him to do so. He is not compelled, as some have stated in this country, to hold his slave by law.5In arguing against the abolitionists' moral condemnation of American slaveowners, Free Church spokesmen often emphasized the legal barriers to emancipation in the United States. William Cunningham restated the Free Church's position at its General Assembly in 1846: "One does see in slaveholding countries a man, in point of fact, so placed and so surrounded by laws and regulations, that we are forced, in common sense, to come to the conclusion, that taking a right estimate of all he could do and all he might do, in regard to the persons he might have a legal right to hold in slavery, he was fairly warranted, on the grounds of necessity and mercy, to retain that position, and of course might retain it without being guilty of sin. . . . In the slaveholding states of America, men are so restrained and hampered by law, and the condition and usages of the whole social system are such, that you cannot in conscience blame them." Free Church Report, 1846, 7, 38; George Thompson and Henry C. Wright, The Free Church of Scotland and American Slavery (Edinburgh, 1846), 72-73, 90-95. There is not a single slaveholder in the United States but what could give liberty to every slave in his possession. (Hear, hear.) All the arguments, therefore, based on this position, must fall to the ground, since the fact itself does not exist. I know that there are laws in some of the States making it impossible to emancipate their slaves on the soil, or making it impossible for them to remain on the soil in an emancipated state; but there is not a state in the American Union to which a slaveholder may not take his slaves and give them that liberty to which they are entitled by the laws of God and of nature. (Cheers.)
One would think, from reading certain statements, that the religious part of the slaveholders were anxiously desirous to get rid of their slaves—really praying daily and hourly to be shown some way by which to get rid of this very troublesome species of property. While the learned gentlemen in the north of this country are puzzling their brains in devising some way by which the masters may emancipate them, there is not a slave in all America so ignorant but what he could decide the question instantly as to how the master might put him in possession of freedom. (Laughter and cheers.) All that he has to do is to say, "I
relinquish my claim upon your slaves. There is the north star; it shines upon the British dominions. Go to Canada, and in any of her Majesty's dominions the slave may be free." (Cheers.) The slaveholder, therefore, is without excuse in this matter. (Renewed cheers.) He is individually responsible, for while the law permits him to hold a slave it does not
compel him.
But I have a word to say about the relation of master and slave as it exists in the United States. I have had a little opportunity since I escaped from slavery of investigating the character of slavery as it exists in other countries, and I am able to say in no country in the world does it exist in so hateful, so horrible a form as in the United States of America. I think there is no part of the world where the spirit of slavery may be seen in so horrible a light as in the United States of America. I am bound to say that every slaveholder there is a legalised keeper of a brothel on his own plantation, be he doctor of divinity, president, or senator. He is by the laws of the land, and by his relation to his slave, compelled to make all his slaves live in utter disregard of the marriage institution. (Hear, hear.) Slavery in America is a system of universal concubinage, and all the Churches of this country ought to be made acquainted with it. There is not a slaveholder in America who does not hold exclusive jursidiction over the body and soul, over the mind, the moral perceptions, the affections of his slave; indeed, over him entirely for time and eternity, in so far as the occupancy of his time has anything to do with eternity, or his state beyond the grave. He claims a right to decide on what he shall work [at], how much he shall work, when he shall be punished, by whom he shall be punished, how much he shall be punished, for what he shall be punished. He claims a right to determine for him what is virtue and what is vice, he claims a right to determine all circumstances as to his conduct.
The slave is a marketable commodity in the hands of his master; he may dispose of his person, and, in cases of extremity, may kill him, and no law in the United States will punish the guilty perpetrator of the murder. Look to South Carolina! they have a law which commences with a show of humanity, and says that the slaveholder who does kill his slave shall be punished as though he killed a free black man unless such slave dies under moderate correction;6Douglass probably relied on [Weld], American Slavery, 147-48, which actually refers to a North Carolina statute. so that a slaveholder may deliberately whip his slave to death, and no law takes hold of the murderer. If the
slaveholder shoot him dead upon the spot he would not be punished, unless he was prosecuted by his neighbours; for if ten thousand slaves were present, not one would be allowed to give testimony against him.
On Captain Lloyd's plantation, where I lived, a man of the name of Denby was shot under the most horrible circumstances. He attempted to run from the overseer when he wished to whip him, or, as the slaveholder would say, correct him. He took refuge in some water, where he stood waist deep. Mr. Gore, the overseer, told him that he would give him three calls, and unless he came out he would shoot him dead on the spot. The first and the second were given—Denby made no response; the third was given, and he stood firm. Gore, without any further deliberation or consultation with any one, raised his musket and poured its deadly contents into the bosom of the slave; his body soon sank, and the. blood alone marked the spot where it had stood. He was called to give an account of himself, and to state why he had resorted to so bloody an expedient. He replied, that the slave had refused to be whipped, and that he had set a dangerous example to the other slaves; that if he had permitted him to have got off under such circumstances, there would have been an end to all rule and all order on the plantation. Gore, instead of being punished, had his fame blazed abroad as being a successful, a determined, an inflexible overseer. His crime was not even submitted for judicial investigation, and he now lives as much respected as though he had not been stained by his brother's blood. The last I heard of him was from Mr. Thompson, the son of Dr. Andrew Thompson, a slaveholder in America. This Mr. Thompson attempted to show that the cruelty alleged did not exist, and, in proof of it, said Mr. Gore is a member of the Episcopal Church. (Hear, hear.) But I need not narrate these circumstances of cruelty to you, and I do not like it myself.
I have in the United States felt it necessary to go into a detail of the cruelty practised on the slaves; but I take it there is no need to do a work of that kind in such an audience as this. There is another mode that will have a better effect on the cause that I am trying, in my feeble way, to advocate; and that is, to point out the means by which slavery is upheld in the United States. This is the question that must be brought before the people of this country. You all know that slavery is a crime—that it is the vilest system that ever saw the sun—that so far as the relation of master and slave is concerned, it is one of those monsters of darkness to which the light of truth is blind. Now slavery exists in the United States because public opinion upholds it. Slavery is reputable there because it
is not disreputable out of those states—because its character is not fully known — and because certain persons have felt it their duty to cover up their own delinquency in travelling in America, by casting a veil on the bloody enormities that are being practised. (Cheers.) At all times when travelling on my anti-slavery mission, I felt it my duty to expose this.
That slavery in the United States is reputable, is evident from the fact that you see slaveholders filling the most important offices in Church and State. A man-stealer is now the President of the United States7James Knox Polk (1795-1849), president of the United States from 1845 to 1849, was reared in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and Duck River Valley, Tennessee. Polk's grandfather and father both owned slaves. In 1824 Polk married Sarah Childress, the daughter of a wealthy merchant and planter, who inherited slaves from her father's estate. When Polk's father died in 1827, he left an estate which included more than fifty slaves. A slaveholder by predilection, custom, and inheritance, Polk began his own plantation in the winter of 1831 in Fayette County, Tennessee. In 1834, he sold his plantation in Tennessee and, in partnership with his brother-in-law Silas M. Caldwell, bought land in Yalobusha County, Mississippi. Caldwell sold his interest in the plantation to Polk in 1836. Polk never relinquished this plantation, though it appears that on at least one occasion he attempted to sell it. Charles G. Sellers, James K. Polk, Jacksonian, 1795-1843 (Princeton, 1957), 76, 92-94, 114; John Spencer Bassett, ed., The Southern Plantation Overseer As Revealed in His Letters (Northampton, Mass., 1925), 40, 174-75, 177; DAB, 15 : 34-38.—man-stealers are members of the Churches—man-stealers are doctors of divinity—man-stealers are actually bishops of Churches. (Loud cries of "Hear, hear.") Man-stealers are ministers plenipotentiaries at the various courts of Europe—man-stealers are in the American Government at this time; and to trade in the body and soul of a brother is not there regarded as a crime, because it is not elsewhere regarded as a crime as it ought to be. (Cheers.) It is to beget the conviction abroad, that slavery is this crime, and that it ought so to be treated, that I am among you to-day.
Slaveholders are not only ministers and members of Churches, but they openly defend it, by quoting the fact of Paul sending Onesimus to Philemon, and they allege that that case shows that neither Christ nor his apostles had any objection to men holding slaves as property. Men are sold to build Churches—babies are sold to buy Bibles. (Loud cries of "Hear, hear.") The blood sold on the auction-block goes into the treasury of the Church, and the pulpit in return covers it with the garb of Christianity. Our Lord says, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life;" but these men deny to three millions of people the right to learn the name of the God that made them. This is the religious state of things in America. It has been said to me since I came here, "How can you say these things about the American Churches? Does not the Lord pour out his blessing on those Churches? Have they
not had revivals?" Yes, they have revivals, but the revivals of religion and revivals of the Slave-trade go hand in hand together. When the Slave-trade is going on most prosperously, then there is the most money given to support "the Gospel," as they call it; but it is not the Gospel of Christ, it is not the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, but it is a Gospel according to slavery. (Hear, hear.)
I must here say a word upon another topic, for I cannot get the Free Church out of my mind. (Hear, hear.) I have to charge its deputation that went to the United States with going to a land where they saw 3,000,000 of people, for whom Christ poured out his precious blood, divested of every right, stripped of every privilege, and denied the right of reading the Word of God. They are herded together, things sold upon the auctioneer's block, and torn from each other to satisfy the rapacity of the slave-dealer. That deputation, however, did not raise a whisper against this infernal state of things. I have to charge them with going into that land with an understanding that they were to keep thus silent, that they were to preach such and such doctrines only as would bring them the cordial support of the slave-stealers of America. (Cheers.) In doing this they have inflicted a great wound on the glorious cause of emancipation, and I will tell you why they have done it.
During the last fifteen years the abolitionists have been arduously labouring, amidst all kinds of odium, to establish the conviction, that holding human beings in the condition of slaves is a sin against God, and ought so to be regarded by the Churches. They have laboured to create such a moral and religious sentiment as would entirely purify the Churches of America from all connexion with the slave system. They had succeeded to some extent. In 1830 there was scarcely a Church in America that stood out against slavery, and in 1836, the Methodist General Conference, at its meeting at Cincinnati, decided, "that we have no right, wish, or intention to interfere with the relation of master and slave, as it exists in the southern states of the Union,8On 13 May 1836 at a session of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in Cincinnati, delegates considered a resolution to censure Methodist ministers Samuel Norris and George Storrs for having addressed an abolitionist meeting in Cincinnati. After an intense debate, which reflected the growing antagonism between the church's proslavery and anti-slavery factions, the delegates concluded "that they are decidedly opposed to modern abolitionism, and wholly disclaim any right, wish, or intention to interfere in the civil and political relation between master and slave as it exists in the slave-holding states of this Union." Douglass probably relied on Birney, American Churches, 16. See also "Journal of the General Conference, 1836," Methodist Episcopal Conference Journals, 1 : 425-99 ; Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 3-29, 62-110, 139-41; Ahlstrom, Religious History of the American People, 661; Norwood, Schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 31-32.⁸ which was equivalent
to saying that they had no right, wish, or intention to emancipate the slave from his thraldom. The Baptists, Congregational, and Presbyterian Churches were all linked and interlinked, woven and interwoven with the slaveholder; they throw around him all the sanctions of Christianity; and endorse him, as the Free Church is now doing, as a follower of Christ.
The abolitionists saw the state of things. They said that slavery was gnawing at the very vitals of the Church—that it was corrupting it at the very core—and they determined to mete out to the slaveholder the same treatment that they would to any other thief. They have succeeded to a considerable extent. In 1840 the northern Churches spoke out of the subject. The Methodist Episcopal Church has been rent because the northern Churches were not willing to have a man preside over them as a bishop whose hand was stained with the blood of fifteen souls.9James Osgood Andrew. (Cheers.) The Baptist Church has been divided on missionary operations, and they will have no fellowship with the slaveholder who persists in retaining his slaves in bondage.10The Triennial Convention, the Baptist Church's major coordinating body, delegated administrative responsibilities to its Board of Foreign Missions in Boston. In 1840 the Anti-Slavery Baptist Convention, headed by Elon Galusha, a vice-president of the Board of Foreign Missions, issued an "Address to Southern Baptists," which suggested that slaveholders would be denied access to northern communion tables and pulpits. Southern Baptists were outraged. In November 1840 the Board suggested that a discussion of slavery "in any form" was not "within the scope" of the Triennial Convention's constitution. No abolitionists were elected to office at the 1841 Triennial Convention. In 1842, the Anti-Slavery Baptist Convention set up a committee to explore the possibility of "reform in the Triennial Convention." The next year the Board of Foreign Missions reiterated its neutrality and dissident antislavery Baptists formed the American and Foreign Free Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, subsequently disavowed by the Board of Foreign Missions. The Triennial Convention of 1844 again claimed neutrality on the slavery issue. Later in 1844 the Board of Foreign Missions asked a slaveowner to resign as a missionary. Alarmed by the Board's actions, Alabama Baptists requested that the Board of Managers of the Triennial Convention acknowledge that slaveholders were "entitled, equally with non-slaveholders, to all . . . privileges and immunities." On 17 December 1844, the Board replied: "If . . . anyone should offer himself as a missionary, having slaves, and should insist on retaining them . . . we could not appoint him." Southern Baptists needed no clearer evidence of a departure from neutrality. Accordingly, in 1845 they launched the Southern Baptist Convention. Douglass probably relied on Lib., 30 May 1845. See also Todd, "Slavery and Southern Baptist Convention," 177-78, 220, 272, 279-80; Rufus B. Spain, At Ease in Zion: Social History of Southern Baptists, 1865-1900 (Nashville, [1967]), 5-6; Ahlstrom, Religious History of the American People, 318, 424, 663-64; Robert G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia, 1950), 267-71, 299-310, 355; O. K. Armstrong and Marjorie M. Armstrong, The Indomitable Baptists: A Narrative of Their Role in Shaping American History (New York, 1967), 163-64; Goodell, Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 187-88, 493-505; Newman, Baptist Churches in the United States, 443-53. (Loud cheers.) There is a large class of Presbyterians pursuing the same course.11Douglass probably refers to the antislavery stance of the Reformed Presbyterian Church or to the antislavery sympathies of the New School faction of the Presbyterian church.
We were looking forward with hope to a speedy purification of the entire Church from all connexion with the slave system when the deputation from the Church of Scotland bearing the name of "Free," a name which reminded the slave of that for which his soul panted, visited America. Instead, however, of coming to break his yoke, that deputation came to shake hands with the slaveholders, and to say to the northern Churches, You were wrong in unfellowshiping these men; they are good and pious men , said one of them, whom the Churches of Scotland would do well to imitate. (Hear.) In this way they have injured our cause, and they have done it knowingly. The American Anti-Slavery Committee, soon after the arrival of these gentlemen from the Free Church, put forth a remonstrance eloquently written, full of pathetic appeal, imploring them in the name of humanity and of religion, not to stain their cause by taking blood-stained gifts to build their Free Churches, and pay their Free Church ministers in Scotland.12Actually, the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society issued the remonstrance in April 1844. (Cheers.) They shut their ears to this remonstrance. I persist in calling slavery man-stealing; in calling the slaveholder a thief—and for the best of reasons, because it is his true name. I know there are some in this country who question my right, as
I really think I have a right to myself; all the reasoning of Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Candlish, and a reverend gentleman who has addressed us,15William Chalmers, son the Thomas Chalmers, was a member of the Free Church deputation to the United States. Earlier in the meeting Chalmers emphasized that because Paul returned Onesimus to Philemon, Philemon had a right to hold Onesimus as a slave, London Patriot, 26 May 1846. was based upon the ground that my
master has a title to me; it does not for a moment shake my opinion that I have the best right to myself. (Cheers.) Feeling this, I cannot consent to go back, even if some of these gentlemen should try to act the part that the apostle Paul did in the case of Onesimus. However, I do not agree with the opinion that the apostle Paul recognised Onesimus as the property of Philemon. The Jewish law says: " Thou shalt not deliver a man back to his master; he shall dwell with thee in the land."16Douglass is probably paraphrasing Deut. 23 : 15-16: "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, Even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him." I do not think, that if, under Moses and the prophets, it would have been wrong to return me back to bondage, that in the nineteenth century of the Christian era it would be right to send me back. I think, however, it would be right to send back the money. (Laughter, and immense cheering.)
We do not think, however, that the Free Church has any objection to sending back the money on account of the money itself; but I think they have worked themselves up to believe that it would be wrong for them to send it back, or at least that it would be humiliating to do it. I am rather inclined to this last opinion. (Cheers.) But I know that if they do not send it back they will put themselves in such a relation to the slaveholders that they will demand it to be returned as loudly as we do. They are already denouncing Mr. Lewis,17George Lewis. one of the deputation. They say, he dined at our tables — we welcomed him to our pulpits—he took our money, and never uttered a word against our slavery—our patriarchal relations; but as soon as he got back to Scotland, being stung by the rebukes he has received, he finds it necessary to denounce it. Send back the money! (Cheers.) All their rebukes fall powerless on the slaveholder while they retain the money. The slaveholders say, these men turn round and lecture us on the impropriety of using the very means to get the money by which they have built their churches. (Hear, hear.)
If the Free Church would only consult expediency in the matter, and lay aside its pride for a few moments, they will see that it is not only just but expedient to return the money. There are many parties who have tion to the United States. Earlier in the meeting Chalmers emphasized that because Paul returned Onesimus to Philemon, Philemon had a right to hold Onesimus as a slave, London Patriot, 26 May 1846.
given their tens, and scores, and hundreds of pounds to that Church, who will not contribute another farthing to it while it retains this money. (Cheers.) I was in the Assembly of the Church of Scotland when they came to the conclusion that they would not admit a slaveholder amongst them.
We have no means in America of accomplishing the object we have in view, except religious means. We do not ask you to send your army or your navy, but you are bound to use every means within your reach to remove this blot from the country. The world is looking to England to this subject. As early as I can remember, I have thought of England in connexion with freedom, and both foes and friends are still looking there. I would advise you to concentrate your energies on America; for I regard that country as the sheet-anchor of slavery throughout the world. While, on the one hand, there is a determination on the part of the United States to uphold slavery; on the other, there never was so great a determination among large numbers to get rid of it as at the present time. (Cheers.)