The deplorable ignorance and want of industry at the South, together
with the disrepute in which honest industry is held, cannot but
exercise, in connection with other causes, a most unhappy influence on
the morals of the inhabitants. You have among you between two and three
millions of slaves, who are kept by law in brutal ignorance, and who,
with few exceptions, are virtually heathens.[8]
[8] "From long continued and close observation, we believe that
their (the slaves') moral and religious condition is such
that they may justly be considered the HEATHEN of this
Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in
any country in the world. The negroes are destitute of the
Gospel, and ever will be under the present state of
things."--_Report published by the Synod of South Carolina
and Georgia, Dec. 3, 1833._
You have also among you more than 200,000 free negroes, thus described
by Mr. Clay:--"Contaminated themselves, they extend their vices to all
around them."[9]
[9] _Speech before the American Colonization Society._
If evil communications corrupt good manners, the intimate intercourse of
the whites with these people must be depraving: nor can the exercise of
despotic power by the masters, their wives and children be otherwise
than unfavorable to the benevolent affections.
It is with pain we are compelled to add, that the conduct and avowed
sentiments of the Southern clergy in relation to Slavery, necessarily
exert an unhappy influence. Most of the clergy are themselves
slaveholders, and are thus personally interested in the system, and are
consequently bold and active in justifying it from Scripture,
representing it as an institution enjoying the divine sanction. An
English author, in reference to these efforts of your clergy, forcibly
remarks: "Whatever may have been the unutterable wickedness of slavery
in the West Indies, _there_ it never was baptized in the Redeemer's
hallowed name, and its corruptions were not concealed in the garb of
religion. That acmé of piratical turpitude was reserved for the
professed disciples of Jesus in America." And well has John Quincy Adams
said, "The spirit of slavery has acquired not only an overruling
ascendency, but it has become at once intolerant, proscriptive, and
sophistical. It has crept into the philosophical chairs of the schools.
Its cloven hoof has ascended the pulpits of the churches--professors of
colleges teach it as a lesson of morals--ministers of the Gospel seek
and profess to find sanctions for it in the Word of God."
Your ministers live in the midst of slavery, and they _know_ that the
system on which they bestow their benedictions, is, in the language of
Wilberforce, "a system of the grossest injustice, of the most heathenish
irreligion and immorality; of the most unprecedented degradation and
unrelenting cruelty." Surely, we have reason to fear that the
denunciation of Scripture against false prophets of old, will be
accomplished against the Southern clergy, "Because they ministered unto
them before their idols, and caused the House of Israel to fall into
iniquity, therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the
Lord God, and they shall bear their iniquity."--_Ezek_. 44: 12.
Under such ministrations it cannot be expected that Christian zeal and
benevolence will take deep root and bear very abundant fruit. This is a
subject on which few statistics can be obtained. We have no means of
ascertaining the number of churches and ministers throughout the United
States of the various denominations. Some opinion, however, may be
formed of the religious character of a people, by their efforts for the
moral improvement of the community. In the United States there are
numerous voluntary associations for religious and benevolent purposes,
receiving large contributions and exercising a wide moral influence.
Now, of all the large benevolent societies professing to promote the
welfare of the whole country, and asking and receiving contributions
from all parts of it, we recollect but one that had its origin in the
slave region, and the business of which is transacted in it, and that is
the AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY. Of the real object and practical
tendency of this Society it is unnecessary to speak--you understand
them.
In the 10th Report of the American Sunday School Union [p. 50] is a
table showing the number of Sunday School scholars in each State for the
year 1834. From this table we learn that
There were in the free States 504,835 scholars.
" " slave " 82,532 "
The single State of New York had 161,768 "
about twice as many as in the thirteen slave States!
And is it possible that the literary and religious destitution you are
suffering, together with the vicious habits of your colored population,
should have no effect on the moral character of the whites?
We entreat your patient and dispassionate attention to the remarks and
facts we are about to submit to you on the next subject of inquiry.