FROM 1845 TO 1861, CONTINUED.
Responsibility of Ministers, Editors and Publishers—Perversion of
Facts, a Double Guilt—Public Meetings—Presses Mobbed—Fabius Township
Meeting in 1854—Rev. Mr. Sellers—Review of the Preamble and
Resolutions—Meeting at Rochester, Andrew County—Three Facts Affirmed
of these Meetings—The Best Citizens Controlled Them—What the Author
of the Fabius Township Resolutions Says—Jackson Seminary in Cape
Girardeau County—The Jefferson City Land Company and the Great
Northern Methodist University—The Transaction Transparent—Resolution
of Missouri Conference of 1858—A. Bewley—The True Facts in his
Case—That he was Hanged at Fort Worth, Texas, not for being a
Minister of the Gospel, but for Complicity in the most Horrible
Crimes—The Facts Analyzed—The Bailey Letter—Bishop Morris—Dr.
Elliott—Truth is Mighty—Correct View of the Relation of the M. E.
Church to the People of Missouri prior to the War.
When historical facts are perverted, or so detached from each other as
to destroy their connection, and false impressions are made thereby, and
bad feelings created in the interest of designing men, the moral wrong
is twofold, and the perpetrators are doubly guilty—falsehood reaches its
result on the credit of truth, and Christ, the truth, is fatally wounded
in the house of his friends. Ministers of the gospel, editors and
publishers are accountable to men and God for the most potent of all
responsibility. They are a savor of life or a savor of death, and
through them peoples and countries have peace or war.
The uses made by them of the public meetings of citizens held in various
parts of this State prior to the war did much to aggravate the spirit of
animosity between the Northern and Southern people in Missouri, and to
embitter the scenes of war. Some papers were so severe upon certain
classes of citizens as to provoke mob violence, when party feeling was
at blood heat, and a few printing offices were visited by an insulted
populace, and type, press, cases and fixtures thrown into the streets,
or made to settle accounts at the bottom of the river, while the editors
and publishers were driven off. Public meetings were called in many
places by the best citizens, to prevent mob violence and promote the
public tranquillity. This was their object.
Much has been said in the Northern press and pulpit about a meeting of
the citizens of Fabius Township, Marion county, Mo., held February 18,
1854, just after fifteen slaves had walked off to Canada from that
township. It was alleged by these preachers and papers, and the
statement is reiterated by Dr. C. Elliott, in his book called
“Southwestern Methodism,” that the said “meeting was held by the
citizens of Fabius Township for the purpose of carrying out a scheme to
expel Rev. Mr. Sellers, a minister of the M. E. Church, from the
country”—p. 39; and a great hue and cry was raised over the persecution
of this Mr. Sellers by the aforesaid citizens. And all the cheap capital
was made out of this heroic victim of pro-slavery malice of which the
utmost torture of the facts was capable. But, after all, it is rather
surprising to find that neither in the long preamble nor in any one of
the five resolutions is the name of Mr. Sellers so much as once used;
nor do they contain so much as a personal allusion to him or any other
individual man. They refer to a class of men, and are directed against a
dozen others as much as against Mr. Sellers.
The preamble sets forth, amongst other things, as follows: “And,
_Whereas_, there is in our community considerable excitement, arising
from the belief upon the part of many of our citizens that the ministers
of the Northern division of said Church, who have for some time past
been preaching in Fabius Township, are the representatives of a body
whose sentiments upon the subject of slavery are decidedly hostile to
our interests as slaveholders and dangerous to our peace; and that the
leading object of their mission here is the destruction of slavery by
the propagation—in any manner not inconsistent with the safety of their
persons—of doctrines calculated to array against the institution the
weak-minded and fanatical among us, and to create discontent,
dissatisfaction and insubordination among our slaves; therefore,” &c.
No one will doubt that these utterances were directed against the
Northern Methodist preachers as political partisans, and not as
ministers of the gospel, and that the cry of persecution for
righteousness’ sake failed of its sympathy where it failed of the truth.
The _first_ resolution advises these men to “desist from visiting and
preaching among us.”
The _second_ is a declaration of rights, and amongst them the following:
“When the law fails to protect, we claim to have the natural right, as a
community, to resort to the use of such means as will afford us
protection.”
The _third_ affirms that “Northern fanatics have forced the question of
slavery into all the churches,” and claims protection under the
Constitution and laws of the United States government for the
institution of slavery thus endangered.
The _fourth_ affirms the unity of Methodist doctrine and worship, the
validity of the Plan of Separation, and “protests against the M. E.
Church, North, sending ministers among us, and respectfully requests
such ministers to make no more appointments in this vicinity.”
The _fifth_ is as follows: “That, as we are situated contiguous to
Quincy, a city containing some of the vilest abolition thieves in the
Mississippi Valley, and as we have already suffered so much at the hands
of these incendiaries we regard it as absolutely necessary to the
protection of our slave interests that we close our doors against
abolition and free-soil influences of every character and shade, and
that we shall, therefore, esteem it highly improper for any citizen
hereafter to countenance or encourage the preaching or teaching in this
community of any other minister or teacher, person or persons, the
representatives of, or in any way connected with, any church or
churches, any association or society, whether religious or political, or
of any character whatsoever, who have heretofore or shall hereafter take
ground, directly or indirectly, expressly or impliedly, against the
institution of slavery.”
That resolution is both special and general. It may apply to Mr.
Sellers, and it may apply to Dr. Elliott, and a hundred others, as
abolitionists and not ministers, or as abolitionists and ministers.
A similar meeting was held in Rochester, Andrew county, in June, 1856,
at which resolutions of a similar character were passed. In a few other
places, too, the people assembled peaceably and expressed their
disapprobation of their course and asked them to desist. But whatever
may be said to the contrary in partisan publications, the page of
unerring history will affirm _three_ facts of the people of Missouri in
these meetings:
1. That the M. E. Church, South, as such, had nothing whatever to do
with them; while her members, _as citizens_, were only equally
interested and implicated in them with the members of other churches.
2. Whenever these meetings denounced the preachers of the M. E. Church,
North, it was not because they were ministers of the gospel, _as such_,
but because they abused the privileges of their profession, and were
secret, active political partisans and abolition emissaries.
3. Mob violence was never instigated by these meetings, but prevented.
No man suffered in person or property from them in Missouri.
In confirmation of this position it is only necessary to state the fact
that the best class of citizens were the prime movers in these public
meetings, and, indeed, they were only called when it became apparent
that the peace and safety of the community demanded it; for in every
community there are passionate, reckless men, who are ready to take the
law into their own hands and vindicate their rights, at whatever danger
to the public safety. But the best men of the country, and those who had
the deepest interest in its peace and security, entered the most
heartily into these meetings, as peace measures, and they now, and will
ever, believe that such meetings were necessary to prevent mob violence
and insure the general tranquillity.
The author of the Fabius Township resolutions, a distinguished citizen
and lawyer of Marion county, and a colonel commanding a regiment of
Missouri Militia in the Union army during the war, not only authorizes
the above statement, but affirms freely that, though he had been an
anti-slavery man for many years, and rejoices in the emancipation of the
slaves as he does in the restoration of the Union, yet he endorses that
meeting and those resolutions to-day, and would conscientiously pursue
the same course again should a similar state of things exist in the
community to demand it. An old citizen of Missouri, a member of no
church—friendly to all—a Union man from first to last, speaking, working
and fighting to restore and preserve the supremacy of the Federal
government, he would make affidavit to-day that, to the best of his
knowledge, the three facts above stated are fully vindicated in the
Fabius Township and all similar meetings held for similar purposes in
Missouri. Thousands of the best citizens of the State are ready to
affirm the same facts and vindicate the good people of Missouri against
the aspersions of the Northern press.
Similar meetings to that of Fabius township were held in Andrew county,
in Independence, Jackson county, in Cass county, and perhaps other
places, and with similar results. In no single instance was the M. E.
Church, South, implicated. In no single instance were the ministers of
the M. E. Church, North, mobbed or murdered, and in no single instance
was mob violence against the “vilest abolition thieves” counseled or
countenanced; and with all honest people who know the facts the hue and
cry raised in certain quarters about religious intolerance, mob
violence, persecution of ministers, and the martyrdom of innocent and
holy men is as gratuitous as it is contemptible.
When the lower House of the Missouri Legislature, in February, 1855,
refused, by a vote of sixty to thirty-six, to charter what was called
the Jackson Seminary, in Cape Girardeau county, for the Northern
Methodists, it was not because the representatives of the people opposed
the establishment of literary institutions, or wished to proscribe any
form of religion, but because, as then stated, the Northern Methodist
preachers were the emissaries of abolitionism, and by encouraging them
in establishing institutions in Missouri they encouraged their purposes
and organization to subvert the lawful institutions of the State, which
the lawmakers did not hesitate to affirm would be encouraging a
cowardly, clandestine treason against the laws and government of the
State. Four years later the Legislature refused to charter a university
at Jefferson City for the Northern Methodists, for the same reason.
The “Jefferson City Land Company,” to encourage immigration, build up
the city and enhance the private fortunes of its members, proposed a
liberal grant of land to the Northern Methodists, or any others, who
would build up and endow, with foreign capital, a university at the
State Capital. Though many of the members of this Land Company were
slaveholders, and some of them large slaveholders, they believed that
the introduction of free labor into the State would greatly facilitate
the development of her material resources, by building railroads and
opening her vast beds of coal, and lead, and iron to the markets of the
world. They conceived the idea of inviting and encouraging free labor
from the Northern States through the active agency of the Northern
Methodist Church.
The class of immigrants they desired were opposed to negro slavery, and
the Northern Methodist Church was opposed to negro slavery. Methodist
ministers, more than any other ministers, were in sympathy with the
anti-slavery surplus populations of the Northern and Eastern States, and
could influence them more. Hence the alliance.
The proposition to donate so much land for a university, even at a
fictitious value, was a splendid prize for that church in Missouri,
backed, as it was, by the names and influence of some of the first men
of the State, and located at the seat of political power—the State
Capital.
On the other hand, the promise of the most extensive and efficient
agency in the world actively working throughout the dense populations of
the older States to put into operation a system of emigration that would
fill up the State with industrious laborers, absorb the surplus lands
and enrich the centers of settlement, was a tempting premium upon the
cupidity of the “Jefferson City Land Company,” for which they could
afford to give up their slaves and their former principles.
The inevitable logic of facts does not compliment either the benevolence
of the Land Company or the religion of the Church. The members of the
Land Company may have been anti-slavery from principle, and their
benevolent donation may have been unselfish: if so, they were
unfortunate in their schemes; if not so, they were unskilled in
dissimulation.
They succeeded in this much, at least, in making the impression pretty
general that their creed was a policy, and their policy was simply a
question of loss and gain. Not that they loved slavery less, but that
they loved money more; not that they loved the Northern Methodist Church
more, but that they could use that Church better: while the success of
the other party resolved itself into a question of deception; either
deceiving themselves or deceiving others—possibly both.
Residing in Jefferson City at the time, and being personally acquainted
with each member of the Land Company, as well as cognizant of all the
facts, the author feels justified in thus making transparent the shrewd
scheme about which so much was said at the time. The only motive for
this _expose_ is a vindication of the truth of history and an analysis
of the spirit of the times before the war.
After the failure of the “Jefferson City Land Company” and the M. E.
Church, North, to build up a Cambridge or a Harvard at the State Capital
the Land Company subsided, and the Church directed attention to other
expedients and sought a footing in Missouri through other agencies.
Public sentiment was against them; political prejudices and social
barriers denied them access to the people. All other religious
denominations were unfriendly to them; their best preachers left them,
and either went into the M. E. Church, South, or returned home. The
better class of Northern immigrants, even from their own Church at home,
found it to their interest to seek other church connections.
A suspicion followed them into the domestic, the social and the business
relations of life, which manifested too clearly the instinctive sense of
moral justice and religious fidelity in the public mind to be either
mistaken or escaped by them as covenant breakers, false accusers and
clandestine enemies to the property and peace of the State. It was
natural for them under such circumstances to long for redress, and
gladly embrace and use every means in their power to effect their
purpose. They had a lively conception of the horrors of slavery, and
more skill than conscience in magnifying them for the Northern press and
the Northern public. By this means the Northern mind was misled, and
many a victim of their misrepresentations was undeceived only on coming
to Missouri and seeing for himself the system of slavery, not as it
existed in a blinded imagination, but as it existed in the homes and on
the farms of slaveholders; and abandoning their deceivers, they
vindicated both the system and the people from the false impeachment of
unscrupulous fanatics. This made against them and exasperated them, and
when they found that they were not sufficiently successful in deceiving
the public mind to secure even the letters with their bearers from their
own Church in the Free States, the Missouri Conference, in 1858, uttered
complaint in the following resolution:
“_Resolved_, That we hereby earnestly and affectionately request our
brethren of other Conferences, in dismissing from their charges, by
letter, members who intend immigrating to Missouri, that they be at
pains to inform them that, under the blessing of the great Head of the
Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church in this State is living and
thriving, and urge upon them the propriety of attaching themselves to
our Church here immediately on their arrival.”
Several Quarterly Conferences took action on the subject, and set forth
more fully the grounds of complaint, which even Dr. Elliott could not
escape or overlook in his “Southwestern Methodism.”
Perhaps no event in the history of those times furnished them more food
for comment and capital than the hanging of the Rev. Anthony Bewley by
the citizens of Fort Worth, Texas, in September, 1860. Out of this event
the strongest system of falsehood was manufactured by designing men to
fire the Northern Methodist heart against the Southern people,
especially the Southern Methodists.
It was at a time when the country was convulsed with political
excitement from one end to the other, and partisan politics, more or
less, colored every report of the affair. It was almost impossible at
the time to get a true history of the event, as the most extravagant
statements were put in circulation to influence the Presidential
election the following November. The reports in the papers made at the
time, and under the pressure of the most exciting and embittered
political campaign known to the history of this country, must be
received with great allowance and heavy discount. After the heat of
political excitement, when every ballot stood for a thousand bullets,
and the fire and blood of the civil war that followed have all passed
away, when passion and prejudice can no longer serve the purposes of
party, the following facts appear upon the surface and bear the imperial
image and superscription of truth:
1. That the Rev. Anthony Bewley, a minister of the M. E. Church, North,
was hung at Fort Worth, Texas, September, 1860.
2. That the said Bewley had been living in Texas but a short time,
operating when he could as a minister of his Church, but connected with
an extensive secret organization for the purpose of freeing the slaves,
at whatever risk to the peace, the property, and the lives of citizens.
3. That he was implicated in a nefarious plot to poison wells, fire
towns and residences, and, in the midst of conflagrations and death, to
run off the slaves. This fact rests upon much oral and documentary
evidence.
4. That a Vigilance Committee had been formed to ferret out the plot,
capture the guilty parties and bring them to justice.
5. That this Committee had cause to suspect Mr. Bewley, ascertaining
which he fled the country and made his way to Missouri, whither he was
pursued by them, captured, and taken back to Fort Worth.
6. That the evidence was so strong against him that neither the
Vigilance Committee nor the officers of the law could protect him from
the outraged and enraged populace, and about midnight he was taken by
force and hung.
7. That if there was a member of the M. E. Church, South, on the
Vigilance Committee, or in the mob that hung him, the evidence does not
appear.
8. Neither the extremest torture of facts nor the most distorted
construction of collateral circumstances can implicate Bishop Pierce, or
any other Bishop, minister, or member of the M. E. Church, South, as
such, in the murder of Bewley.
9. With all due respect to the character of the Northern Methodist
publications of this affair, and to Dr. Elliott in his “Southwestern
Methodism” in particular, it may be asked with some degree of
consistency, “Was Bishop Ames Bewley’s hangman?” Bishops Janes and Ames
are responsible for Bewley’s appointment to Texas; the latter for his
re-appointment, after Bewley had made him acquainted with all the facts
existing there that would prevent his usefulness and endanger his life.
The Bishop sent him upon a missionary appropriation of $400, for which
he pledged the Missionary Society of the Church. Bewley and Willet were
sent to the Nueces country with specific instructions “not to organize
societies next summer, but to correspond with the Missionary Board.”
10. The evidence upon which he stood convicted in the public mind of
complicity in the bloody plot to poison wells, burn towns, and, through
fire and blood and insurrection, free the slaves, convicted others also,
who were not ministers of the M. E. Church. It can not be made to
appear, therefore, by any legitimate construction, that he suffered
_because_ he was a minister of that Church; but _because_ he was a
ringleader in the clandestine scheme of fire and murder, that was too
diabolical to discriminate even in favor of women and children, but
doomed all indiscriminately who might drink of the wells, or be the
victims of midnight conflagrations, or in any way be exposed to the
wide-spread negro insurrection thus instigated. _For this cause_, and
not for preaching the gospel, he was hanged.
11. The following letter, written by one Rev. W. H. Bailey, addressed to
Rev. A. Bewley, and acknowledged by him to have been received and
subsequently lost, was the principal evidence upon which he was
convicted. Bewley acknowledged to his brother-in-law, Mr. John Cook,
that the latter was genuine, and had been received by him and lost. The
letter was dated, “Denton Creek, Texas, July 3, 1860,” and was found by
the Vigilance Committee, authenticated, and extensively published by the
secular and religious papers of the country, and is as follows:
“DENTON CREEK, July 3, 1860.
“_Dear Sir_: A painful abscess in my right thumb is my apology for not
writing to you from Anderson. Our glorious cause is prospering finely
as far South as Brenham. There I parted with Brother Wampler; he went
still further South. He will do good wherever he goes. I traveled up
through the frontier counties—a part of the time under a fictitious
name. I found many friends who had been initiated, and understood the
mystic Red. I met a number of our friends near Georgetown. We had a
consultation, and were unanimously of the opinion that we should be
cautious of our new associates; most of them are desperate characters,
and may betray us, as there are some slaveholders among them, and they
value the poor negro much higher than horses. The only good they will
do us will be destroying towns, mills, &c., which is our only hope in
Texas at present. If we can break Southern merchants and millers, and
have their places filled by honest Republicans, Texas will be an easy
prey, if we only do our duty. All that is wanted for the time being is
control of trade. Trade, assisted by preaching and teaching, will soon
control public opinion. Public opinion is mighty and will prevail.
Lincoln will certainly be elected; we will then have the Indian
nation, cost what it will; squatter sovereignty will prevail there as
it has in Kansas. That accomplished, we have but one more step to
take—one more struggle to make—that is, free Texas. We will then have
a connected link from the Lakes to the Gulf. Slavery will then be
surrounded, by land and water, and will soon sting itself to death.
“I repeat, Texas we must have, and our only chance is to break up the
present inhabitants—in whatever way we can—and it must be done. Some
of us will most assuredly suffer in accomplishing our object, but our
Heavenly Father will reward us in assisting him in blotting out the
greatest curse on earth. It would be impossible for us to do an act
that is as blasphemous in the sight of God as slaveholding.
“We must have frequent consultations with our colored friends. (Let
our meetings be in the night.) Impress upon their clouded intellects
the blessings of freedom; induce all to leave you can. Our
arrangements for their accommodations to go North are better than they
have been, but not as good as I would like.
“We need more agents, both local and traveling. I will send out
traveling agents when I get home. We must appoint a local agent in
every neighborhood in your district. I will recommend a few I know it
will do to rely upon—namely, Brothers Leak, Wood, Evans, Mr. Daniel
Vicry, Cole, Nugent, Shaw, White, Gilford, Ashley, Drake, Meeks,
Shultz and Newman. Brother Leak, the bearer of this, will take a
circuitous route and see as many of our colored friends as he can. He
also recommends a different material to be used about town, etc. Our
friends sent a very inferior article—they emit too much smoke, and do
not contain enough camphene. They are calculated to get some of our
friends hurt. I will send a supply when I get home.
“I will have to reprove you and your co-workers for your negligence in
sending funds for our agents. But few have been compensated for their
trouble. Our faithful correspondent, Brother Webber, has received but
a trifle—not so much as apprentice’s wages; neither have Brothers
Willet, Mungum and others. You must call upon our colored friends for
more money. They must not expect us to do all. They certainly will
give every cent if they knew how soon their shackles will be broken.
My hand is very painful, and I close.
“Yours truly, W. H. BAILEY.”
Should any one be tempted to doubt the genuineness of this letter, his
attention is directed to what critics call internal evidence, to the
testimony of witnesses on the spot, and the acknowledgment of Bewley
himself to Mr. Cook, his brother-in-law, and others.
The disclosure of such a diabolical plot, to be executed simultaneously
in all parts of the country, with these preachers and others in secret
league and clandestine confederation, extending, perhaps, all over the
South, and involving a negro insurrection with all the horrible crimes
of St. Domingo intensified and aggravated a thousandfold, could not fail
to enrage the populace and fire the passions of men to an uncontrollable
point.
Upon such provocation Bewley and Bailey were both hung. And with all the
efforts made to hold the Southern Methodist papers, Bishops and members
responsible for the crime, no papers and no men more deeply regretted
and more heartily condemned the act.
How the venerable Bishop Morris, of the M. E. Church, could write—“One
of our godly and inoffensive ministers, A. Bewley, was hung by a Texan
mob, for no other crime but connection with the Methodist Episcopal
Church,” it is difficult to conceive unless we assume that he was kept
in ignorance of the facts. Surely the good Bishop would not suffer his
prejudices to blind him to the true state of things as they will ever
stand out in the history of that deplorable event.
Dr. Elliott says: “Mr. Bewley was suspended upon the same limb and tree
upon which several negroes and a Northern man named Crawford had been
hung.” Were these negroes and this “Northern man named Crawford” hung
“for no other crime but connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church?”
and yet, so far as the facts appear, they were hanged for the same crime
of which that “godly and inoffensive minister, A. Bewley,” was
convicted.
We could excuse the above declaration from the pen of Dr. Cartwright or
Dr. Elliott; we could palliate it somewhat had it come from Bishop Ames;
but from Bishop Morris! the astonishment can scarcely surpass the
mortification.
“Truth is mighty and will prevail” and from all the rubbish of falsehood
and all the coloring of distorted facts the true history of this event
will finally reach posterity, and vindicate Southern Methodism of every
aspersion made by a subsidized press, and tear the martyr’s crown from
the victim who expiated his crimes upon “the Crawford limb.”
This whole chapter will furnish the reader with a correct view of the
relation of the M. E. Church, North, to the people, the property, the
laws and the institutions of the State between the division of the
Church, in 1844, and the breaking out of the civil war, in 1861. But
this is subordinate to the prime object, which is to show, at least, one
reason for the conspicuous and efficient agency of Northern Methodist
preachers in the vindictive persecution of the ministers of the M. E.
Church, South, the seizure and use of Church property, etc., under the
constructive association of the latter with slavery, secession,
rebellion, treason, &c., &c., during the civil war. A vindictive spirit
put many of them in Missouri and in the army during the war. “Vengeance
is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”