Agreeably to public advertisement, the discussion betwixt Mr. GEORGE
THOMPSON and the REV. R. J. BRECKINRIDGE, was opened Monday evening,
June 13. By half-past six, the hour fixed on by the Committee, Dr.
Wardlaw's Chapel contained 1,200 individuals, the number agreed
upon by both parties. A great number could not gain admittance, in
consequence of the tickets allotted, being bought up on Saturday. On
the entrance of the two antagonists, accompanied by the Committee, the
audience warmly cheered them. By appointment of the Committee--
* * * * *
REV. DR. WARDLAW took the Chair. Having thanked the Committee for the
honor they had conferred on him, and which, he trusted, would meet
with the concurrence of the meeting, he said he had accepted the
honorable post with the utmost confidence in the forbearance and
propriety of conduct of the two gentlemen--or antagonists, should he
call them? who were to address the meeting; and also, with the most
perfect confidence in the good conduct and sense of propriety
possessed by the meeting. Had he not possessed such confidence, he
would never have thought of undertaking the present task. Had he
imagined that the present meeting would give way to similar
expressions of feeling as had taken place within these walls on some
former occasions, he would at once have declined the task, as one for
which he was totally unfit,--he was not fit to manage storms. The
parties on the present occasion were different from those to whom they
had listened at the time to which he referred. One of them, it was
true, was the same, and his character all of them knew. They knew his
sentiments, his zeal, his eloquence, his devotedness to the great
cause of which he was the fearless advocate. In reference to his
opponent, on the present occasion, he would not dishonor that
gentleman by naming him along with an individual who had stood before
them formerly in opposition to their eloquent friend. He felt it to be
his duty to introduce to them his friend--for he was allowed to call
him so--the Rev. Mr. Breckinridge. That gentleman had come to this
country, the accredited agent from the Presbyterian church--a large
and influential body of Christians in America, to the congregational
union of England and Wales. It was proper that he should state to the
meeting that Mr. Breckinridge was no advocate of slavery--that he
believed it to be opposed to the letter and spirit of the gospel, and
as a proof how far he was in earnest in his professions in this
matter, he had freely parted with a patrimonial estate so far as it
consisted of slaves. (Cheers.) Having stated this, it might be further
necessary that he should mention what gave rise to the present
meeting. They were all aware, then, he said, that since his return
from America, Mr. George Thompson had been lecturing in various parts
of the kingdom. In the course of his labors he was accused of having
brought extravagant and unfounded charges against the American nation,
and especially against the ministers of religion in that country. In
consequence of this, Mr. Thompson published a challenge in the Patriot
newspaper, in which he called upon any American minister to come
forward and defend his brethren, if he were able, from the charges
which he brought against them. This challenge, through the columns of
the same newspaper, had been accepted by Mr. Breckinridge, and now
they were here met to enter upon the discussion. The Chairman then
read the regulations with regard to the conducting of the discussion
which had been agreed upon by the Committee. In addition to what they
contained, he might add that the chairman was not to be considered
judge of what was relevant or irrelevant, nor was the speaker to be
interrupted on any account. He would especially beg their serious
attention to the rule requiring the entire suppression of every
symptom of approbation or disapprobation. He trusted that his
interference would not be required, but if it were he would feel
himself called upon by imperative duty to enforce this regulation with
the utmost strictness. Mr. Breckinridge had heard from some quarter or
other very unfavorable accounts of the decorum of a Glasgow audience.
He hoped that their conduct on the present occasion would disabuse
that gentleman's mind of any unfavorable opinion he might entertain of
them on that score. In conclusion, he might repeat, that he placed the
most perfect reliance on the good sense and gentlemanly feeling of
both speakers. Let them both, then, be heard fairly. He solicited
favor for neither--he demanded justice for both.
* * * * *
MR. BRECKINRIDGE said, it was not easy to conceive of circumstances
that were more embarrassing than those in which he was placed this
evening. They had already taken for granted all that had been said and
done on one side of the question; their minds had been already made up
to oppose those conclusions to which it was his purpose to bring them.
Their affections and feelings had long been engaged to his opponent in
this cause; and all that he could say would necessarily have little
effect in changing what he would not hesitate to call those unhappy
opinions, which were long ago formed against him. Another cause of
his embarrassment was, that he would be rejudged of all he might say
here. What he said would be approved by one party in America, but
would be disapproved of by another. In the United States they were
differently situated from what the people were in this country. Here
the people seemed now united on this subject, but in America they were
split up into a great number of different parties, whose opinions and
feelings were arrayed against each other in as great a measure as it
was possible to conceive. Whatever, therefore, he might say in this
country, would be disapproved of by many in the United States, while
nothing was more certain than that, what was said by his opponent,
would the more commend him to his friends on the other side of the
Atlantic; and nothing he could say would probably lower him in the
good opinion of his friends here. Hence arose the difficulty of the
situation in which he (Mr. B.) found himself placed, and his unusual
claim upon their patience in the course of the discussion. Still he
should be unworthy of his country, he should be forgetful of the power
of truth, he would have little trust in God, if he was not ready to
espouse the cause which he believed to be right; and more especially
if he was not ready, before a Scotish and a Christian audience, to
defend the principles he adopted and avowed. He had no desire to
attempt a mitigation of their hatred to slavery; and if, at a future
time, he should meet in America with any one now present, he would
prove to them by the friendship of those who loved and respected him,
and the opposition of those who did not, that he hated slavery as much
as any one of those present could do. It was said by one of the
ancients, 'I am a man: I consider nothing that relates to man, foreign
to me.' It was a true and noble sentiment. The fate of the most
hopeless might be theirs if power could make it so; and their
condition might have been that of the poorest wretch on earth if God
had not smiled upon them and their ancestors as he had done. He did
not wish them to interfere with slavery in America. They might
interfere, but the question was, how were they to do so? He wished in
the course of the discussion to bring before them facts to show, that
if they did at all interfere with slavery in America, it must be done
as between individuals, not as a national question. That, whatever
they did, they do as Christians, not as communities. That they must
not, for a moment, look upon it as a question of rival power and
glory, as a question between Great Britain and America. If they did so
in the slightest degree, their chance of success was gone for ever. In
the prosecution of the question, they should not allow themselves to
be identified in their efforts with any party in America, in politics,
in religion, or metaphysics; more especially, with a small and odious
party as they had done to a deplorable extent. They should not
identify themselves with a party so small as not to be able to obtain
their object, and so erroneous as not to deserve success. Whatever
they did should be done meekly, and in the spirit of the gospel; they
should not press the principles of the gospel with the spirit of a
demon, but with all the sweetness and gentleness of the gospel of
peace. These were the principles which he intended to endeavor to
impress upon their minds by details which he would adduce in the
course of the discussion. It was nothing more than just to the
audience that they should know, that they should understand it
distinctly, that as far as regarded his opponent, he neither was nor
could be any thing more to him or his countrymen than as an individual
who had identified himself with certain parties and principles in
America. Neither he nor the Americans could have any object in
underrating or overrating him. America could have no desire to raise
him up or to pull him down. It is not, it cannot be any thing to
America what any individual is, or may be, in the eyes of his own
countrymen. The King of England is known to America only as the King
of Great Britain; if he ceased to be the King of that kingdom, he was
to them no more than a common individual. Let it not be supposed that
either he or America had any wish, even the most remote, to break down
or injure the well earned or ill earned reputation of his opponent.
They looked upon him only with reference to his principles, and had no
personal motive on earth in reference to that gentleman. Let them not,
therefore, think that in any remarks he might make, or charges he
might bring forward, he had any intention of implicating his opponent
as being solely responsible for these results. He called in question,
not the principles of a particular individual only, but those also of
a party in America, to whom he would have to answer when he returned
to that country. Having said thus much, he would now proceed to the
question before them, but would previously make a few preliminary
remarks, which he thought necessary to enable them to come to a proper
understanding of the subject. He did not think it necessary to trace
the progress of the great cause to the present moment. For forty years
they had suffered defeat after defeat--yet these defeats only
strengthened their cause, even in this country, till they had arrived
at a given point. He would not wish to hurt the feelings of a single
individual now present, but he was sure he spoke the feelings of all
in America, when he said that the great day of their power to do good,
as a nation, was to be dated from the passing of the Reform Bill. From
that period, they started in a new career of action, both at home and
abroad. The sending out of agents was one of the great lines of
operation attempted upon the Americans. This the Americans complained
of as having been done in an imprudent and impossible way, and sure to
meet with defeat. They have sent out agents to America who have
returned defeated. They admit they were not successful, though they
say they retreated only, that they were not defeated. They have
failed--they admit they have failed in their object. One of these
agents on his return made certain statements as to the condition of
the slaves in America; and as to the state of the churches in the
United States, which implicated not only the great body of Christian
ministers of the country, but the government, and the people of
America, except a small handful of individuals. If, as was admitted,
the number of pastors in America was twelve to fifteen thousand, and
only one thousand had embraced these views, were they anything but a
small party? While yet the whole nation was denounced as wicked--and
the wrath of Heaven invoked against the country. It was only a very
small handful that came in for a share of the praise of his opponent;
and the sympathies here were invoked, on the assumption of principles
which it was his object to prove false and unfounded. What could be
the cause of such an anomaly? that those principles which are said to
be loved and admired here, are repudiated there to the extremity of
pertinacious obstinacy? This cause it would be his duty to point out;
first, he would say what perhaps no one would believe, that the
question of American slavery, is in its name not only unjust, but
absurd. There was, properly speaking, no such thing as American
slavery. It was absurd to talk of American slavery, except in so far
as it applied to the sentiments of what was the minority, although he
would say a large minority, which tolerated slavery. It was not an
American question. In America there were twenty-four separate
republics; of these, twelve had no slaves, and twelve of them
tolerated slavery. Two new states had recently been added to the
Union, and God speed the day when others would be added, till the
whole continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific was included in
union, carrying with the union, Liberty and Independence. Of the two
states which were lately added, one was a slave state and the other
free. Of the twelve free, independent, sovereign states of America to
which he had alluded--one, Massachusetts, had, for a longer time than
his opponent had lived, not tolerated slavery. There were no slaves in
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire,
Maine, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, or Illinois,
and in four of them there never had been a slave. Eight of them, of
their own free will and choice, abolished slavery without money and
without price. By the influence of the Spirit of God, and the
influence of divine truth, they had totally abolished slavery. Of the
twelve states, at least four, Ohio, with a million of inhabitants,
Indiana, Illinois, and Maine, never had a slave. Since 1785 till this
hour, there had not been one slave in any of these states. These
twelve either never had slaves or had abolished slavery without any
remuneration. These states contain seven million out of the eleven
million of the white population of the Union, and nearly two-thirds of
the territorial extent of the republic as now peopled. And when we
remember that they have stood as they now do for the last twenty
years, as it was now more than twenty years since slavery was
abolished, how could they be charged with the responsibility of the
existence of slavery in other states, or be charged with fostering
slavery which they were the first people upon earth to abolish, and
the first to unite with other nations in putting down the slave trade
as piracy. This he was aware would be denied; but though Wilberforce
had labored in the cause for twenty years, the American constitution
had fixed a limited time for the abolition of the slave trade, and the
moment the twenty years had elapsed, the Congress did abolish it; and
this was in the same month, and some days before the Abolition Bill
had passed through Parliament. Thus, America was the first nation on
earth which had abolished the slave trade, and made it piracy. If we
judge by the number of republics which tolerate no slavery--if we
judge by the number of American citizens who abhor slavery, it will be
found not to be an American question, but one applicable only to a
small portion of the nation. If he wished to prove that the British
were idolaters, he could point to millions of idolaters in India,
under the British Government, for every one in America who approved of
slavery. If he wished to prove the British to be Catholics, and
worshippers of the Virgin Mary, he could point to the west of Ireland,
where were one thousand worshippers of the Virgin Mary for every one
in America who did not wish slavery abolished. If he were to return to
America, and get up public meetings, and address them about British
idolatry, because the Indians were Idolaters, or on British
Catholicism, because many of the Irish worshipped the Virgin Mary,
would not the world at once see the absurdity and maliciousness of the
charge; and if he heaped upon Britain every libellous epithet he could
invent--if he got the wise, the good, and the fair, to applaud him,
would not the world see at once the grossness of the absurdity. And
where, then, lay the difference? The United States Government have no
power to abolish slavery in South Carolina--Britain can abolish
idolatry throughout its dominions. It was absurd to say it was an
American question. America, as a nation, was not responsible, either
in the sight of God or man, for the existence of slavery within
certain portions of the Union. As a nation, it had done every thing
within its power. The half hour having now expired, Mr. B. sat down;
and
* * * * *
MR. THOMPSON rose. He said he did not stand on the platform this
evening to explain to them his views in reference to slavery. He would
occupy no portion of their time by an exposition of any of the
principles or views entertained by himself on the subject of slavery
as it has existed in our own dependencies, or as it exists in America
at the present moment, or in other portions of the globe. He stood
there to justify that policy which in a distant land he had deemed it
right to pursue; he stood there to justify the policy which had been
adopted and pursued, and was still pursued by certain individuals in
the United States, whether many or few, whether a handful or a
multitude, who were known by the name of the abolitionists of the
United States of America. He stood there to justify himself and them
in the act of fearlessly, constantly, unceasingly, and universally, to
every class and color on the face of the habitable globe, enunciating
the great principles of equal justice and equal rights--of enunciating
this great truth that slaveholding is a crime in the sight of God, and
should be immediately and totally abolished. That God had in no
instance given to man a discretionary power to hold property in his
fellow-man; that instant emancipation was the right of the slave; that
instant manumission was the duty of the master. That no government had
a right to keep a single soul in slavery; that no nation had authority
to permit slavery, let that nation exist where it may; if professing
to be a Christian nation, so much the more atrocious was their
wickedness. The nation which permitted the keeping in slavery of God's
creatures, which allowed the traffic in human beings for 400 pieces of
silver, even in the capital itself, was not entitled to be called a
christian nation, and if professing to be a christian nation, so much
the more pre-eminently wicked and infamous was the nation. By that act
that infamous, wicked nation violated every christian feeling, and was
worthy of being exposed to the scorn and derision of every nation
under heaven, christian or pagan. This was a most momentous question,
and he spoke strongly upon it, but he spoke advisedly. He did not
speak angrily, but he did and must speak warmly on the subject of
Slavery. He could not talk of millions of men and women, each of whom
was endowed with a soul which was precious in the sight of God--each
of whom was endowed with that principle which out-valued worlds--he
could not speak of such, registered with the brutes, with calm
unconcern, or classed with chattels, and be calm--if he could do so,
he should be ready with these nails to open his breast, and tear
therefrom a heart which would be unworthy of a man. He could and would
speak calmly on other topics, but this was a subject which required
energy, unceasing energy, till the evil was removed from the face of
the earth, till all the kingdoms of the world had become the kingdoms
of our God, and of his Christ. He was thankful for the present
opportunity which had been afforded him of entering into this
discussion; he was thankful that his opponent, for so it seemed he
must be called, was an American, that he was a christian minister,
that he was an opponent of slavery, that he brought to the question
before them, talent, learning, patriotism, and christian feeling. Such
an opponent he respected and wished the audience to respect. He would
ask them to cherish his person, to respect his opinions, to weigh his
arguments, to test his facts, and if they were just and righteous, to
adopt his principles. If he (Mr. T.) knew the strongest expression he
had ever used regarding America, he would use it to-night; if he knew
in what recess of his heart his worst wish towards America was
deposited he would drag it forth to the light, that his opponent might
grapple with it in their presence. He would not soften down any of
his language; he would not sugar over his words, he would not abate
one iota of what he had ever said in reference to the wickedness of
America on former occasions. Let his opponent weigh every syllable he
(Mr. T.) had uttered, every statement he had ever made, every charge
he had ever brought against his country or against his cloth, and if
he found that he had exaggerated facts or stated what was not true, he
would be glad to be shown it. He was there before them and his
opponent to search after the truth, truth which would outlive Mr.
Breckinridge--truth which would outlive Geo. Thompson--truth which was
far more valuable than the proudest victory--truth which was
invaluable to both--and let the truth stand out during the discussion
which might follow; and when they had found out the truth, if they saw
anything which had to be taken back--anything to be given up--anything
for which to be sorry, he would try to outstrip his opponent in his
readiness to retract what was wrong, to yield what was untenable, and
to express his sorrow before God and the audience for what he had
undeservedly said of America. With regard to the feelings he
entertained towards the Americans, he need only refer to the last
letter he had published to the American people, from which he would
read a passage to show the feelings he entertained towards that
country, as well as to those of her citizens who might reach these
shores from America. Mr. Thompson then read the following passages:--
I love America, because her sons, though my persecutors, are
immortal--because 'they know not what they do,' or if
enlightened and wilful, are so much the more to be pitied and
cared for. I love America, because of the many affectionate
friends I have found upon her shores, by whom I have been
cherished, refreshed and strengthened; and upon whose regard
I place an incalculable value. I love America, for there
dwells the fettered slave--fettered and darkened, and
degraded now, but soon to spring into light and liberty, and
rank on earth, as he is ranked in heaven, 'but a little lower
than the angels.' I love America, because of the many mighty
and magnificent enterprises in which she has embarked for the
salvation of the world. I love her rising spires, her
peaceful villages, and her multiplied means of moral,
literary, and religious improvement. I love her hardy sons,
the tenants of her vallies and her mountains green. I love
her native children of the forest, still roaming, untutored
and untamed, in the unsubdued wildernesses of the 'far west.'
I love your country, because it is the theatre of the
sublimest contest now waging with darkness and despotism, and
misery on the face of the globe; and because your country is
ordained to be the scene of a triumph, as holy in its
character and as glorious in its results, as any ever
achieved through the instrumentality of men.
But though my soul yearns over America, and I desire nothing
more eagerly than to see her stand forth among the nations of
the world, unsullied in reputation, and omnipotent in energy,
yet shall I, if spared, deem it my duty to publish aloud her
wide and fearful departures from rectitude and mercy. I shall
unceasingly proclaim the wrongs of her enslaved children;
and, while she continues to 'traffic in the souls of men,'
brand her as recreant to the great principles of her
revolutionary struggle, and hypocritical in all her
professions of attachment to the cause of human rights.
I thank God, I cherish no feelings of bitterness or revenge,
towards any individual in America, my most inveterate enemy
not excepted. Should the sea on which I am about to embark
receive me ere I gain my native shore--should this be the
last letter I ever address to the people of America, Heaven
bears me witness, I with truth and sincerity affirm that, as
I look to be freely forgiven, so freely do I forgive my
persecutors and slanderers and pray--'Lord lay not this sin
to their charge.'