I proceed to notice the case of Amos Dresser; the young man who was so
inhumanly tortured by the citizens and professing Christians of the
city of Nashville, Tennessee. I can assure my opponent, that the
discrepancy in my statements which he has noticed, is an error in
reporting. I am not aware of having ever stated the number of elders
in the committee to be _eleven_. My statement of the case has always
been simply this--that Mr. Dresser, a pious and respectable young man,
was apprehended in Nashville, on suspicion of being an abolitionist;
brought before a Vigilance Committee, and, according to "Lynch Law,"
was sentenced to receive twenty lashes with a cowskin, on his bare
back. That he was so punished; and that upon the Committee were seven
elders of the Presbyterian church, and one Campbellite minister. The
whole case as narrated by Mr. Dresser, and published in the Cincinnati
Gazette, is now before me. The Committee, by which Mr. Dresser was
tried and sentenced, is called a "Committee of Vigilance and Safety."
The following are the names of the seven elders in the Presbyterian
Church:
JOHN NICHOL,
ALPHA KINGSLEY,
A. A. CASSEDAY,
WM. ARMSTRONG,
SAMUEL SEAY,
S. V. D. STOUT.
S. C. ROBINSON.
The name of the Campbellite Minister, THOMAS CLAIBORNE.
The Committee, after examining his books, papers, and private
memoranda, and hearing his defence, found him guilty--1st. "Of being a
member of an Anti-Slavery Society in Ohio." 2d. "Of having in his
possession periodicals published by the American Anti-Slavery
Society." And 3d. "They BELIEVED he had circulated these periodicals,
and advocated in the community the principles they inculcated." The
Chairman, (says Mr. Dresser,) then pronounced that I was condemned to
receive twenty lashes on my bare back, and ordered to leave the place
in twenty-four hours. This was not an hour previous to the
commencement of the Sabbath. Mr. Dresser gives the following account
of the infliction of the sentence:
"I knelt to receive the punishment, which was inflicted by
Mr. Braughton, the city officer, with a HEAVY COWSKIN. When
the infliction ceased, an involuntary feeling of thanksgiving
to God, for the fortitude with which I had been enabled to
endure it, arose in my soul, to which I began aloud to give
utterance. The death-like silence that prevailed for a
moment, was suddenly broken, with loud exclamations, "G--d
d--m him, stop his praying." I was raised to my feet by Mr.
Braughton, and conducted by him to my lodging, where it was
thought safe for me to remain but for a few moments.
"Among my triers, there was a great portion of the
respectability of Nashville. Nearly half the whole number,
professors of Christianity, the reputed stay of the church,
supporters of the cause of benevolence in the form of tract
and missionary societies and Sabbath schools, several members
and most of the elders of the Presbyterian church, from whose
hands, but a few days before, I had received the emblems of
the broken body, and shed blood of our blessed Saviour."
(!!!!)
Mr. Breckinridge has twice referred to the appearance of a runaway
slave at my lectures in London, and has accused me of carrying him
about with me, to enact interludes during my meeting. I can assure Mr.
Breckinridge that I never had any thing to do with the attendance of
Moses Roper at my meetings, or with the speeches he delivered. On
neither of the occasions mentioned had I any knowledge of his being in
the chapel until I found him among the rest of my auditors. As for
denying the facts stated by him, knowing as I do the brutalizing
effects of slavery, and the state of society in the slave States of
America, it is out of the question. I see nothing in the facts stated
by Moses Roper at all improbable. Since I last came to this city, I
have read in an American newspaper, an account of an affair in
Tennessee, at which the blood runs cold. A black man having committed
some crime, was lodged in prison by the authorities, but being
demanded by the citizens, was given up to them, tied to a tree, and
BURNT ALIVE! During my residence in the United States, a negro was
burnt alive, according to a sentence given by one of the constituted
tribunals of the State! It was called an exemplary punishment, and
many of the papers throughout the country were filled with long and
learned articles, justifying the horrid outrage. Mr. Breckinridge may
point to the laws and the constitution of the country, but I tell him
they and the authorities appointed to enforce them are alike
powerless. I point him to the atrocities of Lynch law all over the
land; to the brutal massacre of the gamblers in Mississippi, where men
in the broad daylight were dragged forth, and tied by the neck to
branches of trees, their eyes starting from their sockets, and their
wives driven across the river, in open boats; their lives threatened,
for daring to ask for the dead bodies of their husbands. I ask if any
law reached the fiends in human shape, who perpetrated these deeds. I
ask Mr. Breckinridge if any law punished the felons of Charleston,
who, seizing the public conveyances, violated the constitution, and
the law of the State, by robbing the mail bags of their contents, and
burning them? Did not the Post Master General encouragingly say, "I
cannot sanction, but I will not condemn what you have done. In your
circumstances I would have acted in a similar manner." Need I remind
Mr. Breckinridge of the mobs at the North; the riots of New York; the
sacking of Mr. Tappan's house, and the demolition of colored schools?
Laws there may be, but while slavery exists, and is defended by public
sentiment, and while the ferocious prejudice against color remains,
they will want the "executory principle," without which they are but
cruel mockery.
A glance at the moral and religious state of the slave population will
show the amount of care and attention exercised by the Christian
churches at the South.
What says the Rev. C. C. Jones, in a sermon preached before two
associations of planters in Georgia, in 1831?
"Generally speaking, they (the slaves,) appear to us to be
without God, and without hope in the world, a NATION OF
HEATHEN in our very midst. We cannot cry out against the
Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common
people, and keeping them in ignorance of the way of life, for
we WITHHOLD the Bible from our servants, and keep them in
ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it
read and explained to them. The cry of our perishing servants
comes up to us from the sultry plains as they bend at their
toil; it comes up from their humble cottages when they return
at evening to rest their weary limbs; it comes up to us from
the midst of their ignorance, and superstition, and adultery,
and lewdness. We have manifested no emotions of horror at
abandoning the souls of our servants to the adversary, the
roaring lion that walketh about seeking whom he may devour."
Again: what said the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, in a report
on the state of the colored population, in respect of religious
instruction?
"Who would credit it, that in these years of revivals and
benevolent effort, in this Christian Republic, there are over
TWO MILLIONS of human beings in the condition of HEATHEN, and
in some respects in a worse condition. From long continued
and close observation, we believe that their 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 of the world. The
negroes are destitute of the gospel, and EVER WILL BE UNDER
THE PRESENT STATE OF THINGS. In the vast field extending from
an entire State beyond the Potomac, to the Sabine River, and
from the Atlantic to the Ohio, there are to the best of our
knowledge, not TWELVE men exclusively devoted to the
religious instruction of the negroes. In the present state of
feeling in the South, a ministry of their own color could
neither be obtained NOR TOLERATED."
Again: what says a writer in a recent number of the Charleston, South
Carolina, Observer?
"Let us establish missionaries among our negroes, who, in
view of religious knowledge, are as debasingly ignorant as
any one on the coast of Africa; for I hazard the assertion,
that throughout the bounds of our Synod, there are at least
one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as
ourselves, who never HEARD of the plan of salvation by a
Redeemer."
A writer in the Western Luminary, a respectable religious paper in
Lexington, Kentucky, says,
"I proclaim it abroad to the Christian world, that heathenism
is as real in the slave States as it is in the South Sea
Islands, and that our negroes are as justly objects of
attention to the American and other Boards of Foreign
Missions, as the Indians of the Western wilds. What is it
constitutes heathenism? Is it to be destitute of a knowledge
of God; of his holy word; never to have heard scarcely a
sentence of it read through life; to know little or nothing
of the history, character, instruction and mission of Jesus
Christ; to be almost totally devoid of moral knowledge and
feeling, of sentiments of probity, truth and chastity? If
this constitutes heathenism, then are there thousands,
millions, of heathen in our beloved land. There is one topic
to which I will allude, which will serve to establish the
heathenism of this population. I allude to the universal
licentiousness which prevails. It may be said emphatically,
that chastity is no virtue among them; that its violation
neither injures female character in their own estimation, or
that of their master or mistress. No instruction is ever
given; no censure pronounced. I speak not of the world; I
speak of Christian families generally."
Again: I give the words of the son of a Kentucky slaveholder, who
became an abolitionist at Lane Seminary, and has since induced his
father to emancipate his slaves. Hear James A. Thome.
"Licentiousness. I shall not speak of the far South, whose
sons are fast melting away under the UNBLUSHING PROFLIGACY
which prevails. I allude to the slaveholding West. It is well
known that the slave lodgings, I refer now to village slaves,
are exposed to the entrance of strangers every hour of the
night, and that the SLEEPING APARTMENTS OF BOTH SEXES ARE
COMMON.
"It is also a fact, that there is no allowed intercourse
between the families and servants, after the work of the day
is over. The family, assembled for the evening, enjoy a
conversation elevating and instructive. But the poor slaves
are thrust out. No ties of sacred home thrown around them; no
moral instruction to compensate for the toils of the day; no
intercourse as of man with man; and should one of the younger
members of the family, led by curiosity, steal out into the
filthy kitchen, the child is speedily called back, thinking
itself happy if it escape an angry rebuke. Why is this? The
dread of moral contamination. Most excellent reason; but it
reveals a horrid picture. THE SLAVE CUT OFF FROM ALL
COMMUNITY OF FEELING WITH THEIR MASTER, ROAM OVER THE VILLAGE
STREETS, SHOCKING THE EAR WITH THEIR VULGAR JESTINGS, AND
VOLUPTUOUS SONGS, OR OPENING THEIR KITCHENS TO THE RECEPTION
OF THE NEIGHBORING BLACKS, THEY PASS THE EVENING IN GAMBLING,
DANCING, DRINKING, AND THE MOST OBSCENE CONVERSATION, KEPT UP
UNTIL THE NIGHT IS FAR SPENT, THEN CROWN THE SCENE WITH
INDISCRIMINATE DEBAUCHERY. WHERE DO THESE THINGS OCCUR? IN
THE KITCHENS OF CHURCH MEMBERS AND ELDERS!
I shall now take the liberty of reading two letters from highly
respectable gentlemen in the South, to friends in New England. The
first is from a clergyman in North Carolina, to one of the Professors
in Bowdoin College, Maine.
"You remember that when I was with you last summer, I was
much opposed to the Anti-Slavery Society, and contended that
the colonization scheme was a full, and the only remedy, for
the evils of slavery, and that I made a sort of talk before
the students on the subject of slavery. It was a poor talk,
for it was a miserable theme. I do not think what I said had
any effect against the Anti-Slavery people, or at all
strengthened the cause of the Colonization Society. Be this
as it may, I feel it a duty I owe both to myself and to the
friends I have with you, to say, that my views and feelings,
which were then wavering, have since, after mature
deliberation and much prayer, been entirely changed, and that
I am now a strong Anti-Slavery man. Yes, after mature
reflection, I am the sworn enemy of slavery in all its forms,
with all its evils. Henceforth it is a part of my religion to
oppose slavery. I am greatly surprised, that I should in any
form have been the apologist of a system, so full of deadly
poison to all holiness and benevolence as slavery, the
concocted essence of fraud, selfishness, and cold-hearted
tyranny, and the fruitful parent of unnumbered evils, both to
the oppressor and the oppressed, the one thousandth part of
which has never been brought to light.
"Do you ask, why this change, after residing in a slave
country for twenty years. You recollect the lines of Pope,
beginning,
'Vice is a monster of such frightful mein,
That to be hated, needs but to be seen.'
I had become so familiar with the loathsome features of
slavery, that they ceased to offend; besides, I had become a
Southern man in all my feelings, and it is a part of our
creed to defend slavery. I had also considered it was
impossible to free the slaves in this country. But it is
unnecessary to investigate the ground of my former opinions.
As to the Colonization Society, I have this among many
objections that it has two faces, one for the North, and a
very different one for the South. If the agents of the
Colonization Society will come here and say what I heard them
say in New York, I will insure them a good coat of tar and
feathers for their labor. That Society has few friends here,
a few large slaveholders who by it hope to send off the free
people in their neighborhood, and a few others, whose
consciences are not quite easy, get a salvo by advocating the
Colonization Society. These last are many of them ministers.
The mass of the people regard it as a Yankee plan, and hate
it of course. I remember, among other things, I told the
students in my address, that the only way to do away slavery
was to give us more religion. This argument then seemed to be
good. Send us preachers said I, and as religion spreads,
slavery will melt away, it cannot stand the gospel. I did not
reflect that the religion we have here, justifies and upholds
slavery. Our religion does not permit the preacher to touch
the subject. It is not the whole gospel. I have not yet seen
the man who would venture to take for his text, 'Masters,
give to your servants that which is just and equal.' If every
man in the country was a professor of religion, the religion
we have, it would not much help the cause. I think that I can
safely say that as a general thing, the Presbyterians are by
far the best masters, and give more attention to the
religious instruction of their slaves than others, but I know
one of these, an elder, who contends that slavery is no
violation of the law, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself,' and whose slaves are driven in the field with the
long whip! But it is just to add, that they are not
over-worked, and they are well fed and clothed. You are at
liberty to inform the students, and others who heard me on
that occasion, that I am now an anti-slavery man; but I do
not wish the letter published with my name to it, as it would
be copied by other papers, and find its way back, and do me
injury, for no man is free, fully to express his thoughts in
this country."
The next is from a merchant in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Clergyman in
New Hampshire.
SAINT LOUIS, Jan. 18, 1835.
Very Dear Brother.
I want to say a good deal to you, Brother, on the subject,
which seems to interest you much at this time. I am now, and
was before I left Hartford, an abolitionist; and that too,
from deep and thorough conviction that the eternal rule of
right requires the immediate freedom of every bond-man in
this and every other country. Since my residence in this
slaveholding State, I have seen nothing which should tend to
alter my previous sentiments on this subject, on the contrary
much to confirm me in them. You, who reside in happy New
England, can have but very faint conceptions of the blighting
and corrupting influence of Slavery on a community. Although
in Missouri we witness Slavery in its mildest form, yet it is
enough to sicken the heart of benevolence to witness its
effects on society generally, and its awfully demoralizing
influence on the slaves themselves: being counted as property
among the cattle and flocks of their possessors, (forgive the
word,) their standard of morality and virtue is on a level
(generally) with the beasts with which they are classed: and
I am credibly informed that many emigrants from the slave
states, who own plantations on the Missouri River, finding
themselves disqualified by their former habits of indolence
to compete with emigrants of another character in enterprize,
turn their attention to the raising of slaves as they would
cattle, to be sold to the Negro dealers to go down the river.
What sort of standard of virtue, think you, will have place
on such a plantation; and at what period in the history of
our country will these degraded sons of Africa be
christianized under existing circumstances.
The ungodly man who is a slaveholder, is well enough pleased
with the efforts and views of the Colonization Society,
because he can manage to throw off responsibility, and date
far a-head the time when he shall be called upon to do right;
but state to him the sentiments and principles of the
abolitionists, and he at once begins to froth and rage--all
the malignity of his nature is called into action--and why?
He feels the pressure of responsibility, he acts very like an
impenitent sinner, pricked with the truth, and like him, too,
he either comes on the side of right, or is hardened into a
stern opposer. It is gratifying to notice the gradual
influence the abolition principles are obtaining over the
hearts and consciences of every slaveholding community,
especially over the hearts of Christian slaveholders. Many of
them who have allowed the subject to have a place in their
thoughts, are greatly agitated, and dare not sell or buy
again for their peace-sake. But more of this another time."
I shall now lay before the meeting the sentiments of General George
M'Duffie, Governor of the State of South Carolina; as contained in a
message delivered by him to the two branches of the Legislature,
towards the close of the last year. I charge these sentiments upon the
State, 1st, because the representatives of its citizens, in a series
of resolutions presented to the Governor, unanimously expressed their
special approbation of them; and 2dly, because I am not aware that any
protest has been entered against them by any part of the Christian
community. Sentiments more atrocious were, perhaps, never penned.
The first extract, recommending legislation, has reference to the
diffusion of Anti-Slavery publications.
"IT IS MY DELIBERATE OPINION THAT THE LAWS OF EVERY COMMUNITY
SHOULD PUNISH THIS SPECIES OF INTERFERENCE BY DEATH WITHOUT
BENEFIT OF CLERGY, REGARDING THE AUTHORS OF IT AS ENEMIES TO
THE HUMAN RACE. Nothing could be more appropriate than for
South Carolina to set the example in the present crisis, and
I trust the Legislature will not adjourn till it discharges
this high duty of patriotism."
Let us look at the theological views of this profound Statesman on the
subject of Slavery.
NO HUMAN INSTITUTION, IN MY OPINION, IS MORE MANIFESTLY
CONSISTENT WITH THE WILL OF GOD, THAN DOMESTIC SLAVERY, and
no one of his ordinances is written in more legible
characters than that which consigns the African Race to this
condition AS MORE CONDUCIVE TO THEIR OWN HAPPINESS, THAN ANY
OTHER OF WHICH THEY ARE SUSCEPTIBLE. Whether we consult the
sacred Scriptures or the lights of nature and reason, we
shall find these truths as abundantly apparent as if written
with a sun-beam in the heavens. Under both the Jewish and
Christian dispensations of our religion, DOMESTIC SLAVERY
existed with the unequivocal sanction of its prophets, its
apostles, and finally its great Author. The patriarchs
themselves, those chosen instruments of God, were
slaveholders. In fact the divine sanction of this institution
is so plainly written that "he who runs may read" it, and
those over-righteous pretenders and pharisees, who affect to
be scandalized by its existence among us, would do well to
inquire how much more nearly they walk in the way of
godliness, than did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That the
African negro is DESTINED BY PROVIDENCE TO OCCUPY THIS
CONDITION OF SERVILE DEPENDENCE, is not less manifest. It is
marked on the face, stamped on the skin, and evinced by the
intellectual inferiority, and natural improvidence of his
race. THEY HAVE ALL THE QUALITIES THAT FIT THEM FOR SLAVES,
AND NOT ONE OF THOSE THAT WOULD FIT THEM TO BE FREEMEN, they
are utterly unqualified not only for rational freedom, but
for self-government of any kind. They are in all respects
physical, moral and political, inferior to millions of the
human race, who have for consecutive ages dragged out a
wretched existence under a grinding political despotism, and
who are doomed to this hopeless condition by the very
qualities which unfit them for a better. It is utterly
astonishing that any enlighted American, after contemplating
all the manifold forms in which even the white race of
mankind are doomed to slavery and oppression, should suppose
it possible to reclaim the Africans from their destiny. THE
CAPACITY TO ENJOY FREEDOM IS AN ATTRIBUTE NOT TO BE
COMMUNICATED BY HUMAN POWER. IT IS AN ENDOWMENT OF GOD, AND
ONE OF THE RAREST WHICH IT HAS PLEASED HIS INSCRUTABLE WISDOM
TO BESTOW UPON THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH. IT IS CONFERRED AS
THE REWARD OF MERIT, and only upon those who are qualified to
enjoy it. Until the "Ethiopian can change his skin," it will
he vain to attempt, by any human power, to make freemen of
those whom God has doomed to be slaves, by all their
attributes.
Let not, therefore, the misguided and designing intermeddlers
who seek to destroy our peace, imagining that they are
serving the cause of God by practically arraigning the
decrees of his Providence. Indeed it would scarcely excite
surprise, if with the impious audacity of those who projected
the tower of Babel, they should attempt to scale the
battlements of Heaven, and remonstrate with the God of wisdom
for having put THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE CURSE OF HAM upon the
African race instead of the European.
The Governor then proceeds to give his views on the political bearings
of the question, and thus sums them up:--
"DOMESTIC SLAVERY, THEREFORE, INSTEAD OF BEING A POLITICAL
EVIL, IS THE CORNER STONE OF OUR REPUBLICAN EDIFICE. No
patriot who justly estimates our privileges, will tolerate
the idea of emancipation, at any period however remote, or on
any conditions of pecuniary advantage, however favorable. I
would as soon think of opening a negotiation for selling the
liberty of the State at once, as for making any stipulations
for the ultimate emancipation of our slaves. So deep is my
conviction on this subject, that if I were doomed to die
immediately after recording these sentiments, I could say in
all sincerity, and under all the sanctions of Christianity
and patriotism, GOD FORBID THAT MY DESCENDANTS, IN THE
REMOTEST GENERATIONS, SHOULD LIVE IN ANY OTHER THAN A
COMMUNITY HAVING THE INSTITUTION OF DOMESTIC SLAVERY."
The conduct of the clergy of South Carolina, may be inferred from the
following account of a great _pro_-slavery meeting, held in the city
of Charleston, to denounce in the most malignant spirit, the
abolitionists of the North:
(_From the Charleston Courier._)