Slavery in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Front matter

SLAVERY

IN THE

Br

Introduction

cutting till they fall ! la other words, wo go in for a prohibitory law."

The Demon of Slavery which entered into the Methodist societies at an early day, and which our fathers criminally failed to exorcise or cast out of the church at the time of her organization, has at length b^ome installed over us as the Qenius Loci of our institutions and government; and all our administrations and movements, in general, are now subject to the domineering , surveillance of this ruthless Divinity ! The liberty of speech and of the press, and the rights of conscience, if not wholly taken from us by the slave-power which has usurped the control of the church, can no longer be exercised with safety. Persecution and proscription — the sure harbingers of fire and faggot in those countries where religion is enabled to avail Itself of the civil arm — are forever staring us in the face ; and reminding us of the difficulties and perils that await our anti-slavery enterprise !

We have felt that it required a Wesley or a Luther, to stem the tide of despotism and corruption that is rolling its desolating wave over our church and countiy. Perhaps a much greater man than either would fail to extirpate church-slavery, or even to' check the mighty torrent which baa swept on with accumulated violence from year to year, and which so many of us have labored in vain to overcome or resist. He might rally around him that portion of our Israel who are truly and heartily anti-slavery in their character, and form the nucleus of a genuine anti-slavery church, should God in his Providence ever force us into a new organization, as he did the followers of Luther, and of Wesley ; but it would doubtless result in another disruption of the bpdy. Either the Reformer and his adherents must be put under the ban of excision for their intolerable heresy ; or the pvo-slavery caste among us, feeling that their " craft was in danger," would follow the example of their legitimate predecessors and examplar — the Methodist Episcopal Church, South — and secede from the connection.

But though we are not a Luther or a Wesley, yet as these great luminaries were preceded and gradually introduced by lesser lights, and as some one must first break ground or throw himself into the breach preparator y to the achievement of victory ; we feel it incumbent on us to step forward .ind do what little we can for the cause of God and humanity in that humble sphere. We are not unaware hat the undertaking, in itself considered, is exceedingly unpleasant ;

Introduction.

V especially as we feel ourselves called upon to lay open and rebuke the wickedness of the church. We deeply regret that the occasion has arisen. But the issue has been forced upon ns, and it must be met. The church having yielde<l herself up to the slave-power, or become pro-slavery in her administration and government, has placed the subject of slavery beyond the reach of anti-slavery legislation, leaving us of the anti-slavery school no alternative but to arr^dgn her at the bar of public opinion. And to. this tiibunal she must now be brought The time has also come wh«ii 'stronger and more decided ground must be taken in our con^ct with the slave-power. Slavery, in all its forma and phases — and especially in its legal relation, that damnable source of the whole damnable system— must be reprobated and denounced in the severest terms ; and all fbllowsbip with slaveholders must be eschewed and repudiated as a shamefbl complicity with their unparalleled wickedness. The pulpit and the press must raise the battle-cry of extermination against so horrible an evil, accompanying their declaration of war with correspondent action ; and pour forth their denunciations and rebukes " in thoughts that breathe and words that bum."

We are aware that much has been said and written of late against the institution of slavery. Its moral, political, and domestic aspects and bearings have been placed in a strong and convincing light before the public ; and there would seem to be nothing more wanting to enlighten the public mind, or to {^ouse the conscience of the community in regard to this great evil. But still our anti-slavery literature, for the most part, is radically defective. CAwrcA-slavery, wHch lies at the foundation, and constitutes the bulwark of all slavery, in general, is seldom called in question. Our anti-slavery lectures, reports, discussions and other forms of presenting the subject to the world, are chiefly directed against slavery in the aistrar.t; or against the cvUs of slavery, and the abuses of the institution ; while the guiU of the chv/rch, and the duly devolving upon her to free herself from die abomination by the proper execution of Christian Discipline, are left almost wholly untouched. The idea seems to be, that the church has nothing to do with slavery in her ecclesiastical rafificUy ; but regarding it as a matter of political economy, merely, she is at liberty to seek its abolition, regulation, or perpetuatixin and extension even, just as the financial interests of the country may re' qaire, i%th<i alone character of citizens.

Now what is chiefly wanted in relation to this subject is, to efibct vi

Introduction.

ft change in our anti-slavery literature — a change which shall place all anti-slavery movements nud doings upon the right foundation ; and give to them the character and impulse of rigtit motives. We must base our movements upon principle rather then eocycdiency, and our motives must be drawn from mcral rather than cconovUcal or civil considerations. Slavery is to be regarded as a Tnoral question; and, like all other moral questions, to be disposed of by the Church irrespective of its civil relations and bearings, as a matter of ecclesiastical lef^slation and discipline.

Nor are we to leave the state to take the lead in the work of moral reform, the church following in her wake, as our pro-slavery theologians would have us believe. The church is not to be evangelized, or cored of slave-holding, through the state ; but the state through the church. " Judgment must begin at the house of Ood." The church must lead the way — must set the example — " must cast the beam out of her own eye " — the abomination of slavery out of her own bosom ; remembering that the gospel, instead of following in the track of civUization, or operating through the medium of state-laws, is graciously adapted to precede all such agencies, and to achieve its legitimate and grand design of reforming and saving mankind independently of them ; coming directly to the heart and conscience, of even the miserable slave-hold^, through the medium of tLe church. Let this ground be adopted by the church, and she will become a moral power by which slavery will soon be swept fVom the land.

But to bring about this most desirable state of things, or to effect the extirpation of church-slavery by which we have been so long cursed and , crippled in our operations, our anti-slavery literature must take on a new character, and proceed on other, grounds than those we have heretofore occupied upon the subject. Intead of catering to the cupidity and lust of the slave-holder by apologetic excuses for his wickedness ; or of urging the emancipation of the slave from motives of political economy, and looking to civil legislation a« the means of accomplishing it, we must bring our literature, and especially that most effective department of it — the (Kiriodic press — to bear directly upon the slavery of the church. The church must be admonished of her guilt ; and taught to execute discipline upon her slave-holding members, excluding them from her communion, and repudiating all christian fellowship with them, as an imparative moral duty. To place the contest we are carrying on

Introducton.

against " the sum of all villanies " upon any other issue than that of moral obligation, will never do. Kansas will probably faU in her efforts to be admitted into the Union as a fVee state, for the reason that she seeks it on economic grounds merely, and in her own strength. Had she the virtue or the conscience to put her claim upon the ground of moral principle, and look to the God of Providence, like the fathers of the revolution, to sustain her cause, " no weapon formed against her could prosper, and every tongue that should rise in judgment against her, she would condemn." Nothing could prevail against h6r. Even the Federal Executive, with all his troops and patronage and border-rufSans, would be utterly unable to impose the curse of slavery upon her vii^n soil. Nor can we who are engaged in the anti-slavery enterprise prevail against the slave-power, or succeed in our efforts to exclude that hoary abomination A'om the church, except we join issue against it on purely moral grounds, and secure the Divine blessings by following the will of God as the rule and measure of our proceedings, irrespective of human legislation.

The great trouble is, we of the anti-slavery school ourselves, with the exception of a few individuals, have not come iip to this standard. Professing to regard the subject of slavery as a moral question, we have actually treated it as a question of mere expediency — a question that might be accommodated to conventional arrangements ; and made a subject of modification, of postponement, of compromise as the case might be, to suit times and occasions. And the slave-holding faction of the church, perceiving our inconsistency in relation to the matter, and the flexibility of our anti-slaveryism, have taken advantage of these circumstances to control our anti-slavery movements, and to perpetuate the abomination of Church-slavery by and with our own consent

Now if we would do anything " for the extirpation of the evil of slavery ".in our church, there must be a radical change in our anti-slavery literature. Either onr church papers, which have given character and tone to our position on the subject of slavery as a denomination, must take different ground ; or the press independent which has already been called into existence among us by the exegencies of the times, must go on incr'^asing in circulation and power till it shall have gained the ascendency over those papei-s, and is able to shape the anti-slavery sentiments and doings of f iie Church after its own model. The Church must be taught and required to

Introduction.

" wocd her own garden " — to " build over against her own house " — and to remember that she is Divinely commissioned to go forth, independently of the civil power, and in opposition to it evoni where its laws and administrations are siniUl, for the evangelization of the world.

Bat in order to bring up the church to so high a standard of christian morality, and prepare her to undertake and execute " the extirpation of the evil of slavery " which she so fondly hugs to her bosom, we must inihse into her literature a pure anti-Bla?ery element Her conservatism, which by the by is but the conservatism of the accursed institution of slavery, must be purged out ; and the sentiment of the genuine friends of emancipation, that slavery is mahm per see — a sin under all circumstances — and to be dealt with the same as any other immorality, must be 8n^>!>tituted in its room. This is the great want of the church. And Ic is to do something in the way of supplying this desideratum that the present volume is offered to the public. We claim little for ourself, but much for our cause. It is not the church we oppose, bat her sin — not her constitution or government, but her practical violation of it in the matter of slave-holding. And though we expect to have our " name cast oat as evil," and to share the common fate of all who venture to interfere with popular sins; especially if they be the sins of the church, and have been baptized with the name of expediency, humanity, loyalty to " the powers that be," or something of that sort ; still, we must answer our own conscience in the premises. And, throwing ourself upon the arm of Divine Providence, and the sympathy and co-operation of the genuine fViends of the anti-slavery cause, shall content ouraelf to abide the result.

THE AUTHOR.

SLAVERY IN THE CHURCH.

Chapter I

But is not the subject of church>slavery exhausted ? Is there any new light to be shed upon a subject which has enlisted the ablest pens, and entered into the profoundest discussions of the age ? Has not the church become tired of the slavery agitation, and made up her mind to retire from the arena of conflict, and take the repose her wasted enoi^es require ? Why then disturb her needed rest by reopening the discussion ?

Well, we would be sorry to chafe the feelings, or to interfere with the settled policy of the church ; but we are far from supposing that the subject of church-slavery is exhausted, or that it should cease to be agitated among us until an evil so enormous in its character, and so utterly subversive of all that is vital to christianity, is forever done away, and its dark and bloody stains are washed from our guilty hands.

in approaching the subject of church-slavery, we are far from entering upon our task with a feeling of selfcoiifidence. We are aware of the difficulty of the undertaking, and would by no means' engage in it but in the name and strength of Him who has commanded us to " remember those that are in bonds, as bound with them." If slavery as a civil institution has been able to roll its desolating wave over the land for so many years in defiance of the laws of God and of humanity} to pervade all the ramifications of society by its corrupt and dangerous influence, in the face of the light of civilization and the word of God, and to become so thoroughly interwoven with the legislation, commerce, and sympathy of the whole country as to control every public interest and movement ; how is it to be dislodged from the church, where its authority and power are greatly increased, and rendered vastly more impudent and formidable by the sanctions of religion ? The magnitude of an evil which has rent in twain the purest church on earth, brought us to the fearful verge of another painful division, and reduced to silence the pulpit and the press in most parts of our country with respect to " the sum of all villanies, " can scarcely be over-rated. And to think of encountering it with the least hope of efiecting its removal, requires a firmness of nerve and a faith in God to which we hardly dare lay claim.

We feel that the undertaking is both a difficult and a delicate one. Nor is our position at all relieved in either of these respects by the conflict of opinion which divides our conference and people, the indefinite and tangled condition in which the subject of slave-holding among us was left by the doings of the late General Conference, or the implied unconstitutionality of any action of the General Conference for the extirpation oi slavery within our borders in the Episcopal quadrennial address. Yet, nevertheless, we owe it to God and to humanity, to the church and to the world, to ourself and to our calling, to lift up our voice, and to wield our pen against this hoary abomination, and to bear our faithful testimony against so horrible an evil in all its moods and tenses.

We cannot agree with most of our editors and brethren that the anti-slavery cause was so mightily advanced by the action of the late General Conference. On the contrary, it is our honest opinion, and has been from that day to this, that it never received so deadly a blow, or was placed in so unpromising and hopeless a condition, in all the history of the church. Instead of advancing, we believe "the shadow has gone back ten degrees upon th3 dial" of our anti-slavery position; and that the last human hope of the poor deserted slave, who, down to that fatal period, had turned his imploring eyes towards the Methodist Episcopal Church, is extinguished forever!

For some time previous to the last General Conference, the church had been deeply "convinced of the great evil of slavery. ' Her convictions had rolled upon her, as the subject continued to be agitated, till she felt something must be done to ease her burdened conscience. But since that time, like an awakened sinner who has shaken off his convictions by resisting the influences of the Spirit, she has lost all sense of the guilt

12 Slavery in the Chvrch.

of holding her fellow creatures in bondage, and relapsed into a state of the profoundest apathy ! She has now settled down upon the assumption that there is little or no mercenary slave-holding within her pale, and that she has no farther concern about the matter in any way.

if this be improvement, then there is improvement in the condition of one who has become relieved of his trouble of mind by shaking off his convictions, or in that of a sick and dying man who flatters himself that he is better because the pain which has exhausted his vital energies and destroyed the last particle of sensation is no longer felt. For ourself we can see no advancement of the anti-slavery cause, either, in church or state. Far from it. There is but too much evidence that the aggressive spirit of the slave-power is now operating with a vigor and success never before witnessed in our country. As a ciril institution, slavery has not only swallowed up one half of the states of the Union, but it has usurped the control of the General Government; availing itself of all its vast resources, and putting in requisition all its various powers — legislative, executive, and judicial — for the continued maintenance of its own criminal existence, and the carrying forward and consummating its own diabolical ends.

Nor is the church at all in advance of the state in respect to the cause of emancipation. She too has lent herself to the slave-power; and assumed the fearful responsibility of upholding the accursed institution by the sanctions of religion ! She has even taken tlie viper into her bosom; and according to the teachings of the last General Conference, and the most of our editors

ANTi-StAVERY Declining.

upon the subject, it would be a violation of the constitution of the church to cast it out ! And yet site refuses to alter the constitution ! True, a considerable portion of the membership of the church are anti-slavery ; and more than half of the delegates of the General Conference assembled at Indianapolis were in favor of the adoption of a rule prohibitive of slave-AoWin^g", as well as of slave-Zrarfi?/^ as we now have it. But though such a rule wt.8 duly reported to the General Conference by the committee on slavery, and initiatory proceedings Gougbt to be had thereon, preparatory to its introduction into the Discipline as an amendment of one of the General Rules, it failed of a constitutional majority — a number of Northern dough-faces, such as Peck of the Wyoming Conference, voting against it— and consequently was lost.

Had the bishops, in presenting their customary quadrennial message to the General Conference, announced slavery among the subjects which in their judgment required the consideration of that body ; or if, doubting the constitutional right of the General Conference to pass a rule prohibitory of church-slavery by their own independent action, they had recommended the adoption . of such a rule by the concurrent action of the General and Annual Conferences, which all, except a few pro-slavery fanatics allow would have been constitutional, the result would have been very diflferent. Most clearly, the dccilfon of a question on which the delegates were almost equally divided, rested entirely with the Episcopacy. This they very well knew. They felt that they held the balance of power on that subject in their own hands. And had they desired the abolition of church-slavery; instead of interposing the objection of a constitutional difficulty in the way of such abolition, they would at least have remained silent upon the subject, in which case the foul abomination would have received its death blow. A majority of the General Conference were prepared, in some way, to effect this most desirable object; and would have done it, and done it constitutionally y but for the unauthorized and obtrusive interposition of Episcopal influence.

To the position taken by the bishops, therefore, or to the indication of their opinion and wishes upon the subject in their Address to the General Conference, must be ascribed the defeat of the passage of a bill which provided for the speedy extirpation of slavery from the church. If it were right thus to shut out a rule prohibitory of slave-holding, or to prevent any change in the General Rule, impressing upon it such prohibitory character, and thereby perpetuate the dreadful evil of church-slavery among our people, all will agree that the bishops are entitled to the credit of it, and may well congratulate themselves upon having saved the church from the guilt and mischief of an attempted wrong. If it were wrong to stand in the way of such rule or change, and a great injury both to the slave and to the church, as thousands believe it to have been, they also must bear the responsibility !

But right or wrongs history records tl^ fact that slavery was claimed to be constitutionally in the church, as well by the dominant party in the last General Conference, as by the bishops in their quadrennial address ; and yet they i-efused to alter the constitution! We say it is a matter of history, "known and read of all men and we hope we may be allowed to repeat it without offence, as no deliberative body can be supposed to be ashamed of their own doings, that the church, having decided by her representatives in General Conference assembled, that slavery was constitutionally allowed to her members, refused to open the door for its removal by taking the first initiatory step towards the altering- of the constitution!

How then, we would ask, is the anti-slavery cause advancing? How can it advance when church and state, law and administration, pride and prejudice and worldly interests, are all combined against it; throwing the full weight of their united influence into the opposing scale 1 Nay, indeed, if we are already free from mercenary slave-holding — free from all .slave-holding except what is maintained for the benefit of the slave himself, and it would be cruel to him, as it is pretended, to dissolve the relation he sustains to his master — why should there be any advancement in the anti- slavery cause? It would seem in that case, that we are well enough off as we are — church, slaves, and all — and why not "let well enough alone?" What do our so-called conservatives mean by denying that there is any mercenary slave holding in the church, and at the same time congratulating her with her anti-slavery progress, and almost going into spasms lesi the good work should be retarded by the agitation of the subject? Are they sincere in their anti-slavery professions? Or do they affect io unite with us in our anti-slavery movements, the better to defeat our object by putting us off our guard, and inducing us to confide the management of the subject to their hands? How is all this ?

Slavery in the Church.

If there be no mercenary slave-holding in the church — none but what ought to be there for the benefit of the slave— why talk of anti-slavei-y progress at all? — • Why have anything to say about the removal of the evil? If there be no mercenary slave-holding among us, instead of enquiring " What shall be done for the extirpation of the evil of slavery," we should have the consistency to expunge that hypocritical inquiry from the Discipline; and substitute in its room, — "What shall be done for the" diffusion of the blessings of slavery throughout the church and the world? For the church to call herself anti-slavery, ask, "what shall be done for the extirpation of the evil," and congratulate herself upon her progress in the anti-slavery cause, while she practically and by her official action determinately resists every measure and movement in that direction, and maintains that there is no mei-cenavy slave-holding within her pale — no slave-holding except such as is virtuous and benevolent — is not barely inconsistent, it is clearly insincere, is grossly dishonest; and shows that she is ashamed of a practice which she is determined to pursue, and that she is driven to a course of base dissimulation as the only means of keeping herself in countenance, and of sustaining, with some degree of credit, her abominable position before the world. — Why does she not cease her miserable shufiiing — her double dealing upon the subject — and practically unite with our anti-slavery band, instead of opposing, under some hollow pretext, every measure and movement we undertake ; or else throw off the guise, in imitation of the Church South, conforming her profession to her practice, and divesting the Discipline, as they have

Anti-Si-avbiiy Decli^ng. 17 had tho consistency to do, of the last iota of its anti-slavery character?

But inconsistency is a prominent feature of human action. Few men agree with themselves. And fewer still with their antecedents. Our christian (?) slaveholders, not quite easy in their consciences in respect to the innocence or virtuousness of slave-holding, or the holding their fellow creatures in bondage for their own benefit ; and somewhat laden with a sense of their accountability to Him who is the avenger of the oppressed, betray evident signs of misgiving in regard to the character and destiny of the oppressor ; and would fain discover some modification of slavery whicb .would render it harmless, or find out some reason fur holding their fellow creatures in bondage which might justify the practice. Various expedients have been resorted to for this pisipose. At one time weave told that '-'slavery is going to die out of itself, if we will only let it alone." And then, strange as it may seem, that "the ^^ospel is a going to do it away," though forbidden to be preached to slave-holding communities, or so preached and applied as to justify rather than condemn the institution. These, and many other subterfuges, have been resorted to by the church to cover up and defend the sin of skve-holding. But as a last resort for quieting the qualms of her conscience upon the subject, she has concluded to recognize and treat slavery as a civil institu- ' tion and leave it entirely to the management of the state.

T'his is her present position. And this the policy she may be expected to pursue in the future. Henceforth the state is to be the keeper of her conscience,

18 Slavert in the Church.

and the arbiter of her doimgs in respect to "the evil of slavery ; " and no independent or separate church-action is to be attempted or thought of any more. The agitation of the subject of slavery has already fallen into great disrepute. It is looked upon with angry contempt, and sneered at by many among us — preachers and people — even in the free stales. Several of the leading memberis of the East New York Conference at their late session, spumed the idea of any church-action upon the subject of slavery with a coarse and angry violence which would have done credit to a " Border-ruffian," or a "negro trading Legreo." Nor are they alone in their out-spoken and heartless contempt of bleeding Africa. There are more or less of the same class of dough-faced sympathizers with the slave power in all the Northern conferences. Shame on them.

But as much as we despise their cringing sycophancy, their wicked and fulsome adulation of the slave-holding South; and their open advocacy of the cruelest despotism that ever existed on the face of the globe ; we by no means "suppose them to be sinners above all men that dwell in the land." There are many others among us, and those too of the highest standing in the ministry; whose cowardly silence upon the subject of a great moral evil— the horrid sin of slavery — renders them equally guilty, they being commanded of God to "open their mouths for the dumb," and in most cases still more dangerous to the anti-slavery cause. The time was when prayer used to be offered for the slave in most of our deliberative and worshiping assemblies. But if he were remembered in a single prayer at the late General Conference, except in our own in opening the conference

Anti-Slavery Deolining. 19 one morning, we did not hear it. The poor down-trodden creature seemed to have passed out of mind, while a filthy old Indian present must be formally introduced to the conferenoe, wept over, caressed, and aided, in some little trip he wanted to make, by a liberal contribution. Such was the state of things at the last General Conference. And if the analogy of history may be relied on as an indication of the coarse and character of comming events, it will turn out in the General Conference to be held at Buffalo in 1860, that the subject of slavery will not so much as be mentioned upon the conference floor. Or if mentioned at all, it will only be called up to receive an apology of the conference for having shown it any disrespect ; and to be put to sleep till a little farther improvement in the direction we are now going shall have developed the great excellencies of the institution, and its vast utility to mankind so fully, as that we shall be led to place it among the other benevolent institutions of the church — the Bible, Missionary, and Tract associations for instance—to be employed for the evangelization and salvation of the world.