Marian Brown Hand to John Brown, November 23, 1859

Rawsonville, Nov. 23.

My dear Brother John: If I have not been first to come forward to express my sympathy for you, in this your hour of trial, it was not because I did not feel very deeply; but whenever I undertake to give expression to my feelings, words are inadequate, and I find myself driven away from earth in thought to find consolation; and I rejoice that there is One seeth as man cannot see. O, my brother, if I could say any thing that would help to cheer thine heart or buoy up your spirits, I should be most happy. You say in your letter to Jeremiah that the time may come when we will not be ashamed to own our brother John. Do not let the evil spirit suggest such a thought as this to mar your peace. No! I rejoice that a brother of mine is accounted worthy to suffer and die in His cause, and I feel myself impelled to cry out, "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice;" and, as you, like our Heavenly Master, have been a "Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief," I do pray that you may be able to forgive your enemies, and to pray for them, as Stephen of old did, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge."

O, read the 53d chapter of Isaiah, and may it comfort and sustain you as it has me. O, "fear not them that kill the body and have not power to kill the soul." I feel that you will be sustained in every conflict. Let it cheer you that thousands of Christians are offering prayer to God daily and hourly in your behalf, and that God will get honor and glory in the finale of the matter. I received a letter yesterday from her that was Harriett O——, saying, "Tell your brother how deeply I feel and pray for him in these his days of trial, that God will be his friend and support to the last." Sister D—— would unite with me in this, if she were here; for it is the first thing thought of when we meet — How shall we express our sympathy for him? What can we say that will add one ray of comfort? I shall write to Mary, for my own widowed heart can in some measure realize how bitter is the cup of which she must drink. I should dearly love to receive a few lines, at least, from you. My children send their sympathy and love; and now, dear brother, God be with you, is the prayer of your affectionate sister.

Marian S. H.

Please receive what mother has written as coming from myself also; and may God be with you and sustain you in all your trials. I can say no more.

Your affectionate nephew,

A. K. H.¹

_______________

* Half sister of John Brown, daughter of Owen Brown and Sally Root.

¹ Addison K. Hand, son of Marian Brown & Titus H. Hand.

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 429-30

Rev. Luther Humphrey* to John Brown, November 12, 1859

Windham, Portage Co., Ohio, Nov. 12.

My Dear Cousin: I have just completed the attentive perusal of the account published in the New York Tribune of November 5, of your trial and sentence to be hung on the 2d December.

Never before did I read such a sentence upon any relative of mine. From their own witnesses I cannot see any ground why you should be sentenced to death for a single one of the counts presented in your indictment. You may have one thing to comfort you under all your afflictions and sorrows: "The Lord reigns;" and He will cause the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain. He knows well what were your motives in what you have done; and whether it was the best course or not, he will overrule it all for his glory. The Bible throughout condemns oppression in all its forms, and is on the side of the oppressed, and their sighs and groanings have come up before him, and he has seen all their tears. Though man may not be able to deliver those who are in bonds, yet God can do it with perfect ease, and he has taken the matter into his own hands, and he will certainly accomplish it. The prophet Isaiah was directed to say to the people, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Cry aloud; spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet; and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. Is not this the fast that I have chosen, to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"

He who hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth sent his servants Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, saying, "Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me; for I will at this time send all my plagues upon thine heart, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, that thou mayest know there is none like me in all the earth." Pharaoh said in the pride and stoutness of his heart, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord; neither will I let Israel go." So may the wicked slaveholders of the South say respecting those whom they cruelly hold in bondage; but the same king who delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage will surely deliver those who are oppressed in our own country, and it will not be in the united power of earth and hell to prevent their deliverance. God will accomplish it in his own good time and way. We may well exclaim with Jefferson, "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just."

You, my dear sir, may be called to die in the cause of liberty, as your beloved sons have been caused to give up their lives; but, if so, I believe your and their blood will "cry unto the Lord from the ground." If you are really a child of God, you will soon be where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest; where all things work together for good. Christ is saying to you, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." I fully believe what the kind Quaker woman¹ wrote you, "Thousands pray for thee every day. Posterity will do thee justice." Should they put you to death, they will not only have to wade through the blood of those who have been cruelly murdered in the same cause, but also through the prayers of God's people, which will not be unheeded or disregarded by the hearer of prayer. I am exceeding thankful that the jailer is so kind to you, and that you are permitted to occupy yourself in writing and reading. I doubt not but you now value the Bible far above all other reading. May it do you good! It will be exceedingly gratifying to me to receive a letter from you before your exit, . . . I shall continue to pray for you so long as you may be a subject of prayer, that the Lord may comfort and support you and your remaining mourning and afflicted family. May we all be permitted to meet in heaven, with all the blood-bought throng, and with them unite in praise to the Redeemer forever and ever. May that peace which passeth all understanding be yours in the trying hour. Farewell! Farewell!

L. H.

_______________

* Cousin of John Brown, son of Hannah Owen Brown and Solomon Humphrey Jr.

¹ The letter referred to I do not republish in this volume, as it has already appeared in "The Public Life."

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 431-2

Congressman Horace Mann, June 9, 1850

WASHINGTON, June 9, 1850.

Yesterday I read Prof. Stuart's pamphlet in defence of Mr. Webster. It is a most extraordinary production. He begins by proving biblically that slavery is a divine institution, permitted, recognized, regulated, by God himself; and therefore that it cannot be malum in se. The greater part of the work consists in maintaining this point both from the Old and New Testaments; but he spends a few pages at the close in showing that it is contrary to all the precepts and principles of the gospel, and is little better than all crimes concentrated in one. How it can be both of these things at the same time, we are not informed.

He says, with Mr. Webster, that we are bound to admit four slave States from Texas, although we were to admit but four in the whole; and one at least, if not two, of the four were to be free States. But he says it is to be by the consent of Texas; and Texas may give consent to only four slave States taken in succession. Now, the answer to this is so plain, that it is difficult to see why even an Old-Testament orthodox minister should not see it.

When a contract is executory, as the lawyers say (that is, to be executed in future), and it contains mutual stipulations in favor of each of the parties, then nothing can be more clear than that each of the successive steps for fulfilment must have reference to what is to be done afterwards. Neither party can claim that the contract shall be so fulfilled by the other party in any one particular as to render the fulfilment of the whole impossible. Each preceding act of execution must have reference to what, by its terms, is to be subsequently executed.

So he says the Wilmot Proviso for a Territory is in vain, because the Territory, as soon as it is transformed into a State, can establish slavery. But the Wilmot Proviso over a Territory defends it against that class of population that would establish slavery when it becomes a State. It attracts to it that class of population which will exclude slavery; and therefore such proviso is decisive of the fate of the State.

SOURCE: Mary Tyler Peabody Mann, Life of Horace Mann, p. 301-2

Senator Daniel Webster to Professor Stuart, Monday Morning, June 3, 1850

Washington, Monday morning, June 3, 1850, six o'clock.

MY DEAR SIR,—The "book," has arrived in parcels, the last coming to hand yesterday. Your kindness to me is so overwhelming, that I dare not trust myself to speak of its merits; nor have I been able to keep it in my hands long enough to read the whole of it. Your old pupil, Mr. Edward Curtis, now here, seized it as soon as the second part arrived, read it all, and speaks of it with unqualified approbation, indeed, with admiration. From his hands Mr. Ashmun got it last evening, and has it now. I shall have it again, I suppose, in an hour or two. I remember, my dear Sir, that as I stepped into the carriage to leave you, at your own door, you said, putting your hands together, and looking up to the sun, "I see the scriptural argument like a path of light." This path, you have shown to others. The attitude of slavery, in the Old Testament, is the part I have read, and it appears to me absolutely conclusive. How much error have you dissipated; how much shallow reasoning exposed!

Of the book itself, I shall write you again in a few days; but now, to matters of business.

D. WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 370-1

Senator Daniel Webster to Rev. Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock, March 17, 1850

Washington, March 17, 1850.

MY DEAR SIR,—I thank you for your letter, which contains thoughts and suggestions lying below the common surface.

It may be very true, that it was no part of the economy of the Divine Government, before the advent of the Messiah, to Judaize all such Gentiles as should come within the immediate contact of the Nation; whereas it is certain, that when the Gospel of Jesus Christ was introduced, it was intended for all nations; and commandment was therefore given to preach it to every creature under the whole heavens.

There is, my dear Sir, a difference between the spirit of the old system and that of the new, which is wonderful and marvellous, and which appears to result from those ways of God which are past finding out. In the Old Testament, the general tone of command, respecting the Gentile nations, is, "root out and destroy." In the new, it is, "convert and save." Nevertheless, I cannot but think that slavery was regarded by Christ and his Apostles as an evil, an injustice to be overcome, by inspiring individuals with that meekness and that love which the gospel enjoins.

There is no direct denunciation of slavery, none of despotism, or monarchy, none of war; although we are well informed whence wars and fightings come. The great end of his teaching, who taught as never man taught, seems to me to be to probe and purify the heart, and to enjoin the performance of personal duties, religious, moral, and social. Christianity confirms and recognizes the Decalogue; but the Decalogue is but a list of commandments for the observance of personal duties. But more than all, and above all, the Divine Sermon on the Mount, that heavenly summary of Christian instruction, addresses every one of its precepts to the heart and conscience of individual man, telling him what ought to be the affections of his heart, and what his performance of the private and personal duties of life.

My dear Sir, I am getting out of my sphere and beyond my depth; but I am happy to be called by your friendly letter to enjoy an hour, in the freshness of the morning, in conversing with you upon subjects of such vast and enduring interest.

With most sincere regard, yours truly,

DAN'L WEBSTER.

SOURCE: Fletcher Webster, Editor, The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster, Vol. 2, p. 359-60

From a Slaveholder’s Son to John Brown, undated, about November 1859

Dear Brother: My father was a slaveholder, and when at school I commenced searching the Bible for sanction of the divine institution, but have not found it. I am Old School Presbyterian, and believe with our friends, the Quakers, Christ's kingdom will be peace; but now Christ told his disciples, He that hath a sword, let him take it. Therefore, I cannot say I think you exceeded your commission, and I rejoice that a man has been found worthy to suffer for Christ. Yes, dear brother, God Himself will send His angel, December 2, '59, to release you from your prison of clay, and conduct you to your Redeemer and mine, where you will join the souls under the altar, crying. How long before your blood be avenged on the earth? Truly, your ignominious death has a glory equal to that of the Apostles, in the eye of thousands who are praying for you that all your sins may be blotted out, and Christ's Cause, for which you suffer, may be speedily supplied with other witnesses for Right. Enclosed [is] one dollar for your use, because I want to do something to aid you, hoping others will do much. Kind regards to your family. One of the Seven Thousand the Lord knows; to every one known by man, who hate slavery because the Lord does.

[No signature nor date.]

SOURCE: James Redpath, Editor, Echoes of Harper’s Ferry, p. 391

Dr. Seth Rogers to his daughter Dolly, March 2, 1863—Evening

March 2, Evening.

John Quincy (Co. G) came and asked me today if I would “send up North” for a pair of spectacles for him, “for common eyes of 60.” The old man said he “could not live long enough to make much account of them,” but that he “could read right smart places in the Testament,” and since he has lost his spectacles he missed it. This is the same soldier who told his congregation on the Ben Deford, after our St. Mary's trip, that he saw the Colonel with his shoulder at the wheel of the big gun in the midst of the firing, and that “when de shell went out it was de scream ob de great Jehovah to de rebels.” What made this statement the more interesting to me was the fact that I was standing in the background with the Colonel at the time, and John Quincy did not know of our presence.

We are now weeding our regiment a little, and today I have examined about a hundred and discharged thirty for disability. I find one poor fellow whose mind is very torpid, though he is not idiotic. A companion of his told me that he had been overworked in the Georgia rice swamps and that “he be chilly minded, not brave and expeditious like me.” I believe I have somewhere written that our men were not subjected to examination by a surgeon before enlisting, hence this disagreeable business of discharging now. It is much easier to keep men out of a regiment than to get them out when once in.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 368-9

Emory Upton to Maria Upton, April 12, 1857

WEST POINT, April 12,1857.

MY DEAR SISTER: . . . In your last letter you asked if I sincerely believed in a God.  I can say yes.  I also believe in the religion inculcated by the ministers of God. . . . Few men now disbelieve religion, and those are mostly ignorant men.  Voltaire, the greatest modern infidel, shrank from death; and why?  Because of his unbelief.  He was afraid to enter eternity.  I hope that you will never desert the good cause you have espoused, and that you will do much good in your life.  As for myself, I take the Bible as the standard of morality, and try to read two chapters in it daily.

SOURCE: Peter Smith Michie, The Life and Letters of Emory Upton, p. 13

Anti-Slavery Meeting in Andover, published August 8, 1835

MR. EDITOR — I regret that the former account I was sent of your labors of our excellent brothers Thompson and Phelps, was so meager a statement of their untiring efforts among us.  Circumstances, however, obliged me to compress into a small space, what was worthy of being given at much greater length; and for the benefit of those who have not the privilege of listening to the discussion of a question of so much importance to every American citizen as that of slavery, a fuller sketch of the remaining meetings shall be given.  As my remarks will be confined for the most part to the speeches of Mr. Thompson, it must not be supposed that I can give anything like an adequate idea of the cogency of his arguments or of the power of his eloquence.  To eulogize him as an orator would be idle.  It would be like daubing paint upon a finished portrait, which would only soil it instead of adding to its beauty. Those who would form any just conception of Mr. Thompson as a public speaker and a christian philanthropist, must both see and hear him, and those who have once listened to him, are well aware that even an analysis of a speech of his , so closely joined in all its parts, so replete with profound thought, and so profusely embellished with rhetorical flowers of every hue and ever ordour, cannot be embodied in a single brief paragraph.  I shall therefore not attempt to give his own expressions, but merely a general description of his discourse.

On Sunday evening, July 12th, Mr. Thompson addressed a crowded audience, from Ezekiel xxviii. 14, 15, 16 – “Thou art the anointed the cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so : thou wast upon the holy mountain of God: thou hast walked up and down in the midst of these stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.”

Mr. Thompson remarked that though this was a passage of inimitable beauty, it was one of tremendous and awful import. While it drew the picture of the wealth and grandeur of ancient Tyre, it contained the prediction of its downfall. Mr. Thompson then proceeded to portray in matchless colors the prosperity and glory of the renowned city, whose “builders had perfected her beauty, whose borders were in the midst of the sea, whose mariners were the men of Sidon, and who was a merchant to the people of many islands.” Her fir trees were brought from Hermon, her oaks from Bashan, her cedars from Lebanon, her blue and purple and fine linen from Egypt, her wheat and oil and honey from Judea, her spices and gold and precious stones from Arabia, her silver from Tarsus, her emeralds and coral and agate from Syria, her warriors from Persia, and her slaves from Greece. Her palaces were radiant with jewels, and many kings were filled with the multitude of the riches of her merchandise. But iniquity was found in her. She had kept back the hire of the laborer by fraud. By the multitude of her riches she was filled with violence. She made merchandise of the bodies and souls of men, therefore she should be cast down. Many nations should come up against her and destroy her walls and break down her towers. All this had been literally fulfilled.

Mr. Thompson then applied his subject to America. Your country, said he, is peculiarly an anointed cherub. Heaven smiled upon the self-denying enterprise of your praying, pilgrim fathers, and in two centuries a great nation has risen into being — a nation whose territories stretches from the Canadas to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains — a nation whose prowess by land and by sea is unsurpassed by any people that have a name — a nation whose markets are filled with the luxuries of every clime, and whose merchandise is diffused over the world. The keels of your vessels cut all waters. Your ships lie along the docks of every port of Europe, and are anchored under the walls of China. The deer and the buffalo fall before the aim of your hunters, and the eagle is stricken down from his eyry. Your hardy tars visit the ice-bound coasts of the North, and transfix the monsters of the polar seas. Your coasts are thronged with populous and extended cities, and in the interior may be seen the spires of your churches towering above the beautiful villages that surround them. Above every other nation under heaven, yours is distinguished for its christian enterprise. You can give the Bible to every family within the limits of your own territory, and pledge it to the world. Your missionaries are in all quarters of the globe, and your seventeen thousand clergy are preaching salvation, in the midst of your own population. Other nations of Christendom behold with complacency the good effected by your charitable societies, and would be proud to emulate you. No nation has ever been so peculiarly blessed. You are placed upon the holy mountain of God, and walk up and down in the midst of the stones of fire, but you have sinned. Ye make merchandise of the bodies and souls of men. Ye have torn the African from his quiet home, and subjected him to interminable, bondage in a land of strangers. Violence is in the midst of you, and the oppressor walks abroad unpunished. One-sixth part of your whole population are doomed to perpetual slavery. The cotton tree blooms, and the cane field wanes, because the black man tills the soil. The sails of your vessels whiten the ocean, their holds filled with sugar, and their decks burdened with cotton, because the black man smarts under the driver's lash, while the scorching rays of a tropical sun fall blistering upon his skin. He labors and faints, and another riots on the fruits of his unrequited toils. He is bought and sold as the brute, and has nothing that he can call his own. Is he a husband? the next hour may separate him forever from the object of his affections. Is he a father? the child of his hopes may the next moment be torn from his bleeding bosom, and carried he knows not whither, but at best, to a state of servitude more intolerable than death. He looks back upon the past, and remembers his many stripes and tears. He looks forward, and no gleam of hope breaks in upon his sorrow-stricken bosom. Despair rankles in his heart and withers all his energies, and he longs to find rest in the grave. But his dark mind is uninformed of his immortal nature, and when he dies he dies without the consolations of religion, for in christian America there is no Bible for the slave. Your country being thus guilty, it behoves every citizen of your republic to consider lest the fate of Tyre be yours.

Mr. Thompson closed by expressing his determination to labor in behalf of those in bonds, till the last tear was wiped from the eye of the slave, and the last fetter broken from his heel; and then, continued he, then let a western breeze bear me back to the land of my birth, or let me find a spot to lay my bones in the midst of a grateful people, and a people FREE indeed.

Never did the writer of this article listen to such eloquence; and never before did he witness an audience hanging with such profound attention upon the lips of a speaker. But those who take the trouble to read this article, must not suppose that what I have here stated is given in Mr. Thompson's own words. Perhaps I may have made use of some of his expressions, but my object has been to give a general view of this surpassingly excellent address of our beloved brother.

On Monday evening, Mr. Thompson gave a lecture on St. Domingo. It being preliminary to subsequent lectures, it was mostly statistics from the time of the discovery of the island, down to the year 1789. Mr. Thompson remarked that he had a two-fold object in view in giving an account of St. Domingo. First, to show the capacity of the African race for governing themselves; and, second, to show that immediate emancipation was safe, as illustrated by its effects on that island. St. Domingo, he said, was remarkable for being the place where Columbus was betrayed — for its being the first of the West India Islands to which negro slaves were carried from the coast of Africa — for the cruel treatment of the first settlers in the Island to the aborigines — for the triumph of the liberated slaves over the French, and those of the islanders who joined them — for being the birth place of the noble minded, the gifted, the honored, but afterwards, betrayed Toussaint L’Ouverture, who was born a slave, and a great part of his life labored as a slave, yet as soon as his chains were broken off, he rose at once to a man — to a general to a commander-in-chief, and finally to the Governor of a prosperous and happy Republic.

At the close of the exercises, Mr. Thompson informed the audience, that on the next evening they would be addressed by Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Editor of the Liberator, — the much despised and villified Wm. Lloyd Garrison was to address the citizens of Andover on the subject of slavery.

Tuesday evening arrived, and with it arrived Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Editor of the Liberator. The house was crowded by many, who, we doubt not, came from mere curiosity, to see the man who had been held up to the world as the “enemy of all righteousness — the “disturber of the public peace — the “libeller of his country” — the “outlawed fanatic”—the reckless incendiary, who was propagating his seditious sentiments from one end of the land to the other, and yet in this free country, suffered to live notwithstanding.

After prayer and singing, brother Garrison arose, and said, he stood before them as the one who had been represented to the public as the propagator of discord, and the enemy of his country — that almost every opprobrious epithet had been attached to his name; but since one term of reproval had been spared him — since his enemies had never called him a slaveholder, he would forgive them all the rest, and thank them for their magnanimity. He spoke for some time on the supercilious inquiry so often iterated and reiterated by our opponents; Why don't you go to the South? He remarked, that the very individuals who made this inquiry, and were denouncing us as fanatics, well knew that death would be the lot of him who should broach such sentiments at the South, and should the advocates of abolition throw away their lives by recklessly throwing themselves into the hands of those who were thirsting for their blood, then indeed, might these haughty querists smile over their mangled bodies, and with justice pronounce them fanatics. He touched upon several other important points which I must pass over in silence. His manner was mild, his address dignified and dispassionate, and many who never saw him before, and whose opinions, or rather prejudices were formed from the false reports of his enemies, and confirmed by not reading his paper, were compelled, in spite of themselves, to form an idea entirely the reverse of what they had previously entertained of him. His address did much towards removing the prejudice that many had against him, and proved an excellent catholicon to the stomachs of those who are much given to squeamishness, whenever they hear the name of Garrison mentioned.

On Wednesday evening, Mr. Thompson was to have continued his remarks on St. Domingo, but a heavy rain prevented most of the audience from coming together, and by the request of those present, the address was deferred until the next evening, and the time spent in familiar conversation. An interesting discussion took place, and lasted about an hour and a half. Many important questions were canvassed, to the entire satisfaction, we believe, of all who listened to them.

On Thursday evening, Mr. Thompson resumed his account of St. Domingo. Commencing with the year 1790, he showed that the beginning of what are termed “the horrid scenes of St. Domingo,” was in consequence of a decree passed by the National Convention, granting to the free people of color the enjoyment of the same political privileges as the whites, and again in 1791, another decree was passed, couched in still stronger language, declaring that all the free people of color in the French islands were entitled to all the privileges of citizenship. When this decree reached Cape Francais, it excited the whites to great hostility against the free people of color. The parties were arrayed in arms against each other, and blood and conflagration followed. The Convention, in order to prevent the threatening evils, immediately rescinded the decree. By this act, the free blacks were again deprived of their rights, which so enraged them, that they commenced fresh hostilities upon the whites, and the Convention was obliged to re-enact the former decree, giving to them the same rights as white citizens. A civil war continued to rage in the island until 1793, when, in order to extinguish it, and at the same time repel the British, who were then hovering round the coasts, it was suggested that the slaves should be armed in defence of the island. Accordingly in 1793, proclamation was made, promising “to give freedom to all the slaves who would range themselves under the banners of the Republic.” This scheme produced the desired effect. The English were driven from the Island, the civil commotions were suppressed, and peace and order were restored. After this, the liberated slaves were industrious and happy, and continued to work on the same plantations as before, and this state of things continued until 1802, when Buonaparte sent out a military force to restore slavery in the Island. Having enjoyed the blessings of freedom for nine years, the blacks resolved to die rather than again be subjected to bondage. They rose in the strength of free men, and with Toussaint L’Ouverture at their head they encountered their enemies. Many of them, however, were taken by the French, and miserably perished. Some were burnt to death, some were nailed to the masts of ships, some were sown up in sacks, poignarded, and then thrown into the sea as food for sharks, some were confined in the holds of vessels, and suffocated with the fumes of brimstone, and many were torn in pieces by the blood hounds, which the French employed to harass and hunt them in the forests and fastnesses of the mountains. At length the scene changed. The putrifying carcases of the unburied slain poisoned the atmosphere, and produced sickness in the French army. In this state of helplessness they were besieged by the black army, their provisions were cut off, a famine raged among them so that they were compelled at last to subsist upon the flesh of the blood hounds, that they had exported from Cuba as auxiliaries in conquering the islanders. The French army being nearly exterminated, a miserable remnant put to sea, and left the Island to the quiet possession of their conquerors. Mr. Thompson concluded with the following summary: First, the revolution in St. Domingo originated between the whites and the free people of color, previous to any act of emancipation. Second, the slaves after their emancipation remained peaceful, contented, industrious, and happy, until Buonaparte made the attempt to restore slavery in the Island. Third, the history of St. Domingo proves the capacity of the black man for the enjoyment of liberty, his ability of self-government, and improvement, and the safety of immediate emancipation. Friday evening, Mr. Thompson closed his account of St. Domingo, by giving a brief statement of its present condition. He showed by documents published in the West Indies, that its population was rapidly multiplying, its exports annually increasing, and the inhabitants of the Island improving much faster than could be reasonably expected.

After the address, opportunity was given for any individuals to propose questions. A gentleman slaveholder commenced. He made several unimportant inquiries, and along with them, abused Mr. Thompson, by calling him a “foreign incendiary.” Mr. Thompson answered in his usual christian calmness and dignity, not rendering reviling for reviling. The discusion continued to a late hour, and when it closed the audience gave evidence of being well satisfied with the answers given, and some who attended that evening for the first time, subscribed their names to the Constitution. Thus closed Mr. Thompson's labors with us for the present, and he left town on Saturday, July 18th. Mr. Phelps remained and addressed us on Sabbath evening, but the small space left to me, will not admit of my giving any account of it. As to the good accomplished by the labors of Messrs. Thompson and Phelps, some further account may be given hereafter. At present, I will only say, that upwards of 200 have joined the Anti-Slavery Society since they came among us.

Yours, in behalf of the A. S. Society at Andover,

R. REED, Cor. Secretary.

SOURCES: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 77-83; “Anti-Slavery Meetings at Andover,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Saturday, August 8, 1835, p. 1.

Servants, In What Sense A Possession.

Servants of this sort were expected to remain for life, or at least unto the year of general release, and their children were considered in the same condition with themselves. That they were a subordinate, dependent class of the community, is obvious. But that they were held by masters as an inheritance or possession for their children, does not prove them to have been a property possession. They were a possession not as things but servants.The terms inheritance, and possession, when applied in the scriptures to persons, are not to be taken in their primary sense as applied to things but in a secondary or topical sense, which is to be determined by the connection. — Take this sentence in Ezek. 44: 28, as an example of both words, in both senses. The Lord says in reference to the sin-offering which should be used for the benefit of the priests, “It shall be unto them for an inheritance; I am their inheritance and ye shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession. The terms inheritance and possession here when applied to the sacrifice, denote that it was literally the property of the priests; but the same words when applied to the Almighty certainly have a very different meaning. The Hebrew people generally, are spoken of as the inheritance of the Lord; but they were so not as things, but as rational creatures, capable of knowing and doing his will: and by covenant obligations bound to serve him. So the foreign servants who are spoken of as an inheritance and a possession forever, were so in a limited and secondary sense, which must be determined, not by the expressions themselves when used in reference to other objects, but by the established laws and usages of the country, in respect to persons in their condition. These laws and usages, we have seen treated them not as things, but men having unalienable rights, and immortal souls, as well as their masters.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 55-6

George Thompson: At the New England Anti-Slavery Convention, published June 6, 1835

Mr. Thompson rose, and delivered his valedictory, in accordance with the resolution which he offered, — in substance, giving thanks to God for his blessings on the Convention, and for the auspicious signs of the times. He discoursed most feelingly and happily on the joyful, yet solemn circumstances in which he had been placed during its session, and presumed he expressed the minds of all his beloved associates. He dwelt on the striking evidences of harmony and love so richly enjoyed, — the moral strength and character of the members, — their entire unanimity of feeling and action of the great principles of abolition, and upon every other point of christian and philanthropic action: though composed of numerous sects often discordant and jarring in their interests and localities, they would not probably suspect, till they returned to their homes, that they had been among sectarians.

He enlarged upon the immutability of the principles upon which they stood, the unflinching resolution with which they were sustained, nothing daunted by the terrors of public opinion, — yea, working in the might and under the banner of Omnipotence, to change its more than Ethiopean hue, and drawing over its energies to the aid of humanity and religion.

He held up slaveholding in all its aspects as a sin,— God-dishonoring, soul-destroying sin; which must be immediately and forever abandoned,—that immediate emancipation was the only system combining vitality and energy, — while all others were as changeable as the chameleon, and no one could find their principles.

He spoke of the holy influence which God had thrown around them during their meetings, felt himself on holy ground, and hoped that all would profit by the unspeakable privileges of this solemn convocation. He rejoiced to find responsive chords in the hearts of the noble company of fathers and brethren with whom he had been permitted to take sweet counsel, and co-operate with them in behalf of the oppressed, down-trodden Slave.

He truly thanked God for this auspicious era,—that his warmest expectations had been more than realized, and he felt conscious that he expressed the inmost feelings of his beloved associates who had been favored with this interesting season. He hoped they would all carry home those holy emotions which the spirit of God had so bountifully awakened in their hearts, and never lose sight of the lofty and thrilling claims of humanity and justice, nor cease to strive for the weal, or feel for the woes of man. He emphasised on the importance and worth of prayer, the spirit of which was manifest in the Convention, and felt assured he who had prayed most, had the most whole-souled benevolence, and loved the slave with greater ardor.

He trusted there would be no leaders in the cause, for God was their leader — He who went about doing good, their pattern: — the Bible, the chart of their principles, the ground work of their hopes: Faith and Prayer, the moral lever by which the superstructure of despotism will be overthrown, and the image of God disenthralled from the fetters of physical and mental bondage. The Day Spring from on high hath visited the moral world, bespeaking the opening dawn; soon to usher in the brightness of perfect day. The light hath touched the mountain tops, the sun looks out upon, the dispersing gloom; soon will it have reached its meridian radiance, and pour upon the long-benighted, — brightening, transformed world, the full blaze of Millennial glory.

SOURCE: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 75-6; The Liberator, Boston Massachusetts, Saturday, June 6, 1835, 1835, p. 2

Jewish Legalized Servitude.

Your next main argument is substantially this: — The Jewish nation held slaves, whose condition and treatment were regulated by laws given them by divine authority, and therefore American slave-holding is sanctioned by the Bible. In proof of the facts in the case you refer to a few passages, which we allow are sufficient to test the principle which you maintain, and we oppose. — We will first look at the passages themselves, and then examine the argument founded on them. “The Lord himself.” you say, “directed Moses and Aaron how slaves were to be treated with respect to the passover;” and you quote Exodus 12:43, 44. “And the Lord said unto Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the passover: there shall no stranger eat thereof: but every man's servant that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.” Slaves were allowed religious privileges which were not granted to strangers nor to hired servants; Exodus, 12:45. “A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof.” “It was no sin for a priest,” you continue, “to purchase a slave with his money, and the slave thus purchased was entitled to peculiar privileges.” Lev. 22: 10, 11. “There shall no stranger eat of the holy thing, a sojourner of the priest or a hired servant shall not eat of the holy thing. But if the priest buy any soul with his money he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house, they shall eat of his meat.” You add, “The Bible warrants the purchase of slaves as an inheritance for children forever:” and, bring for proof, Lev. 25:46, “And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond-men forever; but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigor.”

Now against your continual substitution of the term slaves for servants we earnestly protest, on grounds which have been already stated. You seem to have forgotten that the original word has any other meaning. Was Paul a slave of Jesus Christ? Are all the people of God his slaves? What is it to be a slave in your sense of the expression? The law of South Carolina answers, “Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners, and possessors and their executors, administrators and assignees, to ALL INTENTS, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER.” And Judge Stroud in his sketch of the laws relating to slavery, says, “The cardinal principle that the slave is not to be ranked among sentient beings, but among things, obtains as undoubted law in all these states.” —  Such is slavery among you. But that the Hebrew laws ever authorized any such slave-holding, we utterly deny. They do throughout recognize servants of every order as intelligent beings, who though in a state of servitude, had personal rights; and secured to them comfortable support, protection from personal abuse, and, on receiving circumcision, unqualified admission to all the religious privileges enjoyed by the Hebrew people, generally. This sort of servitude, we maintain, was radically and most evidently a very different thing from slavery in your sense of the term. Why then should you persist in calling it slavery without once intimating that the term, in this application, is to be taken in any limited sense? It will not be strange if you should, within a few years, amuse yourselves by giving to our northern apprentices and hired help the same appellation. You have indeed already intimated, that you deem the epithet not inappropriate

While the passages to which you refer, say nothing at all of slavery in your sense of the expression, and of course give it no countenance, they do, we freely admit, contemplate the fact, that not only the Jewish people, but priests would buy servants for money; and secure important religious privileges to those who should be thus purchased. — That what is said of the exclusion of hired servants from the Passover has respect to those of foreign extraction only, and is predicated on the supposition that such had not been circumcised is evident from the exegetical remark which follows in the same connection, “No uncircumcised person shall eat thereof; one law shall be to the home-born and to the stranger that sojourneth with you.” It is possible that the hired Hebrew servants, as well as the foreign servants, of the same condition, might have been excluded from eating of the holy things in the families of the priests, in as much as such eating was a family, not a national, privilege; and the mere circumstance of being hired for perhaps a few months or days, did not so incorporate them with the family as to give them a right with the children and permanent domestics to the peculiar privileges of members. The act that the bought servants, in regard to the partaking of the holy things, were to be put by the priests on a level with their own children, while all hired servants and even distinguished visitors in the family, were to be strictly prohibited, shows, in some measure, how exceedingly different the condition of such persons was, from that of the slaves among you.

The passage in Lev. 25: 46, shows that persons procured by purchase for permanent servitude must not be Hebrews, but be obtained from the surrounding nations, or families of Gentile extraction residing in Palestine. These nations and families should be to them a constant scource of supply. Stress has been laid on the terms bondmen and bondmaids as expressive of the lowest degree of servitude, or absolute slavery. But you will see, by looking into your Hebrew Bible, that the simple terms usually translated man servants and maid servants, without any qualifying adjunct corresponding with bond, are here employed. The fact that they were bought with money, determines not that their bodies and souls were by the purchase converted into things, and held as property; but only that they, by money paid down to themselves, to their parents, or others who claimed the right of disposing of them, had been procured to occupy the condition, and perform the services, and enjoy the privileges which were prescribed to persons thus situated by the Hebrew laws. It is remarkable that while servants of this order might be procured only from the Gentiles, Gentile families residing in Canaan were permitted by law, to buy, with their own consent, poor Hebrews, to be their servants, from the time of purchase to the year of jubilee; unless previously redeemed by themselves or friends. Lev. 25: 47–54. From this we may infer that the Hebrews had at least no power to compel the Gentiles resident among them to sell either themselves or their children. That it was on the part of the latter altogether a voluntary transaction.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 48-54

George Thompson Speech at New York, At the Meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, published May 23, 1835

[From the rapid and impassioned style of Mr. T’s delivery, it becomes difficult, indeed impossible to give a very close report of all he said.  We attempt only a sketch touching on the leading points, and giving enough of his language to enable the reader to form some idea of his very fervid mode of address.  He was heard with profound attention by all, but with very different feelings by different portions of his auditory, as they abundantly manifested on more occasions than one.]

He commenced his address by declaring that the feelings of his heart were too deep for utterance. When he thought where he stood, of the topic on which he was called to speak, upon the mighty interests which were involved — upon his own responsibility to God-upon the destinies of thousands which might hinge upon the results of the present meeting — and when he reflected upon the ignorance, the wickedness, and the mighty prejudices he had to encounter; on the two and a half million of clients, whose cause was committed to his feeble advocacy, with all their rights, eternal and irreversible, he trembled, and felt almost disposed to retire. And when, in addition to all, he remembered that there were at this moment, in this land, in perfect health, in full vigor of mind and body, countrymen of his own, once pledged to the very lips in behalf of this cause, and with an authority which must command a wide and powerful influence, who had yet left it to the care of youth and ignorance, he felt scarce able to proceed, and almost willing to leave another blank in the history of this day's proceedings.

He had said that he had prejudices to overcome; and they met him with this rebuff — “you are a foreigner.” I am, said Mr. T. I plead guilty to the charge: where is the sentence? Yet I am not a foreigner. I am no foreigner to the language of this country. I am not a foreigner to the religion of this country. I am not a foreigner to the God of this country. Nor to her interests — nor to her religious and political institutions. Yet I was not born here. Will those who urge this objection tell me how I could help it? If my crime is the having been born in another country, have I not made the best reparation in my power, by removing away from it, and coming as soon as I could to where 1 should have been born? (Much laughter.) I have come over the waves of the mighty deep, to look upon your land and to visit you. Has not one God made us all? Who shall dare to split the human family asunder? who shall presume to cut the link which binds all its members to mutual amity? I am no foreigner to your hopes or your fears, and I stand where there is no discriminating hue but the color of the soul. I am not a foreigner, I am a man: and nothing which affects human nature is foreign to me, (I speak the language of a slave.)

“But what have you known about our country? How have you been prepared to unravel the perplexities of our policy and of our party interests? How did you get an intimate acquaintance with our customs, our manners, our habits of thought and of action, and all the peculiarities of our national condition and character, the moment you set your foot upon our shores?” And is it necessary I should know all this before I can be able or fit to enunciate the truths of the Bible! to declare the mind and will of God as he has revealed it in his word

“But you do not care about us or our welfare.” Then why did I leave my own country to visit yours? It was not certainly to better my circumstances: for they have not been bettered. I never did, and I never will, better them by advocating this cause. I may enlarge my heart by it: I may make an infinite number of friends among the wretched by it: but I never can or will fill my purse by it. “But you are a foreigner — and have no right to speak here.” I dismiss this — I am weary of it. I have an interest in America, and in all that pertains to her. And let my right hand forget its cunning, and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I am ever capable of maligning her, or sowing the seeds of animosity among her inhabitants. He might truly say, though in the words of another,

I love thee, witness heaven above,

That I this land, — this people love;

Nor love thee less, when I do tell

Of crimes that in thy bosom dwell.

There is oppression in thy hand—

A sin, corrupting all the land; —

There is within thy gates a pest—

Gold—and a Babylonish vest.

Repent thee, then, and swiftly bring

Forth from the camp th’ accursed thing;

Consign it to remorseless fire—

Watch, till the latest spark expire;

Then strew its ashes on the wind,

Nor leave an atom wreck behind!

Yet while he said this, he would also add, if possible, with still stronger emphasis, Let my right hand forget her cunning, and let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I desert the cause of American abjects — or cease to plead, so long as the clanking of chains shall be heard in the very porch of the temple, and beneath the walls of your capitol. If any shall still say, I have no right to speak, I will agree to quit the assembly, on condition that that objecter will furnish to me a plea which shall avail in the day of judgment, when my Maker shall ask me why I did not do, in America, that which all the feelings of my heart, and all the dictates of my judgment, and all the principles too, of God's own gospel, so powerfully prompted me to do? If the great Judge shall say to me “When human misery claimed you, why did you not plead the cause of suffering humanity?’ will any one give me an excuse that will avail as a reply to such a question? Is there any such excuse? [Here he paused.] Shall it be because the misery for which I should have pleaded was across the water? If this is the principle, then cease your splendid embassies of mercy to China and Hindoostan: abandon the glorious missionary cause: and let us read in your papers and periodicals no more of those eloquent and high toned predictions about the speedy conversion of the world.

“But you are a monarchist, you were born the subject of a king, and we are republicans.” Yes, and because I loved the latter best, I left the dominions of a monarch, and came to the shores of a free Republic. I gave up the tinsel and the trappings of a king, for the plain coat and the simple manners of your President. But granting me to be a monarchist, will that do as an excuse before the King of kings, the Lord of lords?

“But, we quarrelled once. You taxed us, and we would not be taxed: and now we will have nothing more to do with you.” Indeed; and may our artizans construct your machinery, and our Irishmen feed your furnaces, and dig your canals; may our advocates come to your bar, and our ministers to your pulpits, and shall all, all be made welcome but the advocate of the Slave? Should I be welcome to you all, if I had but renounced the cause of humanity?

“But the newspapers abuse you — they are all against you; and therefore you had better go back to where you came from.” Yes: if I fear the newspapers. But supposing I care nothing about the newspapers, and am heartily willing that every shaft that can fly from all the presses of the land shall be launched against me, is it a good reason then? Leave me, I pray you, to take care of the newspapers, and the newspapers to take care of me: I am entirely easy on that score.

But now as to the question before us. The gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Birney,] has gone very fully into its civil and political bearings: that aspect of it I shall not touch: I have nothing to do with it. I shall treat it on religious ground exclusively; on principles which cannot be impugned, and by arguments which cannot be refuted. I ask the abolition of slavery from among you, not because it dooms its victims to hard labor, nor because it compels them to a crouching servility, and deprives them of the exercise of civil rights: though all these are true. No: I ask for the illumination of the minds of immortal beings of our species; I seek to deliver woman from the lash, and from all that pollutes and that degrades her; I plead for the ordinances of religion; for the diffusion of knowledge; for the sanctification of marriage; for the participation of the gospel. And If you ask my authority, I answer there it is (pointing to the Bible) and let him that refutes me, refute me from that volume.

The resolution I offer has respect to the moral and spiritual condition of your colored population, and I do say that while one sixth of your entire population are left to perish without the word of God, or the ministry of the gospel, that your splendid missionary operations abroad, justly expose you before the whole world, to the charge of inconsistency. Your boast is, that your missionaries have gone into all the world; that you are consulting with the other christian nations for the illumination of the whole earth; and you have your missionary stations in all climes visited by the sun, from the frosts of Lapland to the sunny isles of Greece, and the scorching plains of Hindoostan; amidst the Christless literature of Persia, and the revolting vices of Constantinople. God grant that they may multiply a thousand fold — and continue to spread, till not a spot shall be left on the surface of our ruined world, where the ensign of the cross shall not have been set up. But will you, at the same time, refuse this gospel to one sixth of your own home-born population? And will you not hear me, when I ask that that word of life, which you are sending to the nations of New Holland and all the islands of the farthest sea, may be given to your slaves? When I plead for two millions and a half of human beings in the midst of your own land, left nearly, if not wholly, destitute of the blessings of God's truth? What spiritual wants have the heathen which the poor slaves have not? And what obligation binds you to the one, which does not equally bind you to the other? You own your responsibility to the heathen of other parts of the world, why not the heathen of this continent? And if to the heathen of one portion of the continent, why not to the no less heathen in another portion of it?

The resolution has reference to the diffusion of the Bible: and here I am invulnerable. You have offered to give, within twenty years, a copy of the Scriptures to every family of the world; you are now translating the sacred volume into all the languages of the earth, and scattering its healing leaves wherever men are found; and may I not say a word for the more than two millions at your door? Men whom you will not allow so much as to look into that book? Whom you forbid to be taught to read it, under pain of death? Why shall not these have the lamp of life? Are these no portion of the families of the south, whom you are pledged to supply? Is it any wonder there should be darkness in your land, that there should be spiritual leanness in your churches, that there should be Popery among you, when you thus debar men of the Bible? Is it not a fact, that while you have said you will give a Bible to every family in the world, not one of the families of slaveholders in the Southern States is to be found included in the benefaction? Of all the four hundred and sixty thousand families of your slaves, show me one that is included in your purpose or your plan. There is not one. If it would be wicked to blot out the sun from the heavens; if it would be wicked to deprive the earth of its circumambient air, or to dry up its streams of water, is it less wicked to withhold the word of God from men? to shut them out from the means of saving knowledge? to annihilate the cross? to take away the corner stone of human hope? to legislate away from your fellow-beings the will of God as recorded in his own word.

In view of the retributions of the judgment, I plead for these men, disinherited of their birthright. And once for all, I say, that every enterprise to enlighten, convert, and bless the world, must be branded with the charge of base hypocrisy, while millions at home are formally and by law deprived of the gospel of life, of the very letter of the Bible. And what has been the result Christianity has been dethroned; she is gone: there is no weeping mercy to bless the land of the slave; it is banished forever, as far as human laws can effect it. Brethren, I know not how you feel, nor can I tell you how I feel, when I behold you urging, by every powerful argument, the conversion of the world, while such a state of things is at your door; when I see you all tenderness for men you never saw; and yet seeming destitute of all pity for those you see every day.

Suppose, now, that in China the efforts of your missionaries should make one of the dark heathen a convert to the peaceful doctrine of the cross. What would be the duty of such a convert? Learning that there was a country where millions of his fellow sinners were yet destitute of the treasure that had enriched him for eternity, would he not leave the loved parents of his childhood, and the place of his father's sepulchres, and tracing his way across the waters, would he not come to bestow the boon upon men in America? Would he not come here to enlighten our darkness? And would he not be acting reasonably? according to the principles and commands of the very Bible you gave him?

And now I ask, what is the christianity of the South ! Is it not a chain-forging christianity? a whip-platting christianity? a marriage denouncing, or, at best, a marriage discouraging christianity. Is it not, above all, a Bible withholding christianity? You know that the evidence is incontestible. I anticipate the objection. “We cannot do otherwise. It is true, there are in South Carolina not twelve slaveholders who instruct their slaves; but we can't help it; there is an impassible wall; we can't throw the Bible over it; and if we attempt to make our way through, there stands the gibbet on the other side. It is not to be helped.” Why? “SLAVERY is there.” Then away with slavery. “Ay, but how ! Do you want the slave to cut his master's throat?” By no means. God forbid. I would not have him hurt one hair of his head, even if it would secure him freedom for life. “How then are we to get rid of it? By carrying them home?” Home? where? Where is their home? Where, but where they were born? I say, let them live on the soil where they first saw the light and breathed the air. Here, here, in the midst of you, let justice be done. “What! release all our slaves? turn them loose? spread a lawless band of paupers, vagrants, and lawless depredators upon the country?” Not at all. We have no such thought. All we ask is, that the control of masters over their slaves may be subjected to supervision, and to legal responsibility. Cannot this be done? Surely it can. There is even now enough of energy in the land to annihilate the whole evil; but all we ask is permission to publish truth, and to set forth the claims of the great and eternal principles of justice and equal rights; and then let them work out their own results. Let the social principle operate. Leave man to work upon man, and church upon church, and one body of people upon another, until the slave States themselves shall voluntarily loose the bonds and break every yoke. All this is legitimate and fair proceeding. It is common sense. It is sound philosophy. Against this course slavery cannot stand long. How was it abolished in England? By the fiat of the legislature, you will say. True: but was there no preaching of the truth beforehand? Was there no waking up of the public mind? no appeals no investigations? no rousing of public feelings, and concentration of the public energy Had there been nothing of this, the glorious act would never have passed the Parliament; and the British dependencies would still have mourned under the shade of this moral Bohon Upas.

It was well said by one of the gentlemen who preceded me, that there is a conscience at the South; and that there is the word of God at the South; and they have fears and hopes like our own: and in penning the appeals of reason and religion we cannot be laboring in vain. I will therefore say, that the hope of this cause is in the churches of God. There are church members enough of themselves to decide the destinies of slavery, and I charge upon the 17,000 ministers in this land, that they do keep this evil within our country; that they do not remember them that are in bonds as bound with them; that they fatten on the plunder of God's poor, and enrich themselves by the price of their souls. Were these all to do their duty, this monster, which has so long been brooding over our land, would soon take his flight to the nethermost hell, where he was begotten. How can these refuse to hear me? They are bound to hear; Unitarians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, be their name or their sect's name what it may, are bound to hear — for a minister is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts: and if they shall withhold their aid when God calls for it, the Lord will make them contemptible in the eyes of all the people.

Finally: this Anti-Slavery Society is not opposing one evil only; it is setting its face against all the vices of the land. What friend of religion ought to revile it? Surely the minister of Christ least of all; for it is opening his path before him; and that over a high wall that he dare not pass. Can the friend of education be against us? A society that seeks to pour the light of science over minds long benighted: a society that aims to make the beast a man: and the man an angel? Ought the friend of the Bible to oppose it? Surely not. , Nor can any of these various interests of benevolence thrive until slavery is first removed out of the way.

Mr. T. in closing, observed that he had risen to-day under peculiar feelings. Two of his countrymen had been deputed to visit this country, one of them a member of the Committee of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, who had been appointed with the express object of extinguishing slavery throughout the world, and belonging to a christian denomination which had actually memorialized all their sister churches in this land on the subject. My heart leaped when I learned they were to be here: especially that one of them whose name stood before the blank which is to be left in the record of this day's proceedings. Where is he now? He is in this city: why is he not here? The reason I shall leave for himself to explain. Sir, said Mr. T., in this very fact I behold a new proof of the power of the omnipotence of slavery: by its torpedo power a man has been struck dumb, who was eloquent in England on the side of its open opposers. What! is it come to this? Shall he or shall I advocate the cause of emancipation, of immediate emancipation, only because we are Englishmen? Perish the thought ! before I can entertain such an idea I must be recreant to all the principles of the Bible, to all the claims of truth, of honor, of humanity. No sir: if man is not the same in every latitude; if he would advocate a cause with eloquence and ardor in Exeter Hall, in the midst of admiring thousands, but because he is in America can close his lips and desert the cause he once espoused, I denounce, I abjure him. Let him carry his philanthropy home again; there let him display it in the loftiest or the tenderest strains; but never let him step his foot abroad, until he is prepared to show to the world that he is the friend of his kind.

The following resolution was offered by Mr. Thompson, and adopted by the Society.

Resolved, That the practice of suffering a sixth portion of the population of this Christian land to perish, destitute of the volume of Revelation, and the ministry of the Gospel, is inconsistent with the profession of zeal for the conversion of the world.

SOURCE: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 66-74; The Liberator, Boston Massachusetts, Saturday, May 23, 1835, p. 2-3

What Will You Infer?

f you should still believe that the patriarchs did hold their fellow men as slaves, in the ordinary sense of the term, which we allow to be possible, but from the evidences before us deem altogether improbable; what inference will you draw? That their example warrants others, warrants you to do the same? Try the same mode of reasoning with reference to some other less doubtful cases of patriarchal example. Abraham, through groundless fears that he might be slain on account of his wife, repeatedly said, and taught her to affirm, that she was his sister; in consequence of which, her chastity was put in the utmost peril in the courts of heathen kings who had become enamored of her beauty; and who, on learning the facts in the case, administered to the patriarch sharp reproof for his deceitful dealing with them. Isaac in similar circumstances pursued a like course of deception with regard to his wife, Rebecca. Abraham at the request of Sarah his wife, received Hager, her maid, in her place; that the wife might have children by her, when she had no prospect of bearing any herself. In after years when Sarah had a son of her own, Abraham, at her own importunity, sent Hagar away, scantily provided, to wander with her and his own son Ishmael, as unprotected and solitary out-casts, in the wilderness of Beersheba. Jacob, by arrant falsehood and fraud, deceived his aged father, and obtained his elder brother's birth right. He also had two wives, and two concubines, at the same time; with whom he lived on terms of the greatest freedom “without,” so far as we are informed, “the least remorse of conscience, or”. . . “from God.”

Will you from these facts infer that men in this Christian country and enlightened age, have a right to treat their female domestics, as Abraham treated Hagar? That they are by Scripture authorized to use deceit and fraud, whenever they may judge it for their worldly interest to do so? That they | by the Bible warranted to practice polygamy and concubinage, to any extent they may deem conducive to their highest gratification? They have patriarchal precedents for all these things; and why may they not plead and follow them? If you insist, as you will, that they have now no right to do any of these things; the example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, notwithstanding; what becomes of your argument built on their example in defence of slavery?  — provided they practised it; which we do not admit. The fact is, the patriarchs were in the main very good men, but owing to the darkness of the times in which they lived, and their own frailty, did some things which were very wrong, and should be followed by us only so far as their conduct agrees with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 45-8

Abraham's Servants.

In the case of Abraham, the language used in scripture is decisive of the fact that “he had servants bought with money of the stranger.” But with what mutual understanding they were bought, or what their condition in his family was, we are not particularly informed. The terms employed would not be inapplicable, we suppose, to the purchase of slaves in the sense you maintain ; as there is no word in the Hebrew peculiarly significant of one in that condition. But a possibility, and a certainty, that such was the nature of the purchase, are two things entirely distinct. The mere purchase of persons, as we have seen in the case of Hebrew wives, is no proof that those who were thus purchased were considered as property, or held as slaves. The language used in regard to Abraham's servants does not necessarily imply any more than that he, by paying down money, procured these persons to remain with and serve him, permanently. That their servitude was not constrained, but voluntary, and as really for their advantage as his own, is made highly probable by the consideration that no force whatever was required to retain them. They married; they were, with their children, incorporated into his great family; and all the males were, in the same way with himself and his own sons, dedicated to the service of his and their covenant God. Unprotected by any government on earth, he, with his wife, and immense herds and flocks, was safe under the guardianship of those brave and faithful men while surrounded by heathen tribes and removing from place to place.— They promptly followed him in arms, when his kinsman Lot had been plundered and led captive by hostile kings, and, by a decisive engagement, delivered him out of their hands. One of them was commissioned to contract, at his own discretion, with a damsel to become the wife of his young master, Isaac; while the parties were wholly unacquainted with each other; and, in case Abraham had died childless, was to have been his heir. They were Abraham's people, they looked up to him, not as their oppressor, but common friend; and were, evidently, not only voluntary, but happy in his service. We see not then with what propriety the example of Abraham can be so confidently quoted in defence of the American slave system. The contrast between the condition of his servants, and that of your Southern slaves, is not only manifest but immense.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 43-5

Various Senses of the Term Servants.

The terms evedh, in the Old Testament, and doulos in the New, clearly synonymous, and we believe, invariably translated servant or bondman, are evidently used with great latitude of meaning, and freedom of application. The fundamental signification seems to be, One who is in some respects subject to the will of, and acts for another. Hence the phrase, servant of the King, is an honorable title, denoting a courtier, or other high officer. The King of Syria, in his letter to the King of Israel, styles Naaman his servant, although he was a great man with his master, and chief commander of his army. A servant of God in scripture language, is one devoted to his service; especially one distinguished for piety and holiness, as was the case with Moses, Joshua, David and Paul. In the New Testament, the epithet servant of God, and of the Lord Jesus Christ is a title of honor commonly given to the teachers of the christian religion, and particularly to the apostles themselves. In some few instances, the epithet, servant of God, is given to men whom, though not willingly obedient to him, he uses as instruments in accomplishing his purposes. The king of Babylon is thus denominated.

The term servants, is however very generally applied to persons of humble condition, who, either with or without their consent, were subject to other individuals as their masters; and occupied in menial employments. Among those were several classes. Some were hired servants. These, however, were not designated by a qualifying term joined with the ordinary word for servants, but by an entirely different name. One hired to do sevice for another during a set time and for a stipulated price, the Hebrews denominated sakir, and the Greeks misthios: Names significant of their peculiar condition as hired. Persons of Hebrew origin were liable under the Levitical law to be reduced to servitude on account of failure to pay, either ordinary debts or sums in which they had been amerced for crimes committed. Not only the insolvent debtor himself, but his family with him, were liable to be seized and sold by the creditor, in order that by their services the money due might be obtained. On this custom is founded that parable of our Lord which says of the delinquent, who owed ten thousand talents and had nothing to pay, that his creditor “commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children, and payment to be made.” This kind of servitude, however, might not continue at the longest over six years. Deut. 15: 12. Servants of a still lower order were obtained both by conquest and by purchase from among the neighboring nations. These were to serve, not merely for six years; but for life, or at least unto the year of jubilee: and their children inherited the condition of their parents. The mere fact that they were purchased, does not prove that they were held as articles to be used only for the benefit of the owner, and to be sold again at his pleasure; any more than the fact that they were in the habit of purchasing wives, proves the same thing in regard to them. Boaz says, “So Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife,” that is widow, “of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife.” The prophet Hosea remarks respecting his wife, “So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and an half homer of barley.” Jacob bought his wives, Rachel and Leah; and for want of money paid for them in labor at the rate of seven years apiece. Their wives were in a sense, their money. Are we to infer that they were in the common sense of the term property, merchantable in the market? They were purchased of their fathers not as merchandize but as wives; to perform the duties and enjoy all the rights and privileges of that condition. So heathen servants were bought either of former masters, or of their parents, or, for any thing that appears, of themselves, to occupy the place, and perform the duties of their peculiar station; their duties and rights being prescribed and established, under the Levitical dispensation, by very merciful laws. That they were held as chattels, like beasts of the field, subject to be sold from one to another for purposes of gain, as slaves are among you, we can find no sufficient evidence in the Bible. The conquerers of the Hebrews ‘cast lots for the people, they gave a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink,’ but were accursed of God for so doing.

Now since the term servants is used with such latitude of meaning, what proof does the mere fact, that the patriarchs had servants, afford, that they were slaveholders, in the received sense of that term? Has not many a gentleman in England, in the British West Indies, and in the free States of this Union, servants — some expecting to remain for life, some hired for a short season only, and some occupying important stations, as farmers, manufacturers, and stewards of their households, to whom they, without fear, commit their most valued treasures? Are these men on this account to be denominated slave holders? With indignation they would repel the charge. That either Isaac or Jacob ever bought, sold, or held, a human being as a slave, you have furnished no certain evidence; nor have we been able to find any.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 37-42

George G. Thompson: Would the Slaves of this Country Be Justified in Resorting to Physical Violence To Obtain Their Freedom, April 18, 1835

Mr. Thompson addressed the meeting, and spoke at very considerable length, but we are only able to furnish a few of his remarks.

He differed altogether from a gentleman who had gone before him, who considered the question ill-judged and ill-timed. He (Mr. T.) regarded it as both necessary and opportune. The principles of abolitionists were only partially understood. They were also frequently willfully and wickedly misrepresented. Doctrines the most dangerous, designs the most bloody, were constantly imputed to them. What was more common, than to see it published to the world, that abolitionists were seeking to incite the slaves to rebellion and murder? It was due to themselves and to the world, to speak boldly out upon the question now before the meeting. Christians should be told what were the real sentiments of abolitionists, that they may decide whether, as Christians, they could join them. Slaveholders should know what abolitionists thought and meant, that they might judge of the probable tendency of their doctrines upon their welfare and existence. The Slaves should, if possible, know what their friends at a distance meant, and what they would have them do to hasten the consummation of the present struggle.

If any human being in the universe of God would be justified in resorting to physical violence to free himself from unjust restraints, that human being was the American Slave. If the infliction of unmerited and unnumbered wrongs could justify the shedding of blood, the slave would be justified in resisting to blood. If the political principles of any nation could justify a resort to violence in a struggle against oppression, they were the principles of this nation, which teach that resistance to oppression is obedience to the law of nature and God. He regarded the slavery of this land, and all christian lands, as “the execrable sum of all human villanies” — the grave of life and loveliness — the foe of God and man — the auxiliary of hell — the machinery of damnation. Such were his deliberate convictions respecting slavery. Yet with these convictions, if he could make himself heard from the bay of Boston to the frontiers of Mexico, he would call upon every slave to commit his cause to God, and abide the issue of a peaceful and moral warfare in his behalf. He believed in the existence, omniscience, omnipotence and providence of God. He believed that every thing that was good might be much better accomplished without blood than with it. He repudiated the sentiment of the Scottish bard—

“We will drain our dearest veins,

But we will be free.

Lay the proud oppressor low,

Tyrants fall in every foe,

Liberty’s in every blow,

Let us do or die.”

He would say to the enslaved, “Hurt not a hair of your master's head. It is not consistent with the will of your God, that you should do evil that good may come. In that book in which your God and Saviour has revealed his will, it is written — Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath.”

He (Mr. T.) would, however, remind the master of the awful import of the following words — “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith THE LORD.”

To the slave he would continue — “Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Mr. Thompson also quoted Eph. vi. 5; Col. iii. 22; Titus ii. 9; 1. Peter ii. 18–23. In proportion, however, as he enjoined upon the slave patience, submission and forgiveness of injuries, he would enjoin upon the master the abandonment of his wickedness. He would tell him plainly the nature of his great transgression — the sin of robbing God's poor, — withholding the hire of the laborer, — trafficking in the immortal creatures of God. He did not like the fashionable, but nevertheless despicable practice of preaching obedience to slaves, without preaching repentance to masters. He (Mr. T.) would preach forgiveness and the rendering of good for evil to the slaves of the plantation; but before he quitted the property, he would, if it were possible, thunder forth the threatenings of God's word into the ears of the master. This was the only consistent course of conduct. In proportion as we taught submission to the slave, we should enjoin repentance and restitution upon the master. Nay, more, said Mr. Thompson, if we teach submission to the slave, we are bound to exert our own peaceful energies for his deliverance.

Shall we say to the slave, “Avenge not yourself,” and be silent ourselves in respect to his wrongs?

Shall we say, “Honor and obey your masters,” and ourselves neglect to warn and reprove those masters?

Shall we denounce “carnal weapons,” which are the only ones the slaves can use, and neglect to employ our moral and spiritual weapons in their behalf?

Shall we tell them to beat their “swords into ploughshares, and their ‘spears into pruning-hooks,” and neglect to give them the “sword of the spirit, which is the word Of God.”

Let us be consistent. The principles of peace, and the forgiveness of injuries, are quite compatible with a bold, heroic and uncompromising hostility to sin, and a war of extermination with every principle, part and practice of American slavery. I hope no drop of blood will stain our banner of triumph and liberty. I hope no wail of the widow or the orphan will mingle with the shouts of our Jubilee. I trust ours will be a battle which the ‘Prince of Peace’ can direct, and ours a victory which angels can applaud.

SOURCES: Isaac Knapp, Publisher, Letters and Addresses by G. Thompson [on American Negro Slavery] During His Mission in the United States, From Oct. 1st, 1834, to Nov. 27, 1835, p. 58-60; “Debate on the Peace Question,” The Liberator, Boston, Massachusetts, Saturday, April 18, 1835.