I WAS born in New Town, Worcester County, Maryland, on the 26th day of September, 1817. My mother's name was Sally Laws Henderson. She was a devout member of the M. E. Church, and died in June, 1828. From her lips I received my first antislavery lesson. Could she have had her way, no slave would ever have been held by any member of her family. My father, John W. Long, was a native of Maryland, and a slaveholder. In the early part of his life he was a sea-captain, with all the generosity of the sailor, but with few of the faults common to him. During the war of 1812 he abandoned the sea, and commenced the mercantile business in New Town. In 1824 he removed to the Ferry on the Somerset side of the Pocomoke River, nearly a mile from New Town. He died in 1834, leaving my two sisters and brother under my protection.
I was received into the M. E. Church in 1835, by the Rev. John A. Roche, of the Philadelphia Conference, who is an accomplished Christian gentleman and eloquent preacher. I commenced my ministerial career in 1839, and was received into full connection in the Philadelphia Conference in 1842. In 1848 my health failed; and since at time the Conference has permitted me to labor when and where I have pleased, according to the state of my health.
I am an ardent lover of Methodism, and consider that man its greatest enemy who strives, directly or indirectly, to fasten to it the dead and putrid body of chattel slavery. I trust I am no bigot; for I love those who love our Lord Jesus Christ, of whatever church, race, or color.
Fifteen months ago it was my expectation to live and die in my native State — in private to bear my testimony to masters against slavery, and in public to labor for the salvation of slaves. I had resolved to bear the reproaches of those who would regard me as an abolitionist, and to endure the slang to which I would necessarily be subjected from fellows of the "baser sort." But I had four boys, and, as a Christian father, I wished to train them to honorable labor; and was desirous that they should regard all mankind as members of one universal family. They were beginning to imbibe the common prejudices of slave society — hatred of work and of slaves. Accordingly, I determined to remove to a free State. A Southern gentleman remarked to me that, if he had sons, and held my views on slavery, he would act precisely as I have acted.
In October, 1856, I removed to Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love;" in which, to my astonishment, I found prevailing a vast deal of pro-slavery sentiment. At this discovery all my latent antislavery feeling awoke into activity. A Southern antislavery man can listen with some patience to one who obtains his bread and butter by the institution; but the justification of slavery by a Northern man is almost intolerable. A conviction that I ought to bear my testimony against the system by writing now took possession of my mind. But difficulties loomed up before me. I should lose my friends, and would doubtless have to encounter persecution. Again, save a few scraps and obituary notices, I had never written a line for publication. But, in view of the responsibilities of the great future, the path of duty seemed plain. Accordingly, last Christmas I commenced to write my book, which, justice to myself requires me to state, has been written in a small room with my family around me, subject to the interruptions of visitors, and to all the depressing influences of feeble health, and the discouraging advice of friends. When my manuscript was ready, no publisher in Philadelphia that I approached would undertake its publication. I have but little money to lose; yet I have published it at my own risk. It goes forth on my own responsibility. Its glory or its shame will fall on my own head. No minister or layman in the Philadelphia Conference is accountable for it. If any of either class shall approve it after reading it, I shall be gratified. I most devoutly believe what I have written. I have no misgivings that the principles I have advocated will be found unsound in the Great Day. I regret that I have not been able to present my thoughts and facts in a more attractive form. Like a plate of strawberries, or a quiver full of arrows, they have association, but little arrangement. I fear that the repetition of my thoughts, and the egotism almost inseparable from such a work, will be offensive. All criticisms aimed at the literary execution of the book will be unheeded. If I have misstated facts, I am open to conviction. I have not written for the learned; yet even to these some of my thoughts may prove suggestive. I am from the masses, and have lived and labored with them. I love and sympathize with the oppressed of all classes and colors. Yet I honor the rich, the wise, the learned, and those high in authority. My design is not to array the poor against the rich, or the colored against the white; but to array all classes against slavery as it exists in the Southern States of this Union.
Slavery will be found, on close examination, to be the common foe of church and state; of master and slave; of rich and poor. I have added my mite of facts and observations against it. I believe that all truth is profitable, sooner or later. I have done what I conceive to be my duty to the church and to my country. May the blessing of Christ rest on the antislavery cause!
PHILADELPHIA, May 1, 1857.
"Slaves shall be deemed, sold, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever." "A slave is one doomed, in his own person and his posterity, to live without knowledge, and without the capacity to make any thing his own; and toil that another may reap the fruits."
My observations of Slavery have been confined, in the main, to the States of Delaware and Maryland, where it exists in its mildest form: if, therefore, it shall be found to be a great crime against God and humanity in those States, what must it be in its most aggravated manifestations? I shall endeavor to draw truthful pictures of what I have seen and heard. I shall do justice to master and slave. In treating of slaves, I shall group them into three classes. First, there are the slaves owned by large planters and farmers, and governed by overseers or "nigger-drivers," as they are called. This class being excluded from all contact and association with the families of their wealthy owners, are, as a general rule, as degraded as their ancestors were before they were stolen from the west coast of Africa. Their language is shockingly barbarous; they say "dis" for this, "dat" for that, and "tudder" for the other.
They are great believers in charms, spells, witches, wizards, and ghosts; if they are sick, they are "in misery." They do not say that they have the headache or pain in the side, but "misery" in the head or side, as the case may be. Their food and clothing are of the coarsest kind; one suit of coarse cloth for winter, and of cotton cloth for summer. Their allowance of food is one peck of Indian corn meal and three pounds of fat pork per week. This they cook as best they can. Among this class there is no respect paid to sex: the females work in the field, cut wood, drive the ox-cart, make fences. Indeed, I have often seen them in situations, where, if the pecuniary value of their offspring had been consulted, they should have been removed to the "quarters" till after a certain time. Chastity is out of the question. There is a certain attachment between male and female, but the horrible slave laws allow it to be little more than the promiscuous commerce of beasts. There is, however, a genuine love between mother and child. The slave can truly say, "I have no father, but I know my mother." The males, like the dogs of their masters, are frequently called after the celebrated philosophers and generals of Greece and Rome. Almost every plantation has a Plato, Cato, Pompey, and Cæsar. This seems like a retribution. The great men of Rome were slaveholders on a magnificent scale, and their names are now borne by slaves more abject than theirs.
The cowhide is their only coat of arms. They seldom hear a kind word spoken to them on the part of their overseers. With them there is neither digression nor progression. The plantation slave is but little better informed than those of the same class fifty years ago; and one hundred years hence will find them the same, if slavery continues as it is. Their principal amusements are hunting and dancing. They are very fond of hunting the raccoon and opossum, which they call "varmint." Reader, did you ever see a genuine negro dog? There is as much difference between such a cur and a gentleman's dog, as there is between an oyster cart-horse and an Arabian charger.
See that poor slave. He is just returning from the lordly mansion of his master, with his week's allowance of meal and pork. Over his left shoulder is suspended a wallet, with meal in one end and pork in the other. His left hand presses against it. In his right hand he holds his stick (he never says cane). He is trudging along to the adjoining plantation, where he belongs. He has a downcast look, and a gentle, forward stoop. His dog alternately trots and walks behind him. His tail is cut midway, and his ears are cropped. Look: yonder comes his young master on his fine horse, with his glossy spaniel bounding before him. He approaches; the negro makes a low bow, and says, "Sarvent, massa." His dog skulks to one side: if the spaniel attacks him, he makes no resistance; he falls flat on the ground, turns on his back, curves his cut tail between his legs, and appeals to the magnanimity of his master's dog, and says by actions, "Oh don't! I am but a poor slave of a slave!" The slave loves his dog. They are constant companions. He talks with him by day and hunts with him at night, and shares with him his scanty meals. His dog is the only thing under the sun that he can call his own; for the master claims the woman that is called his wife, his offspring, his hut, his pig, his own body — and his very soul.
The master despises "nigger dogs." If he is given to profanity, he swears at them whenever he sees them, accusing them of killing sheep and his fat young pigs.
The plantation slaves often suffer with hunger. Despite the common boasts of the slaveholder, the Allwise only knows how much penury and starvation wear out the lives of the slaves. Dancing is one of their favorite amusements. I have often looked at their dances during their different holidays. The banjo is of all instruments the best adapted to the lowest class of slaves. It is the very symbol of their savage degradation. They talk to it, and a skillful performer can excite the most diverse passions among the dancers. Generally, however, they have no instruments, but dance to the tunes and words of a leader, keeping time by striking their hands against the thighs, and patting the right foot, to the words of
" 'Juber,' 'Cesar boy,'
Ash-cake in de fire,
'Possum up de gum tree,
Raccoon in de holler."
I have seen males and females dancing, rapidly whirling round, whooping and yelling with brutal delight, alike unmindful of the past and future. I have never known, in a single instance, of a colored man of any moral tone who was fond of the banjo or common dance.
The "quarters" of the large slaveholders are generally mere shells; very few are plastered; and no arrangement is made for the separation of male and female. The men generally have no beds, but sleep in their clothes on benches made of wide plank, with their feet to the fire. The plantation slaves are remarkable for their fine teeth. The slave is never supposed to be sick, unless he is very ill. The ignorant overseer takes for granted that, if the slave complains, he is "acting the 'possum," and frequently, before the master or physician knows it, the slave dies. The death of a slave is considered a mere money loss. Neighbor A says that "neighbor B has lost a fine slave worth one thousand dollars."
The humble body is buried in the negro graveyard, in some obscure part of the plantation. For the slave there is no tombstone. The flowers of memory and affection never bloom over the lonely hillock that marks his resting-place. The wild rose and dewberry mat his grave; and the lark builds there her lowly nest, and sings at morn his only requiem. Many an undeveloped poet, orator, and artist lies entombed in such obscure cemeteries throughout the South. A slave-burying is one of the saddest sights I ever saw. They do not cry and weep like freemen; they are sad and stupid. They have no religious services at the grave, and could not have them if they wished. The negro preacher on the adjoining plantation must not leave his hoe. The white minister is either too grand to bury the slave, or is not called on. I have never known of more than one white minister of the gospel who has performed religious service at the burial of the slave.
A negro funeral is different from the "burying," and is a unique affair. Several weeks after burial the funeral is preached; and never was there more frolic at an Irish wake than at these funerals, held frequently in the woods; and sometimes as many as three funerals are preached at once. Unless a colored person's funeral is preached, whether he be saint or sinner, there is no peace of mind to his friends.
There are 3,000,000 of these slaves in these United States.
The second class of slaves embraces such as owned by the less extensive slaveholders and farmers. These have no overseer, live in the kitchen, mingle with the master's family, eat the same kind of food as the other members of the family, are not generally overworked, use good language for slaves, and are attended to when sick. Their children are raised with their master's children, play with them, and nurse them. In mind and body they are greatly superior to the plantation slaves. A strong attachment frequently exists between them and their masters and mistresses. From this class we derive most of our church members. After they arrive at the age of 45, many of them become truly chaste and pious, according to the light they have, and receive the honorable appellations of "aunt" and &qquot;uncle;" until that age, they are usually called "girls" and "boys."
Notwithstanding the superior physical condition of this class of slaves, they are generally more unhappy and restless than the more degraded classes. Their superior advantages only serve as a lamp to show them their degradation. They are just as liable as any other class of chattels to be sold by the master or his creditors. Take an illustration. Beaufort owns a young negro man, brought up in his own house. Beaufort becomes security for neighbor Miflin. Miflin fails; the creditors resort to Beaufort. The boy must be sold. His master and negro buyer fix on the price. The boy is to be delivered at a certain place where I happen to be. The poor fellow comes on an errand, as he supposes, little dreaming of the trap that is set for him. The master is there. The "Georgia trader" presently arrives. This worthy orders the boy to cross his hands; the concealed rope is produced, and the boy is tied. The poor slave is stunned, and turns ashy pale. The dealer in human souls hurries him off to the county town to await transportation. Beaufort weeps and trembles, and mutters, "He was a good boy; I never ate him or drank him; I shall never be happy again." Unhappy master! if he had set him free before going in debt, he would have escaped thorns that will be planted in his dying pillow; and if he should ever read these lines, he will attest the faithfulness of this narration. Colored people love to sing, "The judgment day is rolling around, is rolling around," &c.
The third class constitute the Aristocracy and chivalry of the slave population of the South. They are the household servants of our Congressmen, judges, doctors, naval officers, wealthy merchants, clergymen, planters, and farmers. Very few of them are jet black; nearly all are more or less white. The men are fine looking. The women are beautiful, and many of them even opulent in charms. Nor is this a wonder. The best blood of the Saxon courses through their veins; the intellect of that race gleams in their eye. They have the health and beautiful form of the African, with the polish and gracefulness of the Caucasian race. They seldom mix with the common slave, and feel great contempt for poor white people. Many of them can read; and many of the female servants are brought up virtuously, sleeping in the same room with their young mistresses. Notwithstanding their accomplishments, they are often sold with mules, horses, and hogs. The females bring the highest prices in the South. For them there is no virtue after a certain age, unless they die the martyr's death. They never can say "this man is my husband;" "that woman is my wife;" "this is my child." From this class, as fugitives, have arisen such men as Frederick Douglass, Wm. Wells, Brown, and, I presume, Dr. Pennington. I have seen them so white that a stranger could not have told that they were slaves or even negroes.
O chattel slavery, if I had no other name by which to call thee, "I would call thee Devil!"
The free colored people of the South constitute a distinct class of colored persons in that section of the Union. They labor under many civil and religious disabilities, and are the most slandered and persecuted class of men in the United States. The early Methodists in England and America were not more so. They are not permitted to educate their children, unless they reside in the cities, notwithstanding they pay taxes. They have to take the raking fires from three batteries. The slave envies them. The poor white man is jealous of them lest they encroach upon his assumed rights and privileges; and the large slaveholder hates them, as their very presence puts notions of freedom in the minds of his slaves. They are expected to please every body, which is a very difficult matter. They are the scape-goats of southern society. If any crime is committed, and the perpetrator is not discovered, it is laid to the free negro. If he commits a crime, and it is proved on him, he is sure to get the full penalty of the law. If he steals from the white man, he goes to the penitentiary; which is right. If the white man steals from him, he goes clear; which is wrong. If he is lazy, he is a nuisance; if industrious, and lays up money, he is accused of dealing with slaves; if he conducts himself properly, he is proud and wants taking down a little. His wife and daughter may be insulted by rowdies, and he must hold his tongue. Yet for intelligence, industry, economy, and morality, he is far superior to the third class of slaves. His wife and children are his; his body is his own. He can remove to a free State or go to Africa. Partial liberty is better than pampered slavery. Considering his antecedents and circumstances, he has met the expectations of all reasonable men. Many of them are lazy, but it must be remembered that laziness is a contagious disease in the South. My advice to all young enterprising free colored people of the Southern States is, to leave for the free States, Canada, or Liberia.
I consider the Negro race inferior in mental endowment only to the great European or white race. The negro is as full of music as an egg is full of meat; and music is allied to poetry and eloquence. No people have the religious element more deeply grounded in their nature. As a race, they are proverbial for kindness and affection, and respect for authority and age. In their religious meetings they exhibit more reverence in their devotion than the whites. We defy any set of atheists to make many converts among them in theory. In drollery they are unequalled and are only inferior to the Irish in wit; even rivalling the French in politeness. If properly trained, they would make first-class orators and musicians. I have seen an exceedingly fine portrait executed by a colored artist of Baltimore. They are great aristocrats; and pay much respect to those above them in intellect and authority. Hence our great Southern aristocracy, by emancipating their negroes, could retain them by affection and their own choice; and thus reap all the benefits of slavery without its crime and consequences.
THE M. E. Church was organized in 1784, in the city of Baltimore. What did the fathers of the church think of slavery at that time? We will quote their own language, taken from the first Discipline of the church, compared with the Large Minutes. See the History of the Discipline by Rev. Robert Emory, former President of Dickinson College. Published at the Book-room, New York, for the M. E. Church: p. 43.
"Question 42. What methods can we take to extirpate slavery? Ans. We are deeply conscious of the impropriety of making new terms of communion for a religious society already established, excepting on the most pressing occasion: and such we esteem the practice of holding our fellow-creatures in slavery. We view it as contrary to the golden law of God, on which hang all the law and the prophets, and the alienable rights of mankind, as well as every principle of the Revolution, to hold in the deepest debasement, in a more abject slavery than is perhaps to be found in any part of the world except America, so many souls that are capable of the image of God. We therefore think it our most bounden duty to take immediately some effective method to extirpate this abomination from among us; and for that purpose we add the following to the rules of our society — viz.
1st. Every member of our society who has slaves in his possession shall, within twelve months after notice given him by the assistant (which notice the assistants are required immediately, and without any delay, to give in their respective circuits), legally execute and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and sets free every slave in his possession who is between the ages of forty and forty-five immediately, or at furthest when they arrive at the age of forty-five.
And every slave who is between the ages of twenty-five and forty immediately, or at furthest at the expiration of five years from the date of the said instrument.
And every slave who is between the ages of twenty and twenty-five immediately, or at furthest when they arrive at the age of thirty.
And every slave under the age of twenty, as soon as they arrive at the age of twenty-five at furthest.
And every infant born in slavery after the above mentioned rules are complied with, immediately on its birth.
2d. Every assistant shall keep a journal, in which he shall regularly minute down the names and ages of all the slaves belonging to all the masters in his respective circuit, and also the date of every instrument executed and recorded for the manumission of the slaves, with the name of the court, book, and folio, in which said instrument respectively shall have been recorded; which journal shall be handed down in each circuit to the succeeding assistants.
3d. In consideration that these rules form a new term of communion, every person concerned who will not comply with them, shall have liberty quietly to withdraw himself from our society within the twelve months succeeding the notice given as aforesaid; otherwise the assistants shall exclude him from the society.
4th. No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into society or the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules concerning slavery.
N. B. These rules are to affect the members of our society no further than as they are consistent with the laws of the States in which they reside.
Question 43. What shall be done with those who buy sell slaves, or give them away? Ans. They are immediately to be expelled; unless they buy them on purpose to free them."
1. It will be seen, by the above, that our preachers, in 1784, viewed the holding of slaves, or the sustaining voluntarily the relation of master and slave, as contrary to the golden law of God. Hence, not only official members, but private members, were to break that relation by manumission according to the conditions laid down.
2. They regarded slavery in America the most abject of any perhaps in the known world.
3. They considered that holding a fellow-creature in bondage was a sin sufficient to exclude any one from the Supper of the Lord, and was an abomination which they sought to extirpate from the church. These fathers then were a band of Christian abolitionists, and contended for emancipation. For "extirpation" means, according to Webster, to "destroy, to pull up by the roots;" which is all we mean by abolition.
4. We have painfully to admit that the church did afterward fall from her noble and New Testament position on the subject of slavery; and many of these fathers tried to undo with their own hands what they had so nobly accomplished. So that in 1808 was stricken out of the Discipline all that related to private members; and slaveholding was only considered an official impediment. Private members could hold for life their fellow-creatures in bondage, give them away to their children during their lifetime, and leave them in perpetual slavery. So the whole ground was in effect conceded to slavery. What a fearful history the M. E. Church has read to the world by this concession — a history written with the blood and tears of oppressed thousands! Private members holding slaves, soon involved class-leaders, exhorters, local preachers, and travelling preachers, and finally debauched the moral sentiments of the whole church, so that in 1836 the General Conference was in direct antagonism to the Conference of 1784. The year 1836 was the darkest hour in the history of the M. E. Church. Rum and slavery were both triumphant in her at this time. At that period private members could manufacture and sell rum, but an ordained elder could not. The church has seen the folly of such a distinction, and has since decreed that rumselling for gain is sin in any man; and she will arrive at the same conclusion with regard to slavery.
Had it not been for New England and Western Methodism, in 1844, we should have had some slaveholding bishops to preside over our conferences at this time. I thank my Divine Master for New England Methodism!
What was the final result of the concession of 1808? The organization and development of the M. E. Church South; whose only peculiar and distinctive feature is that she upholds, defends, and sustains her entire membership, including travelling preachers and bishops, in holding, buying, selling, and giving away slaves, as goods personal, to all intents and purposes. She defends slavery as a good, and appeals to the religion of Christ to sustain it. She can take but one other step; and that is, to recommend the reopening of the slave trade on the coast of Africa, which is certainly no worse than the internal slave-trade. And all these consequences flow necessarily from the premise that private members are not sinners by holding, breeding and working, giving away, or willing human beings as things and chattels. Once grant this in church or state, and all other things will be added, including the slave-trade. They are all parts of one great whole. While we detest the principles of the M. E. Church South on the subject of slavery, we admire her honesty in avowing that slavery is not a sin in private members or bishops; and the only holy and logical weapons by which we can subdue her is to affirm that slavery is sin by whomsoever committed, be he saint or sinner, layman or bishop. To this point the Discipline of the M. E. Church will come, as it ought to have come in 1856, at the General Conference at Indianapolis.
We lament that this talented and venerable body of Christian ministers and divines should have hesitated a moment to declare that slaveholding is a sin in the laity as well as in the ministry. It is true that the members of the General Conference of 1856 took higher ground against slavery, in their speeches at the Conference, than has been taken since 1784; and much progress has been made in the right direction. Nevertheless, we occupy an anomalous position. While three-fourths of the ministry and laity are decidedly antislavery, we have a pro-slavery Discipline, which allows our private members in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia to hold for gain, to give away, and transmit by will to their heirs, as chattels personal, souls for whom Christ died. The slave can be sold for their debts at any time. They can give them away to relatives, who can sell them to the negro buyer at pleasure; and do all this according to the Discipline of the church; and they cannot be expelled for it. At one small country appointment, in the fall of '55 and winter of '56, I knew two members of the M. E. Church who died, and left from twenty-five to thirty slaves in bondage for life; thereby depriving these poor creatures of rights natural and divine. Slaveholding and slave-breeding can never be broken up in the church by merely keeping it out of the ministry. Suppose we were to send missionaries to Utah to convert the Mormons, and they were to profess to be converted and offer to join the M. E. Church, but request to retain polygamy, and the preachers were to say that they might do it, but were determined to keep it out of the ministry: would we ever break up polygamy among the Mormons? Never! never! For my part, I believe it just as much a sin in a private member to deprive a fellow-creature of his just wages, to separate him like a brute from friends, as it would be in a bishop. The antislavery principles of our holy religion, and the M. E. Church South, will drive us, on the Border, from this untenable ground. Let us get on the rock of eternal truth and righteousness, and then we shall have the sympathy of the good of all nations. And what is still better, we shall have the sympathy of the man Christ Jesus, who was sold like a slave for thirty pieces of silver. I believe that the blessed Jesus is an antislavery Redeemer. When he forgave me my sins, he whispered to my inmost soul that the holding of slaves was sin.
I consider American slavery to be the great question now before the American people in church and state. Its importance surpasses the political separation from Great Britain, which agitated the minds of our fathers from 1770 to 1776. I believe that it will eventually come in contact with every association, whether literary, scientific, benevolent, social, political, or religious. With regard to this question, whatever appearances may indicate to the contrary, in reality there is no neutral ground. In health, I am as a reed shaken by the wind. As a preacher in the M. E. Church, I am not distinguished for wealth, high office, learning, family, or intellect. I shall soon fall from the tree of this natural life as a leaf, to be forgotten among my fellow leaves: yet I have a little influence among men. It may survive me a little while after death. For that influence, God, the judge of all, will hold me accountable. I feel I must bear my testimony as an honest man against chattel slavery in this nation. Whether living or dying, I wish to be quoted as conscientiously opposed to it, in all its shapes, forms, and modifications. I wish to wound no man's feelings; yet, in the discharge of a sacred duty, I may have to do it. I believe that the only way to remedy any evil is to proclaim the truth, clearly and distinctly, concerning that evil. The man, and especially the Christian minister, who is silent on the subject of slavery, who never whispers to his friend or foe a word of opposition to it, is giving his example and influence in its favor. A prophet of God who can stand by, and see those for whom Christ died held in bondage, deprived of legal claim to wife, child, or to his own body, deprived of freely worshiping Almighty God, and yet give no alarm of danger, nor utter a cry of warning, need not be envied when he stands at the judgment-seat of Christ to render up his account. Next to the love and approbation of Christ and my own family, there is nothing that I so highly appreciate as the love and good opinion of my ministerial brethren, especially those of the Philadelphia Conference. From the day that I became associated with them to this hour, I honored them for their office' sake, and loved them (with few exceptions) for their great moral worth and purity. When they have honored me, in the darkest hour of my bodily afflictions, with visits to my humble abode, they always gave me more pleasure than they received. I have not seen the hour, when not confined to my sick room, that I would not go through wind and rain to bathe their brows or wash their burning feet, if that would alleviate their sufferings. I expect my brethren to condemn this book, and severely blame me for writing it; yet I trust I shall have grace to bear up under the castigation. I must express the painful conviction that the fathers of the Philadelphia Conference have been too silent in their testimony against slavery. I have been among them for seventeen years, and have never listened to a sermon against slavery. I never heard a presiding elder, in a quarterly conference, public congregation, or love-feast, throw out a hint that it was wrong to hold slaves for life. Our membership must conclude, from our silence upon the subject, that slavery is no sin. Now and then a brother in Maryland sets his negroes free, feeling it a sin to hold them in slavery; but he arrives at these conclusions from his natural sense of justice; or, perhaps, from reading the life of Freeborn Garretson, and yielding to the silent operations of the Holy Spirit.
There are good men in Virginia, Kentucky, and other Slave States, who, while the pulpit has either been quiet upon the subject, or taught the doctrine that slavery is of Divine origin, have searched the Scriptures and reasoned for themselves; and, in the name of justice and in the fear of God, they have emancipated their slaves, and sent them to Liberia or the free States of this Union. Why will not the watchmen on the walls of Zion sound the alarm, when they see slavery desolating our beautiful Southern States, crushing the intellect, and poisoning the morals of nearly all beneath its influence?
Brethren, I would that ye were as strongly antislavery as I am, except these bonds. My feelings have been lacerated a hundred times on account of my opposition to slavery. Soon after I joined the church, I became leader of a colored class. This brought persecution; and from that day to this I have been bound in spirit with Christ's down-trodden people. This book will banish me from my relatives, from the graves of my honored parents, and from my native State. If I were to visit my former places of residence, I might not receive personal violence; but the man who should entertain me would be marked, and would have to suffer on my account; and I would not knowingly be the cause of bringing trouble upon my friends. Henceforward I shall be an exile among strangers, and shall seek a home and a grave among them. Many who once thought of my name with affection will associate it with disgrace. Some will even believe that they will be doing God service to abuse me. Any man who dares to utter a word against slavery is branded by the Southerners as a fanatic. I communicated to a friend my intention of writing against slavery. "Well, sir," said he, "you may prepare yourself to have showers of lies heaped upon you." Henceforward, by all Christian and lawful means, I expect to urge an uncompromising warfare against the sin of slavery. To those who may persecute me, I trust I shall be enabled by Divine assistance to pray, "Father, forgive them, for the know not what they do."
THE following extract is made from an address of the Philadelphia Annual Conference to the Societies under its care, dated Wilmington, Del., April 7, 1847:
"If the plan of separation gives us the pastoral care of you, it remains to inquire whether we have done any thing, as a Conference, or as men, to forfeit your confidence and affection. We are not advised that, even in the great excitement which has distressed you for some months past, any one has impeached our moral conduct, or charged us with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption or tyranny in the administration of Discipline. But we learn that the simple cause of the unhappy excitement among you is, that some suspect us, or affect to suspect us, of being abolitionists. Yet no particular act of the Conference, or any particular member thereof, is adduced as the ground of the erroneous and injurious suspicion. We would ask you, brethren, whether the conduct of our ministry among you for sixty years past ought not to be sufficient to protect us from this charge? Whether the question we have been accustomed, for a few years past, to put to candidates for admission among us, namely, Are you an abolitionist? and, without each one answered in the negative, he was not received, ought not to protect us from the charge? Whether the action of the last Conference on this particular matter ought not to satisfy any fair and candid mind that we are not, and do not desire to be, abolitionists? * * * We cannot see how we can be regarded as abolitionists, without the ministers of the M. E. Church South being considered in the same light. * * * * * * *
Wishing you all heavenly benedictions, we are, dear brethren, yours, in Christ Jesus,
J. P. DURBIN,
J. KENNADAY,
IGNATIUS T. COOPER,
WILLIAM H. GILDER,
JOSEPH CASTLE. Comm."
The above extract, I presume, is correctly copied from the original Report made by the Committee to the Philadelphia Conference of the M. E. Church, at its annual session in Wilmington, Delaware, in April, 1847, and adopted by the Conference. The extract has been published in Mrs. Stowe's "Dred" and "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," which circulated throughout Europe and America. This Report did not profess to speak the sentiments of the New England and Western Conferences of the M. E. Church, but simply those of the Philadelphia Conference. I was often confined to my room during that session of Conference, and did not know the contents of the Report till I read it in the Wilmington papers after the close of the session. After the division of the M. E. Church in 1844, there were troubles among our members in Accomac and Northampton Counties, Va. Many went off to the M. E. Church South, and wished all others to go with them; but many determined to remain in the M. E. Church. One or two of our preachers were mobbed. And for what? For teaching that holding slaves for gain was sin? No. For insisting that masters should teach slaves to read as a preparation for freedom? No. For getting up Sabbath-schools among colored people? No. What then caused the commotion? Simply this: that some said that they would continue to belong to the M. E. Church, and others said that all should join the M. E. Church South. It was a quarrel about mere names. There was no moral issue concerning slavery between the laity of the two denominations. In proof of this, I appeal to the Report of the Committee of five of the most gifted and distinguished brethren of the Conference. The Report says that "some suspect us of being abolitionists;" but the Committee deny it, and say they are not "abolitionists," and do not intend or desire to be. What did the Committee mean by "abolitionist?" Simply one who believes and teaches that it is a sin in the private members of the M. E. Church to hold slaves, and that non-slaveholding should be a condition of membership. The Committee meant to say to the Virginia Methodists who remained with us, about as follows: "Does the M. E. Church South allow her private members, and class-leaders, and local preachers, to hold slaves for gain, and for life, and then leave them in bondage? So do we. We are not more opposed to slavery than the ministers of the M. E. Church South. If any person accuses us of being 'abolitionists,' they can with the same propriety accuse the ministers of the M. E. Church South of the same grievous offence."
Now the whole country knows that the Church South is pro-slavery, that it glories in being so. This Report suggests to my mind these inevitable reflections: 1st. It is unequivocally a pro-slavery document. 2d. Its doctrines are still held by a majority of the Philadelphia Conference, for the Conference has not repudiated them, but continues to send preachers to Virginia, with the understanding that they are to act in accordance with the Report. 3d. The right of the laity to breed and hold slaves is guaranteed to them by the present Discipline. 4th. The Committee, at that time, held the doctrine of the Discipline as their private views. 5th. If in the last ten years they have not changed their views, we must sorrowfully place them and their great talents and influence among the ranks and resources of the pro-slavery party. 6th. I repudiate the doctrine of the Report, and believe that slaveholding is a sin in all men. 7th. The Discipline of the M. E. Church ought to be altered so as to exclude slaveholders from the church. 8th. I believe three-fourths of all the ministry and laity of the M. E. Church are Christian abolitionists; that is, they are antislavery in sentiment.
I profess to know as much about slavery in the Philadelphia Conference as any member of the Conference of my age. I have travelled some of the most laborious circuits lying in the slave portions of its territory.
In pursuing my pastoral duties, I have visited the abject slaves in their huts or cabins, the free negroes in their little houses, and baptized their children.
I have seen slavery in the quarter, in the kitchen, and in the parlor; at the church, at the funeral, at the marriage, under the eye of the overseer in the fields, and on holiday occasions. I have seen it in its most disgusting forms, and amid circumstances so mild as to veil from the stranger its real character.
I have witnessed its effects on the owners and employers, in the relations of master, mistress, and overseer. I have studied it with a painful and prayerful interest. From the year 1835, in which I confessed Christ, to this hour, I have never wavered in my conviction that to hold a human being in bondage, as a chattel, would be a sin. For one human being has no right to force another to work for him, or take his labor without paying for it. One man has no right to own another; therefore, chattel slavery is a gross violation of right. It is sin and a crime. I always felt, too, that, if I treated a slave well, my death, or failure in business, might nevertheless consign him to chains and to the lash of the merciless slave-trader.