The Pictures of Slavery in Church and State (Complete Edition). John Dixon Long
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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."
CHAPTER III
THE CONFERENCE REPORT
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