On Wednesday 27 May, Frederick Douglass and George Thompson again addressed a crowded meeting at the Music Hall in George Street. Thompson again responded to the recently-published pamphlet entitledThe Free Church and Her Accusers, addressed to him, and signed by ‘A Free Churchman.’1
Of particular interest is the intervention of Mr John Orr, a city missionary employed by the United Secession Church in Broughton Place.2 Although not a member of the Free Church, and sharing the speakers’ condemnation of it for having accepted financial support from churches in the United States, he nevertheless urged that ‘it was the laws of the states, and not the slaveholders which should be denounced.’ The report in the Edinburgh Evening Post adds: ‘He candidly admitted at the same time that he was the descendant of a slaveholder, whose property he inherited, but of which he was deprived at the time of the West India emancipation.’ If so, he would have been entitled to compensation from the government, although no one of that name is listed as an awardee in the Legacies of British Slave Ownership database.
The Evening Post also indicates that Douglass invited his audience to imagine a didactic theatrical performance depicting an auction of enslaved people in the United States, attended by Free Church ministers, identifiable as the members of the fund-raising deputation that visited there in 1844, portrayed ‘as accurate as any of the caricatures in Punch.’3 Douglass had himself acted out a similar scenario (impersonating the various characters) in speeches in Dundee (10 March), Perth (12 March) and Paisley (20 March). Here, he contents himself with suggesting it as a performance that might be undertaken by others.
Briefer reports of the meeting in the Scotsman and Caledonian Mercury are appended.
For an overview of Douglass’s activities in Edinburgh during the year, see Spotlight: Edinburgh.
FOURTH ANTI-SLAVERY MEETING.
A fourth meeting was held on Wednesday evening in the Music Hall, and as usual was crowded to excess. Councillor Stott presided.
Mr Douglass, who first addressed the meeting, concluded an animated speech with the following facetious sugestions:– I think a very good caricature of the Free Church deputation could be marked out, if we only had the genius willing to do it. He could form an auction in one of the states of the American Union, where slaves, men, women, and children, were bought and sold. An auction block might be set up in the midst, and a number of good Christian people standing around. A Church would look well on the one side, and on the other the Church members busily engaged in disposing of their black slaves. Near to them might be placed the deputation of the Free Church, dressed in their sacred dresses (Laughter.) Have them so that we could distinguish each individual – let them be as accurate as any of the caricatures in Punch – (laughter and applause[)] – just as near to life as possible, and attending the American sale of human flesh, with a subscription list in their hands, and seeking for donations to aid the cause of Christianity in Scotland. (Continued laughter and cheering.) We think this would be a legitimate means of operating on the public mind at this time. It may be considered a coarse mode of proceeding, but what we want is, to show up their doings in their true light, for they have taken the price of blood, and put it into their treasury. And have they not? Have they not taken the price of human blood, and put it into their treasury? When we all know this to be the fact, and that they defend their right to having taken it, there is nothing wrong in us showing up in the most vivid manner how they took it. I do hope that some individual will take up the matter, and exhibit a slave of human flesh, where the ministers of the Free Church may be seen waiting to receive the proceeds of the sale to carry home to their treasury. (Laughter and cheers.)
The Chairman then asked if any gentleman holding opposite views was desirous to address the meeting, whereupon
Mr John Orr came forward. This gentleman, although he reprobated the conduct of the Free Church in taking the money, and acknowledged his abhorrence of slaveholding in all its bearings, still he maintained that it was the laws of the states, and not the slaveholders which should be denounced. He candidly admitted at the same time that he was the descendant of a slaveholder, whose property he inherited, but of which he was deprived at the time of the West India emancipation. He produced a copy of the Post containing a report of the meeting of Friday, and read that portion of Mr Wright’s speech where he defined a ‘sheep stealer.’ Mr Orr maintained that Mr Wright had taken an erroneous view of the question, and that a man who inherited the crime of theft himself, could not be branded as a ‘manstealer.’ On this ground he endeavoured to vindicate, amidst much disapprobation, the present generation of slaveholders in the United States, as having acquired possession of their property from their ancestors. He contended that it was the duty of the British Parliament to interfere, for a great portion of the wealth of Britain was derived from sources connected with slavery, and in fact the flourishing condition of our commercial system might to a certain extent be ascribed to the existence of slavery.
Mr Thompson commenced a sweeping reply in the following terms: – Did you ever hear of a clerical court in Scotland consisting of divines who came out of the Established Church because they could not obey the law of the land? Did you ever hear of public meetings being held in Edinburgh, and from Berwick-on-Tweed to John o’Groats House, which was attended by certain distinguished members of the ecclesiastical conclave in Edinburgh, holding up the existing law of the land to contempt, and denouncing it as having contravened the laws of the living God. (Applause.) Did you ever hear of a new Church being formed? Did you ever hear of that church calling itself the Free Church because it would not submit to the bondage of the law of the land?
Now the gentleman has only to look down to Canonmills and ask the reverend court at present sitting there whether this applies to them.4 He can preach to them and inform them that to obey the law of the land is merely to render a passive obedience to the will of the State. The gentleman appears to be a great respecter of laws, both temporal and spiritual. Is he aware that the General Asembly of the Church of Scotland and the venerable Assembly of Divines who sat at London in the time of the Revolution came to the conclusion, that, according to the Apostle Timothy, every slaveholder was a ‘man-stealer.’
What does he say? Is it that the law has made them ‘man-stealers?’ The words as used in the original, comprehends all concerned, both those who force human beings into slavery, as well as those who keep them in that state. What was the honourable gentleman himself before the year 1834 but a ‘man-stealer’ according to the Apostle Timothy, according to the General Assembly of Divines, and according to the Larger Catechism, and if he quarrels with me for calling him a man-stealer, he will have to quarrel with the Assembly of Divines who sat at the time of the Revolution, with his Larger Catechism, and with the Apostle Timothy, and with every reason venerated and acted upon by the Presbyterian Church. (Applause.)
He, then, was a ‘man-stealer’ to all intents and purposes, for he never had a right to those slaves – his father never had a right to them. No elapse of time can sanctify a wrong. The sheep were no less stolen sheep, when handed over to another, as those slaves which he inherited were when his father bought them at the shambles from the man who sent to Africa to steal them. According to law, receivers are punished as well as the thieves; and we may venture further and assert that, if there never was receivers we would never have thieves. (Cheers.)
Mr Thompson, after completely annihilating the argument of this gentleman, proceeded to reply to the remainder of the Free Church pamphlet, and, among other extracts, he read the following from the 11th page: – ‘Dr Thomson not only admitted slaveholders to membership, but even associated with them in his kirk session.’
In rebutting this assertion, Mr Thompson repeated the following statement which he had in writing from one who was a leading member at the time. There never was, during Dr Andrew Thomson’s lifetime, any member of his session that had any connection with slaveholding or slave property, nor, to my knowledge, after Dr Thomson’s death, was there any person of the description connected with St George’s session. The only one who ever was a member, was a Mr Murray, who was introduced by Dr Candlish, and went out with him. It was a daughter, I believe, of this Mr Murray’s that, since the disruption, married and made a rich man of Mr A. Dunlop, one of the prime movers of the secession of 1843. (Great cheering and laughter.)
Mr Thomson, after replying to every statement and charge, concluded by denying the whole, as a mass of as gross falsehoods and calumnies as ever were committed to paper. He advised them to prepare for some artful movement, for the Free Church were gradually shifting ground, and they might calculate for some piece of jugglery immediately, but he would be ready to receive them. Let them not rest satisfied with any terms but the sending it back, and let the bye-word constantly be, ‘Send back the Money!’
Mr James Ballantyne moved the following resolution: – ‘That this meeting is decidedly of opinion that George Thompson, Esq., has fully met and refuted the statements made regarding him in an anonymous pamphlet recently published by his accusers.’
While the Chairman was taking a show of hands, Dr Alexander rose, and, after ascending the platform, denied ever having given the writer of the pamphlet any authority to make the assertions made regarding himself, and he declared that any word which he had ever spoken or written never sanctioned such an opinion as the one adopted by the Free Church pamphleteer. Dr Alexander concluded by cordially seconding the resolution, which was carried with acclamation. Thanks were then awarded to the Chair, and the meeting separated.
Edinburgh Evening Post, 3 June 1846
AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE FREE CHURCH.
On Wednesday night Messrs Fred. Douglass and George Thompson again addressed a meeting in the Music Hall. As on previous meetings, every part of the house was crowded with a numerous, respectable, and attentive audience. Councillor Stott was called to the chair, and after announcing that an opportunity would be afforded to any minister or member of the Free Church to speak at an early hour in the evening. Mr Douglas spoke at considerable length. He rebutted the statement of the Free Church party, that Mr Thompson and his friends had been coarse, ungentlemanly, and unchristian in their language towards them. At the conclusion of Mr Douglas’s speech, the chairman repeated his invitation for any Free Churchman or other to address the meeting, and Mr Orr, Broughton Place, immediately stepped upon the platform, and in a short address, endeavoured to overthrow the assertion of the opposite party that slaveholders were manstealers, during which the meeting at times became uproarious. Mr Thompson succeeded Mr Orr, in answer to the arguments of that gentleman; after which he proceeded at considerable length to answer the pamphlet lately published by a Free Churchman. The Rev. Dr W. L. Alexander said a few words in support of the views of Mr Thompson and his coadjutors. The meeting then broke up.
Scotsman, 27 May 1846
AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE FREE CHURCH. – On Monday night Mr George Thompson, who has returned from London again appeared in the Music Hall, and, in a speech of three hours’ duration, replied to the arguments that have been circulated by the Free Church party, in defence of their connection with the American Churches which countenance slavery. The hall was crowded to overflowing, not only the seats but the orchestra and lobbies being crammed to excess. – Last night Messrs Fred. Douglas and Thomson again addressed a meeting in the Music Hall. As on the previous meeting, every part of the house was crowded with a numerous, respectable, and attentive audience. Councillor Stott was called to the chair, and after announcing that an opportunity would be afforded to any minister or member of the Free Church to speak at an early hour in the evening, Mr Douglas spoke at considerable length. He commenced by rebutting a statement of the Free Church party, that Mr Thomson and his friends had been coarse, ungentlemanly, and unchristian in their language towards them; and quoted from the Scottish Guardian and Witness expressions which he considered more unbecoming Christians than any that the anti-slavery party had ever used. He then went over the different reasons which had induced him to visit this country, the principal of which was, that a fair statement of slavery as it exists in the Southern Districts of America might be presented to the people of Scotland by one who had himself experienced all the horrors of the system, and because of the moral influences the opinion of the Scottish public would have upon the minds of the Americans and slaveholders. At the conclusion of Mr D.’s speech, the chairman repeated his invitation for any Free Churchman or other to address the meeting, and Mr Orr, Broughton Place, immediately stepped upon the platform, and in a short address, endeavoured to overthrow the assertion of the opposite party, that slaveholders were manstealers, during which the meeting at times became uproarious. Mr Thomson succeeded Mr Orr, and the tendency of his speech was to overturn the arguments of that gentleman. After which he proceeded at considerable length to answer the pamphlet by a Free Churchman.
Caledonian Mercury, 28 May 1846
Notes
The Free Church and her Accusers in the Matter of American Slavery; Being a Letter to Mr. George Thompson, Regarding His Recent Appearances in this City (Edinburgh: John Johnstone, 1846).
On Douglass’s analyses of Punch cartoons see Michael A. Chaney, ‘Heartfelt Thanks to Punch for the Picture: Frederick Douglass and the Transnational Jokework of Slave Caricature,’ American Literature Vol. 82, No. 1 (2010): 57-90.
The 1846 General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland had opened on 18 May at Tanfield Hall, Canonmills, Edinburgh. Douglass, Thompson and James Buffum would attend the debate on American slavery on Saturday 30 May.
Frederick Douglass and George Thompson returned to Edinburgh from London on Saturday 23 May, and addressed a crowded meeting at the Music Hall on George Street on the evening of Monday 25 May. The two reports in Edinburgh Evening Post and a briefer one in the Scotsman (reproduced below) focussed on Thompson’s speech, in which he responded to a recently-published pamphlet entitled The Free Church and Her Accusers, styled as a letter to Thompson, and signed by ‘A Free Churchman.’1.
Of particular interest, however, is this passing remark of Thompson:
Besides Mr Douglass, another slave has come from America to plead the cause. Mr Thompson does not promise that he will be quite so eloquent and effective as Mr Douglass, still his plain and simple story will no doubt produce its effects.
He is referring to Moses Roper, on his second tour of Britain and Ireland, promoting his autobiographyA Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery(1838). Roper does not appear to have been supported by anti-slavery networks, as Douglass was, and this is a rare acknowledgement of his existence by the better-funded and more widely-publicised Garrisonian abolitionists. Roper held meetings in smaller towns and villages rather than the big cities, but reached rural areas unvisited by Douglass, especially in the north of Scotland.
In March 1846 he was in Berwick, where he made arrangements for the publication of a revised edition of his Narrative, and appeared at various venues in Jedburgh, Hawick, Dumfries and Maybole. On 28 May Roper would speak in Alloa, and over the following two months addressed audiences in Perth, Auchtermuchty, Cupar, Dundee, Dunning, Crieff, Methven, Kirriemuir, Forfar, Aberdeen and Elgin.
It is perhaps not surprising that a Free Church paper like the Northern Warder unfavourably contrasted the ‘grossly abusive style of declamation’ of Douglass and his colleagues, with the strictly autobiographical lectures of Roper, praised for the way in which, dwelling on ‘his own sufferings under slavery,’ he ‘exercises rather more discretion in his vocation.’ The paper urged its readers to go and hear him speak, because he actually displays ‘a very different spirit’ from the ‘Send Back the Money’ campaigners.2
For an overview of Douglass’s activities in Edinburgh during the year, see Spotlight: Edinburgh.
THIRD ANTI-SLAVERY MEETING.
On Monday night, Mr George Thompson and Frederick Douglass, who have returned from London, again appeared at the Music Hall. Councillor Stott presided. The Hall was crowded to overflow; not only the seats, but the orchestra and lobbies were crammed to exceess, and numbers were compelled to return home, not being able to gain admission.
Mr Douglass first rose and briefly detailed their proceedings in London during the preceding week, where the subject had created the greatest interest.
‘The lion of the evening,’ Mr Thompson, followed, and in an eloquent and electriying speech of nearly three hours’ duration, discussed several pages of the Free Church pamphlet, sifting paragraph after paragraph, and exposing the whole as a labyrinth of the grossest falsehood and slander.
In taking it up, he said he laboured under a disadvantage in replying to an anonymous opponent. Why was it anonymous? ‘A Letter to George Thompson by a Free Churchman.’ He asked again why it was anonymous? Was the man ashamed of it? (Laughter and applause.) As it appeared to himself his conclusions were irresistible, and why did he put forward so shabbily unanswerable arguments. (Applause.)
It would not be a manly act in any man to publish a letter addressed to a public man, and putting no name to it. (Hear.) He would be glad if he was able to mention the name of the gentleman, but he was prepared to tell him that he would treat him personally with the utmost courtesy. If he had known him, he could be able to come to terms with him. But perhaps it would be a difficult matter to bring forward a single name. (Hear, and applause.) He thought he could distinguish Jacob’s voice and Esau’s hand in that pamphlet. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) He thought it had not one but many fathers. (Laughter and great cheering.) He was quite sure that he who had written it had depended a great deal on his neighbour’s efforts. (Hear, and laughter.) He would be perfectly justified in treating it with silence, but it was convenient to notice it. (Laughter.) Perhaps it was the more necessary to notice it, as he was told that a large number of copies had been sold. That was so much the better for the publisher – it might be for the writer. (Laughter.)
Mr Thomson then took up the pamphlet, and began with the title, ‘The Free Church and her Accusers;’ and went over about three pages, replying to and rebutting every charge amidst the reiterated plaudits of the audience. The remainder he reserved for the meeting on Wednesday evening, when he would take care that every charge would be replied to.
They were naturally anxious to know what the Free Assembly would do, and they would remain in Edinburgh till the sitting was over. According to the acts of that Assembly would all their plains be laid. They were already preparing for them in England. From Land’s End to Berwick-on-Tweed would be heard like thunder a shout coming over the Cheviot Hills, ‘Send back the money!’ – (tremendous cheering) – and across the Channel from the Green Isle, where the slaveholder’s dollars were spat upon, would be heard the same shout – ‘Send back the money!’
Edinburgh Evening Post, 30 May 1846
FREE CHURCH AND AMERICAN SLAVERY.
The Free Church have resolved to meet the present popular agitation against their lucrative intercourse with the slave-dealing churches of America with a face of brass. They are not to move from the position they have assumed, – no, not one hair’s breadth. Mr Begg, on Thursday evening, speaking in the name of his Church, declared in the Free Assembly, that they were resolved to continue their fellowship with the slave churches; and ‘above all, (he concluded,) not to send back the money – no, not one farthing.’ This emphatic and unqualified announcement was received by the representatives of the Free Church with great applause. So far, therefore, as the Free sect themselves are concerned, the question is now settled.
It is surmised that this bold and decided resolution on the part of the Free Church to identify themselves with the rich slaveholders in the United States, has been formed preparatory to the despatch of another begging deputation across the Atlantic. We know not how this may be; but we should conceive that such a braving of public opinion, even amongst their own members, many of whom but ill suppress their real views of the conduct of their leaders, or rather, as they should be called, drivers on this subject, would hardly be attempted after what has lately occurred. Such a proceeding would be nothing short of suicidal. These infatuated men, however, obviously imagine that, with their well-cultivated powers of assurance and sophistry, which they are exerting to the uttermost, they will eventually be enabled to stem the tide of public odium which has so strongly turned against them; and he would be indeed a bold prophet who should hazard a prediction as to their future course. There is one thing clear, – they may safely reckon upon the gratitude of the slave-holding churches, and we need not say in what shape that feeling is best appreciated by the Free Church. We must, however, declare most sincerely, that their whole proceedings in regard to this matter are a scandal and a disgrace to the very name of Christianity.
On the evening of Monday last, another great meeting on the subject of slavery in America, and a demand on the Free Church to return the money, was held in the Music Hall, George Street. Mr George Thompson occupied the whole evening – about three hours – in an unusually eloquent and pointed demonstration of slavery in the United States and its abettors, without one dissentient voice raised against him. Our friends at a distance can scarcely conceive the intense hold this subject has taken on the public mind here. The immense room was filled to overflowing. The orchestra was crammed from top to bottom, and hung with a galaxy of ladies and gentlemen, like the drop scene of a theatre. The room itself, and all the passages were crowded – hundreds could not get seats.
Mr Thompson was more than usually solemn and energetic. He seemed really to throw his feelings and his heart into the subject about which he spoke. For three complete hours he kept the immense audience hanging on his lips. We were anxious to judge of the sort of people who were there, and of the tone of the meeting. We must say that it occurred to us, that it was quite a fair representation of the popular party in Edinburgh, and of the mass of public opinion. Mr Thompson sometimes hit hard – but there was not a free voice to raise a solitary hiss. The public mind flowed with him.
The Free Church, as a party, he frankly acknowledged, had lost all moral influence in Scotland. He said they had occasioned a disruption in in the Church of Scotland some years ago, but that, if he was not mistaken, a disruption among themselves was also nearly at hand. The whole was a most withering exposure. The public mind is completely carried along with the new movement. The Free Church must, they shall, ‘Send back the Money!’
Besides Mr Douglass, another slave has come from America to plead the cause. Mr Thompson does not promise that he will be quite so eloquent and effective as Mr Douglass, still his plain and simple story will no doubt produce its effects.
Edinburgh Evening Post, 30 May 1846
AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE FREE CHURCH. – On Monday night, Mr George Thompson, who has returned from London, again appeared in the Music Hall, and, in a speech of three hours’ duration, replied to the arguments that have been circulated by the Free Church party, in defence of their connection with the American churches, which countenance slavery. The hall was crowded to overflowing, not only the seats but the orchestra and lobbies being crammed to excess.
Scotsman, 27 May 1846
Notes
The Free Church and her Accusers in the Matter of American Slavery; Being a Letter to Mr. George Thompson, Regarding His Recent Appearances in this City (Edinburgh: John Johnstone, 1846).
Holyrood House, engraved by W. J. Linton , drawn by H. O. Smith, in The Land We Live In: A Pictorial and Literary Sketch-Book of the British Empire, Vol II (London: Charles Knight, [1848?]), p. 93While the focus of the abolitionist speeches in Edinburgh was on the forthcoming General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, other Scottish Churches were also preparing to make important decisions on their relationship with their American counterparts. The governing bodies of the The United Secession and Relief Churches both met in May. The main subject of discussion was the proposed merger of the two churches (the two denominations united the following year to form the United Presbyterian Church) but they also discussed slavery.
Douglass attended the evening session of the fifth day of the United Associate Synod at Broughton Place Church which unanimously approve a motion to withdraw Christian fellowship with the Presbyterian Churches in the United States. The official proceedings of the Synod did not acknowledge Douglass’s presence,1 but newspaper reports did. And although he was not permitted to address the assembly, the manner in which he was referred to is not without interest.
According to the Greenock Advertiser (12 May), during the afternoon session, Dr John Ritchie, of the United Secession Church, Potterow,
having asked when the subject of American slavery was to be brought on, and having been told that it would taken up in the evening, asked the Synod if it would invite a black, at present in the town, to address them on the subject. (Cries of ‘No, no.’)
That the ‘black’ in question was Douglass is confirmed by his subsequent appearance at the assembly in the company of Dr Ritchie, as the report, reproduced below, confirms. But clearly, the hostility of some of the delegates, while it did not prevent him attending the proceedings, persisted, for Ritchie’s request that Douglass be permitted to express his thanks, was denied. A less detailed report, in the Caledonian Mercury, is appended.
The Relief Church following suit, approving a similar resolution at its Synod the following week.2
There is no record of Douglass’ activities the following week. There is some evidence that he was not feeling well. On 16 May, in a letter to the woman he knew as ‘Harriet Bailey’ who lived with his family in Lynn, Massachusetts, Douglass wrote:
[L]et me say a word about my health. It is only tolerable. I never feel well in the Spring. I however think I feel as well this Spring as I remember to have felt at any time in the Spring during the last five years. Harriet I got real low spirits a few days – ago – quite down at the mouth. I felt worse than ‘get out.’ My under lip hung like that of a motherless colt[.] I looked so ugly that I hated to see myself in a glass.
There was no living for me. I was snappish. I would have kicked my grand ‘dadda’! I was in a terrible mood – ‘dats a fac! ole missus – is you got any ting for poor nigger to eat!!![‘] Oh, Harriet, could I have seen you then. How soon would I have been releived from that Horrible feeling. You would have been so kind to me. You would not have looked cross at me. I know you would not. Instead of looking cross at me, you would have with your own Dear Sisterly hand smoothed, and stroked down my feverish fore head – and spoken so kindly as to make me forget my sadness.
He goes on to tell her how he raised his spirits by buying an ‘old fiddle’ from a ‘large store’. Back in his hotel room he played ‘The Campbells Are Coming’ and in minutes he ‘began to feel better and – gradually I came to myself again and was as lively as a crikit and as loving as a lamb.’3
The snub he received at the Synod can’t have helped matters. But as he suggests, he was soon ready to return to the fray. Despite being advertised to speak in Kirkcaldy and Edinburgh on 19 and 20 May, he left for London on Monday 18 May for the annual meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and did not return to Edinburgh until the following weekend.
For an overview of Douglass’s activities in Edinburgh during the year, see Spotlight: Edinburgh.
UNITED ASSOCIATE SYNOD.
FRIDAY, MAY 8. EVENING SEDERUNT.
The Synod, at the beginning of the evening sederunt, appointed a Committee to prepare a formula, which is to be laid before the October meeting of the Synod.
Dr Young made a motion to the effect – ‘That without recognising anything in the overtures which referred to the Free Church of Scotland, the Synod should express its sentiments against the system of American slavery, and appoint a Committee to draw up a deliverance on the subject, to be produced at a subsequent meeting.
Mr Pringle of Newcastle submitted a motion, which after being repeatedly altered, was to the following effect: – That this synod, regarding the system of slave holding, in any circumstances, as a heinous sin, and that of America as a sin of a peculiarly heinous and exaggerated character; and having with this conviction on former occasions addressed the Presbyterian Churches of America in the language of faithful and earnest remonstrances hitherto without the desired effect, the Synod now feel it to be their imperative and solemn duty to refuse Christian fellowship with any Church which was sanctioning that system of iniquity; and appoint a Committee to prepare a memorial embodying these sentiments, to be addressed to the Presbyterian and other Churches in America which sanctioned slave-holding, remonstrating against the unholy thing, and entreating them to put it away.
Dr Ritchie said he was always against slavery, and complained that Christianity was conventionalized, and made to accommodate itself to various latitudes and longitudes.
Dr Young withdrew his motion.
While the motion of Mr Pringle was undergoing correction to make it stand as above, and as it seemed to be understood that it was to be unanimously agreed to, Dr Ritchie said, that without any preconcert on his part, his friend (Mr Douglas), who was present, begged that he might be allowed, if the Synod thought proper, to return thanks to them, in the name of himself and of three millions of fellow-slaves.
Mr Johnston of Limekilns objected to this, on the grounds that it set a precedent that might lead to very grievous abuse and be begged as a favour that Dr Richie would not insist in his request.
The feeling of the Court being against the suggestion made by Dr Ritchie, it was fallen from.
The Synod then took up the various overtures and memorials which had been presented by the Presbyteries and congregations on the subject of American slavery.
Mr Jaffray, who spoke in support of an overture from the Presbytery of Glasgow, addressed the meeting at considerable length. He noticed, first, the state of slavery in America, and showed not only the cruelties to which the negroes were subjected, but the gross immorality which was interwoven with the system as regarded the social and moral condition of the unfortunate slave. He then showed the connection of all the Presbyterian Churches in America, except the Cameronians, with slavery, – most of which Churches not only tolerated the system, but permitted ministers and office-bearers to remain within their pale who were engaged in slave-breeding, slave-holding, and slave-trading. He said it was the duty of the Secession Church, and every Christian Church, to lift up a testimony against this wicked system, by refusing to hold fellowship or communion with the Churches of the United States, so long as they continued in this sin. In giving utterance to this sentiment, Mr Jaffrey was led to point out the difference between holding intercourse with slaveholders as men, and communion with them as Christians. He concluded by saying that the Synod should consider the subject entirely with reference to the Secession Church, as he considered that a reference to other Churches was entirely away from the question.
During Mr Jaffray’s address, Mr Douglas, the runaway slave, entered the Synod in company with Dr Ritchie, and was applauded by the audience in the gallery.
Mr Pringle of Auchterarder, after cautioning the Synod against the exhibition of any excited feeling in coming to a decision on this subject, went into a long and elaborate exposure of the system of slavery in America, and the duty of the Secession Church to renounce the fellowship with all Churches who either tolerated or encouraged the system.
At this stage, Mr Ellis of Saltcoats, begged to dissent from the motion of Mr Pringle. He said that he abhorred slavery as much as any man could do, and he disapproved of the conduct of the American Churches; but he would say that they were stirring up a question which, in the present state of ecclesiastical connections in Scotland, might do a great deal more injury than it was likely to do good. (Hisses from the gallery.) He would dissent from the motion, and would give in his reasons afterwards for so doing.
Some confusion arose, in the course of which Dr Beattie also stated that he would dissent, and was followed by another member. This gave rise to some discussion. On Dr Beattie saying that this motion would amount to a sentence of excommunication against the American Churches, he was met by cries of ‘No, no, but unwillingness to have fellowship.’ He said that if that was what was meant, he had not the slightest objection, and he would withdraw his dissent.
Mr Ellis and other gentlemen also withdrew their dissent; and the motion was declared to be unanimously carried, after a good deal of discussion.
After appointing a Committee to draw up the address, the Synod adjourned till Monday evening at half-past six.
Greenock Advertiser, 12 May 1846
UNITED ASSOCIATE SYNOD.
FRIDAY, MAY 8. EVENING SEDERUNT.
AMERICAN SLAVERY
Overtures and memorials on the subject of American slavery from the Presbyteries of Perth and Dundee, and congregations of Galashiels and Selkirk, having been read, all of them condemnatory of the practice of slavery, and some condemning and lamenting the conduct of the Free Church, in accepting money from the slave states.
Mr Jeffery, Glasgow, said, there were two considerations in the case – first, the state of the American churches in regard to slavery in that country; and next, their duty towards those churches while occupying that position. Amidst all the abuses of the system, the American churches had not only overlooked these evils, but ministers, office-bearers, and members of these churches were engaged in the sin of slave-breeding, slave-holding, and slave-trading. He therefore charged upon them all the evils of the system, because they sanctioned by communion those who were engaged in slaveholding. As to the duty of the Synod, then, in these circumstances, they had merely to go to the Scriptures for the ground of the settlement of this question, where they were told to have no fellowship with the unprofitable works of darkness. They could have no fellowship with men engaged in sinful practices; and while he would not pronounce upon their Christianity, he saw only one course while they continued in their sin, to decline holding communion with them, and to accompany it with admonition and reproof.
Mr Pringle, Auchterarder, said their decision should have no reference, direct or indirect, to any Church in this country. it would have been unnecessary to disclaim such an intention, had not some of the memorials presented alluded to another church. If they had any fault to find with the churches around them, they should speak openly and plainly, and not in indirect insinuation.
Dr Young, Perth, moved, that without recognising anything in these overtures which refers to the Free Church, the Synod agree to adopt them simply as against the continuance of American slavery, and appoint a committee to prepare a brief and explicit declaration upon the subject, to be submitted at a subsequent meeting of Synod.
Mr Pringle of Newcastle held that the motion left the question open as to the great principle that slavery, in all its respects, is a sin, and that when any party is found to be connected with it, and, after admonishment, still continue their course, we should withdraw from their communion. He moved, that seeing the system of slavery still continued in America, notwithstanding the repeated remonstrances of the Synod, the Synod declare they feel themselves shut up to withhold Christian fellowship from the Presbyterian Church of America while they continue in that system; and appoint a committee to prepare a remonstrance to that body.
Mr Renton objected to the clause in the first motion referring to the Free Church; and he considered that if anything had hampered the members of the court, either there or elsewhere, in freely declaring their opinions, it was the knowledge of the connection of a sister church, in the minds of the public, with the question.
Ultimately, Dr Young consented to withdraw his motion, and that by Mr Pringle was agreed to most unanimously.
A proposal to allow Mr Frederick Douglass, a fugitive slave, then in the church, to be heard in returning thanks for the decision of the Synod, was rejected.
The Synod then adjourned till Monday evening.
Caledonian Mercury, 11 May 1846
Notes
‘Proceedings of Synod’, United Secession Magazine (June 1846), pp. 250–285. The debate on ‘American Slavery’ on Friday 8 May was summarised on pp. 271–73.
See eg. Scotsman, 16 May 1846.
Frederick Douglass to Ruth Cox, [Edinburgh], 16 May 1846 in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Three: Correspondence, Volume 1: 1842–52, edited by John R. McKivigan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 124–25.
Heriot’s Hospital, from the Grass-Market, engraved by W. J. Linton , drawn by H. O. Smith, in The Land We Live In: A Pictorial and Literary Sketch-Book of the British Empire, Vol II (London: Charles Knight, [1848?]), p. 98As Douglass explains, the meeting held on Thursday 7 May at Mr M’Gilchrist’s Church on Rose Street, was prompted by ‘various ministers’ of the United Secession Church. This was because the next evening, on the fifth day of the half-yearly meeting of its Synod, was reserved for a debate on slavery, responding to ‘overtures’ condemning the Free Church for ‘accepting money from the slave states’ . It would also discuss a motion to ‘withhold Christian fellowship from the Presbyterian Church of America while they continue in that system’.
Despite the headlines of the reports in the Caledonian Mercury and Edinburgh Evening Post (reprinted below), it seems clear that Douglass avoided directly attacking the Free Church on this occasion, adopting a more conciliatory approach in order not to unduly antagonise those in the audience who would be taking part in the debate. Even James Buffum, who could not refrain from passing comment on the Free Church minister George Lewis, confined his remarks to the book he had written of his travels in the United States, Impressions of America and the American Churches (1845).
For an overview of Douglass’s activities in Edinburgh during the year, see Spotlight: Edinburgh.
AMERICAN SLAVERY & THE FREE CHURCH
On Thursday night, another meeting was held in Mr M’Gilchrist’s Church, Rose Street, on the subject of the connection of the Free Church with American slavery. Admission was by tickets issued at a small charge, and the attendance was exceedingly numerous.
Mr Douglas addressed the audience at great length. He commenced by stating, that the meeting was suggested by various ministers of the United Secession. They desired him to express his views on the character of American slavery, together with the means which are adopted for sustaining the system. He would endeavour to put them in possession of as many facts as their time would allow.
The principle of slavery is defended by the laws of the United States. The principal point is that the slave is a thing, a chattel personal, under the entire dominion and control of his master. He may not decide for himself; the master is the sole disposer of his time, his strength, his power of body and mind. The master decides for him as to what is right and what is wrong. The slave may not decide in his affections. The master decides for him even in marriage. Let them but reflect on that state of society where the marriage vow is not respected. That state of things is in the Southern States of America; there, the slave has been forced to put in practice the abominable doctrines of Socialism. There are to be found three millions of human beings compelled by law to live practically in a state of absolute concubinage; and he here could not forebear saying that Christians have gone into the midst of that pollution without raising a word against it – (shame.)
The duty of the slave, then, is unlimited submission to his master; the will of God is set entirely aside when that of his master comes in competition with it; no matter at what sacrifice of conscience – no matter how bad the master may be – the slave is bound to obey in all things. The moral evils that result from slavery are incomparably greater than are the physical. The slave’s mind is either darkened or enlightened just in so far as his master thinks proper.
But a word about the cruelties. He would not speak of those he endured himself. He would not show them the stripes on his own back; but he would read them a number of advertisements daily inserted in the newspapers by the masters themselves, which may lead to the detection of the runaway slaves. Mr Douglass then read a great number of these, from which it appeared that the runaway slaves, when recovered, are branded and mutilated in a horrible manner. Some had pieces of chains on their legs, attached to which were heavy bars of iron to prevent them from escaping, while others (and these were chiefly women) were decorated with iron collars.
Mr Douglass next gave a detail of the punishment that were inflicted upon the slaves, for the slightest offence, or (as more frequently happened) for no offence at all. Lashing, of course, was general, while some of the slaves had their ears cropped off, others were branded on the skin with hot irons, and numerous other mutilations were inflicted. Outlawry, he said, was very general amongst the slaves, and in these cases people, if they were so disposed, might shoot them at pleasure without any fear of punishment. Blood-hounds are trained to run after slaves.
He described a Baptist clergyman who had whipped his slave to death, unpunished; so horrible was the fatal punishment that the slave was beat to jelly, so that no one, when they saw the man after death, could recognise him. Women at auction stalls, when being sold, are there exposed and examined by the slaveholders in the most indelicate way.
He described the case of man and wife who were thus exposed to sale. His wife was sold first; the man beseeched that he should also be bought by the same party in order that he might not be severed from the wife he loved. Unfortunately, however, he was sold to another. After he saw his fate, he rushed forward to take one last embrace from his wife, but this he was prevented from doing by the hard-hearted slaveholder. In the struggle that ensued, the poor slave fell down a corpse. His heart was broken – (great sensation.) No woman slave was allowed to defend her person against the evil wishes of her master, for the moment she did so her master had the power to strike her dead.
There was another case of extreme cruelty which Mr Douglass depicted, namely, that of a young man who had previously met with much ill usage, and who wished to escape; in his endeavours he ran into a creek up to the neck. He was told immediately to come out; but he had counted the cost – he refused, and for his refusal he was immediately shot dead by his master.
Mr Douglass stated another case, which, from its barbarous details, created a feeling of horror amongst the audience. It was the case of Mackintosh, who defended himself against the assaults of a white man; in this attempt he was caught by the mob, taken by them to a wood, and burnt. When the lower half of his body was burnt away, and his murderers thought he was dead, he shrieked out ‘shoot me.’ ‘No,’ said his murderers, ‘we shall lower the intensity of the fire in order that you may be slowly consumed.’
Mr Douglass detailed a great many cases of a like nature.
You ask me, continued Mr Douglas, is there no religion in the United States? Yes, there never was a more professing people on the face of the globe – but it is a slaveholding religion – (cheers.) The people there take up the ground that their slaveholding, with all its cruelties, is sanctioned by God Almighty. They take it for granted, like the Free Church, that it is of Divine origin. They say if it is a moral evil, why does it exist? man did not create it, therefore he cannot destroy it.
Now, said Mr Douglass, if stealing is a crime, so is slaveholding, for it is the highest species of stealing. The liberty of the human being is stolen, not to speak of his energies and labour – (cheers.) All religion there was interwoven with slaveholding. But they might ask him, was there no Christianity there at all? This was best known to the Searcher of Hearts. As for himself, he would say that so far as he understood Christianity, it was not preached there. If the gospel in its native purity and freeness was preached as liberty to the captive, then slavery would cease. But its supporters take care of that. The slaveholder and the minister are combined in one and the same individual, and thus they make the whole religion of Christianity to sanction slavery. But are there no revivals? Yes! but they go hand in hand with slavery. The slave-prison and the meeting-house stand side by side with each other; in short, the enormities of slavery are all covered with the holy garb of religion.
But it is asked, what do the abolitionists want? They want to establish the principles of the meek and lowly Jesus. We do not believe that his followers exist there. We do not say, like some, that the slaveholders may be Christians; we deny that they can be so. But some say, ‘Mr Douglass, the crime is in the United States, not here; here we all remonstrate against it.’ He admitted all that. He was there to thank them for the exertions they had already made; but although they had thus spoken, they must speak again. If they had whispered before, they must now speak aloud. Let their voice be carried across the blue waves of the Atlantic to cheer the depressed heart of the slave and fill with alarm and dread the heart of the slaveholder. Public opinion in this country was against slavery, and what he wanted was that all denominations should combine in pronouncing that the slaveholders should be excommunicated from the privileges of Christians. The slaveholders do not wish enlightenment on the subject, they know it in its true bearings with Christianity; all they want is the support of the Christians in this country in their horrid traffic.
To say that a slaveholder can be a Christian is a contradiction, an anomaly. We might as well say, that a man may be a Christian who does not believe the fundamental principles of the gospel. If a man preaches and prays well here, and cheats in Liverpool, will we exclude him? Yes, says any one – (cheers.)
Let us apply this rule to the slaveholder; he cheats and steals every day from his poor slaves, and therefore, although he may preach and profess as he may, he could not be fellowshipped with as a Christian. After detailing the heavy punishments (in some cases death) inflicted for attempting to teach negroes to read and write, or even to instruct them in the Christian religion in the Southern States, Mr Douglass gave a very interesting detail of the manner in which he stole his education.
Mr Buffum followed in a quaint and graphic speech, commenting on Mr Lewis’s work, and exposing the horrors of slavery.
Mr Jack, who was in the body of the meeting, questioned some of the statements of Mr Buffum, which caused considerable excitement.
Councillor Blyth was then called to take the chair, in order that both parties might be fairly heard, but on Mr Jack reaching the platform, he said he would not at present enter into any argument on the question, as he understood another opportunity would be afforded him of doing so.
The Rev. Mr Arthur then appeared on the platform, and (having obtained liberty from the chairman) proceeded to address the meeting. He said that the body with which he was connected (the Baptists) had determined to renounce all fellowship with the abettors of slavery, which seemed to give great satisfaction. The meeting then dispersed.
Caledonian Mercury, 11 May 1846
AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE FREE CHURCH. – On Thursday night another meeting was held in Mr M’Gilchrist’s Church, Rose Street, on the subject of the connection of the Free Church with American slavery. Admission was by tickets issued at a small charge, and the attendance was exceedingly numerous.
Mr Douglass addressed the audience at great length. He stated at the outset that the meeting had been held in consequence of a request from several ministers belonging to the United Secession Church, to hear the deputation from America previous to the Synod of that body entering upon the consideration of the question themselves.
Mr Douglass’s speech was chiefly composed of a statement of facts in the form of extracts from the laws of the Slave States, for regulating slavery; of advertisements in newspapers for the recovery of runaway slaves, containing descriptions of their deformities, and disfigurement by the lash, as a guide to their identification, and of the excruciating torture to which they were subjected – many of the statements being so harrowing as to excite a feeling of horror in the minds of the audience.
He likewise read extracts from the proceedings of several of the religious bodies in the Southern States to show their connection with slavery, and stated that a great many of the ministers were slaveholders.
Mr Douglass, in conclusion, said that all he wanted the United Secession and other denominations of Christians in this country to say was, not that the slaveholder cannot be a Christian, but to abstain from acknowledging that he is one.
Mr Buffum also addressed the meeting. He confined his remarks mainly to the book written by the Rev. Mr Lewis on the subject, and showed that the gentleman, while he had denounced the Established Church of Scotland as Erastian, had shaken hands and entered into communion with those who were guilty of Erastianism far more palpable.
Though the proceedings were prolonged to a late hour, the interest of the audience was kept up unabated till the close.
Edinburgh Evening Post, 9 May 1846 (also, with minor variations in Scotsman, 9 May 1846)
We reproduce below the account of all three meetings from the pamphlet Free Church Alliance with Manstealers, followed by a more detailed report of the Music Hall speeches in the Edinburgh Evening Post. A much briefer report of the same meeting in the Scotsman is appended.
For an overview of Douglass’s activities in Edinburgh during the year, see Spotlight: Edinburgh.
PUBLIC BREAKFAST
IN HONOUR OF MESSRS. THOMPSON, WRIGHT, DOUGLASS, AND BUFFUM, IN THE WATERLOO ROOMS
Friday Morning, May 1st.
At half-past eight, the Assembly Room was filled with a most respectable audience – JOHN WIGHAM, Junr. Esq. occupied the chair. On his right and left were the guests intimated to be honoured, and a large number of the well-known and most influential friends of the cause of abolition in Edinburgh. At the conclusion of the breakfast,
The CHAIRMAN rose and said – We are met here this morning to pay a tribute of respect and love to those whom we have invited to this breakfast. (Cheers.) They are gentlemen of whom I may say the more see of them, the more we know of their [56] principles and actions, the more we esteem and love them. (Cheers.)
I am sure we all hail with delight the presence of our esteemed friend George Thompson (Loud applause.) We have all witnessed his labours in years that are past, and I do not hesitate to say that, under the guidance of Divine Providence, he has been one of the most efficient instruments in promoting the blessed cause of human freedom. He now appears once more among us in his old character. (Cheers.)
As a member of the Edinburgh Committee, I think we may say we have done what we could. We have sought to place this question of the slaveholders’ money in its true light. You have most of you seen our correspondence on the subject, and I trust have read the excellent pamphlet of my friend Dr. Greville. (Hear.)
At length my friend G. Thompson has come, whose powerful voice is like a six ton hammer. (Laughter and cheers.) He has only been here a few days, but a mighty sensation has been produced, and I doubt not the happiest effects will follow. (Cheers.) It must not be forgotten, that our dear friend is engaged in arduous labours in London, connected with India, especially in his attempts to place a most worthy prince upon his throne, from which he has been unjustly hurled by the East India Company; and I firmly believe that the uncompromising efforts of my friend will be successful.1(Cheers.)
He and our other friends who are from the United States will now address us. We meet for a friendly interchange of opinions, and to learn what we can do for the poor slave. It is my desire that we should welcome and support all who are engaged in the sacred cause of human rights, and prove to them that we have no prejudices which prevent us from cordially co-operating with those who are sincerely and disinterestedly labouring in this vineyard. Let us do what we can, and wish God-speed to all who are struggling for justice to the oppressed.
Interesting addresses were then delivered by Mr. Thompson and his companions.
Mr. Douglass especially enchained the attention of his audience, by the narration of a number of anecdotes relating to himself and other slaves, who had escaped from bondage. This gentleman exercises a wonderful power over the sympathies of his audience. He is alternately humorous and grave – argumentative and declamatory – lively and pathetic. While there is an entire absence of the appearance of any effort after effect, there is the most perfect identity of the speaker with the subject on which he is dwelling, and an extraordinary power of rousing corresponding feelings in the minds of those whom he addresses. This power was singularly manifested on this occasion, and none, we think, who heard him, will ever forget the impression produced upon themselves, or the effect produced upon others.
The entertainment evidently afforded the highest and purest satisfaction to all present. The audience retired at 12 o’clock.
MEETING OF THE EDINBURGH LADIES’ EMANCIPATION SOCIETY IN THE WATERLOO ROOMS
Friday Morning, May the 1st
After the breakfast, the gentlemen who had been entertained, met the ladies and friends of this Society. One of the smaller [57] rooms was crowded to excess. Mr. Wigham again occupied the chair. Mr. Thompson and Mr. Douglass addressed the meeting. At the conclusion of their speeches a resolution was proposed, and carried unanimously, pledging the Society to renewed exertions, and expressive of earnest sympathy with the friends from America, and their co-adjutors on the other side of the Atlantic. A list of names was then taken down of ladies volunteering to furnish contributions to the next Bazaar to the Boston Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society.
MEETING IN THE MUSIC HALL.
Friday Evening, May 1.
This noble and spacious building was crowded to overflowing with a most respectable audience. The admission was by tickets, sixpence each. About 2000 persons were present.
Mr. DOUGLASS delivered a long and eloquent address. The first part of his speech described the condition of the condition of the coloured population in the United States, and the treatment which those persons had received who had nobly sought to succour them. The last part of his address was a severe denunciation of those in this country, who had confederated with the slaveholders of America; and, to hide the obliquity and enormity of their act, had recently employed themselves in defaming, ridiculing, and stigmatising himself and his colleagues. None who heard the withering castigation bestowed by Mr. Douglass on the Rev. Mr. Macnaughtan of Paisley, who had branded him as ‘a miserable and ignorant fugitive slave,’ will ever forget it Poor Mr. Macnaughtan! was the cry of many, while listening to the biting satire and annihilating retorts of the ‘fugitive,’ who charged the reverend sneerer with taking from the sustenation fund, for his own benefit, that which ought to have been applied to the education of his coloured brethren.
Mr. BUFFUM made a short but effective speech.
Mr. THOMPSON followed, but as we understand that gentleman purposes to prepare his speech for the press, we shall not attempt so much as an outline of it Suffice it to say, it was an examination of the opinions of Dr. Chalmers, on the subject of slavery, at various periods during the last twenty years, and an irrefragable demonstration, that Dr. Chalmers is, on the showing of the deliverance of the Assembly last year, a sinner of the deepest dye; inasmuch as he has, throughout his writings, contended for the sacredness of slave property – a doctrine which the Assembly say none can entertain, without being guilty of a sin of the most heinous kind.
The feeling manifested by the audience on this occasion, exceeded that evinced at any of the previous meetings. The exhibition of the view of Dr. Chalmers, contained in his tract, entitled, ‘Thoughts on Slavery,’ and the contrast of these views with the principles laid down in the deliverance, seemed to transfix the audience, with what a person present described, as ‘mute horror. During this part of Mr. Thompson’s address, the emotions of those present were too deep for utterance. The unanimous burst of applause which followed the appeal to the audience, [58] to testify if the speaker had made out his case against the Doctor, proved that the conviction was universal, that such was the fact.
Mr H. C. WRIGHT then proposed the following resolutions, which were adopted by show of hands, not a hand being raised against them, and so far as could be seen, all voting for them.
1st. That the Free Church Deputation, in going to the slave states of America to form alliance with slave-holders, and to share their plunder, virtually rejected Christianity as a law of life; Christ, as a Redeemer from sin; and God, as the impartial governor of the universe – inasmuch as they pledged themselves and the Free Church, whose agents they were, to receive to their embrace as ‘respectable, honoured and evangelical Christians,’ men whose daily life is a denial of the existence of a just and impartial God, and a violation of the fundamental principles of Christianity; therefore, by our respect for man as the image of God, and as our equal brother; by our faith in Christ as our Redeemer; and by our belief in a just and impartial God; we pledge ourselves never to cease our efforts, until the Free Church shall send back the money obtained of slave-holders, and annul her covenant with death, and cease to hold up man-stealers as living epistles for Christ.
2d. That the members of the Free Church owe it as a duty to God and man to come out from her communion, if, after due admonition, her leaders, Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, cease not to join hands with thieves, and to seek the fruits of their crimes and pollutions to build Free Churches – thus making themselves and all who concur with them accessories to the unutterable horrors of slave-breeding and slave-trading.
What must be the deep conviction, and stern resolution and powerful excitement of the public mind when such resolutions are adopted unanimously by such a meeting, after full and mature consideration? It was the settled conviction of the audience that every slave-holder is a standing type of infidelity and atheism; and that in their consenting to vouch for his Christianity, Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, do virtually reject Christ as a Redeemer from sin, and deny the existence of a just and impartial God.
Mr. WRIGHT then proposed to adjourn to Tuesday evening, the 5th of May, to meet in the same place, to review the speeches and writing of Dr. Candlish on this great question. (Cheers.) Doctors Chalmers and Cunningham had been reviewed, their apologies for man-stealers fully answered, and their efforts to keep the people of the Free Church in loving communion with slave-breeders and slave-traders had received a merited rebuke. Dr. Candlish had made himself most conspicuous in this conspiracy against three millions of slaves, and in this attempt to introduce man-stealers to social respectability and Christian communion in Great Britain – Let us have one more meeting to consider Dr. Candlish. (Cheers.)
The proposition to adjourn the meeting was received with loud applause. The audience then slowly and quietly retired, as if deeply impressed with the solemnity and weight of what had been uttered.
Free Church Alliance with Manstealers. Send Back the money. Great Anti-Slavery Meeting in the City Hall, Glasgow, Containing Speeches Delivered by Messrs. Wright, Douglass, and Buffum, from America, and by George Thompson, Esq. of London; with a Summary Account of a Series of Meetings Held in Edinburgh by the Above Named Gentlemen (Glasgow: George Gallie, 1846), pp. 55-58.
AMERICAN SLAVERY & THE FREE CHURCH
A fourth meeting was held on Friday evening in the Music Hall, which was crowded to excess in every quarter.
Mr Thompson, in opening the proceedings, stated that arrangement had been entered into for the purpose of placing before the public, in a cheap form, a complete record of the proceedings of the Deputation in Edinburgh and Glasgow; and concluded by introducing to the meeting Mr Frederick Douglas, the runaway slave.
Mr Douglas was received with much applause. He said, that one of the greatest drawbacks to the progress of the Anti-slavery cause in the United States was the inveterate prejudices which existed against the coloured population. They were looked on in every place as beasts rather than men; and to be connected in any manner with a slave – or even with a coloured freeman, was considered as humbling and degrading. Among all ranks of society in that country, the poor outcast coloured man was not regarded as possessing a moral or intellectual sensibility, and all considered themselves entitled to insult and outrage his feelings with impunity. Thanks to the labours of the abolitionists, however, that feeling was now broken in upon, and was, to a certain extent, giving way; but the distinction is still as broad as to draw a visible line of demarcation between the two classes. If the coloured man went to church to worship God, he must occupy a certain place assigned for him; as if the coloured skin was designed to be the mark of an inferior mind, and subject the possessor to the contumely, insult, and disdain of many a white man, with a heart as black as the exterior of the despised negro. (Cheers.)
[MADISON WASHINGTON AND THE CREOLE]
Mr Douglas then alluded to the case of Maddison Washington, an American slave, who with some others escaped from bondage, but was retaken, and put on board the brig Creole. They had not been more than seven or eight days at sea when Maddison resolved to make another effort to regain his lost freedom. He communicated to some of his fellow-captives his plan of operations; and in the night following carried them into effect. He got on deck, and seizing a handspike, struck down the captain and mate, secured the crew, and cheered on his associates in the cause of liberty; and in ten minutes was master of the ship. (Cheers.) The vessel was then taken to a British port (New Providence), and when there the crew applied to the British resident for aid against the mutineers. The Government refused – (cheers) – they refused to take all the men as prisoners; but they gave them this aid – they kept 19 as prisoners, on the ground of mutiny, and gave the remaining 130 their liberty. (Loud cheers.) They were free men the moment they put their foot on British soil, and their freedom was acknowledged by the judicature of the land. (Cheers.)
But this was not relished by brother Jonathan – he considered it as a grievous outrage – a national insult; and instructed Mr Webster, who was then Secretary of State, to demand compensation from the British Government for the injury done; and characterised the noble Maddison Washington as being a murderer, a tyrant, and a mutineer. And all this for the punishment of an act, which, according to all the doctrines ‘professed’ by Americans, ought to have been honoured and rewarded. (Cheers.) It was considered no crime for America, as a nation, to rise up and assert her freedom in the fields of fight; but when the poor African made a stroke for his liberty it was declared to be a crime, and he punished as a villain – what was an outrage on the part of the black man was an honour and a glory to the white; and in the Senate of that country – ‘the home of the brave and the land of the free’ – there were not wanting the Clays, the Prestons, and the Calhouns, to stand up and declare that it was a national insult to set the slaves at liberty, and demand reparation – these men who were at all times ready to weep tears of red hot iron – (cheers and laughter) – for the oppressed monarchical nations of Europe, now talked about being ready to go all lengths in defence of the national honour, and present an unbroken front to England’s might. (Loud cheers.)
But the British Government, undismayed by the vapouring of the slave-holders, sent Lord Ashburton to tell them – just in a civil way – (laughter) – that they should have no compensation, and that the slaves should not be returned to them – (loud cheers) – thus giving practical effect to the great command – ‘Break the bonds, and let the oppressed go free.’ (Great cheering.)
He remembered himself, while travelling through the United States happening, to be the unknown companion of some gentleman inside of a coach. It was dark when he entered, and they had no opportunity of examining into his features; and during the night a spirited conversation was kept up – so much so that he absolutely for once began to think he was considered a man, and had a soul to be saved. (Cheers.) But morning came, and with it light – (laughter) – which enabled his companions to ascertain the colour of his skin, and there was an end to all their conversation. One of them stooped down, and looking under his hat, exclaimed to his neighbour ‘I say Jem, he’s a nigger,’ kick him out.’ (Cheers and laughter.) That was a specimen of the manner in which the outcast coloured man was treated in the land of freedom and liberty. (Cheers.)
[THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND]
Well, to the land where these things were practised, and practised openly, a Deputation from the Free Church of Scotland came, commissioned to go forth and lift up their voices, and ask aid in defence of religious liberty – the liberty of conscience. They visited the slave States; where they saw God’s image abused, defaced, flogged, driven as a brute beast, and suffered to pass from time to eternity without even an intimation that they had a soul to be saved, – they saw this, and lifted not their testimony against it – (cheers, and cries of ‘shame, shame’) – no comforting hand was held out to the crushed and broken spirit of the slave – (cheers) – but they cringingly preached only such doctrines as they knew would be acceptable to the slaveholder and the man stealer. (Loud cheers.)
He would rather suffer to exhibit on his hands the burning brand of ‘S.S.’ (slave stealer) which some of his abolition brethren could do, and suffer the persecutions and dangers to which they had bee subjected, than bear on his head the sin which lay at the door of that deputation – the moral responsibility which their acts involved, and the respectability which their implied sanction gave to the traffickers in human blood. (Immense cheering, – three distinct rounds of applause.)
The feeling of prejudice, however, against the slave was not altogether confined to the United States – (hear, hear, from Dr Ritchie), – there were men in this country, too, ministers of the Gospel of Christ, who could point the finger of scorn at the ‘fugitive slave.’ There was the Rev. Mr M’Naughton of Paisley – supported by such papers as the Northern Warder and the Witness – who did not hesitate to brand him (Mr Douglas) when he visited Paisley, as a poor, ignorant, miserable fugitive slave – (loud cries of shame, shame); and what more did he say? Did he say that he would ‘send back the money!?’ (Loud cheers and laughter.) No, no, that would have been humbling to him, and insulting to the gentlemen of the New States, for whom he said he had the highest regard. Oh yes, he had given so much ‘regard’ to the purse-proud slaveholder that he had none left to bestow on the poor degraded slave. (Loud cheers.)
Now, he (Mr Douglas) did not expect such things as these when he came to this country – he did not expect to hear them from a minister of the gospel, but least of all did he expect to hear them from the Rev. Mr M’Naughton – (hear, hear,) a minister of the Free Church – man who had loaded his altar with the gold which, produced by the labour of the ‘fugitive slave,’ should have been employed in his education, and yet turns round and calls him ignorant – (loud cheers) – who built his churches with the earnings of the slave – wrung from him amidst tears of blood and sounds of woe – and yet slanders him now as a miserable fugitive. (Immense cheering.) He (Mr D) would not say that to a dog, after having taking his earnings – after having robbed him; yes, it was a hard word, but it was nothing else than robbery, he cared not who took it. (Cheers.)
But when was the money to be sent back? He would tell them; when the people of this country, out of the pale of the Free Church, came to the conclusions he had just shown them – when the full tide of popular indignation – and it was fast flowing just now – (cheers) – will not be withstood by that Church, and when her members became fully alive to the odium and disgrace they are incurring for the sake of clutching the stained hand of the man stealer – then shall the money be sent back. (Loud cheers.)
The present moment was just the very time to consider this question of Free Church contamination. They must not lay all the charge, however, on the United States – the Free Church, as a body, has given a respectability to slavery in American which it never before enjoyed – (hear, hear) – and henceforth they must bear their share of the responsibility attaching to it – the responsibility of the tears, and the agony of the slave; and the crime – the deep, black, damning crime – of the blood polluted man-stealer. (Great cheering, and some hisses.) They might rail against the ‘system,’ but so long as they sanctioned the results of that system they helped to prop up the fabric itself. (Cheers.)
He would go to the next meeting of the Free Assembly, and he believed they would not turn a deaf ear to his complaints. As they had listened to the slave-holder, surely they would not refuse to hear the slave – the ‘fugitive slave.’ (Loud cheers.) As they had received the money of the slaves, surely they would permit him to show cause why they should return it. But whether he should he heard or not, he would be there – (cheers) – and he would take his seat in a place where there would be no danger of his being overlooked or mistaken – for once seen, there was no danger of again mistaking him – (laughter) – and if he was not heard within the walls, he would take care that he would be heard without them. (Cheers.)
There was one thing which he wished to be distinctly understood, namely, that he did not abuse the Free Church for taking the money because she was the Free Church. Had it been the Relief, the Secession, or the Reformed Presbyterian, or even the Established Church itself, he would have pursued towards it the same uncompromising hostility he now showed to the Free. (Loud cheers.) But even now, he began to see something of a right spirit developing itself. Dr Candlish had moved, at a late preliminary meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, that no slaveholder should be admitted as a member. 2 (Cheers.) Why, was it come to this now, that the Evangelical Alliance was to be a purer body than the Free Church of Scotland? Why should the slave-holding, slave-selling minister be allowed to hold ‘Christian fellowship’ with the Free Church, and not with the Evangelical Alliance? – holding him as a brother in Edinburgh, and despising him as a man in Manchester? (Loud cheers.) That was a question which the voice of popular opinion would answer if Dr Candlish would not. He trusted that when the Assembly met, the same reverend doctor would make a similar motion there – repudiate the connection so disgracefully entered into – and SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Loud and prolonged cheering.)
Mr Buffum next addressed the meeting at considerable length, and showed the unmitigated horrors attendant on the slave trade under the very walls of the United States’ Senate, crowned with the emblem of liberty and freedom to all mankind. When he came to Dundee he called on the editor of the Northern Warder, the organ of the Free Church party in that quarter, and endeavoured to reason with him on the subject; but the reasons avowed for taking the money were amongst the most fallacious he ever heard. Had the Free Church not taken the money, they would never have been put to the trouble of inventing such paltry excuses as the following in justification of the course they had pursued.
The extract he would now read them was from the pen of the gentleman to whom he had before alluded: –
So far as we are personally concerned, says he, we must say that few questions have throughout appeared to us more free from difficulty and perplexity. If we want all in a good cause, we shall accept it freely and unhesitatingly from all who tender it. Whatever their creed, or their character, or the origin of their gains, it would make no difference, and constitute no difficulty in our eye, provided that they gave what they gave frankly and unconditionally, and did not ask us to receive it as specially derived from an unlawful source, so as to win from us an implied approbation of that source. If for a good cause, we say, a sum of money were placed in our hands unconditionally and without explanations, we should accept it, whoever the donor, asking no questions, for conscience sake.
But he (the editor of the Warder) went even farther, for he declared that although he had reason to believe that the giver was erring and criminal in some particular part of his conduct, still he would have accepted it – ‘asking no questions for conscience sake.’ (Cheers and laughter.) The article from which he had just quoted concluded by saying, that if the Free Church was to blame in taking the money, the cotton-spinners of Glasgow and Manchester were equally guilty, for they also had at some period made use of money, part of which was subscribed in the Slave States of America. (Laughter.)
Driven from point to point, and from position to position, these upholders of the Free Church had now descended so low as to dispute for character and standing in morality with the cotton-spinners of Manchester and Glasgow. (Great applause.)
Daniel O’Connell, the head of the Repeal agitation, when he was offered the blood stained dollars of the slave-dealer to further his darling project, refused to admit them into his treasury. (Loud cheers.) No, said he, take your money; we will not allow our honest cause to be contaminated with the price of the bodies and souls of the fettered slave. (Cheers.) And he accordingly ‘sent back the money.’3 (Great applause.) Let the Free Church take a lesson from the Irish patriot, and incalculable good would be the result. When the news reached the United States that their money had been refused by the Irish, the Repeal Associations over the length and breadth of the land were smashed to atoms and the agitation completely paralysed, and if the Free Church only followed the example – if they only ‘sent back the money,’ it would go far to strengthen the hands of the Abolitionists and send American slavery reeling to an early grave. (Great applause.)
Mr Thomson said he had received a great number of letters since he came to this city, not only giving him advice how to proceed, but holding out great hopes of his ultimate success. It was impssible that he could answer all these, he took this opportunity of returning his thanks to the writers, and he could assure them that he would endeavour, as far as possible, to carry out their suggestions. (Applause.)
A venerable father of the Free Church stated that if the money was to be sent back, it would not be done by yielding to clamour. Now, he (Mr Thompson) remembered well – it was not so long ago – (cheers) – when Dr Chalmers was as clamorous as any one – (cheers) – and did not hesitate to combine, and agitate, and clamour, through every city and town in Scotland, for the attainment of a great moral object. (Applause.) Let not the Free Church think to put down this agitation by any such means. He had been told that it was resolved on to try their strength on this point; and that they were prepared to say – ‘We won’t send back the money’ at the bidding of clamour, or at the bidding, or because of the unwarranted interference, of a third party. He was old enough to remember greater thanings than that being accomplished against as strong and powerful a body as that clerical triumvirate who were attempting to lord it over the public opinion of the people of Scotland. (Cheers.)
He remembered the time when Catholic Emancipation was carried by popular opinion – when the Test and Corporation Acts Repeal was carried against a majority of Churchmen – when the emancipation of the slaves was carried in the face of the West India interest – when the Reform Bill was passed triumphantly – and at the present moment they see almost abolished the whole system of the Corn laws. (Loud cheers.)
If the force of public opinion, therefore, was able to subdue to its mighty power, the influential party called the West India interest – the boroughmongers of the empire – and even the landed aristocracy of England, surely they need not despair of its influence being felt by Drs Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish. (Loud cheers.) Although they did attempt to stem the tide of opinion, he believed there was still as much manly spirit in the Free Church itself as would snap the manacles which this clerical triumvirate were fruitlessly endeavouring to impose on the minds of the adherents to their cause. (Loud cheers.)
Mr Thompson then proceeded, at great length to criticise the conduct of Dr Chalmers in regard to this matter; and contrasted his preface to his last pamphlet, – ‘The Economics of the Free Church,’ with certain opinions promulgated by him on a previous occasion.
At the close of his address, the meeting, which was a most enthusiastic one throughout, separated.
Edinburgh Evening Post, 6 May 1846; reprinted Caledonian Mercury, 7 May 1846
AMERICAN SLAVERY. – A fourth meeting was held on Friday evening in the Music Hall, which was crowded to excess in every quarter. Mr Thompson, in opening the proceedings, stated that arrangements had been entered into for the purpose of placing before the public, in a cheap form, a complete recording of the proceedings of the deputation in Edinburgh and Glasgow; and concluded by introducing to the meeting Mr Frederick Douglas, the run-away slave, who, in a long and eloquent address, pointed out the horrors of American slavery, and declared that if the Free Church were to send back the money, it would go far to strengthen the hands of the American abolitionists, and to send slavery reeling to its grave. Mr Thompson then shortly addressed the meeting; and said that although Drs Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish did attempt to stem the tide of public opinion on this subject, he believed that there was still as much manly spirit in the Free Church itself as would snap the manacles which this clerical triumvirate were fruitlessly endeavouring to impose on the minds of the adherents to their cause.
Scotsman, 6 May 1846
Notes
On Thompson’s interest in India see, Zoë Laidlaw, ””Justice to India – Prosperity to England – Freedom to the Slave!”: Humanitarian and Moral Reform Campaigns on India, Aborigines and American Slavery’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 22.2 (2012): 299–324 (309–24); Michael Fisher, Counterflows to Colonialism: Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain 1600–1857 (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004), pp. 285–8; and Blair B. Kling, Partner in Empire: Dwarkanath Tagore and the Age of Enterprise in Eastern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 167–78
The resolution was approved at a meeting of the Aggregate Committee of the Evangelical Alliance in Birmingham in March 1846: see Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’, p.120; Richard Blackett, Building an Anti-Slavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 97.
In a notorious speech at a meeting of the Repeal Association in Dublin on 11 May 1843, Daniel O’Connell declared his intention to refuse ‘blood-stained money’ from pro-slavery Repeal groups in the United States. The speech was reported in the Liberator, 9 and 30 June 1843, and in the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, 9 August 1843.
The Castle Hill, from Scott’s Monument, engraved by W. J. Linton , drawn by H. O. Smith, in The Land We Live In: A Pictorial and Literary Sketch-Book of the British Empire, Vol II (London: Charles Knight, [1848?]), p. 77While the Edinburgh Emancipation Society had been reluctant to organise meetings for Douglass and his associates when they shifted their base to the capital at the end of April, the women’s society welcomed them with open arms. With Henry Clarke Wright and George Thompson he was invited to address them at Rev. Mr. McGilchrist’s church on Rose Street on Wednesday 29 April.
While the brief report of the meeting, reproduced below, gives little detail of the speeches, it may serve as a reminder of the role of these women in the networks that sustained Douglass in Edinburgh in the intense weeks that followed – and later in the year when he returned. It is likely Douglass was a regular visitor to the Wigham household at 5 South Gray Street. And it is likely too that Jane and Eliza were the unnamed ‘ladies belonging to the Society of Friends’ who – according to the Witness newspaper – were observed assisting Douglass in carving the slogan ‘Send Back the Money’ on the slopes of Arthur’s Seat.2
LADIES’ MEETING IN MR. M’GILCHRIST’S CHURCH, ROSE STREET
Wednesday Evening, April 29
This meeting was most respectably attended, and was addressed by Messrs. Wright, Thompson, and Douglass, who respectively addressed the assembly upon the position and prospects of the Anti-Slavery cause, and the means which the women of this country had it in their power to employ for the good of those in bonds.
Mr. Wright reviewed the progress of the cause in America, and narrated the history of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society in Boston from the period of the famous mob of property and standing gentlemen in 1835, to the holding of the bazaar in Fanuil Hall in 1845. He concluded with an earnest and solemn exhortation.
Mr. THOMPSON dwelt largely upon the duty and desireableness of entering the Anti-Slavery cause in the true spirit of liberality, cheerfully and gratefully accepting the assistance and co-operation of all who sincerely loved the slave. He rejoiced that, in such a cause, persons of all denominations might labour together in har- [52] mony without sacrifice of principle, or any compromise of their destructive peculiarities. He described in touching terms the labours, fidelity, and unwavering zeal, of his friends in America, and called upon his hearers to esteem it a high privilege to be associated with such devoted fellow-labourers in the noble cause of human freedom.
Mr. DOUGLASS delivered a very effective speech, pointing out the great principles which united the abolitionists of America and sustained them, giving at once sublimity to their enterprise, and effect to their exertions.
All present seemed highly delighted with the proceedings of the meeting.
Free Church Alliance with Manstealers. Send Back the money. Great Anti-Slavery Meeting in the City Hall, Glasgow, Containing Speeches Delivered by Messrs. Wright, Douglass, and Buffum, from America, and by George Thompson, Esq. of London; with a Summary Account of a Series of Meetings Held in Edinburgh by the Above Named Gentlemen (Glasgow: George Gallie, 1846), pp. 51-52.
Notes
Jane Wigham to Maria Weston Chapman, Edinburgh, 23 November 1845, repr. British and American Abolitionists: An Episode in Transatlantic Understanding, edited by Clare Taylor (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1974), p. 244.
Following their two meetings in Edinburgh’s Music Hall, Frederick Douglass and George Thompson addressed a large audience in Leith on Thursday 28 May. The only report – in the Edinburgh Evening Post – does not specify the venue. It would be Douglass’ last public appearance before the debate on slavery scheduled to take place two days later on Saturday 30 May at the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. He and Thompson, as well as Henry Clarke Wright and James Buffum would observe the proceedings from the gallery.
MR THOMPSON – ANTI-SLAVERY. On Thursday evening, Mr Thompson, Mr Douglass, and others addressed one of the largest meetings ever held in Leith, on the position which the Free Church at present occupies with regard to the slavery question.
Mr Thompson stated, in eloquent and forcible terms, that, but for the Church in the United States, slavery could not exist; and that the deputation from the Scotch Free Church, by accepting of money (upwards of L.3000), as a bribe to their silence regarding the great question of slavery, had thereby identified themselves with the slave-supporting Church, and had given slavery a more lasting hold upon the minds of men in America than anything that has happened for a long period of time.
Mr Thompson stated that a few years ago he was invited to occupy the pulpit of one of our city churches by the now leaders of the Free Church, to deliver a lecture upon the sinfulness and horrors of slavery. – Drs Chalmers, Candlish, and Cunningham, and others, then sitting in the seats immediately around the pulpit, applauding all he said, and giving publicity in every possible way to his statements. Then they hailed him as a brother; but now they repudiated him as an ‘itinerant orator;’ and so ‘changed is the spirit of their dream’ that they have exhausted their ingenuity to discover Scriptural authority to sanction the diabolical traffic in human blood!
Mr Thompson was listened to with deep interest during his eloquent appeal in behalf of the slaves, and cheered throughout as fact after fact fell from his lips; and he concluded by assuring the meeting that he would not cease agitating the great cause of feedom and humanity till the Free Church ‘traitors’ were forced to ‘send back the money!’
Edinburgh, from the Calton Hill, engraved by T. A. Prior from a sketch by R. Johnson, in The Land We Live In: A Pictorial and Literary Sketch-Book of the British Empire, Vol II (London: Charles Knight, [1848?]), between pages 73 and 74.With the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland due to be held in Edinburgh at the end of May, the abolitionists planned to intensify their campaign with a series of meetings in the capital. In Glasgow they had enjoyed the support of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, who booked venues and publicised their lectures. The more cautious Edinburgh Emancipation Society was less helpful, the committee unwilling to call a meeting that might antagonise the Free Church, and it was left to Henry Clarke Wright to travel to Edinburgh on 22 April and make arrangements.1 Returning the following day he
reported that he had obtained the use of Mr. M’Gilchrist’s Church, in Rose Street, for a Public Meeting on the evening of Tuesday the 28th, and the Church of Mr French in College Street, for the evening of Wednesday the 30th; and had also arranged for a Public Meeting of the Ladies of Edinburgh, on the morning of the 30th. Messrs THOMPSON, DOUGLASS, and BUFFUM arrived in Edinburgh on Monday evening, the 27th of April, and proceeded to the York Temperance Hotel, in Nicholson Street. They were joined by Mr. WRIGHT during the following day. These gentlemen found the city in a state of deep excitement on the subject of their visit, and the vexed question to which it had reference.2
The morning after his arrival, Douglass wrote to his friend Amy Post in Rochester, New York:
I am now in Edenburgh (Scotland.) It is a beautiful city, the most beautiful I ever saw – not so much on account of the buildings as on account of its picturesque position. I have no time even had I the ability to discribe it. I am putting up at the ‘york hotel.’ There sets Geo. Thompson By the window and there sets James N. Buffum near the fire. We came here yesterday from Glasgow – and shall lecture here this evening. Scotland is all in a blaze of antislavery excitement – in consequence of our exposures of the proslavery conduct of the free church of Scotland.3
We reproduce below the lengthy report of the Tuesday meeting as it subsequently appeared in a pamphlet entitled The Free Church Alliance with Manstealers; followed by the briefer account published in the Scotsman the following day.
REV. Mr. M’GILCHRIST’S CHURCH, ROSE STREET.
Tuesday Evening, April 28th.
This spacious and commodious Church is situated in the New Town, at the back of Princes’ Street. On the present occasion it was crowded to excess, by a highly respectable audience. Not only was every pew occupied, but in every part where standing room could be obtained, whether above or below, there was a dense mass of human beings. The entrance of the speakers from the door leading from the Session-house was the signal for loud and prolonged cheers.
In a few moments Mr. George Thompson ascended the pulpit stairs, and was hailed with enthusiastic applause. Mr. Thompson appeared deeply affected by his reception, and, at the same time, to labour under deep embarrassment, arising from the nature of the duty he was about to discharge. On silence being restored, he proceeded in a low and solemn tone to say, that he desired, in the first place, to return his fervent thanks to the esteemed minister and managers of the Church in which he then stood, for their liberality and kindness in granting it on that occasion. (Loud cheers.)
He now had the extreme sorrow of addressing his friends in Edinburgh on the question of slavery under a far different aspect from that which he anticipated when he was last among them. He came (he did not hesitate to own) to oppose the Free Church of Scotland – not that he wanted to enlist their prejudices against that church as such, or decry them in public estimation as, in other respects, a body of Christians; but, inasmuch as they had, by a recent act, inflicted one of the deepest wounds on human freedom that had been experienced for a century, he should denounce that act, and do his best to bring them to repentance.
With his friends, he had celebrated the extinction of slavery in the British colonies; but little did he dream that it would ever fall to his lot to oppose in this country any Christian body on these principles, and far less that of the Free Church, who had in this matter broken the hearts of the friends of liberty, by giving the means of exultation to the slaveholders in America.
He had arrived in the city for the purpose of fearlessly stating his views on the relations of the Free Church to the momentous question of slavery. He was accompanied by gentlemen on this mission, in whose Christian principles and practice he had the fullest confidence. He came to sympathise and to identify himself with them, because he had seen epithets and charges of an invidious nature heaped against them. He had seen them associated with principles which both he and his friends deprecated. He wished to be included in the same bill of indictment with them, and what was therefore cast at them, would be thrown against him likewise. (Loud cheers.)
Within a few hours of coming to this house, I have, as John Bunyan [47] would have said, ‘lighted upon a certain[‘] pamphlet,4 made up of extracts from a book written by one of the Free Church delegates to the United States – the Rev. George Lewis of Dundee. To that pamphlet is affixed a preface, which I will also make the preface to my speech, and the ground-work of some remarks.5 This I consider both just and necessary, as my friends before you are implicated in the charges here made, as well as the characters of those who are not present to defend themselves against their calumniators. I will read this precious and anonymous specimen of Free Church clerical vilification, sentence by sentence, and give my answers to each. (Cheers.)
1. There is a party in the United States of America, which arrogates to itself distinctively the title of Abolitionists, and claims the exclusive credit of seeking the emancipation of the oppressed negroes.
To this I reply, that I know of no such party. I know of many parties who are seeking ‘the emancipation of the oppressed negroes’ – such are the Garrison party, the Liberty party, theanti-Texas party, (composed of men of all creeds in politics and religion,) the free-produce party, the Episcopal Methodist party, the American and Foreign party, and others; but not one of these claims ‘exclusive credit.’ In all, their fundamental principle is the same – all equally condemn the Free Church delegates. As a proof of this let me state, that when Mr. Lewis and his colleagues landed in America they were met by a remonstrance from the Committee representing the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society – a Society opposed to that which my friends here represent, but only in reference to the means and instrumentalities by which the common cause should be promoted; and in that remonstrance I find the following words: ‘It is with astonishment and grief that we have learned that you have commenced a tour through the slave states of this Union, with a view to solicit funds, as well of slaveholders as of other persons. Doubtless you will be warmly greeted, especially by that portion of the people who hold their fellow-men and fellow-Christians in bondage.’ ‘Will you now, as you are witnesses of that iniquity that filled you with deep disgust at a distance, make common cause with that religion, and clasp hands with its defenders, and accept their blood-stained offering. The fiend can well afford to pay you tens of thousands, for he knows that your countenance is worth millions to him. If he can purchase the silence of the successors of John Knox and Andrew Thomson, if he can number them among his allies, he may well think his victory complete.’ (Loud cheers.)
Now, my friends, let us see who signed this remonstrance, against whom the charge of heresy or unsoundness was never brought – ARTHUR TAPPAN, an office-bearer in the Presbyterian Church – (cheers) – SIMEON S. JOCELYN, a Congregational Evangelical minister at New Haven – (cheers) – LEWIS TAPPAN, a Presbyterian office-bearer in the Broadway Tabernacle – (cheers) – Theodore S. Wright, an orthodox Presbyterian minister in New York – Seth W. Benedict, a Baptist, and others, all men of the most approve evangelical sentiments. Thus have I disposed of the first sentence in this preface, and proved it to be false.6 (Cheers.) [48]
2. Many of the leaders of this party have acquired an unhappy notoriety as the prime Apostles of Infidel and Socialist principles, and their measures have been characterised by violence and recklessness.
Who the leaders are referred to are, I cannot tell, for no names are given. I believe I know the leaders of all the various Anti-Slavery parties in the United States, and, above all, I am most intimate, and have been for years, with the leaders of that party, with which my friends now present are most closely connected; and I do not know of one man among them tainted with either Infidel or Socialist principles, or who has obtained any notoriety for being so, except among those Slaveholders and their abettors, with whom Mr. Lewis took ‘sweet counsel.‘ These are those who said of our Saviour, whose cause Mr. Lewis betrayed in the southern states. ‘He hath a devil;’ and I know that the cry has been raised against all who have uplifted their voices in favour of no union with slaveholders, ‘They are Infidels and Socialists;’ but I, who know the men so reviled, know that there are no men in the world whose reverence for Christianity is deeper, or whose practice of it is ore consistent, than those here so foully and so cruelly maligned.
I tell Mr. Lewis that these men have been living the life of Christ, and have endured the spoiling of their goods, the buffeting of their persons, and the assassination of their reputation for the cause of Christ, while he has merely been bearing the name of Christ, has known only the baptism of John, and the ordination of the Presbytery – has been revelling in the hospitalities of menstealers and oppressors – has been obtaining their money by his recreant silence on the subject of their sins, and has been using his lips and his pen to cover them with the black venom of his bigotry and malice.
3. The consequence of their (the American abolitionists) extravagant proceedings, and of the more prominent positions in their counsels being taken by men whose sentiments are at variance with Christianity, with social order, and public morality, has been to detach from their ranks the large majority of those ministers and laymen in the Free States opposed to slavery, whose counsels and co-operation alone could have lent moral weight and influence to the movement.
I know not how to reply to this unsupported, scandalous, and wicked calumny. Here are no names, no quotations, no references, but a sweeping assertion that those who occupy the more prominent positions in the American Anti-Slavery Society are the enemies of Christianity, of social order, and of public morality! Come forth, thou nameless accuser of the brethren! (Loud cheers.) Come forth, I say! I publicly charge thee with falsehood of the blackest kind; – I challenge thee to support these imputations; – I defy thee to name the parties who deserve them. Did I know thee, I would brand thee to thy teeth, with forming, in ignorance or malice, a baseless and atrocious libel against the truest and the best of men. Come forth! thou moral scavenger, and then –
Thy name – thy human name – shall hang on high,
Exalted ‘midst thy less abhorred compeers,
To fester through the infamy of years.7
[49] (Immense cheers.) Oh! the vile cowardice of those who dare not discuss the merits of this question, but, forsaking the weapons of truth and manly argument, seek to silence their opponents by drawing their bowie-knives in the dark, and stabbing them to the heart. (Cheers.) Truly, the men, their weapons, and their cause, are well matched!
4. Instead, therefore, of advancing the cause of ABOLITION, these so-called Abolitionists have brought the very name into contempt, and have indefinitely postponed the dawning of the day which shall witness the breaking of the chains of the oppressed millions who groan in slavery, in the midst of a people boasting themselves the freest in the world.
Another falsehood. The men who, in their own country, have lived down mobs and persecutions – who have multiplied abolitionists by thousands, and Anti-Slavery Churches by hundreds – who have purified the New England States, and lifted the hated doctrine of Emancipation from the dust, to occupy the high places of the land, and to be spoken through the lips of Senators and Governors – who have abolished jailors and Jim Crow cars, and negro pews – who have shaken every religious denomination and society to its centre on the question – who have held their meeting in State Houses, and their bazaars in Fanuil Hall – who are feared where they were once contemned, respected by those who once reviled them, and loved with fervour, instead of being scorned with malignity – these men have brought the very name of abolition into contempt, and have postponed indefinitely the dawning of the day of freedom! Out upon such foolishness and falsehood!
Why, the very men who bought Mr. Lewis with a mess of pottage, and purchased the Free Church for the sum of £3000, would not say so. I know they rage, and foam, and fulminate in the south; I know that they sing hymns one day with dear brother Lewis, and the next drive their converted negroes to the auction block, and then attend Lynch Committees to concert measures for the overthrow of Abolitionism; but the feeling farthest from their hearts is that of contempt, or the supposition that the efforts of the Abolitionists are to be disregarded. Mr. Lewis has himself told us, in twenty different parts of his book, of their sensitiveness, their fears, and their exertions on the subject; and then he says that the very name is held in contempt. The wish is father to the thought. It is not abolition, but the name of Mr. Lewis, and the falsehood of his preface-writer, that will hereafter be held in contempt.
5. Having accomplished nearly all the mischief which was possible on the other side of the Atlantic, these quasi Abolitionists have lately sent a deputation of three of their number to this country, who are now, and have for several months back, been perambulating the land, addressing public meetings, and everywhere most efficiently sustaining, by their extravagant, reckless, and calumnious speeches, this evil reputation which American Abolitionists have so unhappily won for themselves.
‘Evil reputation’! These men are strangers, who have had nothing to recommend them but the cause they advocate, and their own talents and virtues. They have been welcomed by the sincerest friends of freedom – they have occupied numerous churches – they have received the countenance and co-operation [50] of large numbers of the members of the Free Church – they have addressed a great many public meetings, and in all have carried the hearty unanimous votes of their hearers – they are daily increasing the number of their friends and supporters, and are forcing the dignitaries of the church and the organs of Mr. Lewis to do double work, to save themselves from defeat by their former adherents – and, when all this has come to pass, they have only won for themselves the evil reputation ascribed to their brethren over the water – that is, the reputation of being Infidels, Socialists, and the enemies of Christianity, public morality and social order! (Cheers.)
Let this harmless scribe know that these gentlemen do not happen to be a deputation – further, that not one of the came here on the Free Church question, but that they are independent in their actions – uncontrolled in their movements and their plans, and that the apostacy of Mr. Lewis and his friends is the sole cause of their perambulations through the land – perambulations during which they have arraigned Mr. Lewis in his own town; who, when they challenged him to appear and justify his conduct, was non est inventus; but who, when they had left, forthwith became as valiant, or nearly so, as he had been in America, and proceeded to answer his frank and honest accusers – not with arguments but with two pages of abuse from a kindred and fraternal pen. (Cheers.)
6. The Free Church has been the chief butt of the assaults of these vagrant orators. She is the only Church which has of late years formally protested against slavery, and remonstrated with the Churches in the slave states of America with respect to its existence in the midst of them.
This is extremely edifying. For the last ten years, and during the whole of the time that the gentlemen who are now the most shining luminaries in the Free Church constellation were waging war against their Voluntary brethren, the United Secession Synod, the Reformed Presbyterians, the Relief Synod, the Baptist Associated Churches, and the Congregational Union of Scotland, have been almost every year adopting the most uncompromising remonstrances against slavery in the United States, and sending them across the Atlantic. And now we are modestly told that the Free Church – the Church that has fellowshipped slaveholders, and put the plunder of the slaves into her sustenation fund – is the only Church which has of late years protested against slavery!
But, perhaps, this writer means that she is the only Church that has protested against slavery in the same way as herself. If so, I am most entirely of his opinion. She is the only Church, bond or free, that has remonstrated against slavery by apologising for slaveholders, by taking slaveholders into her fellowship, and by receiving into her possession the substance wrung from God’s poor. From this time to the end of the world may she stand alone in this respect; and may the censure with which she is visited by a warning to other churches how they pretend to be enemies of slavery, while they give countenance, encouragement, and strength to those who support the system. I have now done with Mr. Lewis and his pamphlet. Hereafter I shall pursue a higher quarry. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. THOMPSON then commented on the conduct of Dr. Cunningham in a strain similar to that adopted at Glasgow, and con- [51] cluded by reading a challenge he had sent to the Doctor, and also caused to be placarded through the city. After some lengthened remarks on the subject, Mr. Thompson introduced Mr. Douglass.
After an able address from Mr. DOUGLASS, which seemed to produce a deep impression upon the audience,
Mr. WRIGHT then rose, and stated that he had a proposition to make, to the effect, that his friend, Mr. Douglass, should present a Memorial on this question to the Free Church Assembly at their meeting next month, signed by himself, presenting it for himself, and claiming to be heard by that body. (Immense applause.)
Mr. THOMPSON warmly seconded the proposition. Mr. Douglass had every claim to be heard. He represented three millions of slaves – he knew from experience the curse of slavery – the iron had entered his soul – the lash had scourged his back; – and as for talent, no member of the Free Assembly would be degraded by an entrance into the lists with Frederick Douglass. To the Assembly let him go; if refused a hearing, let him sit there and bear a silent testimony against the conduct of that body. (Cheers.)
He would conclude the meeting by a word of friendly warning to the Free Church. That body, or rather the leaders of that body, might think themselves strong enough to withstand the demand, but they would find themselves mistaken. The tide was rising that would bear them down if they much longer resisted. But he would rather appeal to their love than to their fears. If, then, they loved their church – if they did not wish that the light that was in her might become darkness – if they desired her usefulness, her perpetuity, and her prosperity, let them make haste to repair the error that had been committed, or as surely as she had been raised up, so surely would she be cast down, and become a bye-word and a proverb. (Cheers.)
The meeting was then concluded, and the great assembly quietly dispersed.
Free Church Alliance with Manstealers. Send Back the money. Great Anti-Slavery Meeting in the City Hall, Glasgow, Containing Speeches Delivered by Messrs. Wright, Douglass, and Buffum, from America, and by George Thompson, Esq. of London; with a Summary Account of a Series of Meetings Held in Edinburgh by the Above Named Gentlemen (Glasgow: George Gallie, 1846), pp. 46–51.
————
AMERICAN SLAVERY.– Last night, a public meeting was held in the Rev. Mr M’Gilchrist’s Church, Rose Street, on the subject of the connection of the Free Church of Scotland with the slave-holding states of America. The meeting was held under the auspices of a deputation from the Anti-Slavery Association, consisting of Mr George Thompson, Mr H. C. Wright, Mr Buffum and Mr Frederick Douglass, formerly an American slave. The church was crowded to excess by a highly respectable audience.
Mr George Thompson commenced the proceeding by a long address, in which he commented upon the conduct of the Free Church, not only in holding communion with the slave-holding churches of America, but in having allowed money, subscribed by slaveholders, to come into their treasury to pollute and defile it. Mr Thompson expressed his determination to continue his exertions from month to month, and from year to year, until the Free Church consented to send back the money. He stated that he had written a challenge to the Rev. Dr Cunningham, one of the Free Church deputation to the United States, to meet him on Wednesday evening, and discuss the subject at a public meeting.
Mr Frederick Douglass, lately an American slave, next addressed the meeting in a very interesting speech. He touchingly described the cruelties to which the slaves in the southern states of America were exposed, and showed that such of the slaveholders as made a profession of Christianity were of all others the hardest task-masters. He also touched on the subject as connected with the subscriptions received from these states by the Free Church, and gave it as his opinion that noting would have a greater moral effect in weakening the cause of slavery in America than the sending back of this money.
Mr H. C. Wright proposed that Mr Douglas should be sent to the General Assembly of the Free Church with a memorial to this effect, drawn up by himself, as the representative of the three millions of human beings now in a state of slavery in America. This was unanimously agreed to.
Scotsman, 29 April 1846; reprinted with minor variations Caledonian Mercury, 30 April 1846, and Edinburgh Evening Post, 2 May 1846
Free Church Alliance with Manstealers. Send Back the money. Great Anti-Slavery Meeting in the City Hall, Glasgow, Containing Speeches Delivered by Messrs. Wright, Douglass, and Buffum, from America, and by George Thompson, Esq. of London; with a Summary Account of a Series of Meetings Held in Edinburgh by the Above Named Gentlemen (Glasgow: George Gallie, 1846), pp. 43. Douglass addressed a ‘Ladies’ Meeting’ at the same church the next afternoon (Wednesday 29th). The next two meetings were held at College Street Church (Wednesday 29th and Thursday 30th), although Douglass did not appear to speak at them.
Frederick Douglass to Amy Post, Edinburgh, 28 April 1846, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Three: Correspondence, Volume 1: 1842–52, edited by John R. McKivigan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p. 122.
George Lewis, Slavery and Slaveholders in the United States of America: Being Excerpts from ‘Impressions of America and the American Churches’ (Edinburgh: W. P. Kennedy, 1846). The Preface to this pamphlet, as Thompson indicates, was unsigned.
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Letter from the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to the Commissioners of the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Myles Macphail, [1844]). Reprinted in the Liberator, 26 April 1844.
On Saturday 25 April, Frederick Douglass and James Buffum made their seventh appearance in Paisley in less than six weeks. Alongside were George Thompson and Henry Clarke Wright, who had joined up with them in Glasgow a few days before.
Castlehead Church, Paisley, formerly West Relief Church
As the report in the Renfrewshire Advertiser indicates, they had intended to hold one meeting at the High Church, Church Hill, but with the invitation apparently withdrawn, they held two separate meetings running concurrently. One at the West Relief Church, Canal Street, the other at the Secession Church, Abbey Close, the speakers shuttling between the two.
The meetings were also addressed by the Congregational Methodist minister Rev C.J. Kennedy, Rev. Patrick Brewster and Rev. Robert Cairns of the Secession Church on George Street, who would host a ‘Great Anti-Slavery Meeting’ featuring Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison in September.
Several speakers responded to recent disparaging and insulting remarks made by Paisley’s Free Church minister Rev. John Macnaughtan (of the High Church, Orr Square), not least Douglass himself, who was the personal target of them.
For an overview of Frederick Douglass’ activities in Paisley during the year see: Spotlight: Paisley.
THE FREE CHURCH AND AMERICAN SLAVERY
PUBLIC MEETINGS – PAISLEY
In consequence of a threatened interdict, the meeting advertised in our last, to take place in the High Church, was not held in that building. Two places of meeting were opened, namely the West Relief Church, and the Secession Church, Abbey Close, and it was arranged that the various speakers should address both meetings. The former place of meeting was crowded to overflowing. We shall give the speeches at length, as they were delivered in the Relief Church, and append a brief summary of the proceedings which took place in the Secession Church.
WEST RELIEF CHURCH
Rev. C.J. Kennedy, who was unanimously called to the chair, stated that he believed they were all aware that the object of the present meeting was to take into consideration the conduct of the Free Church of Scotland in accepting of money from slaveholders, and in holding communion with them. In consequence, he said, of a disappointment in regard to the High Church, they had to open two places of meeting; but it was arranged that all the speakers should address each audience. It was binding on them to do to others as they would that they should do to them, and in coming forward this evening in reference to the Free Church, they were acting on that principle.
That important and influential body had, in many particulars, acted nobly, and he trusted they would still do nobly in other particulars. Were they guilty of any mistake or error in their public conduct, it would be their duty to point it out and endeavour to reclaim them from it. Those who came forward risked in a manner their reputation. They would be acting a foolish part in reflecting on the conduct of persons who held such a great sway as they did, if they were not conscious of being in the right. He deemed it their duty to point out this error of the Free Church.
Two years ago, he had felt it his duty to speak against receiving the money before it went into the treasury. He felt that the Free Church was then under trial, and that it would come forth unscathed. Much did he regret that his expectations had been disappointed and that the Free Church party had proceeded to justify their conduct in the matter, and by doing so had committed a grievous wrong. They have been guilty of proceedings which may have an extensive influence for evil, for so long as the system of slavery is countenanced by such parties, so long had they reason to fear that the foul sin would be perpetrated. It was only by holding it up clearly and strongly, until it became disreputable, that they could expect to accomplish their end. As the best friends of the Free Church, they wished them to come forward and redeem their honour.
God forbid that he should feel malice towards any human being. It was only in the exercise of christian feeling that they came forward. They spoke the language of love when they said, they wished them to acknowledge the truth, and to act upon it, so as to secure their own peace, prosperity, and influence in the world. Mr Kennedy then proceeded to introduce Mr Wright, who was well known as an able friend of the cause of abolition.
Mr Henry C. Wright, of America, then came forward and said, that he appeared before them as the advocate and agent of three millions of slaves. These slaves were held in bondage in a land of bibles, a land of churches and ministers, and schools, and colleges – in a land, not of heathens, but of professed christian men. They were held in subjection by men who professed themselves to be followers of him who came to break the yoke and let the oppressed go free.
He appeared before them on account of these slaves, and every man who had a heart to feel, who had a soul to save, was bound to exert himself for the slave. He would ask, what is the condition of these three million of human beings? He would call their attention to facts which have never been denied, and never would be denied, so long as slavery existed in America. They found three millions of human beings, for whom Christ Jesus shed his precious blood, were held to all intents and purposes as property.
They were compelled to live without marriage, like sheep that wander over the mountains of Scotland. There were no such things as marriages among slaves, and the men who would seek to justify American slavery, were advocates of concubinage. He who threw around the slaveholders the garb of christianity, sought to identify adultery with the fruits of christianity, for every slaveholder in America lives in concubinage. The slaves have no more control over their young than the brute creation. Slaves seldom know a father – the children were compelled to follow the condition of the mother. His friend, Mr Douglass, never knew a father. Slaves were punished with stripes, imprisonment, and death, for teaching their children to read the bible. They were hunted with bloodhounds or shot, or perhaps hung up at the first tree, for attempting to change their ignorance into knowledge, their heathenism into christianity.
Slaves were never allowed to bear witness against their oppressors. Let the slaveholder do what he will, no slave could be brought forward in evidence against him. The slaves were fed, clothed, and disciplined, solely with a view to their being available in the market. They were even made members of churches in order that they might bring a higher price. He had seen young slaves sold as it were to prostitution. (Shame, shame.) He stated an instance of a church which required a new set of communion cups, and sold one of her own members to raise funds for purchasing it. Such was the character of the churches in America.
The abolitionists had started up, and were determined with their weapons of peace to overthrow this system – to root it out of the land. They were going on most successfully in the cause – they were enlisting the sympathies of many – their cause was taking deep root and working like leven throughout the country, when, in 1844, the deputation of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland came across their path. Christians, of various denominations throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, had adopted the principle of no fellowship with slaveholders, and recently the committee of the Evangelical Alliance at Birmingham, had passed a vote, declaring that they would not invite any slaveholder to their alliance, and if they did come, they never would be allowed to join it.1
The Free Church of Scotland went to America by their delegation – Drs Cunningham and Burns, and Messrs Lewis and Chalmers, and two or three others.2 They went, however, and they gave the slaveholders their countenance. They had obtained from the slaveholders three thousand pounds. They came back and put it into the funds, and afterwards they sought to justify their guilty position. The Free Church of Scotland, during the past year, had denounced all and sundry as enemies to the Free Church who came before them to call them to repentance.
He asked if he was an enemy to the Free Church because he told the truth? The Rev. Dr Duncan said, had a Free Church anything to do with slavery? was every Free Church to have a slave stone in it? As for him, he could not eat a common meal with slaveholders, it would choke him. Rev. Henry Grey, Moderator of the Free Assembly, had said, have we separated ourselves from our moderate brethren to hold communion with men-stealers? They could not stay in the Establishment, their consciences were so tender – they had to come out in defence of the crown rights of the Redeemer. They could not act in a school committee or a bible society with them – their consciences were so tender, they could not do it at all. (Great laughter.)
Those very consciences which could not allow them to remain in the Establishment, could stretch away four thousand miles, and say to the men-stealers, come, dear brethren, to my arms. (Immense applause.) They talked of the crown rights of the Redeemer while their hands were dipped into the blood of the American slaves.
He wondered if ever the Free Church ministers preached repentance unto sinners at all. He had been called their bitter enemy because he preached repentance to the Free Church leaders, such as Chalmers and Candlish. He was an enemy to every man who held alliance with man-stealers. The time would come when those who endeavoured to get them to send back the money would be accounted their friends.
He held in his hand what report said had been stated by a Mr Macnaughtan. He said of his friend Mr Douglass – so report came to him – that he was a poor, ignorant, runaway slave, who had picked up a few sentences, which he was pleased to retail up and down the country; and he was surprised the people of Paisley paid a penny for it. Mr Douglass needed no advocation at all from him. They had already heard his burning words. (Great cheering.)
A poor, ignorant, runaway slave! Supposing it to be true, in the name of God who made him so? The very men whom the Free Church of Scotland are taking to their bosoms as Christians. The slaves have been stripped of their earnings; and Mr MacNaughty comes forward, and by his apology for the slaveholders, helps to keep them in that state. If Mr Macnaughtan ever made these remarks he ought to go on his knees and ask pardon of the man he has thus referred to, and then on his knees to God to seek his forgiveness. They talked about them being ignorant, and not caring so much about slavery as they did. It was a pity they did not know this Rev. gentleman. It was a pity they were not Scotsmen and Free Churchmen, too, wasn’t it? – (great applause) – They would speak out – they would thunder it over Scotland until the money was sent back. Scotland would yet be shaken until the money was shaken out of it. (Cheering.)
They wished the question settled at the ensuing General Assembly. They wanted to go back to their own country. He did not accuse the Free Church leaders of not speaking against slavery in this country. He had not said so many hard things himself against it as had been said by some of them. He here went on to show the inconsistency of those who denounced slavery, and at the same time held communion with slaveholders. How would it do to denounce theft, adultery, and then take the very men who were guilty of such things to your bosoms?
Supposing that Dr. Cunningham, for instance, were reduced to the unhappy condition of a slave, and put on the common stand, and sold for a thousand pounds for being strong, and a D.D. into the bargain. (Laughter.) Supposing it were brought to the building fund, and the question asked, where did you get it, and the answer to be, oh, it is the price of Dr. Cunningham! would they take it? They would not. If then they would not take the price of Dr. Cunningham, how dare they take the price of the poor imbruted African? What is Dr. C. better than the poor slave? They would not give the right hand of fellowship to the man who would sell him as a slave? How then dare they do it to those who enslave the African.
They say, ‘we got the money of the community – we applied to the community, and much of the money was given by slaves, and by those who were not slaveholders.’ Dr. Cunningham might as well say they got the money from the dogs, for no slave could own anything – all belonged to his master. They might as well say the horse owned the grass on which he was feeding. The slaveholders might give the slaves money to put into the box, but the slave had not a farthing which he could call his own.
He wished the Free Church to recede from its guilty position. Let Mr MacNaughty say what he pleased about them, would that justify him? He said they were strangers – send back the money, and they would talk about that. They were not of accredited characters – send back the money, and they would talk of that also. (Tremendous applause.) This Mr MacNaughty said, he was willing to discuss the question with any man who was a clergyman. He would not discuss it with a layman. He was told he was a logician – a man of talents. He was not afraid of him, however; and he would tell him, he was a minister in his own country. He would meet him at any place, in Glasgow or this town, after 1st May, Friday – he would be happy to meet him. (Loud cheers.) He would not have him shrink from this business, on the ground that he had no minister with whom to discuss it. If he wanted proof of his being a minister, he would give him plenty of it. (Cheers.)
He would call on him to vindicate the Free Church in its own position. He charged them with going to America and forming an alliance with slaveholding churches, and with taking their money with which to build their churches in Scotland. Dr Chalmers had declared, that on the keeping of the money depends the keeping of the fellowship. Of course, it would not be honest of them to keep the money and give up the fellowship, as it was on account of the fellowship the money was obtained. (Tremendous applause.) Send back the money – let that be the watchword. (Applause.)
If they cut loose the fellowship, they might go all over the south, but let them prepare themselves for a halter; for if they went there he believed they would be hung up at the first tree. They could not preach the gospel there. How could a man preach the gospel when his hand was interlocked with the man-stealer’s? (Loud applause.) He asked the Free Church leaders to come out and redeem their characters in the sight of the whole world. If they would only send it back with a kind affectionate letter, saying, that their ignorance led them astray, they might do something to redeem their lost characters.
A Relief Church minister, a short time ago, had offered to become responsible for a hundred pounds, if they would send it back. He felt that Scotland was implicated in this matter, because the Free Church pretends to represent the moral sentiment of the people of Scotland. Shall it go abroad over the world, that the Free Church did represent the public sentiment of the people of Scotland? (Cries of no, no.) They would not dare to say that Scotland was with them. They could not say that Paisley was with them. (Continued applause.) Their actions showed that they would not sit idle and see wrong inflicted on their brethren across the Atlantic.
The Free Church party said that the slaveholders were not to blame – that they found themselves unhappily in that condition, and that they could not get out of it. Why, the pickpocket might just as well say that he found himself unhappily in the condition of a pickpocket. The horse-stealer or the sheep-stealer might say in his dungeon, that he found himself unhappily in the condition of a robber. In order to get out of their difficulty, they said that slaveholding was not a sin which should exclude a man from church membership, but the holding of a man as property was. What was the difference? It would surpass all logic to show the difference. He was ashamed to see men to stultify themselves. Did they think to blind the eyes of the people of Scotland with their nice distinctions? (Great applause.) They wanted to get out of the predicament in which they found themselves placed, by a most miserable argument. They tried to make a hole in the wall, but it was not big enough to let them out. (Great laughter.) Was every Free Church to have a slave stone or stave, wet with the blood of the slave? (Applause.) If not, SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Immense cheering.)
At a place where he was lecturing lately, there was something discovered oozing out from the stones of the Free Church, and a person who was looking on very innocently, wondered if it was blood. Whenever they talked of their sufferings, their persecutions, tell them to SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Loud cheers.) Dr. Andrew Thomson of Edinburgh said, he scorned to argue the question with men who could search through the bible seeking for apologies for their foul transactions. He wished he could now see the men who should not sit in communion, or on a committee with ministers of the Establishment, and yet could hold fellowship with slaveholders.
Another argument which they had used was, that the laws make slaves, and that they are compelled to obey them. But who made the laws? It was the slaveholders and their abettors who made the laws, and then the Free Church came in and justified them on account of these laws. (Applause.) Burn all such laws at the stake, as Luther did the Pope’s bull. (Continued applause.) Let them plant themselves on the principles of eternal justice, and say to the slaveholder, ‘You are the despoiler of our brethren, and against you the respectability of the world shall close the door of admission.’ (Prolonged cheering.)
Let them, when they come to their shores, wander about as vagabonds. Let every denomination in Scotland take up this ground, and then the slaveholder will, as he ought to be, be an outcast, and will be obliged to stagger alone under the load of his guilt and infamy. (Cheers.)
He wished to call their attention to another point. They were told that slavery was an institution in America, and that we must blame the institution, and not the men. But who support the institution, if it be not the men? The Free Church party had all their hard words for the slaveholders. (Cheers.)
Mr Thompson here entered the meeting amidst a simultaneous burst of applause, on which Mr Wright said, that Mr Thompson had laboured faithfully in the cause of emancipation for fifteen years, and he would cheerfully leave the matter in such hands. Mr Wright then left the meeting, to proceed to the assemblage in the Abbey Close Secession Church.
Mr George Thompson came forward amidst tremendous cheering, and said, Mr Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen, you are aware that we were all taken by surprise. We thought that when there [were] so many of us, the duty devolving on each would be light; but on coming here, we found the interest so great as to demand two meetings, and I therefore had to open one meeting and continue to speak in another.
Allow me, in the first place, to state the reasons which brought me before the people of Scotland at this time. I witnessed with extreme regret the conduct of the Free Church of Scotland. I found that they went to the southern states of America heedless of the remonstrance which met them on the shores of that country, and that there they held communion with slaveholders.3
My excellent, beloved brother, Frederick Douglass, has come to Scotland to get the stigma taken off your character, which has been brought on it by this party. When invited to join my American friends, I gladly made a considerable sacrifice. I was anxious to identify myself as far as possible with them in their labours in this country – not that I deem my testimony worth anything, but that it might serve to remove any suspicions with regard to the motives with which they are animated. I was anxious that I might united with them in their labours to get the Free Church to SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Great applause.)
I wish to guard against the imputation of being inimical to the Free Church of Scotland. Her position I have often regarded with admiration. I can have no uncharitable motive in coming here to run down the conduct of the deputation who went to America. Some of them I have known for years. I have no controversy with them save on public grounds. I assail not their character, but it appears to my mind that they have committed a fatal error, and that they ought to retrace their steps and SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Tremendous cheering.)
As you know I have traversed a large portion of Scotland, I have held intercourse with parties both in and out of the Establishment. I have appealed to them on behalf of the slave, but never until recently was there a minister to be found, either in or out of the Establishment, who would go to America and gather money from the slaveholders to support their church. (Cheers.)
I will relate to you a circumstance which happened several years ago. While lecturing on American slavery, I was gratified by having a requisition presented to me, signed by ministers of the Establishment, two Episcopalians, and others, requesting that I would give a lecture on the duties of American christians in regard to American slavery. I complied, and I found the place of meeting crowded from floor to ceiling. Most of the requisitionists were present. The whole scope and tendency of my discourse went to prove the criminality of the churches on the other side of the Atlantic, and the duty of christians in this country to hold no fellowship with them. Was I blamed for doing that? No; the prayer which commenced the proceedings breathed the same spirit. I showed how revolting was the spectacle of man supporting that system whose cry was for liberty. I called it a system which put out the eyes of the slave, withholding from them their individual responsibility in making another man’s will their guide, and in leaving them to grope in darkness to an unknown eternity beyond the grave. These sentiments were concurred in by all my friends. Judge of my surprise, therefore, when I found myself called upon to expose the conduct of the Free Church of Scotland. (Cheers.)
I shall relate another circumstance:– In 1833 I was presented in London with a small volume, entitled, ‘A Picture of American Slavery.’ It was written some years before, in America, by a gentleman who had been for nearly twenty years a christian clergyman in America, who felt it his duty to bring his influential testimony to bear against slavery. This book I presented to a friend in Edinburgh, who gave it to a minister of the Church of Scotland. He sent for me. I went and breakfasted with him. Our whole conversation turned on American slavery in connexion with the churches. This minister of the Church of Scotland told me, that of all the aspects of American slavery at which he had looked, no one of them was more horrible than its connection with the christianity of that country. He considered that those religious bodies who were connected with slavery ought not to be acknowledged by christians on this die of the Atlantic. Subsequently this book was published, with an addition by this clergyman. It was published in Glasgow, and he referred to it as an illustration of voluntaryism and republicanism.
I wonder whether the same clergyman would hold the same language now? The object of this work was to exhibit the real character of American slavery, and to suggest the only remedy for it. It asked how this desolating course of slavery could be effectually extirpated – what was necessary for its overthrow? It said that every slaveholder must be peremptorily, and without delay, excommunicated from the church – no matter what rank he might hold. If asked why excommunicate them? The answer ought to be – they are men-stealers, and therefore they cannot be christians, therefore it is an insult to the gospel to call them christians. (Great cheering.)
I pledge myself that for every expression which ever I used, or any of my friends, I will find something stronger in this little book, which was reprinted by this clergyman. He did more than reprint it. He wrote a preface to it, and he drew special attention to the fact of ministers of Christ holding communion with slaveholders. And what clergyman was this? He was one who went to America, slept in the bed of the slaveholder, partook of his dainties, rode in his carriage, and gathered up three thousand pounds, and came back again to apologise in the General Assembly of the Free Church for the slavery of the United States. Well, but who was this? It was not Dr Burns – it was not Mr Lewis – it was not Dr Chalmers – it was none of these. It was Dr Cunningham.4
Now, there is something abominable in such conduct – (great cheering) – and I would speak much stronger if he were before me, but I hope to see him in Edinburgh. – (continued applause.) There I shall speak to him of the dastardly conduct of endeavouring while in the Establishment to throw abuse on the dissenters; and then, when he is himself a dissenter, going to the very country from which he has drawn his illustrations, and holding fellowship with the men who he was glad to compare with the English voluntaries. (Applause.)
I have obtained what I am sure is an authentic report of a speech delivered in this town on Tuesday last. The speaker, a Mr Macnaughtan, seems to have been very full of his subject on that occasion. He had the subject of Popery given him on which to speak, but he chose to take up the subject of American slavery and vindicate the conduct of those who went to that country. He says that we are not called on to discriminate between the offerings of men – to look into the character of those who contribute to the support of the church. I grant him all that he contends for in this respect. He said that we were not to examine what people put into the plate, and therefore we had no right to cry out about the acceptance of money from America.
I contend that the cases are not parallel. If the slaveholders had sent their contributions to the Free Church unsolicited, and if the Free Church had accepted of them, they would have been more excusable, but not justifiable. What is the fact? These men went to America. They were met with a remonstrance from some of the best men in the country, and in the fact of this they set out to the slaveholders. They volunteered to receive their contributions, and then, when they come home, we are not to be anxious to discriminate between the contributions in the porch of the house of God. (Applause.)
You may not be aware of the fact, that these gentlemen closed their lips, and entered into a solemn compact, that if they gave them out of their riches they would be dumb in regard to the abominations of slavery. I say this deliberately and advisedly. Wilfully they did sell the truth for the purpose of obtaining contributions to the Free Church. (Loud cheers.)
They said they preached the gospel. What is the gospel for? It is to change the hearts of men. How did Paul preach the gospel? He preached it by applying it to those around him. The gospel could not be preached unless prevailing sins were rebuked. (Cheers.) In America, the delegation did deliberately suppress the truth in order to get the contributions. If they had said anything against slavery, they would have suffered for it. Modern times has not furnished us with a more flagrant piece of ministerial profligacy than the conduct of these men. They went across America, well knowing the feelings of Scotland in regard to the subject of slavery. The majority of the people would have received them back in rapture if they had set their faces strenuously against slavery. They knew this, but they went deliberately to the slaveholders and came home with three thousand pounds – the fruits of robbery. It was plundered from the negroes. (Great cheering.)
Candlish, Cunningham, and their colleagues, well know that the main prop of slavery in America is the corrupt christianity existing in the south. Dr Cunningham would have found a felon’s fate if he had preached the gospel in its purity there. I should like to know from what part of the bible they preached to those men-stealers, those woman-floggers. Did they ever take for their text – ‘thou shalt not steal?’ (Cheers.) Did they ever preach from the words, ‘I am come to preach deliverance to the captive,’ &c.? Did they ever discourse from the words ‘the labourer is worthy of his hire,’ or, ‘go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl,’ &c.? No, not one of these texts did they ever choose. (Prolonged cheering.)
Can any thing present to your minds a more appalling state of things, than to reflect that four ministers, three of whom used their exertions with me in this country for the abolition of slavery, went to America, crossed the Potomac, and never uttered a sentence on the subject of American slavery? (Great cheering.) Was that a place for ministers of a Free Church? Was it a place for those who would not sit in a school committee with a minister who favoured Erastianism? The Free Church of Scotland has the fruits of robbery in her treasury. What is her duty? SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Cheers.)
Will you now help us to arouse this country, till an universal shout shall be heard from John o’ Groats to the Tweed, of – SEND BACK THE MONEY? (Great applause.)
Teach your children to lisp it in the streets when they see a black coat and a white cravat – SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Prolonged cheering.)
Why send it back? Because it is not yours. It belongs to the slave. (Cheers.) It is the price of blood – (loud cheers) – it is the price of the desecration of bodies and souls in the United States. (Continued applause.) If it remains, it is a canker-worm which will eat out the vitals of the church. Will you continue to build churches for the ministers of Scotland with money obtained from those who have robbed the poor of it – SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Loud applause.)
Let your very walls become preachers. Write on Knox’s monument – SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Continued applause.) Go to the Calton Hill and write on the pillar raised in memory of Nelson – SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Tremendous cheers.)
What have the Free Church ministers done? They have endeavoured to vindicate slavery by making it appear that the apostles countenanced it. Will they send back the money? (A voice, no.) Yes, they will. (Great cheering.) Why will they? Because the truth is omnipotent. I promise they shall have a yearly visit, so long as they keep it. (Cheers.) Forty-nine out of fifty of their church members will say – SEND IT BACK. They know, however, that their ministers are against them. When will they send it back? Just when there is enough of outward pressure. (Continued cheering.)
Now, we will apply this pressure. You who are Free Churchmen look at this matter? Many have said that they will not contribute to the support of the Church until it be sent back. SEND BACK THE MONEY, and don’t retard the progress of emancipation. (Applause.)
This money transaction has done more than all the slaveholders could do to rivet the chains of the slave. I feel as strongly for the slave as if I were still engaged pleading his cause in America. We are told that slaveholding is a sin, and the slaveholder ought to be dealt with as the sinner. The slaveholders are, however, living in open undisguised sin, and yet they are members of the southern churches. Some of them go so far as to exclude ardent spirits, theatres, and cards, while the sacrilegious monsters will sell their own children. We are told that the slaves would not have their liberty although they could get it, and one slaveholder brought forward a slave, pointing to him, as happy, and saying that he could not have his liberty although he could get it, he was so well off. He asked the slave if he would have his liberty. The slave said, ‘Will you try me, Massa?’ (Laughter.) The slaveholder was too good a judge to try him.
Let any of these clerical slaveholders, who see lions in the way, call their slaves together, and they would find they were willing to encounter all the difficulties that lay in the way of their obtaining freedom. It has been said that there are laws to prevent emancipation. There is not a law in America to prevent this.
Mr Macnaughtan admits that slaveholding is a sin. Why, then, does he tamper with it? His excuse is that it is among those things which are to be progressively extirpated by the mild influence of the gospel. We don’t deal in this way with other sins. The argument has been answered a thousand times over, and it is lamentable to find a minister of the Free Church resorting to it.
I hope you will swell the cry, SEND BACK THE MONEY – (great applause) – and lest my friend should not tell you when he rises, I may say that in all parts of Scotland, wherever he and his brethren may have gone, they have found a hearty response. There is but one opinion among the people, and it is that the money should go back. The Evangelical Alliance has repudiated the slaveholders, and shall Scotland cling to the accursed thing! Forbid it, sons and daughters of Scotland!! (Great cheering.) Swell the cry – SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Vociferous cheers.)
We shall hold meetings on the subject in Edinburgh next week, to which we invite all Free Churchmen. I shall now however give place, as I want you to hear a piece of property speak. (Laughter.) He bears on his back the marks of the bloody scourge, but in the providence of God he has attained to the full measure and stature of a man. (Tremendous cheers.) He is a living refutation of the saying that there are three millions of human beings in America who dare not be trusted with their freedom – who, if left to themselves, would fall on their knees, and crave some grass like Nebuchadnezzar (Prolonged cheering.)
This (pointing to Mr Douglass) is one of those gems taken from the mine from which no precious ore was said to be extracted. (Great cheering.) Do not wonder though he should urge you to SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Great applause.) Welcome him, adopt him, and however others may denounce, let the people of Scotland ever cry, SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Loud and long-continued cheering.)
Mr James N. Buffum then rose and said, that it would ill become him to occupy any great portion of their time that evening. He would, however, be permitted to say a few words on this most interesting occasion. Of all the meetings at which he had been present, this, and the one from which he had just come, had been the most interesting. He said that he could breathe, as it were, more freely than usual. The people were beginning to look at the matter through the mystery which doctors of divinity had thrown around it, and were seeking with the understanding which God had given them.
He had thought at first that the people of Scotland were indifferent, but he had since learned that they were not indifferent to every thing which concerned the vital interests of humanity. When he came down this evening, Mr Douglass and himself were congratulating themselves that they would have an evening’s leisure. They found, however, when they came to town that the excitement was so great, that they would have two large meetings. The place from which he had come was crowded.
He had to express his gladness at the meetings which they had had in Paisley. When here last time, they had called upon all to come forward. They had said that if any one had a word to say in defence of the Free Church let him say it. A Mr Macnaughtan had since come forward, and had seen fit to brand his friend Douglass with ignorance. Suppose that he was so. He has been in the prison-house of slavery, and now Mr Macnaughtan comes forward and reviles him because he cannot see. (Great cheers.)
They had gone to Dundee, and the Free Church had used all their influence to get the churches closed against them. They had tried to injure their reputation, but he had told them that, although they succeeded in making them black, it would not make the Free Church white.
When in Greenock making our charges against Dr Macfarlane, we said that it he had anything to complain of, let him come out. An individual said if we want to match you, we will send out a dusty baker. He said he would rather run the risk of getting the flour off his coat, than the blood off Dr Macfarlane’s hands.
Mr Macnaughtan said he was astonished that the people of Paisley paid a penny to hear them. This meeting he considered was such as to establish the character of Paisley. (Cheers.) He said they had no enmity to the Free Church – they only wished them to SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Loud cheers.)
He sat down by expressing his satisfaction with the reception they had met with in Paisley.
Mr Frederick Douglass, who was received with loud and prolonged cheering, came forward and said, Ladies and Gentlemen, with my friend Buffum, I did not expect I would be required to say anything to-night. I have spoken in Paisley now seven times, and have managed to present some new facts on each occasion, and I am not at a loss for facts to-night, to warm your sympathies into love for the bondsman, to cheer you with the hope of ultimate success in this glorious enterprise.
A deed has been committed by a party in your land which has had the tendency to strengthen the hand of the tyrant, and to darken the prospects of the poor, down-trodden slave in the United States. (Cheers.) It has been committed by professing christians, and it has had the effect of spreading gloom over the prospects of the poor bondsman. We are here for the purpose of dispelling that gloom, and of brightening those prospects. (Cheers.)
Let us contemplate this system, holding as it does in its grasp, three millions of those for whom the Saviour died. In the midst of these there is no marriage. Wives, sisters, husbands, think of this in the midst of a people calling themselves christians, so many living without this ordinance, without bibles, denied the privilege of learning to read the word of God – driven like dumb cattle to the fields – robbed of their identity with the human family. This, my friends, is the condition of three millions of people within two weeks’ sail of this land.
A case occurs to my mind at present, where a husband and wife were brought to the auction mart. The wife was sold to one man and the husband to another, and the husband looked imploringly to the man who had bought his wife. But the wife was to go one way and he another. The husband asked to shake hands with the wife for the last time. He attempted to do it. He was struck on the head, and when let go, he fell down dead. His heart was broken!
Who is responsible for slavery? The Free Church of Scotland has made itself responsible for slavery, by regarding these men as the followers of the meek and lowly Jesus. Think of this, christian men and women of Scotland! (Great cheering.) This religious denomination, claiming the high and holy title of Free – to be the exponent of all that is good and holy in the moral and religious sentiments of Scotland, comes forward and holds up the slaveholder as being a christian, and then when I have thrown off my fetters, found my way here, and attempted to speak on behalf of my brethren, do they say welcome, bondsman, come let us see your wrongs and we are prepared to redress them.
No. Mr Macnaughtan brands me as being a poor, miserable, fugitive slave – ignorant, fugitive slave. I would not say anything of the origin of that gentleman – I will not call attention to his rise, progress, and present position. (Great laughter.) I presume, however, I should not trace him to any extraordinary ancestors. I esteem him nothing less a man on that account. I esteem him as much as though he stood in close relationship to Prince Albert – (great applause) – but there is a degree of audacity, such as I did not expect to witness on the part of any Free Church clergyman, in the case of Mr Macnaughtan calling me an ignorant, degraded, fugitive slave. (Great applause.)
Only let us look at it. The man whose pockets are lined with the gold with which I ought to have been educated, stands up charging me with ignorance and poverty. (Great applause.) The man who enjoys his share of the three thousand pounds taken from the slaveholder, and robbed from the slave, stands up to denounce me as being ignorant. (Continued cheering.) Shame on him. (Cheers.) I should like to see the inside of his breast; there cannot be a heart of flesh there. There must be a stone or a gizzard there. (Great cheering.) Let him launch out that gold and I shall undertake to educate a number of slaves, who will in a few years be able to stand by the side of Mr Macnaughtan. I do not feel at all chagrined by the notice he has taken of me. I rather feel a degree of pride from what he has said of me. (Cheers.) I do feel a thrill of grateful pleasure, more so than I would at the most glowing penegyric which my friend Mr Thompson could bestow. I will tell you why. Macnaughtan has linked himself with the slaveholder, and he cannot therefore have any sympathy with a slave. (Great applause.)
The interest of the one is antagonistic to the other. The slave runs and the slaveholder sets his dogs on him to catch him and bring him back. The slave works, and the slaveholder takes the produce of his labour. When a slave comes here to plead their cause, Macnaughtan calls him a poor, miserable, fugitive slave. (Cheers.) Macnaughtan wont get rid of us by any such statements. The Free church has got to SEND BACK THAT MONEY. (Applause.)
There is no mistake about it. They could not deny that the delegates went to America and preached only such doctrines as would be well received. They did not utter one word of sympathy for the slave, nor a sentence of condemnation of those who held them in that condition; but they clothed them in the garb of christianity. The Free Church must SEND BACK THE MONEY. Let this be the theme in every town in Scotland. If they say an ignorant man is not a fitting advocate of the anti-slavery cause, I say SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Applause.) There is music in the words, my friends. (Cheers and laughter.)
In Arbroath there was painted in blood red capitals, SEND BACK THE MONEY. A woman was sent to wash it, but the letters still remained visible, SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Great applause.) A mason was afterwards got to chisel it out, but there still was left in indelible characters, SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Cheers.)
I want men, women, and children to send forth this cry wherever they go. Let it be the talk around the fireside, in the street, and at the market-place – indeed, everywhere. It is a fitting subject even on the Sabbath-day. The Free Church is doing more for infidelity and atheism than all the infidels in Scotland combined. (Great applause.) For what says the infidel? ‘If Christ be not opposed to slavery it is the best reason in the world why we should not regard him as a divine being at all.’ (Cheers.) By opposing the Free Church you do a work of Christianity. You do something to hasten the spread of that gospel whose tendency will be to take the chains from off the limbs of three millions of people. If we don’t have that BLOOD-STAINED MONEY SENT BACK, one thing we shall have accomplished by holding these meetings – that the majority are with the oppressed and against the oppressor. (Loud cheers.)
Dr Chalmers has said that it would be most unjustifiable to deny the slaveholder christian fellowship. Scotland and the slaveholder at one! Shall it be so? (No, no.) The people are with us in Arbroath, Dundee, Aberdeen, Montrose, Greenock, Glasgow – and they will be with us in Edinburgh. (Loud applause.) We wish to have Scotland, England, Ireland, Canada, Mexico, and even the red Indians with us, and against slavery. We want to have the whole country surrounded with an anti-slavery wall, with the words legibly inscribed thereon, SEND BACK THE MONEY, SEND BACK THE MONEY. (Long and continued cheering.)
Mr Buffum offered a few further observations.
Mr Paton of Glasgow impressed on the Ladies of Paisley the propriety of sending contributions to the anti-slavery bazaar, which is held annually at Boston.
Mr George Thompson then said, that they had had a most delightful meeting. He believed Mr Macnaughtan had said Mr Douglass dealt in scattered sentences, and that those who came to hear him had been misled into the belief that he was indulging in eloquence. It would not have sounded like eloquence in the ears of so polished a gentleman as Mr Macnaughtan. They had heard so much pathos, argument, religious truth, and persuasive eloquence, that he was afraid they would all go away and commit the same error – (Cheers.) – that they would still say their friend was eloquent. If eloquence was that which could rouse the indignation of the people of Scotland against slavery, then his friend Douglass was the most eloquent man in the world.
Mr Thompson then read the following resolution, which he said he had written on the platform, for the adoption of the meeting.
That, regarding slavery as essentially sinful, and its practice under all circumstances as contrary to the commands of God and the spirit of the gospel, we are of opinion that there should be no christian fellowship with slaveholders, and that it is derogatory to the principles, and insulting to the character of Christianity to derive any pecuniary assistance from the gains of so guilty a system, knowing the source from which such gains have been obtained; and that, therefore, the Free Church of Scotland ought to send back the money obtained from the slaveholders of the United States. (Great applause.)
He had occupied their time for a few minutes before submitting the resolution to them, in order that they might have recovered from the eloquence of Mr Douglass. (Cheers.) He thought, however, that now they would be able to pronounce an impartial judgment.
He thought that Mr Douglass had deepened their impressions of the enormity of slavery, and they would be more than ever resolved to labour in the cause while they lived. They had a great work to do in Scotland; let them therefore go forward with renewed exertions. Let them not feel to do their duty. He entertained respect for Dr. Chalmers, but while he lived he would denounce the act of which the Free Church had been guilty. (Prolonged applause.) He hoped that the next time he saw them he would be congratulating them on the sending back of the money, and sending back the money meant disfellowshipping the slave-churches.
Mr Thompson sat down amidst great applause. The resolution was seconded by Mr James Waterson, and carried by acclamation.
A vote of thanks then closed the proceedings.
SECESSION CHURCH, ABBEY CLOSE.
Mr Andrew Nairn was called to the chair. The proceedings were commenced by
Mr George Thompson, in a speech of about an hour’s duration.
Mr Buffum followed, and Mr Thompson left the meeting to proceed to the Relief Church.
Mr Douglass next addresed the audience amidst great applause.
Mr Wright afterwards came forward, and Messrs. Buffum and Douglass retired to the other place of meeting. Mr Wright offered to discuss the subject with Mr Macnaughtan, and proposed that a committee be appointed by the present meeting to wait upon Mr Macnaughtan and inform him of the same.
Rev. Patrick Brewster said, that as Mr Macnaughtan might not admit Mr Wright was a minster, and as he was unwiling Mr Macnaughtan should have a loop-hole through which to escape, he, (Mr B.) would offer his services. (Great cheering.)
The following gentlemen were proposed as a deputation, viz., Rev. Robert Cairns, Mr Nairn, and Mr Masson.
Mr Cairns said he would rather some other person were appointed in his room, as it would be better not to have any minister in the deputation. He had come there that night because he had taken a deep interest in the cause; and he regretted that any minister belonging to this town should have uttered such unfeeling language regarding Mr Douglass as Mr Macnaughtan had done.
Mr Pinkerton was then appointed in place of Mr Cairns, and after a vote of thanks to the Chairman the meeting dismissed.
Renfrewshire Advertiser, 2 May 1846
Notes
The resolution was approved at a meeting of the Aggregate Committee of the Evangelical Alliance in Birmingham in March 1846: see Iain Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’: The Free Church of Scotland and American Slavery (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2012), p.120; Richard Blackett, Building an Anti-Slavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 97.
On the composition of the Free Church delegation to the United States, which also included Henry Ferguson, see Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’, p. 14.
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Letter from the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to the Commissioners of the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Myles Macphail, [1844]). Reprinted in the Liberator, 26 April 1844.
[George Bourne], Picture of Slavery in the United States of America (Glasgow: University Press, 1835). The Preface to this Scottish edition was unsigned. According to a report of a meeting on Thursday 30 April at South College Street Church, Edinburgh, George Thompson remarked that he had received a letter from Dr Cunningham which stated ‘that he was not the author of the preface to the book “A Picture of American Slavery,” which was republished in this country in 1835’: Scotsman, 2 May 1846.
At a major public meeting at Glasgow’s City Hall on Tuesday 21 April, Frederick Douglass and James Buffum were joined by the English abolitionist George Thompson, who had long enjoyed a close relationship with the Glasgow Emancipation Society who organised the meeting. They were also rejoined by Henry Clarke Wright, who had parted company with Douglass and Buffum in February to undertake his own six-week speaking tour of the Scottish Borders.
The focus of the meeting was the Free Church of Scotland, facing its most impressive onslaught yet from the abolitionists, for its refusal to break fellowship with its counterparts in the United States. This marked the intensification of their campaign, which would move to Edinburgh the following week, in anticipation of the annual General Assembly of the Free Church which would open at the end of May.
This is one of the few occasions where the abolitionists faced dissenting voices at their meetings. While, as Buffum noted in his speech, earlier invitations to Free Church supporters to debate with them in public – in Montrose, Dundee and Duntocher – had been declined, here in Glasgow, they got an opportunity to respond to their critics in person.
THE SLAVEHOLDERS’ MONEY AND THE FREE CHURCH
A public meeting of the members and friends of the Glasgow Emancipation Society was held in the City Hall, on Tuesday evening, the 21st April, for the purpose of massing a memorial to the General Assembly of the Free Church, imploring them to renounce Christian fellowship with American slaveholders, and to SEND BACK THE MONEY. The meeting was a very large and influential one; the platform was crowded by the Committee, and other friends of emancipation; and, on the motion of George Watson, Esq. Councillor turner was called to the chair.
The Chairman, after expressing the high gratification which he felt at seeing so large an assemblage met for so important a purpose, and the pleasure which it afforded him to be called upon to preside on such an interesting occasion, then introduced
Mr Henry C. Wright of America, who was received with applause, and proceeded to say – Mr. Chairman, I am happy once more to be permitted to address an assembly, over whose deliberations you are called to preside. Trained in the school of popular, peaceful agitation, you have long stood firm to the great principles of human freedom; when many have become faint of heart and pliant in disposition, even to the sacrifice of truth, you have for near half a century been the unfaltering advocate of the ppoor man’s rights and the friend of the oppressed, wherever the tyrant’s frown and the slaveholder’s lash and chain have been seen and felt. (Applause.)
Sir, there is no need to remind this great gathering of men and women of the object of this meeting. The papers, the pulpits, and the walls of Glasgow, the three past days, have proclaimed this to city and country. ‘The Free Church of Scotland’ – ‘American Slaveholders’ – ‘Send back the Money.’ ‘Annul that Covenant with death, and that agreement with hell’ – are the rallying words of this meeting. (Great cheering.)
In the name of three millions of slaves in a land of boasted freedom – in the name of my self-sacrificing, noble coadjutors in the cause of anti-slavery in America – and impelled by emotions of sincere gratitude in my own bosom, I tender my warmest thanks to the Secretaries and to the Committee and friends of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, for their efficient aid in the cause of the American slave.
[8] Scotland is in a blaze. Well may she be, for a large and influential party, professing to represent the moral and religioius sentiment of her people, have done that, which, if not repented of an undone, must end in deep and indelible disgrace to all concerned. The Free Churuch has been arraigned at the bar of public opinion, and the decision of the people of Scotland, of all denominations, is being registered upon their doings in reference to American man-stealers. Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, Arbroath, Montrose, Aberdeen, Hawick, Galashiels, Berwick, Coldstream, Kelso, Melrose, Paisley, Kilmarnock, Greenock, Ayr, and many other of the towns and villages of Scotland, have heard and responded to the remonstrance of the American slaves against the Free Church alliance with their kidnappers. The word has gone forth, and has been echoed through glens, and from mountain to mountain all over Scotland, saying to the Free Churuch, ‘Send back the money; annual the covenant with death.’ Thanks are due to the Glasgow Emancipation Society – under God – for this agitation, so cheering to the humane and Christian heart. (Cheers.)
I wish to be understood – I arraign before the tribunal of this kingdom and the world, not the people of the Free Church, but the General Assembly of that church, and its leaders – Drs Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish. The people were not consulted in this guilty participation with man-stealers in their ungodly gains. Nine out of ten of the Free Church people would have said – ‘Touch not the price of blood;’ and now the blood-money has been solicited and obtained by their leaders, and put into the treasury, they would say, ‘Send back that money – it is the price of our Saviour, bought and sold in the persons of his little ones. (Great applause.)
When William Lloyd Garrison first raised the standard of the immediate abolition of slavery in America, he announced that Christianity was his only instrumentality to accomplish the end. This sentiment was embodied in the declaration of sentiments put forth by the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, which document was written by Mr. Garrison. He says:–
Our principles lead us to reject, and to entreat the oppressed to reject, the use of all carnal weapons for deliverance from bondage – relying solely upon those which are spiritual and measures shall be such only as the opposition of moral purity to moral corruption – the destruction of error by the potency of truth – the overthrow of prejudice by the power of love, and the abolition of slavery by the spirit of repentance. Our trust for victory is solely in God.1
We have sought to array against slaveholders, as well as against slavery, the moral and religious sentiment of the world. The position was taken that the act of slaveholding was a heinous sin – second to no sin which man could commit – that it was man-stealing, and that all who perpetrated it should be excluded from the church. To bring the discipline of the churches to bear on slaveholders – to get the churches to cease to join hands with slave-breeding thieves and adulterers, we toiled. The fruit of our labours began to appear. Missionary, Bible, [9] and Tract Societies began to be agitated with the question – Should slave-drivers be employed as agents and missionaries? and Churches, Presbyteries, Synods, Assemblies, Associations, and Conferences, were convulsed with the question – Should slave-breeders and slaveholders be admitted to Churches and Church Courts as Christians and ministers? There seemed a prospect that the various denominations in America would soon cease all religious fellowship with them, or cease themselves to be regarded as Christian bodies. (Loud cheering.)
In this good work we were strengthened by the Congregationalists, the Baptists and Methodists of England – by the Reformed Presbyterians – by many Secession and Relief Churches of Scotland – and the public sentiment of the whole United Kingdom was being arrayed against fellowship with slaveholders as Christians. It was felt to be a question of life and death to our cause. How can Christ be made the power of God and the wisdom of God to abolish this monster sin, while slaveholders are received as Christians? We felt that it could not be done.
But an obstacle presented itself from an unexpected quarter. Men, who had stood before the world for years conspicuous for talent and eloquence, volunteered to stand sponsors to mankind for the Christianity of American man-stealers, and to associate the endeared and adored name of Christ with men polluted with every crime. Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish espoused the sinking cause of the slaveholder; and came forth to vindicate their title to Christianity and respectability.
But what have these leaders, these Doctors of Divinity done? I give a statement of facts, which none of them have ever denied. A deputation was sent from the Free Assembly to America, to form alliance with the churches there, and to solicit money to build ‘Free‘ churches and pay ‘Free‘ ministers in Scotland. That delegation was composed of the Rev. Dr. Cunningham, Rev. Dr. Burns, Rev. Mr Lewis, Rev. Wm. Chalmers, and others.2 On their arrival in America, and at the commencement of their efforts, they were met by a remonstrance from abolitionists, from which the following are extracts:–
It is with astonishment and grief that we have learned that you have commenced a tour through the Slave States of this Union, with a view to solicit funds, as well of slaveholders as other persons. Doubtless you will be warmly greeted, especially by that portion of the people who hold their fellow-men and fellow-Christians in bondage … Will you now, as you are witnesses of that iniquity that filled you with deep disgust at a distnace, make common cause with that religion, and clasp hands with its defenders, and accept their blood-stained offering. The fiend can well afford to pay you tens of thousands, for he knows that your countenance is worth millions to him. If he can purchase the silence of the successors of John Knox and Andrew Thomson, if he can number them among his allies, he may well think his victory complete … If you obtain the slaveholders’ money, and if the Free Church accept it, it is certain that you will look with more tolerance than you would otherwise have done on the great iniquity of slavery; the lips of your Church will be sealed, and an alliance of sympathy and interests will be established between the Free Church and the slaveocracy of this Union. That tolerance, that sympathy, that [10] alliance will be the beginning of mischief. Who but God can trace its course and close? 3
Sir, this covenant with man-stealers has caused mischief to the heart-stricken slave – to his God-defying oppressor – to those who formed it – to the Free Assembly – to the Free Church – and to all Scotland. It has in effect put into the hands of Drs Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, and of the Free Church over which they preside, the slave-driver’s lash and fetter, adn they are now using them, in conjunction with their allies, the slave-drivers and slave-breeders of America, upon the backs and limbs of the American salves. It has worked mischief by leading these said Doctors of Divinity to offer apologies for men ‘guilty of the highest kind of theft.’ whom God classes with ‘murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers,’ which they would blush to offer for themselves, and which, if allowed to be valid, would entitle adulterers, pick-pockets, and highway-robbers to be received as ‘honourable, useful, evangealical Christians, and serving God in the gospel of His Son,’ as Dr. Cunningham says of slaveholders. The doctrine of ‘circumstances’ is brought forward by a Chalmers, a Cunningham, a Candlish, and a Macfarlan, to justify them in according the name and honour of Christian to men ‘polluted with every crime, leprous with sin.’ 4 But I wish to call attention to the concluding paragraph of the remonstrance of American abolitionists against the Free Church delegation. Let all members and friends of that Church hear and ponder it, for to them it is as a warning voice from Heaven:–
What will men say of the Free Church if you carry home the slaveholders’ bounty? Will they not taunt you thus:– These are the men who could not swallow the bread of their Sovereign as the price of their submission to tyranny; but their consciences, honour, and Christian principle did not revolt in begging a pittance from the pulpits of tyrannical oppressors in Washington, Charlestown, and New Orleans? What O’Connell refused to touch when brought to his hand, Dr. Chalmers sent; and Doctors Cunningham and Burns went 4000 miles to solicit. Should you, despite our friendly warning and urgent Christian remonstrance, solicit money acquired by the sale of American Christians, and men made heathen by the cruel system of slavery, we can only express our confidence that your constituents, the Free Church of Scotland, will refuse to receive the polluted silver and gold, and return it to those who gave it.5
There spake the word of prophecy – the Free Church will return ‘that polluted silver and gold to those who gave it,’ or become a ‘hissing and a by-word.’
Notwithstanding this Christian remonstrance, the delegates did go to churches composed in part of slaveholders and slavebreeders, where memebrs, elders, and ministers are slavetraders – solicited and obtained £3,000 sterling – entered into alliance with them – engaged to receive them to the Free Church pulpit and communion in Scotland – then returned with the price of the image of their God, bought and sold, in the persons of his children, in their pockets; money that can be viewed in no light but as a remuneration for their recognition of practical atheists – scornful contemners of the teachings, life, sufferings, and death of the Son of God, as devoted Christians; and they put that money, dripping with the blood [11] and tears of three millions of slaves, into the coffers of the Free Church. (Hear, hear.) Then, through their writings in their periodicals and papers, their Witnesses, their Northern Warders, &c. and the decisions and deliverances of their Presbyteries and Assemblies, they sought to justify their conduct.
The sold and single point at which Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, aimed was, to prove that they had acted in accordance with the spirit and teaching of Christ and the Apostles, in entering into a Christian alliance with slaveholders. To demonstrate this, they sought to accomplish two things: that is, to present the American abolitionists as the most unprincipled and the basest of men, and the slaveholders as the purest and most evangelical. They assert of the abolitionists that, as a body, ‘they are altogether undeserving of respect and confidence – that it is impossible to talk of them with anything liek respect, or to have the least regard to their judgment, sanity or sense’ – that they were, in point of fact, doing as much injury as the infidels and anarchists of the French Revolution. (See writings and speeches of Drs Cunningham, Chalmers, and Mr. Lewis.) Of the slaveholders they say, ‘they are entitled to be regarded as respectable, useful, honoured Christians, living under the power of the truth, l abouring faithfully, and serving God in the gospel of His Son.’ (See writings and speeches of the parties above named.) Thus all their denunciations are for abolitionists, and all their compliments for slaveholders.
How soon the prediction of the remonstrance became a reality, that if the Free Church leaders took the slaveholders’ bounty, they would volunteer to become their apologists! But suppose the abolitionists are what they say they are – and let me tell them the American abolitionists will never enter upon a vindication of their conduct with slaveholders or their apologists – their vindication they will leave to humanity, rescued by their means from the auction-stand, and to the God of the oppressed. – How does this prove that the Free Church is right in her alliance with slaveholders, and in sharing their spoils? – But let us look for a moment at some of their apologies and arguments to justify themselves and establish the Christianity of American slave-breeders.
Their first strong point is to make a distinction between ‘slave-holding’ and ‘holding men as property.’ The former, they say, ‘is not a sin which should exclude from Christian fellowship,’ but the latter they pronounce to be a ‘sin of the deepest die, which should exclude all who do it from the church.’ Forty years has the subject agitated this country and America, and the laws of slavery, and the writings and speeches of its opponents, have pronounced ‘slaveholding’ and ‘holding men as property’ the same act. Why do Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, Candlish, and the Free Assembly, now come forward and make a distinction? I did not think they could have thus stultified themselves. Did they suppose the subterfuge could blind the people of Scotland? They had a purpose to serve. They wished to extricate themselves from a guilty position, which they had taken against the urgent entreaties of the abolitionists; and to do this they adopted the puerile and barefaced expedient [12] of a distinction without a difference between ‘slaveholding’ and ‘holding men as property.’
Their next great argument is, that they are no more to blame for taking the man-stealer’s gold to build churches than merchants and others are in dealing in slave-holder’s cotton and sugar. But I look not at the money, but at the price paid for it: to get the money they gave the fellowship. Let them renounce the fellowship, and then go to the slave-states and get all the money they can. My word for it, they would get no blood-stained dollars, but they would get blood-stained whips upon their bare backs, and blood-stained halters about their necks. The compact – the slave-driving and slave-breeding compact – let them annul this, and I ask no more.
But, ah! exclaim the Doctors, if we give up the fellowship, we must send back the money. In the name, then, of all that is ‘honest and of good report,’ and of Him who came to enthrone God in Heaven, and abolish slavery on earth, I say to them, send back the money.
Another favourite pillow for the consciences of the Free Church leaders is, ‘slavery,’ as a system or institution, is a great sin, but not necessarily wrong in slaveholders.’ As it appears in an institution, slavery seems to Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, a fiend of darkness; but as it appears in the slaveholder, it is an angel of light. They hate and loathe it as they see it in the system, but as they see it in a Rev. Doctor of Divinity, in band and gown, they love and admire it. As they see it in the bloody lash, they recoil from it with disgust; as they see it in the bloody cash, they cling to it as ‘the one thing needful, and altogether lovely.’ (Laughter and prolonged applause.)
As they see it in the institution, they arraign slavery before the bar of their General Assembly – place it in the criminal box – charge it with adultery, incest, blasphemy, theft, robbery, and murder – to be consigned to prison and the gallows; but as they see it in the slaveholders, they baptise, license, and ordain it, and receive it to their communion and pulpits. As slavery is seen in the institution, they say unto it, ‘Depart ye wicked into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels;’ but as they see it in slaveholding Presbyterians, with pockets full of dollars, ready to be poured into their building fund, they say, ‘Come ye ever blessed – enter into the kingdom prepared for you.’ (Great and continued cheering.)
To the Free Church leaders I would say, with grief and plainness – In thus attempting to screen the slaveholder and justify your compact with him, by taking the crimes and pollutions and horrors of slavery from their living, responsible perpetrators, and putting them upon an intangible nonentity – an irresponsible abstract – you do not mock God, and heap up to yourselves, and your church, wrath against the day of wrath and of the righteous judgent of God – when He shall make bare His right arm and unsheath His sword to right the wrongs of the American bondmen. (Cheers.)
Then, again, they apologist for their allies, and seek to justify themselves by representing slavery as a ‘condition,’ or ‘predicament,’ into which slaveholders ‘are born,’ ‘happen to fall,’ or ‘are placed,’ or ‘unhappily find themselves.’ Go, arraign the Mahometan for his polygamy, the thief for his theft, [13] the drunkard for his drunkenness, the pirate for his piracy, or the cannibal for his cannibalism. The polygamist says – ‘polygamy is a condition in which I was born,’ the cannibal and pirate say, – ‘cannibalism and piracy are conditions in which we happened to be placed;’ the drunkard says, as he lies in the gutter, ‘I happened to fall into the condition of the drunkard;’ – (laughter and cheers) – the thief in his dungeon says – ‘I find myself unhappily placed in the predicament of a thief.’ (Great applause.)
Would the Free Church leaders accept these apologies, and hasten to solicit a share of their gain, and to welcome them as Christians? They have extended their fellowship to men stained with all these crimes. Why should they not to them? How gentle – how tenderly touched upon – how ‘delicately expressed,’ as Dr. Macfarlan says, of their deliverance. When slaveholders buy and sell men – when they steal their all – when they rob them of their wives and children and of themselves – when they scourge, imprison, and hang them for teaching their children to read the Gospel of Christ; these Free Church Doctors tell us they ‘happen‘ to fall into these deeds – they did not do them themselves – they had no hand in them – they only ‘find themselves unhappily in the predicament of doing them.’ (Cheers.) So might Judas say, when he sold his Master for 30 pieces of silver, ‘I did not do it – my will had no hand in it – I happened to fall into the act, and unhappily found myself doing it.’ (Great sensation.) But this would not have prevented him from going ‘to his own place’ – nor will it save the slaveholders from their own place – though ten thousand Doctors of Divinity should come to their rescue by receiving them as Christians while they are impatient.
Doctor Cunningham went to America. Suppose one of these Presbyterian slave-traders had seized and sold him as a slave for a thousand pounds sterling, and sent the money to the Sustenation Fund.’ (Laughter.) ‘We are glad to get the dollars,’ says the treasurer. ‘Where did you get them?’ ‘I happened to seize and sell Doctor Cunningham as a slave, and he, being a strong man, and a Doctor to boot, brought a good price – (great applause.) – and I, seeing your great need and desire for money, thought it would be a comfort to me, and acceptable to you, to give you a share of the proceeds.’ (Renewed applause and laughter.) ‘Well,’ says the treasurer, ‘considering that you happened to do it, and only found yourself unhappily in the predicament of selling the Doctor, I consider it right to take it, and receive you as a good Christian.’ (Immense cheering.) Would the Free Church accept it? No. If they would not build their churches and pay their ministers by the price of Doctor Cunningham, how dare they take the price of the heart-stricken slave? (Strong emotion.)
But, again, these leaders tell us the laws make slaveholders, and that they cannot help but hold slaves. But who make the laws? The very slaveholders whom they seek to screen. They steal men, women, and children, and then make laws to sanction the theft, and then Drs Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish assure us that these laws are their sufficient vindication. The slaveholders make the laws, and the laws make the slaveholders! The creator makes the creature, and then the creature makes the creator. Here we have [14] thieves and adulterers making laws to sanction their sins, and the Free Church leaders coming foward and pleading the existence of those laws in palliation of those who framed them, and as a justification of their own conduct in recognizing them as Christians to get a share of their gains. Perish every law that sanctions slaveholders! Burn them at the stake as Luther did the Bull of the Pope.
Then they tell us that ‘in the slave states men must hold slaves or be without domestic servants.’ This is an argument offered by Drs. Chalmers and Cunningham. The argument is, men cannot exist without domestic servants – they cannot get them in the slave states except by buying and holding slaves. Therefore it is right to buy and hold them. Thus slave-breeding, slave-trading, and slave-driving, and all the concubinage, crime, and horror, necessarily attendent on slave-holding, must be sanctioned and regarded as Christian practices, and slave-breeders, slave-traders, and slave-drivers, received as Christians – simply to get domestic servants. Do these men believe there is a God? In words they do; but in their apologies for slaveholders they deny Him. A domestic servant, indeed! Have they a right to perpetrate the sum of all villany to get servants? I say to them, Go work with your own hands, as Paul did, but do not attempt to whitewash thieves and men stained with the blood of innocents, to justify your guilty compact with them, in order to share the fruits of impiety. (Cheers.)
These Free leaders again talk of their regard for the ‘honour,’ the ‘headship,’ and ‘crown rights’ of our Redeemer, and tell us this led them out of the Establishment. Did their concern for the ‘crown rights’ of the Redeemer lead them 4000 miles to form an alliance with slaveholders? They will find it no easy task to convince Free Church people and others that this high and noble motive ever led to such an alliance. All will feel that the slaveholders’ dollars had more influence with them, than regard for the ‘Crown rights’ of the Redeemer, unless that money be sent back. ‘Have we separated ourselves from our Moderate brethren to form alliance with man-stealers?’ exclaims the Rev. Henry Grey. To the members, elders, and ministers of the Free Church of Scotland I say, ‘Cease your talk about your purity, the honour, glory, and crown-rights of the Redeemer, so long as you are in league with man-stealers, men polluted with incest and leprous with sin,’ and while you have the blood-stained dollars of your allies in your coffers; for, while you continue this slaveholding fellowship, your hands must be said to wield the cowskin over the back, and clank the fetter around the limbs, of the slave.
Again – the Free Church leaders talk loudly of their persecutions. Go ask the Voluntaries who have been the real persecutors of Scotland? Who struggled to drive the Voluntaries from house and home, and not leave them where they lay their heads? Who tried to wield the power of the State against them as ‘infidels,’ ‘Jacobins,’ ‘atheists,’ and ‘enemies to social order?’ Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, the very men who led the Free church up, as they say, ‘out of Egypt,’ to that Canaan of rest, the downy beds and soft cushions of American slaveholders – (applause) – and who were the loudest in their denunciations and persecutions of the Voluntaries. So eager was Cunningham to put them down, that he applauded and published to the world the very principle which he [15] now condemns abolitionists, as ‘fanatics, anarchists, and destitute of judgment, sense, or sanity,’ for embracing – i.e. that slaveholders should be instantly expelled from the Church. Why this change? Have slaveholders become more lovely in Dr. Cunningham’s sight of late? He had a purpose to serve them, and he has one now. When slaveholders could be made to tell against Voluntaryism, the Doctor affected to be horror-struck with their atrocities and the idea of Christian fellowship with them. Now, that he would justify himself and colleagues in their alliance with slaveholders, and in sharing the spoils of their guilt and shame, these ‘worst of thieves’ appear exceedingly pure and loveable. A slaveholder, as an argument against Voluntaryism and Republicanism, is the personification of all wickedness – as the donor of £3000 to the Free Church, he is ‘A living epistle for Christ.’ (Immense Applause.)
Times change – so do men. Go ask the slaves who are the persecutors in Scotland? They will point to Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, and say ‘You are the men – you, in conjunction with your allies – our oppressors – score our backs and fetter our limbs; you compel us to live in concubinage; you crush our domestic affections; you tear from us our wives and children; you scourge, imprison, hunt us with blood-hounds and rifles, and kill us if we attempt to read, or to teach our children to read, the words of eternal life – to exchange our ignorance for knowledge – our moral degradation for moral elevation – our slavery for liberty; you herd us with brutes, and seek to overcloud our souls with the night of moral death – to extinguish within us the desire of immortality, to assimilate our minds to our condition, and to rob us of our deathless inheritance.’ (Great applause.) Such would be the reply of the slaves to the Free Church leaders when they talk about their persecutions. Let them send back the money, before they talk more of their persecutions. (Great laughter and applause.)
Again, they seek to ward off our arguments and to allay excitement against them by denouncing us as enemies of the Free church. What have I done to show my enmity to the Free Church? I see her lending all her influence to associate the name of Christian with slaveholders, and receiving from them £3000 given by slaveholders solely as a reward for their fellowship and sympathy. In doing this, I believe they do wrong. I point out to them their sin, and urge them to repent, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance by sending back the money, and withdrawing from the alliance. Are these things true? They have not denied that they are. I say then to the Free church, Am I your enemy because I tell you the truth? The blasphemer says to the man who rebukes him, You are mine enmy. The thief and robber say to the jury and the court, You are our enemies. Is he who rebukes sin the enemy of the sinner? If so, let the Free Church ministers give up their calling, for they are the enemies of mankind, for none rebuked sinners as he did. No. The real enemy of the Free Church is he who cries to them – Peace, peace, in their guilty confederacy against God and man, which they have formed with slaveholders. Their best friends are those who say to them, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand,’ and that shall sweep away your refuge of lies, discover [16] your hiding places, and annul your covenant with death. (Applause.)
Repent, and flee from the wrath to come, for He is at the door of your Assembly – who is coming to bind up the wounds of those who are fallen among thieves. He is come with his fan in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge the floors of the Free Assembly and churches from the blood-spots of the slave, and he will gather his wheat into his garner, but he will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. (Great sensation.)
The Free Church leaders have been unwearied in their efforts to coax or to browbeat the Dissenters into silence, respecting their efforts to unite, in bonds of loving union, Christ and slaveholders, and to hold up the latter as the living representatives of the former. Their efforts, with few exceptions, have proved abortive. Secession, Relief, and Independent Chapels have been open to this question, and hundreds of local churches have adopted the principle of – No fellowship with slaveholders; and it is expected that the Relief and Secession Synods will give distinct utterance to this principle this spring.6 The Committe on Evangelical Alliance have adopted the rule, not to invite slaveholders to sit in the Convention in London, to be held in August, and to join the Alliance, then and there to be formed.7 (Cheers.)
The good sense of the people of Scotland cannot be silenced from expressions of sympathy for the slave by threats, by insolent words and looks, by logical and theological distinctions, nor by bland entreaties. The Dissenters, as a body, will rebuke the oppressor, and all who may attempt to stand sponsor for his Christianity. (Great applause.)
The spirit of slaveholding is one and the same, whether it speaks through Drs. Chalmers, Cunningham and Candlish, or through the Presbyterian kidnappers of America. It hates the light, and will not come to the light, lest its deeds be made manifest, but cries out against all who would cast it out, – ‘Why hast thou come to torment us before our time?Away with him – crucify him, crucify him!‘ (Great cheering.) So in effect the Free Church leaders to all who rebuke them for this guilty league with slave-breeders.
Another argument by which the Free Church leaders seek justify themselves and silence rebuke, is, that the General Assembly has settled the question, and that the inferior courts, and individuals, have no business to disturb a question which the Assembly has settled. They ask me – What right have you to seek to reverse the decisions of the General Assembly? My answer is, Whether it be right to obey God rather than man, judge ye. General Assembly, forsooth! I am not accustomed to yield unreasoning submission to human authority; and the General Assembly of the Free Church, by their deliverance of last spring, on slavery, have shown their decisions are especially unworthy of respect or confidence. Go see their apologies for slaveholders! The veriest huckster in human flesh in Carolina would be ashamed of them. He never would seek to justify himself by pretending that he happened to fall into the condition of slaveholding, or that the providence of God made him a slaveholder – or by a distinction without a difference, between ‘slaveholding’ and ‘holding men as property.’ No man can have any respect for the decisions of a body when that body decides that slaveholding and Christianity are consistent one with the other, and that [17] slaveholders are Christians.
When the Free Church Assembly sanctions an alliance with manstealers, by making a distinction between ‘slaveholding,’ and ‘holding men as chattels,’ as they did last spring, they show themselves too weak or too wicked to be entitled to confidence. (Cheers.) Let us have no Popes – not even a Pope General Assembly! (Great applause.)
The Free Church leaders, again, seek to screen themselves by attempting to cast odium upon abolitionists. Suppose I am all they represent me to be – ‘a stranger,’ ‘a foreigner,’ ‘a wandering declaimer,’ ‘a fanatic,’ ‘an ultra radical,’ ‘an infidel,’ ‘a heathen,’ a Jew, or Mahometan, or all these combined in one – and suppose the abolitionists – as Dr. Cunningham says they are – ‘are destitute of judgment, sense, or sanity’ – what then? Does this prove that they are right in ‘forming alliance with manstealers?’ I have not asked them to receive me as a Christian, I only ask them not to receive slave-traders and slave-drivers as Christians. I do not ask them to endorse my character. I only ask them not to endorse the character of men ‘polluted with incest and renouncers of marriage rights.’ Let them apply whatever terms of opprobrium their consciences will allow them to apply to me, and to that self-forgetting, self-sacrificing, all-enduring, and all-forgiving band of abolitionists with whom I am associated; but I entreat them not to apply the terms of ‘honoured, useful, devoted, evangelical Christian, to slaveholders.’ (Great applause.)
Sir, I aspire to no higher honour than to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn of him. If I may but win Christ, if i may but love as he loved, and forgive as He forgave, and be counted worthy to bear about in my body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in me; if I may but live by faith in the Son of God, who hath loved me and died for me; if my life may but be an epistle for Christ, known and read of all; if I may but share in his sufferings and death and in his rejoicing and his glory, it is all I ask on earth, and all I desire in eternity. I care not what men may say of me, if the spirit and life of Christ may but be mine; but, in the name of my Almighty God and Saviour, I protest against this effort of the Rev. Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish, to associate the names of Christ, my Redeemer, with slaveholders. By seeking to promote this blasphemous association, their influence goes to crucify the Son of God afresh, and to make his holy and endeared name the scorn and contempt of mankind. (Great sensation.)
Henceforth, when the Free church leaders talk of their purity and regard for Christ’s crown – my answer shall be ‘Send back the Money.’ When they talk of domestic servants or slavery as an institution, I will say ‘Send back the Money[‘]. When they talk of happening to fall into the condition, or of unhappily finding themselves in the predicament of slaveholders – ‘Send back the money’ shall answer the stale apology. (Great applause.) And when they say the ‘providence of God’ led them into this alliance with slaveholders, as they unblushingly do, my answer to the impious assertion shall be – ‘Send back the Money.’ Be this our cry – till it sounds through every glen, and echoes from summit to summit of every hill in Scotland.
To the Free Church God says – ‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil – who justify the wicked for a reward! Ye [18] have wearied the Lord by saying, those who do evil are good in His sight. Woe to them who build their churches with blood, and their manses with iniquity, for the slave-stone shall cry out of the wall, and slave-beam shall answer it from their pulpits; and say, send back the money!’ ‘Woe to those who fill their treasury with that which is not their own. Bring no more vain oblations, your sabbaths and your solemn meetings are an abomination unto me. When ye make many prayers I will not hear you – your hands are full of blood – wash you – make you clean – put away the evil of your doings – ‘Send back the Money‘ – crease to do evil – learn to do well – relieve the oppressed – then shall your light break forth and your name shall be blessed;’ but if they refuse to obey, and persevere in their covenant with death and their league with hell – they and their allies must be overwhelmed in undistinguishable ruin. (Cheers.)
Mr. Wright concluded by proposing several resolutions amidst great applause.
Mr JOHN MURRAY, of Bowling, seconded the resolutions.
Mr. JAMES PINKERTON here ascended the platform from the body of the hall, and upon stating that he could not sit still and hear the venerable men alluded to by the last speaker characterised by such names as he had been pleased to apply to them, was received with a storm of disapprobation. Through the intervention of the Chairman and Mr. George Thompson, however, he was allowed to proceed. He said, the gentleman who had sat down had drawn a picture, but it was one of his own imagining. He then proceeded to state the object for which the deputation had proceeded to America.
They had gone there partly through invitation, and partly to make known the great principles which had led to the disruption; and also to seek pecuniary means in order to support the gospel throughout the land. He defended Dr. Cunningham and the other members of the deputation from the charge of treating the abolitionists, technically so called, with disrespect. They did refuse to connect themselves with the abolitionists; they made known their principles, they preached to congregations, and they received contributions, as Mr. Lewis says, whose character would stand as high as that of Mr. Wright – (hisses and applause) – they received £3000, partly from emancipated negroes, and partly from Scottish settlers, whose hearts beat with fond regard for their fatherland. He denied that they were called upon to inquire from whence money came that was cast into the treasury for the support of the gospel – they were not warranted in doing so by any principle in the Word of God. It was a principle not acted upon by the Apostles, and it was a principle not acted on by any Church he knew in this country. He detested slavery as much as any man among them. Was it not a fact that every Church in Scotland is as much identified with slavery as the Free Church, if they excepted the Reformed Presbyterians. He asked when the Secession or Relief Churches in Scotland cut off all connection with the Churches in America? During the rage of Voluntaryism, the Churches in America were pointed at as the pink of perfection; but no sooner did the Free Church of Scotland venture, contending for Christ’s rights and the people’s liberties, to go to that country than there was a hue and cry set up to send back the money. (Cheers and laughter.)
But Mr. Wright set [19] up men of straw, and then he knocked them down again; and was either ignorant of what Drs. Chalmers and Cunningham meant in their reference to the American law, or wilfilly misrepresented them. When a man in America was left property by his father, the law prevented him from emancipating his slaves, and he condemned the Free church, not for taking the money, but for holding any ecclesiastical fellowship with these Churches until that law was altered. (Cheers.) He was speaking his honest convictions, but they were to recollect that there was a difference between Christian fellowship and ecclesiastical fellowship. (Laughter.) Mr. Wright’s statement as to the refusal of ministers of the Free Church to sit on School, Trac, or Bible Society Committees with Erastians, was not consistent with fact. Mr. Pinkerton conlcuded by moving, as an amendment to the resolutions, that it was inexpedient to memorialise the Free Church Assembly, inasmuch as they have already given a full and unanimous decision on the subject, and that they are not warranted, either by the Word of God, apostolic example, or the practice of the Christian Church, to send back the money.
Mr WRIGHT said he did not mean to occupy the time of the meeting but for a moment, as all the gentleman had said could be answered in a few words – a very few words. What is the question at issue? Dr. Candlish says distinctly that the question of receiving pecuniary aid from the churches in America turns solely on the question of holding Christian fellowship with them. Now, they cannot give up the fellowship with these slaveholders while they keep the money. The money was given with the understanding that they were to be received into Christian fellowship, for the Free Church would never have received one farthing from the American slaveholders had they told them that they were opposed to the system of slavery. Had the delegates gone to the south, and preached abolition there – had they spoken out against slavery – Would they have obtained any money? (No, no.) They would have got a halter about their necks, but no money. (Cheers.) But it was not the money he cared about – it was the fellowship which was given in return. (Hear, and loud cheers.) He put it to every member of the Free Church in this Hall, – talk not about the money, but the price paid for the money; for, be it understood, they never would have received one penny; for, be it understood, they never would have received one penny if they had not paid the price of Christian fellowship. (Applause.) They themselves know this, and Doctors Cunningham and Candlish cannot agree to give up the fellowship, because if they renounce the fellowship, they must send back the money. (Cheers.)
Mr DOUGLASS next addresed the meeting nearly as follows:– The abolitionists of the United States have been labouring, during the last fifteen years, to establish the conviction throughout that country that slavery is a sin, and ought to be treated as such by all professing Christians. This conviction they have written about, they have spoken about, they have published about – they have used all the ordinary facilities for forwarding this view of the question of slavery. Previous to that operation, slavery was not regarded as a sin. It was spoken of as an evil – in some cases it was spoken of as a wrong – in some cases it was spoken of as an excellent institution – and it was nowhere, or scarcely nowhere, counted as a sin, or treated as a sin, except by the Society [20] of Friends, and by the Reformed Presbyterians, two small bodies of Christians in the United States. The abolitionists, for advocating or attempting to show that slaveholding is a sin, have been called incendiaries and madmen, and they have been treated as such – only much worse in many instances; for they have been mobbed, beaten, pelted, and defamed in every possible way, because they disclaimed the idea that slavery is not a sin – a sin against God, a violation of the rights of man – a sin demanding the immediate repentenace on the part of the slaveholders, and demanding the immediate emancipation of the trampled down crushed slave. (Cheers.) They had made considerable progress in establishing this view of the case in the United States. They had succeeded in establishing to a considerable extent in the northern part of the United States a deep conviction that to hold human beings in the condition of slavery is a sin and ought to be treated as such, and that the slaveholder ought to be treated as a sinner. (Hear and applause.)
They had called upon the religious organisations of the land to treat slaveholding as a sin. They had recommended that the slaveholder should receive the same treatment from the church that is meted out to the ordinary thief. They had demanded his exclusion from the churches, and some of the largest denominations in the country had separated at Mason & Dixon’s line, dividing the free states from the slave states, solely on account of slaveholding, as those who hold anti-slavery views felt that they could not stand in fellowship with men who trade in the bodies and souls of their fellow-men. (Applause.)8
Indeed, the anti-slavery sentiment not to sit in communion with these men, and to warn the slaveholder not to come near nor partake of the emblems of Christ’s body and blood, lest they eat and drink damnation to themselves, is become very prevalent in the free states. They demand of the slaveholder first to put away this evil – first to wash his hands in innocency – first to abandon his grasp on the throat of the slave, and until he was ready to do that, they can have nothing to do with him.
All was going on gloriously – triuphantly; the moral and religious sentiment of the country was becoming concentrated against slavery, slaveholders, and the abettors of slaveholders, when, at this period, the Free Church of Scotland sent a deputation to the United States with a doctrine diametrically opposed to the abolitionists, taking up the ground that, instead of no fellowship, they should fellowship the slaveholders. According to them the slaveholding system is a sin, but not the slaveholder a sinner. They taught the doctrine, that it was right for Christians to unite in Christian fellowship with slaveholders, and their influence has been highly detrimental to the anti-slavery cause in the United States. (Hear, hear.) All their reasonings and arguments, instead of being quoted on behalf of the abolition cause, are quoted on behalf of slavery. (Disapprobation.)
The newspapers which came from the United States came laden with eulogies of Drs. Candlish and Cunningham, and of the Free Church in general. While the slaveholders have long disconnected themselves with the Secession Church in this country, I do not say that the Secession Church has for- [21] formally repudiated all alliance with them, but by the faithfulness of their remonstrances, by their denunciations of slavery from time to time, and by their opinions and arguments being known of all men, the slaveholders have disconnected themselves with them. (Hear, hear, and applause.)
Now, we want to have the matter of the Free Church thoroughly sifted here to-night. We want to call attention to the deputation particularly which admitted the principle of holding fellowship with slaveholders. To fellowship slaveholders as the type and representatives of Jesus Christ on earth, and not only that, but to take their money to build churches, and pay their ministers, the Free Church sent a deputation to America. That deputation was met by the Abolitionists of New York, and remonstrated with, and begged not to stain their cause by striking hands with manstealers, and not to take the polluted gains of slavery to pay their ministers; but by all means to take the side of the oppressed. The deputation had an excellent opportunity of aiming an effectual blow at slavery, but they turned a deaf ear and refused to listen to the friends of freedom. They turned a deaf ear to the groans of the oppressed slave – they neglected the entreaties of his friends – and they went into the slave states, not for the purpose of imparting knowledge to the slave, but to go and strike hands with the slaveholders, in order to get money to build Free churches and pay Free Church ministers in Scotland. (Cries of ‘shame,’ and applause.)
Now, I am here to charge that deputation with having gone into a country where they saw three millions of human beings deprived of every right, stripped of every privilege, ranged with four-footed beasts and creeping things, with no power over their own bodies and souls, deprived of the privilege of learning to read the name of the God who made them, compelled to live in the grossest ignorance, herded together in a state of concubinage – without marriage – without God – and without hope; – they went into the midst of such a people – in the midst of those who held such a people, and never uttered a word of sympathy on behalf of the oppressed, or raised their voices against their oppressors.
We have been told that the deputation went to the United States for the purpose of making the Christians of the United States acquainted with the position of the Free Church of Scotland, or rather to explain the nature of the struggles of the Free Church in behalf of religious freedom, and to preach the gospel. Now, I am here to say that that deputation did not preach the gospel to the slave – that gospel which came from above – that gospel which is peaceable and pure, and easy to be entreated. Had they preached that God was the God of the poor slave as well as of his rich master – had they raised their voices on behalf of that gospel – they would have been hung upon the first lamp-post. The slaveholders hate the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing they hate so much. A man may go there and preach certain doctrines connected with the gospel of Christ, but if ever he apply the principles of the love of God to man – to the slave as well as to the slaveholder – it will immediately appear how such a doctrine would be relished.
But this is not all. Not only did the Free Church Deputation not [22] preach the gospel, or say a word on behalf of the slave, but they took care to preach such doctrines as would be palatable – as would be agreeably received – and as would bring them the slaveholders’ money. (Cries of ‘Shame,’ and applause.) They said, ‘We have only one object to accomplish;’ and they justified themselves for not meddling with the sins with which they came into contact in America, on the ground that they had one particular object to employ their attention. Was it to obey the voice of God? Was it to proclaim the terrors of the law against all iniquity? No. It was to get money to build Free Churches, and pay Free Ministers. That was the object to be accomplished, and in following this course they acted more like thieves than Christian ministers. (Applause.) I verily believe, that, had I been at the South, and had I been a slave, as I have been a slave – and I am a slave still by the laws of the United States – had I been there, and that deputation had come into my neighbourhood, and my master had sold me on the auction block, and given the produce of my body and soul to them, they would have pocketed it and brought it to Scotland to build their churches and pay their ministers. (Cries of ‘No,’ ‘Yes, yes,’ and applause.) Why not? I am no better than the blackest slave in the Southern plantations.
These men knew who were the persons they were going amongst. It had been said that they were not bound to inquire as to where money comes from, when it is put into the treasury of the Lord. But in this case there was no need of inquiry. They knew they were going to a class of people who were robbers – known stealers of men – for what is a thief? what is a robber? but he who appropriates to himself what belongs to another. The slaveholders do this continually. They publish their willingness to do so. They defend their right to do so, and the deputation knew they did this. They knew that the hat upon the head of the slaveholder, the coat upon his back, and the cash in his pocket were the result of the unpaid toil of the fettered and bound slave, and yet in view of this fact they went amongst them. They went with a lighted candle in their hands. They were told what would be the consequence, but they went – purity gave way to temptation, and we see the result. The result is evil to Scotland, and evil to America, but more to the former than to the latter; for I think the Free Church has committed more sin in attempting to defend certain principles connected with this question, than in accepting the money. They have had to upset all the first principles of Christianity in its defence. They have had to adopt the arguments of the Infidels, of the Socialists and others, by which to defend themselves, and have brought a foul blot on Christianity. (Cheers, and slight sounds of disapprobation.)
Now, what are their arguments? Why is Dr. Chalmers speaking as he does of the slaveholders and slavery, and trying to make it appear that there is a distinction without a difference? This eminent Free Church leader says, ‘A distinction ought to be made between the character of a system, and the character of persons whom circumstances have connected therewith. Nor would it be just,’ continues the Doctor, ‘to visit upon the person all the recoil and moral indignation which we feel towards the system itself.’ Here he lays down a principle by which to justify the present policy of the Free Church. This is the rock of their present position. [23] They say ‘Disinction ought to be made, for while slavery may be very bad, a sin and a crime, a violation of the law of God, and an outrage on the rights of man, yet the slaveholder may be a good and excellent Christian, and that in him we may embrace a type and standing representative of Christ.’ While they would denounce theft, they would spare the thief; while they would denounce gambling, they would spare the gambler; while they would denounce the dice, they would spare the sharper; for a distinction should be made between the character of a system and the character of the men whom circumstances have connected therewith. (Cheers and laughter.)
Drs Chalmers and his Master are at odds. Christ says, ‘By their fruits shall they be known.’ Oh! no, says Dr. Chalmers, a distinction should be made between the fruits and the character of a system! Oh! the artful dodger. (Great laughter.) Well may the thief be glad, the robber sing, and the adulterer clap his hands for joy. The character of adultery and the character of the adulterer – and the character of slavery and the character of the slaveholder, are not the same. We may blame the system, therefore, but not the persons whom circumstances have connected therewith.
I would like to see the slaveholder made so by circumstances, and I should like to trace out the turn of circumstances which compelled him to be a slaveholder. (Hear, and cheers.) I know what they say about this matter. They say the law compels a slaveholder to keep his slaves, but I utterly deny that such a law exists in the United States. There is no law to compel a man to keep his slaves, or to prevent him from being emancipated. There are three or four States where the master is not allowed to emancipate his slaves on the soil, but he can remove them to a free State, or, at all events, to Canada, where the British lion prowls upon three sides of us, and there they would be free. (Cheers.) The slaveholder who wishes to emancipate his slaves has but to say, ‘There is the north star – that is the road to Canada – I will never claim you’ – and there would be little doubt of their finding their way to freedom. There was not a single slaveholder in America but who, if he chose, could emancipate his slaves instantly; so all the argument on this basis falls to the ground, as the fact did not exist on which it is built. (Cheers.)
Slavery – I hold it to be an indisputable proposition – exists in the United States because it is respectable. The slaveholder is a respectable man in America. All the important offices in the Government and the Church are filled by slaveholders. Slaveholders are Doctors of Divinity; and men are sold to build churches, women, to support missionaries, and children to send bibles to the heathen. Revivals in religion and revivals in the slave trade go on at one and the same time. Now, what we want to do is to make slavery disrespectable. Whatever tends to make it respectable tends to elevate the slaveholder, and whatver, therefore, proclaims the respectability of the slaveholders, or of slaveholding, tends to perpetuate the existence of this vile system. Now, I hold one of the most direct, one of the most powerful means of making him a respectable man, is to say that he is a Christian; for I hold that of all other men a Christian is most entitled to my affection and regard. Well, the Free Church is now proclaiming that [24] these men – all blood-besmeared as they are, with their stripes, gags, and thumbscrews, and all the bloody parapharnalia of slave-holding, and who are depriving the slave of the right to learn the word of God, that these men – are Christians! and ought to be in fellowship as such. (Cries of ‘No,’ and ‘Yes.’) Does any man deny that the Free Churuch does this?
Mr. PINKERTON. – You are libelling the Free Church.
Mr. DOUGLASS. – What! is this disputed? Will they not fellowship those who will not teach their slaves to read? I have to say, in answer, that there is not a slaveholder in the American Union who teaches his slaves to read, and I have to inform that individual, and the Free Church and Scotland generally, that there are several States where it is punishable with death for the second offence to teach a slave his letters. (Great applause.) And further (said Mr. Douglass) I have to tell him there is yet to be the first petition in the Legislature demanding a repeal of that law. If the Free Church are to fellowship the slaveholders at all, they must fellowship them in their blood and their sins just as they find them; and if they will not fellowship them except they teach their slaves to read, then they must not fellowship them at all. It was necessary to keep the slaves in ignorance. If he were not kept in ignornace, where there are so many facilities for escape, he would not long remain a slave, and every means are resorted to to keep him ignorant. The sentiment is general, that slaves should no know nothing, but to do what is told them by their masters.
But a short time ago there was a Sabbath school established in Richmond, Virginia, in which the slaves, it was supposed, were being educated. The story reached the north, and was some cause of gratification; but in three weeks afterwards we found in the Richmond papers an article inquirying into the character of that school, and demanding to know why a Sabbath-school had been established in Virginia. Well, they gave an account of themselves, and what was it? In that Sabbath-school nothing was taught but what would tend to make the slave a better servant than before it was established; and in the second place, that there had not been, and there never would be, any book whatever. So they have schools there without books, and learn to read without letters. You fill find Sabbath-schools, in many part of the country, but you will find these such as I have desribed. (Applause.)
Mr. Douglass concluded a long speech by paying a compliment to Mr. Thompson for his efforts in the cause of slave emancipation.
Mr. JAMES N. BUFFUM next addressed the meeting. He always, he said, felt much hesitation in addressing a meeting like the present; but being placed between two such large men as his friends Mr. Douglass and Mr. Thompson, he felt more than his usual diffidence on this occasion. (Cheers.)
He had been requested to say something about his impressions of Scotland – of the impressions which he had formed since he had come here from America. He was proud to acknowledge that his heart had been made glad since he came to this country, by the feeling which he had seen manifested in every place which he had visited in favour of the cause of universal abolition. Everything which he saw indicated [25] that good would come out of the present movement. (Hear.) He rejoiced to say that on scarcely any occasion had they encountered anything but the most flattering cordiality of sentiment; but he was now more rejoiced in the fact that they had at last got some opposition, for here now was a man who had actually come out in defence of the Free Church. (Cheers and laughter.)
Mr. Douglass and he had visited Perth, Dundee, Montrose, Aberdeen, Ayr, Kilmarnock, the Vale of Leven, and other places, and they had not before found an individual who had any defence to offer for the conduct of the Free Church. He was glad to see them beginning to come out. (Cheers.) They had asked them ever since they came to Scotland to come forward with their defence, if they had one. They had challenged them in every town they went to, but it was of no avail, they were silent; but they kept the money. (Applause.)
When they reached the town of Montrose, they were told they would be met by the lion of the north, the Reverend Mr. Nixon, who was expected to speak in defence of the Free Church, but he carefully kept out of the way. They challenged him on the spot. He was ready to speak on all occasions, for he was an eloquent man, but on this occasion he kept out of the way, and Mr. Douglass and he, were therefore, left in undisturbed possession of the field.
They afterwards went to Duntocher, where, they were told, there was a man who wanted to discuss this question, but although he got notice to come forward, he paid no attention to the intimation. (Hear.) Instead of coming to meet them, the Rev. Mr. Alexander of the Free Church, the individual referred to, took another way of settling the question as far as he was concerned. This Rev. Gentleman, they were informed, entertained the idea, that slavery would never be abolished because it had existed for such a length of time. On this account he would take no interest in the question in future. What an excuse in the 19th century, in which Christianity had been proclaimed, seeing that not one-half of the world had yet been evangelised. Christianity had been preached during that time and had made great progress, and it was still progressing, and in the same way part of slavery had been abolished, although the best part of it was yet to come.
But this was not the point. This minister of the Free Church, after being invited to come to the meeting, where Mr. Douglass and he were to speak, told those of his congregation who called upon him, that he had now decided not to go to hear them; but if they (the members of the Free Church) went, they were carefully to notice what was said, and come back to him and he would explain it. (Laughter.) What a coward! They offered to give him a free platform, but no, he preferred remaining in his own private room, and telling those who waited upon him to bring the facts to him and he would expalin them. He (Mr. B.) told Mr. Douglass the next day that this Mr. Alexander put him mind of a little Connecticut Colonel, who was a very brave man according to his own account. This hero flourished during the revolutionary war in America, and on one occasion when they were about to have a battle with some British troops, he addressed his soldiers in the following terms – ‘Now is the [26] time to show your courage and patriotism. Now is the time to fight gloriously and fall triumphantly, but, if you must run, then run, and, as I am a little lame, I’ll be going now.’ (Cheers and laughter.)
Now, the Free Church was a little lame, and her Doctors of Divinity were a little lame, and the knowing ones were going off at once, as they knew if they remained to fight in defence of the slaveholders’ money, or American slavery, they would not have a foot left to stand upon. (Great applause.)
When he was in the town of Dundee, he called on the Editor of the Northern Warder, for the purpose of inviting the Rev. Mr. Lewis to come out and speak on the question. They (Mr. Douglass and himself) stated that they wanted to give him an oportunity, if they stated anything beyond the truth, or what was untrue or false in logic, to come forward and dispute it. Well, he refused to come, but he saw the gentleman some days afterwards, and got into argument with him on the subject. On this occasion, he (Mr. B.) put the question in this shape:– Now, supposing, any one was to rig out a pirate ship, go upon the high seas, take the vessels of the merchants of this or any other country, kill, burn, and destroy all that came in their way, and make themselves rich by this means – and after getting tired of this business, that they went to the coast of America, and formed themselves into a Church, to make themselves respectable – and suposing they took the Free Church for their model, and made the captain the minister, the mates elders and deacons, and the crew the congregation – would the Free Church of Scotland go over there, and fellowship such men, and take their blood-stained gold? (Cheers.) He supposed there was not a man in scotland but would have answered this direct. (Hear, hear.)
In his estimation the cases were parallel. There was nothing of consequence pased at the time, he gave no answer, but be came out afterwards in the Warder with the following article:–
So far as we are personally concerned, we must say that few questions have throughout appeared to us more free from difficulty and perplexity. If we want aid in a good cause, we shall accept it freely and unhesitatingly from all who tender it. Whatever their creed, or their character, or the origin of their gains, it would make no difference, and constitute no difficulty in our eye, provided that they gave what they gave frankly and unconditionally, and did not ask us to receive it as specially derived from an unlawful source, so as to win from us any implied approbation of that source. If for a good cause, we say, a sum of money were placed in our hands unconditionally, and without explanations, we should accept it, whoever the donor, asking no questions, for conscience sake:– nay, if we have reason to believe that in some particular part of his conduct, he was erring and criminal.9
Here (said Mr. B.) we have the moral standard of the editor of the Warder. Let us examine it for a moment, and compare it with that of worldly men wh make not the same high claims to Christian principle. In our country we have a law (and I am told that you have the same here), that if a man receives stolen goods, knowing them to be such, he is reckoned accessary to the crime, and punished along with the thief; but this sage and Christian editor tells us that his standard is not so high as the common law. It [27] would ‘constitute no difficulty in our eye’ – we would take it, ‘asking no questions, for conscience sake.’ (Cheers.)
A few years ago, when a committee of gentlemen in our country, (who made no claims to anything more than common honesty, in their official capacity at least,) when struggling to complete a monument to the memory of those who fell in the battle of Bunker’s Hill, were offered a donation by a lady who procured it by dancing at the theatres in our country, they at once rejected it, giving as a reason that they could not stain their monument, and the memory of their fathers, by taking money that was procured in such an improper way. But the editor of the Warder would have taken it, and asked no questions for conscience sake.
I have only time to cite but one more example out of the hundreds which might be brought in proof of what I have alleged against the Warder and that is the noble and magnanimous position taken by Daniel O’Connell. When the Repeal cause was struggling for want of funds, a sum of money was sent him from American slaveholders. That gentleman, labouring, as he believed, for the cause of liberty in his own country, could not purchase it by receiving the price of the enslaved men of any other portion of mankind, and he at once sent it back, saying, that he ‘wanted none of their blood-stained money!’ (Cheers.) How nobly does this act contrast with the wicked conduct of the Free Church, and the low and grovelling declaration of the Northern Warder! Out upon such morality! It is better suited for the organ of a banditti, than the mouth-piece of a Christian denomination.
I will refer to but one more position taken by this sage editor. He seems to congratulate himself on this fact, that if the Free Church be guilty in taking the slave money, then the cotton-spinners of Glasgow and Manchester are as much or more so. (Cheering.) Now this is coming down considerably. At first we heard of this church as being one formed of members who had come out from the Establishment because it was too corrupt – too low and grovelling, and they had struck for somthing [sic] higher, something holier, something purer, than what was professed and practised by any other church; and the struggle through which they had passed in coming out of the old Establishment had wrought a wonderful change on them. (Cheers.) When Mr. Lewis was about to take his departure for America on the money mission, he says ‘I have attempted to analyse the state of mind in which I am about to visit America – very different from that in which I should ahve visited the States a few years ago, when a Minister of the Establishment, and taking part in its defence and extension. Then I fear I should have attracted to myself only the evil things of America; now, I may hope to see the good as well as the evil. Surely the Establishment controversy on the one side, whose waves have hardly subsided, and this new enterprise of the Free Church, have induced a state of mind favourable to a large observation of the civil and ecclesiastical condition of the United States.’
Here we have the state of mind in which Mr. Lewis was about the visit the country where three millions of men were made brutes, and not only deprived of the right to read the Bible, but deprived of every right which can make life desirable. Surely the friends of man in America had a right to [28] expect that such a person as Mr. Lewis, who had just passed through a great conflict for Christian liberty, and had become purified by the process, would not, when he landed on our shores, at once join with a band of piratical men who had enslaved a portion of God’s children, as dear in His sight as Mr. lewis, and whose oppression is as much more galling and bitter than that practised by the Government of England upon the Churches in Scotland, as man is more valuable than money. But in despite of remonstrance, the most pathetic and earnest – in despite of every argument of the friends of the slave, they went to the slave states, called them good Christians, partook of the Lord’s Supper with thieves, and shook hands with adulterer. In vain were they reminded of the former Christian stand taken in Scotland – in vain did our friends point to some of the noblest Scotch divines, whose voices had thrilled the hearts of the friends of freedom in our land, and whose testimony had struck terror to the heart of the oppressor – in vain did they tell them how the oppressor’s hands would be strengthened, and their own weakened, by such an alliance – in vain did they tell them of the stain they would cast upon Christianity and their own Church’s cause. Nothing was sufficient to restrain their rapacity for the dollars; and soon we see these champinions of freedom – these paragons of piety – bowing down to the Moloch of slavery, and worshipping before its blood-stained altar. (Hear, hear.)
How have the mighty fallen! Starting with a high and holy profession, and claiming to be peculiarly qualified to represent the principles of Jesus Christ upon earth, now, within a few years, we have seen them come down – down step by step, until, if we judge by the articles in the Northern Warder, they are struggling for a character equal with those worldly men, the cotton-spinners of Manchester and Glasgow, who, for the purposes of gain, trade in articles which are produced by the unpaid labour of slaves.
But I think they will not be able to stick there. (Hear.) If I am not mistaken, the cotton-spinners of Manchester and Glasgow will not allow the connection, for I do believe, wordly as they are, their standard of honest dealing is far higher, and they would scorn that of the Warder as being immeasurably too low for men who wish to sustain a fair character as business men. I do not believe they are yet preopared to take money where they can get it without regard to its origin, and especially when they know that it is procured in a criminal way.
I presume it would take quite a number of years of religious teaching from the Warder to make them believe that a man who receive and partakes of stolen goods, is not by that act implicated in the crime. That discovery was left for a religious paper, the organ of a great and pure religious body, whose particular office is to seek for new truths. (Hear.) Let pickpockets rejoice – let thieves hold up their heads – let highway robbers take courage at this discovery, – now they will be able to form an alliance with honourable and sage editors, and see the fruit of their toil appropriated to the conversion of man, and the spread of the gospel. (Great applause.)
I want the Free Church to send back that money. (Cheers.) I want them to take a position which will benefit themselves [29] pecuniarily, morally, and religiously. (Much applause.) I find members of the Free Church who tell me that they want the money sent back. More than this, when I was at Greenock, I met a deacon of Dr. Macfarlane’s congregation who told me that he wanted that money to go back, and that he had no language to express his abhorrenace of taking it. He further stated that he had been talking with a large number of the members of the Free Church that morning, and that they were all in favour of sending it back. I know one person who would give £100, if not a larger sum, to the Free Church, so soon as it is sent back; another who would give £20, another £10, and many members who would not pay another farthing into the treasury until the money is sent back. (Applause.) I believe that the Free Church in six months would be better off pecuniarily, and I know she would be so moraly and religiously; and as a friend, therefore, I would advise that they send back this blood-stained money, and sever all connection with the slaveholders of America. (Cheers.)
Mr. Buffum, after referring to the visit of Mr. Thompson to the United States, and to the change of feeling which had taken place since that period in regard to the anti-slavery question, concluded by stating that there was not a house large enough in Boston to hold those who would now go to hear him – and even those who joined in the mob against him, hoped he would again visit them.
Mr. PINKERTON’s amendment not being seconded, the resolutions moved by Mr. Wright, seconded by Mr. Murray, and supported by Messrs. Douglass and Buffum, were submitted to the meeting, and adopted by acclamation.
A gentleman, named Kilpatrick, here got upon the platform, and made a few observations. He said he was not apologist for the Free Church, but he objected to the resolution, on the ground that he was not one of those who could agree to break all fellowship with Christians on the slavery question. He was of opinion that the opponents of slavery would frustrate their own object by breaking all connection with the Christians of America, as by communication the latter might be benefited by the greater light, which the people of this country had obtained on the subject.
The CHAIRMAN, in answer to the remarks of the previous speaker, said they did not look upon slaveholders as being Christians at all. (Loud cheers.)
Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON rose and said – My excellent friends who have already addressed this meeting, must permit me to say, that though I fully concur in the view they have taken of the momentous question now before us, I nevertheless cannot rise to speak in support of their sentiments, without expressing my deep pain at finding myself in the situation which I at this moment occupy. It has been my honour and privilege to stand in many of the pulpits of Scotland to advocate, in the presence of large audiences, the abolition of slavery. I have also very frequently in those pulpits exposed and denounced the guilty connection subsisting between the churches of the Southern States of America, and the execrable and cruel system of slavery. Wherever I have done this, I have not only had the sympathy of the people, but [30] the approbration and support of the ministers. Not unfrequently I have been specially invited to lecture upon the inconsistency and criminality of the American churches that were connected with slavery, and in all cases found the clergy ready to go with me in my heaviest denuncations of those who, while they called themselves the disciples and ministers of the Redeemer, were found conniving at the enslavement, body and soul, of those for whom he died. Little did I ever dream that, in the course of my brief life, it would fall to my lot to stand upon a platform in Scotland to arraign those who once joined with me in condemning the blood-guiltiness of the American churches, for needlessly, gratuitously, without solicitation, and without any temptation but the most sordid and paltry, uniting in Christian fellowship with men who, of all the abettors of the slavery in the universe, are the most inexcusable – because the most enlightened. (Cheers.) Sir, this is the third deputation from the Churches of Great Britain to the Christians of America that I have found it my duty to charge with having done injury to the cause of the slave, by their fraternisation of menstealers and their apologists; and it is in grief I add, that of those three deputations, the one before us to-night has done most harm and has the smallest excuse to offer.
Sir, the frequent mention this evening of the name of one gentleman connected with that deputation, has brought to my mind a circumstances which I consider it proper to make public. In 1834 I presented a friend in Edinburgh with a small volume entitled, ‘A Picture of American Slavery.’ It was a work of a gentleman who had been for many years a Presbyterian minister in the southern states of America. It contained an awful and revolting delineation of the utter corruption of the churches connected with slavery. Its accuracy had never been denied, though its author had frequently been in imminent peril of losing his life, as a reward for his faithfulness in drawing aside the curtain which, till the appearance of his book, had veiled the horrors of those painted sepulchres – the Evangelical slaveholding Churches of the United States. Well, Sir, this book was placed in the hands of Dr. Cunningham. (Hear, hear.) After he had read it, he invited me to breakfast with him. Our conversation related solely to the criminality of the American Churches that supported slavery. He told me, distinctly and emphatically, that of all the aspects under which he regarded American slavery, the most affecting, and that which filled him with the deepest horror, was the connection of ministers of the Gospel, and professing Christians, with the soul-destroying system. At that interview he did not hesitate to declare his conviction, that slaveholding and Christianity were incompatible and irreconcileable. (Cheers.) He did more. He expressed his desire to be instrumental in reprinting the work which he had read, for he said that he most earnestly desired that all the Christians of Scotland should be aware of the guilt and turpitude of those in America, who had covered their Christian profession with shame, by participating in the iniquity of slavery. The consequence was, that the little book was reprinted, under the auspices of Dr. Cunningham, and circulated for the information of the people of Scotland, and for the sole and special purpose of rousing their indignation against the hyprocrites of [31] America who, while calling themselves members of the body of christ, made merchandise of slaves and the souls of men. Here is the book, printed in your own city, with a preface from the pen of Dr. Cunningham. What says he in the preface? – that he felt ‘he could not do a more important service to the cause of true religion, than to have it printed in a cheap edition, and presented to his fellow-countrymen.’ What else does he say? – ‘We are of opinion that all parties will unite in testifying their abhorrence of the abominations revealed in this book.’ How does he speak of the acts revealed in this book? – he calls them ‘brutal deeds;’ and concludes with these remarkable words:– ‘The extraordinary facts detailed, especially that professed ministers of the Gospel in the United States are deeply involved in the fearful guilt and wickedness in the book, must make a deep impression on every well-disposed mind in these lands.’ Such is the preface to Mr. George Bourne’s ‘Picture of Slavery among the Churches of America.’ What is the motto which Dr. Cunningham printed upon the title-page? –
Is there not some chosen curse –
Some hidden thunder – in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man
Who gains his fortune from the blood of souls?
This is an awful motto. Well, what is the entire object of the book, thus reprinted and adopted by Dr. Cunningham, and sent forth with the terrific words upon its title which I have just read? The object is to show, (I quote from the book,) ‘how this desolating curse (slavery) can be effectually extirpated.’ And what is the remedy advised by the author, and recommended by Dr. Cunningham? Hear it:
Every slaveholder, peremptorily and without delay, must be excommunicated from the church of God. (Cheers.) It is of no importance what titles, what office, what station, or what rank the slaveholder may hold, or what apparent virtues or talents he may possess or develope. To all these specious pleas, and to all this anti-christian white-washing, there is a concise, significant and irrefutable reply – He is a man-stealer! But, as a man-stealer is the very highest criminal in the judgment of God, and of all rational uncorrupted men, he cannot be a Christian; and, therefore, it is an insult to the Lord Jesus Christ the Head of the church, to record the most notorious criminal as an acceptable member of ‘the household of faith.’ (Loud cheers.)
Can you wonder, Sir, at the pain, the surprise, the indignation which I feel, on finding that Dr. Cunningham has sought the aid of these man-stealers, to build up the cause of the Free Church of Scotland, and that he now stands forth in the General Assembly of that church, to claim them as Christian brethren, and to rebuke the men who are endeavouring to separate the holy from the vile in the visible Church of Christ? How have the mighty fallen! How has the fine gold become dim! The salt has lost is savour, and is henceforth fit for thing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. I do not hesitate to declare my conviction, that the conduct of the deputation of the Free Church, while in America, has been as disgraceful as any thing recorded during the last fifty years. (Loud cheers.)
[32] Sir, I well recollect receiving a requisition, signed by Dr. Cunningham, Dr. Candlish, and others, who are now conspicuous members of the Free Church, to deliver a lecture in the West Church, Edinburgh, on the duty of British Christians in reference to American slavery. (Cheers.) The great building in which we assembled was crowded to overflowing, and I was supported by these gentlemen in my declaration, that it was the duty of the Christians of this country to refuse all intercourse with the professors of Christianity on the other side of the Atlantic, who in any way lent their assistance to the horrid system of slavery. (Cheers.) What have we beheld since? One of these men has crossed the Atlantic, and, instead of bearing a fearless testimony against the abomination of slavery, he has actually linked the Free Church of Scotland to the very worst of the slaveholding churches of America. He has done more. He has brought into the treasury of the Free Church, the fruits of the plunder of the victims, whom the members of those slaveholding churches have robbed of their liberty – robbed of the fruits of the plunder of the victims, whom the members of those slaveholding churches have robbed of their liberty – robbed of the fruits of their industry – robbed of every privilege that is valuable and dear – and reduced to the condition of horses, and pigs, and dogs. Oh, horrible impiety! Oh, wicked inconsistency! Oh, monstrous and iniquitous union, of light and darkness, Christ and Belial! Ministers and members of Scotland’s Free Church, I tell you from this place, that, while you retain in your treasury, one farthing of the money taken from the slaveholders of America, the curse of the slave, and the righteous indignation of the slave’s God, are upon you. While you retain that money, the fairest edifice you have reared, is stained with blood. While you retain that money, there is a fly in your pot of ointment, that will make it a stench in the nostrils of all good men. While you retain that money, your gold and your silver are cankered and corrupted, and, as surely as you have taken it, and, by so doing, joined hands with the very worse of the oppressors of the slave, so surely will your glory depart, until ‘ICHABOD’ will be written upon the walls of those buildings you have erected for the worship of Him, who has said, ‘Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites! for ye tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, but neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.’ (Loud cheers.) You must put on the sackcloth of repentence. You must confess that you have sinned. You must acknowledge that you have allowed yourselves to be driven into an unholy compact with men-stealers, and you must ask forgiveness of those manacled beings, whose stolen wages you permitted to be brought into your treasury. (Cheers.) Do this, and thy light shall break forth as the morning, thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall being up the rear.
Oh, the accursed love of gold! Oh, that three thousand pounds should outweigh the claims of three millions of slaves; should strike dumb the eloquent tongues of Scotland’s most talented ministers; should corrupt the principles, pervent the judgment, and stifle the sympathies of those, who sere once among the most uncompromising of the enemies of slavery! Who does not say, ‘Perish the gold, and return again the days of honesty and truth and justice.’ (Cheers.) What a spectacle, to see the delegates of the Free [33] Church wandering about the slave states with padlocks on their lips! to see them holding fellowship with men, who would have hounded on a lynch-law mob to drag them to the gibbet, if they had preached one sermon against slavery.
A person at this meeting has told us that these gentlemen were sent to preach the Gospel, and had nothing to do with slavery. I tell him they did not preach the Gospel. Would that Missionary be called a preacher of the Gospel, who should say not a word against idolatry in India; not a word against Popery in Rome; not a word against the false prophet at Constantinople! but, on the contrary, fellowship the priests of Juggernaut, fellowship the disciples of Ignatius Loyola, fellowship the expounders of the Koran, and hold forth in their temples and mosques, and take gifts from the shrines of their idols, to build churches and pay ministers in this country. (Loud cheering.) Would Nathan have fulfilled his mission, if, when he had told his parable, he had neglected to say. ‘Thou art the man?’ (Cheers.) Did Paul so act when he stood on the Hill of Mars, at Athens? Did Christ so act when he overthrew the tables of the money-changers? Did Noah so act when he preached righteousness to an antediluvian world? Did Lot so act in Sodom, or Moses when he beheld the golden calf? The man who, calling himself a minister of the gospel, visits the Southern States without bearing his testimony against slavery, is recreant to the cause he has professed to espouse; and the more so, if his silence is induced by a desire to share with the man-stealer the gains of his iniquity.
They preached the Gospel – did they? and in so doing satisfied their consciences! Why then did they leave the Church of Scotland? (Cheers.) They might have preached it till now, and still remained in the church, according to the principles which actuated them in America. They had only to be silent on the subject of the interference of the secular authority in the affairs of the church, and they might have remained. Why the Non-intrusion agitation in Scotland, and the silence of the delegates on the subject of slavery in America? They could find texts enough in Scotland in favour of Non-intrusion, how was it they could find none against salvery when in America? I should like to see the sermons they preached. I should like to see if among their texts could be found these words –
‘Whoso stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand he shall surely be put to death.’
Or these – ‘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:’
Or these – ‘Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously one with another:’
Or these – ‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants therefore:’
Or these – ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he heath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord:’
Or these – ‘Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them:’
[34] Or these – ‘Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal:’
Or these – ‘The labourer is worthy of his hire.’ Or these – ‘Go to now, rich men, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. The cry of those who have reaped down your fields, whose hire is of you kept back by fraud, crieth, and their cry hath entered in the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth.’
Think you, my friends, the ministers of the Free Church took any one of these texts, while gathering up the gold of the Southern States? I tell you, say. A faithful sermon from either of these texts, would have obtained for him the honours of martyrdom – a martyrdom that would have shed more glory on the Free Church of Scotland, than all her struggles for the Headship of Christ, in his own Church. (Cheers.)
Oh, Sir, when I think of the good which these men might have done, and of the evil which they have done; when I contrast the undying fame they might have achieved for themselves, and Scotland’s Free Church, with the scandal and infamy they have brought, both upon themselves, and upon that otherwise illustrious body, I feel as if I could weep tears of blood.
Do not judge me too harshly for my warmth, or for the strength of my language. Have I not been in America? Have I not laboured in the cause of the slave? Have I not had the honour of suffering somewhat for the slave’s sake? Is not my heart knit in strongest sympathy with those who are nobly battling with the demon of oppression? Was it not my mission, for years, to preach the duty which these delegates have neglected? Have I not laboured to effect the very object which they have frustrated? Have I not addressed public meetings, and synods, and unions, and assemblies in Scotland, upon the duty of non-fellowship with man-stealers? Has not every city, and almost every town, and scores of the churches in Scotland, heard my voice uplifted in denunciation of all communion with slave-owners? Have I not rejoiced over the growing symptoms of a determination to mark the reprobatioin in which slavery is held in Scotland, by withdrawing from fellowship with the most guilty of those who participate in the iniquity of the system, namely the professed disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ? Can I then read such speeches as have been delivered by Dr. Cunningham – such articles as have been written in the Witness – such letters as have been penned by Dr. Chalmers – such books as have been published by Mr. Lewis – and such atrocious articles as have appeared in the Scottish Guardian, without being moved to indignation, and without joining my voice to the voices of those who are at this moment crying – ‘Send back the money?’ Yes send back the money! Let that be the cry – teach it to your children, that when they see one of Scotland’s ministers in the street, they may in infantile accents cry – ‘Send back the money!’ Women of Scotland! let the words become so familiar to you, that you shall in mistake say to those who sit at your table – ‘Will you please to send back the oney?’ (Laughter and loud cheers.) Let every city cover its walls with capitals, a foot square in size, ‘Send back the money.’ (Cheers.) Inscribe upon the pedestal of John Knox’s statue – ‘Send back the money.’ (Cheers.) Write upon the tombs of those who died for the solemn league and covenant – ‘Send back the money.’ [35] (Cheers.) From the summit of Arthur’s Seat, let a banner perpetually float, with this watchword – ‘Send back the money.’ (Cheers.) Carve deep into the Salisbury Crags the words ‘Send back the money.’ Inscribe on the Calton Hill, in characters that may be seen from St. George’s Hall, ‘Send back the money.’ (Immense cheering.)
Sir, the question which everybody is asking is, What will the Free Church Assembly do?’ What they will do I cannot say, but I know what they ought to do, and what they will do if they do right. If they listen to the wishes of the vast majority of the people, they will send back the money. If they are sincerely desirous of averting disunion and division, they will send back the money. If they determine to purge their body from the foul stain of slavery and blood, they will send back the money. If they wish to preach the gospel with success, they will send back the money. If they would have the blessing, rather than the curse, of the slave, they will send back the money. If they would secure the favour and blessing of the God who hath said, ‘I hate robbery for burnt offering,’ they will send back the money. (Loud cheers.) But if they do not, what is the duty of those who belong to that Church? I answer, come out from such a Church, be separate from it, touch not the unclean thing; wash your own hands in innocency; bear a practical testimony against so gross an act of treason to the cause of humanity, as that of recognising as the ministers and followers of Christ those who trade in men, and make merchanidse of souls. Settle it in your minds, that of all the crimes that can be committed, slavery, as practised in the United States, is the worst. It is the sum of all villainies; – it is the usurpation of the rights of God himself; – it is the debasement of man, created in the image of God, to the level of the beast.
Does it mend the matter that this horrible crime is committed by a Doctor of Divinity? – Does it diminish the turpitude of the crime, that the victim is dragged by sacerdotal hands to the horns of the altar, and sacrificed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Is slavery more amiable, because practised by those who preach that God hath made of one blood all the nations of men? Sir, my deliberate opinion, formed from a study of this subject during the last fifteen years, is, that slavery would long since have ceased in America, if it had not been upheld by the Christian denominations of that country. (Cheers.)
Well, Sir, just when the great religious bodies of that country were awakening to a sense of their duty – just when Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, were taking up the subject of fellowship with slaveholders, and resolving to purge out the leaven of iniquity, the Free Church of Scotland sends out a deputation – that, trampling under their feet all their formerly avowed principles – resisting and despising the most affectionate and earnest remonstrances offered to them on their landing – casting behind their backs the known wishes and opinions of the vast bulk of their constituents – direct their steps to the slave States – partake the hospitalities of slaveholders – sit at tables groaning with delicacies, the plunder of those who sere fainting under the lash in the field – lie in luxurious beds, pur- [36] chased with the money that belonged to the slaves – are waited upon by human beasts of burden – enter churches build by slaves, out of the money of which those slaves had been robbed – preach sermons to recommend the religion of Christ, in pulpits from which they would have been dragged as felons, if they had opened their mouths for the dumb. They call by the name of ‘dear brethren,’ men living upon the fruits of the enslavement and degradation of their own church members – they pocket a portion of the fruits of a system of soul murder, concubinage, lewdness, Lynch-law – and having done so, come home to be henceforth the apologists of those whom they have thus confederated.
Verily, they have their reward! They have broken the hearts of the friends of liberty. They have won the regards and esteem of the traffickers in human flesh. Their praises are sounded in the vile pro-slavery newspapers of America. They have done what they could do to sanctify and perpetuate the most horrible system of brutality and murder on the face of the earth. They have given the lie to all those who, before they visited America, had proclaimed the doctrine of ‘no union with slaveholders.’ To justify themselves, they have misrepresented and maligned the only persons who are consistently working in the cause of freedom. To cover their own cowardice, they have branded others as fanatics, and enemies to the cause of the slave. And, to reconcile the Free church of Scotland to all this, they have put £3000 into her treasury.
Oh, Sir, if every farthing of that three thousand pounds could be made another three thousand pounds, the Free Church should sacrifice it three thousand times over, rather than fix upon herself the deep and damning stain of such a horrid sin, as that of appropriating the wages of blood for the promotion of the cause of Christ. (Loud cheers.)
Friends of humanity! Up, rouse ye. Let the Free Church have no rest. I feel sure that you will in the end triumph. I feel sure that you will in the end triumph. The difficulty all lies in the influence which a very few men exert over the rest of their brethren. But for the fear of man, which bringeth a snare, there would be scores in the ensuring Assembly to denounce this covenant with transgressors, into which the deputation has entered. I well know the over awing effect of the presence of the Candlishes, the Cunninghams, and the Chalmerses. Were these men to propose the sending back of the joyful money, the proposition would be hailed with plaudits from all parts of the house; but while they hang by their corupt and temporising doctrines, their less influential brethren are mute. All honour to the Willises, Greys, and Duncans of the Free Church.10 (Loud cheers.) I believe, Sir, there are many Willises, Greys, and Duncans, and many in that body, and I fondly trust they will at the ensuing Assembly, obey God rather than man, and speak out in the honest sentiments of their souls.
To this Society and its friends I would say, Be ye steadfast and unmovable. The path of duty at the present is most plain. While a penny of the slaveholders’ money remains in Scotland, let there be no peace.
If there be any in this country who, while calling themselves abolitionists, look with indifference or apathy upon this ques- [37] tion, and refuse to lend a helping hand, I beseech such to examine themselves, whether they are really sound in the faith, and to beware lest this struggle should reveal, that they were only abolitionists when they could be such, without the loss of the favour and countenance of the chief priests and elders of the people. Peace is worth much; but it is not worth the sacrifice of principle. It is far too dearly bought, when it costs a man his fidelity to the cause of truth, and of the bleeding slave.
To the Free Church, I say – Be wise in time. What you do, do quickly. It is even now almost too late to retrieve your character; but delay may be fatal. Let those distinguished men, who are for compromising the question, and keeping the money, be assured that the strife is unequal. The people are against them. The spirit of the age is against them. The Word of God, and the Gospel of Christ, are against them. They may contend a little longer, but they must fall at last.
Repent ye, then, and swiftly bring,
Forth from the camp, the accursed thing;
Consign it to remorseless fire –
Then, strew its ashes on the wind,
Nor leave an atom wreck behind!
So shall your power and wealth increase –
So shall the FREE CHURCH dwell in peace;
On it the Almighty’s glory rest,
And all the land by it be blest.
Mr. Thompson resumed his seat amidst loud cheers.
Mr WRIGHT proposed a resolution or cordial acknowledgement to the Evangelical Alliance, for having, at their last meeting held at Birmingham, passed a resolutioin by which slaveholders would not be invited to their meeting, to be held in August next; and recommending to all those bodies whose object is the spread of the Redeemer’s Kingdom, to adopt and carry out the same principle; which motion was agreed to by acclamation.
Mr. THOMPSON – Sir, the Committee have intrusted to me a resolution, which it gives me peculiar pleasure to submit to this meeting. It is the intention of a few in this country, who deeply sympathise with the American abolitionists, and who desire to do all in their power to promote the cause of universal emancipation, to meet in London in the month of August next, that they may confer together respecting the best and most effectual means of realising their wishes. At this conference we hope to be favoured with the presence and assistance of some of the most uncompromising friends of abolition from Scotland, from ireland, from various parts of England, and from the United States.
Sir, there is one man without whom such a meeting would scarcely be complete, by whomsoever else it might be attended. That man is the object of my resolution to invite, and that man is William Lloyd Garrison. (Loud cheers.)
Sir, there are many reasons for my individually desiring to see William Lloyd Garrison once again in this country. I long to embrace to my heart a friend and brother, who occupies a place in my most ardent affections. I long to tell him, that though the [38] whispers of falsehood, and the parthian arrows of the envious and bigoted, may have done him injury in the estimation of others, they have only made him more dear to me, and more anxious to be identified with him. I want him to revisit these shores, that he may, by his own bright presence, dispel those clouds which the clandestine calumnies of his enemies have raised, to obscure the fair proportions of his pure and beautiful character.
Sir, let me once again bear my testimony to the character of William Lloyd Garrison. I have known him for thirteen years. During that time I have studied him deeply. I have seen his soul in his writings. (Loud Cheers.) I have seen it poured out in the fulness of confidential correspondence – I have seen it manifested in the hours when a man throws off the disguises he is wont at other times to assume, and appears as he really is – I have seen him in the every day labours of life – I have seen him in the time of danger, when his life was in peril, and in the season of prosperity, when the people shouted Hosannah. I have conversed with him on matters of deepest importance relating both to time and eternity, and have enjoyed, I believe, his unlimited confidence. I have heard the accusations of his enemies, and have investigated both them and the motives in which they originated. I may therefore ask to be admitted a witness, and my solemn, my heartfelt conviction and my unbiased testimony is this, that there breathes not a man more worthy the love, the trust, and the esteem of the friends of God and man than William Lloyd Garrison. (Loud cheers.)
In the event of Providence permitting us to meet together some time hence, I desire to see him in our midst, that we may be aided by his counsel and cheered by his presence. (Cheers.) And oh, I want those who have harboured a hard thought towards this my beloved brother, to know him, to prove him, and then to take him to their hearts and tlel him, that they repent that they ever allowed the breath of slander to dim for a moment the lustre of his character in their eyes. (Loud cheers.) Mr. Thompson presented the following resolution:– ‘That this Meeting cordially sympathize with William Lloyd Garrison and his coadjutors, in their efforts to promote the Abolition of Slavery in America; and that we extend to Mr. Garrison an invitation to visit this kingdom, to cheer us by his presence, and to encourage us by his counsels.’
A vote of thanks having been given to the chairman, the meeting separated.
Free Church Alliance with Manstealers. Send Back the money. Great Anti-Slavery Meeting in the City Hall, Glasgow, Containing Speeches Delivered by Messrs. Wright, Douglass, and Buffum, from America, and by George Thompson, Esq. of London; with a Summary Account of a Series of Meetings Held in Edinburgh by the Above Named Gentlement (Glasgow: George Gallie, 1846), pp. 7–38.
Notes
‘Declaration of the National Anti-Slavery Convention.’ Liberator, 14 December 1833.
On the composition of the Free Church delegation to the United States, which also included Henry Ferguson, see Iain Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’: The Free Church of Scotland and American Slavery (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2012), 14.
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Letter from the Executive Committee of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to the Commissioners of the Free Church of Scotland (Edinburgh: Myles Macphail, [1844]). Reprinted in the Liberator, 26 April 1844.
Wright is probably referring to a letter Chalmers wrote to the Witness defending the Free Church’s position, insisting that a ‘distinction ought to be made between the character of a system and the character of the persons whom circumstances have implicated therewith.’ Thomas Chalmers to editor, Edinburgh, 12 May 1845 (Witness, 14 May 1845). Douglass mocked this argument in several of his speeches, including one he gave in Arbroath on 12 February 1846 and returned to it in his own speech, below.
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Letter from the Executive Committee. In a notorious speech at a meeting of the Repeal Association in Dublin on 11 May 1843, Daniel O’Connell declared his intention to refuse ‘blood-stained money’ from pro-slavery Repeal groups in the United States. The speech was reported in the Liberator, 9 and 30 June 1843, and in the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Reporter, 9 August 1843.
The United Associate Synod approved a motion proposing the withdrawal of fellowship with American churches on 8 May 1846 (Scotsman, 9 May 1846); the Relief Synod followed suit on 14 May (Scotsman, 16 May 1846). Douglass attended the former but was not allowed to speak.
The resolution was approved at a meeting of the Aggregate Committee of the Evangelical Alliance in Birmingham in March 1846: see Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’, p.120; Richard Blackett, Building an Anti-Slavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), p. 97.
The Presbyterian Churches in the United States had split on North-South lines in 1837 and the Baptist and Methodist Churches followed in 1844-45, but the Northern Churches were not exempt from censure from abolitionists. See Hilrie Shelton Smith, In His Image, But…: Racism in Southern Religion, 1780–1910 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1972), pp. 74–128; Milton Sernett, Black Religion and Ameriican Evangelicalism: White Protestants, Plantation Missions, and the Flowering of Negro Christianity, 1787–1865 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975), pp. 36–58; and John R. McKivigan, The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1810–1865 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984).
‘The Free Church and the Contributions from the Slave States,’ Northern Warder, 12 February 1846.
On 12 March 1845 at the Free Church Presbytery of Edinburgh, Dr John Duncan and Dr Henry Grey called on the Free Church to adopt a more uncompromising attitude towards the American churches (Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’, pp. 60-5). Rev Michael Willis, a Free Church minister had as early as March 1844, called on the church leaders to return the money raised in the United States (Glasgow Argus, 18 March 1844); in May 1846 Willis would be one of the founding members of the Free Church Anti-slavery Society (Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’, pp. 129-30)
