On Tuesday 2 June, the four abolitionists – Frederick Douglass, James Buffum, George Thompson and Henry Clarke Wright – appeared before a packed meeting at the Music Hall on George Street.  It was their first chance to give their impressions on the debate on slavery at the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, which they had attended on Saturday 30 May.

The topic was a controversial one. Ever since sending a deputation to the United States in 1843–44, and receiving donations from churches in the slave-holding states, the Free Church’s willingness to maintain relations with its American counterparts was much criticised, even by some ministers and congregations within the Free Church itself. The matter was discussed at the General Assembly of 1844, but rather than giving in to demands that it withdraw fellowship from the American churches, the leadership insisted that the Assembly should seek clarification of the position of their transatlantic colleagues. The matter was referred to a committee, which submitted an interim report in September 1844, and a copy was sent to the United States.

The compromise already conceded too much for some of the Southern Presbyterians, notably Dr Thomas Smyth of Charleston, South Carolina, who corresponded with Thomas Chalmers, berating him for hesitating to defend the slaveholding churches.  But the official response to the report did not arrive until May 1845, too late to be debated at the General Assembly that year.  And so the matter had to wait another twelve months before it could be debated again, after overtures on the subject of slavery were presented by the Synods of Sutherland and Caithness and of Angus and Mearns, as well as a petition from elders and other members of the Church in Dundee.

On 30 May 1846, Chalmers’ younger colleagues, Robert Candlish and William Cunningham, made it clear that they believed there were definite shortcomings in the attitude of the American Presbyterian Churches. However, they were not so serious as to warrant the Free Church severing all connection with them. The Free Church adopted the view that while slavery was a sin, being a slaveholder was not, and was content to urge its American counterparts to recognise that slaveholding carried with it a range of moral obligations.

Not surprisingly, the abolitionists were dismayed by the way this compromise succeeded in marginalising the critics within the Free Church such as James MacBeth, ‘who,’ as Douglass put it, ‘had the courage to stand forth and face the triumvirate’ of Chalmers, Candlish and Cunningham.  MacBeth and others would go on to form the Free Church Anti-Slavery Society, which would attempt to revive the discussion at the General Assembly in 1847, but with little success.¹

For an overview of Douglass’s activities in Edinburgh during the year, see Spotlight: Edinburgh.

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AMERICAN SLAVERY & THE FREE CHURCH

A public meeting was held in the Music Hall on Tuesday evening, for the purpose of hearing the Anti-Slavery deputation enter into a review of the proceedings of the Assembly of the Free Church on Saturday, in reference to communion with slaveholders. Councillor Stott occupied the chair, and the hall was densely crowded, many being unable to obtain admission.

The Chairman stated, that he had proceeded to the Free Assembly with the address which he had been voted at a previous meeting upon the subject of slavery, but that rev. body had declined to receive it.

Mr Buffum addressed the meeting at some length. He said, the leaders of the Free Church had attempted to make the people believe that the deputation held extreme and extravagant views; but the views they entertained were, that they believed that God had created all men equal, and endowed him with certain inalienable rights, and that immediate emancipation, without regard to circumstances, was the duty of the master, and the right of the slave. (Applause.) They had been charged with disturbing the peace of the Free Church, but they were not the aggressors. That body had sent out a deputation to the United States and when there they met them with earnest entreaties not to interfere in their endeavours to establish the principle that Christianity had nothing to do with slavery, and that the slaveholder should not be allowed to connect himself with it; but the Free Church disregarded their remonstrances, and came in and sanctioned the opposite principle.

Mr Douglass said, the tone of the speeches delivered in the Free Assembly was far more in favour of slavery than he had any idea they would be; and he had never heard, even in the United States, more open and palpable defences of slaveholding than those he listened to on Saturday. He never heard anything more calculated to steel the consciences of slaveholders than the remarks then made, and the spirit manifested on that occasion in favour of holding Christian communion with them; and the best way possible for maintaining slavery in the United States, was to make out a case of excellence of character for the slaveholders. He could not help remarking the manner in which the leaders of the Free Assembly treated those who differed from them, as was evinced in the case of Mr Macbeth, who had the courage to stand forth and face the triumvirate. (Applause.) They treated him as if he had been a dog; and when they rose to reply to him, they treated him in the most contemptible manner.

Another point, he remarked, was their entire silence in regard to the money. They pretended that the money question was not connected with the discussion of the subject, but he maintained that it was, and he charged them anew with having gone to a slaveholding country and taken the price of human flesh, having in return given to slaveholders the right hand of Christian fellowship.

Mr Douglass then proceeded to combat the argument, that because slaveholding was recognised by the law, it extenuated the guilt of the slaveholder, and went on to remark that he was surprised at the power which the leaders of the Free Church Assembly exercised. He could easily see in Dr Candlish a degree of self-confidence, of self complacency, of pride, and a manifest spirit of domination over men, and a determination to lash every one who differed from him in reference to this question. His indignation was not only kindled against him for his conduct to the slave, but he was indignant to see such a measure of moral and religious intelligence as was presented on that occasion bowing submissively to the pontifical dictation of that gentleman.

He concluded by calling upon all other churches to decline communion with the Free Church unless she at once disavowed fellowship with the slaveholding churches of America. (Applause.)

Mr Wright said he wondered at the recklessness and impudence of the leaders of the Free Church in persisting in denying facts which have been repeatedly laid before the people of Scotland. It had been said that slavery existed only in a small portion of the United States. Now, there were fourteen slaveholding states, each of which is nearly as large as Great Britain, and in all of which the system of slavery exists in all its features. The political influence of those slaveholding states is so powerful, that they have always exercised a strong control over the Government; and as to their ecclesiastical influence, it was so powerful as to compel the repeal, in 1816, of an Act passed by the Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America in 1794, declaring that every slaveholder was a man-stealer. With reference to the law of the state, and the argument attempted to be founded thereon, all he could was, that when God told him to do one thing, and the state another, he put his heel upon the state. There was a spirit of slavery lurking in the hearts of the leaders of the Free Church – they were linking the destiny of that Church with man-stealers, and they would assuredly meet the doom of man-stealers if they continued to hold connection with them. (Applause.)

Mr George Thompson was received with much applause. He said, the question before Scotland, before Great Britain, and before the Christian world at this moment was, the dogmas and doctrines of the Free Church of Scotland, versus the law of God, the spirit and prospects of Christianity, and the claims of universal humanity. He had been told that he had no right to interfere in this question; that it was one of intercommunion between church and church – and question of ecclesiastical polity and discipline. Had the Free Church not meddled with slavery, gone beyond the confines of this kingdom, quitted the shores of England, traversed the blue waves of the Atlantic, fraternized with the slaveholders the right hand of fellowship, called them Christians on the spot, and mingled with them around that table on which were placed the elements, the symbols of the Saviour’s passion, and of his universal love for men – had they not come home again, bringing with them the supplies which they had gathered in these States from slaveholders, and had they not on their return fellowshipped these men, treated them as Christians before the world, demanded for them admission into the churches of this country, and recognition there as standing types of Christ – and had they not by these acts injured the cause of humanity, libelled that gospel which he had been preaching (though not in the pulpit) for the last fifteen years, and a period of that time at the hazard of his life – had he not perceived the slaveholder elevated to the communion table of the Free Church, he never would have been there to review the conduct of that body. (Applause.)

Their object that night was to review the proceedings of that Church; they had now no other object. He was now done with masked and unmasked pamphleteers; and the one issued would never have been replied to by him, but that he might by doing so expose, by writing up the man, what sort of people his masters were. (Applause.) Their object was with the Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland – with those 300 or 400 men calling themselves ministers of Christ, the champions of independence, the opponents of Erastianism, the professed successors of John Knox, who cowered in the presence of Messrs Cunningham and Candlish, for there was not a Knox among them who had this courage in his soul for once to come forward and offer one word in reply. (Applause.)

They have done, then, with anonymous writers or any writers. Their course was this – and till that Assembly met again it would be their course – to denounce through the length and breadth of the land, the horrid, God-denying, man-enslaving theology which was preached to the Assembly on Saturday, and to which an assembly of 2000 persons said amen.

It was a vital question. He asked, for what purpose did the Free Church preach the Gospel? They maintained that the streams they sent forth throughout Scotland were pure and healthful; but if those streams were impure, they had to do with the Free Church of Scotland, for a man may not drink of those streams without injury to his morality, his Christianity, his humanity, and they should try to roll them back to their fountain, or stop up the fountain itself. (Applause.) He would ask if it was a just exposition of the law of Christ to teach the horrid doctrine that ‘God has placed men in circumstances in which it would be sin to give liberty to their captives,’ and that ‘the Apostles welcomed to the Lord’s table,’ and to the privileges and ordinances of religion, men whose hands were imbrued in the blood of their fellowmen? (Applause.)

That was the question; and when those men went to London, the walls of London should be covered with that specimen of their theology, as were those of this city.

They told him that he preached a new doctrine, a strange doctrine; when, they sat at his feet in 1836, and heard the doctrine and applauded it.

The Free Church leaders talked of a kind of slavery which had no existence, but they talked of slaveholders now living, they stated where they lived, how they became possessed of their slaves, and the manner in which they treated them. Mr Thompson then read copious extracts from decisions given in the courts of the United States in reference to the power of the master over the slave, in which it was laid down by the Judge, that the authority of the master could not be permitted to be discussed – that he must have absolute control over his slaves to extort obedience, and that there is no limitation to the punishment which a master may inflict upon his slave.

He then referred to the fact of his having placed a volume in the hands of Dr Cunningham some years ago on the subject of slavery in America; after perusing which the Reverend Doctor declared to him that it had placed that subject, and especially the slaveholding Churches of America, before his eyes in such a light that he was filled with indescribable horror, and recommended the circulation of the work throughout Scotland. That work recommended the excommunication of every slaveholder from the Church of Christ, to which the Rev. Doctor assented.²

He continued – If the Free Church had considered it neccesary to send a deputation to America, they might have visited the other states of the Union, where they would have received a warm sympathy; but they who, for twelve years, had been unceasingly pouring out their invectives upon the American slaveholders, kicking to the winds the remonstrances put into their hands against holding fellowship with the slave states, proceeded to the Southern States, and to the very churches whom they had been overwhelming with their anathemas.

Did they take a deliverance with them upon the subject of slavery? No; but they sent one when they got home. They ought to have proclaimed their creed when there. That they did not; for when they visited those states they became dumb, that they might win gold; they passed through the plantation where the slaves were toiling for their tyrants, and were dumb; they heard the cracking of the whip, and were dumb; passed the slave-pens and auction blocks and prison-houses, and were dumb; and they sat in the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America, and were dumb. These successors of Knox were dumb. (Applause.) ‘We have stood in the presence of Kings,’ say they, ‘and have spoken out;’ but they stood in the presence of the slaveholder, and were dumb. They spoke out when their own liberties were attacked, and yet were dumb when three millions of helpless human beings appealed to them. (Applause.)

Not until Dr Candlish assumed a little more humility, until he ceased to ride rough-shod over the Assembly, he should very strongly suspect that if he lost his stipend, he gained what to him might be better than money – the gratification of his ambition. (Applause.)

He could not look without loathing upon the proceedings of that Assembly, previous to the meeting of which every man that was suspected was curry-combed in private; and if the secrets of the manoeuvres practised for the last twelve months, to bring about the result of Saturday last could be known, the people of Scotland would regard the people of that Church with pity, and overwhelm their leaders with scorn and indignation. (Great applause.) There were men in that Assembly who had stood on the same platform with him, and spoken against the accursed system of slavery and whose hearts, he was convinced, were burning to speak out on Saturday; and why did they not? He commended them for not quailing before these men; but the men who brought about that result, by whatever means, whether by motives of a temporal character, or threats of spiritual discipline, – the result was brought about, and he said and held that it was not done honestly, but dishonestly, and furtively, and tyrannically. (Immense applause.)

But he would proceed to the consideration of their proceedings. After the deputation came home from America, the Assembly in 1844 adopted a deliverance denouncing slavery in as mild a manner as possible, and which as sent out to America. In the following year they came to another deliverance upon the same subject, condemning it in sufficiently strong terms, yet it now turns out that it was never sent to America. Dr Candlish wrote it, he passed it through the Commission, and through the Assembly, and yet he stood upon and said, ‘I am not aware of its having been sent to America.’ He did not say that he did not know, but he was not aware – no other man but Dr Candlish would have used the expression. (Applause.)

Why was it not sent? Again, they said that they were compelled to state the sentiments they uttered, because men out of the Church have taken up an extravagant ground. You never would have said these things if you had not been driven to it! If it was the Gospel, why did you not preach it? I declared those views in 1836 in your hearing, and you did not contradict me – it is a gold pill that has so much enlightened you? (Applause.) Would it not be more honest to say, you have convicted us of these things, you call upon us to renounce these slaveholders and their money, but we will preach these doctrines rather than send back the money. (Applause.)

They had made us poor abolitionists responsible for the ebullition of feeling manifested for the slaveholder, and they sympathise with them because they themselves know what was the annoyance, irritation, and indignation occasioned by the treatment they had received at the hands of the abolitionists of Scotland. They urged them to leave the abolition of slavery to the silent, gradual, and almost imperceptible influence of Christianity – Christianity is to do it, but it is not to be pointed at – Christianity is to sweep slavery from the face of the earth, but Christianity and slavery are to be united together. That is their doctrine. Granting that slavery existed in the primitive Churches, he found that in two and a half centuries after the propagation of Christianity slavery had disappeared. Why does not Christianity in the present day sweep away slavery? Why is it found, 1600 years after the period spoken of, existing as an institution in America? Who planted the tree? – Christians, nominally; who waters the root of that tree from age to age – who prunes the branches and gives luxuriance to the fruit? – Christians; and yet Dr Candlish told them they were to leave it to Christianity to get rid of the system.

The Free Church professed to have a great interest in the Gaelic schools, and a ball was lately held, the surplus funds arising from which were offered to that body, but not one farthing would they take of it. No; they were as pure as the snow on the summit of Benlomond. ‘Know you not,’ said they, ‘we are the Free Church of Scotland, we may have to beg from door to door, but we shall not take money arising from balls.’ The ball took place in Edinburgh, and it might have brought a scandal upon the Church to take its proceeds; but they went to America and took money there, and that they might keep it, represented the slaveholder as a saint, while they denounced the beautiful girl dancing on the floor of the Assembly Rooms as a sinner whose contributions could not be received. (Applause.) ‘Ye hypocrites, ye strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.’

Mr Thompson then read a number of extracts from the constitution of the primitive churches in the third century, one part of which prohibited contributions being taken from those who used their domestics badly. He also showed that St Cyprian caused a collection to be made in order to purchase the freedom of some Numidian slaves in Alexandria.

He then proceeded – Be prepared for some new juggle. The deliverance adopted in 1845, and presented to Scotland as the opinion of the Free Church on American slavery, was never sent; an answer has been received to a former epistle, but it is not replied to. They have shirked the whole question – they never mentioned the money, nor spoke of slaveholding as a sin; and they misrepresented the extent of the system. Beware of a new juggle; as soon as this is exhausted, they will invent something else to deceive the people of Scotland. I put it to your consciences if you will accept of this theology? (Cries of ‘No.’)

Will you, upon Dr Cunningham’s dictum, that Philemon was a slaveholder, have fellowship with American slaveholders? You need not perplex yourself with the meaning of Greek words; you need not go beyond your own hearts to settle this question; and most sure am I, that you will reject every doctrine as impious and blasphemous that is most consistent with the mind of God, and opposed to the dictates of humanity. (Great applause.)

The large meeting then dispersed.

Edinburgh Evening Post, 6 June 1846

AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE FREE CHURCH. – On Tuesday night another enthusiastic meeting was held in the Music Hall. It had been previously announced that ‘the Free Church theology, on the subject of American slavery, as propounded in the Free Assembly on Saturday last,’ would be handled. The crush was great – so much so, that one shilling was repeated offered for admission and refused. The speakers were Mr Buffum, Mr Douglass, Mr Wright, and Mr Thompson. All of them dwelt more or less on the reception they met with on Saturday at the Canonmills Hall, and on the ‘pro-slavery’ views advocated on that occasion.

Mr Douglass spoke at considerable length, and in very severe terms, of the conduct of the Free Church leaders. He had read the speeches of these leaders, but their exhibition on Saturday was far more pro-slavery than even he anticipated. Their whole soul, he asserted, seemed to be engrossed about the condition of the slaveholder, but never a syllable of sympathy in regard to the unhappy slave. Dr Cunningham had contended that slavery was the law of the land, and therefore those who held slaves could not be looked upon as sinners; but he (Mr Douglass) would say to Dr Cunningham, ‘Why not set the law at defiance?’ He had done so before, at the late disruption in the Establishment, but it did not suit his purpose to do it now. He (Mr Douglass) firmly believed that if polygamy was the law of the land, Dr Cunningham was the man who would countenance it; and had he been called on to fall down and worship the image at the sound of timbrel, sackbut, and psaltery, he would have done so.

At great length, Mr Douglas, and also Mr Thomson, who followed him, condemned what they called the ‘miserable sophistry and casuistry of Candlish, Cunningham, & Co;’ and that they were hoodwinking, cajoling, and playing the part of jugglers to their deluded followers.

It was announced there would be another meeting this week, and a soiree next week.

Caledonian Mercury, 4 June 1846

AMERICAN SLAVERY AND THE FREE CHURCH. – Another public meeting on this subject, specially to consider the speeches delivered by Drs Cunningham and Candlish in the Free Church Assembly on Saturday, was held in the Music Hall last night – Councillor Stott in the chair.Long before the commencement of the proceedings, the hall was crammed in every corner, and many hundreds surrounded the doors, unable to gain admittance.

The meeting was addressed in succession by Messrs Buffum, Douglas, Wright and Thompson, in speeches which elicited enthusiastic applause; but from the late hour at which the proceedings terminated, and the want of space, we cannot to-day attempt anything like a report. In the course of his speech, Mr Thompson stated, by way of showing the progress of the opinions he advocated, that Mr Begg, who had said that the agitation was ‘a nine-days’ wonder which would soon be put down,’ had had to bid good-bye to his elders, in consequence of the proceedings of the Assembly on Saturday. This announcement was received with immense applause; but we did not exactly catch whether Mr Thompson said elders or only elder.

Another meeting for the same purpose was announced to be held in the same place on the evening of Thursday.

Scotsman, 3 June 1846

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Notes

1. For an in-depth coverage, see Iain Whyte, ‘Send Back the Money!’: The Free Church of Scotland and American Slavery (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 2012); also Richard Blackett, Building an Anti-Slavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830–1860 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983) and Alasdair Pettinger, Frederick Douglass and Scotland, 1846 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018), pp. 46–75.
2. Thompson is referring here to A Picture of Slavery in the United States of America (Glasgow: University Press, 1835). The Preface to this Scottish edition was unsigned. At a speech in Paisley on 25 April, Thompson claimed that Cunningham wrote the Preface. However, according to a report of a meeting on Thursday 30 April at South College Street Church, Edinburgh, 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.

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.

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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

1. 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).
2. Orr was appointed city missionary following the death of Peter Fearns in 1843. See  History of Broughton Place United Presbyterian Church With Sketches of its Missionary Operations (Edinburgh: William Oliphant, 1872), p. 286.
3. 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.
4. 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 autobiography A 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.

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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

1. 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).
2. Northern Warder, 11 and 25 June, 1846.

While 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.

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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

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Notes

1. ‘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.
2. See eg. Scotsman, 16 May 1846.
3. 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.

As 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.

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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)

 

May Day was a busy day for Frederick Douglass and his colleagues. With James Buffum, George Thompson and Henry Clarke Wright he addressed a Public Breakfast held in their honour at the Waterloo Rooms, followed by another meeting of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Emancipation Society in the same place. In the evening they spoke before an audience of 2000 at the Music Hall on George Street.

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.

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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

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Notes

1. 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
2. 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.
3. 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.

While 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.

The leading lights of the Edinburgh Ladies’ Emancipation Society were the Quakers Jane Wigham (née Smeal) – sister of William Smeal of the Glasgow Emancipation Society – and her step-daughter Eliza Wigham. They had long awaited Douglass’ arrival. Already in November, while he was mid-way through his tour of Ireland, Jane wrote: ‘We hope to have Frederick Douglass in Scotland shortly.’¹

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

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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.

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Notes

1. 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.
2. Witness, 20 May 1846. See Scottish-American Graffiti for more details of this episode.

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.

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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 Evening Post, 30 May 1846

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.

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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, the anti-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.

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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

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Notes

1. The Edinburgh Ladies’ Emancipation Society was more sympathetic to Douglass and the other Garrisonian abolitionists and worked closely with them.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Thompson adapts a phrase from the beginning of The Pilgrim’s Progres – ‘As I walk’d through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where there was a Denn…’: John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (London: J. Haddon, 1847), p. 1.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Thompson is quoting from Lord Byron, ‘A Sketch’: see George Clifton, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron (London: James Robins, 1825), p. 318.

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.

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.

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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

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Notes

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. [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.