Discussion on American Slavery Part 8

"A colored man, who stated that he was ent.i.tled to freedom was taken up as a runaway slave, and lodged in the jail of Washington City. He was advertised, but no one appearing to claim him, he was according to law, put up at public auction for the payment of his jail fees, and SOLD as a SLAVE for LIFE. He was purchased by a slave trader, who was not required to give security for his remaining in the District and he was soon shipped at Alexandria for one of the southern States. An attempt was made by some benevolent individual to have the sale postponed until his claim to freedom could be investigated; but their efforts were unavailing; and thus was a human being SOLD into PERPETUAL BONDAGE at the capital of the freest government on earth, without even a pretence of trial, or an allegation of crime."

He should be glad to find that Mr. B. had a satisfactory explanation of this most revolting case. Such things were enough to make any man speak hardly of America. If he (Mr. T.) said severe things of that country, it was not, Heaven knew, because he did not love that country, for his heart's desire and prayer was, that she might soon be free from every drawback upon her prosperity and usefulness. He told these things because they ought to be known and branded as they deserved, that the nation guilty of them might repent and abandon them. _He_ was not the enemy of America that faithfully pointed out her follies and crimes. No. He was the man that loved America, that seeing her, like some lofty tree, spreading abroad her branches, and furnishing at once shelter and sustenance to all who sought refuge under her shade, observed with sorrow and dismay, a canker-worm at the root, threatening to consume her beauty and her strength, and could not rest day or night in his efforts to bring so great and glorious a nation to a sense of her danger, and an apprehension of her duty. Let others do the pleasant work of flattery and panegyric, and be it his more ungracious, but not less salutary work, of proclaiming her errors, and denouncing her sins, until she learns to do justice and love mercy.

(He (Mr. T.) thought he might with some justice complain of the manner in which he had been treated by his opponent. He (Mr. T.) had made every concession which truth and justice would warrant to Mr. B.; had honored his motives, and studiously separated him from those upon whom his heaviest censures had fallen--the lovers and abettors of the slave system. But a similar course had not been pursued towards him. In many ways his motives had been impeached and his statements so denied as to throw discredit upon his intentions in making them. In a word, Mr.

B's. whole course had been wanting in that courtesy which he had a right to expect would be exhibited by one disputant towards another.

At the same time, he earnestly desired Mr. B. to state freely all he thought of his motives and conduct.

A few moments yet remaining, he would say a word or two in reference to the designs attributed to the abolitionists, in respect of the privileges to which the colored people were ent.i.tled. He denied that the abolitionists had ever asked for the blacks, either in regard to political rights or social privileges, anything unreasonable. They asked for their immediate release from personal bondage, and a subsequent partic.i.p.ation of civil rights; according to the amount in which they possessed the qualifications demanded of others. Where, in the doc.u.ments of abolitionists, was the doctrine of instant and universal enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, of which so much had been heard? He knew not the abolitionist who had contended for such a thing. He asked nothing for him over and above what would be freely bestowed on him if he were white. Oh! it was an awful crime to have a black skin! There lay all the disqualification.

The great fault which Mr. B. seemed to find with the principles of the abolitionists was that they were too lofty; too grand; too little accommodated to the spirit of the age; that, in the adoption of their views and principles, they had not consulted the manners and habits and prejudices of their country; and the whole of his (Mr.

Breckinridge's) argument had been in favor of expediency. He hated that word "expediency," as ordinarily used. It contained, as he had often said, the doctrine of devils. It was so congenial with our depraved nature to make ourselves a little wiser than G.o.d--to believe that we understood better than G.o.d's servants of old the best way of reforming mankind. Oh! that men would take the Almighty at his word, and simply doing their duty, leaving him to take care of consequences.

Doubtless, the dauntless Hebrew, Daniel, was deemed, in his day, a rash man. He might so very easily have escaped the snare laid for him.

Why did he not go to the back of the house? Why not shut the window?

Why could he not pray silently to the searcher of hearts? Daniel scorned compromise. He prayed as he had ever prayed--aloud--with his window open, and his face to Jerusalem. He boldly met the consequences. He walked to the lion's den--he entered, he remained: but lo! on the third day he came forth unhurt, to tell mankind to the end of time that, if they will do their duty and trust in Daniel's G.o.d, no weapon formed against them shall prosper, but they shall in His strength stop the mouths of lions, and put to flight the armies of the aliens.

Mr. BRECKINRIDGE said that, so far as the present respectable audience was concerned, he would make but a single remark. Mr. Thompson and he had already trespa.s.sed on their patience, but they would probably do so no longer than to-morrow night; at least so far as he was concerned, he thought it unnecessary, if not improper. The chief reason of his (Mr. B's.) coming here was to defend the churches, ministers and Christians of America, from the false and dreadful charges which had been proclaimed over Britain against them by Mr.

Thompson, and which he had challenged all the world to give him an opportunity to prove. Upon this topic that gentleman had, as yet, fought shy. He could wait on him no longer. They might expect, therefore, that next evening he would take up that subject, whether Mr. Thompson should follow him or not. If the audience considered that the general subject had been sufficiently discussed already--as from some manifestations he was inclined to suppose--he would at once retire. (Slight hissing.) Was he to consider that as an answer in the affirmative? (Renewed hissing.) Why, then, he had erred in laying any of the blame of trying their patience on Mr. Thompson, and it was his duty to take it all to himself; and, when he returned home, to tell his countrymen that no charges were too gross or caluminous to be entertained against them--nor any length of time, a weariness in hearing them--but that the hearing of defence and proof of innocence was an insupportable weariness. (Increased hissing, with cries of 'no'.) The only remaining supposition was, that Mr. T's. partizans had become convinced he needed succor, and therefore gave it most naturally in the form of organized violence. (The hissing was again attempted, but was put down by the general voice of the meeting.) Mr.

T., he said, had at length brought accusations against him, and had complained that although he (Mr. T.) had repeatedly and cordially expressed good feelings towards him, (Mr. B.) he had in no instance returned this kindness or justice; nor said a word favorable to him throughout the debate. He would appeal to the Chairman, to know distinctly, if Mr. Thompson had any right to demand, or if he (Mr. B.) were bound to express his opinion of that individual. Because, continued Mr. B., as I have in the beginning said that Mr. T. as an individual could be nothing to me or my countrymen, I have preferred to be silent as to him individually. If he is right, however, in bringing such things as charges against me, and continues to demand my opinion, I will give it fearlessly. But let him beware--for I will call no man friend who gains his bread by calumniating my country. Nor can he who traduces my bretheren--my kindred--my home--all that I most venerate and revere--honor me so much as by traducing me. They had been told that Mr. J. G. Birney had fled from Kentucky, and left his wife and children behind him in great danger, he being obliged to flee for his life. It was true, he believed, that Mr. Birney, excellent and beloved as he was, had found it best to emigrate from that State. But that he had _fled_, rested, he believed, on Mr. T's. naked a.s.sertion.

That he had left his wife and children behind, believing them to be in personal danger, was a thing which it would require amazingly clear proof to establish against the gentleman in question. But he would show to the meeting that there was one individual who could do such an act. (Mr. B. then read the following extract from a speech, delivered at a meeting in Edinburgh, on the 28th of January, 1836:)

"He stood there not to defame America. It was true they had persecuted him; but that was a small matter. It was true they had hunted him like a partridge on the mountains; that he had to lecture with the a.s.sa.s.sin's knife glancing before his eyes; AND HIS WIFE AND HIS LITTLE ONES WERE IN DANGER OF FALLING BY THE RUTHLESS HANDS OF MURDERERS."

And again, from the preface to the same pamphlet in which the above cited speech is found, a pamphlet intended perhaps for America, and called, "A Voice to her from the Metropolis of Scotland," the following paragraph occurs:----

"Mr. Thompson having proceeded by way of St. John's, New Brunswick, embarked on board of a British vessel for Liverpool, where he arrived on the 4th of January, and on the 12th was happily joined by his family who had left New-York on the 16th December.

So that it appeared from these statements that Mr. Thompson, believing that the Americans meant to take away the lives of his wife and children, left them to their fate while he prudently consulted his own safety by flight. In regard to the alleged case of the sale of a free man of color, at Washington city, the proof stood thus: Mr. T. broadly a.s.serted, again and again, that a free man had been sold, without trial, into eternal slavery. He, (Mr. B.) without knowing the especial facts relied on, but knowing America, and knowing abolitionism, had flatly and emphatically denied that such a thing ever did or could happen in the District of Columbia. Mr. Thompson re-a.s.serts, and triumphantly proves it, as he says. His first step in the proof is, a printed sc.r.a.p, which, he says, is the identical memorial laid on the table of the Senate of the United States, who, as they received and printed it, he insinuates, thereby avouched its truth. Upon which principle I also avouch all Mr. T.'s charges, as I hear them and consent to their publication. But, he adds, there were once one thousand signatures to this doc.u.ment, all witnesses of the truth of its contents. To which I reply--I see no name to it at all now; and secondly, if there were a million, the paper does not a.s.sert, much less prove, what Mr. T. produces it to sustain. It merely declares _that the man said he was free_; without even expressing the opinion of the writer or any signer of the paper. Now, upon this case, and this proof, it is nearly certain that the man was not free, and extremely probable that the whole case is fict.i.tious. For the glorious writ of habeas corpus, one of the main pillars of your liberty--a privileged writ which no English judge, for his right hand, would dare illegally refuse; that writ is one of the great heirlooms we got with our Anglo-Saxon blood, and is dearer to us than that blood itself.

Here, by act of Parliament, you do sometimes suspend this writ; with us the tyrant does not breathe who would dare to whisper a wish for its suspension. Now, if this man was, or believed himself to be free, what hindered him, from the moment of his arrest to that of his sale, from demanding and receiving a fair trial? Will it be said he did not know his rights? But will it be pretended that the one thousand signers of the memorial, the many abolitionists at Washington of whom Mr. T. boasts, did not know his rights--in a land where every man knows and is ready to defend his rights? If they did not, they were thrice sodden a.s.ses, fit only to be tools in gulling mankind into the belief of a tale that had not feasibility enough to gull a child. Upon the face of his own proof Mr. Thompson had shown that he had not the slightest authority for the a.s.sertions he had so often made in arguing this case; by all of which he intended to make men believe that in America it was not uncommon to sell free men into slavery! Mr.

Breckinridge then resumed the consideration of abolition principles; the _third of which_ was, that all prejudice against color is sinful, and that everything which induces us to refuse any social, personal, religious, civil, or political right to a black man, which is allowed to a white one, not superior to him in moral or intellectual qualifications, is a prejudice, and therefore sinful. He believed this to be a fair statement of their principles on that head. And he would, in the first place, remark concerning them, that even if they were true, which he denied, the discussion of them was worse than useless.

It could not advance the cause of emanc.i.p.ation, nor improve the condition of the free blacks. And whatever the abolitionists might say, the slaves when freed would follow their own course and inclinations; nor could the declaration of an abstract principle alter either their conduct or that of the whites, in any material degree.

If, as Mr. Thompson a.s.serted, prejudice against color was the national sin of America, the plague-spot of the nation, it had just as often been a.s.serted by others that the prejudice itself originated at first out of the relation of slavery. The latter was the disease, the former a mere symptom. If there were no black slaves on earth there would no longer be any aversion against that color, which went beyond the invariable and mutual restraints of nature, or was tolerated by a proper Christian liberty. They know little of human prejudices who do not know that they are more invincible in the bulk of mankind than the dictates of reason, or the impulses of virtue itself. The case of the abolitionists must therefore be p.r.o.nounced foolish on their own showing. For they undertook to break down the strongest of all prejudices, as they themselves say, as a condition precedent to the doing of acts which, to do at all, required great pecuniary sacrifices and a high tone of moral feeling. But if, as I shall try to show, their doctrines are contrary to all the course of nature and all the teachings of Providence--their behavior is to be considered little else than sheer madness. Again: even if it did not prejudice the case of the slave--as none can deny it did--to agitate this question of color, and mix it up inseparably with the question of freedom, of what use was it to him? If the whites treat him with scorn, give him his liberty--and he may pity, forgive, or return the scorn. What advantage was he to gain as a slave, by the discussion, even if no harm came from it? What advantage was he to obtain as a freeman even if its agitation did not forever prevent him from being free? It is, in all its aspects, the most remarkable ill.u.s.tration of a weak, heady, and ignorant fanaticism which this age has produced, and has been, of them all, the most fruitful of evil. The truth was, that many of the rights and privileges of free persons of color were better secured to them in America than corresponding rights and privileges were to the white peasantry of any other country on the globe. With regard to the religious rights of colored persons, he could only say that he had sat in Presbyteries with them, that he had dispensed the Sacrament to them together with white persons; and that he and mult.i.tudes of others had sat in the same cla.s.s with them at our Theological Seminaries. As for all the stories which Mr. T. was accustomed to tell about Dr. Sprague having part of his church curtained round for persons of color, he knew personally nothing, and noticed it only because it was told as a _specimen_ story. He merely knew that Dr. Sprague was accounted a benevolent man, and common charity required him not readily to believe anything of him in a bad sense which could be justified in a good one.

But if there was anything so very exclusive and revolting in these marks of superiority or inferiority in a church, let them not look to America alone; nor limit their sympathies exclusively to the blacks.

In almost every church in England in which he had been, from the cathedral of St. Paul's at London, to the curate's village church, he had seen seats railed off, or curtained, or cushioned, or elevated, and some how distinguished from the rest. And when he inquired why these things were so, and for whose accommodation, the answer was ready. "O, that is for My Lord this; or Sir Harry that; or Mr. Prebend so and so; or the Lord Bishop of what not." And very often, even in dissenting chapels, he had seen part of the seats of an inferior description in particular parts of the house, which he had as often been told were free seats for the poor; an arrangement which has struck him as favorably as the similar one in Dr. Sprague's church did Mr. T. the reverse. This preparation of free and separate seats for the poor is, if he is rightly informed, nearly universal, in both the Scotch and English establishments, whenever the poor have seats in their churches. Now, if Mr. Thompson wished to begin a system of levelling--if he meant to preach universal equality, why did he not begin here? Why did he not try to convert Earl Grey and Lord Melbourne, instead of going across the Atlantic in order to try his experiments on the despised Americans? As to the civil rights of the free blacks in America, the most erroneous notions were entertained in both countries, but especially here. The truth was, they enjoyed greater _civil_ rights than the peasantry of Britain herself; and those rights were fully as well protected in their exercise. Their right to acquire property of any kind, anywhere, without being hedged about with exclusive privileges and ancient corporations; their right to enjoy that property, unenc.u.mbered with poor rates, and church rates, and t.i.thes and tiends, and untold taxes and vexations; their right to pursue trades, callings, or business, without regard to monopolies, and innumerable vexatious and worrying preliminaries; their right to be free in person--subject neither to forcible impressment, nor to the serveilance of an innumerable police: their right to be cared for in sickness and dest.i.tution, without questions of domicile previously settled; their right to the speedy and cheap administration of justice without "sale, denial or delay"--and unattended with ruinous expenses; these, with whatever may truly be considered civil rights, are enjoyed by the free colored people in nearly every part of America, to a degree utterly unknown by millions of British subjects, not only in the East and West-Indies, but in Ireland, and even in England itself. If any rights had been denied them, as the following of certain professions, as that of a minister of the gospel, for example, as Virginia had lately done, he could point their attention to the time when these laws were pa.s.sed, and show that it was not till after the era of abolition; and that would never have been, but for its fury. It was not till after they had learned with bell book and candle to curse the white man, and teach sedition and murder to the slaves. The nature of _political_ rights claimed by Mr. Thompson for the blacks, in his sweeping claim to have them put on a footing of perfect equality with the whites, seemed to be utterly unknown to him, both as to their origin and character.

Whilst he advocated a scheme in America which demanded the most extensive political changes, and claimed political rights as the birthright of certain parties, he still persisted in a.s.suring the British nation that he had never touched the subject in a political aspect! Now what political rights does he claim for the free blacks--and denounce all America for refusing, on account of this prejudice against color? Is it right of suffrage? is it right of office? is it perfect, personal, and political equality? If not, what does he mean? But if he means that it already exists in all the free States and in several of the slave States, in behalf of the free blacks, to a far greater extent than the same exists in England, as between the privileged cla.s.ses and the bulk of the nation, though all are white,--I boldly a.s.sert, that a greater part of the free men of color in America did enjoy perfect political privileges at the rise of abolitionism, than of the white men of Britain at this day. There were more free black voters in North America, in proportion to the free black race, than there are white voters in all Britain, in proportion to the white inhabitants of the British empire. And this, even leaving out the red millions of the East, and the black thousands of the West-Indies; and making the Reform Bill the basis of calculation! If some have been deprived of these privileges, let abolitionists blame themselves. If in most places these privileges have been dormant, it only proves that their exercise was a very secondary advantage--that the present outcry is but the more wicked and absurd. As to the social rights which were demanded for the slaves and free blacks both, there seemed to be a complete confusion of ideas in the minds of the abolitionists. Did they mean to say that all distinctions and gradations of rank were iniquitous, or did they mean that men ought to enjoy rights because they were black, which were justly denied to the whites? Who had ever heard of a n.o.bleman marrying a gipsy? or, of a king of England marrying a laborer's daughter? But the fact was, everything tended to prove that in preaching against the alleged prejudice against color, the abolitionists were really advocating general amalgamation. There were three opinions on the the subject: 1st. That in a State situated like most of those in America, public policy required the mixture of the races to be prohibited; so that, in nearly all the States, intermarriages were prohibited, and in many States they were punishable as a felony with fine or imprisonment.

2d. That the practice was inexpedient, but so far innocent as to be left to the discretion of the parties, which he believed was the opinion of sober-minded people generally in this country. 3d. That, as the chief practical objection to it is a sinful prejudice against color, that prejudice is to be broken down, and the contrary right upheld, as neither improper nor inexpedient, when voluntarily exercised. This last, or even a much stronger advocacy of amalgamation, is the doctrine of abolitionism; facts deducible from their declaration of independence, and found in the whole scope of their writings and speeches. Mr. Breckinridge then went on to show the utter folly, and, as he believed, wickedness of advocating amalgamation; or so acting or talking as to create the universal impression that was what was meant. In the first place, the result after which the abolitionists seemed to strive, was impossible; in the most strict sense of the terms, naturally or physically impossible. He by no means meant to contend with some freethinkers, who, to upset the Mosaic cosmogony, a.s.serted that the different races of men were not fruitful if intermixed beyond a given and very near point. But what he meant was this: all who believe the Mosaic account of the origin of the human race, must, of course, believe that they were once all of one complexion. Now, if they could all be amalgamated and made of one complexion again, those causes, whatever they are, which have produced so great diversities, would, after a time, reproduce them. And having gratified Mr. Thompson and his friends, by universal levelling and mixing the world, would soon find that they had done a work which nature did not permit to stand; and would again behold, in one belt upon the earth's surface, the black, in another the red, and in a third the white man. And to whatever degree they carried their principles into practice, they would find proportionately great counteracting causes--continually fighting against them, and continually requiring the reproduction of their amalgamated breed, from the original stocks. This, then, is a fatal objection to their scheme; the course of nature is against it. But again, he would say, as a second fundamental objection against all such schemes, that wherever, in the past history of the world, the various races of men had been allowed freely to amalgamate, one of two concomitants had universally attended the process, namely, polygamy or prost.i.tution. If either of these be permitted, as innocent, amalgamation can easily be pushed through its first stage; without one at least of these two engines, no progress has ever yet been made in this work of fighting against the overwhelming course of events. He regretted he had not time to go over these branches of the argument with that pains which he could wish. If he had, he believed, notwithstanding all that Mr.

Thompson had said, or might say, about sophistry, they could each of them be demonstrated as clearly as that gentleman could demonstrate any proposition in geometry. Again, in the third place, he believed, from what was contained in the Bible, that in preserving distinct from each other the three families of mankind, as descended from the three sons of Noah, G.o.d had great and yet undeveloped purposes to accomplish. How far the whole history of his providence led to the same conclusion, he must leave to their own reflections to determine.

But on the admission of such a truth as even possible--it was surely natural to look for something in the structure of nature that would effectually prevent the obliteration of either race. One may find this in those general considerations which make intermarriages, in his view, inexpedient; or another in the innate and absolute instincts of the creature. But both will receive with suspicion, as an undoubted and fundamental rule of Christian morals, a dogma which requires us to contend against the clear leadings of providence, and the good and merciful intentions of our Creator. We tax our faith but slightly when we believe that as soon as these purposes of mercy and glory are accomplished, and the signal revolution in the social condition of man now contended for shall be required by the Almighty, we may look for a channel of communication between him and the world more in accordance with the Spirit of his Son than any which has yet brought us messages on the subject. The _fourth_ objection which struck him against this whole procedure was, that in point of fact the world has need of every race that now exists on its surface. It has taken forty centuries to adjust the nicely-balanced and adapted relations and proportions of a vast and complicated structure,--which the finger of all-pervading wisdom has itself guided in all the steps of its development. And now, a stroke of the pen is to subvert it all, and one dictum, of the world knows not whom, accomplish the most stupendous revolution which all these forty centuries have witnessed.

Suppose the end gained. If any one race now existing was obliterated, or very materially altered in its physical condition, how large a proportion of the world's surface would become speedily depopulated, and so remain until the present condition of things were restored! If this could happen as to every race _but one_, what a wreck would the earth exhibit! He who will look with a Christian's eye abroad upon the families of men, must feel that to accomplish the great hopes that his heart has conceived for this ruined world, he needs every race that now peoples it; and must see the hand of G.o.d in arresting so speedily and so signally this pernicious heresy. In the fifth place, he suggested an argument against amalgamation, which at once showed the injustice of the outcry against America, and the total inconsiderateness of Mr. Thompson and his party. The fact was that this prejudice of color, as it was called, was in all respects mutual; and so far from being the peculiar sin of America, was the common instinct of the human race, and existed as really, if not as strongly on the side of the colored population as on that of the whites. In proof of this, Mr. Breckinridge cited the case of Hayti, where no man is allowed the rights of citizenship, unless a certain portion of black blood runs in his veins; and that of Richard Lander, who, while travelling in the interior of Africa, as the servant of Park, was looked upon with comparative favor by the natives on account of his dark complexion, while his master, who was of a very fair complexion, was far less a favorite on that account. The North American Indians and the blacks more readily intermixed than the Indians and the whites, while the latter connexion, which is not indeed uncommon, is formed by the marriage of a white man with a squaw; never, or most rarely, of an Indian and a white woman, the slight, and most exaggerated number of mulattoes, are nearly without exception, the offspring of white men and colored women. These facts seemed to show the reality and nature or the mutual aversion of which I have spoken; an aversion never overcome but in gross minds. And the whole current of remark proves that those who attempted to promote amalgamation are fighting equally against the purposes of providence, the convictions of reason, and the best impulses of nature. He had much to say, which time failed him to say, on the spirit in which the abolition had been advocated in America. He would therefore merely remark whether it might be taken as a compliment, or the reverse, that the spirit of all Mr. Thomson's speeches, which he had heard or read--might give them a tolerable idea of the spirit of abolitionism everywhere: a spirit which many seemed to consider as from above, but for himself he prayed to be preserved from any such spirit. He had much also to say upon the malignant feeling and spirit of insubordination which had been produced by the discussion of these questions in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of mult.i.tudes of free colored people. The riots, of which so much had been said in this country, were as often produced by the imprudence and insolence of these deluded people, as by the wanton violence and prejudices of the lowest cla.s.ses of the whites. In consequence of the influence of the Jacobinical principles of the abolitionists, many free colored servants left employments they had held for years; because the claim then first set up, of perfect domestic equality with their masters, was refused; while many cases of insult to females, in the streets of our cities, signalized the same season and spirit. He had also much to say of the wide-spread feeling, looking towards immediate deliverance, from a distance, and by force, which suddenly, and, if the abolitionists are innocent as they pretend, miraculously got possession of the minds of the slaves over all the southern country; and which led to such stern, and but the more unhappy, if necessary, consequences. It had been said, in justification of his conduct by Mr. Thompson, that persuasion had never yet induced any one to relax his hold on slaves--and that as for America, in particular, she would never be made to feel ought on the subject, till her pride and fears were awakened. To that he would reply that, as regarded pride, perhaps America had her share of it; but if abolition was not to be looked for till her fears granted it, he apprehended they would have sufficient time yet left to send Mr. Thompson on several new voyages before the whole country was frightened into his terms.

FIFTH NIGHT--FRIDAY, JUNE 17.

MR. BRECKINRIDGE said that the order of the exercises of this evening had, without the fault of any one, placed him in a position which was not the most natural. Considering that it was his duty to support the negative of the point for this evening's discussion, it would have been most natural had the affirmation been first brought out. He said this arrangement was not the fault of any one, because it was not known that the point would fall to be discussed on this particular evening; for had it fallen on last night or to-morrow night, the order would have been as it ought to be. His position was, however, made somewhat better by the fact, that nothing that Mr. Thompson could say this evening, in an hour or two, could alter the a.s.sertions which he had already repeatedly made and published in Britain. Since the notice of this discussion had been published, he had, through the providence of G.o.d, been put in possession of six or seven papers and pamphlets containing the substance of what had been said by Mr. Thompson throughout the country, and reiterated by a.s.sociated bodies of his friends under his eye. After reading these carefully, he found himself pretty fully possessed of that individual's charges and testimony against the ministers, private Christians, and churches of America; he would, therefore, take them as he found them in those publications, while Mr. Thompson's presence would enable him to explain, correct, or deny anything that might be erroneously stated. The first thing he should attempt to do, was to impeach the competency of Mr. Thompson as a witness in this or any similar case. Mr. Thompson had shown that he was utterly incompetent, wisely to gather and faithfully to report testimony on any subject involving great and complicated principles.

He did not wish to say anything personally offensive to Mr. Thompson; but he must be plain, and he would first produce proof of what he said, which was as it regarded this whole nation perfectly _ad hominem_. He would show the audience what Mr. Thompson had said of them, and then they would better judge what was his competency to be a witness against the Americans. At a meeting in the Hopeton Rooms at Edinburgh, since his return from the United States, Mr. Thompson said:

We were really under a worse bondage than the slaves of the United States. We kissed our chains and hugged our fetters.

We were governed by our drunken appet.i.te.

The lecturer, in the concluding portion of his address, depicted in a tone of high moral feeling, the degraded condition of Great Britain as a nation, in consequence of her extreme drunkenness. He shewed that habits of intemperance, or feelings and prejudices generated by intemperance, pervaded every cla.s.s, from the highest to the lowest, the richest to the poorest. Statesmen bowed upon the altar of expediency; and, above all, the sanctuary was not clean. As a Christian nation, we were paralized in our efforts to evangelize the world--partly by the millions upon millions actually expended upon ardent spirits--partly by the selfish and demoralizing feelings which this sensual indulgence in particular was known to produce. How could we, as a nation, upbraid America with her system of slavery when we ourselves were but glorying in a voluntary slavery of a thousand times more defiling and abominable description? In our own country, it might be said that there was, as it were, a conspiracy against the bodies and souls of her people.

Now in any Court of Justice, he would take his stand upon the fact that the man who made that speech must be a _monomaniac_, and he believed no competent tribunal, after hearing it, would receive his testimony as to the character or conduct of any nation on the face of the earth. Or if there lingered a doubt on the subject, he should show from the burden of his charges against America, that he spoke in the same general spirit, and nearly in the very same terms of her as of Britain, although the fault found with each country was totally different. He spoke of each as the very worst nation on the earth, because of the special crime charged. Any man who could allow himself to say that the two most enlightened nations on earth were in substance the two most degraded nations on earth; who could permit himself to bring such _railing accusations_ successively against two great people, on account of the sins of a small portion of each, which he had looked at till he could see nothing else, and with the perseverance of a goldleaf-beater, exercised his ingenuity in stretching out to the utmost limits over each community; a man who not only can see little to love anywhere that does not derive its complexion from himself, and who, the moment he finds a blot on his brethren, or his country, instead of walking backwards and hiding it with the filial piety of the elder sons of Noah, mocks over it with the rude and unfeeling bitterness of Canaan; such a man is worthily impeached, as incompetent to testify. Nay, I put the issue where Mr.

Thompson has put it. If this nation be such as he has described it to be, I demand, with unanswerable emphasis, how can it dare to call us, or any other people, to account on any subject whatever? If, on the other hand, what he has said of this nation be false, I equally demand how can he be credited in what he says of us--of any other nation under the sun? After this caveat against all that such a witness could say, he would in the first place observe, that all the accusations brought by Mr. Thompson against Americans, were imbued with such bitterness and intemperance as ought to awaken suspicion in the minds of all who hear them. There was visible not only a violent national antipathy against that whole country, but also a strong prejudice in favor of the one side and against the other in the local parties there, which, before any impartial tribunal, ought greatly to weaken any credit that might otherwise be attached to his testimony. Besides an open hostility to the nation as such, and a most envomed hatred to certain men, parties, and principles in America, the witness has exhibited such a wounded feeling of vanity from his want of success in America; such a glorying of his friends, and that just in proportion to their subserviency to him, and such a contemptuous and unmerited depreciation of his opponents, as should put every man who reads or hears his proofs at once on his guard. As to the opinions and conclusions of such a person, even from admitted facts, they are of course worthless; and his inferences from hearsay and idle reports, worse than trash. But what I mean to say is, that such a witness, considered strictly as testifying to what he a.s.serts of his own knowledge, is to be heard by a just man with very great caution. For my own part, at the risk of being called again a pettifogger, by this informer, I am bound to say that his conduct impeaches his credibility fully as much as it has before been shown to affect his competency; and while I have peculiar knowledge of the facts, sufficient to a.s.sert that his main accusations are false, I fully believe that the case he had himself made, did of itself justify all good men to draw the same conclusion, merely from general principles. I will venture to go a step farther, and express the opinion that they who are acquainted with Mr. Thompson, as he exhibits himself in the public eye, and who have knowledge of the past success, which really did, or which he allows himself to believe did attend his efforts in West-India emanc.i.p.ation, (a success, however, which I do not comprehend, as the case was settled against him and his party, on the two chief points on which they staked themselves, namely, _immediate abolition_ and _no compensation_,) they who can call to mind the preparation and pretension with which he set out for America, the gigantic work he had carved for himself there, the signal defeat he met with, and the terror in which he fled the country; may find enough to justify the fear that the fate of George Thompson has fully as large a share in his recollections of America as the fate of the poor slave. In the _second place_, I charge upon Mr. Thompson that those parts of his statements which might possibly be in part true, are so put as to create false impressions, and have nearly the same effect as if they were wholly false on the minds of those who read or hear them. This results from the constant manner of stating what might possibly be true; and it is not only calculated to produce a false impression, and make the casual reader believe in a result different from what would be presented if Mr. Thompson were on oath and forced to tell the whole truth, but the uniformity and dexterity with which this is done, leaves us astonished how it could be accidental. He (Mr. B.) a.s.sumed that all of them had read or would read Mr. Thompson's charges. After doing so they would the better apprehend what was now meant; but, in the mean time, he would ill.u.s.trate it by a case or two. Thus, when Mr.

T. spoke of the ministers in the United States being slave-holders, he did it in such a way as to lead the reader to believe that this was a general thing; that the most of them, if not the whole of them, were slave-owners. He did not tell them that none of the ministers in twelve whole States were or could easily be slave-holders, seeing they were not inhabitants of a slave State; he did not tell them that the cases of ministers owning slaves were rare even in some of the slave States; and a fair sample of the majority in not a single State of the Union; he left the charge indefinite, and did not condescend to tell whether the number of ministers so accused was one half, or one third, or one fourth, or one hundredth part of the whole number in the United States. He left it wholly indefinite, on the broad charge that American ministers were slave-holding ministers; knowing, perhaps intending, that the impression taken up should be of the aggregate ma.s.s of American ministers; when he knew himself all the while that the overwhelming ma.s.s of American ministers had never owned a slave; and that those who had, were exceptions from the general rule rather than samples of the whole. It may well be asked how much less sinful it was to rob men of their good name, than of their freedom? Not content with even this injustice, Mr. Thompson had gone so far as to charge the ministers of America with dealing in slaves; _slave-driving ministers_ and _slave-dealing ministers_, were amongst his common accusations. Now, said Mr. B., he would lay a strong constraint upon himself, and reply to these statements as if they were not at once atrocious and insupportable. The terms used by Mr. Thompson were universally understood in the United States, to mean the carrying on of a regular traffic in slaves as a business. The meaning was the same here, and every one who had heard or read one of his printed speeches, was ex vi termini obliged to understand this charge like the preceding, as expressing his testimony as to the conduct of American ministers generally, if not universally.

Now I will admit that there may be in America, one minister in one thousand, or perhaps five hundred, who may at some period of his ministry, when he had no sufficient light on the subject, have bought or sold slaves a single time, or perhaps twice, or possibly thrice.

But I solemnly declare I never knew, nor heard of, nor do I believe there exists in all America, one such minister, as is above described; nor any sect that would hold fellowship with him. He would throw under the _third general head_ charges of a different kind from the preceding. Mr. Thompson, when generalities fail, takes up some extreme case, which might probably be founded on truth, and gives it as a specimen of the general practice; thereby creating by false instances, as well as by indefinite accusations, an impression which he knows to be entirely foreign from the truth. If he, (Mr. B.) were to tell in America that on his way to this meeting to-night, he saw two blind men begging in the streets, with their arms locked to support their tottering steps, while the crowd pa.s.sed them idly by; and if he gave this as a specimen of the manner in which the unfortunate poor were treated in Scotland, he would not give a worse impression, nor make a more unfair statement of the fact, than Mr. Thompson had done, nearly without exception, in his statements of America. Such a spirit and practice as this, pervaded the whole of Mr. Thompson's speeches. He would select a few instances to enforce his meaning. There was a single Presbyterian Church at Nashville, Tennessee. Now he, (Mr. B.) happened, in the providence of G.o.d, to be somewhat acquainted with the past history of that church; and was happy to call its present benevolent minister his friend. He could consequently speak of it from his own knowledge. Mr. Thompson said that a young man went to Nashville, who, either through his own imprudence, or the violence of the disjointed times, was arrested, tried by a popular committee, found guilty of spreading seditious papers, and sentenced to be whipped; that he had received twenty lashes, and was then discharged.

This he believed to be substantially true, and well remembered hearing of the occurrence; and taking the young man's account of it as true, he had been greatly shocked at it, and had now no idea of defending it. But in Mr. Thompson's statement of the case, there was a minute misrepresentation, which showed singular indifference to facts. Mr. T.

said the young man went to Tennessee to sell cottage bibles, in which business he succeeded well, for the reason, adds the narrator, that Bibles were scarce in the South; although he could not fail to know, that before the period in question, every family in all those States that would receive a Bible, had been furnished with one by the various Bible Societies. This, however, was not the main reason for a reference to this case; but was mentioned incidentally, to show the nature of the feelings and accusations indulged in by this gentleman.

His account went on to say, sometimes that there were seven, sometimes eleven elders of this Presbyterian Church. It was not intended to lay any stress on the discrepancy; as the fault might be the reporter's.

But seven, or eleven; it was again and again charged, that all of them, every one, was present, trying, and consenting to the punishment of the unhappy young man, "plowing up his back," and mingling, perhaps in the mob who cursed him, even for his prayers. To make the case inexpressibly horrible, it is added, that these seven or eleven elders, had as to part of them, distributed the sacramental elements, to the abolitionist, the very Sabbath before, the day on which the seven elders partic.i.p.ated in this outrage. Now I say first, that if this story were literally true, no man knows better than Mr. Thompson, that no falsehood could be more glaring than to say or insinuate, that the case would be a fair average specimen of what the leading men in the American churches generally might be expected to do, in like circ.u.mstances. Yet for this purpose, he has repeatedly used it! No man could know better than he, that if the case were true in all its parts, it would every where be accounted a violent and unprecedented thing, which could happen at all only in most extraordinary circ.u.mstances. Yet he has so stated it, over and over, as to force the impression that it is a fair sample of American Christianity. But, said Mr. B. I call in question all parts of the story, that implicate any Christian. I do not believe the statements. Let me have proof. I do not believe there were either seven or eleven elders in the church in question. Record their names. If there were so many, it is next to impossible, that every one of them, was on the comparatively small committee that tried the abolitionist. Produce the proofs; and I believe it will turn out, that if either of them was present, it was to mitigate popular violence; and that his influence perhaps, saved the life of him he is traduced for having oppressed. He did not mean to stake his a.s.sertion against proof; but from his experience and general knowledge of the parties, he had no hesitation in giving it as his opinion, that the facts, when known, would not justify the a.s.sertions of Mr. Thompson, even as to the particular case; and believing this, I again challenge the production of his authority.

But, if it be true in all its parts, I repeat, it is every thing but truth, to say that it affords a just specimen of the elders of the Presbyterian Churches of America. Another case resembling the preceding in its principle, is found in what Mr. Thompson has said of the Baptists of the Southern States. There are, says he, above 157,000 members in upwards of 3000 Baptist Churches, in those States, "almost all both ministers and members being slave holders." Allowing this statement to be true, and that each slave holder has ten slaves on an average, which is too small for the truth, there would be an amount of slaves equal to 1,570,000 owned by the Baptist of the Southern States.

If this be true, and the census of 1830 true also, there were only left about 500,000 slaves to divide among all the other churches; leaving for the remainder of the people, none at all! So that after all this, though churches be bad, the nation is clean enough.

Let us now make some allowance for this gentleman's extravagance, especially as he did think he was speaking under correction, and divide his 157,000 Baptists into 52,000 families, of three professors of religion in each. This is more than the average for each family; especially in a church admitting only adults; and the true number of families, for that number of professors, would be nearer one hundred than fifty thousand. Twenty slaves to the family is below the average of the slave owning families of the South; so that at the lowest rate, the Baptists in a few States, according to this person, own 1,040,000 slaves at the least, or above half the number that our last census gives to the whole union. The extraordinary folly of such statements, would appear more clearly to the audience when they understood, that as large a proportion of all the blacks, as of all the whites in America are professors of religion; that above half of all slaves who profess religion, are Baptists; and that, therefore, if there are 157,000 Baptists in the Southern States, instead of being "almost all slave holders," at least a third of them are themselves slaves. He gave these instances to show that Mr. Thompson had taken extreme cases containing some show of truth as specimens of the whole of America, and had thereby produced totally false impressions. What truth there was in them, was so terrifically exaggerated, that no dependence whatever could be placed upon any of his testimony. And this would be still more manifest after examining the charge brought by Mr.

Thompson, that the very churches in America own slaves; and several of his speeches contain a pretty little dialogue with some slaves in the fields, the whole interest of which turns on their calling themselves "_the Church's Slaves_." This was spoken of as it were in accordance with the usual course of things in the United States. Indeed, Mr.

Thompson had not only spoken with his usual violence and generality of the "slave holding churches of America," and declared his conviction that "all the guilt of the system" should be laid "on the church of America;" but at the very latest joint exhibition of himself and his friend _Moses Roper_, in London, it was stated by the latter in one of his usual interludes to Mr. Thompson, perhaps in his presence, certainly uncontradicted, that, slave holding was universally practised by "all Christian _societies_" in America; the societies of Friends only excepted. It may excite a blush in America, to know that the poor negro's silly falsehood was received with cheers by the London audience.

What then should the similar declarations of Mr. Thompson, made deliberately and repeatedly, and with infinite pretence of candour and affection, what feelings _can_ they excite; and how will that insulted people regard the easy credulity which has led the Christians of Britain to believe and reiterate charges in which it is not easy to tell whether there is less truth or more malignity? For how stood the facts? What church owns slaves? What Christian corporation is a proprietor of men? Out of our ten thousand churches perhaps half are involved in this sin? Perhaps a tenth part? Surely one Presbytery at least? No,--this mountain of fiction has but a grain of truth to support its vast and hateful proportions. If there be above five congregations in all America that own slaves, I never heard of them.

The actual number, of whose existence I ever heard, is, I believe, precisely _three_! They are all Presbyterian congregations, and churches situated in the southern part of Virginia, and got into their unhappy condition in the following manner:--Many years ago, during those times of ignorance at which G.o.d winked--when such a man as John Newton could go a slaving voyage to Africa, and write back that he never had enjoyed sweeter communion with G.o.d than on that voyage; during such a period as that, a few well meaning individuals had bequeathed a small number of slaves for the support of the gospel in three or four churches. These unfortunate legacies had increased and multiplied themselves to a great extent, and under present circ.u.mstances to a most inconvenient degree. A fact which puts the clearest contradiction on that a.s.sertion of this "accuser of the brethren"--representing their condition as being one of unusual privation and suffering. Of late years these cases had attracted attention, and given great uneasiness to some of the persons connected with these churches. I have on this platform, kindly furnished me, like most of the other doc.u.ments I have, since this debate was publicly known--a volume of letters written to one of these churches on the whole case, by the Rev. Mr. Paxton, at that time its pastor.

That gentleman is now on this side of the Atlantic, and may perhaps explain what Mr. Thompson has so sedulously concealed; how he was a colonizationist; how he manumitted and sent his own servants to Liberia; how he labored in this particular matter with his church, long before the existence of abolitionism; and how, finding the difficulties insuperable, he had written this kind and modest volume, worth all the abolition froth ever spued forth,--and left the charge in which he found it so difficult to preserve at once an honest conscience and a healthful influence. It will not, however, be understood that even these few churches are worthy of the indiscriminate abuse lavished on us, all for their sakes; nor that their present path of duty is either an easy or a plain one. Whether it is that there are express stipulations in the original instruments conveying the slaves in trust for certain purposes; or whether the general principle of law, which would transfer to the State, or to the heir of the first owner, the slaves with their increase,--upon a failure of the intention of the donor, either by act of G.o.d, or of the parties themselves, embarra.s.s the subject; it is very certain that wiser and better men than either Mr. Thompson or myself, are convinced that these vilified churches have no power whatever to set their slaves free. If the churches were to give up the slaves, it could only have the effect, it is believed, to send them into everlasting bondage to the heirs of the original proprietors. They have therefore justly considered it better for the slaves themselves that they should remain as they were in a state of nominal servitude, rather than be remitted into real slavery. Such is the real state of the few cases which have first been exhibited as the sin, if not the actual condition of the American churches; and then exaggerated into the utmost turpitude by hiding every mitigating circ.u.mstance, adding some purely new, and distorting all things. Whether right or wrong, the same state of things exists amongst the Society of Friends in North Carolina, to a partial extent, and in another form. They did not consider themselves liable to just censure, although they held t.i.tle in and authority over slaves, as individuals, while they gave them their whole earnings, and had collected large sums from their brethren in England, which were applied to the benefit of these slaves. It is not now for the first time that charges have been made against the Church of G.o.d--that Judah is like all the heathen. But all who embark in such courses--have met with the common fate of the revilers of G.o.d's people; and they, with such as select to stand in their lot--may find in the word of life a worse end apportioned for them, than even for those they denounce, in case every word they utter had been true. We bless G.o.d that no weapon formed against Zion can prosper. There was one other instance which he had noted under this head as requiring some comment, which could not bear omission, regarding the private members of the Christian churches in the United States, of whom a casual hearer or reader of Mr.

Thompson's speeches would believe that the far greater part actually owned slaves; that very few, and they almost exclusively abolitionists, considered slavery at all wrong; that with one accord they deprived the slaves of all religious privileges, and used them, not only as a chattel, but as nothing else than a chattel. According to our last census, there were about 11,000,000 of whites, 2,000,000 of slaves, and 400,000 free blacks in America, making a total of nearly thirteen and a half millions. All the slaves were gathered into the 12 most southerly states, free blacks were not far from half in the free and half in the slave states, and of the whites over 7,000,000 were in the free, and less than 3,000,000 in the slave states. The best information I possess on this subject, authorizes me to say--about 1 person in 9, throughout the nation, black and white, is a member of a Christian church, the proportion being somewhat larger to the north, and comparatively smaller at the south. There are, therefore, above 1,100,000 white Christians in the United States, of which about 800,000 live in the 12 free States, and neither own slaves nor think slavery right; leaving rather over 330,000 for the 12 slave States. Now, if these white Christians in the slave States own all the slaves, and the other 8-9ths of the whites owned none at all, there will be only about 6 slaves to each Christian there, a number far below the average of the slave holders; and all the North, and all the South, except Christians, free of charge and guilt, in the specific thing. But if we divide these Christians into families, and suppose there may be as many, as one in three or four of them, who is a head of a family, say 100,000; and that they own all the slaves: in that case, there would be an average of twenty slaves to every white head of a Christian family in the slave States. But here again all the slaves would be absorbed: all the North innocent, above two-thirds of the Christians at the South proved to be not slave holders at all; and all the followers of the devil wholly innocent of that crime.

These calculations demonstrate that these accusations are as groundless and absurd as any of the preceding. And while it is painfully true that in the slaveholding States far too many Christians do still own slaves; it is equally true, that they bear a small proportion to those who own none, even in those States. If we suppose the Christians in America to be about on an equal footing as to wealth with other people; and to have no more conscience about slavery, than those around them in the slave States; and that twenty slaves may be taken as the average, to each master; and a ninth of the people pious, as stated before, it follows that only about 11,000 professors of religion can be slaveholders; or about one in every hundred of the whole number in the nation. Yet every one of the above suppositions is against the churches, and yet upon this basis rests the charges of a candid, affectionate Christian brother against them all! The only remaining ill.u.s.tration of Mr. Thompson's p.r.o.neness to represent a little truth, in such a way as to have all the effects of an immense misrepresentation, regards his own posture, doings and sufferings in America. "Fourteen months of toil, of peril, and persecution, almost unparalleled;" "there were paid myrmidons seeking my blood;" "there were thousands waiting to rejoice over my destruction;" "when any individual tells George Thompson who has put his life into his hands, and gone where slavery is rife; when I, George Thompson, am told I am to be spared," &c. Similar statements, ad infinitum, fill up all his speeches; and are noticed now, not for the purpose of commenting on, or even contradicting them, but of affording my countrymen, who may chance to see the report of this discussion, specimens, as our certificates often run "of the modesty, probity, and good demeanor,"

of the individual.

He would pa.s.s next to a fourth general objection against Mr.

Thompson's testimony, as regards America, which was, that much of it was in the strictest sense, positively untrue. For instance, Mr.

Thompson had twice put a runaway slave forward upon the platform at London; or at least connived at the doing of it; who stated of his own knowledge, that a Mr. Garrison, of South Carolina, had paid 500 dollars for a slave, that he might burn him, and that he had done so without hindrance or challenge, afterwards. This statement Mr. T. has never yet contradicted in any one of his numerous speeches, although he must have known it to be untrue. I have myself several times directed his attention to the subject, and yet the only answer is, "expressive silence." Then I distinctly challenge his notice of the case; and while I solemnly declare, that according to my belief, whoever should do such an act in any part of America, would be hung: I as distinctly charge Mr. Thompson, with giving countenance to, and deriving countenance from this wilful misstatement.

As an other instance of the same kind, you are told that a free man was sold from the jail at Washington city, as a slave, without even the form of a trial; which is farther aggravated by the a.s.sertion that this is vouched as a fact, on the testimony of 1000 signatures.

This matter, when Mr. Thompson's own proof is produced, resolves itself into this: that Mr. Thompson said, there had been a thousand signatures to a certain paper, which said, that a certain man taken up as a runaway slave, said he was free! If he was a slave, the whole case falls; whether he was a slave or not, was a fact that could have been judicially investigated and decided, if the person most interested, or any other, had chosen to demand it. So that in point of fact, Mr. Thompson's whole statements, touching this oft repeated case, are all purely gratuitous. And with what horror, must every good man hear that Mr. Thompson, within the last two or three weeks, told a crowd of people in Mr. Price's Chapel, Devonshire Square, London, in allusion to this very case, that the poor black had "DEMONSTRATED HIS FREEDOM," and afterwards been "sold into everlasting bondage!" And yet upon this fiction he bases one of his most effective "ill.u.s.trations of American slavery," and some of his fiercest denunciations of the American people. Oh! shame, where is thy blush! He could if time permitted exhibit other cases,--in principle perhaps worse than these; in which neither the false a.s.sertions of Moses Roper--nor the pretended evidence of misrepresented pet.i.tions existed to make a show of evidence; and which nothing but the most extraordinary ignorance, or recklessness could explain. Such are the a.s.sertions made by himself or his coadjutors in his presence, that slaves are brought to the district of Columbia from all the slave states for sale; that five years is the average number, that slaves carried to the Southern States live; that slaves without trial, or even examination, were often executed, by tens, twenties, and even thirties; that the banner of the United States, which floated over a slave dealing congress, in the midst of the slave market of the entire nation, had the word "_Liberty_" upon it (which single sentence contained three misstatements;) that religious men weighed children in scales, and sold them by the pound like meat;--that there were 2,000,000 of slaves in America who never heard the name of Christ; that no white man would ever be respected after he had been seen to shake hands with a man of colour; all which _unnameable_ a.s.sertions are contained, along with double as many others like them, in one single newspaper (the London