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 assertions 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 God, 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 associated 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 appetite.

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 class, 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 asserts 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 assert 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 emancipation, (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.) assumed 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 illustrate 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 mass of American ministers; when he knew himself all the while that the overwhelming mass 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 passed 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 God, 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 participated 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 circumstances. 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 circumstances. 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 assertion 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 assertions 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 God 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 God 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 circumstances to a most inconvenient degree. A fact which puts the clearest contradiction on that assertion 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 documents 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 God, or of the parties themselves, embarrass 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 circumstance, 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 title 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 God—that Judah is like all the heathen. But all who embark in such courses—have met with the common fate of the revilers of God'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 God 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 illustration of Mr. Thompson's proneness 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 pass 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 assertion 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 "illustrations 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 assertions of Moses Roper—nor the pretended evidence of misrepresented petitions existed to make a show of evidence; and which nothing but the most extraordinary ignorance, or recklessness could explain. Such are the assertions 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 assertions are contained, along with double as many others like them, in one single newspaper (the London Patriot of June 1, 1835;) and in a portion of the report of only two of Mr. Thompson's meetings! Alas! for poor human nature! Having now gone through all that his time permitted him to say, of the proof against America, he would lay before them some counter testimony upon several parts of this great subject. He had at one time greatly feared that he might be obliged to ask them to believe his mere word, perhaps in the face of other proof; but through the providence of God, he had been put in possession of a very limited file of American newspapers, from the contents of which he thought he should be able to make out as strong a case for the truth, as he had proved the case against it to be weak and rotten. There were so many denominations of Christians in America, that he would only tire the meeting by enumerating them. They were of every variety of name and opinion. As to many of them he knew but little, and the present audience perhaps less. The Societies of Friends generally did not tolerate slaveholding among their members; neither did the Covenanters. The Congregationalists, or Independents, had not, he believed, a dozen churches in all the Slave States, and, of course, they should be considered as exempt from the charge. It was, however, the less necessary to occupy ourselves in general remarks, inasmuch as Mr. Thompson had laid the stress of his accusations on the three great denominations of America. "He took all the guilt of this system, and he laid it where? On the Church of America. When he said the Church, he did not allude to any particular denomination. He spoke of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists, the three great props—the all-sustaining pillars of that blood-cemented fabric." Such were the words of Mr. T., and it would therefore be needless to trouble ourselves about the minor, if we could settle the major to our satisfaction. As to two of these denominations, he should say but little; his chief and natural business being to defend that one of which he knew most. In regard to the Baptists, he was sorry to be obliged to say, that he believed they were the least defensible of the three denominations, now principally implicated; indeed that some of their Associations had taken ground on the whole case, from which he entirely dissented,—and which, he was sure, had given great pain to the majority of their own brethren. He begged leave to refer them to the work of Drs. Cox and Hoby, just through the press, in which he presumed, for he had not seen it, they would find an authentic and ample information on this and every other point relating to that denomination in America. In relation to the Methodists, his knowledge was both more full and more accurate. Their discipline denounced Slavery, and prohibited their Members from owning slaves, and though their discipline itself was not carried into effect with rigid exactness, he did not believe that there was a Methodist Church in the United States, or upon the Earth, which owned slaves, as a Church. He believed that very few Methodist preachers—indeed, almost none, owned any slaves, and nothing but the most direct proof could for a moment make him believe, that one of them was a slave-dealer. The whole sect, or at least the great majority of it, might be considered as fairly represented, in the following Resolutions passed in the Conference, held at Baltimore; and which could be a set off to those read by Mr. Thompson, from one of the northern Conferences.

METHODIST'S RESOLUTIONS ON ABOLITION.

At a late meeting of the Baltimore Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church held at Baltimore, the following preamble and Resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the names of all the members and probationers present, in number, one hundred and fifty-seven, were subscribed, and ordered to be published. The secretary was also directed to furnish Rev. John A. Collins, with a copy for insertion in the Globe and Intelligencer, of Washington City.

Whereas great excitement has pervaded this country for some time past on the subject of abolition; and whereas such excitement is believed to be destructive to the best interests of the country and of religion; therefore

1. Resolved, That "we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery."

2. That we are opposed in every part and particular to the proceedings of the abolitionists, which look to the immediate indiscriminate, and general emancipation of slaves.

3. That we have no connexion with any press, by whomsoever conducted, in the interest of the abolition cause.

As to his own Connection, the Presbyterian, he would go as fully as his materials permitted, into the proof of their past principles, and present posture. And in the first place he was most happy to be able to present them with an abstract of the decisions of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. He found it printed in the New York Observer, of May 23, 1835, embodied in the proceedings of the Presbytery of Montrose, and transcribed by it no doubt from the Assembly's digest.

As early as A. D. 1787, the Synod of N. York and Philadelphia issued an opinion adverse to slavery, and recommended measures for its final extinction; and in the year 1796 the General Assembly assured "all the churches under their care, that they viewed with the deepest concern any vestiges of slavery which then existed in our country;" and in the year 1815 the same judicatory decided, "that the buying and selling of slaves by way of traffic, (meaning, doubtless, the domestic traffic,) is inconsistent with the spirit of the gospel." But in the year 1818, a more full and explicit avowal of the sentiments of the church was unanimously agreed on in the General Assembly. "We consider, (say the Assembly,) the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoin, that "whatever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." They add, "It is manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when the inconsistency of slavery, both with the dictates of humanity and religion, has been demonstrated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest and unwearied endeavors to correct the errors of former times, and as speedily as possible, to efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom and if possible, throughout the world."

If, said Mr. B., he had expressed sentiments different from these, or if he had inculcated as the principles of his brethren any thing different from these just and noble sentiments, let the blame be heaped upon his bare head. These sentiments they had held from a period to which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. Here tonight, 3000 miles off, God enabled him to produce a record proving an antiquity of half a century, in full maturity! How grand, how far sighted, how illustrious is truth—compared with the wretched and new born, and blear eyed fanaticism that carps at her! These are the principles of the Presbyterian church of the United States. She has risen with them, she will stand, or, if it be God's will, she will fall with them. But she will not change them less or more. The General Assembly is but now adjourned. They have had this question before them—perhaps have been deeply agitated by its discussion. But so tranquilly does my heart rest on the truth of these principles, and on the fixed adherence to them, by my brethren, that nothing but a feeling that it would be impertinent, in one like me, to vouch for a body like that, could deter me from any lawful gage, that all its decisions will stand with its ancient and unaltered principles. In accordance with these principles the great body of the members of that church had been all along acting.—There were about 24 synods under the care of the General Assembly, of which about one third were in the slave country. The number was constantly increasing, on which account, and in the absence of all records, he could not be more exact. The synods in the free states stood, he believed, without exception, just where the Assembly stood, on this subject. In the slave states, much had been done—much was still doing—and in proof of this as regarded this particular denomination—in addition to what he had all along declared, with reference to the great emancipation party, in all of those states, he asked attention to the several documents he was about to lay before them. The first was a series of resolutions appended to a lucid and extended report, drawn up by a large committee of Ministers and Elders of the synod of Kentucky—in obedience to its orders after the subject had been several years before that body. That Synod embraces the whole state of Kentucky, which is one of the largest slave states in the Union. The resolutions are quoted from the New York Observer, of April 23, 1836.

1. We would recommend that all slaves now under 20 years of age, and all those yet to be born in our possession be emancipated, as they severally reach their 25th year.

2. We recommend that deeds of emancipation be now drawn up, and recorded in our respective County Courts, specifying the slaves we are about to emancipate, and the age at which each is to become free.

This measure is highly necessary, as it will furnish to our own minds, to the world, and to our slaves, satisfactory proof of our sincerity in this work; and it will also secure the liberty of the slaves against contingencies.

3. We recommend that our slaves be instructed in the common elementary branches of education.

4. We recommend that strenuous and persevering efforts be made, to induce them to attend regularly upon the ordinary services of religion, both domestic and public.

5. We recommend that great pains be token to teach them the Holy Scriptures; and that to effect this, the instrumentality of Sabbath Schools, wherever they can be enjoyed, be united with that of domestic instruction.

The plan revealed in these resolution, was the one of all others, which most commended itself to his (Mr. B.'s) judgment. And he most particularly asked their attention to it, on an account somewhat personal. He had several times been publicly referred to in this country, as having shown the sincerity of his principles in the manumission of his own slaves. He was most anxious that no error should exist on this subject, which he had not at any time, had any part in bringing before the public, and which, as often only as he was forced to do so, had he explained. The introductory remarks of the Chairman, had laid him under the necessity of such an explanation, which had not so naturally occurred, as in this connexion. He took leave, therefore, to say, that this Kentucky plan, was in substance the one he had been acting on for some years before its existence; and which he should probably be among the earliest, if his life was spared, fully to complete. He considered it substantially the same as their system for West India Emancipation; only more rapid as to adults, more tardy, cautious, and beneficent as to minors; and more generous, as being wholly without compensation. In plans that affect whole nations, and successive generations, questions of time are of all others, least important; of all others the most proper to make bend to the necessities of the case. He went only to say further, that his brother, the Rev. Dr. Breckinridge, of whom Mr. Thompson speaks with such affectation of scorn, had entered this good field before him, and taken one course with his manumitted slaves. That a younger brother, whose name, along with nine other beloved and revered names, is attached to this Kentucky report, had also entered it before him; and taken a second course, a different course still, in liberating his. When he came, last of all, he had taken still a third, different from each; while other friends had pursued others still. What wisdom their combined, and yet varied experience could have afforded, was of course useless; now that all the deepest questions of abstract truth, and the most difficult of personal practice, were solved by instinct, and carried by storm.

The next extract related to the great slave holding State of North Carolina, and revealed a plan for the religious instruction and care of the souls of the slaves, intended to cover the States of Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina, all slave States of the first class, as well as the one in which it originated. Its origin is due to the Presbyterian Synod, covering the whole of that State. The extract is from the New York Observer of June 20, 1835.

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF SLAVES.

"The Southern Evangelical Society," is the title of a proposed association among the Presbyterians at the South, for the propagation of the gospel among the people of color. The constitution originated in the Synod of North Carolina, and is to go into effect as soon as adopted by the Synod of Virginia, or that of South Carolina and Georgia. The voting members of the Society are to be elected by the Synods. Honorary members are created by the payment of thirty dollars. All members of Synods united with the Society, are corresponding members; other corresponding members maybe chosen by the voting members. Article 4th of the Constitution, provides that "there shall not exist between this Society and any other Society, any connexion whatever, except with a similar Society in the slave holding States." Several resolutions follow the Constitution; one of these provides that a presbytery in a slave holding district of the country, not united with a Synod in connexion with the Society, may become a member by its own act. The fifth and sixth resolutions are as follows:

Resolved, 5, That it be very respectfully and earnestly recommended to all the heads of families in connexion with our congregations, to take up and vigorously prosecute the business of seeking the salvation of the slaves in the way of maintaining and promoting family religion.

Resolved, 6, That it be enjoined upon all the presbyteries composing this Synod, to take order at their earliest meeting, to obtain full and correct statistical information as to the number of people of color, in the bounds of our several congregations, the number in actual attendance at our several places of worship, and the number of colored members in our several churches, and make a full report to the Synod at its next meeting, and for this purpose, that the Clerk of this Synod furnish a copy of this resolution to the stated Clerk of each Presbytery.

The next document carried them one State farther South, and related to South Carolina, in which that horrible Governor M'Duffie, who seems to haunt Mr. Thompson's imagination with his threats of "death without benefit of clergy," lives, and perhaps still rules. It is taken from the same paper as the next preceding extract;

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF SLAVES.

We cheerfully insert the following letter from an intelligent New Englander at the South.

To the Editor of the New York Observer.

I am apprehensive that many of your readers, who feel a lively interest in the welfare of the slaves, are not correctly and fully informed as to their amount of religious instruction. From the speeches of Mr. Thompson and others, they might be led to believe that slaves in our Southern States never read a Bible, hear a gospel sermon, or partake of a gospel ordinance. It is to be hoped, however, that little credit will be given to such misrepresentations, notwithstanding the zeal and industry with which they are disseminated.

What has been done on a single plantation.

I will now inform your readers what has been done, and is now doing, for the moral and religious improvement of the slaves on a single plantation, with which I am well acquainted, and these few facts may serve as a commentary on the unsupported assertions of Mr. Thompson and others. And here I could wish that all who are so ready to denounce every man that is so unfortunate as to be born to a heritage of slaves, could go to that plantation, and see with their own eyes, and hear with their own ears, the things which I despair of adequately describing. Truly, I think they would be more inclined, and better qualified to use those weapons of light and love which have been so ably and justly commended to their hands.

On this plantation there are from 150 to 200 slaves, the finest looking body that I have seen on any estate. Their master and mistress have felt for years how solemn are the responsibilities connected with such a charge; and they have not shrunk from meeting them. The means used for their spiritual good, are abundant. They enjoy the constant preaching of the gospel. A young minister of the Presbyterian church, who has received a regular collegiate and theological education, is laboring among them, and derives his entire support from the master, with the exception of a trifling sum which he receives for preaching one Sabbath in each month for a neighboring church. On the Sabbath, and during the week, you may see them filling the place of worship, from the man of grey hairs to the small child, all neatly and comfortably clothed, listening with respectful, and in many cases, eager attention to the truth as it is in Jesus, delivered in terms adapted to their capacities, and in a manner suited to their peculiar habits, feelings and circumstances; engaging with solemnity and propriety in the solemn exercise of prayer, and mingling their melodious voices in the hymn of praise. Sitting among them are the white members of the family encouraging them by their attendance, manifesting their interest in the exercises, and their anxiety for the eternal well-being of their people. Of the whole number, forty-five or fifty have made a profession of religion, and others are evidently deeply concerned.

Let me now conduct you to a Bible class of ten or twelve adults who can read, met with their Bibles to study and have explained to them the word of God. They give unequivocal demonstrations of much interest in their employment, and of an earnest desire to understand and remember what they read. From hence we will go to another room, where are assembled eighteen to twenty lads, attending upon catechetical instruction, conducted by their young master. Here you will notice many intelligent countenances, and will be struck with the promptitude and correctness of their answers.

But the most interesting spectacle is yet before you. It is to be witnessed in the Infant School Room, nicely fitted up and supplied with the customary cards and other appurtenances. Here every day in the week, you may find twenty-five or thirty children, neatly clad and wearing bright and happy faces. And as you notice their correct deportment, hear their unhesitating replies to the questions proposed, and above all when they unite their sweet voices in their touching songs, if your heart is not affected and your eyes do not fill, you are the hardest-hearted and driest-eyed visitor that has ever been there. But who is their teacher? Their mistress, a lady whose amiable Christian character and most gifted and accomplished mind and manners are surpassed by none. From day to day, month to month, and year to year, she has cheerfully left her splendid halls and circle of friends, to visit her school room, where, standing up before those young immortals, she trains them in the way in which they should go, and leads them to Him who said, "suffer little children to come unto me."

From the Infant School room, we will walk through a beautiful lawn half a mile, to a pleasant grove commanding a view of miles in extent. Here is a brick chapel, rising for the accommodation of this interesting family; sufficiently large to receive two or three hundred hearers. When completed, in beauty and convenience it will be surpassed by few churches in the Southern country.

On the plantation you might also see other things of great interest. Here a negro is the overseer. Marriages are regularly contracted. No negro is sold, except as a punishment for bad behavior, and a dreaded one it is. None is bought, save for the purpose of uniting families. Here you will near no clanking of chains, no cracking of whips; (I have never seen a blow struck on the estate,) and here last, but not least, you will find a flourishing Temperance Society, embracing almost every individual on the premises. And yet the "Christianity of the South is a chain-forging, a whip-plaiting, marriage discouraging, Bible-withholding Christianity!"

I have confined myself to a single plantation. But I might add many most interesting facts in regard to others, and the state of feeling in general, but I forbear.

Yours, &c

A NEW ENGLAND MAN.

He would now connect the peculiar and local facts of the preceding statement, with the whole community of slave holders, in the same State, and show by competent and disinterested testimony, the real and common state of things. The following extracts were from a letter printed in the New York Observer, of July 25, 1835:

I have resided eight years in South Carolina, and have an extensive acquaintance with the planters of the middle and low country. I have seen much of slavery, and feel competent to speak in regard to many facts connected with it.

What your correspondent has stated of the condition of one plantation, is in its essential points a common case throughout the whole circle of my acquaintance.

The negroes generally, in this State, are well fed, well clothed, and have the means of religious instruction. According to my best judgment, the work which a slave here is required to do, amounts to about one third the ordinary labor commonly performed by a New England farmer. A similar comparison would hold true in regard to the labor of domestics. In the family where I reside, consisting of nine white persons, seven slaves are employed to do the work. This is a common case.

In the village where I live, there are about four hundred slaves, and they generally attend church. More than one hundred of them are members of the church. Perhaps two hundred are assembled every Sabbath in the Sunday Schools. In my own Sunday School are about sixty, and most of them professors of religion. They are perfectly accessible and teachable. In the town of my former residence, in New England, there were three hundred free blacks. No more than eight or ten of these were professors of religion, and not more than twice that number could generally be induced to attend church. They could not be induced to send their children to the district schools, which were always open to them, nor could they generally be hired to work. They are thievish, wretched and troublesome. I have no hesitation in saying, and I say it deliberately, it would be a great blessing to them to exchange conditions with the slaves of the village in which I now live. Their intellectual and moral characters, and real means of improvement, would be promoted by the exchange.

There are doubtless some masters who treat their slaves cruelly in this State, but they are exceptions to the general fact. Public opinion is in a wholesome state and the man who does not treat his slaves kindly, is disgraced.

Great and increasing efforts are made to instruct the slaves in religion, and elevate their characters. Missionaries are employed solely for their benefit. It is very common for ministers to preach in the forenoon to the whites, and in the afternoon of every Sabbath to the blacks. The slaves of my acquaintance are generally contented and happy. The master is reprobated who will divide families. Many thousands of slaves of this State give evidence of piety. In many churches they form the majority. Thousands of them give daily thanks to God that they or their fathers were brought to this land of slavery.

And now, perhaps, I ought to add, that I am not a slave-holder, and do not intend to continue in a slave country; but wherever I may be, I intend to speak the TRUTH.

The next document related particularly to Virginia,—the largest and most powerful of the Slave States; but had also a general reference to the whole south, and the whole question at issue. The sentiments it contained were entitled to extraordinary consideration, on account of the source of them. Mr. Van Renselear, was the son of one of the most wealthy and distinguished citizens of the great free state of New York. He had gone to Virginia, to preach to the slaves. He had every where succeeded; was every where beloved by the slaves, and honored by their masters. He had access to perhaps forty plantations,—on which he from time to time preached,—and which might have been doubled, had his strength been equal to the work. In the midst of his usefulness—the storm of abolition arose. Mr. Thompson, like some baleful star landed on our shores; organized a reckless agitation, made many at the north frantic with folly—and as many at the south furious with passion. Mr. Van Renselear, like many others, saw a storm raging which they had no power to control; and like them withdrew from his benevolent labors. The following brief statements made by him at a great meeting of the colonization society of New York, exhibit his own view of the conduct and duty of the parties.

The Rev. Cortlandt Van Renselear, formerly of Albany, but who has lately resided in Virginia, addressed the meeting, and after alluding to the difference of opinion which prevailed among the friends of Colonization, touching the present condition and treatment of the colored population in this country, proceeded to offer reasons why the people of the North should approach their brethren in the South, who held the control of the colored population, with defference, and in a spirit of kindness and conciliation.

These reasons were briefly as follows: 1. Because the people of the South had not consented to the original introduction of slaves into the country, but had solemnly, earnestly, and repeatedly remonstrated against it. 2. Because having been born in the presence of slavery, and accustomed to it from their infancy, they could not be expected to view it in the same light as we view it at the North. 3. Slavery being there established by law, it was not in the power of individuals to act in regard to it as their personal feelings might dictate. The evil had not been eradicated from the state of New York all at once: It had been a gradual process, commencing with the law 1799 and not consumated until 1827. Ought we to denounce our Southern neighbors if they refuse to do the work at a blow? 4. The constitution of the United States tolerated slavery, in its articles apportioning representation with reference to the slave population, and requiring the surrender of runaway slaves. 5. Slavery had been much mitigated of late years, and the condition of the slave population much ameliorated. Its former rigor was almost unknown, at least in Virginia, and it was lessening continually. It was not consistent with truth to represent the slaves as groaning day and night under the lash of tyranical task-masters. And as to being kept in perfect ignorance, Mr. V. had seldom seen a plantation where some of the slaves could not read, and where they were not encouraged to learn. In South Carolina, where it was said the gospel was systematically denied to the slaves, there were twenty thousand of them church members in the Methodist denomination alone. He knew a small church where out of 70 communicants, 50 were in slavery. 6. There were very great difficulties connected with the work of Abolition. The relations of slavery had ramified themselves through all the relations of society. The slaves were comparatively very ignorant; their character degraded; and they were unqualified for immediate freedom. A blunder in such a concern as universal abolition, would be no light matter. Mr. V. here referred to the result of experience and personal observation on the mind of the well-known Mr. Parker, late a minister of this city, but now of New-Orleans. He had left this city for the South with the feeling of an immediate abolitionist; but he had returned with his views wholly changed. After seeing slavery and slave-holders, and that at the far South, he now declared the idea of immediate and universal abolition to be a gross absurdity. To liberate the two and a half millions of slaves in the midst of us, would be just as wise and as humane, as it would be for the father of a numerous family of young children to take them to the front door, and there bidding them good bye, tell them they were free, and send them out into the world to provide for and govern themselves. 7. Foreign interference was, of necessity, a delicate thing, and ought ever to be attempted with the utmost caution. 8. There was a large amount of unfeigned Christian anxiety at the South to obey God and do good to man. There were many tears and prayers continually poured out over the condition of their colored people, and the most earnest desire to mitigate their sorrows. Were such persons to be approached with vituperation and anathemas? 9. There was no reason why all our sympathies should be confined to the colored race and utterly withheld from our white southern brethren. The apostle Paul exhibited no such spirit. 10. A regard to the interest of the slaves themselves dictated a cautious and prudent and forbearing course. It called for conciliation: for the fate of the slaves depended on the will of their masters, nor could the north prevent it. The late laws against teaching the slaves to read had not been passed until the Southern people found inflamatory publications circulating among the colored people. 11. The spirit of the gospel forbade all violence, abuse and threatening. The apostles had wished to call fire from heaven on those they considered as Christ's enemies; but the Saviour, instead of approving this fiery zeal, had rebuked it. 12. These Southern people, who were represented as so grossly violating all Christian duty, had been the subjects of gracious blessings from God in the outpourings of his Spirit. 13. When God convinced men of error, he did it in the spirit of mercy; we ought to endeavor to do the same thing in the same spirit.

The only remaining testimony relates to the states of Louisiana and Mississippi, in the south west. The letter from which it is taken is written by a son of that Mr. Finley, who perhaps more than any one else, set on foot the original scheme of African colonization; and whose name, as a man of pure and enlarged benevolence and wisdom, the enemies of his plans quote with respect. The son well deserves to have had such a father.

New-Orleans, March 12, 1835.

In my former letter I gave you some account of the leading characters amongst the free people of color who recently sailed from this port in the Brig "Rover." for Liberia. I then promised you in my next to give you some account of the emancipated slaves who sailed in the same expedition. This promise I will now endeavor to fulfil, and I will begin with the case of an individual emancipation, and then state the case of an emancipated family, and conclude with an account of the emancipation of several families by the same individual.

The first case alluded to is that of a young woman emancipated by the last will and testament of the late Judge James Workman, of this city, the same who left a legacy of ten thousand dollars to the American Colonization Society. Judge Workman's will contains the following clause in relation to her, viz:—"I request my statu liber, Kitty, a quarteroon girl, to be set free as soon as convenient. And I request my executors may send her, as she shall prefer, and they think best, either to the Colonization Society at Norfolk, to be sent to Liberia or to Hayti; and if she prefer remaining in Louisiana, that they may endeavor to have an act passed for her emancipation; if the same cannot be attained otherwise; and it is my will that the sum of three hundred dollars be paid to her after she shall be capable of receiving the same. I request my executors to hold in their hands money for this purpose. I particularly request my friend John G. Greene to take charge of this girl, and do the best for her that he can." Mr. Greene provided her with a handsome outfit, carefully attended to her embarkation, and the shipment of her freight, and placed her under the care of the Rev. Gloster Simpson.

The next case, alluded to above, is that of a family of eleven slaves emancipated for faithful and meritorious services, by the will of of the late Mrs. Bullock, of Claiborne county, Miss. Mrs. Moore, the sister and executrix of Mrs. Bullock's estate, gave them 700 dollars to furnish an outfit and give them a start in the colony.

The third and last case alluded to above, consisted of several families, amounting in the whole to 26 individual slaves belonging to the estate of the late James Green, of Adams county, Mississipi. The following interesting circumstances concerning their liberation, were communicated to me by James Railey, Esq., the brother-in-law and acting executor of Mr. Green's Estate. Mr. Green died on the 15th of May, 1832, the proprietor of about 130 slaves, and left Mr. Railey, his brother-in-law, and his sisters, Mrs. Railey and Mrs. Wood, executors of his last will and testament. Mr. Green's will provides for the unconditional emancipation of but one of his slaves—a faithful and intelligent man named Granger, whom Mr. Green had raised and taught to read, write, and keep accounts. He acted as foreman for his master for about five years previous to his death. Mr. Green, by his will, left him 3000 dollars, on condition that he went to Liberia, otherwise, 2000 dollars. Provision was also made in the will for securing to him his wife. Granger has been employed since the death of Mr. Green, until recently, as overseer for Mr. Railey, at a salary of 600 dollars per annum. Granger declines going to Liberia at present on account of the unwillingness of his mother to go there. She is very aged and infirm, and he is very much attached to her. She was a favorite slave of Mr. Green's mother, who emancipated her and left her a legacy of 1000 dollars. Granger came to this city with Mr. Railey to see his friends and former fellow-servants embark: and when he bade them farewell, he said, with a very emphatic tone and manner, "I will follow you in about 18 months."

The executors of Mr. Green's estate were by no means slack in meeting the testator's wishes concerning these people. Mr. Railey accompanied them to New-Orleans, and both he and Mrs. Wood, who also was in New-Orleans while they were preparing to embark, took a lively and active interest in providing them with everything necessary for their comfort on the voyage, and their welfare after their arrival in the Colony, and placed in my hand 7000 dollars for their benefit, one thousand dollars of which were appropriated towards the charter of a vessel to convey them to the Colony, with the privilege of 140 barrels freight—sixteen hundred dollars towards the purchase of an outfit, consisting of mechanics' tools, implements of agriculture, household furniture, medicines, clothing, &c., and the remaining four thousand four hundred dollars, partly invested in trade, goods, and partly in specia, were shipped and consigned to the Governor of Liberia, for their benefit, with an accompanying memorandum made out by Mr. Railey, showing how much was each one's portion.

I will close this communication by relating one additional circumstance communicated to me by Mr. Railey, to show the interest felt by Mr. Green in the success of the scheme of African Colonization. The day previous to his death, he requested Mr. Railey to write a memorandum of several things which he wished done after his death, which memorandum contains the following clause, viz:—"After executing all my wishes as expressed by Will, by this memorandum, and by verbal communications, I sincerely hope there will be a handsome sum left for benefitting the emancipated negroes emigrating from this State to Liberia; and to that end I have more concern than you are aware of."

I am authorized by the Executors to state that there will be a residuum to Mr. Green's estate of twenty or thirty-five thousand dollars, which they intend to appropriate in conformity with the views of Mr. Green expressed above. Yours, &c.,

ROBERT S. FINLEY.

And now I rest the case, and commit the result to an enlightened public. Here are my proofs and arguments showing as I believe conclusively, that the slanderous accusations against my country and my brethren which I have come to this city to repel,—are not only false, but incredible. Here are my testimonials, few and casually gathered up, but yet, as it seems to me, irresistibly convincing, that the people and churches of America—in the very thing charged,—have been and are acting, a wise, self-denying and humane part. That they should move onward in it as rapidly as the happiness of all the parties will allow, must be the wish of all good men. That obstacles should be interposed through the error, the imprudence, or the violence of well meaning but ill-judging persons, is truly deplorable. But that we should be traduced before the whole world, when we are innocent; that we should first be forced into most difficult circumstances, and then forced to manage those circumstances in such a way as to cause our certain ruin, by the very same people; or in default of submitting to both requirments, be forced first into war, and afterwards into a state of bitter mutual contention, only less dreadful than war itself, is outrageous and intolerable. While we justly complain of these things, we discharge ourselves of the guilt attributed to us, and acquit ourselves to God and our consciences, of all the fatal consequences likely to follow such conduct.

Mr. THOMPSON rose, and spoke in nearly the following words:

Mr. Chairman,

If I were to say that I rose on the present occasion without a feeling of anxiety regarding the issue of the discussion now drawing to a close, I should say what is not the truth. I cannot remember that I ever stood before an auditory in a more interesting or responsible position. The question before us is one of momentous magnitude; and that branch of it which to-night claims our special attention, is of all others, the most solemn and delicate. I am, therefore, anxious, deeply anxious, respecting the impression which shall rest upon the minds of this assembly, when I have occupied the attention of yourself and of it, for a portion of time equal to that which has been expended by my opponent. If, however, I were to say that I rose with any feeling of alarm in the contemplation of the result of that ordeal through which I am about to pass, I should speak that which would be equally at variance with the truth. So far from indulging any fear, or wishing to propitiate this audience, I pray that for the sake of truth, humanity, and the country represented by my opponent; for the sake of our character in the sight of God at the audit of the great day; there may be a severe, jealous and impartial judgment formed, according to the evidence which shall be submitted. Or, if it be impossible to hold the balance strictly even, I ask that the bias for the present, may be in favor of my opponent. It is true, I am not an American. It is true, I was in the United States but fourteen months. It is true, I never crossed the Potomac; never saw a slave, unless that slave had been brought to the North by some temporary resident. Receive, therefore, with caution and suspicion my statements. Let there be every discount upon my assertions which my youth and rashness, my want of observation and experience demand. At the same time I ask that every proper degree of respect shall be paid to the witnesses I shall bring before you; and that however my testimony may be doubted, theirs at least may have the weight which their character, and station, and opportunities shall appear to entitle them to.

I am accused of monstrous injustice towards America, when I say that in that country slavery wears its most horrid forms. In saying this, I must not be understood as speaking according to the actual physical condition of the slave, or even of his legal and political condition, apart from the religion and institutions of the land in which he lives. I judge not by the number of links in his chain; the number of lashes inflicted on his back; the nature of his toil, or the quality or quantity of his food. It is, when irrespective of the treatment of the body, I find two millions of human beings regarded as merchandise; ranked with the beasts of the field, and reduced by the neglect of their immortal minds to the condition of heathens; it is when I find this awful system in full operation, surrounded by the barriers and safeguards of the Law and the Constitution, in the United States of North America; the land of Republicanism, and Christianity, and Revivals, that I say, Slavery in America wears a form more horrid than in any other part of the world. Yes, Sir; when I am told that in that land, liberty is enjoyed to a greater extent than in any other country; that the principles on which this liberty and independence rest are these: "God created all men free and equal." "Resistance to Tyrants is obedience to God;" and see also two millions of captives; their dungeon barred and watched by proud Republicans, and boasting Christians; I turn with horror and indignation away, exclaiming as I quit the sickening scene, Slavery wears its most loathsome form in the United States of America!

Before I come to that portion of my Address which I shall present as a reply to Mr. Breckinridge, I beg to say one word in vindication of the character and temper of American Abolitionists; and I am glad on this occasion to be able to cite the testimony of a gentleman, whom Mr. Breckinridge has not declined to call his friend; I mean James G. Birney, Esq., formerly residing in the same State with Mr. B., and now in Cincinnati. Mr. Birney made a visit to the North last year, for the purpose of ascertaining for himself, by actual observation and intercourse, the real character of the Abolitionists, and the manner in which they prosecuted their work. Having done this, he thus writes:

Last spring I attended the Ohio Anti-Slavery Convention; was present at the several meetings of the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York, and at the Anti-Slavery Convention held in Boston. On these several occasions, I became acquainted, and deliberated with, it may be, not less than one thousand persons, who may be fairly set down as among the most intelligent of the abolitionists. Subjects on which the most diverse opinions were entertained, and which to ambitious and untrained minds would be agitating and dissensious in the extreme, were discussed with the most calm and unruffled composure. And while some of the leading journals were teeming with the foulest and the falsest charges of moral and political turpitude; while there were produced in their assemblies placards, calling on the mob for appropriate deeds, and designating the time and place of holding their meetings, that its violence might know at what point it might most effectually spend itself; yet, never elsewhere have I seen so much of sedate deliberation of sober conclusion, of dignified moderation, sanctified by earnest prayer to God, not only for the oppressed, but for the oppressor of his fellow; not only for such as they loved, but for their slanderers, and persecutors, and enemies.

The above is a fair account, so far as my knowledge enables me to speak, of the character of those whom you are pleased to describe "a band of fanatical abolitionists." Light and rash minds, unaccustomed to penetrate to the real causes of great revolutions in public sentiment, will, of course, think and speak contemptuously of them, while the philosophic observer clearly sees, that such antagonists of error, armed with so powerful a weapon as the Truth, must, at all times, be invincible; and that in the end they will be triumphant.

A word, too, before I come to the state of the churches, with regard to Mr. Breckinridge's concluding topic last evening; to which I had not, of course, any opportunity to reply; and, as the time allotted for this discussion is now determined, I shall be permitted to dwell a few moments on the subject. Mr. Breckinridge did, I am ready to acknowledge, with tolerable fairness, state the views of the abolitionists with regard to prejudice against color; that it was sinful, that it ought to be abandoned, and that the colored man should be raised to the enjoyment of equal civil and religious privileges with the whites. But after he had laid down, generally speaking correctly, the views of the abolitionists, he proceeded to put the most unfair interpretation upon those views, and strangely contended that they were directly aiming to accomplish the amalgamation of the races in the fullest sense of that word. Once again, I deny this. Once again I appeal to all that the abolitionists have ever written or spoken: to their published, official, solemn, authoritative disclaimers; and I say on my behalf and on theirs, that with the intermixture of "the races," as they are called, (a phrase I do not like,) the abolitionists have nothing to do. What they have ever contended for is this, that the colored man should now be delivered from the condition of a beast; that he should cease to be regarded as the property of his fellow man; and that according to the laws of the state regulating the qualifications of citizens, he should be admitted to a participation of the privileges that are enjoyed by other classes of the community. We have never asked for more. We have left the doctrine of amalgamation to be settled by our opponents. The slave holders are the amalgamationists whose licentiousness has gone far to put an end to the existence of a black race in the South, and who are still carrying on, to use their own expression, "a bleaching system," whitening the population of the South, so that you may now discover all shades of colored persons; from those who are so fair that they are scarcely distinguishable from the whites, to the pure black of the unmixed negro. But my opponent defeated himself. While attempting to expose the folly and wickedness of amalgamation, he at the same time contended that the thing was physically impossible; that even a partial amalgamation could only be brought about by polygamy or prostitution, but that general amalgamation was hopeless, because physically impossible. If the thing be utterly beyond the reach of the abolitionists, why dread it as an evil? Why not let the abolitionists pursue their foolish and impracticable schemes? Why so much wrath against them for aiming at that which nature has rendered unattainable. I leave Mr. Breckinridge to find his way out of this difficulty in the best manner he is able.

Again, we are told, that in attempting to bring about amalgamation, and in preventing Colonization, we are interfering with the purposes of God; fighting against His ordinances, and exposing Africa to the horrors of extermination, should the descendants of Shem or Japhet colonize her shores, and not the black man who has sprung from her tribes. I confess I am somewhat surprised, when told by a Presbyterian clergyman of Calvinistic sentiments, that I am to regulate my conduct towards my fellow-men by the purposes of God, rather than by the law of God. This is surely a new doctrine! What, I ask, have I to do with the decrees of the Almighty? Has he not given me a law by which to walk? Has he not told me to love my neighbor as myself? to "honor all men?" Am I not told that God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth? Where is the prohibition to marry with Shem or Ham. I know of no directions in the Old Testament respecting marriages, save such as were founded on religious differences, and I have yet to learn that there are any in the New Testament. That blessed Book declares, that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but all are one. The only injunction I am aware of is this, "be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers."

Mr. Breckinridge made a considerable parade of his knowledge of Universal History, and pretended to build his theory upon the most correct historical data. While upon this subject of amalgamation and extermination, I will take the liberty of submitting one or two inquiries to Mr. Breckinridge.

Is there any law in America forbidding ministers to celebrate marriages between Japhethite American Christians and Jewesses, (by birth, even if Christians by faith,) and Jews, (even if Christians.) to marry Japhethite, American females? If there be not, then, why may Shem and Japhet intermarry, but Ham with neither? Again: If there be no such law, then the doctrine about Noah's three sons, is not a principle on which the American people act, but Mr. B.'s individual dogma, got up to defend a line of conduct really proceeding without reference to any such principle. If it be said that Jewish and Japhethite Americans are very nearly, if not altogether, of the same color; and that there are no political evils to be dreaded from the intermixture of Jews with Japhethites; I reply, that, admitting the truth of both these representations, is not the sin of mixing Noah's sons, and counter-working the designs of God, the same in the case of Shem and Japhet as it would be in the case of Japhet or Shem with the tribes of Ham? Again,

Did the Romans, (Japhethites,) exterminate the Jews, (Shemites?)

Did the Arab Shemite conquerors of Egypt exterminate the ancient inhabitants (Hamites,) who still exist, and are known by the name of Copts or Cophti?

Did not the Tartars, now Turks, a (Japhethite tribe,) when they conquered the Caliphs, embrace the religion of the conquered, who were Mohamedans and Shemites?

Did not the Shemite Mohamedans conquer the Persians, (Japhethites,) a part of whom, who would not embrace the Mohamedan religion, and could not be tolerated by the Mohamedans in theirs, (viz. fire worship,) flee to India, where they still exist, known by the name of Guebers, while the rest of the people, embracing Mohamedanism, amalgamated with their conquerors; and is not the modern Persian language a proof of this, in which all the terms of religion and science are Arabic, (Shemite,) the rest of the language being a colluvies of the Deri, Zend, and Pehlavi dialects, which the most eminent phylologists consider as all resolvable into Sanscrit, the most ancient Japhethite speech existing?

The cases of the Romans and Jews, and of the Arab conquerors of Egypt and the Copts, are instances of conquest without extermination; the parties remaining dissevered by religious differences. The cases of the Tartar-Turks, and the Arabs, and of the Arabs and the Persians, are cases of conquest without extermination, and with amalgamation; the conquerors in the first case having adopted the religion of the conquered, and the conquered in the second case, that of the conquerors.

Instead of the Americans proceeding in their conduct towards the colored people with any reference either to the divine laws or the divine decrees, they act solely under the influence of their pride and prejudice. How their prejudice was in the first place produced, it is not necessary at this time to inquire. I may just remark that color has long been the badge of slavery. Long have the negroes been an enslaved and degraded class. The child is tutored to look upon a colored man as an inferior, and this feeling of superiority, implanted early in the mind of the child, growing with his growth, and strengthening with his strength, becomes at last a confirmed and almost invincible principle, disposing him with eagerness to adopt any views of revelation which will permit him to cherish and gratify his pride and hatred towards the colored man. Hence has arisen the aristocracy of the skin. Hence the many lamentable departures from the spirit and precepts of the gospel, every day witnessed in the United Slates. Two illustrations of the force of prejudice are now before me. The first is a short article from the New York Evangelist, copied into the Scottish Guardian of this city. I will read it entire. It is as follows:

A Hard Case. A native born American applied to our authorities this morning for a license to drive a cart. He has been for years employed as a porter in Pearl Street, principally among the booksellers, who were his petitioners to the number of forty firms. He is an honest, temperate, and in every respect a worthy man; of an amiable disposition, muscular frame, and of good address, and every way calculated for the situation he seeks; besides being a member of the Society of Friends, a sufficient recommendation of itself; for the office is now filled in part by swearing, drunken, quarrelling foreigners, who are daily disturbing the quiet of our streets by their broils; and endangering the lives of our citizens by their infuriate conduct.

Wm. S. Hewlett was refused by our Mayor, on the ground of public opinion! because

Hewlett owns property in William Street, to the amount of 20,000 dollars; but prefers, unlike many of no more income, a life of industry and economy, to seeking "otium cum dignitate."

The next is found in a letter written by a Professor Smith, of the Wesleyan University, Connecticut, who, while vindicating the University from the charge of having expelled a young man "for the crime of color," makes the following admission:

"That it would be difficult, in the present state of public feeling, to preserve a colored individual from inquietude in any of our collegiate schools, and to render his connection with them tolerable, is not denied."

I come now, (continued Mr. T.) to the state of the American Churches, in regard to Slavery; and to attempt a justification of the heavy charges I have brought against them. If at the close of this address it shall appear that I have misrepresented the Christians of America; that I have stated as facts, things which are untrue, I solemnly call upon those who have hitherto vindicated my reputation, and sustained me as the truthful advocate of the cause of human rights, to discard me as utterly disqualified to be their representative in so sacred a work, because, capable of pleading for JUSTICE at the expense of TRUTH.

Of slaveholding ministers in America, Mr. Breckinridge has asserted, that they are as ONE IN A THOUSAND, or at most, as ONE IN FIVE HUNDRED. The first document I shall quote to disprove this assertion, will be a letter in the "Southern Religious Telegraph," of October 31, 1835, addressed to the Presbyterian Clergy of Virginia; written to warn those ministers against pursuits calculated to injure their spirituality, destroy their usefulness, and prevent those revivals of religion with which other portions of the Church of Christ had been favored; also to account for an apparent declension in piety in the State generally. It is proper to remark, that the letter from which I make the present extract, was not written to promote the cause of abolition; that the writer never imagined it would be used on such an occasion; and that the newspaper in which it appears is pro-slavery to the very core.

"In one region of country, where I am acquainted, of rather more than THIRTY Presbyterian ministers, including missionaries, TWENTY are farmers, viz. (planters and SLAVEHOLDERS,) ON A PRETTY EXTENSIVE SCALE; three are school teachers; one is a farmer and a teacher; one, a farmer and a merchant, and joint proprietor of iron works, which must be in operation on the Sabbath; and one is a farmer and editor of a political newspaper. These farmers generally superintend their own business. THEY OVERSEE THEIR NEGROES, attend to their stock, make purchases, and visit the markets to make sale of their crops. They necessarily have much intercourse with their neighbors on worldly business, and not unfrequently come into unpleasant collision with the merchants."

O, Sir, what a revelation of things is here! These are not the calumnies of George Thompson, but the confessions of one, striving earnestly to awaken the attention of the Virginia clergy to a sense of the degradation and barrenness of the church, and to direct their attention to the main causes of such lamentable effects.

Next, permit me to request your attention to an extract from "An Address to the Presbyterians of Kentucky, proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipation of their slaves; by a Committee of the SYNOD OF KENTUCKY. Cincinnati: published by Eli Taylor, 1835." We shall, in this document, get at the opinion of men, sensitively jealous for the honor, purity, and usefulness of the Presbyterian churches, from which Mr. Breckinridge is A DELEGATE. What say they of slavery in general, and the practice of THEIR CHURCH in particular:

"Brutal stripes, and all the various kinds of personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty, which slavery licenses. The law does not recognize the family relations of a slave; and extends to him no protection in the enjoyment of domestic endearments. The members of a slave family may be forcibly separated, so that they shall never more meet until the final judgment. And cupidity often induces the masters to practise what the law allows. Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. These acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and the agony, often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim with a trumpet-tongue, the iniquity and cruelty of our system. The cry of these sufferers goes up to the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. There is not a neighborhood, where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose chains and mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from all that their hearts held dear. Our church, years ago, raised its voice by solemn warning against this flagrant violation of every principle of mercy, justice, and humanity. Yet WE BLUSH TO ANNOUNCE TO YOU AND TO THE WORLD, THAT, THIS WARNING HAS BEEN OFTEN DISREGARDED, EVEN BY THOSE WHO HOLD TO OUR COMMUNION. CASES HAVE OCCURRED, IN OUR OWN DENOMINATION, WHERE PROFESSORS OF THE RELIGION OF MERCY HAVE TORN THE MOTHER FROM HER CHILDREN, AND SENT HER INTO A MERCILESS AND RETURNLESS EXILE. YET ACTS OF DISCIPLINE HAVE RARELY FOLLOWED SUCH CONDUCT."

Follow me now into the GENERAL ASSEMBLY of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, convened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in May, 1835, and let the individual who addresses you be forgotten, while you listen to the things uttered in the midst of that solemn convocation. At the time when the passages I am about to read, were spoken, there were sitting in that Assembly, men from all parts of the country. The Southern Churches fully represented by row upon row of ministers and elders from every region of the slaveholding States. In that Assembly, one year from this time, did the Rev. J. H. Dickey, of the Chilicothe Presbytery, Ohio, (a clergyman who had passed thirty years of his life in a slave State.) and Mr. Stewart, a ruling elder from the Presbytery of Schuyler, Illinois, make the following statements, which have remained, I believe, uncontradicted to this hour: