ANTISLAVERY CONFLICT. (continued 5)

Accordingly, we find, on turning to the doings of the great ecclesiastical bodies of our country, that they have descended from their very distinct protests against the enslavement of men, in 1780, 1789, 1794, &c., to palliations of the “sum of all villanies,” as Wesley called it,—and apologies for it, and justifications of it, and explicit, biblical defences of it, until at length—after Mr. Garrison and his co-laborers arose, demanding for the slaves their inalienable right to liberty—the churches and ministers of all denominations (excepting the Freewill Baptists and Scotch Covenanters) gathered about the “Peculiar Institution” for its protection; and vehemently denounced as incendiaries, disunionists, infidels, all those who insisted upon its abolition.Q

This, I repeat, was the most serious obstacle to the progress of our antislavery reform. In 1830, and for several years afterwards, the influence of the clergy and the churches was paramount in our Northern, if not in the Southern communities; certainly it was second only to the love of money. The people generally, then, were wont to take for granted that what the ministers and church-members approved must be morally right, and what they so vehemently denounced must be morally wrong. Accordingly, the most violent conflicts we had, and the most outrageous mobs we encountered, were led on or instigated by persons professing to be religious.

If the clergy and churches have less influence over the people now than they had forty years ago, it must be in a great measure because the people find that they were wofully deceived by them as to the character of slavery, and misled to oppose its abolition, until the slaveholders, encouraged by their Northern abettors, dared to attempt the dissolution of our Union, and so brought on our late civil war, in which hundreds of thousands of the people were killed, and an immense debt imposed upon this and succeeding generations.

In justice, however, to the professing Christians of our country, it should be recorded that very much the larger portions of our antislavery host were recruited from the churches of all denominations, though some persons who made no pretensions to a religious character rendered us signal services. It ought also to be stated that more of the antislavery lecturers, agents, and devoted laborers had been of the ministerial profession than of any other of the callings of men, in proportion to the numbers of each. Still, it cannot be denied that the most formidable opposition we had to contend against was that which was made by the ministers and churches and ecclesiastical authorities. When the true history of the antislavery conflict shall be fully written, and the sayings and doings of preachers, theological professors, editors of religious periodicals, and of Presbyteries, Associations, Conferences, and General Assemblies, shall be spread before the people in the light of our enlarged liberty, no one will fail to see that, practically, the worst enemies of truth, righteousness, and humanity were of those who professed to be the friends and followers of Christ. Had they been generally faithful and fearless in behalf of the oppressed, no other opponents would have dared to withstand the just demand for their immediate emancipation.

Mr. Garrison, who was and is by nature and education an unfeignedly religious man, felt that he ought to look first to the clergy and the professing Christians for sympathy, and should confidently expect their co-operation. Indeed, he knew that if they would heartily espouse the cause of our enslaved countrymen, he might, without unfaithfulness to them, retire to some printing-office, and get his living as he had been trained to do. His disappointment and astonishment were unspeakable when he found how blind and deaf and dumb the preachers of the Gospel were in view of the unparalleled iniquity of our nation, and the inestimable wrongs that were allowed to be inflicted upon millions of the people. It was as painful to him and his associates as it was necessary, to expose to the people the infidelity of their religious teachers and guides; to show them that, not only had the statesmen and politicians of our country become fearfully corrupted by consenting with slaveholders, but also the bishops, priests, ministers of religion. All, with few exceptions, had lost faith in the true and the right, and in the God of truth and righteousness. They were afraid to obey the Divine Law, and bowed rather to the commandments of men. They respected a compromise more than a principle, and trusted to what seemed politic rather than to that which was self-evidently right. “The whole head of our nation was sick, and the whole heart was faint. From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there seemed to be no soundness in it.” “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom; we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”

UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALIST MINISTERS AND CHURCHES.

It must have been observed by my readers that, in speaking above of the sympathy and co-operation of the Northern ministers and churches with their slaveholding brethren in the Southern States, I did not name Universalists and Unitarians among the guilty sects. This was because I reserved them for a separate, and the Unitarians for a more particular notice. Of the course pursued by the Universalists I have known but little. There are very few churches of their denomination in any of the slaveholding States; in most of them, I believe, not one. They claimed the Rev. Theodore Clapp, of New Orleans, a preacher of distinguished ability, and in some respects a very estimable gentleman, but who was one of the most unblushing advocates of slavery in the country. In a sermon preached at New Orleans, April 15, 1838, he said: “The venerable patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others were all slaveholders. In all probability each possessed a greater number of bondmen and bondwomen than any planter now living in Louisiana or Mississippi.” “The same God who gave Abraham sunshine, air, rain, earth, flocks, herds, silver, and gold blessed him with a donative of slaves. Here we see God dealing in slaves, giving them to his favorite child,—a man of superlative worth, and as a reward for his eminent goodness.” These extracts are not an exaggerated specimen of the whole discourse. A few years afterwards, it was rumored that Mr. Clapp had essentially modified his opinions as above expressed. This rumor brought out an explanation in The New Orleans Picayune (probably from himself), to the effect that, “Christian philanthropy does not require the immediate emancipation of slaves.” “Whilst one lives in a slave State, he is bound by Christianity to submit to its laws touching slavery.” “Christianity does not propose to release the obligations of slaves to their masters.” I am not informed that his Universalist brethren at the North ever passed any censure upon him for such misrepresentations of our Heavenly Father, and of the duty of men to their oppressed fellow-beings.

UNITARIANS.

In commencing the discreditable account I must give of the proslavery conduct of the Unitarian denomination, I may as well record the fact, of which the mention of Rev. Theodore Clapp reminds me. Notwithstanding the utterance of such sentiments as I have just now quoted, none of which had been retracted or apologized for, a few years afterwards Mr. Clapp was specially invited by a committee of Boston Unitarians to attend their religious anniversaries; and his letter in reply was read in their principal meeting, where, perhaps, a thousand persons were present, including a large number of ministers and prominent laymen, without any remonstrance or rebuke to those who had invited him.

But before I proceed further with the disagreeable narrative, let me state, to the honor of the sect, that though a very small one in comparison with those called Orthodox (having at this day not more than three hundred and sixty ministers, and in 1853 only two hundred and seven), we Unitarians have given to the antislavery cause more preachers, writers, lecturers, agents, poets, than any other denomination in proportion to our numbers, if not more without that comparison. Of those Unitarian ministers no longer on earth, we hold in most grateful remembrance Dr. N. Worcester, Dr. Follen, Dr. Channing, Dr. S. Willard, Theodore Parker, John Pierpont, Dr. H. Ware, Jr., and A. H. Conant. Others, though less outspoken, were always explicitly on the side of the oppressed,—Dr. Lowell, Dr. C. Francis, Dr. E. B. Hall, G. F. Simmons, E. Q. Sewall, B. Whitman, N. A. Staples, S. Judd, B. Frost. Of those who are still in the body, we gratefully claim as fellow-laborers in the antislavery cause Drs. J. G. Palfrey, W. H. Furness, J. F. Clarke, T. T. Stone, J. Allen, G. W. Briggs, R. P. Stebbins, O. Stearns, and Rev. Messrs. S. May, Jr., C. Stetson, W. H. Channing, M. D. Conway, O. B. Frothingham, J. Parkman, Jr., J. T. Sargent, N. Hall, A. A. Livermore, J. L. Russell, J. H. Heywood, T. W. Higginson, R. W. Emerson, S. Longfellow, S. Johnson, F. Frothingham, W. H. Knapp, R. F. Wallcut, R. Collyer, E. B. Willson, W. P. Tilden, W. H. Fish, C. G. Ames, John Weiss, R. C. Waterston, T. J. Mumford, C. C. Shackford, F. W. Holland, E. Buckingham, C. C. Sewall, F. Tiffany, R. R. Shippen. All these are or were Unitarian preachers, and did service in the conflict. Many of them suffered obloquy, persecution, loss, because of their fidelity to the principles of impartial liberty. I may have forgotten some whose names should stand in this honored list. I have mentioned all whose services I remember to have witnessed or to have heard of. How small a portion of the whole number of our ministers during the last forty years!

The Unitarians as a body dealt with the question of slavery in any but an impartial, courageous, and Christian way. Continually in their public meetings the question was staved off and driven out, because of technical, formal, verbal difficulties which were of no real importance, and ought not to have caused a moment’s hesitation. Avowing among their distinctive doctrines, “The fatherly character of God as reflected in his Son Jesus Christ,” and “The brotherhood of man with man everywhere,” we had a right to expect from Unitarians a steadfast and unqualified protest against so unjust, tyrannical, and cruel a system as that of American slavery. And considering their position as a body, not entangled with any proslavery alliances, not hampered by any ecclesiastical organization, it does seem to me that they were pre-eminently guilty in reference to the enslavement of the millions in our land with its attendant wrongs, cruelties, horrors. They, of all other sects, ought to have spoken boldly, as one man, for God our Father, for Jesus the all-loving Saviour and Elder Brother, and for Humanity, especially where it was outraged in the least of the brethren. But they did not. They refused to speak as a body, and censured, condemned, execrated their members who did speak faithfully for the down-trodden, and who co-operated with him whom a merciful Providence sent as the prophet of the reform, which alone could have saved our country from our late awful civil war. Let no honor be withheld from the individuals who were so prominent and noble exceptions to the general policy of the denomination,—the ministers whom I have named above, together with those faithful laymen, Samuel E. Sewall, Francis Jackson, David L. Child, Ellis Gray Loring, Edmund Quincy, A. Bronson Alcott, Dr. H. I. Bowditch, William I. Bowditch, with others; and those excellent women, Mrs. L. M. Child, Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, Mrs. Follen, Miss Cabot, Mrs. Mary May, Misses Weston, Misses Chapman, Miss Sargent, and more who should be named; let no honor be withheld from these and such as they were. But let the sad truth be plainly told, as a solemn warning to all coming generations, that even the Unitarians, as a body, were corrupted and morally paralyzed by our national consenting with slaveholders, even the Unitarians to whose avowed faith in the paternity of God, the brotherhood of all mankind, and the divinity of human nature, the enslavement of men should have been especially abhorrent. On a subsequent page I shall have occasion to tell of their most glaring dereliction of duty to the enslaved, and those who were ready to help them out of bondage. Meanwhile I must state some facts in support of my allegations against the sect to which I belong and with which I shall labor for the dissemination of our most precious faith so long as life and strength remain.

In 1843 the subject of the slavery of millions in our land was brought before the American Unitarian Association by Rev. John Parkman, Jr. But it was not discussed. It was put aside as a matter about which there were serious differences of opinion among the members, and with which that body, therefore, had better not meddle.

Early in 1844 an address on the subject was sent from British Unitarians to their brethren in America. It was an able, affectionate, respectful appeal to us, signed by one hundred and eighty-five ministers. A meeting of the Unitarian clergy was held in Boston to consider and reply to it. But it seemed to be regarded by many, and was spoken of by some, as an impertinence. “Our British brethren,” it was said, “are interfering in a matter which is beset with peculiar difficulties in this country, about which they know little or nothing.” And my cousin, Rev. Samuel May, Jr., of Leicester, who had visited England the year before, was severely censured for having encouraged our brethren there thus to meddle. Here let me say, few have labored so diligently, faithfully, disinterestedly, as Mr. May has in the cause of the slaves. And no one of our denomination has taken so much pains to prevent the Unitarians from committing themselves to the wrong side, or failing to do their duty on the right side, of every question relating to slavery. For this fidelity he has received anything but the thanks of most of the brethren. Here and elsewhere I am bound to tell what I know of him, for owing to the similarity of our names, and the sameness of our connections with the Antislavery Societies, many of his good words and deeds have been attributed to me by those who do not know both of us.

At the Autumnal Unitarian Conference held at Worcester, Mass., October, 1842, he offered a series of resolutions, setting forth the great extent, the appalling evils, and fearful wickedness of slavery, and endeavored to bring the Conference to resolve: “That, as ministers and disciples of Jesus Christ, we feel bound to declare our solemn opinion, that the institution of slavery is radically and inherently opposite to his religion; that it ought to be immediately abandoned by all who profess to be Christians; and that we do affectionately admonish and entreat all who hold ‘the like precious faith’ with us, to free themselves at once from the guilt of sustaining this evil thing.” There was manifested a great unwillingness to express any opinion upon the subject, and the Conference adjourned without taking action upon it.

When in England, in the summer of 1843, Mr. May attended a large meeting of Unitarians. Having been invited to address them, and to speak particularly upon the subject of slavery in America, and of the attitude of our denomination towards the great iniquity, he did speak at considerable length. But he gave a very truthful and candid statement of the case as it then was. He set before his British hearers the influences which tended to mislead even the most kindly disposed in this country, and the obstacles and difficulties that beset the way of those who were most resolute in the cause of the enslaved. He acknowledged gratefully, generously, the important services which Dr. Follen, Dr. Channing, and other Unitarian ministers and laymen had rendered. But he was obliged, as a man of truth, to confess that our denomination as a whole had been recreant to their duty. And he encouraged our English brethren to address a letter of fraternal counsel and entreaty to us, not doubting that such a communication would be gratefully received by the American Unitarians as coming from those who had had to contend against a similar system of iniquity, and had helped their national government to abolish it. But I have already stated how utterly disappointed he was in the result.

Soon after his return from England, at the annual meeting of the American Unitarian Association in May, 1844, he again brought up the subject, and earnestly endeavored, with others, to induce that body to vote that slaveholding was anti-republican, inhuman, and unchristian. It led to a protracted discussion of two days or more, which resulted in nothing else than a vote of censure passed upon the Unitarian Church in Savannah, Georgia, because they refused to receive the services of the Rev. Mr. Motte, sent to them by the Executive Committee of the Association, having heard that he had protested in a sermon against the wrongs inflicted upon the colored people both at the North and South.

Henry H. Fuller, of Boston, strenuously opposed the introduction of the subject of slavery to the consideration of the Association in any way. “We of the North have nothing to do with it. It is a system of labor established in some of our sister States by their highest legislative authority. It was consented to by the framers of our National Constitution, and guaranties given for its protection,” &c., &c. After much more of the same sort, he gave way for Mr. May to offer the following resolutions, instead of those by which he had called up the debate:—

1. “Resolved, That the American Unitarian Association, desirous that the pecuniary or other aid rendered by them from time to time to individuals and societies in the slaveholding sections of our country should not be misunderstood or misconstrued, do hereby declare their conviction that the institution of slavery, as existing in this country, is contrary to the will of God, to the Gospel of Christ (especially to the views which we entertain of it), to the rights of man, and to every principle of justice and humanity; and in a spirit not of dictation, but of friendly remonstrance and entreaty, would call upon those whom they may address, as believers in one God and Father of all, to bear a faithful testimony against slavery.

2. “Resolved, That the Executive Committee be, and they hereby are, requested to transmit a copy of the preceding resolution to each of our auxiliary Associations, and to such societies in the slaveholding sections of the country as may from time to time receive pecuniary aid from this Association.”

Dr. J. H. Morison objected to any action by the meeting. “1st. Because we shall thereby lose our influence at the South. 2d. Because we shall convert the Association into an Abolition Society. 3d. Because it would be a dastardly proceeding, at our distance from the scene of danger, to utter sentiments hostile to slavery, with which the Southern Unitarian societies might be identified.”

Dr. E. S. Gannett said that the Association never contemplated any action on slavery. It was contrary to the objects of its formation. It would also be an invasion of the rights of conscience,—being the setting up of a creed with reference to this subject. Moreover, he said, it would be injurious to the slaves. Ten years ago their bondage was much lighter than at present. And then it would be to identify ourselves with the Abolitionists of the free States, whom he most unsparingly and vehemently condemned, and said there was little comparative need for us to go South to rebuke an evil, when we had such a “hellish spirit alive and active here in our very midst, even in New England.”

Hon. S. C. Phillips, of Salem, was not in favor of such action as the resolutions proposed, but still thought we should take some action, and very properly in connection with this case of the Savannah church we should present, as we fairly might, our views on the whole subject of slavery. He said there had been great error in our so long silence on the subject. Our leading policy had been to avoid it, and much injury, and the prevention of much good, had been the consequence. “The time has come,” said he, “when no man can be silent everywhere, and at all times, on this subject without guilt.”

Mr. Phillips offered a series of resolutions instead of Mr. May’s.

Rev. Mr. Lunt, of Quincy, opposed any action, and spoke with great severity of the Abolitionists, whom he charged with being bent on the dissolution of our Union and also the subversion of Christianity.

My cousin vindicated the Abolitionists from Mr. Lunt’s charges, reminding him and the audience of the ground which Dr. Channing and other true friends of our country had taken respecting disunion, in case of the annexation of Texas. Mr. May showed that the Abolitionists had opposed only a false and corrupt church, not the Church of Christ, and still less Christianity itself, in which they gloried as the basis and impelling principle of their movement.

The resolutions were ably supported by the mover, Mr. Phillips, and four other laymen, and by eleven ministers, and finally passed by a majority of forty to fifteen, and were in part as follows:—

After a preamble, setting forth the offensive conduct of the Savannah church,—

“Resolved, That, viewing the institution of slavery in the light of Christianity, we cannot fail to perceive that it conflicts with the natural rights of human beings as the equal children of a common Father, and that it subverts the fundamental principle of human brotherhood.

“Resolved, In the necessary effects of slavery upon the personal and social condition, and upon the moral and religious character of all affected by it, we perceive an accumulation of evils over which Christianity must weep, against which Christianity should remonstrate, and for the removal of which Christianity appeals to the hearts and consciences of all disciples of Jesus to do what they can by their prayers, by the indulgence and expression of their sympathy, and by the unremitting and undisguised exertion of whatever moral and religious influence they may possess.”

Then follows a resolution that it should not be considered, in any part of our country, a disqualification of any minister or missionary for the performance of the appropriate duties of his office, that he is known to have expressed antislavery sentiments, and approving the course of the Executive Committee in withdrawing their assistance from the church in Savannah because of their rejection of Rev. Mr. Motte.

The discussions at that meeting were seasoned with many vehement denunciations of the Abolitionists, uttered by several prominent Unitarian ministers. William L. Garrison was denounced as one “instigated by a diabolical spirit.” “The Abolitionists,” it was said, “were aiming to subvert Christianity, to extirpate it from the earth.” Dr. Francis Parkman, of Boston, loudly declared that “no letter or resolution condemning slavery should ever go forth from the American Unitarian Association while he was a member of it.” And he highly commended a New England captain, of whom we had then recently heard, because “he put his ship about and carried back to the master a slave whom he had found secreted on board the vessel.” Dr. Parkman openly and personally denounced those who introduced the subject, as “born to plague the Association.” And he, together with Dr. G. Putnam, and other prominent ministers, spoke of Dr. Channing’s earnestness in the antislavery cause as a great weakness.

Later in the same year, 1845, at a meeting of Unitarian ministers in Boston, “A Protest against American Slavery,” prepared I suppose by Rev. Caleb Stetson, John T. Sargent, and Samuel May, Jr., was adopted and sent out to be circulated for signatures. It received the names of one hundred and seventy-three ministers, of whom one hundred and fifty-three were of New England. It was publicly stated at the time that about eighty, comprising many of the most influential ministers of the denomination, refused to sign the Protest. Among the recusants were the Rev. Drs. Gannett, Dewey, Young, Parkman, Lothrop, G. Putnam, Lamson, N. Frothingham, S. Barrett, E. Peabody, G. E. Ellis, Bartol, Morison, and Lunt.

Of those who did sign the Protest, I am sorry to add not a large proportion can with truth be said to have been faithful to the solemn pledge they therein gave, as follows: “We on our part do hereby pledge ourselves, before God and our brethren, never to be weary in laboring in the cause of human rights and freedom, until slavery shall be abolished and every slave set free.”

Once or twice afterwards Mr. May pressed the subject upon the Unitarian Association, but with little better results. Subsequent events, however, have shown, too plainly to be denied or doubted, that it would have been more creditable to themselves, and far better for our country, if “the older and wiser” men of our denomination had listened to his counsels and followed his noble example. Alas, our land is filled with testimonies written in blood, that if the ministers of religion had only been fearless and faithful in declaring the impartial love of the Heavenly Father for the children of men of all complexions, and their equal, inalienable rights, which would assuredly be vindicated by Divine justice, our late civil war would have been averted!

In 1847 Mr. May was appointed General Agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, and continued in that responsible and laborious office until after the abolition of slavery in 1865. He was instant in season and out of season, and in co-operation with his devoted assistant, Rev. R. F. Wallcut, rendered services the amount and value of which cannot easily be estimated.

THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

The awful iniquity of our nation culminated in the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law, which, as Edmund Quincy said at the time, stood, as it now stands, “a piece of diabolical ingenuity, for the accomplishment of a devilish purpose, without a rival among all the tyrannical enactments or edicts of servile parliaments or despotic monarchs.” It was the essential article of a political conglomerate, prepared by the Arch Compromiser, Henry Clay, which was called the Omnibus Bill; some parts of which, he vainly thought, would conciliate the Northern States to the reception of the whole. It provided for the admission of California into our Union, with an antislavery Constitution; for the organization of two other Territories without the prohibition of slavery; the extension of the southwestern boundary of Texas to the Rio Grande; the abolition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, with the guaranty of slavery to its inhabitants until they should see fit to abolish it; and the perpetuity of the interstate slave-trade; but infinitely worse than any of these objectionable parts were the stringent measures it proposed for the recovery of fugitives from slavery. Stripped of the verbiage of legal enactments, the provisions of this abominable law were as follows:—

1. The claimant of any person who had escaped, or should escape from slavery in any State or Territory, might apply to any Court of Record or Judge thereof, describe the fugitive and make satisfactory proof that he or she owed service or labor to said claimant. Thereupon the Court, or in vacation the Judge, was required to cause a record to be made of the description of the alleged fugitive, and of the proof of his or her enslavement, and give an attested copy of that record to the claimant; which copy was required to be received by any court, judge, or commissioner in any other State or Territory of the Union, as full and conclusive evidence that the person claimed, and so described, was a fugitive from slavery and owed service to the claimant, and therefore should be delivered up.

Any marshal or deputy who should refuse to arrest such a fugitive was to be fined one thousand dollars. And if, after having arrested him or her, the fugitive should in any way escape from his custody, the marshal or deputy should be held liable to pay to the claimant the value of the runaway.

And any person who should in any way prevent the claimant or his agent or assistants from getting possession of the fugitive, by hiding him or helping him to escape, or by open opposition to his would-be captor,—such offender was to be fined one thousand dollars for violating this righteous law; and be liable to pay another thousand dollars to the claimant of the fugitive.

In order that every facility should be afforded to our slaveholding brethren to retake their fleeing property, many commissioners were ordered to be appointed in all suitable places (in addition to the courts and judges) whose especial duty it should be to attend to cases that might arise under the Fugitive Slave Law. And each commissioner or judge, who found the accused guilty of having fled from bondage, was to receive a fee of ten dollars. But if the proof adduced by the claimant did not satisfy him that the accused was a fugitive from his service, then the judge or commissioner was to receive only five dollars. Thus bribery was by this law superadded to every other device to enable the American slaveholder to recover his escaped slave, and return him or her to a still more cruel bondage.

Nor was this all that was atrociously wicked in the enactment. It provided further that, while the claimant or his agent might give testimony or make affidavit to the enslavement of the arrested one, “in no trial or hearing under the Act was the testimony of the alleged fugitive to be admitted in evidence” that he was not the one that his claimant called him, or that he had been emancipated by the will of a former owner, or by the purchase of his liberty.

If there be among the laws of any other nation, in any other part and in any other age of the world, an enactment, a decree, a ukase, so profoundly wicked, so ingeniously cruel, as this law which the Congress of the United States passed in 1850,—the very middle of the nineteenth century,—I beg to be informed of it, for I confess at the close of this recital I feel as if, in my shame and misery, I should be relieved for a moment by bad company.

At first it may seem strange that Mr. Clay should have supposed the people of the Northern States would conform to the requirements of such a law; would consent that their States should be made the hunting-grounds, and themselves the bloodhounds of Southern oppressors in pursuit of their fleeing slaves. And yet was he not justified in this low opinion of us by the conduct of many of those who were elected to be representatives of the opinions and wishes of the majority of our communities? The execrable bill could not have become a law, without the concurrence of Northern members in both Houses of Congress; for, in both, the larger number were from the non-slaveholding States. Yet it was enacted by the votes of twenty-seven of the Senators against only twelve; and by one hundred and nine of the Representatives opposed by seventy-five. And many of these recreants to the fundamental principles of justice and humanity had led Mr. Clay, and the Southern politicians generally, to expect such votes as they gave by the sentiments they uttered in the preceding debates.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

The man who did more than any one, if not more than all of the members of Congress from the free States, to procure the passage of the Bill of Abominations, was Daniel Webster, who had represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate for twenty-five years; who led her in opposition to the Missouri Compromise in 1819, and for nearly twenty years afterwards was regarded as a leader of the advanced guard of liberty and humanity. But when, in 1838, he went into the Southern States to make his bids for the presidency, he uttered words that foretold his moral declension, though not to so deep a depth as he descended in his advocacy of the Fugitive Slave Law. The infamy of his speech on the 7th of March, 1850, can never be forgotten while he is remembered. He then declared it to be his intention “to support the Bill with all its provisions to the fullest extent.”

Another fact which adds a sting of bitterness to the shame of the North was, that this Act, the baseness, meanness, cruelty of which no epithet in my vocabulary can adequately express, became a law by the signature of the President, subscribed by Millard Fillmore, a New York man and a Unitarian withal.

Notwithstanding the general expressions of indignation and disgust at Mr. Webster’s baseness and treachery in supporting the Fugitive Slave Bill throughout the North, especially from all parts of his own State, Massachusetts, he and other members of the Senate and the House of Representatives persisted until, as we have seen, the Act became a law. The arch-traitor was rewarded with the office of Secretary of State. Such was his gratitude for this small compensation that, on taking leave of the Senate, he pledged himself anew to the infamous principles he had avowed on the 7th of March.R

No sooner was the deed done, the Fugitive Slave Act sent forth to be the law of the land, than outcries of contempt and defiance came from every free State, and pledges of protection were given to the colored population. It is not within the scope of my plan to attempt an account of the indignation-meetings that were held in places too numerous to be even mentioned here. They will make a proud episode in the history of our nation since 1830, whenever it shall be fully written. Meanwhile, let me here refer my readers to the admirable Reports of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, especially those written by the piquant pen, under the guidance of the astute mind, of Edmund Quincy, for the last ten or fifteen years of our fiery conflict.

I must confine myself to my personal recollections, and in this particular they are most grateful to me, and honorable to the city of Syracuse, where I have resided since 1845.

The Fugitive Slave Act was signed by the President on the 18th of September. Eight days afterwards, a call was issued through our newspapers summoning the citizens of Syracuse and its vicinity, without respect to party, to meet in our City Hall on the 4th of October ensuing, to denounce and take measures to withstand this law. As the time of the meeting approached the popular excitement increased, and at an early hour the hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. Hon. A. H. Hovey, the Mayor of the city, was elected to preside, sustained by eight vice-presidents of the two political parties, three of whom had been then, or have been since, mayors of Syracuse, and the other five, gentlemen of the highest respectability, though only one of them had been active with the Abolitionists,—Hon. E. W. Leavenworth, Hon. Horace Wheaton, John Woodruff, Esq., Captain Oliver Teall, Robert Gere, Esq., Hon. L. Kingsley, Captain Hiram Putnam, Dr. Lyman Clary.

The President addressed the meeting very acceptably, declared himself to be with us in opposition to the law, adding: “The colored man must be protected,—he must be secure among us, come what will of political organizations.” A series of thirteen resolutions was read, three of which will make known sufficiently the spirit of them all. The second was:—

1. “Resolved, That the Fugitive Slave Law, recently enacted by the Congress of these United States, is a most flagrant outrage upon the inalienable rights of man, and a daring assault upon the palladium of American liberties.”

3. “That every intelligent man and woman throughout our country, ought to read attentively, and understand the provisions of this law, in all its details, so that they may be fully aware of its diabolical spirit and cruel ingenuity, and prepare themselves to oppose all attempts to enforce it.”

13. “Resolved, That we recommend the appointment of a Vigilance Committee of thirteen citizens, whose duty it shall be to see that no person is deprived of his liberty without ‘due process of law.’ And all good citizens are earnestly requested to aid and sustain them in all needed efforts for the security of every person claiming the protection of our laws.”

The meeting was addressed in a very spirited strain by two colored gentlemen,—Rev. S. R. Ward and Rev. J. W. Loguen. They each declared that they and their colored fellow-citizens generally had determined to make the most violent resistance to any attempt that might be made to re-enslave them. They would have their liberty or die in its defence.

Mr. Charles A. Wheaton, Chairman of a Committee, then read an Address to the citizens of the State of New York, setting very plainly before them the degradation to which this law would reduce them. It showed them how the law would nullify all the provisions made in the Constitution for the protection of our dearest rights, as well as the liberties of any amongst us who might have complexions shaded in any measure. And it called upon the citizens of the Empire State to rise in their majesty and put down all attempts to enforce this law.

Hon. Charles B. Sedgwick then rose and advocated the Resolutions and Address in an admirable speech. He exposed the atrocious features of the slave-catching law in detail, demonstrated its unconstitutionality as well as cruelty, and awakened throughout his audience the keenest indignation against it. He said it was the vilest law that tyranny ever devised. He would resist it, and he called on all who heard him to resist it everywhere, in every way, to the utmost of their power. Rev. R. R. Raymond, of the Baptist Church, then spoke stirring words in thrilling tones. “How can we do to others as we would that they should do to us, if we do not resist this law? Citizens of Syracuse! shall a live man ever be taken out of our city by force of this law?” “No! No!!” was the response loud as thunder. “Let us tell the Southerners, then, that it will not be safe for them to come or send their agents here to attempt to take away a fugitive slave. [Great applause.] I will take the hunted man to my own house, and he shall not be torn away, and I be left alive. [Tremendous and long cheering.]”

I was then called up. But I shall leave my readers to imagine what I said, if they will only let it be in very strong opposition to the law.

The Report of the Committee on Resolutions, and an Address, was then put to vote, and adopted with only one dissenting voice. The Vigilance Committee of thirteen was appointed, and the meeting was adjourned to the evening of the 12th.

Our second meeting was, if possible, more enthusiastic than the first. All the seats in the hall were filled, and the aisles crowded before the hour to which the meeting was adjourned. The Mayor called to order precisely at seven o’clock. It devolved upon me, as Chairman of the Committee, to report Resolutions. There were too many of them to be repeated here. Two or three must suffice.

1. “Resolved, That we solemnly reiterate our abhorrence of the Fugitive Slave Law, which in effect is nothing less than a license for kidnapping, under the protection and at the expense of our Federal Government, which has become the tool of oppressors.”

6. “Resolved, That now is the day and now the hour to take our stand for liberty and humanity. If we now refuse to assert our independency of the tyrants who aspire to absolute power in our Republic, we may hope for nothing better than entire subjugation to their will, and shall leave our children in a condition little better than that of the creatures of absolute despots.”

10. “Resolved, That as all of us are liable at any moment to be summoned to assist in kidnapping such persons as anybody may claim to be his slaves, and to be fined one thousand dollars if we refuse to do the bidding of the land-pirates, whom this law would encourage to prowl through our country, it is the dictate of prudence as well as good fellowship in a righteous cause, that we should unite ourselves in an Association, pledged to stand by its members in opposing this law, and to share with any of them the pecuniary losses they may incur, under the operation of this law.”

11. “Resolved, That such an Association be now formed, so that Southern oppressors may know that the people of Syracuse and its vicinity are prepared to sustain one another in resisting the encroachments of despotism.”

William H. Burleigh first spoke in support of the resolutions. One of the newspapers the next day said: “We can do no justice to the ability and surpassing eloquence of Mr. Burleigh’s speech; the deep feelings of his soul were poured out in terms of consuming oratory.” Judge Nye, then of Madison County, was present, and being called to address the meeting, said, among many other good things: “I am an officer of the law. I am not sure that I am not one of those officers who are clothed with anomalous and terrible powers by this Bill of Abominations. If I am, I will tell my constituency that I will trample that law in the dust, and they must find another man, if there be one who will degrade himself, to do this dirty work.” “Be assured, Syracusians, there is not a man among the hills and valleys of Madison County who would take my office on condition of obedience to this statute.” These sentences, and other good things that Judge Nye said, were received with great applause.

Hon. C. B. Sedgwick then presented a petition to Congress for the repeal of the Act, and called upon his fellow-citizens to sign it. He enforced this call by a very impressive speech, declaring again and again his fixed determination to oppose to the utmost any attempt to carry back from Syracuse a fugitive slave. “A man (no, a dog) may come here scenting blood on the track of our brother Loguen; shall we let him drag him off to slavery again? No! never!! Loguen has been driven and stricken from childhood to manhood. He has been literally a man of sorrows. His soul was trodden upon by oppression. But he rose in the might of his manhood, and made his way across rivers, through swamps, over mountains, to our city. And it shall be a place of safety to him. We will not give him up. He is a husband and a father on our free soil, and will you give him back to the hell of slavery? No! never!!

I wish I could convey to the ears of my readers the hearty, deep-toned notes of applause that welcomed these declarations.

I then presented a pledge, binding those who might sign it to stand by one another, and share equally all pecuniary penalties they might be made to suffer because of their opposition to this oppressive and cruel Act.

Rev. Mr. Raymond was afterwards called up, and he spoke in a manner that was very affecting. I have room for only a brief extract from the report of it.

“Oh! the hardships this law has brought upon the fugitives from slavery that have sought an asylum with us! I attended the other day a meeting of Baptist ministers in Rochester. There was a colored brother there in the depths of distress. He arose in our midst and gave voice to the agonies of his soul. A few years since he escaped from one of the richest slaveholders in Kentucky. With him, he had been brought up in ignorance. Since coming among us he had learnt to read, and had become so well educated as to be able to teach others. In the course of two years he had gathered a church in a meeting-house that had been built mainly by his instrumentality. He had a comfortable homestead in Rochester, and a happy family about him. But now his master had sent for him, declaring he would have him under this law. ‘Oh!’ he cried, ‘what have I done? what is my crime? All the power and cunning and sagacity of this great nation are moving to drag me back again into slavery,—worse than death.’ His head fell upon his bosom, he sobbed aloud, and we wept with him, and a deep groan of execration went up from the souls of us all to the God of mercy against this law.” This recital awakened intense feeling throughout our meeting and murmurs of indignation. “And now,” Mr. Raymond continued, “suppose that while we were glowing with sympathy for that brother and abhorrence of the law,—suppose the man-thief had come into that meeting and put his hand upon that brother to bear him off to the South. What would have been the result? I tell you we would have defended him, if we had had to tear that man-thief in pieces.” This was received with great applause. “What,” continued Mr. Raymond, “what if the officers should come here and put their hand on me as one claimed to be the property of another man, would you let me go?” “No! No!! No!!!” from every quarter was the hearty response. “And yet why not me as readily as a man of darker skin? If ever there was a law which it was right to trample upon, it is this. You are counselling revolution, some may say. Revolution indeed! O, my fellow-citizens, blood has been flowing, not in battle-fields, but from the backs of our enslaved countrymen ever since 1776, and is flowing now. [Deep sensation.] Yes, and that blood has gone up to Heaven and provoked God against us. Yes, and blood will flow profusely on the battle-fields of a civil war if we carry out this accursed law,—if we do not proclaim freedom throughout the land.”

Several other gentlemen addressed the meeting in a similar strain; among them, Colonel Titus, who said: “With all my heart I concur in the sentiments and spirit of the resolutions and in the speech of Mr. Raymond. I am for suspending the operation of the bill until it shall be repealed. If the Southerners or their Northern minions undertake to enforce its provisions, and attempt to carry off our friend Loguen, or any other citizens, I am prepared to fight in their defence. I would advise our colored neighbors not to remove to Canada, but to rely on the patriotism of the citizens of Syracuse for protection. The Assistant United States Marshal is in the hall, and it is well to have him understand what are the real sentiments of his fellow-citizens, which I trust will be found to be almost unanimous in favor of resistance to this execrable law.”

Such was the very general uprising of the people of Syracuse in opposition to the rendition of fugitives from slavery.

My own sentiments and feelings were very fully declared, a few days afterwards, from my own pulpit, and subsequently in Rochester and Oswego. I trust my readers will bear with a somewhat extended abstract of my sermon.

“If there be a God, almighty, perfectly wise, and impartially just and good, his will ought to be supreme with all moral beings throughout his universe. To teach otherwise,—to teach that we or any of his moral offspring are bound or can be bound by any earthly power to do what is contrary to divine law, is virtually Atheism; it is to enthrone Baal or Mammon in the place of Jehovah. And this is just what the people of this country are now called upon by our Federal Government to do. The legislators of this Republic have enacted a law which offends every feeling of humanity, sets at naught every precept of the Christian religion, outrages our highest sense of right. And now they and their political and priestly abettors demand that we shall conform to the requirements of this law, because it was enacted by the government under which we live.

“Brethren, are any of you ready to bow and take this yoke upon your necks, and do the biddings of these wicked men? I hope not. You shall not be, if I can convince you that you ought not. The iniquity of our country has culminated in the passage of this infernal law. Fearful encroachments have successively been made upon our liberties. This last is the worst, the most daring. If we yield to it, all will be lost. Our country will be given up to oppressors. There can be no insult, no outrage upon our moral sense, which we shall be able to withstand; no spot on which we can raise a barrier to the tide of political and personal pollution that must ever follow in the wake of slavery. Our government will become a despotism or a cruel oligarchy, and our religion will be in effect, if not in name, the worship of Baal, which means ‘him that subdues.’...

“This horrible law, which in the middle of the nineteenth century of the Christian era the legislators of the most highly favored nation on earth have had the effrontery to enact,—this law peremptorily, under heavy fines and penalties, forbids us to give assistance and comfort to a certain class of our fellow-men in the utmost need of help,—those who have fled and are longing to be saved from the greatest wrongs that can be inflicted upon human beings,—the wrongs of slavery. And yet we are told by many—many who profess to be Christians, even teachers of Christianity, ah! Doctors of Divinity—that the pulpit may not remonstrate against this tremendous iniquity, because, forsooth, it has passed into a law. What, are we, then, to allow that there is no authority higher than that of the earthly government under which we live,—a government framed by our revered but fallible fathers, and which we administer by agents of our own election, who are by no means incorruptible? Has it come to this? Is this the best lesson our Republican and Christian wisdom can teach the suffering nations of earth? Nay, are we to submit to this human authority without question? May we not so much as discuss the justice of its demands upon us? Must even those men be silent who were set in our midst for the defence of the Gospel,—the Gospel of Him who was ‘anointed to preach to the poor, who was sent to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, to set at liberty them that are bruised?’ Such is the doctrine of our politicians and of our politico-religious ministers. But a more heartless, demoralizing, base, antidemocrat, and antichristian doctrine could not be preached. I repudiate it utterly.... The pulpit has no higher function than to expound, assert, and maintain the rights of man. The assumption of Mr. Webster and his abettors—that there is no higher law than an enactment of our Congress or the Constitution of the United States—is glaringly atheistical, inasmuch as it denies the supremacy of the Divine Author of the moral constitution of man....

“It is a matter of great interest to me personally, that my attention was first powerfully called to the subject of slavery, and my resolution to do my duty regarding it, was first roused by Daniel Webster, when he was a man, and not a mere selfseeking politician. The first antislavery meeting I ever attended was one in which Mr. Webster took a conspicuous part. It was on the 3d of December, 1819, in the State House at Boston, called to oppose the Missouri Compromise. Then and there generous, humane, Christian sentiments respecting slavery were uttered by him and others that kindled in my bosom a warmth of interest in the cause of the oppressed that has never cooled. But the next year, on the 22d of December, 1820, a few days before I entered the pulpit as a preacher, Mr. Webster delivered his famous oration at Plymouth. It was an admirable exposition of the rise, characteristics, and spirit of our free political and religious institutions. Towards the close, having alluded to slavery and the slave-trade, he said, with deep solemnity: ‘I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim its denunciation of these crimes. If the pulpit be silent wherever or whenever there may be a sin bloody with this guilt within the hearing of its voice, the pulpit is false to its trust.’

“Thus solemnly charged by one whom I then revered as a good man, no less than as a great statesman, the following Sunday I commenced preaching. Tremblingly alive to the weighty responsibilities I was about to incur, I fully resolved that the pulpit which might be committed to my charge should not be silent respecting slavery or any other great public wrong....

“And now, that same Daniel Webster, who first roused me to feel somewhat as I ought for the enslaved, has done more than any other man to procure the enactment of a law, under the provisions of which, if I do my duty, and by my preaching incite others to do their duty, to those who are in danger of being enslaved, I and they may be subjected to unusually heavy fines, or may be thrown into prison as malefactors. Have I not, then, a personal controversy with that distinguished man,—distinguished now, alas! for something else than splendid talents and exalted virtues? If I have gone wrong, did not Mr. Webster misdirect me? If I have done no more than he solemnly charged all preachers to do, has he not basely deserted and betrayed me? Verily, verily I say unto you, he bound the burden of this antislavery reform, and laid it upon the shoulders of others, but he himself has not helped to bear it,—no, not with one of his fingers. Nay, worse, he has done all he could to prepare the prison, and to whet the sword of vengeance for those sons of New England who shall obey the injunction he gave them from Plymouth Rock, that spot hallowed by all who truly love liberty and hate oppression....

“Tell me, then, no more that the pulpit has nothing to do,—that I as a Christian minister have nothing to do with politics, when I see how politics have corrupted, yes, utterly spoiled the once noble (we used in our admiration to say), godlike Daniel Webster! If that man, with his surpassing strength of intellect and once enlarged, generous views of the right and the good,—if he has not been able to withstand the demoralizing influences of political partyism, but has been shrivelled up into a mere aspirant for office, basely consenting to any and every sacrifice of humanity demanded by the oppressors of our country, and at last pledging himself to sustain all the provisions of a law more ingeniously wicked than the stimulated fears of the most cowardly tyrants ever before devised,—I repeat, if such a man as Daniel Webster once was has been corrupted and ruined by politics, shall I, a minister of the Christian religion, fail to point out as plainly as I may, and proclaim as earnestly as I can, the moral dangers that beset those who engage in the strife for political preferment?...

“For one, I will not help to uphold our nation in its iniquity,—no, not for an hour. If it cannot be reclaimed, let it be dissolved. The declaration so often made by the professed friends of our Union, that it cannot be preserved unless this horrible law can be enforced, is unwittingly a declaration that it is the implacable enemy of liberty,—an obstacle in the way of human progress. If it really be so, it must be, it will be removed. And he who attempts to prevent its dissolution will find himself fighting against God. If such a law as this for the recapture of fugitive slaves be essential to our Republic as now constituted, let it be broken up, and some new form of government arise in its stead. A better one would doubtless succeed. A worse one it could not be, if the enslavement, continued degradation and outlawry of more than three millions of our people, be indeed the bond of our present Union....

“Suppose that a considerable proportion of the States in this Union were, or should become, idolatrous heathen. Suppose that they worshipped Moloch, or some other false deity who delighted in human sacrifices. And suppose that, to propitiate the people of those States, and to secure the pecuniary and political advantages of a continued Union with them, Congress should enact that the people of the Christian States should allow those idolaters to come here when they pleased and offer human sacrifices in our midst, or carry away our children to be burnt on their altars at the South; would Mr. Webster or Mr. Clay, or the editors of The New York Observer, or The Journal of Commerce, or the Doctors of Divinity who have endeavored to array the public on the side of wrong,—would even they call upon us to obey such a law? I am sure they would not. And yet I fain would know wherein such a law as I have supposed would be any worse than this law which they are laboring to enforce.... Why, then, if it would be reasonable and proper, in the view of Mr. Webster and his reverend abettors, to nullify a law requiring us to permit human beings to be offered as burnt sacrifices,—why is it not equally reasonable and proper for us to set at naught this law which commands us to do something worse,—that is, to assist in reducing human beings to the condition of domesticated brutes?... Nay, further, I insisted that the Fugitive Slave Law violates the religious liberty, interferes with the faith and worship of Christians, just as much as the law I have supposed would do.... A law of the land requiring you, as this Fugitive Slave Law does, to disobey the Golden Rule is, indeed, a far more grievous encroachment upon your liberty of conscience than a law prescribing to your faith any creed, or any rites and ceremonies by which you must worship God....

“Fellow-citizens! Christian brethren! the time has come that is to test our principles, to try our souls. I would not that any one in this emergency should trust to his own unaided strength. Let us fervently pray for wisdom to direct us, and for fortitude to do whatever may be demanded at our hands, by the Royal Law,—the Golden Rule....

“I would counsel prudence, although this evil day demands of us courage and self-sacrifice.... We should spare no pains through the press, by conversation, and by public addresses, particularly by faithful discourses from the pulpits, to cherish and quicken the sense of right and the love of liberty in the hearts of the people. A correct public sentiment is our surest safeguard....

“Do you inquire of me by what means you ought to withstand the execution of this diabolical law? It is not for me to determine the action of any one but myself. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,’ is the second great command which all should faithfully try to obey. Every man and woman among you is bound, as I am, to do for the protection or rescue of a fugitive from slavery what, in your hearts before God, you believe it would be right for you to do in behalf of your own life or liberty, or that of a member of your family. If you are fully persuaded that it would be right for you to maim or kill the kidnapper who had laid hands upon your wife, son, or daughter, or should be attempting to drag yourself away to be enslaved, I see not how you can excuse yourself from helping, by the same degree of violence, to rescue the fugitive slave from the like outrage....

“Before all men, I declare that you are, every one of you, under the highest obligation to disobey this law,—nay, oppose to the utmost the execution of it. If you know of no better way to do this than by force and arms, then are you bound to use force and arms to prevent a fellow-being from being enslaved. There never was, there cannot be, a more righteous cause for revolution than the demands made upon us by this law. It would make you kidnappers, men-stealers, bloodhounds....

“It is known that I have been and am a preacher of the ‘doctrine of non-resistance.’ I believe it to be one of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity. But I have never presumed to affirm that I possessed enough of the spirit of Christ,—enough confidence in God and man,—enough moral courage and self-command to act in accordance with the Gospel precept in the treatment of enemies. But there is not a doubt in my heart that, if I should be enabled to speak and act as Jesus would, I should produce a far greater and better effect than could be wrought by clubs, or swords, or any deadly weapons.... I shall go to the rescue of any one I may hear is in danger, not intending to harm the cruel men who may be attempting to kidnap him. I shall take no weapon of violence along with me, not even the cane that I usually wear. I shall go, praying that I may say and do what will smite the hearts rather than the bodies of the impious claimants of property in human beings,—pierce their consciences rather than their flesh....

“Fellow-citizens, fellow-men, fellow-Christians! the hour is come! A stand must be taken against the ruthless oppressors of our country. Resistants and non-resistants have now a work to do that may task to the utmost the energies of their souls. We owe it to the millions who are wearing out a miserable existence under the yoke of slavery; we owe it to the memory of our fathers who solemnly pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to the cause of liberty; We owe it to the expectations, the claims of oppressed and suffering men the world over; we owe it to ourselves, if we would be true men and not the menials of tyrants, to trample this Fugitive Slave Law under foot, and throw it indignantly back at the wicked legislators who had the hardihood to enact it.”

It was obvious enough that some parts of the discourse were not relished by quite a number of my auditors. Several seemed to be seriously offended. It is therefore to be cherished among my many grateful recollections that, as I was coming down from the pulpit the late Major James E. Heron, of the United States Army, then one of the prominent members of our society, came up to me glowing with emotion, gave me his hand, and said, quite audibly: “Mr. May, I thank you. I was once a slaveholder. I know all about the Southern system of domestic servitude. I am intimately acquainted with the principles of the slaveholders, and the condition of their bondmen. You have never in my hearing exaggerated the wrongs and the vices inherent in the system. You cannot overstate them. And the bold attempt which is now making to subjugate the people of the Northern States to the will and service of the slaveholders ought to be resisted to the last.” He must have been heard by many. His words were repeated about the city, and his full indorsement of my antislavery fanaticism helped to make it much more tolerable, in the regards of some who were ready to revolt from it.

The Vigilance Committee appointed on the 4th of October, and the Association we formed on the 12th, to co-operate with that committee, and to bear mutually the expenses that might be incurred in resisting the law, kept the attention of our citizens alive to the subject. And their interest was quickened and their determination confirmed by the reports that came to us from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and many other places, of the preparations that were making to protect the colored people, and set at defiance the plan for their re-enslavement. The historian of our country, if he be one worthy of the task, will linger with delight over the pages on which he shall narrate the uprising of the people generally, in 1850 and 1851, throughout the Northern States, in opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law. There were not wanting fearless preachers who took up the arms of the Gospel and faithfully fought against the great unrighteousness. Only a few days after the infamous speech of Mr. Webster on the 7th of March, Theodore Parker addressed a crowded audience in Faneuil Hall, and exposed to their deeper abhorrence the atrocious provisions of the Bill which the Massachusetts senator had had the effrontery to advocate and pledge himself to maintain. On the 22d of September following he preached to his hearers in the Melodeon a thrilling discourse on “The Function and Place of Conscience in Relation to the Laws of Men,” which must have fired them all the more to stand to the death in defence of any human being who had sought, or should seek, an asylum in Massachusetts. And again on the 28th of November, 1850, the day of annual Thanksgiving, he delivered his comprehensive, deep-searching discourse on “The State of the Nation,” showing the reckless impiety of rulers who could frame such unrighteousness into law, and the folly of the people who could suppose themselves bound to obey such a law. Oh! if the ministers of religion generally, throughout our country, had said and done, before and after that date, a tithe as much as Mr. Parker said and did against the “great iniquity” of our nation, the slaveholders could never have gained such an ascendency in our Government, nor have become so inflated with the idea of their power, as to have attempted the dissolution of the Union, which it cost all the blood and treasure expended in our awful civil war to preserve. Mr. Parker was not indeed left alone to fight the battle of the Lord. Rev. Dr. Storrs, of Brooklyn, N. Y., Rev. G. W. Perkins, of Guilford, Conn., Rev. J. G. Forman, of West Bridgewater, Rev. Charles Beecher, Rev. William C. Whitcomb, of Stoneham, Rev. Nathaniel West, of Pittsburg, each spoke and wrote words of sound truth and great power, as well as those whose services I have acknowledged in another place, and others no doubt whose names have escaped my memory. But of the thirty thousand ministers of all the denominations in the United States, I believe not one in a hundred ever raised his voice against the enslavement of millions of our countrymen, nor lifted a finger to protect one who had escaped from bondage. And many, very many of the clergy openly and vehemently espoused the cause of the oppressors. Not only did the preachers in the slaveholding States, with scarcely an exception, justify and defend the institution of slavery, but there were many ministers in the free States who took sides with them. The most distinguished in this bad company were Professor Stuart, of Andover, Dr. Lord, President of Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, Bishop Hopkins, of Burlington, Vt., and Rev. Dr. Nehemiah Adams, of Boston. But I must refer my readers to the books mentioned at the bottom of page 349, if they would know how “the orthodox and evangelical” ministers of the free States contributed their influence to uphold “the peculiar institution of the South.” And it must be left for the future historian of our Republic in the nineteenth century to tell to posterity how fearfully the American Church and ninety-nine hundredths of the ministers were subjugated to the will and behest of our slaveholding oligarchy. My purpose is to give, for the most part, only my personal recollections. And on this point, I am sorry to say, they are numerous and mortifying enough.

THE UNITARIANS AND THEIR MINISTERS.

When the Fugitive Slave Law was first promulgated, there was, as I have stated, a very general outburst of indignation throughout the North,—a feeling of dreadful shame, a sense of a most bitter insult. The first impulse of the Unitarians, as of others, was to denounce it. At their autumnal convention in Springfield, October, 1850, they did so, though not without strong opposition to any vote or action on the subject. Probably the opposers would have prevailed, and the law have been left unrebuked, had not that venerable man, the late Rev. Dr. Willard, of Deerfield, risen and earnestly—yes, solemnly—protested against passing lightly over a matter of such fearful importance. Dr. Willard was old, and had long been blind. Would to God that the moral sight of many of his younger ministerial brethren had been half as clear and pure as his! With tremulous eloquence he called upon them to reconsider their motion. He appealed to their pity for men and women over whom was impending the greatest calamity that could befall human beings. He appealed to their regard for the honor of their country, and besought them to avert her shame, by doing what they might to show the world, that it was the statesmen and politicians, not the people of the Northern States, who approved of this wicked, cruel law. His words roused others, who spoke to the same effect; and so that Convention was persuaded to adopt resolutions condemning the law. But quite a number of the prominent ministers of the denomination soon after gave strong utterance to an opposite opinion. I need mention but three. Rev. Dr. Lunt, of Quincy, preached a discourse on the “Divine Right of Government,” in which he endeavored to bring his hearers to the conclusion that, “wise, practical men would allow the laws of the land, which have been enacted in due form, to have their course and be executed, until we can so far change the current of public opinion that what is objectionable in those laws may be corrected.” He conceded, indeed, that “there are cases when rulers may be rightfully resisted, and when revolution is a duty; yet these are extreme cases, and require for their justification the most imperative necessity.” He said this all unconscious, it would seem, that such an extreme case was upon us; unconscious, and leaving his hearers unconscious, that the Fugitive Slave Law must be resisted, or the people of Massachusetts would consent to become menials of the slaveholders, kidnappers, robbers of men, bloodhounds.

The excellent Dr. E. S. Gannett, of Boston, was heard to say, more than once, very emphatically, and to justify it, “that he should feel it to be his duty to turn away from his door a fugitive slave,—unfed, unaided in any way, rather than set at naught the law of the land.”

And Rev. Dr. Dewey, whom we accounted one of the ablest expounders and most eloquent defenders of our Unitarian faith,—Dr. Dewey was reported to have said at two different times, in public lectures or speeches during the fall of 1850 and the winter of 1851, that “he would send his mother into slavery, rather than endanger the Union, by resisting this law enacted by the constituted government of the nation.” He has often denied that he spoke thus of his “maternal relative,” and therefore I allow that he was misunderstood. But he has repeatedly acknowledged that he did say, “I would consent that my own brother, my own son, should go, ten times rather would I go myself into slavery, than that this Union should be sacrificed.” The rhetoric of this sentence may be less shocking, but the principle that underlies it is equally immoral and demoralizing. It is, that the inalienable, God-given rights of man ought to be violated, outraged, rather than overturn or seriously endanger a human institution called a government.

Although our denomination at that time was numerically a very small one, yet it was so prominent, not only in Boston and its immediate vicinity, but before the whole nation, and in view of all the world, that it seemed to me to be a matter of great moral consequence that it should take and maintain a truly Christian stand respecting this high-handed, glaring attempt to bring our Northern free States into entire subjection to the slaveholding oligarchy. Therefore, at the next annual meeting of the American Unitarian Association, in May, 1851, I offered the following Preamble and Resolution:—

“Whereas, his Excellency, Millard Fillmore, whose official signature made the Fugitive Slave Bill a law, is a Unitarian; and the Hon. Daniel Webster, who exerted all his official and personal influence to procure the passage of that bill, has been until recently, if he is not now, a member of a Unitarian church; and whereas, one of the only three Representatives from New England, who voted for that bill, is the Hon. S. A. Eliot, a distinguished Unitarian of Boston, known to have been educated for the Unitarian ministry; and whereas, the present representative of the United States Government at the Court of the British Empire is a Unitarian, and his two immediate predecessors were once preachers of this Gospel, and one of them, Hon. Edward Everett, has publicly declared his approval of Mr. Webster’s course touching this most wicked law; and whereas, the Hon. Jared Sparks, President of Harvard College, and President of the Divinity School at Cambridge, formerly a distinguished minister, and a very elaborate and able expounder of our distinctive doctrines, is one of the number who addressed a letter to Mr. Webster, commending him for what he had said and done in behalf of the Fugitive Slave Law; and still more, because the late President of this American Unitarian Association (Dr. Dewey), one of the most popular preachers, expounders, and champions of the Unitarian faith, has been more earnest and emphatic than any man in his asseveration that this law, infernal as it is, ought nevertheless to be obeyed; and because the gentleman who this day retires from the highest position in our ecclesiastical body, the Rev. Dr. Gannett, is understood to have given his adhesion to this lowest of all laws, and several of the distinguished, titled ministers of our denomination in and near Boston, the head-quarters of Unitarians, have preached obedience to this law,—

“We, therefore, feel especially called upon by the highest considerations, at this, the first general gathering of our body, since the above-named exposures of the unsoundness of our members, to declare in the most public and emphatic manner that we consider the Fugitive Slave Law a most fearful violation of the law of God, as taught by Jesus Christ and his apostles, and, therefore, all obedience to it is practical infidelity to the Author and Finisher of the Christian faith, and to the impartial Father of the whole human family.

“Resolved, Therefore, that we, the American Unitarian Association, earnestly exhort all who would honor the Christian name, but especially all who have embraced with us views of human nature similar to those held up by our revered Channing,—to remember those in bonds as bound with them; ever to attempt to do for them, as we would that the now enslaved or fugitive should do for us in an exchange of circumstances,—to comfort and aid them in all their attempts to escape from their oppressors, and by no means to betray the fugitives, or in any way assist or give the least countenance to the cruel men who would return them to slavery.”

Both the Preamble and Resolutions were cordially seconded by Rev. Theodore Parker, and their adoption urged in a brief but most significant speech. The moment he had ceased speaking Henry Fuller, Esq., of Boston, sprang to his feet, and, in an impassioned manner, moved that the paper just read by the Rev. Mr. May, of Syracuse, be not even received by the Association. “This ecclesiastical body had nothing to do with such a political matter. The entertaining of the subject here would be indecorous, and only help to increase the alienation of feeling between the South and the North.” With equal warmth of manner and speech Rev. Joseph Richardson, of Hingham, seconded Mr. Fuller’s motion, and cut off all debate by calling for the “previous question.” So the motion not to receive my paper was put, and carried by twenty-seven to twenty-two.

The next day, at a meeting of the “Ministerial Conference,” which comprised all the clerical members of the American Unitarian Association, I proposed for adoption the same Preamble and Resolution, and am happy to add, with a much more gratifying result. The following is a very brief report of the discussion and action of that body, taken from The Commonwealth of June 2, 1851:—

“Rev. Mr. Judd, of Augusta, Me., thought it the duty of the clergy to speak freely upon the question of slavery, but with perfect plainness to all parties. He approved of the sentiment of the resolve, but disliked the preamble, as too personal in its language.

“Rev. Mr. May, of Syracuse, N. Y., said reference was made in the resolve to those only whom the Conference had a right to mention, namely, prominent Unitarians who had sustained the Fugitive Slave Law.

“Rev. Dr. Hall, of Providence, R. I., thought that, as citizens, as Unitarians, and as Christians, they were called upon to speak in opposition to the law, but the right place should be selected, in order that no false impression should be given in case the topic should not be acted upon. For himself, he should not obey the law, though the country went to pieces.

“Rev. Mr. Parker, of Boston, read extracts from an English paper, showing the action of an ecclesiastical body abroad that had resolved not to countenance or admit to its pulpits any of the American clergy who uphold the Fugitive Slave Law or slavery.

“Rev. Mr. Holland, of Rochester, N. Y., deemed obedience to the law a violation of conscience and duty. His voice and prayer were for progress and liberty.

“Rev. Mr. Frost, of Concord, Mass., had had a committee of his society ask him to abstain from preaching on slavery thenceforth. He replied, that when the slave power had taken possession of the departments of Government, controlled the decisions of our courts, and influenced the moral position of the Church itself, glossing over all the iniquities of the system, he should not keep silence. Obedience to the Fugitive Law was treason to God; he preferred to be disloyal to man.

“Rev. William H. Channing, of New York City, thought the Church should take common ground against this national sin. But to the slaveholder he would be fair and candid. He would meet him in conclave, show him the evils of slavery, the worth of freedom, and join with him in removing the willing free colored population to the lands of the West, and as a remuneration give them the blessings of free labor and social prosperity.

“Rev. Mr. Osgood, of New York City, admitted the iniquity of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the sin of slavery, and thought them proper subjects for pulpit discussion; but he wanted a moral influence to be exerted, without a violation of Christian gentleness. He said Rev. Mr. Furness, of Philadelphia, and Rev. Dr. Dewey, of New York, had had a correspondence in reference to the latter’s position on political questions, and he (Mr. Osgood) honestly believed, from the results of that correspondence, and from conversations he himself had held with the Doctor, that, in his support of the Slave Law, he was making self-sacrifice to what he conceived his duty.

“Rev. Mr. Pierpont, of Medford, proclaimed the superiority of God’s law to man’s law. He would not obey the latter when it interfered with the former. The government might fine and imprison, but it could do no more; he was mindful of the penalty, but he would not obey. If all would act with him the law would fail of being executed.

“Rev. Dr. Gannett, of Boston, was impressed with the immensity of this question, the terrible awfulness that lay behind it, and he would discuss it with all solemnity and seriousness in view of the impending evil. He believed in his heart the maintenance of government, the comfort of the people, and the perpetuity of our Union depended on the support of the Fugitive Law. He would not have the subject treated lightly, but prayerfully, fearfully, in view of the great responsibilities resting upon it. We should respect private convictions, and allow the integrity of motives of those who differ with us.

“Rev. Mr. Ellis, of Charlestown, hailed that day as the first when these differences had been rightly discussed. But if the Conference, comprising members of different though honest views, should take ground on this question, he should leave it. As an organized body we have nothing to do with it. No action could be binding, and he was unwilling to have the Conference interfere with the question. He had himself ever entertained ultra-abolition views, and did now; but he had no such fears for the Union as Brother Gannett. If the Union was held together by so feeble a tenure as here presented, he thought it was not worth saving; and further, if our Northern land is to be the scouring-ground of slave-hunters, the sooner the Union was sundered the better. But our sphere of action did not allow interference with the question.

“Dr. Gannett spoke of the character of that parishioner of his who returned a slave (Curtis). He had done so from convictions of his constitutional obligations as an upholder of law and as a good citizen, and he esteemed that a wrong was done him in stigmatizing him as a ‘cruel’ man, because of that return, as the resolution expressed it.

“On motion of Mr. Pierpont, the word ‘cruel’ was stricken out, and the resolution having been previously altered so as to make it a proposition for discussion rather than as a test for votes, it was entered upon the records.

“The debate (of which I have given a very limited sketch) here terminated by general consent, the feeling being almost unanimous as expressed by the majority of the speakers.”

But the Unitarians as a body were by no means redeemed from the moral thraldom in which the whole nation was held. There was still among them so little heartfelt abhorrence of slavery and the Fugitive Slave Law, that the year after Mr. Fillmore was dropped from the presidency of the nation, which he had so dishonored, he was specially invited to preside at the Annual Festival of the Unitarians, to be given, if I remember correctly, in Faneuil Hall. He declined the honor proffered him, but our denomination was left to bear the shame of having asked him to receive an expression of our respect, as there was no protest against the action of the Committee.

THE RESCUE OF JERRY.

I should love to tell of the generous, daring, self-sacrificing conflicts with the abettors and minions of the slaveholders in different parts of our country. But I must leave those bright pages to be written by the historian of those times, and confine myself to that part of the field where I saw and was engaged in the fight.

In the early part of the summer of 1851 Mr. Webster travelled quite extensively about the country, exerting all his personal and official influence, and the remnants of his eloquence, to persuade the people to yield themselves to the requirements of the Fugitive Slave Law. On the 5th or 6th of June he came to Syracuse. He stood in a small balcony overlooking the yard in front of our City Hall and the intervening street. Of course he had a large audience. But his hearers generally were disappointed in his appearance and speech, and those who were not already members of the proslavery party were much offended at his authoritative, dictatorial, commanding tones and language. There is no need that I should give an abstract of what he said. It was but a rehash of his infamous speech in Congress on the 7th of March, 1850. At or near the close he said, in his severest manner, “Those persons in this city who mean to oppose the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are traitors! traitors!! traitors!!! This law ought to be obeyed, and it will be enforced,—yes, it shall be enforced; in the city of Syracuse it shall be enforced, and that, too, in the midst of the next antislavery Convention, if then there shall be any occasion to enforce it.” Indignation flashed from many eyes in that assembly, and one might almost hear the gritting of teeth in defiance of the threat.

I stated on page 354 that at the meeting on the 12th of October, 1850, we commenced an association to co-operate and to bear one another’s burdens in defence of any among us who should be arrested as slaves. Many came into our agreement. We fixed upon a rendezvous, and agreed that any one of our number, who might know or hear of a person in danger, should toll the bell of an adjoining meeting-house in a particular manner, and that, on hearing that signal, we would all repair at once to the spot, ready to do and to dare whatever might seem to be necessary. Two or three times in the ensuing twelve months the alarm was given, but the cause for action was removed by the time we reached our rendezvous, excepting in one case, when it was thought advisable to send a guard to protect a threatened man to Auburn or Rochester.

But on the first day of October, 1851, a real and, as it proved to be, a signal case was given us. Whether it was given on that day intentionally to fulfil Mr. Webster’s prediction is known only to those who have not yet divulged the secret. There was, however, on that day an antislavery convention in Syracuse, and, moreover, a meeting of the County Agricultural Society, so that our city was unusually full of people, which proved to be favorable to our enterprise.

Just as I was about to rise from my dinner on that day I heard the signal-bell, and hurried towards the appointed place, nearly a mile from my home. But I had not gone half-way before I met the report that Jerry McHenry had been claimed as a slave, arrested by the police, and taken to the office of the Commissioner. So I turned my steps thither. The nearer I got to the place, the more persons I met, all excited, many of them infuriated by the thought that a man among us was to be carried away into slavery.

Jerry was an athletic mulatto, who had been residing in Syracuse for a number of years, and working quite expertly, it was said, as a cooper. I found him in the presence of the Commissioner with the District Attorney, who was conducting the trial,—a one-sided process, in which the agent of the claimant alone was to be heard in proof, that the prisoner was an escaped slave belonging to a Mr. Reynolds, of Missouri. The doomed man was not to be allowed to state his own case, nor refute the testimony of his adversary, however false it might be. While we were attending to the novel proceedings, Jerry, not being closely guarded, slipped out of the room under the guidance of a young man of more zeal than discretion, and in a moment was in the street below. The crowd cheered and made way for him, but no vehicle having been provided to help his escape, he was left to depend upon his agility as a runner. Being manacled, he could not do his best; but he had got off nearly half a mile, before the police officers and their partisans overtook him. I was not there to witness the meeting; but it was said the rencounter was a furious one. Jerry fought like a tiger, but fought against overwhelming odds. He was attacked behind and before and soon subdued. He was battered and bruised, his clothes sadly torn and bloody, and one rib cracked, if not broken. In this plight he was thrown upon a carman’s wagon, two policemen sat upon him, one across his legs, the other across his body, and thus confined he was brought down through the centre of the city, and put into a back room of the police office, the whole posse being gathered there to guard him. The people, citizens and strangers, were alike indignant. As I passed amongst them I heard nothing but execrations and threats of release. Two or three times men came to me and said, “Mr. May, speak the word, and we’ll have Jerry out.” “And what will you do with him,” I replied, “when you get him out? You have just seen the bad effect of one ill-advised attempt to rescue him. Wait until proper arrangements are made. Stay near here to help at the right moment and in the right way. In a little while it will be quite dark, and then the poor fellow can be easily disposed of.”

Presently the Chief of the Police came to me, and said, “Jerry is in a perfect rage, a fury of passion; do come in and see if you can quiet him.” So I followed into the little room where he was confined. He was indeed a horrible object. I was left alone with him, and sat down by his side. So soon as I could get him to hear me, I said, “Jerry, do try to be calm.” “Would you be calm,” he roared out, “with these irons on you? What have I done to be treated so? Take off these handcuffs, and then if I do not fight my way through these fellows that have got me here,—then you may make me a slave.” Thus he raved on, until in a momentary interval I whispered, “Jerry, we are going to rescue you; do be more quiet!” “Who are you?” he cried. “How do I know you can or will rescue me?” After a while I told him by snatches what we meant to do, who I was, and how many there were who had come resolved to save him from slavery. At length he seemed to believe me, became more tranquil, and consented to lie down, so I left him. Immediately after I went to the office of the late Dr. Hiram Hoyt, where I found twenty or thirty picked men laying a plan for the rescue. Among them was Gerrit Smith, who happened to be in town attending the Liberty Party Convention. It was agreed that a skilful and bold driver in a strong buggy, with the fleetest horse to be got in the city, should be stationed not far off to receive Jerry, when he should be brought out. Then to drive hither and thither about the city until he saw no one pursuing him; not to attempt to get out of town, because it was reported that every exit was well guarded, but to return to a certain point near the centre of the city, where he would find two men waiting to receive his charge. With them he was to leave Jerry, and know nothing about the place of his retreat.

At a given signal the doors and windows of the police office were to be demolished at once, and the rescuers to rush in and fill the room, press around and upon the officers, overwhelming them by their numbers, not by blows, and so soon as they were confined and powerless by the pressure of bodies about them, several men were to take up Jerry and bear him to the buggy aforesaid. Strict injunctions were given, and it was agreed not intentionally to injure the policemen. Gerrit Smith and several others pressed this caution very urgently upon those who were gathered in Dr. Hoyt’s office. And the last thing I said as we were coming away was, “If any one is to be injured in this fray, I hope it may be one of our own party.”

The plan laid down as I have sketched it was well and quickly executed, about eight o’clock in the evening. The police office was soon in our possession. One officer in a fright jumped out of a window and seriously injured himself. Another officer fired a pistol and slightly wounded one of the rescuers. With these exceptions there were no personal injuries. The driver of the buggy managed adroitly, escaped all pursuers, and about nine o’clock delivered Jerry into the hands of Mr. Jason S. Hoyt and Mr. James Davis. They led him not many steps to the house of the late Caleb Davis, who with his wife promptly consented to give the poor fellow a shelter in their house, at the corner of Genesee and Orange Streets. Here they at once cut off his shackles, and after some refreshing food put him to bed. Now the excitement was over, Jerry was utterly exhausted, and soon became very feverish. A physician was called, who dressed his wounds and administered such medicine as was applicable. But rest, sleep, was what he needed, and he enjoyed them undisturbed for five days,—only four or five persons, besides Mr. and Mrs. Davis, knowing what had become of Jerry. It was generally supposed he had gone to Canada. But the next Sunday evening, just after dark, a covered wagon with a span of very fleet horses was seen standing for a few minutes near the door of Mr. Caleb Davis’s house. Mr. Jason S. Hoyt and Mr. James Davis were seen to help a somewhat infirm man into the vehicle, jump in themselves, and start off at a rapid rate. Suspicion was awakened, and several of the “patriots” of our city set off in pursuit of the “traitors.” The chase was a hot one for eight or ten miles, but Jerry’s deliverers had the advantage on the start, and in the speed of the horses that were bearing him to liberty. They took him that night about twenty miles to the house of a Mr. Ames, a Quaker, in the town of Mexico. There he was kept concealed several days, and then conveyed to the house of a Mr. Clarke, on the confines of the city of Oswego. This gentleman searched diligently nearly a week for a vessel that would take Jerry across to the dominions of the British Queen. He dared not trust a Yankee captain, and the English vessels were so narrowly watched, that it was not until several days had elapsed that he was able to find one who would undertake to transport a fugitive slave over the lake. At length the captain of a small craft agreed to set sail after dark, and when well off on the lake to hoist a light to the top of his mast, that his whereabouts might be known. Mr. Clarke took Jerry to a less frequented part of the shore, embarked with him in a small boat, and rowed him to the little schooner of the friendly captain. By him he was taken to Kingston, where he soon was established again in the business of a cooper. Not many days after his arrival there we received a letter from him, expressing in the warmest terms his gratitude for what the Abolitionists in Syracuse had done in his behalf. After pouring out a heartful of thanks to us, he assured us that he had been led to think more than ever before of his indebtedness to God,—the ultimate Source of all goodness,—and had been brought to the resolution to lead a purer, better life than he had ever done. We heard afterwards that he was well married, and was living comfortably and respectably. But, ere the fourth year of his deliverance had closed, he was borne away to that world where there never was and never will be a slaveholder nor a slave.