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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY ASSOCIATES

Gift of
ABEL CARY THOMAS, Y 'o5

A P P'E "A L

FOR

DISCUSSION, AND ACTION

ON THB

SLAVERY QUESTION,
BY H. D. KITCHEL,
PASTOK OP A CHOECH IN PLYMOUTH, CONN.

AN

APPEAL

FOR

DISCUSSION AND ACTION

ON THE

SLAVERY QUESTION.

BY H. D. KITCHEL,
PASTOR OF A CHURCH IN PLYMOUTH, CONN.

HARTFORD :
PRINTED BY L. SKINNER.
1840.

Cb*i.ato

t>

APPEAL.

I throw the following thoughts before serious minds in
Connecticut, from a conviction that we have, in this State,
reached a point where discussion becomes an imperative duty.
Silence and inaction can no longer be our policy in relation to
slavery, without incurring, more deeply than ever, blood-
guiltiness before God. We cannot stand where we have
stood. A felt disapprobation of slavery, tacit, or but spar
ingly whispered, while our eloquent condemnation ofthe only
extensive effort for its removal is familiar as the whip through
out the South, betrays a position we can no longer occupy.
It has placed us before the South in the attitude of defenders
of slavery. Whatever have been our real sentiments, slave-
holding churches and christians have no covert from an in
tolerable consciousness of sin more effectual than in the ag
gregate of our sayings and doings about slavery. Certain,
as I am, that some other position is about to be assumed by
our churches and ministry, and deeply anxious that it should
be a better, I venture to speak. I see no access to just views
and action but through discussion. Were wiser heads and
better pens employed at this crisis in searching for the more
excellent way, I know of more and better reasons than any
other can urge, persuading me to silence. But in the lack of
such, let me speak, and let the rashness of the act be pardon
ed, since truth only can give it any weight.* Let me speak

to the^Vts °f mY brethren as earnestly ancl fearlessly as
better ^ien might ; and for error in word or spirit I will plead
no other favor than older men do. My plea is for discussion.
Let us have it now, before any further action. We shall be
the wiser and the more harmonious for it. Hitherto we have
acted without it, and the consequence has been that no com
munion of sentiment has been felt, no concert of action seen ;
but distrust and misunderstanding instead. Sooner or later,
discussion and decisive action in this matter are inevitable
among us. Let us meet the question now, freely propound
ing, candidly judging. There is that is right for us to hold
and to do, and it can be ascertained. Let us search it out.
The question of duty on this topic is one that demands and
deserves immediate and earnest and general inquiry. With
the hope of awaking others to this inquiry, I propose the fol
lowing views.
I. Ownership in human beings is the characteristic fea
ture of slavery, the distinctive trait found in this relation, and
found in no other. To sustain and enforce the claim of such
ownership, the article of human property, like other property,
must be completely at the control of the proprietor. Distinct
and independent Will, Feelings, Rights, Interests, Affections,
Free-agency of its own, would damage the article ; and the
first stroke of the system in annihilating these and subjecting
the slave to the irresponsible will of another, covers the entire
area of crime and wo ever traversed by the system in its de
tails. To reahze the essential idea of slavery, and make man
available property, these must inevitably be stricken down,
and the slave be made, in body and spirit, an appurtenance of
the master. Inevitably — for admit the possession and exer
cise of one proper right by the slave, and the whole arch is
unlocked and crumbles. Gather around the slave all that
the specious humanity of the master ever yields him ; view
him as nominally a party in the marriage relation, a parent,

a child, or the apparent owner of somewhat ; anrj^-ffler all,
what are these but the mock relations of a thing, to be abro
gated at its proprietor's pleasure ?
That slavery may actually exist at all, therefore, it must
be what it now is, in its appendages and circumstances. It
is a great central wrong that demands a surrounding body
guard of wrongs to sustain it. Among these adjunct wrongs,
conservative of slavery, and without which it could have no
actual existence — without which this peculiar species of pro
perty would cease to be productive, and this system therefore
cease to be, are these : —
The denial of the slave of the first elements of instruction,
thus shutting out that intellectual and moral light which, with
the ability to read, would certainly rush in to the damage of
the article : —
The practical abrogation of the marriage covenant, and of
the parental and filial relations ; for, these being admitted
and regarded, the property claim would meet antagonist and
irreconcilable claims thwarting it at every step : —
Physical restraints and inflictions at the sovereign discre
tion of the master : —
The severest penalties for the assumption by the slave of
any ofthe rights of humanity, even in defense of person or life
itself : —
As complete -an annihilation, in short, of the man, in a legal,
an intellectual, and a moral respect, as is demanded by the
one pervading design to render him available as a thing.
There is no option here ; these things must be, or slavery as a
system cease to be ; and of right they all may be, if the es
sential claim of ownership in man may be righteously enfor
ced. Of the whole frame- work of cruel wrongs which shore
up this central iniquity, not an item may be violated but to the
downfall of the system. You cannot mend slavery. In
stinctively it resents every reformative touch as a fatal thrust
at its heart. Every outpost is essential as the citadel itself.
1*

6
I fe3&e need of no further defining. When the question
is put, then,yb?" or against slavery, existing slavery, our Ame
rican slavery, it is idle, as it is cruel, to sit down over the
woes of suffering millions, and curiously analyze their wrongs,
to detect an element possibly in conception blameless^ but as
incapable of separate realization as a substance without qual
ities. Equally fallacious and cruel is it to trace out and mag
nify the analogies between slavery and certain abuses of our
self-owning system of free labor. I feel that no circumstan
ces can render righteous this claim of property in man, or,
for a moment beyond the speediest possible repentance and
actual evacuation of that claim, render him who persists in it
any other than a sinner in the sight of God. Hypothetical
cases have never satisfied me. In the most plausible that
can be stated, nominally owning a man for a limited time for
his benefit, there will appear, on the face of it, such a lack of
hearty good faith in making the claim, as throws it at once
out of the system of slavery ; or, granting it slavery, it is inde
fensible, for we have in it benevolence to one endorsing and
sustaining a system of mischief to millions. A partial be
nevolence may mitigate the rigors of the system ; but it will
find no right way of enforcing a w rong claim. Sinful in itself,
the claim to own a man will, in all the appropriate cicum-
stances of its enforcement, uniformly involve additional sin.
Mounting in the outset to the comprehensive crime of dis
mantling a man of himself, this system will not scruple, and
it need not, if the first be right, at evolving the detail of neces
sary self-sustaining sins.
II. Means for the removal of Slavery.
The great aim of those who esteem slavery a sin should be,
to lead to a similar conviction, and thus to voluntary and
penitent abandonment of it, those who are in the sin. The
body of those who condemn slavery is at the North, of those
who are guilty of it at the South. The question becomes,

then, what can and should the North do to lead th^ffljjuth to
repentance in this matter ? "-^. „
1. Beyond all other agencies to this end, the Christian
Churches ofthe North can exercise one, on which, faithfully
exerted, I should rely with greater confidence than on any or
all, others. The Body of Christ labors, in one of its mem
bers, under this grievous disease. The whole suffers in the
part. Let that which is sound then, exert, by its sympathetic
connection, a restorative influence on the diseased.
That the churches of the South extensively participate in
the sin of slavery, and even defend it as scriptural and just,
none can deny. That this participation and defense give
countenance and support to the iniquitous system, is as de
monstrable as that no community will ever become temperate
while known inebriates are sheltered in the church. Con
science among evil-doers has always fidelity enough to de
mand, and usually comity enough to be satisfied with, the
sanction of Christian participation in the doubtful course.
Who can indulge the hope of release to the slave, while the
Southern churches are slaveholding, and not a rebuke of this
sin is heard, but rather apologies, palliations, and defenses,
from the ministers of Christ, from Synods, and Presbyteries,
and General Assemblies ? While these things continue the
light ofthe Church on this matter is gross darkness.
But what is the remedial agency ? If the churches of the
South be, what they profess to be, Christian churches — if the
grace and spirit of Christ be in them, as a grain of mustard
seed even, the fraternal rebukes of the Northern churches
would not be in vain, I do not doubt they are a part of the
Body of Christ. Let those question that, as in effect they
do, who deny that " by one Spirit we are all baptized into
one body" — who deny that there is, between the churches of
the North and those of the South, that unity of spirit which,
lays the foundation for mutual correction, and insures ulti
mate efficiency to the faithful wounds of a friend. If indeed

8
it belB^that every channel of influence is closed between
these churches, and no remonstrance however affectionate,
no reasoning together however calm and scriptural, can be
endured, then these or those are no churches of Christ. But
if the way be open for such influence — if both have so "been
made to drink into one Spirit" as to secure free passage for
mutual rebuke, exhortation and entreaty between them, then
why should we not avail ourselves, for Christ's sake, whose
body we believe wounded, of this sensibility to our rebukes,
this openness on the part of Southern churches to kindly and
corrective influences from us ? Who will maintain there is no
such foundation in the common piety of the American church
es, that the one part may hopefully labor for the purification
of the other ? Here is a door of hope, fastened open by the
" One Spirit" beyond the power of delicate circumstances
to close it. Why shall we not enter it ? Believing slavery a
sin, why are not the voices of all Northern churches heard,
clearly, unitedly, tenderly rebuking and entreating the South
ern, to purge themselves of this great wickedness ? That smi
ting should be a kindness — such reproof would be as excel
lent oil, breaking no head, but softening many hearts into
mercy for the slave. As members ofthe same body, jealous
of its purity and of our Master's honor in it, as brethren in the
Lord, we are bound to do this. And no deeper wrong could
be done our Southern brethren than is done by those, who,
to justify inaction, presume them not only incorrigible, but
utterly inapproachable.
Has it been tried ? By individual churches it may have
been, but never by such numbers as to be the voice of the
Christian North — never but amid so many surrounding voi
ces, and deeds louder than voice, contradicting, or doubting,
or qualifying, that the single reproofs have fallen short, while
the clamors of the many have gone on like the voice of many
waters, and, interpreted by Southern wishes to Southern li
king, have found every where south of Dixon's line free

9
•course and thankful audience. Alas ! how oftecdifpe our
churches, and our assemblies of the ministry spoke*^>n this
matter " half in the speech of Ashdod, according to the lan
guage of each people" — condemning slavery fully, but all
that was esteemed by the South opposed to slavery more
fully — yielding to the petitions of abolitionists a condemna
tion of slavery which conscience would not down without,
but in a tone that told full well how unwelcome wass the
whole matter, or accompanied with a worse than neutralising
castigation of the petitioners. Like two litigious children,
the one guilty, the other disliked, and both presumed by the
impatient parent to be in the wrong, slavery and organized
anti-slavery have both been boxed and neither bettered. The
sturdy criminal can well bear, as he has often and gladly
borne, his share of the rod, for the hearty stripes on his ac
cuser. Such, I fear, has been the character and effect of the
larger share of ecclesiastical action in Connecticut touching
this subject. The Southern churches have listened, still
listen, with no ordinary solicitude, for the voice of Connecti
cut. Beyond that of almost any other portion of the North,
our decision in this matter would find a thousand threads in
the web of our social and commercial intercourse, conducting
and empowering it throughout the South. What has that
voice been — and what is it ? A clear-toned and unfaltering
rebuke of slavery simply ? No : but with more and sharper
accompanying rebukes to the only operative mode of opposi*
tion to slavery, expounded by consistent daily clamors against
ultraism, and borne on the southward gale with the eloquent
rattle of mob-arguments and the crash of exploded temples !
The truth is out and past winking down, that in Southern es
timation, thanks to the two-edged character of our ecclesias
tical action, the Connecticut churches are pro-slavery, or, what
is well nigh as consolatory, if they do rather condemn slavery,
they more condemn the abolitionists. He that is against my
foe is for me. Our excellent resolutions against slavery are

10
forgiv^^^s mere New-Englandisms, generated by our rocky
soil ariU certain whimsical recollections of the old May-flower
affair — and so forgotten — pardoned for the redeeming mass
of circumstantial evidence of a contrary conviction.
This is seen and felt among us. And what is the plea now
with our churches and pastors ? " We have been thrown
into a false position by the intolerable doings of the abolition
ists." I believe many, yes, the body, of our churches and
clergy are in a false position. I do not, cannot believe they
are where they are from feelings of favor to slavery, or
from lack of passive wishes for its downfall. And they have
had no common provocation to assume this attitude of intense
opposition to organized anti-slavery action, even at the ex
pense of being esteemed, by the South at least, indifferent
towards slavery. There has been much connected with such
organization from which I would heartily have joined them in
flying, but that all other ground was claimed of the enemy.
Not to be an abolitionist, I must consent, be what I might, to
be esteemed pro-slavery. Better to endure, and if possible
correct, a body mainly right, than for a moment to be even
miscounted favourable to slavery.
But let me say a few things concerning this process of
"being thrown into a false position." It is urged as a tri
umphant vindication of being in a false position, that they
were thrown there by the character of anti-slavery action.
Are then the churches and pastors of Connecticut that light
projectile body to be tossed at the mercy of every ultra move
ment to the pole of the opposite error ? With equal and
wiser abhorrence of slavery glowing within them, if the abo
litionists went mad, could they find no other position but a
false one — no high, broad ground, on which Connecticut might
rally her piety and love of freedom, aloof from ultraism,
but still overlooking the foe? There was— there is such
ground, without flying in panic from the false position, so
judged, ofthe abolitionists, to the falser position of combating

11
theirs as a worse sin than slavery, and thus effej&m the
grandest diversion yet produced in favor of slaver>yitself.
I do not know that it would have been a more popular posi- j
tion, or allowed by the South to be any other than very abohry
tionism. But if the grand point be not to be called abolitionist,
let us hear no further complaint of the false position ; for most",
signally it achieves that end. But, distinct from the organiza- i
tion now operating, and. still wider from the worse ground of
this false position, had the ministry proclaimed those truths
which God in his providence called for, and when he called
for them ; had our churches, and associations, and consocia
tions, spoken out firmly and affectionately to the southern
churches in letters of rebuke, not suffring sin upon their
brethren; had this course been persevered in with prayer
and consistent action at home, slavery had now been nigher
its end, and much of that which has set us at false issues had
never been. The false position of the son of Amittai should
have taught us that there would be a " mighty tempest" in
the way toward Tarshish.* That long avoided ground still
invites us. If other organizations are bad, the church, I am
happy to remember, has been lauded as the grand means of
good. Let it be employed then ; even yet it is not too late.
Let the churches and pastors no longer be driven from their
propriety into disastrous positions by the doings of any set of
men. Let them not rush from what they deem an injudicious
mode of warfare with sin, into doubtful relations to the sin
itself. But the repellency has been mutual. If it has had power
to drive the weightier body of the church and pastors so far
frdm their orbit, would it be strange if it had pressed the
lighter body of abolitionism completely out of the system of
Truth and propriety ? With far greater force may the aboli
tionists plead that they have been thrown by harsh treatment

* Jonah, 1 : 1 — 5.

12
into flbsfalse position of apparent hostility to the ministry.
Whilgrthere is such a rush all around us to find shelter behind
childish defenses of acknowledged wrong, is there no pardon
for the abolitionists that they too have veered from the right
under the pressure of popular and ecclesiastical odium ?
But let us use the right word : we are not thrown into po
sitions — we take them. If manifold occasions have existed
for this departure on both hands from the middle truth, we
have each, nevertheless, departed voluntarily, and chosen the
ground we occupy. We are all of us where we have chosen
to be on this matter.
But the agency of the churches, the best by far, for the
removal of slavery, is not employed. So far from operating
effectively to produce in southern churches conviction of this
sin and conversion from it, our churches have assumed, and
still maintain, a position they plead shall be considered a false
one, and which is well known to support slavery scarcely
less in eflect than would their elaborate defense of it. While
this continues to be the case, other means, good, though not
the best, must be brought into action.
2. Organized anti-slavery action. Let it be well considered
why we resort to this instrument. The churches and their
pastors declined the work. They still prefer a false position
to any hearty operation against this sin. Every avenue to
the southern conscience which northern piety might have com
manded was neglected. The channels through which other
sins were assailed were shut in behalf of this. It was widely
felt, that among our sins of peculiar guilt, slavery was one,
against which God's providence was loudly calling for ac
tion. But the religious press shrunk from the work. Direct
and hearty anti-slavery appeals could find no utterance
through the Tract Society — none through our Quarterlies,
literary or refigious ; while our weekly prints and the desk
furnished rare exceptions to the rule of silence in respect to
the immediate duties in this matter. Opposition to other sins

13
either found organs ready for its use, or framed th^jHkn the
voluntary principle. In such a dilemma, to meet %uch an
exigency, the Anti*Slavery Society was instituted. I believe
it to be, next to the church, the best instrumentality that could
be devised. A nobler utterance of manly American senti
ment, I know not where to find, than in the Declaration issued
at its organization. Nobler ends were never proposed, or
more unexceptionable means for their accomplishment, than
in the Constitution it adopted. Of the thousand indiscre
tions, the violence in word or spirit, the reviling again when
reviled, which have too often characterized the action of anti-
slavery societies, agents, and individuals, I have no more
defense to make, than for the thousand and one provocations
to all these, which they have never been suffered to lack. /
Doubtless over the blood of Lovejoy, and the flames of Penn
sylvania Hall, and of other halls yet more sacred, under severe
popular odium, with Lynch tribunals sitting in judgment on
them, and jury mobs delivering missile verdicts around their
heads, they have often shown themselves human. Denied a
hearing by those who bitterly reviled and derided them, ex
cluded from the ordinary places of assembling, and subject
to indignities such as we ask no other men to bear coolly, they
have sinned in not uniformly blessing their persecutors. In
asserting and maintaining at all hazards the contested right i
of peaceably assembling and freely speaking for the slave,
they have not sinned. The blood shed at Alton, the damaged
and demolished edifices, the grievous commotion so widely
witnessed, shall yet find ample recompense in the tested
right of free thought, speech, and action, for which they are '
slowly working out a triumph among us. That triumph is
already beginning to be realized — elsewhere, I fear, more '
than in Connecticut.
But a weightier objection to organized anti-slavery, has
been the crudities that have sprung up in connection with
it, and sought to make it an organ for their own propagation.
2

14
ThesflB^ve been grievous indeed, and sincerely lamented
more ,*vielely within, than without the anti-slavery ranks.
By the manoeuvre of last May, a steamboat load of Boston
notions secured a majority in a business meeting, and thus
perverted the National Society from its original design into
the instrument of a faction. But the result was a purgation
'and a triumph. The spirit of sound anti-slavery departed,
and devised in another Constitution securities against the in
vasion of error. The society in this state, also, is anti-slavery
purely. There are individual abolitionists friendly to the
obtruded sentiments ; but of these few the fraction is exceed
ingly small who would wish to fasten extraneous matters
upon the anti-slavery organization. Their private opinion is
their right, which we would not invade if we could; but the
obtrusion of these alien doctrines will be permitted as soon
by the Temperance, as by the Anti-Slavery Society of Con
necticut. The grand design of opposition to slavery simply,
will be maintained. The privilege of secession remains ; and
purity is preferable even to unity of organization.
Instances of gross fanaticism have always been found inci
dentally accompanying great reforms. The history of "the
Lutheran reformation should have mitigated our astonish
ment when a right principle again became the occasion of
fanaticism. Munzer, and Cellary, and Stubney, carried the
doctrines of Luther to equal, and to a surprising extent the
very same, extremes with those to which we have seen anti-
slavery principles perverted. The abuse of government led,
in both cases, to the no-government theory. As it always
happens, these incidental excesses were charged on the re
form, and declared by its enemies to be only the legitimate
results of Protestantism. Let us think of these things.
My confidence, therefore, in the anti-slavery organization,
as a means to the removal of slavery, is undiminished. The
turbulent opposition it has encountered in its employment of
free speech and a free press, proves such instrumentality

15
neither needless nor inefficient. I have no passyjdlbr or
ganization in itself; but I am reconciled to adopt w^ as a
means not improper, and the best allowed us, to an end which
I cannot abandon. It is an imperfect and cumbrous instru
ment; but much has been, and can yet be done with it, with
all its disadvantages; and I lay the responsibility of all that is
ineffective or disastrous in ihe legitimate use of this inferior means,
on those who denied to us in behalf of suffering millions the benefit
of a better. There is a better, yes, a, perfect organization for
the removal of every sin. Faithful and energetic action in
our churches would have exerted an irresistible purifying in
fluence on the churches of the South. But inaction, and
silence, and guilty fraternity with bodies of slaveholding pro
fessors never rebuked, are preferred to such action; and
compel the employment ofthe most eligible substitute. Glad
ly would we abandon the imperfect for the perfect.
It is objected to this particular application of the voluntary
principle, and the objection is extended by some among us
to certain other applications of it, that it lies open to the
membership, and therefore to the possible control and per
version of any who choose to creep in unawares for such an
end : that, however righteous the proposed end may be, it
lies at the mercy of faction, requiring no qualification^for mem
bership but a sentiment of opposition to slavery, and there
fore possessing no security against such an influx of non-
resistants, for example, as shall characterize the whole
organization, and render it, at their will, an instrument to
their ends. There is such a liability to perversion. Is it
peculiar to the anti-slavery organization ? The objection, if
it have any force, implies that it is ; while, in fact, it is a lia
bility common to this, with the Home Missionary, Bible, and
Tract organizations. I have the Constitutions of those socie
ties before me, — societies, be it remembered, which have
been sovereignly excepted from recent denunciations of vol
untary associations, — and I ask to be shown a single limita-

v 16
tion tc^fcfcprivilege of membership, a single barrier against
¦< perver^n in these, that is not found in the anti-slavery or-
' ganization. Their Constitutions furnish none. For all these,
• the way is open for such an incursion of non-resistants, male
\" ," and female, into these favored societies, before their next
v business meetings, as shall place Garrison in the Presidency
of either of them, and give Abby Kelly the floor. Such an
event would involve no grosser violations of the spirit and
letter of their Constitutions, than was perpetrated by the
doings of last May to the Constitution of the American Anti-
Slavery Society. They contain nothing, so far as I can dis
cover, more definitive in their terms of membership, no safe
guards against a factious and fanatic majority, who may
understand, and enforce a Constitution as they please. To
such liabilities, all societies, not specially guarded, are ob
noxious in common. The American Anti-Slavery Society
was not thus guarded ; the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society, which, under this new name, embodies, we believe,
the single-hearted anti-slavery sentiment of the old organiza
tion, is thus guarded. It has lost nothing but the old name
and the elements of distress: it has gained purity and peace,
and adopted checks that will preclude the recurrence of a
similar rupture. The Connecticut Anti-Slavery Society has
also effectually provided against another outrage of decency
inks sessions.
Over these facts I call for joy on the part of those who have
been wont to alledge as the grand reason of their repugnance
to the Anti-Slavery Society, its doubtful relations to disor
ganizing doctrines — who hated slavery, but would not en
dorse Garrison. Let us see their grateful admission of our
present blamelessness, and a change in their feeling and
action towards us, such as their professed grief seemed to
promise before. Have we not more explicitly signified ab
horrence of the doctrines in question, than our churches have
of slavery itself?

17
But it maybe said, that, though the Bible, the %§§me Mis
sionary, and the Tract Societies can boast even less "wan the
Anti-Slavery Society of constitutional checks against perver
sion, yet there are those of a moral nature, springing from the
character of their objects, which furnish them a peculiar secu
rity against perversion. But are the ends they aim at such
as to attach to them all, and only, the incorruptibly good ?
What attraction to the trusty alone, and repulsion only to the
unsafe, has the design of sending forth a Tract, a Bible, or a
Missionary, which are wanting in the design of liberating and
saving our home-bred heathen in the South ? Nay, are there
not obvious reasons for presuming greater strength and trust
worthiness of principle, a more inflexible integrity, in those
who have espoused the ignominious cause of the slave, in
defiance of an unprecedented odium, than among those whose
aims and operations are the theme of general praise ? Whom
should we expect to find most readily entertaining the ques
tion of duty to the despised bondman, and fearlessly espous
ing his unpopular cause ? I put the question fearlessly in
Connecticut, and challenge a rigorous scrutiny of its import :
Who, and what, are the known friends of the slave, not in
respect of wealth, rank, and worldly eminence, but of reli
gious character, pious self-denial, and prayerful zeal in all
good works ? Go into our churches, — are the abolitionists in
them the sluggish and reluctant in revivals and our accustom
ed charities ? Is no other reason assignable than the obtru-
siveness of abolitionism, for the frequency with which the
slave finds a voice in our meetings for prayer ? I do not
assert that pecufiar regard for the enslaved is essential to de
voted piety ; the nature of the case gives a reason, ^however,
for finding them frequently conjoined. There is nothing,
then, in the end or the means of anti-slavery societies pecu
liarly exposing them to the incursion of the turbulent and
unsound. No, not even their relation to political duties can
just y be excepted. Our State Society, and the American
2*

18
and Flfcfen Society, urge on their members only the duty of
acting wi the polls, as elsewhere, consistently with professed
principles. Have our churches never recognized, have our
pastors never urged, the same ? If they have, they have done
all the Society has done — if they have not, it is time they had.
Anti-slavery individuals have done more in conventions, and
so have our church members ; and our churches may as justly
be held responsible for the doings of their members in political
measures, right or wrong, as the Anti-Slavery Society for in
dependent nominations, be the same wisdom or folly.
" Preach the Gospel," we are significantly told, as if it
were a means we had abandoned for carnal weapons. We
honor the advice, and give emphasis to the whole command,
" to everyfyqreature" — the whole Gospel, to all, "rightly divid
ing the word of truth," as prevalent sin and the Providence
of God shall demand. Had this command been obeyed, no
anti-slavery society had ever been. But there were parts of
the Gospel which were not preached to any creature, North
or Souths The slaveholder sat in northern slips and southern,
equally secure from the shafts of rightly divided truth. Our
brethren were continually passing to the South, and dealing
unrebuked in human property. Our churches were, and still
are, deplorably ignorant or careless of the relations of the
Gospel to this sin. The alternative was, to acquiesce in the
preaching of the Gospel, expurgated of its anti-slavery por
tions ; or to employ the best means at command to publish
the supplement in some other way. The Anti-Slavery So
ciety does preach the Gospel in its long silenced application
to slavery, exerting at the same time whatever other lawful
influences jit may against this sin. And this has been styled
a " mob-gospel," because, forsooth, the hands of the Presby
tery have not been laid on the organs of its promulgation !
Will Parsons Cook, to whose ingenuity the peculiar institution
owes this last refuge, inform us if he holds that none but of
the ministry may utter Gospel truth for the saving of men ?

19
Is all the utterance of truth by pious laymen, byd(|bbath
School teachers, by unordained editors of religious prints, by
temperance agents and publications, a mob-gospel, an inva
sion of the sacred functions of the ministry ? The obvious
fallacy lies in the parallel attempted between ihe assumption
of judicial power by a rabble, setting aside the constituted
authorities, while they were ready to give ample justice ; and
the assumption, by a society, of a right to preach through its
agents a part of the Gospel which the ministry do not preach.
We propose decisive issue here : If the offenses which mobs
have assayed to rectify, had been important infringements of
law, and the officers of justice had so generally refused to act
for the protection of the community, that the great ends of
law were lost, the right of protection would then have revert
ed to the People, and their exercise of it would have assumed
the character of justifiable revolution. It was not so : they
set aside the more than ready hand of legal justice, because
justice for provable crime was not what they wanted, but
vengeance for legal, though unpopular acts. Therefore, it
was mob-law. Had the whole Gospel been faithfully preach
ed by the appointed ministry, and the Anti-Slavery Society
had then instituted its agencies to take a part of the Gospel
out of their hands, because it wanted, not truth, but more
than the truth against slavery, a mob-gospel had then been
introduced. But this was not the case. There was a giant
sin in our land, infecting the whole church, either by actual
participation in it, or by its thousand-handed influence touch
ing every part of the body of Christ — a sin that periled among
us all the ends for which a Gospel was given. But the
preaching of the Gospel as applicable to this sin, could not
be had when sought at the hands of the ministry. When,
therefore, to secure the purity and being of the church, and
the liberty and salvation of millions, the Anti-Slavery Society
adopted measures for the promulgation of the silenced part
ofthe Gospel, it was a justifiable and obligatory proceeding.

20
Thislfc^ious objection fails, then, simply because the as-
sumed^analogy happens not to exist. " Mob-gospel" is a
term, however, that will need no intrinsic justice to give it
mischievous currency. Its sound will deservedly entitle it to
high rank among the arguments diligently sought out and set
in order against the in-any-wise-to-be-condemned abolitionists.
Among the many and various objections urged from the
desk by those who seem not content even to pass by on the
other side, a favourite one is, "It is a public opinion society :
you rely on a power of opinion which you are creating in one
part of the country, to be employed in bearing down a sin in
another part." Public opinion consists in the prevalent sen
timent of the community ; its elementary nature is seen in
the influence one man's known sentiments exert over another;
an influe ice as universal as human society. Like the social
principle, from which it springs, it is not to be condemned
indiscriminately — no, not even to quench abolitionism. Pub
lic opinion is good or ill as its end may be. Strange that the
alarm, then, should be sounded only when it takes direction
against slavery. But does the Anti-Slavery Society rely
upon opinion as its weapon against slavery ? No ; truth is
its weapon, and it has to do with public opinion chiefly as the
intermediate and indispensable means of wafting its argu
ments and appeals to the southern conscience. It does not
reject the direct influence of opinion ; it rejoices in the tide
of disapprobation which is swelling throughout Christendom
against Slavery. But its chief reliance is not on this as the
ultimate agency. Without appealing to public opinion, so
far as to create interest in its ends and raise the requisite
means for their accomplishment, how could the Board of
Foreign Missions operate ? That society labors incessantly
and unrebuked to create a general sentiment in Christian
countries that shall yield it the means of operating among
heathen more remote than those of our own South. So of
each of our benevolent societies ; each aims to secure such

21
favorable convictions among the people as shall lea;jJJ^m to
adopt it as their organ, and labor through it for the^pcom-
plishment of a specific end. Such is the design of the Anti-
Slavery Society; and if the general sentiment it seeks to enlist
for this end, shall also operate directly, by its own legitimate
force, and from a necessity in our social nature, to counter
work that corrupt public opinion by which slavery is sustain
ed, and shame that inhuman system from the world, let us
thank God and take courage.
Nor is the appeal of the Anti-Slavery Society to public
opinion more indiscriminate than that of the Foreign Mis
sionary or Bible Society. Each of the three solicits the favor
and aid of all men ; each aims at a definite end, and meddles
with public opinion only as it bears on that end. Neither
rejects the hberafity or the patronage of any description of
men. Each wisely acts in one part for the benefit of a re
mote part. If it has ever appeared the design of the Anti-
Slavery Society to wield opinion as its ultimate weapon, it
has been owing to the stress of opposing opinion. Throw the
American Board into equal odium, and it would give, in its
efforts to win the favor necessary to its being and action,
equal and the same evidence of such a design. And were the
conversion of the world pending, as is the removal of the
national part of our slavery, on a vote of Congress, it would
be the duty of the Board to labor to secure such a vote ; and,
so doing, it would appeal to public sentiment just as the Anti-
Slavery Society does.
I can scarcely believe that a mind, penetrated with a just
view of slavery as unutterably woful and guilty, would object
that " the aim of anti-slavery action is only the removal of sin
in one of its developements, while it leaves untouched the
principle of sin in the heart." Yet no objection is more refied
on than this, though a thousand times answered of late, and
of old when it was a chief weapon against the temperance
organization. "You aim only to cleanse the outside of the

22
cup : ¦fct lop only a twig from the tree of sin." Be it so:
still itWni twig of evil — the humanization of near 3,000,000
beings would be at least a small positive good, a crumb
worth adding to the stock of human weal. May we not aim
at it then, even though we do not carry the citadel of all evil?
especially as our efforts for this have no necessary inter
ference with those which we aid in employing for the grand
end of subduing all hearts to the truth ; and inasmuch, also,
as our object accomplished would remove serious obstaclesto
the progress of the Gospel in its purity, and throw within
reach of it millions to whom. now it has no access. The nliti-
gation of human wretchedness, the increase of happiness on
earth, the suppression of sins peculiarly pernicious in human
society, are objects at which the Christian may laudably aim,
though they do not imply the renewal of the heart. Distinct
regard for the part, neither excludes nor conflicts with regard
for the whole. Our Pattern, while on earth, often healed the
body, when he did not the soul. Nor ara those abolitionists
who unwisely suffer their regard for the slave to enter, or
seem to enter, too largely into all their benevolence, necessa
rily chargable with caring more for the less than for the
greater. I have not been surprised, though I have been
grieved, that some, gazing intently on the overshadowing and
pervading mischiefs of slavery, have felt that effort in other
directions would be so futile, or at such disadvantage, till
slavery were abolished, that they have turned their whole
heart to this.
Whenever a prevalent sin can be found, overt, definable,
and excluded from the range of the sacred desk, it becomes
proper to enlist against it the voluntary principle. Overt and
determinate the sin must be, or it does not admit of this mode
of reformative action ; it must be denied its proper treat-*
ment by the constituted ministry, also, before such recourse
becomes needful. The multiplication of societies is an infe
licity, but the existence of such sins demanding them, leaves

23
us no option but between this mode of action and^B[uies-
cence in unrebuked sin. *{
Great difficulty seems to be felt by some minds respecting
the propriety of the voluntary principle. Men who were fore
most yesterday in the application of this principle, to-day are
in consternation that it proves available to the abolitionists.
Now it appears doubtful, of a sudden, whether the disastrous
and unforseen applicability of this principle to the removal of
slavery, is not more than sufficient to countervail its moral
triumphs for the last ten years. Is it part ofthe "false posi
tion" thus to move heaven and earth against this most com
mon-sense and long-tried principle ? Must every fortress be
fired, and the whole land be laid waste, the entire apparatus
of moral instrumentalities suspected, changed, denounced, so
soon as they are found favoring the anti-slavery movement?
The precedent of the Christian church, founded by Infinite
Wisdom on this very principle, ought to assure us that it has
no intrinsic impropriety, and that, when the church vacates
its high office in respect to any sin, and other agency is de
manded, the proper and best substitute may be constructed
on the same principle. Take the case in hand : Individuals,
in different parts, feel deeply over the desolation of slavery ;
they find it a forbidden topic in the desk, in the meetings of
the church, in social circles for prayer, and in the religious
prints. Singly they are powerless. To yield their convic
tions and acquiesce in the prevalent indifference to this sin,
or to gain by union the power to be heard, is their alternative.
They associate for a well defined purpose — at first few and
informal, but gradually acquiring numbers and form, until
the product is a society, embodying thousands who cast their
influence and liberality into a common stock for the diffusion
of light on the point at issue. Now, the end being good, and
fairly within the limits suggested above, will some one, who
shudders over the gregarious tendencies of the times, point
out the exceptionable step in this process ? May I call in the

24
aid olfc^ neighbor to effect a good beyond my power? Two
failinyhray a third — a tenth, if needed, come to our help ?
If the work demand the action of a thousand, and articles
definitive of the object and the means to be employed, may
we admit them? If one rejects this doctrine and another
that — if here be an infidel, and there an atheist — but all
waving irrelevant peculiarities for a common good end, which
calls for collision on none of these points — is the association
vitiated in its purpose or its action ? Must I, who am of anoth
er, perhaps better, faith than they all, abandon the work, be
cause, in lifting the slave from the pit of his thraldom, I find
toiling at my side one who does not worship in this mountain?
If these steps be admitted, you have the Anti-Slavery Socie
ty ; if not admitted, point me the step that does not pass
freely and unchallenged in other benevolent operations, not
burdened with pity to the slave. If the cooperation of the
infidel and the atheist spoil the work, let inquisition be made ;
for while our missionary and other benevolent efforts promise
incidental earthly good as among their results, so long they
will be, as they now are, aided by the irreligious.
So much justice demands in defense of the anti-slavery
organization. But let it be remembered, I defend it only as
the instrument better than any other in our power, while the
best is denied this work. The church of Christ is adequate
to cover the whole ground of our obligations. It could have
access to our southern brethren through the channel of Chris
tian fellowship. It could so inculcate on us all our duties as
Christians and as citizens, that a separate organization would
no longer be needed. But before such organization can be
dismissed, an immense and radical change must be actually
witnessed in the entire conduct of the body of our churches,
relative to slavery. We have been called on to disband, on
the strength of a hope that the churches will enter the field.
We shall never disband on such a precarious and wholly
prospective possibility. Deferred already till our hearts are

25
sick over it, the hope of energetic and faithful churc ^Jctioft
demands some substantial and liberal first fruits to sustain it.
Before we can abandon operations which time has shown to
be effective, we must see the better system in the field,
winning us to itself, not by promises of what it will do, while
it stands leaning on its weapon, and refusing to strike a stroke
until we retire from the contest ; but by entering the field in
that better way, with its better weapons, and tactics, and
courage, and success, and giving us assurance that the war
will not cease with the present mode of attack. And there
is room, ample room for the churches to charge in from their
present position, even though the abolitionists hold the ground
they have so hardly won, at least till they hear their first gun,
or see "far off their coming shine." Nothing hinders, unless
possibly the dread of incurring our name — a dread which it
has been publicly admitted, profanes with " ingenious qualifi
cations," in many of our desks, the breathing of a full heart
in prayer for the slave. It is insisted, also, that the abolition
ists shall quit the work before the churches will think of es
pousing it. These things have sometimes tempted me to
imagine that the position could not be very false which was
preferred to a mere breath of obloquy. Before we can dis
band, we shall see more, far more, in Connecticut, than here
and there a pastor who dares, in plain Saxon terms, to speak
of slavery as it is, and of our relations to it as they are — more
than here and there a parish where he would not speak thus
to scowling congregations, and at the peril of his place — more
than here and there a church atoning, in its own estimation,
for years of slumber, and laying up large store for the future,
by voting over again the " Norfolk Resolutions" — more even
than the excellent Resolutions of the last General Association.
What then do we demand ?
1. That those principles ofthe Gospel which apply to this
sin, be so fully and frequently unfolded by our pastors gene
rally, that the ignorance or apathy prevalent among our

26
ohuiv,pir respecting the character of slavery, and their duties
towards it, shall give place to an intelligent interest and an
operative abhorrence.
2. That, slavery being a sin infecting the body of Christ,
our churches should enter upon a thorough, and, if needful,
protracted course of expostulation, argument, and rebuke
with slaveholding churches ; and, ultimately, if they persist
in the sin, upon a course of discipline in some sort, so far as
the process in Matt, xviii. is applicable to inter-church griev
ances — one church rebuking another, to which circumstances
give it a special relation, as the first step ; calling in one or
two sister churches to aid in the second step ; and if these be
in vain, as we have no higher appeal on earth, let the incorri
gible slaveholding body be unto us as no church of Christ.
Let an adherent to such church be thenceforth denied a seat
at our communions — the pastor of such church excluded from
our desks. Let our larger ecclesiastical bodies adopt a simi
lar course with their southern peers. This, after all due
labor for their reclamation, would result in our disowning as
Christian, that small portion, we trust, of the southern church
which would adhere to the sin. Some such course — I say not
this, necessarily, in its details — but some such is demanded,
and can be devised and employed by our churches. If any
insist thatpossibly some slaves are held from benevolent mo
tives, they must admit that it is certain the mass are not. On
the loosest estimate of slavery, the relation of slaveholder is,
prima facie, evidence of flagrant sin ; and in a member of
Christ's church demands investigation. The southern
churches have never plead, and never will plead, guiltless,
unless on the ground that the whole system is righteous.
These views do not imply that we believe no slaveholder a
Christian, and no slaveholding body a Christian church ; but
that, after the point has been earnestly and faithfully labored
with them, protractedly, fraternally, and scripturally, the
church or individual persevering in the sin of slavery vitiates

27
the requisite evidence of piety. On any view of sb Jk that
has been taken in Connecticut, it is such that the designof the
church and the principles ofthe Gospel loudly demand some
action of this sort. What it shall be, or how it shall be, it was
not my purpose to propose, except in outline.
Are these demands unreasonable ? Let us see the churches
and ministry of Connecticut in their true position, dealing
with all wisdom, yet in good faith and good earnest, against
the acknowledged sin of slavery, and the call on us to dis
band will then be of tolerable grace, and to a great extent
not in vain. But whatever might be the success of such a
call, the churches would then be, in respect to this inevitable
and now tormenting topic, "first pure, then peaceable, gentle,
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiali
ty, and without hypocrisy.'1'' Their obligation to assume such
a position, in such haste as the tarnished honor of Christ and
the bleeding cause of humanity demand, is undiminished by
any thing the abolitionists may do, or fail to do.
Entertaining the views which have now been presented,
I earnestly entreat that this subject may receive among us
immediate and thorough investigation. I plead for this as
introductory to some speedy action of an unequivocal charac
ter on the part of the churches and pastors in Connecticut,
such as shall place them in the true position of active, judi
cious, indubitable opposition to slavery. On a question hke
this, our sentiments and action ought to be not only such as
can be understood, but such as cannot be misunderstood. It is
due to ourselves, to the South, to the suffering slave, and to the
righteous Gospel we profess, that we yield no longer, by our
dubious position, even an undesigned support to this sin.
Tell the South — let me plead with my brethren in the
churches and ofthe ministry — tell them in any manner con
sistent with mercy and justice, what you do believe : that the
system of slavery, and each instance of slaveholding not
clearly and widely an exception to the system, is heinously

28
sinfulf^P^nst God and man ; for I know you do not believe
less. ^Tell them, and' enter at once upon efforts to convince
"them, that it ought to be immediately and penitently aban
doned ; and ultimately tell them, after all suitable labor for
their purification, that you cannot, by intercommunion with
thepa, partake in a sin so gross as slavery. Tell them this
without counteractive sidethrusts at the abolitionists. Give
countenance no longer by carefully equalized denunciation of
slavery and active anti-slavery, to the wicked misrepresenta
tions of lis at the south, and elsewhere, as blood-seeking fa
natics. Take the position which conscience, and the Gospel,
and humanity point out, and we will be with you. As it now
is, standing coolly aloof from action, intent to detect our
errors, and ready with caustic rebukes for every indiscretion,
you may congratulate yourselves that our hands are kept
weak,, and the leaven of this ultraism checked ; but it is at the
intolerable expense of strengthening the slaveholder in his
sin. The crime pf your abolitionist brethren is, that, not
daring to do nothing, they have done what they could. You
say they have done little, and that imperfectly : "it is owing
in part to the ribaldry and violence of those who knew only
their name ; in part to the hostility of those who have never
plead.their position was false ; and more, far more, to the
disheartening aversion, the intense severity in word and dqed,
of those who in their piety have the power to wound ais.

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