On the passing of the Fugitive Slave Bill, the following learned doctors, as well as a host of lesser traitors, came out strongly in its defence.
The Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, an eminent Presbyterian Clergyman of New York, well known in this country by his religious publications, declared from the pulpit that, “if by one prayer he could liberate every slave in the world he would not dare to offer it.”
The Rev. Dr. Joel Parker, of Philadelphia, in the course of a discussion on the nature of Slavery, says, “What, then, are the evils inseparable from slavery? There is not one that is not equally inseparable from depraved human nature in other lawful relations.”
The Rev. Moses Stuart, D.D., (late Professor in the Theological College of Andover), in his vindication of this Bill, reminds his readers that “many Southern slaveholders are true Christians.” That “sending back a fugitive to them is not like restoring one to an idolatrous people.” That “though we may pity the fugitive, yet the Mosaic Law does not authorize the rejection of the claims of the slaveholders to their stolen or strayed property.”
The Rev. Dr. Spencer, of Brooklyn, New York, has come forward in support of the “Fugitive Slave Bill,” by publishing a sermon entitled the “Religious Duty of Obedience to the Laws,” which has elicited the highest encomiums from Dr. Samuel H. Cox, the Presbyterian minister of Brooklyn (notorious both in this country and America for his sympathy with the slaveholder).
The Rev. W. M. Rogers, an orthodox minister of Boston, delivered a sermon in which he says, “When the slave asks me to stand between him and his master, what does he ask? He asks me to murder a nation’s life; and I will not do it, because I have a conscience—because there is a God.” He proceeds to affirm that if resistance to the carrying out of the “Fugitive Slave Law” should lead the magistracy to call the citizens to arms, their duty was to obey and “if ordered to take human life, in the name of God to take it;” and he concludes by admonishing the fugitives to “hearken to the Word of God, and to count their own masters worthy of all honour.”
The Rev. William Crowell, of Waterfield, State of Maine, printed a Thanksgiving Sermon of the same kind, in which he calls upon his hearers not to allow “excessive sympathies for a few hundred fugitives to blind them so that they may risk increased suffering to the millions already in chains.”
The Rev. Dr. Taylor, an Episcopal Clergyman of New Haven, Connecticut, made a speech at a Union Meeting, in which he deprecates the agitation on the law, and urges obedience to it; asking—“Is that article in the Constitution contrary to the law of Nature, of nations, or to the will of God? Is it so? Is there a shadow of reason for saying it? I have not been able to discover it. Have I not shown you it is lawful to deliver up, in compliance with the laws, fugitive slaves, for the high, the great, the momentous interests of those [Southern] States?”
The Right Rev. Bishop Hopkins, of Vermont, in a Lecture at Lockport, says, “It was warranted by the Old Testament;” and inquires, “What effect had the Gospel in doing away with slavery? None whatever.” Therefore he argues, as it is expressly permitted by the Bible, it does not in itself involve any sin; but that every Christian is authorised by the Divine Law to own slaves, provided they were not treated with unnecessary cruelty.
The Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D., of the Unitarian connection, maintained in his lectures that the safety of the Union is not to be hazarded for the sake of the African race. He declares that, for his part, he would send his own brother or child into slavery, if needed to preserve the Union between the free and the slaveholding States; and, counselling the slave to similar magnanimity, thus exhorts him:—“Your right to be free is not absolute, unqualified, irrespective of all consequences. If my espousal of your claim is likely to involve your race and mine together in disasters infinitely greater than your personal servitude, then you ought not to be free. In such a case personal rights ought to be sacrificed to the general good. You yourself ought to see this, and be willing to suffer for a while—one for many.”
If the Doctor is prepared, he is quite at liberty to sacrifice his “personal rights to the general good.” But, as I have suffered a long time in slavery, it is hardly fair for the Doctor to advise me to go back. According to his showing, he ought rather to take my place. That would be practically carrying out his logic, as respects “suffering awhile—one for many.”
In
