Martyrdom in Missouri, Volume 1 (of 2)

Responsibility of Ministers, Editors and Publishers—Perversion of Facts, a Double Guilt—Public Meetings—Presses Mobbed—Fabius Township Meeting in 1854—Rev. Mr. Sellers—Review of the Preamble and Resolutions—Meeting at Rochester, Andrew County—Three Facts Affirmed of these Meetings—The Best Citizens Controlled Them—What the Author of the Fabius Township Resolutions Says—Jackson Seminary in Cape Girardeau County—The Jefferson City Land Company and the Great Northern Methodist University—The Transaction Transparent—Resolution of Missouri Conference of 1858—A. Bewley—The True Facts in his Case—That he was Hanged at Fort Worth, Texas, not for being a Minister of the Gospel, but for Complicity in the most Horrible Crimes—The Facts Analyzed—The Bailey Letter—Bishop Morris—Dr. Elliott—Truth is Mighty—Correct View of the Relation of the M. E. Church to the People of Missouri prior to the War.

When historical facts are perverted, or so detached from each other as to destroy their connection, and false impressions are made thereby, and bad feelings created in the interest of designing men, the moral wrong is twofold, and the perpetrators are doubly guilty—falsehood reaches its result on the credit of truth, and Christ, the truth, is fatally wounded in the house of his friends. Ministers of the gospel, editors and publishers are accountable to men and God for the most potent of all responsibility. They are a savor of life or a savor of death, and through them peoples and countries have peace or war.

The uses made by them of the public meetings of citizens held in various parts of this State prior to the war did much to aggravate the spirit of animosity between the Northern and Southern people in Missouri, and to embitter the scenes of war. Some papers were so severe upon certain classes of citizens as to provoke mob violence, when party feeling was at blood heat, and a few printing offices were visited by an insulted populace, and type, press, cases and fixtures thrown into the streets, or made to settle accounts at the bottom of the river, while the editors and publishers were driven off. Public meetings were called in many places by the best citizens, to prevent mob violence and promote the public tranquillity. This was their object.

Much has been said in the Northern press and pulpit about a meeting of the citizens of Fabius Township, Marion county, Mo., held February 18, 1854, just after fifteen slaves had walked off to Canada from that township. It was alleged by these preachers and papers, and the statement is reiterated by Dr. C. Elliott, in his book called “Southwestern Methodism,” that the said “meeting was held by the citizens of Fabius Township for the purpose of carrying out a scheme to expel Rev. Mr. Sellers, a minister of the M. E. Church, from the country”—p. 39; and a great hue and cry was raised over the persecution of this Mr. Sellers by the aforesaid citizens. And all the cheap capital was made out of this heroic victim of pro-slavery malice of which the utmost torture of the facts was capable. But, after all, it is rather surprising to find that neither in the long preamble nor in any one of the five resolutions is the name of Mr. Sellers so much as once used; nor do they contain so much as a personal allusion to him or any other individual man. They refer to a class of men, and are directed against a dozen others as much as against Mr. Sellers.

The preamble sets forth, amongst other things, as follows: “And, Whereas, there is in our community considerable excitement, arising from the belief upon the part of many of our citizens that the ministers of the Northern division of said Church, who have for some time past been preaching in Fabius Township, are the representatives of a body whose sentiments upon the subject of slavery are decidedly hostile to our interests as slaveholders and dangerous to our peace; and that the leading object of their mission here is the destruction of slavery by the propagation—in any manner not inconsistent with the safety of their persons—of doctrines calculated to array against the institution the weak-minded and fanatical among us, and to create discontent, dissatisfaction and insubordination among our slaves; therefore,” &c.

No one will doubt that these utterances were directed against the Northern Methodist preachers as political partisans, and not as ministers of the gospel, and that the cry of persecution for righteousness’ sake failed of its sympathy where it failed of the truth.

The first resolution advises these men to “desist from visiting and preaching among us.”

The second is a declaration of rights, and amongst them the following: “When the law fails to protect, we claim to have the natural right, as a community, to resort to the use of such means as will afford us protection.”

The third affirms that “Northern fanatics have forced the question of slavery into all the churches,” and claims protection under the Constitution and laws of the United States government for the institution of slavery thus endangered.

The fourth affirms the unity of Methodist doctrine and worship, the validity of the Plan of Separation, and “protests against the M. E. Church, North, sending ministers among us, and respectfully requests such ministers to make no more appointments in this vicinity.”

The fifth is as follows: “That, as we are situated contiguous to Quincy, a city containing some of the vilest abolition thieves in the Mississippi Valley, and as we have already suffered so much at the hands of these incendiaries we regard it as absolutely necessary to the protection of our slave interests that we close our doors against abolition and free-soil influences of every character and shade, and that we shall, therefore, esteem it highly improper for any citizen hereafter to countenance or encourage the preaching or teaching in this community of any other minister or teacher, person or persons, the representatives of, or in any way connected with, any church or churches, any association or society, whether religious or political, or of any character whatsoever, who have heretofore or shall hereafter take ground, directly or indirectly, expressly or impliedly, against the institution of slavery.”

That resolution is both special and general. It may apply to Mr. Sellers, and it may apply to Dr. Elliott, and a hundred others, as abolitionists and not ministers, or as abolitionists and ministers.

A similar meeting was held in Rochester, Andrew county, in June, 1856, at which resolutions of a similar character were passed. In a few other places, too, the people assembled peaceably and expressed their disapprobation of their course and asked them to desist. But whatever may be said to the contrary in partisan publications, the page of unerring history will affirm three facts of the people of Missouri in these meetings:

1. That the M. E. Church, South, as such, had nothing whatever to do with them; while her members, as citizens, were only equally interested and implicated in them with the members of other churches.

2. Whenever these meetings denounced the preachers of the M. E. Church, North, it was not because they were ministers of the gospel, as such, but because they abused the privileges of their profession, and were secret, active political partisans and abolition emissaries.

3. Mob violence was never instigated by these meetings, but prevented. No man suffered in person or property from them in Missouri.

In confirmation of this position it is only necessary to state the fact that the best class of citizens were the prime movers in these public meetings, and, indeed, they were only called when it became apparent that the peace and safety of the community demanded it; for in every community there are passionate, reckless men, who are ready to take the law into their own hands and vindicate their rights, at whatever danger to the public safety. But the best men of the country, and those who had the deepest interest in its peace and security, entered the most heartily into these meetings, as peace measures, and they now, and will ever, believe that such meetings were necessary to prevent mob violence and insure the general tranquillity.

The author of the Fabius Township resolutions, a distinguished citizen and lawyer of Marion county, and a colonel commanding a regiment of Missouri Militia in the Union army during the war, not only authorizes the above statement, but affirms freely that, though he had been an anti-slavery man for many years, and rejoices in the emancipation of the slaves as he does in the restoration of the Union, yet he endorses that meeting and those resolutions to-day, and would conscientiously pursue the same course again should a similar state of things exist in the community to demand it. An old citizen of Missouri, a member of no church—friendly to all—a Union man from first to last, speaking, working and fighting to restore and preserve the supremacy of the Federal government, he would make affidavit to-day that, to the best of his knowledge, the three facts above stated are fully vindicated in the Fabius Township and all similar meetings held for similar purposes in Missouri. Thousands of the best citizens of the State are ready to affirm the same facts and vindicate the good people of Missouri against the aspersions of the Northern press.

Similar meetings to that of Fabius township were held in Andrew county, in Independence, Jackson county, in Cass county, and perhaps other places, and with similar results. In no single instance was the M. E. Church, South, implicated. In no single instance were the ministers of the M. E. Church, North, mobbed or murdered, and in no single instance was mob violence against the “vilest abolition thieves” counseled or countenanced; and with all honest people who know the facts the hue and cry raised in certain quarters about religious intolerance, mob violence, persecution of ministers, and the martyrdom of innocent and holy men is as gratuitous as it is contemptible.

When the lower House of the Missouri Legislature, in February, 1855, refused, by a vote of sixty to thirty-six, to charter what was called the Jackson Seminary, in Cape Girardeau county, for the Northern Methodists, it was not because the representatives of the people opposed the establishment of literary institutions, or wished to proscribe any form of religion, but because, as then stated, the Northern Methodist preachers were the emissaries of abolitionism, and by encouraging them in establishing institutions in Missouri they encouraged their purposes and organization to subvert the lawful institutions of the State, which the lawmakers did not hesitate to affirm would be encouraging a cowardly, clandestine treason against the laws and government of the State. Four years later the Legislature refused to charter a university at Jefferson City for the Northern Methodists, for the same reason.

The “Jefferson City Land Company,” to encourage immigration, build up the city and enhance the private fortunes of its members, proposed a liberal grant of land to the Northern Methodists, or any others, who would build up and endow, with foreign capital, a university at the State Capital. Though many of the members of this Land Company were slaveholders, and some of them large slaveholders, they believed that the introduction of free labor into the State would greatly facilitate the development of her material resources, by building railroads and opening her vast beds of coal, and lead, and iron to the markets of the world. They conceived the idea of inviting and encouraging free labor from the Northern States through the active agency of the Northern Methodist Church.

The class of immigrants they desired were opposed to negro slavery, and the Northern Methodist Church was opposed to negro slavery. Methodist ministers, more than any other ministers, were in sympathy with the anti-slavery surplus populations of the Northern and Eastern States, and could influence them more. Hence the alliance.

The proposition to donate so much land for a university, even at a fictitious value, was a splendid prize for that church in Missouri, backed, as it was, by the names and influence of some of the first men of the State, and located at the seat of political power—the State Capital.

On the other hand, the promise of the most extensive and efficient agency in the world actively working throughout the dense populations of the older States to put into operation a system of emigration that would fill up the State with industrious laborers, absorb the surplus lands and enrich the centers of settlement, was a tempting premium upon the cupidity of the “Jefferson City Land Company,” for which they could afford to give up their slaves and their former principles.

The inevitable logic of facts does not compliment either the benevolence of the Land Company or the religion of the Church. The members of the Land Company may have been anti-slavery from principle, and their benevolent donation may have been unselfish: if so, they were unfortunate in their schemes; if not so, they were unskilled in dissimulation.

They succeeded in this much, at least, in making the impression pretty general that their creed was a policy, and their policy was simply a question of loss and gain. Not that they loved slavery less, but that they loved money more; not that they loved the Northern Methodist Church more, but that they could use that Church better: while the success of the other party resolved itself into a question of deception; either deceiving themselves or deceiving others—possibly both.

Residing in Jefferson City at the time, and being personally acquainted with each member of the Land Company, as well as cognizant of all the facts, the author feels justified in thus making transparent the shrewd scheme about which so much was said at the time. The only motive for this expose is a vindication of the truth of history and an analysis of the spirit of the times before the war.

After the failure of the “Jefferson City Land Company” and the M. E. Church, North, to build up a Cambridge or a Harvard at the State Capital the Land Company subsided, and the Church directed attention to other expedients and sought a footing in Missouri through other agencies. Public sentiment was against them; political prejudices and social barriers denied them access to the people. All other religious denominations were unfriendly to them; their best preachers left them, and either went into the M. E. Church, South, or returned home. The better class of Northern immigrants, even from their own Church at home, found it to their interest to seek other church connections.

A suspicion followed them into the domestic, the social and the business relations of life, which manifested too clearly the instinctive sense of moral justice and religious fidelity in the public mind to be either mistaken or escaped by them as covenant breakers, false accusers and clandestine enemies to the property and peace of the State. It was natural for them under such circumstances to long for redress, and gladly embrace and use every means in their power to effect their purpose. They had a lively conception of the horrors of slavery, and more skill than conscience in magnifying them for the Northern press and the Northern public. By this means the Northern mind was misled, and many a victim of their misrepresentations was undeceived only on coming to Missouri and seeing for himself the system of slavery, not as it existed in a blinded imagination, but as it existed in the homes and on the farms of slaveholders; and abandoning their deceivers, they vindicated both the system and the people from the false impeachment of unscrupulous fanatics. This made against them and exasperated them, and when they found that they were not sufficiently successful in deceiving the public mind to secure even the letters with their bearers from their own Church in the Free States, the Missouri Conference, in 1858, uttered complaint in the following resolution:

“Resolved, That we hereby earnestly and affectionately request our brethren of other Conferences, in dismissing from their charges, by letter, members who intend immigrating to Missouri, that they be at pains to inform them that, under the blessing of the great Head of the Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church in this State is living and thriving, and urge upon them the propriety of attaching themselves to our Church here immediately on their arrival.”

Several Quarterly Conferences took action on the subject, and set forth more fully the grounds of complaint, which even Dr. Elliott could not escape or overlook in his “Southwestern Methodism.”

Perhaps no event in the history of those times furnished them more food for comment and capital than the hanging of the Rev. Anthony Bewley by the citizens of Fort Worth, Texas, in September, 1860. Out of this event the strongest system of falsehood was manufactured by designing men to fire the Northern Methodist heart against the Southern people, especially the Southern Methodists.

It was at a time when the country was convulsed with political excitement from one end to the other, and partisan politics, more or less, colored every report of the affair. It was almost impossible at the time to get a true history of the event, as the most extravagant statements were put in circulation to influence the Presidential election the following November. The reports in the papers made at the time, and under the pressure of the most exciting and embittered political campaign known to the history of this country, must be received with great allowance and heavy discount. After the heat of political excitement, when every ballot stood for a thousand bullets, and the fire and blood of the civil war that followed have all passed away, when passion and prejudice can no longer serve the purposes of party, the following facts appear upon the surface and bear the imperial image and superscription of truth:

1. That the Rev. Anthony Bewley, a minister of the M. E. Church, North, was hung at Fort Worth, Texas, September, 1860.

2. That the said Bewley had been living in Texas but a short time, operating when he could as a minister of his Church, but connected with an extensive secret organization for the purpose of freeing the slaves, at whatever risk to the peace, the property, and the lives of citizens.

3. That he was implicated in a nefarious plot to poison wells, fire towns and residences, and, in the midst of conflagrations and death, to run off the slaves. This fact rests upon much oral and documentary evidence.

4. That a Vigilance Committee had been formed to ferret out the plot, capture the guilty parties and bring them to justice.

5. That this Committee had cause to suspect Mr. Bewley, ascertaining which he fled the country and made his way to Missouri, whither he was pursued by them, captured, and taken back to Fort Worth.

6. That the evidence was so strong against him that neither the Vigilance Committee nor the officers of the law could protect him from the outraged and enraged populace, and about midnight he was taken by force and hung.

7. That if there was a member of the M. E. Church, South, on the Vigilance Committee, or in the mob that hung him, the evidence does not appear.

8. Neither the extremest torture of facts nor the most distorted construction of collateral circumstances can implicate Bishop Pierce, or any other Bishop, minister, or member of the M. E. Church, South, as such, in the murder of Bewley.

9. With all due respect to the character of the Northern Methodist publications of this affair, and to Dr. Elliott in his “Southwestern Methodism” in particular, it may be asked with some degree of consistency, “Was Bishop Ames Bewley’s hangman?” Bishops Janes and Ames are responsible for Bewley’s appointment to Texas; the latter for his re-appointment, after Bewley had made him acquainted with all the facts existing there that would prevent his usefulness and endanger his life. The Bishop sent him upon a missionary appropriation of $400, for which he pledged the Missionary Society of the Church. Bewley and Willet were sent to the Nueces country with specific instructions “not to organize societies next summer, but to correspond with the Missionary Board.”

10. The evidence upon which he stood convicted in the public mind of complicity in the bloody plot to poison wells, burn towns, and, through fire and blood and insurrection, free the slaves, convicted others also, who were not ministers of the M. E. Church. It can not be made to appear, therefore, by any legitimate construction, that he suffered because he was a minister of that Church; but because he was a ringleader in the clandestine scheme of fire and murder, that was too diabolical to discriminate even in favor of women and children, but doomed all indiscriminately who might drink of the wells, or be the victims of midnight conflagrations, or in any way be exposed to the wide-spread negro insurrection thus instigated. For this cause, and not for preaching the gospel, he was hanged.

11. The following letter, written by one Rev. W. H. Bailey, addressed to Rev. A. Bewley, and acknowledged by him to have been received and subsequently lost, was the principal evidence upon which he was convicted. Bewley acknowledged to his brother-in-law, Mr. John Cook, that the latter was genuine, and had been received by him and lost. The letter was dated, “Denton Creek, Texas, July 3, 1860,” and was found by the Vigilance Committee, authenticated, and extensively published by the secular and religious papers of the country, and is as follows:

“Dear Sir: A painful abscess in my right thumb is my apology for not writing to you from Anderson. Our glorious cause is prospering finely as far South as Brenham. There I parted with Brother Wampler; he went still further South. He will do good wherever he goes. I traveled up through the frontier counties—a part of the time under a fictitious name. I found many friends who had been initiated, and understood the mystic Red. I met a number of our friends near Georgetown. We had a consultation, and were unanimously of the opinion that we should be cautious of our new associates; most of them are desperate characters, and may betray us, as there are some slaveholders among them, and they value the poor negro much higher than horses. The only good they will do us will be destroying towns, mills, &c., which is our only hope in Texas at present. If we can break Southern merchants and millers, and have their places filled by honest Republicans, Texas will be an easy prey, if we only do our duty. All that is wanted for the time being is control of trade. Trade, assisted by preaching and teaching, will soon control public opinion. Public opinion is mighty and will prevail. Lincoln will certainly be elected; we will then have the Indian nation, cost what it will; squatter sovereignty will prevail there as it has in Kansas. That accomplished, we have but one more step to take—one more struggle to make—that is, free Texas. We will then have a connected link from the Lakes to the Gulf. Slavery will then be surrounded, by land and water, and will soon sting itself to death.

“I repeat, Texas we must have, and our only chance is to break up the present inhabitants—in whatever way we can—and it must be done. Some of us will most assuredly suffer in accomplishing our object, but our Heavenly Father will reward us in assisting him in blotting out the greatest curse on earth. It would be impossible for us to do an act that is as blasphemous in the sight of God as slaveholding.

“We must have frequent consultations with our colored friends. (Let our meetings be in the night.) Impress upon their clouded intellects the blessings of freedom; induce all to leave you can. Our arrangements for their accommodations to go North are better than they have been, but not as good as I would like.

“We need more agents, both local and traveling. I will send out traveling agents when I get home. We must appoint a local agent in every neighborhood in your district. I will recommend a few I know it will do to rely upon—namely, Brothers Leak, Wood, Evans, Mr. Daniel Vicry, Cole, Nugent, Shaw, White, Gilford, Ashley, Drake, Meeks, Shultz and Newman. Brother Leak, the bearer of this, will take a circuitous route and see as many of our colored friends as he can. He also recommends a different material to be used about town, etc. Our friends sent a very inferior article—they emit too much smoke, and do not contain enough camphene. They are calculated to get some of our friends hurt. I will send a supply when I get home.

“I will have to reprove you and your co-workers for your negligence in sending funds for our agents. But few have been compensated for their trouble. Our faithful correspondent, Brother Webber, has received but a trifle—not so much as apprentice’s wages; neither have Brothers Willet, Mungum and others. You must call upon our colored friends for more money. They must not expect us to do all. They certainly will give every cent if they knew how soon their shackles will be broken. My hand is very painful, and I close.

Should any one be tempted to doubt the genuineness of this letter, his attention is directed to what critics call internal evidence, to the testimony of witnesses on the spot, and the acknowledgment of Bewley himself to Mr. Cook, his brother-in-law, and others.

The disclosure of such a diabolical plot, to be executed simultaneously in all parts of the country, with these preachers and others in secret league and clandestine confederation, extending, perhaps, all over the South, and involving a negro insurrection with all the horrible crimes of St. Domingo intensified and aggravated a thousandfold, could not fail to enrage the populace and fire the passions of men to an uncontrollable point.

Upon such provocation Bewley and Bailey were both hung. And with all the efforts made to hold the Southern Methodist papers, Bishops and members responsible for the crime, no papers and no men more deeply regretted and more heartily condemned the act.

How the venerable Bishop Morris, of the M. E. Church, could write—“One of our godly and inoffensive ministers, A. Bewley, was hung by a Texan mob, for no other crime but connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church,” it is difficult to conceive unless we assume that he was kept in ignorance of the facts. Surely the good Bishop would not suffer his prejudices to blind him to the true state of things as they will ever stand out in the history of that deplorable event.

Dr. Elliott says: “Mr. Bewley was suspended upon the same limb and tree upon which several negroes and a Northern man named Crawford had been hung.” Were these negroes and this “Northern man named Crawford” hung “for no other crime but connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church?” and yet, so far as the facts appear, they were hanged for the same crime of which that “godly and inoffensive minister, A. Bewley,” was convicted.

We could excuse the above declaration from the pen of Dr. Cartwright or Dr. Elliott; we could palliate it somewhat had it come from Bishop Ames; but from Bishop Morris! the astonishment can scarcely surpass the mortification.

“Truth is mighty and will prevail” and from all the rubbish of falsehood and all the coloring of distorted facts the true history of this event will finally reach posterity, and vindicate Southern Methodism of every aspersion made by a subsidized press, and tear the martyr’s crown from the victim who expiated his crimes upon “the Crawford limb.”

This whole chapter will furnish the reader with a correct view of the relation of the M. E. Church, North, to the people, the property, the laws and the institutions of the State between the division of the Church, in 1844, and the breaking out of the civil war, in 1861. But this is subordinate to the prime object, which is to show, at least, one reason for the conspicuous and efficient agency of Northern Methodist preachers in the vindictive persecution of the ministers of the M. E. Church, South, the seizure and use of Church property, etc., under the constructive association of the latter with slavery, secession, rebellion, treason, &c., &c., during the civil war. A vindictive spirit put many of them in Missouri and in the army during the war. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”