Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky / Containing an Account of His Three Escapes, in 1839, 1846, and 1848

Not daring to sing it for fear of disturbing the sale, they both knelt down with the children, and Reuben offered up a long and fervent prayer. In the interval of his prayer nineteen of the slaves were sold, and he had not concluded when my number being twenty was called, and my master handed me out under the hammer; when, after a few preliminary remarks on the part of the auctioneer, my master mounted the auction block and recommended me as a good field hand, a good cook, waiter, hostler, a coachman, gentle and willing, and above all, free from the disease of running away. So after a short and spirited bidding I went at 1,025 dollars. Here the sale policeman, whose business it was to take charge of the negroes sold until bills were settled and papers made out, led me from the block outside the crowd, and placing me by a cart, put on a pair of iron handcuffs; but being well acquainted with me as a troublesome tricky negro, he put the handcuff on my right wrist—took the other cuff through the cart wheel and round the spoke, and then locked it on my left hand, so that if I did start to run, I should carry the cart and all with me. Number twenty-one was now called, and out came poor Reuben, and was placed under the hammer; his weight was said to be two hundred pounds, his age thirty two. Poor Sally, his wife, unable any longer to control her feelings, made her way out of the slave pen, with her babe in her arms, followed by her five small children, and she threw one of her arms around Reuben's neck; and now commenced a scene that beggars all description. Her countenance, though mild and beautiful, was by the keenest pain and sorrow distorted and disfigured: her voice soft and gentle, accompanied with heart rending gestures, appealed to the slave buyer in tones so very mournful, that I thought it might have even melted cruelty itself to some pity—coming as it did from a woman:—Oh! master, master! buy me and my children with my husband—do, pray; and this was the only crime the poor woman committed for which she suffered death on the spot. Her master stepped up from behind her, and with the butt end of his carriage whip loaded with lead, struck her a blow on the side of the head or temples, and she fell her full length to the ground. Poor Reuben stooped to raise her up, but was prevented by the jail policeman, who seized him by the neck and led him over close to where I stood: and whilst he was in the act of selecting a pair of handcuffs for Reuben, voice after voice was heard in the crowd—she is dead! she is dead! But what was the effect of these words upon Reuben—one of the most easy, good-tempered, innocent, inoffensive, and, in his way, religious slaves that I ever knew—satisfied apparently that Sally's death was a fact—he tore himself loose from the policeman and made his way through the crowd to where poor Sally lay, and exclaimed, Oh! Sally! O Lord! By this time the policeman, who had followed him, undertook to drag him back out of the crowd, but Reuben, with one blow of his fist, stretched the policeman on the ground. Reuben's pain and sorrow, mingled with his religious hope, seemed now to terminate in despair, and transformed the inoffensive man into a raging demon. He rushed to a cart which supported a great number of spectators, just opposite the auction block, and tore out a heavy cart stave, made of red oak, and before the panic-stricken crowd could arrest his arm, he struck his master to the ground, and beat his brains literally out. The crowd then tried to close upon him, but Reuben, mounted with both feet upon the dead body of his master, and with his back against the cart wheel—with the cart stave kept the whole crowd at bay for the space of two or three minutes, when a gentleman behind the cart climbed upon the outside wheel and fired the pistol at him, and shot poor Reuben through the head. He fell dead about six yards from where the dead body of his beloved Sally lay, and where his children were screaming terribly. An indescribable thrill of horror crept through my whole soul, as I gazed from the cart wheel to which I was ironed, upon the dead bodies first of Reuben and then his wife, who but a few moments before I had seen kneeling in solemn prayer, before what they considered the Throne of Grace—and their master, whom I heard that very morning calling on God not only to damn his negroes, but to damn himself, now, in less than thirty minutes, all three standing before the awful Judgment Seat. After witnessing this dreadful scene I was led into Hagerstown jail, where I remained until my new master was ready, when I went with him to Memphis, Tennessee; but the remembrance of this awful tragedy haunted my mind, and even my dreams, for many months.

Reuben was the son of old Uncle Reuben and Aunt Dinah, and had been swopped away when about twelve years old to William Steele, for a pair of horses and a splendid carriage. Like his father and mother he was very religious, and I had often been to his prayer meetings, where poor Reuben would exhort and preach. Mr. Cobb had made him a class-leader long before he died; and, in fact, we all reverenced Reuben after the death of his father as the most moderate and gifted man amongst us. I had always loved Reuben, but never knew how much until that fatal day. After I went to Memphis I composed some verses on the life and death of Reuben, which run as follows:—

After working in Tennessee three years and seven months, my master hired me to Mr. Steele. This gentleman was going to New Orleans, and I was to act as his servant, but I contrived to get away from him, and went to the house of a free black, named Gibson, and after working four days on the levy (or wharf) I succeeded in secreting myself in a ship, well supplied by Mr. Gibson and friends with provisions, and in the middle hold under the cotton I remained until the ship arrived at New York; my being there was only known to two persons on board, the steward and the cook, both colored persons. When the vessel was docked in the pier thirty-eight, North river, I managed to make my way through the booby hatch on to the deck, and was not seen by the watchman on board who supposed I was a stranger, or what they call a "River Thief." I made a jump to escape over the bow and fell into the river; but before he could raise an alarm, I had reached the next dock, got out and made my way off as fast as possible. I wandered about the streets until morning, not knowing where to go, during which time my clothes had dried on my body. About ten o'clock in the forenoon I met with a colored man named Grundy, who took me to his house, and gave me something to eat, and enquired where I came from and where I belonged; I hesitated about telling my true situation, but after considerable conversation with him, I ventured to confide in him, and when I had given him, all the particulars, he took me to the underground Railway office and introduced me to the officials, who having heard my story determined to send me to Canada, forty dollars being raised to find me clothes, and pay my fare to Toronto, but I was only taken to Utica, in the State of New York, where I agreed to stop with Mr. Cleveland and coachman.

In November I was sent to Post-street on an errand, where I saw my master, who laid hold of me, and called to his aid a dozen more, when I was taken before a magistrate, and that night I was placed in prison, and next day brought before a court, and ordered to be given up to my master. I was taken back to prison that afternoon, and irons placed on my ancles, and hand-cuffed; but, previous to leaving, Mr. Cleveland and family came to take a kind leave of me, and gave me religious advice and encouragement, telling me to put my trust in the Lord, and I was much affected at his little girl, who, when I was placed in the waggon screamed and cried as if she would fall into fits, telling her father to have me brought back, for these men intended to murder me. The waggon drove to the railway depot, and I was placed in the cars, and at three o'clock we started for Buffalo, where I was placed on the steam boat "Milwaukie," for Chicago, Illinois, on Lake Erie. The next night I arrived in Cleveland, and was taken from the boat, and placed in prison, until my master was ready to proceed. While in prison a complaint was made that a fugitive slave was placed in irons, contrary to the law of the state of Ohio, and after investigation, my irons were ordered to be taken off. On the Monday following I was taken on board the steam boat "Sultana" bound for Sandusky, Ohio, and on my way there, the Black people, in large numbers, made an attempt to rescue me, and so desperate was the attack, that several officers were wounded, and the attempt failed. I was placed in the cabin, and at dinner time the steam boat started, and had about half a mile to go before she got into the lake, and, on the way, the captain came down to me, and cautiously asked me if I could swim—I answered I could, when he told me to stand close by a window, which he pointed out, and when the paddle wheels ceased I must jump out. I stood ready, and as soon as the wheels ceased I made a spring and jumped into the water, and after going a short distance, I looked up and saw the captain standing on the promenade deck, who, when he saw I was clear of the wheels, waved a signal for the engineer to start the vessel. I had much difficulty in preventing myself from being drawn back by the suction of the wheels, and before I had gone far I saw my master and heard him shout, "Here, here, stop captain; yonder goes my nigger," which was echoed by shouts from the passengers; but the boat continued her course, while I made my way as fast as possible to Cleveland lighthouse, where I arrived in safety, and received by an innumerable company of both blacks and whites. I was then sent to a place called Oberlin, where I remained a week, and from there I went to Zanesville, Ohio, where I stopped for four months, when I was taken up on suspicion of breaking the windows of a store, and while in prison I was seen by a Mr. Donelson, who declared to the keeper that I belonged to him. I knew him well as the father-in-law of Mr. Steel, with whom I travelled to New Orleans. He was also a methodist minister. He had me discharged by paying the damage, and making affidavit that I was his slave, I was placed in prison, and kept in two weeks, when I was brought before the court for trial; and Mr. Donelson procured papers showing that he had purchased me as a runaway. I therefore saw it was of no use prolonging the matter, and I acknowledged myself. I was then taken and put into the stage and taken to Cincinnati, Ohio, where I was placed upon the steam boat, Pike, No. 3, to be taken to Louisville, Kentucky, and there placed in prison a week, and on Thursday brought out to auction and sold to Mr. Silas Wheelbanks for 1,050 dollars, with whom I remained about twelve months, and acted as coachman and waiting in the house. Upon a Saturday evening, my master came and told me to make my carriage and horses so that he could see his face in them, and be ready to take my young mistress, Mary, down to Centreville, to see her grandmother. So I prepared my horses and carriage, and on Monday was ready. The lady got in, and when about seven miles I drove into a blind road, distant about two miles from any house, where I made the horses stand still, and I ordered Miss Mary to get out: and when she asked me why, I thundered out at the top of my voice, "Get out, and ask no questions." She commenced crying, and asked if I was going to kill her. I said "No, if she made no noise," I helped her out, and having no rope, I took her shawl and fastened her to a tree by the roadside; and for fear she should untie the knot and spread the alarm, I took off her veil, and with it tied her hands behind her. I then mounted the box, and drove off in the direction of Lexington, and at a place called Elton I stripped the horses of their harness and let them go. I made my way to Louisville and arrived about 7 o'clock in the evening. I walked about the dock until Pike No. 3, the same vessel before spoken of, was nearly ready for starting and I got a gentleman's trunk on my shoulder and went on board, and when I had been paid six cents for carrying the trunk I watched a chance, and jumped down the cotton hold and stowed myself away among the cotton bags and the next day was in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I arrived about daylight in the morning. I waited until the passangers had left the boat and saw neither officer nor engineer about when I ventured to go on shore. On starting up the hill I met my master's nephew, who at once seized hold of me, and a sharp struggle ensued. He called for help but I threw him and caught a stone and struck him on the head, which caused him to let go, when I ran away as fast my legs could carry me, pursued by a numerous crowd, crying "stop thief." I mounted a fence in the street, and ran though an alley into an Irishman's yard, and through his house, knocking over the Irishman's wife and child, and the chair on which she sat, the husband at the time sat eating at the table, jumped into a cellar on the opposite side of the street without being seen by any one, I made my way into the back cellar and went up the chimney, where I sat till dark, and at night came down and slept in the cellar. In the morning the servant girl came down into the cellar, and when I saw she was black I thought it would be best to make myself known to her, which I did, and she told me I had better remain where I was and keep quiet, and she would go and tell Mr. Nickins, one of the agents of the underground Railway. She brought me down a bowl of coffee and some bread and meat, which I relished very much, and that night she opened the cellar door gently, and called to me to come out, and introduced me to Mr. Nickins and two others, who took me to a house in Sixth street, where I remained until the next night, when they dressed me in female's clothes, and I was taken to the railway depot in a carriage—was put in the car, and sent to Cleveland, Ohio where I was placed on board a steam boat called the Indiana, and carried down Lake Erie to the city of Buffalo, New York, and the next day placed on the car for the Niagara Falls, and received by a gentleman named Jones, who took me in his carriage to a place called Lewiston, where I was placed on board a steamboat called Chief Justice Robinson. I was furnished with a ticket and twelve dollars. Three hours after starting I was in Toronto, Upper Canada, where I lived for three years and sang my song of deliverance,—

WHAT THE "TIMES" SAID OF THE SECESSION IN 1861

(From the Liverpool Daily Post, Feb. 3, 1863.)

The following article appeared as a "Leader" in the Times on the 7th of January, 1861:—

"The State of South Carolina has seceded from the Union by a unanimous vote of her legislature, and it now remains to be seen whether any of the other Southern States will follow her example, and what course the Federal authorities will pursue under the circumstances. While we wait for further information on these points, it may be well to consider once again the cause of quarrel which has thus begun to rend asunder the mightiest confederation which the world has yet beheld. One of the prevalent delusions of the age in which we live is to regard democracy as equivalent to liberty, and the attribution of power to the poorest and worst educated citizens of the State as a certain way to promote the purest liberality of thought and the most beneficial course of action. Let those who hold this opinion examine the quarrel at present raging in the United States, and they will be aware that democracy, like other forms of government, may co-exist with any course of action or any set of principles. Between North and South there is at this moment raging a controversy which goes as deep as any controversy can into the elementary principles of human nature and the sympathies and antipathies which in so many men supply the place of reason and reflection. The North is for freedom, the South is for slavery. The North is for freedom of discussion, the South represses freedom of discussion with the tar-brush and the pine fagot. Yet the North and South are both democracies—nay, possess almost exactly similar institutions, with this enormous divergence in theory and practice. It is not democracy that has made the North the advocate of freedom, or the South the advocate of slavery. Democracy is a quality which appears on both sides, and may therefore be rejected, as having no influence over the result. From the sketch of the history of slavery which was furnished us by our correspondent in New York last week, we learn that at the time of the American Revolution slavery existed in every State in the Union except Massachusetts; but we also learn that the great men who directed that revolution—Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Patrick Henry, and Hamilton—were unanimous in execrating the practice of slavery, and looked forward to the time when it would cease to contaminate the soil of free America. The abolition of the slave trade, which subsequently followed, was regarded by its warmest advocates as not only beneficial in itself, but as a long step towards the extinction of slavery altogether, it was not foreseen that certain free and democratic communities would arise which would apply themselves to the honourable office of breeding slaves, to be consumed on the free and democratic plantations of the South, and of thus replacing the African slave trade by an internal traffic in human flesh, carried on under circumstances of almost equal atrocity through the heart of a free and democratic nation. Democracy has verily a strong digestion, and one not to be interfered with by trifles.

"But the most melancholy part of the matter is, that during the seventy years for which the American confederacy has existed, the whole tone of sentiment with regard to slavery has, in the Southern States at least, undergone a remarkable change. Slavery used to be treated as a thoroughly exceptional institution—as an evil legacy of evil times—as a disgrace to a constitution founded on the natural freedom and independence of mankind. There was hardly a political leader of any note who had not some plan for its abolition. Jefferson himself, the greatest chief of the democracy, had in the early part of this century speculated deeply on the subject; but the United States became possessed of Louisiana and Florida, they have conquered Texas, they have made Arkansas and Missouri into States; and these successive acquisitions have altered entirely the view with which slavery is regarded. Perhaps as much as anything, from the long license enjoyed by the editors of the South of writing what they pleased in favour of slavery, with the absolute certainty that no one would be found bold enough to write anything on the other side, and thus make himself a mark for popular vengeance, the subject has come to be written on in a tone of ferocious and cynical extravagance, which is to an European eye absolutely appalling. The South has become enamoured of her shame. Free labour is denounced as degrading and disgraceful; the honest triumphs of the poor man who works his way to independence are treated with scorn and contempt. It is asserted that what we are in the habit of regarding as the honorable pursuits of industry incapacitate a nation for civilisation and refinement, and that no institutions can be really free and democratic which do not rest, like those of Athens and of Rome, on a broad substratum of slavery. So far from treating slavery as an exceptional institution, it is regarded by these Democratic philosophers as the natural state of a great portion of the human race; and, so far from admitting that America ought to look forward to its extinction, it is contended that the property in human creatures ought to be as universal as the property in land or in tame animals.

"Nor have these principles been merely inert or speculative. For the last ten or twelve years slavery has altered her tactics, and from a defensive she has become an aggressive power. Every compromise which the moderation of former times had erected to stem the course of this monster evil has been swept away, and that not by the encroachments of the North, but by the aggressive ambition of the South. With a majority in Congress and in the Supreme Court of the United States, the advocates of slavery have entered on a career the object of which would seem to be to make their favourite institution conterminous with the limits of the Republic. They have swept away the Missouri compromise, which limited slavery to the tract south of 36 degrees of north latitude. They have forced upon the North, in the Fugitive Slave Bill, a measure which compels them to lend their assistance to the South in the recovery of their bondmen. In the case of Kansas they have sought by force of arms to assert the right of bringing slaves into a free territory, and in the Dred Scott case they obtained an extrajudicial opinion from the Supreme Court, which would have placed all the territories at their disposal. All this while the North has been resisting, feebly and ineffectually, this succession of Southern aggressions. All that was desired was peace, and that peace could not be obtained.

"While these things were done the South continued violently to upbraid the Abolitionists of the North as the cause of all their troubles, and the ladies of South Carolina showered presents and caresses on the brutal assailant of Mr. Sumner. In 1856 the North endeavoured to elect a President who though fully recognising the right of the South to its slave property, was opposed to its extension in the territories. The North were defeated, and submitted almost without a murmur to the result. On the present occasion the South has submitted to the same ordeal, but not with the same success. They have taken their chance of electing a President of their own views, but they have failed. Mr. Lincoln, like Colonel Freemont, fully recognises the right of the South to the institution of slavery, but, like him, he is opposed to its extension. This cannot be endured. With a majority in both houses of Congress and in the Supreme Court of the United States, the South cannot submit to a President who is not their devoted servant. Unless every power in the constitution is to be strained in order to promote the progress of slavery, they will not remain in the Union; they will not wait to see whether they are injured, but resent the first check to their onward progress as an intolerable injury. This, then, is the result of the history of slavery. It began as a tolerated, it has ended as an aggressive institution, and if it now threatens to dissolve the Union, it is not because it has anything to fear for that which it possesses already, but because it has received a check to its hopes of future acquisition."

SECESSION CONDEMNED IN A SOUTHERN CONVENTION.

SPEECH

Of the Hon. A.H. STEPHENS, made at the Georgia State Convention, held January, 1861, for the purpose of determining whether the State of Georgia was to secede. Notwithstanding this remarkable speech of an extraordinary man, the Convention decided on secession. Mr. Stephens was afterwards elected Vice President of the so-called Confederacy. This distinction shows the estimate of his powers, and adds force to the deliverance, the prophetic declarations of which are now being fulfilled to the letter.

This step (of secession) once taken, can never be recalled; and all the baleful and withering consequences that must follow, will rest on the convention for all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war, which this act of yours will inevitably invite and call forth; when our green fields of waving harvests shall be trodden down by the murderous soldiery and fiery car of war sweeping over our land; our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the horrors and desolations of war upon us; who, but this Convention will be held responsible for it? and but him who shall have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure, as I honestly think and believe, shall be held to strict account for this suicidal act by the present generation, and probably cursed and execrated by posterity for all coming time, for the wide and desolating ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now propose to perpetrate? Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what reason you can give that will even satisfy yourselves in calmer moments—what reasons you can give to your fellow-sufferers in this calamity that it will bring upon us. What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth to justify it? They will be the calm and deliberate judges in the case? and what cause or one overt act can you name or point, on which to rest the plea of justification? What right has the North assailed? What interest of the South has been invaded? What justice has been denied? and what claim founded in justice and right has been withheld? Can either of you to-day name one governmental act of wrong deliberately and purposely done by the government of Washington, of which the South has a right to complain? I challenge the answer. While, on the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North; but I am here the friend, the firm friend and lover of the South and her institutions; and for this reason I speak thus plainly and faithfully—for yours, mine, and every other man's interest—the words of truth and soberness), of which I wish you to judge; and I will only state facts which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand as records authentic in the history of our country. When we of the South demanded the slave trade or importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands, did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we asked a three-fifths representation in congress for our slaves was it not granted? When we asked and demanded the return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of those persons owing labor and allegiance, was it not incorporated in the constitution, and again ratified and strengthened in the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. But do you reply that in many instances they have violated this compact and have not been faithful to their engagements? As individual and local communities they may have done so; but not by the sanction of government for that has always been true to Southern interest. Again, gentleman, look at another fact, when we have asked that more territory should be added, that we might spread the institution of slavery, have they not yielded to our demands in giving us Louisiana, Florida, and Texas out of which four States have been carved and ample territory for four more to be added in due time, if you by this unwise and impolitic act do not destroy this hope and perhaps, by it lose all, and have your last slave wrenched from you by stern military rule, as South America and Mexico were; or by the vindictive decree of a universal emancipation, which may reasonably be expected to follow. But, again, gentlemen, what have we to gain by this proposed change of our relation to the general government? We have always had the control of it, and can yet, if we remain in it and are as united as we have been. We have had a majority of the presidents chosen from the South, as well as the control and management of most of those chosen from the North. We have had sixty years of Southern presidents to their twenty-four, thus controlling the executive department. So of the judges of the Supreme Court, we have had eighteen from the South, and but eleven from the North; although nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in the Free States, yet a majority of the court has always been from the South. This we have required so as to guard against any interpretation of the constitution unfavourable to us. In like manner we have been equally watchful to guard our interests in the legislative branch of government. In choosing the presiding president (pro. tem.) of the Senate, we have had twenty-four to their eleven. Speakers of the house we have had twenty-three, and they twelve. While the majority of the representatives, from their greater population, have always been from the North, yet we have so generally secured the speaker, because he, to a greater extent, shapes and controls the legislation of the country. Nor have we had less control in every other department of the general government. Attorney-Generals we have had fourteen, while the North have had but five. Foreign ministers we have had eighty-six and they but fifty-four. While three-fourths of the business which demands diplomatic agents abroard is clearly from the Free States, from their greater commercial interests, yet we have had the principal embassies, so as to secure the world's markets for our cotton, tobacco, and sugar on the best possible terms. We have had a vast majority of the higher offices of both army and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and sailors were drawn from the North. Equally so of clerks, auditors, and comptrollers filling the executive department, the records show for the last fifty years that of the three thousand thus employed, we have had more than two-thirds of the same, while we have but one-third of the white population of the republic. Again, look at another item, and one, be assured, in which we have a great and vital interest; it is that of revenue, or means of supporting government. From official documents we learn that a fraction over three-fourths of the revenue collected for the support of government has uniformly been raised from the North. Pause now while you can, gentlemen, and contemplate carefully and candidly these important items. Leaving out of view, for the present, the countless millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the North; with tens of thousands of your sons and brothers slain in battle, and offered up as sacrifices upon the altar of your ambition—and for what? we ask again. Is it for the overthrow of the American government, established by our common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right, justice, and humanity? And, as such, I must declare here, as I have often done before, and which has been repeated by the greatest and wisest of statesmen and patriots in this and other lands, that it is the best and freest government—the most equal in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its principles to elevate the race of men, that the sun of heaven ever shone upon. Now, for you to attempt to overthrow such a government as this, under which we have lived for more than three-quarters of a century—in which we have gained our wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety while the elements of peril are around us, with peace and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity and rights unassailed—is the height of madness, folly, and wickedness, to which I can neither lend my sanction nor my vote.

THE CONFEDERATE AND THE SCOTTISH CLERGY ON SLAVERY.

Some three months ago, we published an "Address to Christians throughout the world," by "the clergy of the Confederate States of America;" and yesterday we published a reply to that address, signed by nearly a thousand ministers of the various Churches in Scotland. The Confederate address begins with a solemn declaration that its scope is not political but purely religious—that it is sent forth "in the name of our Holy Christianity," and in the interests of "the cause of our most Blessed Master." Immediately after making this declaration, however, the Confederate divines commence a long series of arguments designed to prove that the war cannot restore the Union; that the Southern States had a right to secede; that having seceded, their separation from the North is final; that the proclamation of PRESIDENT LINCOLN, seeking to free the slaves is a most horrible and wicked measure, calling for "solemn protest on the part of the people of GOD throughout the world;" that the war against the Confederacy has made no progress; and there seems no likelihood of the United States accomplishing any good by its continuance. This may be esteemed good gospel teaching in the Confederate States, but in this country it would be thought to have very little connection with "the cause of our most Blessed Master." But the Southern clergymen reserve for the close of their address the defence of the grand dogma of their religion—the doctrine that negro slavery as carried out in the Southern States of America "is not incompatible with our holy Christianity." Stupendous as this proposition may appear to the British mind, it offers no difficulty to these learned and pious men. Nay, they are not only convinced that slavery is "not incompatible" with Christianity, but they boldly affirm that it is a divinely established institution, designed to promote the temporal happiness and eternal salvation of the negro race, and that all efforts to bring about the abolition of slavery are sacrilegious attempts to interfere with the "plans of Divine Providence." "We testify in the sight of GOD," say the clergy of the Confederate States, "that the relation of master and slave among us, however we may deplore abuses in this, as in any other relations of mankind, is not incompatible with our holy Christianity, and that the presence of the Africans in our land is an occasion of gratitude on their behalf before God; seeing that thereby Divine Providence has brought them where missionaries of the cross may freely proclaim to them the word of salvation, and the work is not interrupted by agitating fanaticism. * * * We regard Abolitionism as an interference with the plans of Divine Providence. It has not the signs of the Lord's blessing. It is a fanaticism which puts forth no good fruit; instead of blessing, it has brought forth cursing; instead of love, hatred, instead of life, death—bitterness and sorrow, and pain; and infidelity and moral degeneracy follow its labours." There is no shirking of the question here. Slavery is proclaimed to be the GOD-appointed means for the regeneration of the African race, and those who seek to bring about the emancipation of the slaves are branded as apostles of infidelity. Upon these grounds, the confederate clergy appeal to Christians throughout the world to aid them in creating a sentiment against this war—"against persecution for conscience' sake, against the ravaging of the church of GOD by fanatical invasion."

In their reply to this appeal, the Scottish ministers do what the Confederate ministers professed their intention of doing—they avoid every thing in the shape of political discussion. Among those gentlemen there is no doubt considerable difference of opinion respecting the two parties in the civil war; but they say nothing of that, and address themselves exclusively to the question of slavery. Happily, there is no difference of opinion upon that point among men who take upon themselves the high office of preaching God's word in this country. The Scottish Ministers, in powerful and manly language, express the "deep grief, alarm, and indignation" with which they have seen men who profess to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ defend slavery as a Christian institution, worthy of being perpetuated and extended, not only without regret, but with entire satisfaction and approval. "Against all this," say they, "in the name of that holy faith and that thrice holy name which they venture to invoke on the side of a system which treats immortal and redeemed men as goods and chattels, denies them the rights of marriage and of home, consigns them to ignorance of the first rudiments of education, and exposes them to the outrages of lust and passion—we must earnestly and emphatically protest." We believe that this is the answer of the whole British community to the appeal of the Confederate clergy. However much the public sentiment may have been misled respecting the rights and the wrongs of the two parties in the war, it cannot but be sound at the core on the subject of slavery. There are many thousands of people who have not the slightest sympathy with slavery, and who yet sympathise with the slave-owners because they have a vague impression that the Southerners are brave gentlemen and the Northerners base mechanics. They have managed by some strange process to separate the cause of slavery from the cause of the slaveowner, and while they rejoice at every success which tends towards the establishment of a confederacy which is to have slavery as the "head stone of the corner," they continue to pray as fervently as ever that the fetters of the slaves may be broken. All such people—and they constitute the mass of the Southern sympathisers in this country—must be ready to repudiate with the sternest indignation this attempt to connect the holy religion of Christ with the most horrible oppression which the cruelty and cupidity of man ever created.

But it is not enough that the Confederate defence of slavery should be rejected. It was proper that the Scottish ministers of religion should deal only with the religious aspect of the question, but it is the duty of every man who feels that he has any influence in the world—and there is no man who has not some—to study the political lessons which the address affords. There can be no doubt that the appeal expresses the genuine sentiment of the Southern States, softened down by whatever softening influence there may be in their peculiar kind of Christianity, and shaped to offend as little as possible the prejudices of British readers. And what does it show us? Does it show us that emancipation is more likely to follow from the success of the Southern society which assumes to be at the helm of all schemes of religion and philanthropy, not only has no desire to put an end to slavery, but regards it in such a light that it will be its duty to extend it as much as possible. The Southern clergy say that the relation of master and slave is "not incompatible with our holy Christianity;" why, therefore, should they seek to get rid of it? From a thousand pulpits this language will be sent forth week after week, and it is clear that the religion of the Confederate States will be employed only to convince the slaveowner that he is doing perfectly right in perpetuating a system which enables him to buy men and women as chattels, and to obtain command of human bodies and minds at the prices current of the market. Then, the Southern clergy think it a cause for gratitude to God on behalf of the negroes "that He has brought them where missionaries of the Cross might freely proclaim to them the word of salvation." Will it not, therefore, be the duty of the Southern clergy to extend those blessings to new millions of Africans, and thus carry out the "plans of Divine Providence?" Is the whole tendency of this argument not to elevate the horrible trade of the slave-catcher to the same high level with the noble office of the missionary? Proclaiming as they do that the capture of Africans and their removal into slavery in the Southern States is God's own missionary plan, the Confederate clergy and people will consider it as much their duty to equip slave-ships with cargoes of manacles and send them forth accompanied by the prayers of the churches, as it is now our duty to send forth missionary-ships laden with Bibles and preachers of the gospel. Then the heathen world will know what missionary Christianity really is. Thousand of Africans, caught on the west coast, will be torn from their families and taken chained on board ship; should they survive the horrors of the passage, they will be set to hard work under laws which permit of almost any degree of corporeal punishment and which deprive them of all the rights of men; and they will be told to thank GOD who has brought them into the blessed light of the Gospel! Let not the man who cannot reconcile his sympathies in the American struggle with his convictions on the question of slavery pooh-pooh this as an extravagant fancy picture of something that never can occur. It is exactly the missionary scheme which the Confederate clergy call "the plan of Divine Providence;" and supposing a powerful Southern Confederacy to be established, what is to prevent its being accomplished? Not the religious and philanthropic feelings of the Confederates; for the religious and philanthropic feelings of the confederates are all for a revival of the slave trade. Not treaties concluded with foreign nations; for a people holding such sentiments could never make a treaty shutting themselves out from the most promising field of missionary labour; or if forced by circumstances to conclude it, their religious convictions would urge them to break it at any moment. In fact, were a powerful nationality once established, with interests and religious convictions all pointing in the way of reviving the slave trade, it would be utterly impossible to prevent a resumption of that abominable traffic.

We have dealt with the professed convictions of the Southern ministers as sincere convictions. We should be sorry to accuse any body of men professing to be teachers of the Christian religion of intentional insincerity, and although we can hardly conceive the possibility of men who base their religion upon the same Bible upon which we rest ours, attempting sincerely to justify slavery upon religious grounds, we would rather attribute the extraordinary moral obliquity which the attempt exhibits to the demoralising influence of the slave system than to actual hypocrisy. The spectacle of a crowd of learned and no doubt pious men standing forth as the avowed apologists of a system which deprives their fellow-men of all the rights of humanity is, perhaps, the most distressing evidence of its blighting and blinding influence which has yet been exhibited to the world. It ought to have its effect. As we have said, it is the duty of every man to study the lessons which this address of the Confederate clergy has for him. If his sympathy and influence be given to the Confederates, let him understand the nature of the cause he is aiding. Let him learn from the statement of the Confederates themselves that their cause is the cause of slavery, and that they look forward to the perpetuation and extension of slavery as the prize of success.

SLAVERY AND LIBERTY.