THE AMERICAN CHURCHES THE BULWARKS AMERICAN SLAVERY by JAMES G. BIRNEY

Author:JAMES G. BIRNEY
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of California

Rev. R. Furman, D. D., of South Carolina:

"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.”—Exposition of the views of the Baptists, addressed to the Governor of S. Carolina, 1833.”

Dr. Furman died not long afterward. His legal representatives thus advertise his property for sale :

"Notice.

“On the first Monday of February next, will be put up ntpublic auction, before the court house, the following property, belonging to the estate of the late Rev. Dr. Furman, viz.:

“A plantation or tract of land on and in the Wataree Swamp. A tract of the first quality of fine land, on the waters of Black River. A lot of land in the town of Camden. A Library of a miscellaneous character, chiefly Theological.

27 NEGROES,

Some of them very prime. Two mules, one horse, and an old wagon.”

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

(350,000 Members.)

In 1793, the General Assembly, not very long after it was organized, adopted the “judgment” of the New York and Philadelphia Synods, in favor of “universal liberty.” In 1794 it adopted the following as a note to the eighth commandment, as expressing the doctrine of the church on slaveholding:

"1 Tim. i. 10. The law is made for man-stealers. This crime among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment; Exodus xxi. 15; and the apostle here classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import, comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in retaining them in it. Hominum fures, qui servos vel liheros abducunt, retinent, vendunt, vel emunt. Stealers of men are all those who bring off slaves or freemen, and keep, sell, or buy them. To steal a freeman, says Grotius, is the highest kind of theft. In other instances, we only steal human property, but when we steal, or retain men in slavery, we seize those who, in common with ourselves, are constituted by the original grant lords of the earth.”

But the church contented itself with recording its doctrine. No rules of discipline were enforced. The slaveholders remained in the church, adding slave to slave, unmolested; not only unmolested, but bearing the offices of the church. In 1816 the General Assembly, while it called slavery “a mournful evil,” directed the erasure of the note to the eighth commandment. In 1818, it adopted an “expression of views,” in which slavery is called "a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature,” but instead of requiring the instant abandonment of this “violation of rights,” the Assembly exhorts the violators “ to continue and increase their exertions to effect a total abolition of slavery, with' no greater delay than a regard to the public welfare demands;” and recommends that if a "Christian professor shall sell a slave who is also in communion with our church,” without the consent of the slave, the seller should be “ suspended till he should repent and make reparation.”

The reality of slavery in the

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