understand Latin,—"It is easy to go to the devil, but the devil to get back."
Some uncharitable people might, perhaps, say that the preachers of such doctrines are as likely as anybody to have an experimental knowledge on this point. The idea of this jovial old father instructing a class of black "Sams" and young "Topsys" in the mysteries of the Assembly's Catechism is truly picturesque!
That Mr. Smylie's opinions on the subject of slavery have been amply supported and carried out by leading clergymen in every denomination, we might give volumes of quotations to show.
A second head, however, is yet to be considered, with regard to the influence of the Southern church and clergy.
It is well known that the Southern political community have taken their stand upon the position that the institution of slavery shall not be open to discussion. In many of the slave states stringent laws exist, subjecting to fine and imprisonment, and even death, any who speak or publish anything upon the subject, except in its favor. They have not only done this with regard to citizens of slave states, but they have shown the strongest disposition to do it with regard to citizens of free states: and when these discussions could not be repelled by regular law, they have encouraged the use of illegal measures. In the published letters and speeches of Horace Mann the following examples are given (p. 467). In 1831 the Legislature of Georgia offered five thousand dollars to any one who would arrest and bring to trial and conviction, in Georgia, a citizen of Massachusetts, named William Lloyd Garrison. This law was approved by W. Lumpkin, Governor, Dec. 26, 1831. At a meeting of slave-holders held at Sterling, in the same state, September 4, 1835, it was formally recommended to the governor to offer, by proclamation, five thousand dollars reward for the apprehension of any one of ten persons, citizens, with one exception, of New York and Massachusetts, whose names were given. The Milledgeville (Ga.) Federal Union of February 1st, 1836, contained an offer of ten thousand dollars for the arrest and kidnapping of the Rev. A. A. Phelps, of New York. The committee of vigilance of the parish of East Feliciana offered, in the Louisville Journal of Oct. 15, 1835, fifty thousand dollars to any person who would deliver into their hands Arthur Tappan, of New York. At a public meeting at Mount Meigs, Alabama, Aug. 13, 1836, the Hon. Bedford Ginress in the chair, a reward of fifty thousand dollars was offered for the apprehension of the same Arthur Tappan, or of Le Roy Sunderland, a Methodist clergyman of New York. Of course, as none of these persons could be seized except in violation of the laws of the state where they were citizens, this was offering a public reward for an act of felony. Throughout all the Southern States associations were formed, called committees of vigilance, for the taking of measures for suppressing abolition opinions, and for the punishment by Lynch law of suspected persons. At Charleston, South Carolina, a mob of this description forced open the post-office, and made a general inspection, at their pleasure, of its contents; and whatever publication they found there which they considered to be of a dangerous and anti-slavery tendency, they made a public bonfire of, in the street. A large public meeting was held, a few days afterwards, to complete the preparation for excluding anti-slavery principles from publication, and for ferreting out persons suspected of abolitionism, that they might be subjected to Lynch law. Similar popular meetings were held through the Southern and Western States. At one of these, held in Clinton, Mississippi, in the year 1835, the following resolutions were passed:
Resolved, That slavery through the South and West is not felt as an evil, moral or political, but it is recognized in reference to the actual, and not to any Utopian condition of our slaves, as a blessing both to master and slave.
Resolved, That it is our decided opinion that any individual who dares to circulate, with a view to effectuate the designs of the abolitionists, any of the incendiary tracts or newspapers now in a course of transmission to this country, is justly worthy, in the sight of God and man, of immediate death; and we doubt not that such would be the punishment of any such offender in any part of the State of Mississippi where he may be found. Resolved, That the clergy of the State of Mississippi be hereby recommended at once to take a stand upon this subject; and that their further silence in relation thereto, at this crisis, will, in our opinion, be subject to serious censure.
The treatment to which persons were exposed, when taken up by any of these vigilance committees, as suspected of anti-slavery sentiments, may he gathered from the following account. The writer has a distinct recollection of the circumstances at the present time, as the victim of this injustice was a member of the seminary then under the care of her father.
Amos Dresser, now a missionary in Jamaica,
was a theological student at Lane Seminary, near
