The Government not only permits the Master to forbid the free Social Worship and Religious Instruction of his Slaves, at his pleasure, but it also steps in with direct prohibitions of its own, which even the Master himself may not relax or abrogate.

     IT is quite remarkable, that all the real practical restraints which the Slave Codes of the South throw around the slave master, are obviously for the purpose of withholding him from some exercise of humanity or of justice towards the slave; not one of them is for the purpose of restraining him from inhumanity and injustice!

     From no act of barbarity, cruelty, or even murder, is he in reality restrained. The enactments professing to have that object, we have found to be ineffectual, impossible to execute, deceptive, self-contradictory, and, in fact, sheer pretense! We have found no laws that even professed to guard the highest interests of slaves as human beings, family sanctities, female chastity, education, religious development.

No restraints upon the violation and destruction of these are attempted to be thrown around the slave master. But, on the other hand, he is restrained, as has been shown, from allowing to his slave (for the mutual benefit of both parties) a peculium of property from a tithe of his own earnings, with the benefits of “hiring out” for that purpose! He is restrained, as we have seen, from bestowing upon his slave an education that would increase his usefulness, or of employing him to do any kind of writing! The slave may be “used” so as to be “used up” in seven years; may be used as a “breeder,” as a prostitute, as a concubine, as a pimp, as a tapster, as an attendant at the gaming-table, as a subject of medical and surgical experiments for the benefit of science, and the Legislature makes no objections against it! But he may not be used as a clerk! In all this, the master’s absolute right of ownership is restrained! It is restrained too, as we shall see, by not permitting even the master to allow his slave the privileges of free social worship and religious instruction, well calculated as these privileges may be to increase in him those Christian virtues for which he is sometimes commended in advertisements, to enhance his value in the market! The master’s right we shall also find restrained by the laws forbidding him freely, and at self-discretion, to emancipate! The great solicitude of the law seems to be, to prevent the master from being too kind to his slave!

     The philosophy of this is readily seen. A minority

of slave owners are deemed exposed to the weakness of exercising some humanity and justice, of manifesting some feeling of responsibility to God in their treatment of their fellow-men! The majority of slaveholders, who make the laws, will not tolerate this! They enter, fully and understandingly, into the spirit of slave ownership. That “legal relation” must be preserved at all hazards; and they know it is endangered by humanity, by justice, by education, and by religion. They know that if others emancipate, their own tenure will be weakened. The rise of an oppressive oligarchy of slave owners begins here. And religious liberty is the very last thing to be tolerated by it. Religious liberty is the precursor of civil and political liberty and enfranchisement, and must be suppressed. The gospel would indeed abolish American slavery, (as is often said,) if it could only be introduced among the slaves so far as to confer upon them religious liberty. This our American slaveholders understand, as will now be shown.

     In Georgia, by an Act of Dec. 13, 1792, with the title, “To PROTECT religious societies in the exercise of their religious duties,” it is required of every justice of the peace, &c., to take into custody any person who shall interrupt or disturb a congregation of WHITE PERSONS, &c., assembled at any church, &c., and to impose a fine on the offender; and in default of payment he may be imprisoned, &c., &c. Yet the same law concludes with these words: “No congregation or company of NEGROES shall, under pretense of divine

worship, assemble themselves, contrary to the Act regulating patrols.” (Prince’s Digest, 342.)

     This Act regulating patrols is understood to be the Act of May 10, 1770, “for ordering and governing slaves,” wherein slaves are forbidden to assemble “on pretense of feasting,” &c., and “any constable,” on direction of a justice, is commanded to disperse ANY assembly or meeting of slaves which may disturb the peace or endanger the safety of his Majesty’s subjects; and every slave which may be found at such meeting, as aforesaid, shall and may, by order of such justice, immediately be corrected, WITHOUT TRIAL, by receiving on the bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch, or cowskin,” &c. (Prince’s Digest, 447.) From the general terms of this Act, there can be no doubt that it was applicable to religious meetings before the Act of 1792 occasioned its reiteration with more distinct specifications.

     In South Carolina, in the same Act of 1800, already cited as forbidding “slaves, free negroes, mulattoes, and mestizoes” to assemble for “mental instruction,” there is the following additional section:

     “It shall not be lawful for any number of slaves, free negroes, mulattoes, or mestizoes, even in company with white persons, to meet together and assemble for the purpose of mental instruction or religious worship, either before the rising of the sun or after the going down of the same. And all magistrates, sheriffs, militia officers, &c., &c., are hereby vested with power, &c., for dispersing such assemblies.” (2 Brevard’s Digest, 254-5.) “Three years afterwards,

upon petition, as the Act recites, of certain religious societies, the rigor of the Act of 1800 was slightly abated, by a modification which forbids any person, before nine o’clock in the evening, “to break into a place of meeting wherein shall be assembled the members of any religious society in this State, provided a majority of them shall be white persons, or otherwise to disturb their devotion, unless such person, &c., so entering said place [of worship] shall first have obtained from some magistrate, &c., a warrant, &c., in case a magistrate shall be then actually within a distance of three miles from such place of meeting; otherwise the provisions, &c., [of the Act of 1800,] to remain in full force.” (Brevard’s Digest, 261. Stroud’s Sketch, pp. 93-4.)

     So that, in order to attend a religious meeting securely, the slave must know beforehand (1st) that there will be present “a majority of white persons; (2d,) that there will be no person there with “a warrant” from a justice to apprehend him; and (3d) that a justice will not “be then” within three miles’ distance! For a mistake in either of these particulars, he (or she) is subjected to the penalty of “twenty-five lashes with the cowskin on the bare back, well laid on!”

     “In Virginia, all evening meetings of slaves at any meeting-house are unequivocally forbidden.” (Jay’s Inquiry, p. 137. See Stroud, p. 94. See also 1 Revised Code (of 1819), 424-5, already cited (Chap. VI.) as prohibiting meetings for promoting education.) The first clause will be found to prohibit

it all meetings” of slaves, &c., in the evening. “Slaves may, however, attend at church on any day of public worship.” (Stroud, p. 94.)

     Mississippi—same as Virginia, with a proviso that a master may permit his slave to attend the preaching of a white minister, regularly ordained and licensed, or where at least two discreet and respectable white persons, appointed by some regular church, shall attend. (Mississippi Rev. Code, 390. Stroud’s Sketch, p. 94. Jay’s Inquiry, p. 137.)

     Religious liberty secures the right of the worshippers to choose and arrange their own modes and forms of religious worship, and to select their own teachers; not the privilege of being permitted to worship when, where, and how the Government or a slaveholder may appoint, and under such religious teachers as they may select. The essence of spiritual despotism and of religious persecution lies in the enforcement of such claims. It is no discredit to the slaves that they have little or no desire to hear religious harangues from their oppressors, or that they loathe the instructions of ministers who preach the rightfulness of slaveholding.

     The Southampton slave insurrection of Nat. Turner (once a preacher) may have furnished a pretext for the following:

     The Legislature of Virginia passed a law in 1831, by which any free colored person who undertakes to preach or conduct a religious meeting by day or night may be whipped, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, at the discretion of any justice of the

peace; and any body may apprehend any such free colored person without a warrant. The same penalty, adjudged and executed in the same way, falls on any slave or free colored person who attends such preaching; and any slave who listens to any white preacher in the night-time receives the same punishment. The same law prevails in Georgia and Mississippi. A master may permit a slave to preach on his plantation, to none but his slaves.” (Child’s Appeal, p. 67.) An early law of Maryland, (Act of 1715, chap. 44, sec. 23,) and a similar one in South Carolina, (in 1711,) permits the baptism of slaves, but carefully provides that “such baptism shall not be construed to effect the emancipation of any slave.” This arose from a contrary apprehension growing out of ancient usages in England, and the opinion of some jurists that Christians could not be lawfully enslaved.

     In Louisiana the Legislature enacted: “It shall be the duty of every owner to procure his sick slaves all kinds of temporal and spiritual assistance which their situation may require.” (1 Martin’s Dig., 610.) These Maryland and Louisiana privileges of baptism at birth, and of extreme unction on a death-bed, apparently of Roman Catholic origin, were undoubtedly considered great kindnesses; and they constitute, to this day, almost, if not entirely, the sum total of the legal provision for the slave as a religious being.

     The prohibitions recorded in this chapter have found their defense or apology in the alleged dangers of insurrection and insubordination! The plea is

strongly condemnatory of the system, its apologists, and its administrators! Of no system but an iniquitous one could it be true that religious liberty would array and arm its subjects against its fundamental law! No right-minded person, who was at heart neither a slave nor a tyrant, would ever urge such a plea. And if the slaveholders treated their servants justly and kindly, the danger of insurrection would cease. The plea, if false, should itself’ be execrated. If founded on a real danger, it reveals the inherent and inexpressible wickedness of slaveholding, and of the so-called “legal relation” that sustains it, and that is itself maintained at such a sacrifice! The “necessity” of such laws, rightly interpreted, resolves itself into the necessity of “immediate and unconditional abolition.”

     The general condition of the slaves is not better than is indicated by these enactments. We have not room to present a full specimen of Southern testimony on this subject.

     The Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky, in 1834, said: “Slavery deprives its subjects, in a great measure, of the privileges of the gospel.” “The law, as it is here, does not prevent free access to the Scriptures; but ignorance, the natural result of their condition, does. The Bible is before them. But it is, to them, a sealed book. Very few of them enjoy the advantages of a regular gospel ministry.”

     The Address of the Synod proceeds to say that some have proposed missionaries among slaves, but adds that the “community” will never sustain this

measure until they are “ripe for measures for emancipation.” They add: “It is evident that, as a body, our slaves do not enjoy the public ordinances of religion. Domestic means of grace are still more rare among them.”

     From a sermon of Bishop Meade, it may be inferred that the religious condition of slaves is not better in Virginia.

     The Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, in 1833, published a statement in which they said of the slaves: “There are over TWO MILLIONS of human beings in the condition of heathen, and some of them in a worse condition.” “They may justly be considered the HEATHEN of this country, and will bear a comparison with heathen in any country in the world. The negroes are destitute of the gospel, and ever WILL BE under the present state of things. In the vast field extending from an entire State beyond the Potomac [i. e., Maryland] to the Sabine River, [at that time our South-western boundary,] and from the Atlantic to the Ohio, there are, to the best of our knowledge, not twelve men exclusively devoted to the religious instruction of the negroes. In the present state of feeling in the South, a ministry of their own color could neither be obtained NOR TOLERATED. But do not the negroes have access to the gospel through the stated ministry of the whites? We answer, No. The negroes have no regular and efficient ministry: as a matter of course, no churches; neither is there sufficient room in the white churches for their accommodation.

We know of but five churches in the slaveholding States, built expressly for their use. These are all in the State of Georgia. We may now inquire whether they enjoy the privileges of the gospel in their own houses, and on our plantations? Again we return a negative answer. They have no Bibles to read by their own firesides. They have no family altars; and when in affliction, sickness, or death, they have no minister to address to them the consolations of the gospel, nor to bury them with appropriate services.”

     Again, in 1834, the same Synod said:

     “The gospel, as things now are, can never be preached to the two classes [whites and blacks] successfully in conjunction.” “The galleries or back seats on the lower floor of white churches are generally appropriated to the negroes, when it can be done without inconvenience to the whites. When it cannot be done conveniently, the negroes must catch the gospel, as it escapes through the doors and windows.” “If the master is pious, the house servants alone attend family worship, and frequently few or none of them.” “So far as masters are engaged in the work, [of religious instruction of slaves,] an almost unbroken silence reigns on this vast field.”

     The Charleston (S. C.) Observer, and the Western Luminary, Lexington, (Ky.,) fully corroborate these statements. So also does Rev. C. C. Jones, of Georgia, who says further: “We cannot cry out against the Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common people, and keeping them in ignorance of the

way of life, for we withhold the Bible from our servants, and keep them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it read and explained to them.”

     The North Carolina Baptist Convention adopted a Report concerning the religious instruction of the colored people, with a series of Resolutions, concluding as follows: “Resolved, That by religious instruction be understood VERBAL communications on religious subjects!”

     But not even verbal instructions, it seems, could be tolerated in South Carolina. In 1838, the Methodist Conference of South Carolina appointed a missionary, Rev. Mr. Turpin, to labor among the colored people, but it was soon suppressed by the principal citizens. The Greenville (S. C.) Mountaineer of Nov. 2, 1838, contained the particulars. A Committee was appointed, who addressed a note to Mr. Turpin, requesting him to desist. This was backed up by a Remonstrance to the same effect, signed by James S. Pope and 352 others. The document is before us. It argues at length the incompatibility of slavery with the “mental improvement and religious instruction” of slaves. “Verbal instruction,” say they, “will increase the desire of the black population to learn. We know of upwards of a dozen negroes in the neighborhood of Cambridge who can now read, some of whom are members of your societies at Mount Lebanon and New-Salem. Of course, when they see themselves encouraged, they will supply themselves with Bibles, hymn books, and Catechisms”! “Open

the missionary sluice, and the current will swell in its gradual onward advance. We thus expect that a progressive system of improvement will be introduced, or will follow, from the nature and force of circumstances, and, if not checked, (though they may be shrouded in sophistry and disguise,) will ultimately revolutionize our civil institutions.” “We consider the common adage that ‘Knowledge is power,’ and as the colored man is enlightened, his condition will be rendered more unhappy and intolerable. Intelligence and slavery have no affinity with each other.” The document refers to the laws of the State, and hopes that South Carolina is yet true to her vital interests,” &c., &c.

     The missionary enterprise was thus suppressed, or was relinquished. The Editor of the Mountaineer said: “The opposition to the late Home Mission among us comprised the great body of the people.” “No people are found to be better than their laws.”

     “The legal relation” of slave ownership, as understood at the South, requires all this. And the Church and ministry there either acquiesce or succumb!

     At every point we have found an utter repugnance and opposition between the Slave Code and the Christian religion. And the Slave Code is nothing more nor less than the truthful exponent and the vigilant guardian of the so-called “legal relation of master and slave.” While the one remains, the other remains, with all the practical results that naturally grow out of them.