The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Christians of this nation, and to Christians of all nations, for

  such an hour and such a crisis was this action sufficient? Did

  it do anything? Has it had the least effect in stopping the

  evil? And, in such a horrible time, ought not something to be

  done which will have that effect?

  Let us continue the history. It will be observed that the

  resolution concludes by referring the subject to subordinate

  judicatories. The New-School Presbytery of Cincinnati, in

  which were the professors of Lane Seminary, suspended Mr.

  Graham from the ministry for teaching that the Bible justified

  slavery; thereby establishing the principle that this was a

  heresy inconsistent with Christian fellowship. The Cincinnati

  Synod confirmed this decision. The General Assembly reversed

  this decision, and restored Mr. Graham. The delegate from

  that presbytery told them that they would never retrace their

  steps, and so it proved. The Cincinnati Presbytery refused to

  receive him back. All honour be to them for it! Here, at

  least, was a principle established, as far as the New-School

  Cincinnati Presbytery is concerned, and a principle as far as

  the General Assembly is concerned. By this act the General

  Assembly established the fact that the New-School Presbyterian

  Church had not decided the Biblical defence of slavery to be a

  heresy.

  For a man to teach that there are not three Persons in the

  Trinity is heresy.

  For a man to teach that all these three Persons authorise a

  system which even Mahometan princes have abolished from

  mere natural shame and conscience, is no heresy!

  The General Assembly proceeded further to show that it con-

  sidered this doctrine no heresy, in the year 1846, by inviting

  the Old-School General Assembly to the celebration of the

  Lord's Supper with them. Connected with this Assembly were

  not only Dr. Smylie, but all those bodies who, among them,

  had justified not only slavery in the abstract, but some of its

  worst abuses, by the word of God; yet the New-School body

  thought these opinions no heresy which should be a bar to

  Christian communion!

  In 1849 the General Assembly declared* that there had been

  no information before the Assembly to prove that the members

  in slave States were not doing all that they could, in the provi-

  dence of God, to bring about the possession and enjoyment of

  liberty by the enslaved. This is a remarkable declaration, if

  we consider that in Kentucky there are no stringent laws

  against emancipation, and that, either in Kentucky or Virginia,

  the slave can be set free by simply giving him a pass to go

  across the line into the next State.

  In 1850 a proposition was presented in the Assembly by the

  Rev. H. Curtiss, of Indiana, to the following effect: “That the

  enslaving of men, or holding them as property, is an offence, as

  defined in our Book of Discipline, ch. i., sec. 3; and as such it

  calls for inquiry, correction, and removal, in the manner pre-

  scribed by our rules, and should be treated with a due regard

  to all the aggravating or mitigating circumstances in each case.”

  Another proposition was from an elder in Pennsylvania, affirm-

  ing “that slaveholding was, prima facie, an offence within the

  meaning of our Book of Discipline, and throwing upon the

  slaveholder the burden of showing such circumstances as will

  take away from him the guilt of the offence.”†

  Both these propositions were rejected. The following was

  adopted: “That slavery is fraught with many and great evils;

  that they deplore the workings of the whole system of slavery;

  that the holding of our fellow-men in the condition of slavery,

  except in those cases where it is unavoidable from the laws of

  the State, the obligations of guardianship, or the demands of

  humanity, is an offence, in the proper import of that term, as

  used in the Book of Discipline, and should be regarded and

  treated in the same manner as other offences; also referring this

  subject to sessions and presbyteries.” The vote stood eighty-

  four to sixteen, under a written protest of the minority, who

  were for no action in the present state of the country. Let the

  reader again compare this action with that of 1818, and he will

  see that the boat is still drifting--especially as even this moderate

  testimony was not unanimous. Again, in this year of 1850,

  they avow themselves ready to meet, in a spirit of fraternal

  kindness and Christian love, any overtures for re-union which

  may be made to them by the Old-School body.

  In 1850 was passed the cruel Fugitive Slave Law. What

  deeds were done then! Then to our free States were transported

  those scenes of fear and agony before acted only on slave soil.

  Churches were broken up. Trembling Christians fled. Hus-

  bands and wives were separated. Then to the poor African

  was fulfilled the dread doom denounced on the wandering Jew:

  “Thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have

  rest; but thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou

  shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy

  life.” Then all the world went one way--all the wealth, all the

  power, all the fashion. Now, if ever, was a time for Christ's

  Church to stand up and speak for the poor.

  The General Assembly met. She was earnestly memorialised

  to speak out. Never was a more glorious opportunity to show

  that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world. A protest

  then, from a body so numerous and respectable, might have

  saved the American Church from the disgrace it now wears in

  the eyes of all nations. Oh that she had once spoken! What

  said the Presbyterian Church? She said nothing, and the

  thanks of political leaders were accorded to her. She had done

  all they desired.

  Meanwhile, under this course of things, the number of pres-

  byteries in slaveholding States had increased from three to

  twenty! and this Church has now under its care from fifteen to

  twenty thousand members in slave States.

  So much for the course of a decided anti-slavery body in

  union with a few slaveholding Churches. So much for a most

  discreet, judicious, charitable, and brotherly attempt to test by

  experience the question, What communion hath light with dark-

  ness, and what concord hath Christ with Belial? The slave

  system is darkness--the slave-system is Belial! and every

  attempt to harmonise it with the profession of Christianity will

  be just like these. Let it be here recorded, however, that a

  small body of the most determined opponents of slavery in the

  Presbyterian Church seceded and formed the Free Presbyterian

  Church, whose terms of communion are, an entire withdrawal

  from slaveholding. Whether this principle be a correct one or

  not, it is worthy of remark that it was adopted and carried out

  by the Quakers--the only body of Christians involved in this

  evil who have ever succeeded in freeing themselves from it.
>
  Whether Church discipline and censure is an appropriate

  medium for correcting such immoralities and heresies in indi-

  viduals or not, it is enough for the case that this has been the

  established opinion and practice of the Presbyterian Church.

  If the argument of Charles Sumner be contemplated, it will be

  seen that the history of this Presbyterian Church and the history

  of our United States have strong points of similarity. In both,

  at the outset, the strong influence was anti-slavery, even among

  slaveholders. In both there was no difference of opinion as to

  the desirableness of abolishing slavery ultimately; both made a

  concession, the smallest which could possibly be imagined; both

  made the concession in all good faith, contemplating the speedy

  removal and extinction of the evil; and the history of both is

  alike. The little point of concession spread, and absorbed, and

  acquired, from year to year, till the United States and the Pres-

  byterian Church stand just where they do. Worse has been the

  history of the Methodist Church. The history of the Baptist

  Church shows the same principle; and as to the Episcopal

  Church, it has never done anything but comply, either North or

  South. It differs from all the rest in that it has never had any

  resisting element, except now and then a Protestant, like William

  Jay, a worthy son of him who signed the Declaration of Inde-

  pendence.

  The slave power has been a united, consistent, steady, uncom-

  promising principle. The resisting element has been, for many

  years, wavering, self-contradictory, compromising. There has

  been, it is true, a deep and ever-increasing hostility to slavery in

  a decided majority of ministers and Church-members in free

  States, taken as individuals. Nevertheless, the sincere opponents

  of slavery have been unhappily divided among themselves as to

  principles and measures, the extreme principles and measures of

  some causing a hurtful reaction in others. Besides this, other

  great plans of benevolence have occupied their time and attention;

  and the result has been that they have formed altogether inade-

  quate conceptions of the extent to which the cause of God on

  earth is imperilled by American slavery, and of the duty of

  Christians in such a crisis. They have never had such a convic-

  tion as has aroused, and called out, and united their energies, on

  this, as on other great causes. Meantime, great organic influences

  in Church and State are, much against their wishes, neutralising

  their influence against slavery--sometimes even arraying it in its

  favour. The perfect inflexibility of the slave-system, and its

  absolute refusal to allow any discussion of the subject, has

  reduced all those who wish to have religious action in common

  with slaveholding Churches to the alternative of either giving up

  the support of the South for that object, or giving up their protest

  against slavery.

  This has held out a strong temptation to men who have had

  benevolent and laudable objects to carry, and who did not realise

  the full peril of the slave-system, nor appreciate the moral power

  of Christian protest against it. When, therefore, cases have

  arisen where the choice lay between sacrificing what they con-

  sidered the interests of a good object, or giving up their right of

  protest, they have generally preferred the latter. The decision

  has always gone in this way: The slave power will not concede--

  we must. The South says, “We will take no religious book

  that has anti-slavery principles in it.” The Sunday-school Union

  drops Mr. Gallaudet's History of Joseph. Why? Because they

  approve of slavery? Not at all. They look upon slavery with

  horror. What then? “The South will not read our books, if we

  do not do it. They will not give up, and we must. We can do

  more good by introducing gospel truth with this omission than

  we can by using our Protestant power.” This, probably, was

  thought and said honestly. The argument is plausible, but the

  concession is none the less real. The slave power has got the

  victory, and got it by the very best of men from the very best of

  motives; and, so that it has the victory, it cares not how it gets

  it. And although it may be said that the amount in each case of

  these concessions is in itself but small, yet, when we come to add

  together all that have been made from time to time by every

  different denomination, and by every different benevolent organi-

  sation, the aggregate is truly appalling; and, in consequence of

  all these united, what are we now reduced to?

  Here we are, in this crisis--here in this nineteenth century,

  when all the world is dissolving and reconstructing on principles

  of universal liberty--we Americans, who are sending our Bibles

  and missionaries to christianise Mahometan lands, are uphold-

  ing with all our might and all our influence, a system of worn-

  out heathenism which even the Bey of Tunis has repudiated!

  The Southern Church has baptised it in the name of the Father,

  the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This worn-out, old, effete system

  of Roman slavery, which Christianity once gradually but certainly

  abolished, has been dug up out of its dishonoured grave, a few

  laws of extra cruelty, such as Rome never knew, have been added

  to it, and now, baptised and sanctioned by the whole Southern

  Church, it is going abroad conquering and to conquer! The

  only power left to the Northern Church is the protesting power:

  and will they use it? Ask the Tract Society if they will publish

  a tract on the sinfulness of slavery, though such tract should be

  made up solely from the writings of Jonathan Edwards or Dr.

  Hopkins! Ask the Sunday-school Union if it will publish the

  facts about this heathenism, as it has facts about Burmah and

  Hindostan! Will they? Oh that they would answer Yes!

  Now, it is freely conceded that all these sad results have come

  in consequence of the motions and deliberations of good men,

  who meant well; but it has been well said that, in critical times,

  when one wrong step entails the most disastrous consequences,

  to mean well is not enough.

  In the crisis of a disease, to mean well and lose the patient--

  in the height of a tempest, to mean well and wreck the ship--in a

  great moral conflict, to mean well and lose the battle--these are

  things to be lamented. We are wrecking the ship--we are losing

  the battle. There is no mistake about it. A little more sleep,

  a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep,

  and we shall awake in the whirls of that maëlstrom which has but

  one passage, and that downward.

  There is yet one body of Christians whose influence we have

  not considered, and that a most important one--the Congrega-

  tionalists of New England and of the West. From the very

  nature of Congregationalism, she cannot give so united a testimony

  as Presbyterianism; yet Congregationalism has spoken out on

  slavery. Individual bodies have spoken very stron
gly, and indi-

  vidual clergymen still stronger. They have remonstrated with

  the General Assembly, and they have very decided anti-slavery

  papers. But, considering the whole state of public sentiment,

  considering the critical nature of the exigency, the mighty sweep

  and force of all the causes which are going in favour of

  slavery, has the vehemence and force of the testimony of Congre-

  gationalism, as a body, been equal to the dreadful emergency?

  It has testimonies on record, very full and explicit, on the evils

  of slavery; but testimonies are not all that is wanted. There is

  abundance of testimonies on record in the Presbyterian Church,

  for that matter, quite as good and quite as strong as any that

  have been given by Congregationalism. There have been quite

  as many anti-slavery men in the New-School Presbyterian Church

  as in the Congregational--quite as strong anti-slavery news-

  papers; and the Presbyterian Church has had trial of this matter

  that the Congregational Church has never been exposed to. It

  has had slaveholders in its own communion; and from this trial

  Congregationalism has, as yet, been mostly exempt. Being thus

  free, ought not the testimony of Congregationalism to have been

  more than equal? ought it not to have done more than testify?

  ought it not to have fought for the question? Like the brave

  three hundred in Thermopylæ left to defend the liberties of

  Greece, when all others had fled, should they not have thrown in

  heart and soul, body and spirit? Have they done it?

  Compare the earnestness which Congregationalism has spent

  upon some other subjects with the earnestness which has been

  spent upon this. Dr. Taylor taught that all sins consist in

  sinning, and therefore that there could be no sin till a person

  had sinned; and Dr. Bushnell teaches some modifications of the

  doctrine of the Trinity, nobody seeming to know precisely what.

  The South Carolina presbyteries teach that slavery is approved

  by God, and sanctioned by the example of patriarchs and pro-

  phets. Supposing these, now, to be all heresies, which of them

  is the worst?--which will bring the worst practical results?

  And, if Congregationalism had fought this slavery heresy as some

  of her leaders fought Dr. Bushnell and Dr. Taylor, would not

  the style of battle have been more earnest? Have not both

  these men been denounced as dangerous heresiarchs, and as