DR. WAYLAND'S LETTERS.

LETTER I.

TO THE REV. RICHARD FULLER, D. D.

MY DEAR BROTHER

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I have read with great interest your letter on Domestic Slavery in the Christian Reflector of the present week. Although it is addressed to the editor, yet as you have specially referred to sentiments which I have elsewhere advocated, I sume you will not consider it obtrusive, if I ask the privilege of offering a few remarks in illustration of the doctrines from which you dissent. I fully believe that you, equally with myself, desire to arrive at the truth on this question. If by the kind and fraternal exhibition of our views we can throw any light upon this difficult subject, we shall, I am sure, perform an acceptable service, both to the Church of Christ, and to our beloved country.

With many of the sentiments in your letter I heartily coincide. I unite with you and the late lamented Dr. Channing, in the opinion that the tone of the abolitionists at the north has been frequently, I fear I must say generally, "fierce, bitter, and abusive." The abolition press has, I believe, from the beginning, too commonly indulged in exaggerated statement, in violent denunciation, and in coarse and lacerating invective. At our late Missionary Convention in Philadelphia, I heard many things from men who claim to be the exclusive friends of the slave, which pained me more than I

can express. It seemed to me that the spirit which many of them manifested was very different from the spirit of Christ. I also cheerfully bear testimony to the general courtesy, the Christian urbanity, and the calmness under provocation, which, in a remarkable degree, characterized the conduct of the members from the South.

While, however, I say this, justice requires me to add that I seem to have perceived grave errors in the manner in which this subject has been treated in the slaveholding States. If, at the north, the right of free discussion has been abused, I think that frequently, at the south, this right has been denied to American citizens. I have seen legislative messages which have, in substance, asserted that the people of this country have no right to discuss the subject of slavery at all. I am sure that you will agree with me in condemning every assumption of this kind. There is no subject whatever which I have not a perfect right to discuss, in the freest and fullest manner, in public or in private, provided I act with an honest intention to set before men what I consider to be important truth, and address myself to their understanding and conscience. I claim this right as a citizen of the United States; or rather, I claim it by a far higher title, as an intelligent creature of God. I can only surrender it with my life. I must always treat the threat of abridging it as an insult to the nature which has been given me by my Creator. If I abuse this right, I may be justly punished, and I grant that the punishment, both civil and social, should be exemplary. The right, however, as I have stated it, still remains interwoven with the

essential elements of my intellectual and moral

nature.

I rejoice that the question is assuming a new aspect. I rejoice that a brother from the south has invited this discussion, and that there is now an opportunity afforded for freely exchanging our sentiments with each other. Should I abuse this right, should I utter a word that would tend needlessly to wound the feelings of my Southern brethren, there is not one of them that will be as deeply pained as myself. I have never yet visited the Southern States. There may be cases in which, from ignorance of the modes of thinking and forms of expression which prevail among my Southern fellow-citizens, I may, inadvertently, seem not suf ficiently to regard their feelings. I do not anticipate that such a case will occur. But should it occur, I have only to ask that I may be considered as an honest and kind man, desiring to hold forth what he believes to be truth; and that if I may seem in this respect to err, it may be imputed, not to an intention to give pain, but merely to my igno rance of the modes of thought peculiar to a state of society with which I am not familiar.

I would, in passing, offer another suggestion. The ground which is at present taken by the South, in regard to the whole question of slavery, seems to me to be of recent origin. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, I suppose it to have been very generally acknowledged throughout this country, that slavery was an evil, and a wrong, and that it was, tacitly at least, understood to be the duty of those States in which it existed, to remove it as soon as practicable. Pennsylvania had

already commenced this work, and she moved on steadily by successive acts to its completion. New York very soon followed her example. There was at that time much less distinction than at present, between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. It was, I think, considered as an evil and a wrong, in which the whole country was in different degrees involved, and which the whole country was under a solemn moral obligation to remove. The subject was everywhere freely discussed. I have before me, at this moment, a speech delivered in the Convention held at Danville, Kentucky, by the Rev. David Rice, proving that "slavery is inconsistent with justice and good policy," printed in Philadelphia, 1792. It is as thorough, manly, and able a discussion of this whole subject, as within the same compass I have ever seen. This was delivered in the Convention for forming a constitution for that State, and I have no reason to suppose that it gave any offence. This same freedom of discussion was enjoyed in Kentucky until quite lately. Some ten or fifteen years since, a motion was entertained in the Legislature of that State to call a convention for the express purpose of abolishing slavery, and it failed of success only by the casting vote of the speaker. Nay, even as late as the year 1830, in the Convention for forming the present Constitution for Virginia, the whole subject of slavery was publicly discussed, with a freedom and an eloquence which even in that State, so fertile in orators, has never been excelled.

The presentation of memorials to Congress, on the subject of slavery, has of late been esteemed an intolerable grievance. Formerly it was not so

considered. On the 8th day of December, 1791, memorials from Societies for the abolition of slavery, from the States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, were presented and read in the House of Representatives, and were referred to a select Committee. In the memorial from Connecticut it is stated, "that the whole system of African slavery is unjust in its nature, impolitic in its principles, and in its consequences ruinous to the industry and enterprise of the citizens of these States." The memorialists from Pennsylvania say, 66 we wish not to trespass on your time by referring to the different declarations made by Congress, on the unalienable right of all men to equal liberty; neither would we attempt in this place to point out the inconsistency of extending freedom to a part only of the human race. The memorialists from Baltimore declare that the objects of their association are founded in justice and humanity; "that in addition to an avowed enmity to slavery in every form, your memorialists in their exertions contemplate a melioration of the condition of that part of the human race who are doomed to fill the degraded rank of slaves in our country," &c. The strongest expression of opinion, however, on this subject, occurs in the memorial from Virginia. It commences as follows: "Your memorialists, fully believing that righteousness exalteth a nation,' and that slavery is not only an odious degradation but an outrageous violation of one of the most essential rights of human nature, and utterly repugnant to the precepts of the gospel, which breathes peace on earth and good-will to men, they lament that a practice so inconsistent