American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - Ebenezer Davies
In the morning a notice had been put into my hand at the Presbyterian
Church for announcement, to the effect that Mr. Bushnel and myself
would address the "monthly concert at the church in Sixth-street" on
the morrow evening. Of this arrangement not a syllable had been said to
me beforehand. This was American liberty, and I quietly submitted to
it. The attendance was not large; and we two missionaries had it all to
ourselves. No other ministers were present,--not even the minister of
the church in which we were assembled. The people, however, seemed
heartily interested in the subject of missions. At the close, a lady
from Manchester, who had seen me there in 1845 at the missionary
meeting, came forward full of affection to shake hands. She was a
member of Mr. Griffin's church in that city, and had removed to America
a few months before, with her husband (who is a member of the "Society
of Friends") and children. I was glad to find that they were likely to
be comfortable in their adopted country.
Next morning I went with Dr. Reuben D. Mussey, a New Englander, to see
the Medical College of Ohio. Dr. Mussey is the Professor of Surgery and
Dean of the Faculty, and is highly esteemed for his professional skill
and general character. He and his son, who was my guide on the Sunday,
very kindly showed and explained to me everything of interest in the
institution. The cabinet belonging to the anatomical department is
supplied with all the materials necessary for acquiring a minute and
perfect knowledge of the human frame. These consist of detached bones,
of wired natural skeletons, and of dried preparations to exhibit the
muscles, bloodvessels, nerves, &c. The cabinet of comparative anatomy
is supposed to be more extensively supplied than any other in the
United States. Besides perfect skeletons of American and foreign birds
and other animals, there is an immense number of detached _crania_,
from the elephant and hippopotamus down to the minuter orders. The
cabinet in the surgical department has been formed at great expense,
chiefly by Dr. Mussey himself, during the labour of more than forty
years. It contains a large number of rare specimens,--600 specimens of
diseased bones alone. Other departments are equally well furnished. The
Faculty is composed of six Professorships,--Surgery, Anatomy and
Physiology, Chemistry and Pharmacy, Materia Medica, Obstetrics and
Diseases of Women and Children, and the Theory and Practice of
Medicine. The fees of tuition are only 15 dollars, or 3 guineas, to
each professor, making an aggregate of 90 dollars. There were 190
students. It will probably be admitted that this institution, formed in
a new country, has arrived at an astonishing degree of vigour and
maturity. It is only one of many instances in which the Americans are
before us in the facilities afforded for professional education.
In the afternoon my wife and myself went to take tea with the coloured
minister. His dwelling, though small and humble, was neat and clean.
With his intelligence and general information we were quite delighted.
He spoke with feeling of the gross insults to which the coloured
people, even in this free State, are exposed. When they travel by
railway, though they pay the same fare as other people, they are
generally put in the luggage-van! He had himself, when on board of
steam-boats, often been sent to the "pantry" to eat his food. Nor will
the white people employ them but in the most menial offices; so that it
is nearly impossible for them to rise to affluence and horse-and-gig
respectability. The consequence is that they are deeply and justly
disaffected towards the American people and the American laws. They
clearly understand that England is their friend. For one month all the
free coloured people wore crape as mourning for Thomas Clarkson.
LETTER XX.
Stay at Cincinnati (continued)--The New Roman Catholic Cathedral--The
Rev. C. B. Boynton and Congregationalism--"The Herald of a New
Era"--American Nationality.
A lady, belonging to the Presbyterian Church at which I preached,
kindly sent her carriage to take us about to see the city. We visited
the new Roman Catholic Cathedral, one of the principal "lions." It was
begun in 1841, and, though used for public worship, is not yet
finished. The building is a parallelogram of 200 feet long by 80 feet
wide, and is 58 feet from the floor to the ceiling. The roof is partly
supported by the side walls, and partly by two rows of freestone
columns--nine in each row--at a distance of about 11 feet from the wall
inside. These columns are of the Corinthian Order, and are 35 feet
high, and 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. There is no gallery, except at
one end, for the organ, which cost 5,400 dollars, or about 1,100_l._
sterling. The floor of the building is furnished with a centre aisle of
6 feet wide, and two other aisles, each 11 feet wide, along the side
walls, for processional purposes. The remainder of the area is formed
into 140 pews, 10 feet deep. Each pew will accommodate with comfort
only six persons; so that this immense edifice affords sitting room for
no more than 840 people! It is a magnificent structure, displaying in
all its proportions a remarkable degree of elegance and taste. The
tower, when finished, will present an elevation of 200 feet, with a
portico of twelve Corinthian columns, six in front and three on either
side, on the model of the Tower of the Wind at Athens. The entire
building will be Grecian in all its parts. One-fourth of the population
of Cincinnati are Roman Catholics. They have lately discontinued the
use of public government-schools for their children, and have
established some of their own, I am not so much alarmed at the progress
of Popery in America as I was before I visited that country. Its
proselytes are exceedingly few. Its supporters consist chiefly of the
thousands of Europeans, already Roman Catholic, who flock to the New
World. The real _progress_ of Popery is greater in Britain than in
America.
In the evening I preached for Mr. Boynton in the "Sixth-street Church,"
Mr. Boynton and his Church, heretofore Presbyterians, have recently
become Congregationalists. This has given great umbrage to the
Presbyterians. Congregationalism is rapidly gaining ground in the
Western World, and seems destined there, as in England since Cromwell's
time, to swallow up Presbyterianism. I make no invidious comparison
between the two systems: I merely look at facts. And it does appear to
me that Congregationalism--so simple, so free, so unsectarian, and so
catholic--is nevertheless a powerful absorbent. It _has_ absorbed all
that was orthodox in the old Presbyterian Churches of England; and it
_is_ absorbing the Calvinistic Methodists and the churches named after
the Countess of Huntingdon. It has all along exerted a powerful
influence on the Presbyterianism of America. The Congregational element
diffused among those churches occasioned the division of the
Presbyterian Church into Old School and New School.
Mr. Boynton is what a friend of mine called "intensely American." He
has lately published, under the title of "Our Country the Herald of a
New Era," a lecture delivered before the "Young Men's Mercantile
Library Association." To show the magnificent ideas the Americans
entertain of themselves and their country, I will transcribe a few
passages.
"This nation is an enigma, whose import no man as yet may fully know.
She is a germ of boundless things. The unfolded bud excites the hope of
one-half the human race, while it stirs the remainder with both anger
and alarm. Who shall now paint the beauty and attraction of the
expanded flower? Our Eagle is scarcely fledged; but one wing stretches
over Massachusetts Bay, and the other touches the mouth of the
Columbia. Who shall say, then, what lands shall be overshadowed by the
full-grown pinion? Who shall point to any spot of the northern
continent, and say, with certainty, Here the starry banner shall never
be hailed as the symbol of dominion? [The annexation of Canada!] * * *
It cannot be disguised that the idea is gathering strength among us,
that the territorial mission of this nation is to obtain and hold at
least all that lies north of Panama. * * * Whether the millions that
are to dwell on the great Pacific slope of our continent are to
acknowledge our banner, or rally to standards of their own; whether
Mexico is to become ours by sudden conquest or gradual absorption;
whether the British provinces, when they pass from beneath the sceptre
of England, shall be incorporated with us, or retain an independent
dominion;--are perhaps questions which a not distant future may decide.
However they may be settled, the great fact will remain essentially the
same, that the two continents of this Western Hemisphere shall yet bear
up a stupendous social, political, and religious structure, wrought by
the American mind, moulded and coloured by the hues of American
thought, and animated and united by an American soul. It seems equally
certain that, whatever the divisions of territory may be, these United
States are the living centre, from which already flows the resistless
stream which will ultimately absorb in its own channel, and bear on its
own current, the whole thought of the two Americas. * * * If, then, I
have not over-rated the moral and intellectual vigour of the people of
this nation, and of the policy lately avowed to be acted upon--that the
further occupation of American soil by the Governments of Europe is not
to be suffered,--then the inference is a direct one, that the stronger
elements will control and absorb the lesser, so that the same causes
which melted the red races away will send the influence of the United
States not only over the territory north of Panama, but across the
Isthmus, and southward to Magellan."
The "New Era" of which America is the "Herald" is, he tells us, to be
marked by three grand characteristics,--
"First. A new theory and practice in government and in social life,
such as the world has never seen, of which we only perceive the germ as
yet." Already have you indeed presented before the world your "peculiar
institution" of slavery in a light new and striking. Already have you a
"theory and practice" in the government of slaves such as the world
never beheld!
"Second. A literature which shall not only be the proper outgrowth of
the American mind, but which shall form a distinctive school, as
clearly so as the literature of Greece!" Under this head he says, "Very
much would I prefer that our literature should appear even in the guise
of the awkward, speculating, guessing, but still original,
strong-minded _American_ Yankee, than to see it mincing in the costume
of a London dandy. I would rather see it, if need be, showing the wild
rough strength, the naturalness and fervour of the extreme West,
equally prepared to liquor with a stranger or to fight with him, than
to see it clad in the gay but filthy garments of the saloons of Paris.
Nay more, much as every right mind abhors and detests such things, I
would sooner behold our literature holding in one hand the murderous
Bowie knife, and in the other the pistol of the duellist, than to see
her laden with the foul secrets of a London hell, or the gaming-houses
of Paris. * * * If we must meet with vice in our literature, let it be
the growth of our own soil; for I think our own rascality has yet the
healthier aspect."
"Third. A new era in the fine arts, from which future ages shall derive
their models and their inspirations, as we do from Greece and Italy. *
* * So far as scenery is concerned in the moulding of character, we may
safely expect that a country where vastness and beauty are so
wonderfully blended will stamp upon the national soul its own magestic
and glorious image. It must be so. The mind will expand itself to the
measure of things about it. Deep in the wide American soul there shall
be Lake Superiors, inland oceans of thought; and the streams of her
eloquence shall be like the sweep of the Mississippi in his strength.
The rugged strength of the New England hills, the luxuriance of the
sunny South, the measureless expanse of the prairie, the broad flow of
our rivers, the dashing of our cataracts, the huge battlements of the
everlasting mountains,--these are _American_. On the face of the globe
there is nothing like to them. When therefore these various influences
have been thoroughly wrought into the national soul, there will be such
a correspondence between man and the works of God about him, that our
music, our poetry, our eloquence, our all, shall be our own, individual
and peculiar, like the Amazon and the Andes, the Mississippi and
Niagara, alone in their strength and glory."
Now, mark you! amidst all these splendid visions of the future, there
is no vision of liberty for 3,000,000 of slaves. That idea was too
small to find a place among conceptions so vast. The lecture contains
not a syllable of reference to them. On the contrary, the empty boast
of freedom is heard in the following words of solemn mockery: "_The
soul of man_ here no longer sits _bound_ and blind amid the despotic
forms of the past; it walks abroad _without a shackle_, and with an
uncovered eye." It follows then that there is an essential difference
between "the soul of man" and the soul of "nigger," or rather that
"niggers" have no soul at all. How _can_ men of sense, and especially
ministers of the Gospel, sit down to pen such fustian? These extracts
show how intensely national the Americans are, and consequently how
futile the apology for the existence of slavery so often presented,
that one State can no more interfere with the affairs of another State
than the people of England can with France and the other countries of
the European continent. The Americans are to all intents and purposes
_one_ people. In short, the identity of feeling among the _States_ of
the Union is more complete than among the _counties_ of Great Britain.
On the morning of the 4th of March, Dr. Stowe called to invite me to
address the students at Lane Seminary, on the following Sabbath
evening, on the subject of missions and the working of freedom in the
West Indies. I readily promised to comply, glad of an opportunity to
address so many of the future pastors of the American Churches, who
will occupy the field when emancipation is sure to be the great
question of the day. In fact, it is so already.
LETTER XXI.
Stay at Cincinnati (continued)--The Orphan Asylum--A Coloured Man and a
White Fop treated as each deserved--A Trip across to Covington--Mr.
Gilmore and the School for Coloured Children--"The Fugitive Slave to
the Christian"--Sabbath--Mr. Boynton--Dr. Beecher--Lane
Seminary--Departure from Cincinnati.
In the afternoon we went with Mrs. Judge B---- to see an Orphan Asylum,
in which she took a deep interest. Requested to address the children, I
took the opportunity of delivering an anti-slavery and
anti-colour-hating speech. The building, large and substantial, is
capable of accommodating 300 children; but the number of inmates was at
that time not more than 70. While the lady was showing us from one
apartment to another, and pointing out to us the comforts and
conveniences of the institution, the following colloquy took place.
_Myself._--"Now, Mrs. B, this place is very beautiful: I admire it
exceedingly. Would you refuse a little _coloured_ orphan admission into
this asylum?"
_The Lady._ (stretching herself up to her full height, and with a look
of horror and indignation),--"Indeed, we would!"
_Myself._--"Oh, shocking! shocking!"
_The Lady._--"Oh! there is another asylum for the coloured children;
they are not neglected."
_Myself._--"Ay, but why should they not be together?--why should there
be such a distinction between the children of our common Father?"
_The Lady._ (in a tone of triumph).--"Why has God made such a
distinction between them?"
_Myself._--"And why has he made such a distinction between me and Tom
Thumb? Or (for I am not very tall) why has he made me a man of 5 feet 6
inches instead of 6 feet high? A man may as well be excluded from
society on account of his stature as his colour."
At this moment my wife, seeing I was waxing warm, pulled me by the
coat-tail, and I said no more. The lady, however, went on to say that
she was opposed to slavery--was a colonizationist, and heartily wished
all the coloured people were back again in their own country. "In their
own country, indeed!" I was going to say,--"why, this is their country
as much as it is yours;" but I remembered my wife's admonition, and
held my peace. These were the sentiments of a lady first and foremost
in the charitable movements of the day, and regarded by those around
her as a pattern of piety and benevolence. She was shocked at the
notion of the poor coloured orphan mingling with fellow-orphans of a
fairer hue.
In the evening we went to take tea at the house of an English Quaker.
About half-a-dozen friends had been invited to meet us. These were
kindred spirits, anti-slavery out-and-out, and we spent the evening
very pleasantly. One of the company, in speaking of the American
prejudice against colour, mentioned a remarkable circumstance. Some
time ago, at an hotel in one of the Eastern States, a highly
respectable coloured gentleman, well known to the host and to his
guests, was about to sit down at the dinner table. A military
officer--a conceited puppy--asked the landlord if that "nigger" was
going to sit down? The landlord replied in the affirmative. "Then,"
said the fop, "_I_ cannot sit down with a nigger." The rest of the
company, understanding what was going forward, rose as one man from
their seats, ordered another table to be spread, and presented a
respectful invitation to the coloured gentleman to take a seat with
them. The military dandy was left at the first table, "alone in his
glory." When thus humbled, and when he also understood who the coloured
man was, he went up to him to apologize in the best way he could, and
to beg that the offence might be forgotten. The coloured gentleman's
reply was beautiful and touching,--"Favours I write on marble, insults
on sand."
On the morning of the 5th of March, the sun shining pleasantly, we were
tempted to cross over to Covington, on the Kentucky or slave side of
the river. Ferry-steamers ran every five or ten minutes, and the fare
was only 5 cents. At this place the Baptists have a large and important
college. Why did they erect it on the slave rather than on the free
side of the Ohio? This institution I was anxious to see; but I found it
too far off, and the roads too bad. Feeling weary and faint, we called
at a house of refreshment, where we had a genuine specimen of American
inquisitiveness.
In five minutes the daughter of the house had asked us where we came
from--what sort of a place it was--how long we had been in the United
States--how long it took us to come--how far we were going--how long we
should stay--and if we did not like that part of America so well that
we would come and settle in it altogether! and in five minutes more our
answers to all these important questions had been duly reported to the
rest of the family in an adjoining room. This inquisitiveness prevails
more in the slave than in the free States, and originates, I believe,
in the fidgetty anxiety they feel about their slaves. The stranger must
be well catechised, lest he should prove to be an Abolitionist come to
give the slaves a sly lesson in geography.
In the afternoon I went to see the school of the coloured children in
Cincinnati. This was established about four years ago by a Mr. Gilmore,
a white gentleman, who is also a minister of the Gospel. He is a man of
some property, and all connected with this school has been done at his
own risk and responsibility. On my venturing to inquire what sacrifice
of property he had made in the undertaking, he seemed hurt at the
question, and replied, "No sacrifice whatever, sir." "But what, may I
ask, have these operations cost beyond what you have received in the
way of school-fees?" I continued. "About 7,000 dollars," (1,500_l._)
said he. Including two or three branches, there are about 300 coloured
children thus educated. Mr. Gilmore was at first much opposed and
ridiculed; but that state of feeling was beginning to wear away.
Several of the children were so fair that, accustomed as I am to shades
of colour, I could not distinguish them from the Anglo-Saxon race; and
yet Mr. Gilmore told me even they would not have been admitted to the
other public schools! How discerning the Americans are! How proud of
their skin-deep aristocracy! And the author of "Cincinnati in 1841," in
speaking of those very schools from which these fair children were
excluded, says, "These schools are founded not merely on the principle
that all men are free and equal, but that all men's children are so
likewise; and that, as it is our duty to love our neighbour as
ourselves, it is our duty to provide the same benefits and blessings to
his children as to our own. These establishments result from the
recognition of the fact also, that we have all a common
interest--moral, political, and pecuniary--in the education of the
whole community." Those gloriously exclusive schools I had no wish to
visit. But I felt a peculiar pleasure in visiting this humbler yet
well-conducted institution, for the benefit of those who are despised
and degraded on account of their colour. As I entered, a music-master
was teaching them, with the aid of a piano, to sing some select pieces
for an approaching examination, both the instrument and the master
having been provided by the generous Gilmore. Even the music-master,
notwithstanding his first-rate ability, suffers considerable loss of
patronage on account of his services in this branded school. Among the
pieces sung, and sung exceedingly well, was the following touching
appeal, headed "The Fugitive Slave to the Christian"--Air,
"Cracovienne."
"The fetters galled my weary soul,--
A soul that seemed but thrown away:
I spurned the tyrant's base control,
Resolved at last the man to play:
The hounds are haying on my track;
O Christian! will you send me back?
"I felt the stripes,--the lash I saw,
Red dripping with a father's gore;
And, worst of all their lawless law,
The insults that my mother bore!
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian! will you send me back?
"Where human law o'errules Divine,
Beneath the sheriff's hammer fell
My wife and babes,--I call them mine,--
And where they suffer who can tell?
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian! will you send me back?
"I seek a home where man is man,
If such there be upon this earth,--
To draw my kindred, if I can,
Around its free though humble hearth.
The hounds are baying on my track;
O Christian! will you send me back?"
March 7.--This being the Sabbath, we went in the morning to worship at
Mr. Boynton's church. The day was very wet, and the congregation small.
His text was, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every
creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shall be damned." The sermon, though read, and composed
too much in the essay style, indicated considerable powers of mind and
fidelity of ministerial character. Although from incessant rain the day
was very dark, the Venetian blinds were down over all the windows! The
Americans, I have since observed, are particularly fond of the "dim
religious light." Among the announcements from the pulpit were several
funerals, which it is there customary thus to advertise.
In the afternoon I heard Dr. Beecher. Here, again, I found the blinds
down. The Doctor's text was, "Let me first go and bury my father," &c.
Without at all noticing the context,--an omission which I
regretted,--he proceeded at once to state the doctrine of the text to
be, that nothing can excuse the putting off of religion--that it is
every man's duty to follow Christ immediately. This subject,
notwithstanding the heaviness of the day, the infirmities of more than
threescore years and ten (74), and the frequent necessity of adjusting
his spectacles to consult his notes, he handled with much vigour and
zeal. Some of his pronunciations were rather antiquated; but they were
the elegant New England pronunciations of his youthful days. The sermon
was marked by that close and faithful dealing with the conscience in
which so many American ministers excel.
Professor Allen called to take me up to Lane Seminary, where I was to
address the students in the evening. The service was public, and held
in the chapel of the institution; but the evening being wet, the
congregation was small. I had, however, before me the future pastors of
about fifty churches, and two of the professors. I was domiciled at Mr.
Allen's. Both he and his intelligent wife are sound on the subject of
slavery. They are also quite above the contemptible prejudice against
colour. But I was sorry to hear Mrs. Allen say, that, in her domestic
arrangements, she had often had a great deal of trouble with her
_European_ servants, who would refuse to take their meals with black
ones, though the latter were in every respect superior to the former! I
have heard similar remarks in other parts of America. Mr. Allen's
system of domestic training appeared excellent. His children, of whom
he has as many as the patriarch Jacob, were among the loveliest I had
ever seen.