Slavery Ordained of God | Page 3

railroads and canals.
10. That a special commission be sent up Red River, to ascertain whether Legree, who whipped Uncle Tom to death, (and who was a Northern _gentleman_,) be not still in connection with some Northern church in good and regular standing.
11. The number of Northern church-members who attend meetings of Spiritual Rappers,--or Bloomers,--or Women's-Rights Conventions.
12. The number of Northern church-members who are cruel husbands.
13. The number of Northern church-members who are hen-pecked husbands.
[As it is always difficult to know the temper of speaker and audience from a printed report, it is due alike to Dr. R., to the whole Assembly, and the galleries, to say, that he, in reading these resolutions, and throughout his speech, evinced great good-humour and kindness of feeling, which was equally manifested by the Assembly and spectators, repeatedly, while he was on the floor.]
Dr. Ross then proceeded:--Mr. Moderator, I move this amendment in the best spirit. I desire to imitate the committee in their refinement and delicacy of distinction. I disavow all intention to be impertinently inquisitorial. I intend to be inquisitorial, as the committee say they are,--but not impertinently so. No, sir; not at all; not at all. (Laughter.) Well, sir, we of the South, who desire the removal of the evil of slavery, and believe it will pass away in the developments of Providence, are grieved when we read your graphic, shuddering pictures of the "middle passage,"--the slave-ship, piling up her canvas, as the shot pours after her from English or American guns,--see her again and again hurrying hogshead after hogshead, filled with living slaves, into the deep, and, thus lightened, escape. Sir, what horror to believe that clipper-ship was built by the hands of Northern, noisy Abolition church-members! ["Yes, I know some in New York and Boston," said one in the crowd.] Again, sir, when we walk along your _Broadways_, and see, as we do, the soft hands of your church-members sending off to the South, not only clothing for the slave, but manacles and whips, manufactured expressly for him,--what must we think of your consistency of character? [True, true.] And what must we think of your self-righteousness, when we know your church-members order the sale of slaves,--yes, slaves such as St. Clair's,--and under circumstances involving all the separations and all the loathsome things you so mournfully deplore? Your Mrs. Stowe says so, and it is so, without her testimony. I have read that splendid, bad book. Splendid in its genius, over which I have wept, and laughed, and got mad, (here some one said, "All at the same time?") yes--all at the same time. Bad in its theology, bad in its morality, bad in its temporary evil influence here in the North, in England, and on the continent of Europe; bad, because her isolated cruelties will be taken (whether so meant by her or not) as the general condition of Southern life,--while her Shelbys, and St. Clairs, and Evas, will be looked upon as angel-visitors, lingering for a moment in that earthly hell. The impression made by the book is a falsehood.
Sir, why do your Northern church-members and philanthropists buy Southern products at all? You know you are purchasing cotton, rice, sugar, sprinkled with blood, literally, you say, from the lash of the driver! Why do you buy? What's the difference between my filching this blood-stained cotton from the outraged negro, and your standing by, taking it from me? What's the difference? You, yourselves, say, in your abstractions, there is no difference; and yet you daily stain your hands in this horrid traffic. You hate the traitor, but you love the treason. Your ladies, too,--oh, how they shun the slave-owner _at a distance_, in _the abstract_! But alas, when they see him in the _concrete_,--when they see the slave-owner _himself_, standing before them,--not the brutal driver, but the splendid gentleman, with his unmistakable grace of carriage and ease of manners,--why, lo, behold the lady says, "Oh, fie on your slavery!--what a wretch you are! But, indeed, sir, I love your sugar,--and truly, truly, sir, wretch as you are, I love you too." Your gentlemen talk just the same way when they behold our matchless women. And well for us all it is, that your good taste, and hearts, can thus appreciate our genius, and accomplishments, and fascinations, and loveliness, and sugar, and cotton. Why, sir, I heard this morning, from one pastor only, of two or three of his members thus intermarried in the South. May I thus give the mildest rebuke to your inconsistency of conduct? (Much good-natured excitement.)
Sir, may we know who are the descendants of the New England kidnappers? What is their wealth? Why, here you are, all around me. You, gentlemen, made the best of that bargain. And you have kept every dollar of your money from