The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-06 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 6, 1851.

AMERICAN SLAVERY.

A public meeting, in reference to this subject, wu
held on Thursday evening, at the Broadrnead Rooms, Bris-
tol. It was announced that Mr. George Thompson, M.P.,
and the Rev. E. Mathews, missionary from America, would
attend, and give statements on the present aspect of Ameri-
can slavery, and the iniquitous operation of the fugitive
slave law. Routur CHARLITON, Esq., presided, and
there was a very large attendance.

. -
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, stated I
the object for which they were assembled, remarking that
twiny painful details would be given respectina Ord iniqui-
taus law—the fugitive slave law. Both Mr. Thompson and
Mr. Mathews had made great sacrifices in the cause of
freedom, and their lives even had been placed in imminent
peril through their exertions in America.
Mr. STEWART WILLIAMSON moved, "That this!
meeting offers to the Rev. E. Mathews, the agent of the
American Baptist Free Missionary Society, who has re-
cently
received, at the hands of slaveholders the fruits of
their moral degradation, and of his own fidelity to the holy
cause he advocates, the sincere thanks due from ',the
labourers of every christian sect, to one who has nobly
defended the great principles of freedom, fundamental
to them all ; and, that we hereby call on all ministers,
and on all religious societies, especially upon Bri-
tish Baptists, to strengthen the position he has
taken, that churches and ministers, who justify the con-
tinuance of slavery, are ignorant of the principles which
should influence the churches and ministers of Christ, by
testifying their sympathy with those brethren who have
withdrawn from their religious bodies in consequence of the
countenance they afford to slaveholders ; and that we urge
on all churches, congregations, and associations, whose dis-
cipline excludes any criminal from their communion, the
exclusion also of the slaveholders ; and on all ministers who
reject the advocates of other crimes as unfit teachers of
Christian morality, not to admit to their pulpits the advocates
or apologists for slavery."
Mr. JOHN CASH NEELD seconded the motion. He
deprecated the slightest indulgence to planters, who never
showed it to those who differed from them.

The Rev. E. MATHEWS, of Wisconsin, tker addressed
the meeting. He proposed briefly to refer to some of the facts,
showing the condition of the slave population, and also the
efforts of the antialavery activities, now being employed,
to remove the yoke from their brethren. the law in
Virginia was, that any person teaching a slave to read or
write was fined 100 dollars, or six months' imprisonment ;
in North Carolina, the penalty was 200 dollars; in Georgia,
.500 dollars ; in Louisiana, twelve months' imprisonment ;
in Alabama, a fine of 150 dollars was inflicted. In South
Carolina any assembly of slaves, for the purpose of
'mutual instruction, was unlawful, and any magi-
strate might disperse them, and inflict twenty stripes on
such person attending the meeting. There wore only 13 mi-
nisters in the southern states who asserted that slavery was
• sin. Throughout the thirteen states, slavery was sup-
by the ministers as an institution of Heaven!
hop Andrews had stated that there were thousands and
tens of thousands of slaves in America who knew no more
of the gospel than their sable brethren in Africa. In the
Sotehem States there were five millions of non-slave-
holders, three millions of slaves, and only 113,000 slave.
holders. This numerical inferiority appeared to him to be
so great that it was only necessary to enlighten the
minds of the non-slaveholdem, and the work would be dune.
This led him to visit the slaveliold.ng States. He
first went to Virginia ; there there was a law that, who-
ever denied the slaveholder's right to hold property
in slaves, should be find 500 dollars, and be
imprisoned for twelve months. lie then went to Ken-
tucky, and here he might mention that, if a slave crossed
from Kentucky to Ohio, he was then in a state in which,
by the constitution, he could not be a slave. Therefore, to
obviate this, if any of the ferrymen took a slave across the
river, which divided the two States, he had to pay the full
value of that slave. It must be an anti-slavery Christianity
that would do the work, and not a pro-slavery Christianity.
The means of removing slavery were the same as they used
to get rid of intemperance, namely by lectures, prayer, the
press, and the ballot box. In a place in Kentucky, where
he delivered a lecture to the slaves, at the close he was told
that there was a great mob of white men outside. Ile
looked round to see if there was a back door, but there was
none, and, therefore, he had to go out and face them ;
many of them had their faces bound up and had clubs
in their hands. When he came out they asked him if
he was an abolitionist. He answered that, it they meant by
that, that he wished the slaves to rise up and fight, he was
not, but that he believed the slaves ought to be emancipated.
He was mobbed on his way back, and they told him that
they had listened to his sermon to " the niggers," and
if he had said one word about slavery, they would have
come in and dragged him out of the pulpit. He was sub-
sequently followed by four men, armed with bowie knives
and pistols, who seised and blindfolded hint, and dragged
him to a deep ravine, where there was a pond. He was
thrown into this pond no fewer than tea times, till he
promised, at length, to leave Kentucky, and never to return
to it again. Ile would conclude by asking was there not a
duty resting on the ministers of the churches in America to
support the anti-slavery cause ?
The Rev. G. ARMSTRONG moved : That since the
United States of America have, by the passing of the fugi-
tive slave law, drawn the attention of the world to the cha-
racter of their government, in all its several departments,
legislative, constitutional, and judicial, it becomes the duty
of the men of all other nations to use every means, sanc-
tioned by moral, religious, and international law, or the
abolition of American slavery, &system which was produc-
tive of crime, of outrages against justice, and was the dis-
grace of religion, and upheld, as it was, by a nation profes-
sing to lead the van in human progress and improvement,
it was more dangerous to human Society than any form of
iniquity or tyranny on the face of this earth. This meeting
therefore, rejoices in welcoming, on his return from Ame-
rica, George Thompson, EN., 111.1'. for the Tower Hamlets,
formerly so instrumental in the abolition of British Colo-
nial Slavery, who now, for the second time at the risk of
his life, had been helping to strengthen the abolitionist
cause. In this moral cause their country was the world,
sad their countrymen were all mankind.
The Rev. R. MORRIS seconded the resolution.
Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON, M.P. neat addressed the
meeting at , considerable length, warmly advocating the
anti-slavery cause. The topic was an all absorbing oae,
in which Bristol was interested as well as all the rest of
the world. It was twenty years since he had addressed
a Bristol audience. He then had to speak on slavery in
the British colonies. lie denounced it then, and he de-

nounced slavery now as the greatest crime and stain upon
humanity—an insult to God—an unadulterated atheism for
ono human being to claim property in another. (Cheers.)
Mr. Thompson concluded by drawing the attention of the
meeting to the effects of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Other addresses followed of a like character, and resolu-
tions were passed in accordance therewith. The meeting
terminated with a vote of thanks to the chairman.