The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-19 00:00:00

NEGRO EMANCIPATION.

A meeting of the friends and supporters of the Emancipa-
tion Society was held at St. James's hall last evening to
hear addresses from various gentlemen upon this subject.
The chair was taken by Mr. W. Evans, president of the
society, and among the principal persons present on the
platform where the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, Professor
F. L. Newman, the Rev. W. Landells, Sir Benjamin Pine,
Mr. Bosley, Mr. J. A. Nicholay, Mr. W. Wilks, the Rev.
J. Stent, Mr. Malleson, Mr. L. A. Chamerovzow, &c. The
great hall was crowded with people.
The CHAIRMAN said that the response given throughout
the whole country to the Exeter-hall meeting must have
convinced all those who imagined there was a lull in the
public mind on this question that though the hatred of
slavery might appear dead it only slumbered. The old
hatred of that atrocious wrong was now as intense in the
hearts of the people as it was in the days when L .rd Derby
introduced his famous measure declaring that the name of
slavery should be erased from our statute-book. This
society had been in existence only two or three months, yet
meetings had been held in every metropolitan borough and
in every large town in England, and associations had been
formed in the Midland Counties and the West Riding To
their detractors they were indebted for having served
their purpose well, and chief among these detractors
he would name the ?Imes. The article in that news-
paper declaring that slavery was consonant with Scripture
had been worth a month's agitation to them. Again, Earl
Russell had used expressions in this matter unworthy of
his name. ("No," and confusion.) He had spoken of this
rebellion of the South as for independence. (Hear, hear.)
Now, if any meaning was to be attached to this word it
meant freedom, and what could freedom mean in the South,
where there were 4,000,000 slaves ? (Cheers.) Another
cause of success was the lamentable exhibition made by the
Lord Mayor in having welcomed Mr. Mason. (Hisses, and
a cry of "Question.") Throughout the country the working
men had taken a noble attitude on this question, and, with
an intuitive perception of what was true to their principies,
and to their country, they took the right stand upon this
question. It was said that the North and South, so dire
was their enmity, could not come together again. Having
travelled through the country, he believed that the intimate
domestic relations existing between the two sections would
lead to their reunion when the monstrous wrong of slavery
was redressed, and America would then become stronger
and more powerful than ever.
Professor NzwmArr passed in review the course of the
struggle in America, and said it would have been criminal
in President Lincoln to have gone to war for slavery. War
was not a weapon which a philanthropist would choose to
wield for the purpose of humanity. Every reasonable and
wise man in the North at the outset sought for freedom
through the Constitution, and desired that slavery should
be extinguished by legal and constitutional means. When,
however, the South broke into rebellion the first thing was
to enforce the law and preserve the Union. Suppose the
South, having missed its spring, had said, " We will come
back to the Union with no submissions and with no condi-
tions." Mr. Lincoln would have received them, and rightly.
The South would then have been cowed, no slavery Presi-
dent would thereafter have been elected, and slavery would
slowly and legally have passed away. He believed that by-
and-bye the poor whites in the South would see that they had
been cheated by the Southern leaders, who had promised
' them the re-opening of the slave-trade, so that each of them
should have a cheap negro to work for him. No doubt, some
of these poor whites had fought against what they regarded
as an attack on their homes and liberties, and when they
came into contact with the North they would see that the
Northern whites were as gentlemen by their side, and that
slavet7 degraded the white man, and was a greater curse to
him even than to the black. When the Union was restored
and slavery extinguished the uncultivated fields of the South
would bear a thousandfold under free labour, and that was
the way in which the expenses of the war, which so much
terrified the Times, would be defrayed. Mr. Newman con-
cluded by moving the following resolution :—•' That the re-
volt of the Southern States of America against the Federal
Government having avowedly originated in the determina-
tion not only to maintain but to extend slavery, and haVing
been followed by the organisation of a Confederacy based
upon the denial of human rights to the negro race, this
meeting indignantly repels the assumption that the English
people sympathise with a rebellion that thus violates every
principle of political justice, or with institutions framed in
defiance of the moral sense of civilised mankind, and which
are an outrage upon the religion the sanction of which has
been claimed for their support."
The Rev. W. LANDELLS, in seconding the motion, said
they had met not as out and out partisans of either North
or South, but to consider whether the success of the South
or of the North was most likely to lead to the liberation of
the slave. Now, it was absurd to suppose that, having
struggled for slavery as the corner-stone of their Confe-
deracy, the South would at once relinquish it when they
obtained their independence, and to any one who held such
a belief he could only say, " 0 man, great is thy faith 1"
The leaders of the South were most likely to know their own
minds, and they had spoken not one word to sho'w that they
had abandoned their old opinions. The South going to
abandon slavery when independent 1 Why, they might as
well say that when the Devil had full s wing he would cease
to do mischief. (Great applause.) It was far more likely
that Southern success would increase the arrogance of the
slaveholders, and that in some years there would be 8,000,000
slaves is the South instead of 4,000,000, Of course the North
were fighting for the Union. They had no right to fight for
anything else. Mr. Lincoln was bound by his oath to main-
tain the Union. It was said that the South were fighting
for freedom. Yes, freedom to enslave others, to flog the
negro, to sell for the vilest purposes their own flesh and
blood, and inflict the worst tyranny upon the weak and de-
fenceless. They were fighting for independence, indeed,
but it was independence of all laws, human and Divine.
What infatuation had come over Englishmen to give their
admiration and sympathy to such men ? How was it that
Mr. Mason, the author of the Fugitive Slave Law, was the
man whom the Mansion house of London delighted to hon-
our ? The maledictions of 10,000 slaves and the hatred of all
true-hearted Englishmen must rest on the Mansion-house
while it admitted to its table such " distinguished guests."
(Loud applause.)

At this stage of the proceedings some confusion was oc-
casioned by a gentleman in the body of the hall, who appa-
rently desired to address the meeting. (Loud cries of " Turn
him out I" however, were raised, and the gentleman, yield-
ing to pressure, was escorted to the door. The Chairman
then announced, amid laughter and cheers, that the author
of the confusion, being a well-behaved man, had left the
meeting.

Mr. G. THOMPSON, in proposing the next resolution, said
that the English people were now bestowing the fullness of
their sympathy upon the cause of freedom, and the absence
of every distinguished and of any respectable manin favour
of the South 'on the public platforms proved, if there were
these who sympathised with the South they were afraid
to unveil their motives. (Here another person in the gallery
ventured to dissent, but order was ultimately restored by his
forcible expulsion, his hat and coat being thrown high in
air after him.) The cause of this war was slavery, and the
desire of Englishmen was that its result should be abolition.
They did not desire so much the success of the North for
the sake of the Union, as the defeat of the South in its
wicked and malevolent attempt to found an aristo-
cratic form of government upon the basis of negro
slavery. The Confederates were only fighting for indepen-
dence as a means to an end, that end being the reduction of
God's immortal creatures into the condition of slaves. As
for Mr. Mason, author of the Fugitive Slave Law, the
Newgate Calendar did not contain the name of so black a
felon, of so conspicuous a rebel against God, and so dire an
enemy of man, as he who was recently entertained at the
Mansion-house. The hospitality of the city was wantonly
and flagrantly abused on that occasion, for Mr. Mason was
a man stealer, and as a man-stealer and as a fugitive-slave
kidnapper he was not worthy to loose the latchet of any
gentlemanly highwayman. (Loud laughter and applause.)
He might be speaking in the hearing of Mr. Mason, and, if
so, he told him that there was one man in England, who
knew him, and who dared and defied him to meet face to
face and foot to foot in manly combat in the presence of an
audience like this. (Loud applause, and a voice, " Put
that in the papers.") Having traced the antecedents
of Mr. Mason, in the course of which another dissentient,
who reminded the meeting that Paul once sent back a
fugitive slave, was immediately expelled, Mr. Thompson
said the city of London was disgraced and the people of
England belied by the Mansion-house hospitality. Until
a man should fill the civic chair better able to discriminate
who were worthy to receive the hospitality of the city of
London, " Ichabod " would be written on the portico of the
Mansion-house, and those citizens of London who would
revive the glories of their ancient municipality should shun
the banquet-room of Lord Mayor Rose, lest they were