The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-15 00:00:00

ANTI-SLAVERY MEETING.

A meeting, convened by the council of the Anti-
slavery League, was held last night, at six o'clock, in
Exeter Hall, for the purpose, as expressed by the circa.
lar, "of reviewing the proceedings of the Evangelical
Alliance, in relation to American slavery and American
slaveholders." There were considerably above 3,000
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speaking, the audience was most respectable.
Among those on the platform we distinguished Wil-
liam and Mary Howitt, William Lloyd Garrison, from
America, George Thompson, Esq., Frederick Douglas,
the escaped slave from Maryland, the Rev. John Bur-
nett, the Rev. Charles Williams, the Rev. Preston, of
Euston-square, George Sturge, Esq., Dr. Thomas Price,
J. R. Darley, Esq., U.S., George Piikington, Esq.,
Thomas Sheffield, Esq., of Carlisle, Thomas Sturge,
Esq., William Lovett, Esq., &c., &c.
On the motion of Mr. Smith, the Rev. John Burnett
was called on to preside.
The CHAIRMAN then rose, and said that the position
he then occupied was an unusual one to him. He was
to be found generally on either the right or the left of
the chair, but he had never before been placed in a situa-
tion so disagreeable to himself personally. They were
then met on an occasion of the greatest importance to all
the friends of freedom throughout the world. They had
had a meeting in that Hall recently of a body of persons
for an object the noblest in purpose that could come
before men, namely, the joining Christian brethren in
the bonds f brotherhood, but he (the Chairman) con-
sidered that this object might have been further extended
if it had occurred to them that there were other parties
existing, whose claims upon their considerations ought
to be remembered. The question of slavery was
not altogether overlooked ; it was introduced and
largely discussed, and a resolution was adopted, to
which all parties looked with some degree of regret—
namely, that all might be brothers in Christ, and mem-
bers of the Evangelical Alliance, who held slaves against
their will, or not for their own interests.—(Hear, hear.)
Now, it did not appear to him that a man was to be re-
ceived with open arms into a Christian community, when
he told them that, although he was inflicting a grievous
injury on his fellow-creatures, it was against his will.—
(Hear, hear,) That resolution was afterwards rescinded
by the Alliance, and the question was left in abey-
ance. But if the American brethren returned to
their countrymen, and told them that slavery
was a question which England would hold in
abeyance, they would thereby inflict a great wrong on
the slaves in that country.—(Hear, hear.) They were,
therefore, met that night to tell them that the judgment
of the Alliance was not the judgment of England—
(Cheers)—they were met that night to show that the
judgment of the Alliance was but the judgment of a
small number, though they were gathered from the three
United Kingdoms, from America, and the Continent.
But the Ainerican delegates did not even represent the
feeling of America, for there wag a strong party
there, which was daily strengthening—a party
represented that night by their friend Mr. Lloyd
Garrison, and by Frederick Douglas, himself
a slave. They would find from them, that even, as
he had stated in America itself, the force conjoined with
them in their disapprobation of the course pursued by the
Evangelical Alliance was by no means unworthy of their
admiration. But he would not detain them longer from
those who could give thew more information than he of
the state of slavery in America. For himself he never
had but one idea of slavery for the last 30 years, and
that idea was that in all cases it is a crime—a crime
which no assembly of human beings ought to counte-
nance—a crime which all Christians ought to oppose to
the uttermost. They world now hear the statements of
William Lloyd Garrison, whom he would at once intro-
duce to them.

Mr. W. LLOYD GARRISON then stood forward, and.
after a few introductory remarks, proceeded to read
extracts from the speeches and resolutions delivered,
passed, or rescinded at the meetings of the Evangelical
Alliance, held lately in Exeter Hall and the Freemasons'
Tavern, commenting on these as he went on, and ex-
hibiting the anti-liberal and bigoted spirit which
througout pervaded them. The address, which, from
its nature, was peculiarly dry, was scarcely relished by
the audience, who exhibited their impatience more than
once in so marked a manner, that the Chairman was
obliged to interfere in order to obtain a hearing. The
speaker concluded by moving the following resolutions:

" That, whereas, there are three millio'ns of human
beings in slavery in the United States of America, sub-
jected every moment to the liabilities attaching to every
other description of property ; a condition in which,
while as respects rights and privileges, they are ranked
with the clods and creeping things of the earth, they are,
in respect of the laws framed to enforce their submis-
sion, subjected to a responsibility more than human ; a
condition, the essential element in the preservation of
which is, the virtual annihilation of their accountable-
ness to God, and the substitution of the absolute will of
the master, as the only law they are to obey ; a condi-
tion in which the attempt to improve and exercise their
deathless faculties is regarded and treated as a crime ;
a condition, finally, entailed upon their posterity to the
latest generation.

" Therefore, resolved—That we regard American
slavery as a sin of unrivalled magnitude, demanding the
condemnation of every human being who respects the
law of God, or recognises the principle of natural jus-
tice and the equal rights of man.
" Whereas it is a self-evident truth that where there is
sin there must be a sinner; and that when the sinner
ceases to exist, the sin of which he was guilty ceases to
be ; and whereas American slavery is not merely a
'sinful system' or 'institution,' but a series of sinful
acts, perpetrated by individuals, each of whom is sepa-
rately responsible ; and whereas, when slavery becomes
law, and assumes the form and stability of a social in-
stitution, the individual is not in consequence released
from his responsibility to obey the law of God, and to
cease from doing evil ; but is, on the contrary, laid
under an obligation to bear testimony against the un-
righteous enactment :

Therefore, resolved—That we repudiate the doc-
trine that slavery as a system, or institution, or thing
existing in the form of law, is sin, while the slave-holder,
for whose benefit the law or institution has been framed,
and who is directly the perpetrator of the wrong, is inno
cent, and is entitled to be received into society, and
even into the church, as a respectable and
Christian man. In our judgment, this doctrine
involves the monstrous principle that sin ceases to be
sin when sanctioned by human law, and interwoven with
the texture of society—a doctrine which would, under
similar circumstances, justify polygamy, piracy, idolatry,
or any other sin that should obtain the sanction of a
legal enactment, or be elevated to the dignity of a social
institution. _ _

"Resolved—That the relation of master and slave,
when defined and sanctioned by law, is by that very pro-
cess rendered a more inexcusable sin on the part of
all who come into it as slaveholders, seeing they
assume the relation with a full knowledge of its unutter-
able horrors and fearful responsibilities, and of the per-
petual wrongs to the slave necessarily involved in it ;
and therefore the slave laws of America, instead of ex-
tenuating the guilt of living slaveholders, do, in reality,
enhance their criminality, and make them justly charge-
able with all the guilt connected with the administration
of those laws, which, by the relation they have assumed,
they practically sanction and uphold.
" That the conduct of the Evangelical Alliance re-
cently held in this city—first, in adopting a declaration
that persons may be slaveholders without any fault of
their own, and from disinterested motives, and thus be
entitled to Christain fellowship and membership in that
body ; and finally, to propitiate the pro-slavery spirit of
American delegates, in erasing from their proceedings
all reference to the subject of slavery, in order to pre-
vent an open rupture, deserves the condemnation of
every uncompromising friend of the rights of humanity,
as an abandonment of the cause of the slave, and a virtual
approval of the acts of his oppressor."
The Rev. JOHN PRESTON, Baptist Minister, Euston-
square, defended the Alliance from some of the impu-
tations cast upon them by Mr. Garrison in the course
of his speech.
Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON, in a long and eloquent
speech, ;,n the course of which he was repeatedly and
enthusi• Astically cheered, seconded the resolutions.
He v ras followed by Mr. FREDERICK DOUGLAS, who
drew • la affecting picture of the sufferings of the slaves
in the•,gouthern states, cud the effints which were made