Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1853-06-29
The Church AM, slavery.

Extracts from the speech Of Dr.. Ross of Tenn,
in the New School Assembly at Buffalo, in reply
to the resolutions of inquiry concerning slavery
Sir, why do your Northern church members
and phllanthropsts buy Southern products al all {?
You know you are purchasing cotton, rice, sugar,
sprnk.ed with blood, literally, you say, from the
lash of the driver! Why do You buy? WHATS
the difference between my flching this blood
stained cotton from the outraged negro and your
standing by taking it from me? What's the DIFF
ference2 You yourselves say, in your abstrac-
tons, there is no difference; and yet you daily
stain your hands in this horrd traffic. You hate
the traitor, but you love the treason. Your ladies'
too, q how they shun the slave-owner at a dis
tanee, in the abstract. But, alas, when they see
him in the concrete; when they see the slave
owner himseJ, standing before then-rot the bru
tai driver, but the splendid gentleman, with his
unmistakable grace of carriage and ease of man
ners-why 10, behold, the lady says. go fie on
your slavery; what a vretch you are! But, In
Decd sir, love your sugar; and truly, truly, sir,
,cretch as you are, love you too" Your gentle
men talk just the same way when they behDld our
matchless women. And well for Us all it is that
your good taste and hearts can thus appreciate our
genius, and accomplishments, and destinations and
loneliness, and sugar, and cotton. Why. sir, |
heard this morning from:on pastor only OF two or
three of his members thus intermaried in the
South. May thus give the mildest rebnke to
your inconsistency of conduct? Much good ma
tured 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 the charity of emancipating the slave You
have left us, unaided, to give millions. Will you
now come to our help? viii you give dollar for
dollar to egualize our loss? Here many voices
cried out, ''Yes, yes, we will!"l Yes, yes?
Then pour out your millions. Good! l may
thank you personally. My own emancipated slaves
would o-day be worth greatly more than twenty
| thousand dollars. VIII you give me back ten
thousand dolars2 Good! need it now.
have little to say OF Spirit Rappers,, Woman,s-
rights Conventioniss, BlGomers, cruel husbands,
or hen-pecked. But, if weiaay believe your own
serious as well as caricature writers, you nave
things up here of which we down Soath KNOW We
ry little indeed. Sir, we have no young Bloom
ers, with hat to one side cigar in mouth and cane
tapping the boot, striding up TO mincing young
gentlemen, with long curls, attenuated waist, and
soft velvet face, the boy-lady to say, "May see
you home, sir 2' and the lady-boy to reply, 81
thank We, no; pa will send the carriage" Sir,
we of the South don't understand your womens
rights conventions Women have their wrongs.
ss'The song of the shirt"-Charlotte Elzabath-
many, many laws tell her wrongs. But your con-
vention ladies despise the Bible. Yes, sir; and
we of the South are afraid of them, and for you.
| When women despise the Bible, what next?-
Pais-then the City Of the Great Salt Lake
then Sodon,, before and after The Dead Sea- Oh,
sir, if slavery tends, in any way, TO give the hon
on of chiralry to Southern young gentlemen TO-
wards ladies', and the exquisite delicacy and heav-
emily integrity and love to Southern maid and mat
ron, it has then glorious blessing with its curse
| / beg leave 10 say, just here, that Tennessee
will be more calm under this movement than any
other slave region. Tennessee has been ever high
above the storm, north and south-especally we
of the mountains. Tennessee, "there she is
look at her"-binding this Union together, like
great long, broad, deep stone--more splendid than
| all in the temple Of Baalbec or Solomon. Ten
nessee, there she is in her calm valor. | will not
lower her by calling her unconquerabe, for she
has never been assailed-but | call her ever-vc-
torious. s-mounain-her pioneer battles.
Talledega, Emuclau. Horseshoe, New Orleans,
San Jacinto. Monterey, the valley of Mexico
Jackson represented her WE'LL in his chivalry from
South Carolina, his fiery courage from Virginia
and Kentucky, all tempered by Scotch-Irish Pres
byteran prudence from Tennessee. We, in his
spirit, have looked this storm for years untrou-
bled. Yes, Jackson's old bones ratified in their
grave when that infamous .disunion convention
| met in Nashville, and its members turned pale
and fled aghast Yes, Tennessee, in her mighty
million, feels secure, and in her perfect prepara-
ton to discuss this question, politically, ecclesias
ticaly, morally, metaphysically, or physically,
with the extreme North or South; she is willing
and able to persuade others TO be calm. In this
connection, wish to say, for the South to the
North, and to the world, that we have no fears
from our slave population. There might be mo-
mentary instruction and bloodshed, but destruc
ton to the black man would be inevitable. The
Greeks and Romans controlled immense masses OF
white slaves, many of them as intelligent as their
lords. Schoolmasters, fabulists, and poets were
slaves. Athens, with her thirty thousand free
men. governed half million of bond men. Sim
gle Roman partricians owned thirty thousand
If then. the phalanx and the legion mastered such
slaves for ages when battle was physical force of
man TO man, how certain it is that infantry, cav
airy, and artillery could hold in bondage millions
of Africans for thousand years.
But, dear brethren, our Southern philanthropisis
do not seek to have this unending bondage. On.
no. no and earnestly entreat you to ''stand still
and see the salvation Of the Lord" Assume
mastery inactivity, and you will behold all you
desire and pray for. You will see .4oerica libe-
rated from the curse Of slarery.
! | am satisfied with the tendencies of things. |
stand ON the mountain peak, above the clouds.
see, far beyond the storm, the calm sea and blue
sky. see the Canaan of the African. like to
stand there on the Nebo of his exodus, and look
across. not the Jordan, but the Atlantic. | see
the African crossing, certainly as if gazed up
on the ocean divided by a great wind, and piled
up in walls ofgreen glittering glass on either hand
the dry ground. the marching host, and the pill
lar of cloud and Of fire. look ever upon the Nj
per. black with death to the white man--lnstlnct
with life to the children of Ham. There is the
black mans home. Oh! how strange that you OF
the North see not how You degrade him when you
keen him here. You will not let him vote. You
will not let him rise to honors or social equality
You will not let him hold apew in your churches.
Send him away then. Tell him BECOME BE ur-
gent like the Egyptians send him out of this
land. There, in his fatherand. he will exhibit
his own type of Christianity He is of all races
the most gentle and kind. The man, the most
submissive; the ,uonlan, the most affectionate-
What other slaves would love their masters bet
tor than themselves; rpcky Them and fan them in
their cradles caress them, how tenderly, boys and
girls; honor them, grown up, as superior beings
and in thousands Industrious instances be willing
to give life and in fact die to serve or save them
Verify, verify, this emancipated race may reveal
the most amable form Of spiritual life, and the
je,oel may glitter on the Ethiop's brow in mean
ing more sublime than all in the poets imagery
Brethren. let them go; and when they are gone
aye. before they go away-Tear monument; lei
it grow in greatness if not on your highest lnoun
tain, in your hearts, in lasting memory OF the