The bee., 1883-04-21

witnesses, going back to the beginning
of our country and to the very founda-
tion of our government. Our best
men have given their voices and their
votes on the right side of it, through
all olr generations.
1t has been fashionable Of late years
to lenounce it as product of North
ern growth, a Yankee device for dis
turbing and disrupting the bonds OF
the Union and the like, but the facts
of history are ali the other way. The
Anti-Slavery side of the discussion
has a Southern rather than Northern
origin.
The first publication in assertion,
and vindication of any right of the
negro of which | have any knowledge,
was written more than two hundred
years ago, by Rev. Morgan Goodwin,
missionary of Virginia and Jamaica.
The last publication of any consider
able note, of which have any knowl-
edge, is recent article in the Popular
Science Monthly, by Prof. Gillian. The
distance and difference between these
two publications. in point of time,
gives us a gauge by which we may in
good degree measure the progress of
the negro. The book of Goodwin was
published in 1880, and the article of
Gillian was published in 1885. The
space in time between the two is not
greater than the space in morals and
enlightenment. The ground taken in
respect to the negro in the one is low.
The ground taken in respect to the pos
sibilities of the negro in the other is
so high rs to be somewhat startling,
not only to the white man, but also to
the black man.
The book of Morgan Goodwin is a
literary curiosity and an clinical
wonder.
deem myself fortunate in being
the owner of copy of it. met with
it while travelling in England, thirty
seven years ago. | was then abroad
for safety rather than. for health, for at
that time there was no place of safety
for me anywhere under the American
flag or on American soil. An Irish
number one, is safer here now than ]
was then. Our government then had
no tenderness for refugees, however
innocent of crime, if their skins hap
pened to be slightly tanned or their
hair a trifle wOolly. But to return to
DR.. Goodwin and his book; he very evil
IDENTIFY was not a negro worshiper nor
what in our day would be called an
abolitionist. He proposes no disturb
ance of the relation Ofmaster and slave.
On the contrary he conceded the right
of the master to own and control the
body of the negro, but insisted that
the soul of the negro belonged TO the
Lord. His able reasoning on this
point, it is true, left the negro for him
self neither soul nor body. When he
claimed his body, he found that be-
longed to his earthly master, and when
he looked around for his soul, lie found
that that belonged to his master in
Heaven. Nevertheless the ground
taken in this book by DR.. Goodwin was
immensely important. 1t was, in fact
the starting point, the foundation of all
the grand concessions yet made to the
claims, the character, the manhood
and the dignity to the negro. In the
light Of his present acknowledged posi-
teon among men, here and elsewhere,
book to prove the negro's right to
baptism, seems ridiculous, but so it
did not seem two hundred years ago.
Baptism was then a vital and COM
manding question, one with which the
moral and intellectual giants of that
day were required to grapple.
The opposition to baptizing and ad-
mitting the negro to membership in
the christian church, was serious, de-
termined and bitter. That ceremony
was in his case opposed on many
grounds, but especially upon three.
First the negro's unfitness for baptism,
secondly, the nature of the ordinance
itself; and thirdly, because it would
disturb the relation of master and
slave. The coiley shareholders of that
day, were sharp and keen scented, and
snuffed danger from afar. They saw
il this argument or Goodwin, the thin
edge of the wedge which would sooner
or later rend asunder the bonds of
slavery. They sought in piety to
heaven, security for their possessions
on earth, in reverence to God, con-
tempt for man.
They contended that the holy Ordi-
nance of baptism could only be pro-
perly administered to free and respon-
Sible agents, men who in all matters of
moral conduct, could exercise the
sacred right of choice, and this pro-
position was very easily defended.
For plainly enough the negro did not
answer that description. The laws of
the land did not even known him as
a person. He was simply a piece of
property, an article of merchandise
marked and branded as such, and no
more fitted to be admitted to the fell
lowship of saints, than horses, sheep
and swine.
When Chief Justice Taney said that
negroes in those early days had no
rights which white men felt bound to
respect, he only uttered an histori-
cal truth. The trouble was that it
was uttered for an evil purpose, and
made to serve an evil purpose. The
slave was solely answerable for his
conduct to his earthly master. To
thrust baptism and the church between
the slave and his master was a dam
gerous interference with the absolute
authority of the master. The slave
holders were always logical. When
they assumed that slavery was right.