From Charleston Mercury editor

In the context of articles on the New York riots, here are excerpts from the Charleston editor:  “Our northern brethren may hence learn that it is high time TO LET THE SOUTH ALONE.  Leave us our property and institutions without attempting directly or indirectly to interfere with them. Let no more attempts be made to seduce our colored population to leave those ‘fair fields’ !! where their labor is so eminently beneficial to themselves, and the whole country, and where, and where a system of discipline prevails , admirably adapted to their character and habits.  …………”

Excerpt from the Richmond Enquirer.   This appears in the section of the paper, titled, Refuge of Oppression, a section which had previously been named,  Slavery Record,
And contains proslavery views:

 “……..Every sane man in the northern states surely requires no argument to convince him, that the project of abolition and intermixture with the whites is too revolting to all our sensibilities, and too pernicious to the very safety of the South, to be entertained for a single moment.

            “What then do those madmen desire?  To excite a spirit of dissatisfaction among the slaves?  to shed our blood?  and to cause torrents of theirs to flow in the south?

           “The South, therefore appeals in the most respectful spirit to the North.  Will you permit these vile fanatics to go in their audacious career? —Will you suffer your soil to be used for the purpose of planting the lever to agitate ours?  We call upon you to interfere.  As citizens of the same Republic; as bound to carry out in good faith the theory of the compact which binds us together,  we beseech to put down these incendiaries?   What would you say if your own operatives were to become discontented and rebellious !! threatening your houses with the torch and your families with the knife……”

Under the “Slavery Record”  There is a record of a meeting of the proslavery citizens of Athens and Limestone County, to consider how to respond to “an organized band of abolition fanatics of the northern states”  naming some of them with a capitalization of  “Birney”, “whose sole and avowed object is to sow the seed of discord, rapine, and murder among the slaves of the south   ……. Shall we fold our arms and be still until  the storm sweeps over us and the  earth shakes beneath us?  No.  We declare to the world that we will defend our liberties and our property which the constitution of our country has guaranteed to us; but having rights and knowing them, we shall dare maintain them….”
In resolutions the meeting then goes on to appoint a “committee of vigilance” whose duty it shall be to apprehend any suspicious persons and bring them before the committee for examination. 

The issues then includes a long response from Birney, beginning of page 1 and continued on page 4. 

Includes a listing of resolutions passed at an Anti-Abolition meeting, Sept 18, 1835, at the Barnesville Court House,  (city or town not given)  So. Carolina, essentially these all call upon citizens to defend the right to own slaves, and condemns abolitionist attempts to interfere with domestic policies.   An introduction refers to the resolutions which passed at this meeting as, “some of which can equal the worst principles ever spoken or written since the creation of the world.  If such be the general sentiments of this state, …..then their state is lost beyond recovery, to any redeeming good.”

South Carolina Presbytery & Methodist General Conference The S.C. Presbytery asserts that:

“Slavery has existed in the Church of God from the time of Abraham to this day. Members of the church of God have held slaves bought with their money, and born in their houses, and this relation is not only recognized, but its duties are defined clearly in both the Old and the New Testaments.”

With these words, and several separate resolutions, the body affirms the Christian right to own slaves. Then from the Methodist General Conference, meeting in Cincinnati, May 13: A resolution adopted disapproves “in the most unqualified sense, the conduct of two members of the General Convention, who are reported to have lectured in this city recently, upon and in favor or modern abolitionism.” Ayes 122, Nays ll

Ezra Stiles Ely writes of a slave he owns and who serves him willingly, and then goes on to excoriate abolitionists from the north.  While some southerners show too much patience with abolitionists,  they may be much more easily excused  “than the cold-blooded recklessness of many abolitionists,  who seem willing to deluge our southern country in blood, or dissolve the union on a questionable point of morality, which has not practical bearing on themselves…”  He then goes on to declare himself a friend of colonization, and would like to see every state adopt laws of gradual emancipation,  but concludes that Congress has no right to interfere with any slaveholding State.

Jan 15, 1838, from the National Intelligencer, comes the report of an address by Robert Barnwell Rhett, to the people of Beaufort and Colleton Districts, upon the Subject of Abolition.

The speech includes:   “That the south has a right, under the Constitution, to the peaceable enjoyment of her slave institutions,  no one will deny;  and if the Constitution is perverted from the purposes for which it was made, and proves inadequate to protect the South from aggression upon this vital institution, none but an abolitionist, open or secret, in the North, or a traitor in the South, could fail to come to the conclusion that the Constitution ought to be amended, or the Union be dissolved.  To acknowledge the right, or to tolerate the interference at all with this institution, is to GIVE IT UP  –TO ABANDON  IT  ENTIRELY;  and as this must be the consummation of any interference, the sooner it is reached, the better.  …..”

Under Refuge of Oppression, the record of a public meeting in Jefferson County, Mississippi.

Here is an assertion that “the citizens of the State of Mississippi have the constitutional right to hold such persons as were slaves within the United States prior to 1808, and their descendents, who have not been lawfully emancipated, and who now are within its territory, to servitude………we hold the property in our slaves, under the broad sanction of the constitution of the United States ……”

From the New Lisbon (Ohio) Aurora.   An account of a meeting in the Protestant Methodist Church, which had previously experienced “the awful flagellations of Abby Kelley’  inflicted on them,  and then two preachers denounced the American Anti-Slavery Society “as an infidel organization, and the Rev. Masonic elder poured forth his little spite on the head of Abby in no stinte manner..    But no such oppressors do hurt her influence, for the people will go and hear, not withstanding the clerical bulls to the contrary……”

Some sample lines from this::

Who was the first Negro?    Cain
How did he become so?   The Lord set a black mark upon him
Did the Southern slaves come from him?   Yes
How did they get through the flood?   O, No! They didn’t come from him; they came from Ham.
How do you know that?      Because, Ham means black.
Upon whom did Noah pronounce a curse?    Upon Ham
Does the Bible say so?     No; it says Canaan, but then it means Ham.
Does the curse make it right that the blacks should be enslaved?    Yes
Why?  Because it says they should be.
……..
Was Paul a good man?    Yes, he was a holy Saint
What did he do?      He sent back a runaway slave.
What was his advice, and that of the other apostles, to the slaves?
To abide in their calling, and to be obedient to their masters.
…….
What does US stand for?     US
Who has a right to say so?    Nobody, but the slaveholders.
What does U.S.A. stand for?    United Slaveholding America