The earlier legislation of the Churches occurred in connection with these schemes of State emancipation. In the measures adopted by the ecclesiastical courts, generally, they only aimed at a friendly coöperation with the civil authorities. But while this was substantially the case, they, at the same time, used language of general application, guarding it, however, by exceptions as to the States which had not passed emancipation laws. The clergymen of the South readily acquiesced in the measures proposed. As ambassadors of Christ, they were to proclaim his Gospel to fallen men. Where no hindrance existed to the performance of their duties, they were not concerned about the repeal or modification of civil laws. As they were not required by their northern brethren to unchurch believing slaveholders, or to make war upon the institutions of the Southern States, they were perfectly willing to allow northern clergymen, in turn, the fullest latitude in their experiments upon the negro at the North. So long as they of the South were exempted from the rules adopted on slavery, they cared not what terms of church fellowship were imposed at the North.* It was a great problem that was about to be solved. Could the negro population be rendered more accessible to the Gospel by freedom, or would the restraints of slavery, properly regulated, afford equal advantages in laboring for their conversion. The test, so far as it had been made in the West Indies, where the planters opposed the missionaries, had been unfavorable to the theory that slavery might not be adverse to the work of the Gospel among the blacks; but this did not discourage efforts at the South, where the masters acknowledged their Christian obligations, and were willing to have the precepts of religion taught to their slaves. Practically, the question at issue between the ecclesiastics of the North and the South was this: Can the negro be evangelized while in slavery? Southern clergymen accepted the challenge, New Hampshire, on Feb. 8, 1792, by Legislature. New Jersey, on July 4, 1804, by Legislature. See the Rules of the Methodist Church, on a subsequent page. and, to test this question, proceeded to enlarge their fields of operation for the conversion of the slaves. They did this the more confidently, because they were not about to enter upon an untried experiment. Already had the Gospel made considerable progress among the blacks. The Methodists, in 1793, report 16,227 colored members in their churches, while, in 1787, they had but 1,890-such had been their rapid increase. From some cause, perhaps the working of the emancipation laws, the membership was reduced, in 1795, to 12,170.* From other denominations we have no regular statistics for this period. In the history of the Presbyterians, however, it is stated that the work of the religious instruction of the blacks had been commenced as early as 1747, in Virginia, with very encouraging success. In one congregation in that State, in 1755, about 500 colored members are reported, and about an equal number in another congregation. In a third congregation, some time later, 200 are reported, for the care of whom black men had been ordained as elders. It is further stated, that multitudes of the colored people, in different places, were willingly and eagerly desirous to be instructed in religion.† 2. Opinions of Revolutionary Statesmen upon the subject of Negro Slavery, and the propriety and prospects of Emancipation. Before proceeding to contrast the results of the efforts, North and South, in behalf of the blacks, it may be well to notice, more at large, the opinions entertained, in relation to the negro race and the propriety of emancipation, by some of our statesmen, subsequent to the Revolution. * See Minutes of Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The statistics of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as presented in the published Minutes of that denomination, first separate the colored from the white members in 1787. From this date to 1795, the returns are given by congregations, as follows: † Hand Book of the Slavery Question, by Rev. John Robinson. On the question of negro equality, by emancipation, and the social and civil commingling of the two races, black and white, Mr. Jefferson took negative ground. He was inclined to consider the African inferior "in the endowments both of body and mind" to the European; and, while expressing his hostility to slavery earnestly, vehemently, he avowed the opinion that it was impossible for the two races to live equally free in the same government that "nature, habit, opinion, had drawn indelible lines of distinction between them" that accordingly, emancipation and "deportation" (colonization) should go hand in hand-and that these processes should be gradual enough to make proper provisions for the blacks in a new country, and fill their places in this with free white laborers. * That Mr. Jefferson was considered as having no settled plans or views in relation to the disposal of the blacks, and that he was disinclined to risk the disturbance of the harmony of the country for the sake of the negro, appears evident from the opinions entertained of him and his schemes by John Quincy Adams. After speaking of the zeal of Mr. Jefferson, and the strong manner in which, at times, he had spoken against slavery, Mr. Adams says: "But Jefferson had not the spirit of martyrdom. He would have introduced a flaming denunciation of slavery into the Declaration of Independence, but the discretion of his colleagues struck it out. He did insert a most eloquent and impassioned argument against it in his Notes on Virginia; but, on that very account, the book was published almost against his will. He projected a plan of general emancipation, in his revision of the Virginia laws, but finally presented a plan leaving slavery precisely where it was; and, in his Memoir, he leaves a posthumous warning to the planters that they must, at no distant day, emancipate their slaves, or that worse will follow; but he withheld the publication of his prophecy till he should himself be in the grave." † Mr. Jefferson was not alone in his views of the difficulties attending emancipation. Dr. Franklin, in 1789, as President of *Randall's Life of Jefferson, vol. I, page 370. † Life of John Quincy Adams, pages 177, 178. the PENNSYLVANIA ABOLITION SOCIETY, issued an appeal for aid to enable his society to form a plan for the promotion of industry, intelligence, and morality among the free blacks, and he zealously urged the measure on public attention, as essential to their wellbeing, and indispensable to the safety of society. He expressed his belief, that such is the debasing influence of slavery on human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils; and that so far as emancipation should be promoted by the society, it was a duty incumbent on its members to instruct, to advise, to qualify those restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty. The state of public sentiment, at this period, on the subject of emancipation, was stated by Mr. Jefferson, January 24, 1786, in his answers to questions propounded by M. de Meuisner: "I conjecture there are 650,000 negroes in the five Southern States, and not over 50,000 in the rest. In most of these latter, effectual measures have been taken for their future emancipation. In the former, nothing is done toward that. The disposition to emancipate them is strongest in Virginia. Those who desire it, form, as yet, the minority of the whole State, but it bears a respectable portion of the whole in numbers and weight of character, and it is continually recruiting by the addition of nearly the whole of the young men as fast as they come into public life. I flatter myself it will take place there at some period of time not very distant. In Maryland and North Carolina a very few are disposed to emancipation. In South Carolina and Georgia, not the smallest symptom of it, but, on the contrary, these two States, and North Carolina, continue importations of slaves. These have long been prohibited in all the other States."* These statements of Mr. Jefferson, made the year preceding the founding of Sierra Leone, contradict the claims set up in modern times, that the sentiments of the fathers of the Republic, were almost unanimously in favor of emancipation. Dr. Franklin, too, as above quoted, while favoring emancipation, was convinced that many difficulties and dangers surrounded that policy, both to the negroes themselves and to society, unless the means of instruction should accompany their admission to freedom. Jefferson's Complete Works, vol. IX, page 290. Time has shown that the views of Dr. Franklin were the most rational of all those who wrote upon the subject of emancipation. 3. Effects of Freedom upon the Negroes of the United States, previous to West India Emancipation. The tone of the ecclesiastical legislation, up to 1830, will be seen by reference to the chapters on that subject. It was conservative in its character, generally, and in some instances agreed with the opinions expressed by Franklin. But it partook of the foreign type, strongly indicating that the disposition of clergymen to interfere in civil affairs, would be the same here, in this free government, that it had been in Europe for centuries. past. Yet, notwithstanding this zeal for emancipation, the moral culture of the free colored people, may be said to have been almost totally neglected; and their degradation, throughout the North, had become so much a matter of public notoriety, as to lead to the adoption of Colonization, as the only hope of their elevation. Their separation from the whites was considered essential to their moral redemption. This had become the prevalent sentiment from 1816 to 1830. Why had this opinion been adopted? Why had not the moral progress of the blacks kept pace with their advancement in personal freedom? Leaving these questions to the reader, we shall proceed to the statement of the results which followed the emancipation of the blacks : "How far Franklin's influence failed to promote the humane object he had in view, may be inferred from the fact that, forty-seven years after Pennsylvania passed her act of emancipation, and thirty-eight after he issued his appeal, one-third of the convicts in her penitentiary were colored men; though the preceding census showed that her slave population had almost wholly disappeared-there being but two hundred and eleven of them remaining, while her free colored people had increased in number to more than thirty thousand. Few of the other free States were more fortunate, and some of them were even in a worse condition-one-half of the convicts in the penitentiary of New Jersey being colored men. "But this is not the whole of the sad tale that must be recorded. Gloomy as was the picture of crime among the colored people of New Jersey, that of Massachusetts was vastly worse. For though the num |