Robert Lewis Dabney

“ For this would be equivalent to saying, that the religious consciousness of a negro, because he is a negro, is a so much truer vehicle of the mind of the Spirit, than that of a white man, that the assumption of any black candidate for the ministry is better entitled to credit as the voice of the Spirit, than the refusal of a whole church of educated, pious, enlightened, white Presbyterians. The force of abolition frensy could no farther go. No, sir, there is no adequate proof of God's call, until the church freely recognizes and seconds it. ”

“ Now, by what right can any man, black or white, assume that he is unquestionably commissioned of God to teach and rule in this church, when this church distinctly demurs that her God, whose Spirit is as much in her heart as in the man most certainly called, has not prompted her to accept and prefer that particular man's teaching? By what right will any man on this floor assume that the body of our pious and enlightened laity has rejected God's voice in this thing, and has wickedly mistaken an old caste prejudice for a scriptural disqualification ”

“ It is a result which, we well know, the astute architects of our ruin clearly foresee and intend; and for the procuring of which they provide, when they implore the political equality of the negro, with a cunning inspired by their own master, the devil. They know mankind, in its weaknesses and baseness. They have measured accurately the degrading effects of subjugation, of poverty, of grinding oppression, of despair, upon a people once chivalrous. ”

“ Can you tell them to take dismissions and join a white church elsewhere? Distance may forbid. Besides, you will be bound by that jewel, consistency, to tell them that such a solution of their trouble would be wholly out of the question. You made race and colour no obstacle to putting this negro equal to yourselves; how can you encourage these white members in making them a pretext to rend a church roll? Consistency will require you to say to them, "Remain and submit." So, there you have a black pastor to white families, clothed with official title to ask their experimental, heart secrets ”

“ And now, our conquerors and oppressors, after committing the crime of murder against our noble old commonwealth, and treading us down with the armed heel, are practising to add to every atrocious injury, the loathesome insult of placing the negro's feet upon our necks. This day we are threatened with evils, through negro supremacy and spoliation, to whose atrocity the horrors of the late war were tender mercies. ”

“ Were not the only black ministers ordained by our church since the war, all three ordained in flagrant violation of the constitution? There has broken out among many a sort of morbid craving to ordain negroes; to get their hands on their heads. Indeed it seems to be a fatality attending that moral and mental malaria which infects the age, that when people become interested about this unfortunate race, they must take leave of their own good sense, and grow extravagant, hasty, and inconsiderate. ”

“ It has been argued here that the gospel is a religion for universal man, and that participation in the blessings of redemption is decided, not by any reference to race, class, or social grade, but by the person's faith and repentance alone. This blessed truth, it is presumed, every true christian joyfully believes. We have been reminded of the apostle Peter, who was taught by vision not to "call that common which God had cleansed," and was thus forced to overcome his prejudices of caste, and receive Gentiles to an equal place in the Church with Jews. ”

“ Moderator, the doctrine I oppose involves covertly the whole conclusion of the abolitionist. If, as is here argued, membership in Christ's church secures to all, irrespective of class and condition, the indefeasible right to church office; and if the civil government imposes on a class of Christians a condition practically inconsistent with their enjoying such spiritual franchise; then that secular order is intrinsically anti-christian and unrighteous. For the soul is above the body; eternity is more than time; man's spiritual liberties are more indefeasible than any social relation ”

“ Were you traveling in Mexico, assailed by bandits, wounded, dragged from your carriage, bound to a tree, and looking with a bleeding pate upon the rifling of your baggage, if you were called on to state, then and there, how exceedingly you desired the spiritual good of the yellow-skinned barbarians who were persecuting you, it is to be presumed that you would beg to be excused, under the circumstances. So I, for one, make no professions of special love for those who are, even now, attempting against me and mine the most loathsome outrages. ”

“ Does it imply that we may properly decide that the evidence of God's call and qualification is fatally defective, where an insuperable difference of race, made by God and not by man, and of character, and social condition, makes it plainly impossible for a black man to teach and rule white Christians to edification? ”

“ Why attach our Presbyterianism to a doomed cause, to a type of opinion predestined to be exploded, and to leave, for all time, naught behind it but a savour of odium and abhorrence, clearing for generations to all who have afflicted us with it? ”

“ Now then, gentlemen, come with me, and let us see whither this iron consistency in which you boast will lead us. You say that if a negro appears to have a scriptural call and qualification, you have no option, but must make him your own co-presbyter, and ecclesiastical equal.—Thus, at once, he becomes a joint ruler over white churches; he must sit, and speak, and vote among you. ”

“ Sir, the wisest masters in Israel, a John Newton, an Alexander, a Whitefield, have told us, that although grace may save a man's soul, it does not destroy his natural idiosyncrasy, this side of heaven. If you trust any portion of power over your Church to black hands, you will rue it. ”

“ There is manifestly an unhealthy restlessness about the ordination of black men. Let this overture pass the Assembly, and you will soon see it made the occasion for violating our standards, at the prompting of quixotic and romantic generosity towards this unfortunate race, and for introducing some into our ministry, as much unfitted for it by attainments and character, as by colour. ”

“ Tell me not that there is any true regard for the negro's good in these people, when I have before me the proof of their cruel indifference to both the bodies and souls of their own free blacks, and their recent perpetration upon the Southern negroes, of the most enormous crime of the century, at the bidding of factious zeal. ”

“ For, as I have shown, the setting up of black men to rule white Presbyterians, is, on every account, not for the church's true edification. Here it may be added, it would be as mischevious to the souls of the blacks, as it is odious to the whites. ”

“ The universality of gospel blessings to all believers does not carry with it a universal right to church office, as was asserted. God has often restrained the latter, on grounds of class, or natural distinction, where he has conceded the former. God has given to his church discretion to restrain it for similar cause, in suitable unrevealed instances. The Church has in every age exercised this lawful discretion, for her own general edification. The case of the negroes among us presents just such an instance, where the wise exercise of the scriptural discretion is proper. ”

“ Had not the Apostle himself been a murderer? Or on the grounds that they were still living in sin; for this would also have excluded them from the Church. It is an exclusion on grounds of class, and independent of the question of their faith and repentance. Thus we have three instances, confirmed by inspiration itself, showing that the supposed consequence does not hold, and that it is not true that all distinctions of class are abolished as to church office, because they are abolished as to church membership. ”

“ All the time, there was a multitude of free negroes in the North and in the South; but no Presbyterian asked that one of these should be made equal to us as teacher and ruler over white men in our church: and south of the Potomac, no free black was ordained, so far as I know, even to preach to our servants. The second reason is, that man's spiritual interests are more priceless than his secular; that the church, the guardian of the former, is independent of all but Christ in caring for them ”

“ The only appreciable effect it can have will be to agitate, and so to injure our existing churches. On the basis you profess, (that is, to exact impartially of the black man, as of the white, full compliance with the requirements of our standards,) the negro is not coming to you. He will none of you. He wholly prefers the Yankee to you. ”

“ In the first place, it is very far from being the same thing, that a given branch of the church composed of a given people, shall say to an alien whom God may have called to preach: "We do not wish you to teach and rule us;" ”

“ After all the negro exodus from our communion, there are still churches which have a large majority of black communicants. After you have ordained your negro, one of these churches may regularly elect him pastor. Constitutionally, the white minority cannot here resist the will of the majority, when regularly exercised. ”

“ I would aid them in church building. I would provide schools, separate from our own, for training black men to be pastors of black churches; and I would, if necessary, give ordination to enough men to form a separate Presbytery, when enough can be found possessed of constitutional qualifications. But I would make no black man a member of a white Session, or Presbytery, or Synod, or Assembly ”

“ If God and duty require any sacrifice, let it be made. Fiat jastitia, ruat cœlum, I trust I shall not be behind any of my brethren in temperament or conviction, when the true necessity arises for acting upon this severe maxim. ”

“ But if she misunderstands and perverts her own spiritual charter, to corrupt at once her own government and peace, and to give, under a scriptural pretext, most direct assistance to the vilest factionists, in their assaults upon the dearest rights and interests of the community, it is all perfectly spiritual and legitimate! ”

“ That if the church has an opportunity, without going an inch out of her spiritual sphere, and indeed, by the very fidelity with which she adheres to it, to give valuable support to earthly interests the most fundamental and precious, oh, then she has perverted her character ”

“ They have, in a body, deserted their true friends, and natural allies, and native land, to follow the beck of the most unmasked and unprincipled set of demagogues on earth, to the most atrocious ends. ”

“ Whereas the paper upon the subject of the coloured people, adopted by the last General Assembly, has been erroneously construed by some as teaching the doctrine that coloured men, possessing the qualifications required by the standards of our Church and the word of God, should not be ordained to the full work of the Gospel ministry, simply because they belong to the negro race ”