The Iron Furnace; or, Slavery and Secession

The following is a synopsis of my sermon:

Israel had been greatly favoured as a nation. No weapon formed against them prospered, so long as they loved and served the Lord their God. They were blessed in their basket and their store. They were set on high above all the nations of the earth. * * * * When all Israel assembled, ostensibly to make Rehoboam king, they were ripe for rebellion. Jeroboam and other wicked men had fomented and cherished the sparks of treason, till, on this occasion, it broke out into the flame of open rebellion. The severity of Solomon’s rule was the pretext, but it was only a pretext, for during his reign the nation prospered, grew rich and powerful. Jeroboam wished a disruption of the kingdom, that he might bear rule; and although God permitted it as a punishment for Israel’s idolatry, yet he frowned upon the wicked men who were instrumental in bringing this great evil upon his chosen people.

The loyal division took the name of Judah, though composed of the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin. The revolted ten tribes took the name of their leading tribe, Ephraim. Ephraim continued to wax weaker and weaker. Filled with envy against Judah, they often warred against that loyal kingdom, until they themselves were greatly reduced. At last, after various vicissitudes, the ten tribes were carried away, and scattered and lost. We often hear of the lost ten tribes. What became of them is a mystery. Their secession ended in their being blotted out of existence, or lost amidst the heathen. God alone knows what did become of them. They resisted the powers that be – the ordinance of God – and received to themselves damnation and annihilation.

As God dealt with Israel, so will he deal with us. If we are exalted by righteousness, we will prosper; if we, as the ten tribes, resist the ordinance of God, we will perish. At this time, many are advocating the course of the ten tribes. Secession is a word of frequent occurrence. It is openly advocated by many. Nullification and rebellion, secession and treason, are convertible terms, and no good citizen will mention them with approval. Secession is resisting the powers that be, and therefore it is a violation of God’s command. Where do we obtain the right of secession? Clearly not from the word of God, which enjoins obedience to all that are in authority, to whom we must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. The following scriptural argument for secession is often used, 1 Tim. vi. 1 – 5. In these verses Paul was addressing believing servants, and commanding them to absent themselves from the teaching of those who taught not the doctrine which is according to godliness. In a former epistle he had commanded Christians not to keep company with the incestuous person who had his father’s wife. He directed that they should not keep company with any man who was called a brother, if he were a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one no not to eat; but he expressly declares that he does not allude to those who belong to the above classes that have made no profession of religion. He does not judge them that are without, for them that are without, God judgeth. He afterwards exhorts that the church confirm their love toward the incestuous person as he had repented of his wickedness. This direction of the Apostle to believers to withdraw from a brother who walked disorderly, till he had manifested proper repentance; and his exhortation to believing servants to absent themselves from the teachings of errorists, cannot logically be construed as a scriptural argument in favour of secession. Were the President of the United States an unbeliever, a profane swearer, a Sabbath-breaker, or a drunkard, this fact would not, per se, give us the right to secede or rebel against the government.

There is no provision made in the Constitution of the United States for secession. The wisest statesmen, who made politics their study, regarded secession as a political heresy, dangerous in its tendencies, and destructive of all government in its practical application. Mississippi, purchased from France with United States gold, fostered by the nurturing care, and made prosperous by the wise administration of the general government, proposes to secede. Her political status would then be anomalous. Would her territory revert to France? Does she propose to refund the purchase-money? Would she become a territory under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress?

Henry Clay, the great statesman, Daniel Webster, the expounder of the Constitution, General Jackson, George Washington, and a mighty host, whose names would fill a volume, regarded secession as treason. One of our smallest States, which swarmed with tories in the Revolution, whose descendants still live, invented the doctrine of nullification, the first treasonable step, which soon culminated in the advocacy of secession. Why should we secede, and thus destroy the best, the freest, and most prosperous government on the face of the earth? the government which our patriot fathers fought and bled to secure. What has Mississippi lost by the Union? I have resided seven years in this State, and have an extensive personal acquaintance, and yet I know not a single individual who has lost a slave through northern influence. I have, it is true, known of some ten slaves who have run away, and have not been found. They may have been aided in their escape to Canada by northern and southern citizens, for there are many in the South who have given aid and comfort to the fugitive; but the probability is that they perished in the swamps, or were destroyed by the bloodhounds.

The complaint is made that the North regards slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, and that many of them denounce, in no measured terms, both slavery and slaveholders. To be thus denounced is regarded as a great grievance. Secession would not remedy this evil. In order to cure it effectually, we must seize and gag all who thus denounce our peculiar institution. We must also muzzle their press. As this is impracticable, it would be well to come to this conclusion: – If we are verily guilty of the evils charged upon us, let us set about rectifying those evils; if not, the denunciations of slanderers should not affect us so deeply. If our northern brethren are honest in their convictions of the sin of slavery, as no doubt many of them are, let us listen to their arguments without the dire hostility so frequently manifested. They take the position that slavery is opposed to the inalienable rights of the human race; that it originated in piracy and robbery; that manifold cruelties and barbarities are inflicted upon the defenceless slaves; that they are debarred from intellectual culture by State laws, which send to the penitentiary those who are guilty of instructing them; that they are put upon the block and sold; parent and child, husband and wife being separated, so that they never again see each other’s face in the flesh; that the law of chastity cannot be observed, as there are no laws punishing rape on the person of a female slave; that when they escape from the threatened cat-o’-nine-tails, or overseer’s whip, they are hunted down by bloodhounds, and bloodier men; that often they are half-starved and half-clad, and are furnished with mere hovels to live in; that they are often murdered by cruel overseers, who whip them to death, or overtask them, until disease is induced, which results in death; that masters practically ignore the marriage relation among slaves, inasmuch as they frequently separate husband and wife, by sale or removal; that they discourage the formation of that relation, preferring that the offspring of their female slaves should be illegitimate, from the mistaken notion that it would be more numerous. They charge, also, that slavery induces in the masters, pride, arrogance, tyranny, laziness, profligacy, and every form of vice.

The South takes the position, that if slavery is sinful, the North is not responsible for that sin; that it is a State institution, and that to interfere with slavery in the States in any way, even by censure, is a violation of the rights of the States. The language of our politicians is, Upon us and our children rest the evil! We are willing to take the responsibility, and to risk the penalty! You will find evil and misery enough in the North to excite your philanthropy, and employ your beneficence. You have purchased our cotton; you have used our sugar; you have eaten our rice; you have smoked and chewed our tobacco – all of which are the products of slave-labour. You have grown rich by traffic in these articles; you have monopolized the carrying trade, and borne our slave-produced products to your shores. Your northern ships, manned by northern men, brought from Africa the greater part of the slaves which came to our continent, and they are still smuggling them in. When, finding slavery unprofitable, the northern States passed laws for gradual emancipation, but few obtained their freedom, the majority of them being shipped South and sold, so that but few, comparatively, were manumitted. If the slave trade and slavery are great sins, the North is particeps criminis, and has been from the beginning.

These bitter accusations are hurled back and forth through the newspapers; and in Congress, crimination and recrimination occur every day of the session. Instead of endeavouring to calm the troubled waters, politicians are striving to render them turbid and boisterous. Sectional bitterness and animosity prevail to a fearful extent; but secession is not the proper remedy. To cure one evil by perpetrating a greater, renders a double cure necessary. In order to cure a disease, the cause should be known, that we may treat it intelligently, and apply a proper remedy. Having observed, during the last eleven years, that sectional strife and bitterness were increasing with fearful rapidity, I have endeavoured to stem the torrent, so far as it was possible for individual effort to do so. I deem it the imperative duty of all patriots, of all Christians, to throw oil upon the troubled waters, and thus save the ship of State from wreck among the vertiginous billows.

Most of our politicians are demagogues. They care not for the people, so that they accomplish their own selfish and ambitious schemes. Give them power, give them money, and they are satisfied. Deprive them of these, and they are ready to sacrifice the best interests of the nation to secure them. They excite sectional animosity and party strife, and are willing to kindle the flames of civil war to accomplish their unhallowed purposes. They tell us that there is a conflict of interest between the free and slave States, and endeavour to precipitate a revolution, that they may be leaders, and obtain positions of trust and profit in the new government which they hope to establish. The people would be dupes indeed to abet these wicked demagogues in their nefarious designs. Let us not break God’s command, by resisting the ordinance of God – the powers that be. I am not discussing the right of revolution, which I deem a sacred right. When human rights are invaded, when life is endangered, when liberty is taken away, when we are not left free to pursue our own happiness in our own chosen way – so far as we do not trespass upon the rights of others – we have a right, and it becomes our imperative duty to resist to the bitter end, the tyranny which would deprive us and our children of our inalienable rights. Our lives are secure; we have freedom to worship God. Our liberty is sacred; we may pursue happiness to our hearts’ content. We do not even charge upon the general Government that it has infringed these rights. Whose life has been endangered, or who has lost his liberty by the action of the Government? If that man lives, in all this fair domain of ours, he has the right to complain. But neither you nor I have ever heard of or seen the individual who has thus suffered. We have therefore clearly no right of revolution.

Treason is no light offence. God, who rules the nations, and who has established governments, will punish severely those who attempt to overthrow them. Damnation is stated to be the punishment which those who resist the powers that be, will suffer. Who wishes to endure it? I hope none of my charge will incur this penalty by the perpetration of treason. You yourselves can bear me witness that I have not heretofore introduced political issues into the pulpit, but at this time I could not acquit my conscience were I not to warn you against the great sin some of you, I fear, are ready to commit.

Were I to discuss the policy of a high or low tariff, or descant upon the various merits attached to one or another form of banking, I should be justly obnoxious to censure. Politics and religion, however, are not always separate. When the political issue is made, shall we, or shall we not, grant license to sell intoxicating liquors as a beverage? the minister’s duty is plain; he must urge his people to use their influence against granting any such license. The minister must enforce every moral and religious obligation, and point out the path of truth and duty, even though the principles he advocates are by statesmen introduced into the arena of political strife, and made issues by the great parties of the day. I see the sword coming, and would be derelict in duty not to give you faithful warning. I must reveal the whole counsel of God. I have a message from God unto you, which I must deliver, whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear. If the sword come, and you perish, I shall then be guiltless of your blood. As to the great question at issue, my honest conviction is (and I think I have the Spirit of God,) that you should with your whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, oppose secession. You should talk against it, you should write against it, you should vote against it, and, if need be, you should fight against it.

I have now declared what I believe to be your high duty in this emergency. Do not destroy the government which has so long protected you, and which has never in a single instance oppressed you. Pull not down the fair fabric which our patriot fathers reared at vast expense of blood and treasure. Do not, like the blind Samson, pull down the pillars of our glorious edifice, and cause death, desolation, and ruin. Perish the hand that would thus destroy the source of all our political prosperity and happiness. Let the parricide who attempts it receive the just retribution which a loyal people demand, even his execution on a gallows, high as Haman’s. Let us also set about rectifying the causes which threaten the overthrow of our government. As we are proud, let us pray for the grace of humility. As a State, and as individuals, we too lightly regard its most solemn obligations; let us, therefore, pray for the grace of repentance and godly sorrow, and hereafter in this respect sin no more. As many transgressions have been committed by us, let the time past of our lives suffice us to have wrought the will of the flesh, and now let us break off our sins by righteousness, and our transgressions by turning unto the Lord, and he will avert his threatened judgments, and save us from dissolution, anarchy, and desolation.

If our souls are filled with hatred against the people of any section of our common country, let us ask from the Great Giver the grace of charity, which suffereth long and is kind, which envieth not, which vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, and which never faileth; then shall we be in a suitable frame for an amicable adjustment of every difficulty; oil will soon be thrown upon the troubled waters, and peace, harmony, and prosperity would ever attend us; and our children, and our children’s children will rejoice in the possession of a beneficent and stable government, securing to them all the natural and inalienable rights of man.

CHAPTER II.

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE AND COURT-MARTIAL

The election of Delegates to determine the status of Mississippi – The Vigilance Committee – Description of its members – Charges – Phonography – No formal verdict – Danger of Assassination – Passports – Escape to Rienzi – Union sentiment – The Conscript Law – Summons to attend Court-Martial – Evacuation of Corinth – Destruction of Cotton – Suffering poor – Relieved by General Halleck.

Soon after this sermon was preached, the election was held. Approaching the polls, I asked for a Union ticket, and was informed that none had been printed, and that it would be advisable to vote the secession ticket. I thought otherwise, and going to a desk, wrote out a Union ticket, and voted it amidst the frowns and suppressed murmurs of the judges and bystanders, and, as the result proved, I had the honour of depositing the only vote in favour of the Union which was polled in that precinct. I knew of many who were in favour of the Union, who were intimidated by threats, and by the odium attending it from voting at all. A majority of secession candidates were elected. The convention assembled, and on the 9th of January, 1861, Mississippi had the unenviable reputation of being the first to follow her twin sister, South Carolina, into the maelstrom of secession and treason. Being the only States in which the slaves were more numerous than the whites, it became them to lead the van in the slave-holders’ rebellion. Before the 4th of March, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had followed in the wake, and were engulfed in the whirlpool of secession.

It was now dangerous to utter a word in favour of the Union. Many suspected of Union sentiments were lynched. An old gentleman in Winston county was arrested for an act committed twenty years before, which was construed as a proof of his abolition proclivities. The old gentleman had several daughters, and his mother-in-law had given him a negro girl. Observing that his daughters were becoming lazy, and were imposing all the labour upon the slave, he sent her back to the donor, with a statement of the cause for returning her. This was now the ground of his arrest, but escaping from their clutches, a precipitate flight alone saved his life.

Self-constituted vigilance committees sprang up all over the country, and a reign of terror began; all who had been Union men, and who had not given in their adhesion to the new order of things by some public proclamation, were supposed to be disaffected. The so-called Confederate States, the new power, organized for the avowed purpose of extending and perpetuating African slavery, was now in full blast. These soi-disant vigilance committees professed to carry out the will of Jeff. Davis. All who were considered disaffected were regarded as being tinctured with abolitionism. My opposition to the disruption of the Union being notorious, I was summoned to appear before one of these august tribunals to answer the charge of being an abolitionist. My wife was very much alarmed, knowing that were I found guilty of the charge, there was no hope for mercy. Flight was impossible, and I deemed it the safest plan to appear before the committee. I found it to consist of twelve persons, five of whom I knew, viz., Parson Locke, Armstrong, Cartledge, Simpson, and Wilbanks. Parson Locke, the chief speaker, or rather the inquisitor-general, was a Methodist minister, though he had fallen into disrepute among his brethren, and was engaged in a tedious strife with the church which he left in Holmes county. The parson was a real Nimrod. He boasted that in five months he had killed forty-eight raccoons, two hundred squirrels, and ten deer; he had followed the bloodhounds, and assisted in the capture of twelve runaway negroes. W. H. Simpson was a ruling elder in my church. Wilbanks was a clever sort of old gentleman, who had little to say in the matter. Armstrong was a monocular Hard-shell-Baptist. Cartledge was an illiterate, conceited individual. The rest were a motley crew, not one of whom, I feel confident, knew a letter in the alphabet. The committee assembled in an old carriage-shop. Parson Locke acted, as chairman, and conducted the trial, as follows.

“Parson Aughey, you have been reported to us as holding abolition sentiments, and as being disloyal to the Confederate States.”

“Who reported me, and where are your witnesses?”

“Any one has a right to report, and it is optional whether he confronts the accused or not. The proceedings of vigilance committees are somewhat informal.”

“Proceed, then, with the trial, in your own way.”

“We propose to ask you a few questions, and in your answers you may defend yourself, or admit your guilt. In the first place, did you ever say that you did not believe that God ordained the institution of slavery?”

“I believe that God did not ordain the institution of slavery.”

“Did not God command the Israelites to buy slaves from the Canaanitish nations, and to hold them as their property for ever?”

“The Canaanites had filled their cup of iniquity to overflowing, and God commanded the Israelites to exterminate them; this, in violation of God’s command, they failed to do. God afterwards permitted the Hebrews to reduce them to a state of servitude; but the punishment visited upon those seven wicked nations by the command of God, does not justify war or the slave-trade.”

“Did you say that you were opposed to the slavery which existed in the time of Christ?”

“I did, because the system of slavery prevailing in Christ’s day was cruel in the extreme; it conferred the power of life and death upon the master, and was attended with innumerable evils. The slave had the same complexion as his master; and by changing his servile garb for the citizen dress, he could not be recognised as a slave. You yourself profess to be opposed to white slavery.”

“Did you state that you believed Paul, when he sent Onesimus back to Philemon, had no idea that he would be regarded as a slave, and treated as such after his return?”

“I did. My proof is in Philemon, verses 15 and 16, where the apostle asks that Onesimus be received, not as a servant, but as a brother beloved?”

“Did you tell Mr. Creath that you knew some negroes who were better, in every respect, than some white men?”

“I said that I knew some negroes who were better classical scholars than any white men I had as yet met with in Choctaw county, and that I had known some who were pre-eminent for virtue and holiness. As to natural rights, I made no comparison; nor did I say anything about superiority or inferiority of race; I also stated my belief in the unity of the races.”

“Have you any abolition works in your library, and a poem in your scrap-book, entitled ‘The Fugitive Slave,’ with this couplet as a refrain,

‘The hounds are baying on my track;Christian, will you send me back?’”

“I have not Mrs. Stowe’s nor Helper’s work; they are contraband in this region, and I could not get them if I wished. I have many works in my library containing sentiments adverse to the institution of slavery. All the works in common use amongst us, on law, physic, and divinity, all the text-books in our schools – in a word, all the works on every subject read and studied by us, were, almost without exception, written by men opposed to the peculiar institution. I am not alone in this matter.”

“Parson, I saw Cowper’s works in your library, and Cowper says:

‘I would not have a slave to fan me when I sleep,And tremble when I wake, for all the wealthThat sinews bought and sold have ever earned.’”

“You have Wesley’s writings, and Wesley says that ‘Human slavery is the sum of all villany.’ You have a work which has this couplet:

‘Two deep, dark stains, mar all our country’s bliss:Foul slavery one, and one, loathed drunkenness.’

You have the work of an English writer of high repute, who says, ‘Forty years ago, some in England doubted whether slavery were a sin, and regarded adultery as a venial offence; but behold the progress of truth! Who now doubts that he who enslaves his fellow-man is guilty of a fearful crime, and that he who violates the seventh commandment is a great sinner in the sight of God?’”

“You are known to be an adept in Phonography, and you are reported to be a correspondent of an abolition Phonographic journal.”

“I understand the science of Phonography, and I am a correspondent of a Phonographic journal, but the journal eschews politics.”