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1 James G. Birney, Letter to Ministers and Elders, on the Sin of Holding Slaves, and the Duty of Immediate Emancipation 1 (1834)

handle is hein.religion/ltrmield0001 and id is 1 raw text is: LETTER TO MINISTERS AND ELDERS, ON THE SIN OF HOLDING SLAVES, AND THE DUTY OF IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION. BY JAMES G. BIRNEY. TO THE MINISTERS AND ELDERS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN KENTUCKY. Dear Brethrcn-I have concluded to. address to you a few remarks on the subject of slavery-one that has, for a long time, deeply interested my own heart, and on which I have bestowed very careful consideration. Vere I to set you dowi as indifferviit to it, I know it would be doing you great injus- tice! Indeed, so much do I count upon your right desires in relation to it, that although I come clothed with no official authority in that branch of God's church to which we belong, yet do 1 presume that Von will read, meditate upon, and with a just balarice, weigh, any arguments that maybe submitted to you in a Christian spirit, come from what quarter they may. It is not my intention at this. time, to take up the whole subject of slavery, and discuss it in its details, or to answer the multiplied excuses that have been made by Christians and others, for the help they have brought for its continuance. I mean rather to present: 1. Some of the most prominent char- acteristics of slavery. 2. Some of the excuses of our church for not purifying herself from this sin, which answers to them; and 3. The consequences to the church and the state at large, if she should at once enter upon her duty. The characteristics to which I now ask your attention, are- 1. It originated, has always been, and is at this day, main- tained .by a violence that is utterly at variance with the mild spirit -of the gospel. !2. It wrests from one set of men, without crime on their part, the fruits of their bodily toils, for the support and ease of another.. 3. Its effects upon its subjects are to stupify and benumb the mind, to vitiate the conscience, to multiply the sins of the grossest character, to exclude the knowledge of God and Christ, as well as of the necessity of any preparation for the world to come, and of course, to prepare them for hell.

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