THE OBERLIN INSTITUTE.

ix

Who are among the leading abolitionists of the United States, and who thus write in the document transmitted by the Deputation :—

From our knowledge of the Professors at Oberlin, of the spirit that pervades the Institution, and of the mighty influence, young as it is, which it is already putting forth, we feel solemnly moved by duty, and sweetly constrained by love to the truth, and honour for its faithful avowal, to give our emphatic testimony in favour of the Oberlin Institute. We believe it to be accomplishing more for freedom of thought, speech, and conscience, more for the great cause of human liberty and equal rights, the annihilation of prejudice and caste in every form-more to honour God, to exalt his Truth, and to purify a corrupt church and ministry, than any other Institution in the United States.

On a review of the whole circumstances of the Oberlin Institute, its origin, history, and tendency, the conviction must be deeply felt, that it is pre-eminently adapted to compass the benevolent and Christian object of its founders; that it is friendly alike to the elevation of an oppressed people, and the emancipation of the American churches from their vassalage to the spirit of this world, and that it is strongly commended to the friends of the slave and the coloured free man, and, indeed, to all who are concerned for the welfare of their species, and the purity of the church of Christ.

The object has received the sanction of the following persons by subscriptions and otherwise :

An account is opened with Messrs. HANBURY, TAYLOR, and LLOYD'S, Bankers, 60, Lombard Street.

ROBERT FORSTER, GEORGE STACEY, and CORNELIUS HANBURY, Esqrs. have kindly consented to be a Committee of Reference, who will inspect, audit, and publish the account of monies received.

WILLIAM DAWES, Deputation.

JOHN KEEP,

10, Wardrobe Place, Great Carter Lane, Doctor's Commons,

London, Nov. 14th, 1839.

As many persons in this country may be unacquainted with the nature of slavery as it exists in America, the following is appended, by which it may be seen what great difficulties the Abolitionists in that country have to contend with, owing to the state of the laws; and also the efforts that are made to prevent not only the actual slave, but free coloured persons, in many of the States, from being taught to read, and to debar them from hearing the Gospel preached, and what sufferings await them when they meet together to worship the Lord.

Slaves are not allowed to learn to read.

In Georgia, a slave State, any justice of the peace may, at his discretion, break up any religious assembly of slaves, and may order each slave present, without trial, to be flogged.

In Virginia, all evening meetings of slaves, or of free persons of colour, for any religious purpose, are forbidden. Similar laws exist in other slave States. The law affords no protection to the marriage of slaves. The connexion may at any time be legally broken up, to gratify the avarice or licentiousness of the

master.

In Georgia, if a white teach a free coloured person or slave to read or write, he is fined £100 and imprisoned at the discretion of the court. If a free coloured man teach, he is to be fined or whipped; of course a father may be flogged for teaching his own child.

In North Carolina, it is unlawful to teach a slave to read or write, or to sell of give him any book or pamphlet, even the Bible.

In Georgia, if a free coloured man or negro preaches, he may be seized without warrant, and flogged to the extent of thirty-nine lashes; and the same number of lashes may be applied to each of his hearers.

In Louisiana, the penalty for instructing a free-coloured person in a Sabbath School, is, for the first offence 500 dollars; for the second offence-death.

In South Carolina, if a free coloured person assists a run-away slave, he is

THE OBERLIN INSTITUTE.

xi

fined 101.; and if unable to pay the fine, he is to be sold into slavery. In 1837, a free woman and her three children were thus sold, for harbouring two slave children.

The slavery interest is so great as to have induced the free State of Connecticut to pass a law prohibiting schools for free persons of colour who should come from any other State.

In June, 1833, Miss Crandell was imprisoned at Brooklyn, for having opened a school and taught free persons of colour who came from other free States, and her school was broken up.

In addition to these laws, purposely made to keep the slaves and freecoloured population in a state of degradation and ignorance, the Abolitionists have to contend with a powerful prejudice against colour.

In some religious societies there are free coloured persons of great talents and piety, who are acknowledged and ordained as ministers.

S. C., a coloured minister, was called in the course of his duty, to attend a general meeting of the Presbytery of Ministers and Elders; he took an acceptable part in the proceedings of the meeting; but when meal-times arrived, he alone was left uninvited, to grieve over the want of brotherly love and Christian kindness, nor was he invited by any to lodge. The next day the minister of the place, whose duty it was to provide for his brother ministers from a distance, touched with a feeling of this improper conduct, apologized for so great a neglect of Christian duty, proffered him money (which he did not need) to purchase food, and said his own house was full, and therefore he could not take him in to lodge, and that the residents belonging to his Church would not associate with him on account of his colour, although he was an acknowledged member of their own body.

T. S. W. one of the regular pastors of a Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, was travelling with his wife in a steam boat: they were not allowed to go into the cabin at meals with the other passengers; and although his wife was ill, he could not for any money procure a bed, because they were people of colour: but they were obliged to remain on deck, exposed to the chills of the night, by which his wife lost her life.

The perils and dangers to which Abolitionists are exposed, may seen by the following facts :

The Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, an abolitionist, the editor of a newspaper in a free State, was frequently assailed by a mob; at one time they were kept off by the extraordinary courage of his wife. On the last occasion, they shot him, and threw his printing press into the river. And such was public sentiment in favour of slavery in the City where these atrocities occurred, that the offenders could not be brought to justice.

Dr. R. Crandall was cast into prison in Washington City, for having in his trunk anti-slavery papers, and detained so long in prison as to occasion his speedy death.

A highly-respectable physician, a member of the Society of Friends, and an abolitionist, resident in a free State was, in his own house, assailed by a mob of persons calling themselves respectable: he was thrown by them violently on the floor, and required to promise that he would not thenceforth advocate the cause of the oppressed slave and coloured people. He refused to comply with this unrighteous demand. They trod on his neck, and otherwise ill-treated himpointed a gun at him, and threatened to burn his hour and drive him away, but all in vain --he remained true to the cause of justi d mercy. God restrained the mob from taking his life.

Rev. George Storrs was dragged from his knees while in prayer, by the Deputy Sheriff, because he had delivered an address against slavery. At another time, he was, for the same offence, arrested in the pulpit, by authority of a writ from a Justice, and the Governor of the State indirectly sanctioned the deed.

Mr. Preston, in debate, on the floor of the Senate of the United States said, "Let an abolitionist come within the borders of South Carolina, if we can catch him, we will try him: and notwithstanding all the interference of all the Governments on earth, including the federal government, we will hang him."

Mr. Hammond, a member of Congress from South Carolina, used on the floor of Congress the following language:-"I warn the Abolitionists, ignorant, infatuated barbarians as they are, that if chance shall throw any one of them into our hands, he may expect a felon's death.”

Many of the slaves in the United States are white, both men and women, children of American Citizens. Slavery was the lot of the daughters of Jefferson, President of the United States. Attempts are made to reduce foreigners to slavery. It is not long since the slave dealers seized a poor Irish woman, and although she protested she was from Ireland, she was only rescued by great efforts of the Abolitionists in a court of law.

Breeding slaves is one of the great staples in trade of Virginia. Children are there reared for the market like oxen for the shambles. The sale of slaves from

this State, in 1836, amounted to twenty-four millions of dollars.

The streets of the City of Washington, the seat of Government, are often crowded on the Sabbath with manacled captives, on their way from the northern to the southern slave States.

This trade in blood, this buying, imprisoning and exporting of men, women, boys and girls; this tearing asunder of husbands and wives, parents and children, to the disgrace of the United States, is all legalized by virtue of authority delegated by Congress, in the following enactment of date July 28, 1831, viz. “For license to trade or traffic in slaves;" for which license to commit iniquity, that nation boasting of the greatest freedom on earth, exacts the sum of 400 dollars, or £80, the price of blood, to fill its treasury.

Some further information regarding the facts may be obtained from the replies of the deputation to the questions asked by the Committee of the Corporation of London.

1. The date of the Institution?

Answer.-The Oberlin Institution was originated by the secession from Lane Seminary in 1834. (See forward, p. 11.)

2. The objects for which it was established?

Answer. The first object was to establish an educational institution where the principle of free inquiry should be fully recognised. In most of the colleges of the United States, restrictions were imposed on the discussion of the subject of slavery. This subject includes so many others, essential to the study of moral philosophy and religious truth, that no student can be called well-educated who is compelled to leave such unexamined. Yet more, earnest students feel that such restrictions require a surrender of right and duty as a condition of membership; and such a surrender they cannot conscientiously make. The Oberlin is the resort of such. Another great object is to undermine the institution of slavery in the United States. The Oberlin operates towards this end in two ways:by the emphatic testimony it bears in its very existence in favour of

THE OBERLIN INSTITUTE.

xiii

human freedom, and by its equal welcome to students of every shade of complexion. The prejudice of colour, if the effect of slavery, is no less a main cause of its continuance. The doors of the Oberlin stand open, wide and free, to young men of the despised race, where, in a quiet home, they may be recognised as men, and treated as brethren, and become qualified to assert the rights of their class by the spectacle of their own achievements.

3. The annual income?

Answer.—The Institution has no funds or endowments from which an income is guaranteed. Hitherto its interests have been promoted and sustained by voluntary contributions. Many of its original members, being sons and brothers of slave-holders, have sacrificed their possessions and prospects by the very act of joining the Oberlin. These, and others who could not contribute in money to the funds, earn their subsistence by the labour of their hands. In such labour all the members, without exception, unite; and by such labour, united with extraordinary abstemiousness, they have been enabled to hold together to this day, with no other aid than the occasional and precarious contributions of distant friends, and the singular disinterestedness of their professors. 4. The names of the committee and acting managers ?

Jabez L. Burrell.
P. P. Pease.

Addison Tracy.

Lewis H. Loss.

John I. Shippard.

John Holcomb.

Residents of Huron, Portage, and Loraine counties, Ohio, and all persons of unquestionable worth and respectability.

5. The value of its property?

Answer. The real and personal property of the Institution, when the deputation left, Mareh 22d, 1839, was estimated at about 65,000 dollars, or £13,000; consisting of land, college and other buildings, a small library, agricultural implements, cows, &c.

6. The number of its officers, and the amount of their salaries ?

Answer.-There are twelve Trustees or Directors, who perform all their arduous duties gratuitously.

There are twelve Professors, and fourteen Assistant Teachers, for whose support there is not yet secured any regular income. These Professors and Teachers, possessed of talents and acquirements which would secure to them, in other situations, a liberal salary, cheerfully remain at their posts, in love to the great and good work there begun, and procuring much of their support by the labour of their own hands. 7. The expenses of managing the Institution?

Answer. The work done in the whole progress of this institution has been, to such an extent, the result of gratuitous labour, that we have not the data whereon we can found an estimate of the cost of its operations. The work began about five years since, in a dense forest,retirement which has been its safeguard against popular violence. The Institution now contains above four hundred students. To meet the