Rare Confederate Imprint on the Church & Slavery

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 2/28/2005

Unlisted Confederate Imprint, “The Assembly Reporter. The Southern Presbyterian ---Extra.” 8p. octavo, Augusta, Georgia, December 12, 1861, bearing recipients name at top in pencil “Jno. Potter”, it reads in small part: “…This country is but imperfectly peopled - the last census will make our white population about twelve or thirteen millions, and our slave population at four millions, with about two hundred and eighty thousand free colored people. These people were sent here from barbarism, from the kraals of Africa, to learn here a Saviour’s love. Thousands, in these past two hundred years, have reached the celestial city. Praise God, praise God, for his wonderful providences. These people have always been with us; they teach us to walk, to talk - they wait about us and labor for us. They follow us through life - they linger about us till death. Are they not nigh unto us? Are they the brutes that perish? Do we leave them to die unlamented? Everybody of them covers an immortal soul. They are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. They are joint heirs with us to immortality. They are the producers of the wealth of our country - the agricultural class of our population. They produce 4,000,000 bales of cotton…They stimulate the wealth of the civilized world….They are one of the most useful classes in the world. Then surely we owe them something? Turn now to another view. What is their moral and religious condition? Are they heathen? No! they are a civilized people, a Christian laboring class…it is estimated that there are 250,000 Church members among them. They form the leaven which leavens the masses….They are subject to great temptation…added to that, the Gospel which thousands of them hear, is shot over their heads. A great deal of our preaching does not reach our own congregation, and I must say, that I would rather preach five words with the understanding than five hundred in a strange tongue…” Much more in urging the teaching of the Gospel to the slaves reminding masters to be fair to their servants as instructed by the Bible. VG. Rare.

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