Presbyterian congregations, if we have any? Then I adopt it. Or, does it ask the General Assembly to enact, that I shall help to ordain a negro to teach and rule white people, and make him a co-equal member with myself in West Hanover Presbytery, to sit in judgment on the affairs of white churches and members? Is this its end? I see one and another boldly and defiantly nod their assent. On this point, gentlemen, I am utterly opposed to you; and I can only account for hearing a proposal so astounding, from such gentlemen as I know you to be, by these two motives; an overstrained and quixotic magnanimity, and the stress of a supposed necessity of logical consistency, under which you have fallen by means of a sophism. As the friends of this measure avow that this is its real extent, I shall direct my remarks to this point chiefly.
And third: I oppose the agitation of this whole subject, because it is unpractical. 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. So that this whole zealous discussion presents us in the ridiculous light (as was remarked by a venerable member now on the floor) of two school boys, who after a stiff fight over a bird's nest, ascertain that it is too high for either of them to reach. Perhaps this is the very thought which prompts some to support this scheme; that they may disarm Abolitionist criticism by seeming to obey their imperious dictation, and to open the door of our ministry to negroes; while they rely on the negroes' hostility, to protect us from their entrance; a result which they would no more accept than I do. Thus they hope to "save their manners and their meat" at once. Is this candid? Is it manly? Is it Christian honour?
But I warn these gentlemen, that they will be deceived by the result. While I greatly doubt whether a single Presbyterian negro will ever be found to come fully up to that high standard of learning, manners, sanctity, prudence, and moral weight and acceptability, which our constitution requires, and which this overture professes to honour so impartially; I clearly foresee that, no sooner will it be passed than it will be made the pretext for a partial and odious lowering of our standard, in favour of negroes. Do not facts prove it? 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. No clearer proof need be asked of the presence of this disease here, than the case which is made the pretext of this overture. The mover of it, and others, have already told you that the discussion is not unpractical, because Rappahannock Presbytery has now an actual case pressing, urgently pressing, for immediate decision, for which those brethren need the guidance of the Assembly to-day; that there is a black licen-
