When speaking on the American Civil War in 1863, the Revd Isaac Nelson (1809–88) of Donegall Street Presbyterian Church in Belfast recalled what he, and his associate, James Standfield of the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society, experienced at the inaugural meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at London in 1846. Nelson claimed that ‘my venerable friend James Stanfield, and myself, were treated as troublers of Israel's peace, for … demanding that there should be no fellowship with slaveholders on the part of British Christians'.Footnote 1 Although partisan, this comment draws attention to the reality that nineteenth-century evangelicals were deeply divided on questions surrounding the propriety of Christian fellowship with slaveholders.Footnote 2
The relationship between religion and the abolition of slavery poses a historical problem, especially when analysing Protestant evangelicals who differed widely on the issue despite their professed allegiance to biblical authority. Hence, this article utilizes a biographical case-study of an orthodox Ulster Presbyterian abolitionist in order to illuminate freshly several major thematic issues. First, Nelson's role in the debate over slavery at the formation of the Evangelical Alliance usefully highlights how divisions over slavery shattered evangelical unity. Second, disputes between evangelical emancipationists and the radical abolitionists who criticized the Alliance's position draws attention to the fact that religious disagreements led to division among abolitionists. Third, the co-operation between orthodox biblicist evangelicals and the Garrisonians in opposition to the apologists for the slaveholders at the Alliance demonstrates how anti-slavery could actually unite those with diverse religious opinions. Fourth, Nelson's role in shaping the outcome of the debate at London helps us to see that while the result was a disappointment to radical abolitionists, it was not an absolute defeat. Nor should it be assumed that the British Evangelical Alliance's exclusion of slaveholders was a vain gesture, but instead reflection on Nelson helps us to view it as a victory for abolitionism (albeit an incomplete one). Consideration of these points serves to shed light on the fraught relationship between two interlinked and somewhat artificial constructs, abolitionism and evangelicalism.
The outlook of the Evangelical Alliance has helpfully been characterized as one of ‘unity in diversity’, as the organization sought to unite evangelicals of various theological creeds and ecclesiological positions.Footnote 3 Division over the contentious issue of fellowship with slaveholders meant that the goal of a worldwide alliance of evangelicals was not achieved.Footnote 4 It is important to keep in mind, however, that this was not primarily a result of cleavage between explicitly pro-slavery and abolitionist factions. The Revd Thomas Smyth of South Carolina was one of the few overtly pro-slavery figures in attendance, and even he was relatively moderate by Southern Presbyterian standards.Footnote 5 Instead, it is better to view this debate as one between various shades of anti-slavery opinion. Those who advocated moderate anti-slavery were more favourable to the toleration of slaveholders, while those who embraced more radical abolitionist opinions were hostile to anything that legitimized fellowship with man-stealers.
The caution of the anti-slavery moderates was understandable, as the emergence of the Evangelical Alliance took place within a context of growing disunity within the American churches on the slavery question. Slavery had played a secondary role in the split between Old and New School Presbyterians in 1837–8.Footnote 6 Moreover, sectional schisms occurred in the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1844 and among the Baptists in 1845.Footnote 7 Fear of what sectional conflict had done to the churches may also have led to anxiety that foreign agitation on the slavery question would promote the disunion of the American nation.Footnote 8 Hence, the delegates from the Northern states, who belonged to denominations which tolerated slaveholders in fellowship, were keen to prevent the Alliance doing anything that amounted to a sweeping condemnation of their brethren.Footnote 9
The Alliance was thus divided as a result of diversity in anti-slavery, as the divergence arose among those committed to emancipation in the abstract. Isaac Nelson was no inconsequential figure in this dispute, being the most vocal radical abolitionist in the debate. The historian John F. Maclear has concluded that Nelson was ‘[t]he outstanding intransigent and “anti-American” among the British opponents of compromise’ on the slavery question at the Alliance.Footnote 10 Such was the fame Nelson had achieved owing to his zealous abolitionism, that the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society even felt compelled to recognize the labours of this Ulster Presbyterian clergyman in their annual report for 1847. It said that ‘[t]he conduct of the Rev. [isaac] nelson and of Mr stanfield of Belfast, was of the highest order of anti-slavery merit, and deserves great honor for its fidelity and consistency’.Footnote 11 Since Nelson's conduct was highly esteemed by abolitionists in the United States, his role in this dispute evidently merits the specific attention of historians of anti-slavery.
Analysis of Nelson's involvement with the Evangelical Alliance is essential in order to correct the omissions and historical errors prevalent within the existing scholarship on abolitionism. The subject of Irish evangelical involvement in the campaign to abolish chattel slavery in the United States remains a much neglected field of historical research. For example, in Nini Rodgers's ground-breaking study, Ireland, slavery and anti-slavery, no attention is paid to the debate over fellowship with slaveholders at the formation of the Evangelical Alliance.Footnote 12 Such neglect is remarkable when one considers that Nelson's anti-slavery labours were highly esteemed by prominent American abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Henry C. Wright.Footnote 13 Hence, this article is a necessary corrective to the neglect of Nelson's evident importance to transatlantic abolitionism.
Among nineteenth-century Irish Presbyterians, Nelson was an idiosyncratic figure. He is best remembered for his opposition to the 1859 revival in Ulster and for his later advocacy of Irish home rule, and he eventually became the member of parliament for County Mayo (1880–5). Owing to his anti-revivalism, Nelson has been characterized as one who argued from a perspective ‘radically different’ from the ‘evangelical Reformed faith’.Footnote 14 An objective examination of Nelson's career, however, reveals that such analysis is deeply flawed. The evidence indicates that Nelson conforms to David Bebbington's standard definition of an evangelical in this period.Footnote 15 Nelson was heavily involved with various forms of evangelical conversionism and activism in Belfast, and he adhered to the standard evangelical emphases upon biblical authority and the death of Christ.Footnote 16
The subject of this article is also significant because there has been a tendency among some historians to denigrate the commitment of Christian abolitionists to the Bible. For instance, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene Genovese, following their pro-slavery protagonists, state that ‘Abolitionists, more often than not, preached less from the Bible on slavery than from the Declaration of Independence and the secular ideology of the Enlightenment.’Footnote 17 The historian Molly Oshatz also claims that ‘Christian abolitionists had to resort to extremely strained biblical argumentation.’Footnote 18 Such assertions, while perhaps accurate in some cases, do injustice to the exegetical and theological arguments of orthodox abolitionists; thus, Nelson is important for highlighting the relevance of evangelical biblicism to abolitionism.
During the debate at London in 1846, Nelson said:
I own no authority but the authority of my God and His Word; and my conclusions from that Book are these – That the right to hold a property in man is denounced in God's Word by the very strongest expressions condemnatory of sin, – that to hold man as property is stealing; and, therefore, that the man who does so, is a thief – not of the coin of the earth … but of men, made in the image of God.Footnote 19
Nelson's comment above helps us to see that the conclusion of the Genoveses is a serious misrepresentation.Footnote 20 Chattel slavery was carefully distinguished in Nelson's thought from the limited forms of bond-service which existed in the Old Testament. Hence, he believed it was vain for pro-slavery apologists to appeal to biblical forms of servitude as a justification for modern slavery.Footnote 21 He opposed chattel slavery, moreover, because it was incongruous with man's creation in the image of God. The notion that a human being could be reduced to personal chattel was, for Nelson, fundamentally at odds with biblical anthropology and was predicated on the heretical assumption that slaves were not fully human. Furthermore, since American slavery violated the Bible's prohibition on man-stealing, it could not claim to have the sanction of Divine warrant.Footnote 22
Although Nelson later criticized the 1859 revival for its incongruence with confessional Presbyterianism and its concessions to Methodist forms of piety, it is vital not to read such rigidity into the period under review here.Footnote 23 Indeed at this point in his career Nelson's evangelical sympathies were highly latitudinarian, though he was personally committed to orthodox Presbyterianism. Such was the extent of his latitudinarianism that he thought that the broad evangelicalism of the Evangelical Alliance was too inflexible. When speaking before the Free Church Anti-Slavery Society in February 1847, Nelson expressed his discontent about matters such as the perpetuity of the ministry and sacraments, and even a belief in eternal punishment being made terms of fellowship in the Alliance. He complained, ‘I really thought they were a little too rigid, and thinking more of the credenda than of the agenda of Christianity. Thinking more of imputed righteousness than of implanted righteousness; less of sanctification than of everlasting punishment.’Footnote 24 Such evangelical ecumenism chimed well with the general tendency of British evangelicals to unite in informal coalitions in order to promote what Hilary Carey has termed the ‘empire of morality’.Footnote 25 The unwillingness of the American evangelicals to be absorbed into this empire perhaps goes some way to explaining why they clashed so violently with Nelson at the Alliance.
At this stage in his career, anti-slavery was Nelson's leading preoccupation. In the wake of the Free Church of Scotland receiving donations from the pro-slavery churches in America, Nelson became involved with the ‘Send back the money’ controversy (1844–7). He supported the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society in its campaign against the Free Church, and criticized the efforts of divines such as Thomas Chalmers and William Cunningham to defend fellowship with slaveholders.Footnote 26 This is crucial for contextualizing Nelson's reaction at the London conference, as he was afraid that defenders of slavery would capitalize on similar compromise by the Alliance. Hence, during the debate at London he complained of Chalmers having ‘eulogized’ slaveholders.Footnote 27 Nelson's involvement in the debate at the Evangelical Alliance is arguably more significant than his stand against the Free Church because he was the central performer on that occasion, whereas in the ‘Send back the money’ controversy he was a figure of only secondary importance.
Although the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society had become defunct by 1853, abolitionism remained a leading concern of Nelson's life.Footnote 28 His opposition to the 1857–8 revival in America and the 1859 revival in Ulster was partly motivated by a perception that the former movement had done nothing to promote slave emancipation. Thus, both the American revival and its Ulster imitation were viewed as spurious, as a real revival would have led to the forsaking of such sin.Footnote 29 This outlook probably reflected earlier suspicions Nelson harboured concerning American revivalism, which he had voiced as early as 1846.Footnote 30 Even in the midst of his campaigns for land reform and Irish home rule in the 1870s and early 1880s, Nelson's abolitionism remained in the background. For instance, Nelson compared the Irish landlords to slaveholders owing to the perceived oppression of their tenants.Footnote 31
Before looking at Nelson's contribution specifically, the article will briefly consider the broader context from which the Evangelical Alliance emerged. This helps us to understand why such an alliance was deemed necessary and why any threats to this union, such as that posed by Nelson and other abolitionists, were feared. Second, it will then move on to consider the precise nature of the debate at the London conference over fellowship with slaveholders. This section will explain why the stated object of forming a worldwide Evangelical Alliance was not achieved by considering the divergence of attitudes between abolitionists such as Nelson and the American delegates present at London. Nelson's contribution is especially interesting for his exposure of the ethical poverty of compromise on the slavery question, as this demonstrates the strength of feeling among zealous abolitionists on the issue. The battle with pro-slavery religion did not end with the conclusion of the London conference and thus the third section will consider Nelson's subsequent efforts to ensure that the British Evangelical Alliance excluded all slaveholders. It also notes the praise he received from the Garrisonian abolitionists for doing so, which itself is an indicator of Nelson's critical importance to the abolitionist movement. Finally, the article will conclude by considering the question of whether or not the Evangelical Alliance was the failure that Nelson portrayed it to be. Although Nelson was correct when he asserted that slavery was the main reason why they failed to form a properly ecumenical alliance, nevertheless, it will be argued that his conclusion about the subsequent ineffectiveness of the Alliance goes too far.
I
In terms of the broader context in which the Alliance came into existence, various sources reveal that its formation was seen as essential to combating the increased influence of Roman Catholicism within Britain during the mid-nineteenth century.Footnote 32 John Wolffe's research, however, would suggest that the Alliance represented a more moderate variant of no-popery than the more hard-line versions espoused by later groups, such as the Protestant Alliance and the Scottish Reformation Society.Footnote 33 Although Boyd Hilton lists it alongside these groups as representative of ‘[a]ggressive Protestantism’,Footnote 34 the Alliance's outlook would appear to have sat well with Nelson's approach of offering rational critiques of Roman Catholicism, while eschewing the more distasteful expressions of no-popery.Footnote 35 Nevertheless, Professor Wolffe observes that the chain of events leading to the Alliance's formation began in 1845 with the interdenominational movement of protest against Sir Robert Peel's plans to increase the endowment of the Irish Roman Catholic seminary at Maynooth College.Footnote 36 There was also concern among evangelicals about the Oxford Movement within Anglicanism, owing to its similarities with Roman Catholicism.Footnote 37 Additionally, it was believed that the formation of such an alliance was essential to ward off the influences of infidelity and political radicalism.Footnote 38
In America, the situation prior to the Alliance's formation was similar: a desire for evangelical unity had been fostered owing to shared interests in counter-attacking papal forces, Unitarians, Universalists, and anti-sabbatarians.Footnote 39 In this climate of fear about mutual enemies, evangelicals from both dissenting and established backgrounds laid aside their long-standing differences in a quest for visible unity. Hence, a general conference for British evangelicals was held at Liverpool in October 1845.Footnote 40 Meanwhile, a subsequent meeting at Birmingham in April 1846 issued international invitations to an ecumenical conference later that year. This conference was held at London from 19 August to 2 September and attracted in excess of 900 participants from fifty different denominations, including over seventy men from America – most of whom resided in the Northern states.Footnote 41
In bringing together such a diverse group of Protestant Christians, around a minimalist doctrinal basis, the Evangelical Alliance embraced considerable latitude of opinion. Its objective was to promote unity in diversity, as opposed to theological or ecclesiological uniformity.Footnote 42 Hence, Alec Vidler even argues that the Alliance was a precursor of the twentieth-century ecumenical movement.Footnote 43 Nevertheless, Professor Wolffe judiciously observes that the Alliance was the first international evangelical organization to produce an explicit doctrinal basis of faith. As a result of the emphasis on certain doctrines, such as eternal punishment, this excluded some evangelicals who otherwise might have joined.Footnote 44
II
The objective of forming a truly ecumenical alliance of evangelicals was not achieved. Professor Maclear maintains that the idea of an international confederation of Protestants had been recurrently expressed throughout the 1830s, usually by British and American divines who nurtured mutual understanding through correspondence, visits, and common moral crusades. It was a moral crusade against one peculiar American institution which was to make this shared vision unworkable, however. The proponents of the Evangelical Alliance were also under pressure from abolitionist groups such as the Glasgow Emancipation Society not to admit slaveholders.Footnote 45 Moreover, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society had written to the London division of the provincial committee of the proposed alliance urging them to exclude all parties connected with the ‘iniquitous system’.Footnote 46 Professor Maclear has nonetheless suggested that the organizers of the Alliance did not seem to realize that they were inviting conflict on the issue of Christian fellowship with slaveholders in the run-up to the London conference.Footnote 47 According to a report on the Birmingham meeting in the Morning Post, ‘[a] split seems to have taken place on the subject of allowing slaveholders to join the schismatic confederacy’.Footnote 48 This was an ominous sign of things to come. Although Professor Maclear claims that the Revd J. Howard Hinton, an English Baptist minister, pushed for the exclusion of slaveholders from membership, the committee did not consider it expedient to pass judgement on the subject of slaveholding, nor on Christian brethren who lived in areas where the law tolerated slavery. The Birmingham meeting nevertheless decided not to send invitations to slaveholders to attend the London conference in August.Footnote 49 This subsequently became known as the ‘Candlish compromise’, owing to the role of the Free Church leader (Dr Robert S. Candlish) in the final decision.Footnote 50
Professor Maclear maintained that the Americans present at the London conference were determined to form a national bloc in order to defend the American churches and ward off the assaults of abolitionist evangelicals.Footnote 51 He deduced that the Presbyterians among the Americans tended to view slavery as an organic sin, rather than a personal one. While not opposed to eventual emancipation, they generally rejected abolitionism as dangerous to American society.Footnote 52 The recent work of Molly Oshatz has demonstrated that this approach to social sin was standard among moderate anti-slavery Protestants.Footnote 53 This outlook was reflected in their conduct at the Evangelical Alliance, which sought to condemn simultaneously the sin of slavery while apologizing for those personally involved with the system.
Others at the London conference adopted the opposite viewpoint. A leading British figure in the Alliance, the Revd John Angell James, was involved in framing resolutions at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, which pleaded for the excommunication of slaveholders. He was supported in this by Nelson's associate, James Standfield.Footnote 54 Not only did the Alliance's inaugural meeting bring together zealous abolitionists, but provided them with an opportunity to raise the issue of slavery in front of American clergy, who were members of denominations that tolerated slaveholders in ecclesiastical fellowship.Footnote 55 In light of this, it seems strange that anyone ever thought such a transatlantic union would ever get off the ground.
Despite the fact that Nelson and Standfield were only two of sixty-six delegates from Ireland at London, conflict with the Americans at the Alliance appears to have been unavoidable. Indeed, in December 1845 Francis Calder expressed hopes that the London conference ‘will form an excellent opportunity to a decided stand by excluding all Slave-holding ministers from America’, and warned of potentially negative consequences if it did not.Footnote 56 Although it cannot be proved conclusively, it is probable that the staunch Belfast abolitionists were determined to oppose anything at the Alliance that even hinted at a concession to the pro-slavery party in America.
Shortly before the London conference in August 1846, William Lloyd Garrison stated that ‘a considerable number of pro-slavery American priests’ would be present. He predicted that their ‘sojourn here will be any thing but comfortable’.Footnote 57 Unsurprisingly, when writing to Edmund Quincy after the debate, Garrison said that ‘the pro-slavery of the American delegates was as unbending as steel’.Footnote 58 Moreover, in February the following year Nelson was to argue that not only apologists for slavery but even actual slaveholders had the ‘meanness’ to turn up at London despite the Birmingham resolution. He singled out the Revd Thomas Smyth of Charleston as one who was waited upon by slaves, though it was claimed these belonged to his wife.Footnote 59
The debate at the London conference began on the morning session of the ninth day, 28 August, when a motion was proposed by Hinton.Footnote 60 The first paragraph in the proposed plan of organization asserted that the Evangelical Alliance ‘shall consist of those persons, in all parts of the World, who shall concur in the Principles and Objects adopted by the Conference’.Footnote 61 In response, Hinton moved an amendment that ‘after the words “those persons”, the words “not being Slaveholders”, be inserted’.Footnote 62 Hinton did not regard himself as proposing anything radical, since it had been agreed at Birmingham not to invite slaveholders to the London conference. He argued that it would be illogical to exclude slaveholders from the conference and then admit them to the Alliance. The conference was a mere meeting for deliberation, while the Alliance was the body to be formed as a result of that deliberation. If it was just to exclude them from the conference, then it was even more equitable to exclude them from the Alliance which would result from it.Footnote 63 Hinton affirmed that this was consistent with the attitude of most British Christians, whom he claimed had concurred with the judgement of the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 that slaveholders should be subject to ecclesiastical censure.Footnote 64 Consequently, we discern why Professor Maclear argued that without excluding slaveholders many of the British churches would not have co-operated with the Evangelical Alliance.Footnote 65
Hinton's rationale for excluding chattel slaveholders was that they were man-stealers, and man-stealing was a sin incompatible with a credible profession of Christianity. He believed it was an absurdity to exclude Quakers from the Alliance, on account of denying the perpetuity of baptism, while embracing heinous sinners such as man-stealers.Footnote 66 As with Nelson at this time, Hinton was not a Garrisonian abolitionist.Footnote 67 Instead, he professed affinity with Garrison's abolitionist rivals in the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, pointing out that ‘there are other Abolitionists in the United States besides Garrison’.Footnote 68 Nonetheless, Hinton was deeply suspicious of the Americans who had appeared in London. Even if they were not overtly pro-slavery, Hinton viewed them as being anti-abolitionist and expressed his belief that without the support of the American churches the slaveholding system ‘would not stand for a single year’.Footnote 69 If the Alliance did not take a firm stand by excluding slaveholders, Hinton argued, they would be bolstering the system through their influence.Footnote 70 Hinton was supported in this sentiment by the Revd Joshua V. Himes of the Advent Church in Boston, who contended that the admission of slaveholders would only add to the oppression of the three million slaves in America.Footnote 71
This proposal, however, did not sit well with many of the American delegates, several of whom proceeded to offer arguments in favour of the Christianity of slaveholders and against their exclusion from the Alliance. In many cases, it was argued that while the system was evil, not all those connected with it were automatically wicked men.Footnote 72 Other arguments included the claim that it was unfair to single out slaveholders while the Alliance tolerated members of state churches, though the fact that this potentially volatile discussion was much less intense than that over slavery only serves to highlight the importance of the dispute over the latter subject.Footnote 73 Moreover, it was argued that slavery was not a doctrinal matter;Footnote 74 that to argue about a political matter was inconsistent with the spirituality of the church, a dogma which was often used by Southern Presbyterians to avoid condemning slavery;Footnote 75 that comments by foreigners on slavery were retarding emancipation;Footnote 76 and that there had been glorious religious revivals in America.Footnote 77 It is interesting to note that some British and European delegates basically agreed with the Americans. The Revd W. W. Eubank, a Liverpool Anglican, claimed that ‘no sin as of deeper dye than the sin of slavery’ but reasoned that he never expected pious slaveholders to be excluded from the Alliance.Footnote 78 And the French evangelical Adolphe Monod argued that although he could infer from scripture that slaveholding was a sin, the teaching of the New Testament should have led them to remain silent on the issue of excluding slaveholders from fellowship.Footnote 79
Some abolitionist speakers, such as the Revd Ralph Wardlaw (Scottish Congregationalist), tried to soften the blow by arguing that exclusion did not amount to passing sentence about the slaveholder's Christianity.Footnote 80 However, Dr William Patton, a New York Presbyterian, understood the implications of Hinton's proposed amendment. He thus argued that the best way out of the impasse was to form three separate alliances – one in America, one in Britain, and another in continental Europe. These organizations would be autonomous, but maintain communications with each other.Footnote 81 It was later proposed and seconded that a committee be formed to settle the matter and that this committte include both Nelson and Standfield.Footnote 82
On 29 August, the committee's chairman, F. A. Cox (English Baptist), asked his namesake the Revd Dr Samuel Hanson Cox, another New York Presbyterian, to read a resolution which served as a substitute for Hinton's amendment.Footnote 83 The resolution proposed that ‘reference to various social evils’, including among others ‘the sin of slavery’, be left ‘to the consideration of the Branches’. It then expressed confidence ‘that no Branch will admit to Membership slaveholders, who, by their own fault, continue in that position, retaining their fellow-men in slavery, from regard to their own interests’. The operative words in this sentence were by their own fault. If a slaveholder claimed to have inherited slaves or alleged that the civil constitution of his country forbade him from emancipating them, then, logically speaking, there was nothing in the resolution to preclude him from membership of one of the Alliance's branches. Notwithstanding this glaring discrepancy, it was Hinton who moved the adoption of the resolution, believing that it comprehended all that was necessary; albeit with a recognition that it was ‘less rigid’ than his own proposal.Footnote 84
James Standfield, however, was not convinced that this resolution was sufficient. Professor Maclear argues that, unlike other Anglicans present who embraced a social conservatism that was more understanding towards the agrarian American South, Standfield consistently opposed any formula for accommodation with the pro-slavery Americans.Footnote 85 Thus, he dissented from the resolution on the grounds that this amounted to an admission of slaveholders into the Alliance.Footnote 86 As Duncan Rice observed, Nelson also saw the ‘obvious loopholes in this rubric’.Footnote 87 Despite professing to be unwilling ‘to mar the harmony of this hour’, Nelson told the conference, ‘I never stood up in a Public Meeting with feelings of such deep emotion as I do at this moment.’ He argued that he was bound to do justice to the views of the Irish Presbyterians, Belfast anti-slavery supporters, and the slaves themselves in opposing anything that legitimized fellowship with slaveholders. Although Nelson had been previously criticized in Ulster for the manner in which he promoted abolitionism in opposition to the Free Church, the chairman on this occasion, Sir Culling Eardley Smith, thought that Nelson deserved a hearing owing to ‘the very becoming manner in which he expresses himself’.Footnote 88
Nelson's basic point was that the resolution was wrong in principle because it was not the business of ecclesiastical or religious communities to legislate for exceptions. Even if there were some hypothetical cases where people held slaves without sin, such as when a man bought slaves in order to emancipate them, Nelson said it was ‘not fair to introduce such ultra cases as an argument for the sinless character of Slave-holding’.Footnote 89 He maintained that the clause admitting those who were not slaveholders because of their own fault would be abused, as there was a class of people in America who held slaves yet laid the blame for it at the door of Britain or the Congress, and argued that slavery was not their fault as they could not get rid of it. Using this ruse, Nelson predicted, ‘Slaveholders will be found in your ranks; and then the Evangelical Alliance will be quoted on the side of Slavery.’Footnote 90 Employing an argument that had earlier been used by Frederick Douglass, Nelson warned that the infidel followers of Robert Dale Owen, who at this time was a member of the United States' Congress, and others who rejected the Bible as an evil book would use any decision that the Alliance made to appease slaveholders as a pretext in order to countenance their assertion that scripture condones slavery.Footnote 91 Notwithstanding his recognition that he was in ‘the fervour of youth, of inexperience, and of ignorance’, Nelson moved, and Standfield seconded, the following amendment: ‘That, whereas it is impossible for the Conference to legislate for particular cases or exceptions, no Slaveholder be admitted to any Branch of the Alliance’.Footnote 92
In response, various speakers from sundry denominations, including the chairman, urged them to forbear, arguing that the unanimous acceptance of the committee's report would be a significant step-forward in the cause of emancipation. Nelson listened respectfully, but felt that the ‘stern requirements’ of duty compelled him to submit the amendment.Footnote 93 Regretfully for Nelson, even J. V. Himes, who was not entirely happy with the committee's resolution, believed that it was better for anti-slavery advocates to take what they could get than to have nothing.Footnote 94 Since even zealous abolitionists like Hinton and Himes were unwilling to support Nelson and Standfield's amendment, it was unsurprisingly rejected by the conference – with barely six members opposing the committee's resolution.Footnote 95
The question remained as to what relationship the different organizations of the Evangelical Alliance would have to each other. On the twelfth day of the conference (Monday, 1 September), Hinton moved that the report which divided the Alliance into several organizations be adopted, but suggested that the British organization would not meet with the Americans in a general conference unless they were persuaded that there were no criminal slaveholders in the American organization.Footnote 96 At this juncture, Nelson decided to move another amendment. Before doing so he claimed that ‘On Saturday night, I can assure you, I passed through a few moments of the most fearful agony’ as he pleaded for his previous amendment while still ‘a mere tyro, a mere child’.Footnote 97 He claimed that he was not motivated by any desire to say ungracious things about the American church, but pointed out that certain Americans had appended their names to a protest against the resolution respecting slavery. This protest was signed by Thomas Smyth and eleven others on Sunday, 31 August.Footnote 98
Nelson's highlighting of this infuriated the Americans, as S. H. Cox interrupted him sharply.Footnote 99 But Nelson, professing to be ‘a pigmy by the side of Dr Cox’, reminded the conference that the interests of both evangelical unity and three million human beings were at stake, and so moved his amendment:
That it is the incumbent duty of this Meeting to express its desire and opinion, that no person claiming the right to hold property in man be received into any affiliated Branch of this Alliance; as the reception of Slaveholders will disparage the character of this Alliance, and cause many Christians in Great Britain and Ireland to withdraw from its connexion, and be the fruitful source of dissension hereafter.Footnote 100
He further appealed to the fact that he was standing in the ‘Metropolis of a Country that has paid twenty millions sterling to get rid of Slavery’.Footnote 101 This implied that if the British could sacrifice so much to be rid of this sin themselves, then it was not asking too much to ensure that they kept such sinners out of the Alliance.
Nelson also expressed disappointment that the idea of an ecumenical alliance had been interrupted and that there was uncertainty as to what responsibility the co-ordinate organizations would have to one another, especially if it were found out that the American organization admitted slaveholders.Footnote 102 In answering this question, Dr James Carlile, a London Congregationalist, revealed the esteem in which Nelson was held by describing him as ‘a very faithful and devoted Minister of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church’.Footnote 103 He sought to resolve Nelson's scruples by arguing that the relationship between the various organizations of the Evangelical Alliance would be substantially the same as that of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and Old School Presbyterians in American, one of independent action and no mutual responsibility. Nelson was not fully convinced, arguing that having co-ordinated alliances was a different thing from mere mutual intercourse in which the Irish Presbyterians freely remonstrated with their American brethren. Yet, after receiving assurances that the different organizations could remonstrate with each other, he withdrew his amendment.Footnote 104 Although other speakers, by admitting that the various organizations were independent of one another, had conceded that the goal of a worldwide alliance had not been achieved.Footnote 105
S. H. Cox pinned the blame for this disunion on the tendency of some to succumb to the common infirmity of magnifying their differences.Footnote 106 From the rest of his speech, it appears that Cox really blamed the ‘spirit of Abolitionism’ for the crisis, viewing this, in distinction from moderate anti-slavery, as ‘revolutionary and agrarian, down-levelling, and destructive, and infidel’ and out to destroy the American union. Although denying that Himes was an infidel, Cox admitted that of all the American delegates present he was the only abolitionist among them.Footnote 107 Owing to his patriotic impulses, Cox took particular exception to Nelson's remarks against America in his earlier speech, claiming ‘I felt my country was bleeding at his feet, and greatly injured.’Footnote 108 In effect, it appeared that Cox was blaming Nelson's divisive abolitionism and insensitivity to American patriotism for the failure of the conference to form a truly worldwide alliance.Footnote 109
The sensitivity of the Americans to Nelson's comments may point to wider concerns that Northern churchmen had about abolitionism.Footnote 110 There was a tendency to view it as a disruptive influence and that identification with it would lead to a reduction in both church membership and financial contributions to religious organizations. Many Northern clergymen had been educated with slaveholders or had preached in the slave states at some point in their careers, and thus were not favourable to sweeping condemnations of their friends.Footnote 111 Furthermore, at a time when the notion of manifest destiny was being used to provide a providential justification for America's expansion, Cox's attempts to portray Nelson as anti-American would have suited those who found criticism of the United States insufferable.Footnote 112 Even those who did not fully subscribe to this notion, or who subscribed to a more general belief in American virtue and progress, may have been influenced by its nationalistic impulse; this would have made listening to denunciation of American sin unbearably grievous. Indeed, John Wolffe has observed that although the London conference indicated the degree to which shared Protestant sympathies could bridge the Atlantic, the American resentment at British dictation on the slavery question suggested that earlier historical antipathies concerning the American Revolution and the War of 1812 could still be reawakened.Footnote 113
After Hinton again moved that the report be adopted, Nelson repeated his objections, only to be gently rebuked by the Wesleyan Methodist, Dr Jabez Bunting, also known as ‘the Methodist pope’ (who like Henry Cooke in Ulster had a reputation for being an ecclesiastical statesman and an autocratic tory), for not taking an active role in the Irish branch prior to the London conference.Footnote 114 Nelson's opposition was in vain, because after being referred to a committee the report was adopted later that evening.Footnote 115
The reaction in Belfast to Nelson's labours was not entirely positive, with the Belfast Commercial Chronicle publishing an item of correspondence on the conference which was critical of ‘our hot-headed anti-slavery men’ who were binding the fetters of the slave by attacking America.Footnote 116 Furthermore, a respected Methodist clergyman, the Revd Daniel McAfee, derided Standfield and Nelson in the Belfast Protestant Journal. He reproached them for preferring their own opinions to the judgement of ‘an assembly of wise and grave men’.Footnote 117
Opinion in Derry, however, was more ambiguous. Although the Londonderry Standard did not explicitly mention Nelson or Standfield and expressed reservations concerning the practicality of Douglass's and Garrison's ideas, especially the prudence of their attacks on the Alliance and the Free Church, it was ‘far from sympathising with the indiscriminate bitterness with which, in this country, they have usually been met’.Footnote 118 While the Standard believed that the Garrisonians were premature in attacking the Alliance, as it had not committed itself to the cause of the slaveholders, an editorial did recognize that the opinions of some members of the organization on slavery lent weight to the views of its critics.Footnote 119
Regardless of what others in Ulster thought, Nelson was highly regarded for his labours at the Evangelical Alliance by other zealous abolitionists. And so the annual report of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1848 praised him for the second year running as the man ‘who is honourably remembered as one of the few found faithful at the meeting to form the Alliance, in London’.Footnote 120
III
The war with pro-slavery religion in the Evangelical Alliance was far from over, however. Shortly after the London meeting, Garrison attacked the recent proceedings of the Alliance at a subsequent anti-slavery meeting in Exeter Hall, denouncing it before 6,000 people as ‘the scorn and execration of all good men and angels'.Footnote 121 In between the London conference and the meeting of the British organization at Manchester in November, the Alliance came in for criticism from other abolitionists.Footnote 122 The Glasgow Emancipation Society condemned it at the end of September 1846 for even giving credence to the American delegates that apologized for the slaveholders.Footnote 123 In defence of the Alliance, Wardlaw strenuously denied that it had given any sanction to slavery or was seeking union with slaveholders.Footnote 124 Although largely concurring with Wardlaw (whom he probably respected owing to his long-standing commitment to anti-slavery), Nelson, writing in October 1846, was not so hopeful about the Americans, predicting that they would admit slaveholders to their organization.Footnote 125
Notwithstanding their earlier differences with Garrison, Nelson and Standfield abandoned their nervousness towards the American when he visited Belfast in October 1846.Footnote 126 Around this time, Nelson came in for condemnation from a Belfast News-Letter correspondent writing under the pseudonym ‘SARA’. In particular, he was condemned for approving of Garrison's denunciation of the Alliance's seeking divine direction on the slavery issue as a ‘solemn mockery against God’.Footnote 127 Nelson did not deny that he had done this, and he justified it on the basis that there was no scriptural warrant ‘for a large body of christian [sic] men, and especially christian ministers, to hesitate for nearly four days on the question of admitting man-stealers (that is thieves of the worst description), into the Evangelical Alliance’.Footnote 128 McAfee expressed the extent of evangelical concern at this when he protested that the Alliance was being caricatured simply for not becoming slaves to the opinions of Nelson and Standfield.Footnote 129 However, the visiting abolitionists kept up the attack with Douglass strongly denouncing the Alliance at a meeting in Donegall Street Independent Chapel on 6 October. Such was Douglass's impatience that he even pressed Nelson at this meeting to find out if he condemned the Alliance's position.Footnote 130
Nelson himself caused great offence at the meeting of the British Evangelical Alliance at Manchester in November by having a letter defending Garrison distributed by men standing at the door, who were threatened with removal by the police.Footnote 131 Referring to this incident in 1863, Nelson spoke of the ‘indignation and rage’ he was subjected to at Manchester, simply for maintaining that they should enlist the help of all men, including Garrison, in trying to overturn slavery by driving it out of the Christian church.Footnote 132 However, it could be argued that it was hardly consistent for Nelson, as an orthodox Presbyterian, to agree with Garrison on the prayers said at the Alliance while the latter held to the heterodox religious principles that he did.Footnote 133 Perhaps such argumentation was being employed by Nelson's detractors as self-justification for their own indifference on the slavery question.
Nelson's views on the exclusion of slaveholders were nevertheless largely accepted by the British Alliance. The Revd Edward Bickersteth, a prominent Anglican clergyman, moved a resolution at the Manchester meeting which affirmed that ‘no holder of a slave shall be eligible to its membership’ in the British organization of the Evangelical Alliance – which was carried with overwhelming support. Speaking in favour of its acceptance, Nelson argued that ‘since the meeting in London he believed that the British Alliance would not be found to take the side of the slave-holders' and that the resolution amounted to a vindication of what he had said at the general conference.Footnote 134
Not all evangelicals were content with this decision, however. As Nelson pointed out when lecturing in Scotland the following February, the editor of the Free Church Magazine was most displeased.Footnote 135 The British organization was chided for adopting what seemed to be a violation of the principle affirmed by the London conference on slavery and for tending to isolate the British Alliance from the rest of Christendom. This decision was considered indicative of a ‘lower degree of moral fortitude than is necessary, if the Alliance is to act a prominent part in the troublous times that are so evidently at hand’. In other words, if the Alliance was going to be of any use in resisting the encroachments of Roman Catholicism in Britain, then it should not have caved in before the abolitionists.Footnote 136 This basically amounted to an admission that the abolitionists had triumphed in the British organization. Not all anti-slavery advocates were convinced that the Alliance had gone far enough, however, with the Glasgow Emancipation Society passing a resolution on 29 January 1847 condemning the Alliance for being influenced by pro-slavery elements.Footnote 137
In assessing the situation when speaking before the Free Church Anti-Slavery Society in February 1847, Nelson could surmise that the decision reached at Manchester – ‘though not committed to writing’ – was that the British organization would refuse to co-operate with any foreign organization of the Evangelical Alliance that admitted slaveholders.Footnote 138 He believed that the American ministers who spoke at London on the evils of slavery were often guilty of shedding ‘crocodile tears’, as they were regarded by real abolitionists as the worst enemies of the slave and abusers of those who sought his liberation.Footnote 139 He sought to substantiate this by referring to the resolutions of the Harmony Presbytery and Charleston Union Presbytery, which both claimed that American slavery was biblically sanctioned.Footnote 140 Nelson singled out S. H. Cox as receiving the thanks of the slaveholding party at a New School General Assembly meeting, and claimed that, before leaving America, Cox had promised to forsake the Evangelical Alliance should it exclude slaveholders.Footnote 141 Cox's comments probably reflected an attitude among the moderate anti-slavery Americans that the Alliance should not exclude those who were tolerated within their own denominations. In light of his own self-deprecation before Cox at the London conference, this was perhaps hypocritical on the part of Nelson. He was also guilty of not acknowledging Cox's ostensible anti-slavery credentials, as the Revd John Johnson and Professor Robert Wilson told the 1843 Irish General Assembly that, after an earlier visit to Ireland, Cox returned to America and preached against slavery and that this had resulted in his New York church being torn to pieces and the pews taken out and burned in the street.Footnote 142
Nelson was also displeased that Hinton, after initially calling for the total exclusion of slaveholders, caved in and accepted a vague resolution that implied ‘that a man can be made a slaveholder against his will’ – a supposition which Nelson regarded as spurious. While admitting that the decision of the British organization was a positive one, Nelson thought that it would have been better to have made that decision when the American ministers were present with them rather than three months later.Footnote 143 Perhaps E. R. Sandeen's point that the British Alliance was more concerned about not sharing in the guilt of slavery, rather than in assisting the slave, may help to explain some of their ambiguous actions.Footnote 144
IV
In conclusion, this article has argued that Isaac Nelson was the most eloquent and significant opponent of fellowship with slaveholders at the formation of the Evangelical Alliance. Notwithstanding the criticism heaped on the Alliance by various hard-line abolitionists, Nelson came in for praise in Garrison's Liberator newspaper. James McDonald sent Garrison a copy of Nelson's Free Church lecture, describing the author as ‘an unflinching friend, who nobly and consistently maintained his position, repudiating all connection with slaveholders, amid the general defection of his brethren in the so-called Evangelical Alliance’.Footnote 145 Even when denouncing the Evangelical Alliance at Exeter Hall, Garrison stated that ‘three Irish and one American delegate had nobly done their duty’, which obviously included Nelson.Footnote 146 This represents further evidence of the esteem in which Nelson was held in wider abolitionist circles.
It may be wondered how Nelson could reconcile his evangelical biblicism with his co-operation with Garrison, whose views on biblical inspiration were heterodox. Both Mark Noll and Molly Oshatz have been quick to seize on Garrison's opinion that it was a ‘bold fiction’ to assert that everything in the Bible was divinely inspired. And they have drawn attention to his view that it was absurd to argue that ‘everything in the Bible is to be believed, simply because it is found in that volume’.Footnote 147 Professor Noll claims that this comment amounted to an admission that the Bible sanctioned slavery, and therefore it made sense to abandon the Bible.Footnote 148 In the Liberator article that they refer to, however, Garrison denied that the Bible was an evil book and praised it for its ‘stringent morality’.Footnote 149 Garrison also argued, when speaking in Belfast in October 1846, that he vindicated the Bible as an anti-slavery book.Footnote 150 Whether or not this comment should be taken at face value is debatable, but it probably explains how Nelson reconciled his commitment to scripture with praise for Garrison. Since both of them apparently believed the Bible was anti-slavery, anti-slavery biblicism was not an obstacle to their co-operating to promote abolition.
This unity is significant because Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society had earlier split with the Tappanite evangelicals in 1840 partly owing to the former group's hostility to the churches.Footnote 151 As Nelson was part of the pro-Tappanite British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, he was initially sceptical towards Garrison.Footnote 152 At the London conference, Nelson distanced himself from Garrison's extremist views. He said, ‘I am not ultra; nor do I agree with Mr Garrison on this point. There is no point on which I have any sympathy with Mr Garrison but one.’Footnote 153 Their shared commitment to radical abolitionism, however, meant that such divisions were partially overcome and Nelson defended Garrison from criticism by other evangelicals. Whether or not Nelson was consistent in aligning himself with Garrison is another question. It does appear to have been illogical for him to have been so critical of the Alliance for equivocating on a matter concerning the purity of Christian fellowship while he associated so closely with the heterodox. This is because he was not merely uniting with Garrison in a secular cause, but in order to protest against a matter of religious discipline; and one who held Garrison's theological opinions was hardly qualified to decide who should be excluded from orthodox Christian fellowship.
Despite the praise he received from other radical abolitionists, it must be concluded that Nelson suffered a major defeat when the London conference failed to exclude slaveholders from all Evangelical Alliance organizations. Iain Whyte is therefore correct to conclude that Nelson and Standfield were ‘swimming against the tide’ as they laboured in vain against the American apologists for slavery.Footnote 154 The testimony of other contemporary radical abolitionists appeared basically to support this assessment. Writing in September 1846, Garrison concluded that ‘the Evangelical Alliance has died … on the question of slavery’ and had served to ‘excite disgust and indignation on every true breast’.Footnote 155 It would, however, be going too far to see the outcome of the London conference as an absolute defeat for Nelson's radical abolitionism. As Professor Rice concluded, the failure to form a truly ecumenical Alliance did at least mean that the American churches were denied the support of the British Alliance for their pro-slavery opinions.Footnote 156 Although David Turley claims that the exclusion of slaveholders from the British Alliance was ‘a largely empty gesture’, it was a considerably better outcome for abolitionism than what happened in the Free Church of Scotland, and can credibly be seen as a partial victory.Footnote 157
The position of the American branch of the Evangelical Alliance, however, was not unambiguously abolitionist. In 1847, the American organization did at least make some condemnation of slavery. It refused to discriminate between slaveholders who held slaves for the sake of gain and those who held them for benevolent purposes, viewing this distinction as both ridiculous and impracticable.Footnote 158 Also the report suggested that various Americans believed a condemnation of slavery was essential to union between the British and American branches.Footnote 159 Ironically, the chairman on that occasion, Chief Justice Joseph C. Hornblower of New Jersey, agreed with Nelson's sentiments that ‘[n]o man could be compelled to hold slaves against his will’, and that the prevailing legal system could not be used as a justification for slaveholding.Footnote 160 The meeting resolved that it was their duty to use all wise and Christian means to promote the extirpation of the ‘stupendous evil’ of slavery from their land.Footnote 161 This failed to satisfy some abolitionists, who complained that it fell short of condemning American slavery as sinful.Footnote 162 Nor did the anti-slavery resolution it eventually adopted make the question of slavery a test of membership.Footnote 163 Thus, the Glasgow Argus alleged that the Americans did not exclude slaveholders, and so concluded that there could not be any connection between the organizations in Britain and the United States.Footnote 164
It is also a mistake to think that British members of the Alliance unanimously concurred with the determination to exclude slaveholders made at Manchester. At a meeting in Edinburgh in June 1847, Captain H. D. Trotter presented a communication from several members of the Manchester meeting expressing their dissent from the decision on slavery.Footnote 165 Writing to Garrison shortly afterwards, Richard Thurrow claimed that the pro-slavery party were possessed of such base morals that they only presented this a few minutes before the close of the meeting and after ‘the Rev. Isaac Nelson, Rev. Jonathan Watson, and … more than a majority of the members had left’.Footnote 166 Thus, even if we view the Manchester decision as a victory for Nelson, it was far from complete, as at least some members of the British Alliance were not prepared fully to adopt his stance toward the American churches. Notwithstanding his comparative success with respect to excluding slaveholders from fellowship with the British Alliance, the ideal outcome for Nelson would have been a transatlantic alliance that absolutely excluded slaveholders from fellowship. This would have given the impression that American pro-slavery Christianity was out of step with the mainstream of evangelical Christendom.
In common with the judgement of various historians, Nelson also regarded slavery as the reason for the failure to form a worldwide alliance.Footnote 167 It was slavery that divided them, ‘not into affiliated branches of one trunk, but into seven independent and disjected fragments called organizations’.Footnote 168 Reflecting on this situation in 1863, Nelson commented that subsequent to the fragmentation over slavery, the Evangelical Alliance had been ‘utterly paralyzed and ruined ever since’.Footnote 169 In light of later scholarly research, however, Nelson's conclusion is probably too sweeping. First, the Alliance did stimulate some sense of unity amidst the fragmented world of evangelicalism, especially through its times of united prayer. Second, it was also the means of disseminating evangelicalism's message through the British organization's periodical, Evangelical Christendom. Third, it performed many services to the cause of global missions, especially since it was at a British Evangelical Alliance meeting that the plan for the first International Missionary Conference in 1854 was advocated.Footnote 170 Fourth, the Alliance's efforts on behalf of persecuted minorities, not all of whom were evangelicals, has since earned it the reputation of being ‘a nineteenth-century version of Amnesty International’.Footnote 171
Nelson's opinion as to the reason for the Alliance's supposed ineffectiveness is also open to the charge of being reductionist. It is worth remembering that it was not sufficiently anti-popery for some ultra-Protestants, who later formed the Scottish Reformation Society and the Protestant Alliance.Footnote 172 Professor Wolffe claims that the close link between the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 and the formation of the Alliance meant that it was tinged with anti-Erastian protest, thus limiting its appeal to members of the Church of England.Footnote 173 G. I. T. Machin has also argued that the inclusion of members of state churches had the effect of alienating more militant Voluntaries.Footnote 174 The conversion of Baptist Noel to the Baptists in 1848 also confirmed the suspicions of some Anglicans that the Evangelical Alliance was subversive of good churchmanship.Footnote 175 In light of these considerations, caution must be exercized before accepting Nelson's assertion that slavery was the main cause of the Alliance's comparative stagnation, though it does appear to have been a significant one. For instance, some people, who had been involved, resigned subsequent to the London conference. The most notable was the philanthropist and Congregational minister, Dr Andrew Reed, who viewed the outcome of the London conference as akin to holding the rights of slaves in abeyance.Footnote 176
While it appears reasonable to look upon his advocacy of the abolitionist cause before the Evangelical Alliance as one of the highlights of his career, Nelson's involvement with the organization was not viewed as sincere by all of his contemporaries. At the time of the London conference in 1846 the Banner of Ulster printed an editorial which claimed that Nelson and Standfield went to London for the sole purpose of agitating on slavery, and would probably resign their connection with the Alliance shortly afterwards.Footnote 177 This comment overlooked the fact that Nelson had attended a meeting about the proposed Evangelical Alliance in Belfast the previous year.Footnote 178 Furthermore, it should be noted that Nelson was present at Alliance meetings subsequent to the debates over slavery in the 1840s. In 1852, for example, when an attempt was made to revive the Belfast sub-division of the Evangelical Alliance, Nelson said he ‘would use every exertion for its revival’. And he expressed his belief that unity among evangelical Christians, on common, not denominational ground, was essential owing to persecution in countries such as Italy.Footnote 179 For these sentiments, the Belfast Commercial Chronicle praised Nelson as ‘a man whose firmness never was in question’ and predicted that with his support there was little possibility of the Alliance sinking into abeyance.Footnote 180
After this, Nelson appears to have had very few dealings with the Alliance. However, he was to take exception to the support for the 1859 revival expressed at a meeting of the organization in Belfast that year.Footnote 181 Nelson did make one sneering reference to it in his pro-home rule 1874 lecture, The present importance of Irish history. He complained about the organization offering prayer for ‘poor Popish Ireland’, and warned ‘such pietists, that it frequently happens that the wrong doer prays for his victim’.Footnote 182 Since Nelson believed they had overlooked the need for justice in Ireland, this comment implied that the Alliance's prayers were hypocritical. Such rhetoric was reminiscent of his earlier complaints about the Alliance using prayer as an excuse for dithering on the slavery question, indicating that the events of 1846 cast a long shadow over Nelson's career. This meant he was suspicious of anything that could be construed as cloaking oppression, either in America or Ireland, with the garb of evangelical respectability. As with his later advocacy of land reform and home rule, Nelson's anti-slavery sentiments were motivated by his opinion that ‘Christianity rightly understood is always on the side of the people and justice’.Footnote 183
