It’s hard for us today to conceive how the arguments in favor of slavery could have gained ground in the church, but they did. Some justified it on the basis of presumed lesser intellectual capacities of the Africans, and went as far as saying that slavery was an improvement of their condition. But every man, Alexander said, “has a right, from the constitution given him by the Author of Nature, to dispose of himself, and be his own master in all respects, except in violating the will of Heaven.”
In the fall of 1800, Alexander McLeod (1774-1833) received a call to become pastor of the Congregation in Coldenham, New York. It was the culmination of a training he had received since he was a child, back in the wild and scenic Isle of Mull, Scotland. It had also been the high aspiration of both his father, Rev. Niel McLeod, and his mother, Margaret McLean.
Alexander might have wished they were there. But Rev. Niel had died when Alexander was five, and Margaret ten years later. Both losses had been difficult for the boy, but the pain he had felt at his mother’s death had been so devastating that people thought he might lose his reason. And yet, he continued his studies in Scotland until age 18, then traveled to America to complete his education, graduating with honors from Union College in Schenectady, New York, in 1798. He was licensed to preach the following year.
Against Slavery
Now that the pastoral charge was finally before him, he hesitated to accept it. The congregation he was about to serve included several slaveholders, and he could not in good conscience allow that behavior to continue. In Scotland, the practice of owning slaves was abolished in 1778, when McLeod was still a child.
The issue of slavery had been on the Presbytery’s agenda for some time, and McLeod’s stand brought it to a head, encouraging the unanimous decision that “no slaveholder should be allowed the communion of the church.” McLeod was installed in 1802.
The same year, McLeod published a treatise entitled Negro Slavery Unjustifiable, clarifying why slavery can rightly be considered an excommunicable sin, even if the civil laws allowed it: “The toleration of slavery is a national evil. It is the worst of robberies sanctioned by law. It is treason against Heaven—a conspiracy against the liberties of His subjects. If the Judge of all the earth shall do right, He cannot but punish the guilty.”[1]
It’s hard for us today to conceive how the arguments in favor of slavery could have gained ground in the church, but they did. Some justified it on the basis of presumed lesser intellectual capacities of the Africans, and went as far as saying that slavery was an improvement of their condition. But every man, Alexander said, “has a right, from the constitution given him by the Author of Nature, to dispose of himself, and be his own master in all respects, except in violating the will of Heaven.”[2]
