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Title: The Slavery Question
Author: John Lawrence
Release Date: October 5, 2014 [EBook #47050]
Language: English
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THE
SLAVERY QUESTION.
BY
JOHN LAWRENCE,
AUTHOR OF "PLAIN THOUGHTS ON SECRET SOCIETIES," AND "BRIEF
TREATIES ON AMERICAN SLAVERY."
THIRD EDITION.
THE DISCUSSION OF SLAVERY WILL PROCEED, WHEREVER TWO OR
THREE ARE GATHERED TOGETHER--BY THE FIRESIDE, ON THE HIGHWAY,
AT THE PUBLIC MEETING, IN THE CHURCH. THE MOVEMENT
AGAINST SLAVERY IS FROM THE EVERLASTING ARM.
CHARLES SUMNER.
DAYTON, O.,
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE CONFERENCE PRINTING
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST.
VONNIEDA & KUMLER, AGENTS.
1854.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1854, by
VONNIEDA & KUMLER,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Ohio.
PREFACE.
American slavery is a great sin--a complicated iniquity--a gigantic
barbarism--and it "is evil, only evil, and that continually." But the
depth of this wickedness is not very frequently sounded, if, indeed it
can be sounded. The magnitude of this crime is not often measured, if,
indeed it is possible to determine its dimensions.
Slavery has narcoticized the consciences of the American people to a
most alarming extent. A deep sleep has come over the moral sense, which
it would seem cannot be broken by the cries and entreaties of three
millions of wretched bondmen. Are we not in imminent danger of being
cursed with Pharaoh's hardness of heart? May we not be visited speedily
with judicial blindness such as was inflicted upon the doomed nations
and cities of antiquity?
The standard of national morality has been degraded to the level of an
infamous lower law enacted by scheming political traders.
Our national government, in all its departments--Executive, Judicial
and Legislative--has been transformed into a pliant tool in the hands
of an unscrupulous oligarchy.
The powerful American Churches have ceased to be asylums for the
oppressed, defenders of the down trodden, uncompromising foes of
tyranny, and they have become, on the contrary, the apologists of
oppressors, a terror to the oppressed, and the only reliable bulwark of
American slavery.
The author has aimed to present in the following pages such a
discussion of the general subject of slavery as would be calculated
to awaken the thoughts, and feelings, especially of those who have not
had an opportunity of examining this question in larger and more ably
written productions. There are thousands of honest people who would
take a decided position on a Christian anti-slavery platform, and
throw their whole influence in the right direction if they were made
acquainted with slavery as it is, and with their duties religiously
and politically in relation to it. It is with the design of benefiting
the common people--the people of plain sense--who are not offended at
plain talk and plain facts, that the following work is published. If
the workingmen of the free and slave States can be aroused into action,
slavery must fly from the churches and perish from the nation.
With this purpose in view, we have sketched a history of the
African slave trade, showing how slavery originated; have defined
slavery--proving that its essential principle is property in a human
being; and laws, facts and incidents have been adduced to illustrate
the system so that even a child may see and feel its enormity.
And, as a corrupt moral sense has been still more corrupted by efforts
to bring revealed religion to the support of slavery, particular pains
have been taken to prove that not a single word, nor precept, nor
example can be adduced from the Bible which sanctions any such system;
and that the whole spirit of religion as revealed under the old economy
and the new, is utterly and irreconcilably opposed to all slavery.
It has been thought proper to present a concise view of the position
occupied by the American Churches upon this question. No church can
complain when its ecclesiastical action on so grave a subject is
re-published. And besides, it is quite necessary for honest people to
know on what platforms the religious denominations of the country stand.
The true position of a religious society or church in relation to
slavery is exhibited. This is a point of more than ordinary importance.
The doctrine is maintained that the honor of the Bible, the purity,
power, peace, and success of the Church, its duty to God, to freedom,
to slaveholders and especially to slaves, demand that it have no
fellowship with slaveholding.
Particular pains have been taken to point out the political duties of
Christians in relation to slavery.
The inquiry, "how are we to get rid of slavery?" is taken up, and the
position assumed and defended that it ought to be abolished immediately.
The book closes with a glance at the prospects. The watchman tells
us that the sky from many points of observation is dark, but still
that there are some very encouraging indications. The uncorrupted
conscience, reason, truth, Christianity and prayer, are on the side of
the oppressed; and God, who is love, is their hope, and cannot fail
to come to their help and bring them forth with a mighty hand and an
out-stretched arm.
Quite a number of works on slavery have been consulted in the
preparation of this discussion, among which may be mentioned, "American
Slave Code" by Mr. Goodell; "Barnes on Slavery;" "Bible Servitude," by
E. Smith; "Elliott on American Slavery;" "Slavery and the Church," by
Mr. Hosmer; "Debate on Slavery by Blanchard & Rice;" "Non-fellowship
with Slaveholders," by Mr. Fee; "Sermon on the Slave Trade" by Jonathan
Edwards; and "Thirteenth Annual Report of the American and Foreign
Anti-slavery Society."
No "mealy words" have been used in this book. I have only aimed to
present the plain truth, and shall be rewarded in whatever mite of
influence it may cast on the side of liberty.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
Seven millions of slaves in America--Slavery originated in the
African slave trade--Slave-trade unprovoked--Excited by lust for
gold--Commenced by the Portuguese in 1434--Spaniards in 1511--English
in 1556--President Edwards quoted--100,000 annually destroyed--Report
made to the British House of Commons--Startling statistics--A slave
ship described--Slave-trade declared to be piracy and abolished
page 13
CHAPTER II.
SLAVERY DEFINED.
PROPERTY IN A HUMAN BEING.
A slave is a chattel--Authorities quoted--Advertised and sold as
property--Facts adduced--sale of a boy--a woman with an infant in her
arms--a mother--American slave-code identical in principle with the
Roman page 30
CHAPTER III.
SLAVERY ILLUSTRATED.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.
Slaves denied an education--Laws--Instances--Slavery disregards
matrimonial connections--Painful facts page 41
CHAPTER IV.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Slavery disregards the parental and filial
relations--Facts--Slave-mother's lament page 56
CHAPTER V.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Slavery utterly impoverishes its victims--Exposes them to unbridled
lust--unrestrained passion--irresponsible tyranny--Heart-rending
incidents! page 64
CHAPTER VI.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
Severity of laws against slaves--partial--unreasonable and
cruel--Practice worse than the laws--Burning of slaves--Horrible
examples page 80
CHAPTER VII.
SLAVERY AND RELIGION.
CURSE OF CANAAN--Doubtful authority--Did not allude to slavery--A mere
prediction at best--Africans not the descendants of Canaan page 88
CHAPTER VIII.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
PATRIARCHAL SERVITUDE AND SLAVERY--No patriarch ever owned
a slave--Slavery had no existence in the time of the
patriarchs--Diodorus, Athenæus and Rollin quoted--The Hebrew word
SERVANT not equivalent to the English word SLAVE--Abraham's servants
converts from idolatry page 94
CHAPTER IX.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
LAW OF MOSES AND SLAVERY--Levitical statutes not perfect--Allowed what
it would now be wrong to practice--Dr. Stowe quoted--Servitude under
the law of Moses essentially different from American slavery--Meaning
of "buy," "heathen," "bondmen," and "forever,"--Servants not
stolen--Voluntary--Provision for religious improvement--Kind
treatment--Could not be sold--Equal to their masters--Certain
emancipation--Salvation of the heathen the primary design of
introducing foreign servants page 107
CHAPTER X.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
NEW TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY--SERVANTS mentioned but not SLAVES--DOULOS
does not mean SLAVE--New Testament does not regulate slavery
because it cannot be regulated--Slaveholders not addressed by the
Apostles--Onesimus not a slave--Character of Roman slavery--Contrary
to the fundamental principles of revealed religion--The character of
God--Common origin of man--General Redemption--Moral precepts--And is
necessarily unjust and unequal page 124
CHAPTER XI.
AMERICAN CHURCHES AND SLAVERY.
THE POSITION THEY OCCUPY.
Presbyterians (O. S. and N. S.)--Congregational--Methodist
Episcopal, North and South--Methodist Protestant--Wesleyan Methodist
Connection--Baptist, Regular--Freewill--Seventh Day--Evangelical
Association--United Brethren--Various Churches--Summary View page 149
CHAPTER XII.
SLAVERY AND THE CHURCH.
NON-FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.
Scriptural view--Church must keep slaveholders out--If they get
in, it must expel them--If the Church sanction slavery officially
or practically, withdraw from it--Non-slaveholding required
that it may be holy--The pillar of truth--That it may honor the
Scriptures--Convert the world--Be faithful to slaveholders and to
slaves--Non-fellowship required by decency--humanity--If fellowshiped,
we shall have slaveholding preachers, and women-sellers and
cradle-plunderers for class-mates--Cases given page 169
CHAPTER XIII.
SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.
Kind slaveholders--Examples--Excusable slaveholders--Slavery a
political matter--Fault of the public corruption--Fault of the
laws--Slaveholders from necessity--Slaves their property--All right
ONLY this one thing--Take them in to convince them of the wrong--Mr.
Fee's opinion page 184
CHAPTER XIV.
POLITICAL DUTIES OF CHRISTIANS.
EXTIRPATION OF SLAVERY FROM THE WORLD.
Necessity of government--Obligation of political action--Voters
responsible for slavery--United States Constitution does not endorse
slavery--Founders of the Republic intended that slavery should die
out speedily--Character of the government changed--Great work for
Christian citizens--Slavery in the District--Territories--Slave
States--Throughout the world page 195
CHAPTER XV.
ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION.
The duty plain and scriptural--Break every yoke--proclaim a year of
Jubilee--Slavery cannot be reformed--Slaves prepared for freedom--Free
people of color--Fugitives in Canada--West India emancipation--Colored
people not dangerous when free--Amalgamation--Our fears originate
in our guilt--Colonization scheme impracticable--Wrong--Watkins
quoted--All objections mere excuses--We must emancipate to escape the
judgments of God--Too long delayed--A good example page 206
CHAPTER XVI.
WHAT OF THE NIGHT?
THERE IS HOPE IN GOD ONLY.
The government intensely pro-slavery--Political horizon lowering--The
great denominations and benevolent societies heartily supporting
slavery--Ecclesiastical heavens dark--Deep prejudices in the masses of
the people--Douglass quoted--God is on the side of the oppressed--He
is stirring the nation--Question cannot rest--Agitation goes on--Truth
is on the side of the slave--Literature coming to his aid--A pure
Church arising to plead his cause--"TOIL AND TRUST." page 219
AMERICAN SLAVERY.
CHAPTER I.
Origin of American Slavery.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
On the continent of America and adjacent Islands there are more than
seven millions of slaves. Between three and four millions of these
are enslaved by the most liberal, enlightened and prosperous nation
on the Globe. The American _Republic_ is a great slaveholding nation,
and, viewed in its slaveholding character, might fitly be termed also,
the American _Despotism_. The highest form of freedom is here enjoyed
by about twenty millions of persons and the lowest type of slavery
suffered by more than three millions. One seventh of all born under our
Democratic Constitution and under our world-renowned stars and stripes,
are hereditary slaves.
American slavery has flourished three hundred years, being coeval with
the Reformation, and running back over one twentieth part of the whole
period of time since Adam. Nine generations of slaves, under a crushing
weight of despotism, have toiled and suffered on through a wretched
life, and have gone murmuring down to the grave.
We shall now inquire into the origin of this immense iniquity. American
slavery originated directly in the African slave trade; a trade most
dishonorable to human nature, bad as that nature is admitted to be,
and most disgraceful to christian civilization. Its history, although
not fully written, except by heaven's recording angel, cannot be read
by a humane person, even in its fragmentary form, without the deepest
sorrow. It is a history of villainy, of relentless cruelty, of raging,
hollow-hearted avarice and of unmitigated diabolism on the one side;
and of wrongs, wretchedness and writhing anguish on the other.
Nothing had occurred to provoke a marauding attack upon the Africans.
They were a peaceable and harmless people, and had no means of exciting
either the jealousy or the displeasure of Europeans. They had not
violated treaties, nor declared wars. The bloody wars among the African
tribes, of which we hear so much from those who would palliate the
atrocities of the slave trade, were excited by the traders themselves,
and so far from palliating, only add _blackness_ to the darkness of
their crimes. The old Roman soldier, who enslaved a national enemy whom
he valiantly met and conquered in what is called honorable warfare,
might have claimed, with the semblance of plausibility, that the life
he had spared legitimately belonged to him. But the African slave
trader could not plead even this unmanly and unmerciful apology. The
Africans were not national enemies, and were not in arms.
No, it was not revenge, ambition, or patriotism, but CUPIDITY which
prompted the slave trade--
"The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless!
The last corruption of degenerate man."
Avaricious men launched and manned the slave ship, unfurled the sails
and stood at the helm. In their perilous voyage over the wide ocean,
amid storms and tempests, not one noble impulse swelled their bosoms;
not one philanthropic purpose strengthened their courage; not one
humane pulsation throbbed in their hearts. The slaver went on its long
voyage under the patronage of the Prince of darkness, for the one and
only purpose of making gold out of the sale of the bodies and souls of
men; of distilling wealth from blood and tears and agony. Montgomery
said truly--
"Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow;
Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below,
Is he who toils upon the wafting flood,
A CHRISTIAN BROKER IN THE TRADE OF BLOOD!"
But it was not avarice in the crew of the slave ship alone which
incited and drove this iniquitous business. The prime movers were
the owners of the estates to be worked. Had those men been unwilling
to grow rich upon unrewarded toil, the _slaver_ never would have
sailed to Africa and plundered its shores. But the piratical crew and
the purchasers of the victims of their nefarious traffic were in a
villainous co-partnership.
When the slaver had reached its destination and had anchored off the
slave coast, the following methods were employed in securing a cargo.
1st. Declarations of friendship were made and many of the unsuspecting
natives were induced, out of curiosity or for trade, to go aboard the
vessel, and when there were suddenly confined and permitted no more to
return. 2d. Parties of the crew were sent out to surprise and carry
off innocent children and youth as they went to the fields or gathered
in groups to play in the groves. Think of the anguish of those African
mothers and of the distress of their affrighted children! 3d. Villages
were fired in the night, and as many of the defenseless inhabitants as
could be captured by force of arms were carried off. 4th. The chiefs
of different tribes were hired to act as the agents of the slaver in
procuring slaves. Rum, of which all savages are extremely fond, was the
principal incentive. Inflamed by this demon, the native chiefs made war
upon each other, and sold the prisoners captured to the traders for a
fresh supply of rum.
The African slave trade was commenced on a small scale a few years
before the discovery of America. We learn from the Encyclopedia
Americana "that, in 1434, a Portuguese captain name _Alonzo Gonzales_,
landed in Guinea, and carried away some colored lads, whom he sold
advantageously to Moorish families settled in the South of Spain.
Six years after, he committed a similar robbery, and many merchants
imitated the practice, and built a fort to protect the traffic."
After a discovery of the Gold Mines of America, quite a number of
negroes were imported, first by the Portuguese then by the Spaniards,
to labor in those mines. In 1511 Ferdinand, King of Spain, authorized
the importation of a large number. About this period it is said, and
generally believed that _Bartolomeo las Cas_, a Catholic Priest,
influenced by a feeling of pity toward the Indians, whom the Spaniards
were enslaving, proposed to Ximenes the regular importation of negroes.
Whether this be true or not, Charles the V. in 1517, granted the
privilege to Lebresa, of importing 4000 slaves to America annually.
Lebresa sold his right to import to Genoese merchants, for about
$25,000. These merchants now commenced the slave trade in earnest.
_Sir John Hawkins_ has the honor of being the first English captain
who engaged in the business of stealing negroes. In 1556 he made an
unsuccessful effort at negro catching near Cape Verd. He made another
effort at a different point; and after burning the towns, was so
bravely resisted by the inhabitants, that he lost seven men, and only
captured ten. He continued his depredations until his ship was loaded
with human beings, which he sold in America.[1] The trade was now
vigorously prosecuted by the christian nations of Europe. It is said
that Charles the V., Louis XIII. and Queen Elizabeth had some trouble
with their consciences about this horrible trade, but they were quieted
by the argument that it brought the African into a good situation to be
converted! Pope Leo X. declared that "not only the christian religion
but nature itself cried out against a State of slavery."
These feeble expressions of disapprobation were scarcely heard and
the trade went on vigorously--cupidity triumphing over conscience and
silencing almost, for many years, the voice of humanity and religion.
An extract from a sermon preached on the slave trade by _President
Edwards_, in the year 1791 will now be quoted. At the time this good
man lifted his voice against this traffic, it will be remembered that
it was authorized by the Constitution of the United States, and was a
source of great profit to those engaged in it.
"The slave trade is wicked and abominable on account of the cruel
manner in which it is carried on. Beside the stealing or kidnapping of
men, women and children, in the first instance, and the instigation
of others to this abominable practice, the inhuman manner in which
they are transported to America, and in which they are treated on the
passage and in their subsequent slavery, is such as ought forever to
deter every man from acting any part in this business, who has any
regard to justice or humanity. They are crowded so closely into the
holds and between the decks of vessels, that they have room scarcely
to lie down, and some times not room to sit up in an erect posture,
the men at the same time fastened together with irons, by two and two:
and all this in the most sultry climate. The consequence of the whole
is, that the most dangerous and fatal diseases are soon bred among
them, whereby vast numbers of those exported from Africa perish in the
voyage; others in dread of that slavery which is before them, and in
distress and despair from the loss of their parents, their children,
their husbands, their wives, all their dear connections, and their dear
native country itself, starve themselves to death, or plunge themselves
into the ocean. Those who attempt in the former of those ways to
escape from their persecutors, are tortured by live coals placed to
their mouths. Those who attempt an escape in the latter and fail, are
equally tortured by the most cruel beating. If any of them make an
attempt as they sometimes do, to recover their liberty, some, and as
the circumstance may be, many, are put to immediate death, others,
beaten, bruised, cut and mangled in a most inhuman and shocking manner,
are in this situation, exhibited to the rest, to terrify them from the
like attempt in future: and some are delivered up to every species
of torment, whether by the application of the whip, or of any other
instrument, even of fire itself, as the ingenuity of the ship master,
or of his crew is able to suggest, or their situation will admit; and
these torments are purposely continued for several days before death is
permitted to afford relief to these objects of vengeance.
"By these means, according to the common computation, twenty-five
thousand, which is a fourth part of those who are exported from Africa,
and by the concession of all, twenty thousand, annually perish, before
they arrive at the places of their destination in America."
The same writer computed that of the one hundred thousand slaves
annually exported, 60,000 were captives taken in war, and that ten
persons were killed in the capture of one. _Sixty thousand then in the
time of Jonathan Edwards were slain in battle, 40,000 destroyed on
the voyage_ and in the seasoning, making _an annual destruction of_
100,000 men, woman and children, in order to procure 60,000 slaves!
This computation may be relied upon, as Jonathan Edwards was a careful
writer, and no enthusiast.
For three hundred years this horrible traffic had been prosecuted
before Mr. Edwards delivered the sermon from which we have quoted,
and at that period the annual slaughter was 100,000, and the annual
enslavement 60,000! How many perished during those three hundred years
God only knows. Rum had excited wars among the natives, and the whole
coast, and far into the interior was turned into a battle field. No
one was safe. The poor African could not lie down securely at night,
for men-stealers were ransacking the country watching for their prey
like hungry tigers; villages were burned, property destroyed, and the
wretched inhabitants, either captured, killed, or caused to fly from
their homes, and perish perhaps with famine.
In a report made to the British House of Commons, it was estimated
that from 1807 to 1847, including a period of only forty years, _ten
millions_ of persons had been made the victims of this traffic! TEN
MILLIONS; one-half of whom were murdered in Africa; one fourth during
the "middle passage;" and the remaining fourth reduced to _property_
and doomed, with their posterity, to a life of degradation, suffering
and toil! And all this gigantic robbery and murder perpetrated in the
favored nineteenth century!
Permit me to direct your attention to a single slave ship which sailed
only a few years ago. This ship was examined by the officers of a
British man-of-war. The following is from the pen of Mr. Walsh, an eye
witness of what he relates.
"The ship had taken in, on the coast of Africa, 336 males and 226
females, making in all 562, and had been out 17 days, during which she
had thrown overboard _fifty five_!
"The slaves were all enclosed under grated hatchways between decks.
The space was so low, that they sat between each other's legs, and
they were stowed so close together, that there was no possibility
of their lying down, or at all changing their position by night or
day. As they belonged to, and were shipped on account of different
individuals, they were all branded like sheep, with the owner's marks
of different forms. These were impressed under their breasts or on
their arms, and as the mate informed me, with perfect indifference,
quiemados pelo ferro quento--burnt with the red hot iron. Over the
hatchway stood a ferocious looking fellow with a scourge of many
twisted thongs in his hand, who was the slave driver of the ship; and
whenever he heard the slightest noise below, he shook it over them,
and seemed eager to exercise it. As soon as the poor creatures saw us
looking down at them their dark and melancholy visages brightened up.
They perceived something of sympathy and kindness in our looks which
they had not been accustomed to, and feeling instinctively, that we
were friends, they immediately began to shout and clap their hands.
One or two had picked up a few Portuguese words, and cried out _Viva!
viva!_ The women were particularly excited. They all held up their
arms; and when we bent down and shook hands with them, they could not
contain their delight, they endeavored to scramble upon their knees,
stretching up to kiss our hands; and we understood that they knew we
had come to liberate them. Some, however, hung down their heads, in
apparently hopeless dejection, some were greatly emaciated, and some,
particularly children, seemed dying. But the circumstance which struck
us most forcibly, was, how it was possible for such a number of human
beings to exist, packed up and wedged together as tight as they could
cram, in low cells, three feet high, the greater part of which, except
that immediately under the hatchways, was shut out from light or air,
and this when the thermometer, exposed to the open sky, was stand-in
the shade, on our deck at 89°. The space between the decks was divided
into two compartments, three feet, three inches high; the size of one
was 16 feet by 18 feet, and of the other 40 feet by 21 feet; into the
first there were crammed the women and girls, into the second the men
and boys; 226 fellow beings were thus thrust into one space 288 feet
square, and 336 into another 800 feet square, giving to the whole an
average of 23 inches, and to each of the women, not more than thirteen.
The heat of these horrid places was so great and the odor so offensive,
that it was quite impossible to enter them even had there been room.
They were measured as above when the slaves had left them. The officers
insisted that the poor suffering creatures should be admitted on deck
to get air and water. This was opposed by the mate of the slaver, who,
from a feeling that they deserved it, declared they would murder them
all. The officers (of the Eng. ship,) however, persisted, and the poor
beings were all turned up together. It is impossible to conceive the
effect of this eruption; 507 fellow creatures of all ages and sizes,
some children, some adults, old men and women, all in a state of total
nudity, scrambling out together to taste a little pure air and water.
They came swarming up like bees from the aperture of a hive, till the
whole deck was crowded to suffocation, from stem to stern; so that it
was impossible to imagine where they could all have come from, or how
they could all have been stowed away. On looking into the places where
they had been crammed, there were found some children next the sides
of the ship, in the places most remote from light and air; they were
lying in nearly a torpid state, after the rest had turned out. The
little creatures seemed indifferent as to life or death; and when they
were carried on deck, many of them could not stand. After enjoying, for
a short time, the unusual luxury of air, some water was brought; it
was then that the extent of their sufferings was exposed in a fearful
manner. They all rushed like maniacs toward it. No entreaties, or
threats, or blows could restrain them; they shrieked, and struggled,
and fought with one another, for a drop of this precious liquid, as
if they grew rabid at the sight of it. When the poor creatures were
ordered down again, several of them came, and pressed their heads
against our knees, with looks of the greatest anguish, at the prospect
of returning to the horrid place of suffering below."[2]
But the English ship was obliged to release the slaver and abandon to
despair those defenseless victims, as it was found upon examination
that it had not violated a vile privilege then allowed Brazilian ships
to obtain slaves south of a certain line.
It is a humiliating fact that for a period of three centuries the
whole christian world was engaged in plundering a heathen shore of
its inhabitants, speculating in their bodies and souls and spreading
amongst them intemperance, war and all unutterable woes. The history of
this wickedness will never be fully known until the general judgment.
Then will the ocean have a tale to tell of the thousands who were
smothered in the slave prisons which floated upon her bosom, and of the
multiplied thousands who were famished and buried in her deeps. The sea
will send up her witnesses, and Africa, wet with tears and blood, will
bear a testimony before God in that day which will make the ears of all
that hear it to tingle!
But let us glance at a more hopeful view of the subject. In 1783 a
petition was addressed to the house of Parliament, Great Britain, for
the abolition of this trade. THOMAS CLARKSON was the mover, and the
great champion of the cause. In 1788 Mr. Pitt presented a petition
against the trade and introduced the subject of its abolition into the
house of Commons. The opposition to this measure was united, powerful
and violent. At length in 1792 the house of Commons passed a bill for
the abolition of the slave trade to take place in 1795. This bill
was rejected in the House of Lords. About this time the _National
Assembly_ in France, declared all the slaves in the French colonies
free. Mr. Wilberforce brought into the British Parliament another bill
in 1796, which provided that this trade should be abolished forever
after 1797--but this bill was lost also. The efforts of the friends
of humanity were redoubled, and in "_1806 Fox moved that the House
of Commons should declare the slave trade inconsistent with justice,
humanity and sound policy, and immediately take effective measures
for its abolition_." This measure passed by a large majority--and
Jan. 1808 was fixed as the time for its abolition. _In 1824 a law
was passed declaring the trade to be piracy._ Portugal provided for
the total abolition of this trade in 1823. France in 1815--Spain in
1820--Netherlands in 1818--Sweden in 1813--Brazil in 1830--Denmark in
1804. The United States prohibited it by Constitution in 1809--and in
1814 engaged by the treaty of Ghent to do all in her power for its
entire suppression.
But, notwithstanding these praiseworthy efforts, the trade continued,
and with increased barbarity, and is even yet carried on to some extent
in defiance of all the navies of the world.
We have now seen that _avarice_ was at the bottom of the slave trade;
that it was an unprovoked and unparalleled outrage upon the Africans;
that it was prosecuted without the slightest regard to the comfort
or lives of the captured; that the whole civilized world, after an
experience of centuries, became horrified at its terrible iniquity;
that now the trade is declared to be PIRACY; that the slave-ship can
be protected by no flag under heaven; and that all who engage in the
trade may be captured and hanged up by the neck as the most execrable
wretches.
Thus a traffic which received the sanction of the Pope of Rome, and
was prosecuted under the immediate auspices of Christian kings and
governments for three centuries, was attacked by CLARKSON, WILBERFORCE
and other agitators, and, though powerfully defended by avarice and
interest; though hoary with age; though protected by statesmen, by
the commercial and planting interests, that attack was vigorously
followed up until reason, religion and humanity felt outraged by it,
and demanded in a voice which rulers dared not refuse to hear, that it
be at once and forever abolished. So much for agitation! Thank God for
this progress!
CHAPTER II.
Slavery Defined.
PROPERTY IN A HUMAN BEING.
That we may proceed intelligently in the discussion of the subject
upon which we have entered, it is important to understand precisely
what American slavery is. Some learned men have confused this subject
by confounding the relation of the slave with other relations from
which it _essentially_ differs. An apprentice, a miner, hired laborer,
serf or a villein is not a slave. All these relations lack, as we
shall see, the distinguishing feature of slavery. The slave is placed
in a condition far removed from any other class of human beings in
enlightened, civilized, or savage society. He stands in a legal
relation below all others.
The American slave code describes the slave and slavery with remarkable
precision and horrible distinctness. According to that code a slave is
a CHATTEL. He is, body, soul and spirit, to all intents and purposes
whatsoever, PROPERTY--the property of the master to whom he belongs;
and slavery is that "peculiar institution" which, originating in
piracy, systematically despoils human beings of their manhood--of all
inborn rights, degrades them to the state of chattelhood, and forcibly
detains them in that degradation. PROPERTY IN A HUMAN CREATURE is the
_essential_ and _peculiar_ principle of slavery. This is the basis of
the system, and all laws, regulations, usages, deprivations, wrongs,
sins, sufferings and miseries which belong to the system are built
upon this foundation. Numerous and cruel systems of oppression have
existed but not one of them has ventured to lay sacrilegious hands
upon "the image of God," and convert it into a _thing_ to be bought,
sold, executed for debt, willed, and used as an article of merchandise.
Slavery alone has done this. Some authorities will now be cited to
prove the correctness of this definition.
"The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked
among sentient beings but among things, obtains in all these (slave)
states." (_Judge Stroud._)
"Slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law, to
be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and
their executors, administrators and assigns to all intents and purposes
whatsoever." (_Law of South Carolina._)
"A slave is one who is in the power of the master to whom he belongs;
the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his
labor; he can do nothing, possess nothing nor acquire anything but what
must belong to his master." (_Law of Louisiana._)
"A slave is in absolute bondage; he has no civil rights, and can hold
no property, except at the will and pleasure of his master; a slave
is a rational being, endowed with understanding like the rest of
mankind; and whatever he lawfully acquires, and gains possession of by
finding or otherwise, is the acquirement and possession of his master."
(_Wheeler._)
A law of Mississippi reads thus: "When any sheriff or other officer
shall serve an attachment upon slaves, horses, or _other live stock_,"
etc. "Being property, slaves may be bought and sold by persons capable
of buying and selling other property." (_Hon. J. K. Paulding._)
Henry Clay said--"I know that there is a visionary dogma which holds
that negro slaves cannot be the subject of property. I shall not
dwell on the speculative abstraction. _That is property which the
law declares to be property._ Two hundred years of legislation have
sanctified and sanctioned negro slaves as property."
Any one who will take up a southern newspaper will soon discover
from the manner in which slaves are advertised for _sale_, that the
laws which reduce them to chattels are not _dead_ statutes. An
advertisement in the Richmond (Va.) Whig, is headed thus:
"Large sale of negroes, horses mules and cattle." Among the articles
to be sold are, 175 negroes, among whom are some carpenters and
blacksmiths, 10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep and 200
hogs. "The negroes will be sold for cash, the _other property_ on a
credit of nine months."[3]
Whole volumes of such advertisements might be collected from the most
respectable and widely circulated southern journals, and I have seen a
few advertisements for the sale of men women and children, hogs, corn
and cattle promiscuously, in respectable religious papers, sustained by
churches whose leading avowed object is, to "spread scriptural holiness
over these lands."
And slaves are not only advertised but actually _sold as property
is sold_. Raising slaves for the market, selling them, speculating
upon them and driving them from one State to another, creates an
extensive and lucrative trade. The _Virginia Times_ estimated that
in 1836 the number of slaves exported from Virginia alone was _forty
thousand_--worth $24,000,000. The _Natchez Courier_ estimated that
in 1836 two hundred and fifty thousand slaves had been imported into
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, from the more Northern
States. The _Baltimore Register_ said, "Dealing in slaves has become
a large business; establishments are made in several places in Md.
and Va. at which they are sold like cattle." Prof. Dew said in 1831;
"Virginia is in fact a negro raising State for the other states." _Judge
Upshur_ of Va. said in the Va. Convention, 1831; "The value of slaves
as an article of property, depends much on the state of the market
abroad. If it should be our lot, as I trust it will be, to acquire the
country of Texas, their price will rise again." "From the single port
of _Baltimore_," says Mrs. Stowe "in the last two years, a thousand and
thirty slaves have been shipped to the southern market." Slaves now
bring a very high price in cash. Only the other day a _brick-layer_ in
S. C. sold for $1,905; three others at the same sale brought over $1000
each.
In the prosecution of this traffic the feelings and interests, the
parental, connubial and filial relations of slaves are utterly
disregarded. They are sold for the benefit of the _master_, as a
horse is sold, and bought _to suit the purchaser_. To all intents and
purposes slaves are daily bought and sold like cattle. Alas, that my
pen is compelled to write this fact.
A respectable gentleman (Dr. Elwood) was an eye witness to a sale of
slaves in Petersburg, Va., in 1846. He saw some old men and women go
upon the auctioneer's stand to be sold to the highest bidder. The case
of a beautiful youth affected him most deeply. "His hair," said Mr. E.
"was brown and straight, his skin exactly the hue of white persons,
and no discernible trace of negro features in his countenance. Some
vulgar jests were passed on his color, and $200 was bid for him;
but the audience remarked that was not enough to begin on for such a
likely young negro; some said a white negro was more trouble than he
was worth. Before he was sold his mother rushed from the house upon the
portico, crying in frantic grief, 'My son, O! my boy, they will take
away my dear'--Here her voice was lost as she was rudely pushed back
and the door closed. The sale was not for a moment interrupted, and
none of the crowd appeared to be affected by the scene. The poor boy
trembled and wiped the tears from his cheeks with his sleeves. He was
sold for about 250 dollars."
After this boy was sold a woman was called upon the stand. She had an
infant in her arms, but she dared not take it with her. "She gave it
one wild embrace, before leaving it with an old woman, and hastened
mechanically to obey the call; but stopped, threw up her arms, screamed
and was unable to move!" Those who know a mother's love can understand
the agony which raged in her maternal bosom.
The following is from the pen of an aged preacher, now living in
Canada, who escaped from slavery some years since. When the master to
whom he belonged died, he, with his fellow slaves, were put up for
sale. Said he--
"My brothers and sisters were bid off one by one, while my mother,
holding my hand, looked on in an agony of grief, the cause of which I
but ill understood at first, but which dawned on my mind with dreadful
clearness as the sale proceeded. My mother was then separated from me,
and put up in her turn. She was bought by a man named Isaac R----,
in Montgomery county, Md., and then I was offered to the assembled
purchasers. My mother half distracted with the parting forever from all
her children pushed through the crowd, while the bidding for me was
going on, to the spot where R. was standing. She fell at his feet and
clung to his knees, entreating him in tones that a mother only could
command, to buy her _baby_ as well as herself, and spare to her _one_
of her little ones at least." But this man thus appealed to "disengaged
himself from her with such violent kicks and blows as to reduce her to
the necessity of creeping out of his reach and mingling the groan of
bodily suffering with the sob of a broken heart."
These cases are presented as examples to show the meaning and intent of
the code which declares that a slave is _property_--and _has no rights
or interests_; and they are not rare and extreme cases brought in here
only for effect, but are such as occur daily in all the slave states;
and they are _perfectly in keeping_ with the spirit of American
slavery. Those persons were sold precisely as _other property_ is sold.
From these authorities and facts it is clear that a slave occupies a
relation as far beneath the apprentice, miner, hired laborer, or even
the villein of the Feudal Age, or the Russian serf, as mere _property_
is beneath _manhood_ with all its possessions and God-like powers--as
far as a brute is below a man "made in the image of God."
The American slave code is almost an exact copy of the old savage Roman
slave code, which was conceived in the dark night of heathenism, and
brought forth reeking with blood in the unholy travail of sanguinary
wars, before that empire had been enlightened and conquered by the
peaceful and just Gospel of Christ. That it may be seen _where_ English
and American law-makers obtained the spirit of the American slave code,
the following synopsis of the Roman law on slavery is inserted.
"By the Roman civil law, slaves were esteemed merely as chattels of
their masters; they had no name but what the master was pleased to
give them for convenience. They were not capable of personal injuries
cognizable by the law. They could take neither by purchase nor descent,
could have no heirs, could make no will. The fruits of their labor
and industry belonged to their masters. They could not plead nor be
impleaded, and were utterly excluded from all civil concerns. They
were incapable of marriage, not being entitled to the considerations
thereof. The laws of adultery did not (among themselves) effect them.
They might be sold, transferred, mortgaged, pawned. _Partus sequitur
ventrem_ was the rule indiscriminately applied to slaves and cattle."
(_Harris and McHenry._)[4]
At a glance it will be seen that the Roman and American slave codes
are identical in spirit--that the distinguishing principle of both is
property in man. Our christian legislators therefore must acknowledge
themselves indebted to Pagan Rome for the type of slavery which they
have instituted and maintained in Christian America. All the main
features of cruelty, injustice and savageness, inherent in that ancient
system of oppression, have been faithfully copied, and not in the
slightest degree modified or softened.
Let us recapitulate. A slave is property. His bones and sinews, genius,
skill, virtue, mind, soul; all he is, all he may be, all he acquires
in this life, belongs to his master and is put down in his ledger as
worth so many dollars. He is without choice as to what he will do, what
amount of labor he will perform, or for whom he shall toil. He can own
nothing, inherit nothing, will nothing. He cannot make a contract for
himself, nor claim the protection of the laws as a man. He is wholly
in the power of his master and totally defenseless against his lusts,
avarice, or brutality. I defy human ingenuity, nay, if I may be so
bold, I challenge Lucifer himself to invent a system of oppression
which leaves a man more completely destitute, defenseless and degraded.
CHAPTER III.
Slavery Illustrated.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.
We will now enter more definitely into an examination of that terrible
institution which practically justifies the African slave-trade by
holding on to its victims and substituting in its stead an inter-state
slave-trade in moral turpitude fully equaling it; which, in a land of
free institutions, holds in galling chains more than three millions of
our dear fellow creatures; annually robs a hundred thousand American
mothers of their babes; and despoils one hundred thousand children
every year of that precious freedom which is their birthright and
reduces them to a level with unreasoning beasts. Our task will be
painful, but let us proceed.
1. _Slaves are denied an education._ I think it is universally admitted
that education and slavery are utterly incompatible, and that total
ignorance of letters and general imbecility of intellect are essential
to its successful continuance, and indeed, its very existence in any
country. Hence in the United States, where millions of dollars are
annually expended for schools and colleges, and where it is almost
universally believed that a sound education is conducive to good
morals, the spread of civilization, the preservation of liberty and the
progress of Christianity, even here nothing is done for the education
of slaves. While millions of free children are annually gathered into
schools and diligently instructed, the children of slaves, although
equally capable, are permitted to grow up without the least attention
to their mental culture. But this, though bad enough, is not the
worst. If slaves were at liberty to follow out their own inclinations,
they might many of them, even without encouragement or help, acquire
a respectable education. But the laws _punish the slave with great
severity who, with any motive or under any circumstances_, may attempt
to learn to read or write, and also any person who may teach him.
Some of the laws and opinions relating to the education of slaves,
(free negroes generally included) will now be cited. "Virginia Revised
Code of 1819. That all meetings or assemblages of slaves or free
negroes, or free negroes and mulattoes mixing and associating with
such slaves at any meeting house or houses &c., in the night; or at
any _school_ or _schools_ for teaching them reading or writing either
_in the day or night_, under _whatsoever pretext_, shall be deemed and
considered an UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY; and any justice of a county wherein
such assemblage shall be, shall issue his warrant, directed to any
sworn officer or officers, authorizing him or them to enter the house
or houses where such unlawful assemblages may be, for the purpose
of apprehending or dispersing such slaves, and to inflict _corporal
punishment_ on the offender or offenders, at the discretion of any
justice of the peace not exceeding twenty lashes." (_Goodell's American
Slave Code._)
No person in Virginia is allowed to open a school for the instruction
of colored persons or to teach them to read and write under a penalty
of $100 and six months imprisonment. It may be thought that these
laws are not now enforced and stand as a dead letter upon the statute
book. But the following cool item of news published in the _Richmond
Examiner_ under date of May 12th, 1853, will satisfy any one that they
are enforced.
"BREAKING UP A NEGRO SCHOOL.--The officers at Norfolk made a descent
on Tuesday upon a negro school, kept in the neighborhood of the
Stone Bridge, by a Mrs. Douglass and her daughter, and the teachers,
together with their sable pupils, were taken before his Honor. They
acknowledged their guilt, but pleaded ignorance of the law, and were
discharged, on a promise to do so no more; a very convenient way of
getting out of the scrape. The law of this State imposes a fine of one
hundred dollars, and imprisonment for six months, for such offenses; is
positive, and allows no discretion in the committing magistrate."
If a free negro in North Carolina attempt to teach a slave to read, or
if he give to a slave a religious tract, a spelling book or the bible,
he may be imprisoned or take _thirty-nine lashes_! If a white person
attempt to teach a slave the laws subject him to a fine of $200 for
each offense.
"In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or a slave to write he is
fined $500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the Court; if the
offender be a colored man, bond or free, he may be fined or whipped at
the discretion of the Court. This law was enacted in 1829." (_Jay's
Inquiry._)
"In Louisiana the penalty for teaching slaves to read and write is one
year's imprisonment."
"In North Carolina, the patrols were ordered to search every negro
house for books or prints of every kind. Bibles and hymn books were
particularly mentioned." (_Goodell._)
"We have," said Mr. Berry in the Va. House of Delegates, "_as far as
possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds. If
we could extinguish the capacity_ to see the light, our work would be
completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field
and we would be safe! I am not certain that we would not do it, if we
could find out the process, _and that on the plea of necessity_."
When Frederick Douglass was a slave and belonged to Mr. Auld, his
mistress, who had been lately married, manifested toward him true
womanly kindness and commenced to teach him the art of reading. "But
when my master heard of it," says Douglass in his Narrative, "he at
once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her among other
things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe to teach a slave to
read. To use his own words further he said, 'If you give a nigger an
inch he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey
his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best
negro in the world. Now, said he, if you teach that nigger (speaking of
myself,) how to read there would be no keeping him. It would forever
unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of
no value to his master. As to himself it would do him no good, but a
great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.'"
Is not that a terrible institution which can only be sustained by
enchaining the immortal mind and withholding entirely the advantages
of education? Think of it. A slave's soul, as is often the case, is
possessed with an unquenchable passion for improvement. He has a mind
in constant unrest--active, elastic, aspiring. A benevolent friend
engages to instruct him at night in the rudiments of learning, but
while engaged in this good work the law seizes them, and hurries the
slave to the whipping-post and the friend to prison. Twenty, thirty
or forty lashes on the bare back are rather poor encouragement to the
student, and a heavy fine and long imprisonment with felons hard pay
for a teacher. But slavery makes it a crime to learn to read even the
bible, and a penitentiary offense to teach a slave the alphabet!
The object of this is plainly declared by Mr. Berry of Va., viz: to
close every avenue of light from the slave's mind--to debase him as
low as possible--and thus put resistance out of his power--that he may
become a docile and profitable _chattel_.
These laws are a bold defiance of the Almighty who constructed the
marvelous powers of the human mind for improvement and activity and who
revealed in written language his word for the comfort and guidance of
all his creatures. They interpose a barrier between the slave and his
Maker and thus hinder his salvation. Even convicts in prison are taught
to read the scriptures, and in this respect slavery is more severe with
its victims than justice is with the worst criminals.
2. _Slavery does not recognize the matrimonial connections of slaves._
As slaves are to be put as nearly as possible upon a level with
"_other_ property" the slave code with singular meanness, but perfect
consistency, refuses to the slave a lawful marriage, subjects him
to conditions which are inconsistent with that sacred relation, and
exposes slave wives to the unbridled lust of masters and overseers!
"With the consent of their masters slaves may marry * * * but whilst in
a state of slavery it cannot produce any _civil effect_, because slaves
are _deprived of all civil rights_." (_Judge Mathews._)
"A slave cannot even contract matrimony, the association which takes
place among slaves and is _called_ marriage, being properly designated
by the word _contubernium_, a relation which has no sanctity, and to
which no civil rights are attached." (_Judge Stroud._)
"A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his
bed." (_Daniel Dulany, Att'y Gen. Md._)
"Slaves were not entitled to the conditions of matrimony, and
therefore they had no relief in cases of adultery." (_Dr. Taylor._)
"Marriage is a civil ordinance they cannot enjoy. Our laws do not
recognize this relation as existing among them, and of course, do not
enforce by any sanction, the observance of its duties. Indeed, until
slavery waxeth old and tendeth to decay, there cannot be any legal
recognition of the marriage rite, or the enforcement of its consequent
duties. For all the regulations on this subject _would limit the
master's absolute right of property_ in the slaves. In his disposal
of them he could no longer be at liberty to consult merely his own
interests. He could no longer separate the wife and the husband to suit
the convenience or interest of the purchaser." (_Address of the Synod
of Ky._)
The laws intend to make slaves absolute property, and hence no relation
is legalized which would detract from the value of that property. The
interest of the _owner_ alone is consulted. These laws, horrible as
they appear, are entirely consistent with _chattel slavery_. And the
general _practice_ upon these laws comes up fully to their spirit.
Whenever the convenience, interest or passion of a master requires it,
slaves are sold and scattered abroad without the slightest regard to
those dear and sacred connections, which they regard, and which God,
no doubt, regards as marriage. In newspaper advertisements for runaway
slaves it is frequently stated that the fugitive property was bought at
a certain place "where he has a wife," and the probability is that he
is "lurking about that place." An advertisement in a New Orleans paper,
after describing the slave Charles, as "six feet high," "copper color,"
rather "pleasing appearance," adds, in order that the pursuers may have
some clue to his whereabouts, "it is more than probable that he will
make his way to Tennessee, as he has a wife now living there."
Another advertises the runaway "Ned," of "copper color, full forehead."
"Ned," continues the notice, "was purchased in Richmond of Mr. Goodin,
and has a wife in that vicinity."
Another describes a runaway woman, and suggests that she may be lurking
about "in the country where her husband is owned."
These are very natural suggestions. A husband, though a slave, and
bound to his wife by no legal tie, is not unfrequently to the slave
wife all that _husband_ means, and if that wife escape from her
unfeeling oppressors, who have carried her away to a distant State,
it is quite natural that she should bend her steps toward the partner
of her bosom, and subject herself to incredible hardships and dangers
that she might see his face once more, and unburden to him her
sorrow-ladened heart.
And that wife, though a slave, unprotected by the laws, driven by the
shameful lash, insulted, disgraced and neglected, is a _wife_ still.
And when "Ned," as he is called, runs away, it is quite natural that
he should, impelled by a husband's love, seek out the hut where years
before he had been suddenly separated from her. These advertisements
for husbands who are supposed to be "lurking about" in search of their
wives, and of wives hunting for their husbands, tell a sad tale. What
husband or wife can read them without deep sorrow?
The following statement from the pen of an eye witness will illustrate
scenes which are being enacted continually in the prosecution of the
inter-state slave trade.
"As I went on board the steamboat I noticed eight colored men,
handcuffed and chained together in pairs, four women and eight or ten
children of the apparent ages of from four to ten years, all standing
together in the bow of the boat, in charge of a man standing near them.
* * * Coming near them, I perceived they were all greatly agitated;
and, on inquiry I found they were all slaves, who had been born and
raised in North Carolina and had just been sold to a speculator, who
was now taking them to the Charleston market. Upon the shore there
was a number of colored persons, women and children, awaiting the
departure of the boat; and my attention was particularly attracted
by two colored females of uncommonly respectable appearance, neatly
attired, who stood together, a little distance from the crowd, and upon
whose countenance was depicted the keenest sorrow. As the last bell was
tolling, I saw the tears gushing from their eyes, and they raised their
neat cotton aprons and wiped their faces under the cutting anguish of
severed affection. They were the wives of two of the men in chains.
There, too, were mothers and sisters, weeping at the departure of their
sons and brothers; and there, too, were fathers, taking the last look
of their wives and children. My whole attention was directed to those
on shore, as they seemed to stand in solemn and submissive silence,
occasionally giving utterance to the intensity of their feelings by a
sigh or a stifled groan. As the boat was loosed from her moorings, they
cast a distressed, lingering look to those on board, and turned away
in silence. My eye now turned to those in the boat; and although I had
tried to control my feelings amidst my sympathies for those on shore,
I could conceal them no longer, and I found myself literally 'weeping
with those that wept.' I stood near them, and when one of the husbands
saw his wife upon the shore wave her hand for the last time, in token
of her affection, his manly efforts to restrain his feelings gave
way, and fixing his watery eyes upon her, he exclaimed, 'This is the
most distressing thing of all! My dear wife and children, farewell!'
The husband of the other wife stood weeping in silence, and with his
manacled hands raised to his face, as he looked upon her for the last
time. Of the poor women on board; three of them had husbands whom they
left behind. One of them had three children, another had two, and the
third had none. These husbands and fathers were among the throng upon
the shore, witnessing the departure of their wives and children, and
as they took their leave of them, they were sitting together upon
the floor of the boat sobbing in silence, but giving utterance to no
complaint. But the distressing scene was not yet ended. Sailing down
the Cape Fear river twenty-five miles, we touched at the little village
of Smithport, on the south side of the river. It was at this place that
one of these slaves lived, and here was his wife and five children;
and while at work on Monday last, his purchaser took him away from
his family, carried him in chains to Wilmington, where he had since
remained in jail. As we approached the wharf, a flood of tears gushed
from his eyes, and anguish seemed to have pierced his heart. The boat
stopped but a moment, and as she left, he bid farewell to some of his
acquaintances whom he saw upon the shore, exclaiming, 'Boys, I wish
you well; tell Molly (meaning his wife) and the children I wish them
well, and hope God will bless them.' At that moment he espied his
wife on the stoop of a house some rods from the shore, and with one
hand which was not in the handcuffs, he pulled off his old hat, and
waving it toward her, exclaimed, 'Farewell!' As he saw by the waving
of her apron that she recognized him, he leaned back upon the railing,
and with a faltering voice repeated, 'Farewell, forever.' After a
moment's silence, conflicting passions seemed to tear open his heart,
and he exclaimed, 'What have I done that I should suffer this doom?
Oh, my wife and children, I want to live no longer!' and then the big
tear rolled down his cheek, which he wiped away with the palm of his
unchained hand, looked once more upon the mother of his five children,
and the turning of the boat hid her face from him forever."
ANOTHER EXAMPLE.
"I shall never forget the scene which took place in the city of St.
Louis while I was yet in slavery. A man and his wife, both slaves,
were brought from the country to the city for sale. They were taken to
the rooms of Austin & Savage, auctioneers. Several slave speculators,
who are always to be found at auctions where slaves are to be sold,
were present. The man was first put up and sold to the highest bidder.
The wife was next ordered to ascend the platform. I was present. She
slowly obeyed the order. The auctioneer commenced, and soon several
hundred dollars were bid. My eyes were intensely fixed on the face of
the woman, whose cheeks were wet with tears. But a conversation between
the slave and his new master soon arrested my attention. I drew near
them to listen. The slave was begging his new master to purchase his
wife. Said he, 'Master, if you will only buy Fanny I know you will get
the worth of your money. She is a good cook, a good washer, and her
mistress liked her very much. If you will only buy her how happy I will
be!' The new master replied that he did not want her, _but, if she
sold cheap_, he would purchase her. I watched the countenance of the
man while the different persons were bidding on his wife. When his new
master bid you could see the smile on his countenance, and the tears
stop, but as another would, you could see the countenance change, and
the tears start afresh. * * But this suspense did not last long. The
wife was struck off to the highest bidder, who proved to be not the
owner of her husband. As soon as they became aware that they were to
be separated, they both burst into tears; and as she descended from
the auction stand, the husband walking up to her and taking her by the
hand, said, 'Well, Fanny we are to part forever on earth. You have been
a good wife to me. I did all I could to get my new master to buy you
but he did not want you. I hope you will try to meet me in heaven. I
shall try to meet you there.' The wife made no reply but her sobs and
cries told too well her own feelings." (_Narrative of William Brown._)
CHAPTER IV.
Slavery Illustrated--Continued.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.
3. _Slavery disregards the parental and filial relations._ The family
is a type of heaven. It is the foundation of the social system--of
social order, refinement and happiness. Destroy this relation and the
most enlightened people will speedily relapse into barbarism. It is
a God-instituted relation, and around it Jesus Christ has thrown the
solemn sanction of his authority. Nature implants in the hearts of
parents an affection for their offspring which is sweeter than life
and stronger than death; and this affection, when associated with
intelligence and religion, eminently fits them to care for helpless
infancy, to guide the feet of inexperienced youth, and to lead the
opening heart and expanding mind to virtue and to God. Without the
soothing, ennobling and virtue-inspiring influences which emanate from
the domestic hearth, this world, I fear, would become a pandemonium.
But slavery, true to its leading principle, utterly disregards and
ruthlessly tramples upon the parental and filial relations. As soon as
a child is born of a slave-mother it is put down on the table of stock
and is henceforth subject to the conditions of property. The father
cannot say--"This is my son. I will train him up in the fear of God,
bestow upon him a liberal education and by help divine make a true man
of him, that he may be my staff in old age." No, the slaveholder has
a usurped claim upon the boy, which, in the code of the "lower law,"
annihilates entirely the father's claim. The mother is not permitted
to press the new born babe to her throbbing bosom and rejoice over it,
saying--"This is my daughter--I will by the assistance of grace give
her tender mind a pious inclination, encourage her to walk in the path
of virtue and religion, to seek the 'good part,' chosen by Mary of old,
that she may become an ornament of her sex." No, that female child is
a valuable part of the planter's stock, and the mother is encouraged
to nurse it well that it may bring a high price in the market!
Parents have no more to say as to the disposition of their children
than animals have as to what shall be done with their young. There
is not a law in any State, if we may except Louisiana, which imposes
the slightest restraint upon masters who may be disposed to sell the
children of slaves. In Louisiana an old law prohibits the separation
of slave children from their mothers before they are ten years of age.
But this law, were it not a dead letter as we are assured it is, would
afford but a trifling mitigation of the wrong. At any time the master
may gather up all the saleable children on his plantation, submit
them to the inspection of a trader, strike a bargain for the lot, and
then start them off like a drove of young cattle, without saying one
word about it to the fathers or mothers of those children. And it
often occurs that when the slave mother returns from the field, weary
with the toils of the day, she finds her hut desolate. Where are my
children? she asks. She calls--no answer--and is presently informed by
a fellow-slave that they are sold and gone! Yes--a christian (?) master
has taken advantage of her absence and sent them off without giving her
a parting word with them! They shall never more return! And yet this
distressed mother has no redress.
Maternal love flows in a slave-mother's bosom with all its wonted
depth and intensity, and the total disregard of this affection is the
occasion of the deepest sorrows recorded in the annals of slavery.
"In slaveholding States, except in Louisiana no law exists to prevent
the violent separation of parents from their children." (_Stroud._) A
slave has no more legal authority over his child than a cow has over
her calf. (_Jay._) John Davis, a dealer in slaves at Hamburg, S. C.,
advertises that he has on hands, direct from Va., "one hundred and
twenty likely young negroes of both sexes; among them small girls,
suitable for nurses, and several small boys without their mothers."
Frederick Douglass relates that "when he was three years old his mother
was sent to work on a plantation eight or ten miles distant, and after
that he never saw her except in the night. After her days toil she
would occasionally walk over to her child, lie down with him in her
arms, hush him to sleep in her bosom, then rise up and walk back again
to be ready for her field work by daylight."--_Key to Uncle Tom's
Cabin._
The following incident occurred within the present year (1853.) We copy
from the _Cleveland True Democrat_.
"It will be remembered by some of our citizens that about two or
three months since, a colored man visited our city for the purpose of
obtaining money enough to buy his child that was held as a slave in
Kentucky. Through the generosity of J. H. Smith and his congregation,
with some added by private individuals, the amount was raised, and the
happy negro went on his way rejoicing. Now comes the saddest part of
the tale. When the poor colored man arrived at his home, he immediately
handed the money, to obtain which had cost him so much labor, over
to a friend, who started immediately to Kentucky. Arriving there, the
money was laid before the master by the gentleman, when to the utter
astonishment of the latter, the slaveholder burst into a fiendish
laugh, and said 'he'd be ---- if he would sell the boy at any price.'
He refused all terms, laughed at all exhortations, and finally ordered
the gentleman who wished to purchase the boy out of the house. He left
sorrowfully, knowing how his bad success would affect the father, who
was in a delirium of joy at the idea of seeing his long lost son.
Imagine the feeling of that man when it was communicated to him that
his boy was lost forever. Our informant tells us that he said not a
word, nor wept; but any one familiar with a human heart, could tell
what agony that poor black man was in. He seems to have grown ten years
older, and it is feared, unless some change takes place, that he will
soon die. His life seems worse than death, and he loudly prays for the
latter to come."
The holder of that boy only did what the laws allowed him to do, and
his conduct was in perfect consistency with _chattel_ slavery. Men can
do as they like about selling the property which the law allows them.
Scenes of the most provoking and heart-rending character, scenes in
which humanity is outraged, scenes which would bring the blood to the
cheek of a savage, even to behold, are enacted in all the Southern
States from day to day, with seeming unconcern! The most bitter cries
pierce the skies and go up to heaven apparently unheard by man. "Here
is a man, a slave-trader, driving before him two boys with a hickory
stick, and carrying a child under his arm. At a little distance is the
_mother_ with chains on her wrists, stretching out her hand toward
the babe; but is prevented, because a strong man holds her while she
endeavors to follow her shrieking babe and her sobbing boys. The owner
who sold the two boys, stands calmly, unmoved, smoking a cigar, while
the overseer holds the mother, and the trader whips off the boys and
carries with him the screaming child." This is precisely the way that
other live stock is sold, and those dealers are only doing what the law
allows. No one is surprised at them. They may be respectable citizens
and good church members!
Christian reader, pass not over these facts with a light heart. I
beseech you to think upon them as a man and a christian ought. You love
home, you esteem family relations the dearest and most sacred upon
earth, and you would resist with all your power a tyranny which would
invade your own family circle and carry away your children for the
exclusive benefit of others. For humanity's sake let your sympathies go
out in behalf of the millions of your fellow creatures who are deprived
of all the blessings of family and home. Have you not a heart to bleed
for those mothers whose children, in tender youth, are ruthlessly
torn away from them for no higher object than the pecuniary advantage
of their masters? J. G. Whittier, the "slave's poet," represents in
mournful strains the Virginia slave mother's lament for her daughters,
sold and gone to the far South.
Gone, gone--sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisesome insect stings,
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air,--
Gone, gone,--sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia's hills and waters,--
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone,--sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them,
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,--sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
O, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and racked with pain,
To their cheerless homes again,--
There no brother's voice shall greet them,
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,--sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play;
From the cool spring where they drank;
Rock and hill, and rivulet bank;
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there,--
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone;
Toiling through the weary day,
And at night the spoiler's prey.
O, that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more!
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,--sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth,
By the bruised reed He spareth,
O, may He to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than mother's love!
Gone, gone, &c.
CHAPTER V.
Slavery Illustrated--Continued.
THE CHATTEL PRINCIPLE IN PRACTICE.
4. _Slavery utterly impoverishes its victims._ The earth is an
inheritance bestowed upon man by the common Father of all; hence every
human being has an indefeasible right to live upon it and to acquire a
possession in it. This right is not simply conventional, but it belongs
to man as _man_.
Now slavery is directly opposed to this law of nature. It strips a
slave of everything, and of the power to acquire anything. No one is
so poor as a slave. He cannot own a coat, or a pair of shoes, a house,
or a foot of land. No industry, economy, skill or patriotism can
release him from this state of destitution, because it is a logical
result of the relation in which he is placed by the slave code. Being
himself a chattel, whatever he acquires or in any way gains possession
of, is, as a matter of course, the acquirement and possession of his
master. Hence, while living in a land of universal plenty, and toiling
incessantly upon the fruitful earth, created and adorned for the use of
every man, no alms-house pauper is so wretchedly impoverished as the
American slave.
"Slaves have no legal rights in things, real or personal; but
whatever they may acquire, belongs in point of law to their masters."
(_Stroud._) "Slaves are incapable of inheriting or transmitting
property." (_Civil Code._)
Here is a case which will illustrate the point in hand. A slave by the
name of Frederick enlisted and fought bravely through the American
Revolution. In 1821 his name was found on the muster roll, and a
warrant was issued granting him the soldier's bounty of a thousand
acres of land. Now whose land was that? Reason and justice would
answer, it belonged to the black veteran and his heirs forever. But the
heirs of Frederick's old master understood something about slave law,
and brought the case into court that it might be legally determined
who owned the bounty land. After much learned argument, Judge Catron
delivered the following decision:--"Frederick, the slave of Col.
Patton, earned this warrant by his services in the continental line.
WHAT IS EARNED BY THE SLAVE BELONGS TO THE MASTER, by the common law,
the civil law, and the recognized rules of property in the slaveholding
States of this Union."
This was an extreme case, and as Pres. Blanchard observes, "if
Shylock's bond of human flesh might have been relaxed, if ever the laws
of slavery might have been mitigated in practice, it ought to have been
in the case of this veteran soldier." But the "pound of flesh" was
exacted. The law reducing slaves to utter pauperism is inexorable. Poor
Frederick had no more claim to that land than Col. Patton's horse had.
5. _Slavery authorizes the violation of the most solemn contracts._
Strictly speaking, a slave cannot become a party to a legal contract.
His inability to do so arises out of his relation to society, and the
evil genius which presides at all times over legislation for slaves
is very careful to permit nothing to be enacted, unless from absolute
necessity, that can be construed into an acknowledgment that the slave
is a man and has rights which he is authorized to maintain. Hence a
contract with a slave may be violated with impunity. He may suffer
the most flagrant wrongs, but is barred from courts of justice and can
obtain no relief.
On this point the following authorities are quoted.
"Chancery cannot enforce a contract between a master and his slave
though the slave perform his part." (_Wheeler._) "One principle
prevails in all the States * * and that is that a slave cannot make a
contract, _not even the contract of marriage_." (_ib._)
"In the case of Sawney _vs._ Carter the court refused to enforce a
promise by a master to emancipate his slave where the conditions of the
promise had been partly complied with. The court proceeded upon the
principle that it was not competent to a court in Chancery to enforce a
contract between a master and slave, even though the contract should be
fully complied with on the part of the slave." (_Goodell._)
In numerous instances masters and other white persons have taken
advantage of this unjust and malicious feature of slave law. It is
no uncommon occurrence for a slave to contract with his master for
freedom. He agrees to raise, by extra labor, a specified sum of money
which is to be the price of his liberty. Animated with the hope of
obtaining that precious right for which he has long sighed, he endures
incredible hardships, toils night after night, and, at the end of
many weary years, lays before his master a part or the whole of the
price agreed upon. Now when this is done, the master may, in perfect
accordance with American slave law, pocket the hard-earned money and
sell the slave to the next trader, or keep him until death in his own
service. If the slave repine at this treatment, he may be whipped
into submission. If he run away, he may be pursued with revolvers and
blood-hounds, and we are all required by the Fugitive Slave Law to help
catch him and carry him back to his faithless master. A case occurred
within the present year in Ky., which illustrates this odious feature
of slave law. Here is a brief statement of the facts.
"Sam Norris, a colored man, has been living in Covington about five
years, has married a free colored woman and has had by her several
children. He belongs to a Mr. J. N. Patton, of Virginia, who permitted
him to come to Covington, and engage in whatever services he saw
proper, on condition that Sam would pay him out of his earnings, a
stipulated sum per annum, we believe, about $100. The surplus, whatever
it might be, was to belong to the slave. Sam was punctual for several
years. He was sober and industrious, and in his humble way, very
prosperous. About two years ago Mr. Patton came west on a visit and
agreed with Sam that if he would pay him the sum of $400 he would give
him his freedom. Sam gratefully accepted the proposal, and at once paid
down out of his hard earnings $135 and has since given his master some
$40 or $50 more.
"Patton now comes forward to rescind the contract and claim his slave.
The case was yesterday decided by the Hon. Judge Pryor, in favor of
Patton. In delivering his decision, his Honor stated the following
facts:
"1st. That the laws of Kentucky recognize but two modes of liberating
slaves, by will and by deeds of emancipation.
"2d. That a slave cannot make a contract.
"3d. That the contract was executory, and at the time fixed for the
negro's freedom, future and contingent.
"4th. That so long as Sam was a slave, the master was entitled to his
services, and the money he (Patton) had received was in law his own.
"The opinion was able and elaborate, and the authorities numerous and
decided. His Honor characterized the case as one of great "hardship and
cruelty," and every one in the court room seemed to sympathize deeply
with the poor negro."
A lady at St. Louis, Mo., related to Mrs. F. D. Gage the following
circumstance, which transpired in that city a short time ago.
"I had, said the lady, an old colored woman washing for me a few years
ago, for four or five years--one of the most faithful, truthful,
and pious women, I ever knew--black or white. She was once a slave,
belonging to Davenport. But he was a kinder man than other men, and
gave her the privilege of buying her freedom for one thousand dollars!
This sum the old and faithful creature earned and paid herself. Only
think of it!--one thousand dollars for the privilege of buying what our
wise statesmen call the "inalienable right of men," bestowed by the
Creator. When free she stipulated for the freedom of her son, and this,
with years of toil, she earned; and when he came to manhood he too was
free.
"Think of this, fair mothers of our land! Ye who hug to your heart the
children of your love, and feel a mother's love and this for them.
You work to clothe, to school and make comfortable those dependent
upon your care; but which of you can measure the toil that this poor,
stricken mother had to bear, ere she filed away the galling chains
from the limbs of her child!
"Well, when the mother and son were free, they pledged themselves to
the owner of another plantation, to pay another thousand for the wife
and child of the ransomed son. The master allowed the woman to come to
the city, and live with her husband, and work on her own hook--paying
him so much per month. Three hundred dollars has been paid. Some time
in April, this oppressed class had a public tea-party and fair, to
gather funds to furnish their church, a neat edifice on ---- St. The
mother, son, and wife were there, returned home, or started home, about
midnight--the horses ran away, and George, attempting to get off the
carriage to assist the driver, fell, and his head was dashed to pieces
against the corner of a curb-stone.
"He died instantly, and the morning papers announced the fact, and
spoke of him as "highly worthy and respectable, and a member of ----
Church." But no sooner had the owner of Susan, the wife, heard of
George's death, than he hurried to the city post-haste, and took the
afflicted wife from their house, drove her to the Slave auction, and
sold her to southern traders.
"Thus were the three hundred dollars lost to those who earned it, the
old, toiling mother left childless; and the young wife, but yesterday
rejoicing in the strength and hope of freedom and love, suddenly
turned into a chattel, and sold "away down South," to be a beast of
burden--perhaps for a Legree."
"When did it happen inquired Mrs. Gage?"
"Why, here, lately. I met the old mother as I came from the "Fourth"
Pic nic. She was dressed in deep mourning. I had not seen her for a
long time, for they had got them a home, and she did not wash any more.
I asked her what had happened, and she told me all. O! Mrs. G., how it
made me feel! I celebrating our liberty, she, a woman--a wife--a mother
mourning over enslaved and doubly-wronged children.
""I know there is a God, Mrs. Lilly," the poor bowed creature said to
me, "I know there is a good God, and a Jesus, or I should give up in
despair, and sometimes I do; I look up and down and all round, and
_there is no light_!""
_Slavery leaves its victims a prey to unchecked avarice._ What
protection has a slave against the avarice of his master? Let us see. A
law of South Carolina provides that slaves shall "not labor to exceed
_fifteen hours_" out of twenty four. This is called protection!
"The slave is driven to the field in the morning about four o'clock.
The general calculation is to get them to work by day-light. The time
for breakfast is between nine and ten o'clock. This meal is sometimes
eaten 'bite and work,' others allow fifteen minutes, and this is the
only rest the slave has while in the field." (_G. W. Westgate._)
"In North Carolina, the legal standard of food for a slave must not be
less than a _quart of corn per day_. In Louisiana the legal standard is
one barrel of Indian corn--or the equivalent thereof in rice, beans or
other grain, and a pint of salt, every month." "The quantity allowed by
custom," said T. S. Clay of Georgia, "is a peck of corn per week."
When they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there
the means of comfortable rest, but on the cold ground they must lie,
without covering, and shiver while they slumber.
"The clothing of slaves by day, and their covering by night, are
inadequate either for comfort or decency, in any or most of the
slaveholding States." (_Elliott._)
It is notorious that slaves, on large plantations especially, are
miserably fed, clothed and lodged, and during busy seasons of the year,
most unmercifully worked.
6. _Slavery abandons its victims to unbridled lust._ Against a master's
lusts a slave has no protection. It is an established principle of
the slave code that the _testimony_ of a slave against a white person
cannot be received in a court of justice. A slave woman who may be
abused cannot resort to the law. To whom can she appeal? To God only.
The master may torture her in any way, so that he take not her life, in
order to _force_ a compliance with his base designs!
"A very beautiful girl belonging to the estate of John French, a
deceased gambler of New Orleans, was sold a few days since, for the
round sum of _seven thousand dollars_! An ugly old bachelor, named
Gouch, was the purchaser. The _Picayune_ says that she was remarkable
for her beauty and intelligence; and that there was considerable strife
as to who should be the purchaser." (_Elliott._)
Any one can understand why that beautiful, intelligent slave girl
brought SEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! She was bought for a sacrifice to
lust! And the law gave her no protection. It required her to submit
unresistingly to the will of her owner and that owner was a base
libertine!
7. _Slavery exposes its victims to the fury of unrestrained passion._
A master in a violent passion may fall upon his slave, and beat him
unmercifully without the slightest provocation and _the slave has no
redress_.
"The master is not liable for an assault and battery committed upon the
person of his slave." (_Wheeler._)
A Methodist minister, Rev. J. Boucher, relates the following incident:
"While on the Alabama circuit I spent the Sabbath with an old circuit
preacher, who was also a doctor, living near 'the horse shoe,'
celebrated as Gen. Jackson's battle ground. On Monday morning early,
he was reading Pope's Messiah to me, when his wife called him out. I
glanced my eye out of the window, and saw a slave man standing by, and
they consulting over him. Presently the doctor took a rawhide from
under his coat, and began to cut up the half-naked back of the slave.
I saw six or seven inches of the skin turn up perfectly white at every
stroke, till the whole back was red with gore. The lacerated man cried
out some at first; but at every blow the doctor cried, 'won't ye hush?
won't ye hush?' till the slave finally stood still and groaned. As soon
as he had done, the doctor came in panting, almost out of breath, and,
addressing me, said, 'Won't you go to prayer with us, sir?' I fell on
my knees and prayed, but what I said I knew not. When I came out the
poor creature had crept up and knelt by the door during prayer; and his
back was a gore of blood quite to his heels."
Now this slave could not appeal to the law for redress or protection;
and the same cruel beating might have been repeated every week until
death had come to his relief, and the poor wretch must only bear
it--that is all. He was wholly at the mercy of the passions of his
master.
8. _Slavery subjects its victims to uncontrolled and irresponsible
tyranny._ Irresponsible power cannot be safely entrusted with the
wisest and most humane persons. It is always liable to great abuses.
But when all sorts of men are invested with it, when it can be
purchased with money, terrible beyond conception are its results.
Woe to the unhappy man who is put absolutely into the power of a
hard hearted villain. But slaves are property and are exposed to the
irresponsible power of their masters.
A master or overseer may, with impunity inflict upon a slave, without
the slightest provocation, any kind of torture, which can be endured,
and impose upon him all kinds of sufferings, hardships and insults.
He may clothe him in rags, feed him upon corn, lodge him in a mere
pen of poles, work him beyond his ability, kick him, cuff him, knock
him down, put him in stocks, strip him, tie him to a stake, and with
a keen lash lay on his bare back until the blood runs in a stream to
his heels. The laws not only allow this to be done, but it is done
continually. _Women_, yes, tender, delicate women; daughters, sisters
and mothers are unprotected by the laws. They may be, and are tied to
the whipping post; every day that we live, this _is_ done, and their
quivering flesh mangled by the cow-skin.
Dr. Howe visited a prison in New Orleans, in which fugitive slaves are
confined, and to which many slaves are brought by their masters to be
whipped, for which punishment a small fee is paid. In a letter to Hon.
Charles Sumner, he says:
"Entering a large paved court-yard, around which ran galleries filled
with slaves of all ages, sexes and colors, I heard the snap of a
whip, every stroke of which sounded like the sharp crack of a pistol.
I turned my head, and beheld a sight which absolutely chilled me to
the marrow of my bones, and gave me, for the first time in my life,
the sensation of my hair stiffening at the roots. There lay a black
girl flat upon her face, on a board, her two thumbs tied, and fastened
to one end, her feet tied, and drawn tightly to the other end, while
a strap passed over the small of her back, and, fastened around the
board, compressed her closely to it. Below the strap she was entirely
naked. By her side, and six feet off, stood a huge monster with a long
whip, which he applied with dreadful power and wonderful precision.
Every stroke brought away a strip of skin, which clung to the lash, or
fell quivering on the pavement, while the blood followed after it. The
poor creature writhed and shrieked, and in a voice which showed alike
her fear of death and her dreadful agony, screamed to her master, who
stood at her head, 'O, spare my life! don't cut my soul out!' But still
fell the horrid lash; still strip after strip peeled off from the skin;
gash after gash was cut in her living flesh, until it became a livid
and bloody mass of raw and quivering muscle. It was with the greatest
difficulty I refrained from springing upon the torturer, and arresting
his lash; but, alas! what could I do, but turn aside and hide my tears
for the sufferer, and my blushes for humanity? This was in a public
and regularly-organized prison; the punishment was one recognized and
authorized by the law. But think you that the poor wretch had committed
a heinous offense, and had been convicted thereof and sentenced to the
lash? Not at all. She was brought by her master to be whipped by the
common executioner, without trial, judge or jury, just at his beck or
nod, for some real or supposed offense, or to gratify his own whim or
malice. And he may bring her day after day, without cause assigned, and
inflict any number of lashes he pleases, short of twenty-five, provided
only he pays the fee. Or, if he choose, he may have a private whipping
board on his own premises, and brutalize himself there."
All this is done according to law. "We cannot allow," said Judge
Ruffin, "the right of the master to be brought into discussion in the
courts of justice. The slave, to remain a slave, must be made sensible
that there is NO APPEAL FROM HIS MASTER." The same Judge decided--that
"THE POWER OF THE MASTER MUST BE ABSOLUTE IN ORDER TO RENDER THE
SUBMISSION OF THE SLAVE PERFECT." How dreadful is this tyranny!
CHAPTER VI.
Slavery Illustrated--Continued.
SEVERITY OF THE LAWS AGAINST SLAVES.
As the laws provide for the degradation of the slave to a state of the
most stupid ignorance, it would naturally be supposed that little would
be required in the way of obedience, and that when a slave did trespass
a very light punishment would be meted out to him. Evidently this would
be the humane and just course, for where little is given little should
be required. In this, however, as in most other things slavery is
precisely contrary to nature, humanity and reason.
Slaves are punished by the laws for numerous acts which are in
themselves perfectly right.
"For seeking liberty a slave is proclaimed an outlaw and may be
lawfully killed." (_Goodell._) "He may be punished for attending
religious meetings at night. He may be publicly whipped for keeping a
gun, or a pistol. For visiting a wife or child without a written pass,
he may be whipped. For striking a white person, no matter how great the
provocation, whipping--and for the second or third offence, DEATH."
(_Goodell._) These are but specimens of the cruel and vexatious laws
by which the slave's life is embittered. He, poor wretch, must have so
many lashes on the bare back for almost every thing which his manhood
prompts him to do. He must always be on the look out to act and feel
as a mere brute--he must crouch and bend in constant abjectness or his
back shall pay the penalty. But for _actual crimes_ the disproportion
between the punishment of slaves and white persons is very great.
"In Va., by the revised code of 1819, there are seventy-one offenses
for which the penalty is death when committed by slaves and imprisonment
when committed by the whites." (_Jay's Inquiry._)
"In Mississippi there are seventeen offenses punishable with death when
committed by slaves, which, if committed by white persons, are either
punished by fines or imprisonment, or punishment not provided for by
the statute or at common law." (_Goodell._)
A law of Md., provides that--"Any slave for rambling in the night,
or riding on horseback or running away, may be punished by whipping,
cropping and branding in the cheeks or otherwise, not rendering him
unfit for labor."
And yet, notwithstanding the extreme and unreasonable partiality and
severity of these laws, it is not unusual for the barbarous spirit of
slavery to overleap them in its unmerciful punishment of the slave.
When the slave commits a high crime, not unfrequently does a furious
mob seize him, and hang him up without trial as if he were a mean dog.
Calmness and solemnity, which should always characterize the punishment
of the _greatest_ criminals in christian countries, give place to the
most violent and cruel passions. Judgment, mercy, law, humanity, God
and Christianity, are all forgotten in the hasty and insane desire to
have the wretched bondman pushed out of the world. And perhaps the
crime which has so violently stirred up the community against him was
committed under the greatest provocations. His soul may have been
writhing under a crushing sense of repeated wrongs. His wife may have
been abused before his eyes while he was not permitted to defend her.
His daughter may have been dishonored, and he, without appeal for her
protection to church or State, compelled to suffer it in silence. And
his own back may have been smarting from the maddening lash--and in a
moment of frenzy or despair he may have smitten his oppressor to the
earth.
And, for this crime he is treated as a prince of criminals, is hung up
without trial, or perhaps _burned alive_!
Our souls have been harrowed up by a circumstance which transpired
during the present year (1853) in the State of Mo. Two negro men for
the commission of murder were arrested and tied to a tree, near the
county seat of Jasper co., a fire was kindled around them, and in
the presence of two thousand persons, they were burned to death! No
time for reflection or repentance was allowed. Not a word of warning
or exhortation was permitted. Even a humane mode of being killed was
denied. But they were, in this year, during the Presidency of _Pierce_,
in the State of Missouri, _burned without trial_!
In 1842 a negro was burned at Union Point, Mississippi. The _Natchez
Free Trader_ gives the following account of the horrible work.
"The body was taken and chained to a tree immediately on the bank
of the Mississippi, on what is called Union Point. Fagots were then
collected, and piled around him to which he appeared quite indifferent.
When the work was completed, he was asked what he had to say. He then
warned all to take example by him, and asked the prayers of all around;
he then called for a drink of water, which was handed to him; he drank
it, and said, 'Now set fire--I am ready to go in peace!' The torches
were lighted and placed in the pile, which soon ignited. He watched
unmoved the curling flame, that grew until it began to entwine itself
around and feed upon his body: then he sent forth cries of agony
painful to the ear, begging some one to blow his brains out; at the
same time surging with almost superhuman strength, until the staple
with which the chain was fastened to the tree (not being well secured)
drew out, and he leaped from the burning pile. At that moment the sharp
ringing of several rifles was heard: the body of the negro fell a
corpse on the ground. He was picked up by some two or three, and again
thrown into the fire and consumed--not a vestige remaining to show that
such a being ever existed."
A colored man was burned in St. Louis, Mo., in 1836, in presence of an
immense throng of spectators. The _Alton Telegraph_ gives the following
description of the scene.
"All was silent as death while the executioners were piling wood around
their victim. He said not a word, until feeling that the flames had
seized upon him. He then uttered an awful howl, attempting to sing
and pray, then hung his head, and suffered in silence, except in
the following instance: After the flames had surrounded their prey,
his eyes burnt out of his head, and his mouth seemingly parched to
a cinder, some one in the crowd, more compassionate than the rest,
proposed to put an end to his misery by shooting him, when it was
replied, "that would be of no use, since he was already out of pain."
"No, no," said the wretch, "I am not. I am suffering as much as ever;
shoot me, shoot me." "No," said one of the fiends, who was standing
about the sacrifice they were roasting, "he shall not be shot. _I would
sooner slacken the fire, if that would increase his misery._""[5]
It may be said that we have in these illustrations of slavery,
exaggerated. But this can not be the case, for we have given the
laws and the practice together, and have furnished the testimony of
eye-witnesses. And we could bring forward a thousand witnesses from
the midst of slavery, whose testimony would confirm all we have said.
Yea more; they would declare that half the extent of the evils of this
horrible institution are unknown. Hear if you please, a voice from
North Carolina--Mr. Swain:
"Let any man of spirit and feeling for a moment cast his thoughts
over this land of slavery--think of the nakedness of some, the hungry
yearnings of others, the flowing tears and heaving sighs of parting
relations, the wailings of _woe_, the bloody cut of the keen lash,
and the _frightful scream_ that rends the very skies--and all this to
gratify ambition, lust, pride, avarice, vanity, and other depraved
feelings of the human heart. THE WORST IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. Were all
the miseries, the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a
peal of seven fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm."
Hear the venerable John Rankin, a native and long resident of
Tennessee. (_See Elliot pp. 225._)
"Many poor slaves are stripped naked, stretched and tied across
barrels, or large bags, _and tortured with the lash during hours,
and even whole days, till their flesh is mangled to the very bones_.
Others are stripped and hung up by the arms, their feet are tied
together, and the end of a heavy piece of timber is put between their
legs in order to stretch their bodies, and so prepare them for the
torturing lash--and in this situation they are often whipped till
their bodies are covered _with blood and mangled flesh_--and, in order
to add the greatest keenness to their sufferings, their wounds are
washed with _liquid salt_! And some of the miserable creatures are
permitted to hang in that position till they actually _expire_; some
die under the lash, others linger about for a time, and at length die
of their wounds, and many survive, and endure again similar torture.
These bloody scenes are _constantly exhibiting in every slaveholding
country--thousands of whips are every day stained in African blood_!
Even the poor _females_ are not permitted to escape these shocking
cruelties."
And finally listen dispassionately to the _Presbyterian Synod of
Kentucky_, composed of those whose interest it was to present slavery
in as favorable a light as possible. (_See Elliot pp. 225._)
"This system licenses and produces _great cruelty_. Mangling,
imprisonment, starvation, every species of torture, may be inflicted
upon him, [the slave,] and he has no redress. There are now in our
whole land two millions of human beings, exposed, defenseless, to
every insult, and every injury short of maiming or death, which
their fellow-men may choose to inflict. They suffer all that can be
inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by
malignant spite, and by insane anger. Their happiness is the sport
of every whim, and the prey of every passion that may, occasionally
or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the
amount of woe endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every
compassionate heart--it would move even the obdurate to sympathy.
There is also a vast sum of suffering inflicted upon the slave by
humane masters, as a punishment for that idleness and misconduct which
slavery naturally produces. BRUTAL STRIPES and all the varied kinds of
personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty which slavery
licenses."
CHAPTER VII.
Slavery and Religion.
"CURSED BE CANAAN."
Many slaveholders and their apologists have sought to find authority
for the "enormity and crime" of slavery, in the Holy Bible. And we are
not surprised that the vile oppressor, smarting under the lashings of
a guilty conscience, and condemned by the united voice of reason and
humanity, should fly for refuge from public scorn and condemnation, to
a shelter, however insecure, erected by a perversion of the writings
and example of those remarkable men, who fill a prominent place in
sacred history. How consoling it must be to the slaveholder, while
standing upon the neck of an unresisting brother, and crushing his
humanity into the dust with heartless cruelty, to hear from a doctor
of divinity that Noah countenanced the enslavement of a part of his
posterity, that Abraham was an extensive slaveholder, that Moses
incorporated the system into the only government ever instituted by
direct authority from Heaven, and that it received, in its very worst
form, under the Roman government, the tacit, if not positive sanction
of Jesus and the apostles.
My observation sustains me in saying that no class of slaveholders
are more pertinacious and incorrigible than the religious class--the
scripture-quoting class. If we are to believe them, slaveholding is not
a sin PER SE, but of itself is a perfectly innocent thing. The very
best of men hold slaves, yea, it is, they tell us, the duty of good men
under some circumstances to hold slaves. To be sure THEY do not hold
slaves for "gain," but from motives of pure "charity," or from stern
"necessity." _They_ and _their_ slaves are ALWAYS in such peculiar
cases that emancipation would be impolitic, impracticable, even a sin!
Still, from all appearances, they are as careful to keep their slaves
from running off as common sinners are--their slaves are fed, clothed,
whipped, worked, robbed and used up precisely as are the slaves of the
most notorious publicans.
After having seen how slavery originated, and what it is in theory
and practice, it may seem useless if not impious to inquire seriously
whether a system so manifestly unjust, cruel and diabolical, is
sanctioned in the Bible; but the confidence with which slaveholders and
their apologists quote it in defense of slavery, and the recklessness
with which it is denounced by a class of infidel abolitionists, impel
us to enter into this inquiry; and in pursuing it we shall endeavor to
examine carefully all the arguments relied upon by the advocates of
human bondage. The first passage in order is found in Genesis 9: 25.
"And he said, cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to
his brethren."
It is assumed that this curse was pronounced by divine authority;
that the servitude here mentioned is identical with slavery; that the
prediction of the oppression of a people justifies their oppressors;
and finally, that American slaves are the identical posterity of Canaan.
1. As it respects the authority of this curse, there is a circumstance
intimately associated with its utterance which excites a shadow of
doubt with regard to its inspiration. "And Noah awoke from his wine"
and pronounced this malediction. Is it not possible that these words
were the hasty expression of excited feeling and not the solemn
enunciation of a divine anathema?
2. But in order to prove the validity of the argument, it must be
proved that servitude and slavery are relations of essentially the
same character, and this cannot be done. Neither philology nor history
affords the slightest proof of the assumption that to be a servant of
servants is equivalent to being a _slave of slaves_.
3. But does the prediction of the oppression of a people justify that
oppression? Verily it does not. The Lord said unto Abraham that his
seed should be afflicted in a strange land four hundred years. But who
will pretend to justify the Egyptian task-masters on the plea that the
affliction of Israel had been predicted? The divine prescience sees all
things at one glance, and may inspire men to prophesy, but prophecy
touches not the moral agency of men. When our Lord was crucified, the
"scripture was fulfilled," but they who crucified him were murderers,
nevertheless. Hence, even should we admit that the curse pronounced
on Canaan was of divine authority, and that it meant slavery, no
stronger apology for slaveholding could be derived therefrom than
Egyptian oppressors might have drawn from the words of Jehovah, for
the affliction of Israel in Egypt four hundred years. The cases are
parallel.
4. But the argument is utterly baseless because American slaves are not
the posterity of Canaan, upon whom the curse was pronounced, and hence
that anathema affords just as good an apology for the enslavement of
Englishmen as colored Americans. Ham had four sons,--Cush, Misriam,
Phut, and Canaan, and the curse was directed against _Canaan_ or
Canaan's posterity. But, says one, are not the negroes children of
Canaan? By no means. No scholar has ever pretended that Canaan was the
progenitor of the negro race.
The sacred penman is very careful to put this matter _beyond dispute_.
He says: "And Canaan begat Sidon his first born, and Heth, and the
Jubisite, and the Amorite, and the Girgasite, and the Hivite, and the
Arkite, and the Sinite, and the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the
Hamathite; and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread
abroad. And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest
to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest unto Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah
and Zeboim, even unto Lasha." Gen. 10: 15-19. Now these nations and
boundaries were all located in Asia, and we have no evidence of the
subsequent removal of any of the posterity of Canaan to Africa except
it be the founders of Carthage,--a city which was long mistress of
the sea, and the proud rival of imperial Rome. The Carthaginians were
supposed to be the descendants of Canaan.
This curse, therefore, did not allude to slavery, but servitude;
and as it is a mere prediction of what would be the relation of
Canaan's posterity it afforded no apology for the oppression of that
posterity;[6] and finally the Africans and colored Americans _are
not the descendants of Canaan_, and hence, the passage can have no
application to them; and affords _just as good authority_ for the
enslavement of Englishmen, Dutchmen and Frenchmen as negroes.
How absurd is the attempt to take this anathema, construe it to
_mean_ and _justify_ chattel slavery, and then _stretch_ it over the
posterity, not of Canaan, but of Cush even after the blood of the
Cushites (Moses' wife was a Cushite) has been mingled with the blood
of the "first families" of Virginia, and of all the Southern states. A
large number of slaves are white--much whiter than their masters and
mistresses. The first Bible argument for slavery appears, when weighed,
"Light as a puff of empty air."
Have slaveholders no better? We will see.
CHAPTER VIII.
Slavery and Religion--Continued.
PATRIARCHAL SERVITUDE AND SLAVERY.
The next Bible argument for slavery, usually adduced, is founded upon
the assumption that the patriarchs were slaveholders, and particular
stress is placed upon the example of Abraham, "the friend of God," who,
it is confidently asserted, was an extensive slaveholder.
The Harmony Presbytery, South Carolina, "_Resolved_, that slavery has
existed from the days of those good old _slaveholders_ and patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
The Presbytery of Tombecbee said: "In the Bible the state of slavery is
clearly recognized. Abraham the friend of God had slaves born in his
house and bought with his money."
Dr. Fuller, in his controversy with Dr. Wayland, assumed that father
Abraham was a slaveholder, and that his example was a sufficient
warrant for slaveholding in all ages. The same position was taken by
Dr. Rice in his debate with Mr. Blanchard. Mr. Fletcher, author of a
late voluminous defense of slavery, takes the same position.
It will be perceived that in this argument two things are assumed. 1st
That the patriarchs did hold slaves. 2d That the example of a patriarch
is conclusive evidence in the case. If it should appear after an
examination of the case, that none of the patriarchs owned slaves, or
that the example of a patriarch is not conclusive evidence on all moral
questions, and may not, in every case, be safely followed, then this
argument will also be found wanting.
Now, I assume the position that neither Abraham, nor any other
patriarch, ever owned a slave; and as evidence in support of this
position submit the following facts and considerations.
1. The Bible does not record such a fact. In no chapter or verse
is Abraham, Isaac or Jacob called a slaveholder, slave-driver,
slave-trader, or by any other name indicative of such a relation. Nor
is any man, or woman in their employ, either in the house or field,
or in any way associated with them, called a slave or by any name
indicative of that relation.
2. The Bible records in connection with the history of the patriarchs,
no circumstance from which slaveholding may be legitimately inferred.
Those inseparable concomitants of slavery, the _whip_, _coffle_,
_chain-gang_, _whipping-post_ and _overseer_, are not named in
patriarchal history.
3. Some circumstances are recorded from which we obtain presumptive
evidence that they did not own slaves. Take for example, an incident in
the life of Abraham. He was sitting in his tent door in the cool of the
day and saw at a little distance three strangers whom he immediately
approached and invited, in the spirit of genuine hospitality, to tarry
with him and partake of some refreshments. When he had obtained their
consent, he hastened unto the tent to Sarah and requested her to bake
some cakes with all possible dispatch, while he should run to the herd
and fetch a calf tender and good and have it dressed. The repast was
soon provided, the guests were seated around the wholesome meal, and
Abraham stood by them under the tree while they ate. Now, I submit, had
this patriarch been a slaveholder, he would have ordered "Cuffee" to
the flock after the calf, and had Sarah been a mistress of slaves she
would have ordered "Dinah" to the kneading trough. In this incident
there is no mention of slaves. A "young _man_" is respectfully noticed
without the slightest hint that he was a slave. Abraham and Sarah went
about preparing this entertainment precisely as good people do, who
attend to their own work, and have no slaves to order around.
4. We have good reasons for believing that chattel slavery had no
existence in the world at the time the patriarchs referred to,
flourished. Abraham was born only two years after the death of Noah,
and when as yet the postdiluvian world was in its infancy, and it
is not probable, leaving history out of view, that slavery could
have been instituted at so early a period. But the most ancient and
reliable history furnishes evidence that for a period after the flood,
reaching down far this side the patriarchal age, universal freedom was
preserved.[7]
On the authority of _Diodorus_, Shuckford says, that "the nations
planted by Noah and his descendants, _had a law against slavery; for
no person among them could absolutely lose his freedom and become a
bondsman_." (_Shuckford's Connections, Vol. II, pp. 80._)
"Athenaus, a Greek historian of great merit, observes that the
Babylonians, Persians, as well as the Greeks, and divers other nations,
celebrated annually a sort of Saturnalia, or feast, instituted most
probably IN COMMEMORATION OF THE ORIGINAL STATE OF FREEDOM, IN WHICH
MEN LIVED BEFORE SERVITUDE WAS INTRODUCED; AND AS MOSES REVIVED SEVERAL
OF NOAH'S INSTITUTIONS, so there are appointments in the law to
preserve the freedom of the Israelites."
From these authorities to which others might be added, we conclude that
slavery had no existence among the nations which arose immediately
after the flood. Noah, it seems was a good democrat, and gave
existence to institutions which secured the personal freedom of his
descendants; and absolutely prohibited their enslavement. And it also
appears that those institutions were for a long period observed, and
finally incorporated by Moses into the Law for the preservation of the
liberties of the Israelites. Now, Abraham was contemporary with the
sons of Noah, and was a governor of one of the very earliest nations
alluded to by the historians above quoted; hence it is clear, that
slavery had no existence in his day, and consequently he could not have
been a slaveholder.
Against this view it may be urged that slavery existed in Egypt in
the time of Joseph, that Joseph was sold as a slave, and that the
Israelites were slaves when in Egypt. To this objection we answer:
1. The assumption that slavery existed in Egypt in the time of the
patriarchs is without foundation. _Herodotus_, gives a "true and full"
account of the ancient Egyptians, specifies with great care the various
classes of men, but does not mention slaves. _Diodorus_, gives a
careful statement of the ancient Egyptian constitution, but is silent
respecting slavery.
_Rollin_ says: "Husbandmen, shepherds, and artificers formed the
three lower classes of lower life in Egypt, but were nevertheless had
in _very great esteem_, particularly husbandmen and shepherds." We
have the best of reasons, therefore, for believing that the wholesome
institutions of Noah were preserved for a long time in Egypt. That
a system of servitude existed in that country is true, but absolute
slavery was not permitted. Parents possessed great authority over their
children, and might sell them or their services, for a limited time,
but this was not slavery. A year of release was provided for all, so
that no one could, as Diodorus observes, "absolutely lose his freedom
and become a bondsman!"
2. Joseph was not a slave. He was doubtless sold as a servant for a
limited period, and evidently that period had expired before he arose
to the high station of Steward of Potipher's house.
3. The Israelites were not slaves in Egypt. They maintained their
nationality, preserved their family relations, owned property, and
were not distributed throughout the country, as chattel slaves are.
Their servitude was national. Their task masters were appointed by the
government, and they labored for the public benefit. They were not
domestic slaves.
The position I think is invulnerable, that in the nations which
arose and peopled the earth, immediately after the flood, slavery
had no existence; and as the patriarchs flourished in that period,
the inference is clear that they did not own slaves, and were not
slaveholders. Those holy men would hardly be the first to violate the
free institutions of Noah, and disgrace the golden age of freedom, by
the enslavement of their brothers.
But it is asserted with a show of confidence that the word servant,
as applied in the scriptures to a class of persons, means precisely
what our word slave means. Hence, when it is said that Abraham had
_servants_, it is assumed that he had SLAVES. Now, although what has
been proved, is altogether sufficient to exculpate that good man
and all the patriarchs from the charge of slaveholding, we deem it
important that the word translated servant be well understood; and with
the aid of the best authorities we shall now proceed to make it plain.
The Hebrew words translated servant, service, and servants, are derived
from _abadh_, meaning to labor, _to work_, to do work. This word occurs
in the Hebrew scriptures some hundreds of times, in various forms of
the word, and is never rendered _slaves_. Occasionally, our translators
have prefixed the word _bond_, and made it read _bond_-servant, but
this was done without authority, as precisely the same word is used in
the original. The original word is used to denote the following kinds
of service: To work for another; Gen. 29: 20. To serve or be servants
of a king; 2d Sam., 16: 19. To serve as a soldier; 2d Sam., 2: 12, 13,
15, 30, 31. To serve as an ambassador; 2d Sam., 10: 2, 4. It is applied
to a worshipper of the true God; Nehemiah, 1: 10. To a minister;
Isaiah, 49: 6. It is also applied to king Rehoboam; 1st Kings, 11: 7,
and to the Messiah, Isaiah, 42: 1.[8]
It is used in Gen. 2: 15. And the Lord God took the man, and put him in
the garden of Eden to DRESS IT. Adam was put into Eden, not to _serve_
or _dress_ the garden as a SLAVE, but as a man. The same word is used
to express the service performed for Laban by Jacob. The relation of
Joshua to Moses is expressed by the same word; Ex., 33: 21. It is also
used in the fourth commandment. Six days shalt thou _labor_, etc.
From these examples of the use of the word it is clear that the idea of
chattel slavery is not found in it. It is used to express all kinds of
service--the service of God, a king, a friend, or an employer.
The word _ama_, rendered _maid-servant_, _bond-maid_, _maid_,
_hand-maid_, and the word _shiphhah_ with similar renderings, are
applied to Hagar, Ruth, Hannah, Abigail, Bilhah and Zilpah, and
evidently mean no more than our English word servant in its usual
acceptation. Those women were not slaves, they were free women. It has
been very properly remarked that if _chattel_ slavery existed among the
Hebrews at any time it is not a little surprising that the language
contains no word which expresses the relation.
Some have endeavored to force into the word translated _servant_ &c.,
the idea of slavery because it is said that Abraham had servants
"bought with money." But from the ancient use of the word _buy_ or
_bought_ we are not to infer that the persons bought became slaves.
Wives were procured in the times of the patriarchs by _purchase_.
Boaz said--"Moreover Ruth, the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have
I purchased to be my wife." The same word (_kanithi_) is used here
to express the manner in which Boaz obtained his wife, that is used
in Gen. to show how a part of Abraham's servants were obtained. But
the beautiful _Ruth_ was not a _slave_. Jacob purchased his beloved
Rachel, and less beloved Leah, but those wives and mothers of the
twelve patriarchs could not have been _slaves_. Had they been chattels,
why, then, according to an essential feature of the American slave
code, the twelve patriarchs would all have been born in the same
condition. _Partus sequitur ventrem._ A Hebrew might sell himself on
a limited time, and he might be bought by a wealthy neighbor, but no
one, I believe, has ever pretended that he became a SLAVE thereby. The
contract was voluntary. The employer bought the services of his fellow,
and paid in _advance_ for the same, not to a third person, but to the
servant himself. God is said to have purchased (_kanitha_) his people;
Ps., 75: 2.
Hence from the scriptural use of the word buy, or bought, we are not
authorized to infer that the persons purchased became slaves. Such an
inference would do violence to the holy word.
The true state of the matter in respect to Abraham, and his case is
mainly relied upon, was without a doubt this. Abraham, being a wise,
wealthy and good man, gathered around him many devoted friends who,
upon his removal to a distant location, desired to accompany him,
to receive the benefits of his friendship and counsels, live under
his patriarchship, as he was a prince, (see Gen., 23: 6,) and enjoy
the protection of his power. Some of these may have been involved in
pecuniary embarrassments or obligations of service to other persons,
which made it necessary for the benevolent patriarch to release them by
paying them in advance for many years of service.
Many of these servants were doubtless converts from idolatry, which
had been made in Haran. In Gen. 12: 5, the fact is recorded of the
removal of Abraham, Sarai, their effects, and of "the SOULS they
had gotten." This word "gotten" is translated, says Mr. Carothers,
from _osa_, which is used in Ezekiel 18: 31, to express the work of
conversion. "Cast away from you all your transgressions, and make you a
new heart and a new spirit." And this rendering of the word "gotten" is
confirmed by the Chaldee paraphrase on this passage, which reads thus:
"Souls they had instructed or turned from idolatry and taught in the
true religion." "The Hebrews have a tradition," says Banberg, "that
Abraham brought over many men, and Sarah many women from infidelity
to the knowledge and worship of the true God; and thus _made_ them
spiritually." A similar mode of expression is used by St. Paul: "I have
_begotten_ you through the gospel." The idea that Abraham and Sarah
made slaves of their converts is simply preposterous.
From the foregoing facts and considerations it is perfectly clear
to my mind, that the effort to find an apology for slaveholding
in patriarchal servitude is a total failure. The charge that the
patriarchs held slaves is _wholly_ without foundation,--is a
disingenuous attack upon their reputation, and a miserable subterfuge
for hard-hearted oppressors, who are seeking an apology or excuse for
sins which loudly cry for the vengeance of heaven! Could Father Abraham
arise from the dead, visit the South, and there behold thousands of
his spiritual children toiling without remuneration, shut out from
the blessings of family and home, denied an education and all means
of intellectual improvement, driven by the keen lash of a brutal
overseer, and then should he hear an appeal made to the patriarchs in
justification of this system of unmingled tyranny, he would indignantly
repel the appeal as a base calumny!
It is surprising with what confidence the example of the patriarchs
is urged in justification of slavery in the absence of all proof or
semblance of proof, that they were implicated in this practice. But
our surprise is increased when we consider that, even could it be made
appear that the patriarchs did hold slaves, this fact of itself, would
afford not the slightest apology for slaveholding now. The patriarchs,
it is admitted, had a plurality of wives, but their example is not now
a sufficient warrant for polygamy. There is not an ecclesiastical court
in the United States and territories, if we may except the Mormon,
Utah, which would accept the example of the patriarchs as an apology
for the man who should stand up before that court with two wives
leaning on his arms. The argument therefore appears utterly worthless
and shallow from every point of view.
CHAPTER IX.
Slavery and Religion--Continued.
LAW OF MOSES AND SLAVERY.
It is claimed by the advocates of human bondage that in the law
delivered by Moses for the government of the children of Israel, until
the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, slavery is distinctly
recognized, carefully regulated, and unequivocally sanctioned; and
hence, that it is an institution upon which Jehovah now looks with
approbation. We cannot believe, they argue, that it is wrong for
christians to practice what the law of Moses permitted or sanctioned.
To this argument we reply:--
1. That many things were allowed by the law of Moses which are strictly
prohibited by the law of Christ. That law was imperfect in its
character, limited in its application, and temporary in its design. It
contained a number of statutes which could by no means be incorporated
into the laws of a christian state.
Among the things commanded and allowed by the law under consideration,
the following may be specified:--
1. It commanded a Hebrew, even though a married man, with wife and
children living, to take the childless widow of a deceased brother, and
beget children with her; Deut., 25: 5-10.
2. The Hebrews, under certain restrictions, were allowed to make
concubines, or wives for a limited time, of women taken in war; Deut.
21: 10-14.
3. A Hebrew who already had a wife, was allowed to take another also;
provided he still continued his intercourse with the first as her
husband, and treated her kindly and affectionately; Exodus 21: 9-11.
4. By the Mosaic law, the nearest relative of a murdered Hebrew could
pursue and slay the murderer, unless he could escape to the city
of refuge; and the same permission was given in case of accidental
homicide; Num. 35: 9-34.
5. The Israelites were commanded to exterminate the Canaanites, men,
women and children; Deut. 9: 12; 20: 16-18.
"Each of these laws, although in its time it was an ameliorating
law, designed to take the place of some barbarous abuse, and to be
a connecting link by which some higher state of society might be
introduced, belongs confessedly to that system which St. Paul says made
nothing perfect. They are a part of the commandment which he says was
annulled for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof, and which, in
the time which he wrote, was waxing old, and ready to vanish away."
(_Dr. Stowe._)
Now, will any one pretend that it is proper for a christian, having
a wife, to take also the wife of a deceased brother? But the law of
Moses authorized this as clearly as any one pretends that it authorized
slavery. Is it allowable for a christian to take a concubine or marry
three or four wives? But the law of Moses allowed this as distinctly
as any one believes that it allowed slavery. Would it be right for
a christian to pursue a neighbor who had committed accidental or
intentional homicide, overtake and slay him? But the law of Moses
justified the Jewish man-slayer as plainly as the most ultra defender
of slavery maintains that it justified slaveholding. Suppose we
admit, for argument sake, that slavery was authorized by the law of
Moses, does it follow as a matter of course, that the law of Christ
authorizes it? By no means; for we have seen that the former authorized
concubinage, polygamy, extermination of the heathen, and summary
vengeance upon the unwitting murderer, all of which things are utterly
incompatible with the precepts of the latter. And slavery might very
properly be placed in the category of those practices allowed by the
law, but prohibited by the gospel. Thus the argument for slavery from
the law of Moses proves too much, and therefore proves nothing.
2. But if, as is claimed, the Jews _were_ authorized to enslave their
fellow men, which we by no means admit, it was by express authority
from God, who alone may deprive any of his creatures of the rights
with which he has invested them. Express grants _were_ made to the
"chosen seed," as for instance, the forcible occupancy of the land of
Canaan, and of the cities thereof. Now those grants were not made to
Americans, but to the ancient Israelites, and it is neither modest nor
sensible for citizens of the United States to act under a charter which
they admit was made to an ancient nation, for a temporary purpose. Let
the American slaveholder show the same _authority_ for slaveholding
which he maintains the Jew could produce. Has God ever made a grant to
_Americans_ to enslave the Africans?
3. Again, the passage mainly relied upon is found in Leviticus, 25:
44-47; in which the Jews are authorized to procure servants of the
_nations_, (not heathen, for _heathen_ is not in the original) round
about them. Now if this celebrated passage be at all to the purpose,
it is, as Pres. Edwards has said, "a permission to every nation under
heaven to buy slaves of the nations round about them; to us, to buy
of our Indian neighbors; to them, to buy of us; to the French to
buy of the English, and to the English to buy of the French; and so
through the world. Thus according to this construction, we have here an
institution of a universal slave trade, by which every man may not only
become a merchant, but may rightfully become the merchandize itself of
this trade, and be bought and sold like a beast." Who is willing to
admit the consequences of this construction?
We might here rest the case, because these three considerations, taken
separately, or together, destroy entirely the whole force of the
argument for American slavery predicated upon Levitical servitude.
We shall now inquire what kind of servitude _was_ recognized and
regulated by the law of Moses. The particular statute upon which the
main reliance is placed, by the friends of slavery, and which is
supposed to contain the black and bloody _charter_ for the degradation
of humanity, is found in Leviticus 25: 44-47, and reads as follows:--
"Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of
the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bondmen and
bondmaids. Moreover of the children of strangers that do sojourn among
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you,
which they beget in your land: and they shall be your possession. And
ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to
inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen forever."[9]
1. The word _slave_, it will be observed, does not occur in this
passage, nor does bondmen and bondmaids mean anything more than
men-servants and women-servants. The word _bond_, as we have seen, is
gratuitously supplied by our translators, and is not in the original;
and the word _servants_ means no more than _laborers_ or _workers_. All
kinds of servants are described by the term here found, and hence from
its use in this place, it cannot be inferred that the persons referred
to were slaves. The passage clearly authorized the procurement of
servants from adjoining nations, which was a thing perfectly right in
itself, and that is all it did authorize.
2. Nor does the fact that the passage allowed the _purchase_ of
servants, prove that the persons purchased were slaves, or became
slaves. Irishmen were, many of them, a few years since, "bought
servants." They were sold to pay for their passage to this country,
but the whole transaction was voluntary on the part of the "sons of
Erin," and looked to their benefit. Jacob, as we have seen, purchased
Leah and Rachel with fourteen years of labor. Our blessed Savior hath
purchased us with his own blood. The idea of chattel slavery cannot
be associated with the word buy or bought, as used in the sacred
writings, without doing great violence to their meaning. The phrase,
"of them shall ye _buy_" may be properly rendered, "of them shall ye
_get_, or _obtain_ servants." The word translated buy, in the passage
before us, is in other places translated "get" or "getteth." Thus, "He
that beareth reproof _getteth_ understanding." Prov., 15: 32. "He that
_getteth_ wisdom, loveth his own soul." Prov., 19: 8. But the meaning
of the word buy, and sell, as applied to the purchase and sale of men,
is definitely settled by its use in the context of the passage which
we are examining. It is used in verse 47, "if thy brother wax poor and
_sell himself_" etc. In verse 39, the reading is, "and _be sold_."
These passages are intended to convey an idea of the same transaction,
and that transaction was nothing more nor less than the voluntary sale
of a poor man to a rich one, not as a slave, but as a servant. The sale
was made, and the _money was received by the servant who sold himself_,
with which he released himself and family from pecuniary embarrassment.
In this sale and purchase of a man, the idea of slavery is utterly
excluded. Now is it probable that the words buy, and sell, in this
same chapter, when applied to foreign servants, were used in a totally
different sense? To suppose this would be to charge Moses, as Wm. Jay
observes, with a fraudulent intent to render the meaning of his law
doubtful and unintelligible.
3. Considerable stress is placed upon the phrase, "shall be of the
_heathen_," as if heathenism was a crime to be punished with a still
deeper degradation than idolatry can produce. "The word heathen,"
says Mr. Jay, "is gratuitously inserted by our translators instead of
_nations_, the meaning of the original."
4. Permission was also given for the purchase of the "children of
the strangers." "'Children of the strangers' is an orientalism, for
strangers, as 'children of the East,' 'children of the Province,'
'children of the Ethiopians.' Hence, the Jews, instead of buying little
boys and girls of their parents, were to buy foreigners residing in the
country; and not only foreigners, but their descendants, natives of
Palestine." (_Jay._)
5. "They shall be your bondmen forever." In this phrase is supposed to
be found a charter for perpetual, hereditary, hopeless bondage. Mr.
Jay very justly remarks upon it as follows: "The preconceived opinions
of the translators tempted them to give such a color to this sentence
as best accorded with their proslavery theory. Hence this strong
expression in the text, while in the _margin_ the _literal_ translation
is honestly given, "Ye shall serve yourselves with them forever." Not a
word about bondmen, but merely an unlimited permission, as to time, to
use or employ foreigners or strangers."
The proslavery construction renders the permission absurd, because in
the first place it would be impossible for any one man literally to be
a bondman forever, unless servitude could be continued in heaven or
hell. And, in the next place, it could not continue in the same person
in Israel beyond the great jubilee.
Now when this passage in Leviticus 25, is stripped of all the
proslavery glosses of the translators, the following is, as the
excellent writer just quoted observes, its plain and obvious
meaning:--"You may buy of themselves, for servants, men and women who
are natives of the adjoining countries, just as you have already been
authorized to buy your own countrymen for servants. You may also buy,
for servants, strangers residing among you, and their descendants; and
your children after you may do the same. You may always employ them as
servants."
The servitude permitted by the law of Moses has been most grossly
misrepresented, and misunderstood. It was not an institution looking
mainly to the advantage of the rich and powerful, while it crushed the
poor and defenseless into the dust, disregarding their interests and
their sorrows, but it was a benificent arrangement intended to relieve
the unfortunate and open a door of hope to the Gentile inquirer of the
way to Zion. Now observe carefully the following facts:--
1. Servants were not kidnapped or stolen from the surrounding nations.
The stealing of a man was made a capital offense. He that stealeth a
man and (_or_ it should be) selleth him, or if he be found in his hand,
he shall surely be put to death. Ex. 21: 16. Now, as all the slaves
in America have been stolen, those who stole them, and those who hold
them, are worthy of death according to the law of Moses.
2. All the servants obtained by the Jews from neighboring nations were
_voluntary_ servants. This is proved in the following way. 1. Foreign
servants, and native Hebrew servants were obtained in the same manner.
Native Hebrews became servants (except in cases of crime) by voluntary
contract. 2. Obedience to the law of Moses was a condition of servitude
in the Jewish state. An idolater was not allowed to remain in the land.
And a bought servant was obliged to renounce idolatry, receive the
rite of circumcision, and in all things conform to the law of Moses,
as his master was required to do. Gen. 17: 10-15. Ex. 23: 15-20. Deut.
16: 10-18. All were required to enter into the most solemn religious
covenant. "Ye stand this day, all of you, before the Lord your God;
your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with
all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger
that is in thy camp, _from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of
thy water_; that _thou_ shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord
thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee
this day." Deut. 29. But conformity to the law of Moses was voluntary.
We cannot conceive that a Jew was allowed to buy a heathen servant
against his will, tie him, inflict upon him the rite of circumcision,
and then compel him to observe the great feasts ordained by the law,
and, otherwise conform to the Jewish religion. Hence the acceptance
of a place as a servant in a Jewish family was a matter of choice.
3. Servants were not obliged to remain with their masters. If they
saw proper to change their situation, they had a perfect right to do
so, just as laborers now have, and there was no fugitive slave law to
prevent them from so doing. "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master
the servant that is escaped unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even
among you, in that place he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it
liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him." Deut. 23: 15, 16. From
these facts, the conclusion is irresistible that servitude was not
_forced_ upon a foreigner, but voluntarily accepted by him, and that
his continuance in that relation was voluntary. How great the contrast
between this system and American slavery which utterly disregards the
_will_ of slaves.
3. Foreign servants were to be treated in all respects precisely as
native Hebrew servants were to be treated. "Ye shall have one manner of
law, as well for the stranger as for one of your own country, for I am
the Lord your God." Lev. 24: 22.
4. Ample provisions were made for the religious improvement of servants
of all classes and especially foreign servants. They were to observe
the sabbath, go up with their masters to the three great annual feasts
celebrated at Jerusalem, listen to the reading of the law, and in short
enjoy all the advantages of the Jewish religion. Mr. Barnes estimates
that in a period of fifty years, not less than twenty three were
appropriated to the exclusive benefit of servants, during which time
their whole attention might be devoted to the interests of their souls.
Does not this indicate that the great design of the employment of
foreign servants was religious? Is there the least similarity between
this system of servitude and American slavery?
5. Special provisions were made to secure the kind treatment of all
foreigners, foreign servants of course included. "Thou shalt not vex
a stranger nor oppress him." "Thou shalt not oppress a stranger, for
ye know the heart of a stranger." "Cursed be he that perverteth the
judgment of the stranger." "The Lord your God regardeth not persons.
Love ye therefore the stranger." But does not American slavery vex and
oppress the stranger and pervert his judgment? The wide world cannot
produce a class of persons who are, or ever have been oppressed, if
American slaves are not. The word oppression is too feeble to express
the tyranny suffered by the strangers in our land.
6. Servants under the law of Moses could not be sold. No permission
was given for the sale of servants. They could not be taken for the
payment of debts, or as pledges, or presents. _They never were sold_
or given away. The reason of this is found in the fact that they were
not chattels,--they were recognized as men, and had made a contract for
service which their masters could not at pleasure annul. We have seen
that the trade in slaves is an extensive and lucrative business.
7. The Hebrew law regarded servants as naturally equal to their
masters, and hence, they were allowed to marry into their master's
family, and inherit, under some circumstances, their master's property.
Deut. 21: 10-14. A slave is not regarded as a man, can own nothing,
and inherit nothing. What a contrast! American slavery, and Hebrew
servitude seem to be erected upon totally different foundations.
8. At stated periods the mild form of servitude instituted by the law
of Moses expired. A Hebrew who became a servant could not be required
to continue in that relation more than six years. And every fiftieth
year was a grand Jubilee, at the commencement of which liberty was
proclaimed throughout all the land unto _all the inhabitants thereof_.
Lev. 25: 10, 11. Contracts for service, under any circumstances, could
not hold beyond that great jubilee. It was a glorious institution, and
a type of the proclamation of the gospel. But American slavery knows no
joyful jubilee! For three hundred years no proclamation of freedom has
been made throughout all this land unto all the inhabitants thereof.
No, generation after generation of slaves goes down to their graves in
_despair_! Slavery is without a jubilee.
9. The grand design of the introduction of foreign servants into the
Jewish state was their salvation. From a careful examination of this
whole subject, we are fully satisfied that the 25th chapter of Lev.
contains, as Mr. Smith has said, "the constitution of Heaven's first
Missionary society, by which a door of mercy and salvation was opened
to the heathen, through which they could obtain access to the altar of
God, find mercy and live."
It will be observed that a foreigner could obtain a permanent residence
in Israel in but two ways,--1st By becoming a servant in a Jewish
family, and, 2d By purchasing a house in a walled city. Now, when
in connection with these facts, we consider that to the Jews were
committed the "lively oracles;" that the only temple of God on earth
was erected on Mt. Moriah; that the divinely appointed priesthood
and sacrifices were in Jerusalem; and also that a renunciation of
idolatry and hearty acceptance of the God and religion of the bible
was absolutely required of those foreigners who desired to become
servants; that when they did become servants they were blessed with all
the precious privileges of the Jewish religion, and after a few years,
became, with their families, adopted members of the Jewish state,
having all the rights, immunities and honors of the chosen people of
God; I say, when all these facts are impartially weighed, they convince
us that the _end_ of the provision alluded to for the admission of
foreign servants was religious--the salvation of those servants.
And history affords a powerful argument in support of this position.
What was the practical operation of the law of Moses in relation to
foreign servants? If the pro-slavery view of that law be correct, then
history would record the fact that the commonwealth of Israel was a
slaveholding commonwealth. It would state that the Jews traded in men,
and that this traffic was important. We should read of poor, ignorant,
chained idolaters traveling in mournful procession to a great slave
pen at Jerusalem, situated under the shadow, perhaps of the temple of
God, and from thence into every part of the land. And when our Savior
appeared, he would have come into contact with those wretched slaves,
and would have said something about them. Do we find these facts in
history? No, not one of them. Jerusalem, thank God, was a free city.
Judea a free state. Foreigners were employed from age to age, as
servants, but as was contemplated, they embraced the religion of God,
became adopted citizens and were fully identified with the commonwealth
of Israel. "After circumcision they were," as Jahn says, "recorded
among the Hebrews," and after the jubilee they enjoyed all the
immunities of the children of Abraham. Such was the intention, and such
the results of Levitical servitude. Between that system and American
slavery there is scarcely any thing in common. Slavery originated in
piracy, is a system of savage tyranny, degrading to the intellect,
destructive of morality, blasting to hope and happiness, and tending to
barbarism and crime. Servitude under the law of Moses, originated in a
benevolent desire to open a door of hope to the heathen, was kind and
just in its requirements, guarding with extreme jealousy the interest
of servants, and admirably calculated to lead their minds to morality,
virtue and the knowledge of God. Slavery, therefore, can find no
sanction in the law of Moses. Why, if that law were applied to American
slavery it would abolish it. Compel slaveholders to use their slaves
as the law of Moses required servants to be used, and you will soon see
an end of slavery.
CHAPTER X.
Slavery and Religion--Continued.
NEW TESTAMENT AND SLAVERY.
Our Lord's New Testament is the bulwark of human freedom. Its great,
broad, solid truths constitute an impregnable foundation for a temple
of liberty capacious enough to hold the entire human race. This is the
last book in the world to search in order to find any thing favorable
to oppression; and oppressors have usually preferred to "burrow amid
the types and shadows of the ancient economy." An effort has been made,
however, to wrest a sanction for the abomination of slavery out of this
last and best revelation from heaven, and to convert some passages
found in the writings of the apostles into chains and fetters to bind
in hopeless bondage those very persons for whom Christ died.
We will quote the passages usually adduced to prove that it is the duty
of some men to be slaves, and of others to be slaveholders.
"Servants, be obedient to them that are _your_ masters according to
the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as
unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants
of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing
service, as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatsoever good
thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether
he be bond or free. And ye masters, do the same things unto them,
forbearing threatening: knowing that your Master also is in heaven;
neither is there respect of persons with him." Eph. 6: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
"Servants, obey in all things _your_ masters according to the flesh;
not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart,
fearing God." Col. 3: 22. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke
count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and
_his_ doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters,
let them not despise _them_, because they are brethren; but rather do
_them_ service, because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the
benefit. These things teach and exhort." 1st Tim. 6: 1, 2. "_Exhort_
servants to be obedient unto their own masters, _and_ to please _them_
well in all _things_; not answering again; not purloining, but showing
all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour
in all things." Titus, 2: 9, 10. "Masters, give unto your servants that
which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven."
Col. 4: 1.
We will inquire in the first place whether these passages teach that
it is the duty of some persons to be _slaves_. And it may be remarked
that if a class of human beings _ought_ to sustain this horrible
relation, the law requiring them to do so, should be written in the
plainest possible manner. If any one should claim _me_ and _my_ family
as slaves, upon a pretense that God had authorized our enslavement,
I would demand a warrant for so terrible a degradation, which no
reasonable man could question. Let us see whether the scriptures cited
prove _unquestionably_ that to live in a state of slavery is a duty
which God requires.
1. It will be seen at a glance that there is not a word said about
_slaves_ in any of these quotations. The word _slave_ or _slaves_
is not once used! And yet these passages, inculcating the duties
of _servants_, have been rung in the ears of our poor _slaves_
for the last three hundred years, by hypocritical preachers and
slaveholders, as if heaven were chiefly interested and delighted in
the perpetuation of an institution which degrades millions of men
to a point as low as manhood can possibly descend. The whole gospel
preached to slaves is mixed up with this satanic perversion. Even the
song of angels announcing "peace on earth and good will to men," is
accompanied to the ear of the American bondman, with the base, coarse
corruption,--"_Slaves_, obey your masters."
2. The word _servants_, used in these scriptures, is not synonymous
with the word _slaves_, as the preachers of oppression assume. The word
_andrapodon_ means slave, but that word, the learned tell us, does not
occur in the sacred writings. The word _douloi_, used in the above
quotations, and translated servants, means precisely what our English
word servants means, as that word is understood in free countries. "Our
English word servant," says a good authority, "is an exact translation
of the Greek word _doulos_. And to translate it into the definite word
slave is a gross violation of the original. Our translators of the
scriptures have uniformly translated the word doulos into the word
servant, _never_ into the word slave, and for the reason that it never
means slave. The apostles addressed servants in general, but never
slaves in particular; and therefore the term slave (andrapodon) is not
found in apostolic writings."
The word _doulos_ occurs in the New Testament one hundred and twenty
two times,[10] and in no case has it been translated slave. To show
the utter fallacy of the assumption that it is synonymous with slave,
permit us to supply _slave_ in a few passages where _doulos_ occurs,
instead of servant, for if slave and servant mean the same thing, they
may be used interchangeably without violating the sense. "Paul and
Timotheus the _slaves_ of Jesus Christ." "These are the _slaves_ of the
Most High God which do show unto us the way of salvation." "And a voice
came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God all ye his _slaves_, and
ye that fear him small and great." "I am thy fellow _slave_." We might
extend these quotations indefinitely, but a sufficient number have been
given to show the absurdity of the assumption that the words servant
and slave describe the same relation. The pro-slavery rendering of
doulos, would make slaves of all the redeemed, and of the holy angels,
and would, as Mr. Smith remarks, extend the territory of slavery over
heaven itself.
3. The phrase "servants under the yoke" means no more than obligation
to perform service according to agreement or contract. He who had an
engagement with an unbelieving master should perform his contract,
or fulfill his obligation with scrupulous fidelity in order that the
name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. The word "yoke" does
not necessarily imply slavery. Our Savior said "take my _yoke_ upon
you," but certainly he did not invite any one to become a slave. The
word yoke is used in the scriptures to represent the ceremonial law;
"dominion of Jacob over Esau, in the matter of his father's blessing;"
political subjugation of the Israelites; the authority of king David
over his subjects, etc., etc.; but not in a single passage in the
scriptures, unless it be in 1st Tim. 6: 1, does it describe the state
of a domestic slave, and the assumption that it means slave in this
place is altogether without proof to sustain it.
4. There is one passage in the New Testament addressed to servants
which has not yet been quoted. "Servants be subject to your masters
with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the
froward. For this is thank-worthy, if a man for conscience toward
God endure grief, suffering wrongfully." 1st Pet. 2: 18, 19. In this
passage _doulos_ does not occur, but _oiketes_, which some suppose,
means _slave_. But of this evidence is wanting. The same word is used
four times only in the New Testament, and is, in no case, translated
slave. (See Luke 16: 13. Acts 10: 7. Rom. 14: 4. 1st Pet. as above.) In
one place it is rendered household-servant, and it seems to be used to
distinguish _house_-servants from others. "The word comes from oikos, a
house."[11]
5. If the sacred writers above quoted had intended to address slaves,
they would, in the first place, have done so plainly by _calling_
them slaves. In the second place the directions would have been
applicable to persons in a state of slavery. As to the terms used in
the directions, we have seen that they do not apply properly to slaves;
and the directions themselves afford proof that they were given to
persons who were not chattel slaves. The advice and exhortations imply
freedom from _absolute authority_ and a power of choice not compatible
with slavery. They are exhorted to perform service "AS THE SERVANTS
OF CHRIST, DOING THE WILL OF GOD FROM THE HEART." That is, they were
to be actuated by the highest motives, and were not to toil as the
servants of men, but of God. Again, they are advised not to "DESPISE"
their masters. Such directions have no pertinence, if addressed to
human chattels. To whom then were they addressed? We answer, to
voluntary laborers or servants who received a compensation for their
work. The relations of servant and master or laborer and employer are
necessary, legitimate and honorable relations. All men have not the
skill to acquire or manage capital, and capital is essential to the
accomplishment of great enterprises, to the march of improvement,
and the progress of civilization. Capital invested in railroads,
canals, machinery, factories, ships, merchandise, etc., requires many
laborers to manage it; and the directions we are considering require
that those laborers be honest, faithful, pleasant, and industrious in
the discharge of the duties they engage to perform. And even though
an employer be not a very good man, as is often the case with men of
capital, christian servants or laborers are instructed to attend to
their duties in the fear of God and in a manner that will recommend to
those employers the religion which they profess. Yea, though servants
have an engagement with a hard-hearted, overbearing, abusive heathen
master, the apostles would have them perform their part, with the
utmost fidelity, suffering "_wrongfully_" if need be, for the sake of
Christ. These directions are judicious, and their observance would work
to the advantage of laborers in all countries.
Now it is clear that those scriptures do not teach unquestionably
that it is the duty of some persons to be slaves. If the apostles had
said, "slaves be obedient to your masters for you are their _property_
and they have a right to you and all you can earn, _because_ you are
property," then the matter would have been settled. Then we should
admit that _some_ men ought to be slaves, but upon the heels of this
admission would follow a question very difficult to settle viz: _Who
is to obey_ the command to be a slave? How is it to be determined who
shall become a human chattel and who the owner of said chattel?
But the assertion that God requires men to be slaves is a wicked
assertion. It charges God with folly and inconsistency. He desires
the elevation of man, but slavery brutalizes him. He encourages the
enlightenment of the mind and the expansion of the understanding, but
slavery darkens the mind and enchains the understanding. God cannot be
pleased with the ignorance, stupor, injustice and servile wretchedness
which are necessary to the very existence of slavery, and hence he can
not make it the duty of any man to be a slave, for this would be the
same as to make it his duty to be stupid, ignorant and wretched. No,
God does not will that any man or woman should be a slave. Man was made
in the image of God's independence and sovereignty. The instinct of
freedom is strong in his bosom. It has resisted oppression in all ages,
and it will resist it, with God on its side, until it shall triumph!
We will now inquire whether the apostolic addresses to masters
authorize some men to sustain the relation of _slaveholders_. It
should be observed that there are but two places in the New Testament
in which the duties of masters are pointed out. Permit us to repeat
those duties. "And ye masters do the same things unto them, forbearing
threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven." "Masters give
unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also
have a master in heaven."
Is it possible that from these words men will take license to seize
their fellows and convert them into _property_; despoil them of all
their rights; deny them an education; banish them from courts of
justice; break up their homes; take their wages without compensation;
drive them in chain-gangs from state to state, and whip, beat, and
abuse them until they perish from the earth? Yes, it is possible.
This has been done. "Was there ever," said Dr. Wayland, "such a moral
superstructure raised on such a foundation? * * If the religion of
Christ allows such a license from such precepts as these, the New
Testament would be the greatest curse that ever was inflicted on our
race." We remark
1. In these directions there is not the slightest intimation that the
masters addressed were _slaveholders_ and that the servants in their
employ were slaves. The term slaveholders (_andrapodistais_,) is not
used in the above passages, and this term is only once found in the
apostolic writings.[12] It is found in the following text: "Knowing
this that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless
and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy
and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for
manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with
mankind, for _andrapodistais_, (slaveholders or menstealers) for liars,
etc." 1st Tim. 1: 9, 10.
And it is not only a fact that slaveholders are not addressed in these
passages, but _the directions given are such as no slaveholder in the
world can observe_. How can a slaveholder give unto a _slave_ that
which is _just_ and _equal_? The _slave_ can own nothing, will nothing,
inherit nothing, and hence it is impossible, in the very nature of the
case, for his owner to give him a just compensation for his labor. And
the _slave_ has a just right to _himself_ to _liberty_ and the very
first honest and enlightened effort of a slaveholder to give to his
slave that which is just and equal would result in his _emancipation_!
_Justice_ and _equality_ are incompatible with slaveholding.
_Injustice_ and _inequality_ are its essential principles. Let us hear
Mrs. STOWE'S comment on what Christian legislators have seemed to
consider _just_ and _equal_ when making laws for slaves:--
"First, they commence by declaring that their brother shall no
longer be considered as a person, but deemed, sold, taken, and
reputed, as a chattel personal.--This is "just and equal!"
This being the fundamental principle of the system, the following
are specified as its consequences:
1. That he shall have no right to hold property of any kind, under
any circumstances.--Just and equal!
2. That he shall have no power to contract a legal marriage, or
claim any woman in particular for his wife.--Just and equal!
3. That he shall have no right to his children, either to protect,
restrain, guide or educate.--Just and equal!
4. That the power of his master over him shall be ABSOLUTE, without
any possibility of appeal or redress in consequence of any injury
whatever.
To secure this, they enact that he shall not be able to enter suit
in any court for any cause.--Just and equal!
That he shall not be allowed to bear testimony in any court where
any white person is concerned.--Just and equal!
That the owner of a servant, for "malicious, cruel, and excessive
beating of his slave, cannot be indicted."--Just and equal!
It is further decided, that by no indirect mode of suit, through a
guardian, shall a slave obtain redress for ill-treatment. (Dorothea
v. Coquillon et al, 9 Martin La. Rep. 350.)--Just and equal!
5. It is decided that the slave shall not only have no legal
redress for injuries inflicted by his master, but shall have no
redress for those inflicted by any other person, unless the injury
impair his property value.--Just and equal!
Under this head it is distinctly asserted as follows:
There can be no offence against the peace of the state, by the mere
beating of a slave, unaccompanied by any circumstances of cruelty,
or an intent to kill and murder. The peace of the state is not
thereby broken." (State v. Manner, 2 Hill's Rep. S. C.)--Just and
equal!
If a slave strike a white, he is to be condemned to death; but if a
master kill his slave by torture, no white witnesses being present,
he may clear himself by his own oath. (Louisiana.)--Just and equal!
The law decrees fine and imprisonment to the person who shall
release the servant of another from the torture of the iron collar.
(Louisiana.)--Just and equal!
It decrees a much smaller fine, without imprisonment, to the man
who shall torture him with red-hot irons, cut out his tongue, put
out his eyes, and scald or maim him. (Ibid.)--Just and equal!
It decrees the same punishment to him who teaches him to write as
to him who puts out his eyes.--Just and equal!
As it might be expected that only very ignorant and brutal people
could be kept in a condition like this, especially in a country
where every book and every newspaper are full of dissertations
on the rights of man, they therefore enact laws that neither he
nor his children to all generations, shall learn to read and
write.--Just and equal!
And as, if allowed to meet for religious worship, they might
concert some plan of escape or redress, they enact that "no
congregation of negroes, under pretence of divine worship, shall
assemble themselves; and that every slave found at such meetings
shall be immediately corrected _without trial_, by receiving on the
bare back twenty-five stripes with a whip, switch or cowskin." (Law
of Georgia, Prince's Digest, p. 447.)--Just and equal!
Though the servant is thus kept in ignorance, nevertheless in his
ignorance he is punished more severely for the same crimes than
freemen.--Just and equal!
By way of protecting him from over-work, they enact that he shall
not labor more than five hours longer than convicts at hard labor
in a penitentiary!
They also enact that the master or overseer, not the slave, shall
decide when he is too sick to work.--Just and equal!
If any master, compassionating this condition of the slave, desires
to better it, the law takes it out of his power, by the following
decisions:
1. That all his earnings shall belong to his master,
notwithstanding his master's promise to the contrary; thus making
him liable for his master's debts.--Just and equal!
2. That if his master allow him to keep cattle for his own use, it
shall be lawful for any man to take them away, and enjoy half the
profits of the seizure.--Just and equal!
3. If his master sets him free, he shall be taken up and sold
again.--Just and equal!
If any man or woman runs away from this state of things, and, after
proclamation made, does not return, any two justices of the peace
may declare them outlawed, and give permission to any person in the
community to kill then by any ways or means they think fit.--Just
and equal!"
(_See Key, pp. 241._)
If slaveholding is an illustration of what St. Paul meant by justice
and equality, who can tell what is injustice and inequality? Let it be
understood that a slaveholder cannot give to a slave, _while he holds
him as a slave_, that which is _just_ and _equal_, because the greatest
injustice and inequality enters into the very nature of the relation of
slaveholder. Could a man be a _just_ robber or an _honest_ thief? No,
because injustice and dishonesty enter necessarily into the business
of robbing and stealing. Even so is it impossible for justice and
equality to enter into slaveholding, because, it is in its very nature,
robbery, theft, extortion, oppression, and a complication of almost all
villainies.
It is clear from the examination of all the passages in the New
Testament relating to masters and servants, that those masters were not
slaveholders and that those servants were not slaves.
But it will be asked did not slavery exist in the apostles' days? We
answer it did exist. The Roman government tolerated chattel slavery.
Why then did not the apostles regulate it by prescribing the duties
of slaveholders and slaves? It has been assumed, and justly too,
that "slavery no more than murder _can_ be regulated. That which
is essentially and eternally wrong has nothing in it on which the
claim of morality can rest. Morality requires its destruction, not
its regulation."[13] The law of God does not point out the duties
of liars, adulterers and thieves, because as such, they can have no
duties. So God did not attempt to regulate Roman slavery which was a
most vile and crushing despotism. He did not intend that SLAVERY should
be continued, and hence it was not to be regulated but destroyed. We
have no evidence in the above passages that SLAVEHOLDERS were admitted
into the church of Jesus Christ by the apostles.
Slaveholders and the upholders of the infamous Fugitive Slave Law,
lay the case of Onesimus to their consciences as a healing unction
when dogging down the fugitive slave. In their blindness they assume
that Philemon was a slaveholder, Onesimus a slave, and St. Paul a
slave-catcher. But not a word of this is true.
1. Onesimus was a SERVANT and not a SLAVE, and Philemon was not a
SLAVEHOLDER. The assumption that the one was a slave and the other a
slave-owner is altogether without support.
2. Onesimus was not _forcibly_ sent back. St. Paul did not arrest
him, and send him in chains to Philemon, charging the expense to the
government.
3. He was not sent back as a _servant_, much less a _slave_. How then?
Why as a "brother beloved." "Thou therefore receive him as mine own
bowels-- * * receive him as myself." "If he oweth thee ought put that
on mine account." These directions are wholly inconsistent with the
idea of slavery. If Onesimus was the _property_ of Philemon, Paul
knew that he owed the service of his whole life. But Onesimus was no
slave. Had he been a slave Paul would have said, "Receive him not as
a slave (_andrapodon_) but above a slave," instead of saying, "not as
a servant (_doulos_) but above a servant." Onesimus was a relative of
Philemon, probably a natural brother,--brother "in the flesh;" as may
be inferred from Philem., verse 16. He was undoubtedly a young man of
great promise, and was not only entrusted with the epistle of Paul to
Philemon, but jointly with Tychicus was the bearer of the venerable
apostle's letter to the church at Colosse. On the authority of Calmet,
and indeed of Ignatius, it is affirmed that he succeeded Timothy as
bishop of Ephesus.
They who affirm that the New Testament writers sanctioned Roman
slavery, seem not to be aware of the serious imputation they cast upon
that book and its authors. Look at that awful despotism, that you may
understand what a savage, scaly, bloody-mouthed beast was welcomed into
the church and baptized with a Christian baptism, if we may believe
the advocates of human bondage.
1. "The (Roman) slave had no protection against the avarice, rage, or
lust of the master, whose authority was founded in absolute property;
and the bondman was viewed less as a human being subject to arbitrary
dominion, than as an inferior animal, dependent wholly on the will of
his overseer.[14]
2. "He might kill, mutilate or torture his slaves for any or no offence;
he might force them to become gladiators or prostitutes.
3. "The temporary unions of male with female slaves were formed and
dissolved at his command; families and friends were separated when he
pleased.
4. "Slaves could have no property but by the sufferance of their
masters.
5. "While slaves turned the handmill they were generally chained, and
had a broad wooden collar to prevent them from eating the grain.
6. "The runaway when taken was severely punished, * * * sometimes with
crucifixion, amputation of a foot, or by being sent to fight as a
gladiator with wild beasts; but most frequently by being branded on the
brow with letters indicative of his crime.
7. "By a decree passed by the Senate, if a master was murdered when his
slaves might possibly have aided him, all his household within reach
were held as implicated and deserving of death."
Is it possible that the holy apostles gave their sanction to a system
based on such laws?
But all the fundamental principles of revealed religion are against
slavery.
1. THE CHARACTER OF GOD.--God is _just_ and cannot favor a system which
disregards all the principles of justice. But slavery outrages every
principle of justice: therefore God must be opposed to slavery. God
is _impartial_,--no respecter of persons, and he cannot be favorable
to a system which is based upon partiality. But slavery is a system
of superlative partiality: hence God is opposed to slavery. God is
_love_,--and love wills the highest happiness of the intelligent
universe, and the removal of every obstruction to the progress of
men to that happiness. But slavery obstructs that progress. It is a
barbarizing system, necessarily involving millions of men in ignorance,
crime and misery: therefore God must will its extirpation. All the
divine attributes are hostile to slavery. "Thus saith the Lord, execute
ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand
of the oppressor." "Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the
oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow."
2. THE COMMON ORIGIN OF MAN.--The unity of the human race is admitted
by all scientific men, and the bible plainly teaches us that "out of
one blood hath God made all nations to dwell upon the face of the
earth." Whatever difference of feature, color, intellect or stature,
may be found in the various parts of the globe, is attributable to
manners, climate, education, and the pleasure the Creator has in
variety. Every human being is a _man_, possessing all the rights of
a man. All men are brothers, born into the world on a common level.
Hence one man cannot claim his brother and his brother's family without
committing an outrageous insult. If the right to claim belongs to
any, it belongs to all, and now whose right shall hold? We say if
the right to enslave belongs to any it belongs to all, and how is it
to be determined who will sink from the right to own slaves to the
condition of a SLAVE? Must the strong reduce to slavery the weak, and
thus make might the _arbiter_? Such a conclusion would be contrary to
the plainest dictates of reason. If men have a common parentage, and
are brothers, they inherit common rights, and those rights ought to be
respected. That system which authorizes one part of the common family
of man to plunder another part of their dearest rights--of _all_ their
rights, is a wrong system. But slavery authorizes this very thing:
therefore slavery is wrong.
3. JESUS CHRIST IS THE REDEEMER OF ALL.--Jesus is the second Adam, and
sustains a relation to the human family co-extensive with the first
Adam. He is the Mediator, High Priest and Elder Brother of every child
of man. All have been purchased with a priceless offering; and hence
the claims of Christ are paramount to all other claims, and no one can
rightfully become the owner of a fellow-being, unless Christ as Creator
and Redeemer first relinquish his claim. A system which should attempt
forcibly, and without divine permission, to seize upon the Saviour's
purchase, would be robbery--a robbery of God. But slavery does seize
upon the purchase of a Saviour's blood without divine permission:
therefore slavery is robbery--robbery of God.
4. THE MORAL PRECEPTS OF CHRISTIANITY.--The moral precepts
of Christianity condemn slavery. Take for example the golden
rule--"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so unto them." Can any slaveholder obey this precept?
If that wealthy planter who stands at the head of a large family, were
a slave with all his household, what course would he have his owner
pursue? Would he not wish him to grant a deed of immediate manumission
to all his family and to himself? Would he not urge the matter as
one of immense importance? Is it possible that he could desire to be
deprived of liberty, education, permanent family connections, and of
the proceeds of his toil? Could any sane man wish to have his sons and
daughters grow up in the stupor, ignorance, and miseries of slavery?
No, it is not possible. Every sound-minded man would regard the
subjugation of himself and family to slavery as a dreadful calamity,
and would consider the man who should _hold_ them in that condition as
an unfeeling, inhuman tyrant.--Therefore no sound-minded man can hold a
slave without violating the golden rule--without doing unto others as
he would _not_ have others do to him.
5. THE COMMANDMENTS ARE ALL AGAINST SLAVERY. "Honor thy father and
thy mother." But slavery places the master between the child and the
parent, and makes it impossible for the child practically to obey this
command, in the performance of those duties which cheer the hearts and
lighten the burdens of parents, especially in old age. "Thou shalt not
kill." But slavery authorizes in many cases the killing of slaves.
"In North Carolina, any person may lawfully kill a slave who has been
outlawed by running away or lurking in the swamps." "By a law of South
Carolina, a slave endeavoring to entice another slave to run away, if
provisions, etc., be prepared to aid in such running away, shall be
punished with death." "Another law of the same State, provides that if
a slave when absent from the plantation, refuse to be examined by any
white person, such white person may seize and chastise him; and if the
slave shall _strike_ such person, he may be _lawfully killed_."--"Thou
shalt not commit adultery." But female slaves are compelled to commit
adultery. The law places them wholly within the power of their masters
and overseers, and they dare not, they cannot resist their demands.
"Thou shalt not steal." But slavery exists by theft. Every slave is a
stolen man. Every slaveholder is a man-stealer. The slave was stolen
from Africa, or stolen from his rightful owner, himself, in America. No
sophistry can make it plausible that the African slave trade is piracy,
and that the _perpetuation_ of slavery is an innocent business. It is
theft as clearly to go to the negro hut in Virginia and steal a babe as
to go to a hut in Africa and do the same deed. Certainly a child born
in our happy Republic is as free in the sight of God as one born under
the rule of the King of Dahomey! "All are created free," hence the
holding of any one as a slave is _theft_ persevered in. "Thou shalt not
bear false witness against thy neighbor." But slavery does bear false
witness against the slave, who is our neighbor. It denies his natural
equality, his right to liberty, property--in short, his manhood.
This is all as _false_ as false can be. "Thou shalt not covet." But
slavery covets not only a man's property, but the man himself. We see
that slavery violates every commandment of the second table of the
Decalogue, and indeed violates every precept of the first table, as
might readily be shown.
It is clear that slavery receives no sanction from the curse pronounced
upon Canaan, from patriarchal servitude, from the law of Moses, nor
from the law of Christ. In the light of the divine word it appears a
gigantic barbarism, full of hate to the human brotherhood. It annuls
the law of God respecting the family and society. It obstructs the
progress of education and religion. It is condemned by the whole spirit
of revealed religion. Only a devil could pray for its perpetuation
and extension. It is not only a sin, but a combination of stupendous
sins--"the sum of all villainies," in the language of Wesley, "an
enormity and a crime, for which perdition has scarcely an adequate
punishment," in the language of Clarke. "Slavery," said the celebrated
Jabez Bunting, "is always wrong, essentially, eternally, incurably
wrong."
CHAPTER XI.
American Churches and Slavery.
THE POSITION THEY OCCUPY.
The christian church ought to be a faithful exponent of the benevolent
spirit and doctrines of Jesus Christ. Liberty, truth and humanity,
though insulted, betrayed and proscribed every where else, should find
within its sacred enclosures a welcome, a refuge and a stronghold.
Its watchmen ought to be faithful men, uninfluenced by flattery,
uncorrupted by gold, unawed by the popular will. The church ought to
be the most independent body on earth. Standing as it does upon the
Eternal Rock, holding the promise of successful resistance against
the "gates of hell," and of certain triumph over all the powers of
darkness, the oppressor ought to know that he could not intimidate it
by menace, silence its witnesses, win its smiles, or by any means be
permitted to set his unhallowed feet within its pale. The church ought
to be a terror to slaveholders; and although usage, prejudice, pride,
passion, wealth, literature, and the selfish interests of men should
all be combined against the oppressed, they should be certain of an
unswerving and powerful friend and advocate in the church.
We say such should be the acknowledged and indisputable character and
conduct of that body popularly known as the church, because then it
would be a faithful exponent of the divine philanthropy of Jesus, of
his "good will to men,"--then it would be precisely what the church was
when it acknowledged no law superior to the will of God.
We propose now to ascertain the position of the American churches in
relation to the slavery question. The most of them have been compelled
to take some action on this exciting subject. We shall notice, more
especially, the late action of various denominations, both for and
against slavery, that the reader may know precisely where each branch
of the _Protestant_ churches of this country, may be found. We do not
deem it necessary to exhibit the relation of the _Catholic_ church to
slavery. We may remark here, however, by the way, that this church, if
it be proper to call it a church, is soundly pro-slavery, and is, in
America, as it is everywhere else, a staunch advocate of oppression.
Few Protestant churches excel the Catholic in slaveholding.
PRESBYTERIAN (OLD SCHOOL.)
The Presbyterian church (O.S.) stands fully and unequivocally on the
side of the oppressor. It is true that a few earnest anti-slavery men
may be found in this denomination, but their influence upon it is
scarcely felt. They are not able in the least to modify the decided,
unfaltering pro-slavery position maintained by the General Assembly.
So far as I know, the most ultra friends of slavery are perfectly
satisfied with the late ecclesiastical action and influence of this
church. It makes no pretensions to anti-slavery. The slaveholder is
welcomed to its communion, is authorized to preach and is elevated
to the highest posts of honor. At the last General Assembly fifty
slaveholding presbyteries were represented. The place of meeting was
Charleston, South Carolina. Dr. Lord, author of a celebrated sermon in
support of the fugitive slave law, was elected moderator. The General
Assembly of 1845, by a vote of 168 to 13, "Resolved, That the existence
of domestic slavery, under the circumstances in which it is found in
the southern portion of this country, is no bar to Christian communion."
This church has been _progressing_ in the wrong direction. In 1818,
before the excision of the Presbyteries which formed the New School
body, the General Assembly declared that "the voluntary enslaving of
one part of the human race by another was a gross violation of the most
precious and sacred rights of human nature," "utterly inconsistent
with the law of God," and "totally irreconcilable with the spirit
and principles of the gospel." This was a noble declaration, but
slaveholders were not excluded from the church as they should have
been, but continued to flock in, until in 1836, a _slaveholder_
presided over the General Assembly who openly said--"I draw my warrant
from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to hold my slaves
in bondage."--Since 1836 the General Assembly has been wholly under
the control of the pro-slavery interest. Her doctors of divinity have
written learned treaties in defense of slavery, and slaveholders are
at ease, yea, sleep undisturbed in her communion, and for all that that
church is likely to say or do, will sleep on until they find themselves
in company with Dives.
PRESBYTERIAN (NEW SCHOOL.)
When the New School General Assembly was organized only three
slaveholding Presbyteries were represented. There are now about twenty.
A very large proportion of the ministers and members of this church are
_somewhat_ anti-slavery, and many of them _decidedly_ anti-slavery; but
the holding of slaves is not made a test of communion. Slaveholders
have been and are now flocking into it. Ministers of the sanctuary and
members of the General Assembly are slaveholders. Nevertheless, the
action of the General Assembly has been such as to keep up an agitation
and render the southern portion of the church somewhat restless.
The following resolution was adopted by the General Assembly, which
convened at Detroit in 1850:
"That the holding of our fellow-men in the condition of slavery,
EXCEPT in those cases where it is unavoidable by the laws of
the State, by the obligations of guardianship or the demands of
humanity, is an offense, in the proper import of that term, as
used in the Book of Discipline, chap. i., sec. 3, which should be
treated in the same manner as other offenses."
The _exceptions_ in this resolution are sufficient, especially when
explained at the south, to cover almost all cases of slaveholding.
The Assembly of 1853 adopted a report earnestly requesting the
Presbyteries in the slaveholding States to lay before the next Assembly
distinct and full statements touching the following points:
"1. The number of slaveholders in connection with the churches
under their jurisdiction, and the number of slaves held by them.
"2. The extent to which slaves are held by an unavoidable
necessity, 'imposed by the laws of the States, the obligations of
guardianship, and the demands of humanity.'
"3. Whether a practical regard, such as the Word of God requires,
is evinced by the Southern churches for the sacredness of the
conjugal and parental relations as they exist among slaves; whether
baptism is duly administered to the children of slaves professing
Christianity; whether slaves are admitted to equal privileges and
powers in the Church courts; and in general to what extent and in
what manner provision is made for the religious well-being of the
enslaved."
The debate on this report and the subsequent action of the southern
Presbyteries prove conclusively that the Detroit resolution is utterly
futile, and that slaveholding goes on in the southern part of the
church without interruption. On this report, Rev. Mr. McLain, of
Mississippi said:
"We disavow the action of the Detroit Assembly. We have men in our
Church who buy slaves, and work them, because they can make more
money by it than any other way. All who can, own slaves; and those
who cannot, want to."
Rev. William Homes, of Mo., said:
"The action of the Assembly of Detroit is null and void; for how
can any man be found, not to be included in one or the other of the
exceptions contained in it? All claim that their slaveholding is
involuntary and justifiable. He concluded by strenuously asserting
that the South would not submit to these inquiries."
Rev. William Terry, of Va., said:
"He could not promise that the Virginia Presbyteries would give
any replies to these inquiries. There was no hope, so long as
slavery exists, that the church shall be free from it. If it has
come to be true that the feeling of the North will not suffer the
slaveholding ministers and members to remain in fellowship with the
Church, the South will not remain with you. They do not contemplate
a disconnection with slavery."
Since the meeting of the Assembly the Presbyteries in the South have
almost unanimously protested against the action in relation to slavery
as "inquisitorial," and have resolved to disregard totally the "earnest
request" of the General Assembly. They have also resolved that the
agitation of the subject in the Assembly must cease as a _condition_ of
the continued union of the church. Whether the pro-slavery element of
this denomination will prevail, so as to "bury out of sight the Detroit
resolution, silence the General Assembly on slavery, and make the New
School Presbyterian Church a quiet home for those who "buy" "sell" and
"work" slaves "because they can make money out of them," cannot now be
determined. We hope not, but knowing the aggressive spirit of slavery,
we fear.[15]
CONGREGATIONAL.
It is somewhat difficult to define with any great degree of
precision, the position of the Congregational churches in relation
to slavery. Many of these churches are actively anti-slavery. The
Congregationalists of Ohio, in a convention held at Mansfield:
"Resolved That we regard American slavery as both a great evil and
a great violation of the law of God and the rights of man; and that
we deem it our sacred duty to protest, by every christian means,
against slaveholding, and against any and all acts which recognize
the false and pernicious principle that makes merchandise of man."
The largest representative body of congregationalists which has
expressed itself on the question of slavery recently was the Albany
Convention which met in 1852. This body adopted the following
resolution:
Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, it is the
tendency of the gospel, wherever preached in its purity, to correct
all social evils, and to destroy sin in all its forms; and that it
is the duty of Missionary Societies to grant aid to churches in
slaveholding States in the support of such ministers only as shall
so preach the gospel, and inculcate the principles and application
of gospel discipline, that, with the blessing of God, it shall
have its full effect in awakening and enlightening the moral
sense in respect to slavery, and in bringing to pass the speedy
abolition of that stupendous wrong; and that wherever a minister
is not permitted so to preach, he should, in accordance with the
directions of Christ in such cases "depart out of that city."
It is believed that Congregationalists generally are _progressing_ in
the right direction.[16]
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (NORTH AND SOUTH.)
John Wesley pronounced slavery to be the "sum of all villanies." The
discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church is quite positive in its
condemnation of slavery. Some of the early Methodist preachers gave
no quarters to this sin. But as the church increased in numbers and
popularity, slaveholders, who at first came in by mere sufferance,
assumed a bolder position, and finally ruled the whole church "with a
rod of iron."
The General Conference which convened in Cincinnati in 1836, after a
warm discussion, adopted the following resolution:
"Resolved, By the delegates of the Annual Conferences, in General
Conference assembled, that we are decidedly opposed to modern
abolitionism, and wholly disclaim any _right, wish, or intention to
interfere in the civil and political relation between the master and
slave as it exists_ in the slaveholding States of this Union." Yeas
120, nays 14.
This resolution was an offering to appease the bloody Moloch of
slavery, which had been aroused somewhat by _Orange Scott_. At a Gen.
Conf. in 1840, held in Baltimore, a resolution was passed depriving
colored persons of the right of testifying against white persons. The
resolution reads as follows:
"Resolved, That it is inexpedient and unjustifiable for any preacher to
permit colored persons to give testimony against white persons, in any
State where they are denied that privilege by law."[17]
The division of this Church (or secession, as some call it, of the
Church South) has as yet resulted, so far as we can see, in no
advantage to the slave. The southern portion or branch is not more
pro-slavery than before; and the northern division occupies precisely
the ground maintained when the resolutions of 1836 and 1840 were
adopted, and when there were embraced within her communion the owners
of 200,000 slaves. SLAVEHOLDING IS NOT A BAR TO MEMBERSHIP IN THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH NORTH. Ten or eleven conferences are now
slaveholding, and between 30 and 40,000 slaves are owned at the present
time by members of this church.
The Baltimore Conference, which belongs to the church North, passed in
1836 the following resolution:
"Resolved, That this Conference disclaims any fellowship with
abolitionism. On the contrary, while it is determined to maintain
its well known, and long established position, by keeping the
traveling preachers composing its own body, free from slavery; it
is also determined not to hold connexion with any ecclesiastical
body, that shall make non-slaveholding a condition of membership in
the Church."
This conference, so far from regarding slaveholding in the _membership_
a sin, seems to consider it a virtue, and a condition of fellowship.
An effort to introduce the slavery question into the last General
Conference was defeated, speakers were choked down, and the conference
closed in disorder. Since the meeting of that body a number of
Conferences have passed resolutions calling for the adoption of a rule
which would exclude slaveholders from the church. Some strong men[18]
seem determined not to rest the question until there is a semblance
at least of consistency between the professions and practice of
Methodism on slavery. This church has been "as much as ever deploring
the evils of slavery,"[19] for scores of years, and as _much as ever_
strengthening and building up the iniquity! And as a Methodist writer
in the _Northern C. Advocate_ in a late article asks--"Is it not high
time for honest and God-fearing anti-slavery ministers and members of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, to inquire whether in her official
position, her anti-slavery professions and character are not all a
_mere sham_!" It is to be feared that the good men of this church, who
are laboring to effect its renovation from this foul sin, are doomed to
disappointment, as many others, who have preceded them, have been. The
fact that three new slaveholding conferences will be represented in the
next General Conference of this body, augurs unfavorably.
METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH.
This branch of the Methodist family is fearfully involved in the sin
of slaveholding.--Slavery has silenced the voice of the church organ.
Slaveholders have free access to its communion. The discipline contains
a very disgraceful clause in relation to colored members. Article 12,
Sec. 1st secures the right of suffrage to all male members who are
WHITE. Article 7, Sec. 3, gives to each annual conference power to
make for colored members of the church "_such terms_ of suffrage" as
they may think proper. In the same article the apparently neutral, but
really pro-slavery character of this church is seen in the following
words: "But neither the General Conference nor any annual conference
shall assume power to interfere with the constitutional powers of the
civil governments, _or with the operations of the civil laws_." The
civil law is the highest law recognized in this article, and where that
makes _chattels_ of men, this church is forbidden to interfere. In
these quotations the principles of _caste_ and _lower-lawism_, are most
clearly inculcated. It is with surprise and sorrow that we find such
odious features in the discipline of a church which boasts of MUTUAL
RIGHTS.
WESLEYAN METHODIST CONNECTION.
This denomination of Christians stands boldly and unequivocally upon
the solid bible anti-slavery platform; and although not a large body,
its influence has already been widely felt. It comes behind in no
anti-slavery gift or grace. Its pulpit and press _speak out_ earnestly
and powerfully. The Syracuse Conference recently adopted the following
resolutions, which are such as all the conferences of the connection
pass unanimously:
"_Resolved_, That we hold--as ever--in abhorrence the _system_,
esteeming it as ranking first in the dark list of systematized
piracy, and all intelligent supporters of the abomination as being
nothing, less or more, than willing pirates.
"_Resolved_, That to ask us to fraternize with any of the thousand
and one organized or unorganized influences, going directly or
indirectly to sustain the system, prominent among which are the
principal churches and the great political parties of the country,
is to offer direct insult to our sense of Christian propriety and
gentlemanly courtesy."
BAPTISTS (REGULAR.)
The _Regular Baptist_ Church occupies a decidedly pro-slavery position.
Where slavery exists, it does not make slaveholding a bar to communion.
It is true that there is a division between the Northern and Southern
Baptist churches in _benevolent operations_, but this division is
"one, not of principle, but of policy. Hence, there has been from the
first, between the leaders of the Northern and Southern Associations,
a cordial fraternization."[20] This church is very influential in the
South, and from no ecclesiastical organization has American slavery
received a more powerful and hearty sanction. Many Baptists are,
however, warm friends of the slave, but they have not been able to
change or modify in the slightest degree the pro-slavery position of
the general body.
BAPTISTS (FREE-WILL.)
The _Free-will Baptist_ Church is decidedly anti-slavery. It stands
in the front rank of those societies which are on the side of the
oppressed battling for humanity. Amongst other excellent resolutions
submitted by the committee on slavery at the last General Conference
the following will show on what platform to look for a true Free-will
Baptist:
"_Resolved_, That we re-affirm our opposition to the whole system
of American Slavery; holding it to be absurd in the light of
Reason, infamous in the eye of Justice, a deadly foe to human
welfare, a libel on the Decalogue, and a reckless attack on the
religion of Christ; and the only change we would recommend in our
denominational attitude and policy on this subject, is, to take an
advanced position in our warfare against the system, and to give a
more open and public expression to our hostility."
BAPTISTS (SEVENTH-DAY.)
The position of this branch of the Baptist family may be known from the
following resolution passed by the Eastern Association:
"_Resolved_, That we enter our solemn protest against the system of
American slavery, as a sin against God, and a libel on our national
declaration, that "all men are created free and equal.""
EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION.
The Evangelical Association has inserted in its discipline the
following resolution which indicates its ecclesiastical position:
"_Question._ What is to be done respecting slaveholders and the
slave-trade?
"_Answer._ We have long since been convinced that the buying and
selling of men and women, and slavery, is a great evil, and ought
to be abhorred by every Christian: be it therefore known to all
fellow-members, that none shall be allowed, under any pretence or
condition whatever, the holding of slaves or the trafficking in the
same."
THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST.[21]
This church believes slavery to be in itself a sin. The Constitution,
which can only be altered by a vote of two-thirds of all the members of
the society, declares that "involuntary servitude shall in no way be
tolerated." The 32d Section of Discipline reads as follows:
"All slavery in every sense of the word is totally prohibited, and
shall in no way be tolerated in our Church. Should any be found in
our society who hold slaves, they cannot continue as members unless
they do personally manumit or set free such slaves. And when it is
known to any of our ministers in charge of a circuit, station or
mission, that any of its members hold a slave or slaves, he shall
admonish such member to manumit such slave or slaves; and if such
persons do not take measures to carry out the discipline, they
shall be expelled by the proper authorities of the church; and any
minister refusing to attend to the duties above described shall be
dealt with by the authorities to which he is amenable."
This section, substantially, has been in force since 1821. The United
Brethren have congregations in Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia and
Maryland.
At the General Conference, May 12, 1853, the _Southern delegates_
reported that there were twelve cases of legal connection with
slavery in the Church, but they were of a character so peculiar,
that a difference of opinion had arisen as to whether the
discipline _intended_ to exclude them. The opinion and advice of
the Conference was asked. The following answer, in substance, was
given:
"All those cases reported are cases prohibited by the plain letter
of our Discipline. Execute papers of immediate emancipation.--The
sympathy of this Conference given to palliated cases of slavery
would be an entering wedge of slavery into our Church. The Church
must be disconnected with slavery in all its forms. The bishops are
instructed to carry out the _letter_ of Discipline."
The action in this case was taken without a dissenting vote, and
the delegates from the South assured the Conference that the
intention of the Discipline, as above explained, should be executed.
The General Conference made provision for the publication of a
monthly magazine. The following is from the Prospectus:
"The immediate abolition of slavery; rejecting that most odious and
barbarous notion, that man has a right to hold property in man. The
position will be taken that this is a monster that can never be
tamed, a sin which violates every precept of the Bible. It will be
our object to show that slavery (by which we mean the holding of
property in man) is sinful, necessarily sinful, under all possible
and conceivable circumstances."
VARIOUS CHURCHES.
Besides the churches already mentioned the following are decidedly
anti-slavery:--"Associate Presbyterian," "Reformed Presbyterian,"
"Free Presbyterian," (of which the venerable John Rankin is a member,)
many local "Independent" churches, and the "Friends" or Quakers. The
Quakers have a world-wide reputation for practical philanthropy. And
on the other hand the following large denominations are decidedly
pro-slavery:--"German Reformed," "Dutch Reformed," "Cumberland
Presbyterian," "Lutheran" and "Disciple" (or Campbellite.)
The following estimate made by W. G. Gephart, a Presbyterian minister,
will give a "bird's eye view" of the relation of the leading
denominations of this country to slavery as it stood a few years since.
At the present time they are only _more deeply_ involved in the trade
in the souls of men, than they were when this estimate was made:
DENOMINATIONS. NO. OF SLAVES.
Methodists, 219,563
Presbyterian, Old and New School, 77,000
Baptists, 125,000
Campbellites, 101,000
Episcopalians, 88,000
Allow for all other denominations, 50,000
-------
Total number of slaves owned by ministers of the gospel
and members of the different Protestant churches, 660,563
"Now, suppose the average value of all these slaves be only $400 each,
and it will give a capital of $264,225,200! invested in humanity, the
interests of 660,653 beings upon whom God has chartered immortality,
and stamped it with the signet of his own image."
From this review it will be perceived that the most influential
denominations have given their sanction to slavery. They have opened
wide their doors to slaveholders, and have welcomed them to their
communion. They have not advised nor commanded them to emancipate their
slaves as a condition of admission to the church, to the Lord's table,
to the pulpit, or even into heaven itself!
Divines have, by a perversion of the Bible, corrupted the consciences
of Southern, aye, even of Northern Christians, by the most subtle and
monstrous errors. The holy Bible has been made, in the language of
Blanchard, a smith shop whence consecrated hands have brought fetters
for the feet, and manacles for the mind! "We have," said Frederick
Douglass, "men-stealers for ministers, woman-whippers for missionaries,
and cradle-plunderers for church-members. The man who wields the
blood-clotted cow-skin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday and
claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs
me of my earnings at the end of each week, meets me as class-leader on
Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation.
He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as
the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to
read the Bible, denies me the right of learning to read the name of God
who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage, robs whole
millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of
wholesale pollution. The warm defender of the sacredness of the family
relation is the same that, scatters whole families,--sundering husbands
and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,--leaving the hut
vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against
theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build
churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase
Bibles for the _poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of
souls!_ The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime
in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave
are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of
religion and revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand together.
The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking
of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious
psalm and solemn prayer in the church may be heard at the same time.
The dealers in the bodies and souls of men, erect their stand in the
presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer
gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in
return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity."
CHAPTER XII.
Slavery and the Church.
NON-FELLOWSHIP WITH SLAVEHOLDERS.
We shall now proceed to show what we conceive to be the true position
of a Christian church in relation to slavery. It has been demonstrated
that slavery is a complicated and monstrous iniquity involving a
direct violation of the whole second table of the Decalogue. This being
an established position it will not be difficult to determine the
relation which the church should sustain to this sin, and to those who
commit it.
The scriptural position of a Christian and a Christian society in
relation to sin, may be ascertained from the following quotations: "But
I have written unto you not to keep company--if any man that is called
a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or railer, or
drunkard, or extortioner, with such an one, no, not to eat."
"Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the
Lord; and touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you."
"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but
rather reprove them."
"Now we command you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly."
In these passages the duty of open and decided non-fellowship with
sinners is unequivocally asserted. 1. Do not "keep company" with
covetous persons and extortioners. Do not "eat" with them at the
sacramental table, for this would imply a sanction of their sin. 2.
"Come out from among them." Let there be between you a plain line of
demarcation so that the whole world will know that you are not in favor
with their sin, and are not a party to it. "Have NO FELLOWSHIP." Be not
united in any associations which require it. Go not with them to the
sacramental board. Unite not with them in benevolent efforts for the
conversion of the world, for this would require fellowship. Have _no_
fellowship. 4. "In the name of the Lord Jesus withdraw yourselves"--cut
off all ties which imply fellowship. Do this solemnly--do it in the
name of the blessed Jesus--do it for the glory of God--do it as an act
of discipline--withdraw yourselves from _every_ disorderly walker--from
every "darkness worker,"--let them be unto you "as a heathen man and a
publican."
Now how are these scriptures to be obeyed respecting the great sin of
slavery? We answer: 1. The church should debar slaveholders from its
communion. While they remain impenitent in relation to the monstrous
sin of slavery and refuse to emancipate their slaves, they should be
peremptorily refused admittance into the fellowship of saints. At the
_door_ they ought to be met by an emphatic "No sirs; your hands are red
with blood, your purses are filled with unjust gains, you rob the widow
and the fatherless, you make merchandise of men, repent, reform, do
justly, love mercy, or away ye men-stealers!"
2. If by any means slaveholders have obtained a place in the church,
they should be plainly dealt with, according to the directions given
in such cases by the sacred writers, and in case of a refusal on
their part to "hear the church," they should be immediately thrust
out--accounted as "heathen"--"delivered unto Satan for the destruction
of the flesh."
3. But in case a church refuses to discipline slaveholders, as
it disciplines other offenders against God, and on the contrary
persistently retains them in its communion and officially recognizes
them as members of the household of faith,--as holy persons,--as good
christians, then a christian can do no better than to withdraw from
that church. He cannot remain in it without giving an expressed or
implied sanction to a slaveholding christianity. The whole force of
his piety and influence will go abroad to create the conviction that
slavery is right and quite consistent with holiness.
In support of this view of the true position of a church and
of christians in relation to slavery, the following additional
considerations are submitted:
1. The church is required to be holy. But it cannot approximate to
holiness while welcoming into its pale sinners such as slaveholders
are, and sanctioning such an impurity as is slavery.
2. The Church is required to be the "pillar and ground of the truth."
But a slaveholding church wofully perverts and corrupts the truth in
many important particulars. The truth that God hates oppression and
robbery for instance, is corrupted by it, for it pronounces the very
chief oppressors and robbers the true children of God, and assures
the world that He approbates their conduct. It corrupts the truth in
relation to the true idea of a christian. It denies that justice,
mercy and love, are essential attributes of a christian character, by
passing off upon a deluded world a class of persons as christians who
are pre-eminently unjust, unmerciful, and full of hate to the human
brotherhood.
3. The church should honor the holy scriptures. But a slaveholding
church necessarily dishonors them. The church is presumed to be a
faithful and competent expounder of the doctrines and moral precepts
of the Bible, and hence what it approves, it is supposed, the Bible
sanctions, and as it approves of slavery, it gives currency to the
idea that the Bible is a pro-slavery book,--that Christianity is
favorable to oppression, and an enemy to equality and fraternity.
Thus a slaveholding church dishonors the Word of Truth and is an
infidel-making organization. Non-fellowship with slaveholding is
demanded as a condition of faithfulness to the Bible.
4. The church is expected to convert the world to righteousness. But
it can never do this while shielding the Leviathan of sins. Slavery is
a system of barbarism which must necessarily be destroyed in order to
the evangelization of America and of the world. The tyranny, injustice
and cruelty of masters, and the ignorance, servility and general
degradation of slaves are inconsistent with christianity, and to
sanction these is to sanction and sustain sin, and interpose a barrier
to the progress of truth and righteousness. And in addition to this, a
church must have a character to give it influence with men. A church
without character for disinterestedness, benevolence and truth, will be
despised by men and forsaken of God. A slaveholding church is without
a good moral character, and hence lacks moral power. Men will be slow
to believe that, while fiercely defending a monstrous national sin, it
is in earnest in its opposition to lesser crimes and trivial wrongs.
How powerless is a body of christians whose virtue gives way under the
temptation of a popular and lucrative vice! How justly branded with
cowardice and hypocrisy!
5. Duty to slaveholders demands non-fellowship with slaveholding.
The course pursued by the popular churches involves the souls of
slaveholders in imminent peril. Their consciences are lulled into
quietude or narcoticized by deadly moral nostrums, skillfully prepared
and treacherously administered by time-serving, fleece-seeking
hirelings, who assume the sacred office of shepherds. Many of them are
not aware of their sin and danger, and how can they be aroused while
honored in the church and flattered as good christians, and imitators
in the slaveholding business, of the good old patriarchs? To save these
men the church must be plain with them, and require repentance of _all_
their sins, and _especially_ of the sin of slaveholding, as a condition
of a place in the temple of God.
6. Duty to the slave demands non-fellowship with slaveholding. The
oppressed have a claim upon the church, because Christ died for them,
and they are, while enslaved, in such a situation that they can neither
love him with all their powers, nor do much to establish his church
and publish his name in the earth. Hence it is the duty of christians
and christian societies to break off the fetters which bind not only
their limbs but their minds. THE AMERICAN CHURCH IS ABLE TO EMANCIPATE
EVERY SLAVE IN THE LAND. Who doubts that it is its duty? But in order
to do this glorious work, the principle of strict non-fellowship with
slaveholders must be adopted. Let every church in America declare
slavery to be a sin and exclude slaveholders from its communion, and
the doom of slavery will be sealed. All the laws and compromises and
compacts which the ingenuity of the prince of darkness could invent
would not preserve it. It is the church which is the bulwark of
slavery. Not one day could it stand up in this country without the
strength imparted to it by a powerful but awfully corrupted church.
"Let all the evangelical denominations," says _Albert Barnes_, "but
follow the simple example of the Quakers in this country, and slavery
would soon come to an end. There is not vital energy enough; there
is not power of numbers and influence enough, out of the church, to
sustain it. Let every religious denomination in the land _detach
itself_ from all connection with slavery, without saying a word against
others; let the time come when, in all the mighty denominations of
Christians, it can be announced that the evil has ceased _with
them_ FOREVER, and let the voice from each denomination be lifted up
in kind, but firm and solemn testimony against the system--with no
'mealy' words; with no attempt at apology; with no wish to blink it,
with no effort to throw the sacred shield of religion over so great
an evil--and the work is done. There is no power _out_ of the church
that could sustain slavery an hour if it were not sustained _in_ it."
Hence the reasons for non-fellowship with slaveholding are as vast
as the interests temporal and eternal of millions and millions of
our fellow-creatures, and as vast as the treachery which leaves them
in chains! Depend upon it the curse of God will come down upon the
American church in a storm of fiery vengeance if it arise not and do
justice to the slave!
7. If slaveholders are admitted to church-fellowship _no class of
sinners on earth should be excluded_. The church cannot consistently
expel from its communion the rich man who grinds the face of the poor
laborer that reaps down his fields, and at the same time retain the
slaveholder who lives _entirely_ upon the unpaid labor of the poor.
He who _occasionally_ cheats his neighbor out of a few dollars cannot
consistently be censured by the church while the man who cheats whole
families out of domestic comfort, home, education, and their all,
passes without reproof. The occasional adulterer cannot receive church
discipline in the presence of him who compels his slaves to live
together without the sanction, and without the protection of the law.
He who steals a sheep cannot be cast out from a church in which he
who steals men occupies a high seat. As slaveholding is a violation
directly or indirectly of every commandment of the Decalogue, if it
cannot and must not be disciplined, then church discipline is useless;
and all classes of sinners should be admitted and retained in this
Holy Temple, unless the principle be established that he who commits
a _petty_ offense shall be cast out, but he who has the heart and
courage to commit a high offense, a daring crime, shall remain in full
fellowship. I have wondered how slaveholding church members could try
and expel from a religious society a poor negro who, in addition to
his peck of corn per week, had stolen a little meat, while they were
conscious of robbing that same negro of the products of his daily toil,
and of his own soul and body.
8. To maintain its _independence_ the church must discard fellowship
with slaveholders.--In no case have slaveholders been willing to
occupy an humble position in a religious body long. They assume to
be pre-eminently _the_ members of the church, and the press, pulpit,
and General Assembly or General Conference, _must_, unequivocally,
endorse, or patriarchalize their slaveholding. The history of all
the pro-slavery churches in America is proof of this remark. A few
slaveholders are able to change entirely the action of a powerful
ecclesiastical body--to range it on the side of oppression, to silence
or subborn its witnesses, to shut up its sympathies and take away the
bow of hope from the slave. How many of the hundreds of ministers in
the whole south are free to utter their convictions on slavery to
day? How many religious presses are unfettered? If then the church
would stand upon the solid rock of truth, unawed by the popular will,
uncorrupted with gold, the immutable friend of _man_, proclaiming
and enforcing the _whole_ truth, it must keep out of her communion
legalized and practiced tyrants.
9. Regard for decency, refined sensibility and common humanity, urges
non-fellowship with slaveholders. The members of a slaveholding church
become insensible to the grossest outrages upon the better feelings
of slaves, and they habitually commit acts, without a blush, which,
one should think, would pale the cheek of a demon. For illustration
take a well authenticated fact: "A runaway slave in 1841, assigned the
following as the reason why he refused to commune with a church of
which he was a member. 'The church,' said he, 'had silver furniture
for the administration of the Lord's supper, to procure which they
sold _my brother!_ and I could not bear the feelings it produced to
go forward and receive the sacrament from the vessels which were the
purchase of my brother's blood!'" But the members of that church,
generally, were altogether without feeling upon the subject, and were
as little disturbed in selling a slave to purchase silver ware for the
sacramental table, or to pay a parson, or to support a missionary, as
in selling a mule for the same purposes.
10. If slavery be fellowshiped in the church, then _slaveholding
preachers_ will be coming around and preaching the gospel to us!
A dealer in human flesh will undertake to teach us to be just and
merciful. We will be expected to receive the elements of the holy
sacrament from hands that use the cowskin occasionally on the backs
of slaves! It is notorious that churches which fellowship slavery
have an exceedingly dumb and callous ministry on the subject of
oppression. Frederick Douglass, I think it was, who said that the
hardest master he ever served was a Methodist Protestant preacher.
The following incident will illustrate this thought: "A minister of
the gospel owned a female slave, whose husband was owned by another
man in the same neighborhood. The husband did something supposed to
be an offense sufficient to justify his master in selling him for the
southern market. As he started, his wife obtained leave to visit him.
She took her final leave of him, and started to return to her master's
house. She went a few steps and returned and embraced him again, and
started a second time to go to her master's house; but the feelings of
her heart again overcame her, and she turned about and embraced him
the third time. Again she endeavored to bear up under the heavy trial,
and return; but it was too much for her--she had a woman's heart. She
returned the fourth time, embraced her husband--and turned about,--A
MANIAC!"--(Anti-slavery Record.)
Good God! can any one plead for the admission of such cruelty into the
bosom of the church and into the ministry?
And let it be remembered that this preacher simply did what the legal
relation authorized, and what all slaveholding ministers may do without
ecclesiastical censure.
11. If slavery be fellowshiped in the church, then we shall be
compelled to sit in religious meetings, class-meetings and conference
meetings, and hear a good experience told by one who lives on the
toil of wretched slaves, and who would sell at public sale one of our
own brethren in the Lord, yea, even ourselves, if the _laws_ would
allow it. Take the following specimen of a Methodist _sister_, and ask
yourselves how you would like to attend class with her.
"A poor woman was put in jail about a week since. It is the jail that
cost the people of the United States nearly, or quite, $60,000. Had
this woman committed crime? Not the least in the world. Her mistress
wants to sell her, and pocket the money--that's all. She puts her into
jail simply to know where she is when she finds a customer. This poor
woman, offered for sale, expects to be _confined_ in a few weeks. She
has a husband and mother, but neither of them are allowed to go into
the jail to visit her. The husband tried to talk with her through
the grated window, the other day, but was driven off by some menial
of the establishment. Amanda, the slave-woman, is a member of the
Methodist Church, which takes the name of Bethlehem. I hear she is in
good standing in the Church, and sustains a fair and good character
generally. The mistress--the owner--the trader--who is she? She is
Miss A. B., a venerable spinster, a few years ago from Virginia,
and now residing in this city. She brought with her this woman, her
mother, and two or three children, upon whose wages she has lived for
years past, and now proposes to put Amanda in her pocket. She (Miss
A. B.) is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, belongs to the
M'Kendree Chapel congregation, and attends _class_ regularly. I am
glad to say some of the brethren are a little _stirred_ about this
transaction."--_Elliott_, _page 73._
"A _little stirred_!" Indeed! One would think they would have stirred
that villainous woman out of the Church in short metre, or stirred out
of it themselves. But no, they were _only_ "_a little_ stirred!"
CHAPTER XIII.
Slavery and the Church.
OBJECTIONS TO THE EXCLUSION OF SLAVEHOLDERS ANSWERED.
1. It has been objected that fellowship should not be withdrawn from
_all_ slaveholders, because some of them are exceedingly kind to
their slaves. To this it may be answered that it is impossible for a
master to be really very kind to those he holds in slavery, because
the _holding_ of them in that relation is _extreme_ unkindness. A kind
slaveholder? What entitles him to that character? Does he renounce the
claim of _property_ in his slaves? No. Does he _hire_ them to work for
him and _pay_ them when the work is done? No. Does he open a school on
his plantation for their mental and moral culture? No. Does he permit
his slaves to instruct each other in the rudiments of education? No.
Does he use his influence to have the diabolical laws enacted to crush
the manhood out of the colored man, repealed? No. Does he secure his
slaves against the chances of the inter-state slave trade--against
sale at auction for his debts--against the lash of a Legree? No. What
then entitles him to the character of a _kind_ slaveholder? Why he
simply treats them as a good man treats a fine horse or a favorite dog.
He feeds them well, works them moderately, whips but little, but robs
them of _all_! We abuse language when we say--a _benevolent_ robber, a
_gentlemanly_ pickpocket, an _honorable_ pirate or a _kind_ slaveholder.
The poet, _Longfellow_, while traveling in Va., became acquainted with
an honest old slave owned by a fine specimen of a kind, Christian,
Presbyterian slaveholder. Said he:
"Calling at a blacksmith's shop for a small job of work, I found the
smith was a slave. On inquiring to whom I should make payment, he told
me I might to him. His practice was to receive all the money paid at
the shop, and pay it over to his master at night. I asked him how his
master knew whether he rendered a just account. He replied, that he
knew him too well not to trust him. That, as wrong as his master did
by him, it was no excuse for him to do wrong by his master. He could
deceive his master, but he could not deceive God, to whom he must
render his final account. He said he was a Baptist, and had regular
family prayers. His master was a Presbyterian, to whom he gave credit
for good usage and good training. But as he had faithfully served him
fifty years, he did think that he ought to have the remainder of his
days to himself. He regretted that he could not read the Bible; and
I was pained to hear him attempt to quote it, he made such blunders.
The tears started in the eyes of the poor man as he spoke of his
hard condition, and looked forward to death only for release from
his bondage. He thanked God that he had no children to inherit his
ignorance and servitude."
The kindness of certain slaveholders might be mere favorably considered
if it were productive of any permanent practical benefits to the slave;
but while it leaves him in the depth of his wretchedness,--exposed
to all the horrors of the worst form of slavery, it is a meritless
thing--unworthy the name of kindness. The kind slaveholder knows
that when he dies his slaves will be sold at auction together with
his horses, cattle, and plantation. What avails his fancied kindness
when he knows the horrible chances to which he subjects his helpless
victims. And how deeply guilty is he in the sight of God for refusing
to break every yoke when he has the opportunity! To illustrate this
thought and show the sequel of kind slaveholding we will subjoin
a sketch of a woman's history who was the property of a _kind_
slaveholder.
"A kind slave-master, in one of the Carolinas, had a large family,
of various colors, some enslaved, some free. One of the slaves was
his favorite daughter, and much accomplished. Dying, he willed his
heir, her brother, to provide for her handsomely, and make her free.
But her brother was a slave-master, and she was a slave. He kept and
debauched her. At the end of four years he got tired of her; and that
notorious slave-dealer, Woolfork, coming down to collect a drove, he
sold his sister to him. "There is her cottage," said he to Woolfork;
"she is a violent woman. I don't like to go near her; go and carry her
off by yourself." Woolfork strode into the cottage, told her of the
fact and ordered her to prepare. She was dreadfully agitated. He urged
her to hasten. She arose and said, 'White man, I don't believe you. I
don't believe that my brother would thus sell me, and his children. I
will not believe unless he come himself.'--Woolfork coolly went, and
required her brother's presence. The seducer, the tyrant came, and,
standing at the door, confirmed the slaveholder's report. 'And is it
true? and have you sold me?' she exclaimed. 'Is it really possible?
Look at this child! Don't you see in every feature the lineaments of
its father? Don't you know that your blood flows in its veins? Have
you, have you sold me?' The terrible fact was repeated by her master.
'These children,' said she, with a voice only half articulate, 'shall
never be slaves.' 'Never mind about _that_,' said Woolfork, 'go and get
ready. I shall only wait a few minutes longer.' She retired with her
children. The two white men continued alone. They waited. She returned
not. They grew tired of waiting, and followed her to her chamber. There
they found their victims beyond the reach of human wickedness, bedded
in their blood."--(Anti-Slavery Record.)
2. Slaveholders ought not to be excluded from the church, it is argued,
because their views and feelings on the subject of slavery have been
corrupted by the prevalence of this popular sin. They are not, it is
maintained, individually responsible--the fault--the sin, the shame
attaches to a false public morality. Dr. McClintock offers this
objection in the following words: "Their position," he says, "has the
eminent unhappiness of almost necessitating a feeble or corrupt moral
sense on this subject; they are carried along by a great movement that
absorbs their individuality, so to speak; the personal conscience is
lost in the general sense of the community. The great work to be done
is to purify that general sense; not to curse and malign individual
slaveholders, but to break up the false public morality in which the
system finds its main support."[22]
We answer that no man is excusable for falling in with a "great
movement" which is manifestly wicked. Noah, Lot, Abraham and Elijah
were not carried along with sin in this way. Their moral sense was
neither enfeebled nor corrupted by the prevailing vices. The apostles
did not lose their "personal conscience" in the "general sense" of
idolatrous communities, in the midst of which they labored. And in
_no case_ does the Bible excuse a sinner because of the prevalence
of sin.--Idolaters were not taken into church because that vice was
sustained by law and prevailing custom. And he who lived in Corinth in
the days of St. Paul, found himself in the midst of gross, shameless
sensuality--and it was quite easy for such a person to fall in with
the vices for which that city was notorious; and some Christians did
fall in with those vices. But did St. Paul excuse them, and forbid
their expulsion from the church, throwing the blame of their conduct
upon the prevailing vice? Did he ordain that until the "general
sense" were purified, the "fornicator," the "incestuous person" and
the "drunkard" must remain in the church? By no means. He knew that
the _public_ conscience was made up of _individual_ consciences--that
public corruption was the aggregate of individual corruption--and hence
that the only possible method of reaching and purifying the general
sense, was by reaching and purifying the individual sense. And hence
individual purity was required as a condition of church membership.
Churches now proceed precisely upon this principle in relation to all
sins, however prevalent, slavery excepted; and no good reason can be
offered for making it an exception. And if slaveholders _have_ an
enfeebled moral sense, which is certainly the case, it is because the
ministry and church have been recreant to duty and truth, and have
said to them "peace, peace, when God had not spoken peace." The only
way to prevent them from being swept along by the flood tides of this
devastating iniquity until they launch upon the shoreless sea of wrath,
is to sound the alarm! But alas, those watchmen who have their ear are
apt to say to them, do not be alarmed--the "false _public_ morality"
will be a satisfactory apology for your sins! When asked by the judge
why you were an oppressor, you can answer, that you only followed the
prevailing example!
3. Slavery, it is objected, is a _political_ question and hence the
church ought not to meddle with it. We answer, that slavery is not
only a political, but a moral question--it is a question concerning
the rights of man, and all that concerns _man_ concerns a christian.
Temperance is made a political question, should the church therefore
fellowship the drunkard? The observance of the Sabbath is a political
question--must the church therefore drop it, lest it be entangled with
politics? The same may be said of gambling, perjury and theft.
4. But, says one, the laws uphold slavery, and whatever of blame
attaches to slaveholding is justly chargeable to the laws. To this
it is answered that slaveholders are the _makers of their own laws_,
and hence are responsible for them. But if they had no voice in the
government it would be impossible to shift the responsibility of
slaveholding upon the laws, because, in the first place, a good man
cannot innocently avail himself of the provisions of laws which permit
him to injure his fellow creatures; and in the next place, the laws
compel no one to hold slaves. They allow it, but do not require it.
5. But some, it is urged, are slaveholders from necessity, hence they
ought not to be blamed. This cannot be. The laws do not compel people
to buy, steal, trade for, receive as a gift, or inherit slaves. Any
one may refuse to own this kind of property unless he is an idiot or
a child. And if by any means a man finds himself in possession of
slaves he can emancipate them. It is not far to the free states. Why do
not those pious Methodists and Presbyterians, who are always talking
of the impossibility of "_getting rid_" of their slaves, permit the
abolitionists to help them? They would cheerfully pilot them, or give
them a free passage on the Under-Ground Railroad! But all those pious
slaveholders from necessity are ready to lynch or imprison any man who
may undertake to release them from the "necessary evils" of slavery. A
slaveholder from necessity is one who holds slaves _because holding_
them is a necessary condition of _robbing_ them.
6. But the church has no right to ask a man to give away his property
and impoverish himself. Yes, the church has a right to require a man
to restore stolen property, and this is the kind of property slaves
are. As to impoverishing slaveholders, there is danger of that, but
poverty is no crime and is often good for the soul. It is better to be
a Lazarus in this world with his future, than a Dives with his future.
And besides, there is no law of God allowing a man to roll in wealth
acquired by robbery.
7. Nothing can be said against some slaveholders _only_ that they
hold slaves. In every other respect they are christian-like in their
conduct, and it seems hard to exclude such fine people from the church.
Alas that any christian should speak of slaveholding as "_only_"
a small objection. But one sin may ruin the soul. Some men are in
every respect excellent persons _except_ that they are addicted
to intemperate habits, to lying, or to licentiousness--shall they
therefore be excused for their besetting sin, and allowed to indulge
it? One who has cheated a poor white neighbor out of only one year's
toil, ought never to be admitted into the church until he makes
restitution. So in the case of a slaveholder--let him be just to
_every_ creature of God--let him give up his idol or serve it in its
appropriate temple, and not disgrace the church of God with its image
and worshiper.
8. It has been maintained that slaveholders should be taken into the
church that they may come under the direct influence of the gospel,
the tendency of which is to destroy slavery. We answer--_a._ The
same reason might be urged with equal force for the admission of the
drunkard, liar, thief or adulterer.
_b._ Experience proves that slaveholders, when admitted to church
fellowship, are not more likely to emancipate their slaves than others.
They are apt to settle down in the belief that it is right to hold
slaves, and the height of impertinence for any one to meddle with them
about it. A minister in Kentucky, Rev. Mr. Fee, who is well acquainted
with this subject from experience and actual observation, says of the
slaveholder--"The way to lull his conscience on the subject is, to
bring him into the church in the practice of his sin. I know repeated
instances of persons whose consciences and hearts, at the time of
their awakening, seemed to be tender on the subject of slaveholding.
But after they had been fully received, and a few comfortable meetings
passed over, they became wholly indifferent; and after hearing or
reading one or two pro-slavery sermons, declaring slavery to be a Bible
institution, they were almost ready to seize the torch, and apply the
fires of persecution to the individual who would disturb their Zion.
The place to induce the slaveholder to give up his sin is at the
time, or before, he enters the door of the church; before he has been
pronounced as being in a salvable state; for 'all that a man hath will
he give for his life.'"
But this is no abstruse question as "cotton Divines" would persuade
us. Slaveholding is a wicked business and must be treated as such.
It is impossible to treat it as such while fellowship is extended to
slaveholders. The christian is bound to refuse that fellowship. If any
branch of the church officially or practically sanctions slavery and
endorses the piety of slaveholders, then, in order to be consistent and
safe, a christian must come out of that church, because in it, he will
be a partaker of its sins and a sufferer of its plagues.
CHAPTER XIV.
Political Duties of Christians.
THE EXTIRPATION OF SLAVERY FROM THE WORLD.
Civil government is necessary to the preservation, prosperity and
safety of society. In some important sense, "the powers that be, are
ordained of God." It does not appear that the Creator has established
any specific _form_ of government, but the genius of christianity is
evidently democratic. The leading _objects_ of government are defined
to be "the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do
well." When a government fails to protect and encourage the good and to
punish evil doers,--when it becomes a mighty engine of oppression, the
object of its institution is frustrated.
In the United States the voters are responsible for the character
of the government. The people are the sovereign rulers. The ballot
box controls legislation. If our country is badly governed it is the
people's fault.
The free white people of America are responsible for the existence
of American slavery. They could at the ballot box break every yoke.
They have the power to release more than three millions of slaves and
thereby make heaven and earth rejoice!
A weighty responsibility, therefore, rests upon voters in relation to
slavery. If it continue, it will be because they shall will it, and
express that will at the ballot box. He who votes for a representative
that is pledged to sustain slavery, becomes responsible for that
representative's acts on the slavery question. The responsibility
cannot be shifted or dodged. Representatives consult the will of
their constituents and act as they wish them to act. They are only the
people's agents, the echo of the people's voice.
In the light of these facts how can a christian vote for a slaveholder
or a friend of slavery? How can he, by his vote, say that slavery
shall be perpetual? Every pulsation of a christian's heart beats in
harmony with liberty; he could not have slaves in his own hands. How
then can he, how dare he, by his vote, chain them and deliver them over
to the slave driver? It is mean and wicked for a strong man to beat
a weak one, but it is equally as mean and wicked to _hold_ the weak
man so that the strong one may beat him at his leisure and with ease.
So it is bad to own a slave and tax his sinews, sweat and blood, to
beat and bruise him, but it is equally wrong to hold the slave while
the southern slaveholder does the same thing. Hence, he who votes for
pro-slavery representatives, votes for slavery and all its swarms of
evils, and is indirectly a slaveholder himself.
Let it be distinctly understood, then, that political power has been
entrusted to the christian people of America by the God of nations,
who holds them responsible for its proper exercise; and that acting
politically is a serious business, affecting the interests directly,
in this country, of twenty millions of freemen, and more than three
millions of slaves; and also affecting indirectly, the interests of the
whole human family.
If the supporters of slavery continue to control the policy of the
American government; to trample under foot the "higher law;" to render
the Declaration of Independence a nullity; to denationalize liberty;
to nationalize slavery and perpetuate and extend it; and thus to belie
all our professions of Democracy, and render this government a Godless
tyrant, delighting in crushed hopes and hearts--then the whole human
race may weep. That our government has been progressing toward this
terrible consummation for the last thirty years is but too evident.
The Declaration of Independence is a sound anti-slavery document. It
does not regard the right of all men to liberty as an unsettled opinion
or a question to be proved by abstruse argument, but pronounces it a
"SELF EVIDENT TRUTH."
The Constitution in _form_ if not in fact, pretty fully embodies the
sentiments of the Declaration. The word slave is not found in it, and
it was kept out not accidentally, but purposely. The framers of the
Constitution carefully guarded that instrument against any endorsement
of slavery. In the convention which formed the Constitution, Gov.
Morris of Pennsylvania said, "He never would concur in upholding
domestic slavery. It was a nefarious institution." Mr. Getry, of
Massachusetts, in the same convention said, "we had nothing to do with
the conduct of the States as to slavery, _but we ought to be very
careful not to give any sanction to it_." The idea that there _could_
be property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution. It was
about to be foisted into that instrument by the adoption of a report of
a committee fixing a tax on importations. But Mr. _Sherman_ was against
"_acknowledging men to be property_, by taxing them as such under
the character of slaves." _Madison "thought it wrong to admit in the
constitution the idea that there could be property in man."_ But if the
idea of property in man was carefully excluded from the Constitution,
then it is clear that chattel slavery is not in form recognized, much
less established by that instrument.
It is evident that the framers of the Constitution expected the speedy
abolition of slavery; and hence, while providing in fact though not
in form, for its continuance under the constitution, by virtue of
_local_ State laws, they so framed that instrument that it would not
countenance slavery or deny the glorious doctrines of the immortal
Declaration, which contained what Mr. Sumner calls "the national heart,
the national soul, the national will, and the national voice."[23]
_Washington_ said "That it was among his _first wishes_ to see some
plan adopted, by which slavery may be _abolished_ by law."
_Adams_ regarded slavery as "a sacrilegious breach of trust."
_Hamilton_ considered slaves, "though free by the law of God, held in
slavery by the laws of men."
_Jefferson_ said that the "abolition of domestic slavery was the
greatest object of desire."
_Patrick Henry_ said--"I will not, I cannot justify it."
_Benj. Franklin_, when 84 years of age, came up before Congress with
a petition from the "Abolition Society of Pennsylvania, praying that
body to countenance the restoration of liberty to those unhappy men,
who alone, in this land of freedom are degraded into perpetual bondage,
and who, amidst the general joy of surrounding freemen are groaning in
servile subjection." This petition besought Congress to "step to the
VERY VERGE of the power vested in them for _discouraging_ every species
of traffic in the persons of our fellow men."
These facts afford conclusive evidence, that the founders of the
American Republic did not intend to fasten upon the object of their
toils, perils and sacrifices, a monster which would speedily eat out
its virtue, destroy its vitality and overthrow it forever.
But the policy of the government has been reversed. Millions of
acres of territory have been purchased and annexed to make room for
slavery, which has become a great national pet--the god before whom
aspiring politicians must kneel and worship as a condition of political
elevation.
The President of the United States and his Cabinet, the Supreme
Court, and both Houses of Congress are all under the control of the
Slaveocracy. No man can be a President of the United States unless he
bows the knee and swears upon the altar of this modern Baal. Zeal for
the infamous Fugitive Slave Law is now a particular test of political
orthodoxy. A Congressman who advocates the principles of Washington,
Franklin and Jefferson is considered as standing outside of any
"healthy organization" and is not deemed worthy of a place on the
most insignificant Congressional committee. Our government has been
thoroughly changed from an anti-slavery to a pro-slavery government.
In view of these facts how important that the concentrated moral and
political power of every American christian be brought to the rescue of
our great Republic from the sin and shame of its present position.
Christians, in the States where slavery exists, are under obligations
to use their whole political and moral power to bring about the speedy
repeal of the entire slave code. That code is a miserable barbarism and
should be swept away forever from the statutes of Christian States.
My christian brethren in Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri, are you
prepared to use all the power, moral and political, with which you
are entrusted, as you shall answer to God, for the emancipation of
your suffering fellow citizens? Your political influence must tell
somewhere! Remember _that_.
Christians in the free States are obliged to do what is in their
power for the repeal of all laws which bear upon the colored man
because he is a _colored_ man. The word "white" ought to be erased
from the statutes of all christian States. All "black laws" are
anti-democratic, anti-christian, and not only insult and annoy, but
discourage the colored man and obstruct his progress in the path of
improvement.--Christian brethren of the free States, you have not done
your duty toward your colored brother. You have sustained laws which
gall his neck as a heavy yoke. You have treated him as an alien and an
enemy. Will you henceforth do him justice, as you shall answer to God?
Christian citizens of all the States are directly responsible for the
existence of slavery in the District of Columbia, and they should not
be content until that foul pollution is wiped away from the Capital of
our country. Slavery at Washington is especially a national disgrace, a
blistering shame, a satire upon our professions.
When the foreign minister or visitor comes to our country, and goes
to Washington, he sees in the streets, at the hotels, and everywhere,
a poor, stupid, oppressed people, whose very speech and looks betray
their ignorance and servility. Ah! Is this American freedom? Equality?
Republicanism? Upon inquiry, he finds that one-seventh of all the
people are in this state of servile wretchedness.
And when a member of Congress from a free State goes to the proud
Capital of his country, he beholds passing by the tall and splendid
buildings of the government, droves of men, women and children, chained
together,--some sullenly indifferent to their fate--others weeping as
if their hearts would break.--Who are these? American citizens!
Men, as white as some members of Congress, and women as fair as their
wives and as virtuous as their daughters, are cried off at auction to
the highest bidder, in Washington!
There our senators and representatives sit and legislate, in sight
of the slave prison, and slave market--in hearing of the clanking of
chains, and coffles,--and of the wail of slave mothers, weeping for
their children, because they are
"Gone, gone, sold and gone."
They are also responsible for the extension of slavery into territory
now free. If they go not to the utmost verge of their power to save
the Lord's free earth from the overspreading and blighting curse of
slavery, they cannot but be execrated by an enlightened posterity.
But more than all this. A christian is a citizen of the world, and
hence is required to employ the whole force of his moral and political
power for the extirpation of slavery from every State in the Union,
and from every country on the globe. The influence of an intelligent,
active christian citizen is worldwide. He cannot be the dupe or tool
of any party; he is never shackled by party organizations; he does not
commit the keeping of his conscience to political leaders. He sincerely
loves God, believes the Bible, and loves his fellow-men, because
they are men. Prejudice, caste, and all other relics of barbarism,
he has thrown away. He talks, votes and prays for universal liberty
and righteousness. In the pulpit, in the shop, on the farm, anywhere,
everywhere the whole weight of his influence is thrown against slavery
in the territories, in the District of Columbia, in the States, and
against it wherever it exists in the world. As he seeks for the
physical, intellectual and moral improvement and happiness of all men,
he must desire intensely the speedy extirpation of slavery from the
earth.
Christian voter, when you approach the ballot box, think of the three
millions of bondmen who are holding up their hands "all manacled and
bleeding," pleading to you for deliverance!
CHAPTER XV.
Abolition of Slavery.
IMMEDIATE EMANCIPATION.
"Long has thy night of sorrow been,
Without a star to cheer the scene.
Nay; there was One that watched and wept,
When thou didst think all mercy slept;
That eye which beams with love divine
Where all celestial glories shine.
Justice shall soon the sceptre take;
The scourge shall fall, the tyrant quake.
Hark! 'tis the voice of One from heaven;
The word, the high command is given,
'Break every yoke, loose every chain,
To usher in the Savior's reign.'"
Many persons, who appear to be sensible of the evils of slavery, seem
utterly at a loss for some feasible method of abolishing it. "It is
here in our midst," say they, "and how are we to get rid of it?"
To this question we have a plain scriptural answer. "LOOSE THE BANDS
OF WICKEDNESS,"--"UNDO THE HEAVY BURDENS,"--"LET THE OPPRESSED GO
FREE,"--"BREAK EVERY YOKE,"--"PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND,
UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF."
Immediate, unconditional, universal emancipation is the only just, the
only reasonable and the only possible method of adjusting the slavery
question. To this measure the people of the United States _must_ come.
A general Jubilee is inevitable. Slavery is an unmitigated wrong.
Every element of it is at variance with the happiness of man and the
law of God. It is without a single redeeming principle, and hence its
destruction--its total annihilation is necessary.
Since the gigantic wrongs of slavery have been so generally made known
as somewhat to arouse the public conscience from its long sleep, some
writers, anxious to preserve the system, have proposed to _reform_ it.
They say, "Slavery, of itself, is a very innocent relation, but its
evils are horrible. Let us correct the evils and preserve the system."
But slavery cannot be reformed, so as to make it a tolerable
institution because its essential feature--viz, _property in a human
being_, is, wherever imposed, an outrageous, an insufferable wrong. Who
would think of reforming robbery--of making laws to regulate robbers
in their trade--and to prevent brutal men from engaging in it? What if
it should be enacted by grave senators that none but gentlemen should
rob, and that they must do it genteelly--using no _unnecessary_ cruelty
or coercion? All the world would laugh such senators to scorn. But
slavery is from beginning to end a system of robbery, which it is as
impossible to reform, so as to take away its "evils," as it is to so
reform piracy as to destroy its evils, and make it a humane, just and
christian trade.
But the American slaves, it is maintained, are _not prepared for
freedom_. This objection is without foundation. God _creates_ men free,
and sends them forth into the world with such endowments as are needed
in a state of freedom, and as are suited to _no other_ state. To say
that a race, which God has _created_ free, is unprepared for freedom is
to reproach the Maker. Freedom is the native element of man. And
"The heavens, the earth, man's heart and sea,
Forever cry, _let all be free_!"
"Not prepared for freedom?" This has been the watchword of oppressors
in all ages. The "people," the uninformed "masses," have, in the
estimation of tyrants, always been prepared for slavery and injustice
of every kind, but never for freedom. And it has ever been their policy
to render them less fit for any station or any responsibility in life.
They never put forth an effort to prepare their victims for any higher
business than obsequious submission to usurped authority. True to this
spirit, those who are most noisy about the unfitness of slaves for
freedom, are most zealous for the maintenance of those odious laws and
usages which shut them out from all chance of mental and moral culture.
And if the slaves are unprepared for freedom, what is to prepare them
for it? Their present degradation is owing to slavery, and it is not
likely that the continuance of the _cause_ of their degradation will
elevate them. Remove the cause, and the effect will cease. Emancipate
the colored man, open to him our schools and colleges, place before him
motives for action such as animate freemen, and swell the hearts of
Christians, give him an _opportunity_ and he will prove himself every
whit a MAN. How mean and hypocritical the objection, that slaves are
not prepared for freedom, when we employ the whole weight of our laws
and prejudices to crush out their manhood, and as far as possible unfit
them for any condition except that of working animals.
But thousands of slaves have fled from their oppressors, and, in the
midst of the greatest difficulties and embarrassments, have not only
proved themselves prepared for freedom, but also to take a position
amongst the most cultivated and honored freemen.
The half-free colored people of the United States _prove_ themselves
worthy of all the rights of American citizens.
There are now in Canada about 35,000 fugitive slaves; and no
people have ever entered upon the possession of freedom under more
embarrassing circumstances. They were born in chains. The iron yoke
had galled their necks. Their backs had felt the keen lash. In their
flight they were pursued by hungry blood-hounds and more hungry
marshals.--Naked, broken in spirit, impoverished and uneducated, they
reached a cold, ungenial clime. But they were free! And those 35,000
escaped slaves are rapidly improving in wealth, intelligence, and in
every social virtue. In the town of Buxton 130 families reside who own
a body of 9,000 acres of land. The fugitive slaves of Canada West now
own 25,000 acres of land. Were they not prepared for freedom?
Immediate emancipation worked admirably in the British West Indies. The
masters were not murdered by the emancipated slaves, as was predicted,
but good order reigned everywhere. The liberated people have been
rapidly improving in intelligence and wealth.--The terrible wrongs and
miseries of slavery are no more. Rev. Mr. Richardson, a missionary in
Jamaica, speaking of the moral condition of those islands, says:
"Marriage is much more common than formerly, and the blessings of
the family and social relations are much more extensively enjoyed.
The Sabbath is also more generally observed. The means of education
and religious instruction are better enjoyed, although but little
appreciated and improved by the great mass of the people. It is
also true, that the moral sense of the people is becoming somewhat
enlightened. But while this is true, yet their moral condition is very
far from being what it ought to be.
"Our brightest hopes and fondest anticipations must and will centre
around the YOUTH of this island. I see the hand of Providence steadily
urging onward, with resistless might, the car of Progress. Gaunt
Prejudice and grim Superstition gradually give way; Darkness and Error
recede before the sunlight of Truth; and even the demon of Lust and
the giant Intemperance (twin brothers in Satan's family) are bereft of
their power, and chained for a season. I see intelligence, purity, and
piety supplanting ignorance, licentiousness, and irreligion, and this
moral waste becoming transformed until it blooms and flourishes as the
garden of God."
"Immediate emancipation?" exclaims a fearful friend, "that will never
do! Murder, amalgamation, and many other evils will be inevitable
consequences of such a measure. Let us colonize the slaves. Send them
back to their own country." To these objections it may be answered,
1. Colored men are not more inclined to murder than are white men.
Africans have the same natural dispositions which distinguish other
races.
2. Many masters have emancipated their slaves, and thereby secured
their undying affection. Liberated slaves have never turned with bloody
hands upon their liberators.
3. In the West India Islands 800,000 slaves were emancipated in one
day, and although sixteen years have since elapsed, none of the
terrible massacres which were predicted by the opponents of the measure
have occurred.
4. This fear of the vengeance of emancipated slaves arises, doubtless,
from a guilty conscience--or a feeling that it is richly deserved. A
highwayman robs a man, and then says, if I let him go he may have me
arrested and punished, therefore I will kill him. Americans say, on the
same principle, we have most terribly abused our slaves, and hence, if
we let them go they will retaliate, therefore, we must continue the
wrong for self preservation!
5. As to amalgamation we have only to say that slavery is an extensive
system of forced amalgamation. In the free States this much dreaded
evil is of rare occurrence. Immediate emancipation would speedily
arrest the very thing here deprecated.
_a._ The colonization scheme is impracticable. Between three and
four millions of people can never be shipped off to Africa. It is
impracticable to send even the annual increase of the free colored
population. There are in America now about twelve millions of colored
people, and there is no power, civil or ecclesiastical, which can carry
them away to Africa.[24] A few will go and ought to go as missionaries,
but the great and rapidly increasing masses are firmly planted on this
continent and here they must remain.
_b._ Forcible colonization is wrong. Colored people have the same
right to live in America that white people have. The Creator made the
earth for the habitation of man, and He has never surrendered his
ownership of it to any government. The colored man has a right to
live in any country on the globe--a right derived from the Creator.
Has God said that every race under heaven may have a home in America
but the African? Never. It is impertinent as well as wicked for one
people to say to another, "you shall not live in this State, nor on
this continent." Such people arrogate to themselves a prerogative which
Jehovah only possesses.
_c._ The present popular scheme of colonization leaves unquestioned
the title of the slaveholder, encourages the doctrine that the Bible
sanctions the institution, appeals to the basest prejudices of
the American people to induce them to countenance the scheme, and
encourages the enactment of such laws as now disgrace the statutes of
several of the free States, in order, it would seem, to harrass the
free colored man until he shall be compelled to flee from the land of
his birth to a distant shore for refuge. One who speaks what he knows,
says,
"I speak the words of soberness and truth when I say that the most
inveterate, the most formidable, the deadliest enemy of the peace,
prosperity, and happiness of the colored population of the United
States, is that system of African colonization which originated in and
is perpetuated by a worldly, Pharaoh-like policy beneath the dignity
of a magnanimous and Christian people;--a system which receives much
of its vitality from _ad captandum_ appeals to popular prejudices,
and to the unholy, groveling passions of the canaille;--a system that
interposes every possible obstacle in the way of the improvement and
elevation of the colored man in the land of his birth;--that instigates
the enactment of laws whose design and tendency are obviously to annoy
him, to make him feel, while at home, that he is a stranger and a
pilgrim--nay more,--to make him 'wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked;'--to make him 'a hissing and a by-word,' 'a fugitive
and a vagabond' throughout the American Union;--a system that is so
irreconcilably opposed to the purpose of God in making 'of _one_ blood
all nations for to dwell on _all_ the face of the earth,' that when
the dying slaveholder, under the lashes of a guilty conscience, would
give to his slaves unqualified freedom, it wickedly interposes, and
persuades him that 'to do justly and love mercy' would be to inflict an
irreparable injury upon the community, and that to do his duty to God
and his fellow-creatures, under the circumstances, he should bequeath
to his surviving slaves the cruel alternative of _either expatriation
to a far-off, pestilential clime, with the prospect of a premature
death, or perpetual slavery, with its untold horrors, in his native
land_."--_Watkins._
Many objections are offered against immediate emancipation, but they
are evidently mere _excuses_. This may be laid down as a safe rule:
_Offer no objection to the manumission of slaves which would not
satisfy you were you yourselves the slaves to be manumitted._ Tried
by this reasonable and scriptural rule all apologies, objections and
excuses offered for the perpetuation of human bondage, vanish away.
There can be no good reason advanced for the continuance of this curse
a single year longer. Too long already has it dishonored our churches
and our country. Too many souls have been already involved by it in
hopeless ruin. Too many generations of slaves have already gone in
sorrow and despair down to their graves. Too long has the public
conscience been debauched. Justice, humanity and religion with united
voice call for immediate emancipation.
If our free institutions are to be preserved they must be released from
the folds and the deadly charm of this monster serpent. Freedom cannot
flourish in its coils nor survive in its slimy embrace.
Individual and national repentance and reformation only can avert the
terrible judgments of an offended God. The cries of the oppressed have
gone up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, and he will be avenged
speedily.
"We have offended. O! my countrymen!
We have offended very grievously;
And been most tyrannous. From east to west
A groan of accusation pierces heaven!"
There are not more than one hundred and twenty thousand slaveholders in
the United States, and it would be easy for them to settle this whole
question in one year or even in a day. Let them simply be honest, be
just, obey the Bible, overcome their pride, avarice, prejudices and
lusts, and the work will be done. The example of _Freeborn Garretson_
is commended to the special attention of all slaveholders, and
especially of those who profess religion. This good man says:
"As I stood with a book in my hand, in the act of giving out a hymn,
this thought powerfully struck my mind: 'It is not right for you to
keep your fellow-creatures in bondage; you must let the oppressed
go free.' I knew it to be that same blessed voice which had spoken
to me before. Till then I had not suspected that the practice of
slave-keeping was wrong; I had not read a book on the subject, nor
been told so by any. I paused a minute, and then replied, 'Lord, the
oppressed shall go free.' And I was as clear of them in my mind, as if
I had never owned one. I told them they did not belong to me, and that
I did not desire their services without making them a compensation. I
was now at liberty to proceed in worship. After singing, I kneeled to
pray. Had I the tongue of an angel, I could not fully describe what I
felt: all my dejection, and that melancholy gloom which preyed upon me,
vanished in a moment, and a divine sweetness ran through my whole frame.
"It was God, not man, that taught me the impropriety of holding slaves:
and I shall never be able to praise him enough for it. My very heart
has bled, since that, for slaveholders, especially those who made a
profession of religion; for I believe it to be a crying sin."
CHAPTER XVI.
What of the Night?
HOPE THOU IN GOD.
Are there any prospects that the long and dreary night of American
despotism will speedily end in a joyous morning?
If we turn our eye towards the political horizon we shall find it
overspread with heavy clouds portentous of evil to the oppressed. The
government of the United States is intensely pro-slavery. The great
political parties, with which the masses of the people act, vie with
each other in their supple and obsequious devotion to the slaveocracy.
The wise policy of the fathers of the Republic to confine slavery
within very narrow limits, so that it would speedily die out and be
supplanted by freedom, has been abandoned; the whole spirit of our
policy has been reversed--and our national government seems chiefly
concerned for the honor, perpetuation and extension of slavery.
The powerful religious denominations have been following in the wake
of the state. Their ancient and bold testimony against slavery has
been expurgated from their confessions and disciplines, or completely
neutralized.--Slavery _as it is_ receives their unqualified sanction.
The giant Christian publication societies of the day so completely
ignore the question of slavery that a reader of all their books would
not suspect that millions of slaves are groaning under an iron yoke
in this country. Dark as a starless, moonless midnight, is the aspect
presented by the heavens of the popular religious denominations.
American prejudice is yet very powerful. The polite, educated, and
talented free colored traveler is exposed, in most parts of the Union,
to the coarsest insults from this gaunt demon. He feels everywhere its
hellish power. One who was more than twenty years a slave presents in
the following eloquent language a true picture of the present anomalous
condition of the children of Ham in the midst of the general joy of
freedom:
"The Hungarian, the Italian, the Irishman, the Jew and the Gentile,
all find in this goodly land a home; and when any of them, or all of
them, desire to speak, they find willing ears, warm hearts, and open
hands. For these people, the Americans have principles of justice,
maxims of mercy, sentiments of religion, and feelings of brotherhood
in abundance. But for _my_ poor people, (alas, how poor!)--enslaved,
scourged, blasted, overwhelmed, and ruined, it would appear that
America had neither justice, mercy, nor religion. She has no scales
in which to weigh our wrongs, and no standard by which to measure our
rights.... Here, upon the soil of our birth, in a country which has
known us for two centuries, among a people who did not wait for us
to seek them, but who sought us, found us, and brought us to their
own chosen land,--a people for whom we have performed the humblest
services, and whose greatest comforts and luxuries have been won from
the soil by our sable and sinewy arms,--I say, sir, among such a
people, and with such obvious recommendations to favor, we are far less
esteemed than the veriest stranger and sojourner.... We are literally
scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities--human
and divine. We plead for our rights, in the name of the immortal
declaration of independence, and of the written constitution of
government, and we are answered with imprecations and curses. In the
sacred name of Jesus we beg for mercy, and the slave-whip, red with
blood, cracks over us in mockery.... We cry for help to humanity--a
common humanity, and here too we are repulsed. American humanity
hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very
personality. The outspread wing of American christianity, apparently
broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us.
To us, its bones are brass, and its feathers iron. In running thither
for shelter and succor, we have only fled from the hungry bloodhound to
the devouring wolf,--from a corrupt and selfish world to a hollow and
hypocritical church."--_Fred. Douglass._
But dark as is this picture, there is still hope. The exorbitant
demands of the slave power, the extreme measures it adopts, the deep
humiliation to which it subjects political aspirants, will produce a
reaction. Inflated with past success it is throwing off its mask and
revealing its hideous proportions. It is now proving itself the enemy
of _all_ freedom.
The extreme servility of the popular churches is opening the eyes of
many earnest people to the importance of taking a bolder position.
They are finding out that it is a duty to come out from churches which
sanction the vilest iniquity that ever existed, or exhaust their zeal
for the oppressed in tame resolves, never to be executed.
The truth is gaining ground that slaveholding is a great sin, that
slaveholders are great sinners, and that he who apologises for the
system is a participator in the guilt and shame.
Free mission societies, reform publication societies, and free churches
are rising up all over the country, in the free and in the slave
States. They take their stand upon a solid Bible platform, and their
power will be rapidly augmented until the strongholds of oppression
will tremble at their approach.
Literature is coming to the rescue of the slave, and even now is
pleading his cause with astonishing power in all the languages of
christendom.
Christianity is on the side of the slave, and its true spirit is
beginning to be practically applied.
Thousands of devout persons are found day and night pleading with God
for the speedy deliverance of the captive.
But a voice from heaven is heard saying, "HOPE THOU IN GOD." God is
on the side of the oppressed. He will never abandon them. He approves
their cause, hears their cries, and is interested in all their
movements. Those millions of colored Americans are now in the fiery
furnace, but He will bring them out. From their house of bondage they
will come forth, and accomplish a glorious mission on the earth.
God has reserved for them some of the grandest achievements in music,
poetry, science, arts, morals, freedom and religion. Never has he
permitted a people to be more deeply humbled, and none will in the end
be more highly exalted. God's ways are not as our ways. He can make the
wrath of man to praise him.
The day of deliverance is not distant. God is stirring up the nations.
The slavery question is agitating the whole enlightened world. It
cannot be put to rest. Politicians pronounce it dead and solemnly bury
it, but it rises before the third day and confronts them in every
assembly. Church councils resolve to let it alone, but it will not let
them alone. They hate agitation, and cry for peace, but are answered,
"_first pure, then peaceable_."
God of liberty! hasten the hour when the reddening East shall authorize
the joyful announcement to American bondsmen--"_the morning cometh_."
Till then let us "TOIL AND TRUST."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Elliott on Slavery, p. 40.
[2] R. Walsh, Encyclopedia Americana, Art. Slavery.
[3] Here are a few advertisements taken from respectable southern
papers, verbatim.
SLAVES WANTED.--We are at all times purchasing Slaves, paying the
highest cash prices. Persons wishing to sell will please call at
242 Pratt St. (Slatter's old stand.) Communications attended to.
B. M. & W. L. CAMPBELL.
A NEGRO FOR SALE.--I wish to sell a black girl about 24 years old,
a good cook and washer, handy with a needle, can spin and weave. I
wish to sell her in the neighborhood of Camden Point; if not sold
there in a short time, I will hunt the best market; or I will trade
her for two small ones, a boy and girl.
November 15, 1852
M. DOYAL.
100 NEGROES FOR SALE, at my depot on Commerce street, immediately
between the Exchange Hotel and F. M. Gilmer, Jr.'s Warehouse,
where I will be receiving constantly, large lots of Negroes during
the season, and will sell on as accommodating terms as any house
in this city. I would respectfully request my old customers, and
friends to call and examine my stock.
MONTGOMERY, November 2, 1852.
JNO. W. LINDSEY.
GREAT SALE OF NEGROES BY J. & L. T. LEVIN.--On Thursday, December
30, at 11 o'clock, will be sold at the Court House in Columbia, one
hundred valuable negroes.
It is seldom such an opportunity occurs as now offers. Among them
are only four beyond 45 years old, and none above 50. There are
twenty five prime young men, between sixteen and thirty; forty of
the most likely young women, and as fine a set of children as can
be shown!
Terms, &c.
December 18, 1852.
[4] Prof. B. B. Edwards says--"From the time of Augustus to Justinian
we may allow three slaves to one free man; we shall thus have a free
population in Italy of 6,944,000; and of slaves 20,832,000."
On the treatment of Roman slaves _Guizot_ remarks that "it would be
easy to give the most frightful and heartrending accounts of the manner
in which the ancient Romans treated their slaves. Entire volumes are
occupied with the details." (_Hist. Civilization._)
[5] These facts are well authenticated. The "Union Point" tragedy
did not occur in 1854, as reported recently, and denied by the "Free
Trader," _but it did occur_ in 1842, and we have quoted the "Trader's"
own account.
[6] Accepting this celebrated curse as an inspired prophecy, and we
are inclined to receive it as such, it finds an easy fulfillment in
the conquests of Joshua over the Canaanites; in the oppression of
the Phoenicians, (who were descendants of Canaan,) by the Chaldeans,
Persians and Greeks; and finally in the subjugation and destruction
of the Carthaginians, by the Romans. This is the opinion of President
Edwards, and it is entitled to respect.
[7] I avail myself in what follows upon this point, of the
investigations of Rev. E. Smith, who has thrown much light upon this
subject. See "_Bible Servitude" pp. 91_, for a full discussion of this
point.
[8] For these criticisms on the Hebrew word the author is indebted to
Albert Barnes' 'Inquiry into the scriptural views of slavery.'
[9] The passage in Ex. 21: 20, 21, applies, as all admit, mainly, if
not exclusively, to _native Hebrew servants_, and as no one finds in
the limited voluntary servitude of the native Hebrews a warrant for
hereditary slavery, I have not thought it necessary to dwell upon it.
It may be observed, however, that the word "_punished_," is rendered
in the marginal reading, "avenged;" and the meaning of the law is that
the interest the master had in the life of the servant should be taken
as _presumptive_ evidence that he did not intend to kill him, unless
the case was very clear, and hence that he should not be _avenged
summarily_, by a relative of the servant, but be regularly tried and
punished by the appointed authorities.
[10] See Barnes' Inquiry.
[11] See Smith.
[12] Tract of the American Reform Book and Tract Society.
[13] Bible Servitude.
[14] These facts are drawn by Jay from Blair's Inquiry into the state
of slavery among the Romans.
[15] Note. One little circumstance, which occurred in the General
Assembly of 1853, indicates a remarkably conservative spirit in that
body. Dr. Judd, in writing the history of the division of the Old
and New-Schools, put in _one_ chapter on slavery. This chapter made
the book _offensive_ to the south. To reconcile all parties, it was
agreed that two editions of the work be printed, one for northern, the
other for southern circulation--the latter to be _minus the chapter on
slavery_!
[16] The "American Missionary Association," which has no fellowship
with slaveholding, and the American Reform Book and Tract Society,
which is doing much for the dissemination of Christian anti-slavery
doctrines, are sustained mainly by Congregationalists. The main body of
the Congregationalists, however, adhere to the old Boards.
[17] Can any one conceive of any _virtuous_ reason which prompted the
passage of such a rule? Is there not a deep and dark iniquity among
slaveholders which makes it not only necessary that slaves should be
excluded from civil, but also from ecclesiastical tribunals?
[18] Amongst these, and at the head of them stands _Mr. Hosmer_, Editor
of the Northern C. Advocate, author of "_Slavery_ and the _Church_,"
and a number of other excellent books.
[19] See Methodist Discipline.
[20] Annual Report of American and Foreign Anti-slavery Society.
[21] Distinguished from the Moravians, or old United Brethren by the
additional phrase--"_in Christ_."
[22] Methodist Quarterly.
[23] Hon. Charles Sumner's speech on the Repeal of the Fugitive Slave
Bill, delivered in the Senate, August 1852, is one of the finest
specimens of eloquence in the English language. Its arguments too, are
unanswerable.
[24] The following estimate of their numbers and localities is taken
from one of the able reports of the British and Foreign Anti-slavery
Society, carefully drawn up by its former Secretary, John Scoble, Esq.:
United States, 3,650,000
Brazil, 4,050,000
Spanish Colonies, 1,470,000
S. Amer. Republics, 1,130,000
British Colonies, 750,000
Hayti, 850,000
French Colonies, 270,000
Dutch Colonies, 50,000
Danish Colonies, 45,000
Mexico, 70,000
Canada, 35,000
----------
Total, 12,370,000
_Rep. Am. and For. Anti. Slav. Society._
Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible. Some minor corrections of spelling and puctuation have
been made.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
OE ligatures have been expanded.
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