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.