to be withheld from your slaves--only "until the storm shall be
overblown," and that you hope that "Satan's being let loose will be but
for a little season." I say nothing more about the last expression, than
that I most sincerely desire you may penitently regret having attributed
the present holy excitement against slavery to the influences of Satan.
By "the storm" you, doubtless, mean the excitement produced by the
publications and efforts of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Now, I
will not suppose that you meant to deceive your readers on this point.
You are, nevertheless, inexcusable for using language so strikingly
calculated to lead them into error. It is not yet three years since that
Society was organized: but the statute books of some of the slave States
contain laws, forbidding the instruction of slaves in reading, which
were enacted long before you and I were born. As long ago as the year
1740, South Carolina passed a law, forbidding to teach slaves to write.
Georgia did so in 1770. In the year 1800, thirty-three years before "the
storm" of the Anti-Slavery Society began to blow, South Carolina passed
a law, forbidding "assemblies of slaves, free negroes, &c., for the
purpose of mental instruction." In the Revised Code of Virginia of 1819,
is a law similar to that last mentioned. In the year 1818, the city of
Savannah forbade by an ordinance, the instruction of all persons of
color, either free or bond, in reading and writing. I need not specify
any more of these man-crushing, soul-killing, God-defying laws;--nor
need I refer again to the shocking penalties annexed to the violation of
most of them. I conclude my remarks under this head, with the advice,
that, in the next edition of your book, you do not assign the
anti-slavery excitement, which is now spreading over our land, as the
occasion of the passage of the laws in question.
7th. The only other reason I will mention for believing, that the
slavery modification of servitude is not approved of God, is, that it
has never been known _to work well_--never been known to promote man's
happiness or God's glory. Wickedness and wretchedness are, so uniformly,
the product of slavery, that they must be looked upon, not as its
abuses, but as its legitimate fruits. Whilst all admit, that the
relations of the family state are, notwithstanding their frequent
perversions, full of blessings to the world; and that, but for them, the
world would be nothing better than one scene of pollution and wo;--to
what history of slavery will you refer me, for proof of its beneficent
operation? Will it be to the Bible history of Egyptian slavery? No--for
that informs us of the exceeding wickedness and wretchedness of Egyptian
slavery. Will it be to the history of Greek and Roman slavery? No--for
your own book acknowledges its unutterable horrors and abominations.
Will you refer me to the history of the West Indies for proofs of the
happy fruits of slavery? Not until the earth is no more, will its
polluted and bloody pages cease to testify against slavery. And, when we
have come down to American slavery, you will not even open the book
which records such facts, as that its subjects are forbidden to be
joined in wedlock, and to read the Bible. No--you will not presume to
look for a single evidence of the benign influences of a system, where,
by the admission of your own ecclesiastical bodies, it has turned
millions of men into heathen. I say nothing now of your beautiful and
harmless theories of slavery:--but this I say, that when you look upon
slavery as it has existed, or now exists, either amidst the darkness of
Mahommedanism or the light of Christianity, you dare not, as you hope
for the Divine favor, say that it is a Heaven-descended institution; and
that, notwithstanding it is like Ezekiel's roll, "written within and
without with lamentations and mourning and wo," it, nevertheless, bears
the mark of being a boon from God to man.
Having disposed of your "strong reasons" for the position, that the New
Testament authorizes slavery, I proceed to consider your remaining
reasons for it.
Because it does not appear, that our Saviour and the Apostle Peter told
certain centurions, who, for the sake of the argument, I will admit were
slaveholders, that slaveholding is sinful, you argue, and most
confidently too, that it is not sinful. But, it does not appear, that
the Saviour and the Apostle charged _any_ sinful practices upon them.
Then, by your logic, all their other practices, as well as their
slaveholding, were innocent, and these Roman soldiers were literally
perfect.--Again; how do you know that the Saviour and the Apostle did
not tell them, on the occasion you refer to, that they were sinners for
being slaveholders? The fact, that the Bible does not inform us that
they told them so, does not prove that they did not; much less does it
prove, that they did not tell them so subsequently to their first
interview with them. And again, the admission that they did not
specifically attack slavery, at any of their interviews with the
centurions, or on any other occasions whatever, would not justify the
inference, that it is sinless. I need not repeat the reasoning which
makes the truth of this remark apparent.
You refer to the Saviour's declaration of the unequaled faith of one of
these centurions, with the view of making it appear that a person of so
great faith could not be a great sinner. But, how long had he exercised
this, or, indeed, any Christian faith? That he was on good terms with
the Jews, and had built them a synagogue, is quite as strong evidence,
that he had not, as that he had, previously to that time, believed in
Jesus:--and, if he had not, then his faith, however strong, and his
conversion, however decided, are nothing towards proving that slavery is
sinless.
It is evident, that the Apostle was sent to Cornelius for the single
purpose of inculcating the doctrine of the remission of sin, through
faith in Christ.
I proceed to examine another of your arguments. From Paul's declaration
to the Elders at Miletus, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all
the counsel of God," taken in connexion with the fact, that the Bible
does not inform us that he spoke to them of slaveholding, you
confidently and exultingly infer that it is innocent. Here, again, you
prove too much, and therefore, prove nothing. It does not appear that he
specified a hundredth part of their duties. If he did not tell them to
abstain from slaveholding, neither did he tell them to abstain from
games and theatres. But, his silence about slaveholding proves to your
mind its sinlessness: equally then should his silence about games and
theatres satisfy you of their innocence. Two radical errors run through
a great part of your book. They are, that the Apostle gave specific
instructions concerning all duties, and that the Bible contains these
instructions. But, for these errors, your book would be far less
objectionable than it is. I might, perhaps, rather say, that but for
these, you could not have made up your book.
And now, since Paul's address to the Elders has been employed by you in
behalf of slavery, allow me to try its virtue against slavery: and, if
it should turn out that you are slain with your own weapon, it will not
be the first time that temerity has met with such a fate. I admit, that
the Apostle does not tell the Elders of any wrong thing which they had
done; but there are some wrong things from which he had himself
abstained, and some right things which he had himself done, of which he
does tell them. He tells them, for instance, that he had not been guilty
of coveting what was another's, and also, that with his own hands he had
ministered to his own necessities and those of others: and he further
tells them, that they ought to copy his example, and labor, as he had
done, "to support the weak." Think you, sir, from this language that
Paul was a slaveholder--and, that his example was such, as to keep lazy,
luxurious slaveholders in countenance? The slaveholder is guilty of
coveting, not only all a man has, but even the man himself. The
slaveholder will not only not labor with his hands to supply the wants
of others, and "to support the weak;" but he makes others labor to
supply his wants:--yes, makes them labor unpaid--night and day--in
storm, as well as in sunshine--under the
lash--bleeding--groaning--dying--and all this, not to minister to his
actual needs, but to his luxuriousness and sensuality.
You ridicule the idea of the abolition of slavery, because it would make
the slaveholder "so poor, as to oblige him to take hold of the maul and
wedge himself--he must catch, curry, and saddle his own horse--he must
black his own brogans (for he will not be able to buy boots)--his wife
must go herself to the wash-tub--take hold of the scrubbing broom, wash
the pots, and cook all that she and her rail-mauler will eat." If Paul
were, as you judge he was, opposed to the abolition of slavery, it is at
least certain, from what he says of the character of his life in his
address to the Elders, that his opposition did not spring from such
considerations as array you against it. In his estimation, manual labor
was honorable. In a slaveholding community, it is degrading. It is so in
your own judgment, or you would not hold up to ridicule those humble
employments, which reflect disgrace, only where the moral atmosphere is
tainted by slavery. That the pernicious influences of slavery in this
respect are felt more or less, in every part of this guilty nation, is
but too true. I put it to your candor, sir, whether the obvious fact,
that slavery makes the honest labor of the hands disreputable, is not a
weighty argument against the supposition that God approves it? I put it
to your candor, sir, whether the fact, which you, at least, cannot
gain-say, that slavery makes even ministers of the gospel despise the
employments of seven-eighths of the human family, and, consequently, the
humble classes, who labor in them--I put it to your candor, whether the
institution, which breeds such contempt of your fellow-men and fellow
Christians, must not be offensive to Him, who commands us to "Honor all
men, and love the brotherhood?"
In another argument, you attempt to show, that Paul's letter to Philemon
justifies slaveholding, and also the apprehension and return of fugitive
slaves. After having recited the Resolution of the Chilicothe
Presbytery--"that to apprehend a slave who is endeavoring to escape from
slavery, with a view to restore him to his master, is a direct violation
of the Divine law, and, when committed by a member of the church, ought
to subject him to censure"--you undertake to make your readers believe,
that Paul's sending Onesimus to Philemon, is a case coming fairly within
the purview of the resolution. Let us see if it does. A man by the name
of Onesimus was converted to Christianity, under Paul's ministry at
Rome. Paul learnt that he had formerly been a servant--say a slave--of
Philemon, who was a "dearly beloved" Christian: and believing that his
return to his old master would promote the cause of Christ, and
beautifully exemplify its power, he advised him to return to him. He
followed the Apostle's advice and returned. Now, from this example, you
attempt to derive a justification for "a member of a Church" to be
engaged in forcibly apprehending and restoring fugitive slaves. I say
forcibly--as the apprehension and return, referred to in the Resolution,
are clearly forcible. I cannot refrain, sir, from saying, that you
greatly wrong the memory of that blessed Apostle of the Lord Jesus, in
construing his writings to authorize such violence upon the persons and
rights of men. And greatly, also, do you wrong the Resolution in
question, by your endeavor to array the Bible against it. The Resolution
is right; it is noble--it denotes in the source whence it emanated, a
proper sense of the rights and dignity of man. It is all the better for
being marked with an honorable contempt of wicked and heaven-daring
laws. May I, having the suspicion, or even the certain knowledge, that
my fellow man was once held in slavery, and is still _legally_ a slave,
seize upon him and reduce him again to slavery? May I thus deal with a
guiltless and unaccused brother? Human laws may, it is true, bear me out
in this man-stealing, which is not less flagrant than that committed on
the coast of Africa:--but, says the Great Law-giver, "The word that I
have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day:"--and, it is a
part of this "word," that "he that stealeth a man shall surely be put to
death." In that last day, the mayors, recorders, sheriffs, and others,
who have been engaged, whether in their official or individual capacity,
in slave-catching and man-stealing, will find human laws but a flimsy
protection against the wrath of Him, who judges his creatures by his own
and not by human laws. In that "last day," all who have had a part, and
have not repented of it, in the sin of treating man as property; all, I
say, whether slaveholders or their official or unofficial assistants,
the drivers upon their plantations, or their drivers in the free
States--all, who have been guilty of throwing God's "image" into the
same class with the brutes of the field--will find, that He is the
avenger of his poorest, meanest ones--and that the crime of transmuting
His image into property, is but aggravated by the fact and the plea that
it was committed under the sanction of human laws.
But, to return--wherein does the letter of Paul to Philemon justify
slaveholding? What evidence does it contain, that Philemon was a
slaveholder at the time it was written? He, who had been his slave "in
time past," had, very probably, escaped before Philemon's conversion to
Christ. This "time past," may have been a _long_ "time past." The word
in the original, which is translated "in time past," does not forbid the
supposition. Indeed, it is the same word, which the Apostle uses in the
thirteenth verse of the first chapter of Galatians; and there it denotes
a _long_ "time past"--as much as from fifteen to eighteen years.
Besides, Onesimus' escape and return both favor the supposition, that it
was between the two events that Philemon's conversion took place. On the
one hand, he fled to escape from the cruelties of an unconverted master;
on the other, he was encouraged to follow the Apostle's advice, by the
consideration, that on his return to Philemon he should not have to
encounter again the unreasonableness and rage of a heathen, but that he
should meet with the justice and tenderness of a Christian--qualities,
with the existence and value of which, he had now come to an
experimental acquaintance. Again, to show that the letter in question
does not justify slaveholding--in what character was it, that Paul sent
Onesimus to Philemon? Was it in that of a slave? Far from it. It was, in
that of "a brother beloved," as is evident from his injunction to
Philemon to "receive him forever--not now as a _slave_, but above a
_slave_--a brother beloved."
It is worthy of remark, that Paul's message to Philemon, shows, not only
that he himself was not in favor of slaveholding, but, that he believed
the gospel had wrought such an entire change on this subject, in the
heart of Philemon, that Onesimus would find on his return to him, the
tyrant and the slaveholder sunk in the brother and the Christian.
Paul's course in relation to Onesimus was such, as an abolitionist would
deem it proper to adopt, under the like circumstances. If a fugitive
slave, who had become a dear child of God, were near me, and, if I knew
that his once cruel master had also become a "dearly beloved" Christian;
and if, therefore, I had reason to believe, as Paul had, in the case of
Philemon, that he would "receive him forever--not now as a _slave_, but
above a _slave_, a brother beloved," I would advise him to revisit his
old master, provided he could do so, without interference and violence
from others. Such interference and violence did not threaten Onesimus in
his return to Philemon. He was not in danger of being taken up,
imprisoned, and sold for his jail fees, as a returning Onesimus would be
in parts of this nation.
On the 72d page of your book, you utter sentiments, which, I trust, all
your readers will agree, are unworthy of a man, a republican, and a
Christian. You there endeavor again to make it appear, that it is not
the _relation_ of master and slave, but only the abuse of it, which is
to be objected to.--You say: "Independence is a charming idea,
especially to Americans: but what gives it the charm? Is it the thing in
itself? or is it because it is a release from the control of a bad
master? Had Great Britain been a kind master, our ancestors were willing
to remain her slaves." In reply to this I would say, that it must be a
base spirit which does not prize "independence" for its own sake,
whatever privation and suffering may attend it; and much more base must
be that spirit, which can exchange that "independence" for a state of
slavish subjection--even though that state abound in all sensual
gratifications. To talk of "a kind master" is to talk of a blessing for
a dog, but not for a man, who is made to "call no man master." Were the
people of this nation like yourself, they would soon exchange their
blood-bought liberties for subjection to any despot who would promise
them enough to eat, drink, and wear. But, I trust, that we at the North
are "made of sterner stuff." They, who make slaves of others, can more
easily become slaves themselves: for, in their aggressions upon others,
they have despised and trampled under foot those great, eternal
principles of right, which _not only_ constitute the bulwark of the
general freedom; but his respect for which is indispensable to every
man's valuation and protection of his individual liberties. This train
of thought associates with itself in my mind, the following passage in
an admirable speech delivered by the celebrated William Pinckney, in the
Maryland House of Delegates in 1789. Such a speech, made at the present
time in a slave State, would probably cost the life of him who should
make it; nor could it be delivered in a free States at any less
sacrifice, certainly, than that of the reputation of the orator. What a
retrograde movement has liberty made in this country in the last fifty
years!
"Whilst a majority of your citizens are accustomed to rule with the
authority of despots, within particular limits--while your youths are
reared in the habit of thinking that the great rights of human nature
are not so sacred, but they may with innocence be trampled on, can it be
expected, that the public mind should glow with that generous ardor in
the cause of freedom, which can alone save a government, like ours, from
the lurking demon of usurpation? Do you not dread the contamination of
principle? Have you no alarms for the continuance of that spirit, which
once conducted us to victory and independence, when the talons of power
were unclasped for our destruction? Have you no apprehension left, that
when the votaries of freedom sacrifice also at the gloomy altars of
slavery, they will, at length, become apostates from them for ever? For
my own part, I have no hope, that the stream of general liberty will
flow for ever, unpolluted, through the foul mire of partial bondage, or
that they, who have been habituated to lord it over others, will not be
base enough, in time, to let others lord it over them. If they resist,
it will be the struggle of _pride_ and _selfishness_, not of
_principle_."
Had Edmund Burke known slaveholders as well as Mr. Pinckney knew them,
he would not have pronounced his celebrated eulogium on their love of
liberty;--he would not have ascribed to them any love of liberty, but
the spurious kind which the other orator, impliedly, ascribes to
them--that which "pride and selfishness" beget and foster. Genuine love
of liberty, as Mr. Pinckney clearly saw, springs from "principle," and
is found no where but in the hearts of those who respect the liberties
and the rights of others.
I had reason, in a former part of this communication, to charge some of
the sentiments of Professor Hodge with being alike reproachful to the
memory of our fathers, and pernicious to the cause of civil liberty.
There are sentiments on the 72d page of your book, obnoxious to the like
charge. If political "independence"--if a free government--be the poor
thing--the illusive image of an American brain--which you sneeringly
represent it, we owe little thanks to those who purchased it for us,
even though they purchased it with their blood; and little pains need we
take in that case to preserve it. When will the people of the Northern
States see, that the doctrines now put forth so industriously to
maintain slavery, are rapidly undermining liberty?
On the 43d page of your book you also evince your low estimate of man's
rights and dues. You there say, "the fact that the planters of
Mississippi and Louisiana, even while they have to pay from twenty to
twenty-five dollars per barrel for pork the present season, afford to
their slaves from three to four and a half pounds per week, does not
show, that they are neglectful in rendering to their slaves that which
is just and equal." If men had only an animal, and not a spiritual and
immortal nature also, it might do for you to represent them as well
provided for, if but pork enough were flung to them. How preposterous to
tell us, that God approves a system which brings a man, as slavery seems
to have brought you, to regard his fellow man as a mere animal!
I am happy to find that you are not all wrong. You are no "gradualist."
You are not inconsistent, like those who admit that slavery is sinful,
and yet refuse to treat it as sinful. I hope our Northern "gradualists"
will profit by the following passage in your book: "If I were convinced
by that word (the Bible) that slavery is itself a sin, I trust that, let
it cost what it would, I should be an abolitionist, because there is no
truth, more clear to my mind, than that the gospel requires an
_immediate_ abandonment of sin."
You have no doubt of your right to hold your fellow men, as slaves. I
wish you had given your readers more fully your views of the origin of
this right. I judge from what you say, that you trace it back to the
curse pronounced by Noah upon Canaan. But was that curse to know no end?
Were Canaan's posterity to endure the entailment of its disabilities and
woes, until the end of time? Was Divine mercy never to stay the
desolating waves of this curse? Was their harsh and angry roar to reach,
even into the gospel dispensation, and to mingle discordantly with the
songs of "peace on earth and good will to men?" Was the captivity of
Canaan's race to be even stronger than He, who came "to bind up the
broken-hearted, and proclaim liberty to the captives?" But who were
Canaan and his descendants? You speak of them, and with singular
unfairness, I think, as "_the_ posterity of Ham, from whom, it is
supposed, sprang the Africans." They were, it is true, a part of Ham's
posterity; but to call them "_the_ posterity of Ham," is to speak as
though he had no other child than Canaan. The fifteenth to nineteenth
verses of the tenth chapter of Genesis teach us, beyond all question,
that Canaan's descendants inhabited the land of Canaan and adjacent
territory, and that this land is identical with the country afterwards
occupied by the Jews, and known, in modern times, by the name of
Palestine, or the Holy Land. Therefore, however true it may be, that a
portion of Ham's posterity settled in Africa, we not only have no
evidence that it was the portion cursed, but we have conclusive evidence
that it was not.