agents chattels, converting _persons_ into _things_, sinking
intelligence, accountability, immortality, into _merchandise_. A _slave_
is one held in this condition. He is a mere tool for another's use and
benefit. In law "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." _His right
to himself is abrogated._ He is another's property. If he say _my_
hands, _my_ feet, _my_ body, _my_ mind, MY_self_; they are figures of
speech. To _use himself_ for his own good is a CRIME. To keep what he
_earns_ is stealing. To take his body into his own keeping is
_insurrection_. In a word, the> _profit_ of his master is the END of his
being, and he, a _mere means_ to that end, a _mere means_ to an end into
which his interests do not enter, of which they constitute no
portion[A]. MAN sunk to a _thing_! the intrinsic element, the
_principle_ of slavery; MEN sold, bartered, leased, mortgaged,
bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on
executions, and knocked off at public outcry! Their _rights_ another's
conveniences, their interests, wares on sale, their happiness, a
household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable
article, or plaything, as best suits the humor of the hour; their
deathless nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes,
marketable commodities! We repeat it, _the reduction of persons to
things_; not robbing a man of privileges, but of _himself_; not loading
with burdens, but making him a _beast of burden_; not _restraining_
liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them;
not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating _personality_; not
exacting involuntary labor, but sinking him into an _implement_ of
labor; not abridging his human comforts, but abrogating his _human
nature_; not depriving an animal of immunities, but _despoiling a
rational being of attributes_, uncreating a MAN to make room for a
_thing_!
[Footnote A: Whatever system sinks man from an END to a _means_, or in
other words, whatever transforms him from an object of instrumentality
into a mere instrumentality _to_ an object, just so far makes him a
_slave_. Hence West India apprenticeship retains in _one_ particular the
cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three-fourths of
his time, is still forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so
far forth he is a _mere means_, a _slave_. True, in all other respects
slavery is abolished in the British West Indies. Its bloodiest features
are blotted out--but the meanest and most despicable of all--forcing the
poor to work for the rich without pay three-fourths of their time, with
a legal officer to flog them if they demur at the outrage, is one of the
provisions of the "Emancipation Act!" For the glories of that luminary,
abolitionists thank God, while they mourn that it rose behind clouds,
and shines through an eclipse.]
That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states.
Judge Stroud, in his "Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says,
"The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked
among sentient beings, but among _things_--is an article of property, a
chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law in all of these states," (the
slave states.) The law of South Carolina thus lays down the principle,
"Slaves shall be deemed, 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,
CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER." Brevard's Digest, 229. In
Louisiana, "a slave is one who is in the power of a 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 any thing, but what must belong to his master." Civil Code of
Louisiana, Art. 35.
This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a
thing, trampled under foot--the crowning distinction of all
others--their centre and circumference--the source, the test, and the
measure of their value--the rational, immortal principle, embalmed by
God in everlasting remembrance, consecrated to universal homage in a
baptism of glory and honor, by the gift of His Son, His Spirit, His
Word, His presence, providence, and power; His protecting shield,
upholding staff, and sheltering wing; His opening heavens, and angels
ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a
great voice in heaven, proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the
word with signs following.
Having stated the _principle_ of American slavery, we ask, DOES THE
BIBLE SANCTION SUCH A PRINCIPLE?[A][A]? To the _law_ and the
_testimony_. First, the moral law, or the ten commandments. Just after
the Israelites were emancipated from their bondage in Egypt, while they
stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet waxed louder, and
the mount quaked and blazed, God spake the ten commandments from the
midst of clouds and thunderings. _Two_ of those commandments deal death
to slavery. Look at the eighth, "_Thou shall not steal_," or, thou shalt
not take from another what belongs to him. All man's powers of body and
mind are God's gift to _him_. That they are _his own_, and that he has a
right to them, is proved from the fact that God has given them to _him
alone_, that each of them is a part of _himself_, and all of them
together _constitute_ himself. All _else_ that belongs to man is
acquired by the _use_ of these powers. The _interest_ belongs to him,
because the _principal_ does--the product is his, because he is the
_producer_. Ownership of any thing is ownership of its _use_. The right
to use according to will, is _itself_ ownership. The eighth commandment
_presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his powers, and their
product._ Slavery robs of both. A man's right to himself is the only
right absolutely original and intrinsic--his right to whatever else that
belongs to him is merely _relative_ to his right to himself--is derived
from it, and held only by virtue of it. SELF-RIGHT is the _foundation
right_--the _post in the middle_, to which all other rights are
fastened. Slaveholders, the world over, when talking about their RIGHT
to their slaves, always assume _their own right to themselves_. What
slaveholder ever undertook to prove his own right to himself? He knows
it to be a self-evident proposition, that _a man belongs to
himself_--that the right is intrinsic and absolute. The slaveholder, in
making out his own title to himself, makes out the title of every human
being to _himself_. As the fact of being _a man_ is itself the title,
the whole human family have one common title deed. If _one_ man's title
is valid, _all_ are valid. If one is worthless, all are. To deny the
validity of the _slave's_ title is to deny the validity of _his own_;
and yet in the act of making him a slave, the slaveholder _asserts_ the
validity of his own title, while he seizes _him_ as his property who has
the _same_ title. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely
unhumanize _one_ individual, but UNIVERSAL MAN. He destroys the
foundations. He annihilates _all rights_. He attacks not only the human
race, but _universal being_, and rushes upon JEHOVAH.--For rights are
_rights_; God's are no more--man's are no less.
[Footnote A: The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral
character. It vouches for them as _facts_, not as _virtues_. It records
without rebuke, Noah's drunkenness, Lot's incest, and the lies of Jacob
and his mother--not only single acts, but _usages_, such as polygamy and
concubinage, are entered on the record without censure. Is that _silent
entry_ God's _endorsement_? Because the Bible, in its catalogue of human
actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and number, and write
against it, _this is a crime_--does that wash out its guilt, and bleach
it into a virtue?]
The eighth commandment forbids the taking of _any_ part of that which
belongs to another. Slavery takes the _whole_. Does the same Bible which
forbids the taking of _any_ thing belonging to him, sanction the taking
of _every_ thing? Is it such a medley of absurdities as to thunder wrath
against him who robs his neighbor of a _cent_, while it bids God speed
to him who robs his neighbor of _himself_? Slavery is the highest
possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a man his
earnings, is theft. But to take the _earner_, is compound, superlative,
perpetual theft. It is to be a thief by profession. It is a trade, a
life of robbery, that vaults through all the gradations of the climax at
a leap--the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other
robberies, a solitary horror, monarch of the realm. The eighth
commandment forbids the taking away, and the _tenth_ adds, "_Thou shalt
not COVET any thing that is thy neighbor's_;" thus guarding every man's
right to himself and his property, by making not only the actual taking
away a sin, but even that state of mind which would _tempt_ to it. Who
ever made human beings slaves, or held them as slaves without _coveting_
them? Why do they take from them their time, their labor, their liberty,
their right of self-preservation and improvement, their right to acquire
property, to worship according to conscience, to search the Scriptures,
to live with their families, and their right to their own bodies? Why do
they _take_ them, if they do not _desire_ them? They COVET them for
purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual
gratification, of pride and ostentation. _They break the tenth
commandment_, and pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are
written in the book. _Ten_ commandments constitute the brief compend of
human duty. _Two_ of these brand slavery as sin.
The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of
that body of laws and institutions, called the "Mosaic system." Over the
gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of
God--"HE THAT STEALETH A MAN AND SELLETH HIM, OR IF HE BE FOUND IN HIS
HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH." See Exodus, xxi. 16.
The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought for
their deliverance, proclaim the reason for _such_ a law at _such_ a
time--when the body politic became a theocracy, and reverently waited
for the will of God. They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of
their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled
their memories with thronging horrors. They had just witnessed God's
testimony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt--the burning blains
on man and beast--the dust quickened into loathsome life, and cleaving
in swarms to every living thing--the streets, the palaces, the temples,
and every house heaped up with the carcasses of things abhorred--even
the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches,
reeking and dissolving with the putrid death--the pestilence walking in
darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts and hail mingled with fire,
the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood, and, last of all,
that dread high hand and stretched out arm, that whelmed the monarch and
his hosts, and strewed their corpses in the sea. All this their eyes had
looked upon,--earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying
in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the
hand writing of God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood--a
blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of
men.
No wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such
a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash
terror on slaveholders. "_He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if
he be found in his hand, he shall be surely put to death_." Ex. xxii.
16. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic
system! See also Deut. xxiv. 7[A].
[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish writers, (if we
except perhaps the Egyptian Maimonides,) who wrote seven hundred years
ago, in his comment on this stealing and making merchandize of men,
gives the meaning thus:--"Using a man against his will, as a servant
lawfully purchased; yea though he should use his services ever so
little, only to the value of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on
to support him, _if he be forced so to act as a servant_, the person
compelling him but once to do so shall die as a thief, whether he has
sold him or not."]
The Hebrew word, _Gaunab_, here rendered _stealeth_, means the taking
from another what _belongs_ to him, whether it be by violence or fraud;
the same word is used in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both
_robbery_ and theft.
The crime specified is that of _depriving_ SOMEBODY _of the ownership of
a man_. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a
_master_ of his _servant_? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a
_servant, not_ "he that stealeth a _man_." If the crime had been the
taking of an individual from _another_, then the _term_ used would have
been _expressive of that relation_, and _most especially_ if it was the
relation of property and _proprietor_!
The crime, as stated in the passage, is three-fold--man _stealing_,
_selling_ and _holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one
penalty--DEATH. This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of man, is the
_man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said to the servants
of Pharoah, "Indeed I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews."
Gen. xl. 15. How _stolen_? His brethren took him and sold him as an
_article of merchandize_. Contrast this penalty for _man_-stealing with
that for _property_-stealing. Exod. xxii. If a man stole an _ox_ and
killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold
nor killed it, the penalty was two oxen. The selling or the killing
being virtually a deliberate repetition of the crime, the penalty was
more than doubled.
But in the case of stealing a _man_, the first act drew down the utmost
power of punishment; however often repeated, or however aggravated the
crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for
_man_-stealing was death, and the penalty for _property_-stealing, the
mere _restoration of double_, shows that the two cases were adjudicated
on totally different principles. The man stolen might be past labor, and
his support a _burden_, yet death was the penalty, though not a cent's
worth of _property value_ was taken. The penalty for stealing _property_
was a mere _property penalty_. However large the amount stolen, the
payment of _double_ wiped out the score. It might have a greater _money_
value than a _thousand_ men, yet _death_ was never the penalty, nor
maiming, nor branding, nor even _stripes_. Whatever the kind, or the
amount stolen, the unvarying penalty was double of _the same kind_. Why
was not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why not require the
thief to restore _double of the same kind--two men_, or if he had sold
him, _five_ men? Do you say that the man-thief might not _have_ them? So
the _ox_-thief might not have two _oxen_, or if he had killed it,
_five_. But if God permitted men to hold _men_ as property, equally with
_oxen_, the _man_-thief could get _men_ with whom to pay the penalty, as
well as the _ox_-thief, _oxen_.
Further, when _property_ was stolen, the whole of the legal penalty was
a compensation to the person injured. But when a _man_ was stolen, no
property compensation was offered. To tender _money_ as an equivalent,
would have been to repeat the outrage with the intolerable aggravations
of supreme insult and impiety. Compute the value of a MAN in _money!_
Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from
such outrage and blasphemy. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate
his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of
crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for _man-stealing_
exacted from the guilty wretch the utmost possibility of reparation. It
wrung from him, as he gave up the ghost, a testimony in blood, and death
groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,--a proclamation to the
universe, voiced in mortal agony, that MAN IS INVIOLABLE,--a confession
shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth--"I die accursed, and God is
just."
If God permitted man to hold _man_ as property, why did He punish for
stealing _that_ kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any
_other_ kind of property? Why did he punish with _death_ for stealing a
very little, perhaps not a sixpence worth, of _that_ sort of property,
and make a mere _fine_, the penalty for stealing a thousand times as
much, of any other sort of property--especially if God did by his own
act annihilate the difference between man and _property_, by putting him
_on a level with it_?
The atrociousness of a crime, depends greatly upon the nature,
character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the
thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a _full_ man, is
theft; to steal it from a _starving_ man, is both theft and murder. If I
steal my neighbor's _property_, the crime consists not in the _nature_
of the article, but in _shifting its external relation_ from _him to
me_. But when I take my neighbor _himself_, and first make him
_property_, and then _my_ property, the latter act, which was the sole
crime in the former case, dwindles to a mere appendage. The sin in
stealing a man does not consist in transferring, from its owner to
another, that which is _already property_, but in turning _personality_
into _property_. True, the _attributes_ of man still remain, but the
rights and immunities which grow out of them are _annihilated_. It is
the first law of reason and revelation to regard things and beings as
they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according
to their nature and value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise, is _sin_;
and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value,
measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly
joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite
extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished
with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, _sin_ reddens
in its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing
violence to the _nature_ of a _man_--his _intrinsic value_ and relations
as a rational being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped
upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which
follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "_He then smiteth
his father or his mother shall surely be put to death._" Verse 17, "_He
that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death._"
If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return. But if
that same blow were given to a _parent_, the law struck the smiter
_dead_. Why this difference in the punishment of the same act, inflicted
on different persons? Answer--God guards the parental relation with
peculiar care. It is the _centre_ of human relations. To violate that,
is to violate _all_. Whoever trampled on _that_, showed that no relation
had any sacredness in his eyes--that he was unfit to move among human
relations who had violated one so sacred and tender.--Therefore, the
Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly
terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.
But why the difference in the penalty since the _act_ was the same? The
sin had divers aggravations.
1. The relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents
and others, manifest, dictated by natural affection--a law of the
constitution.
2. The act was violence to nature--a suicide on constitutional
susceptibilities.
3. The parental relation then, as now, was the centre of the social
system, and required powerful safe-guards. "_Honor thy father and thy
mother_," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the
duties of man to man; and, throughout the Bible, the parental relation
is God's favorite illustration, of his own relations to the whole family
of man. In this case, death is inflicted not at all for the act of
_smiting_, nor for smiting a _man_, but a _parent_--for violating a
vital and sacred relation--a _distinction_ cherished by God, and around
which, both in the moral and ceremonial law, He threw up a bulwark of
defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME
PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime here
punished with death, is not the mere act of taking property from its
owner, but the disregarding of _fundamental relations_, doing violence
to an _immortal nature_, making war on a _sacred distinction_ of
priceless worth. That distinction which is cast headlong by the
principle of American slavery; which makes MEN "_chattels_."
The incessant pains-taking throughout the old Testament, in the
separation of human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard
for the sacredness of his own distinction.
"In the beginning" the Lord uttered it in heaven, and proclaimed it to
the universe as it rose into being. He arrayed creation at the instant
of its birth, to do it reverent homage. It paused in adoration while He
ushered forth its crowning work. Why that dread pause, and that creating
arm held back in mid career, and that high conference in the godhead?
"_Let us make man in_ OUR IMAGE, _after_ OUR LIKENESS, AND LET HIM HAVE
DOMINION _over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every living thing
that moveth upon the earth_."
_Then_ while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and
marshalled worlds, waited to catch and swell the shout of morning
stars--THEN "GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE. IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
CREATED HE HIM." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD CREATED HE
HIM. Well might the sons of God cry all together, "Amen,
alleluia"--"_Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive blessing and
honor"--"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast
crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over
the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord,
our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth_." Psalms viii. 5,
6, 9. The frequent and solemn repetition of this distinction by God
proclaims his infinite regard. The 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the
1st chapter of Genesis are little else than the repetition of it in
various forms. In the 5th chapter, 1st verse, we find it again--"In the
day that God created man, IN THE LIKENESS of GOD MADE HE MAN." In the
9th chapter, 6th verse, we find it again. After giving license to shed
the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "_Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for_ IN THE IMAGE
OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As though he had said, "All these other creatures
are your property, designed for your use--they have the likeness of
earth, they perish with the using, and their spirits go downward; but
this other being, MAN, has my own _likeness_; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made I
man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can
give and he can be." So in Levit. xxiv. 17, 18, "_He that killeth any_
MAN _shall surely be put to death; and he, that killeth a beast shall
make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a_ MAN _shall be put
to death_." So in the passage quoted above, Ps. viii. 5, 6. What an
enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely, MEN from brutes
and things!
1. "_Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels_." Slavery drags
him down among _brutes_.
2. "_And hast crowned him with glory and honor_." Slavery tears off his
crown, and puts on a _yoke_.
3. "_Thou madest him to have dominion_ OVER _the works of thy hands_."
Slavery breaks his sceptre, and casts him down _among_ those works--yea,
_beneath them_.
4. "_Thou hast put all things under his feet_." Slavery puts HIM _under
the feet of an owner_, with beasts and creeping things. Who, but an
impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS
IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith to those that grind his
poor, "_Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it
unto me_."
But time would fail us to detail the instances in which this distinction
is most impressively marked in the Bible.